#who am i kidding these watch throughs are entirely about the picking of nits

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

NuNew's english is very good, truly.

But since Kuea learned it in the UK, shouldn't he and Diao have British accents when they speak English?

[coredrill]

alright here are my rwby8 thoughts now that i’ve had a few days to sit on ‘em!! spoilers for the entire volume under the cut

so if anyone happens to open this and is like “wow this is more words than i’ve seen you use ever” lol yup! it’s probably the most words i’ve written since high school lmao. feel free to read through if ya really want but this is mostly just my own way of organizing my thoughts for this kind of stuff rather than making a million different posts on random parts of it. this way if i want to look back in the future and say “haha wow can’t believe i thought THAT” it’s all in one easy location! i don’t expect anyone else to be reading all this shite lol

thoughts on the volume as a whole:

honestly i loved it!! there’s very little that i would’ve changed and most of that is nit-picking stuff. i’m very impressed that this volume was made in quarantine lmao. the animation in and of itself was STUNNING (shout out to the finale’s water animation...the aura break particle effects...the cinnamon topography of the amity scenes...all of the facial & body expressions...the whale disintegrating...)

i’d honestly say that it’s probably my second favorite volume?? volume 4 is still my beloved but v8 was so good. i’ll probably need to watch it through a few more times but god. i LOVED IT.

honorable mention cause idk where else to put it: some of the scores were breathtaking!!! i tend not to notice background music on my first watch unless it really sticks out to me and there were quite a few scenes where that happened in a good way this volume. the ones where cinder breaks into the atlas control room and the one at the end when atlas is flooding are probably my favs!!! also there was this one part where it was just screeching over ironwood and it worked really really well.

okay so now for individual characters. let’s start with ruby:

i would like to fund her therapy

very surprised that she didn’t “break” this volume! i was sort of expecting it to happen--between ironwood, the amity plan only kind of working, the hound, the virus, and the fact that she was separated from her usual support system (qrow, yang, and jaune), i was definitely expecting her to. i’m glad she didn’t though cause it’s gonna be so much harder when she actually does (probably when she finds out that cinder has the relics and penny’s dead...)

massive shout out to lindsay jones for managing to make squeaky-voiced ruby still sound like ruby even while going through a whole host of emotions we’ve never seen ruby go through before!

god. that scene where crescent rose fell into the drink and ruby scrambled after it. my heart dropped lmao.

also. this is likely because i’ve got an engineering degree (which came with a free stick up my butt when it comes to technology in media) but the line where they say “mass no longer matters” wrt her semblance??? WHAT??? bro splitting mass up into smaller chunks doesn’t change the actual mass of the material itself what is going on here 😭😭😭 (this isn’t a real criticism of any kind i just yelled WHAT after they said that line lmao)

weiss:

i have one single weiss criticism and its that, in the scene where she’s leaving whitley to go fight the hound, she says “we still need to work on your attitude” and for whatever reason, the voice track doesn’t sound like it was quite mixed right? like it sounds like she’s just standing there rolling her eyes but my girl is BOOKING it out of the room lmao

other than that: weiss you are PERFECT. she really spent this entire volume saving and taking care of the people she loves!!! and i loved every second of it!!!

i would’ve liked to see more of her and klein/whitley/willow. i think there’s a lot of great stuff in that dynamic (not me crying when klein showed up at the manor...) and especially between weiss and her mother. i hope we get one big schneeuinon in vacuo once they + winter are all in the same location (but that’s gonna be a while i think lmao)

it’s been said a million times before but weiss?? shaking and crying but using gambol shroud anyway?? even though she thinks her teammates are all dead?? giving ruby the staff and pushing her out of the line of fire and pulling blake back to safety??? fighting cinder, a fucking wholeass maiden, with no aura because she needs to protect penny?? only unable to get up and keep fighting after she watches gambol shroud (the last physical piece she has of her teammates) go over the edge??? bro. BRO. i’m legit tearing up just TYPING THAT. god she’s gonna find her team at that island resort and never let them go. gonna be like v4 jaune all over again huh??

blake/yang:

not as much here since they didn’t get a whole lot of focus this volume, but i enjoyed all their scenes! yang just fuckin going at salem was 1000/10.

i will say...i think blake’s gonna kiss yang when they meet up in tropical paradise. and good for her!! (especially if this volume’s been planned since the beginning, it makes sense that this would be the writers’ idea for where they wanted their first kiss to be)

jaune:

going from ren saying “he has no fear. he believes that we can do this” about jaune to, five chapters later, forcing jaune to deliver a killing blow to penny was just CRUEL

the fucking dissonance of jaune haha!-awkward-renora-moment-exit vomit-boy-through-the-portals hit-in-the-head-with-a-rock arc being the one that penny asks..............bro. don’t hmu.

it’s going to be such a long time until we see him smile again.

also. the moment when crocea mors snaps in half...again, my stomach dropped.

but it’s okay! he’ll be fine without a weapon! he’s the ~strategist~! *breaks the fuck down*

it hurts so much too to think about, like oscar mentioned.....even if/when he does reunite with ren and nora, he’s not gonna be the same person he was when they last saw him. he’s not gonna be their goofy, wholesome, soft, snarky, healer team leader anymore. he just got his shit sorted out, he just stopped being actively suicidal, and tbh i think this might affect him worse than what happened with pyrrha. especially since they were compounding in his brain--what he did gave penny more of a choice than pyrrha ever got, but GEEZ.

pain. just. pain.

nora:

NORA MY BELOVED

okay. OKAY. so like she was passed out for half the volume but what we did get of her was fucking amazing

nora’s mom i am going to find you and have some words. i’ve mentioned this before but this woman has the same energy as the mom from grave of the fireflies who was like “i know we’re actively being bombed right now but i’m going to abandon my children and get myself to safety.” SQUARE UP BITCH. i hope we never see nora’s mom in the show because i will become filled with rage

but nora herself??? flawless. perfection.

i really did love her journey this volume. realizing that she wants to become her own person apart from ren, and then telling him that when he says that he loves her?? nora sweetie that was heartbreaking but i am SO SO PROUD OF YOU.

nora putting herself first for once and being told that people love her WE FREAKING LOVE TO SEE IT

except NOW that’s all gonna go haywire 😭😭😭

like...the moment in the finale where you can see she’s hesitant to leave jaune to to go vacuo but she goes anyway because he’s her leader and he doesn’t like splitting up either and she loves him and she trusts him only for her to get STUCK ON THE OTHER SIDE BANGING ON THE PORTAL. that scene fucking BROKE me. you just KNOW she’s gonna be hating herself for going through and leaving jaune (even though nobody knew it was one way!!!) and when the portal dissolves and he doesn’t come through........

she really thinks that she’s lost TWO teammates now. that’s TWO teammates that she wasn’t able to save. she saved ren from the nuckelavee but pyrrha’s dead and as far as she knows jaune’s dead too

and jaune’s her fucking family!!!!!!!

and like. when we see her on the vacuo side of the portal, we see that she’s got the happy huntresses behind her. she did her job and she gathered them but now she can’t get back through and AHHHHHH. FUCK. when she drops to her knees because she realizes.........that fucking killed me. i’m tearing up now just typing this sdmndbm

and like. the worst part is that she just realized that she wants some time away from ren. but everyone else is gone and just like when they were kids he’s all she’s got and they are gonna lean on each other harder than ever because this time they both lost EVERYTHING. not just jaune, but ruby, who was their teammate for a while too. weiss, who took such great care of nora while she was injured. penny, who nora helped with blake’s advice. yang, who ren had time to bond with this volume. FUCK

it’s gonna hurt so bad to watch but i cannot WAIT to see what nora does next and how she moves forward. god. this is gonna kill her. it’s killing ME and i’m just a viewer lmao

ren:

remember that one week where neath went on twitter and was like “i love renora and i’m gonna make that everyone else’s problem”??? yeah. that was a good week lmao

speaking of neath. MASSIVE PROPS TO HIM FOR HIS WORK. he managed to give ren every single emotion in the book this volume and none of it sounded ooc despite ren being such a repressed character before. he did incredible!!!!

I LOVED REN SO MUCH THIS VOLUME GOD. i mean i love him in every volume BUT HE HAD SO MANY GOOD MOMENTS AND SUCH A GOOD ARC

i’ve already talked about it at length but the scene where his semblance evolves is one of my favorites in the whole show. he’s so fucking full of love that it’s literally tearing him apart and when he finally accepts that fact his ENTIRE SOUL levels up!!! he looks at himself and there are pink petals falling off of him because he can’t contain the love in his body anymore!!! it’s there in a literal, physical manifestation and it’s so. fucking. GOOD. FUCK.

and also my obligatory remark about how he was thinking about oscar and pyrrha and his parents in that moment. people he loved platonically and familially. rwby goes so fucking hard for platonic love and i can’t ever thank them enough. to see ren have this realization because he was thinking about oscar.....god i’m gonna cry again LMAO

and then after that the way that he just. looks at jaune in every scene with the biggest fucking heart eyes. i’m gonna fucking combust he loves his  leader SO MUCH. (which. as i mentioned in the nora section. pain now)

and the nora stuff........JUST AS GOOD

another thing i’ve talked about a lot but to see him apologize, be emotionally open, listen to what nora’s saying and what nora needs, TELL HER THAT HE LOVES HER FIRST, not holding a single thing against her, agreeing to wait for her to be ready.........literal perfection holy shit

romance is normally not one of my favorite aspects of any media but i will make an exception for whatever the fuck ren and nora got going on

basically as a ren stan / jnpr stan i was thriving this volume and then that finale hit me and i know i will be in pain until they reunite again

i have a handful of jnr gifs that i was planning to make during the hiatus but now they’re all PAIN aksjhdasjdh

oscar:

deeply worried about the quickly approaching merge. i’m really hoping that oscar and oz stay separate but i also love seeing all the animation/voice acting nuances that indicate that they’re getting closer to the merge.......AH

this volume really hammered home just how strong this kid is. he stands up to SALEM and does the right thing even despite the torture cause he’s so BRAVE and STRONG and when he trusted hazel with the password DESPITE IT ALL. ugh. so good.

i love oscar so much and i’ve loved seeing him grow!!!

penny:

serious stuff coming in the next bullet point but. GOD. her model’s head is so big and i don’t know WHY but this stuck out to me every time she was standing next to someone else. it might be because of the volume of her hair (but yang’s hair also has a lot of volume, and her head is normal sized)??? idk it just threw me off a lot. every time she was like, talking to ruby or something, all i could think about was how her head was bigger than ruby’s ENTIRE TORSO lmao. (also why didn’t they give her human body shoes skdjhaksjh)

that said.........oh, penny 😭😭😭😭😭

i’m surprised that she died but only because i thought her plot armor was pretty thick LMAO. narratively it makes a lot of sense and i’m glad her story ended the way it did.

i’ve seen a lot of people interpreting her actions in the finale as “choosing to die,” but i don’t think that’s the case?? penny’s friends all saved her every single time that she presented her own death as an option. that’s what makes this so tragic, is that they successfully saved her every time she offered that, and that in the end, she still died. she was gonna die anyway. she was impaled by cinder--jaune didn’t have enough time to heal her before cinder defeated weiss (who had no aura!!) and turned on them again. penny made her own choices when 1. she asked to die at the hands of a friend, rather than by cinder’s soul-sucking grimm arm and whatever horrible fate that includes and 2. to choose her successor. and i don’t blame her for making either of those choices! she wanted to die with as much dignity as peace as she could and to choose whose life she would be intertwined with. and while it’s very sad, i’m glad that penny finally got some sense of control over herself and her legacy.

and like...she was so happy when she met up with winter!! she was so happy to have full autonomy for once!!! that scene was both heartwarming and heartbreaking!!!

i also think that penny’s death reinforces the idea that remnant is gonna be very different by the time rwbyjnorqe is done with it. now not one but two kindhearted girls have gotten killed because they got tangled up in the maiden powers—which were originally meant to be a gift!! and i’m very interested to see what the resolution is gonna be!! (i know it’s gonna be in like. volume 52 or something alsjfndnx but still!!)

also, if nothing else, i am very glad that whole “pietro sacrifices the last of his aura to revive her” theory is gone. i hate that theory lmao

i will say, while i enjoyed penny’s role this volume, i do think that maybe some of her screentime could’ve gone elsewhere. i get that there needed to be a lot of focus on her, so that we would be attached when she died, but i think it would’ve been beneficial to spread that screentime elsewhere just a bit, especially since she wasn’t really developing at all. hitting the same point with her like seven times did start to feel a bit repetitive lol. my vote would be for extra time with the schnees, or the jn(o)r reunion at schnee manor, or maybe a scene checking in with pietro and maria!!

emerald:

EMERALD MY BELOVED

YOU DEFECTED!!!! GOOD FOR YOU GIRL!!!!

i hope we get a LOT more time with her in the future. she’s still gotta work out the cinder thing of course but i also think it’s gonna be super interesting to see how she acts now that she (alongside oscar, ren, nora, the hh, and winter) is one of the closest things their group has to a “leader”

also like........good for her for being one of the LEAST traumatized people this volume despite being THREATENED BY SALEM

somebody give emerald a nice long hug

i love her

that is all

winter:

WINTER OH MY GOD

seeing her struggle with her emotions all volume.....only to finally accept them and save marrow’s life.....and because of that choice she realizes how long overdue it was and goes all in on helping the heroes.....and is eventually chosen to become the next winter maiden by the girl who challenged her to accept her emotions in the first place......😭😭😭 chef’s kiss

“you chose nothing. this was a gift.” *demolishes ironwood but doesn’t stick around cause he’s not worth it* *fights cinder* POETIC CINEMA!!!!!

also i cannot wait to see her schneeunion with willow, whitley, and klein.......even if she does have to be the one to tell them what happened to weiss 😭

cinder:

CINDER I HATE YOU BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU’RE SUCH A GOOD VILLAIN

her backstory was pretty self explanatory but i think this was a good time to spell it out especially while we were in atlas. the culmination of that, her consistent failures to achieve her goals after v3, and watts dragging her really all just came together to make her so much more intimidating and efficient and i loved watching it.

like i know there’s people who don’t like her as a character but she’s always so fun to watch and her va does AMAZING and she’s just. so INTERESTING

also. i cannot wait for her to find out that ruby and neo are both alive (and especially when salem finds out they’re both alive LMAO)

also also her line to ruby about never being born feels.......awfully specific??? i wonder if it’s a hint at some other part of salem/cinder/ruby/summer lore (like her “and i refuse to starve” line from last volume)

also also also CINDER.......lying to salem is gonna backfire on you at one point or another.......HM

salem:

gosh i love salem. she’s such a good villain and i loved all her scenes (especially the fight scene...SO COOL).

very interested in whatever she does next!! since the only remaining lackey she has is cinder (who is now starting to try to manipulate her) and tyrian and mercury, who are in vacuo, i’m curious about her next steps. is she gonna keep recruiting, now that people know who she is?? is she gonna come to vacuo herself?? she could definitely do a WHOLE LOT OF DAMAGE with the refugee situation there, so i’m super excited to see how her next moves play out!!

hazel/tyrian/watts/merc/neo:

rip hazel. glad we were able to get an INSANE fight scene out of him before his death BUT ALSO WHAT’S WITH YOU BEATING THE SNOT OUT OF A 14 YEAR OLD HUH

listen. listen. i know merc-rescues-oscar was never a possibility BUT i still love that idea. it lives in my mind rent free!!!

i feel like mercury’s gonna be so insane after the worst road trip ever in a confined space with tyrian that he’s gonna be immediately redeemed by team sssnn and the power of himbofication upon landing in vacuo LMAO

real talk though, i am VERY interested in what happens when mercury sees emerald again and learns she defected. like, this is his friend, who he’s tried to keep safe the only way he knows how (by keeping his head down and not angering their abuser) and she got out but he didn’t. GOD. AND in the first fight she was in after defecting, she used the move that she learned by watching him!!!! that’s gonna be SO GOOD and i can’t wait to see it!!!

neo is a wildcard and i love watching her fight and i think it’s SO INTERESTING that she went over the side with rwby and jaune and i CAN’T WAIT to see what she does next.

WATTS MY DUDE. what a GOOD volume for him. like the stuff where he yells at cinder was SO COOL to see and it was so funny that he thought that wasn’t gonna come back to bite him LMAO. i think this was super fitting for him and while i like him as a villain, i think this was a good place for his story to end. i had a lot of fun watching his scenes this volume.

qrow/robyn:

I LOVE THEIR SIBLING ENERGY. robyn talking qrow down and them bonding over their semblances together was so great.

i also loved qrow’s semblance...evolving?? changing?? idk what exactly happened yet, but i know that if i too hung out with robyn hill for 48 hours straight my outlook on life would improve dramatically.

i do hope robyn makes it to vacuo soon because she will be invaluable at handling the refugee crisis there.

on the other hand, if qrow gets to vacuo and finds out that ruby and yang (and three more of his adopted kids) never made it........PAIN. oh my god it’s gonna be like summer all over again 😭😭

aceops:

did not expect to get teary-eyed when vine died. and yet i did. that “themes of death” cw on the finale was CERTAINLY SOMETHING HUH

hell yeah marrow!!! what a good boi!!! i loved his defection ofc and him going off on ironwood...chefs kiss

i hope marrow sticks with the main cast. he’s my favorite and he deserves to see his friends again!!!

as for elm and harriet, i’m not sure?? i think harriet still has a lot of work to do before she’s redeemed in my eyes. maybe they can be dropped off at beacon to help glynda fight the grimm/rebuild so that they can be back for the show’s ending but the cast is somewhat trimmed for vacuo lmao

also. i know they’re not aceops. but WHERE ARE FLYNT AND NEON ARE THE MEME KIDS OKAY

happy huntresses:

may marigold is literally perfect in every way

loved them! would’ve loved to see more of them lmao. maybe even just cutting back to them in the crater reacting to some of the stuff going on.

i very much hope we get to see them in the future! i know the vacuans aren’t gonna be happy with the atlas/mantle people showing up unannounced but i feel like if there’s anyone who’s gonna be able to earn their respect, it’s the organized-and-saved-the-lives-of-those-downtrodden-by-atlas-happy-huntresses.

maria & pietro:

okay. SO. my thoughts are either that they made it to vacuo (penny did see where amity would touch down, so it’s possible that a portal was placed in that location and they made it through) or qrow picks them up.

either way, i hope we get to see them again. I LOVE THESE TWO GEEZERS!!!

oh, pietro......... *cries*

ironwood:

not much to say here except that i loved it. i loved how he got more and more paranoid, i loved that he vaporized jacques schnee, i loved that he only went cartoon-villain at the last moment, i loved that he died unceremoniously surrounded by the thing he thought would save them all. i love that cinder got in one final chess reference beforehand. 10/10

the hound:

it feels like a lifetime ago that this guy died but holy shit. holy SHIT.

i want whitley to summon the hound!! it was an enemy that pushed him to grow, i think it would be neat!!

ambrosius:

LOVED THIS DUDE. i LOVE how his powers work!!! like, even though it’s magic, it’s so realistic because that’s how creation works!!! you gotta design the EXACT thing you want or else its gonna be fucked up!!!

like. okay. so (back on my engineering bs again lmao) for example. let’s say i’m writing a program where the user enters a number from 1-10 and it’s displayed on the computer screen. so i write whatever code i need that says “take user input and put on screen.” that’s what ambrosius did when he created the portals and the pathways between them!

and then let’s say i also put a warning to the user that says “only enter numbers from 1-10.” that would be ambrosius saying “do not fall.”

but...the user can still enter whatever they want. what happens if they put in the number 100? what happens if they type a letter? this program only puts numbers from 1-10 on screen, so who knows what’s gonna happen. and that’s what happens when people fall off the railings!!!

“oh, but you told them what numbers to enter” yeah but humans are unpredictable and ya gotta account for the human element when doing stuff like this!! team rwby didn’t account for people falling off--because why would people fall off if they were told not to? but the human element messed that up anyway!!!

anyways i’m a fucking nerd apparently but it was super cool to see that reflected in ambrosius!!! i’m a big fan!!!

like whenever people call him tricky or sneaky...no!!! he was just doing exactly what he was told to do!!!! so good!!!

also i wanna see him hang out with his sister jinn lmao

alright and here’s my thoughts/predictions for v9:

first off i just wanna say that this entire section (this entire post really, but especically this section) is just me spitballing lmao. we literally have ZERO clue what’s happening next or where they are, i’m just throwing out some stuff that’s crossed my mind! whatever crwby gives us is gonna be infinitely better than whatever i come up with lmao

that said, i have two ideas for what could be happening in madagascar.

option one is the one i’ve seen other people toss around, which is the whole wonderland-land-of-the-dead thing. i’m kinda torn on this because i think it could be good for penny’s storyline, but not really anyone else’s?? sure, yang and ruby could see summer, but weiss would see...jacques?? and blake would see...adam?? i’m not sure what weiss and blake would have to say to them/learn from them the same way ruby and yang would.

on that same idea, jaune could definitely see pyrrha, but again, i’m wondering what purpose that would serve? obviously jaune’s actions in the finale were guided by pyrrha (or specifically her mom, and realizing that pyrrha never had a choice either), but it’s clear that that’s the case for all of team jnpr, and it will be probably forever. their scene together at pyrrha’s memorial felt like they were closing the door--specifically--on their grief. on the other hand, those actions are super relevant right now and i will never turn down the chance to see pyrrha!!! it’s just free waterworks babey!!!

neo also has roman, but i can’t really see roman admitting to anyone that he got swallowed by a grimm 😭😭 just seems too embarrassing for him LMAO

for penny, i think this could work nicely. all she ever wanted was to not have her life controlled by others--kind of like alice in wonderland (the disney movie version because i am fairy tale illiterate lmao). if penny gets to exist after death in a land where she gets to choose everything for herself i think she would be very happy!

again, if this ends up being the case, crwby could 100% make it work! (and i am 0% opposed to maya model pyrrha.) i just personally am not as sold on this being the case as some others are.

option two imo is vacuo but in the past. which i know seems kind of weird BUT i have reasons!

so we know a few things about vacuo. one, it used to be an oasis and was considered a paradise until atlas and mistral destroyed it for the dust. two, it has giant motherfucking crabs that people like to eat. yes this is all i have to go off of BUT both of those things are in the end credits scene we got!

also, them landing in past-vacuo makes sense on ambrosius’ level. their “one way ticket” probably didn’t include all four dimensions of coordinates--so i could see them landing in the same x, y, and z as the official doorway, but at a different time. the creation would still do exactly what it was asked to do--drop them in vacuo.

there’s also a couple other things. “vacuo” means “in a vacuum” which i’ve heard v9 is supposed to be. also in before the dawn, sun saw some bigass magic tree that awakened his semblance which this one definitely could qualify as

(okay. side note. when i first saw the tree i thought of the glowy tree from james cameron blue people avatar. IDK WHY, i haven’t seen that movie in years??? i also had to google it to make sure i wasn’t making it up and apparently it’s called the “tree of souls.” which would also make sense if it helped sun awakened his semblance. i don’t think rwby based something off of blue people avatar, it’s probably more likely that blue people avatar is based off of some fairytale/mythology that i don’t know anything about LMAO)

i don’t actually think option two is gonna happen, but it was fun to think about!!

also either option opens the opportunity to time not passing 1:1 in current vacuo & rwby’s island getaway which???????? AHHHHH

alright so now to the actual characters lmao. i mentioned wby earlier. i honestly have no clue what neo’s gonna be up to, she’s such a wild card and i LOVE IT.

ruby and jaune is gonna be...........PAIN. NO MATTER WHAT. i have no idea how ruby is gonna react--she might just be so overwhelmed by everything that she snaps/yells at jaune which. PAIN. but she also might not?? which. ALSO PAIN. i feel like no matter what ruby does, jaune’s gonna blame himself anyway. god. i love their friendship SO MUCH and this is gonna HURTTTT

and on that, he doesn’t have ren and nora this time to pull him back from the ledge. this dude’s guilt complex is gonna go crazy especially since he doesn’t have his team and double especially if ruby/rwby blames him for what happened. god it’s gonna HURT TO WATCH.

on a wildly different note, i hope we do get to see vacuo/qrow throughout volume 9. if i go a whole volume without ren and nora i WILL cry lmao.

also it’s gonna be super interesting to see how their group fares!!! vacuo’s fuckin nuts and i’d love to see winter just destroying the grimm there (3 headed giraffe my beloved) and see how the atlas/mantle refugees handle the climate--and how the vacuans react to all of them LMAO

ALSO!!!! THE SULFER FISH WERE THERE!!! very glad to see that they’re in vacuo too because from the concept art it seems like they have super unique abilities and i’m excited that we may get to properly see them, instead of just cameos!!!

team cfvy pspspspspspsps theodore and rumpole pspspspspsps team sssnn pspspspspsps

and, of course, i gotta mention that any possible jnr reunion WILL tear my heart out and i will probably cry for days. i gotta start emotionally preparing now LMAO

alright and that wraps it up!! if anyone makes it down to the bottom props to you!! i don’t expect anyone to actually read this mess lmao. tldr: INCREDIBLE volume and i’m so hype for v9 already!!!

[beyoncesdragon]

Dear to me too (Anakin x reader)

Requested: Nope

Warnings: none, I suppose. (mY pUns) 

Summary: You simply slipped with your words, really. And yet, he had somehow heard it. 

A/n: Uh hi? this is my first OS here on Tumblr so pls be nice? I don’t even know if there are more to come (probably) I am really just testing out the waters here. and yeah. all the love, nica :)

My Masterlist 

(Anie are you okay?)

I could still feel the energy of the force running through my body when I left the wide training room. Today’s lesson had been exhausting to say the least. Master Drallig had practiced Form IV of lightsaber combat, called Ataru today. It wasn’t exactly my kind of fighting style, due to its very aggressive and force dependent nature.

Those who used Form IV successfully could move at high speeds and could rain strong blows, jumping and attacking through the air. Powerful and quick spinning attacks could be utilized from all angles, either from ground or air. A master in Ataru combat could appear like a blur to their opponents, attacking from all directions—certainly not my future style of fighting. It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford using the force so intensely it was just that I just was not active and agile enough to practice it. Which was, of course, a shame some say. I however didn’t mind it, and I obviously still wouldn’t turn down a lesson in Ataru. I just preferred the more fluent style of fighting, Makashi called.

Movements were often elegant, precise, calm, making you feel confident with your blade and of course, using the force, though rarely used. Besides, looking at two Jedi’s fighting in Makashi was a wonderful spectacle, since they looked so relaxed when they were fighting, it even appeared as if they were dancing. Yet it was a very free form of fighting, since movement pattern and certain steps could (if you then were that good) turn out to be predictable somehow.

Long story short: the aggressive Ataru had worn me out and I almost wished for a calming bath and maybe a brief break for me to head over to the meditation wing. However, after Master Drallig had dismissed me from today’s training (not without a reminder not to get too comfortable in just a single form of combat) the day wasn’t entirely over for me just now. I still had to do two little things: one was request an intergalactic trip to Crait for research purposes. I really wanted to somehow catch a glimpse of the infamous crystal foxes. But since I was only a Padawan, I would have to propose my plans and intentions and get my Jedi master to come with me. But knowing Master Drallig would come with me anyways, the only thing I had to do now, was ask the council.

Oh and the other thing was eat. Since I had skipped lunch due to my own forgetfulness, I now felt my stomach grumble at every move. That was not really something I could left undone, so I had to somehow get something to eat before communal dinner. The question was only, where would I get something now and couldn’t it wait until I proposed my plans to the council. It wasn’t far to the towers, surely, but….my stomach grumbled again and I sighed, slowly turning towards the direction I’d go if it was lunch or dinner time: the huge dinning complex. Before I could start walking towards it though, I heard the forceful shut of sliding doors, as if someone would’ve helped them close with force. I turned around, almost immediately facing a fuming looking Anakin Skywalker stomping down the hallways.

“Anie! How have you…are you okay?” I couldn’t help the smile that appeared on my face, the second I spotted him. I liked Anakin a lot, he was a good friend to me and a marvellous combat partner. Not to mention his other praised talents…and he was two years above me, in training and rank. As far as I knew was he soon to be a Jedi Master himself. “Yeah I’m…good.” He pressed out, anger radiating from him. “What happened?” I asked carefully, placing my hand on his arm. He turned his eyes away from me, staring angrily into the misty sky. “I’ve been offered a place in the council.” He suddenly said, still not looking at me. I rose my eyebrows. “That is wonderful Anie, is it not? Didn’t you always wanted to get there?” he said nothing only gulped heavily. “I’ve been denied the rank of master however.” “What? Why?” I was seriously surprised: in my eyes, Anakin had proved often enough how worthy he was of that title. The fact that they would him serve in council but denied his deserved title was a great insult and he had any reason to be angry.

Anakin only shook his head, still staring out of the windows. “Oh Anie…” I sighed, carefully wrapping my arms around his tensed body. He flinched softly, eyes immediately snapping down to me. “Do you feel sorry for me now?” I tilted my head. I had to be careful now, because as much as I liked him, he could be like a fire storm when he was angry. And I did not plan on fuelling this fire. “Not…sorry. I feel angry for you. I don’t understand how they could insult you the way they did…but not pity, Anakin. You are worth more than that in my eyes.” I could almost feel how he relaxed at that answer, slowly raising his arms to embrace me as well. “What am I then?” he asked, curiosity clearly audible beneath a thin layer of amused sarcasm. “A great friend.” I replied simply, trying not to give too much of my feelings towards him away. As good of a friend he was to me, the longer I knew him the less I wanted to be only his friend…but preferably a bit more than that. “A great friend and a cocky twat at times.” He laughed surprised. “Only because I beat you at combat every time.” I huffed, stepping back from him before crossing my arms over my chest. “Oh yeah? Just so you know, I did have Atarulessons today again, so no easy win for you and your brute…Djem So slicer skills.” Obviously, I still was in disadvantage against him, Ataru or not. Djem So, or Form V required a higher level of physical strength than the other lightsaber forms, due to its focus on complete domination of its practitioners' opponents. Now, Anakin seemed to have mastered this very form to perfection even though it was considered the most physically demanding of all the forms. My deepened studies in Makashi couldn’t hold nothing against this brute and dominant style of fighting, my limited skills in Ataru would only do so much. Oh and he towered me, which was my go-to excuse for getting my ass kicked once again.

“Ataru you say? You think that’s going to help you?” I huffed, playfully grabbing my lightsaber. His eyes immediately sparked up. “Betting on getting flung across the combat arena once again Padawan?” I huffed, nodding at him quickly. “All bark no bite Jedi. Get it on!” Anakin grinned innocently before suddenly something pulled me towards him, he grabbed my waist and stormed towards the doors of the combat arena I just stepped out of about twenty minutes ago. “As you wish, youngling.” He taunted, a mocking smile on his face. “That was so unnecessary I could’ve walked. It was about ten steps at max. and I am not a youngling, you arrogant bastard.” He only laughed before his lightsaber gleamed in its blue light, immediately met by mine. “Eager to attack. Unlike you. Very like Drallig.”

It was almost scary how fast Anakin nit-picked every single of my moves apart, so that I soon had to switch back into Makashi in order to hold him off. Soon he had be pushed at the edge of the ring, a smug look on his face. “Giving up now, princess? This cannot end in a victory for you��again, might I add.” I huffed in annoyance, trying to shove him off but it just wouldn’t work. This bulky, smug and irritatingly attractive giant of a man just wouldn’t budge. “Dammit Skywalker.” I cursed before lowering my weapon in surrender. “Shh there are kids here.” He was right: a small crowd of youngling had gathered near our ring, watching with big eyes. Not far behind them stood Shaak Ti, a Jedi master which was part of the high council. I had only seen her a few times up close and not exchanged more than three words with her, but she had my greatest respect. ��Master.” I bowed respectfully, before feeling Anakin’s amused eyes on me. “Suddenly so…tame.” He taunted quietly, lips curling up in a smirk. “Shut it, the children.” I hissed back, before turning back toward the bunch of kids. A little girl with blue skin and bright hazel eyes shuffled her feet nervously. I recognised her as a Twi’lek, a inhabitant of a planet called Ryloth. “Are you a Jedi, Master?” she suddenly asked, not being able to stay quiet. I laughed softly, carefully grabbing the thin braid that still hung in between my hair. “Padawan, youngling. I am yet to be knighted, actually. But it’s not long anymore. Maybe I’ll get you as my Padawan if the time comes.” That inflicted excited whispering among those little dwarfs and I chuckled. “Is he then a Jedi Master?” the girl whispered quietly, big eyes glimpsing over at Anakin. “The best.” I winked, lowering my voice to a whisper. Anakin didn’t needed to hear this, his ego was big enough. The girl made even bigger eyes. “Is he your master then?” I shook my head quickly. “No just…very dear to me. You don’t have to be Master and Padawan to use the training field. We just spend our time.” The girl nodded, looking back over her shoulders. The rest of the group had now gathered around Shaak Ti again. “What is your name?” I asked softly, reaching out my hand. “Aayala Secura.” She whispered almost shyly, carefully grabbing my hand. “Nice to meet you, Aayala. But you better go now, it’s been a pleasure to speak to you.” She beamed in joy before joining her group, looking over her shoulders again and again.

“The best huh?” Anakin teased almost immediately and I rolled my eyes. “I knew I should’ve said that.” He grinned innocently. “No why, it was very flattering. Hungry?” I tilted my head. “Your ability to switch topic is outstanding. But yes, I am. Very much so actually, I skipped lunch.” He rose his eyebrow, leading out of the combat room by having his hand placed on my lower back. “How so?” I shrugged. “New A-Wings arrived today. I was not only smitten but also allowed to help.” Anakin laughed, a sound that made my heart skip. “Well then…let’s get something to eat for my exhausted Padawan.” There was it again. That smug, know it all, heard it all look. I could feel my cheeks grow hot and shook my head. He only smirked before placing an arm around my shoulders. “Thank you for this. Oh and by the way: you are very dear to me too.” That followed by one of his infamous winks and I wished a battledroid would blast me off the surface of this planet. 

But…it was good to know, at least.

[supernaturaltfwmeme]

12 Days of Dean Winchester. - Part 7

Would you look at that, i’m posting on time for once. 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

December 19th

“Well I’m awake now De, and we’re home.” You smiled “Now we can have the ‘big family Christmas’ you planned for us all.”  

Later that day after showering and getting dressed you made your way to the library where everyone was waiting to find out what you were doing that day. You Sat down next to Charlie.

“Where’s Dean?” You asked.  

“He said he had to finish getting something ready. I'm not really sure what. He’s being really secretive about it.” Charlie replied. Before you could say anything else Dean walked into the room clearing his throat to get everyone's attention.

“If you would all like to follow me.” He said dramatically making you grin. Getting out of your seats you all followed after Dean as he led you down the hall towards an old storage room in the bunker that you never used.

“Dean why are we here?” You asked confused.

“Yeah what going on?” Sam added also confused.

“This.” is all Dean said before opening the door to show you what he had been working on. The old dusty storage room was no more. Instead the whole place had be emptied and cleaned and now the room contained a home cinema system and surround sound speakers. To sit on he had got a big couch, a recliner and a love seat, all of them had blankets on them. You also noticed that on the table in the middle of the room was a big bowl of popcorn, enough candy to keep Gabriel happy for a month, loads of cans of soda & beer bottles and a whole bunch of different Christmas movies.

“Woah cool.” Charlie said admiring the sound system.

“I got dibs on the candy.” Gabe pushed passed you all sitting on one end of the couch grabbing a lollipop.

“This is very impressive Dean.” Cas complemented sitting down on the recliner. Dean turned to you waiting to hear what you thought.

Sam just patted Dean on the shoulder saying “good job.” as he walked past him to sit on the other end of the couch.

“Wow Dean this is incredible.” You said not even attempting to hide your excitement. Dean tried and failed to hold back a grin at your words. You walked over to the love seat sitting down, expecting Charlie to join you. She just smirked at you before winking and sitting down in between Sam and Gabe on the couch. Dean put on your favourite Christmas movies and sat down next to you, putting his arm around you pulling you into his side as you pulled a blanket around you both, getting comfy and laying your head on his shoulder and turning to watch the film.

After spending most of the day watching films Dean asked “Who’s hungry?” Everyone said they were. Dean gave you a small squeeze before untangling himself from you, making you miss the warmth. He grabbed his keys “I’m gonna go grab some pizzas.” Before starting to leave them room  

“wait I'm coming.” Sam said almost running after him.  

The boys climb into the car Dean pulling off and heading off to the pizza place you all love.

“You need to tell her.” Sam said out of nowhere, when they were on the way back.

“What?”  

“You need to tell y/n how you feel.”

“I can’t.” Dean sighed running a hand through his hair, not even bothering to deny anything.

“Why not?”  

“Because I'll ruin her. Or worse I'll get her killed. Everything I touch Sam is corrupted and I can’t do that to her.” Dean sounded so broken and defeated but Sam was getting tired of the self-loathing act. You all were. If only he could see himself the way the rest of you did.  

“Dean, y/n is in this life too, and she’s already close to you. If she’s already something that everyone with eyes knows can be used against you does it really matter if you tell her?”

“If it Doesn’t matter if I tell her, why are you telling me I have to?”

“Because not telling her is what’s going to get someone killed Dean.” Sam said getting a little louder.

“And how do you work that out Sam.” Dean was getting annoyed.

“Are you kidding me right now Dean? What about the other day when you we’re both so caught up in the fact you’d kissed and I was distracted by you both being idiots. We we’re in the middle of a hunt and we lost focus because of this. We we’re off our game and it could have been so much worse than getting knocked out and waking up in a basement. Hell, we all could of died because of it. If you’d just get together already having to kiss to break a spell wouldn’t of been a big deal and nobody would have been distracted. You have to tell her.”

“And if she doesn’t feel the same? Then what Sam? We're off our game because it’s awkward or she stops hunting with us? Maybe she’ll move out of the bunker and then I won’t have her in my life at all and..” Dean started to ramble

“Dean.” Sam interrupted. “How can you be so oblivious to something so obvious? You are trained to read people and you know her better than anyone else ever will. She feels the same Dean.”

“How can you be so sure?” Dean asked so quiet, Sam barely heard him.

“Dean you don’t kiss someone like that if you don’t have feelings for them. You don’t cuddle up to them every chance you get, or share a bed with them, or blush at even the slightest hint of flirting with them or Plan an entire Christmas around one conversation with them and doing everything they love despite nit caring about it all that much.” Sam raised an eyebrow the last one clearly aimed at Dean.

“Ok Sam I get it.” Dean Wasn’t completely convince you felt the same but Sam had a point. If you kept this up distracting each other like this someone was going to get hurt. And Dean couldn’t risk that even if it meant you might leave; he knew he had to tell you. The only question was how?

“So, are you going to tell her?” Sam asked as Dean parked in the garage.  

“I- yeah Sam. I am.” Sam was a little shocked because he wasn’t actually expecting Dean to agree.

“When? How?”

“I don’t know yet, but soon.”  

While the boys had been gone you had been getting grilled by Charlie and Gabe. Apparently Sam had let it slip about you and Dean having to Kiss.

“Oh Come on! I made Sam give me details. He could of just pecked your lips and been done but he chose to full on make out with you. And you didn’t stop him. That doesn’t scream just friends to me.” Charlie practically screamed.  

“Yeah Y/n/n!” Gabe teased. “and there’s the fact you’ve been practically sat in his lap all day watching cheesy Christmas movies.”

“Hey we’ve all been watching those, and if you hadn’t noticed there aren’t enough seats to not have two people on here and last time I checked Dean was the last one to sit down after everyone else already had where was he going to sit? The floor?” You were getting defensive, your cheeks flushing red slightly.

“Y/n are you too warm? Your face is red.” Cas asked innocently, making you blush more.

“No Bro, she’s embarrassed because she liked Dean.” Gabe explained laughing.

“Shut up.” You muttered.

“Ah you didn’t deny it.” Charlie yelled excitedly.

“Didn’t deny what?” Dean asked walking into the room Sam right behind. Both of them carrying pizza’s

“Oh nothing. It's not important.” You said giving Gabe and Charlie a glare. Sam smirked putting the pizza’s down on the table catching on to exactly what had been going on.

“Ok anyway.” Dean said putting down the other pizzas. You slid off the love seat and sat on the floor missing the disappointed look on Deans face as he sat down. It quickly left though when you shuffled backwards so you were sitting against the chair, Deans legs on either side of you.

“Ok this had been killing me since you mentioned it the other day.” Gabe suddenly said before taking a bite of his pizza. You all turned to look at him.

“I wanna hear the story of when you killed Krampus.” That made you laugh. You spent the rest of the night telling stories and drinking a little more than you should. You'd gone back to cuddling up with Dean after you finished eating. As it started to get later the other started to leaving one by one to head to bed. After Sam and Charlie left you felt your eyes get heavy and couldn’t keep them open any longer. Falling asleep with your head on Dean’s shoulder.  

Dean noticed you were asleep and excused himself from Cas and Gabe, picking you up bridal style and carrying you to your room. He gently placed you in bed, tucking you under the covers and placing a kiss on your forehead. As he went to leave you grabbed onto his hand still half asleep and said “Stay” Dean knew he shouldn’t but he couldn’t say no to you. He climbed into the bed putting his arms around you, telling himself he would only stay for five minutes. He ended up falling asleep there.

December 20th

You woke up to the sound of someone banging around in the kitchen. You were going to get up and see what was going on when you realised something was weighing you down. You saw an arm draped across your waist and followed it back to its owner turning over to get a better look. Dean was in your bed.

“what the..” You pulled up the covers and sighed in relief when you saw you both still had clothes on. Ok you hadn’t gotten that drunk that you’d slept together and couldn’t remember it. But why was Dean in your bed. Your movements woke him up. He blinked a few times adjusting to the light before smiling up at you sleepily.  

“Hey.” He had that deep, just woke up voice again and you hated just how much you loved it.

“Hi.” Dean seemed to remember where he was and started to apologise.

“Shit y/n, I didn’t mean to fall asleep here I swear.” that made you laugh a bit.

“Why we’re you even in here?” not that you minded.

“I carried you to bed after you fell asleep out there and then when you asked me to stay I must of drifted off.” He explained rubbing the back of his neck.

“I..I asked you to stay?” You blushed.

“Yeah you did, but it’s no big deal right we’ve shared a bed together hundreds of times.” Dean wasn’t sure if he was reassuring you or himself.

“Yeah of course.” You both went quiet.

“I better get up we have a big day ahead of us.” Dean said changing the subject.

“Oh yeah? What are we doing today Winchester?” you raised an eyebrow at him. Dean smirked in response.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”  

tags: @supraveng

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 36

Well, the bar exam results did not post at 12:01am on April 17 I didn't really expect that they would, but I had to check anyway. Like three times. Oh well. It's not like it's MY ENTIRE LIFE'S WORK or anything. Calm, we are so very calm around here. Very zen. We have put on the Tinykittens livestream on the television to watch one of their foster mamas get ready to have kittens, and we are intensely, rigidly, singlemindedly relaxed. 

Today was sewing day! I signed up with the local food bank to help with a drive-through distribution on Monday because they needed volunteers, but I don't really have a proper mask. I've got an elastic-backed bandana headband that does well enough for running around and moving cats, but for something like this, I want to be masked up. And why should I not make my own masks? I'm crafty, I'm reasonably clever, and most importantly, I have my own sewing machine. Specifically, I have my mom's old sewing machine from the early nineties that I have never really learned how to use despite my best intentions, but let's not pick nits. It's a sewing machine, and it works. How hard could it be? (she asked with innocent hubris and massive amounts of unearned self-confidence.)

I spent the first part of the morning running more cats to the spay clinic, but that was so early in the morning it barely counts. After that, I pulled the sewing machine's rolly suitcase into the living room and set it up on a TV tray because we do not have an eating table and my husband and son were using both our desks for their various schools. A half hour of reading the user manual (copyright 1988) and watching some YouTube videos was enough to let me get the machine threaded, and I was ready to go! I was ready to... snap the thread instantly! I was ready to fuck around some with the tension dial so maybe it would not do that! I was ready to rethread the bobbin so it would not do that other thing! I was ready to make an absolutely unholy tangle, five or six times in a row! It was all amazing, I am clearly a prodigy. 

It was around this point that I adjusted my expectations for churning out a couple masks and decided today would be a practice day. I cut a few squares out of an old t-shirt and practiced doing simple straight seams, which is apparently a lot harder than it looks. It took another four or five hours to routinely be able to make more than one seam in a row without rethreading everything, but I'm getting a lot better! And as a bonus,, I've been seaming rectangles on three and a half sides, then turning them inside out so the kiddo can stuff them with polyfil and sew them shut into pillows. His stitches, while a little large, are surprisingly straight! Good job. I think that with some continued work, I will be able to turn a pillowcase into a couple of credible masks before Monday. I hope, anyway. 

Today was also exciting because it was GROCERY DAY. I have been waiting a very long time for this day, with my extremely large aspirational shopping list and very high hopes. The most important part first: they did include the 100 pack of colored pencils! I'm so excited! I ended up with eight unavailable items (including the pencil sharpener unfortunately), and 20 substitutions, but for the most part the substitutions were sensible and often much better than what I'd asked for in the first place. I am 1000% not going to quibble if they want to assuage my disappointment in not getting the pints of ice cream I wanted by subbing in gallons of a different flavor. That is more than okay with me, dudes! They also threw in a bag of someone else's groceries, consisting of some baby cheetos, a box of infant Midol, and a red onion, and I haven't seen my Sour Patch Kids anywhere. But for pity's sake, there's a pandemic on, and when you play Game of Groceries, you 'get what you get and you don't make a fit,' as one of the kiddo's preschool teachers used to tell him. I gave the guys a glowing five star review and left a comment on the corporate Facebook about the good job the store was doing. They are not allowed to take tips at Walmart, which blows, but hopefully that will help them a little at least. 

So all in all, we have enough groceries to last us at least a month, though we'll probably have to go out for milk, OJ and bread a couple of times. The fridge is packed, as is the freezer (three gallons is a fuck of a lot of ice cream, my friends,) and the pantry. In looking at it all, I am willing to concede that I may have become a little squirrel brained this week, especially after the check came in yesterday, and that when I go to the food drive on Monday I should probably take a couple bags of stuff. Nobody needs fifteen cans of pasta sauce to last a month, and we still haven't eaten five of those cans of Spam I had before. There is a fine line between feeling good for having enough and feeling bad because you have too much and other people don't. On the other hand, I bought all the ingredients for key lime pie, plus a carton of fresh whipping cream. It's going to be _so good._  We also have five bunches of bananas, but that was just an accident. Good thing we've got that banana bread with chocolate chips recipe! Still no toilet paper to be had, but we have enough for now. 

Found a fun free game on the App store called Seedship, that killed a couple of hours while I tried to save a sleeper ship full of the last remnants of the human race. Kiddo is reading Bunnicula for the second day in a row, he likes it! I'm glad, I used to love that book. He's also learning to do some fairly sophisticated math for fourth grade involving adding fractions of a circle's radius. I had to think for a minute to figure out what 5/8 of a full rotation would be, and then encourage him to think in the right way to figure it out too. It is 225 degrees, which we figured out in our heads by starting with the clue that 1/4=90 degrees, changing that to 2/8, then dividing it in half to get 1/8=45 degrees. He did nearly all of it himself, too, with just a little nudging from me, and then went on to figure out twelfths as well, then how to add various fractions to figure out total degrees. I'm very proud of him! 

I wonder if it's going to be weird in future years if I or anyone else comes back to look at this and notices that I journal hardly at all about world events, and a huge amount about the contents of my pantry. The contents of my pantry is way less depressing. Reading the news is scary or sad or infuriating or frustrating, but digging out leftovers and cleverly combining them into a new casserole is both productive and fun. It's important, I think, to feel a sense of control, even when very little is controllable. That's maybe not the biggest reason I'm still trying to volunteer, but it's definitely on the list. You're not helpless if you can help others, even in small ways, even if that other is just a cat who doesn't even like you. 

Still no bar exam results. It's gonna be a long day.

[tisfan]

Bucky Bunny Berry Jam

for @livewire28

“No cheating,” Bucky said, handing her the basket. Wanda paused, hovering about four inches above ground, her red jacket rippling in the breeze behind her.

“How is this cheating? You wish me to pick the apples, I am picking the apples.”

“No one else can do that,” Bucky said. “Therefore, it’s cheating.”

“That is ridiculous,” Wanda said. “Would you want me to cover my eyes because not everyone can see? This is part of who I am, therefore, it is not cheating.” She shook her head. Bucky had very strict ideas about fairness.

“And if we were in any danger of starving to death, or even if we were doing a charity delivery of strawberry and apple jelly, then fine, sure, use your freaky red magic mist. But we’re not. We’re not in a hurry, we’re not competing with Captain America. We’re pickin’ strawberries an’ apples as a way to spend time together. So, what’s your hurry, kitten?”

“I am task oriented,” Wanda said, puffing her chest out a little, but she did let herself touch back down to the ground. “You said, fill the basket, I wish to get it done in the shortest time possible.”

“It’s a pick-your-own farm,” Bucky pointed out. “If I just wanted jelly, we could go to the grocery store.”

“I will pick apple with you, Bucky Barnes, because you asked me to,” she said. “And I do like spending time with you. But I am not going to climb up and down a ladder to get apples because you think it builds character. Or puts hair on my chest -- whatever your silly saying is.”

“How about you sit on my shoulders and pick apples and I’ll put them in the basket.”

“That is cheating,” Wanda said. “Not everyone can carry me around.”

“Fair,” Bucky said. “So that’s a no on sitting on my shoulders?”

“I didn’t say that,” Wanda said. “I just want to point out that cheating is cheating.”

“Get climbin’, nit-picker,” Bucky said, bending his knee just a little so she could climb him like a tree.

“Apple-picker,” she corrected, primly. She settled with one leg on either side of his neck, pulling herself straight on his shoulders. “So, go that way, I cannot reach anything from here.”

Bucky picked up the basket. “This’ll hold like half a bushel,” he said. “Maybe seventy apples, if we fill it well. Enough for several gallons of applesauce. Or jelly.”

“And what are we going to do with several gallons of jelly, even assuming I can cook them,” Wanda wondered. She reached into the trees and started picking apples, feeling the way the stem was loose or not, inspecting the skin before she plucked them, and watching out for the bees, who didn’t really seem to mind her interference, but she didn’t want to get stung anyway.

“We’ll eat some of it,” Bucky said, logically. “And probably make a mess. And we can jar some of it up and give it to our friends.”

“It’s the thought that counts?” Wanda said, putting her hand on his head to balance as she reached for a higher apple. “Because I don’t think it’s going to be very good jelly. I’ve never made jelly before.”

“My sisters used t’ make it all the time,” Bucky said. “There was a corner market down the street from where we lived, an’ the guy what run it used to let my sister take the fruit that was banged up. She made this mix jelly all the time, not apple, or blueberry or anything, but just whatever not-quite spoiled fruit we could get an’ stash in the coldbox. I sold scrap parts and traded it for sugar. It worked out.”

“Well, we can mix berries,” Wanda said. “This is pick-your-own. Apples, and blueberries.”

Bucky insisted on filling the apple basket anyway, and then Wanda had the fun of discovering that her boyfriend didn’t like worms. They were on their knees in the strawberry patches, filling up little green cardboard pint containers, when Bucky shrieked and threw something away from him in a riot of disgust.

“What?” Wanda’s powers came easily to her fingertips, and she was all but floating over the field when she spotted the poor thing. “It’s a worm.”

“Yeargh,” Bucky agreed. “Disgusting, all wriggly and stuff.”

Wanda plucked the worm out of the dirt, inspecting it with her powers. She could feel its dull, mindless contentment. There was warm soil and food, it had a good life. For a worm.

She floated it further away. “I never much liked flying bugs,” she said, commiserating. “We did not have central heating or cooling, so the windows were open quite a lot, and there were always these dull grey flies. Bzzzz, all the time.”

Bucky gave her a grateful look. “Tried go fishing once,” he said. “Stripers and stuff. It was Steve’s idea. Fishing, should be easy, right? Noooo. Ended up stealin’ some whitefish out of the market and trying to pass it along to our ma’s that we’d caught it. Steve’s mom was like ‘pulled the string so hard, Jimmy Barnes, that you peeled the scales clean off.’”

Wanda laughed. “I don’t think our parents even tried to pretend that we didn’t steal food.”

What a strange thing to bond over, going to bed hungry as an eight-year old. Wanda waved a hand over the berries, encouraging the bugs to go away, and while she was at it, sent a little thump down into the soil. No more worms need apply today.

By the time they filled the little wagon with a half bushel of apples, several pints of berries, and a few bundles of rhubarb, they were sweaty, filthy, and Wanda was ridiculously happy. They’d spent an entire afternoon doing nothing of importance at all, talked and laughed the entire afternoon through.

“You’re a little sunspeckled,” Bucky told her, pointing out some freckles on her arms.

“That happens,” she said. The farmer’s children were sitting around in a circle on the grass, clapping or playing a game, and Wanda meandered over that way while Bucky was paying for their fruit.

“Hey miss,” one of the kids said. “You wanna hold our bunny?”

Wanda found herself being coached into making a basket of her arms and holding -- no tiny little storytime rabbit, this, but a huge-footed, lop-eared monster rabbit that probably weighed a good twelve pounds at least.

“Rabbits have claws,” she observed. How had she not known that?

“I reckon you need a pet rabbit,” Bucky said, coming up behind her.

“No, no, no, no,” Wanda protested. “I don’t know the first thing about bunnies.”

“Aside from me,” Bucky pointed out.

“Well, if I have a Bucky-bunny,” Wanda said, “I don’t really need a rabbit, do I?”

“Perhaps not,” Bucky said. “Admittedly, that is the most disapproving bunny I’ve ever seen.”

“You should buy him for Steve,” Wanda said. “He is in need of something to disapprove of that does not wither under his stare.”

“Yeah, no, probably not,” Bucky said. “Although Captain ‘Merica with a damn big ass rabbit is an amusing image.”

“We will bring him up this way,” Wanda suggested, “and take his picture with the disapproving bunny.”

Bucky pulled out his phone and took several pictures of the rabbit anyway, curled in Wanda’s arms.

Several months later, Bucky Bunny Berry Jam, a limited edition, sold at the Maria Stark’s September Foundation auction of over three thousand dollars for a dozen jars.

Fin

A/n Disapproving Bunny is a stuffed animal. I don’t know what to tell you, but that rabbit stares at people like they’ve disappointed him. (He is currently in residence with @27dragons’s sister-in-law who teaches music and Disapproving Bunny disapproves when her kids don’t practice. I’m told this is remarkably effective.)

[cartoons-tothemoon]

Zak Storm Origins Part 1 Live-Blog:

Hello!  The Miraculous Ladybug PV Discord recommended the show heavily as a better alternative to ML when it comes to certain writing things that get on our nerves, so they recommended Zak Storm, and now I am watching it. Such is life.

I’ll put all my commentary in stuff in the “read below” section, so I don’t clog up your dash if you don’t want to see it. Have a nice day!

- First things first, I want you to know that the only things I know about Zak Storm is that it’s about a brown haired pirate kid and the Bermuda Triangle. That’s it. I’ve skimmed some of the post edorazzi does about Zak Storm, but I really mean that I skimmed it. I’m going into this effectively blind, so, this should be interesting for all of us.

ORIGINS PART 1:

- The theme song is very radical, I guess. Nothing makes sense, but the theme music’s cool.

- Man of Action, as mentioned in the theme song, is the company that created Ben Ten, of course, my memory’s pretty bad, so I could be wrong.

- Panning over the background for ambience’s sake. There’s surfboards, a tiki head, a globe, a starfish, some fishing wire in a cabinet, a swordfish, a sea shell, etc. It’s very nautical themed but, then again, I don’t know what I expected from a show about pirates.

- The man fiddling with the radio appears to be Zak’s father/uncle/general caregiver, and seems to have a degree. The font is too small and blurry to make out, but I suppose it implies that he’s not the bumbling fool that the Hawaiian-styled shirt implies.

- A map and an eel-head. Huh.

- He SNEAKS. *Knocks over a bunch of stuff as he attempts to escape the scene of his crime.* He attempts to SNEAK.

- Classic beleaguered father figure and classic probably cursed necklace. Considering Zak knows of the necklace, as well as its existence, it’s probably not that bad though.

- Wow. I can’t believe ZAG actually put in the time and effort to actually animate water here. On one hand, it’s necessary, but on the other hand, in Miraculous Ladybug, literally nobody ever cried until Syrena. It was just weird sniffling. I got distracted, bottomline, good job for doing the absolute bare minimum here, Zag.

- How confident is this Zak kid that he can surf while listening to music and playing on his phone? What a guy.

- AND he’s on a webcam. Wow.

- His English voice sounds kinda cute, though, in an Ash Ketchum kind of way.

- He’s literally just the protagonist in a JRPG game. So, yeah, Ash Ketchum. “Pressure? What’s that?”

- His dad/uncle/care-giver’s head looks really small in comparison to his body, but that’s more of a “my opinion” kind of thing, given how relatively realistic ZAG tries to keep the proportions.

- Wow, those storm clouds appeared really quickly.

- Was the whole storm thing mentioned on the radio earlier? I wasn’t really listening.

- “Take off the necklace” is the necklace the one thing that’s keeping him from capsizing or on the board or? Otherwise, why would Zak grab it?

- I’m barely 2 minutes in. Sorry for this effectively frame-by-frame analysis, but in my defense...I’ve never done this before.

- “How do we make those dark storm clouds shrouding our protagonist in disappointment more ominous?” “I dunno, man, a skull?” “Genius.” 

- Storm family magic. I knew it. 

- A potentially tragic misunderstanding is going on here. 

- Whoops. I guess I expected the dad/uncle/care-giver figure to be more emotionally distraught over potentially losing his son to a mystical portal forever, but...We barely know them and he clearly knows the necklace, so, he may...Be fine?

- Never mind. He’s probably not fine. Also, why is he not more panicked to be surfing around lightning? Probably shock.

- Cool water animation, though.

- Zak, I haven’t really grown emotionally attached to you yet, and I want to like you, but please stop with the dumb slang. 

- Huh, so it was his dad, after all.

- On one hand, the whole “I must be dreaming thing” is very cliche, on the other hand, I feel bad for this small child who’s abandoned in the middle of the ocean with only a webcam, surfboard, and dumb necklace and crying out for his dad, that I’ll let it slide.

- Green and red, the most insidious colors imaginable. At least it isn’t red and black.

- This green skull guy looks almost 2D animated in the first shot, which is not a bad look.

- I like that boat design for that golden skull guy, at least, a lot more than what looks like Zak’s ship, but I suppose he’s supposed to have that generic pirate look.

- Never mind. It’s less generic than I thought it would be.

- He’s still going along with the nightmare idea, He’s in shock, He’s trying his best, I remind myself.

- Yay! Tiny British ghost friend! Also, who are you calling him small? The ghost friend looks to be a child.

- Scratch that. Tiny, maybe British, astral-projecting spirit friend who’s bad at jokes.

- Cool name for a boat, but aren’t boats usually called she's? Eh, whatever.

- Wow, already trying to escape. 2 minutes with tiny spirit friend who’s name...Hopefully hasn’t been mentioned yet because it shows how well I can pay attention to the forest, and you’re already trying to abandon him.

- “Eye of Peru,” just where does this take place? It’s clearly not in some weird alternate fantasy world if countries from our world exist.

- Clovis. That’s the tiny British spirit friend. I have no strong feelings about him whatsoever.

- Okay, seriously though, Goldenbone’s voice is very cool sounding. Just very classically threatening. It’s kinda like Slade with a bit more energy put into it, but I’m not sure if that statement is right.

- Zak has such dumb sneakers I love him.

- Wow, actual guns. Those look like legitimate pistol designs, but they shoot laser beams. We had to get them through the censors somehow, I guess.

- I think this is the first time I’ve seen a hook hand actually used for something useful outside of just looking cool and threatening.

- “You have a salty spirt, boy.” Dang, who’s Zak vagueing about now.

- Please don’t say good boy. That’s a very cursed phrase if you aren’t talking about an aging labrador.

- I love how Clovis just low-key called him an idiot. Zak really is just a JRPG protagonist, all shiny and dumb and easy to trick, but it would be bold of you to assume that I don’t love him for it.

- Also! Bermuda Triangle! One of the only things I knew about the series has at last been integrated.

- “Let me talk to him.” Why? Why would background skeleton #423 actually suggest this? Does he think he’s special? Because he’s going to have a bad time looking into that mirror and seeing everybody he’s ever known there.

- Why is the Bermuda Triangle just a myth or a legend in this world? It’s a region in our world that’s known for its ship disappearances, it’s not entirely explained, but it’s not like it’s the jersey devil or anything.

- “Surf rat and internet wannabe.” Well, at least he’s honest.

- Clovis confirmed for ectoplasmic whatever, but is also totally a poltergeist.

- 13:55-14:20...Sigh.

- So, does Goldenbone being dead allow him to touch both corporeal and non-corporeal beings, or is Clovis constantly tangible but also not?

- Oh never mind this was actually explained.

- Yes, Zak. Listen to your strange magical heirloom here for once.

- You know what’s worse than a sword? A talking sword.

- Ah, yes, the classic ZAG transformation sequence. This totally won’t happen every single episode to add run-time and repeat animation.

- You’d also think he’d be used to this by now, or just completely out of it given everything that’s been happening.

- I wish they did more animation with the fire, but that’s really a nit-pick.

- What’s up with Clovis just...Continually doing peace signs. Does he not know what else. he can do with his hands.

Conclusion: Zak is dumb but I love him. Golden bones is evil but trying his best here. Clovis is also there. Why does he have a cockney accent. Good show. 7/10.

[thedefinitionofbts]

Crossroads Hiding the Moon

Pairings: Min Yoongi x Reader | Min Yoongi x OC

Genre: Single Dad!Yoongi, Baby!Taehyung, Angst and Fluff

Words: 8K

Description: As requested by anon: “A single dad! yoongi with a toddler? Like super angst in a way that his wife suddenly left them so he turns cold. But then someone comes into their life and his son started calling her mommy, they try to work it out for the kid. Just when everything's better, the ex wife returns and things get complicated but ends up in fluff.”

A/N: My first request! Omg, I finished this super fast because I got way too excited to do a request lol. Well, I hope you enjoy this anonie :)

Present 

If there is anything Min Yoongi hates more than being late for important events, it’s driving through the rain during rush hour. He’s on his way to pick up his four year old son, Taehyung, after a long day in the studio, and maybe if Jungkook was more vocally skilled at execution or if Namjoon wasn’t so nit picky about the lyrics, he wouldn’t feel as emotionally drained while the sun was still up. But no, the overly self-confident main vocalist was too arrogant to take constructive criticism seriously, and the popular boy group’s resident genius was too much of a perfectionist to let one “lackluster” chorus slide. So here he is, sitting in the his car listening to the unrelenting raindrops splatter against his windshield, and waiting for the vehicle in front of him to stop drunkenly swerving into his lane.  

Truthfully, Yoongi had been feeling rather uneasy all day. He was reluctant to send Taehyung off to daycare, not knowing if the other children would make fun of the toddler for his second hand clothing that Yoongi barely had the money to afford or his eccentric personality that is often misunderstood. Yoongi’s new job didn’t allow children to run around the studio, and it was his first big break, finally being hired by a company as established in the music industry as BigHit just when rent was due in less than 2 weeks and his bank account had been sucked dry because he insisted on buying that expensive pair of shoes for the toddler’s birthday, even if it meant he had to skip lunch each day for the next month. He had barely been scraping by before his self-composed song was selected as the winner of the online competition BigHit had held for rising producers, and it was like the heaven’s was finally listening to his silent prayers.

It’s still pouring as the traffic continues to move at a snails pace, causing Yoongi to drown in his overly worried mind once again. He was afraid Taehyung would be the last kid picked up, having to watch all the other children leave with their parents causing him to start having thoughts of Yoongi abandoning him, just like his mother did. Yoongi swallows thickly and grips the steering wheel tighter, forcing himself not to think about something he’s been trying to forget for over two years now.

 When he arrives at the daycare, Yoongi sees Taehyung sitting alone by the window, shoulder slightly slump and legs that were too short to touch the ground swinging carelessly as he stared at the pellets of water trickling down the glass, blurring the view of the grey world outside. He almost looks like he was deep in thought, and it makes Yoongi wonder if Taehyung’s young mind is actually thinking about something profound or if his head was just filled with his favorite cartoons on replay.

“Ah, Mr. Min! You’re finally here.” The friendly voice of the woman in charge snaps Yoongi out of his thoughts, bringing him back to the task at hand.

Yoongi clears his throat awkwardly. “Yeah, I’m here to pick up Taehyung.”

At the sound of his name, Taehyung’s little head perks up and a boxy smile appears on his face as he turns his head to see his father standing at the doorway. And before Yoongi can call him over, the four year old was already a step ahead and had ran over to jump into his arms.

“Daddy!” He laughs, nuzzling his head into the crook of Yoongi’s neck as the older male lifts him off the ground.

“He’s been waiting for quite a while.” The lady brings up the fact that Yoongi was nearly 45 minutes late, as if it hadn’t been obvious by the room void of children except Tae. She has a smile on her face, so Yoongi assumes she doesn’t say that with ill intent but rather concern for his son who had to watch all the other kids leave with their parents.

“Sorry, Tae, this won’t happen again.” Yoongi apologizes, bouncing the little boy in his arms to get in a more comfortable position.

Taehyung shakes his head. “It’s ok, I knew you’d come.”

Yoongi reaches up and ruffles Taehyung’s fluffy hair, smiling at the little boy because his heart felt too full to describe whatever emotion he was feeling into words. If Yoongi was being really honest, the kid was the only person filling that miserable numbness he wakes up to each morning, the only person that can actually bring out a genuine smile from the depths of his being, even if he has to force himself to ignore the other person that Taehyung reminds him of. He often wonders if Taehyung hides his sadness with a childish front, but maybe that was just Yoongi overthinking again or even an effect of projecting his own mindset on the toddler. On one hand, the kid was only four years old, and yet on the other, he had already gone through so much at such a young age.  

Taehyung doesn’t want to get his new shoes wet, and honestly neither does Yoongi because Gucci for kids still cost the rising producer an arm and a leg, so Yoongi offers to carry him on the condition that he holds the umbrella–“because daddy doesn’t have three arms”. And of course Taehyung doesn’t object, and so the two of them walk to Yoongi’s car that is parked a block away because street parking was much cheaper than paying for a spot in the lot.

“Daddy look, that person doesn’t have an umbrella” Yoongi’s head turns in the direction that Taehyung’s stubby finger is pointed, and low and behold he see’s you using your wallet sized purse to cover your head in a feeble attempt to remain somewhat dry as you ran towards them waiting for the light to turn green at the crosswalk.  

Yoongi stands still, head positioned straight, and gaze fixed at the passing cars on the street as you reached the spot where he was standing with Taehyung, pretending like there wasn’t someone being drenched in the rain while he remained sheltered under an umbrella large enough to fit an entire family.

“Aww, you’re so sweet, thank you.” Your comment makes Yoongi’s jerk his head around and realize just what had happened. Unbeknownst to him, Taehyung had moved the umbrella in a way so that it covered your head as well, and now the three of you were in a situation Yoongi would rather not have to address at a time like this.

“You’re pretty” Taehyung says, giggling a little as he continued to look at your with wide eyes and an impossibly friendly smile.

“Tae” Yoongi mildly scolds, wondering what had gotten into his son, questioning why in the world Taehyung would take part in such an unusual act of kindness towards a stranger on the street, and it wasn’t until Yoongi’s eyes meet directly with yours that the answer to that very question became as obvious as day.

You were almost a mirror image of her.

 …

 Past

When he was younger, Min Yoongi was a big fan of love that was like summer rain. The kind that hits you suddenly and bursts out of your soul like the scent of earthly elements coming back to life, filling the atmosphere when a seemingly never-ending drought finally comes to an end. Blame his artistic mind and tendency to describe emotion through song, a habit of his that manifested as an interest for the arts when he was young and caused him to spend most of his time listening to music rather than playing with other kids outside. And it was precisely for that reason that Min Yoongi knew he wanted to be a composer from the moment he entered college, opting to major in music the second he got the chance to meet with his university counselor.

He didn’t care what his parents thought of it, didn’t heed the advice from his older successful businessman brother-who was always the favorite in the family-about the risks of trying to make it big in the turbulent music industry. Yoongi was a big believer in passion being the key to success, of course not without hard work and discipline, which was why he found himself in the music theater, practicing classical pieces on the grand piano without an audience, every single day of the year. Because not only was it a place he came to associate with the undying love he harbored for music and the optimistic hope he had for the future, it was also where he met Kim Chaewon for the very first time.

“You’re Min Yoongi, right?”

The silvery voice floats over to Yoongi’s ear, cutting through the musical piece he had been so thoroughly absorbed in. It was almost too cliché because Chaewon exhibited a kind of beauty that made his jaw drop the moment he lifted his gaze off the black and white keys and spotted her walking down the steps to the empty stage. Even though the performance hall was only half lit, her skin still managed to glow smoothly under the dim artificial lighting, and her eyes were large and puppy-like, kind and gentle, like warm spring zephyr.

“Yeah, I am.” Yoongi answers, eyes still fixed on the girl who is smiling at him like winter snow had just melted away after months of turning to decaying slush.

“The one the professor kept raving about in class today, right?”

“Oh, that was…” Yoongi scratches the back of his neck, reminded of how embarrassing it was for the music professor to brag about his project on sound layering. He didn’t like being the center of attention and had sunk lower in the seat when the man had mentioned his name, not that anyone could put a face to his name, or so he thought. 

She giggles, light and airy, making Yoongi flush because he’s never met anyone who’s shown genuine interest in his novice work, well except for said professor who keeps praising him in front of the class.

“I forgot to mention, I’m Chaewon. You probably don’t me, but I’ve secretly been listening to you play for quite a while now and just summed up the guts to talk to you today.” Her gaze drops shyly, waiting for Yoongi to respond to her confession.

Yoongi’s at lost for words, not knowing how to respond to such a statement, especially when she’s making his heart beat a mile a minute. At the very least he’s poised enough to thank her for being a fan, which sounded really dumb stuttering out of his nervous mouth but manages to make her laugh, so it wasn’t all in vain he supposes. 

Yoongi never thought about how it would feel to actually have someone support his dreams, he wasn’t looking for that kind of reassurance because he was used to being looked down upon. He was used to chasing after something that was unimaginably far away, one that makes him feel like he was running in place every day and that tomorrow would never truly arrive. It never really bothered him because his passion for music stayed true, and he was always confident that he would never stray from that path that would take him closer towards his dream, but Kim Chaewon came to him like summer rain. She was the first person to sincerely believe in him, and she did it when no one else bothered to give his music a chance, when the rest of the world was against his humble beginnings and rejected the potential of an underdog making it to the top.

“You’re going to be an amazing songwriter and producer one day.” Chaewon says to Yoongi as they walk under the cascading cherry blossoms on a warm April afternoon. The sun was warmer than normal today, and the scenery was hazy like an actual dream, only it was actually real and closer than anything else in Yoongi’s life at the time.  

“I really hope so.” Yoongi sighs, reminded of all the obstacles that lie on the road ahead.

“I know you will because you’re Min Yoongi and the world deserves to be graced by your unparalleled art.”

Kim Chaewon was ethereal, because not only was her outer appearance angelic and otherworldly, her personality was just as lovely as Yoongi eventually learned over the years. And although Yoongi knew from the moment their minds clicked like that of soulmates that she was the one, it was because she stuck with him through the all-time lows, those periods when he lost the magic touch and would he hit a slump that barred him from coming up with anything good for months, that led Yoongi to love Chaewon more than that satisfying feeling of finally completing a song that conveyed exactly what he intended, more than the way rain cascades like diamond tears from the sky and ends in a passing sun shower that gives birth to a rainbow, and more than everything he thought was meaningful in life before she lit up his world.

 Their love was a crystal clear story, one that wasn’t supposed to end.

 …

 Present

Grocery shopping is always a pain, and not entirely due to the fact that Yoongi was literally broke, but because he had to take time to consider healthy options for his growing boy. If it was just him, he would be fine shoving cheap junk down his esophagus or surviving on minimal food for most of the month, but because of Taehyung, he was forced to actually prepare meals with vegetables and make sure Tae always has his daily serving of fruits, which entailed a trip to the grocery store every weekend.

Luckily Taehyung isn’t all that picky for a four year old, but he was addicted to coke and Yoongi can do nothing but blame himself for allowing the kid to get his hands on the addictive soft drink. In his defense, he didn’t think one sip could have such a dramatic effect, but boy was he wrong.

“Coke!” Taehyung shouts, finger pointing at the 2-liter bottles of black liquid with their signature red label, lined on the shelves. His eyes were opened wide and sparkling like he just saw his first love.

“Not today, Tae” Yoongi mutters, ignoring the boy’s disappointed pout and quickly pushing the shopping cart past the soda section and heading straight towards the breakfast cereals and oatmeal.

He’s trying to decide if cereal is healthy or not. He’s heard of most types being just pure sugar, but there has to be some vitamins hidden in there, right? It was convenient that’s for sure, and Yoongi was definitely a fan of anything that required minimal preparation from box to mouth. Especially in the mornings when he would feel most groggy and not have any motivation to even think about food.  

“Hi!” Yoongi hears Taehyung shout at someone walking down the isle, and at first he suspects it’s just some random person that caught his son’s attention, but as he tears his gaze away from the nutrition information printed on the cereal box, he sees someone who makes him do a double take.

The world was definitely fucking with him.

“Hey there little fella, so we meet again.” You smile at the little boy who shared his umbrella with you the other day, reaching over and patting his head as he sat in the shopping cart.

“I’m Y/N by the way, sorry I didn’t have the chance to introduce myself the other day.” You wait for the father of the little boy to look up at you.

“Min Yoongi” He responds, still avoiding eye contact.

“I see you’re taking good care of him” You hint at the box of cheerios that Yoongi was scrutinizing.

“I try” He exhales, throwing the box into the cart and preparing to walk off.

You trail after them, wanting to help out in some way because they had been so kind to you on that rainy day and the kid was the cutest little bun you had ever seen.

“Almond milk would be a good option to pair with that.” You suggest. “Calcium for strong bones.” Your voice is light and optimistic, a tone that Yoongi isn’t so happy to be met with because he’s used to being left alone and ignored.

“Are you some sort of expert?” Yoongi scoffs, mildly annoyed at the fact that you’re clearly not going away, but it’s not like he can just voice that directly.

“I’m not a certified nutritionist, but I know a few things.” You grin, flashing Yoongi a knowing look before taking them down each isle and explaining what foods are healthy as well as easy to prepare. “My sister has a son about the same age as yours, and I babysit for her the time.” You explain, trying to lighten the mood.

He’s more than reluctant at first, face remaining as stoic as ever, but Yoongi hates grocery shopping and he’s too tired to keep reading lists of nutrition information and trying to decipher the hoard of long words he doesn’t even know. So he looks at you momentarily before nodding and diverting his eyes, praying that this’ll be a one-time thing and that it ends as soon as he checks out of the store.

He didn’t welcome your friendly attitude towards him because he didn’t need another person in his life to smile at him like everything was ok, like there’s another chance for him to be happy again and have the courage to trust emotions he doesn’t think are real anymore. Not when you’re standing in front of him looking more breathtaking than anyone he’s seen in years, not when you give off such a soothing and caring aura that Yoongi wishes he hadn’t noticed, and certainly not when you remind him so much of the person he still loves no matter how hard he tries to forget.

It’s pathetic, but Yoongi wants to avoid complicated shit like the plague. He doesn’t need another love story that’ll ripe his heart into tiny pieces and leave him slowly bleeding out on an empty street. He doesn’t need light that makes him believe in lies that disguise themselves as promises, and he doesn’t want to open wounds that have not and will most certainly never heal, because he knows if history repeats itself, he won’t come out of it alive the second time.

“You need help with that?” You offer, gesturing to the arm full of plastic bags Yoongi was holding as the three of you walk out of the store.

“No” He says, detached and not even bothering to spare you a glance.

Yoongi feels Taehyung tug on his pant leg, and he knows exactly what the little boy wants.

“Daddy can’t carry you now, you have to walk like a big boy.”

Taehyung whimpers, a noise that makes the hair on Yoongi’s neck stand up because he knows what’s coming next. And Yoongi curses in his head because you were still walking next to them, which Yoongi is starting to question why you hadn’t left yet because he doesn’t want you to witness what his son’s about to do next.

Taehyung starts wailing, loudly. And it sounds so sad anyone who heard his cries would think his dog had just died or something because no four year old should be able to convey emotions so depressing with just ugly sobbing over something as trivial as having to walk when he wants to be carried, but Tae manages to excel in that area and Yoongi swears the kid could grow up to be an amazing actor-but that’s besides the point right now. The sound echoes throughout the neighborhood, ricocheting off the walls of the houses lining the streets, causing passerbys to cover their ears in annoyance and Yoongi’s face to flush hotly from the growing embarrassment.

“Tae” Yoongi scolds through gritted teeth, but his harsh attitude on makes the boy cry even more. Yoongi closes his eyes and curses again, but just as he was about to bend over and attempt to lift the boy up with seven shopping bags in hand, you’ve already beat him to the catch.

“Awww, don’t cry sweetie, I’ll carry you” You’ve already lifted the toddler up into your arms, wiping his tear stained cheeks with a handkerchief from your purse. “It’s tiring to walk isn’t it?” 

Taehyung nods and looks at you with puffy red eyes, but just as soon as you beam at him, his boxy smiles makes a return and it was as if he hadn’t just been bawling just a minute ago.

Yoongi sighs, making a mental note that he needs to stop spoiling Taehyung before the kid starts thinking he can always get his way.

“Don’t you have better things to do?” The question slips out of Yoongi’s mouth after another fifteen minutes of walking, but he regrets it immediately because the pregnant pause that follows starts to suffocate him and he doesn’t even have the guts to look at the flustered expression on your face.

“I-I, ummm”

Yoongi almost regrets calling you out the way he did. He wasn’t purposefully trying to make you feel uncomfortable, but his query was valid. Why were you following them home?

“I know this probably sounds crazy, but I live in the same apartment complex as you. I’ve seen the two of you around, but I-I guess I probably shouldn’t have assumed you knew me since I’ve never officially introduced myself before.”

Yoongi doesn’t know what to think. He’s now certain that the world was fucking with him because this is definitely fate throwing him some kind of curve ball that he can’t escape, or maybe it’s more like a boomerang that’s aimed towards his head.

He clears his throat. “Oh”

That’s all he says in response to your explanation. He doesn’t address the issue further, not when the rest of the walk remains shrouded in silence or when the tension between you and him is skyrocketing through the roof as Yoongi struggles with the door to the apartment complex and is unwilling to ask you to help him, only to grunt a muffled thanks when you rush to his aid with his son still in your arms, and not even when you put Taehyung back on the ground and wave good-bye to the toddler as you exit the elevator on the fifth floor.

 …

 Past

Chaewon informs Yoongi that she’s missed her period, and normally this wouldn’t alarm her if it weren’t for the added tenderness in her breasts and weird food cravings that she hasn’t experienced until recently or the fact that she and Yoongi had just made love for the first time right after the both of them successfully graduated from university. He had suggested using protection on that night, but Chaewon didn’t think anything unexpected would happen from one time.

Evidently, she was wrong.

“Yoongi, I’m pregnant.” Chaewon holds the pregnancy test up so Yoongi can examine the double lines that have appeared. There’s no joy in her face, no disappointment either, but rather a subtle hint of fear tainting her formerly cheerful eyes. 

They weren’t married, and they didn’t have stable jobs or their lives put together. In such a situation, who wouldn’t be terrified to see those two tiny markings on such a life-altering day? Chaewon is thinking about what she’s going to say to her parents, running through all the options they have when it comes to dealing with this, and praying that maybe the test was wrong and that she was only experiencing such symptoms because of stress or a hormonal imbalance not due to the zygote now latched on to her uterine wall.

“Chaewon…” Yoongi gasps, rushing over and embracing her as if he had just been gifted all the stars in the universe, embracing the feeling of excitement mixed with apprehension saturating his senses like it was the most beautiful moment in his life.

“What do we do?” She utters, so softly Yoongi has to lean down and caress her cheek, lifting her chin so he can gaze sincerely into her eyes with the utmost resolve.

“We’ll welcome our beautiful child into this world.”

 …

Present 

“Yoongi!”

Ok, so now Yoongi is convinced that you’re just a stalker. Like how? He had just walked out of the apartment to take a walk and clear his head after getting Taehyung to take a nap. And just as he was running through all of these album concepts in his head, you happened to spot him strolling along the sidewalk towards the park next to the apartment complex.

Yoongi’s ready to sigh wearily as he sees you walk up to him.

“I was just about to ask if you wanted to have Taehyung meet my sister’s son, Park Jimin. I’m going to babysitting him all next week and if you’re busy with work and stuff, you can drop him off at my apartment.” You smile, waiting for some kind of response from Yoongi. He was so hard to read you begin to wonder if he’s just like that because of his natural personality or if he really didn’t want to see you because there was no sign of elation or even pretend politeness on his face.  

“Sure.” Yoongi doesn’t think things through before answering, and he mentally scolds himself for not considering the aftermath of taking you up on your offer, because now he’s officially caught in a relationship more intimate that he promised he would ever allow himself to be with another person. Fuck.

But the thought of not having to rush out of the BigHit building and picking Taehyung up after daycare was just too tempting, and better yet, he didn’t even have to get up an hour early to drop Taehyung off at daycare because you literally lived two floors down, and Taehyung like you for reasons Yoongi is choosing to ignore at this point because that would just twist things up more than they already are.

“Great! I guess I’ll see you Monday then!” You chirp, waving and heading back to the apartment.

 …

 Taehyung and Jimin get along better than two peas in a pod. Any outsider would assume they had been friends for years or were brothers from another mother. They are in fact the exact same age, give or take a month or two, and they surprisingly shared more interests than Yoongi could’ve predicted.

“How was your day?” You ask as Yoongi enters your apartment to pick up his son.  

“Nothing too special.” Yoongi has a minor flashback of Jungkook stuffing a pair of chopsticks up his nose and trying to sing. It was not pretty, but it made him laugh, which is quite a difficult feat so he let it slide.

“If you don’t mind me asking, where do you work?”

“BigHit Entertainment.”

“Whoa, you produce music for Beyond the Scene?” Your eyes widen. “Their music is always topping the charts!”

“I just started, so no, none of my songs have been chart toppers quite yet.”

“But still, you have to be good if they hired you.”

“I guess” He shrugs. 

“I’m a huge fan of them.” You admit, face flushing a little. “I’ve been following them since debut.”

“They do have a lot of fans.” Yoongi comments. He looks around the room, rubbing his hands together and trying to figure out a way to thank you for taking care of Taehyung all day and leaving without it seeming like he was taking advantage of your services and didn’t give a fuck about camaraderie.

“So…uh-”

Yoongi isn’t allowed to finish his attempt at more small talk before Taehyung interrupts him. “Mommy, will Jimin come back tomorrow?” Taehyung’s little head momentarily turns away from the toys splayed out on the floor and looks at you and Yoongi sitting on the couch in the living room.

You’re surprised by the four year old’s choice of words because Taehying hadn’t called you by any name other than your own all day. You’re immediate reaction is of shock, but endearment soon replaces that initial astonishment as he beams at you like a blooming flower.

Yoongi grits his teeth, body stiffening at the sound of his son voicing those syllables to a woman that is not Kim Chaewon. He feels irritated, balling his hands into fists as he tries not to drown in this pool of opposing collisions that is making his head spin. She left. But she’s his real mom. She left. But I love her.  

“You’re disgusting” He spits out, getting up from the couch.

“W-what?” You utter, shaking your head and trying to digest the situation.

“I trusted you and you brainwashed him. I knew you were a monster.” Yoongi walks over in a fit of rage and grabs Taehyung’s arm forcefully, dragging the kid out of your apartment before you’re brain could even register what was going on.

Yoongi doesn’t think twice about clearing things up. There’s nothing to clear up, it was obvious you had eyes for Taehyung, and you were this creepy woman taking advantage of a little boy who’s mother you resembled so uncannily.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?” Taehyung asks the moment Yoongi slams the door.

“Tae, that lady is not your mother.”

“I know,” He answers matter-of-factly. “But she’s nice and she takes care of me, and I really like her.” His bottom lip quivers as he looks at Yoongi with puppy-eyes, wondering why his father was so angry.

It’s not surprising that Taehyung doesn’t remember his real mother. Yoongi doesn't even know if the boy is even aware of what a mother is, what a mother should do, or even what a mother even represents because he’s never been brave enough to address the events that happened when his son was barely old enough to talk. He was convinced that it would go unnoticed; that Taehyung wouldn’t think his small family of two was strange or different from the societal norm. How fucking stupid for him to think that. Like the boy wouldn’t grow up to notice everyone else had two parents when he was only left with one, or he wouldn’t wonder why other children would call one of their parents “mommy” and the other one “daddy”. Or why Yoongi couldn’t look him in the eyes and tell him how he came into this world. 

He’s a fool to think everything would just magically go away, and he would never have to face his problems head on. 

…

 Past

“You supported my dreams back then! What? Have you changed your mind because I’m not as successful as you had hoped???” Yoongi accuses, trying to keep his voice low so he wouldn’t wake up the baby sleeping in the next room. He was angry with himself more than anything, but Chaewon’s words had hit his most vulnerable spots for weeks now and he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“That’s when I thought you were actually going to do something with your life!”

“I am” Yoongi cries, desperately trying to stop this from turning into another full blown argument.

But Chaewon’s harsh words don’t impede. “My parents kicked me out of the house, and now you can’t even keep a roof over my head! How do you expect me to live the rest of my life like this?!”

“Chaewon” Yoongi begs, gripping onto her arm as if she was his lifeline. “I’m trying, I really am… please…” Yoongi is about to get down on his knees because he can’t let her throw him away like a piece of trash. She was the only person he had, and the past few months have been hell with him being stuck in the longest artistic slump he’s ever hit and Chaewon attempting to get any part-time job she can while still taking care of the baby after her long shifts. Yoongi knows it’s all his fault, and he knows Kim Chaewon deserves a better life, and that he has no one to blame but himself for dragging the love of his life down into this misfortunate hellhole with him because he was selfish and didn’t want to let her go.

“I was an idiot to believe an loser like you.” 

And then she’s gone, leaving Yoongi in a place darker than hell.

 …

 Present

Yoongi doesn’t know why he’s standing outside your door, hesitating to knock and mulling over whether or not he should just run back to the elevator and pretend you never existed and hope that Taehyung forgets about you too, but his conscience is eating him alive, and his son obviously won’t let it go.

“Why can’t I go over to Y/N’s house?”

“Why can’t I play with Jimin anymore?”

“Why are you sad?”

It took him two days to weigh out his options, finally deciding that apologizing to you was easier than having to make up stupid answers for that endless string of questions that keep pouring out of Taehyung’s mouth like a faucet he can’t turn off and then constantly justifying them to not only the toddler but also to himself.

Yoongi takes a deep breath, pinches his nose bridge and lifts a finger to ring the doorbell.

“Y-Yoongi?”

“Y/N, uh, hi, ummm, so about those things I said the other day...” Yoongi takes another deep breath as you stare at him, waiting for him to finish. “I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

“It’s ok” You gently reply. “I’d react the same way if my kid did that.”

Yoongi finally has the guts to lift his eyes to trace over your calm features, and he feels like he’s foreign territory because for the first time he sees you for you and not someone else. “Do you mind if I come in?” What the hell was he saying? It’s like someone else was controlling his mouth.

“Of course.” You open the door wider, moving out of the way so the weary looking male can enter.

“She left us.” Yoongi says as you offer him a cup of freshly brewed tea. He doesn’t know why he’s being so open to you. He’s barely ever even been honest to himself, but he’s starting to convince himself that he’s willing to try sorting out a past he can’t hide from any longer because sooner or later, it’s bound to come back with a vengeance. “It was my fault for not providing her the life she deserved.”

“Min Taehyung’s mother?”

“Kim” Yoongi swallows. “Kim Taehyung.”

And maybe it’s also because you mysteriously make his exhausted heart feel like it had found light once again, beating with a kind of fervor that he was convinced had left forever.

“I can tell you loved her very much.” You whisper.

“With all my heart.”

“I’m sorry.” The words sound generic, and you honestly don’t know what else to say. You didn’t have all the details and you barely knew the man, but the shadow covering his eyes is something you desperately want to help him get rid of, and even if you can’t, you at least want to try.

 …

 When Yoongi’s first song for Beyond the Scene is finished and their album is finally released, BigHit decides to hold a showcase to promote their new concept, which also happens to be their transition into the next era.

“You got me tickets!?” You exclaim, eyes glittering at the yellow slip pinched between Yoongi’s fingers.

“You said you were a fan.” He shrugs.

You wrap your arms around him before your rational mind can weigh out the effects of such an action. You were clearly too excited to thank him in any other way, and you didn’t think he was the kind to oppose physical contact, that is, until you feel his body tense under your embrace. He doesn’t reciprocate the action and you suspect you’ve taken it too far too soon.

You slowly start unravel your arms. “S-sorry” But before you can take a step back; Yoongi grabs your arm and pulls you back into a tight hug.

“Why?” He smiles, patting you on the back and making you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

He even starts inviting you over for dinner on nights he was motivated enough to cook a special meal for Taehyung, claiming to “not want to have to deal with too many leftovers”. But you kind of knew he purposefully prepared a meal for three, because he always made three of everything, no more, no less.

“So who’s your favorite member?” He asks, picking up a piece of beef and putting it into Taehyung’s steaming rice bowl.

“Of Beyond the Scene?” Hm...” You ponder over the difficult answer. “I know there are only four of them, but this is the hardest question I’ve ever been asked.”

Yoongi chuckles. “They're not even similar. Why is it so hard?”

“Well, they’re all super talented and good looking!” You defend. “And each of them adds something new to the table.”

“True” He nods. “But if you knew what they were really like…”

“I know they’re complete dorks.” You roll your eyes.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the million videos they’ve put up online of them doing nothing but messing around. Sometimes I question why they have so many fans.”

“It’s partially because of their music, and the fact that they’re so real.” You explain. “But back to your question, I think my bias has to be Hoseok. He’s literally a ball of sunshine. Or maybe Namjoon because he’s so smart.”

“Hoseok and Namjoon?” Yoongi cocks a brow. “I would’ve taken you to be more of a Seokjin fan.”

“Why’s that?” 

“His face is attractive?” Yoongi makes an I-don’t-know gesture.

You shake your head. “Who’s your favorite then?”

“Jungkook” Yoongi replies. “I didn’t like him at first, but I’ve grown used to his playful antics.”

“That youngest? You clearly have a soft spot for the young ones.” You laugh, peering over at Taehyung who had no idea what you guys were talking about.

 …

 On the day of the showcase, you’re more anxious than you’ve ever been. Out of all the years you been a fan, you never imagined you would one day come across the opportunity to see your favorite idols live. It was the most amazing feeling ever, and it was all thanks to Min Yoongi.

The songs they performed were amazing, and although it was different from their usual sound, you could somehow tell Yoongi was the mastermind behind all of the pieces. There was just something about the emotions conveyed by the beat and lyrics that spoke to you on a deeper level than any of their previous songs. Maybe it was because you had caught a glimpse of the man behind the music on a personal level beforehand or maybe he was just a skilled enough artist to create such beautiful tunes.

“Daddy, I need to pee” Taehyung whines as the third song ends and the members had stopped to introduce themselves one by one.

“Ok, we’ll find you a bathroom.” Yoongi responds. He turns to you. “I’ll be right back. 

You nod, eyes still fixed on the four idols on stage.

The quiet that hits Yoongi is a striking contrast to the raucous arena, as the large doors slam shut. He’s casually looking around to find a bathroom when his gaze lands on someone that makes his heart skip several beats. This can’t be real.

And Yoongi thinks it might be his imagination because there’s no way Kim Chaewon was standing ten feet in front of him just as he exits the auditorium with Taehyung following closely behind. His body freezes up, and his throat is constricting to the point where he can’t tell if he’s still breathing.

“Yoongi”

The voice is just as familiar as it sounded two years ago.

“Chaewon?”

“Congratulations on all of this” She gestures at the crowd of screaming fangirls and flashing stage lights across the heavy metal doors.  

“H-How did you…? W-Why…?” He can’t even form a coherent question because his brain had stopped functioning normally.

“I can recognize your music from anywhere.” She says, flashing Yoongi a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Yoongi can feel Taehyung’s grip on the hem of his pant leg as he hides behind his father, looking at the women curiously. “I don’t doubt that, but…”

“Is that…?” She ignores his state of shock and bends over to wave at Taehyung. “Tae!” She beams.  

“H-Hi” The little boy responds shyly, clearly not recognizing the women the way she expected him to.

“He’s grown up so well” She sighs, straightening up once again. “If you’re not busy, would you like to grab a cup of coffee with me? So we can, I don’t know, chat?”

Yoongi hesitates. He wants to reject her offer because he knows you’re still waiting for him in the crowd, but he can’t get himself to say no, not when he clearly still has feelings for the woman who left him years ago and is now suddenly back within reach.

 …

 “She came back.” Yoongi says. “I’m sorry I left without telling you.”

“Oh, Chaewon, right?” You swallow, trying not to make things awkward between the two of you. “It’s totally fine. She must’ve been really happy to see you and Tae.”

Yoongi nods, eyes still trained at the ground. He was standing outside your doorway late at night, wanting to make sure you got home safely after he had left the showcase so unexpectedly.

“Hey, no hard feelings.” You console him, despite your own voice cracking ever so slightly. You had waited for him for hours after the showcase, but he didn’t need to know that.

“You didn’t wait for me for too long did you?”

4 hours.

“No, of course not.” You pretend to make it sound absurd, shaking your head and waving it off like it was no big deal. “I figured something must have come up.”

Yoongi nods.

“So umm, good-night?” You speak after a long drawn out silence.

“Yeah. Good-night.”

 …

 Yoongi can’t fall asleep that night, and it’s not because he’s thinking about Kim Chaewon coming back into his life and throwing him in complicated shit again, surprisingly, he’s more concerned about you and what you are to him, because he already knows what Chaewon is, more or less. But you on the other hand, you were still shrouded in a misty veil, one created by life’s endless intersections and obstacles. And the universe wasn’t going to give him a break anytime soon, but maybe that’s exactly what he needed to find the right path.

His thoughts flash back to what Chaewon had said to him at the coffee shop.

“We do stupid things when we’re young, but that doesn’t mean what we had wasn’t love.” 

Yoongi stares off into the distance, not knowing why her words were not affecting him the way he expected them to.

“Keyword, had”

“Yoongi, I made a mistake. I still have feelings for you, and I know you do too because otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now.”

He nods slowly, absorbing the honeyed words that were seeping out of the woman’s mouth, and making him really consider the exact thing she was saying.

It was nothing short of the truth, he loved Kim Chaewon and undoubtedly still does. But he has always loved her because he thought she loved him for him, plain and unadorned, when in reality, she was always more in love with his music than anything. And don’t get him wrong, he knows that anyone who has the capacity to love and appreciate his music has to have that special connection with his innermost self, but that holds true for any fan and the musician they look up to. And it took the event of her coming back after he had finally found success to make him realize she was only a crossroad and not the moon itself. Because what happens when Yoongi stops composing one day, what will transpire when he’s too old to produce songs and create the art that she loved him for, will she leave again?

 Yoongi’s not about to find out.

 …

 You don’t see Yoongi for a couple of days, and you knew exactly why. It didn’t make you feel any better knowing the reason, but there was that annoying nagging feeling tugging at your heart that you’ve convinced yourself isn’t categorized as jealously, disappointment, or longing. Stop being absurd.

Yoongi is not yours, he never was and never will be. Was it really that hard to accept the fact that he couldn’t fall in love with you when he was still in love with another woman? Yes. No. Does it make it any more justifiable that he maybe would’ve given you a chance had that woman no returned? Yes. No.

“Wake up, Y/N.” You mutter to yourself as you take the elevator down to grab a package that had arrived.

“Looks like I beat you to the chase.” The familiar voice startles you, almost causing you to drop the house keys your were twirling in your fingers.

“Oh, Yoongi” You gasp, clutching your chest like he almost gave you a heart attack.

“I was just about to look for you.” He bites his lower lip, preparing to say something he’s been running through in his head for the past few days.

“Is something wrong?”

“Life is full of crossroads...” Yoongi swallows, wanting to make this whole speech poetic, but he’s too nervous to function for reasons he’s fully aware of but does not have control over. He hasn’t confessed to anyone in a long time, and even then, he’s only every done it once in his life, to that other woman he’s slowly started to place in another section of his heart to make room center stage for you. “Ah, fuck it.” He mutters. “I’ve made mistakes in the past because I used to be the kind of person to be consumed by people the same way I’m consumed by my passions. I tend to place people on the wrong pedestal, and I have a hard time letting go of first loves. But if you are willing, I want to try for us, because I think I’ve finally found the moon after passing many crossroads.”

There’s a long pause because your mind is blank and your heart is racing. You continue to stare at the man standing awkwardly in front of you, gripping onto the box that had just been delivered as if he was the mail carrier, and you don’t think anything can be more endearing than this.

“But umm, if you’re not down, it’s totally ok too. I know this is strange and sudden, and I’m totally just freaking you out right now because. Aw, fuck.” Yoongi’s eyes squeeze close and he tilts his head up. 

Scratch that. Said man all choked up as he’s trying to confess despite his debilitating nerves is something even more endearing.

“I’m totally down.” You respond, trying to hold in a laugh as you take the box away from him. “So I’m your moon? Is this going to be Beyond the Scene’s next album concept? Or did you just run out of real ideas.” You playfully nudge him in the arm.

Yoongi smiles, gummy and jubilant, and the universe shimmering within his eyes at that moment is, without a doubt, even more breathtaking than his music.

...

[sending-the-message]

The Pumpkin Spice Massacre by xylonex

One thing that I find hilarious about this time of year is that there’s no actual pumpkin in Pumpkin Spice. The spice combination itself is derivative of a pudding known as Pompkin. Pompkin itself does not contain Pumpkin either. Sometime in the 13th century someone called a pudding Pompkin and through eight-hundred years of a telephone game we have gas station coffee being sold for an extra dollar and being called Pumpkin Spice.

I must look like an antisocial prick when I break from the social norm and order a venti caramel macchiato. I’ll stand in line at the local Starbucks and wait to order the same cup of coffee I’ve ordered every weekday morning since I started working this crappy desk job. Everyone in front of me will order some variation of Pumpkin Spice only for the barista to look at me like I just dropped a turd in the coffee pot when I asked for something different. It’s always the same ordeal. Some kid with a liberal arts degree that ended up slinging caffeine to attempt to make a dent in their student debt ends up trying upsell me into a Pumpkin Spice Latte.

This year seems especially bad. Everyone is eating Pumpkin Spice cookies and dipping them in their Pumpkin Spice coffee only to walk around with Pumpkin Spice body spray as they burn Pumpkin Spice incense. It’s reached a point that I honestly can’t help but hope some catastrophic storm would simultaneously hit New Guinea and India leaving the world completely devoid of nutmeg.

I’m getting ahead of myself though.

So fifty years ago some idiot got it in his head that he was going to revitalize downtown by hollowing out some of the buildings that surrounded the old courthouse and turning them into an office complex. If you walk around on the sidewalk you’ll see a bunch of cute little shops and chain restaurants, but upstairs the entire block of buildings has been turned into a cubicle farm where I have ended up assigned to unit 355.

My desk and work area is a five-foot by five-foot box with just enough room for a desk, a few filing cabinets, and an office chair I am convinced was designed by the Marquis De Sade. Every weekday from nine in the morning until five at night I am expected to spend a third of each day sifting through expense reports and customer invoices looking for errors. Sounds boring, right? Wait until you’ve been doing it for ten years. Last year our employer realized my job could literally be handled by software and my job description went from actually looking for errors to making sure the software they dropped an easy million dollars on was actually doing its job.

I literally get paid to sit in my cubicle and watch a computer do the job I was hired to do. Even though I work in a position that could best be described as redundant, I am expected to spend all that time keeping a keen eye on the screen. Managers walk the rows of cubicles like prison guards looking for anyone dumb enough to check their Facebook or browse Reddit on the job. Even if they tried, the corporate firewall is more restrictive than an overprotective mother in a bad neighborhood.

My cubicle is of particular interest to these middle-managers who only exist to drain anything that resembles fun out of our lives. Last week someone sent out an email to the entire floor that said Milo, the manager with a heart of shit, had been using the five minute break he had after doing a walk through the cubicle farm to duck into the manager's bathroom to rub one off while reading a copy of Mein Kampf. As much as I’d like to take credit for the email itself, I had nothing to do with it. Still, seeing as I was the only office worker with a paper pumpkin tacked up to my cubicle, I was the first person they descended on.

If it wasn’t bad enough that I have to sit her and pretend I give a shit about these invoices and reports, I have no less than three failures of human evolution peering over my shoulder at any given time to make sure I’m not sending malicious emails.

It didn’t come out of nowhere.

Last month they opted to replace the half & half creamer in the break room with this off-brand Pumpkin Spice they had bought in bulk. I can’t stand the stuff personally, so I opted to drink my coffee black. Well that didn’t sit well with the overlords so the following week they replaced the coffee itself with Pumpkin Spice. Realizing I couldn’t get an inch of headway with those control freaks, I opted to bring a thermos with me to work. When they finally banned outside food or drink from the office I ended up writing an open letter to management asking if we had recently been sponsored by the Nutmeg industry and if they’d like some actual work to be done alongside their Pumpkin Spice Enemas.

I received my first write-up in ten years and was told another infraction would result in my termination. Even though I didn’t author the email that called out Milo, they made no secret about the fact they wanted me gone after that whole debacle. If that wasn’t bad enough, I had to spent eight hours a day surrounded by an office staff that had started consuming Nutmeg like it was going to enlarge their breasts and grow their dick by three sizes. I had reached the point personally that I was smuggling bottled water in my brief case and refilling it in the bathroom sink.

This all came to a head when Debbie, a senior citizen who may well have been older than the building, decided she was going to have a party in the break room to commemorate her exit from the company after thirty-five years of employment.

I’ll let you guess what flavor the refreshments were.

Attendance was mandatory which meant I couldn’t use my lunch break to buy real food. I had to stand there among a hundred other hungry employees all clamoring to get a piece of pumpkin log or perhaps an orange and black cupcake. If it wasn’t bad enough that I was being forced to sit in this clusterfuck of forced socialization, it was casual Friday. Everyone had come to work dressed in their Halloween costumes. I tried so hard not to snicker when Milo showed up dressed like a soldier. All he was missing was the SS insignia and the armband.

Attendance was mandatory, but that didn’t mean I had to consume any of the junk they had provided. As the rest of the staff filed through the line to get their fix, I stayed to the back of the break room and sipped tap water from a coffee mug in an attempt to blend in. Thankfully, the whole ordeal was over within the hour and I was allowed to return to my desk. Milo goose stepped through the aisles with no appreciation for irony as I pretended to give a shit about the data being splayed across my screen in rapid succession.

Roughly an hour after lunch was when I noticed Sean, a guy who worked three units down the row from me stumbling through the aisle clutching his temples like he’d been kicked in the head. Before long I noticed that even Milo had gone from goose stepping about to standing in the corner clutching his head. I stood up and peered over the walls of my cubicle to see everyone in the office was grabbing their head in some form or fashion as their moans and groans erupted into a chorus of discomfort and pain.

Debbie was the first one to start laughing maniacally at her desk. I looked over to see she was using the stapler on her desk to fire staples into the air while giggling like a child who had just discovered they had toes. Sean stumbled over to the coffee pot and poured himself a drink while Milo staggered over to Debbie and shouted, “That’s enough Debbie!” Debbie kept laughing as she turned her stapler toward Milo and said, “Pew pew pew” as she fired the tiny piece of metal in Milo’s general direction.

Milo responded by ripping the stapler out of her hands and drawing back to slam base of the stapler against her face. A random coworker started to scream as Milo repeatedly bashed the small piece of metal into Debbie’s skull. The screams erupted into a cacophony of fear as Sean turned around to throw his coffee in to Milo’s face. Milo responded by turning around and taking a bite out of Sean’s shoulder before chewing the chunk of flesh he’d torn away and swallowing with an honest to god smile on his face.

I had no desire to stick around for the clusterfuck that was developing and threw any personal belongings I thought important enough to keep into my briefcase before ducking down and moving down the aisle of cubicles. Annie, the girl in the cubicle directly adjacent to mine had taken to writhing around on the floor with a stuffed animal between her legs while repeatedly shouting, “Oh yeah, fuck me Tibbers!” I broke into a jog only to find Kyle, another middle manager who had come in dressed like a pirate, waving his plastic sword around and shouting, “Argh me hearties!”

The exit door was blocked by two coworkers, Jane and Tom, humping each other like teenagers as Jim, the guy who worked the supply closet stood over them pulling his pud. I turned around to see the entire office had devolved into random acts of sex and violence and realized I’d have to wade through a sea of crazy to make it to the main door and out into the street.

There were six rows of cubicles between myself and freedom. Each step consisted of avoiding some different co-worker losing their shit like someone spiked the punch bowl at the loony bin with acid. Star, a twenty-year-old temp worker filling in for Sharon while she was out on maternity leave was using an exacto-knife to carve words into the back of a very dead Andre while saying, “Dear Diary, today I found out that Andre was planning on asking me to marry him!” As I tried to shuffle past her she swung the small knife toward my ankles and shouted, “Go get your own pen!”

I looked down to see the blood from the exacto-knife had splashed onto my Khakis and tried to step over Megan the intern as she crawled on the floor picking nits of debris out of the carpet and shoving them into her mouth. With one row down I realized I was only going deeper into the abyss as I peered over to see the path was blocked by the mail cart and that Kevin the mail guy was using his scan gun to bash in Mark the manager’s skull while screaming incoherently.

I made it three cubicles down the aisle before I felt someone latch onto my shoulder and tackle me to the ground. Leslie, a woman I had talked to once or twice around the water cooler had jumped on top of me and said, “Do you think I’m pretty William?” Her gums were bloody and she was missing her front teeth. Blood and saliva dripped onto my face as I threw her off of me and stumbled to my feet shouting, “Fuck off!” Leslie curled up into a ball and screeched like a howler monkey.

At the end of the aisle I found Jessica cowering in her cubicle. Unlike the rest of the crazies she seemed to be genuinely scared. I reached over to tap her on the shoulder and she jerked away. I attempted to speak over the roaring chaos that surrounded us and said, “Come with me. I’m getting out of here!” Jessica grabbed my outstretched hand and we moved down the row a few paces before Kyle came running toward us with the blade from the paper trimmer in his hand. I jumped to the side as Jessica attempted to move around him only to meet the blade as Kyle brought it down hard into her skull. With the blade stuck he tried in vain to pull it from her skull as I pushed past him and toward the exit. No sooner than I had passed him he shouted, “I’ll have yer head William!”

I rounded the corner of the last row and found Milo stripped down to his boxers and sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by the bodies of our co-workers as he slapped his hands repeatedly against the bloody corpses and shouted, “Look Mommy! I’m a drummer!” I made it to the exit door and pushed against it only to find someone had chained it shut from the outside. I kicked the door as Kyle rounded the corner with Jessica’s head still attached to the blade. Milo smiled at Kyle who proceeded to bash Milo’s face in with Jessica’s severed head until it dislodged from the blade.

Faced with no exit and nowhere to go, I threw my briefcase at Kyle and broke into a sprint down the aisle and around the corner into the row along the far wall. With nothing else to lose I took the last few steps knowing I was about to collide with the window I jumped through the metal and glass to fall down onto the sidewalk below.

I landed on my back but thankfully my fall had been broken for the most part by a folding table one of the vendors had set outside. I peered up to see Kyle standing at the window. He threw his blade down at me and it bounced off of the concrete before clattering to a stop beside me. I did a double-take and he had disappeared back into the chaos.

It wasn’t long before the court square was packed to the brim with police cars and ambulances. I sat with a paramedic as they prepped me for a trip to the emergency room. I peered out the window as I was taken to the hospital and noticed that several of my coworkers had started charging the police. I heard gunshots in the distance as the paramedic in the driver’s seat turned on the siren and drove off into the city.

[punkscowardschampions]

Ali & Tess

A nice pre-Christmas argument

Tess joined the chat 2 hours ago Ali: Mamacita! How's tricks? Did you manage to get the gum out of Rocky's hair in the end or is he rocking a no.1 rn? Tess: It's hat season he'll be fine. It's your da you need to worry about if he doesn't get those bloody Christmas decs out Ali: At least you'll be saved the toxic fumes of the nit shampoo, like. I'll make him some earmuffs, ears like that, he'll get frostbite. Ali: Aww, leave off, he's got a bad back, like 😜 Ali: Caleb can come help with the heavy shit, he's like an ox, I'll be creative director, obvs, I've got the eye, he's got the body Ali: 😉 Tess: I hope you've got plenty of wool 'cause the dog got to ours and its a bloody state. He'll have a bad head to go with it in a minute. Nah you're alright bab Tommy's offered and Drew might as well make himself useful now he's sniffing round again. Ali: Well, there goes your classic jumper presents! Have to brave dem crowds, fight a bitch for the last...idk, what do kids even want these days? Last I heard from Rock mutant turtles and power rangers were back in vogue but they're probably out again, its been a week or so 😏 Contrary fuckers, eh? I was NEVER that bad, was I? Bet you wish you could relieve those easy years raising me, the dream child 😇 Ali: Alright then, though I wouldn't recommend confining Tommo and Drew to a space as small as the loft, T is gunning for him Ali: aren't we all? but hey 🤷 see if those muscles are just for show ay Tess: He's still on about that slime bollocks. Supposedly this stuff blows bubbles and expands or whatever. All I'm bothered about is that it says it ain't sticky. Better sodding not be. Ha! If you weren't being a little demon you were trying to raise them. Easy ain't the word love! Tess: I'll put Drew at the bottom of the ladder. Maybe some of the boxes'll land on his head. Knock some sense into the lad. Ro too seeing as she's never far. Ali: That shit is such a rip-off though, I could make him some dead cheap, tell him he can have it whatever colour, whatever random shit he wants in it, and no one else will have the same at School Ali: Save your money for the feast 💃'cos I won't be absolutely stuffed from my first xmas dinner, like, nah Ali: and demons need love too, ma, just ask Ro Ali: will he be joining us for meal numero dos? cos i don't think i can stomach 2 helpings of him in one day tbh Tess: Tell him yourself. I tried to make some with him in the summer and the ungrateful little sod wouldn't even come sit up the table. His loss. They loved it at work. Tess: Don't. That girl'll do me in one of these days . I'm surviving on spite by now 'cause he'll be eating with us over my dead body. Caleb's lot are welcome to keep him. Ali: I'm tellin ya get the kid some prescription speed, it'll do him wonders 😂 Well, that's another idea fucked...tis the season! Ali: I know, it ain't even funny at this point. Ali: You know she's gonna wanna go see him, yeah? You'll never get her to sit through games and shit telly once she's picked at her veg Ali: Its like kid swap up in here Tess: If I can get some what's on her plate into her instead of just the dog I'll be laughing. Fuck's sake. Kids who'd celebrate 'em? Grandkids on the other hand. Mary'd have been proper buzzing for that. Ali: Oi, woman! I'm right here Ali: and the giver of majority grandkids, so, think on, love Tess: You're even stevens kiddo. Keep it that way 'til you're done with uni yeah? Call that the xmas gift that keeps giving. Ali: yeah but a twofer ain't the same, is it? 😜 don't make promises i can't keep, ma Ali: engineering students are so fit, how will i resist? Tess: Tell that to Bea. I'm sure she'd have plenty to say back. Ali Mckenna don't test me there's plenty of room in the car when we go for Tommo's new specs I can get you in too. Ali: Yeah, yeah, she can lord it over me with her efficient vagina, getting it done in one, I'll be many bucks fizzes deep by then, give a shizzle Ali: Gurl, my vision is 20/20, in my third eye too, ooOOoOoOOOo Ali: Maybe Beatrice will prove again why she's your favourite daughter by distracting Ro so much with this London visit she won't have time to pine over Drew at all, happy days Tess: That's the spirit. Save your dad's back. He still thinks he's a brawler. Tess: Shh I don't have favorites I'm not one of your teachers. Tess: I'm sure Drew'll stay one text away throughout. Never off her phone now is she. Ali: Ahh, old man could still take him, Drew's a pussy Ali: I'll get Marlene round again lmao Ali: Suuuuuuuuuuuure ya don't 😏 Ali: We can only assume texting is a medium in which he really shines, 'cos seeing them IRL, doesn't make sense, so... Tess: Now that girl is a fave, thinking 'bout it. Yeah I like her. Tess: He must know his selfie angles or some shit. Tess: You tell me I'll never see the appeal. Ali: oh, sweet mama, if only you'd voiced your preference sooner, maybe i'd of married her and had lots of gaybies instead Ali: alas 🤣 Ali: you sound 100, do you feel it? 😉 Ali: he's a vessel for her hopes and dreams, init, but he ain't, he just needs to man up and move the fuck on so she can too Tess: Like you've ever listened to your ma. Double it and you ain't close, bab. I'm in those vampiric numbers here. Tess: Yeah. Maybe try telling her that. Ali: You wish you were a vampire. Which, tbh, is telling of how old you is. Ain't nothing cool about being a basement dwelling weirdo who can't sample the wonder and joy of garlic bread. Ali: Why don't you? Oh wait, cos it ain't for either of us to say it so we'll just sit here like bitter old lemons Ali: You're a bad influence, lady Tess: If that's what you think about vampire lore then I ain't gonna even waste my breath young'un. Tess: I have, cheers. I ain't sitting on my arse doing fuck all for you lot even if that's what you reckon. Tess: Exactly. Learn a lesson. Ali: Mhmm, go tell it to the lost boys 'cos I don't give a damn, I'm getting doughballs baby Ali: Pshhh, well fat lot of good its done, why you setting me up to fail then?! Ali: I know when to bow out gracefully Tess: I don't need to 'cause we'll all be snacking. If you'd watched that movie when I offered you'd know garlic don't work in that verse. Tess: There's nothing graceful about tapping out with a fight left to finish. I thought you'd been set up to go 'til the final bell but do what you've gotta do. Or don't. Tess: There's plenty of other shit stuck to the fridge singing your praises like Ali: No thank you, there's watching some lame for jokes, then there's forcing yourself to endure kiefer sutherland and co Ali: That's sadism. Ali: Well, there's nothing graceful about kicking a girl when she's down Ali: going blow for blow ain't always the right approach, is it? not with someone like Ro so don't start alright Tess: Lame? And you wonder why you ain't my fave. Tess: Helping your sister up is always the right approach if you don't want her to stay down. Tess: I'm not starting anything. I've said my piece. End of. Ali: C'mon, I know even Joe couldn't pretend to like it, like Ali: That's my point, she ain't fell yet, she's on a Drew-related high so pardon me from not trying take the rug from up under her Ali: not that I could if I tried, like I said, what good has you 'saying your piece' done? Ali: sometimes all you can do is be there to pick up the pieces after, that's just facts Tess: You all take after your da is why. No taste none of ya. Tess: It's done me a lot of good being able to get it on the record each time, cheers. Tess: sometimes that's a cop out 'cause you want a easy life Tess: Fact is there's plenty that could have been done before he did his reappearing act. Ali: Oh, yeah? Like what? Changing her entire worldview in time for tea? Ali: If it was that easy, you would've managed it by now Ali: Don't be so hard on yourself, your not doing her, or any of us, a favour with this shit Tess: He's a dealer it is that easy. It ain't my job to manage it though. You all wanna be treated like adults and have me wipe your arses for you at the same time I think not. Do yourself and her, a favor and use that big brain of yours. Ali: You think she doesn't know? Now who's being thick Ali: She doesn't care, so unless you're planning to cop shop him that means sweet fuck all doesn't it Tess: It ain't about what she knows. Last I checked he's not the only dealer in Dublin. There's still some honor among scumbags and more than one way to get caught out. Ali: Aww, such a softie at heart, ain't ya? Tess: Takes one to know one. Ali: That is one small step above 'I know you are but what am I?' Ali: No one wants Drew to get kneecapped or Ro to be collateral but he wants to be treated like an adult, so we can't wipe his arse, can we? Tess: Speak for yourself I'd spend my reddies to see that. However bad he thinks he is there's always someone worse and the sooner he learns it the better for all of us having to watch him play silly beggars Tess: Ro's worth a million of him maybe when she's grown up she'll know it. Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're such a hard bitch. Maybe if he'd got proper help from people like you he woulda turned out better when he was grown too. Ali: It ain't too late for either of them. Tess: I'm what I've had to be. I can't save 'em all. Not even close. You'd be well to stay away from him if you've still got the sense you were born with. Ali: Yeah but you still try, don't you? Read back your previous wisdom for your answer there. Ali: Bit hard when we live in the same gaff isn't it but I can assure you I'm not going out of my way to be his bestie, mother Tess: I ain't about to flog a dead dog. He ain't a stupid kid anymore and what happened when he was a little 'un ain't an excuse either Tess: Nobody's got it easy. Tess: It's up to him to work out if his turning point's come and gone or if he even reckons he needs one. Ali: You don't have to but you can see the pretense Ro is working under, yeah? She doesn't think she's doing anything wrong and, arguably, she ain't. But sometimes all you get for your efforts is a kick in the teeth. Ali: Nobody's got it easy. Ali: It's up to HER to call time, not us. Tess: Who says? I've been there. Thinkin I had it all and knew even more about my future with my dream boy. Nobody came to clue me in but even now I wish they fucking had done. Ali: Like you'd have listened. Tess: If I had someone who gave a shit maybe Tess: She'd listen to you. Ali: Say you had, would you have done anything differently? Even if you knew how it'd go, if you didn't have Ronnie, you might still be with Josh now Ali: It changes everything about you Ali: I don't think she would. There's no reasoning because there is no reason, or rhyme for that matter Tess: Of course I would. I'd do everything differently. I'm not trying to romanticise who I was. Or am. Tess: Change ain't no bad thing when it comes to this. Or me Tess: Because you don't wanna think that she would and deal with all the shit that comes with her doing that. I don't blame ya but that don't make it right Tess: it's still a cop out. Ali: Well, I hope it soothes YOUR soul villainizing yourself because as someone who's half you, it's not something that is helpful, at all. Ali: Who's been there for her after every break-up? Who has to listen to every fucking detail? It ain't been you. And I can assure you I didn't spend those times when he was out of the picture singing his fucking praises. I HAVE told her. Everyone has. It just pisses you off that you can't fix this, or her. Tess: You're all you. Your own person. End of. Tess: And it should help you to know the truth. I was a bad person Ali and I ain't exactly sainted now. I do my best that's all any of us've got. Deal with it. Tess: I'm sorry you want a gold star or pat on the head for doing what you're supposed to for who you love. You're not getting it from me. Try your luck with your da maybe. Tess: And yeah it does piss me off so what? Ali: That isn't close to being true. There's no such thing as an individual, sorry to burst your bubble. Ali: And no one is one or the other. Christ, you're so fucking old testament. Ali: If your going in for all that shite, you should look at how revered a knocked-up teenage girl is whilst you're at it Ali: No one gives a shit about your war stories, they don't help anyone but you so you keep all that anger and hold it tight 'cos none of us are here for it any more Ali: Good luck trying to get Rocky to sit still so you can tell him all about damnation to scare him straight, good fucking luck Tess: You're not gonna change my mind. If you were anything close to being half of me we wouldn't be having this conversation. Tess: Life's black and white for me. That's what happens when you don't have choices. Call it what you like. Tess: And there's nothing to be preached to me about being a knocked up teen by you or anyone else. I ain't trying to either you just think it's that onesided 'cause you never listen Tess: There you go again speaking for everyone else when you mean yourself. But whatever. Tess: Get your own stories and leave mine out of it. Tess: Grow up, Ali. Ali: Now there's a copout if I ever heard one. Ali: Listen to what? What are you spouting but hot air? Ali: Oh, yeah? What one of your sainted children has benefitted? Ronnie hates you, Joe's a junkie, me and Fraze did exactly what you did. Ali: Tommy is passable but he's unhappy as fuck so, well done there. You've only got one left. Ali: What's the point? No one can ever match up to your infinite wisdom, I'd rather stay young so I knew what the hell I was talking about instead of making myself look like an old fool

[wily-one24]

A (for Paint it Black), F, R, S, T

How did you come up with the title to [Paint It Black]?

I don’t think it was a very big process. I had written, probably, about one or two chapters of it before it was named. By the time I realised it was going to be bigger than I had first imagined, the theme had set in. And... after that... I couldn’t really get the song out of my head. 

I mean, that whole “I have suffered a great loss and my despair is so big that I am literally offended by everyone else’s happiness and I don’t know what to do other than try to turn everything else black” is pretty much the beginning of Regina’s entire story line, no?

Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Oh, wow, ok, that’s hard to do off the top of my head. There are so MANY different dialogues, do I go for the funny or the angsty or the hot? Which ones? *the stress*  

Ok, you know what, let’s make it a theme, let’s just go PIB with this one, too. Which, oh, so many to choose from... but... let’s go this snippet off the top of my head. I’m proud of it because... I don’t know, sometimes I like to really push the characters into a corner and see the truths they have desperately scrambled come flying out against their wills, and jfc, sometimes Snow can be so blind and I think maybe doesn’t want to see the truth and needs a bit of it slapped into her, but also... this is a conversation that desperately needed to happen on the show, perhaps not quite as angsty and hate fuelled as this one, but there you go:

Standing above her, Regina is monstrous. She’s always been tall, always been bigger, more times than not she’s been threatening. But like this, Snow wonders if she’s played the wrong hand, if Regina really might kill her.

“I never cared for you, either of you.” Regina hisses the words, pushed past the point of pretense. “The sniveling little brat and her bastard father.”

“No.” The end of magic leaves no reprieve as Snow is hit with words instead. “My father was a good man!”

She does not have time to stand.

“To you!” Regina screams it, more unbalanced than Snow has ever seen her and so she stays on the ground. “To you and to your poor dead mother, the perfect wife. Was he a good man to the frightened girl whose hand he forced against her will? Was he a good man when he took everything else against her will? And then punished her for it? Was he?”

Snow shakes her head, she can’t hear this.

“Yes, I killed him.” Regina seethes. “He deserved it. And you deserve to be punished, so does your daughter and everyone else tainted by his blood.”

Dizzy, scared, panic overriding the common sense she thought would save her, Snow gasps as she crawls backwards crablike on her hands.

“Even Henry?”

This stops Regina cold.

Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

I knew someone was going to ask this. This is a difficult question for me to answer. And not because I’m deliberately being difficult, but because I subsume a LOT of different works. And yeah, I am absolutely sure some of them (all of them) have influenced my writing over time. I cannot point to one exact place and say... hey, that’s it, that’s where I got it. L.M. Montgomery, Enid Blyton, Ann M Martin, Anne Rice, G.R.R. Martin, Stephen King, James Patterson, James Clavell, Dan Brown... these are all writers I have gone through phases of just consuming everything they’ve written. And that’s not even mentioning the tomes and tomes of fanfic I have read in the last decade or two. So much fanfic. 

Maybe one writer here or there gave me the courage to experiment, because I saw it in their book/fic, but I cannot for the life of me remember each and every name and I wish I could, but I cannot. I have experimented with second person, past tense, present tense, etc... and I have found a groove that works for me. A bit of this and a bit of that.

Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

In terms of reading? I guess I am a sucker for the angsty slow burn, the fake relationship. Gimme, gimme, gimme. 

For writing? I think my readers would probably be able to pick up my tropes better than I can, but... definitely angst. No matter what else, there’s always angst. 

Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

There are probably things I generally don’t write... I tend to just write the ideas that come into my head. But I don’t think there’s anything I have specifically banned myself from writing. There are several pieces out there that I, myself, would never have thought to write, but wrote on a challenge or dare from someone else and are actually quite good. Like... I once wrote a (canon, NOT AU, think about that) tentacle porn fic for VM. That’s a challenge as a writer, right there. Also, there may be one or two weird little anon pieces in the OUAT anon fic kink meme that belong to me that I WILL NEVER ADMIT TO. But I like. Also not what I would have written, but there you go. 

As for reading? I generally stay far away from ABO type things, I don’t like cross overs, Teen/high school/college AU. In terms of fandoms, things like “modern AU” piss me off. I watch the show for a reason, gimme those characters in THAT SETTING or go away. I also steer clear of a lot of “cheating” fics, that’s a person thing, and I try not to get too invested in kid/baby fics, but that’s just me nit picking, because I have rarely read anyone who writes children well. Some that are catastrophic, like having a NEWBORN FUCKING BABY reaching out and grasping hold of things or eating food. Like, no, people, no. If you don’t know kids, just don’t write them. Just... don’t. 

[reesesparas]

Character: Charlotte Avery FC: Amanda Seyfried RP: private 1x1 with nicole! Description: Nathan and Charlotte’s wedding day. <3 

10:47am.

“Cassie, have you seen my shoes? And oh my god, is the florist gonna know we’re getting dressed at the church and not here? Did anyone call them and tell them to bring the flowers there? And what about the boys? Mom, are they–”

“Charlotte, honey.” Charlotte’s mother, Elizabeth, put both her hands on her eldest daughter’s shoulders, stopping her anxious babble. “Everything is going to be just fine. I just got off the phone with your father, he made sure Nathan and the boys were up in time, they’re already at the church we should have left for fifteen minutes ago.”

Charlotte took in a deep breath. This was the most important day of her life. The twenty-year-old blonde was getting herself into a frenzy over little details, something she had sworn she wouldn’t do when she got engaged. “But mom! My shoes… And my veil–”

“Cassie has both of those things, and your dress,” Elizabeth held up one finger to silence her daughter’s oncoming protest. “Yes, she has your garter too. Everything’s fine, dear. Everything’s going to be perfect.”

Charlotte had spent a solid eighteen months planning the most perfect winter wedding, from the dresses to the location to the little snow-frosted pine cones that served as centerpieces at their reception. Nathan laughed every time she began nit-picking at minor details, which led to Charlotte whining about his seemingly careless attitude towards their wedding. And the day was finally there.

“Okay, let’s go.”

11:21am.

Pulling up to the church, Charlotte took in a deep breath, tugging the white hoodie, embroidered with the word Bride across the back in deep purple threading, around her slender frame. She saw the white roses lacing the handles framing the stairwell up to the church, a thin blanket of snow coating the ground and steps leading to the church. It looked like something out of a fairy-tale, and it was perfect.

Stepping into the cool Colorado air, Charlotte looked over her shoulders at her bridesmaids, who all donned purple hoodies with bridesmaid embroidered in white across the back. She gathered up the few things that she insisted on bringing herself, scurrying into the church and out of the winter weather. She worriedly glanced around, not wanting Nathan to see her entering the church. Though she wasn’t in her dress yet, she took the ‘no seeing the bride before the wedding’ superstition very seriously. “The coast is clear,” Eloise, Nathan’s mother, laughed, greeting her future daughter-in-law with a tight hug. “You’re going to make a beautiful bride, Char.” The older woman smiled, causing the younger blonde to blush.

Finally making her way to the dressing room beside the church, Charlotte was greeted by her sister, who had already hung up her wedding gown and changed into her maid of honor dress. “You look gorgeous, Cass.” Charlotte greeted her little sister, crossing the room and kissing her cheek, making sure she hadn’t left a bright red kiss-mark on her cheek. Charlotte wasn’t sure she would have even made it to the alter without Cassie. She had gotten herself overwhelmed about a dozen times with planning, and if it hadn’t been for her seventeen-year-old sister, Charlotte was sure that she would have called off the ceremony and eloped in Atlantic City or something.

“C’mon, let’s get you in this dress.” Cassie announced as the rest of the bridesmaids filed into the room. She could feel the love and excitement in the room, and raked her eyes over her wedding gown, the first and only dress Charlotte had tried on. She had fallen in love with it immediately and knew from the get-go that it was the one for her. “Alright, alright! But if you rip it, Cass, I’m gonna make sure you don’t make it to graduation.” The blonde laughed, stripping out of the sweatpants and hoodie she had worn to the church, adjusting the white lace bra and underwear she wore underneath.

“Girl, you’re gonna have the honeymoon of a lifetime in that!” Alyssa, Charlotte’s best friend, commented with a wolf whistle, causing the other three girls to join in. Charlotte flushed a bright shade of red and shot a look over at her younger sister. “Guys! Keep it PG, we’ve got virgin ears in the room!” She teased, sticking her tongue out at Cassie. She crossed the room, running her fingers across the beaded bodice of her gown.

Five minutes and four sets of hands later, Charlotte was laced into her dress, which clung to her slender figure. She stepped into the deep purple heels, brushing the non-existent wrinkles out of her dress. “Last but not least,” Cecelia, Charlotte and Cassie’s grandmother, announced, holding up a long piece of white fabric. “This veil was worn by both myself and your mother, both of whom have held long and happy marriages. And it’s technically your something old andborrowed, since we’ll need back to save it for when Cassie gets married someday.” The older woman smiled at her younger grandchild.

Charlotte couldn’t hold back the tears forming behind her green eyes. She knelt down slightly to allow her grandmother to pin the veil in place among the crown of curls gathered at the top of Charlotte’s head. “Perfect.” Elizabeth clapped, draping her arm around her daughter’s arm. “Are you ready to get married?” The blonde nodded excitedly, taking in a deep, albeit slightly shaky, breath.

“Knock knock!”

Marvin Richter popped his head into the room, dramatically covering his eyes. “Is everybody decent?” He joked before opening the door and entering the room. He stopped dead in his tracks when Charlotte turned to face her father. “Pumpkin… You look so beautiful.” He commented, hastily brushing a few tears that managed to escape his eyes from his cheeks. “I’ve been sent here by the wedding planner to let you know it’s ready to line up.”

Charlotte glanced around worriedly, her eyes scanning the room. Her veil was her something old and borrowed, and the diamond drop earrings from Nathan’s parents were her something new. “I don’t have my something blue!” Charlotte half-shouted, digging through her purse. “I swear, I picked a something blue!”

“Charlotte, honey.” Cecelia chuckled, placing a hand on her anxious granddaughter’s shoulder. “We sewed a piece of your grandfather’s dress blues to the inside of your dress, remember?” Charlotte breathed out a heavy sigh. When people had told her wedding planning stress was nothing compared to wedding day stress, they weren’t kidding. She felt as if she’d drop dead from a heart attack before she made it down the aisle.

“You’ve got your flowers. You’ve got your dress and veil and shoes. Cass has your vows and Nathan’s ring. It’s time to get married.” Elizabeth coached her daughter, tucking a loose curl behind her child’s ear.

“Right. Time to get married.”

1:55pm.

Charlotte watched her younger sister stride down the aisle, arm in arm with her boyfriend, Mike. Two by two, the bridesmaids and ushers made their way down the church, lining up on either side of the priest. Marvin had managed to keep Charlotte off to the side and out of sight of not only Nathan, but the entire church. “Dramatic effect,” Marvin joked, squeezing his daughter’s hand as the music switched to the well-known wedding march. “Ready, pumpkin?”

Marvin led Charlotte down the aisle, and Charlotte was grateful for his arm threaded through hers, because she was certain without him there, she would have fallen over. As soon as they began their descent down the aisle, her eyes immediately found Nathans, and an effortless smile stretched across her features. He looked as handsome as ever in his dress uniform, his groomsmen, save for Cassie’s boyfriend, dressed identically. But she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the expression on his face. He looked so in love, and Charlotte was sure the look on her face mirrored his.

“Who gives this woman to this man?” The priest asked, and Charlotte beamed over at her father.

“Her mother and I do.” Her father replied, kissing his daughter on the cheek before placing her hand in Nathan’s. She stepped up, facing Nathan and placing both of her hands in his. She was about to marry her best friend.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of Nathaniel Avery and Charlotte Richter…”

As the ceremony went on, Charlotte repeated the words that the priest had spoken, taking part in the prayers and traditions that came with a Catholic wedding. However, the blonde wanted to get to her vows. The vows she had spent days writing, reciting, and re-writing before finally deciding that they were perfect.

“Nathaniel and Charlotte have chosen to write their own vows. Nathan, would you care to start?”

Nathan cleared his throat, turning towards his best man, taking the index card from the man. Memorizing things had never been something Nathan was good at.

“Charlotte, for a long time, there has not been anything in this world that I wanted more than to be with you and to be the reason you smile. Words aren’t enough to begin to tell you how much I love you or how much I care, because nothing comes close to perfect when compared to you. Not a single day goes by that I don’t think myself lucky that I met you. I always knew that one day an angel would come and steal my heart, and here you are. I couldn’t imagine anyone else in the world that i want to spend forever with. There is no other girl I will love as much as I love you, except for our future daughter. I will stand by you no matter what. I will be there to hold your hand, and hold you when you cry. Through everything, I will be there with you. You wont have to go it alone. Before I met you, I never thought I could be as happy as you make me. I believed that nice guys finished last, but now, I am an example of a nice guy finishing first. You make me smile no matter what mood I’m in. You brighten my darkest day and always make any pain I’m in go away. Before today, meeting you and falling in love with you was the best thing that i have ever done, but now i can say i have done better. I can say the best thing I ever did was marry the girl of my dreams, I will love you forever and always. This is my vow to you.”

He slid the white gold band onto Charlotte’s ring finger, raising it to his lips and kissing it, a habit he had formed since the day he had bought her a promise ring back in their junior year of high school.

By the end of his speech, Charlotte was in tears. She barely registered that it was her turn to exchange her vows and ring until Cassie subtly nudged her older sister, handing her the tiny paper and wedding band. “Focus, Char. I know he’s hot, but c’mon.” Charlotte stifled a giggle, composing herself and taking a deep breath.

“Nathan, our love is wise, not as juvenile as when we were 16, not as mature as it will be years from now. So my decision to share my life with you is one I make willingly and with complete faith in the love that brought us together. We have been together since the day we met in freshman history. We were so shy and scared back then, who knew our love could grow this strong. The first time I met you, you took my breath away. You are the most incredible person I have ever known. You make me feel so loved every single day. I am completely awe struck that you chose me to be the one standing here with you today. You are my dream come true, the joy in my heart, the laughter in my voice, and the smile on my face. When you are called away, I will wait patiently, with each moment that passes our souls becoming more intertwined. There is no hell I wouldn’t go through to get to you, no worse hell than being away from you.  We compliment each other so beautifully, and together we can face anything. We can be comforted in knowing that we will never have to face anything alone ever again. You are my partner, my best friend, my soul-mate, the one I have waited my whole life to find. This is my vow to you.”

Charlotte slid the ring onto Nathan’s finger, squeezing his hand.

The priest stepped forward once again, raising his hands up towards the ceiling. “Throughout this ceremony, Nathaniel and Charlotte have vowed, in our presence, to be loyal and loving towards each other.They have formalized the existence of the bond between them with words spoken and with the giving and receiving of rings.Therefore, it is my pleasure to now pronounce them husband and wife. Nathaniel, you may now kiss your bride!”

Nathan swept Charlotte up into his arms, pouring all his love for her into their first kiss as husband and wife. Almost deafening applause filled the church, and Charlotte wrapped her arms around him.

They were married

[thornstocutyouwith]

Karma and Anabel for the Ship meme

send me a ship and i’ll tell you

who hogs the duvet: Karma, the boy has a pillow that is his best friend. Of course he hogs that.

who texts/rings to check how their day is going: Anabel, Karma is mute and doesn’t, technically, have a voice box. And when he does talk it’s usually through the phone, via text, or clipboards that he can create and write on. WHEN HE USES HIS VOICE, it’s a mistake on my part, or that I just didn’t give a shit. But yeah, Karma wouldn’t even think about sending Anabel a text, because they are usually always together.

who’s the most creative when it comes to gifts: Well probably Karma, since he can just think of something and make it exist. Also he’s basically childish, do to all the abuse and trauma. Anabel perhaps isn’t THAT creative, she’s more of the type that would send you a bomb in the mail.

who gets up first in the morning: Probably Anabel. Other than that, most likely neither.

who suggests new things in bed: Anabel, because of course she would.

who cries at movies: I don’t imagine either of them would. Though Karma is more than likely of the two to cry over pretty much anything, if he’s going to cry.

who gives unprompted massages: Neither.

who fusses over the other when they’re sick: Anabel, not because Karma doesn’t care about Anabel, but she’s technically dead...so...can’t...get sick....

who gets jealous easiest: Anabel, not that Karma WOULDn’t get jealous, hell, he destroyed the entire fucking planet because someone was taking his girl all over space and time. BUT, Karma usually doesn’t feel jealous. Anabel can.

who has the most embarrassing taste in music: Probably Karma, he’ll sit and listen to kids show theme songs for hours... lol

who collects something unusual: Karma, definitely. He’s such a fucking adorable dork.

who takes the longest to get ready: Neither, they usually are pretty quick dressers since Karma often dresses so simply and Anabel often has very revealing attire.

who is the most tidy and organized: Probably Anabel, but that’s not saying much.

who gets most excited about the holidays: I don’t think either of them really do. But if anyone of them would, it would be Karma. Since he has the aptitude to enjoy them more.

who is the big spoon/little spoon: Anabel is definitely often the big spoon. Karma normally isn’t isn’t a spoon. He doesn’t like spoons. lol.

who gets most competitive when playing games and/or sports: Most likely Anabel.

who starts the most arguments: Most likely Anabel, since Karma can’t really talk back. And talking back often starts a lot of arguments. So that means it’s more ‘nit picking’. And I am sure Karma has a lot of things people enjoy nit picking.

who suggests that they buy a pet: Karma, I suppose. lol

what couple traditions they have: They like to go to murder contests together and murder people, also they solve puzzles. It’s great, all the gangs of new york join in.

what tv shows they watch together: Probably Dexter, who knows. Karma is really the only one that’s ever stopped to enjoy tv so far, between the two.

what other couple they hang out with: ...Ashlin and what’s his name, ...If you call Anabel trying to kill Ashlin, hanging out.

how they spend time together as a couple: Murdering people.

who made the first move: Anabel.

who brings flowers home: Neither, flowers are a weak ass show of affection.  XD

who is the best cook: More than likely Anabel, Karma has never cooked before soooo...

[mama-ghostie-61542]

The Hamato Chronicles  Ch. 3

Rated M for Mature--Contains disturbing images, racial slurs, and images of war. PTSD trigger WARNING

If ya recognize it, it ain't mine. 

Ch 3

Leo POV

After lunch, which was Marlowe’s mac and cheese, we decided to watch a movie. As per normal, Mikey wanted a horror flick, Raph wanted action, and Donnie wanted a documentary. But, we all agreed to let Lowe pick.

She held up The Princess Bride and started laughing so hard she was almost crying. Our brothers smiled and put the movie in.

Marlowe, propped herself on the back of the couch and said to Dad, “Hey Pop. ‘What about the ROUS’?”

Father smiled and leaned against the door frame. “’Rodents of unusual size?’ Hmm,” he said as he played with his tail, twirling it like a chain. “’I don’t think they exist.’”

After the previews, we heard Sensai yell, “’Everybody move!’”

We scrambled to get out of the way. Dad vaulted over the back of the couch and landed next to Marlowe, who hadn’t moved an inch. He settled in to watch the movie with a smile. We all watched as they would laugh about things like they were inside jokes.

Supper was pizza. We had a ball. The banter between all six of us was music to my ears. It was like an important instrument was missing from our little symphony.  One by one, we went off to bed. At 3 am, when I got up to go pee, Marlowe was just laying down.

Don’s POV

I was woken up by a muffled scream at 4am. I met Father at the door to the lab. He seemed just as shaken as I was. The scream was most definitely female, so we knew it could only be Marlowe. The two of us ran into her room to see her thrashing on her bed and shrieking ‘NO’ and ‘Joey’. Occasionally, Marlowe would gag and we’d have to roll her to her side.

“Marlowe, you need to wake up,” my father whispered in his panic as he was petting her face.

I was whispering to her the entire time, “Come on, Sissy, wake up.” But it seemed to go on for hours. It was only maybe a minute but it sure felt like more. When her eyes finally fluttered open, she looked like she was going to hurl, so I grabbed her trash can and thrust it under her face. I was just in time. When she was finally finished, she slumped back on her pillows and sobbed. It kills me to see my strong big sister hurting like this.

Marlowe’s POV

I had gone to bed that night, after having a late night brawl with my survivor’s guilt and almost a whole pot of coffee. Suddenly, I was in the middle of another nightmare.

My world was a little fuzzy. I remember this place. This is where we were when our Gunny said to shoot those kids. Suddenly, I felt myself being thrown around and then Joey was in my lap asking me to watch over his little sister. There was so much blood. I tried to hold it all in. I knew what was coming next. Joey bled to death while we waited for the medics. I can still hear the blast coming. I can still feel the heat of the truck as he was blown next to me. I can still feel the hot of his blood on me, can still smell it. Even after the last 6 months it still makes me gag.    

I woke up to Donnie holding up a trashcan for me, which I promptly heaved into. Pop was next to me, gently rubbing my back. After empting my stomach of the last two days of its contents, I started sobbing.  

My father whispered, “Marlowe, what happened out there?”

“Dad, I only want to tell this story once,” I somehow managed to croak out, “so you had better get everyone up and here.”

Without us knowing it, Leo had gotten up and was standing outside the door. He went to get our other two brothers up while Don called April and Casey. In a half hour, April and Casey walked into the lair.

Donnie handed me a bottle of water.

“Thanks, Double D,” I said hoarsely.

Raph wrapped the couch blanket around my shoulders a few minutes later. “Are you sure you don’t need this, Squeaks? It’s kinda cold.”

He smiled and said softly, “And I’m not tha one shakin’, Marlowe Jean.”

I looked up to see Mikey squirming on the rug. “Angel, go.”

“But I need to be here for you, Lowe.”

“Just go!”

Mikey grumbled as he got up and stalked off in the direction of the bathroom, leaving Marlowe shaking her head.  She looked up at April and Casey, “You guys have siblings?”

April said, “No,” while Casey just shook his head.

“I’m going to tell you two the unspoken sibling code,” Marlowe said as she started to tick them off one by one on her fingers. “One, I may love you to bits and pieces, but I am not required to like you. Two, I can beat you up whenever I want, but if someone so much as looks at you in a fashion I don’t approve of, I will kill them. Three, I reserve the right to despise whoever you settle with as no one will ever be good enough. And four, I also reserve the right to spoil any and all of your progeny to the point of rottenness and far beyond, stopping just short of sociopath.”

April and Casey sat stock still, for nearly a whole minute. Then Marlowe smiled and they started laughing.  

After hearing Marlowe call the boys by their childhood nicknames a few times, Casey had to ask where they came from, “So about these nick names?”  

Marlowe laughed, “I couldn’t say names or features when I was in BASIC or OJT. Uncle Sam likes to read the recruits letters from home and listen in on their phone calls. So, Uncle Pete and I worked out a system where we would use something from when the boys were little as a code name for each of them. When Leo was little, he was really accident prone and had an awesome speech impediment. He couldn’t say ‘Fell’ so it was kabong or kaboom. I started calling him El KaBong in my letters home. Raph was two when he finally started talking.”

Casey grinned, “And now he never shuts-up.”

“Watch it, Jones. He’s is still my little brother and I am still a Marine,” I replied, hotly, as I leveled a glare at the hockey mask wearing vigilante. “Anyway, he’d get so upset he would scream at the top of his lungs for quite a while if you didn’t immediately understand what he was meaning. He would get this squeaky, hoarse voice after throwing those fits. So, when I had to think of a code word for Raph, Squeaks came to mind. Sometimes, if he is exhausted or really sick, I can get away with ‘Squeaker’, but I don’t push it. Donnie had a huge independent streak when he was two. Every time we’d ask if he needed help his answer was always, “NO! Don-Don do!” In my letters home I shortened it to DD or Double D. Mikey has always been Angel. Guess that’s just the big sister thing. I mean, they are all my angels, but he’s always been my Angel.”      

Everyone gathered on the couches in the living room, waiting for me to tell them what happened in Afghanistan. Raph sat one side of me, his arm around my shoulders in an attempt to calm the tremors that still wracked my body, while Don was on the other, holding my hand, secretly keeping an eye on my pulse.

My father sat down across from me, “What happened in Afghanistan, Marlowe.”

“I was out with my squad and my SSgt’s Gunny; a guy by the name of Johnson. He was a bastard; called me a ‘prairie squaw’ to my face quite a few times. Anyway, we were doing a patrol in this tiny little town, the kind where one well serves 6 or 8 houses. There were some kids outside, playing with water guns. I remember this one was mutagen green and neon blue. It was obvious they were just playing in the water when they would stop and fill their soakers back up. This Gunny ordered us to ‘Shoot those damned kids’. All four of us were floored. Caitie looked at him and asked, ‘Whaa’. She wasn’t sure she heard him right. Then he yelled, ‘I order you to shoot those damned towelheads in training. Nits make lice. Bet you’d know all about that wouldn’t you, Hamato’. I about lost it. I looked at him and said, ‘Sir, with all due respect, I respectfully decline to follow that order.” He started screaming at me; called me everything but an American Marine. Then he sent me back behind the lines. I was put on temporary restriction for two days and the paperwork for my discharge was started over my wording. There was a guy working supply for quartermaster company, Joey Loveland, who gave me a ride to regional. We were a few miles away from our destination when he yelled ‘Shit’ and threw me out of the cab of that deuce and a half. He was right behind me. He landed right next to me. I can still feel the heat of the blast; can still taste the sand and dust it kicked up. But most of all, I can still feel Joey’s blood on my hands and hear his screaming,” I paused and took a breath as tears ran down my face. “I can still hear him asking me to watch over his little sister.”

“I sat there, trying to keep him alive while screaming through the satellite phone for a medic when he said to stop. He said he knew he wasn’t going to make it, just asked me to take care of Brynnie for him. He died in my arms. Medics finally got there 10 minutes later, but by then I was in shock. I was sedated for three days because I kept trying to scrub his blood off when it was already gone. When I finally came out of it, my Staff Sargent was there and he told me that JAG wanted to talk to me. Turns out, my girls complained. There was no way to stop my discharge but that Gunny got in some big trouble. Come to find out, I had been put in for Staff Sargent half a dozen times when there was a slot and I had the points, but that Gunny kept turning it down. He kept saying that I wasn’t ready for the responsibility. Mind, I had been a Sargent for years, had all my points, was never flagged, and had never failed a PT test. It all boiled down to my gender and skin color.

When I got back to San Diego, I was in pretty bad shape. I couldn’t eat or sleep; I got put into inpatient observation at a VA Hospital there. A week later, I was transferred to a VA hospital in Pierre, South Dakota. Saw at least three Docs there. No one bothered to look at my address on record. It took me almost four months to get them to transfer me to a caseworker in the Bronx. After that fight, I had another month before I could see a Doc about my anxiety; that was more pills. I was lucky that Caitie got out right after me; she let me bunk with her until I found you guys again.

That was a complete stroke of luck. I was headed down into the tunnels on Humboldt and Sherman when I ran into O’Neil. I recognized her from the photos you guys emailed me. She asked how long I’d been home for. Told her I’d been looking for you guys for the better part of a month. She told me she would have you guys come here for a few nights the next week. Then she gave me the number to Pop’s cell. First thing I did when I got back to Cait’s was to lock myself in the bathroom and call dad.”  

A/N-- Exact same version on ffn.