#under readmore because i rambled as per

[happiestplacehq]

Hey everyone !!

I hope we're all doing okay. I know life is kicking everyone's butt right now. I'm putting out the good vibes!

So, I'm finally on summer holiday and other than having studying to do for my ballet qualification, I actually genuinely have some free time on my hands at the moment. As you can probably all tell, the last few months have not been great for me keeping the main up to date and pushing things out, and keeping on top of everyone else's activity has been hard when I haven't been as active myself. Long story short, my mental health has absolutely tanked the last few months (understandable, given how many things have been thrown at me in a year and a half on top of work stress and studying) and I couldn't in good conscience hound anyone to be active when I was hiding myself.

For now, I feel rested and I'm pushing through the brain fog. I'm committing to being a better mod!

ANYWAY, all this is to say is that I'm planning a small revamp/ reboot of the RP, with the hopes that this motivates all of our players to make a slow and steady return to the dash.

This revamp will include some plot updates, a massive push for the plot moving forward, and an event to welcome the new "era" of the RP. (Trust me besties, I'm excited for the idea I have and I'm already writing things inside my mind!!)

I might change up the graphics and change some bios around here and there too if my mum's laptop agrees with photoshop. I'm not promising new bios just yet (as that is a hurdle unto itself).

The main thing to note going into this revamp is this:

There will be updates to the activity rules. Sadly, being as lenient as I have been has meant that activity has fizzled, which is understandable but not great if we're wanting to keep the RP moving forward, keep everyone feeling included and welcome new writers. (I know the dash has been moving better lately, but sometimes there are points where nothing is posted for a long time.)

I haven't decided on what the new rules will be yet, so am open to feedback and suggestions, but there will be changes to both activity and interaction rules. I will also be messaging each individual character account to ask your plans for the character going forward, or if you would like to drop the character at some point too. (If you're stuck with a character, this is a great time to reboot them.) These rules will not come into effect until the revamp is complete so there's still some time to message me or have a think about what you would like to do going forward.

As always, please send in a hiatus request if you think you will be away for over 2 weeks just so I can keep things as updated as possible.

To help me in this revamp, the RP/ Main will technically be on a semi-hiatus - RP and in character interactions will continue as normal, the main will just be quieter to help me make changes and keep track of everything. As such, I won't be promoting the RP until I'm happy with the revamp, and applications for new characters will be closed for a short while. You can still message me to change character FCs, request hiatuses and all the other usual stuff.

I'm giving myself until mid-August to get as much of this done as I can. I will be away in London for training from the 15th to the 23rd August, so if I put my mind to it we'll have something by then, OR the week I come back. I'll put a poll out nearer the time when we would like the grand-reopening to be!

Like I said, interactions are still to go ahead as normal! The game itself isn't on hiatus, just the main while I change things around and give everything a fresh coat of paint. Thank you to everyone who has stuck around thus far! I can't wait to see what this revamp sparks in everyone ✨

Please give this post a like once you have read it!

[reanimated-owl]

What are you salty about?

x

((under a readmore bc i ended up rambling, sorry))

((idk;; i guess i'm mostly pissed about taxes rn. i just filed my returns and i owed the state like $159, which ended up being $162-ish because there was a bullshit $4 service fee...

also salty at the barometric pressure. its been swinging like crazy (as is expected for spring in my area) so I've been getting migraines basically every single day for the past week-ish. super fun when my MCAT is in like 2 weeks and I'm still trying to finish reviewing... the bonus? i do have meds to take for them. unfortunately rebound headaches (medication overuse headaches) exist. to minimize the chance of those, I can only take the meds 2-3 times per week. so i've been having to go without a lot of the time so that if I get one at work i can take something. super miserable :(

on that note, fuck the AAMC and fuck how vague the application cycles are. i thought i would be applying NEXT year bc i want (ideally) to start med school next fall. turns out, i need to apply THIS year. so i had to spend like an hour frantically sending emails to professors to hopefully get LORs from them (they agreed when i asked them before while i was still in college but i also havent seen them since i graduated which was. a year ago. so i'm trying to make sure they're still okay with it), plus double-checking my personal statement (idk if im still happy with it but its. Okay. i guess.) and praying I get a good score and don't have to retake... applications "open" in May but you can't submit until june... this shit's so hard to navigate esp bc i don't have doctors in my family who've gone through this and can help me, i've largely had to figure it out on my own and it SUCKS

[stormbreaker101]

As per your recent bingo, I am asking about Maulwurf. He's a silly little guy and I hope musicology becomes something we can be taught in the future.

HI. YES. OKAY. SO. WARNING. THIS POST IS RAMBLY. MAULWURF IS MY BOINKY AND MY CHEW TOY. I HAVE BEEN VERY MEAN TO HIM. I LOVE HIM.

putting all my rambles under a readmore to spare the people.

First things first, my interpretation of Maulwurf has veered somewhat off from canon. This is because I started writing my AU Corrupted Spiral before Maulwurf was introduced, and so the scene has changed significantly and some aspects of Maulwurf's story changed with it.

Some completely original background for the guy: his father's side of the family had been involved with the Schismists for generations, and so it simply made SENSE for Maulwurf to follow his father's lead. Maulwurf's father also died when Maulwurf was young, which only pushed Maulwurf further into the Schismists because having the Old One as a father figure is totally not going to devastate his moral compass and emotional wellbeing in the long run, right? RIGHT? Under the Old One's teaching, Maulwurf became a brilliant musicologist and businessman. Creative, analytical, but loyal.

fast forward to the main time period of my AU. It's post Arc 3, but Arc 4 never happens properly because the Scion had what I officially call the Calamity (bc she's a storm wizard who isn't named Calamity herself but i had to get that name in somewhere) and unofficially call a divine meltdown/temper tantrum. Basically, she fucked up bigtime and now magic is running haywire, harming entire worlds (the why doesn't matter here). She also decided to LEAVE the Spiral for a time, so sorry fellas! No Savior figure no more!

Karamelle's taste of the Calamity is torrential storms that threaten to flood and dissolve the entire world. The Old One had been hoping to host his Summit with the Scion like in canon so he could get back to the Arcanum and his pet project Lemuria, but with the Scion going AWOL, that ISN'T a possibility anymore. So he sent loyal loyal Maulwurf to the Arcanum as a spy. The cover story was for Maulwurf to ask for aid fixing the Calamity.

Maulwurf ended up staying in the Arcanum for well over a year. And though he spied on the Arcanum, he also.... became genuine friends with the Arcanum folk. And he saw their consistent determination to save the present Spiral, rather than be complicit in its fate and destruction.

uh oh. smells like traitorhood.

ultimately, Maulwurf is a man who believes in the joys of existence and creation, be it music or magic or food or crafts. He'll create a tune, try to create something more with it, have it explode in his face, and laugh it off. For an explosion requires someTHING to explode, ja?

And the Arcanum were being better co-creators than the Old One and whatever remained of the Schismists were. And the Arcanum fought for existence, while the Schismists promised an eventual destruction of the Spiral and that said destruction is okay.

uh oh. smells like traitorhood.

Of course, it's hard to turn your back on the man who acted as your primary father figure for the majority of your life. But not impossible.

Maulwurf does eventually cut his loyalty to the Old One, and it is one HELL of an emotional Moment for him. However, he still hasn't told anybody but Stallion (yes Stallion happened to get out of the ice despite Arc 4 not happening normally. that's a WHOLE other loredump post) about his history and ties as a Schismist.

oh speaking of ties Maulwurf has to the Schismists. Maulwurf replaced the feather in his cap with a feather from Quake Charmer. They had been buddies. QC is dead now. That's just a small detail headcanon.

GODDDD THERE IS SO MUCH MORE I CAN SAY. All of this stuff doesn't even begin to really touch upon the kind of character he's become in the writing I've done with @klaraflamez. AND BELIEVE ME. HE'S. HE'S. I cant even fucking word right now lmao.

Ultimately, I try to keep Maulwurf someone who holds hopeful even with all the strain he had undergone. His loyalties and connections pull him one way, but he pushes the other way, determined for a brighter existent future. A man of whimsy and creation and depth.

Or in other words, I used to have this Maulwurf-

[fionnaskyborn]

Alright, I feel like an update of sorts is due. I do not use any social media in order to "be a presence" there - I'm just here to have fun and reblog things that make me happy. Even so, I feel like an explanation for my recent absence is justified. I'm putting it under a readmore so as to not clot anybody's dashboard, but if you want to hear the ramblings of a troubled young adult, well, by all means, be my guest.

As previously stated, I mostly go on here to reblog and save things that bring me joy. I believe to have privated at least one of my own posts talking about some more recent events, but I'm pretty sure some of them remain up. And I can't be arsed to go private them, to be quite honest. To make the long story short - I lost a significant portion of my writing, as well as a lot of other data that was important to me. Most would have stopped at that, but I couldn't accept the possibility of nearly two years of work and three years of accumulating various things that made me smile were gone, just like that. And, well, they aren't. But they are unreachable, for the time being. This prompted me to take a beeline in my lifepath, towards a discipline not too far away from what I originally planned on doing when my "true adult" years rolled around, but still decently enough separated from it to mark this as a pretty significant change of plans. I certainly never considered getting into quantum physics full-on - it was interesting to read about, sure, but I've always been interested in the macro scale of things far more. However, when the time comes to overthrow the technological systems currently in place, I want to be there, in the front rows, among the people who will have access to that kind of technology right away. The only other path to this, other than by being a mathematician, is to be unimaginably rich, and I am a pretty normal person as far as money goes. Just another average Joe on this planet Earth - not particularly wealthy, to afford three vacations per year, but with more than enough money to consider myself financially secure. Just a regular ol' person, trying to get by. That means that I need to start working towards that future right now. And it's all so painfully slow. I've spent most of my life waiting for one thing or another. The idea of waiting another several years for a slim shot at getting my beloved writing back is not an easy one to come to terms with for me. But it's the only chance I have, and I could even be considered lucky - imagine if all of this happened, and I weren't a physicist in the making! I'd have to wait decades instead of an undefined amount of time that could be as early as a single year or as late as ten years to get my words back - words I could never repeat, words I could never write in that same order. The first days after it happened were incredibly painful, and I am still uncertain, but, little by little, I'm getting it back. And I'm getting new things out of this - I never saw painful events as anything but just that. But perhaps it is because this is something I am not helpless against that changed things so much. I am now more than ever motivated to actually learn and excel. Earlier on, I was just rolling with the punches. Life wore me out so much I had pretty much just given up on putting any effort into anything because I was just... too exhausted to do it. My plan was to just do whatever until things either ended up going so spectacularly bad I'd earn myself some kind of intervention, or somehow miraculously worked out. But all of this was a wake-up call. (TO WHAT I REALLY BELIEVE. Sorry. Saw an opportunity, couldn't miss it. On the other hand - see? Unfortunately for everyone involved, I am still the same old dork I ever was.) I now have something - something more tangible than anything I've had before - to strive for. This is the first time in at least seven years, perhaps more, I've felt this confident in any plan of mine, that I've had this concrete of a set of goals. This was also the first time in my few decades and spare change on this Earth that I've managed to turn a large terrible event into a pushing force THIS strong. There's doing things out of spite, and then there's THIS. I do realize that I may very well be insane for this, but I'm not willing to let something that got me through some very difficult times in my life and that helped me grow as a person as much as it did slip away like it was nothing. I saw a shot, and, brother, I'm gonna take it.

I've also watched Gurren Lagann because I've heard it gives people the will to live, and that was something I desperately needed. At first, I watched it numb - or, rather, any positive feelings I had harbored about it were stored in the same place my overwhelming grief over my currently lost work was, and, well, one was more powerful than the other, obviously. But, as I got better over time, I found myself not just logically and objectively understanding why people see it as the greatest thing ever made, but taking the messages and words said in the show to heart. It, and the gradually increasing amount of support I got from the people around me, are the reason why I am where I am today. I truly cannot even start to express my gratitude for the people I found by my side (some after some time, some more immediately), let alone the support they started giving me once I had my revelation and change of trajectory and the way I live my life. It's just about as fortunate of a combination of things you could hope to end up with. The misery from those first days still lingers in some measure, but every day I get a bit stronger and a bit more capable of rejecting it in its entirety.

In the meantime, I will keep working on my project. But not at the cost of hurting myself to get as much on paper as I can - I plan to take things in stride. I'm not sure when I'll be capable of looking for art online like I did before the calamity, but the same strategy applies - if it brings joy, do it, if not, well, don't force yourself to do anything that would make you miserable. Simple as that. I am slowly, gradually, healing from everything that happened, all while having a thing I want to achieve, a thing that will grant me true and ultimate and lasting happiness.

I thought I would never be able to touch videogames as a whole. That mostly turned into "I'll never be able to touch the game series that changed me as a person and it sucks ASS". But even that is proving to be less and less true by the day. Who knows what the future holds? Not me. But as I walk towards a distant goal along a long and winding path, there are plenty of things to do in the meantime. I've got a cassette collection to grow. Playlists to organize. Designs to finalize. Vinyls to listen to. I still want to purchase that hugeass limited edition Trocadero foil print. There is so much music I want to listen to. I still want to enjoy things in life. It may not mean much to the average onlooker, but it means a lot to me because it's such a huge leap from the mental state I was in a week ago when it happened, and the days that followed.

In short, I'm doing fine. Still a bit empty in some places, but only sometimes, and I'm filling those empty spaces with either the motivation I need in order to keep going to reach that future I want so much, or reminding myself that I haven't lost just about everything. I'm patching myself up bit by bit, and I think I'm doing great at it so far.

My final message: I don't care what your stances on anime in general are, watch Gurren Lagann. Suspend your disbelief and just... trust me on this one. If you're having a grand old time in life, it'll only make it better. If you're having a spectacularly shitty time in life, it'll give you the strength to keep going. I'm on episode 15 right now (or... 16? Whatever, I finished the first half of it is what I'm saying.)

Almost at the bus stop now - I'll see you all later.

[cubbihue]

I am so sorry but I'm gonna ramble...quite a lot. under the Readmore about this, bcs i think i can explain it but ultimately it's just. the insane lore dives of me reading too much into FOP and also i love love love these sorta questions

tl;dr: Hazel and Dev are what's mostly considered as "normal" godchildren, but Timmy is an extreme outlier and probably shouldn't be counted

I'd like to assert that this "Threshold" changes per situation per child, and that Hazel is an example of a child on the lowest, or more "average" end of the spectrum of "Misery".

Like, if we examine all the different Godchildren throughout the OG series, it sorta becomes clearer that there's a scale of "Misery" being used, and this "Misery" then impacts the threshold of "Too Happy, Lose Your Godparent" (or lackthereof!)

We've seen that having two godparents is very unusual, with Timmy and Hazel being the odd exceptions. Except Hazel wasn't meant to have 2 fairy godparents, she was meant to get one of the more efficient fairies, Cookie, instead. We'll get back to this, but for now let's put Hazel aside.

So if you look at Timmy as the "Outlier", and look at the other godkids, you'll see that they all have the same level of "Misery".

In S6, EP15 "Wishing Well", we see 2 other godchildren with averaged issues. One has an overwhelming amount of fears about his environment (such as "harpoons" and "they want my blubber"), while the other has issues with personal space ("Don't touch me!"). Remy Buxaplenty has, at his core, a problem about neglect and abandonment.

These, with Hazel's "I miss my brother" are average childish worries to have! Jorgen also said that Hazel was supposed to get one of the "Best" fairies in the business. A fairy so efficient, she became inefficient because she didn't listen to Hazel for anything-- implying that the fairy either A. has so many identical cases that she's gone Default Wishes Mode, or B. is just overall shitty and managed to get away with it for too long. Maybe both.

Wanda and Cosmo have also explained in the OG that their purpose as Fairy Godparents is to grant childrens' wishes, and then, when the child is grown up, their memories are altered/erased (it's never quite clear what that means). "Channel Chasers" implies that their memories aren't lost, just readjusted. Like: "I wish there was a rollercoaster in my backyard!" -> "I had fun pretending i was on rollercoasters in my backyard with a couple of boxes!"

But I think it's not much of a stretch to say that their role is to also help their godchildren grow and learn lessons. Nearly every Timmy episode had him learn something new! (to an extent), and in "Lost In Fairyworld" everybody looked at Dev to see if he'd learned his lesson, and ultimately grow from his experience.

If you think that childrens' wishes are typically like Hazel + Co's "I wish to fly to my brother" "I wish there were no harpoons here" "i wish people couldn't reach my (literal) bubble!", those could easily be fixed into alternative memories, where the child learned important lessons "I pretended I was a fly, and then figured out I can wait to see my brother." "I mustered the courage past the model harpoon my dad had" "I learned how to set boundaries to others!"

Then it's entirely logical that the average godchild should be more or less content, with fairies granting wishes that more or less gives small, but important, life lessons for that child. The sorta life that's easy to alter once the child's grown up!

The question then "What is this threshold for Losing their Fairy?" i think, is one that mostly applies to Timmy than the other godkids. If Hazel missed her brother, got a godparent as a result, and then her brother came home, would she have lost her godparent then and there? I don't think so. Generally, we've seen that other godchildren aren't as wish filled as Timmy is. Not even Remy was as extreme with his wishes- up until he was competing against Timmy. At worst, the other godkids in "Wishing Well" were likewise punished alongside Timmy for becoming too dependent on wishes solving their problems- but they weren't at risk of losing their godparents!

Instead, I think it's safe to assert that Timmy is one such extreme outlier. An outlier so severe that it would warrant two Godparents.**

Except, as we've seen with Hazel throughout the series, having two godparents tend to come with double the problems.

Many of Hazel's own problems isn't so much that her wishes are wrong (such as Timmy needing to "Unwish" them), as it is Cosmo and Wanda's wishes not responding as she envisioned. Wish to be friends with your teachers? Well, the wish needs to dumb them down! Ruh oh consequences!!

So, if a child were to have 2 fairies, they would have to have a more extreme situation to warrant the oversight and wish-like power. As a result, there's probably a heavy amount of restrictions to ensure that the child with 2 doesn't end up abusing said power. These restrictions may just end up being "If the severe case is solved, then we must remove the doubled magic".

So why is it that Hazel, who arguably has an easier time than Timmy get to keep hers after she's more or less gotten over her misery? Because she's average! She's the ideal godchild!!

Why did Timmy get a godparent and not Chester (arguably equal if not worse situation than Timmy)? Well, many has argued before that he lacks the "Misery" that Timmy has. More likely, he also lacks the "Needs Guidance" that Hazel has too. He knows why he cant see his dad often, or why they're poor; but Chester lives his life as cheerfully as a 10 year old would with a father who has to hide his face forever.

...but also FOP doesnt know how to raise the stakes besides "lose everything forever" and "we cant remove the main antagonists or else theres no show content" aaaand like... FOP:ANW is mean to be a soft reboot retcon of the OG show, since it sorta fell to pieces as the seasons went on (Chloe and Sparky for example)

also throughout all this ramblings, i also had to question about Crooker's placement in this. Which.

I dont have the answers for. OTL. I dont know why Crooker, of all kids, lost his fairies and turned out the way he did- or how he ended up with Cosmo/Wanda when he's so much aligned with Dev/Remy's issues (neglectful parents). He did face the same severe risks as Timmy when it came to losing his fairies, but like. Hrmn. Hrrrmnn.

ANYWAYS ANYWAYS HAZEL IS PRETTY DANG CONTENT WITH HER OVERFLOWING AMOUNT OF FAIRIES, AND HONESTLY. SHE SHOULD BE FACING THE RISKS OF LOSING THEM MORE OFTEN.

--

**tangential lore ramble but not related: through Cosmo and Wanda's "Halls of Fame/Infamy" we've seen that there were several other kids who were severely worse, with all sorts of issues that average 10 yr olds should not be having. I'd like to think those 2 are one of the best fairies for worst/difficult godchild cases, the way Cookie's the best for average cases. This is probably why Cosmo/Wanda were perhaps not the best fit for Hazel, and why Dev ended up the way he did.

He was never meant to interact with another Godchild whose actions would impact his. At best, he and Hazel would've had similar, with minimal overlapping, interactions with their singular fairies. Maybe even bond and grow together on adventures. But as Hazel had 2, her fairies' presence festered Dev's own issues to the point of the season finale.

Similarly, one of the biggest criticisms people had with Peri&Dev, was that Peri was neglecting his own godchild, and adding onto Dev's already terrible issues of having a Neglectful Father. I believe that also only happened specifically because Hazel got Cosmo/Wanda. If she had a different fairy, Peri wouldn't have been distracted while on the job, or hang around Hazel more often than his own child.

I'd be willing to believe that Hazel is deserving of Fairy God Parents if there was some mention of the rules changing to include more diverse circumstances. As it stands, Hazel's life is pretty average all things considered, and she's pretty dang content.

She's ten, so still a kid, but most kids go through big changes by that point, such as moving or having a sibling leave for college or parents divorcing, etc. Hell, some kids go through all three plus some while others remain fairly steady.

Timmy's life was garbage due to forces outside of his own control, but every time he attempted to remedy his day to day to make his quality of life better, he became unqualified to have Fairy God Parents.

Every time he tried to get rid of Vicky for good, it always had to be undone, either because she was too destructive elsewhere or because he no longer met a certain "misery threshold". That was even the point of the S5 episode "Remy Rides Again", where Remy tried to make Timmy SO HAPPY he that he didn't need fairies anymore!

[love-fireflysong]

yIt's done. It took me waaaay to long to write this piece out but between June and my computer apparently deciding to kick me in the teeth this month, the fact I made it to 5 full squares completed anyways I will gladly take as a victory! And, just fyi, this WILL be the last piece for this month. I know that there is still another four days left of June, but I am sick and tired of dealing with my keyboard so this is the last fic you're gonna see from me until I get a new laptop hopefully fairly soon. (Unless I decide that I'm desperate enough to try and write things out on my tablet of course...)

Anyways, the First Date trope was specifically requested by @jesus-hotsauce-christmas-cake when I let her know that the one she did guess (road trip) was going to be a second chapter of a twoshot. Which you still might get because I'm very likely going to be sharing the short little summary blurbs I had written down for each trope so people can very easily bully me into writing them anyways if people still wanted to read them. And even though it would be like months and months late, still post them under this bingo board because I can and I had a cool idea for what I was doing with the colours and layout before life decided to say 'NO!' in a very firm voice. (Unless of course the three lovely ladies that came up with this idea in the first place say no obviously)

Rambling over though now I promise. Chocolate Covered Confessions can be read over and AO3 of course, with the full fic also under the readmore as well.

Chocolate Covered Confessions

Trope: First Date Fandom: Until Dawn Characters: Ashley Brown, Chris Hartley Words: 8214 Rating: General (though reader beware there is some almost scandalous hand holding and a couple of scandalously public kisses. You have been warned...) Authors Notes: Oh look, more chrashley fluff. Who da thunk it? Pride month? What pride month? This is just me apparently figuring out how many different ways I can get Chris and Ash to confess their feelings. Because you only read like three of them, I still have another two waiting in the wings. Plus at least three others if you count climbing chrash lol.

Something was...weird. It wasn't something that Ashley could put her finger on just yet, but something was definitely off that was for sure. The problem of course was that she didn't even know where to start looking in the first place, because for the most part her day had been extraordinarily ordinary.

She, Chris, and Josh had planned to go and see a movie Saturday morning a few days back and then hang out the rest of the day. But seeing as they were, you know, best friends that certainly wasn't the issue. Not even close. They always made plans to do stuff like that together. And yeah, okay, so maybe Josh had 'coincidentally' texted them just before the movie started to let them know that something unavoidable had come up and he wasn't going to be able to meet up with them. And when her and Chris had brought up just waiting until a later showing when he was free, he had immediately been quick to affirm that nope, he was going to be busy the whole rest of the day actually. So the two of them could continue with their original plans and they could make it up to him another time.

While certainly suspicious, that wasn't what was wrong though. Josh had been flaking out on their plans more and more, especially when it was plans that took up an entire day. Ashley Brown wasn't stupid. No siree Bob she was not! She knew exactly what Josh was trying to do by leaving her to spend the day with Chris. Alone . And she appreciated it (she really did!), but if Chris was going to make a move then he would have done it ages and ages ago, because she sure as hell wasn't going to do it! Ashley Brown wasn't stupid, but she also wasn't exactly what you would call brave either.

Not that Chris had seemed to notice what Josh was pulling though, he had just sighed and rolled his eyes with a grumbled "fucking typical", and then the two of them had entered the theater to watch the movie. And as per their usual shtick when Josh wasn't there with them, Chris paid for the tickets while she paid for the food and drinks. Or, at least, that was how it normally went. Instead, when she had decided to take a run to the bathroom while he held their spot in the long concession line, she had come back to Chris waiting for her with the pop and popcorn already in hand. After brushing off her flustered apologies, he had explained that shortly after she had left, another cashier had popped on till so the line had gone down in half the time either had expected. And it seemed like a dick move to just wait there until she came back so he had just decided to get the food instead.

She still felt a little guilty about it honestly, even after swearing that she would get both the tickets and food next time.

And, to be completely fair to Josh, he hadn't exactly been missing out on a lot by skipping out on the movie. It wasn't a horror flick (he would never even think of skipping out on that after all) so it wasn't one that he would feel the need to make the two of them watch again with him. Which was more than fine honestly, because if she was to describe the movie in a single word, well, that word would definitely have been 'dreadful'. If she was given a few more words, then she would have easily elaborated and stated that it was 'a boring, plot-hole driven mess, with only extremely over-the-top action scenes and explosions every five minutes to carry any semblance of the extremely loosely written plot'. In other words, she had lost interest in the movie barely half an hour in, and considering that Chris had started scrolling through his phone bored, she wasn't alone in this boat either.

Still, Ashley had resolved herself to sit through this over-budgeted explosion fest if only because movie tickets were horribly expensive. Not to mention the fact that Chris had shelled out money for both the movie and the food. But then he had turned to her, asked if she was as bored to tears as he was, and once he got that confirmation, asked if she wanted to just ditch the movie entirely. And she did—she really, really did—but didn't want Chris to waste the money he had spent more. And then yet another explosion...exploded on screen, and she realized that she was wasting precious hours of her life that could be used to do something more fun and less mind-numbingly boring.

Like watching paint dry. That at least had a semi-cohesive plot.

And so the two of them had walked out, continuing to share the extra buttered popcorn between them (the movie may have been awful, but the popcorn certainly wasn't) as they left the movie theater behind and wandered into the nearby mall. That wasn't the strange thing either. The mall and subsequent window shopping had absolutely been part of their day plans after, even if those had been unexpectedly pushed forward a couple of hours.

Admittedly the art show that the mall was running in one of the empty storefronts was unexpected, but  it had been simply a nice surprise and a great way to kill time. So after paying the $2 entrance fee, the two of them had continued to share the popcorn as they looked at some of the paintings and sculptures that had been on display, giggling childishly at most of them. And okay, so one of the curators had been glaring at them( or rather, at their greasy, butter-covered fingers) the whole time, but that had just been a little rude and insulting. Not strange. And that had stopped almost the moment they had run out of popcorn, Ashley nudging him in the stomach with her elbow as she licked her fingers clean, and the two of them laughing under their breaths at the curator who had looked exceptionally much more at ease once Chris had crumpled the empty bag into a ball.

The rest of their day in the mall had just been spent following the rest of their day's plan, wandering from shop to shop and browsing at all the things that caught their eyes, and then taking a break after a few hours to have a late lunch in the food court. The two of them checked out another couple of stores, these ones to try and get some ideas for Josh's birthday in another month, before moving onto the small arcade on the top floor. As part of their deal and agreement since it had just been Josh and Chris (Ashey not joining the duo until five years later), Chris bought the tokens needed while she scouted out the various games for an empty console and claimed it until he could join her in another couple of minutes.

They spent the next hour in there, trying to beat each other or work together depending on the game in question. They almost never played a game twice before moving onto the next one, in hopes to both try as many games as possible before their self imposed hour ended and to see if they could beat their previous high scores or make it onto the leaderboard in only a single try. But as the hour came to a close, they both made their way over to their final game: one of the racing simulators scattered around the arcade. And as had been done for ten years now, played to determine which of them would be paying for the tokens next time they came.

And once the race ended, with Ashley winning by photo finish for the third time in a row (and celebrating her winning streak by maturely sticking out her tongue and doing an awkward little shimmy dance in the seat while Chris jokingly sulked and pouted), they had finally left the mall altogether and got into Chris's truck. There, he had surprised Ashley with the novel she had been eyeing in the bookstore (or at least, eyeing closer than all the rest she had picked up) and that he had somehow been able to buy without her noticing. And that certainly hadn't been weird, because it had been so exceptionally sweet of him, sweet enough that Ashley had so badly wished that she could thank him properly. But as mentioned before, Ashley Brown was a coward pure and simple, so she had just clutched the book to her chest and beamed at Chris in heartfelt thanks instead.

He may have said something in reply, but Ashley had already settled into the passenger seat and opened to the first page of the book, so she was already long gone. A fact that Chris had anticipated, if the light chuckle he had let out before starting the truck meant anything. And no, Ashley reading a book while Chris drove them to their usual game store across town was not the strange thing either. If Chris hadn't wanted her to read on the drive over and talk to him, then he never would have given her the book now of all times. He would have waited until he had dropped her off home, or not even bought the book in the first place. After over a half a decade of friendship, if anyone knew what would happen after giving Ashley Brown a new book, it was Chris Hartley.

The drive over is done quicker then she had expected, and even then Chris still hadn't let her know that they had arrived until she had finished her chapter. Yes he had certainly teased her about it the entire time, joking about how she would never find someone as understanding of her reading habits then him (he didn't know how right he was, that she didn't want to find anyone else), but the fact that he had just continued to let the music play in the truck and distracted himself on his phone was so unbearably sweet that she decided to let it lie.

The fact that Ashley and Chris hung around in the game shop comparing dice and looking at new books while wincing over the prices for nearly two hours wasn't what was off either. Hell, if anything the fact that they only spent a couple of hours there before leaving was weird! Her, Chris, and Josh could easily spend almost half a day in there flipping through comics and rolling dice to test them out, only leaving because a tired employee was forced to ask them to leave for making too much noise and taking up a table when they weren't playing anything, especially when there was a group that had been waiting for a table for close to an hour now.

Which brought Ashley to where she was right now, sitting at a sticky plastic table under the shade of a cheap umbrella while Chris had run off to get them some ice cream before dropping her off at home. Her new book was open in front of her, the pages crisp white even in the umbrella's shade, but her mind wasn't on the book anymore. A random line had a character mentioning that something had been feeling off all day ever since they woke up ('like everything had been moved three centimeters to the left, so while it all looked normal, nothing felt right anymore'), and Ashley had also realized that hey, wait a second, her day was also feeling just a little wonky too! But no matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. Today had just been a normal day hanging out with Chris after all. They went to see (and bailed) a movie, spent hours hanging out in the mall and at the game store, and now they were each going back home. Nothing unusual had happened, so why did it feel like something hugely monumental had been going on all day?

"Oi. Earth to Ash, you okay in there?"

A light flick to the center of Ashley's forehead has her blink in surprise, and she finds herself back into the present once again. Chris is standing next to her, carefully balancing the two cones in his right hand and his left ready to flick again if needed, and a bemused smile on his face.

"Oh, uh, sorry Chris. Got a little too into the book I think." She closes the book, not wanting to get melting ice cream all over its crisp white pages (and she really hasn't absorbed a single word for nearly ten minutes now), but Chris doesn't hand her the cone just yet.

"Yeah, I'm not buying that," Chris says as he snorts in disbelief. "I know your 'praise be to books' look, and that was not it. That was your 'head full, too many thoughts' look."

"Excuse me? What? I do not have a reading look! Or a thinking look for that matter!"

"Oh you do. You really, really do. Trust me. You may have been staring at that book but there was no way that you were reading, I would bet my own ice cream here on it." Chris brandishes his double chocolate cone at her, then seems to reconsider and switches to show off her own dipped soft serve that he still has yet to actually let her eat. "Actually, you know what? I would eat your dipped monstrosity if I'm wrong."

Ashley sighs, but she can't keep the smile from her face. "It's not that bad this time, oh my god. It's chocolate ice cream dipped in blueberry syrup. This is actually a normal combination for people who go out of their way to order more exciting cones then two scoops of chocolate." She leans forward and places her elbows on the table to support her head in her hands. "But I wanna see you do it anyway, so tell me exactly why you're so convinced that I wasn't reading."

Chris opens his mouth, but immediately closes it a second later, as though he didn't realize exactly what he had signed himself up for here until now. Ashley of course takes it as a sign of victory. "I knew it. So let's see this Chris, I wanna see you eat something that isn't—"

"When you read you get, like, super attentive." Chris's face is pink, and not looking at her but at the book on the table as he bashfully continues. "You become so drawn in to whatever you're reading that you ignore everything going on around you, because all of your attention is now on that book. Pretty sure a bomb could go off right next to you and you wouldn't even notice sometimes. And it's always so easy to tell what's happening in the book when you're reading too, cause your face is always so expressive. Like your eyes get big when something exciting or surprising happens, and when you're really enjoying whatever it is you're reading, you start giggling like a loon."

Ashley is too stunned and, quite frankly, her heart is beating too fast for her to even think of a proper response to that . She manages to squeak out a quiet little "oh, um" but Chris doesn't notice. Not when he's still babbling and not looking at her at all.

"But when you get deep in thought, you're not like that at all. All of your attention goes inward, and everything around you disappears cause all the important stuff is going on inside your head right now. Your mouth falls open just a little, sort of like you're gaping at all the information in front of you. And-and sometimes you'll mouth out what's going on inside your head as you try to fit the pieces of everything together so it's neat and tidy like a puzzle. And even though you have the, like, blankest stare imaginable, it's not empty at all if that makes any sense. Cause your eyes narrow and your forehead scrunches just the tiniest amount so you have a small little wrinkle form like right here—" with his unoccupied hand Chris points at the bridge of his nose right between his eyes "—and it's weirdly, insanely cute? But when you finally figure out the puzzle in your head, your face lights up like a kid on christmas morning and...and..." He lets his words trail off and stops awkwardly there, as though finally realizing exactly what he's been saying this entire time.

His face is almost beet red now, and Ashley is pretty sure hers is too. "Oh, uh, wow. I-I didn't realize you paid any attention to me when I was like that..."

Somehow his face only gets redder, and though he mumbles the words under his breath, Ashley can still make them out. "I'm always paying attention to you."

But not close enough attention it seems, she thinks sadly. If you did then you would have noticed something way more obvious than that. But she doesn't want to embarrass him anymore than he already is (then she already is), and she isn't sure what else she could possibly say that wouldn't be her blurting out that she likes him, so instead she pretends that she hadn't heard a single thing and wordlessly accepts the ice cream that he hands to her, accepting her defeat as she takes a small bite of the blueberry covered chocolate soft serve.

...The blueberry covered chocolate soft serve that he had bought for her. Or, you know, the ice cream he had paid for himself. Just like he had paid for everything today. Kind of like it was almost a, uh, date. Like he had taken her on a date.

Oh .

"Oh boy, let me guess: I was right and your ice cream really is a crime against taste buds?"

Ashley comes crashing back down to reality to see Chris, his face still a little red but the playful smile back on his face as he teased her. And yet, that only makes it worse as she can't help but feel the usual gymnastics routine the butterflies in her stomach perform at that particular smile, only they're a thousand times worse now that's she's realized exactly why today had felt so strange. And she can't help thinking how much everyone else would classify what was just a day hanging out with her best friend as a date. And how much she really, really wished it was one.

"Nope," she unfortunately squeaks out, and clears her throat so she can continue in a more normal tone of voice. "Nope, sorry to disappoint Chris, but the ice cream tastes fine." She takes another bite for proof (and to her credit she's not lying, it tastes more than fine). "Just, uh, realized something funny that's all." And the moment the words leave her mouth she realizes just how badly she's screwed everything up, because there is no way in any world that Chris Hartley is just going to let that comment lie.

"Funny? Oho, well now I'm interested. You mind sharing your glorious epiphany with the rest of the class Miss Brown?"

Taking another small taste of her ice cream, Ashley averts her gaze as she gives what she is kicking herself for is obviously an extremely forced laugh. "Did I say funny? I meant boring, just super boring actually."

"Well now I just want to hear it more."

"No, you don't. Trust me, you really, really don't."

Chris's brows furrow in concern. "Ash? You okay?"

She isn't, of course she isn't. She's now realized exactly what a date with Chris would be like, and it would be exactly like this. With them going to all the same place and doing the same things but she's allowed to hold his hand and kiss him when he does stupid sweet things like buying her the book she's been eyeing and talking about all day. She's never wanted something to be so true so badly in her life. And it's likely this thought in her mind that causes her to blurt out "A date." before she even realizes what she's said.

That only makes the confusion on Chris's face go deeper, which is appropriate considering she's sinking deeper and deeper into her chair in a futile effort to hide or escape as well. "What? Are you saying that you just remember what date it is today? Or that you had something you were supposed to do today instead? I'm not really following you right now Ash..."

This is perfect. It's the perfect excuse, she could laugh and say that she totally forgot what day it was and that she had an essay due pretty soon, or that she was supposed to babysit for a neighbour tonight. Anything really, the sky was quite literally the limit. And instead she just bit her lip and stared at the ice cream melting in her hand before weakly admitting "No, a, uh, date. As in, the romantic kind. I realized that today probably looks like a date to anyone else. Funny, huh?"

She's not sure how Chris would react to that. Maybe a startled laugh, and hand wave as he brushes her off. A scoff as he assures her that this definitely isn't a date, cause they're just friends and that's all they'll ever be. Whatever the reaction she expected, it was certainly not the fumbling for his ice cream as he nearly drops it in his shock, and how absolutely flustered he sounds as he trips over his own tongue. "W-what? I-I-I, uh—I mean, th-this obviously isn't—Who would even—? Wh-what would even give you the idea that we could um, possibly be on a date?"

Ashley shrugs weakly. "Isn't it obvious Chris?" She ignores his even more flustered babbling that no, he absolutely did not see what was so obvious as she continued on, still too nervous to look him in the eyes. "You've kind of paid for everything today."

"I wha—? I mean, no I haven't!"

"You kind of have, Chris. The theater?"

"You know I always pay for the tickets, and it would have just been really rude to make the line even longer!"

"The art show?"

"It was just a couple of toonies! And you saw the face of the worker there, they would have kicked us right out if they'd had to break a twenty. It was just easier."

"Lunch?"

"They-they'd had a special on for a two-person meal at that stall in the food court, and they wouldn't let each of us pay half..." he neglected to point out that Ashley could have easily paid for their lunch, and probably should have, but before she had been able to offer he'd already been swiping his debit card.

"The arcade?"

"Okay, that was my turn to buy the tokens, you know that. That one doesn't even count."

Ashley lifted her eyes from the ice cream to the book that sat menacingly and innocently all at one at the center of the table, it's pristine cover mocking her. "The book?"

"T-that was just a gift! You seemed really into it at the store and friends buy each other gifts all the time—"

There was no describing how soft and nervous her voice got as she asked the question that would put the final nail in the coffin. "The ice cream?"

"I, uh, it was just—um..." Chris let out a breath in a weak chuckle. "Shit, I guess I kind of did, huh?"

Ashley doesn't say anything, and neither does Chris, as the table goes silent. She's bracing herself  for when Chris inevitably shoots her down and confirms that it doesn't matter. That the two of them will never be anything more then friends and that she never should have hoped for anything more and by revealing this she's ruined their friendship for good—

"Hey, uh, Ash?" He sounds so nervous that it immediately takes Ashley out of her anxiety driven thoughts of doom and gloom, but she can't do anything more than just shakily nod to let him continue. "It's, uh, probably like a really, really, really stupid question but—" he takes a nervous breath "—did you want this to be a date?"

Her head immediately shoots up as she stares at him with wide eyes, her breath caught somewhere in her throat where her heart is currently lodged. She frantically rakes her eyes over Chris's face looking for any hint that he's mocking her, or playing some cruel joke on her and her feelings, but all she sees is just nervousness all over a pale, shaking face with what she thinks ( prays ) is a glimmer of undisguised hope. But it's still too much uncertainty, and she's too scared to risk it all on a mere glimmer that she is likely only imagining because she wants it so badly to be real, so she throws the question back at him instead.

"...would you have been opposed if this was actually a date?"

"Nuh uh, I asked you first."

Ashley realizes that he's just as scared at what the answer might be as she is. She wants to tell him, has wanted to tell him for years and years and years. And maybe this is the chance she's been waiting for her whole life. The two of them sitting at a sticky plastic table under the early evening sun, long forgotten ice cream melting in their hands, and she can finally tell him that she's had such a huge crush on him since she was twelve.

"Yeah." The word is less choked out than it is released. Like it's a breath of fresh air and she feels simultaneously lighter and heavier for it. "I-I think I would have liked that. I would have liked that alot."

Chris snaps his gaze up to meet hers, and the glimmer of hope that she had seen earlier has now nearly taken over his face at the disbelieving smile that's threatening to crack his face in two. "Really? I-I mean, uh, I would have been alright with the idea too. More than alright actually."

She can feel her own smile start to nervously match his, and then the first giggle breaks out. His own ecstatic laughter quickly follows her own until the two of them are both giddily laughing at the table, but too embarrassed and bashful to even look at each other now. The giggling abruptly cuts off when Chris lets out a yelp of surprise when he realizes how much of his ice cream has melted onto his hand and Ashley joins him in trying to finish off their ice cream before it's melted entirely. But there's definitely a change in the atmosphere around them now. The contentness and laid back ease that always formed between them whenever they hung out was still there, but there is a charge that hadn't been there before either. An excited anticipation that only surges higher and higher whenever Ashley shyly glances in Chris's direction to find he's looking at her with the same disbelieving smile beaming on his face.

They never say anything more about it as they both finish off the ice cream, but Ashley knows. With that little agreement, the entire day had changed. This wasn't just them hanging out as friends anymore, this was an actual, factual date now, pure and simple. So when Chris hands her a couple of extra napkins to clean herself off, she may have let her fingers brush against his for just a moment. The resulting blush and dumbstruck smile on his face when he cautiously took his hand back so he could clean up the rest of the mess on the table was oh so worth it. And when he returned from his trip to the garbage can and held out his hand as an offer to help her up from the chair, she accepted it readily.

Once she's back on her feet, the two of them drop their eyes to stare at their still clasped hands, realizing that they could easily hold hands the entire short walk back to Chris's truck if they wanted. And she does want that—horribly in fact—but it seems it's still a little too early for either of them to make that teeny tiny but monumental jump to hand holding so they let go awkwardly and slowly, letting their fingers linger against the others before letting go completely. As though giving themselves a taste of what may yet actually come to pass in the (hopefully) very near future.

The short walk back to the truck is filled with both anticipation and dread alike, but unusually silent. Ashley knows it's because she's now a buzzing ball of nervous energy, terrified that saying anything at all will shatter this dream that's apparently coming true before her eyes, but Chris is different. He looks more like he's trying to work up the courage to say or ask something, and is spending all his energy on that alone. So when he reaches out to open up the passenger side door for her, Ashley can feel her heart pick up speed when he stops with his hand on the door handle and looks at her nervously. His mouth opens and shuts a couple of times as he tries to work up the courage to say whatever it is he wants to say, and all she can do is stare at him expectantly as she struggles to hold back an excited smile.

"Hey, Ash, ca—nevermind. It's, it's stupid. Don't worry about it." A second later, he has the door opened for her and the moment she can't see his face, she lets her smile fall crestfallen. But only for a second before a polite one replaces it as thanks when he closes the door for her and continues to his side of the truck. It's fine, she supposes as she buckles herself in, while the two of them have been hanging out all day, it's only been an actual date now for barely ten minutes. And once he drops her off home in just another few short minutes it's going to be over. The fact that she even managed to get this far is franky mind blowing, so expecting anything more from her dreams would just be extremely selfish. She can't have everything she wants all at once, no matter how long she's been waiting for it.

The drive back to her place is also quiet, filled with only the droning of the radio playing in the background. Ashley's returned back to her book, but she knows that Chris knows that she's not absorbing a single word, hasn't turned a single page even. She keeps glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as he nervously taps at the steering wheel, and then tightening his grasp when it looks like he's going to say something, only to return to the nervous tapping when he inevitably backs out at the last second and returns to the frantic pep talk he's likely giving himself. The air that fills the vehicle is heavy and thick with anticipation and it's taking almost everything in Ashley to not start shaking the question out of Chris at every red light they stop at.

But, eventually, they pull up in front of her place and Chris stops the truck. There's a moment where the two of them just sit there, not wanting to leave because leaving means the end, and Ashley schools her face into a cheery smile in an effort to hide as much of the disappointment as she can when she turns to face him and bid him farewell, only to have it fall to confusion when he starts fumbling at his own seatbelt.

"Chris? What are you doing?"

He struggles further at it, frustrated that the buckle's apparently decided that now is the perfect time for it to stick once again. "Trying to get this fucking thing off."

"Yeah, I figured that much. But why are you trying to take it off, you're just gonna leave right away again anyway."

He slows his fumbling as cheeks start darkening in embarrassment. "I, uh, I just thought that was something you were supposed to do after a date, walk them to their door to stay goodnight. I mean, at least I think this is a date now? And, and only if you're okay with it! I can stay in here instead if you don't want me to. I was just hoping..."

The once forced cheery smile on her face is certainly not being forced any longer, if anything she's trying not to show how much the idea of Chris walking her to her door thrills her. "N-no!" Well, so much for trying not to show how desperately she wants that. The startled look he gives her at the unexpected outburst had her trying to control her voice into something less desperate, but considering she doesn't think she's ever going tame the frantic butterflies that have been flapping around non-stop in her stomach ever since the ice cream realization, she's probably doing a terrible job of it. "I-I mean if you want to, it's completely up to you after all..."

"Cool. Cool cool cool. Just, just give me a second." He continues to struggle with his seatbelt buckle, letting out more and more agitated curses escape the longer the thing continues to stick, and Ashley is getting the feeling that if he was able, Chris would have ripped the entire thing straight out of the seat by now. Broken safety laws and ensuing repair costs be damned. The moment he finally manages to unstick the traitorous buckle it's with a cry of victory and relief so exuberant that Ashley finds herself laughing in disbelief and awe that he had wanted to walk her the short ten or so feet to her front door that badly. Thankfully, for both of them, her seatbelt unclicks easily and much more quickly in comparison, only taking another couple of seconds to grab her bag from the footwell and joining him.

The far too short walk up to her door is over before either of them realize it. One second the two of them had been standing awkwardly and nervously by the truck as she fought the urge to reach out and grab his hand, and the next they're standing just as awkwardly and nervously (if not moreso) in front of the front door. Both of them waiting for the other to say or do something to break the tension, but cleanly aware that doing so would signal the very final end of the day, and the date. In fact, just knowing that Chris doesn't want this to end just as badly as her, is what gives her the courage to look at him with a surprisingly heartfelt and soft smile.

"Today was fun."

Chris lifts his eyes from where they had been staring at the dried leaves on the doorstep to match her smile. "Yeah. It was."

"And thanks. For the movie, and everything else." Ashley raises her hand to give the new and still shiny paperback a small wave. "And, you know, the book too. Of course."

"Yeah, it was no problem. Anytime." There's something with how he says the last bit—not really emphasizing it but making it clear all the same that he means 'anytime'—that causes her face to flush giddily as she pulls her lower lip in between her teeth in a weak effort to fight back against the ecstatic smile that forms anyway. And when she sees his eyes lower just a smidge to follow the motion and the way his shoulders stiffen in reaction, Ashley very quickly also finds she's trying (much more successfully) to hold herself  back from just saying 'to hell with it' and throwing her arms around Chris so she can finally kiss him silly and until they're both breathless. But considering that she's too much of a coward to initiate something as innocent as hand holding apparently, there is absolutely no way that something as...as scandalous as kissing him on her doorstep is ever going to happen. Clearly.

And yet, she gives Chris another few seconds to try and work past that blockade in his throat, but when he still can't muster a single word, she decides to just put the both of them out of their misery. Or further into it. It's probably just the same thing really. "I guess I'll see you next time. I'll talk to you later, okay?" She turns away and puts her hand on the doorknob, and tucks the book under her arm so she can dig into her bag for keys, but is stopped when Chris's hand abruptly snakes out and wraps itself firmly around her wrist before she can reach into the bag. And it works—boy does it ever —turning back to him and the hand wrapped around her wrist as excitement just starts to bubble up inside of her.

A second later though, his brain has apparently caught up with the movement he clearly hadn't intended to make, because his face goes beet-red and he's dropped her hand so he can shove both into the pockets of his jeans. He averts his eyes so he's back to staring at the loose gravel and dried leaves under their feet.

"Oh, uh, sorry about that. I didn't mean to..."

"It's fine, Chris." Ashley tries to smile softly at him in reassurance, but it's considering she's gripping the doorknob in an almost vice-like grip in anticipation, it's likely far more eager than she would like. "What is it?"

Somehow, his face goes even redder and he blurts out the question so fast that it may as well have been one word. "CanIkissyou?!"

Immediately, Ashley's gaping at him wide-eyed and her mouth open in shock as her heart's beating so fast that she's pretty sure it's ready to burst out of her chest at any moment. "Wha—"

"I-I mean goodnight. Can I kiss you goodnight? That's what people are supposed to do on dates, right? A-a-a-and I think we agreed that this is a date now, or at least I really, really hope we did. Cause I've wanted to go on a date with you for the longest time and-and-and I didn't want Saundra or-or-or any of your neighbours to see cause I know that would just really embarrass you and me but I've been trying to ask you for the past thirty minutes now cause I've wanted to kiss you since forever but I was scared about how you would react cause I really, really, really like you Ash and I just wanna to kiss you so fucking bad right now you have no idea and—"

Ashley would like to believe that she's brave enough to throw her arms around Chris and drag him down into that searing kiss she's been dreaming about forever and ever, but she doesn't. Even with a confession that is everything she's ever wanted to hear and more. That's not to say that she doesn't want to do it—god does she want to do it—but she's so frozen in place from shock that she physically can't. So instead she just continues to gape at him as he (adorably) rambles on and on, and giggles out an elated little "okay".

His nervous rambling stops dead in its tracks, and he finally looks back up at her, nervous relief evident all over his face. "Really? I mean, are you sure? I'd understand if you didn't want to—"

" Chris ."

That immediately shifts the relief to a different kind of nervousness entirely, one of excited disbelief, but even then neither move to actually initiate this promised kiss for several seconds. Instead just staring at each other waiting for the other to be the first to move, Chris with his hands still in his jeans pockets and Ashley glued to the doorknob with her other hand frozen as it hovers over her bag. Finally, Chris is the first to slowly bend down to meet her awkwardly half turned body, and she unsteadily tries to rock herself onto the tips of her toes without losing her balance completely and falling over. And still, they both pause about an inch away from each other's faces, though whether to give the other an out if needed or just to work through the logistics of how to do this exactly without their foreheads or noses smashing into each other or Chris's glasses getting in the way is anyone's guess.

But finally, mainly due to the fact that Ashley can't lean forward anymore without falling completely on her face, Chris closes that final bit of distance and kisses her. It's a nervous brush of the lips really—a quick peck at best —but they jolt back from each other so quickly that the single action may as well have activated some hidden magnetic repel function that neither had been aware of until this moment. Both of them are staring at each other wide-eyed and breathless as the magnitude of what they had both finally managed to accomplish hit them. The kinda-sort confession and the almost hand holding meant absolutely nothing in comparison to this. Those she could have (and would most likely have) brushed off as her reading too much into innocent statements and gestures when she thought over everything that had happened today in the safety of her room later tonight. But this? This was physical proof .

Looking back, Ashley's not sure which of them moved first. One second they had been staring at each other in disbelief, stuck in the same awkward bent and leaning stature from before, and the next it's as if the magnetic attraction between them reverses its flow entirely. Chris is cupping her cheek with one hand as he kisses her in the way she always dreamed he would, his other hand slowly skating across the back of her neck so he can pull her up closer to him. The book that had once been clutched protectively under her arm was completely forgotten about—fallen to the ground with a sharp crunch as it crushed the dried leaves beneath their feet—as her arms wrapped possessively around his shoulders as she props herself as high as the tips her toes will allow her. She can still taste a hint of the chocolate from earlier on his lips, and the small part of her that isn't being blown away by all of this is wondering if he can taste the blueberry and chocolate on hers as well.

She's not sure how long the two of them stood there on her doorstep, kissing for all the world to see, but she does know that they still separate much, much too soon for her liking. Not that they fully separate of course. She may be back on the soles of her feet, but neither of them have removed themselves from the embrace itself. And with the way that Chris is lightly brushing his thumb over her cheekbone as he just stares at her with the same stupidly giddy grin she's got, Ashley would be perfectly fine if they could just stay standing like this forever.

"So..." she starts, and stops to take a moment to giggle when Chris bumps his nose into hers. "I think that was a perfectly acceptable first date if you ask me."

Chris doesn't let go of her when he leans back to consider her, the comically raised eyebrows in shock doing nothing to take away from the absolutely thrilled beam of his smile. " First date? Why Miss Brown, are you perhaps asking me out for a second one already?"

"I mean, if it's not too presumptuous of me, I suppose I am. I-if you're not opposed to it of course." She can't help the way her nervousness starts to bleed through with that last sentence, already panicking that she's somehow completely misread everything that's just happened and that maybe that kiss didn't mean as much to him as it did to her after all.

His next words completely derail those fears entirely. "Of course I'm not, I would love nothing more than to go on a second date with you. Followed by a third and fourth and even a fifth if you have the time for it."

"I mean, I'm a pretty busy girl but I think I can open up as many days in my schedule as it takes if I need to."

Before she knows it, the two of them are leaning in for another kiss when the sound of pot being dropped in the nearby kitchen through the open window jarringly brings them back to reality and the two of them let go of each other red faced and embarrassed. Oh no, how much of this had her mother heard? Or worse, saw? She wants to leave the doorstep (which is rapidly becoming her favourite place in the whole entire world) even less now, but the longer she takes the worse the excited interrogation from Saundra will be so she starts digging back into her bag to try and find her keys once again.

"I'll text you later, okay? And, maybe, we can talk some more about that second date...?"

The reply from Chris is flustered but eager. "Yeah, totally. I-I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Cool. And um, the next one's one me. The date that is. It's only fair after all."

"Yeah, right. Only fair. Totally. And, uh, your book..."

She finally finds her keys from where they had sunk to the bottom of her bag, and looks up at him and the paperback book that had fallen during their, uh, intimate embrace. "Oh! Uh, right. Thanks." She could easily leave it at that, but the last few minutes have made her bold so when she reaches out to take the book back from him, Ashley curls her fingers over his and bounces onto the balls of her feet so she can give him one last kiss on his cheek—almost the corner of his mouth really—before finally stepping back with the book and keys in her hand. "I mean it. Thanks . For everything."

"Yeah. No problem. It was my pleasure."

She lets herself have one last glimpse of the stupefied grin on his face just as he turns to walk just a little unsteadily down the path back to his truck. The only sounds being the leaves crushing underfoot and the jangle of metal as she sticks her keys into the door to finally unlock it. A sound that it quickly interrupted by not only the click of the door unlocking, but a muffled shout.

Alarmed, she turns quickly expecting to see Chris having accidentally shut his coat into the door as he is sometimes known to do when the weather gets colder, but instead watches in elated shock as he continues to keep energetically flapping his arms and fist pumping into the air and screaming what she can vaguely make out as 'yesyesyesyesYESYESYES' over and over again.

Suddenly it hits her. Despite the shy confession over ice cream, and then the much more rushed and rambled one only minutes ago, and followed by the kiss(es) that are still sending her heart into rapid fire, Ashley still hadn't believed what all the evidence had been saying. Chris liked her. He really, really liked her. Possibly as much as she liked him even! This wasn't just a one-off event that would now make things awkward between them for the rest of their lives. This was happening. They'd just had a first(!!!!) date and after Chris had kissed her goodbye, she had asked him out for a second one.

And he had accepted .

Ashley fumbled with the door and the moment she was in the house, slammed the door behind her, not even bothering to lock it. She let her bag fall from her shoulder to the floor with a soft thump and slowly slid down the door until she was sitting against it with her eyes wide and breathless. She ignored the surprised clatter coming from the kitchen as Saundra immediately dropped whatever it was she had been doing in and held up the book so she could stare at the once innocuous cover in amazement.

He had bought her this book and the ice cream because he liked her and he had gladly and excitedly accepted to go out on another date with her. And even more if he had been serious about that third date and beyond line.

And not that either would ever know it, Ashley mirrored Chris at that exact moment by placing her head into her hands and screaming as the built up joy and bliss finally exploded out of her.

[deep-hearts-core]

post spam incoming!

hi all, this is a warning that i am going to be making a lot of incomprehensible textposts over the next couple of weeks. why am i doing this, you ask? well,

i really like eurovision and i like rambling about it and in 2020 i got the absolutely mystifying idea to store these thoughts on a blogspot, for some reason (no really why did 19 year old shiloh think that was a good idea nobody uses blogspot). and because nobody uses blogspot i'm gonna be moving these over to my tumblr! yes, they will be tagged, i think #esc reviews. so block that if you wish. they will not be tagged with my usual personal tag though.

they will be long posts, usually with readmores. it's mostly just me reviewing the songs and live vocals and staging but also they contain occasional discussions of international political culture and how that plays into the contest (i am pro-politics in eurovision btw). so if that's your thing, then cool.

gonna be posting one year per day (this will take me through most of april, i've watched back to 2002). like i said they will be under readmores i promise.

yeah cool hope ur all having a nice day

[ohnopoe]

Recently, I’ve come to realise my writing has been rambling and because of this, I never seem to be finishing what I work on. So, after chatting with some friends who are in similar positions, I thought I’d do a little mini challenge!

The plan is simple. Write a story in 100 words. No more, no less. It doesn’t have to be a full story, it can be a scene, or an emotion, but you only have 100 words to convey whatever you’re trying to write.

This isn’t like an official challenge, so it will be done a bit differently to some I’ve done in the past, but there are still rules!

If you want me to reblog your 100 word ficlets:

You must be 18+ 

Tag me and use the tag #andys100wordchallenge (because sometimes tumblr doesn’t like notifying me about tags)

Do not include incest, underage anything, suicide/suicide mentions/self harm, rape/anything non-consensual (I’d rather not be tagged in CNC too tbh)

While I’m not going to force you into certain fandoms, I’d prefer it be something I’ve written for in the past, or just hmu to check a fandom because there are millions out there and I’d rather it be something I know of so I know what is and isn’t ok!

If there is smut, put it under a readmore. I don’t care it’s only 100 words, be smart, be safe, be careful

Need something to prompt you? I’ve put a list of prompts below to inspire! These are not one per person/claimable. They’re going to stay here to inspire, so if you want to use one, go ahead, no need to message me or anything! You do not need to use any of these prompts!

And most importantly, have fun!

Aesthetic prompts

Autumn

Beach

Brunch

Coffee

Fireplace

Fireworks

Green

Jail

Loud

Morning

Parade

Quiet

Travel

Warmth

Wind

Song prompts

All You Had To Do Was Stay - Taylor Swift

Another Love - Tom Odell

Broken Strings - James Morrison & Nelly Furtado

Bruises - Lewis Capaldi

Dodged A Bullet - Greg Laswell

Gamble Everything For Love - Ben Lee

Little Do You Know - Alex & Sierra

Mess Her Up - Amy Shark

Only Love Can Hurt Like This - Paloma Faith

Please Don’t Say You Love Me - Gabrielle Aplin

Revenge - P!nk & Eminem

Sign Of The Times - Harry Styles

War Of Hearts - Ruelle

When We Were Young - Adele

Writing’s On The Wall - Sam Smith

Sentence starter lists

angst prompt lists           1 || 2 

smut prompt lists            1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5

soft prompt lists              1 || 2

random prompt lists.       1 || 2 || 3

[myth01s]

70

70. A confession.

Tuah will never admit this out loud so here’s a confession from his creator.

under readmore because it’s super long and super rambly :D

Tuah’s current existence is, simply put, to merely exist. He had been so focused on surviving in the past that now that the immediate danger had no longer present, he struggled to find that precious connection between himself and those he cares about and in turn, care about him just as deeply.

For all of Tuah’s vampiric existence so far, he’s separated himself and kept himself at arm’s length from people because he knew he’d committed so many wrong things (coerced, forced, or otherwise but NEVER an excuse for his brutal actions) and the only way he could justify his self-imposed isolation was to balance it with expressed kindness. This kindness wasn’t false, per se. It came from a place that spoke of his old mortal hopes and his love of people. But he couldn’t let himself have (or conversely, give) that love anymore for whatever reasons that he justified to himself. Never mind ‘love’ or ‘romance’ but just merely allowing people to get close to him. But it wasn’t their fault, it was his. So he was very kind and polite about it, and for the most part, people could respect that and accept it.

Now in Astoria, Tuah has a place to tentatively settle, taking over Java Cafe chain and making some friends -  nothing too in-depth but Tuah has got the hang of friendly and kindly acquaintances and his friends have their own issues and lives so that makes it easy for Tuah to just drift along, giving support if people want it from him but otherwise just existing and not getting too deep with any one person.

If Tuah is a cake, he’d only let people taste the icing layer of himself. Some people are fine with just tasting the icing off their fingers, others find that same icing too sweet and pointless on its own. Because even the most earnestly expressed kindness can feel thin and brittle if it has no depth. If it’s limited by one’s own fears and doubt.

Because how can anyone extend genuine kindness to others if they can’t even be kind to himself?

Tuah, despite his friendliness and his kindness, is still afraid to voice his one desire; this need of connection deeper than of surface level. It is a need that doesn’t eat at his insides - he could still tolerate this unfulfilled need because he is his own jailkeeper. It was a light that got dimmer as the passage of time goes by in polite conversation and distant observation. 

And I hope he gets to relight that within him and find the connections that he desperately seeks.

[samsbastardzone]

kiss meme: 16, 32, 45, 47. for osfyr and chef’s pick of partner. also these were randomly generated so i do not actually know what these are as i send this

you givea me the rights.... hohoho

readmore for the rights of anyone scrolling past this!

16. One person pouting, only to have it removed by a kiss from the other person.

It’s only right, of course it is, that Osfyr should be doing this. It’s their old friend they’re talking about, of course they want to find him. But as he’s watching them do the final check on their pack, Xerxes can’t help but be a little sad.

“It’s hard to go from Constant Boyfriend to No Boyfriend, you know?”

Osfyr jumps and looks over at the doorway to see him leaning there, a smile cracking their face. “Babe, I’m hardly leaving you forever. We can talk, like, SO many times per day, for a whole twenty-five words each!”

Xerxes’s lips quirk briefly before descending back into a pout. “But I don’t know how long you’ll take to find them,” he begins to cross the room, “and besides, doll, I’d much rather have you here...” His hands brush Osfyr’s waist and settle on their hips, but they turn away, laughing.

“X, why don’t I call Yelkian and ask him to stay here for a bit if you’ll be so lonely without me?”

Their voice is teasing, but Xerxes’s frown only deepens. “But I want you.”

Osfyr’s heart flutters a little at the sight and the sentiment, and all they can think to do in response is plant a solid kiss on Xerxes’s lips. They can feel his pout smooth out under their care, and by the time they break apart he’s smiling too.

“I’ll be home when I can. I’m only going off to find them in the first place, it’ll be easier to visit them when I have more to go on than drugged-out rambling. And I’ll call often.”

Xerxes’s smile is soft and loving. “Say hi to Drago and Jennifer for me, alright?”

Osfyr breaks away to buckle their bag shut before kissing him again, briefly. “I will.”

32. A kiss so passionate, so perfect - that after they part, neither person can open their eyes for a few moments afterwards.

They were going to have to fight, of course– no way around it. He’d been pretty sure they were going to win as well, but there’s never certainty in these things. He trusts Osfyr– enough to listen to them when they told him he wouldn’t be safe in the city, although he’s not sure he believes it. So he’s been hunkering down with their family for a time, with various degrees of tension– the parents and one brother have been mostly ignoring him, while the sister and the other brother are much friendlier. Still, it’s been a hard few days.

It’s a lovely late spring evening, and Yelkian is inspecting the burned-out shell of a house in the dying light when he hears a thump behind him. Whirling around, hands already in a casting pose, he sees Osfyr crouching on the ground awkwardly and looking up at him, relief and joy evident all over their face, and his shoulders relax.

“Well?”

“We won.”

And suddenly they’re crossing the short distance to him in a single bound, and pressing their lips to his, and all the air leaves his lungs in a single instant. Their hands come up to grab his face and keep him there and he’s not objecting, just rests his own on the small of their back finally finally finally and hangs on for dear life. When they pull back, their face is wet with tears, and for once in their life, they’re speechless. Their forehead presses against his, and the sounds of the grassland at night hit him all at once– they’re surrounded by a full complement of crickets. He doesn’t want to move from this spot.

“Hey,” they say, and it sounds like a promise.

“Hey,” he says back, and it’s a witting response– yes, that was alright, I’d like to do that every day until I die or you do.

They seem to understand, and they’re certainly not rushing to reunite with their family, so Yelkian is content simply to stand there in that crumbling town, feeling more stable than he has in years.

45. Kisses exchanged as they move around, hitting the edges of tables or nearly tripping over things on the floor before making it to the sofa, or bed.

The sounds of the party fade in the background, replaced with hurried footsteps and labored, stair-climbing breaths. “How the hell do you manage all these stairs every day?”

“I got used to it, weaksauce, and now I have these to show for my troubles.” Jupiter lifts her dress just enough to show off her strong calf, and Osfyr immediately misses a step and falls, because they are a Disaster. Jupiter stops and offers a surprisingly firm hand up off the ground, which Osfyr accepts graciously. “Don’t worry, though, we’re almost there, and I intend to have you much more than fall down at my feet.”

As Osfyr hoped, as soon as the door closes to Jupiter’s private quarters, they’re bracketed against it and being kissed senseless. One of her forearms is braced on the door by their head, and one hand is on the side of their neck, thumb stroking their cheek. They gasp, and squirm, but she’s got them tight, only pulling back to drop a line of kisses down their jaw and bite across their collarbone.

“As lovely– oh– as this is, unless you intend– hnnn– to have me against this door, we should probably move.” She responds with a wicked grin and a deliberate grind of her hips into theirs, and their eyes flutter closed. “To the bed, Jupiter.”

Her eyes twinkle in the lamplight. “I’m terribly sorry. Of course. Right away, oh saviour of Boralus–”

She’s cut off by another kiss, Osfyr planting their hands on her hips and walking her backwards towards... something. Osfyr’s never been here before, is the thing, and it’s sort of hard to navigate someone else’s house when 1. The lighting is practically nonexistent, and 2. Most of your field of view is filled with said person’s eyes. There’s a reason people tend to close their eyes while kissing. All this to say, Jupiter’s back hits another doorframe with an oof sound, and that’s just fine. Now it’s her turn to gasp as red marks are sucked into her neck, hands tangled in thick hair.

It doesn’t last long, though. “Osfyr– Osfyr this is the kitchen. I’m sure there are better places– fine, I’ll just show you.” She tries to push them, but they aren’t budging, and in the end she just sort of steers them towards her bedroom still latched to her. Except, then they nip a little at a sensitive spot, and she forgets completely that she was unpacking a  new chest of dresses that morning, and suddenly she’s on the floor with a willing partner under her, eyes wide and panting, and then their hand is on her hip pulling her down and their other hand is on the laces of her dress and maybe the rug will do just fine after all.

Next time, they make it to the bed. The time after that, just the couch, then the bed again, then they make a game of it and aim for the kitchen just for fun.

47. A kiss paired with a tight hug, knocking the breath out of the person being hugged.

Osfyr wasn’t expecting it to break this badly. They’d tagged along last minute on a vacation with Jupiter and Krem, hoping to spark a bit more of a connection with their girlfriend’s boyfriend. They’d gotten attacked on the journey, though, and said boyfriend had been laid flat by, of all things, a dragon– an escaped  “monk” out for revenge. Jupiter had saved the day while Osfyr was busy having a panic attack.

When they finally come back to themself, Jupiter is kneeling over Krem and pouring a healing potion down his throat. He sits up, sputtering a little, and gazes at Jupiter above him, and just wraps his arms around her and buries himself in her shoulder. Osfyr looks on as they try to stop shaking and sobbing. Eventually, they succeed, but they’re still crouched rocking in the dirt, oblivious to the world.

Without much preamble, Krem is kneeling before them, having untangled from Juupiter. “You hurt much? Are you doing better?”

They take a deep, shuddering breath and nod, finally looking up to meet his gaze– the intensity is startling, not least the clear depth of his worry for them, and they can’t help but to surge up, kissing him briefly but mainly wrapping themself around him as tightly as they can manage. He’s muscly enough to do a damn good hug, and Osfyr is also clinging tightly enough to make Krem wince.

“Ouch– bruised rib–”

“Whoops– sorry Krem–”

A shadow looms over the both of them, and Jupiter extends a hand up to each of them. “I’m glad you both got through that, boys.”

[magneticflower]

AWAE and Character Introductions 

based on the first couple scenes they have in order to make a point on the case of Miss Winifred Rose

This got real long-winded but I’m trying to give a perspective from someone who is having a hard time adjusting to her character being dealt with the way that she is and give reasoning to said perspective. 

I’ll put it under readmore though because it got awfully long pfft. Sorry if I seem to ramble a bit but I hope that it is coherent enough that you can understand what I’m trying to convey fsdjkl

The Gold Duo: Aside from already beating up jerry, where clearly shown to have ulterior motives and their intentions were quite well known to the audience as they searched through newspaper to find a place to say under false pretenses, it was only a matter of time that the other characters learned as well. Clear personality, clear motive, and established a background for them quite quickly in just those couple of scenes. 

Cole Mackenzie: We could already surmise had trouble fitting in, much like Anne, and that he had some sort of thing that just made him different from the rest that we would learn of and we even established that where his passion lies with his love for art and creativity. In just the first scenes with him, we had an idea of him, how he would relate to Anne, and an idea of what his storyline was meant to convey.

Bash: We get that it is very important to Bash that he does not mess up anything regarding his job on the boat, because that is all he has and you can sense he feels trapped which is why he doesn't have a very good impression of Gilbert in the beginning, because Gilbert treats it in a way that is so carefree that Bash can tell Gilbert had a place to go back to if it doesn't work out. We can ascertain from this that Bash's mindset revolves around stability and the lack thereof that he has in his life and can also tell that Gilbert and Bash will likely establish a friendship of some variety.

Miss Stacy: She is already introduced as eccentric and different based on how she is working on her home entirely on her own and in attire quite ill-befitting of a lady according to many since she even wore pants whilst riding her motorized bike all the way over to the Andrews (?) residence to meet all the mothers of the children she would soon be teaching. Not only that, but it is quite clear as soon as she enters in the schoolhouse that she has no intention of teaching in a way that anyone has in Avonlea is accustomed to as she seems to be quite keen on making things an experience. We can tell from this alone that Miss Stacy will be making waves because she has no intention of maintaining status quo for the sake of maintaining it. 

Now, with just these introductions in mind (I was going to include a couple others but i felt that the consistencies I was trying to establish were defined enough with these four), and I did my best to just rewatch the introductions and base observations on those entirely to establish precedent for what I’m about to bring up.  I feel that the writing of AWAE has always been pretty consistent with giving us enough information about a character in just the first couple of scenes with them to establish not only personality to a degree, not only to understand their relation to the storyline, but to also provide depth to the character right off the bat so that it can be built upon in later scenes. With a show that has so few episodes per season, I believe that this is a very smart way to go about things as it gives us a good idea of these characters so that we may adjust to them quite easily. 

Now, with that in mind, that is also the reason that I believe Winifred is a hard character to adjust to. Upon first impression, we had definitely established a personality, that being someone who is quirky, interesting, and with a desire to sarcastically remark on societal norms as she performs and teaches those norms herself. We also establish her as being a character that is meant be part of Gilbert’s story line as someone he seems to project his feelings about Anne onto because she is quirky, potentially as someone he can talk to that isn’t so close to home (though I personally would’ve preferred more heart to hearts with his mentor in that area tbh) and that she represents high society because of her upbringing. Now, this seemed in line with how AWAE usually handles things so I was curious and interested in Winifred and what they intended to do with her character. 

    However, in the following scenes thereafter, her character essentially plateaus and it feels almost like we are repeating the first tea scene or that instead of making Gilbert talk to himself about his decision, they use Miss Rose as something he can speak towards without her adding much to the situation. Now that they have established she will visit Avonlea, I hope that we will get more of her, but frankly she took up much needed time especially in the last episode for other storylines, just to not accomplish much of anything for herself other than a willing ear to Gilbert and securing an invitation to Avonlea (which was paired with some more Mr. Bones and Gilbert making big reaches to compare her to his dad for whatever reason). 

   I initially liked Winifred, frankly, and I don’t even dislike her now, I just find that her character is not progressing in a satisfying manner during her scenes and it is frustrating because there so much plot to be covered that having to watch a character that isn’t developing (in my opinion at least) nor providing what I considered to be good additions to a scene, take up time that could be used for scenes that I felt needed more time is frustrating. Granted, I know she is only there when we are watching Gilbert make progression in his story, but i kinda hate that that is all she seems to be and that they’re simply making her a flat character in order to just be a plot device for Gilbert. I’ve also considered that they could be making her so flat to show how she is so unlike Anne despite her quirkiness, but I don’t like the idea of that either. 

Now, ironically, despite me complaining about her taking up screentime as I just did, I would like her to have another scene--- but on her own as in without Gilbert attached, so I can understand her as an individual and how she functions with others. 

  Frankly, I had actually thought she would be a good way to showcase what could very well happen to Diana if she obediently follows the directions of her parents because you can tell that Miss Rose talks about societal norms with a sort of resentment because they keep her so bored and confined but despite all that, she is unable to break free of them because she has been so conditioned to act in that manner. Hence, why she takes great joy in talking to Gilbert because as much as she tries to teach him about societal norms, Gilbert can’t be anything but sincerely himself.  That would be a good way to tie her into the overlying plot line of this season which, to me, seems to be fighting to be true to one’s self and what conforming can cost one if they choose not to fight for their personal autonomy and identity. That would be a route in which I would finally get a grasp on Winifred Rose and what she is to this series rather than simply an ear for Gilbert and a person for Gilbert to project his feelings onto while she simply just enjoys breaking some of the monotony of her life. 

I feel like the added depth would make all these scenes worth while, but if we don’t get any other connections, I feel like she is going to continue to be a character that is more frustrating than now to me. 

Granted, I am still open-minded about upcoming episodes that they will give us the depth that I so wish for them to do. I know that many believe that it is quite intentional that they keep her so flat, but I just can’t get used to the idea of her just being that way since AWAE usually does a good job giving and touching upon the depth of each character they introduce. I truly did enjoy Winifred’s introduction, I just expected a lot more to come out of it than it did and I’m still hoping that we get more of Winifred as an individual character that serves more than just a purpose to Gilbert’s story.

Anywho, this is just my personal perspective and you can take from it what you will. As always, everyone has their perspectives on a situation since we each can experience things quite differently so this is just me offering my own! 

[howlingmoonrise]

Dear Yuletide Author

hello and thank you for signing up for yuletide, i hope you have fun during the challenge!

i ramble a lot so my letter is under a readmore (i put everything in one post so you don’t have to juggle links around). obviously you don’t have to follow any of the things i put in here, but hopefully this will help you out!

general things i like

PINING. I’M SUCH A SLUT FOR PINING ALL THE PINING ULTRA PINING SUPER PINING. i have SO MUCH FUN reading about idiots in love who aren’t together yet and i far prefer it to fics with already established relationships. this is also applicable to when they know the other is in love with them but they can’t act on it for some reason.

i’m down for either gen or romantic!! what really does it for me is the developing relationship, platonic or otherwise, and the character dynamics and interactions and all the little moments in between. stuff like developing trust and finding kinship and growing respect for the other and subconsciously learning to lean on the other over anyone else is far more important for me than any kissing will ever be (though kissing is also nice if you wanna go down that route lmao)

i love love LOVE enemies/rivals-?to-friends?-to-lovers and bickering pairs in general, as you can probably tell by my choice in character! it’s so much fun and it gives us so many opportunities for character and relationship developments :D

continuing from the above points, nothing kills me as much as characters that bicker all the time but in the end they rely on the other and go to each other before they go to anyone else, whether they realize it or not

i REALLY like the canon and characters for all the fandoms i picked, so sticking at least to their characterizations and the overall “tone” of canon is a huge plus!! “missing scenes” and “what if” canon-divergent situations are excellent, as are continuations from where canon left us! that being said, i also enjoy more conceptual AUs and i’ve put more details about those a little further below. rule of thumb is that i enjoy AUs where the focus remains more on the relationship itself and how it works on such a setting than on the worldbuilding for it.

fun tropes i enjoy (sorry, these are a bit romance-leaning but if you’re not into that they can probably be adapted somehow): fake dating, accidentally got roped into x and shenanigans of all sorts keep happening, misunderstood confessions, groundhog day au, one or both the characters having stupid levels of denial while technically in a relationship and just not realizing it like What Do You Mean We’re Dating??, that sorta thing.

TROPE SUBVERSION ALL THE WAY!

general things i dislike

kidfics. babyfics. next gen fics. pregnancy fics, or even pregnancy discussed in the fic is a major squick of mine. the one exception i make for kidfics is for petshop of horrors when it comes to chris and the pets, as they already belong in canon, but no babies or children otherwise please.

future fics in general, actually. what i enjoy is the relationship development, so huge time skips make me feel like we missed way too much. one exception to this is post-canon petshop of horrors, for obvious reasons.

i usually don’t like most angst stuff since it feels a bit gratuitous to me when it comes to most fandoms and characters. the one exception for this is psoh (see below if you’re picking this fandom - and wow psoh seems to be the exception to everything huh) or when it’s a more introspective sort of fic. as a result of this, i’d pass on most content with major character death, sexual abuse, self-harm, the like, though of course there are always exceptions to the rule and you’re free to write as you wish!

hard AUs are a bit ugh to me. by this i mean AUs that rely heavily on setting, such as high school AUs, harry potter AUs, that sort of thing. i DO however enjoy stuff like siren AUs and soulmate AUs, depending on the concept and on the fandom. more details in their own sections if you enjoy writing those!

i heavily dislike things involving cheating/infidelity, sickfics, and genderbending of any kind is a bit ehhhh for me, as are concepts such as ABO. hard pass on stuff like dysphoria and deep diving into most mental illnesses, too (with a possible exception for depression when it comes to psoh). 

script-based or roleplay fic is not really my preferred format, i really enjoy prose instead of nearly all dialogue!

if you’re going for nsfw

kinks

moderate sadomasochism, uncommon forms of bondage (plants, stuck with strange substance or in awkward position, the shadows from p&tf as restraints, etc), choking/breathplay, xenophilia and tentacles/alien genitals (shadowplay in p&tf, non-human genitals for the staryk lord, etc), moderate degradation, edging/desperation play, ladies topping and calling the shots, bloodplay/knifeplay, long hair/hair pulling (staryk lord, leon orcot), sharp nails/claws (staryk lord, charlotte la bouff, count d; miryem mandelstam having them is actually preferable to the staryk lord now that i think of it), lowkey cannibalism imagery (count d re:leon orcot)

squicks

scat, vomit, praise kink, daddy or baby kink, vore, forced feminization, pet play, gore, abuse, abo, anything involving pregnancy at all

--

PETSHOP OF HORRORS

i’m usually not very partial to angst but GODS does psoh throw that out of the window, so feel more than free to run with it if you wanna go down that route.  psoh is RIPE for angst. we got two people with abandonment and inadequacy issues: leon who decided to leave his whole life behind to chase someone who gave him life and then left and initially didn’t even bother to do it with any sort of goodbyes, and d who is supremely fucked up by his upbringing and had to push leon off the ark to continue his family’s mission and let drop one (1) single tear that he was not supposed to cry over a human. those fuckers. those idiots. i love them so much.

THAT BEING SAID, i also!!!! love slice of life shit for them!!!!!!!! GODS i love how much they bicker but then they turn around and the other is the person they rely on the most and who they trust implicitly above all others and how they keep roping each other into ridiculous shenanigans. neither of them are particularly communicative with a few rare exceptions, so there’s also a lot of room there for introspection and unspoken affection on both sides, which i LOVE. my son leon in particular is also super underestimated when it comes to his intelligence and tolerance for gay shit both in canon and fandom, and he performs ridiculous leaps of logic and instinct that somehow turn out to be right but that are super ???? for everyone else involved, and that’s always fun to see. hell, just another missing scene where leon brings d some cake and they banter fondly over tea is A++++ to me!!

nsfw???? bring it!!! this is the one fandom where you’re more than free to go super dark and kinky if you wanna, or if you wanna write tender loving reunion sex where d cries a little while leon is loving and disbelieving and so very careful that’s also excellent! i don’t have a particular preference on who tops either, it’s fun either way, but i tend to see leon more as a sub/masochist >u> i can also see it going a bit dark with those two, especially considering d and his kind (implied to eat human flesh and being predators more than once) so bloodplay and cannibalistic thoughts could be fun. re: d’s genitals (as are hotly debated in the fandom), i usually prefer either a dick or triple threat d, though some fun plant-man shenanigans also have their place here.

all in all, psoh is the most excellent genre triangle where i’d be super happy to receive anything on the slice-of-life/angst/smut corners! (also, slash is 3249823% acceptable if you couldn’t tell by my ranting, as is a hint of crack)

if you’re thinking going AU on this one, my suggestions are of slight universe alterations instead of major world AUs. examples could be soulmate AUs (trope subversion would be GREAT here, aka foreign script they didn’t initially recognize, or only Ds having soulmates while humans do not, or the same scenario as the last but leon DOES have it on his skin and just keeps it hidden because Normal Humans Don’t Have Birth Tattoos, or d never expected to have one because his kind is dead and yet when he pushes leon from the ark the soulmate bond is forged, etc), a different first meeting, or even missed connections when they did not know each other yet; something like papa being alive and brady bunch-ing it up with them and chris would also be both excellent and hilarious. epistolary form for those two is also fun! if you wanna go full universe AU, something like a vampire hunter leon could be very interesting >u>

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SPINNING SILVER

WHERE DO I EVEN START. miryem and the staryk lord were my favourite part of the book; if the book was only their story i would have already been more than satisfied. the rest of the book is also excellent, but those two???? that story was far too great. enemies to allies to lovers is one of my favourite tropes, and this is one of the examples that just keeps proving me right. the slowly growing respect, the wariness when they both know what the other is capable of, the staryk lord getting hit with the hots for his wife when she manages the impossible and then miryem being unable to just let it go when he’s imprisoned and defeated. ACTUALLY lemme just grab that line of thought and bring up that moment when he was sorrowful and resigned when miryem didn’t argue further for the three rooms full of gold and he thought she would not succeed and that she would have to die for it. that, right there? those moments of renewed respect, those moments sudden longing for something they did not know they wanted? those are the things that kill me.

tonally, i love the sort of writing in canon too much to ask for anything different, though you’re by no means obliged to keep to it or to 1st person pov (i have a love-hate relationship with 1st person pov, ngl). missing moments from the novel or moments from the period of time they spent either courting or apart would be GREAT. for those two i actually don’t mind it too much if they’re already established, if it’s early on in the relationship when they’re still learning how to step around one another. the staryk lord flabbergasted or in awe of miryem is always Excellent(TM). bits of worldbuilding and staryk culture would be fun as applied to their relationship (such as the names thing, or courting habits, etc) as are AUs such as soulmates or alternate meetings and the like. if you’re wanting to go full universe AU, keeping some fairytale elements would be great!

if you’re going for nsfw? the name kink, holy shit that would be so goooood. the staryk lord being a bit of a masochist under miryem’s hands would also be great, and inhuman staryk genitals and erogenous zones/acts would be great to play with such as human body heat affecting them in different ways from normal, etc. bringing in his long hair would be a major plus. the build-up for the actual act is the best, so miryem and the staryk lord being super hot for each other while either denying it internally pre-relationship or being unable to go through with it post-relationship due to several factors (busy dealing with their people, no privacy, etc) would be EXCELLENT. so much fun can be had here!

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PRINCESS AND THE FROG

i am 100% aware this is a weird-ass pairing but gods, the possibilities. it has so much potential. there are few things i like quite as much as a villain and a good person developing a strange sort of kinship with each other. this doesn’t have to mean in a romantic way, obviously! as i said, for me it’s the building understanding and reluctant respect that i really love, far more than the actual romance. 

ideas, ideas, ideas. i’m aware this is a rare relationship to either portray or ask for, so i’m gonna try to give some more concrete-ish ones for you to build up on if you have no clue as to how to approach this. we could have canonverse with charlotte dealing with the shadowman in some other matter while the main plot is occurring, making him feel somewhat guilty about the whole marriage plot with laurence-turned-naveen; cue introspection or an entirely different outcome. or a post-canon sort of hades&persephone plot, with charlotte curious despite herself and tempted to listen to a shadow/dead/whatever!dr facilier when she’s the only one that can hear him, or her being dragged Beneath as well in a freak accident and then charming him into helping her back to the surface/living world (very, veeeeery reluctantly on his part, at least at the start, he might have even be thinking of tricking her but then change his mind when the time comes to do it). i think dr facilier wouldn’t be sure how to deal with charlotte’s particular brand of personality and good humour, and it’d throw him off his rhythm a lot - that sort of thing is always super fun to write. 

soulmate au in canon would work pretty well, but with this pairing? FULL WORLD AU IS YOURS FOR THE TAKING. keeping to the shadowman sort of thing to her normal bougie self would be a major plus; it’s one of her charms. also, charlotte thinking that she wants one thing (her prince, for example) while keeping getting drawn to him time and time again could work on pretty much any era or setting. vice-versa for him, thinking he wants to be rid of her but coming to realize he’d actually miss her if she were to be gone. OR, charlotte deciding she wants this sullen manipulative bastard and manipulating HIM into taking her out and hanging out with her would be hilarious.

if you wanna do nsfw, i have only one major request: charlotte calling the shots/topping. i think this arrangement would be entirely in character for both of them (dr facilier would prob also enjoy having someone else do all the work lol) considering her go-getter attitude, but keeping in mind his manipulative personality i’d be more comfortable if she had some control over what was happening. ASIDE FROM THAT, dyou know what would be fun? a little darkness, and by that i mean consider dr facilier’s shadow joining in on the fun. shadows would also be an interesting sort of constraint. also i know i said charlotte calling the shots, but she can be constrained by the shadows while being amused by it or being used for it to happen (the latter case implying it’s not the first time that they’ve used it in bed play), or charlotte could team up with Shadow to do it to facilier instead. charlotte using her nails and facilier being a bit of a sub/masochist would also be pretty good!

(actually in general it’d be really fun if there was some complicity between charlotte and facilier’s shadow in general, regardless of nsfw or not. the shadow being wrapped around her little finger is an excellent concept, especially if facilier isn’t too fond of her just yet lmfao.) 

thank you for reading all my rambling, and i hope you have fun!

[keplercryptids]

Dude I actually love hearing about homebrewed gods/pantheons and yours sound so interesting, I'd love to see more! :D

oh man, i love talking about this stuff too! i’ll put it under a readmore so all of my followers don’t have to….. deal with my long-winded ramblings if they don’t want to.

basically i started by following this basic tutorial for creating a five-god mythology. the idea of it is that you write down five themes you want your campaign to explore, in the context of conflicts (so Thing 1 vs Thing 2).

what i came up with was Civilization vs Wilderness, Community vs Self, Tradition vs Transformation, Conflict/War vs Peace/Harmony, and Fate vs Free Will.

next, you put opposing ideals on either end of a line, then match up similar ones, eventually forming a star shape (it makes more sense if you look at that link lol). you end up with five gods with two ideals each.

the paired ideals i ended up with were: Peace and Fate, Tradition and Community, Wilderness and Transformation, Self and Free Will, and Civilization and War. so then you build the gods around those ideals. 

i also linked the gods to forces of nature (earth, wind, fire etc) and gave them alignments, just because! i haven’t totally finalized the gods/their histories and everything, and i haven’t really even touched on the creation stories etc etc, but so far i have:

Eleftós, the chaotic good deity of pleasure, autonomy and freedom

Eyhemet (aka the Morning Lord), the neutral deity of fate, harmony and the sun/stars

Grawnd, the neutral good deity of tradition, community and protection (used to be an earth elemental and is Ignis’s sibling)

Ignis, the lawful good deity of civilization and war (used to be a fire elemental and is Grawnd’s sibling)

Hydora (aka the Untamed Mother), the neutral deity of nature, growth and transformation

i also added in a Death god because that seems important and i couldn’t make it fit anywhere else. (i even tried a six-point star but at that point had gotten attached to my five-point one. anyway. death is just There, okay? as it tends to be.) don’t have a name or anything figured out yet.

and i ALSO plan to have a few minor gods, specific to each major god (example: a deity of knowledge beneath Ignis, etc) and a few that are specific to certain races, but i don’t have those details worked out yet. i don’t plan to have more than one or two per major god, because i want it to remain kind of simple and easy to grasp. i don’t want more than like a dozen “good” gods, basically! and i might nix this idea altogether if i feel like it’s getting too complicated.

and i also ALSO plan to come up with some devils/evil gods, too, that are opposites of the major gods. i don’t have names or details worked out, but i know, for example, the devil in opposition to Eleftos is going to be all about greed and hoarded wealth (basically, Self taken to the extreme); Ignis’s counter-god is going to be all about conquest and dominion (the bad sides of Conflict), etc etc.

but yeah! aside from a tiny bit of lore for a couple of them, that’s what i have so far. it’s been really fun, i’ve never done something like this and didn’t expect to enjoy it so much.

[firstofall-howdareyou]

I can't figure out Tessa's IG likes. There doesn't seem to be a pattern? And it's not true that she gets more likes if she posts about her and Scott, btw. (So yeah, scrap that, troll anons.) She hit 57.2k likes for that Mexico work/life balance photo she posted, and just 38.2k for that Hall of Fame (with Scott!) video she posted after. 40k for Vogue, but just 23k for Strong Fitness despite the latter being the "sexier" pic. I could go on and on.

So I think you’re approaching this from the wrong angle, because you’re trying to find a pattern when I don’t think there is even a reason for a pattern to exist. (Edit: as I started typing this up, I definitely created a pattern whoops) 

Tessa’s instagram isn’t a business instagram. No matter how much people say that she has a finsta (that’s really her real account) or she’s the ~face for VM on social media, the purpose of that instagram is to share her life with us, not to get likes. 

I’ll put the rest of this under a readmore because I started rambling. 

Let’s take that troll anon perspective, that she only posts about Scott to get more likes. Why? She doesn’t make money off of her Instagram photos of Scott. She makes money off of her Starbucks/Nivea/sometimes Adidas posts. And guess what? Those posts average the least number of likes (~23k). 

Tessa’s instagram could probably be broken down into four (loose) categories: Sponsored Photo shoot/ProfessionalSkatingPersonal/Candid

I put these in order of lease to most likes. I think it just shows that people are more attracted to ~natural photos. Obviously there are some variations. Like the Vogue shoot, while professional, was a very holy shit personal moment. 

No matter what, people just don’t respond as much to sponsored posts. For example, the photo in Japan for Eat Together. She’s literally sitting next to Scott (super adorable) and it got less likes than one of her Starbucks posts.

So the work/life balance photo that got 50k likes was a candid moment, which is why it has so many, but the picture about the hall of fame was professional and edited with the background, which is why it got likes, but not as many. 

And then you have the very personal/candid moments that get more likes - hi two tourists exploring Belgium??? Being on the Ellen show!!  - and of these personal photos, the ones with Scott tend to get more than the ones alone. 

But okay?? Again, she’s not using her instagram posts of Scott to make money or get more likes. She couldn’t go to say lululemon and be like “hey sponsor me because my photos get 44k likes” when it’s actually her photos of Scott that do, and her sponsor posts average around 29k likes. 

And her posts are also starting to level out. Before the Olympics, she was probably around 10k per photo, depending on the content. She gained about 225k followers since the Olympics. So she used to get about 7% engagement, and now I’d say she’s around more like 10% engagement. Which is on par with what I average too on my personal account. 

Basically: like any person, she gets more likes on personal photos vs staged or sponsored photos. Professional photos with Scott don’t have the draw the same way her personal photos with him do. Or just her personal photos in general. 

It’s also important to note that her sponsored photos don’t involve Scott at all. She makes no money off of him through her Instagram.

[upperranktwo]

What is your favorite thing about douma and your favorite line and image of them?🤔

The loml <3 I could talk about him all day!!!! I love when ppl ask me to talk about him it makes me so happy!!!!!!!!! (or when people mention how much I like him idk something about it makes me blush) I'm going to put this under a readmore <3 because people don't need to see me rambling about him <3

favorite thing about them - I love his design so much. It's very aesthetic! I also love how for the most part he just doesn't seem to give a fuck. Why not eh. If you're gonna be a demon might as well just go all out and be the biggest cunt on the earth. You're going to hell anyway, don't hold back !!!

least favorite thing about them - I wish we had a little more development for him. Like why did he become a demon. It's just glossed over so quickly 😔 oh I also don't like how there is the whole 'he is born evil' but the series portrays most characters to be victims of something. If you are never given the chance or see someone express an emotion then you cannot learn it. I consider him to be someone that was groomed and abused as a child and whilst that is ever so slightly touched on as part of his character it's just like 'yh that happened but consider this 🙂' and then moved on. That's not so much my least fave thing about him per say but more so the writing.

favorite line - 'When you die, you just become nothing. You just stop feeling anything. Your heart stops and your brain stops. You rot and return to the earth. As long as you are a living creature it is unavoidable' idk why I like it so much I just do 😭

random headcanon - No lie but everything I ever said as a headcanon turned out to be like legit so I'm not even gonna speak anything else into the world!!!

unpopular opinion - I do personally think he's the best looking character in the series 💖 I think he's very misunderstood amongst the fan base. A lot of people take him at face value. I've mentioned in the past that a lot of people will mention how he eats women but like I've mentioned, it's never said he doesn't eat men as well. In fact the only one said to not eat women is Akaza. Therefore all of them (bar him) eat women and men. Like get over it lmao. I have a lot of other things but I don't want this to be too long

song i associate with them - I have a couple but I'm far too shy to say what. I don't want people being like 'that doesn't seem like him' hsadasdas

favorite picture of them - Ahhh I love so many so I picked a few of my top atm

[eohachu]

@ttaechwita​ well,

listen my head is spinning i’ve watched two literal god tier movies in the last two days but I still want to talk about Howl’s Moving Castle a little bit. no one’s gonna want to read this tho so i’m gonna ramble under this readmore heh

there were two major... things about this movie that struck me.

tw depression, mentions of self harm for this paragraph

the scene where howl produces endless slime due to him being extremely depressed sad

while i watched this scene i immediately thought of this comic:

i cannot for the love of me find the corresponding post so if anyone knows the artist pls tell me so i can credit them

I always thought that The Slump was a pretty awesome metaphor for what depression feels like, so naturally I loved Slimy Howl, too. It’s both a great visualization for how it feels and what depression does to you: It numbs you, the ‘outside world’ doesn’t really reach you anymore, it suffocates you, you can’t move, the thicker the slime is the harder it is to break through it.

And then the demons (? I forget how those black shadows were called). I personally read them as unhealthy coping mechanisms, the desire to self-destruct (it kinda reminds me of the phrase “die Geister, die ich rief” even though it doesn’t fit 100% in this context). IMO it is a metaphor for self harm: He summons these shadows that, I assume, are not there to Do Good. Howl is actively trying to worsen his (and everybody else’s, even though probably not completely intentionally) situation to justify his pain. Believe me, I’ve been there a thousand times. I feel you Howl.

tl; dr: the Slime Scene is an excellent depiction of depression and I will die on this hill

tw queerphobia, racism for this paragraph

      2. This Character is GNC As Fuck And I’m Going Insane Because of It

this is more personal so feel free to peace out here

So I grew up in a conservative household. Not only conservative as in heteronormative, cisnormative and amatonormative, but also the media I was allowed/supposed to watch as a child was pretty controlled by my parents. In my case that meant: almost only German tv, little American tv, little to no media from non-western european countries.

This means, you guessed it, that I didn’t have access to Studio Ghibli movies when I was a kid/teen.

On another note, I had learned as a kid that manga/anime and the like were ‘cringe’ and that the kids who liked them were made fun of. I was an anxious child whose biggest fear was being hated, excluded and made fun of so you can imagine that I kept my distance from everything that could lead to that.

Listen. I’m not gonna say that I would have realized sooner that I wasn’t cishet if I had watched Howl’s Moving Castle as a kid. But that’s kind of what I’m saying. Of course it could have been just another Sign That I’d Had Missed.Iin the end it doesn’t really matter though. I can’t change the past now, can I?

But I am angry and sad about the fact that I didn’t have access/actively avoided non-western and/or queer media simply because of my conservative, racist, cishetnormative, queerphobic environment.

I am angry and sad that I was denied the possibility of exploring my identity as a kid, as a teenager. It feels like I missed out on... my entire teens. I feel like I’m living my teens now, in my twenties.

And that’s not a bad thing per se and I know a lot of people share this story with me and I’m going to get over this sadness and anger eventually because I can’t stay mad at my past forever of course. But I think it was important for me to explore this grief and I’m thankful that Howl’s Moving Castle helped me unearth it.

tl;dr: representation matters. let your kids consume queer, non-white, non-western media.