#which means. i might redo this piece once or twice

[local-magpie]

staring at this kaladin WIP like is this working. is this working or do i just think its working. i feel like im just copying other fanart despite only using clothing references. is this somehow too close to other work or is this a two cakes situation.

[trashmenofmarvel]

Branded - Chapter 38

Pairing: Demon!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: You deal with the consequences of Bucky's actions.

(This is a fan AU of Falling’s Just Another Way to Fly by araniaart​ . Please check out this incredible series for all of your demon Bucky needs.)

Chapter Warnings: Angst, whump, violence

AO3

You didn’t return home that night. The sorcerers wanted to monitor your vitals and made sure you were stabilized after the shock of the bond being suppressed. The agony you’d experienced hadn’t hurt you physically, even though it had felt like dying.

Now you felt… lost. You weren’t even numb, because being numb meant you at least knew what you were feeling. This was different and so much worse.

At least twice an hour you lifted you head from where you laid in the bed, some part of you yearning, reaching out to Bucky and expecting him to be there. But there was nothing across the bond, across the thread you hadn’t realized was there until it was gone.

The mark was still on your shoulder, but it appeared dormant. Faded pink like a fresh scar. The sorcerers said it had worked and you would no longer be compelled to be fed upon.

All you did was give a vague nod. You hadn’t spoken a word since Bucky had been frozen.

Rogers, for his part, never strayed far. He was clearly off-balance with the situation and didn’t seem to know what to do any more than you did. Bucky had sprung this on you both, and the angry part of you said he’d abandoned you to pick up the pieces yourself.

Perhaps it was cruel and unfair of you to feel that way, but anger was better than despair. You were too empty and wrung-out to cry, and perhaps that was a blessing.

It was well into the early hours of the morning when you finally dozed off, and when you woke before noon, Rogers had fallen asleep in the armchair by the bed. Just like Bucky had done when you’d woken up in this room the first time.

But he wasn’t Bucky. He could never be a substitute. A part of you wondered if that’s what Bucky had been thinking when he’d contacted Rogers. Maybe he hadn’t gone that far, but asking his best friend to “care for his girl” while he was gone sounded like some old chivalrous bullshit that he might pull. Goddammit, he might have even said as much to Rogers, assuring him that it was all right if you “moved on.”

You eyed the blond Avenger and grimaced.

When Bucky unfreezes, I’m going to punch him in his beautiful fucking face.

The thought was surprisingly reassuring, because it meant you truly believed he would wake up. In fact, you were going to guarantee it, even if you had to take matters into your own hands. Bucky had mentioned a library, and Strange was supposed to re-test you and teach you, whatever that meant.

Which meant you would be in the Sanctum on a regular basis…

…which also meant you could not only do some research on your own, you could visit every day.

They would let you visit, wouldn’t they? You didn’t know, but at least you could reassure yourself that the bond had nothing to do with your feelings for Bucky. They were as solid as ever, which was both a relief and a curse. His absence was already heavy in your chest, and it felt more akin to grief than just simply missing someone.

You got out of bed, seizing onto the determination to start, today, to help Bucky. It was New Year’s, after all. Time to get a fucking move on.

“Hey, Rogers. Wake up.” You nearly kicked his shoe but refrained, which was probably a good thing considering your voice alone startled him awake.

“Sorry.” He rubbed his face. “I must have dozed off.”

You ignored his apology.

“Do you want to help Bucky?”

“Huh?” He blinked, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand. Apparently, Captain America was a slow waker. “Of course I do.”

“Good. I need to ask a favor.”

“What… kind of favor?”

“You’d just be carrying some things, that’s all.” Sheesh, what was with the nervous tone? What did he think you were going to ask? You folded your arms over your chest, resisting the urge to tap your foot against the floor. “I need to pack up my stuff and move it here. Strange is going to train me, or at least he should, and while he’s doing that, I’m going to do all the research I can into demon bonds. We’re going to free Bucky.”

“Whoa, slow down.” He rose out of the chair, forcing you back a small step. You’d forgotten how damn big he was. “What are you talking about? Didn’t Buck want you to move into his loft?”

“Yes,” you grit through your teeth. “But I need to be here. I’m sure Strange won’t mind if it means he gets to keep a closer eye on me. So, by the end of the day, I need to move all my clothes to the Sanctum and the rest into storage.”

Rogers rubbed the back of his head, one hand propped on his hip as he frowned at you.

“Aren’t you moving a little too fast?” He winced.  “I mean, I don’t know you, but shouldn’t you take some time to think about this?”

“To think about what? I need to be here and I don’t have the money to waste paying rent on an apartment I’m not using.”

“Oh.” His eyes widened. “Well, don’t worry about that. I can take care of your rent. It’s no trouble.”

Your eyes narrowed. Could have sworn you saw the sweat droplets form on his forehead, too.

“Did Bucky ask you to do that?”

His uncomfortable smile was all the answer you needed.

“I don’t mind, really.” His smile became more genuine and less nervous. “Got a backlog of pay from the US Government I wouldn’t know what to do with. I can afford it.”

“Listen, Rogers,” you said, trying to keep your voice even. “I appreciate the offer, I know you didn’t have to do that, but I’m fine now. You don’t need to take care of me.”

Hoping he got the picture, you turned and left the room you’d already designated as yours. You needed to run your plan past Strange or Wong, and then you could get started right away. That was the solution to both Bucky’s freedom and the painful effects of the severed bond. When you were distracted, your mind churning with ideas, it was easier to ignore the black hole occupying your chest.

Unfortunately, a second set of footsteps caught up with you, the owner of the voice a little sheepish.

“Bucky said you’d say as much.”

“Did he also tell you how stubborn and willful I am?” you responded sharply. “Maybe even threw in the word reckless?”

Rogers surprised you with a small laugh.

“Almost word for word.”

“Well, he’s not exactly one to talk,” you huffed. The man at your side just smiled wider.

“No, he’s not.”

“Good. Then you agree that Bucky is being an absolute idiot and something has to be done about it.”

“Hey, whoa.” A hand reached out to stop you from walking. You barely tolerated it and craned your head back to glare up at him. “Listen, I know you’re angry at Bucky, but…”

That was an understatement. He smiled sadly, as if he knew exactly what you were thinking.

“A long time ago, someone much wiser than I am gave me a bit of advice,” Rogers said. “As much as you and I may not like it, this was Bucky’s decision. He deserves the dignity of his choice, even if it hurts. Even if we miss him.”

He looked away toward the high windows where winter light was streaming inside to illuminate the wood floor.

“I wish I’d had more time with him myself, but… there’s nothing we can do. He had his reasons, and it sounds to me like they were very good ones. It will take time, it’ll hurt, but he would want us to move on—“

You pushed Rogers’ hand off your shoulder. Not roughly, but not gently either, and he blinked down at you.

“I’m not giving up on Bucky,” you said, clenching your fists as you fought to keep your tone even. “I’ll never stop looking for a solution. No matter how long it takes.”

With a heated glare, you turned and left Rogers in the hallway, grinding your teeth. You’d thought Steve Rogers would have understood if anyone could have. But he didn’t, and you were truly alone.

***

You found Wong on the way to Strange’s office, and he agreed to take you there, not looking too surprised to find you practically stomping down the carpet runner.

Strange agreed to redo the tests as well as add on a few that were more “specialized,” whatever that meant. It involved more poking and prodding with arcane instruments, but you never complained. The discomfort was a small price to pay.

The results were the same as before: you were as magically skilled as a brick, and not the kind of brick that went into building magical sanctums, either. But the Ancient One’s words must have held enough clout for that not to matter, because Strange promised you would be training under Wong the next day.

Wong didn’t look too enthused about it, and you couldn’t blame him. Regarding the last disastrous meeting, you apologized for biting him, but he waved you off and said no apology was needed. Regardless, you felt terrible. Not terrible enough for Bucky to be put into a freezing chamber, but still, pretty awful.

As you suspected, Strange didn’t deny your request to move into the Sanctum. Wong gave him a considerable side-eye when he agreed, but you’d gotten what you wanted, and that’s all that mattered.

Steve Rogers, true to his word, helped move most of your belongings to your new room. Monster complained at being put in the carrier—he’d been acting difficult lately—but once you released him into your room he settled down. You wondered what that was about and found your answer when he took off and you chased him down the hallways, leading you to the room that held…

The two guards in front of the door were trying to catch Monster, but he slipped through their fingers like furry oil and scratched and yowled at the door. Tears stung your eyes as you scooped him up, holding him to your chest, and the guards looked extremely put-out.

“Can… can I see him?” You already knew the answer but were still disappointed when you received it.

“Only the Sorcerer Supreme and those with his approval may enter,” one of them said, eyeing Monster.

Your focus went to that heavy, stone door. Intricate glyphs were carved into its surface, and you wondered if even a hobgoblin could slip past them. It took every ounce of your willpower to step away, to leave Bucky all alone, you held Monster tightly as you walked back to your room.

“It’s okay,” you spoke softly into his grey fur. “We’ll be able to visit at some point. I’m sure. If the bond is suppressed, then what danger could there be?”

Danger or not, Strange wouldn’t let you see Bucky. “Not yet,” was his response when you asked. For now, according to him, you needed to focus on your lessons, which consisted of meditation, learning the combat stances (sorcerers could fight?), and learning to conjure.

The meditation part was the easiest, or would have been if your mind wasn’t a constant bundle of anxiety. The martial arts lessons were definitely more interesting, even if your body was laughably clumsy and uncoordinated. You saw other “students” around, but you always trained with Wong alone. When you asked why, he cited the fact you were at the same learning level as a 6 year-old. The hit to your ego made you stop asking about joining the others.

Days turned into a week. A week into two. You’d returned to work, a truly surreal experience especially with seeing Davin again. He was kind and spent more time with you than he used to, sitting with you during lunch and then walking you to your cab after work. A part of you wondered if he knew. If Bucky had asked him to keep an eye on you while he was gone.

You didn’t ask.

Steve Rogers didn’t stop by every day, but he was there at least twice a week. At first it was awkward—what were you supposed to talk about with an Avenger?—but then he began to share history. Tales of his and Bucky’s youth and all the ways they got into trouble. It was through your common interest in Bucky that you began to warm up to each other, and he never had a shortage of stories when it came to his childhood friend.

Sometimes, he would get this yearning expression, and you were uncomfortably reminded that he and Bucky had been much closer than simple friends. You wondered if Rogers knew that you knew.

It was normal for a person to compare themselves to a partner’s ex. You weren’t sure how to feel being compared to Captain America, except the fact you couldn’t compare at all, and Bucky had definitely downgraded. You weren’t a super soldier with biceps the size of melons.

Regardless, Rogers’ company was appreciated and comforting, unlike when it had been simply tolerated before. But by week two, you were no longer coping as well as you once were. Perhaps Wong noticed during your lessons, because when you asked him once again if you could see Bucky, he had a different answer for you.

You stood outside the door, nerves tingling as the two sorcerers on guard duty unlocked the room with some complicated hand gestures. The door swung open heavily on its hinges, and you stepped forward, fists pressed against your thighs.

The room hadn’t changed, still dim and creepy with glyphs running along the walls. The iron chamber was where you’d last seen it, lit from within with a pale, ghostly light. It made the man inside appear barely real, darkness in the hollows in his cheeks and cast by the shadows of his horns.

“No touching,” one sorcerer barked when you reached out toward the lid. You retracted your hand, twisting your finger anxiously as you looked back at the guard.

“Can I have a moment alone?”

“No.”

You turned back to the chamber, your chest aching with the gnawing emptiness that never left. It was worse in Bucky’s presence, but it was worth it just to see him again. To know he was still alive, even when it didn’t feel that way.

There was so much you wanted to say to him, but even a whisper could be overheard in this place. So you thought back to the way you’d communicated with Bucky in the demon realm, a place where you’d had no voice but he’d heard you anyway.

Bucky, if you can hear me… I want you to know I’m so sorry.

He didn’t stir. You hadn’t really expected him to. You should have felt silly to stand there, talking to yourself in your own mind, but you didn’t. If anything, it felt like praying.

I’m going to find a way to set you free. From the bond, from this prison. And then you can go wherever you want and do whatever you want. You don’t… don’t even have to stay with me. You can be with Steve again, if that’s what makes you happy.

You swallowed down the painful lump in your throat and pushed past the heavy weight on your heart.

How many times have I told you I’d never give up on you? I meant it then and I mean it now. Just… hold on a little longer. I’ll figure something out. I’ll do whatever I have to so you can come back. So you can have a life you deserve. It’s the least I can do for… for… This is all my fault, Bucky. The bond, the time-loop, you breaking your deal with the Ancient One. It should be me in there, not you.

You took a steadying breath and blinked away the tears. Tears meant that you had conceded, and you weren’t ready to give up on him. Not now, not ever.

I’ll fix this, Bucky. I will.

I have to.

You stayed as long as you could, even as you shivered and grew colder in the chamber’s presence. It was constructed of thick metal and appeared air-tight, and yet, the longer you stood there the further the temperature dropped. By the time the guards informed you your time was up, you were trembling and your teeth clattered together.

You really, really hoped Bucky couldn’t feel the cold.

***

The resolve to stay away from Bucky’s apartment didn’t last much longer. That night, you informed Wong that you would be spending the night in the penthouse. You used the excuse that you wanted to make sure everything was in order. Maybe Bucky had some plants he needed watered, or something.

Wong just shrugged and said you weren’t a prisoner and could come and go as you pleased. Of course, that’s what he said, but you’d noticed the robed sorcerers trying to blend into the crowds as you got in and out of the cab for work. Bucky had been right when he said the wizards didn’t have parking, and you’d been forced to keep your car at Bucky’s building once you broke your old apartment lease.

You didn’t mind that the sorcerers were watching you. It was comforting in a way, even if a large part of you was still angry at Strange. You were pissed, but your brief encounter with the Ancient One had convinced you that the sorcerers weren’t malicious or evil. They seemed to be trying their best to protect the world from magical threats, even when their efforts fell short.

Tonight though, you wanted to be alone. Away from sorcerers and magic and iron chambers that looked too much like coffins.

After the taxi drove you to the building, the desk clerk greeted you as if he’d been expecting your arrival. You stepped inside the elevator and tried to relax as it carried you to the highest floor. You were exhausted down to your bones; maybe staying the night wasn’t a bad idea after all.

The place was exactly the same as Bucky had left it. There wasn’t even any dust aside from the snow that had gathered on the outside of the clock face windows. It was still too damn cold, and you pulled your coat tighter around you, slowly turning 180 degrees to gather in the large space.

Your old stuffed animal that served as your animus was nowhere to be seen, and you hoped it was someplace safe. Knowing Bucky, it was. Still, you wondered what would happen to it now that the bond was silenced. Would it revert to an ordinary toy, or would it still contain your metaphorical heart?

You weren’t sure you wanted to know the answer.

Pulling off your jacket and shoes, you crawled under the soft covers of Bucky’s bed, stretching out on the silken sheets. That was one thing you’d noticed about his bed. Maybe Bucky really enjoyed soft things, but he didn’t seem like the type to indulge himself. He’d said something about heightened senses; perhaps his skin had been too sensitive for ordinary cotton?

The curiosity in your thoughts tumbled away as you buried yourself into Bucky’s pillows, still strong with his earthy, musky scent. You missed him so much, and the magnitude hadn’t hit you until that moment. You hugged the pillow tight to your chest and allowed the hole in your chest to ache.

You drifted off like that, holding onto the pillow like a lifeline. It could have been minutes or hours later when your eyes snapped open. The hairs on your nape stood straight and your heart raced in a panicked beat. A stench permeated the air, familiar and sickening. Like rotten eggs.

You dashed across the bed, but not fast enough; a hand closed around your ankle and yanked you backwards. You yelled, clawing into the sheets as you were dragged across the mattress, and you hit the ground hard enough to lose your breath.

The face hovering above you was one you thought you’d never see again. Sickly green eyes glowed with malice, and the flower petal-like appendances of its face pulled back to reveal rows of neon green teeth. A mist the same radioactive color as its teeth leaked from its esophagus, and you covered your mouth as you screamed and kicked it in the shin.

The Alp gave a deep, terrifying howl, and you crawled across the floor and then scrambled to your feet.

Where was your phone? Your bag? It was dark, you couldn’t see. You clipped your leg against the couch and fell onto the hardwood floor, banging your knees.

You could hear it coming, its stink in your nostrils even if you couldn’t see it. Your phone was on the nightstand next to the bed, you couldn’t go for it.

Gritting your teeth, nauseous from the smell and the adrenaline, you dashed toward your only hope left: the elevator.

You didn’t make it even halfway. A hand grabbed you by the hair and pulled you back. You cried out, clawing at the fingers holding onto you, but the Alp didn’t relent.

Its other arm grabbed you around the waist, and that’s when the world tilted on its axis. The room spun, colors shifted and glowed together, and your stomach dropped as if you were on a roller coaster. Your surroundings blurred, and for the flash of a second, you saw red dunes and smelled burning, sulfurous air. The shape of the mountain range in the distance, the multiple moons hanging in the dusky sky, you knew them. Knew them intimately because you’d watched them for forty-eight years.

Before you could take another breath the world shifted again, and you were in a cold, dim room lit only by electric lamps and caged light bulbs.

You tore yourself out of the Alp’s grip, staggered and fell again, gasping as you hit the cold stone flooring.

You ignored the pain and cold temperatures as you scurried away from the demon. It didn’t lunge for you; it stared at something just above your head.

Before you could turn around to see for yourself, something jabbed into your shoulder, and pain shot through your body as your muscles seized and your nerves caught fire.

The flow of electricity stopped, and you collapsed without another word or show of resistance. You could barely breathe, your vision swimming. The echo of someone’s footsteps passed by your head, and then a man was speaking, his voice soft and accented.

“Stupid creature,” he said, leaning down in front of you. A soft touch at your neck, almost gentle. No matter how much you tried to focus, his face remained blurry. “Couldn’t even follow simple instructions. And now look what I had to do.”

The man rose to his feet and left your field of vision. The last thing you heard before slipping away was the crackle of a cattle prod and the broken, tortuous wailing of the Alp.

Next Chapter

[king-finnigan]

Tips for Studying During a Pandemic but I’m Depressed

I’ve been seeing a few ‘Studying During a Pandemic’ posts, and while I appreciate the advice they give, it’s usually just not doable for me, so I figured, hey, why not make my own list of half-measures for people with depression, like me? So here’s my list of little things that have made it all a little less terrible the past few months.

(Feel free to add your own. I’m just one person, and things that worked for me might not work for you.)

(Also, some of these aren’t even about studying directly, but they do benefit it inderectly.)(Also also, this post was getting a bit long, so more under the cut.)

Go to the toilet: This might seem obvious, but I know for a fact that I tend to just... ignore my urge to pee when I’m having a particularly bad day, but really, just go. It’ll make you feel a lot better. And if you tend to just not feel it, make sure to check in with your body every once in a while.

Get out of bed before noon: I’ve seen a few lists that urge you to maintain a 9-5 workday, but, hell, even on a good day I only manage to drag myself out of bed at 9. Just get out before noon, you’ll feel a lot more accomplished if you get out at 11:45 than if you get out at 12:15. 

Change your underwear, and, if you can, the rest of your clothes: Even if it’s just changing from your Casual Sweats to your A Little Less Casual Sweats, it’ll feel a lot better. And if you wear socks, change those, too. It’ll make you feel a lot cleaner, and it’ll reset your mind, making it easier to transition from Bed Time to Not In Bed Time.

Set a soft start: Pick an hour at which you aim to start studying, and pick it so that it’s about an hour or so after the point at which you start feeling productive. That sounds complicated, but, for example, I usually start feeling productive between 11 or 12. My soft start is set at 1. On good days, when I do start working at 11 or 12, I will feel accomplished for starting before my soft start point, on bad days, I will aim to start at 1, but if I can’t, I won’t beat myself up over it. It is, after all, a soft start. It’s just an anchor to keep you from floating around the day, no strings attached. Your soft start can be set at 3, 4, even 5, it doesn’t matter, it’s just here to give you some sense of structure.

Set a hard stop: Pick an hour at which you will stop studying, and set it around the time you usually stop feeling productive altogether. Mine is at 6. When you reach your hard stop, just drop everything and go relax. Unless, of course, you’re feeling productive still, in which case, you have to move your hard stop, because you should set it at the point where you’re no longer feeling productive so that you don’t try to push yourself past your abilities or limits. If it’s time to stop, it’s time to stop. 

You do not need to study from your soft start to your hard stop: I know I don’t. They’re just anchor points, to give some structure to your day. I know for a fact that I have trouble to separate Study Time from Not Study Time, that’s what these points are for, especially the hard stop. Do not set the goals to push yourself past your limits, these goals are supposed to adapt to you, not the other way around. Unless it’s what you really want, and you feel confident you won’t harm your mental health in order to reach them, in which case, knock yourself out (but safely).

Every hour, check in with your body: Does your head hurt? Do you need to pee? Are you hungry? If there’s anything wrong, take care of that first. Your health - both mental and physical - is your nr. 1 priority, not studying. If you feel like you need to take a break, then take one, if you don’t, then don’t. 

Eat something: Anything. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t have to be healthy, if you can’t bring yourself to do that. Just eat something. If you can bring yourself to eat fruit and veggies, good for you, but I can’t on my worst days, and if you can’t either, you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it. 

Okay, but maybe one or two apples a week would be good: Just any piece of fruit, really. Once or twice a week. If you eat fruit more often than that, hey, good for you, I’m proud of you, buddy. If you can’t, just once or twice a week is great and I’m still very proud of you.

Drink something: Again, anything. If it’s soda? Not the greatest, but hell, it’s better than nothing. Tea or coffee is good, too. Fruit juice helps you get some vitamins if you can’t eat the fruit. And if you drink water? That’s fucking amazing, good for you. I know I can’t. (Yet)

Open a window: Oxygen is good for your brain. I don’t really give a fuck about that when I open my window, though - what I give a fuck about is that it makes me feel hella productive. 

Just do whatever makes you feel productive: That feeling already does a lot more for you than things that are productive but don’t make you feel as such. And, in my experience, if I feel productive, I will be more likely to actually also do productive shit.

Pick your battles: If you feel like you can’t handle all of the shit that’s being thrown at you (I know I can’t), then don’t. Pick one or two things that you’re sure you can handle when you focus on them, and focus on them. If you’ve got assignments for other classes you can’t miss, then do the bare minimum to pass them. (Please do note that I have a chance to redo any exams I’m skipping in the summer. Take this advice with a grain of salt if you can’t.)

Find a way to reward yourself: If it’s with food or episodes of your favourite show, it doesn’t matter. Find a way to proportionally reward yourself - so when you’ve done a lot, you get a lot of the reward, if not, just a little. I reward myself by making paper stars. I just enjoy making them and I can put them in a little jar and admire how much work I’ve done in total over the past few weeks. 

Only reward yourself after your hard stop: I know if I don’t do that, I’ll get too caught up in the reward to be productive. Also it just feels nicer to get a lot of it all at once at the end of the day.

Don’t beat yourself up at the end of the day: The hard stop is also a reset for your mentality. It’s the end of the day, what is done is done, there’s nothing you can do about it. We all have our good days and we all have our bad days. Don’t beat yourself up over the bad ones, give yourself a pat on your shoulder for the good ones. Which days are bad and which ones are good is not in your control, no matter how much you feel like it is. All there’s left to do is recharge so that you can try again tomorrow.

Relax. Actually relax: Whether you’re just going to bed again, or watching your favourite show, or playing a video game, it doesn’t matter. Just forget about school work. Fuck that shit. It’s You Time now, no matter how much you feel like you don’t deserve it - and for that matter, fuck that little voice inside your head telling you you’re not worthy, too. You are.

It could be worse: This sounds wrong, but hear me out. If you are beating yourself up over the things you couldn’t do today, then list the things you did do. For example: “Sure, I didn’t study, but I got out of bed, I ate an apple, and I checked my mails! It could be worse!” If you can’t find anything, then remind yourself that you tried, so, again, it could be worse.

You tried: That also sounds really condescending, but listen. Whenever you feel like you haven’t done enough or you failed, take a moment to tell yourself that you tried. There’s a lot of things dragging you down right now: the pandemic, the absolute fucking state of the world, your depression, what-fucking-ever. Things aren’t easy, and yet, you still tried. Hell, if you’ve even read my bs up to this point, it means you’re trying. And I know your mind is telling you it’s not good enough, but it is, because the best thing we can do is try. You tried, and that’s worth a hell of a lot more than your mind is trying to convince you it is.

Also check your mails.

[danishmiilk]

PART TWO. --- RENJUN

previous // next // masterlist

summary || a collection of crack stories from y/n and nct working together in taeyong’s pizza shop - ncity pizza. written from povs of different characters.

note || wow!! double update!! who am i!! also this is another mess aha- uh disclaimer i think none of us work in pizza shops with nct so- fiction!! pure fiction!!

genre || crack

pairings || none

warnings || swearing, joking references to a car crash, fake death of someone that never existed, one mention of bleeding

word count || 1.7k

taglist || @teasysan​ @hannie-dul-set​ // send an ask or a dm to be added to the taglist! though i have no idea why you’d want to be.

Renjun wasn’t paid enough for this. Taeyong, seeing that Renjun was off his (five hour long) break, immediately got up gratefully and passed the post of cashier (Yuta had already disappeared to who-knows-where) and online order/call handling over to him, assuming that he’d come to take things off Taeyong’s shoulders.

“No, hyung-!” Taeyong had already walked away. Renjun cursed himself internally for walking over to the counter to find his pen. It was understandable why everyone else avoided the place like the plague- once you got the post, it was impossible to pass it on to anyone else, and it was the most tiring thing to do in the place.

Face lighting up upon spotting the girl crouched under the counter, Renjun called out to her excitedly. Y/n only looked up at him pityingly, returning to sipping soda out of a cup he was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to have taken for free, “Nope. You’re on your own.”

“What are you here for then?”

“Damage control.” Renjun snorted. Y/n L/n? In damage control, of all posts Doyoung could have given her? She must be kidding. That or Doyoung really was going senile. The girl couldn’t control her temper or convince people that she hadn’t stolen their Pocky biscuits without scowling at them, though she was an excellent actress, so Renjun supposed it could work. After all, according to the older and therefore wiser Mark Lee, the possibility of all those possibilities being possible was just another possibility that could possibly happen.

“Ugh, stop laughing. I hope there aren’t any rude customers wanting to call the police on us for robbing them again, or you’ll have to call the police to report murder.” It was funny, really, that the bad things we say have an odd way of turning into truth.

Renjun sighed, recognising the lady stalking toward the counter as a customer he’d just cashed out a few minutes ago. Looks like this would be a fucking waste of time for everyone involved, seriously.

Putting on his best fake-chirpy voice, he forced a smile, “Hello, how may I help you?”

The lady slammed her pizza box down on the counter so hard that Renjun winced. “I want you to redo my pizza.”

Renjun frowned, “What’s wrong with it?”

The lady stared at him like he’d just suggested that Fancy by Twice was not the greatest bop of all time (it obviously was). “It tastes sour! I want a refund, and I want you to redo my pizza for free!”

Renjun cocked his head, confused, “Okay, so I think that’s against our refund policy-” The lady’s face grew more and more red, before finally throwing down the dreaded phrase, “I want to talk to your manager.” Renjun shrugged, tapping on Y/n’s head with his right hand, glad this matter was out of his hands.

Y/n could have stood up and pretended she was searching for something to keep up the facade of professionalism, but of course. Of course she had to crawl up like she was from the Walking Dead and flip her hair before turning to give her attention to the customer. Renjun winced even harder at her non-standard greeting- what the fuck was “Yeah. Go on.” and where the fuck was “Hello, how may I help you?” He hadn’t expected anything less- god, he’d prefer if the show unfolding before his eyes was more amusing. Though he was a tad more responsible than Y/n, at least pretending he was writing out something while biting the pen to keep his laughter back.

The lady looked enraged, to say the least. “I said I want to talk to your manager!”

Y/n raised her eyebrows, taking on a look of surprise, “I’m the manager.” She was not. Renjun bit even harder on his pen.

“Is this your shop’s rules? Managers sit under counters and sip on soda they didn’t pay for?” Y/n was getting irritated with the customer. Renjun could feel it. Oh, this was going to be one heck of an interesting show.

“I paid for this, thank you. And are you discriminating? I was in a car crash a few days ago and my husband died. My leg was injured, and I can’t even sit down?” Y/n put on a pained expression that somehow looked real. Renjun snorted around his pen. Y/n definitely had not paid for the drink, and he was even more certain that she was neither a widow nor the victim of a car crash. She turned around and gave him a look that very clearly said do not give this game away or I’ll make you supervise Chenle for a week. The threat was clear. Renjun bit his cheek so hard blood flowed and he didn’t laugh anymore.

“Oh,” the lady’s eyes softened for a second, but she stubbornly went on, “But you still have to redo my pizza.”

Y/n’s eyes flared in annoyance, jumping up onto the counter with more ease than someone who had “injured her leg” should have enjoyed. “Look here, lady, it’s against our store policy. And if you send this back, our chef might poison it.”

The lady slammed her hands down on the counter, “I WILL CALL THE POLICE ON YOUR CHEF! AND YOUR STORE! AND YOU!”

Y/n wrinkled her nose, “What’s your name, Karen? Anyway, you asked for fucking lemons and anchovy on this pizza, of course it’d taste fucking awful. Just like your attitude.”

The lady threw a pen at Y/n’s head, then turned and walked away without her (untouched) pizza, making sure to slam the door of the restaurant on her way out. Renjun hummed, “I think that’s assault, man.”

The door behind them slammed open, Chenle walking out to see what had gone on with all the screaming and shouting. Y/n turned around to look at him with a blank look, “What did I do wrong?” Chenle turned and stared at Renjun with concern. “What’s wrong with her?” he whispered loudly in Renjun’s ear. Thank god Y/n was still staring blankly into space, or Chenle wouldn’t live to see the light of day ever again.

Personally, Renjun could think of a number of things Y/n did wrong, and a number of things that were wrong with Y/n, but that was a story to tell the entire shop after they’d closed, so he just shrugged.

A mere few minutes after Y/n had sat down with a new cup of soda, another dissatisfied customer walked in. “I want a refund. I don’t want you to remake my pizza, I just want a refund. It tastes awful.”

Renjun turned to the side with a grin, ready to see another show. Y/n looked up at the boy on the other side of the counter and pushed her tongue into the side of her cheek, shooting Renjun a glance. The boy is cute, Renjun. Renjun shook his head at her. Whatever you want, Y/n. Whatever you want.

Y/n smiled flirtatiously at the boy, knocking her hip against the counter, “Sure. Name and number, please?” If the boy didn’t know she just wanted his number, he must really be quite daft. Renjun turned his head to make eye contact with one of the waiters, Jungwoo, and rolled his eyes affectionately toward Y/n. Jungwoo, all too used to her antics, only shook the cloth he was using to wipe the table in Renjun’s direction.

The boy blinked. “Han Jisung, and XXX-XXXX-XXX.”

Y/n very unsubtly wrote it down on a piece of paper and tucked it into her jeans pocket, then pushed a cup of soda across the counter, “Here’s a soda for you along with your refund.” She pulled the exact amount he’d paid for his pizza out of the cashier. Renjun’s eyes widened - surely she wasn’t actually going to give it to the boy just because she was enamoured?

The boy stretched his hand out expectantly, but Y/n just turned and dumped the entire amount into the tip jar. “Thanks for the tip, man! We really appreciate it.” Right. How could he have expected better? Though Renjun supposed it was better that she did this; he didn’t care who she dated, but he did care about his share of the $10 (which would probably be shared by him and Y/n anyway as self-payment for manning the counter.)

Han Jisung - that’s what he said, right? - sputtered and blinked, not having expected Y/n to do that right after flirting with him. Y/n prodded his arm with a finger, “Well, what are you waiting for? Off you go, and come back again!”

“I certainly won’t be.”

She shrugged, “Oh well, we have enough handsome regulars. Don’t really need you.”

The wind chimes on the door jingled, signalling Doyoung’s return from his lunch break. Eyeing the full tip jar suspiciously, he frowned down at Y/n, “What did you do?” Y/n smiled up innocently, “Oh? Oh, nothing! Whatever did you expect me to have done?” As Doyoung had come to realize, the more innocent she looked, the more guilty she was likely to be.

Catching the message in Y/n’s eyes, Renjun tapped on Doyoung’s shoulder. “See, this is what happened, [...]. But no harm was done, hyung, so don’t worry!” He put his thumb up and gave his best chirpy salesperson smile, only halting his speech when he’d seen that Y/n had finished pilfering the tip jar to get enough money for both of them to share.

Doyoung looked so furious that, and Renjun quotes from a later discussion with Y/n, he could probably have eaten up the entire tip jar if he tried! Although truth be told, Doyoung didn’t look all that scary. It’s not hard to look scary if you’re in a way too oversized white t-shirt and jeans, but Doyoung looked even more like a rabbit than he already did, so Renjun was more amused than scared.

“Y/n! I’M TAKING YOU OFF DAMAGE CONTROL, NOW AND FOREVER. AND YOU, RENJUN, YOU FUCK OFF AS WELL! SEND YUTA AND DONGHYUCK OVER!” Hm. Would Yuta and Donghyuck really be better choices to man the counter? I mean, Renjun was sorta skeptical about that, but whatever Doyoung said, he guessed.

Giggling and laughing, Renjun dragged Y/n into the back room, grabbing half of the tips before anyone else could see them and steal some.

©danishmiilk, 2020.

[vintagesimstress]

VI c. UV_1

(Previous: Changing the texture displayed in Blender)

As mentioned before, the uv_1 map plays a very different role than uv_0: it tells the game where certain parts of your mesh are located, so that the whole thing could move with sliders. It seems many people struggle with it a lot – and to be honest, I have no idea why, as in my experience uv_1 has always been totally unproblematic. Hopefully you'll share my feelings on this!

Let's click once again the little triangle on the right ('Data') and choose 'uv_1' this time.

As you can see, the texture on the model turned very weird – and it'll stay this way, as that map is not meant for texturing. You can as well change to solid shading, if you find that craziness spooky or annoying.

If you switch to edit mode, you'll see that the map looks just as crazy:

UV_1 uses a completely different type of template. It differs very slightly depending on age and gender of your sim; the adult female one looks like this:

You can download all the versions from S4S forum, in HERE (I highly suggest you make some kind of 'Basics' folder for all those things which you'll keep reusing!)

Once you have downloaded it, click 'Image' and then 'Open image'. It works exactly the same as in case of uv_0. Now it should look like this:

You can see that your vertices are twice wider than the template. I'm not sure why the template has been made in this way instead of getting adjusted to the TS4 requirements, but that's what we have to work with. Select all the vertices (a), press s, then x, then type 0.5 and press enter. Do not move your mouse! Your uv map should be twice narrower now:

We still have to move it, so that it'd align with the template. Select all again, this time press g, x and type 512. That's exactly the number of pixels you need to move your mesh to the right. Now it should finally look correct.

Just like in case of uv_0, the top part is completely done, so the only thing we have to do is unwrap the skirt. This time the only valid methods for doing it are no. 1 and 2 (see: VI a), namely moving the lines manually or using cylinder projection. As at this point making manual adjustments would be too cumbersome, we're going to use option no. 2.

Select the lowest line of vertices to select your whole skirt, go to front view this time (num 1) and choose cylinder projection.

Move the newly unwrapped faces up or down (g, y), to the black area, so that you could properly see them.

You can see that my dress got unwrapped a bit unevenly – there are small 'steps' on the sides. I highlighted all the faces which should form the left edge. Now I'll move the highlighted parts on the right to the left, and the non-highlighted parts on the left to the right, and then it should all look and work fine.

Tip: you can also move them precisely into the right place by typing g, x, 1024 (to move to the right) or g, x, -1024 (to move to the left)!

The weird part at the bottom is the closing circle; you can select the central vertex (which is here doubled on the sides), weld it and move it down, to more or less align it with the lowest row. Or simply wait with closing your dress until you're done with uv_1 ;). The bigger problem is that step my dress still has at the top. I'll select all the vertices below it and just very gently move them along the x axis to the left. Now, that looks better:

And now, just as we did before, we have to connect the skirt with the top. It's a bit trickier than in case of uv_0, because you can't do it in one piece: your mesh has to be split along the back and both sides. Take a look at the top mesh. Let's start from the left: click the rightmost face and then, in 3D view, the faces right underneath it. This will tell you where your skirt should be split.

I'll deselect the face of the top, select the whole part of the skirt left from the selection and then move it to the left (g, x), separating it from the central part.

That weird line at the bottom is the closing circle again – I'll delete it and redo it afterwards, it'll really be easier.

Repeat the same steps for the part on the right.

The edges of those three parts should be, if possible, straight. Mine aren't. To be able to adjust them, I'll select the edges and temporarily split them (ctrl + e, in 3D view). Select a vertex or two above as well, or the uppermost one won't get split!

(If you're having problems with selecting edges, it might be smart to select the whole skirt (not the top!) and change it back from tris to quads (alt + j). Then you can easily select edges by clicking them while holding alt).

Split also the top row of vertices, to separate the skirt from the top. Just for a second.

Now select a whole edge, press w and choose 'Align X'

Repeat for the remaining edges. If you want to and feel that it's needed, you can also straighten other lines in your mesh.

Now it's finally the time to put it in the right place. Select the skirt and move it up (g, y).

One can immediately see that it's way too tall. Scale it along the y axis until it looks more reasonable. It should start at the lowest line of the top and end a bit above the feet. Nothing big will happen if it covers them, but it has to fit inside the picture!

And now just scale and move each of the 3 parts individually, along the x axis, to match them with the top.

The only thing left to do is to weld the vertices. It's unlucky that we separated the skirt from the top; now we have to select all, remove doubles and then once again split the side edges to be able to weld everything properly. Just like with uv_0: select a vertex, press w and choose 'weld' from the drop-down menu. Repeat for aaaaaall the vertices connecting the skirt with the top.

Sometimes the vertices can be quite far away from each other. Is it still safe to weld them? I'd say risk it. If you see some weird stuff happening in game when changing your sim's body type, you'll know you have to fine tune it: straighten some lines, make them more regular etc. However, chances are quite high that it won't matter at all.

Select all and remove doubles. Yes, again (I keep doing it all the time, that's probably why I love the edge split modifier so much).

And now a very important, final step that I usually forget about: you have to revert the moving and scaling changes you made at the very beginning. Select all and press g, x, -512 to move it back into position, and then s, x, 2, to make it twice wider again. Otherwise TS4 will get quite perplexed with your mesh (and so will you, seeing everything being weirdly deformed and moving with all the wrong sliders)!

As you see, it's not very difficult and once you get a grip of it, you can do it in no time. To be honest, 90% of the time I don't even do the whole scaling and moving thing; I just open the picture, to know where the feet are, and adjust the rest to the top. UV_1 is really not that bad, at least as long as you don't have to deal with the upper body half.

Here are just a couple of general, closing remarks which I'd like to share:

If you move any vertices of the top, immediately move them on the uv_1 map as well. I try to avoid it at all costs, but sometimes I can't resist making just one teeny tiny adjustment... Arms are usually not a problem, neck can get problematic, and breast area is an absolute nightmare. I already mentioned it once, but honestly, better dissolve vertices and cut new edges with the knife tool than move anything in there.

If you're frankenmeshing, remember to weld any vertices you merged in 3D view! If your mesh is getting split in game when you move any sliders, that probably means you didn't connect those parts on the uv_1 map (or that it's vertex paint... but that's another story).

Of course, if you added any other parts to your mesh than just a skirt – or if you frankenmeshed a thing, but changed its location, e.g. took a hair ribbon and put it on the skirt – you have to put it in the right place as well! In case of frankenmeshing you just have to change its location on the map; if you made it yourself, you'll have to experiment with different types of unwrapping first (pssst, projecting from view usually isn't a bad idea).

There are also certain cases - rarely, but still - when it might be a better idea not to properly unwrap a part of the mesh, but weld it all together to a little dot and put it in the right place on the uv_1. The first example which comes to my mind are 3D buttons. I always weld each button to a single dot, so that it’d be changing its size evenly, without deformations. However, this comes at a prize of an increased risk of clipping.

And finally: if you're having big problems with uv_1 and my method doesn't work for you – or if you made your mesh completely from scratch, so you don't have an unwrapped top – you can always make a data transfer, copying uv_1 data from another mesh. I won't elaborate on this one, because Teanmoon already explained it all in her amazing tutorial, which you can find HERE. Scroll down a bit until you see 'UV-1 Transfers'. I think I used it myself once or twice in the past and I was quite pleased with the results :).

***

Once again, I'm sorry both for how long you had to wait for this tutorial and for its final length. I swear I intended it to be a simple, concise explanation ^^. I hope that at least it's all clear and will help you avoid any problems with uvs. Please tell me if you have any questions or if something doesn't work for you – really, I mean it! Half of my inspiration for this tutorial comes from me watching other simmers struggle with making their first pieces of CC, as it helps me notice what hasn't been explained yet.

From now on we'll be moving into the dangerous territory of clones, cuts, regions, bones and weights, and I need some time to figure out how to divide this whole topic into sensible parts. It's not even that hard, but very interconnected, and that makes it difficult to tackle – as covering it all in one part is absolutely out of the question. Please have some patience with me and stay tuned!

[alexistudies]

hey guys! for those of you who may not know me, I am Alexi (@alexistudies) and the long awaited masterpost is FINALLY here on how I study for Organic Chemistry (which i might have to retake lmaooo but that’s a story for a different time). Now, I don’t get the best grades, as my professor’s exams are ridiculously hard, but I have learned the material enough to teach others. If you’re struggling with how to navigate this mind-boggling course that’s pretty much like learning a new language, this post is for YOU! lets gettin it crackin’

Always start by reading the material BUT don’t go in with a cold read (aka just reading the chapter from start to finish) break it into 2 steps: SQ3R and then fully read.

SQ3R: Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review

disclaimer: personally i do this method by chapter section so I am not overwhelmed with material!

survey: skim the material. read the titles of the sections and subsections, and glance over the actual material within the chapter. take mental note of weird acronyms you may see or vocabulary that stands out. this will prime your brain for all the information you’re going to get when you go the 3R’s.

question: get some sticky notes and write down questions for each section in the textbook. for example, if you just skimmed the section on “Sn1 Reactions”, write a question down on the sticky note like “what does Sn1 mean? what does its mechanism look like?” and stick it in the corresponding place. even if the section seems direct and you don’t have any questions, create one regardless. This will help the information stick! Don’t worry about answering them just yet.

read: pretty self explanatory but read a section of the textbook. read it twice if things still seem fuzzy after the first read, and this time, go slower. now, there should be a sticky note where you wrote a question during the second part of this process. write the answer in to the question based on your knowledge from your reading. also, feel free to take note of any other things that seem to stand out on this sticky note. again, i do this section by section in my textbook so i don’t get burned out or overwhelmed.

recite: once you’ve done the first three steps for the whole chapter, its time to collect all the sticky notes!!! set them down on a flat surface in their chronological order and get prepared with your notebook/tablet and stylus/etc. now you’ll compile all your sticky notes into reading notes! during this stage, read your sticky notes out loud and supplement your reading notes by copying & annotating examples from the textbook.

At this point, you should have already read and done most of the first step. Now, its time to go back through and really engage with the material. As you skim each section, you’ll answer the questions you wrote on the sticky notes! This is pretty self explanatory, I hope. This will make sure that you engage with the material and not just blankly read it. I’m a person who gets bored with textbook reading fairly quickly, this really helps me. Its okay if you don’t fully understand the concepts during this step because you’re just putting your feet in the water.

Still confused on the material? Have some small concepts you just can’t seem to get yet? Its okay! Now, you’ll get auditory/visual exposure which will probably help. I watch The Organic Chemistry Tutor’s videos whenever I feel stuck and I take notes as I watch the video to ensure I’m really paying attention.

This step is to really see how much you know. Start with examples from the book, as the solutions are usually right there and they will walk you through. Then, move on to practice problems. In my textbook, they have exercises that follow right after most examples to practice that same concept. Once you’ve gone through as many of these as you deem fit, you should do the end of chapter problems! These problems tend to be a little more comprehensive and build on things from previous chapters, while also being more conceptual.

pls do your homework. it will reinforce everything. i’ve realized that the homework is not necessarily what will be covered on the exam, but it’s like ... drills to see if you know the basics. but, this really depends on the professor and what they assign as homework! for me, the homework doesn’t even begin to compare to the complexity of the exams. highlight anything you get stuck on and once you’re done, go back and redo those problems + review that section in your notes and textbook!

Review sheets are a life saver because once exams come around, you have one piece of paper you can study from and you don’t have to carry around all your notes! for ochem specifically, i recommend making a reaction sheet that’s a flow-chart (i.e., if i have these reagents, its going to be a hydroboration reaction). this was something i was hoping to do before my final, but i just burned out and never got to it :(( so i need to practice what i preach either when i retake ochem1 or when i move on to ochem2.

bonus tip!

Ask yourself the following questions when you study.

can you name things? (types of reactions, molecules using IUPAC nomenclature, etc)

can you identify things? (stereochemical relationships between molecules, concepts used in a reaction like markovnikov addition, etc)

can you develop things? (desired products for a reaction, etc)

can you interconvert between things? (from wedge dash > newman projection, chair conformation > newman projection, skeletal structure > fischer projection, reaction > energy coordinate diagram)

Hopefully this helps! I enjoyed making this post because I do enjoy organic chemistry, I just really need to do better in the class next semester and better implement these study techniques (and maybe find new ones that work better)!!

[upthenorthmountain]

Heartwood - Chapter Eight

Previous Chapters

The penultimate chapter! One more to go. No more smut, I’m sorry (not in the main story anyway) (you all know that I like to add bits in) (especially, here, we’re not seeing any of Kristoff’s POV, some of that might turn up at some point).

Chapter 8

A few days later Anna had a meeting with Mr Owens. She brought her marriage certificate and he congratulated her, then made arrangements for her to access the accounts for the money her parents had left. She also remade her will, and she’d thought she already knew exactly what she was going to do, but there were so many little niggling details that it took a long time. She wanted to leave the jewellery that had been their mother’s to Elsa, she might as well have it; but had to describe each piece. And she wanted to make sure that Kristoff got his grandmother’s ring back, of course. Then she had to decide what would happen if Kristoff pre-deceased her, or if Elsa did, or if she had a baby (and that led to some feelings that Anna quickly sealed in a box and put away. Another thing that would never happen. No point dwelling on it).

Once everything was done, she said to Mr Owens, “I’d like to buy Bennett’s Field. I’m assuming the developer doesn’t want it any more.”

He hesitated. “I believe it has already been sold.”

“Oh…”

“It can’t be used for housing anyway, now, you know.”

“I know. Thank you.”

She walked out to the taxi rank, annoyed. It had only been six weeks or so; someone else must have been waiting. She should have made enquiries earlier, but she’d wanted to be sure of the money. At least it couldn’t be housing. Hopefully someone just wanted to put some cows on there, or something.

----

Anna had, by now, stopped asking Kristoff about his mysterious occupation. Sometimes it had been fun to think of things to ask (“Are you a taxidermist?” “No.” “Are you a spy?” “No.” “Are you Taylor Swift’s bodyguard?” “From an office shed in the woods? No.”), but soon she found she didn’t really care. It genuinely didn’t matter. Some days he would shut himself up and only come out for dinner; once a month or so he would go up to London on the train and often not come back until the next day. The rest of the time he worked in the garden, or took her on long walks through the countryside, or sat in the living room and played his guitar or the piano.

Anna had been surprised to find out that the piano was in perfect tune. The stool was full of odds and ends of sheet music, and half-remembered lessons from fifteen years ago came back when she sat down and tried to play. It was so much more pleasant to play whatever she wanted, without anyone standing over her or expecting her to make actual progress.

She had all the time in the world now, for other hobbies she’d forgotten about or that were alleged to make too much mess. She sketched the cat in every pose, and did watercolour painting of the flowers from the gardens. Lillian taught her how to make bread, and she got pretty good. And she cycled everywhere she felt like. Sometimes Kristoff would put both their bikes in the back of the camper and they’d go off and explore somewhere else - her legs were getting strong enough to keep up with him, now. 

They also took the camper to the beach, sometimes; sometimes at the weekend during the day, when there were crowds of people and children making sandcastles, and they paddled in the sea and ate ice cream and people-watched; but more often in the early evening during the week, to somewhere quieter, where they might be the only people in miles. Once or twice they slept in the camper overnight, within sound of the waves, waking with the dawn.

That summer lasted forever and was over in a second. Anna helped in the garden and ate strawberries straight off the plant and fresh green peas out of the pod. She gathered sweet peas and poppies and daisies and filled vases in the house, but they never lasted long so in the end she started just enjoying them in the garden. Kristoff didn’t own a lawnmower, it was true, but he did hack down the grass occasionally with a scythe while Anna watched from a safe distance.

But mostly they walked. The bridleway behind the house led to a network of footpaths through the countryside, forests and farms and streams. Sometimes they took a packed lunch and stayed out all day. Anna loved it; sometimes she felt like she was living in a John Foster song. It was hard to remember listening to the music and looking longingly towards the woods, those few months ago.

One time when they were walking through a clearing Anna couldn’t help herself. The beams of sunlight hitting the forest floor were just so - she sang the refrain of Thistle Harvest softly, to the trees. Kristoff shot her a look.

“Must you?”

“Yes,” Anna said firmly, and sang it again, a little louder. Kristoff pulled a face.

“You have a lovely voice,” he said, “But surely you know other songs.”

“That song belongs here,” Anna said. “Right here, in this clearing. Okay, okay, I’m done now. But moments like that are what that song was written for - I don’t care what you think about John Foster, it would have been sacrilege not to sing it.”

He rolled his eyes, said “Well, if you’ve got that out of your system,” and walked on down the path.

----

One night that stuck in her memory was after the end of a long, hot week. The temperature had climbed, and the air had grown denser and heavier until all the weather could do was break, which it did just after nightfall on the Friday. The fresh cold air came sweeping through the forest, and Anna - who had just put on her pyjamas - ran outside into the garden. Her feet were bare and she shivered, but it was wonderful, after so many sweaty days and nights, to be shivering.

“It’s about to pour,” Kristoff said from just outside the back door, holding his toothbrush. “Come in before you get soaked.” Thunder rolled.

“I don’t care if I do,” Anna said. She looked up at the sky, and shivered again at another cool breeze. “I love the air before a storm, don’t you? It feels so alive.”

Kristoff ducked back inside, then he walked across the garden to her, his arms folded. She grinned at him, and he leant down and kissed her - just as the rain started, large wet raindrops that drummed on the corrugated plastic roof of the covered path by the back door, that soaked Anna’s hair until they ran down her back and her nose. 

Eventually they had to run back into the house, dripping and laughing. 

“You’re freezing,” Kristoff said as they stood just inside the back door, “You’ll catch your death -” then he froze, just for a second. “I’ll get your towel,” he said, and he was gone.

-----

If there was a point when things changed, that was it. He was still kind, and perfectly nice and friendly, and a pleasure to share a house with. But gradually he withdrew. He would still happily hug her, put a hand on her arm or the small of her back, but he kissed her less and less. The sex dwindled away as well, and Anna didn’t want to push anything. This wasn’t some kind of - slutty make-a-wish programme. 

Not that she thought he hadn’t wanted to, before - he’d obviously had a crush on her, that was all, and over time it had passed. These things burnt out after a while, sometimes, she guessed. It was still a lot nicer living here than at home, and when she made noises about moving out a couple of times he very quickly told her that she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted, he liked having her here, and that Banjo would miss her, and what would he say to Lillian? So she stayed. They both still wore their rings.

I don’t care if he doesn’t love me, she thought. I hope he DOESN’T, I never wanted him to. He likes me well enough to let me live here, and to be nice to me, and try to make me happy; I don’t want him to love me. If he doesn’t love me, then when I die, he’ll just be a little sad to lose a friend. But I never wanted to break his heart. That wouldn’t be fair.

-----

Anna told Kristoff she wanted summer to last forever. “For everything there is a season,” he said. “Autumn can be nice, too.”

That autumn was mild but wet. On dry days Anna still went for walks, alone or with her husband, but on damp ones he worked in his office and she found things to do at home. It was such a small house that it was easy to stay on top of the housework. Her big project for the autumn was knitting a jumper. Lillian had suggested it - Anna had asked her to teach her how to knit, and was expecting to make a scarf, but Lillian insisted that was boring and that a jumper on big needles would be more fun and not take much longer. They’d made a trip together to the wool shop in town and Anna had chosen soft thick yarn in a mustard yellow. She had to redo the back three times and it came out huge and with one sleeve longer than the other but she loved it and wore it constantly. 

She offered to make one for Kristoff but he insisted she not go to the trouble.

She was wearing it one day when he came into the living room and found her scowling at her phone.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing - well - John Foster is doing a gig in London next month, and he hardly ever does live shows, and they released the tickets literally two minutes ago and they’re all gone. I mean, I knew it’d be super-popular. But I did want to go. Not with you, obviously. But Rebecca is a fan as well. Oh, well. Never mind.”

“I’m sorry.”

Kristoff went up to London the next day and got back late; Anna woke when he got into the bed and snuggled up against him, then when she woke in the morning he was already up and out of the bedroom. But when she turned over and put her arm across his pillow, she found something pointy. An envelope. And inside were two tickets to the John Foster gig, paper-clipped together and with a post-it note saying ‘K. Bjorgman’ stuck to them.

“Someone I know helped me out,” was all he would say when she thanked him. “Just please don’t make me go with you.”

-----

Winter was drier and colder. Anna was dreading having to invite Elsa for Christmas - she couldn’t leave her alone, at Christmas - and then got a short text message in mid-December from Elsa telling Anna that she would be visiting a friend over the festive period so would be unable to receive guests. Lillian invited Anna and Kristoff for Christmas dinner, instead, and it was so lovely and cosy that Anna didn’t miss her sister at all.

One day in January it snowed and Anna made a row of snowmen in the orchard. They lasted, melting stumps, long after the rest of the snow had gone, and Anna couldn’t bear to break them down but still hated to see them disappear. “For everything there is a season,” Kristoff said.

He was her best friend. She didn’t think she’d ever had one before. She could say anything to him, and she got the impression he told her things he’d never told anyone else. They were so comfortable together. Anna thought, sometimes, about all the travelling she’d imagined she would do; but why would she want to be anywhere but in front of the fire, reading or chatting or drinking tea, with her favourite person in the world?

He was still free with his hugs, even if he didn’t seem interested in anything else physical. And even without central heating, Anna was never cold at night - Kristoff was like a radiator, and in his sleep he would wrap his arms around her and she would snuggle up close. Anna had never been too fond of winter before, but this one was very bearable. Sometimes, if she woke in the night, she would even deliberately lie there awake for a while, just enjoying how warm and cosy and content she felt.

-----

And then it was spring. And it was Anna’s birthday again.

She’d known, somehow, that she’d see it. She’d always counted on having her full year, even if that would have seemed foolish to say out loud. She told Kristoff she didn’t want any fuss, but he insisted that they at least go for a picnic; so she wore her red dress and brought the sparkly shoes, although she wore trainers to walk to the picnic spot. 

Afterwards, though, she kept the heels on. What did it matter if the mud ruined them? She managed to get over a stile without help, and they were only half a mile away from home when it happened.

Their route took them along the side of a country road, and it crossed the railway line at a level crossing. The lights and alarms were going when they got to it, but the barrier was only just starting to go down, so Kristoff ducked under it and strode across the track. Anna scurried after him  - while mentally tutting at him for not waiting - and nearly wrenched her ankle when her heel got caught in the rail.

“Kristoff!” she called, at first just to let him know that he was leaving her behind. But then she still couldn’t free her foot.

The barriers were all the way down now. Anna put both hands on her ankle and tugged but the heel was caught fast. Then Kristoff was there, and he was trying to turn her foot to free it - Anna was seized with a blinding panic and tried to push him away, the train must be coming - but he wouldn’t go, and her heart was beating so fast that she was certain she was going to die right here one way or another. “Go, go!” she shouted at him - and looked up, and saw the train in the distance.

She couldn’t move. Just for one second, everything froze - and then Kristoff had pushed the strap of her shoe over the heel of her foot and he was pulling her, almost lifting her bodily off the track and into the hedgerow on the other side of the crossing.

The train thundered past, horn blaring. The noise and the wheels were so close and they went on forever, then suddenly stopped.

The road was silent. The birds started singing again. Kristoff stood, and put out his hand to pull Anna to her feet; there was a fallen log lying by the side of the road, and they sat on it.

“Are you alright?” Kristoff said after a couple of minutes.

“Yes.” And oh - how she wished she could have given him a different answer. A shock would kill her, the doctor had said. What could be a bigger shock than what had just happened? But her heartbeat was slowing to normal; she felt a little shaky, but no more than anyone else would, after all that. How could that be? 

“Sure?”

“Yes. Are you -”

“I’m fine.” Kristoff stood and picked up his rucksack from where he’d dropped it, and took out Anna’s trainers. She put them on and handed him the single remaining shoe, the other so pulverised by the train that no sign of it remained. He put the shoe in the rucksack, put it back on his shoulders, and, without a word, turned and walked towards home.

When they got there he shut himself in his office and didn’t come out until after Anna was asleep.

[theys-a-joke]

Let Us Skim

Summary: Wonderful, isn't it? How when two people are so deeply in love with each other, anything could be an I love you? Or, 5 times Hanschen and Ernst didn't say "I love you" and the 1 time they did

Request: n/a

Content Warning: Period Typical Violence

Relationship: Hanschen/Ernst

AO3 Link: here

AN: Anyways, sorry to lie to you about Love Is Complicated, I’ve been side-tracked by Spring Awakening and I have so many thoughts. 

I do not condone abuse and I do not want to romanticize the abuse of partners. That being said, men have been known to fight each other for the sake of touching another man’s skin for ages, and the part where they recognize their love for each other is when they stop.

Ok so please don't hate me but I used google translate to get the Greek, as I was having trouble getting an actual Greek translation for this. But here's the translation

Α-Aν κάποιος πλησ - I-if he gets very close

πλησιάσει πολύ κοντά και ακούσει το τραγούδι των Σειρήνων, η γυναίκα και τα παιδιά του δεν θα τον υποδεχτούν ποτέ ξανά στο σπίτι. - Gets very close and hears the song of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him back home.

one .

"We'll huddle over Homer. Maybe do a little Achilles and Patroclus." Hanschen’s sentence echoes in Ernst’s mind as he waited for him. The two of them were going to head back to his home together, after all. To huddle over Homer. That was it. Surely. But that doesn’t mean Ernst can’t dream.

When Hanschen finally finds Ernst, they each feel a small bit of hope for the next few hours. Hanschen had finally managed to get Ernst alone, and despite the circumstances, he considered it a success. Whereas Ernst had managed to get Hanschen’s help, and maybe even had the chance to learn more from him. Ernst found himself tending to learn more from Hanschen then he did in school, as to why, well, he had his suspicions.

The two of them walk towards Ernst’s house, making polite conversation throughout the walk, Hanschen cracking a joke here and there. Ernst’s laughs at all of them, no matter how stupid they may be, and Hanschen can feel a smile tugging at his lips. As performative as his jokes may be, the happiness he feels when he hears Ernst laugh is genuine, and while fleeting, is a small joy he allows himself to have.

Once they get to Ernst’s house, Ernst makes quick work of clearing off the table so they could have a place to study. He retrieves his own copy of the Odyssey and places it on the table, while Hanschen looks into his own bag and comes back with both a disappointed and yet self satisfied grin.

“I seem to have forgotten my copy at home.” He says, leaning forward against the table. “Would you mind sharing?” He asks, nodding toward Ernst's own book.

“No, not at all.” Ernst replies, stumbling over his words, his eagerness to share anything with Hanschen getting the better of him.

“Great.” He beams, bringing his own chair closer to Ernst. As Ernst opens the book, Hanschen slides it slightly towards himself, partly so he can read it better, and partly so Ernst would have to face him just the tiniest bit more. Their thighs touch, and Ernst can feel his heart start racing. He’s practically in his lap, and when Hanschen’s arm comes around the back of his chair, Ernst nearly jumps. The contact, despite how much Ernst wants it, still surprises him. He chooses instead to focus on the reading rather than the warmth of Hanschen’s skin against his.

Despite Hanschen’s proximity, Ernst manages to open where they had left off. He takes his time trying to find where exactly they had previously ended, enjoying this simple moment with Hanschen. As he lifts his hand to search for a particular sentence, the other half of the book lifts up, starting to close. Ernst goes to push it back down to the table when he feels Hanschen’s hand on his own, holding down the other side of the book. His eyes dart quickly to their touching hands before looking up at Hanschen.

“Let me help.” Is the only answer Hanschen gives when Ernst seems to look at him questioningly. Ernst smiles, and nods; a silent understanding. He lets their hands stay together for just a moment before turning back to the text in front of them.

"This is where we were, correct?" Ernst asks, pointing to a specific line. When Hanschen doesn't give any response, Ernst turns to look at him, only to find Hanschen still staring at him. What Ernst seems isn't a look he typically sees on Hanschen, a look of appreciation. He might even go as far to say fondness. But they didn't have time for that, at least, not now.

"Hans, how can you possibly see sitting back like that? Come closer." Ernst instructs, somewhat playfully. He manages to snap Hanschen out of his thought process, bringing him back to the matter at hand, or rather, in hand.

He didn't need to be told twice, immediately finding himself as close as he could be to Ernst. Any chance he had to be near him was worth it, and this wasn't something he'd let slip through his fingers. In fact, his hand around the back of Ernst chairs finds a new perch around his shoulders, drawing them ever closer.

"Α-Aν κάποιος πλησ-" Ernst tries, doing his best to read the Greek. When he stops, he turns to Hanschen, with a small apologetic smile, hoping to coax him into reciting the rest of the sentence. Hanschen does his best to hide his smile, instead sigh at Ernst's silent request.

"πλησιάσει πολύ κοντά και ακούσει το τραγούδι των Σειρήνων, η γυναίκα και τα παιδιά του δεν θα τον υποδεχτούν ποτέ ξανά στο σπίτι." Hanschen finishes, following as Ernst finger pointed to each word. Hanschen noticing that even though Ernst had trouble reading it himself, he had no problem keeping up, most likely meaning that his lack of knowledge could easily have been feigned. He smiles as he speaks, ever impressed at what Ernst was capable of.  

As Ernst watches Hanschen as he speaks the words, he can see how easily the Greek comes to him. He watches Hanschen's mouth form the correct shapes needed to produce the sound, and he can’t help but wish he was more like him. He wishes he had his aptitude, his confidence, his adaptability, his soft hair, his strong frame, his… Ernst could let that thought go any farther, not here, at least. Though Ernst knew he didn’t necessarily want those attributes, but more so the boy who possessed them. Ernst decides, that to simply be in Hanschen's presence, and to be witness to those traits, well maybe he might be able to learn something.

two .

Ernst had never quite understood the school’s uniforms. The weird shorts and high socks, the ties and suit jackets. He understood that they had to look presentable, but to him they seemed silly. Especially on him. On Hanschen though, it seemed to fit perfectly. He looked amazing, and he couldn’t stop himself from sneaking glances throughout the day.

It’s in gym class though where he has to force himself to look elsewhere. He can’t be caught staring, especially here. So he rushes, always first in and out. Staggering when he exits.

“Hanschen.” Ernst calls out, running up to stop him. His uniform, which was typically in pristine condition, was currently disheveled in his rush to leave the gym.

The first thing Ernst notes is that Hanschen's hair had gotten tousled. The normally neat and straight hair has a slight curl to it that Ernst thinks looks quite cute, though he doesn't dare mention it. Instead, he takes his hand and runs it through Hanschen's hair. It's soft, he realizes, and damp, and he can almost smell the shampoo that they use. He wants to bury his face in it, to pretend that the world doesn't exist except for the two of them. But he can't, he won't. He just needs to fix Hanschen's hair, which doesn't actually need to be fixed, he just needs to be made presentable. Though he's always presentable in Ernst's eyes.

Ernst then opens Hanschen’s suit jacket, to get to his tie which was done haphazardly. He takes a step closer to Hanschen, needing to be closer to focus on the intricacies of tying the knot. His hands go around Hanschen's neck, and he can hear his breath hitch. He doesn’t mention it though, preoccupied with adjusting the length of the tie.

With Ernst this close, Hanschen can see the way his brow furrows in concentration, the way he bites his lip and smiles to himself once he’s done, content with his work. He can see all the intricacies in his eyes and nearly see himself in them, and that's when he looks away. Hanschen looks down, briefly, and honestly, it’s not bad, not the style of knot he would’ve gone with, but good-looking all the same. He’ll have to ask Ernst to teach him it later. When he looks back up, Ernst is staring at him, rather intensely. If he’s being honest with himself, he feels rather awkward, being looked at that way. He’s simply not used to it, more often being the one who gives that look. But it’s Ernst, and Hanschen can see the adoration in his eyes and this longing and for a moment all Hanschen wants to do is rest his forehead against Ernst’s and ask him about everything he’s thinking. And then Ernst’s hand is coming up to his face and Hanschen want’s so badly to lean into it to meet it, but he instead holds back.

It turns out that his hand is going to his shoulder, where Ernst see’s a piece of lint. He brings his other hand to Hanschen’s other shoulder and dusts them off, letting them linger. He looks to Hanschen, wondering what could’ve happened to his uniform that it was like this. But he doesn’t really care, it gives him an excuse to touch him, to be close to him, and Ernst would cherish that moment. He would cherish him. He hopes Hanschen is able to understand that.

Ernst’s hands trail down Hanschen’s chest, stopping over his heart. He can feel it beating, faster and faster and he wants to lean in and press his ear against it, hoping he’d be able to hear everything Hanschen wasn’t saying. But he doesn’t need to do that. Hanschen is able to tell him when he takes Ernst’s hands in his own, helping him redo the buttons on his jacket befores speaking in a soft voice.

“Would you teach me how you tie your ties?”

three .

Ernst and Hanschen have always been acutely aware of each other. How close the other was to them, the way they gestured in class, how they spoke. For Ernst, he was desperate to know everything about Hanschen. And for Hanschen, well he just loved watching Ernst, watching him work, speak, do anything, really. He could look at Ernst for an eternity and never get his fill.

They were privy to details about the other that not even their parents knew. Though it was unlikely they cared. For instance, Hanschen knew just how important the church was to Ernst, and how his favorite color was yellow. He kept things like that in the back of his mind, where everything else about Ernst stayed.

Ernst on the other hand, found himself enamoured with how Hanschen thought. He found Hanschen’s bluntness quite nice. Hanschen never said what was expected of him when it was just the two of them, and Ernst appreciated that. His views on the church and the clergy were well known to Ernst, which is why he was so surprised when Hanschen walked through the doors that Sunday.

Hanschen doesn’t make any move towards Ernst, just giving him a small nod and a smile that sends Ernst’s heart a mile high. Ernst wants to go over to him and ask him what he was doing here. But he can’t, so he stays by the altar and watches the priest lead the sermon. His eyes drift over to Hanschen, and everytime he looks he sees him staring right back at him. And then Hanschen smiles, and that’s when he feels his face heat up, and he has to look away.

Hanschen was receiving great pleasure from getting Ernst flustered by simply looking at him. That wasn’t his goal for today, but it was one hell of a consolation prize. Seeing him in his element though, it was incredible. Hanschen couldn’t tear his eyes away from Ernst, no matter how many times his parents hit his shoulder to tell him to look at the prayer book. He doesn’t need to, looking at Ernst is enough for him to know that prayers truly are answered.

When the sermon is over, Hanschen excuses himself to go talk to Ernst, though as far as his parents know, he’s going to talk to the priest. He waits patiently to get Ernst’s attention.  

“Hanschen!” Ernst whispers. “What are you doing here?”

“Am I not allowed to participate in the act of praising God? Am I not allowed to learn?” He asks, coyly.

“You know what I mean.” Ernst sighs.

“I came to see you,” he starts, “in all your heavenly beauty.” He says, hushed. Ernst’s face practically goes aflame at Hanschen’s compliment, truly stunned speechless.

“And, I wanted to give you this.” He says, as he pulls out something from his pocket, placing his fist in Ernst’s hand. When he removes it, there’s a slightly crumpled daffodil. Hanschen knows he’s running out on time, that he needs to go so that people don’t get suspicious, but he can’t help but spare a moment just admiring Ernst.

“Your piety and devoutness are so much stronger than that of the father, you should know. It should be you leading us, I couldn’t imagine anyone more selfless and virtuous than you.” Is the last thing Hanschen says, before leaving Ernst there, still speechless and entirely shocked.

What drives the gesture home though, is the flower, the daffodil. He had mentioned it offhand months ago, when they weren’t in season. And now that spring is here, Hanschen had gone out of his way to bring him one, risking getting caught. All for the sake of something so small that Ernst had forgotten about it until this moment. And then Ernst thinks, he really does love yellow.

four .

When Hanschen isn't at school, Ernst assumes the worst. He thinks that they've been caught, that something they did was just a bit too friendly and someone caught on, that it was Hanschen who was taking the blame because that was just the kind of person he was. It's a nice thought, that Hanschen cared enough about him to take the fall for both of them, but all the trouble he could get into, the pain and ostracization, it sours that thought completely. So Ernst goes about his day, cautious at best, paranoid at worst, and waits for the day to end. He doesn't talk to anyone, doesn't look at the teachers, and instead just retreats into his shell, worrying over Hanschen's fate.  

He couldn't be happier when the day is over. He grabs his satchel, and tells Herr Sonnenstich that he'll bring today's work to Hanschen himself. It's the first thing he's aaid all day, and when Herr Sonnenstich doesn't look at Ernst with any more discontent than usual, he's able to relax a bit. Perhaps they were still in the clear. He takes the work and practically trips over himself in his enthusiasm to go to Hanschen's house.

Ernst arrives, and when he does, he takes a moment to calm himself, before knocking on the door. Frau Rilow answers the door, which Ernst will forever be grateful for, and greets him.

"Good afternoon Ernst, what brings you here?"

"Good afternoon ma'am, I actually just stopped by to drop off what we worked on today in class, seeing as Hanschen wasn't in school. Is everything alright?"

"My, what a dedicated friend you are. But no, Hanschen seems to have come down with something. Why don't you come inside? I'm sure he'd be elated to see you." She says, ushering him inside.

"Thank you, Frau Rilow." He says, letting himself be swept into the house.

"Now, I know you've got a bit to give him, but do you think you could bring this to him as well?" She asks, handing Ernst a bowl of soup.

"Of course." He says, adjusting his satchel so that it holds everything and sits across his shoulder, then takes the bowl.

"Thank you dear." She smiles, "I'll phone your parents and let them know you're here. Hanschen's room is down the hall and on the right."

Ernst goes down the hallway, careful not to spill the soup, and knocks gently on the door. He hears a garbled, 'come in', and gently eases the door open.

He sees Hanschen lying there, sheets pulled up to his chest, eyes closed and face red. Hanschen doesn't even open his eyes until he hears the soft thump of Ernst dropping his satchel. When he sees Ernst, he jumps, to the best of his ability, out of the bed.

"Ernst! What are you doing here?" He asks, throwing himself into Ernst's arms. It's all Ernst can do to set the bowl down before he catches Hanschen. His face is already warm from the contact, he doesn't need the rest of his body heated too.

"I came to see you. And really you mustn't move too much, not in your state." He says, dragging him back to his bed. He goes to remove Hanschen's arms from around his neck when he hears Hanschen whine.

"Come lay with me, Ernst." He sighs, pulling him closer.

"Hansi, you know I can't." He says, voice straining and quiet. He really does want to lay with Hanschen though, he wants to hold him close and play with his hair as Hanschen sleeps peacefully. He wants to help Hanschen in any way he can, rub his back, dab at his forehead with a cool cloth, but he simply can't. Though the use of his nickname seems to be enough to get him to relent.

Then Ernst has an idea. He gently moves Hanschen to the side, and has him sit up. He grabs the bowl of soup and moves behind Hanschen and pulls him to lay against his chest. Now, Ernst would never be this hold normally, but these are special circumstances. Hanschen needed to be cared for, and that's what he's doing.

Hanschen is reveling in the contact. His entire day had been boring and uncomfortable, unable to do much but sleep and eat, so Ernst was a welcome change of pace. And even though Ernst didn't hold him as long as he wanted, Hanschen was grateful for his quick thinking. And by laying against Ernst's chest, he could hear his heartbeat. A nice change to the ringing he'd been hearing all day.

"Tell me again why you came over?" Hanschen mumbles.

"You know why."

"Yes, but I want to hear it again."

"I came over to bring you the work you missed." Ernst chides, lightly.

"You're no fun." Hanschen pouts, and Ernst smiles, it's rare to see Hanschen like this, where he doesn't keep up pretenses.

"I also came to see you." Ernst whispers by Hanschen's ear, causing him to shiver.

"You need to eat." Ernst states, completely changing directions. "Here." He says, holding the spoon to Hanschen's mouth.

"No, I won't do it." Hanschen says, turning his head.

"Come on, do it for me? Please, Hansi?" He says, exaggerating his plea.

"Fine." He says, reluctantly. And they just stay there for a while, Ernst feeding Hanschen the soup with only a few complaints here and there.

Ernst thinks this is something he could get used to, taking care of Hanschen. Simply being needed did wonders for his self-esteem, and especially in a state like this. Where Hanschen's inhibitions were low and his impulsivity was high. To be that which grounded him made Ernst smile.

Hanschen finds that he quite likes being taken care of, especially by Ernst. The use of nicknames, gentle coaxing, and frequent praise made it all the easier for him to comply. And the best part was that none of it felt forced. Not once did Hanschen ever feel like he was burdening Ernst. He could feel the care that radiated off of him and he relished it, loving being the center of Ernst's attention.

"So what did you cover today in class?" Hanschen finally asks.

"Oh yes. Well, don't laugh at what I'm about to tell you." Ernst sighs.

"I don't remember. I was so worried about what happened to you today I couldn't focus, more so than usual!"

"What worried you so?"

"I had thought that, maybe, we'd been found out. That you were being taken out of school and sent away and hurt." Ernst admits, his arms tightening around Hanschen with every word.

"I can assure you Ernst, they couldn't get rid of me no matter how hard they try. I simply will not leave you." He says, matter of factly, as his hands come to rest on Ernst's arms.

Ernst just buries his face in Hanschen's hair. After a moment, he hears Hanschen's breathing even out, and realizes he's fallen asleep, and then the scene presents itself. He can sit there, letting Hanschen rest against him, play with his hair and rub his back, or, he lay Hanschen down and go home. That would be the safe choice.

But it isn't the one he makes.

Instead, he just stays there, and allows himself to fall asleep, Hanschen still in his hold. Whatever repercussions they face, he knows Hanschen will stand by him, and for now, that's enough.

five .

Hanschen isn't sure what comes over him at that moment. That moment in which he just shoves Ernst a little too harshly, a little too intensely, a little too deeply. Ernst looks back at him, his face confused before shoving Hanschen in return. They keep on like that, playfully shoving each other, laughing at the intensity, before Ernst finally ends up on the ground. And in that moment a fire is set alight inside of Hanschen.

Ernst doesn't know what to make of the way Hanschen is looking at him. The look is neutral but Ernst can see that his fists are clenched tight. He wants to ask what's going through his mind, ask him what's wrong, but he's too late.

Hanschen is already towering over Ernst, his arms shooting out to grab his collar and pull him back up. He waits for Ernst to stabilize, to catch his breath, before Hanschen hits him. He doesn't know why he hits him, all he does know is that this way, when he strikes Ernst, he can feel his soft skin that will easily bruise, and that sharp cheekbone of his leaves Hanschen's hand stinging. He doesn't know why he's doing all of this when he really just wants to hold Ernst close. He doesn't want to do this, but he does.

Hanschen hopes that Ernst will hit him back and, for a moment, he truly hates Ernst's passiveness. Hanschen wants him to finally take initiative, to finally stand up for himself, to do something other than let life happen to and around him and instead partake in it.

Hanschen gets what he wishes for.

Ernst punches him in the chin, not the strongest or most perfect in form, but it's something. It's contact . It's normal . Though the moment he does it, Hanschen could see the horror grow of Ernst's face. He sees it contort in pain and sorrow, and for a half a second, anger. Good, is what he wants to say, hit me, he wants to shout at him, for God's sake can you find it within yourself to touch me?

Ernst can, apparently. He finds it within himself to yell as he charges Hanschen, pushing him against a wall. He can very distinctly hear the sound of Hanschen's head hitting the bricks, feel breath leave his lungs, and see the tears that start to well up in his eyes, frantic and desperate and scared.

And then they both stop. Their hands don't leave the other's body, but they freeze, realizing what they're doing to each other. And then they collapse. They breathe for a moment, and then two, their eyes never leaving each other.

Hanschen breaks the silence,"I am so sorry Ernst." He says, pleading. "I don't know why I did-"

"Hanschen." Ernst says, cutting him off, uncharacteristically. "Let's go home."

They help each other up, and then walk back in silence. They've both said everything they need to say to each other, and yet nothing at all.

one .

There is nothing entirely special about this afternoon, only that it's during the summer after their final year, and before they were to go off to university.

Maybe that's what spurs Hanschen on, the fact that this might be one of the last moments he gets to spend with Ernst.

“I love you Ernst.” Hanschen says, out of the blue. Without missing a beat, Ernst replies, “So you should.” And Hanschen's heart breaks a bit, because if that’s how he sounded when Ernst told him, so nonchalant, so dismissive, then it made perfect sense when Ernst had looked at him so hurt.

Hanschen finally knew the feeling of something not being reciprocated. Except, he knew Ernst loved him, but he needed to hear it. In everything they had ever done, they had never said it.

“Ernst, you don’t understand.” Hanschen says, pulling Ernst close, only a hair’s width away from himself, “I’m in love with you.” He says, voice quiet and strained and desperate. “And I have been all along.” He remarks, moreso to himself.

“And I in turn, am in love with you Hanschen." He says, bringing his hands up to hold Hanschen's face. "Though I fear I may love you too deeply, and God will resent me for making you into a false idol that I worship.” Ernst smiles, though his eyes convey a seriousness that Hanschen does not take lightly.

"May I ask what brought on this revelation?" Ernst asks, not moving away.

"I suddenly became very aware of the future, and what it may hold for us." He says, fear creeping into his voice.

"Don't be sad, my love. We must take the future as it comes to us, skimming off the cream when the milk presents itself." Ernst says, pressing his forehead to Hanschen's.

Hanschen laughs when Ernst quotes his own metaphor back at him.

"But for now, is it heaven?" He asks, hoping for Ernst to provide him the comfort he so desperately seeks.

Ernst takes the moment to kiss Hanschen sweetly, surprising him at first, but eventually relaxing into it. As Ernst kisses him, Hanschen lets go of his worries and his posture, putting all of his weight onto Ernst. They fall onto the grass, and Hanschen has never felt more amazing. He's in the arms of the boy that he loves, in a place where he can love him unabashedly, loving him with his entire being.

When Ernst pulls away to laugh, Hanschen basks in the sound and sight. He has never thought Ernst looked more lovely than in this moment, his body is framed by the green grass and the sun illuminating his brown eyes, and he looks like a painting that Hanschen wants to hang and never take down. He truly doesn't know how he ever got so lucky as to have Ernst in his life.

"I don't think I would have ever known peace had I not met you Ernst Robel."

"Hanschen Rilow, we could live 30 years more, perhaps even longer, and I will never love anyone as I love you."

[ardenttheories]

what do you think about time and space being cardinal aspects if, according to your and many others' theories, the knight is who helps the space player do the frog breeding? an even more far fetched take would be a knight of space solo session, because time isn't as essential, is it?

The importance of the Time player is to ensure that you have some form of backup state should your session ultimately fail. Anything relating to the Scratch is intrinsically tied to your Time player’s Land; without a Time player, there’s simply no possibility for this to happen. 

It’s also imperative to note that in Homestuck, and SBURB as a whole, Time plays an incredibly significant role. The entire game is based around stable time loops and paradoxes, from the creation of the players to the creation of the game itself, and even throughout the game to ensure that things will always end up in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Every session will, at its base level, hold this degree of Time manipulation. 

The importance of the Space player is to ensure that the game is even potentially winnable. Anything relating to the Forge, or the Genesis Frog, is intrinsically related to your Space player’s Land; without a Space player, there’s no fertile ground, so to speak, for the new universe to grow, no new beginning to aspire to. 

So, Space also plays a significant role in Homestuck, and SBURB as a whole. In conjunction with Time loops and paradoxes, multiple portals exist that allow players to traverse through their Lands, and it’s Skaia’s defence portals that allow the players to go back to their point of origin to begin with - but that also provides the space for an Alpha session, which exists parallel to the Beta session. Beyond the all-important Universe Creation, Space also ensures more than once that objects and people are miraculously transported from one place to another, and provides one of the easiest ways to overcome obstacles.

What this means is that Time and Space have to work together for SBURB to work. That’s why they’re seen, I think, as the Cardinal Aspects. You can’t make the Alpha session without Space having some sort of involvement, and you can’t make the Genesis Frog without the assistance of Time through the breeding device (the last frog, in particular, is just plain unreachable without it). 

You also can’t have a fully functioning session without both Time and Space, as multiple times throughout Homestuck we see things travel in two directions; into the past, and into another universe.    

For instance, SBURB not only travels from the human session into the troll session, but it’s also sent back in time so that Aradia can find it during one of her archaeological digs. It would be all well and good if it could only go back in Time, or travel through Space - but it would never reach that instance of Aradia, the one who didn’t know fully what it was and was in the prime position to have Sollux recreate it for an Alternian audience just in time for the Reckoning. 

Clearly, Space is the more valuable Aspect when it comes to winning the session. You quite literally need it to even beat the game, and so long as you’re either incredibly careful or incredibly lucky, you’ll be able to pull through to the end. This even goes so far as to be a main point in Homestuck itself; Doomed!Dave and Rose are well aware they can’t win the game without Jade, and thus going back in Time is the only option. 

But they wouldn’t have that option of Dave weren’t a Time player. Their session would also fail, almost immediately, even if Jade was present; their session faces an extreme lack of Time, and Dave manages to do several weeks of work within a few hours through the use of stable time loops. Without his work, Jade would never be able to finish the frog breeding in time - and they’d remain a barren session. 

When it comes to why they’re called Cardinal Aspects, I think it’s because they form the foundation of Paradox Space. As I’ve shown, you need a mix of Time and Space present within a universe in order for any part of SBURB to fully function. If one or the other were lacking, as we see with the Beta kid session, there’s just no way to complete the session, even if you have the other Aspect present. 

More than any other Aspect, you need these two. It’s why Caliborn and Calliope’s session even vaguely works. One’s Time, one’s Space. They fill the bare minimum requirements to have a viable session - but then, of course, once one of them predominates the other, it’s game over. Alternate Calliope has no choice but to bide her Time and wait for an opportunity to strike in a session that has no End, and Caliborn struggles to grow in a session that contains nothing but Ends and hosts no universe for him to go into. 

I think that’s part of the importance of Time, honestly. Space is the creation of the universe, but Time is the end of the session. You need to have both to ensure that one Ends as the other Begins. 

It’s also why the Alpha session is so barren - even more barren than any other session we see (disregarding the Alpha troll session, but that’s not their own fault; that’s an overabundance of Time a la Lord English). They don’t have Time to end their session, nor do they have Space to provide the fertile ground for Skaia to grow. They have Heart, Hope, Life, and Void - all important Aspects, sure, and especially important when related to the individual - but they are at a complete loss for any ability to redo, to progress, or even to come to an end. 

As for the solo Knight of Space…

First of all, it’s just a bad idea. I’ve mentioned this before, but for Skaia to grow fully, you need an even number of players and at least 4 minimum; Skaia evolves with each prototyping, and if you don’t allow it to progress through those stages, you’ll never have it reach its fertile state. A Knight of Space might be able to fudge this a little - it’d be well within their powers to, for sure - but as a general rule of thumb, one player sessions just do not work. It’s why Caliborn’s session is so broken. SBURB is a team game, and working on your own will never allow you the opportunity to grow. 

Without Time present in their session, the Knight of Space would likely really struggle with… anything Time-related. There’d be no sending themselves things back in time, no future warnings or assistance, and they’d be almost entirely unable to keep a stable time loop going. They’d have to play the game by the skin of their teeth, trying to get everything right first try - which means full prototyping, God Tiering, playing without the assistance of stronger fraymotifs, and a battle against the Black King completely solo. 

They might be able to do the frog breeding, but again, they’d be incredibly pushed for time. SBURB is a multi-player game, and is almost entirely about resource management; imagine trying to get the sort of grist Dave does when you’re only one person, and also need to focus on your Quest, your Denizen, your Choice, the Reckoning, the Black Queen and King, Dersite Agents, and the construction of your own home. 

The easiest way I could see a Knight of Space doing this is… duplicates, maybe? We’ve never seen that happen for a Space player, I think, but imagine Double Team from the Pokemon games; creations of oneself that aren’t physical, but exist as you do and are capable of copying things you would do. If they can resize things, then they can definitely copy/paste things - and I’d assume for a Knight of Space, duplicating yourself (like Twice does in BNHA) would be the easiest exploit to try and get around the lack of help.

Otherwise your poor Knight would be frequently trying to zap themself around between the Moons, Skaia, and their Land in order to complete everything in an orderly fashion. 

My biggest concern is whether or not they’d be able to snatch the last part of Super Special Frog DNA to make the Genesis Frog. 

That Super Special Frog is what awakens the Space player initially. It’s specifically, if I remember correctly, transported back in Time to an early point of a young Space player’s life, and then has to be disposed of quickly to ensure that it can be paradoxified - as happens with Jade, wherein Bec kills the frog so that she can paradoxify it to get its genetic code in the future. 

This is also why Karkat and Kanaya fail at making the Genesis Frog. Doc Scratch awakens Kanaya prior to her seeing the Super Special Frog, and if I’m remembering correctly, she never sees that Frog at all. This is why they can’t find the last piece of genetic code, and why the human session ends up Cancerous.  

So even if the Knight of Space manages to achieve everything else, they may never be able to find that Super Special Frog. They may never be able to paradoxify it, or they may never have seen it to begin with (since it’s sent back in Time, and your Knight has no way of easily ensuring something will go through Time as it’s meant to) - and thus they’ll never be able to finish off the Genesis Frog. Sure, they’ll be able to beat the game (just barely, at this point, and with difficulty against the Black King unless they exploit the multiple selves thing), but the universe they go into won’t be healthy. 

I have seen it mentioned somewhere that you do need a Knight of Time in order to successfully win the game, but I think that’s probably a bit much. The chances of having a Knight of Time, specifically, in your session is incredibly low - literally one in the five sessions we see within Homestuck - and is only relevant to the Beta human session because of their lack of time. SBURB doesn’t want every session to win, and there’s a much higher ratio of barren sessions to successful ones, but it at least gives you a fighting chance. Failure is typically attributed to Failed Classpects, lack of growth, or the team just not getting on well enough to try and win together - not because you were missing such a specific thing. Even the Alpha session got a Space player in the end.  

The Knight as a Class is imperative, I think, because of its Exploitative/Protective nature - though you do need the Time player in order to ensure there’s enough Time in your session for normal aspects of the game to even work. 

So! For TL;DR:

- Space and Time are Cardinal Aspects because they’re vital to the running of any session. It doesn’t really matter what other Classpects you have in your session; without Space and Time, the fundamental characteristics of Paradox Space don’t exist, and you won’t have a winnable session

- A Knight of Space could, potentially, win a game of SBURB, but the chances of it are highly unlikely, and they’d likely end up with a cancerous frog 

- Knights are important to the process of breeding the frogs because of their specific powerset and mentality, and though they don’t specifically need to be a Knight of Time, you still will need a Time player separate to the Knight in order for frog breeding to be a viable process (at least if you don’t want a cancerous session)

[sushiobsessedwriter]

Kissing Headcanons

Request: Nope

Fandom: My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia

Character(s): Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugo, Eijiro Kirishima, Shoto Todoroki

Words: 380

A/N: I might redo these in more depth, or if you guys like this I’ll do kissing one-shots for all of them.

Story:

Midoriya:

His kisses were always soft and gentle. Your hands would be rubbing across his shoulders whilst his would be on your waist or on the small of your back. He believes you should be treated with respect and love, which is conveyed through his kisses. It would feel like you were kissing feather-filled pillows. His face would burn red but the grin left on his face after the kiss made your heart race. He wouldn’t mean to tease you with the pace of his kisses but you couldn’t help but crave more of your adorable boyfriend.

Bakugo:

His kisses were always hard, deep and passionate. Your hands would find their way to his waist, gripping at the piece of clothing there. His would cup your face firmly, but not so much that he’d hurt you, so that you couldn’t pull away from the kiss too soon. He kissed you in a way that always made your mind forget everything else but the taste and feel of him. He craved you and loved you with every fibre of his being but he wasn’t good at expressing himself verbally. That’s why he used his kisses to convey his emotions. Plus, if you have time there would 100% be neck kisses.

Kirishima:

His kisses were always cheeky, slow and full of smiles. There was always his sharp-tooth smile before he leans in and attaches your lips together. He would be smiling through the kiss, causing you to smile as well. Your hand would play with the strands of hair at the side of his neck whilst his hands would go from the back of your neck to your hips, his fingers slipping under your shirt to rub your sides gently, causing you both to smile more. If he were in a particularly good mood he might slip a joke or two in there, making you laugh before capturing your lips in a searing kiss. He’d then revert back to the playful, cheeky kisses.

Todoroki:

His kisses would be achingly slow and climactic. Your hands would slip into the back pockets of whatever trousers/jeans he was wearing whilst one of his would pull you closer by your waist. The other one of his hands would swipe across your lips once or twice then retreating to the back of your neck. That would be the moment he decided to kiss you, his breath fanning across your lips before actually making contact. The kiss would start slow then suddenly you would have to be battling for dominance. He wanted to memorise every part of you and cherish each kiss he gave you. When he was finally kissing you he would tangle his hands in your hair, pulling you closer to his hot/cold body.

If you like this then please consider buying me a coffee.

[pb1138]

A Reunion, Chapter 4

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 5

Cassandra didn’t see Varric until the next evening. There were only a handful of people in the Great Hall today, Varric at his table and a few workers redoing some of the flooring. She walked over to him and cleared her throat. “I am surprised to find you alone, Varric.”

He glanced up at her, his quill still scribbling away. “The Inquisitor asked to talk to Hawke about Corypheus.”

“That is most practical.” She hesitated before gesturing at the seat beside him. “May I sit?”

He gestured to it with his unused hand, brow knit in concentration. She sat and allowed him to finish whatever he was working on, which only took a few minutes. Once he set his quill down, he sat back with a sigh and looked at her. “So, can I assume you’re here for more of the story?”

“I could come back later if you—” She started to stand but stopped when Varric held up his hand.

“No, no. This is good actually. Hawke doesn’t like talking about the Deep Roads. It just upsets her.”

“I would imagine it does, if what you told me the first time was true.”

“It was, but there’s a little more to it.”

Xxxx The Deep Roads xxxX

They made good headway into the Roads before they came across a caved-in route. Varric offered the four of them up to find another route, which Bartrand allowed. The rising hostility from him hadn’t escaped neither Varric’s nor Hawke’s notice. As they scouted ahead, she fell back to walk beside him, Fenris and Carver clearing the way ahead of them.

“So Bartrand seems a pleasant fellow.” Her tone was light, cheery, a stark difference than when she speaks to her brother. With Carver, she sounds drained, tired, annoyed, and he can’t say he’d blame her.

He snorted. “Not a word I would’ve chosen. But something’s up. He’s being a bigger ass than usual.”

She sighed wistfully. “Maybe he’s fallen madly in love with me but knows my heart is a prize ne’er obtained, and as such he is acting out in an attempt to distance himself from me and my affable nature.”

Varric chuckled. “The day Bartrand has a pleasant feeling is the day I grow a beard.”

They both snorted, catching the attention of the others. Carver rolled his eyes and pushed ahead, though Fenris’s gaze lingered on Hawke. She didn’t notice, however, as she adjusted her pack on her back. Varric studied the way the elf looked at their friend, and a pang of jealousy hit him. Confusion was fast to replace it, because since when was Varric the jealous type? Since when was he jealous regarding Hawke? Fenris looked back ahead, and Varric settled down, pocketing that new piece of information for detailed study at a later date.

Clearing his throat, he stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. “So, never, huh? What, is Bartrand not your type?”

“Unfortunately for him, no.” She halted for a moment and leaned down to her hair up into a high ponytail, securing it in place with a red ribbon made of silk. He waited for her, the others not noticing their pause.

“What is, then?”

“Hm?” She looked at him, her exhaustion becoming evident in her eyes. It had been nearly two weeks since they left, and still she had barely slept. Down here in the Deep Roads, she was beginning to look something of a ghost.

He nudged her as they walked. “Your type. What’s your type? Tall, dark, and handsome? Scrawny and stupid? Foreign princes with eyes as clear as ice, jawlines for days, and exotic accents?”

She laughed, giving his shoulder a playful shove. “Maker’s breath, Varric. We’ve spoken to that guy maybe twice! He’s pretty, yeah, but,” she sighed wistfully, her tone lamenting, “he’s married to the Maker. How can I possibly compete with that?” The two of them chuckled, and she took a drink from her canteen. “No, I don’t really have a type if I’m honest. I like anyone and everyone. Just not assholes like Bartrand.” She raised her voice. “I’ve already got one angry shit in my life who won’t leave, I don’t need another.”

Carver scoffed and threw up his middle finger over his shoulder. “I love you, too, sweet sister of mine.”

“Anyone and everyone, huh?” Varric chuckled, nodding thoughtfully. “That explains The Blooming Rose, then.”

“Hey, don’t judge. Serendipity and I have a special bond. She takes care of me.” She laughed once, softly. “But, alas. I’ve no love in my life. There is this one guy I’m pretty interested in, but I don’t think it’ll go anywhere.”

The jealousy was back, stabbing him in the gut. What in the Maker’s name was going on with him? “Oh? What gives you that impression?”

She made a point of trying to look invested in the stalactites hanging overhead. “He’s still hung up on his ex pretty badly.”

His…ex? She couldn’t mean him, could she? His heart fluttered at the thought, but before he could think of a teasingly witty remark, an arrow flew past their heads, and they were thrown into yet another fight against Darkspawn.

Varric hadn’t found another opportunity to continue their conversation, though he certainly hadn’t forgotten it. They’d found a way around pretty easily, the most trouble being a cavern full of dragonlings and a rather large dragon. Hawke had taken a bad hit to the shoulder, and without Anders there, she would have to handle the pain. Even potions weren’t enough to cure it completely, and despite her brave face, everyone seemed to see how badly it was bothering her. They’d started guarding her better, flanking her from all sides, and Fenris even insisted he carry her satchel despite her protestations.

They arrived at the thaig a day later, and nobody knew quite what to make of it. Bartrand was bewildered, confused, and Hawke was mostly in awe. Varric couldn’t blame her. He’d never been in a thaig before, but he’d seen renderings and drawings of them, heard stories.

Bartrand and the hirelings were busy exploring the main cavern, studying the strange red spires and the like.

“Let’s scout ahead, see what else this place might have in store for us.” Hawke shouldered her staff and grinned lazily at her companions.

Fenris frowned. “You are still injured, Hawke. Perhaps it would be best if we remained with the group.”

“Indeed, Sister. The last thing we need is you falling in battle. I’ll not be responsible for telling Mother I let you die.” Carver sneered at his sister.

She sighed and rubbed her face. “I’m fine, honestly. Maker knows I wouldn’t dream of leaving our poor mother at your mercy.”

He rolled his eyes but didn’t snip back, surprising them all.

“Well then. Let’s go see what dusty treasures we can find, eh?” Varric beamed at his friends.

On their way out of the main cavern, Hawke stopped and exchanged her random tidbits and treasures for potions from Bodahn. They talked for a while, Bodahn thanking them once again for finding Sandal, and though Hawke was a sarcastic person by nature, she was genuinely polite and almost pleased to speak with them. As they walked away, Hawke patted Sandal on the shoulder and gave him a cocky grin.

They halted at the top of a staircase and pondered the potential of a room not far away. It was pretty much unanimous that there would be nothing of true value, but it was worth a peak. They hadn’t made it more than six or seven steps before some 10 Shades appeared and began to attack them. Varric took up position in front of Hawke to help protect her as her casting was much slower than usual. Fenris and Carver flanked the horde, each of them sparing no expense. Just when it seemed that the fight was nearly over, a statue a few feet to Varric’s left came to life, though neither he nor Hawke seemed to notice it. With one fell sweep of its huge arm, the two of them were thrown against the far wall as if they weighed nothing more than feathers. Fireworks burst in front of Varric’s eyes, and though he could see what was happening before him, the images held no meaning, no significance. It took him a long moment to regain his senses. Fenris and Carver were both fighting with nearly all their strength against the monstrosity, and Varric groaned. It took him another moment to realize there were no spells being cast, no thunderstorms being summoned, no fireballs thrown, nothing.

“Hawke?” He coughed as he sat up, his whole body burning with pain. Panic began to well in him as he looked around, and when he finally spotted her a few feet away, he almost couldn’t breathe. Crawling over to where she lay, he looked her over for injuries. “Hawke?” Her head was bleeding from the back, but she was breathing if barely.

The sound of fighting behind him died out, and within seconds the others were sliding over on their knees to assess their fallen leader. Fenris dug in his satchel and pulled out a potion, ripping the cork out with his teeth. Wordlessly, Varric helped adjust her so she might be able to drink, and Fenris poured the thick liquid down her throat.

“Damnit, Sister, you’d better wake up, or so help me I’ll kill you.” Carver’s fists were clenched at his sides. As much as the two of them hated one another, some small part of them did love the other, somewhere way deep down.

They all waited on bated breath. Over the course of a few minutes, the bleeding stopped, and her breathing evened out. With a collective sigh, they relaxed, and Fenris and Carver both began to tend to their own wounds. Varric stayed by her side and took her hand in his. Under his breath, he sighed, “Always keeping us on edge, aren’t you?”

“Someone has to.” Her voice was weak, as was the smile that ghosted across her face. She turned to look up at him but winced.

“No, don’t move. You’ll just hurt yourself more.” He chuckled, more out of relief than anything else.

She sighed but obliged, dropping her head back to the ground. He helped coax another potion into her, and they watched as Fenris and Carver bickered over the proper way to bind a particular wound. “What a bunch of old biddies,” she whispered. The two of them snickered, and Fenris and Carver both turned to them bewildered which only made them laugh harder. Hawke held her side, obviously in pain, but for some reason that just urged her to laugh harder. Once they settled down, she was nearly crying, but her spirits seemed lifted. They sat in a circle for a while, sharing a loaf of bread among the four of them, Hawke drinking another potion. They talked about small things—what the thaig had in store, how shitty Bartrand is, what they would do with any money they found, and it was peaceful and happy. Even Carver seemed to have pulled the stick out of his ass for a while, and it was almost possible to imagine the two Hawkes as loving siblings. Almost.

Once Hawke felt well enough to walk, they returned to their mission and entered the new section of the thaig. It was remarkably well preserved, barely a scratch in the tall walls. Hawke had taken to using her old staff as a walking cane, a soft “tink” of metal on stone echoing off the walls around them, her newer, fancier staff hanging off her back.

They came to a new antechamber, large, sharp stalactites hanging precariously from the ceiling, a side wall blown through from a cave-in.

“I think there’s a chest or something up those steps.” Hawke gestured with her staff ahead of them and looked at Varric.

He nodded and adjusted Bianca on his back. “I think you just might be right. Let’s go.” He led them up the stairs but paused. It wasn’t a chest. It was a stone slab, and upon it lay an idol of some sort. He walked over to it. “You see what I’m seeing?”

“Is that…lyrium?”

“It doesn’t look like any kind of lyrium I’ve ever seen.” He turned behind him to where his brother had just entered the room. “Look at this, Bartrand. An idol made out of pure lyrium, I think. Could be worth a fortune.”

Batrand whistled. “You could be right. An excellent find.” Something was off in his voice, but Varric thought nothing of it.

Hawke went to pick up the idol and it sparked and glowed beneath her touch. “Not bad. We’ll take a look around, see if there’s anything further in.” Hawke tossed it to Varric, and a strange sensation flowed through his body, a warmth unlike any he’d felt before. Reluctantly, he turned and tossed it to Bartrand, and the warmth was gone.

Bartrand looked at the idol with a strange glint in his eyes and turned towards the door. “You do that,” he growled beneath his breath.

Varric turned back to Hawke and began to say something when she looked towards the door. Her eyes went wide. “The door!” The four of them ran to try to catch the door from closing, Hawke sliding down the banister to make haste, but to no avail. The resounding thud of the stone sliding into place echoed all throughout the chamber.

“Bartrand! It’s shut behind you!” Varric joined Hawke to try to heave the stone back.

From the other side of the door, they could hear Bartrand’s sinister chuckling. “You always did notice everything, Varric.”

Hawke and Varric shared a look, concern written across her face as she leaned on her staff. Bewildered, Varric thumped his fist against the stone. “Are you joking? You’re going to screw over your own brother for a lousy idol?”

“It’s not just the idol! The location of this thaig alone is worth a fortune, and I’m not splitting that three ways.” There was a pause, and for just a moment Varric thought he could hear a sort of ethereal whispering before Bartrand called, “Sorry, Brother.”

“Bartrand!” He punched the door again, voice rising to an angry yell, “BARTRAND!” But he was gone. “I swear I will find that son of a bitch—sorry, Mother—I will kill him!” Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose and turned towards his friends. “Let’s hope there’s a way out of here.”

“Well, we’re in it now. This all part of your plan, Sister?” Carver scowled at Hawke, his arms crossed over his chest.

She scoffed at him, leaning forward on her staff. “Yes, Carver, this was all part of an intricate plan. Cave-ins and injuries and golums and betrayal, yes, absolutely. What, do you want me to apologize for not giving you the program beforehand? Well, just to be clear, I am fully expecting to come across at least a few demons and darkspawn before we reach the surface. Gasp. I know! It’s insane!” She glared daggers at him, hand sparkling where she held herself upright. “I don’t know what it is you want from me, Carver, but go look for it over there.” She gestured with her hand towards the back exit. He shook his head at her, teeth and fists clenched before he spun on his heel and stormed his way up the stairs.

Fenris did better to hide his anger at the situation than Carver had. He turned and followed the younger Hawke with a heavy sigh. Hawke looked down at Varric, her brow knit in concern. She reached over and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Varric. About Bartrand. And Carver, but mostly Bartrand.”

He looked up at her, into her crystal eyes, and part of him softened at the regret he saw there. He patted her hand and did his best to offer her a smile, though he knew it wasn’t quite all there. “No, Bells, I’m sorry. I’m the one who dragged you down here.”

She snorted, and the two of them set off. “Varric, you couldn’t drag me anywhere if you tried.” The two of them shared an empty laugh as they climbed the stairs.

Xxx

The path back to the surface was long, but after the rock wraiths it was almost no problem. In truth, the worst part was carrying all the gold they’d taken. About a week from the surface, they were sitting around a small campfire in a cave off the main road. Fenris had managed to find a small nug warren about an hour ago and now a rather large one was currently roasting over the fire while Fenris sat in the corner, cleaning and salting the carcasses of two others to make jerky.

They were laughing over some joke Varric had told, Hawke holding her healing side. Carver was the first to catch his breath again, and he moved to adjust the nug in the fire. “Garrett would’ve loved that one.” Hawke’s laughter cut out as if he’d punched her. Carver, for once, seemed to realize he said something wrong because he grimaced. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

She didn’t say anything, moving her legs out in front of her. Varric quirked an eyebrow at the newfound tension in the air. Fenris paused and tilted his head. “Who is Garrett?”

“He was—”

“We don’t talk about him.” Hawke cut Carver off sharply, voice steeled.

Carver scowled. “No, we don’t. We never talk about Garrett. And why is that again, Sister?”

The air in the cave dropped to below freezing in the blink of an eye as Hawke’s fists clenched. “Don’t you dare.” Her teeth were grit, fists clenched tightly in her lap, sparks dancing across her fingers.

“Oh, that’s right, because you got him killed. Just like Bethany. It’s all you’re good for, killing everyone who ever loved y—”

In the blink of an eye, Carver had been thrown back against the wall. Hawke was breathing heavily, her hand outstretched from the spell she had just cast. Fenris was standing in front of Carver almost immediately, guarding him from Hawke’s fury.

“Bells—” Varric was reaching out to touch her shoulder but the look she gave him sent an icy chill down his back. He withdrew quickly, and he must have looked at her wrong because shock flashed across her face before pain took over. She clambered to her feet, took her staff, and dashed out the cave.

Fenris looked at Varric, bewildered, before they turned to Carver. “Are you injured?” When Carver shook his head, Fenris scowled, lifting him by the collar. “Then what in the name of the Maker was that?”

Carver scowled back, pushing Fenris away from him. “Why don’t you go ask our glorious leader.”

Varric held his hand up to Fenris and shook his head. “I’ll go. You stay here and guard the idiot, make sure the nug doesn’t burn.”

Fenris nodded back to him, and Varric left after Hawke, Bianca slung on his back. He found her sitting against a derelict staircase, her knees drawn to her chest, tears streaming down her face. When she heard his footsteps, she wiped her eyes and turned her face away from him.

He hesitated, unsure of how to approach her, of what to say. Finally, he walked over and sat beside her, close enough to feel her presence but not to touch her. After a long time, she leaned over so her head was on his shoulder, her arms going around his arm. He worked to keep his breath steady so she was comfortable and reached over to pat her hand on his arm. “I’m here if you want to talk about it,” he whispered.

She shook her head and gripped his sleeve tighter. “N…No. I don’t talk about it…about him.” Her voice fell to barely a whisper, yet somehow it carried enough grief and pain within it to make Varric’s heart shatter. “I can’t.”

“That’s alright, Bells. We can just sit here, yeah?” He laid his cheek upon her head and placed his hand over hers.

They sat like that for a long time, nearing upon an hour before she pulled away from him. It was a slow movement, hesitant, like she didn’t want to let him go. “Thank you, Varric.”

Before he managed to get a word out, she was on her feet, a hand going to her staff. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear—” And there it was, the unmistakable sound of metal against metal, a fight being fought. They shared a look before they were running, staff and Bianca both at the ready. They arrived just in time to see Carver being overwhelmed, Fenris’s skin glowing as he fought off his own small army a ways away.

“Sister!” Carver’s voice was pained as he called from the fray, and she could just barely make him out amongst the Darkspawn.

They sprung into action, Varric knocking bolt after bolt as Belladonna cast vigorously. Their added assistance turned the tide, though the battle was far from easy. It dragged on for far too long, and by the time Fenris struck down the final creature, Carver was sitting against the cave wall, Hawke was leaning on her staff surrounded by lyrium vials, and Varric was making the rounds, pocketing any loot and gathering up the salvageable bolts.

Hawke took another, small vial of lyrium from her belt and downed it, then righted herself and made her way over to Carver. “Fenris, Varric, you guys hurt?” She knelt beside her brother who was clutching at his bleeding side and swatted his hand away to start healing him.

“It’s nothing to concern yourself with, Hawke,” came Fenris’s dour reply.

“Psh, you know it takes more than a few ugly mugs to take me down, Bells.”

Hawke smirked as she finished up dealing with Carver’s injuries then pushed herself to her feet with a pat on his shoulder. It didn’t escape Varric’s notice that she did so with a slight stumble, their time down below the surface clearly beginning to wear on her. She made her way over to Fenris and began healing him despite his protestations, and Varric had to pause to smile at the scene. Much like her namesake, she acted very frequently like a mother bird, and they her children. Her hawklings, as it were. Despite the broody elf’s struggles, she made quick work of healing him, but it obviously took a lot out of her. Her breath came strained, winded as she spoke. “I think we should try to find some more defensible ground for the night to set up camp.”

Fenris nodded solemnly and began picking up some of the heavier bags while Varric set about snuffing out the fire. “I never was one for camping near Darkspawn, anyway. Takes weeks to get the smell out of my hair.”

Hawke snorted as she gathered some of the lighter packs and offered her hand to Carver to help him off the ground. “And goodness knows we can’t have that. Your horde of women will be beside themselves.”

They shared a chuckle while Carver scoffed. “Get a room,” he grumbled.

Hawke’s ear twitched and she side-eyed her brother. His voice sounded…off, and he was carrying himself strangely as though he were still wounded, though she didn’t see any injuries beyond the ones she had already healed.

They pushed further into the Roads and came to a wide cavern and a bridge. Hawke paused to survey the area and a realization hit her.  “This part of the Deep Roads looks familiar.”

“So we’re back where we started, and in only 5 days. Not bad, eh.” Varric seemed overly pleased with their progress. Hawke had to admit, she was also rather impressed. She would be even more impressed if they didn’t still have a week left in their trek, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“Think we could…take a break? I feel…wrong.” Carver did, indeed, sound off, but it didn’t quite register as an emergency in Hawke’s mind.

With a teasing tone in her voice, she called back over her shoulder, “I think all our stomachs are a bit tender right now.”

“I’ll wager it was all those dark mushrooms we found.” Hawke could always count on Varric to pick up on her sarcastic remarks.

“No, it’s…”

Hawke turned just in time to see Carver falling to the ground in a crumpled heap. She was quick to dart to his side, packs shrugged off her back as she went. “Carver!”

His face had paled considerably, and his eyes had clouded significantly. His skin was cold to the touch as Hawke cradled his face. “It’s the blight, isn’t it? Just like that templar, Wesley. I’ll be just as dead, just as gone.”

“I’m not going to let that happen.” Coldness had filled Hawke’s veins, her heart pounding in her ears. It was the blight. He was right. But damned if she was going to let this happen again. Not again.

“I’m not going to make it. Not to the surface, not anywhere. It’s getting worse.” Hawke shook her head, tears threatening to spill over her eyes.

Varric came closer to them, his heart aching in his chest. He shared a forlorn look with Fenris before putting his hand on Hawke’s shoulder. “We’re in the middle of nowhere… We can’t help him.” Hawke turned to look up at him, her breath catching in her throat, but he could only offer her a look of shaded pain. Fenris looked similarly hopeless, having set the bags down and standing off to the side, leaning on his sword with his hair in his eyes.

Varric stepped over to Fenris to give them some more privacy, and the two of them walked a short ways away to keep guard.

Hawke was struggling hard to keep it in check, to stop herself from openly weeping. She wouldn’t let her snotty face be the last thing he saw, so she tapped it down. She moved so that she was sitting, his head in her lap. After sucking in a trembling breath, she smiled down at him and stroked his hair. “D’you remember the day you ate that pie that mother made for your birthday?”

A shaky laugh escaped his lips as he nodded. “The peach one?”

“Father nearly whacked you with his staff, made you do the laundry for a whole month and Bethany kept ‘spilling’ things on all her clothes?”

The smile fell from his face. “I miss her so much.”

Tears filled Hawke’s eyes again as she nodded. “Me, too.”

There was a moment of silence before Carver reached up to hold her cheek. “I… I’m sorry. About what I said before. About Garrett.”

She shook her head, a tear slipping down her cheek which he brushed away. “There’s nothing to forgive.” Her head tilted back as she looked up at the roof of the cavern, trying to hold back her emotions. “You were right. It was my fault.”

“No.” His voice was surprisingly hard, given how weak he was. She looked back down at him and was surprised to see him scowling. “You had no way to know.” He winced as if something were hurting him and withdrew his hand. She placed a healing spell to his stomach, trying to stave it off. “I would have done the same, Donna.”

She nodded, smoothing his hair back. “Thank you, Carver.”

The light in his eyes was beginning to darken, and he took a raspy breath. His hand weakly found hers. “You’ll do it, won’t you, Sis?”

She swallowed hard, dryly, and managed a trembling whisper. “You always did ask for the world, Carver.”

His hand over hers squeezed, and a faint smile on his lips. “And you always gave it.” He reached up with a trembling hand and put his hand on the back of her neck, drawing her closer to him. Her tears dotted his cheek as they fell from her face. “It’s just you now. Take care of Mother.”

Fenris and Varric heard nothing for several minutes and shared a concerned look. Before they could turn back to see what was happening, they heard a clattering of metal falling on the ground then Hawke sobbing then her sobs quickly turning to shrieks of agony. They turned, then, and tears sprung to Varric’s eyes. She was leaning over him, cradling him to her, his blood pooling around them with a bloody dagger lying on the floor. Varric moved to go to her, to comfort her, but Fenris’s gloved hand on his shoulder halted his steps. He looked back at the broody elf with an expression of shock and agitation, but Fenris only shook his head slightly. Varric looked back at Hawke, his heart throbbing across his entire body, fingers twitching with the desire to hold her, but he knew Fenris was right. She needed some time. So, they turned their backs to her again and gave her the privacy she needed.

It was nearly three hours later that she stirred and lifted Carver’s head from her lap. She rose to her feet and picked up her staff before wordlessly turning around and heading back the direction they’d come. Varric jumped to his feet and cast Fenris a bewildered look before he ran after her. “Hawke!”

She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at the two of them, Fenris rising to his feet with a confused expression on his face. Her voice was barely audible, wrought with pain. “Stay here. With…with him.”

“No, no way, Hawke. I’m not letting you go back in there alone.” He righted Bianca on his shoulder and puffed his chest out, standing his ground.

She stared at him for a long moment with unblinking, puffy eyes before nodding. “Fenris.” She looked past Varric at the elf. “Would you stay?”

Fenris nodded and bowed his head. “Of course, Hawke.”

Without another word or glance, Hawke spun on her heel and stalked off. Varric scrambled after her and fell into step beside her. He watched her out of the corner of his eye but didn’t try to press it. They walked on for a while before coming to a sharp turn which lead them to an abandoned way station they had scavenged earlier. Varric stood in the doorway and watched as she flitted about the room, breaking anything wooden she could lay her hands on, her staff leaning against a wall. After she had a respectable pile in the middle of the floor, she looked over at Varric. “There was a… a wheelbarrow… thing… down the road a ways.”

He raised an eyebrow at her but nodded, pulling Bianca off his back. “Sure thing, Bells.” It took him nearly half an hour to find the wheelbarrow, but thankfully it wasn’t crumbling like the rest of the Roads. The trip back to her took less than 10 minutes since he knew the way to go, but by the time he got to the way station again, the pile had nearly tripled in size. Hawke was leaned over a rather sturdy and heavy looking table and apparently the last piece of furniture in the whole place. From the tracks in the dust, Hawke must’ve been dragging it. Varric cleared his throat to announce his presence, and her shockingly blue eyes snapped to him. “I uh… I got the thing.”

“G… Good. Yes.” She looked down at the table again. “Would you mind loading the pile into it?”

He set his coat and Bianca against a wall and eyed her as he set about the task. “Sure, Bells.”

By the time he had the wheel barrow filled, she had managed to drag the table almost to the door but stopped to catch her breath, sitting on it. Varric walked over to her and leaned against the table, looking up at her. “You wanna talk?”

A long moment of silence stretched between them, so long Varric might’ve given up if it had gone on any longer. “I…” She clenched and unclenched her fists for another minute before taking a shaky breath. “I’ve gotten them all killed.”

Varric frowned and stood up straight, moving so he was directly in front of her. “Hey, no you haven’t.”

She shook her head and stared down at her hands, clenched in her lap. “All of them. Dead. Because of me.”

“Bells.” She didn’t look up at him, so he ripped his gloves off, reached forward, and took her hands in his. “Belladonna. Listen to me.” Her eyes drifted up to his face, filled with pure and utter sorrow. “You are not responsible for this.”

She shook her head and pulled her hands away from his. “You have no idea.” Without another word, and before he could get a word out himself, she slipped off the table and turned her back to him. She dug in her robes for a moment before pulling out her last giant lyrium vial and downing it. Before he could ask what she was doing, her staff was in her hand and she was casting a spell. The table lifted off the ground, and she followed it outside, leaving him in her wake. He watched her go for a moment before gathering his things and pushing the wheelbarrow after her.

They made good time getting back, much to Fenris’s obvious relief. He had taken Carver’s bedroll and covered his body with it, though Hawke seemed not to notice. The table she was magicking over hit the ground hard, and she doubled over, catching her breath. Fenris watched her then quirked his brow at Varric who just shrugged in response. “Hawke?”

She ignored them and took the wheelbarrow from Varric. They just watched as she built the wood up underneath the table, and realization dawned on them. A funeral pyre. Fenris walked over and gently halted her movements. “Hawke. Allow me.” She seemed surprised, but relented, offering him a weak smile.

She walked over to their stuff and started digging before pulling out a canteen and one of her tunics. Varric watched as she ripped a strip from the tunic and poured water on it, but she froze as she turned, facing Carver’s body. The fabric passed between her hands a few times, but neither her eyes nor her legs would budge. “Hawke.” Varric set his stuff down and walked over to her, holding his hand out. “Allow me.” Her eyes flicked to his, tears on the verge of spilling out before she nodded and passed him the cloth.

It wasn’t long before Carver’s body was cleaned up, and Fenris helped Varric carry it onto the table. Hawke watched, unblinking, the look on her face absolute, indescribable pain. The two men came and stood on either side of her, and Varric folded his hands in front of himself. “Do… you wanna say a few words?”

Hawke paused for a minute before she nodded. “I… Yeah. Yeah.” She took a trembling breath and stiffened, as though bracing herself. “Carver was… a tit. The… the thorn in my side. Hardheaded and stupid and just…” Her voice cracked, and she took another moment to steady herself, hiding her face amongst her burgundy curls. “But he was my brother. My baby brother. My responsibility.” Her fists clenched at her side. “H… I’ll… I’ll miss the shi… Him. I’ll miss him. But… Maybe he’s… maybe he’s with Bethany and Father and…” She couldn’t get the final word out, a choking sob breaking off her words. Varric reached for her arm but she flinched away, and no small part of his feelings were hurt by the action. Instead, she pushed forward toward the pyre and pulled two sovreigns from her pocket, placing them on Carver’s eyes. Varric and Fenris watched as she leaned down to place a kiss on his forehead and whisper something in his ear before she stood back. With a wave of her hand, fire sparked in the wood below the table, and Hawke watched as the flames ate their way up to her brother.

They stood in silence for another few minutes before Hawke abruptly turned and began gathering their things. Fenris gave Varric a concerned look before they moved to help, either man taking the majority of the items so Hawke did not have to. By the time they were all loaded up, Hawke was left with just two packs, her staff, and Carver’s maul which she had taken with an almost reverential amount of gentility.

“Let’s get out of this accursed hell.” She held herself strong as she lead the way, though the way she clenched her fist by her side did not escape Varric’s notice.

[thatwitchrevan]

🦋🌟 meetra, 🌙 merith, 💐 💎 ur pick? (or ur pick for any lol)

Meetra:

🦋 If your OC could change everything (or just something) about their life would they? What would they change? What do they think would happen if they did? What would their loved ones think?

Meetra has a lot that she wishes she could change but no clear ideas on how, or what exactly she’d change in order to fix things. She could wish the people she cares about were all alive again, but what about everyone she didn’t know? What about her enemies? Would she redo the war and make different choices in order to get a different outcome? What would she even do different? It’s too many questions, and she doesn’t feel like she knows the answers or has the right to decide. She tries not to think about it, even though sometimes it happens anyway.

The only thing she knows for certain is that if she could do it all again, she’d do whatever she could to stop Revan from starting another war. The Mandalorian War was inevitable, and even Malachor maybe had to happen for the galaxy’s sake, but stopping Revan would’ve been the best thing she could’ve done after all that, and she failed. Stopping Revan would save the galaxy from so much more pain and suffering, and yes, Meetra would kill Revan if necessary. Honestly that would probably be Plan A if she could get a do-over with any knowledge of what Revan would do.

🌟 When your OC loses all hope, who do they turn to first? What helps make them feel better? What calms them down and reassures them? Why?

The best answer is somewhere between ‘herself’ and ‘her old teacher’. Despite falling out with Kavar and the rest of the Jedi, Meetra still frequently thinks of her master when she’s scared and doesn’t know what to do. Kavar always drilled into her that she was strong, and that her strength came from her. Not from other Jedi, not even from the Force, really. He wanted her to have a deep, unfailing confidence in her own ability. He built her up enough that she still thinks back on it, even after he betrays her twice and then dies. But since she’s on her own now, or at least not typically surrounded by Jedi Masters, this is all her reminding herself of something she was taught years ago, and convincing herself to believe in it, which is very different from being encouraged by someone else.

Then there’s Kreia, who is also very complicated and sometimes (often?) makes Meetra feel worse instead of better, but she does have her moments! Honestly Meetra takes a lot of comfort just from having a mentor again, even if she doesn’t like or agree with much of what that mentor says, and even if Kreia is a grumpy old witch a lot of the time. Meetra knows that Kreia deeply cares about her and wants to help her, and that’s enough to make Meetra continually go to her with problems, questions, and even just ‘I’m fucking tired and lost man, please help me.’ Whether or not Kreia DOES help her is entirely up to Kreia. 

Merith:

🌙 If your OC could have one wish come true what would it be and why? Would there be consequences to this wish or would they regret it once they get what they want? What would they give in return for this wish to come true?

She’d wish to save Malak. The ideal, straightforward way of doing this would just be to stop herself from ‘turning’ him or whatever - he wouldn’t become a Sith with her, wouldn’t be traumatized by a bunch of Dark Jedi shit and gotten his jaw sliced off, he never would’ve turned on her and she wouldn’t have had to kill him. This might mean Revan’s reign would’ve been a lot longer and more terrible without her apprentice to stop her, but more likely the Republic/Jedi would’ve just killed her a lot sooner because she didn’t have her right hand. Maybe Malak himself would’ve done it, or saved her from it - it doesn’t really matter to her. All that matters is that he would survive and not have to suffer like she did. 

I’ll answer these last two for my KH OCs, Elias and Angel. 

💐 Does your OC like flowers? What are their favourites? Do they keep a garden of some sort? What flowers would they use in a flower crown? (and if you like, research the meanings behind those flowers!)

Elias likes pansies, marigolds, and orchids. They don’t have their own space to grow anything at least before the Keyblade War, but Daybreak Town is full of pretty gardens and flower plots, and the plains probably have lots of wild flowers. If they were gonna do a flower crown it’d be made with different colored pansies and maybe daisies. 

Angel loves flowers, especially dandelions, daisies, and sunflowers. She might’ve had a potted sunflower in her room but I’m not sure if she’d still have it after the war and everything. She also doesn’t really have energy to keep up a full garden or anything, although like Elias she doesn’t initially have the space anyway. Maybe when they live together they’ll start a flower garden?? Her flower crown would be dandelions both because she loves them and because being A Dandelion is/was very important to her.

💎 Does your OC collect anything? Is there a reason? When did they start and is it beginning to turn into a little bit of a hoarding issue? What do they do with their collection?

Elias collects cool/pretty rocks. They like them and they’re pretty easy to collect, and it’s the kind of thing their friends can easily bring them like ‘hey, I thought you might like this!’ Also, you can collect variations of the same rock type without being bored of it due to the variety in size, shape, color, etc. They keep their rocks in boxes/tins under their bed until after the war - Ephemer probably rescues the collection for them and puts it in their new house. They also had a small collection of old armor pieces that they and their friends don’t use anymore, but that one’s gone.

Angel presses and keeps the flowers she picks. She tries not to pick too many - just one or two of each kind she likes so she can put them into a book and flip through them when she’s stuck home and needs something nice to make her feel better. Ephemer probably saves this collection as well.  

[skelenyxx]

1 - Just Five Guys ~ The Wild Ones Rebellion

"This Record Is For The Outcast, Following Our Stories Of Love, Life, And Never Giving In.  We Are The Black Veil Brides." ~ The Outcast (A Call To Arms)

.•*•.•*•.•*•.

I slammed the brakes on my car, practically flying through the window in the process. "Damn j-walkers!" I muttered to myself.

As though the kid heard me, he turned and flipped me off. I rolled my eyes. Kids these days have no respect towards anyone. Not like he was much of a kid though; he looked like he was probably a Freshman or a Sophomore, but with me being 19, I refer to a lot of other high schoolers as kids.

Once the kid was out of the way, I pulled into the parking lot beside the school. I reached into the glove box and pulled out my school parking pass. I definitely did not want not get towed.

I grabbed my bags and exited the car in a huff. As I walked through the doors to the high school, I noticed a lot of people gathered around the bulletin board. I pushed my way through the crowd, earning a lot of glares. When I had gotten to the front, I saw what had called all of the attention. There was a plain white piece of paper pinned to the board reading,

ASSEMBLY FIRST PERIOD

At start of school, report to gym

No wonder everyone was gathered around it. We never had assemblies. Ever. And a surprise one to boot? It was probably just some sort of lecture or group coming to talk to us about not doing drugs and stuff. Ugh, I hated those.

I pushed my way out of the crowd and sat on a bench nearby. I pulled my laptop out of my bag and pressed the power button, watching the Windows logo light up the screen, and opened up my e-mail to find, to my dismay, no new e-mails.

"I'm never going to get this project done!" I mumbled to myself. I had two weeks to get my experiment for my Senior Project done and no one was answering my requests. My experiment was based on bullying. My thought was that if I could get even the most rebellious celebrities to be accepted by the students at my school, than it wouldn't be that hard for them to accept their rebellious fellow students, which, according to my thesis, would lead to a decline in the school's bullying problem. Two months ago, I'd sent out an e-mail to every celebrity I could think of, ranging from P!INK to Ke$ha to Marylyn Manson, even Miley Cyrus. Within the first few weeks after I sent out my proposition, I'd received responses from a few artists and they loved the idea... only they could participate due to their touring schedules. After that, I was certain I'd get responses from others, but nothing came. At this point, I was debating completely redoing my project, even though I only had two weeks left. It didn't look like anyone else was going to reply.

I snapped my laptop closed in frustration, placing it back in my bag and looking around at my fellow students. All of them tried to fit in, afraid to stand out in a judgmental crowd. I had been the same way, but in my freshman year, I had gotten sick of trying to fit in. I stopped doing my hair like everyone else, stopped wearing what everyone else wanted me to wear, and just started being myself.

In the long run, my attitude didn't make me too many friends, but the few I did make were better than anyone else at the school. We weren't super close by any means, but at least I had people to hang around with who at least accepted me for me.

There was only one friend that I was super close with: my best friend, Alee. We had met at random in a class and just got along really well. She was more popular than I was, as well as being older than me by a year, and she always stuck up for me against the random popular kids in my class that would decide to start shit with me. Now, however, she was in college, so I was on my own in that aspect.

I put in my ear buds and started listening to my music. Of course, Ritual by Black Veil Brides came on. My iPod always knew what to play at the right time.

I began singing to the song quietly.

Praying for what your heat brings

Thoughts of escape and bloodshot eyes

You're barely sleeping, no longer dreaming

Now what you do to feel alive

Rise up and celebrate your life

We're not alone in our Ritual

Sing for what you feel inside

Become one with our Ritual

Ritual always made me smile.

Before the song could go any further, the bell rang, signally that I should start heading to first period, or in this case, the assembly. As I walked down the hallways, I saw an old poster with President Johnson on it. Everyone loved him as a President. He had united most of the world under one banner, ours, the United States. Talk about world domination. He had done so much good. He was a big up stander against bullying, which was amazing since we had really needed laws in place against bullying, which he had enforced. Although too many people still got away with it, it was at least something. No one even though twice about it when the law was removed prohibiting presidents from serving more than two terms. He had served five so far, but everyone loved him. He was doing so much good for the U.S., for the world.

I walked through the double doors leading into the gym, taking a deep breath as I sat down a few rows back from the from front. I could nearly feel the tension in the air as everyone whispered, wondering what we would be hearing about today.

"Welcome students!" Principal Gulbranson exclaimed, pulling me from my day dreaming. "We have a wonderful surprise in store for you today!"

Students were heard grunting throughout the gym. Normally, these "wonderful surprises" weren't so wonderful. Like the time when we had gone on a fieldtrip to a presidential debate. That was only a class thing, but it had been so boring since we already knew who was going to dominate the debate.  Obviously, President Johnson.

He continued, unfazed by the response. "As you may know, one of our Seniors has been working on a project to get celebrities to attend our school to see how well the student body accepts them." My heart began to hammer. Was he talking about me?  He had to be, after all, I was the only student that I was aware of who was doing such a project.  Why wasn't I informed of... whatever was going on?  A collective murmur rose up through the stands.

"Katrina Stampson, could you come up here and join me, please?" He continued. He was talking to me. I rose from my seat and began to walk down the steps to the gym floor which was our stage. I swear people could hear my heart beating. It was so quiet. Was he expecting me to have a celebrity who would join us? I had no one. No one had answered my e-mail.

"Katrina, who so far has answered your request?" He handed me the mic so I could reply.

"Well, I, uh, got a reply from P!NK and Miley Cyrus, but they weren't able to come..." I trailed off looking down at my feet..

Mr. Gulbranson took the mic and asked "And no on else has answered you. Not even a hint?" I shook my head in response. People had perked up at the mention of P!NK and Miley Cyrus, but the disappointment was easy to see, now that they knew I had no one.

"What if I were to tell you that someone did reply." I stared at him, eyes wide with disbelief.  "A particular band decided to answer your request, but they decided to go through the school so they could keep it a surprise." He went on with a smile. More whispers around the students. Everyone was trying to guess who it might be, as was I.

He continued on talking, "Now, your request stated that you were looking for 'more rebellious' celebrities, am I right?" I nodded. Where the hell was this going?  At the word rebellious, the whispers had gotten louder. People were craning their neck, looking around the gym and trying to see who this band was.

"Do you have any idea who it might be, Katrina?" He asked. I shook my head again. I was too shocked to speak. My mind was reeling, trying to find every possible band that this could be. Unfortunately, it was hard to narrow it down. I had sent my request to a lot of bands.

"Before I bring them out, they want you all to know something." All eyes were on him. "For this 'experiment' to work, you have to treat them like they're just normal students here. They're not celebrities. They're not in a famous rock band. They're normal. They are just five guys." My head was spinning. Five guys, a rock band. Oh shit, I was way in over my head here.

That's when Black Veil Brides entered the gym.

[thotyssey]

On Point With: DJ Ten Yards

Sam Branman, the DJ third of Brooklyn nightlife monster trio Str8 to DVD, is also churning out some of the skimpiest and most fashionable Speedos on the planet (among other things). Thotyssey tries to keep up with Ten Yards!

Thotyssey: DJ, hello! Thanks for chatting with us today! First of all, OMG YOU GOT HIT BY A CAR!? How exactly did this happen, and how are you?

DJ Ten Yards: It was super fucking annoying. I was actually on my way to Annie Mae, which is Laè D Boi’s party (currently first Sundays at The Rosemont) I’m the resident DJ / video curator for, and I was literally crossing the street one block from my house and a fucking pickup truck hit me from behind! I’m mostly okay--my left arm got banged up and I’m doing PT to get that back to full fighting strength. They also destroyed my laptop! The truck actually sped off after hitting me, but I found it thanks to some nosy neighbors, and I’m starting legal proceedings. I obviously didn’t make it to the party, and went to the ER instead.

Does this bring home how terrible the world and it's people can be?

I mean, everyone who saw me get hit were super nice and helpful! I’m not letting one asshole who can’t drive ruin my worldview. even if it did jack my arm up.

That's the spirit! Will you still be making it to DragCon, if that's something you were planning to do?

Absolutely! I’m lucky in that I am able to work on jewelry and I’ve been preparing for it for months, so I have a lot of apparel no one’s seen yet ready to go! I’m at table C31, and I’m there all weekend (except Saturday morning because there’s no way I’m going directly from Str8 to DVD to DragCon, which starts at 9. My husband Erik can work that alone.)

Between your designs and your DJ’ing, there's lots to talk about, so we better start right at the beginning. Where's your hometown, and what came first: fashion or music?

I grew up mostly in Olive Bridge, NY, but I just say I’m from Woodstock because it’s the closest landmark that people who aren’t from there know. Fashion came first! I loved dressing up as a child, and I started sewing what mostly resembled actual clothing when I was 18. I had decided to go to college for photography, not fashion. But I’m a big nerd, so I’d do a few cosplay projects to wear at the anime conventions I went to every summer.

Who were you cosplaying as?

My first actual cosplay was Hirai Ken from the “Pop Star” video. There’s three of him in different colored jumpsuits, and I could sort of do the hair he has in the red one! I also did a very loose Tommy February6 (we share a birthday!), invented a fake Japanese band with friends, and Ray Watts from KMFDM / PIG / Schwein. I still wear the shirt I made for that, but the jumpsuit was sacrificed last year to become Beltane ribbons, and the others just languish in my clothing labyrinth.

And when did DJing come into the picture?

I’ve always wanted to be musical, but I’m not. I tried to learn instruments, to learn how to write music. I was briefly sort of in a band or two (I even have album credits). I am, however, a collector and very opinionated... so I can DJ! My friend DJ A-Ron’s DJing partner moved away, and he offered to show me the ropes. We did a few gigs together at Nowhere back in 2013, and I struck out on my own DJing for a few now-defunct parties around Manhattan and Brooklyn. I didn’t start the drag-DJ gig until Qhrist With a Q and Sherry Poppins asked me to do what was then 1-900-HOT-GLUE two years ago!

You met Qhrist in a nerdy chat room, right?

Yep! Eightish years ago? I helped convince Qhrist to go to Purchase, too.

Good for you! What was the rationale at the time behind creating HOT GLUE, which is now STR8 to DVD?

At the beginning, I was just helping out! They wanted to make a space for themselves and the other performers coming out of Purchase, like Maxxx Pleasure, Lindsay Blowhan, and Jenn D'Role, and I was along for the ride. I didn’t initially do any production work besides promo, letting Qhrist and Sherry stay at my place, and making sure I had everyone’s music at first. But now we all do booking / coming up with names. I’ve been the one finding our newbie performers all year long, and I convinced them to change the name to STR8 to DVD.

This has become a hugely popular night, enough so to warrant a recent move from monthly Mondays to Fridays! What have been some memorable moments for you from STR8?

Every single one of Qhrist and Sherry’s stupid, perfect, beautiful, unrehearsed duets. They’re so good together that people don’t realize how unrehearsed they are. When Sherry was still getting ready at my house with Qhris, they might listen to the song once or twice to get the words down, but that’s it! 

I’m also very fond of our massively overbooked Halloween show last year, when we all kept booking people and forgetting until it was too late. We wound up with 9 performers and 13 actual numbers. It was perfect. Half of them involved food, because we’re gross and live in Brooklyn.

That reminds me, I hear that pasta and fake blood were factors in a perilous Bushwig this summer!

I fully missed all of the mess, because of where my booth was at Bushswag! I couldn’t see shit. I made sure to see the performers I’d made clothes for, and my personal legends like Charlene, Untitled, Ragamuffin, Tyler Ashley, and Chutney Spears with that fucking snake.

Gurl, that snake! So STR8 is turning 2 this Friday at Gold Sounds ... what's in store for the anniversary?

STUPIDITY! I’m glad we’re leaning into being irredeemable and canceled. Qhrist already has to redo the flyer because one performer canceled, we forgot we booked one performer, and Lindsay Blowhan is coming all the way up from Virginia for it, and we should probably have her perform? I guess? It’s not like she’s Sherry’s daughter and performed at our first, like, six shows or anything. 

We’ve got Sandy Devastation who made her debut at STR8 to DVD, Papusa Smear who made their debut with us, and Kaey Kiel, a nice cabaret singer and journalist from Berlin who doesn’t deserve to deal with any of this! She’s staying with my husband and her dream is to perform in New York, so we’re making all her dreams come true.

Another monthly (third Saturdays, in this case) you've been DJing, Emi Grate's “A+: The Asian Revue,” has also recently had it's own (1st) anniversary, and has moved to The Monster in the West Village. What has it been like, being a part of that?

It’s super fun! Emi is so fucking on top of every detail. She sends out a multi-page email with every piece of information you could ever want, she has the lineup a month in advance sometimes, and the show is at a reasonable hour! Never underestimate how great it is to leave the gig at 10pm and still be able to go out afterwards... or even just go home, have dinner, and go to bed. Because of the way Gold Sounds is set up, I don’t actually do much DJ work if there aren’t drag queens on stage. But with A+ (and Annie Mae), I spend a significant amount of time actually DJing. That’s always fun. For both those shows, I play exclusively Jpop and Kpop (and would happily take suggestions for fun pop and dance music from throughout Asia! A cute boy suggested some Hindi pop songs at the most recent A+)

And the next “Annie Mae” is October 7 at the Rosemont! That's a super geeky celebration of genre fan culture that Laé D. Boi produces. That must be right up your ally!

It is! I always choose anime movies or TV shows to screen during the party on top of DJing! This month the theme is Studio Ghibli, so I think I’m gonna be playing Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and either Pompoko or Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro. I’m pretty sure Sherry Poppins will bring one of her swords, too.

So, your Ten Yards clothing line is all the rage! The sexy and colorful speedos are especially in demand! How did this come about?

I wanted to make bathing suits--made a few for myself. And then it felt like suddenly people started asking me to make them suits, and now here I am! A local bathing suit mogul. It’s been over four years, and all it took was saying “Sure, I can do that.” and then figuring it out.

How long does it take you to make a speedo now?

My first few took time, but I’m a fucking wizard now. Obviously with my arm it’s hard right now, but I can make a speedo from start to finish in about 35 minutes. Jockstraps are 27 minutes if I go at full speed!

And now you’re bringing us jewelry as well!

You can thank my mom for the jewelry! She made it all in the 80’s and early 90’s. I’m just the refurbishing squad. I’m actually photographing it right now, so I have a record of it, because most of it’s totally unique and once it is gone, it’s gone.

And much-belated congratulations on having your Fashions nominated for a Brooklyn Nightlife Award a few months back.

It was amazing to be nominated, and I knew I would lose to Florence or Diego because they’re both powerhouses! Luckily, Florence moved to Manhattan, so I have an entire year to snatch that brick from Diego’s beautiful and talented hands.

Another thing to congratulate you on: being happily married! That may sound trite, but finding true love in the nightlife biz is damn hard. What’s your secret?

So, part of it is that we don’t live together, so I’m usually not disturbing him when I come home at 4am. And when we have problems, we talk it out! Erik’s also a lovely angel who supports me no matter what. He helps out whenever I have to sell shit, and buys fabric and zippers even if it makes him nervous. But he has a day job, so he’s only been able to come to three of my gigs in the five and a half years we’ve been together.

I also wasn’t working in nightlife when we met! That probably helps, too. He’s been there every step of the way as I’ve made the switch into nightlife and fashion design.

Okay, do you have anything else you wanna plug or discuss before I ask the closer?

Nah, just a schedule recap for people who get lost in my rambling! STR8 To DVD: CANCELED is at Gold Sounds (44 Wilson Ave) on 9/28, we have shows at Midnight, and it costs $5-10. I’ll be at table C31 during DragCon (that’s the 28-30th at the Javits, ugh), Annie Mae: Ghibli is at The Rosemont on 10/07, and is free, I’ll be there at 10:30 to start the movies! See you there!

Finally: who would you really love to see in one of your speedos?

Anyone who wants a pair! But I wouldn’t say no to some Instagram thots with 30k+ followers, so long as they tag me.

Thanks, Ten!

Check Thotyssey’s calendar for DJ Ten Yards’ upcoming gigs, and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

On Point Archives

[sunnysidewrites]

Neighbor!Woozi

based on this post hehehe

i just fed yall TWICE. in the span of just 2 DAYS!!! AND THEY’RE BOTH MORE OR LESS THE SAME LONG ASS LENGTH!!! yeah that’s right i went overboard again gtg

happy happy bday to the lovely admin bee of @mansaeboysbe you are such a beautiful person inside and out, and im incredibly proud to know someone like you :’))) i’ve already sent a bday message to you so im not tryna redo it LOL but just know that i love you a whole lot and i always will! 💗💗💗💗💓💓 (she’s also the same person who gave me those beautiful headers on my mlist so please give her tons of love <333) love you sm hub hope you have a wonderful and fantastic day!!!

*to all the mutuals with bdays that have either passed or are coming up, i love you all SO FREAKING MUCH so pls dont feel left out!! it just so happened that i wanted to write this au for a long time and i wanted to present it as a bday gift for this jihoon stan hehe but i rlly love each every single one of u ok babes? <333*

warnings: i feel like i dragged this on for too long but i hope it’s still cute :’)) also i put in a joke like twice LOL anyways lil wooz only gets tongue-tied around you so you become his muse for songs

You were looking for a place to stay in bc “I am a grown adult i am not living with yall anymore” you @ your parents

And they’re like lol ok Good Luck Kiddo

After a month and a half of deeeeep searching you finally find a reasonably priced place to live in

It’s quite a distance from your parents’ home but it’s the point of you moving out to begin with

On the move-in day, you’re carrying your boxes up to your new apartment complex and you hear some tunes drifting from your next door neighbor

And you’re like hey this is actually really good music but i’ve never heard of it

You shrug it off and continue settling in

Once you finished hauling your boxes, you were about to pass out on your couch

Ok you actually did pass out on your couch

But you had to unpack some necessities later that night for bathroom and bedroom purposes

All you had for dinner was pop in some instant ramen and call it a night. You then hopped in the shower and got ready for bed

The following morning it was primarily you unpacking and shifting around your furniture a little but it was challenging by yourself

You were making a good amount of noise and in the middle of the day you were met with a very loud knock on your door

And you were in the middle of unpacking your kitchenware so you were like oh shoot ahh i’ll be right there!!

Little did you know your next door neighbor wasn’t having any of it

Can’t I get some peace and quiet around here? He grumbled as he impatiently waited for you to open the door

I swear, I’m gonna tell them off they won’t even knOW what will hit--

You finally opened the door, and he’s like oh. My gosh.

You had a few pieces of hair sticking to your forehead and your hair was tied back in a messy bun

You were dressed in a faded coral tee underneath a pair of worn-out denim overalls with house slippers

Everything he planned to complain about suddenly vanished and his first thought was:

“Is that Pikachu on your front pocket?”

Apparently he said that aloud, which he didn’t register until he saw you giggling

“Yeah, it was a hand-me-down! Still cute, right?”

And he’s kinda still just staring at you with his mouth slightly agape

And you’re like oh right ahem did you need anything?

That’s when he notices the utter mess behind you: plastic covering still over some of your furniture, half-emptied boxes littered in almost every inch of the floor, etc.

And that’s when it hits him: all that noise was you unpacking

“O-oh yeah, I just,, wanted to let you know that it was getting a little loud since I live right next door”

He silently curses at himself like i almost went off at my new neighbor rip that wasn’t gonna be a good first impression

Luckily for him, you were chill about it and you’re like omg sorry!!! It’s a little tough doing this by myself, sorry for the ruckus

Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “do you need any help?”

Jihoon internally: u doofus u have an album to produce whAT ARE U DOING

Jihoon externally: i can help you :))) no matter how smol i may be

But that internal reprimanding melted away when he saw your eyes light up in relief and you’re practically bouncing up and down

“Would you, really??? It would be great if I had another hand around! Oh, but you’re probably occupied doing something, right??” and you feel bad that a stranger, your next door neighbor nonetheless, was about to abandon his work just for you

A cute neighbor, at that

Jihoon is like ok this is your chance to get away and go back to work cmon man

But there’s just something about you that pulls him in magnetically and he finds himself trying to reason internally that it’ll just be for a “few moments”

Yyyeaaahhh that doesn’t happen lmao rip Jihoon’s songs

Jihoon is just like “nah it’s fine I can help out for a bit” and you’re like god bless this human being

When you open your door further to let him in, he’s like oh right btw I’m Jihoon

“I’m y/n! Sorry about the mess, I only got here yesterday evening”

He shakes his head and quirks up his lips ever so slightly, “i remember when my place looked like this too except replace this space with music production things”

And you’re like ooOOoOoOO you make songs??? That’s amazing!!

And that’s when you got the ball rolling!!!

“A few moments” turn into hours and the next thing you know it’s dinnertime

“Oh crap sorry for keeping you for this long,,, those songs won’t produce themselves, right? I think I can take it from here”

Admittedly, jihoon didn’t wanna leave just yet bc he actually enjoyed your company and it was nice taking a break from staring at his screen frustratedly

“Well, I don’t mind helping out. I could show you my work one day if you want”

And you’re like holy cheeseballs yES

He starts getting up and brushing off his clothes and you’re a little sad that he’s leaving and he kinda is too :(

“If you’re not too busy tomorrow, you’re welcome to help me out more! I mean, you already helped me a whole lot today, but there’s still some things left to do”

As much as his brain is telling him to NOT DO IT,,,,

He does it

Next thing you know, jihoon is at your door again around the same time and he has something in his hand

As you let him inside, you ask him what it is and he’s like ;))))

“It’s a CD that compiled just a few songs I thought you might like”

And you’re #shook bc did he really just have a CD like this out in the open or did he really take his time yesterday to transfer songs on it??

“Do you have a player or a laptop?”

“Yeah, my laptop is on my bed, you can bring it out here!” You shout over your shoulder as you arrange your things in the living room

Shortly afterwards he emerges from the hallway and he presses a few buttons and clicks here and there and beautiful melodies ring out from your speakers

You can’t help but stop rustling to take in the sweet tunes and you’re just like :’))) have i heard anything so beautiful??? :’)))

One of the songs sound vaguely familiar and you realize it’s what you heard when you first arrived here

“Did you actually produce this??? This sounds like an actual song you can hear on the radio”

And he’s like yep made by yours truly!!!

He was only using “yours truly” half-metaphorically if you know what I mean ;)))

You keep bouncing to all the catchy tunes and swaying to the soulful ones

And in all honesty, seeing your reactions makes Jihoon feel really warm and even a little proud bc it’s one of the biggest reasons why he loves his job so much

He makes eye contact with you and you’re like :D and he’s like ahEM COuGh coUGh i’m gonna dust this shelf over here

He suddenly stands up and busies himself and you’re like ???? okie dokie

He’s a real help around the place and you’re practically done settling in

As you survey your fresh living space, you can’t help but feel a little…. Disheartened?

Bc it was actually really fun to have him around even while he made blunt remarks about your taste of decorations

“This looks like something my five-year-old niece would have”

“For your information, I got that from a five-year-old!! It’s cute, alright!”

You spent the past three days with Jihoon unpacking and talking about whatever comes to mind

Jihoon is pretty devastated that he has to go back to his makeshift studio in his room as much as he will never admit it

He eventually leaves your place and the both of you are just sad little puppies

From then on, every time you pass by each other, you greet him with a friendly smile and wave and you never fail to make his heart skip several beats

You don’t talk as much as how you first started bc he’s gotten much busier trying to mass-produce a lot of songs

For some strange reason, every time you hear a melody coming from the other side of the walls, you feel like you’re somehow connected with him

Well, except for the muffled cursing LMAO

And sometimes you would also hear several male voices at once and you’re guessing they’re his friends or the people he’s working with on the song, but based on their friendly banter and the constant run-throughs, it’s probably both

You would hear the same melody play over and over again, and you’re guessing he’s stuck on a certain part of a song as he tries to recreate new melodies from that point on

“aaAAGHGHHHGGHHHH” *deep sigh* me trying to overcome writer’s block LMAO

This would happen for about half an hour and you can’t help but wanting to reach out to him, but you’re not exactly the most musically-inclined person sadly

When he ultimately calms down, he goes back to working on the song until he finally gets the results he desires

More often than not, you fall asleep from hearing the slow ballads he creates with a smile on your face

Lil Jihoon does try to visit you and vice versa!! He sometimes shows up with random food and more CDs and you’re wondering just how many songs has this guy produced in his lifetime??? He looks around the same age as you but he’s probably produced 26+ songs by the way he packs a decent amount on each CD

Usually his excuse to sharing a meal with you is that “the guys brought over too much and i have a ton of leftovers that i can’t finish by myself”

In reality, he stared at a restaurant’s menu and contemplated for about twenty minutes about what you would like. This guy’s got dedication not just for work

“Would it be weird if i get fried chicken?? Maybe just a bowl of noodles?? What if soup is better??? It would give weird vibes if i bought drinks too, right?? Or should i just go ahead and buy them???”

Regardless of what he buys, you’re eager to eat anything and everything with your fav neighbor *wink wonk*

You feel bad when he would do that though, so you try to return the favor every so often as well

One time, you ordered some takeout but the servings were waaaaay bigger than advertised and you’re like Idea!! Let’s head over next door!! So you took the plastic bags and put in some drinks before heading out the door

You knocked on the door and that was when you heard light chatter on the other side of the door

You’re like sldjfljds i hope im not interrupting anything aaa mAYBE I SHOULD JUST LEAVE--

Too late, someone’s voice rang out “I’ll get it!” and next thing you know, the door swings out to reveal a face you’ve never seen before

“Oh, hi!” He says a little surprisedly but with a smile nevertheless

“H-hi, umm,,,, is Jihoon there?”

The guy is nodding his head in the direction of the back hallway, “yeah, he’s in the bathroom” and that’s when he looks down at your hands and his eyes instantly light up

“Omg did you bring food?? You’re so thoughtful!! Come in, come in!!” and before you could protest he literally drags you in and you’re met with a bunch of other strangers who are staring back at you like :oooo????

“Who’s this?? Jihoon never mentioned someone coming over today,, AND YOU CAN’T JUST DRAG SOMEONE IN THIS ISN’T YOUR HOME”

And you’re like ya i didnt know either lmao

You’re awkwardly shifting on your feet and praying jihoon will pop up instantaneously bc you’re gonna melt in embarrassment

“I just wanted to give him some of this,” you hold up your hands to gesture your food, “since it’s too much for me to finish on my own”

“Oh that’s cool! Some of the other guys are actually out to get more lunch, but food goes out fast with all of us here,” another guy says as he pats your shoulder reassuringly. “Well, since you’re already here, you can join us!”

“I-it’s ok! I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything, I just wanted to deliver this,,, I’ll get going” and you’re about to zOOM outta there but the same guy who ushered you in is like nO DONT LEAVE

“We’re taking a lunch break, so it’s cool if you join us! I’m Soonyoung” and he’s like :DDD and you’re just like ,,,, what a hyper guy but i like him

Everyone goes around to introducing themselves

you do a headcount of 8 and you remember there’s more guys getting food for them,,,, holy heck how many people do they have???? You’re about to introduce yourself after them but then

“Soonyoung, who was at the door--” a familiar voice calls out in the hallway before he emerges

And jihoon is like dsljLSJDF what the hELL

“Y/N??? What are you doing here???” *side eyes soonyoung*

And everyone’s making eyes at each other like waIT WAIT THIS IS Y/N???

“Soonyoung dragged me inside”

“Gdi soonyoung, how many times do i have to tell you that you can’t go around dragging people to join us???”

This guy who you think is named Seokmin pipes up, “yeah he does this all the time at our workplace too. A lot of our coworkers always end up extending their stay for far too long” and you’re nodding slowly like yeahhh i can see that happening

Soonyoung’s eyes are widened and he turns to jihoon like “is this the y/n that inspired your recent so--”

And jihoon is quick to cover his mouth so his voice is all muffled

“aHahaAHHAH soonyoung’s always the joker, april fools day!!! Let’s set the table, the others should be back soon”

jihoon whispering to soonyoung: you better sleep with one eye open tonight boi

And you’re like uhh alrighty :)))???

About twenty minutes after you’ve arrived, there’s another knock on the door

Soonyoung is practically bouncing on his way to the door and you can hear more unknown voices

They’re filing in and they suddenly stop and look at you like wait what

Them: :o????

You: :))),,, what up

Jeonghan briefly explains the situation to the guy who came in the door first and you’re lowkey intimidated bc he seems to be eldest and looks like he could beat you up to a pulp

BOY WERE YOU WRONG

After jeonghan tells him, he breaks out into this gigantic, cute gummy smile like welcome!! :DD i’m seungcheol! And the other guys behind him follow suit

Jeonghan’s like “this is,, y/n” and everyone tries to be subtle and nods like they didn’t hear jihoon babble on and on about you for weeks

You: ok why do yall act all weird when my name is brought up whAT DID JIHOON TELL YOU

Them: i would tell you but i don’t wanna die just yet sorry dude

Jihoon, somewhere in the kitchen: SET! THE! TABLE!

You end up staying there for a pretty long time, bonding over the whole feast you have and it’s really lively and fun, not to mention super loud with 13 guys in the same room,,, but you’re genuinely having a good time

Jihoon would glance at you nervously occasionally to check on you if you’re uncomfortable in any way

Jeonghan, who’s sitting next to him, notices jihoon’s eyes are practically glued to you and he’s like “is this the part where you confess your undying love and propose”

And jihoon is like shUT UP NO WHAT this chicken tastes great *quickly chugs down water*

You look back at jihoon sometimes and see he looks flushed but it’s not like he’s drinking alcohol

“Jihoon are you feeling ok?? Your ears are bright red” which obviously makes them redder rip

“I-i’m fine,, wow is it hot in here maybe it’s just the spiciness of the chicken let’s open the windows”

You eventually leave them as much as they protest and even try to get Jihoon to guilt trip you (unsuccessfully)

“Don’t leave just yet y/n!! You should stay, right Jihoon???”

“Huh?? O-oh yeah, I mean, you can if you want,,,,, we kinda need to work though”

Everyone’s looking at jihoon like bro wTF are u kidding me

Rip reader i can feel your heart drop :’(((

You’re feeling slightly dejected but you nod understandingly. You’ve already stayed far longer than you anticipated anyways, and work comes first for Jihoon

“Yeah, I totally get it! Good luck on the album guys!” You put on your shoes and close the door

When they finally hear your own door close, they’re attacking jihoon like

“SO Y/N IS THE ONE BEHIND ALL YOUR SAPPY LOVE SONGS HUH!!!”

“I knew it, the lyrics just suddenly got cheesier -- there had to be someone behind all of that”

And jihoon is just praying you won’t hear what they’re saying like “SHUT UP THESE WALLS ARE THIN”

Back at your apartment, it suddenly feels much emptier and lonelier

“What am i doing,,, I just met the guys for like two hours???”

You sigh and you try to busy yourself doing other things but you hear a loud commotion on the other side of the walls with just a bunch of incoherent shouting

You smile and laugh to yourself when you think about how close they all are

Your smile slowly fades when you start wishing you wanna be close to Jihoon and you’re like snAP OUT OF IT!!!

A couple of weeks pass by uneventfully but you notice that Jihoon has gotten more reserved around you

It’s just him being bashful around you and he panics every time he sees you but obviously he doesn’t want you to know that

You’re standing at your little mini balcony and admiring your cute little cactus plants

Just as you start thinking about him and his wellbeing, you hear your name and you’re like wHO’S THERE

You look down and see Jihoon staring back at you and honestly he looks like he’s awestruck by your whole beauty bc seriously everything you wear always looks super good to him

[insert photo]

(also pretend he’s holding plastic bags)

He holds up his hands and you’re laughing bc you know exactly what that means

“Come on up!”

There’s a knock on your door promptly afterwards and what do you know!!! It’s the man himself!!!

It’s just funny how the both of you have this ongoing routine that you know what to expect

When you let him in, he places the bags on your table and quickly smiles to himself when he sees your laptop on your bed

You and Jihoon both mindlessly do your respective roles as usual

He slowly comes out in the living room with your laptop and he’s like “so the album is pretty much done now,,, i can’t release all of the songs yet but there’s one i want you to listen to. I’ll show you after we eat”

You’re like ooo im excited and you start catching up with him as you’re eating

You can’t contain your excitement any longer, so as soon as you eat the last bit of your food, you’re like “oKAY SHOW ME IT NOW” as you’re restlessly shifting on your legs

He nods and pulls up the media player on your laptop. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before pressing play

It’s a melody you’re quite acquaintanced with after hearing it countless times at night, the same tune that lulls you to sleep

You have high expectations for this song, and surely he surpasses them with flying colors

You’re enjoying the song and telling him “wow this is a really good song!” when suddenly some lyrics catch your attention

You hear something about messy hair pulled back, ruffled clothes, eating meals

And you’re like huh that sounds a lot like us haha is that supposed to be me??

Jihoon is avoiding eye contact with you and looking down at his fidgeting hands as the song progresses in its later verses

The lyrics talk about wanting to develop a deeper relationship, one where “it’s okay to tell me anything, your hardships and desires. I just want to see you smile” and you’re like wait,,,,

And one of the final lyrics says something about “i can’t help feeling like this, will you accept my hand?” and you’re like wait wait w a i t

The song comes to an end and silence fills the room

You’re not sure whether you should speak up first or wait for him, but either way you’re speechless and wouldn’t know what to say anyways

Jihoon clears his throat awkwardly and stumbles on his words poor bby

“S-so, yeah,,,, I’ve been working on this one the longest,,,, umm do you,,, like it?”

But you know better that he’s not just talking about the song

“Nah sorry man i’m not interested”

“O.”

April fools kiddos ofc you are

“....yeah. I do like it”

And he finally brings himself to look at you and he’s like !!!!! really????

“Wait, for real??? You actually like it???”

He’s pretty much paralyzed in shock and all he can do is watch your hand move towards his and hold it

“I like it a lot, Jihoon :)”

He blinks slowly and he can’t fight the grin that spreads on his face as he grips your hand back

“I’m accepting your hand now heehee ^^”

“Okay let’s not talk about that”

[yaidenpart-blog]

Handwriting Vs Typing

In this day and age, it’s common practice to write your stories on the computer. Some eccentrics let their 19. century author self-run free by using a typewriter for the Aesthetic, but, in general, most people toe the line. And then, well, we have the rare breed of writers who handwrite. Rumor has it they’re extinct, but daring folks have been known to spot one or two in the wild, building shelters from old notepaper and gnawing at ink cartridges to survive.

….and I used to be one of them.

For years, I swore to handwriting and honestly, I still kind of do. In spite of having switched over to typing, I feel handwriting at one stage in your drafting can be very beneficial to your process. But whether to go through with it completely is a more difficult decision.

And seeing as I’m familiar with both sides of the coin, I’ll aid you in making a personally beneficial choice.

So let’s figure out if handwriting is for you.

Pro’s of Handwriting

Imagine, you’re at your desk and need to write an idea down quickly. You could turn your laptop on, or grab a napkin and scribble in two seconds flat without having to open an app first. Physically move things around when outlining, quickly add arrow and colors, and easily look at several pieces of paper at the same time while writing. It’s simply said a more organic and immediate affair.

And so is revising by hand. There is a reason why many editors still demand printed copies of your manuscripts, I’ve noticed a certain screen blindness overcomes you when you’ve stared at a document for ten hours straight, blurring every paragraph into mush. The distance between the keyboard and the letters appearing on the screen leaves an artificial aftertaste like fake grape juice sticking to the roof of your mouth.

Handwriting not only strikes a more natural connection to your brain but also motivates extremely. Once you filled a notebook up you can hold milestones in your fingers, trace every physical accomplishment you’ve made. Even if the notebook fills up to the brim when you’re only at the half point mark of your story – kind of turning the victory stale as you grope for the next notebook to continue – it still serves as a way to keep track of your project that’s more physical and satisfying than a digital word count.

Speaking of word counts, this brings us to our most crucial point: deleting.

Or more, compulsive deleting and ‘editing’ while in the trenches of writing your first draft, the unspoken bane of all writers. Editing as you go is a terrible life choice for most people, and I thank past me every day for choosing to write by hand so I didn’t have to deal with that burden as a newbie on top of everything else. Basically, editing as you go will prevent you from achieving the peak of your productiveness by trapping you in a vicious cycle of editing and deleting which at the end of the day won’t have gotten you any further along the path of completing your story. However, writing by hand makes it more difficult for this cycle to lure you into its clutches. The only way for you to delete sections in by scratching them out or by drawing crazy mind maps with arrows along the page borders. And this forces you to silence your perfectionist urges and get the draft on paper in one go instead of editing every single line to death and never finishing anything.

Another viable reason to consider switching to handwriting could be your health, many people suffer from carpal tunnel or other issues like eye strain through working on a computer. And there is absolutely no shame in putting your health first.

Cons

Now after waxing poetic about writing by hand for 400 words, it’s time to reveal the big con which prompted me to jump ship after years of dedicated handwriting. It is-

-Dramatic Pause-

Having to write your draft two times when you want it as a digital file.

Which turned into a problem because redoing things unnecessarily like this grew to too much of a strain on my hands, even if it was just writing the story twice. Though I’m aware most people probably won’t encounter this particular problem. So the only thing left to take into consideration for you, my friendo, is the time extensiveness inherited to becoming an ink cartridge gnawer. If you’re especially inpatient having to spend time on retyping your story might not be a compromise you’re willing to make.

One of the pros previously mentioned is actually a con in disguise. The limited line editing capability of handwriting turns into a disadvantage when your issues don’t lie with perfectionism but with underwriting. I like to go back and forth on the page, adding content to paragraphs I’ve written before while simultaneously slapping on new sentences. This method is less accomplishable on paper and leads to underwritten stories being, well, extremely underwritten. At least until they’re through a few edit rounds on the computer, sweat lining your brow as revision evolves into a Herculean effort without your consent.

If you’re an underwriter typing is a blessing preventing you from having to go through hell later on in revision. But does typing have actual cons as well? Probably. Hopefully. Or this post will end on a pretty weak note.

Typing and all that Jazz

The pros of typing are obvious, modern world wouldn’t get by without someone happily tipping away on a keyboard or screen.

I personally changed my process from manual to working on a tablet for several reasons, including the flat screen being the closest to paper I could find while keeping the advantage of not having to transcribe my writing to a digital format.

But for you handwriting might be very well worth it. It does have many benefits, and typing could just annoy you enough to try.

The cons of typing include but are not limited to Enablement of Perfectionism™, as we talked about before in the pros of handwriting. Typing enables by tempting us into editing and editing, backspacing and deleting whole chunks of our work instead of continuing to actually write, giving off the illusion of productivity which later on reveals itself to be hollow when it turns out you only managed to write 50 words in five hours.

So if you struggle with that syndrome, I seriously recommend handwriting, it might sound painful at first not to edit, but constant perfectionism while drafting will be the true fatal foe that’ll stop you from attaining your goals.

Otherwise, pros of typing are the instant gratification of showing someone your work per google docs or other means, as well as the high working speed you’re able to reach. As well as the fact that computers are an all constant, making it easy to sneak a bit of writing in while at work without being forced into rewriting it at home to add it to your original project file. The cons and pros of both methods kind of tangle and interplay with each other, at the end it’s a purely personal decision which you choose, but I hope this post gave you some thought chew about which way is actually best suited to your workflow.

Pretty unsatisfying conclusion, huh? No straightforward answer saying what’s best for everyone. But that’s life folks, everything is all confusing subjectivity and grey areas and then you die.