#what do you mean you can drive through multiple states in one day

[dyingtobehim]

americans are right i really cant grasp the concept of states being That Close Together

[ponchigg]

How To Actually Set Intention To Reality Shift.

Original post made by LadyNuggie on the reddit shifting community r/Shiftingrealities. All credits to them.

Setting the intention to shift is one of the most widely discussed topics in the shifting community. A lot of shifters (especially on tiktok) will tell you "all you need to shift is intention." One girl literally said, "all you need to shift is intention, and if anyone tells you otherwise, they're lying." Something about that didn't sit right with me and it took me a while to put my finger on why that statement bothered me.

The thing is, first of all, all you need to shift is intention and the right altered state of consciousness that works for you so you can connect to your DR and detach from your CR. But besides that, let's say all you did need to shift was intention. Well then, how do you set that intention? Because there is a right way to set intention and a wrong way.

Setting intention isn't going to sleep half hoping you wake up in your DR. Some people have literally shifted that way, but that doesn't mean that that is how you actually set intention. The key to setting intention is moving a message, desire or want from your conscious mind into your subconscious mind. Your conscious mind makes up about 5% of what we call "the mind". The remaining 95% is your subconscious and unconscious mind. Your subconscious is comprised of everything you've ever seen, heard, tasted, and experienced. Your thoughts, beliefs, values, and habits all stem from the workings of your subconscious mind. That is why "reprogramming your subconscious mind" is a popular topic in the shifting community.

Now, you set intention by ingraining or imprinting your desire into your subconscious mind. Simply having a thought or want in your head does not mean that the intention has been set. And this is where I explain what prospective memory is.

Prospective memory is when you have a "prospect" or something in mind that you want to accomplish later. Maybe you want to remember to buy more toilet paper the next time you drive by target or you need to remember to pick up your sister from her piano recital. You remember to do those tasks in the future because of prospective memory.

When trying to learn how to lucid dream, one of the first concepts you come across is reality checking, which is basically performing an action multiple times throughout the day so that you get used to it and at some point do it in a dream (because it's been ingrained into your subconscious and has become a habit). So if your reality check is counting your fingers, when the action pops up in a dream, you become lucid because in a dream you could have 8 or 4 fingers on one hand and you realize it's a dream!

Let's say you told yourself that whenever you walk into a room or stand up from a seat, you would do a reality check. That is you utilizing your prospective memory. That way, the action shows up in a dream because your subconscious mind "remembered" to do it!

So how does this relate to shifting? Well, a major reason why sleep methods don't work for a lot of people is because (like me) they have weak prospective memory. You could tell me to clap twice in the next 30 seconds and I'll forget. So it's no wonder that I "forget" to shift when I use sleep methods.

You shift with a sleep method when you set the intention to shift (using prospective memory) to your DR and detach from your CR through an altered state of consciousness (in this case, that would be sleep). When you successfully shift using a sleep method, it is because your subconscious "remembered" to do so!

This is also why a lot of people have dreams about their DR. Because the images, people and sensations from their DR have been ingrained in their subconscious mind, so they dream about it! I've literally had dreams where I walked through a portal to try to shift although I wasn't lucid.

So if you want to use sleep methods, (although this is important for any kind of shifting method) I highly recommend working on your prospective memory by giving yourself little tasks to do throughout the day. You could also start doing reality checks, that way, even if you don't shift at least you could have a lucid dream which you could use to shift anyways.

An Example of a Prospective Memory Exercise for Shifting (can also be used for lucid dreaming):

▪️ The next time I walk into the kitchen I will: do a reality check and remind myself to shift to my DR when I go to sleep.

▪️ The next time I turn on a light bulb I will: do a reality check and remind myself to shift to my DR when I go to sleep.

▪️ The next time I pick something up from the floor I will: do a reality check and remind myself to shift to my DR when I go to sleep.

▪️ The next time I flush the toilet I will: do a reality check and remind myself to shift to my DR when I go to sleep.

Try to do each task 3 times each day. Good luck!

[luvrhischier]

never let go // trevor zegras

part 1 pairing: trevor zegras x reader

word count: 3.9k (i’m sorry i went overboard again)

a/n: jumps between povs, each part is labeled and split by long black divider though (if you don’t like this sort of thing, sorry <3), no use of ‘y/n’ again.

warnings: none (i think)

(him)

Trevor just stood there, his legs wouldn't move, no matter how badly he wanted them to. He wanted to run after you but he couldn't. From his frozen haze he saw Luke run out the door. That should be him running to you and he knew that.

"Everybody out! Party's over!" Jamie yelled. Everyone quickly walked out. Jamie looked over to Nico. “Can you make sure everyone who shouldn't be driving gets an Uber, I'll pay, I don’t even care anymore just please make sure everyone is safe and out of here." Nico nodded and left, dragging a still slightly drunk Jack with him. He would be no help to the conversation about to happen in the state he was in.  Now it was just Jamie, Quinn, and Trevor. Once the front door was shut Quinn forcefully turned Trevor around. He still looked shocked and a few tears had begun to run down his face.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Quinn finally spoke up. Trevor opened his mouth to say something but no words came out.

"If you weren't my best friend I would beat the shit out of you," Jamie said through gritted teeth. "Do you have any idea what you’ve done?"

"She," Quinn pointed towards the door you had just walked out of, "is like a little sister to me and you just broke her heart in front of an entire party of random strangers." Quinn's voice was calm, too calm, it was frightening. "And you're not my best friend so I will gladly beat the shit out of you." He stepped forward but Jamie stopped him as Trevor finally spoke.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," he whispered. 

"What do you mean?! You went into this whole thing knowing you had feelings for her."

"What thing?" Quinn interrupted. 

"Do you wanna tell him?" Jamie crossed his arm. Trevor said nothing. "Are you really going to make me tell him?"

"We've been sleeping together," Trevor said softly. Quinn exhaled.

"How long?" He asked.

"Since my birthday," he paused, scared of how Quinn would react after he said his next words, "last year." Quinn saw red. Yes, you were old enough to make your own decisions, but he hated that this decision ended with you in tears and running out the door.

"You've been stringing her along for over a year?!" Quinn's voice got louder with each word. 

"No, I swear! I didn't think she felt the same way I did, and if-" Trevor's voice broke.

"Come on, Trevor," Jamie sighed. "You're dumb, but you're not that dumb. Everyone can see that she loves you and you love her."

It was quiet for a moment.

"You better fix this," Quinn spoke one last time as he headed for the door, he didn't trust himself to not punch Trevor if he stayed any longer. 

"She is the best thing that has ever happened to you, don't let her get away." Jamie walked away.

(you)

The first week after that night everyone gave you your space. Texts were your only form of communication, you didn't trust yourself to talk, you knew your voice would be coarse from all the crying. 

Trevor would call and text you everyday and every time he did you ignored him. Eventually you muted his notifications, you knew you should've blocked him but you weren't ready for that. 

────

The second week after that night you no longer had space. At least one of your friends were with you at your apartments at all times. These days were filled with binge watching cringy reality shows and lots of take out. You started to smile and laugh again. 

────

The third week after is when you finally left your apartment. 

On Monday, Quinn took you to the beach, complaining about how he was getting sand in places he didn't know sand could get into. You laughed as he got hit on, multiple times. He just awkwardly said 'thank you,' every time he was complimented. Once the, one sided, flirting stopped Quinn soon became your greatest enemy. When you got up to stretch your legs he took that as an opportunity to grab you and throw you into the water. Once you came out of the water you saw Quinn dying of laughter. When he saw the look on your face he ran for his life.

On Tuesday, Luke dragged you to an arcade. You beat him at air hockey and might have gotten a little too excited based on the looks you got from all of the parents with their little kids. He accused you of cheating saying 'You rigged this somehow. I should've won, I literally play hockey for a living!’ You just laughed and called him a sore loser followed by a laugh and, ‘Maybe it’s time you retire and I take your place. I do look pretty good in red.’ He just scoffed and walked off to the next game.

On Wednesday, Jack made you go to an amusement park. He said that the two of you had to go on every single ride. The day started good but soon Jack's face started to go pale. You said you two should probably leave but he refused. He said he was fine and that it was time for the big rollercoaster. As soon as you got off the ride Jack ran to the nearest trash can and threw up. You whispered a quick 'I told you so,' and Jack just gave you the middle finger.

On Thursday, Nico forced you to go on a hike with him, you hated this. He didn’t tell you how long the hike was going to be and you wanted to punch him. The hike was filled with you cursing at him, while he just laughed. It was worth it once you saw the view at the top. The smug look on Nico's face however, was not worth it. You jokingly said you would push him off the cliff if he didn't wipe that look off his face.

On Friday, Jamie just simply walked around town with you as you shopped, not complaining once, that night he took you to a drive-in movie theater that was playing your favorite movie. This might have been your favorite activity of the week. Just you and one of your closest friends laughing being a little too loud and getting told to shut up by the cars next to you, almost getting kicked out. 

You thought you would get to have a quiet night alone on Saturday but that thought went out the window when you heard a knock on your door. You opened the door and saw all of them standing there, a couple holding snacks and a few holding blankets and pillows.

"What is all of this?" You laughed.

"We’re staying over," Jack said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, he then pushed past you letting himself in.

"Yeah, no, of course you can totally come in," you joked sarcastically.

"We know," Nico said, you playfully slapped his back as he walked by.

You watched as the blankets were dropped on the living room floor and the snacks were placed on the coffee table. 

"I don't have a say in this, do I?" You crossed your arms 

"Nope!" They all said in unison. You rolled your eyes playfully before joining them. 

(him)

The last three weeks had been absolute hell for Trevor. During those three weeks he barely saw Jamie or anyone else, he knew he deserved that thought. The silence and alone time gave him a lot of time to think. When he wasn't in bed, he was out driving. He never had a destination in mind, he just wanted to clear his head but, as if the universe was playing some sick joke on him, he always ended up at your apartment building.

That Sunday morning was no exception. He sat there for what felt like eternity before he noticed people exiting the building. He focused to see who it was and he felt his heart start racing once he did. It was Jamie, Quinn, Jack, Luke, and Nico. Quickly he ducked, thankful that the parking spot he was in was somewhat covered by a tree. After a few minutes he finally looked to see if the coast was clear. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

This was his moment. He could go up to you and finally explain everything, finally see you again, even if it was for the last time. He took a few deep breaths before opening the car door. Slowly, he walked towards the side entrance of the building. Once he got there he stopped and remembered, he had given your spare key to Jamie, he couldn't get into the building. He looked over at the intercom system and saw the button with your name. He obviously couldn't press it. You would turn him away immediately. He looked at the only other name that he knew.

Miss Bea. The old lady who lived across the hall from you. The lady who you would spend most of your free time with and the lady who always came over to your apartment on Sunday nights for dinner and card games. You both quickly became an important part in each other's lives. You were close, Miss Bea was like your grandmother and you were like her granddaughter. He knew that you had definitely told Miss Bea what had happened and he also knew that Miss Bea was terrifying when she was mad. With a shaky hand he pressed the button next to Miss Bea's name. He waited for a second before he heard her voice.

"Who is this? What do you want?" She asked quickly. Trevor froze and couldn't speak. "If this is some kind of prank or whatever you kids do these days you better get to running before I get down there." He knew that wasn't an empty threat.

"Hi-," his voice wavered for a second. "Hi, Miss Bea. It's-um-it's Trevor." He braced himself. 

"You have some nerve coming here!" She was almost yelling.

"I know, ma'am, I know." He stopped and ran his hand through his hair, he didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. It was silent for awhile. Trevor began to think she had walked away.

"Are you here to apologize?" She said curtly.

"Yes, ma'am," he whispered.

"Speak up I can't hear you. I said, are you here to apologize?" 

"Yes, ma'am," he said once again, this time loud and clear. It went quiet again. He thought that maybe she had just walked away as he just stood there for awhile. Soon the door in front of him opened and there stood the short but mighty, and scary, little old lady.

"You make her cry angain and I will end you." She pointed at him. "I know people. One call and they'll be here in a second." 

Trevor gulped and quickly nodded his head in fear. He had no doubt that she did in fact 'know people,' and he did not want to meet them. She let him walk in front of her and he waited to help her up the stairs with an arm held out.

"Don't get all gentlemen like now." She waved her hand shooing him away. He nodded his head before turning and making his way to your apartment.

Before he knew it he was standing at the door. With a shaky hand he knocked before he lost the courage. Time felt like it had slowed down. Soon the door swung open.

"Guys, I told you-"

(you)

Your stomach dropped instantly. There he was standing right in front of you. Quickly you tried to slam the door but he stopped it with his foot. 

"Wait!" You opened the door once again. 

"How the hell did you get in here?" You wanted to yell but you didn't. Before he could respond you saw Miss Bea walking to her front door with a little smirk on her face. "Miss Bea?!" You said in disbelief.

"Are we still on for dinner tonight, dear?" She asked in the most nonchalant voice you had ever heard. Your jaw dropped. "Honey, we talked about this, close your mouth or you're going to catch flies." She joked as she closed her door, leaving you alone with Trevor. You quickly closed your mouth before looking at the boy who had caused you so much pain.

"Can we please talk?" He whispered.

"I don't want to talk to you." You started to shut the door again.

"Then can you please listen? Just listen to what I have to say and if by the time I'm done you still want me to leave I will leave and I will never bother you again." You let out a sigh and opened the door, slowly.

"You have 5 minutes," you knew that was far too generous but, sadly, you desperately wanted to hear what he had to say. You stepped aside and let him in. You watched as he looked around your apartment like he had never been there before. All of the pictures of the two of you and the small little trinkets the two of you had collected over the years were tucked away in the back of your closet. There was no trace of him anymore. "You're wasting time. You’re 5 minutes started when I closed the door." You said as you crossed your arms. Finally, he turned to you, and for the first time you got a proper look at him. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was a mess, and his face wasn't as bright as it used to be.

"Do you remember that field trip we took back in second grade, to the aquarium?" He asked. You nodded your head, extremely confused as to why that is what he started with. He looked down at his hands. "You were terrified to walk through the shark tunnel, so I held your hand and promised that I would protect you." He chuckled but his voice was still shaking.

It took everything in you not to smile at the fond memory.

"That was the first time I felt it. Obviously I didn't know what ‘it’ was at the time. But when my mom picked me up from school that day I told her she had to take me to the hospital immediately. She asked what was wrong and tried to see if i had any injuries. I told her you gave me cooties. She just laughed and I remember I got so upset because I thought I was dying and my mom was just laughing at me. She finally asked me why I thought you had given me cooties. I told her that my tummy felt all warm and fuzzy after I let go your hand and it happened again every time you laughed or smile or looked at me. She laughed again and told me it wasn't cooties and that I would understand when I was older." He wiped his nose on his sleeve, you turned around and grabbed a tissue box.

"Here," you whispered softly as you offered it to him. 

"Thank you.” He wiped his nose before continuing. "Then in seventh grade there was that cheesy little winter formal and that little dickhead Tyler asked you to dance. Except it wasn’t even a real slow dance you both just stood there awkwardly with your hands on each other’s shoulders, stepping side to side.” You let out a quick and short laugh. Trevor laughed too. "I was so mad that he asked you before I did and that's when I started to realize that maybe I wanted more than just a friendship with you. You two started dating and at first I thought it wasn't gonna last because, c'mon we were in middle school, middle school relationships never last. But somehow you did and you lasted all the up to the end of sophomore year, which surprised everyone, especially me. You two finally broke up because you caught him cheating-"

"Okay, okay, you don't need to bring that part up," you muttered.

"And then somehow Tyler ended up with a broken nose..." he trailed off.

"And you somehow ended up with bruised knuckles,” you chuckled. A lightness began to fill the air.

"Hey, don't look at me, Tyler never said who did it." He raised his hands up in surrender. You could see Trevor's face start to light up again. “The end of senior year came and prom was coming up. You went on and on about how there was no chance in hell you were going. You turned down a dozen promposals. I was able to convince you to go with me because I promised I would stay by your side the entire time. I still had to drag you out of the house though. That's the night we had our first kiss, it was during a slow dance, a real slow dance, and we laughed because it was a complete cliché. We never talked about that kiss afterwards, we both acted like it never happened, and I hated that. It terrified me but that's when I knew 100%," he paused as he took a small step forward, and you let him. "That's the night I realized I was completely in love with you. I have been in love with you since before I even knew what love was. I still am and I will always be in love with you."

You didn't know when they started but you finally felt tears stream down your face. You stood there in shock. He felt the same way you did. He was in love with you. He has been his entire life. 

"I never acted on those feelings because I thought you didn’t feel the same and that you never would. I’m a complete mess and all over the place and you’re…” he paused. “You’re, you. Then my birthday happened and everything got so complicated. I should have told you that very first night but I couldn’t, I couldn’t ruin our friendship more than it probably already was. I need you in my life so I took you in whatever way that would keep you by my side. Which was fucked up and completely selfish," he whispered.

"But what about that night? You didn't seem to be in love with me then," your voice broke a little at the end.

"I thought you were mad at me. You were short on the phone with me and then your phone went straight to voicemail every time I tried to call and you didn't read any of my texts.”

“So your first thought was to hook up with some random girl?” You cut him off.

“No! I don’t know!” He stuttered loudly, regretting his choice of words when he saw your eyes filled with hurt. “Fuck! No! You make my mind get all jumbled up and I can’t think straight when I’m around you or even when I just think about you. I jumped to conclusions and I thought that everything was over, our friendship and our…whatever we became, and just the thought of that sent me into a self destructive spiral, I wanted to get you out of my head and I failed and I hurt you while doing so. I should’ve told you how I felt that night at prom. I should’ve tried harder, I know that now, and I should've fought for you. I should've ran after you that night.”

“Yeah, you really should have,” you whispered. Slowly but surely you could feel your heart getting put back together again with every word he said. You could feel your love grow the more he talked.

“I have been beating myself up everyday for the past three weeks because all I did was stand there and let you walk away. You are quite literally the best thing that has ever happened to me. I would give everything up if it meant you'd forgive me and that I could spend the rest of our lives making it up to you. I'd even give up hockey if you asked me to, I really hope you don't because I'm really not good at anything else." He was rambling, saying whatever thought came into his head. He went to continue speaking but you just laughed and closed the space between the both of you.

You grabbed his shirt and kissed him. You kissed him with everything you had. He stood there shocked for a second before he finally relaxed into the kiss, cupping your face with both of his hands. This kiss was unlike any of the kisses before. There was no rush, no roughness, there was just love. You could feel the love radiating off of both of you and you never wanted it to end. Sadly it had to. You had to breathe. 

"What was that for? I mean not that I didn't enjoy it, I really enjoyed it. I just mean does-" you interrupted him with another kiss.

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?" You asked as you pulled away. You wiped the few tears still left on his face and he did the same for you. You wrapped your arms around his neck, his wrapped around your waist.

"I've been told that once or twice," he joked, all you did was laugh before bringing him in for a soft peck. He leaned his forehead against yours, his eyes closed and face full of love and happiness. The two of you just stood there in silence for a moment, taking in and processing everything that just happened.

"Hey Trev," you waited for some kind of response. Which came in the form of a questioning hum. "You got the story wrong." You pulled away, and walked over to your couch, Trevor right behind you. You both sat down

"What do you mean?" He questioned.

"The aquarium," you looked at him with a smirk. "You were the one who was terrified to walk through the shark tunnel, not me." He looked at you like you were crazy.

"No I wasn't, it was you!" He argued. He leaned back against the couch and pulled you with him.

“Maybe you’ve fallen on the ice one too many times because I’m right,” you laughed, your laughter causing Trevor to laugh. You curled into his side and he wrapped his arms around you.

Once your laughter died down Trevor spoke up again.

“I’m so happy you forgave me because I did not want to fall victim to Miss Bea’s ‘people,’ that really would’ve sucked.” He shuddered at the thought.

You looked up at him and the scared look on his face caused you to smile bigger than you ever had before. He looked down at you and playfully scoffed at your smiling face before leaning down to softly kiss you again.

This is what you both wanted for the rest of your lives. Laughing until your ribs hurt, kissing like it was the last time, and all the good times and bad times in between.

It wasn’t going to be easy, and you still had a lot to talk about, but you knew, with every fiber of your being, that he was never going to let you go again, he was never going to let you walk out that door, and you were never going to let him do the same.

[feelingf1]

and they said speak now part 2 - oscar piastri

you can read part one: here

happy taylor swift month!! (or august as normal people call it)

also, I forgot to give Ocar’s bride a name in the first part, hence why I just keep calling her ‘bride’. :)

enjoy!!

—————

But Oscar kept his mouth shut.

He looked at you, at his bride, at the priest, at the crowd, but he never once opened his mouth.

It was like he was frozen still, until suddenly, he dropped his bride’s hands and left the church through the back door.

That was it. You had just ruined your best friend’s wedding, and probably your friendship too.

The tears started to fall down your face, and there was no way that you could stop them. You were truly heartbroken.

The bride made her way down the aisle, stopping to talk to you, or rather, give out to you.

“Wow, thanks a lot Y/N. You really know how to make a wedding day amazing, don’t you?” The sadness was evident in her voice, as it broke multiple times, but that didn’t stop it being laced with sarcasm.

“I’m sorry.” You managed to whisper, attempting to wipe the tears from your eyes, to look collected. “I didn’t mean to ruin your day, but I’m in love with him, and I had to tell him.”

She rolled her eyes at you. “You’re a pathetic excuse of a person. Ruining our wedding day just so you can confess feelings that he doesn’t have, because, to remind you, HE’S GETTING MARRIED TO ME!!”

She was shouting now. Her bridal group tried calming her down, but there was no stopping her.

“If he loved you, wouldn’t you be the bride right now?” She stated, glaring at you.

With that statement, she walked away and headed out of the church doors. You were left standing in the aisle, before your legs crumbled from under you. You dropped your head and wrapped your arms around yourself.

“What have I done?” You whispered to yourself multiple times. Oscar had been a part of your life ever since you could remember, surely you didn’t lose him that easily, right?

You felt a strong pair of arms wrap around you. You looked up to find Lando, smiling softly at you. You dropped your head onto his shoulder and cried into his suit, grabbing onto him for comfort.

“Oh Lando, I’m so stupid. What have I done?” Lando comforted you, rubbing his hand through your hair.

“Oh Y/N. You told the truth, that’s not wrong to do. I promise you that. You’re brave for doing it.” The two of you sat on the floor for a few more minutes before he got to his feet.

“C’mon, we have an Oscar to go find.”

Your head snapped up at the mention of his name.

“Huh?” You asked.

Lando grabbed your hands. “Do you seriously think I’m letting this end here? No, we’re gonna go find him.”

You pulled yourself up with Lando’s help, before you started arguing with him.

“No way. That is definitely not happening this time Lando.” Could you really trust Lando’s advice again, when his advice is what landed you in this situation in the first place.

“You can’t lose him, Y/N.”

He was right. You couldn’t lose Oscar. You couldn’t lose the person who you loved for years.

“Okay, let’s go.” You agreed, and the two of you headed out the doors.

You got outside, and soon after realized that Oscar had left. He didn’t drink much last night, so he was perfectly fine to drive, something that wasn’t common with all of the other wedding guests.

You pulled out your phone, trying desperately to call and text him, but there was no reply, to you or to anybody, as all his mates had been trying him too.

Oscar’s groomsmen headed over to you. “Y/N, any idea where he’d be?” After all, this was yours and Oscar’s home town, nobody knew it better than the two of you.

You thought long and hard about where he could be. He wouldn’t be at his home, that was too obvious. He wouldn’t be at his parents’, because his parents’ house was accommodated by the rest of his family attending the wedding, and that was too obvious also.

“Y/N, is there anywhere he goes when he’s like stressed?” Lando asked you.

And then it clicked, you knew exactly where Oscar was.

He was at the Old Park.

You ran out to the church’s gates, signaling for a taxi on the busy main road. Lando raced after you. “I’ll go with you, but I’ll stay in the car, okay?” You nodded your head in agreement, and a taxi pulled up to the two of you soon after.

“Where are you guys headed?” The taxi driver asked after the two of you rushed in.

“The Old Park please, as quick as you can.”

You and Lando didn’t talk on the journey there, which was unlike you, but with the tension being so high with everything that just happened, maybe it was better than way.

Your legs were bouncing with nerves. You only had one shot to make this right, to make it up with Oscar, to get your best friend back.

After what felt like hours, you arrived at the park. You swung the door open and left Lando to deal with the payment. As you ran through the park, headed for the picnic benches, your mind became flooded with memories.

Ever since the two of you were young, this was your hangout place. You lived in a tiny apartment with all your siblings, so you could never have Oscar over as a child. Even though he invited you to his house all the time, the two of you wanted a place away from everybody else.

This is where Oscar came after every bad race, where you’d assure him that his family were still so proud of him. You’d come here when your family would stress you out with their sky-high expectations for you, and give out to you when you wouldn’t meet them. Oscar would hold you in his arms as you cried your heart out. He had to be here now, at your place.

As you sprinted up the slope, you saw a shadow sitting on the picnic table, and you never felt so relieved. He was looking down over the city, a view the two of you had spent many night admiring, but also wishing you could get away from.

You stopped dead in your tracks. What were you going to say to Oscar? Apologize? Explain? You didn’t really know, but you had to say something.

“Oscar?” You said, softly.

Oscar’s head whipped around, and he gave you a soft smile when he seen you. “I knew you’d find me.” He replied.

He pushed over to one side of the table and patted it, beckoning for you to join him, which you did.

You sighed deeply before you started explaining.

“Oscar, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your wedding, really I didn���t. It’s just, well, I was told by someone that I should tell you how I felt. I tried to do it this morning but I was too nervous. I- I don’t know why I did it in the church, I never thought I would, but the fact I did it must mean something right? It’s just-”

Oscar grabbed your jaw, turned your head towards you, and kissed you. The kiss was deep with passion and desire, which, for you, confirmed that you weren’t the only one with feelings.

After a few moments, Oscar pulled away and pressed your foreheads together.

“Y/N, I’ve loved you for years. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything, I guess I was scared of ruining our friendship. I didn’t really want to get married, but I thought it might force me to get over you, because I thought you would never like me in any other way. I love you Y/N Y/L/N.”

Tears swelled up in your eyes and spilled down your cheeks. This was possibly the best thing you could have asked for. You wrapped your arms around Oscar and kissed him again, softly, gently, like you two had all the time in the world.

Once again, the two of you pulled away and sat in a comfortable silence.

“Oscar?” You asked, and he hummed back.

“What’re you going to do about the wedding?”

Oscar looked down at himself, almost forgetting he was in his wedding suit, and he ditched his wedding. He stayed silent for a minute, before asking.

“Do you think you can find a wedding dress today?”

“Huh?” You didn’t really understand what Oscar was asking.

He hopped off of the table and pulled off his engagement ring, before getting down on one knee in front of you.

“Y/N, I know this is crazy and rushed, but I want to marry you today. I’ve waited years to tell you that I love you and I don’t think I can wait another day for you to be my bride. So, Y/N, will you marry me?”

You hands flew up to cover your mouth and you nodded frantically. This was the best day of your life, by far.

“Oh Oscar, of course I’ll marry you.”

He placed his ring on your finger before kissing you again. He grabbed your hand as the two of you ran down the slope. “Let’s go get married!” You exclaimed with joy.

A few hours later, you were stood at the church’s doors. You had to ring up your family to tell them the news, and even though they thought you were mental, they were happy for you. You chose to wear your mother’s wedding dress, and your sister happened to be a florist, so she organized your wedding flowers. You had your whole family around you and you couldn’t be happier.

The organ started to play, and with the help of your sisters carrying the train of your dress, you walked down the aisle. Of course, it was a small crowd. Most people wouldn’t show up to a wedding with a few hours notice, but you couldn’t care.

You were getting married to the love of your life, and that’s all that mattered.

The ceremony began and it was beautiful. Half way through, you found Lando in the crowd and smiled at him. None of this would be happening if it wasn’t for him. You giggled to yourself when you seen that there was tear stains on his cheeks, as they were on your own also.

The priest, once again, said the infamous line.

“Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

There was silence across the church. Nobody wanted to object to your marriage. The two of you started laughing.

“Second time’s the charm, huh?” He whispered into your ear.

The ceremony concluded as the priest reached his final words.

“Y/N, do you take Oscar to be your lawfully wedded husband?” He asked you.

You didn’t even have to think about it. “I do.” You replied, smiling as Oscar placed the wedding ring on your finger.

“Oscar, do you take Y/N to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Oscar smiled at you. “I do.” You took the ring and carefully placed it on his finger, gently rubbing his hand.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”

The two of you kissed, and you had never, ever felt happier. You smiled out at the crowd after, then grabbed Oscar’s hand as the two of your headed down the aisle whilst being showered in confetti and flowers.

You stopped at the steps of the church.

“I love you, husband.”

“I love you too, my wife.”

—————

Hopefully the 2nd part was okay and you guys enjoyed it! I made sure that it was a happy ending :)

taglist for those who commented on the last post:

@14messynessy @mycenterfold @hc-dutch @moonvr @sopheeg @hevburn @badgirlmarz @c0wgirlswag @ctrlyomomma

[aliparo]

Al-Haitham… understands the concept of love more than people may think.

How could he not, when he had consumed any and all forms of literature while he was still a student at the Akademiya? Reading several books about romance in each of the twenty [and more] languages he studied would do him more good than harm. Sure, it wasn’t his preferred genre, but a picky researcher would get nowhere in a society where people hardly have an option.

He has read about love, sometimes even in its more aggressive forms. Love can drive other people to kill, if a lack of it doesn’t do it first. Love, in the hearts of those with authority, can cause them to act illogically and unwisely. Love, that can bring an unbelievable amount of pain to people who have too much of it. Love — a force to be reckoned with, a risk, and a threat.

His brows had always furrowed at the thought of love. How can one feeling be so… strong? Surely, he had thought, ‘love’ couldn’t truly render people to such depths? He had saw it all as absurd.

Until he met you.

…Well, to be precise, he ‘met you’ more than once — he wasn’t one to fall in love with someone at first sight. He ‘met you’ multiple times.

He met you first as a fellow scholar from the Haravatat darshan. You were competent enough for him to know your name, but you weren’t in the same league as him nor were your social circles intimately similar. Al-Haitham wasn’t one to be swayed by beauty and potential alone.

What he could be swayed by is action, and that is how he met you a second time — handing him an outline of a working plan for your shared class project while organizing one of the darshan’s annual events. Efficiency was bare minimum for him, but with how rarely he saw it from other people around him, yours was enough for him to notice. Busy as bee, bustling about the Akademiya while preparing for the said event — Al-Haitham would be able to recognize you even from the corner of his eye, and he’d be reminded of your still but fiery dedication to your own paired project the last time the two of you were together.

It wasn’t until your third meeting, with the two of you more established than you were previously, that he began to feel out of sorts. He had first attributed it to his exhaustion — he had been working for hours on end and he needed a good drink to destress. Though you were the one to invite him out for a night, he was only anticipating the drinks rather than the company… but seeing you with a slight flush and a frown on your face after one drink made him think he also anticipated… you.

He was probably drunk already too, but that day, he had ‘met you’ in all your rosy-faced glory under the soft lights of a tavern bar, and he couldn’t help but feel that… he wanted to take care of you. It wasn’t usual for him to think in such terms. On a normal day, ‘take care’ would mean ‘stay safe’ or ‘be cautious’ for a researcher like him; it was only under his alcohol-influenced state of mind that ‘take care’ appeared in his head to be walking beside you, drunk or not, and giving you what he knows you need, whether you ask for it or not. He supposed it was his mental vulnerability that had allowed such delicate thoughts come to the surface of his mind after reading about them in books.

After then, the next time he ‘met you’ was under the moonlight. Your head laid on crossed arms as you snoozed your way through what should have been a research session for your final exams as students of the Haravatat, and Al-Haitham wasn’t able to stop himself from smiling at your sleeping figure. From this alone, he knew that something was terribly wrong; no one in their right mind would be smiling at somebody who slept on them, especially with drool escaping their mouth while the other was pulling another all-nighter. He shouldn’t be so distracted, too — he valued his academics and knowledge above all, and he had been sober from any substance for days. Something should be off when, in spite of all that, he couldn’t help glancing at you so often.

However, most concerning of all must be his wondering of how much longer your current arrangement would last. If it was anyone else, he wouldn’t have given much thought into the strength and longevity of their relationship with him, but since it was you… his heart clenched at the thought of losing this with you — this being your academic insights as well as your daily chatter, your scientific jokes and your colorful laughter.

He didn’t want this moment — of you sleeping soundly beside him while he worked — to be the last of its kind, and as soon as he realized this, he knew he was fucked.

Your next meeting was initiated by Al-Haitham himself, two weeks before graduation. He met you at Port Ormos — not his preferred meeting place of choice, to be honest, but aside from what he had to discuss with you, he was not important. He didn’t have a good reason to pry you away from your friends, and he realized he’d venture great distances for you anyways.

When he met you this fifth time, while the late afternoon sun bathed you in gold as it prepared the world for the moon’s silver, he finally realized that he had misinterpreted one thing from all those books he had read — love wasn’t simply a feeling.

As he conveyed a summary of his thoughts to you, rushing through his words to be quick rather than frank, Al-Haitham realized that love encompasses a lot of other feelings and emotions — fear, joy, pain, yearning, desperation, and a lot of other things that he’d normally have the words to describe but simply can’t while he’s with you. He realized that love can push someone to depths so far away from their original character, so long as it is for the sake of keeping someone like you.

You, who he could say was an object of his love, but means so much more to simply be related to an ‘object.’ You were a living, breathing person of love — and he felt it wasn’t enough to simply have you around when it always felt right to him when you were beside him (and he was beside you).

It took five times of ‘meeting you’ for him to close the gap between the two of you, and now he didn’t want to let go. Absurdity is the reality of love, and being illogical was part of its nature, but as long as it was you he was in love with, he found he didn’t mind.

You are why Al-Haitham understands the concept of love more than people may think.

How could he not, when he has read through multiple details of and moments with you? Learning about what it means to be in love by being with you every day has significantly improved his knowledge on the subject, and your presence has supported him through a lot of other things. Love was indeed a risk, but it was one he had been willing to take, and even years after then, it was a decision he had never regretted. Love was also aggressive, but it was something he can’t help but let consume and overwhelm him, so long as it came in the form of you.

Most people wouldn’t understand. The Scribe was one of the most logical and rational people of the Akademiya; as busy as he was, how would he ever have the time to understand a concept as menial as love?

Truly, it was so unbelievable that even those closer to him and you are caught off-guard at times. Cyno would be narrowing his eyes at Al-Haitham before he sees your arm linked with his, and he’d belatedly remember that you enjoyed dragging your lover around different stalls in Sumeru City (and he allows himself to be carried away by you, every time). Tighnari would be warning you to be careful around Al-Haitham after hearing wind of a new study of his, then he would see your knowing smile and remember you probably knew more than he thought. Even Kaveh would be ranting to you about his annoying junior before remembering you were dating the said annoying junior.

If it weren’t for all the times they had seen Al-Haitham direct to you a gentle gaze and a tender smile as you walked hand in hand, they wouldn’t believe that a guy like him would ever understand what it is to love, much less even feel and receive it.

He understands love more than people may think, and it’s all because of you.

(He loves you.)

[alchemical-astrology]

Astro Observations | Direction and Synchronicity

If you feel 🏕 like you have lost your way 🏔 at this time ⛰️ and are looking for a synchronicity 🌋 or have maybe stopped seeing aligning numbers 🌏 i hope this helps 🦋

🧭sagittarius tend to do practices like reading tarot the most when they are mentally blocked as it helps them to do aomething practical

🧭venus can indicate how you respond physically and emotionally to multiple conflicting options in your life

🧭uranus in the 4th, 10th, 2nd or 12th houses can indicate someone who struggles with their own impulse to break the rules and go off the beaten track

🧭virgo may feel stuck right now as the energy is at odds with their organised nature. they do not enjoy going with the flow and if they are looking for a sign right now it may come.once they have re established their borders, grounded themselves, and got into a better mental state for making decisions

🧭gemini may struggle with the expectations, rites of passage, and life milestones asked on them right now. look for signs of alternative options as well as check any transits of your natal neptune and natal uranus as these planets can be what make it hard for you to fit in with expectations

🧭earth signs may feel stuck, blocked, or like they are in the wrong location at the moment. look out for signs that you are not where you need to be as often the abswer will be in plain sight next to this and an alternative route will be presented

🧭some signs may feel like synchronicites don't work for them, esoecially fire signs like sagittarius and aries. this is ebcauze often they are the ones creating them for other people due to their explorative nature as leaders

🧭water signs may have confusing dreams and feel unsettles about whether these mean they are on the right track. they can look out for signs that bring clarity over the next few upcoming days

🧭neptune placements in ANY of the 9th to 12th houses whatsoever can make your chart hard to fit into the modern world. those with these placementa can find themselves WAITING frustratingly for inspiration and success only to not have it turn up. Wait until full moons to try and get inspiration, don't force it, let it come to you and the answer will reveal itself 🦋

🧭aries and leo may feel stuck at the moment but rest assured that you have only paused along the way

🧭capricorn may feel like time is running too fast for them to make the decisions they need to make and might be looking for a sign. right now, look for the answer in places you might not expect, by going outside of your comfort zone. normally you may find this difficukt, but it may become easier very soon

🧭Aquarius is most likely to physically travel or go to a new place at this time. If you feel blocked, it's likely your drive and inspiration won't come back until you get to your destinstion

🧭 Pisces may feel disconnected from themselves and the world at the moment. They can find the answers they seek by revisiting old places, people, or memories. If you are looking for a sign it may come from the past as opposed to the future.

-> Lastly. Reading tarot in pairs can help you break through stuff that you might not have been able to before. Or at least it has for me.

[anidaladefencelawyer]

The "B..but...Muh Two Marriages!" argument from Jedi Positives/Uncriticals gets problematic the more you think about it

Old but good analysis particularly regarding how the choice between love and duty, and Anidala being unequipped emotionally to make that choice in a way that would allow them to find happiness together, or even have the means to even want to step away from the galactic chessboard altogether, while facing peer pressure to focus on their duties(and I don't mean in a way where they can achieve the best of both worlds together) and being brought up in environments where they can't really say no; this ultimately leading to tragedy.

On this note, I do not know where this argument crawled out of, but I going to say on that note that I've never found the arguments from modern Star Wars Jedi-positive/uncritical fans that Anidala is inherently toxic because of the fact that supposedly, to paraphrase said fans, "when you get down to it, it's an asshole with a inherent fascist impulse from day one and his moral depravity enabler(yes, this is literally what some of the more virulent Jedi-uncriticals reduce Padme to when literally Palpatine is around the corner) literally wanting to have everything, duties be damned" to be very compelling, and I frankly find it really problematic given the state of modern society.

So many of us, as the contradictions of capitalism drive the world to the abyss, have to work extremely tough or low paying jobs, or have to spend so much time doing what society expects of us, are we somehow assholes if we decide "ah fuck it, I'm going to try to have both". I've personally found Anidala to be the struggle between following one's heart vs. adhering to the dictates of society at large—which is honestly really relatable in the era of late stage capitalism, and being stuck in a situation where one is unable to harmonize passion with duty(which resonates a lot considering how multiple canon and EU material show them to be a very good team, but they are always separated) albeit one that ended very tragically. While others may have the emotional control to hold as long as possible, not everyone can go down that path.

Overall, I don't even consider their marriage decision(which likely came from Padme tbh) selfish even through the idea of selfishness is framed into the narrative, it's less "selfish" and more "shortsighted" for me, shortsighted because they get pulled into a war and never get to truly develop as a couple, leading to them having no time to talk to each other, growing paranoia, and eventually the tragic conclusion of their story. But is it the sign of a toxic or selfish belief that existed from day one because of an powerhungry asshole with a fascist gene embedded into his DNA wanting everything? I honestly don't think so.

[wuxiaphoenix]

On Writing: A Quick Jury Introduction

Okay, thought I’d turn an exhausting day into possibly useful info for you all.... The U.S. institution of trial by jury is likely more familiar to some of us than others. If you’re a writer coming from outside the States, though, what may not immediately be apparent is that far, far more Americans interact with the legal system than ever show up for a civil suit or are charged with a crime.

All those jurors have to come from somewhere.

So. There are multiple requirements to be a legit juror, but mostly it boils down to, you’re a U.S. citizen, you’re over 18, and you have all your civil rights (i.e. you’re not a felon yourself). You also, so far as I know, have to be a resident of the county where the trial is taking place. In practical terms this means once you get any kind of state-issued ID, even a learner’s permit - if you’re over 18, you’re in the list the computer draws from for the next jury pool.

(Yes, I once had to arrange transportation to a jury summons when I still wasn’t legally allowed to drive by myself. Fun. Not.)

About two to three weeks before you’re due to show up, you get the summons in the mail. At which point a certain amount of profanity may ensue, because you have to prepare to upend all your plans for at least an entire day. You can ask for a deferral, or even to be dropped from selection, if one of several hardship conditions apply. You’re the sole person doing 24/7 medical care for someone, for example, or you’re going to be in the hospital on that date with major surgery involved. “My workplace won’t let me take that day off,” is NOT one of those conditions. Let the court know that, and they will then duke it out with your workplace. No, seriously, that is what will happen. The jury summons is a civic duty. It is, effectively, being “drafted” for that day. Constitutionally. I would not want to be the employer who has to hear from the Clerk of Courts. It would not go well.

So, you prep, you clear your schedule, there’s usually a questionnaire to fill out (either on paper or, more recently, on a county website) so they have some background to make sure you’re who they meant to call... and then you wait. In my home county, you wait until the night before you’re due to come in, and call the automated line to see if they still need a jury pool the next day. It’s possible the lawyers will hash things out and call the trial off. No trial, no jury needed.

Assuming you’re not that lucky, then it’s get up very early in the morning so you can get to the courthouse on time. They try to put courthouses near the center of the county, but some counties are very big. And you come prepared, because you’re likely to be there from 8 AM to 5 PM or later.  

My experience is that it’s very cold in courthouses. Don’t ask me why. After the first trip I started bringing multiple layers so I didn’t freeze myself into bronchitis. It... mostly works.

Summons in hand, you go in through the metal detector; anything else you bring in with you (coats, water, etc.) has to go in a tray and fit through an x-ray machine under the unblinking and likely already-tired eyes of a couple deputies. And you take a deep breath before plunging into what will be an introvert’s most horrible day, because you will be surrounded by strangers you cannot get away from.

You follow the various staff directing you to the first auditorium, where you hand in your summons, let the clerks know whether you’re employed and whether or not your employer is going to pay you for the day (often they don’t), then try to find a seat not so close to the speakers that your ears will get blasted when everyone else shows up and they show the instructional vids about voting being a civic duty, take it seriously, etc., etc.

(It is and I do, but I’ve seen the vids so many times by now....)

Aaand then you wait. And wait. Often two hours plus. While the attorneys up in the courtroom overhead are duking things out with each other, and with the judge, and reading all the questionnaires to try and figure out who they might want on their jury and what questions they want to ask.

A certain number of people may get let go at this point, depending on how many trials they’re picking for. The clerk of court quipped that they ought to consider lottery tickets....

Finally the attorneys hit the end of when the judge will allow them to keep delaying things, and all the pool gets led upstairs to the courtroom itself. Once everyone’s in, all rise for the judge, there’s another lecture on civic duty, fair and impartial, and so on.

(Everyone is already freezing, tired, and there’s no coffee. Seriously, there’s a spot for snack and drink machines when we have breaks, but not one drop of coffee. The court clerks also mourn this as an affront against humanity.)

The attorneys - prosecution and defense - get introduced, as well as the defendant. And then the questions start. One of the first being, does anyone in the pool know anyone 1) who’s going to be in court or 2) one of the other jurors? Even with random selection, it’s possible you get some people who know each other....

Other questions that may show up include but are not limited to: Can you be fair and impartial with X charges? (Given you have no idea what you’re a jury for until this point, from a traffic ticket to murder, this is important.) Do you think you can judge the credibility of a witness? Have you, a family member, or someone you know been involved with a similar crime? Do you know any of the witnesses?

Once they get past all of that and mark down a preliminary “who’s affected by what and why”, then the attorneys go back to the judge’s bench and start discussing who they’ll pick. Jurors don’t get to overhear this. If they have specific follow-up questions for a particular jury candidate, you get called up to the judge’s bench to answer them.

(My frank and honest answers seemed to unnerve both the prosecution and the defense. Heh.)

BTW, a jury may be less than the classic twelve. For many trials they just want six or seven, so they’ll pick out eight or nine (so they have a few alternates). They’re also likely to be selecting juries for several trials from the same pool. So once they make their first picks, those jurors are brought over to the jury box, sworn in, told not to talk with anyone about the case, and released until court is back in session. Everyone else has to sit and wait through the rest of the picks....

Yes, you do get a lunch break. Eventually. Depending on how far the judge thinks he can push people to get the attorneys done - that’ll vary, especially if you have older jurors or those with medical conditions who need to eat something with medicine or end up in trouble. Lunch may break for an hour, which isn’t as long as you’d think because there’s nowhere nearby to get solid food unless you hit the road. In lunch hour traffic. Fun.

(I bring lunch in a cooler. Have I mentioned I’ve done this a lot of times?)

And then it’s back to the next set of attorneys, and questions, and... it’s a long, cold, exhausting day surrounded by people. Though if you are selected, the trial is usually the next day or at most later that week, so with luck you’re only upended for a few more days.

Whether or not you get picked, you’re then out of the pool for a year. If they do call you back early, you can tell them that!

Jury duty. Necessary, somewhat interesting, very chilly. So it goes!

[marcushocus]

-Oklahoma is native you can’t change my mind‼️

-he hates school because he was forced to go to a reservation school (for reference reservation school’s basically tried to erase native culture. Cut their hair, forced em to speak English, etc.)

-he has hair like down to his ankles, ohh it’s long long

-he can speak multiple native languages, even some dead languages

-he has a twin sister because before he was Oklahoma he was the ‘twin territory’s’ her name is Sequoyah because that’s the state she wanted to be, but she got rejected 😔

-he’s veryy overprotective of his tribes, because of what Gov did to them

-one of the few states that have a alive family and healthy(ish) family

-his family is the tribes

-sometime in like the 1910s Florida pranked Oklahoma by doing the lil hair dye trick. Oklahoma still hasn’t gotten the chance to cut it off, so now he has a lil bit of pink at the tips.

-strictly does not drink, (go look at a map for reference ) but for sure smoke weed.

-bros for sure bi-polar. I mean not even with weather, but with literally everything. Bros history is just straight-up bi-polar.

-one day he woke with a cat in his bed. He didn’t own a cat at the time. Now he does.

-he was literally legally blind at a time during the dustbowl, he should probably wear glasses now buttt he doesn’t wanna look stupid 🥲 (idiot)

-bros brutally honest. Like meanly honest

-bros got trust issues. Very badd trust issues. Like the Government broke well over 500 treaties with his people. Like good lord 🤠

-he’s the typa person to put his hair through the hole in the back of the hat, but it’ll still fall off (I worded that weirdly my b)

-bird cause why not? Specifically scissor-tail.

-I feel like he has ADHD but is undiagnosed. Like he also knows he probably has it, but he doesn’t wanna know yk?

-yk how him and Texas hate each other? I feel like they’re used to being around each other though so they unconsciously get close w/o talking (sorry it’s the Ok/Tx in me talking 😔)

-bros got hella endurance- cause yea

-he could for sure fly an airplane, but can’t drive a car at alllll💀

-one time he passed put during a meeting during a bad tornado, and everybody just sat there stunned for a second or two.

-We all agree the states can’t die right? (I think figured out sometime in the 70s/80s, cause Gov thought they already knew lmao.) cause I think this dumbass actually died a few times before they all knew, but he thought he passed out lol. Same thing w/ TX

[abbatoirablaze]

Captain Penisi, Chapter 9

Word Count:  1.1k

Warnings:  none

“Eddie you’re going to have to be acting chief while I’m out!”

“No way!” Eddie scoffed from Terry’s bedside, “there is absolutely no way I’m going to be running the station ad being boring like you.  What would the rest of the rank and file think?”

“What happened to you wanting to run a station?” Terry asked.

“Well that was before everything set in,” he admitted briskly.  The two men glared at one another until Vickie and Auggie came in, both looking over Terry’s file.  Eddie smiled as he saw Auggie, “hey there, doc…what’s the diagnosis…”

Auggie blushed as she looked at Eddie, before she picked up the clipboard once more and looked at it.  With a scowl she passed it back to Vickie once more. 

“It doesn’t look good.”

“What do you mean?” Terry asked nervously, “Like it’s going to cause me some grief not good?  Or am I g-“

“Terry you aren’t going to be able to work like this,” Vickie frowned, “you really hurt your back.”

“How long will I be out?”

“If you get the proper rest you should be fully healed in a matter of a few weeks…”

“One week?” Eddie asked, “or multiple weeks?”

Auggie nodded, “if he takes it easy on himself, he should heal fairly quickly.  Terry, I hate to be the one to tell you this but I can’t in all good conscience leave a note for the commissioner that you are able to work.”

“Come on, Auggie,” Terry grumbled, before shooting a look to Vickie, “Vic, honey…tell Auggie I can work.”

“I have to agree with her on this, honey,” Vickie sighed, giving her husband a sad look, “I really can’t convince Auggie to sign off on you in this state.  It’s not pretty.”

“So what are you saying?” Eddie asked. 

“Eddie…I think you might have to step in and be the chief until Terry gets better!” Vickie sighed as she looked between her husband and brother.

“Eddie…wha-what’s going on?” she asked gently as she looked at a soaking wet Eddie.  His white shirt had bee completely soaked through and he looked miserable as he stood at the entrance of her apartment, “you’re soaking wet!”

“I had to walk Hoser,” he muttered sadly, “I feel like I’m falling apart at the station, Auggie.  Everyone needs things and-“

“Oh my god, get in here!” she said quickly, cutting him off as she pulled him into her apartment, “you’re going to get sick.”

“Trust me when I say that would be welcomed at this point I time,” he sighed, toeing off his shoes, “taking over for Terry this past week started out great, but now it’s starting to feel more like a nightmare…”

“Eddie…” she sighed, rushing away from him.  Eddie watched as Auggie rushed into her bathroom then came back with a towel. She wrapped it around his shoulders and started using the end of it to try to dry his hair, “I’m sorry this week has been so miserable for you…but on the plus side it’s all nearly over.”

“Terry came back to hang out with everyone yesterday,” he sighed, “said the girls were driving him crazy…well the crew is driving me crazy.  Lucy hasn’t walked Hoser.  Ike is starting to hold back on the information, and Frenchy just makes everyone miserable, but I can’t step over the line and kick him off the shift because A shift has to have a captain on board.   I don’t know what to do.”

“Well first off, I think you need to leave work…and your soaked clothes here in the entryway,” she murmured as she gave him a soft look, “Let me run a hot shower for you and fix you some food…then we can cuddle up and forget the day with some wine…”

“That sounds beyond amazing,” he sighed thoughtfully.  Auggie gave him a soft smile as she dropped the edges of the towel and her nimble fingers started unbuttoning his shirt.  He watched her, adoring the sweet, intimate moment they were sharing, “thank you for taking care of me like this, Auggie…I appreciate it more than you know.”

“Of course, Eddie!” she mumbled, giving him another soft look of her as she finished unbuttoning the shirt.  She helped Eddie shimmy out of it before turning away from him and heading towards the bathroom.  Eddie quietly slipped out of his pants and socks, leaving the drenched fabric in the entryway, before making his way towards her.

His boxers and undershirt were nearly soaked through as well, but it didn’t matter.  He knew in a matter of minutes he’d be in the shower, under the warmth of the water. 

He watched with a smile as he leaned against the frame of the bathroom door and watched Auggie temping the water.  She jumped when she heard his voice, “you know what would make it even better?”

“My god…” she mumbled, clutching her chest, “Eddie, you can’t scare me like that.”

“You should join me,” he said simply, still watching her.  Her brow lifted in response, and he smiled, “don’t worry about making me food.  The only thing I want right now is a hot shower and to hold you in my arms…that would make this day feel completely and utterly right.”

A blush rose to her cheeks and she looked away from him, “I-Eddie, we’ve never-“

“I know,” he smiled softly at her, “I know we’ve never been naked around each other…but this isn’t about a sexual thing.  It’s intimacy, darling.”

She looked up at him, their eyes connecting once more as she seemed to ponder his request, “an intimacy thing, huh?  Is that what you say to all the girls?”

“Only the ones I truly have feelings for!” he shrugged, throwing in another little smirk at her.  He slipped the towel off of his shoulders and folded it before placing it on the side of the sink.  He held out his hand to her, “so what do you say?  Want this to feel a whole lot more intimate Auggie?”

“Wh-what does that make us, Eddie?” she asked sweetly, batting her eyes at him, “I mean-we-we’ve never-“

“I don’t want to play games or beat around the bush with this, Auggie,” he replied softly, “I want you to be my girlfriend.  I want to be able to come to you and talk with you after a tough day.  Hold you after the longer ones because you’re what feels right to me.  I want to be able to know that I come home to a woman that cares about me just as much as I care about her.  Is that something you want too?”

She paused for a second, looking at him, “is that how you see me, Eddie?  How you see us?”

“I see you as my girlfriend,” he answered, “that is, if that’s what you want to be.”

“I do!”

Eddie smiled as she took his hand, and she came in close.  His arms wrapped around her waist, and she snuggled up against his chest as their lips met in a soft embrace. 

[writercole]

Update Update Update

Okay sue me, I like that New Orleans view.

Let's talk, besties! Here's what's going on with me.

Feeling a bit of a burnout with writing. Don't misunderstand me - I'm still writing. I'm just chasing different stories right now.

Most of you guys know - I've been really open about this - that I've been struggling to find a job for almost 2 years now. Well, I finally got an opportunity. It starts training on May 1 but I'm pretty...skeptical because I've been screwed over so many times. I should note that there is nothing that suggests that this is a screwover but I'm just pessimistic at this point.

That's going to do one of two things - either I'm going to be writing a lot more or a lot less. I'm hoping it's the former.

I have like 100 stories in development currently and I get more and more ideas every day. Some of these are fanfic, some of them are probably going to be publications. Keep an eye here and at @coleslibrary for any updates or new publishing announcements.

My first three books are all available on Amazon currently and the next one will be there as well. I'm going to go ahead and say that instead of minor rewrites and name changes, this next one, the rewrite of Sounds of Someday, is going to be a whole new story. The basic plot will stay the same but so many details are going to be changed that it's going to read as all new.

Master lists are going to be posting throughout the next month. Mostly actor specific ones that I've been having in my drafts for far too long. They will be updated accordingly.

Most of my upcoming stuff will be collections - stories set in the same universe that don't have to be read together and contain multiple main characters. The first of those is my country club collection - A Drive For Love - starting with Golf Pro Bradley Bradshaw.

Last year I promised a Dad!Jake series. Well, good news on that front. I'm about halfway through writing the series. You'll Be In My Heart should be debuting in the next month or so. It does have to go back through my betas but each chapter will be a different POV and will vary in word count but will contain one scene. The FMC has been changed from a reader to an OC. I'm sure this will affect readership but I don't really care.

I think that's about it on that front. I want to send out a couple of shoutouts to a couple of people before I finish here.

First, @princessmisery666, Stacey, babe, I don't know what I'd do without you. You've become the Opie to my Jax, the level headed guiding light to my chaotic ways. Though you do encourage some of my more angsty ideas and I love you for that. I love you, period. I got this. 💞

To @ryebecca. You're my twinsie and my sounding board. You help my rational brain take over the emotional side more often than not and never make me feel bad for having a different opinion. I love you mostest.

To @imjess-themess and @blue-aconite. You two beautiful souls keep me grounded on days where I'm trying to dissociate all the time. I know you don't realize the things you do to help my mental state lately but just know that the two of you mean the world to me. I love you both.

@fuckyeahhangman. What can I say about your gorgeous face other than I absolutely love it like a cat loves sunshine.

@wildbornsiren My swamp gremlin. The amount of times I've turned to you when I've had a bad day is steadily increasing and I am so grateful for your acceptance of my insanity. I love you!

And last but certainly not least @never--doubt. I know I say it all the time, but I'm so proud of you and so thankful for your friendship. You're like the little sibling I always wanted and I'm so happy that we found one another through this hellsite.

If you're reading this and you're not listed, fret not. I still love you. I just might have forgotten what your new URLs are.

[legendfinder]

have u seen the new jacob geller video? seems like itd b up your alley. id be curious to hear your thoughts on the philosophy of archival he talks about

Oh it was DEFINITELY up my alley, as an (at the very least) above-average obsessed fan of archiving my life's work to the best of my abilities. Geller brings up a really good point I've had to wrestle with, myself: What's the extent to which I can, well, archive?

Lately I've had to omit archiving multiple versions of my art because there's just... so many. Often I found myself erasing old versions just to put new ones in, only occasionally regretting it months or years later. There's some physical doodles I just haven't been able to archive, some that are probably lost forever. Sometimes I go about my day and check Discord only to find something missing I can't quite put my finger on; another server, deleted. How much do I archive of myself? Every word? Every pen stroke? Every conversation? Every thought, every dream, every morsel of food, every footstep, every blink, every fucking breath I've ever taken? Where does it stop?

The answer is it doesn't stop. At least, if you want a full archive of yourself. Different people have focused on different things, yeah. Some make dream journals, others make food diaries, others digitize their notebooks, others have github repositories or the like. But by god, is it hopeless to do everything.

I've tried to back those servers up, but, well... They get updated every day. I can't make backups of every server, every day. Archiving takes time, immense amounts of time, out of my day. Lately, I've been going to class lectures only to spend the time archiving my mind-boggling collection of notebook doodles from high school, for a purpose that isn't really that important right now. I'm not saying it's a universal experience, but to me, the process and goal of archiving puts me violently in the past and violently in the future, and rarely in the present.

I find myself just scrolling through my Everything Drive aimlessly, taking in the same colors I've already looked at for years, and it just feels like... I'm getting nothing new done. And then I continue building up this Everything Drive, for some unforeseeable unattainable "ideal" state that will never happen. I look back and I look forward constantly and sometimes I forget I can just step back and take in the moment as it is, without having to save an audio log of it, without having to record a video of it, without having to be constantly in fear of the decay of my memories. (Note that I have nothing against recording videos of things. I mean, I do that. A lot. That's why I bring it up. It just gets a bit too much after a while. I have 2000 videos and 2000 audio recordings on my phone. I barely ever check them.)

Callie, you probably have a few art pieces that might not be accessible anymore, because you might have put them in a discord server and just... Never kept a copy on your computer. Even for the art you made that is still accessible... How will you even go through the effort of collecting and archiving them, now? I got lucky to start my Everything Drive project relatively "early", in 2020, because Unus Annus scared lil ol me. Even then, I had a lot of work before me. I can't imagine starting that same project now, 3 years later.

On a slightly related note, sometimes a friend's hard drive just gets wiped. Sometimes someone's art hosting site gets taken down. Sometimes there's even something as mundane as someone quickly deleting their discord message as a joke. Things get deleted all the time, outside of my control.

I try to archive as much of myself as possible, but that's basically where I stop. Just myself. I can't archive everyone else to the extent I do for myself. I just hope they get to archive at least a small piece of themselves, their own way.

Back to Geller's video, though. I wanna say, The Internet Archive isn't fully a forever archive. People can try, yeah, and with enough people, something could very well last forever. But with individual items, it's a different story. I used to be very into the Archie Sonic comics, all for one specific character (if you want to know, it's Shard the Metal Sonic). Internet Archive, at that time, had a collection of pretty much every archie sonic comic, neatly organized and easily accessible straight from the website. It was a beautiful thing. Months later, trying to find a panel of a comic to take a screenshot of, I realized the collection had been taken down for copyright reasons. Sure, there's other collections of Archie Sonic comics, but those often fail to capture... Everything. Even the one I was looking at probably failed to capture everything. Some only have the early era of the comics, some only have the comics from Ian Flynn onwards. Some omit the spinoffs, others omit the end pages of the comics with fan mail and whatnot. One collection appears to be the most substantial, but seems to have forgotten a few pages in a few issues. It's just... Impossible, really. To get everything, and make it out in one piece.

I can't capture my paper doodles as accurately as they appear; in the Everything Drive, you zoom in enough, and you see pixels. There aren't pixels in real life. If I were to preserve every page of my high school notebooks, the scale of the collection would become gargantuan and completely inaccessible; just like Borges' map. I don't currently have the resources to download every video I've ever put on youtube or every stream I've done on twitch, and keep them on some external hard drives. I certainly don't have the space or even the time to preserve everything I love, everything I wish could stay just a little bit longer on this Earth. We all have our times to go, and all we can do is move just a few centimeters higher on this sinking ship.

So here I am, carving out my own corner, displaying only a select few categories of what I wish to preserve about myself. And in this corner, I'm happy.

Sorry if this rant is unhinged. I'm not deleting any of it. Guess I'm staying true to this topic, lmao.

I want to end by saying that if anyone wants to scroll through my Everything Drive (a google drive collection of as many digital + physical things ive made as im able to find and archive), I can send you a link! Just dm me if you wanna. Haven't fully finished organizing some recent art projects and a vast majority of my notebook doodles, but there's still already a fuck ton of shit in there.

Also my music streaming platform of choice is VLC Media Player

[slayingfiction]

Just push me down a reversing escalator, omg god I’m going to figure out how proform a taxidermy so i can give myself a well deserve labotonmy and then keep my perfectly preserved empty to all intelligent thought head on display so i can be publicly shamed for the rest of this poor exploited planets existence (humans to earth is as excrement in nail is to humans) like the actual Dunce that i am, i wrote 10,000 words and technology hates my shrivelled scrotum soul and didnt save the draft nkt only that it then descides out mary had a fricky lamb nowhere to refresh. The torment. The anguish. This stuff can make someone try to summon the devil for a favor or some goddamn braincells on my part.

So my question is have you ever lost a large amount of writing or just an amount that you can never see again, its lost in the void its yeeted out your skull, if so what did you do, if not then i'll just be in my basement snacking on my breakdown.

Babe. I'm so sorry. That is heartbreaking.

Much like you, technology hates me and I have had significant amounts of work lost on several occasions. It's one of the worst things I believe could possibly happen to a writer. Here are the steps I go through when this happens.

Search all over to find if you can find a way to recover your material. Ask people, google search, bring it to a specialist IT person if you want, do whatever you need to to get it back if possible. If you cannot get your material back, continue to the next steps.

Grieve. Trust me, no know will judge you for this. Every time I lost my work I would cry, and I mean ugly cry, and have a panic attack. I once even made my sister drive me 20 minutes into the city while I had a panic attack in the middle of a black out to see if I lost all my progress. Grieve, cry, break something. It doesn’t matter. When you write, you put a piece of your soul into it, and now that piece is lost forever. Take your time and properly process what you have lost and cannot get back. When you feel you are ready, move on to the next step.

Get a system in place so that you always have your work saved. Examples: when writing, have a timer on you phone to press save every 20 minutes. Turn on auto save. Keep multiple copies on your laptop, multiple USBs and the cloud. Write in a source that doesn’t need internet in case your internet goes out. Save every chapter in separate files, and a separate document with the full work.

Write down as much as you can remember from your writing. Over the days you can hopefully start to remember a few more things and keep adding to it. You’re much less likely to remember in a state of panic, but try to get to this asap. Short term memory is strongest, but can get lost quickly enough.

Start writing again. Yes, you will feel anxious that it’s going to happen again, and that maybe it’s not worth it. That is completely up to you to decide, but I always think writing is worth it. I’ve had my story improve while writing it the second time, and I’ve also been disappointed that it wasn’t as good as the first time. Write it anyways. If it was only your first draft, it was likely to change anyways in subsequent drafts anyways.

I have lost thousands of words of work, so I can relate to how you feel. It’s devastating and heart wrenching, and I wish you all the best in your writing. If you any any more questions, need any more tips or just want to rant, feel free to reach out. I would be happy to listen. Hopefully this helps you and any others experiencing this.

Happy Writing! @lilyjaycee27

[regularponyfan]

Thoughts on The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday Part 1

I finally got around to watching this for the first time on Christmas Day, and since then have rewatched it twice. It’s long overdue, but after my third viewing, here are my extensive thoughts on my favorite criminal gang’s newest misadventure:

(Also, stick around til the end where I go through my predictions for the special and see how many things I got right.)

Wait…hold the phone… “A Netflix SERIES”? Holy crap, did they just confirm a “Bad Guys Animated Series” for Netflix?! 🤩🤩🤩

Ok, I know this is just the opening credits and I shouldn’t take it too seriously, but how is Webs able to support the other guys’ weights without collapsing?

Also, she’s a tarantula. She shouldn’t be able to create string (Normally this wouldn’t bother me, except she explicitly states tarantulas can’t make webs in a deleted scene for the movie. Kinda makes her nickname ironic, huh?)

OMG GUYS, I think this is going to become its own series! They even put the title and credits at the bottom of the first scene as if it’s just a regular episode!

Ok, let’s go ahead and get the obvious out of the way: the animation is godawful. I understand they’re on a budget, but c’mon, was it that hard to give us some inbetweens here and there? And don’t get me started on those uncanny facial expressions. (I’ll give more specific examples on how terrible this thing is animated later on.)

The special starts with Wolf directly telling the audience that the story takes place before the Bad Guys turned good…like, he actually looks at the camera and tells us this while he’s driving in the first scene…I know one of Wolf’s abilities is breaking the fourth wall, but as far as I can tell, he can’t predict the future. Why didn’t they just do a voiceover?

Speaking of voices, I’m probably the only one who doesn’t have a problem with the new voice actors (the only one I don’t like is Tarantula’s. IDK, she just sounds off to me. Also, my reaction when I learned Snake’s voice actor played Mickey Mouse: 🤯)

They really should’ve put Shark in the seat behind Wolf instead of Piranha. The little dude is barely visible. XD

Speaking of which, what happened to their car? It looks nothing like the one they use in the movie. Do they have multiple cars or something? I mean, I guess that shouldn’t surprise me because of everything else they “own.”

And while we’re on the topic of “things looking different,” why is Wolf the only one who didn’t receive a new holiday getup?

The Bad Guys (or Webs specifically) now use the term “normies” to describe the citizens of L.A. Ok then…

Of course Piranha likes stinky cheeses 😂. My question is, why’d he try to lie about it? And more importantly, why did he not fart when he did? (They actually bring this up in the special’s novelization.)

It’s a shame we don’t get to see Diane or the chief, but at least my girl Tiffany is back 😁! Now please don’t ever have her do that ridiculous arm-waving motion again. (BTW, Lyoko Comic Dubs, if you’re reading this and need me to do more lines, hit me up 😉).

“IT’S THE BAD GUYS!!!” Um…yeah, lady. They’ve been driving around the city this whole time and weren’t trying to hide it. How are you the first one to notice them?

This special marks the first time movie-verse Snake addresses Wolf as “Wolfie.” It probably shouldn’t be a big deal to me since Webs calls him that all the time, buuuuuuut…🥰🥰🥰🥰

“That’s very not good.” Who said that? It couldn’t have been Wolf ‘cause his lips weren’t moving! 😂

Speaking of animation errors, Snake manages to teleport from the passenger seat to the back in just one shot.

“This isn’t that famous balloon everybody’s freakishly emotionally attached to, is it?” “No, no, no. This is a different giant Santa-shaped balloon.” …I adore this cynical reptile so much. 🥰

And now the Santa balloon is on fire…sure, why not?

Wow, Santa burning up is so tragic, we can even hear Lola Loud crying all the way from Michigan!

And now we get the special’s official title screen. So…what was the point of dropping its name in the beginning then?

What do you know? It turns out that wasn’t Lola Loud crying, but the same woman who warned the citizens about the Bad Guys…even though she never sounded like that before. Gal does great impressions, I gotta say!

“He was like a father to me.” What is it with “The Bad Guys” and daddy issues? XD

They canceled Christmas…because of a balloon…can’t they just…I don’t know, buy another one?

Furthermore, why do the Bad Guys feel the need to cancel their heist because of some guards? They seemed perfectly capable of bypassing security at the Golden Dolphin award ceremony. Was it against their moral standards at this point? Did they just randomly decide one day: “Eh, you know what? We’re criminals, we can do whatever we want to guards. Screw our morality.”

Piranha goes from fake sleeping on a pillow…to Shark’s arm. Animation error aside, that’s actually kind of adorable.

Good lord, that “jumping animation.” 😩 What is this, the Looney Tunes?

It’s sad that the Bad Guys’ attempt at recreating the Santa balloon is more pleasant to look at than some of the close-up shots in this special (We’ll get to those soon, trust me.)

They made a Die Hard reference…in a children’s cartoon…That. Is. Awesome! 🤩

“That guy’s a legend! He parties with ghosts and wears a dress to bed!” Methinks Piranha may be suppressing some hidden desires. 😆

In all seriousness, I would love to see the Bad Guys’ rendition of “A Christmas Carol.” But, sorry Shark ol’ buddy; as great of an actor you are, no one fits the role of Scrooge better than a certain grouchy serpent. 😊

“That sounds a lot like Robin Hood, who is notoriously good.” Spoken like a true Sir Hiss, Snakey my boy 👍. (You know what, screw the last point. I wanna see the “Bad Guys” version of Robin Hood now.)

“He ruined tights for me.” Oh, is that the reason Webs doesn’t wear pants? 😆

Maybe I’m just out of touch with reality, but why does the stereo have two slots for MP3s?

The Bad Guys explicitly state they find most Christmas things to be awful…yet Webs has a holiday playlist? 🤔

“Piranha will help Webs get to the antenna.” Why? Can’t she crawl her way up? Why does Piranha need to be there? Did they just need to give him something to do? Because if that’s the case, can’t he help Wolf and Snake deliver presents? Unless…Wolf wants some one-on-one time with his “best bud.” 🥰🥰🤫🤫

“Buddy, I don’t work with sidekicks.” Scrooge? A sidekick? This lady’s obviously never read the book. Or watched DuckTales.

Did anyone else see Snake’s face before he delivered the first present? It’s almost as if he was saying: “Only for you, Wolfie. Only for you.” 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

“What? You’ve never seen an ab before?” Why Snake, are you showing off for Wolf right now? 😉

It’s honestly adorable that these two know each other so well, they automatically guess when the other is hiding something.

Wait a minute…I’m confused. Normally, Shark’s paper-thin disguises always work no matter how minimal they are. But the second he loses just one piece of the disguise, it doesn’t work anymore? What? (In case you’re wondering, his hat falls off and even though he still has the mutton chops, he’s nearly recognized. Then later on, all he has on is a mustache and that’s enough to fool the shaved ice vendor. Again, what? 🤨)

Yes, Shark. Go ahead and keep talking into your earpiece OUT LOUD while the radio lady is beating you up. That won’t make her suspicious at all. *sigh*

I love Webs’ face after Piranha’s song.

Shark and Piranha refer to each other as “fin bros.” Not gonna lie, that’s really cute 😊.

Good thinking, Wolf. Making it snow when 3/5 of your team is cold-blooded. I can’t see this ending badly at all. 🙄

Ok, as stupid as it is, I love the interaction between Shark and the shaved ice vendor. It’s probably the funniest part of the whole thing.

Of course Wolf doesn’t listen to Webs and turns the machine up to 11 (oops, I mean 10). Again, does he not realize how fatal this could be for the others?

[pumpkichia]

The Kerberos Mission

---Kerberos: Moon of Pluto---

Three astronauts gather on the moon orbiting Pluto, "Kerberos", trying to wrap up the expedition they were sent on.

"Easy son, this ice is delicate." Samuel Holt states, examining the piece of ice being ejected by a machine. They have drilled a hole in the satellite's surface, extracting samples to analyze and bring back to their home planet, Earth.

"Amazing. Isn't this exciting Shiro?" Matthew Holt asks. The kid Matthew Holt had just barely became a member of the Galaxy Garrison, a military regiment tasked with obtaining knowledge of space. His father Samuel Holt has been on a couple missions in the past, but this is the furthest they've ever traveled.

"You guys get a little more excited about ice samples than I do." Shiro laughs, holding the retractor. Takashi Shirogane, also known as Shiro, is a junior office at the Galaxy Garrison.

"This is history in the making. Not only have we traveled farther than any human ever has, but this ice could hold microscopic clues about the existence of life outside Earth." says Samuel Holt.

"Think of it, Dad. We could use those clues to become the first people to meet aliens." Matt says, excitingly.

"My life's work would be complete." Samuel Holt states. Just as they finish ejecting the final ice sample, rumbling is heard from behind the three astronauts.

"What is that? Seismic activity?" Samuel Holt questions.

"We should get back to the ship." exclaims Shiro. Over the horizon of Kerberos, the three see what looks like an alien ship.

"What is that?" Samuel Holt yells. The front of the massive ship can now be seen. It's intimidating nature would make it so that anyone would be in shock at just the size of the ship.

"Run! Come on, run!" Shiro yells, ushering the two astronauts to sprint. A bright purple light gleams from the massive alien ship, wrecking what major progress they have made on Pluto's moon. Screams of the astronauts can be heard as the light seemed to capture them and hurdle them upwards towards the inside of the ship.

---Shiro's POV---

"Emperor Zarkon," I heard a muffled voice state. "we were scouting System X-9-Y as ordered when we found these primitive scientists." My head was still pounding from the impact, but I managed to open my eyes to see that I was someplace other than the moon Kerberos.

"I don't think they know anything useful." says an unknown creature standing in front of me. He was facing what seemed to be a screen with another unknown being projected onto it.

"Take them back to the main fleet for interrogation." Says the projected being. I turn to face my comrades, but they still seem to be unconscious.

"The druids will find out what they know." I could only think to try to reason with them.

"Please, we come from a peaceful planet! We mean you no harm! We're unarmed!" I shout. Just then I feel a sharp pain hit my back as I lunge forward. I go unconscious. As I fade in and out of consciousness, I can see myself being dragged down a corridor of sorts. One of my comrades, Matthew I believe, was being forced to walk alongside a tall robot-like being. I can see what looks like prisoners peeking from beyond their enclosures.

"Look, they brought in another one." "Who is it?" "Over there. It's another one." I can hear the prisoners whispering. As I am being dragged, I look around to see where exactly I am. Just then I look out a passing window and see what looks like a whole prison complex with multiple floors. No way this shit is actually happening, right?

---Earth- five days later…---

---Alex's POV---

"I got it fixed, try starting the engine!" I say, signaling the "ok" to the pilot.

"Running nice and smoothly!" The pilot yells back. "I'm gonna take it for a test drive." I nod, backing away from the ship. I was one of the only engineers in our class that was actually able to work on ships without careful monitoring from the commander.

"Alex!" yells Keith, running in through the doors with a panicked look on his face. The engineering department of the Galaxy Garrison is in a big garage outside of the main corridor.

"Keith? What's wrong?" I asked, concerned. What was Keith doing here? Shouldn't he be in class?

"So you haven't heard yet?" Keith asks, slightly out of breath. "Heard what?" I question. Whatever it is it can't be that bad, right?

"It's Shiro… The Garrison said they failed the mission. They wouldn't tell me if he died or what but-" Keith stumbled across his words. "No." I reply. "NO. That isn't possible." Shiro is one of the best astro explorers known to man. He was top of his class, one of the youngest to make junior officer, there's just no way something happened.

"I know.. Whatever happened, we'll get to the bottom of it." Keith says "I can break into the Admiral's office and check her computer-"

"No." I respond "You're this close to being kicked out of the program, I don't want you to risk it. Just leave it to me."

"Well, what are you gonna do" he asks. "I don't know yet." I say, looking at the ship I just repaired as it flies overhead.

---One Year Later…---

"Galaxy Garrison flight log 5-11-14. Begin descent to Kerberos for rescue mission." Says Lance McClain, a cadet of the Galaxy Garrison. They were on a training mission to rescue a Lunar Vessel from the planet Kerberos. Lance's dark brown eyes focus on the monitor ahead of him.

Hunk groans "Lance, can you keep this thing straight?" Tsuyoshi "Hunk" Garret is an engineering cadet for the Galaxy Garrison.

"Relax, Hunk, I'm just getting a feel for the stick. I mean, it's not like I did this!" Lance aims the steering wheel upward, making the entire ship unsteady. "Or this!" Lance exclaims, aiming the steering wheel to the left. Hunk groans from his motion sickness.

"Okay, unless you want to wipe puke out of all the little nooks and crannies in this thing, you'd better knock it off, man!" Hunk yells, sweat gathering on his orange bandana.

"We've picked up a distress beacon!" alerted Pidge Gunderson, a communications cadet. She is one of the youngest in her class, at only 17 years old.

"All right, look alive, team! Pidge, track coordinates." Lance states as he starts their descent on Pluto's moon a little harshly. Lance smirks, knowing he'll get backlash from his engineering companion.

"Knock it off, Lance! Please!" Hunk exclaims wearily. You can hear a computer beeping in the background, signaling an error message. Even with a hydraulic stabilizer built into the ship, the ship starts rumbling tremendously.

"Oh, no" Hunk says, sickly. "Oh, no. Fix now, puke later." Lance says dryly.

"I lost contact. The shaking is interfering with our sensors." Pidge states, trying to fix the error messages.

"Come on, Hunk!" Lance turns to face Hunk. "It's not responding." Hunk moans and gets up to fix the sensors.

"Oh, never mind, fellas. Thar she blows." Lance states as he sees the location pop up. "Preparing for approach on visual."

"I don't think that's advisable with our current mechanical and-" Pidge pauses as Hunk throws up into their engineering box. "-gastrointestinal issues…"

"Agreed." says Hunk, hurrying back to his seat.

"Stop worrying, this baby can take it. Can't ya champ?" Lance smirks. "Pidge, hail down to them and let them know their ride is here." As Pidge stands up to broadcast their message, the entire ship rumbles, causing Pidge to fall flat on her face. Her glasses fall off the bridge of her nose.

"Pidge, what are you doing? Buckle your belt. And Hunk, stop that shaking!" Lance says.

"Attention Lunar Vessel, this is Galaxy Garrison Rescue Craft One Victor Six Three Tango. Coming in for landing and extraction-" Pidge states. "-against crew recommendations." she mutters under her breath.

"No time for your mutinous comments now. They're going under and we're going in." Lance smirks, lowering the ship.

"Watch out for that overhang!" Pidge yells, clutching to her seat. Her light brown eyes wide with terror.

"No worries. My first year in flight school, they called me "The Taylor" because of how I thread the needle." Lance laughs, trying to fly the ship through an opening. Unfortunately, Lance ended up crashing into the overhang, losing a wing in the process. "Oh, man." Lance sighs.

The ship's monitor displays a failure message as the three cadets exit the simulated ship.

"Nice work, Taylor" Pidge says with an angry expression on her face.

"Roll out, donkeys. Well, let's see if we can't use this complete failure as a lesson for the rest of you students." States the Commander of the Garrison Regiment. "Shit, if you guys are gonna be this bad individually, at least quit arguing and be able to work in a team! Galaxy Garrison exists to turn cadets like you into the next generation of elite astro explorers. But these kind of mental mistakes are exactly what cost the lives of the men on the Kerberos Mission."

The commander turns towards Lance. "I hope I don't need to remind you that the only reason you're here is that the best pilot in your class had a discipline issue and flunked out. Don't follow in his footsteps."

---Later that Night---

"Lights out in five! Everyone back to their dorms, now." says the commander, parading down the hallway.

"We shouldn't be doing this." Says Hunk, sneaking around the corner. His caramel eyes shifty from nervousness.

"You heard Commander Iverson. We need to bond as a team." Lance smirks, peeking out to see if he has a shot at sneaking through the hallway. "We're going to grab Pidge, hit the town, loosen up, meet some nice girls, maybe-" Lance gets interrupted by the lights getting shut off.

"I'm just saying this here, right now, on the record. This is a bad idea." Hunk says as Lance glares at him. Lance dashes down the hallway without getting seen and Hunk follows swiftly behind him.

"You know, for someone in a space exploration program, you don't have much of a sense of adventure." Lance scoffs.

"All of your little adventures end up with me in the commander's office." Hunk states. Lance peeks through a window to make sure no one was paying attention to him and Hunk running away. They swiftly crawl under the window, but right as they were about to turn the corner, they see Pidge exit her room.

"Where is she going?" asks Lance. The two cadets follow Pidge up to the rooftop of the building, where Pidge had set up a bunch of electronics around her.

"You come up here to rock out?" Lance whispers, lifting up Pidge's headphones. Pidge gasps and turns around to see that her two team members had followed her up to the rooftop.

"Oh, Lance, Hunk. No, um, just looking at the stars." She says, trying to block their view of her computers.

"Where'd you get this stuff? It doesn't look like Garrison tech." Lance says.

"I built it." Pidge says smugly. "With this thing, I can scan all the way to the edge of the solar system."

"That right? All the way to Kerberos?" Lance asks. Pidge gives him a loud sigh. "You go ballistic every time the instructors bring it up. What's your deal? " At this point Pidge looks as if she's holding something back.

"Look, Pidge, if we're gonna bond as a team, we can't have any secrets." Lance scowls.

"Fine. The world as you know it is about to change." Pidge says mysteriously. "The Kerberos Mission wasn't lost because of some malfunction or crew mistake. So, I've been scanning the system and picking up alien radio chatter."

"Whoa. What? Aliens?" Hunk asks. "Okay. So you're insane. Got it." Lance says mockingly, crossing his arms.

Pidge frowns. "I'm serious. They keep repeating one word, "Voltron." And tonight, it's going crazier than I've ever heard it." Pidge picks up and points to her notepad with the word "Voltron" written on it.

"How crazy?" Lance asks. But before Pidge could give an explanation, the emergency alarms start ringing.

The PA system blares. "Attention, students. This is not a drill. We are on lockdown! Security situation Zulu Niner. Repeat: all students are to remain in barracks until further notice."

"What's going on?" Hunk asks concerningly. "Is that a meteor?" Hunk points to the speck of light in the sky. It seemed to be on fire, heading not far from the Galaxy Garrison Headquarters.

Pidge grabs her binoculars out of her bag. "It's a ship." She states, looking out the binoculars. Lance snatches them away from her. "Holy shit! I can't believe what I'm seeing! That's not one of ours."

"No, it's one of theirs." Pidge gasps, falling to her knees. "So, wait. There really are aliens out there?" Hunk asks. Shortly after, the ship zips past them and crashes straight into the canyon by the Garrison HQ. A ball of light surrounding the fallen vessel. The three cadets could see the Galaxy Garrison's shuttles leaving headquarters and rushing towards the ship.

"We've gotta see that ship!" Pidge exclaims running after them. "Hunk, come on." Lance commands, following Pidge.

"Oh, this is the worst team building exercise ever." Hunk groans, running after the two.

[she-who-the-river-could-not-hold]

Rambling March Updates

A little bit of a fun update for this month and moving forward, since I’ve been feeling a shift in how I approach my creative work (and well, everything else too) and I feel like organizing my thoughts somewhere. It’s technically the 2nd of March, but after a mini vacation post half-marathon, I definitely feel like it’s a valid bookend to semi start at. I’m in my usual “time to overhaul my life and plans” mood so it’s fitting for that as well, like a spring cleaning for the mind!

Writing Updates:

I’m about halfway through my celebration oneshot, which is a Bellarke AU based on the winning tropes from my survey that I ran during my follower celebration. So in a sense it’s a collaborative fic which is pretty fun! I’m liking it so far, though I do feel a bit rusty writing the Bellarke again after taking a bit of a break.

If you somehow missed my excessive reblogs, I finished my longest fic ever last month (hence another writing break)! It was for Stranger Things/Hellcheer (Eddie x Chrissy) and ended up clocking in at just under 80k words. Pretty astounding and I haven’t really processed how long it is. I feel like I need to reread it just to bask in the accomplishment and to also remember what I wrote lol.

Organizing the new month means updating my word count calendar, and with it I’ll probably spend some time reworking some outlining and WIP plans. I still like most of my WIPs that are unfinished, though one or two might get axed and abandoned. But the ones I want to finish deserve a polishing up and fixed outlines so I feel more confident getting back into them! And of course, organizing some new fic ideas I have and seeing if I can prep myself into making them shorter, easier projects for the main reason I’m about to share!

The biggest reason I want to spend time narrowing down my approach and what I want to write in terms of fanfic is that I’ve finally confirmed to myself that I want to write my own original novel. The idea started bouncing around in my head and I tried to ignore. Thought about it a little longer, told my husband about it, and he enthusiastically insisted that I legitimately consider writing it. And now I can’t stop thinking about it, so I’m going to give it a go! I can’t let myself think about any goals beyond writing it, but I am excited to see how that goal can fit and how I can push myself with it and hopefully actually write it. 

Design/Visual Creative Updates:

I do want to eventually finish my Stranger Things episode gif sets. I find them incredibly relaxing to make and a nice little visual stimulation break! 

More episode posters such as this one are also something on the back burner. Mainly because I’m also considering expanding my efforts in an online shop and I think it would be cool to include them! A part of that is organizing the categories of work I want to do, as well as the very tedious element of figuring out a name for the shop so that I feel comfortable sharing it across platforms. Hopefully updates on that will come down the line by the summer!

In non-fandom thoughts, I desperately need to update my graphic design portfolio and take new headshots. It’s driving me bananas at how much I’ve stalled on that so that needs to be a priority 

I’m determined to learn how to book bind this year and turn my own fics into physical copies (also a nice tie in for my own potential novel). We’ll see how that goes––it’ll be added to my long list of physical creative projects I want to get into this year!

I’ve negotiated my current contract to being a four day work week, so I’m excited to see my schedule start to form in a way that I can maximize my time and work on more personal projects!

However all of this comes on the back of that my husband and I are officially looking to move to a new state and city! Which means there’s a buzzing amount of stress just consistently in my mind right now, which will most definitely multiple over time as we actually have to complete the process. That means I’ll probably put a lot of this all on pause later this month and into April, but I also think that moving to a bit of a slower paced lifestyle is also going to be really good for both of our goals moving forward. Very exciting and very scary at the same time as we look to start a new chapter in our lives!

Onward to updating Notion and hopefully getting some good work in today! Happy almost spring!