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#Can you tell I love gelatin
choconoru · 9 months
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More gijinkas :) I redesigned a few that I have done months ago
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harmcityherald · 2 months
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texasradiorp · 2 years
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Redoing tags
After dark: NSFW
It’s you/it’s you/its all for you/everything I do/I tell you all the time/heaven is a place on Earth with you//Paris/Tori
I am drowning/there is no sign of land/you are coming down with me/hand in unloveable hand//Lilly/Schlatt
I told you twice in our love letter/there’s no stopping now/green lights forever//Paris/Gladstone
We were both young when I first saw you/I close my eyes and the flashback starts//Paris/Karkat
Did you get enough love/my little dove/why do you cry/and I’m sorry I left/but it was for the best//Paris/Zero Two
And all I can taste is this moment/and I can breathe is your life//Paris/Loid
Set my alarm/turn on my charm/that’s because I’m a good old fashioned lover boy//Gladstone Gander
All you have is your fire/and the place you need to reach/don’t you ever take your demons/but always keep them on a leash//Paris Catt
I am the righteous hand of god/and the devil that you forgot//Tori Larson
With a thousand lies/and a good disguise/hit ‘em right between the eyes/hit ‘em right between the eyes//Karkat Vantas
Baby when you close your eyes/I know who you pretend I am/I know who you pretend I am/why not me?//Zero Two
All the lonely people/where do they all come from/all the lonely people/where do they all belong//Loid Forger
You got designer shades just to hide your face/and you wear em around like you’re cooler than me//Dave Strider
Don’t do love/don’t do friends/I’m only after success//Dirk Strider
No tears/no fears/no ruined years/no clocks/she’s a 20th century fox//Rachel Adley
She’s a killer Queen/gun powder/gelatins/dynamite with a laser beam//Vriska Serket
It goes all my troubles on a burning pile/all lit up and I start to smile//Tord Larson
Scary my god you’re divine/gimme them/gimme them dope and diamonds//Lilly Schlatt
My old man/he’s a bad man/but he’s got a soul as thick as blood red jam//J Schlatt
#after dark#it’s you/it’s you/it’s all for you/everything I do/I tell you all the time/heaven is a place on earth with you//Paris/Tori#I am drowning/there is no sign of land/you are coming down with me/hand in unlovable hand//Lilly/Schlatt#I told you twice in our love letter/there’s no stopping now/green lights forever//Paris/Gladstone#we were both young when I first saw you/I close my eyes and the flashback starts//Paris/Karkat#did you get enough love/my little dove/why do you cry/and I’m sorry I left/but it was for the best//Paris/Zero Two#and all I can taste is this moment/and I can breathe is your life//Paris/Loid#set my alarm/turn on my charm/that’s because I’m a good old fashioned lover boy//Gladstone Gander#all you have if your fire/and the place you need to reach/don’t you ever take your demons/but always keep them on a leash//Paris Catt#I am the righteous hand of god/and the devil that you forgot//Tori Larson#with a thousand lies/and a good disguise/hit em right between the eyes/hit em right between the eyes//Karkat Vantas#baby when I close my eyes/I know who you pretend I am/I know who you pretend I am//Zero Two#all the lonely people/where do they all come from/all the lonely people/where do they all belong//Loid Forger#you got designer shades just to hide your face/and you wear em around like you’re cooler than me//Dave Strider#Don’t do love/don’t do friends/I’m only after success//Dirk Strider#no tears/no fears/no ruined years/no clocks/she’s a 20th century fox//Rachel Adley#she’s a killer Queen/gunpowder/gelatine/dynamite with a laser beam//Vriska Serket#it goes all my troubles on a burning pile/all lit up and I start to smile//Tord Larson#scary my god you’re divine/gimme them/gimme them dope and diamonds//Lilly Schlatt#my old man is a bad man/but he’s got a soul as thick as blood red jam//J Schlatt
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candy-heart-brew · 1 month
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I've seen some fans theorize that the lyrics to "Bug-a-Bye and Goodnight" tie into Frank's developing relationship with Eddie, potentially foreshadowing a grisly end for a favorite mailman. The lyrics are incredibly emotional and poor Frank sounds like he's fighting back tears during this entire record, making it feel like there's something more going on under the surface. While it's entirely possible that this is meant to foreshadow Frank and Eddie eventually being separated, I think the song's symbolism could be pointing to a different direction...
I touched a bit on this in a different post but to summarize: the attitude that Frank displays during "Bug-a-Bye and Goodnight" is completely at odds to his reaction to Eddie at the party. During BaBaG he's sad but resigned to fate, he knows that hibernation is inevitable but takes a bit of comfort in the knowledge that it's only temporary and that his loneliness will only last through winter. So, he does his best to power through, keep his personal feelings out of it, and assure his little friends that he'll be alright.
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By contrast, his reaction to Eddie's behavior at the party is one of panic and confusion. He doesn't understand what's happening to Eddie or why he's suddenly gone unresponsive, he just knows that he isn't acting like himself at all and he can't accept that. He refuses to leave Eddie alone even after being ignored, continuing to push until he gets a response, at which point he immediately realizes something is wrong and tries to push further, only stopping when Eddie leaves. At this point in the story they don't appear to be especially close but Frank's terrified reaction speaks volumes about his true feelings for Eddie. And if this is how he reacts to him being quieter than usual, I can't imagine that he'd be much calmer or more composed in the event of losing Eddie altogether. IMO, he's far more likely to get angry and demand answers rather than wax poetic. So while "Bug-a-Bye and Goodnight" could potentially foreshadow Eddie's fate, Frank's subdued reaction makes me question that interpretation. I do think there's a deeper meaning to BaBaG, that Frank is singing about something other than bugs, just not Eddie. But then who? Well, as we found out in this last update, bugs are not the only creatures in the neighborhood that hibernate...
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Think about it for a moment- Julie is going to be gone for months, leaving Frank all alone without his best friend. Who's going to invite him to games now? Who's going to listen to him about his interests and laugh at his jokes? Who's going to bake gelatin monstrosities with him? Julie is practically his other half so to lose her for months on end must be very difficult for him! He knows that she can't help it and he doesn't blame her but that hardly makes it any easier. All he can really do now is just push that sadness down, wish her goodnight, and wait for her to return.
Under this interpretation, certain lyrics in BaBaG take on a different meaning to me. Lines like "I know it's for the best, I can't keep you," or "I'll be the first to tell you, you just can't stay," could imply an oncoming rift between the two of them. The recent updates have implied that Frank and Julie were written to be a couple and were perceived as such in-universe. We don't yet know how the two of them felt about that but we do know that they were very close to the point of doing basically everything together! But now Frank is falling in love with someone else, someone who may very well come to eclipse Julie in terms of importance to him. No matter how much he loves her, no matter how much they might want to stay together, there are some things you just can't fight and this play-relationship they have can't last forever...
But that's just my interpretation!
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squidwen · 2 months
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🐙After Hours with Azul
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•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•
Synopsis: You spend a lot of time at the Mostro Lounge, and Azul’s starting to wonder why. You’re not some creepy stalker girlfriend, are you? You two might be “official,” but you’re at the Lounge all the time!
However, Azul reckons there’s a reason behind it that’s deeper. More serious. After taking you to his room, the pair of you snuggle up, arms, legs, and tentacles, and Azul’s hearts simply can’t take the real reason behind your frequent visits.
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You preferred the Mostro Lounge after-hours. It seemed more like an actual Lounge, with nothing but the cool lights and the final tunes of the piano player on the stage. No one bothered you either. None of the waiters told you to leave. No one even offered to clear your drink and plate away. The staff cleaned their tables, hung up their aprons, and that was that.
Except for Azul.
He got up from the piano and crossed the Lounge over to your booth. Your breath hitched at his cool hand on your shoulder. You always preferred him without gloves. His hands were beautiful; long, slender fingers with a callous on his right middle one from years and years of endless writing.
‘Another evening claimed by my establishment,’ mused Azul.
At last, you moved. His words thawed you enough to stand.
Azul welcomed you into his arms. His other hand sparked against your ribcage as he rubbed circles into your back. Somehow his chilly touch melted you. You became almost gelatinous in his embrace, as if you were the octopus rather than the warm, sweet little human.
‘You’re coming here more often, angelfish,’ Azul said.
‘Naturally. The foods good and the music’s even better.’
‘I’m sure the music is not better.’
You pulled away.
Azul held onto you. ‘Sorry-’
‘You’re still doing it.’
‘It’s a bad habit.’
‘You need to stop thinking you’re not good enough.’
Your kiss on the shell of his ear silenced any protests. Azul shivered with bliss.
Everyone else had already left; there was no point in keeping up airs. Who would you be trying to impress? Azul was stronger than he looked. Although he masqueraded as a human, he still retained most of his cecaelian strength, and he lifted you out of the booth. You felt as though you were floating. You were as weightless as the exotic fish in the giant Lounge fish tank.
Azul tucked you into his chest, one arm under your legs and another under your back. You smelled his cologne; lavender and something that reminded you of the sea. The tips of his bangs tickled your forehead. Together, you slipped out of the Lounge and through the halls of Octavinelle, hiding around corners for the coast to be clear before ploughing on towards Azul’s bedroom.
A snap of the fingers and the door swung open.
A lilac bed, freshly made, beckoned you forward. Azul laid you gently down. The duvet and mattress moulded to your figure, gasping and depressing as you wriggled your shoes off. ‘I can’t believe you had the energy for that!’ you laughed. ‘After playing all night.’
Azul laid down beside you. His hands, warmed by your back and thighs, searched for yours and brought them to his lips. ‘It’s the nature of octopuses to be dextrous, my dear. Three hours of piano playing was nothing but a warmup.’
‘How modest.’
Azul reddened.
You kissed his nose. ‘Tell me more. If you can brag to anyone it would be me. Not that I need to be told about how amazing you are. You just carried me up to the top of Octavinelle as if it was nothing. I bet Jack couldn’t even do that.’
Azul, however, did not bring up anything. It still didn’t feel right to. Not with you. Not yet. He was still so new to this. He had never loved anyone before, and the pair of you had only made your relationship official a few weeks ago. Azul was trying to strike a balance between impressing you, and boasting. He wanted to seem cool, not conceited. You already accepted him for what he looked like… for some reason, but surely there was only so much you could take. You could tolerate ugliness, but vanity?
‘A good businessman never puts all his cards on the table,’ said Azul.
You rolled your eyes. ‘Business talk? Here?’
Shoot, Azul thought. Play it cool. ‘You are in the bedroom of the dorm leader of Octavinelle and the manager of the Mostro Lounge.’
‘I thought I was in my boyfriend’s bedroom.’ You started to pull away again. Azul gripped you tightly. His strong fingers were like suction cups. ‘Come on, Azul,’ you sighed. ‘If you’re a businessman, does that make me a customer? Or some associate? I know this is new to you. It’s new to me too. But just… let yourself be… well, mine. Even if it can only be in this room. I need that.’
You shifted closer to him and snaked your arm under his head. His ear rested in the crook of your elbow, letting your fingers fiddle with his hair. The fedora fell away. His locks were stringy from hours under a hat, but you didn’t mind. It was like his head was a giant snowdrop; the petals stuck together as it tried to bloom after a long winter.
Azul drew closer. The bed creaked.
‘My angelfish,’ he breathed.
You hummed.
‘Why do you stay at the Lounge for so long?’
Your stroking stopped.
Azul tensed. ‘If you don’t want to say then-’
‘No, no. It’s fine. It must seem creepy, like I’m some crazy stalker girlfriend who watches your every move now that we’re together. But it’s not. Seven, it’s not. I just… it’s just a soothing place. Some people like the library. Others like the park. But the Mostro Lounge is perfect for me. I’ve been going there all year just to unwind. You might not have noticed. You’re always so busy.’
‘No other reason?’
It was your turn to tense.
Azul detected it immediately.
Sitting up, his cerulean eyes pierced into you like icicles. He was the businessman again. All the tenderness had been leached out of him. Something was wrong. He knew it. Something he was determined to get to the bottom of. It wasn’t that he didn’t like you being at the Lounge. He loved it. Your presence always made him play better, and he was happy to smuggle you on-the-house desserts whenever he could. But you had been showing up too often, as if you were hiding, or escaping, something.
‘Let’s not have secrets from each other,’ he said.
‘Secrets?’
‘Please, angelfish.’ Azul blinked and his eyes became gentle again. The eyes of a lover; lidded and pleading. To prove that he was being open – and to give you permission to do the same – he lay down beside you again and transformed back into a cecaelia. His skin speckled with lilac until it was completely purple; his legs unravelling into eight black and purple tentacles.
Azul couldn’t meet your eyes as he transformed. It embarrassed him. He felt so grotesque. So hideous. But then, you came to him again, and wrapped your arms around his torso. The feeling faded. Azul took you into his arms.
The tentacles wound around your legs like ribbons around maypoles. Cool and slick; the suction cups kissing your exposed skin, making it prickle with gooseflesh. You stayed still to invite them higher. Azul delighted in the feel of you. You were more detailed when he held you this way. He sensed every inch of you. You were beautiful, and more tentacles came up to bind you.
Around your waist. Around your hips. Around your stomach. With ease, they pulled you in close to Azul. The cecaelia buried your face in his chest. You could hear his three heartbeats. They were fast. You couldn’t help but smile into Azul’s shirt.
‘Are you comfortable, my darling?’ Azul asked.
You nodded, too relaxed for words. Azul’s touch was velvety soft. All your dark bindings were gentle and plush, like a caterpillar wrapped in a chrysalis.
A final tentacle cupped the back of your head. You shivered as the suction cups kissed your scalp. The feeling wasn’t unpleasant, but it brought you out of your comfort just enough to feel like talking again. ‘What about you?’
‘I’m at my best when you’re with me,’ Azul said.
You melted a little more. ‘Same here. And I confess, that’s the reason why.’
‘Why what?’
‘I’m sorry. I know I’ve come on too strong and I’ve spooked you.’
‘No, not at all.’
‘I just…I… you know you’re my best friend.’
Azul’s heartbeats got even faster. ‘A-And you’re mine,’ he breathed. ‘The Leech twins… they’re not the same as you.’
‘The others aren’t the same as you either. Don’t get me wrong, Ace and Deuce are great, but they’re like twins, and Jack and Epel are dedicated to sports, and Sebek’s obsessed with Malleus. I sort of feel like I just touch-base with them, but I spend time with you. And even if it’s not “with” you, just to see you, hear you play, admire who my partner is, even just sit in your Lounge, is enough.’ You mustered the strength to crane your head back and kiss his jaw. ‘I’m millions of miles from home, but I somehow feel there when I’m with you.’
Azul had never heard anything like it. You were so sweet. So kind. No one ever complimented him without wanting his attention, or recognition; without wanting something in return. Octavinelle was full of sychophants, none bigger than the Leech twins, but you… you were as pure as driven snow. You loved every inch of him, inside and out; something Azul had thought was impossible for him to find. To deserve.
His tentacles bundled you up even more, pressing you in close until it was almost uncomfortable. His suction cups kissed you. Thousands of kisses. Small pecks, until the tentacle cupping the back of your head lifted you to Azul’s lips.
Velvet. Smooth. Soft.
When you broke away, you were both breathless, and exhaustion descended upon you. The night had been long; the conversation hard. Azul loosened his grip on you but kept his tentacles in place. He could think of nothing sweeter than to fall asleep to the feeling of you, and you didn’t mind. You had never been so comfortable; so warm and welcome.
With a final kiss, you snuggled into your cecaelia and drifted off to sleep, lulled by the rhythmic thump of Azul’s heartbeats.
•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•
Author note: Well hey! It’s been a while!
I hope you enjoyed the fic! I had to write an Azul one after being away for so long! He’s by far my fav character, and it was his birthday recently so I think we’re all in Azul-mode atm.
If you liked it, please like, comment, and share.
- Squidwen
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bby-deerling · 4 months
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can i get some sanji x reader. you’ve been friends for years. end up having a crush on each other. sanji confesses first. you end up kissing snd confessing as well. your first date gets a lil spicy (you don’t have to write smut idc) ands up telling you he loves you. reader ends up crying in happiness. you can have them reciprocate or have sanji say, “it’s okay you don’t have to love me back yet.”
meow meow
meow meow, sweet anon <3 (this has been sitting in my inbox forever, i want u to know every time i'm sad i go back and read this request and the little meow meow at the end would always make me laugh and cheer me up!)
yours truly (sanji x fem!reader)
ft. pining, yearning, confessions, sanji being sanji
wc: 636 masterlist
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“I love you.”
The words ring in your head, slowly seeping into your brain like a thick layer of gelatin.  A soft shade of pink creeps into the tips of your ears, the elaborate table setting and candles in front of you long forgotten.  There was only him, blonde bangs covering half of his face and eyes gleaming with sincerity; his breathing is shaky, impatient, and nervous as he awaits your response.
This was far from the first time Sanji had confessed to being under the deep spell of love—over two years ago he had said as much upon first meeting you, before even learning your name or glimpsing your entire face.  And he had said it to Nami and Robin at least three times a day.  Never taking his confessions seriously, you brushed them off as silly, whimsical musings of a man who was blissfully unaware of the severity of his words, not knowing what love—real love—was like enough to know any better.
But Sanji was kind, generous, and sweet, and if you were any more naïve and green, you would have been burning with affection for him from the very start.  He was attentive, anticipating your needs before you were even aware of them yourself.  Selfless to the core, he had no qualms about rushing headlong to protect you in battle—at times even before racing towards Nami.  He was cracked open and vulnerable, for you and you alone as he opened up to you during late nights when sleep was nothing but a feverish ideal for both of you.  As time crept on, he wormed his way further into your soul, despite your rational urge to keep him at an arm’s length to keep your own fragile heart safe.
Sanji is a flirt, you remind yourself.
You repeat those four words to no avail every day for two years and three days until you see him again; unfortunately, absence only makes the heart grow fonder, and fantasies and yearning for him have a chokehold on all of your sweetest dreams.  However, his behavior when you reunited made reality come crashing down around you.
He’s so excited to see you again that he can barely look at you without passing out from blood loss—but it’s the same with the other women, like it always has been.  Despite all your daydreaming, Sanji is still wholly himself; Sanji is only human.
His faults and complexity only spurs you to crave him more.  Temperamental and moody, he gets into bad fits, only able to be soothed by your caring words and touches.  Chivalrous to a fault, he bends over backwards to avoid hurting women in battle, often to the point of ignoring his own safety, but you have no qualms about playing the role of his savior, able to bask in the light of his gratitude as a reward for your efforts.  The frustrating way he swoons over each woman who crosses his path inexplicably only makes you want him more, convinced that you can show him enough kindness, affection, and care to make him see only you.  And somehow, against all odds, it worked.
When he confesses—truly confesses—his feelings to you, upon discovering that he had indeed cared for you deeply and truly this whole time, you’re so overwhelmed that tears prick at your eyes.  He wanted you as you are; all the hoops you had jumped through to woo him were simply icing on the cake, and vice versa.
That why when Sanji tells you he loves you, in between heated kisses on your first date in the kitchen of the Sunny, only one phrase comes to mind.  It’s moving quickly, and on the surface impulsive, but you’ve never meant anything more in your life.
“I love you too.”
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kankat11 · 4 months
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I have to right a wrong in the Good Omens fandom. Over and over again I see edits of Crowley to the song killer queen, and while they are fun and entertaining you couldn't be more wrong. Crowley is good old fashioned lover boy of this pair.   Aziraphale is the killer queen. I am very passionate about this. Just look at the lyrics the literal first sentence from the song is "She keeps her Moët et Chandon In her pretty cabinet" sound familiar right?
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The subtitles are awful but you get my point.
And that is far from the only time the lyrics sound suspiciously like Aziraphale. Just look here.
" "Let them eat cake," she says Just like Marie Antoinette"
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Need I say more. Till this day I am not sure he's actually eating cake.
"Caviar and cigarettes"
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Sushi is close enough.
"Well versed in etiquette"
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Yes!
"Extraordinarily nice"
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Bit too nice at times.
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It's almost creepy at times. Please ignore the subtitles.
"She's a Killer Queen"
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Just look at her.
"Insatiable an appetite"
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We aren't talking about this scene.
"To avoid complications She never kept the same addres"
I'll admit that this one doesn't fit Aziraphale.
"She spoke just like a baroness" 
"Met a man from China"
Probably at some point.
"Perfume came naturally from Paris (naturally)"
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Naturally.
"For cars she couldn't care less"
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Just look at his poor face.
"Gunpowder, gelatine"
He owns a gun and loves sweet things.
"Playful as a pussy cat"
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Don't mind the subtitles.
"She's out to get you"
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She is definitely out to get Crowley.
Moral of this the story is: can someone please for the love of my SANITY make an full video edit of Aziraphale to the song killer queen or if it exists please tell me. I desperately require it.
Yours sincerely KanKat,
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twisted-lover-boys · 6 months
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Since you can’t do the Jjba one could I make a different request for Lilia with a Slime reader? Basically the Reader is like those rpg game slimes but can change their appearance to look human(I dont know if you’ve Seen Tensura/ttigraas or not so I made it more broad)
A Bat & A Slime
{not proof-read}
I haven’t but I’ve seen Charlie Slimesicle—
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🐲🦇⚔️⚡️🐲🦇⚔️⚡️🐲🦇⚔️⚡️🐲🦇⚔️⚡️🐲🦇⚔️⚡️
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Lilia has met many people throughout his life. Fae, human, beastman, even monster. But he’s never met someone quite like you
You were a slime monster, that much he was certain, but you were sentient. You talked, walked, ate, and did just about everything anyone could do. It was fascinating
Maybe that’s why he was so attracted to you, even at such a young age. You were different, unique even, and all he wanted was to show you just how much he loved you
Even now, in the days of NRC and his self proclaimed “old age”, he never forgot to show you just how much he cherished you
If you’re a slime, I’d imagine that you’re quite gelatinous so physical affections are quite funny to the fae general
Lilia would get sucked into your hugs, halfway inside your jelly body and halfway outside. Sometimes just sticks his hands in and wiggle them just to see your body wiggle to his movements
Kisses are just as fun to him, especially butterfly kisses. The little impact and jiggle waves that happen when he does kiss you makes him laugh, as if your flustered face isn’t cute enough
Whenever you decide to kiss him instead, he loves how passionate you are with them. It really show him how much you love him and he couldn’t be happier
The one perk of dating Lilia is that now you have a son, no negotiations. He really wants you and Silver to get along and will help you both every step of the way. He always smiles so brightly when he sees you and his son happy and having fun
He also wishes for you to get along with Malleus and Sebek. Even though they aren’t his children, he had taken a massive role in their childhood and raising them. Sebek will be a bit hard but he knows you can manage! And Malleus is a child at heart so you’ll get along just fine
Lilia loves to pull pranks with you. You are both a victim and a valuable asset. By that, I mean he can practically use your slime body to make his pranks more elaborate, whether it’s a borrowed piece or your whole body
On that note, how about some video games with him? He had grown to love them since they were fashioned and would love to share that same passion with you, even if you aren’t a fan of the type he enjoys
Lilia very much so wants to put his general years behind him. The world is more peaceful than it was all those years ago and he’s more than grateful to have someone so wonderful next to him
I think it’s time for the event! Lilia sadly only has 2 events since I didn’t read the Sunset Savanah one (I can’t find a completed translation :[ ) but those events are still worthwhile!
I know Lilia didn’t actively participate in the ghost bride event, but he’d be a liar in saying that he didn’t enjoy the suitor outfit. Just the thought of one day marrying you and not some spoiled ghost bride brings him so much happiness. He can’t wait to see you in such fancy garb like that
Halloween was also so much fun with you! Since you were a monster, it was easier to scare the magicam monsters. He could tell how much fun you were having. It seemed like you were having an easier time fitting into the crowd. He was happy to see you happy
But the endless Halloween was different for you. You had no idea where Lilia went and it seemed you weren’t the only one panicking at his disappearance. To run through twisting stairs and seemingly endless corridors and still no sight of him
Silver tried his best to stay close to you as much as possible. You were his father’s partner and you were his dad. He’d keep an eye on you while you both looked for his old man
It was only when you reached the end and found him and finally got an explanation to all this chaos did you calm down…mostly. Lilia’s intentions were to let you both have fun, not get his lover and son mad at him
Well…you & Silver can’t stay mad at him for long now, can you?
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🐲🦇⚔️⚡️🐲🦇⚔️⚡️🐲🦇⚔️⚡️🐲🦇⚔️⚡️🐲🦇⚔️⚡️
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ladykailitha · 1 year
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The Eddie Munson Guide to Dating an Oblivious Jock Part 2
LOL! I am loving the reactions for this. This is going to be part fun, with a little a seriousness, because Steve does have to be built up a bit.
Part 1
*
Step Three and Four: Getting your crush alone and Building Their Self-Esteem
This next two are interchangeable depending on your jock. If you think building their confidence is needed before you get them alone, you’ll need to do that first. But you if think that getting them away from their peer group first is essential to building their confidence; get them alone first.
“I think with Lucas,” Max said, “I would need to get him alone first. Because I don’t think he realizes how much they look down on him.”
Eddie nodded. “I did the opposite way with Steve. I needed build his confidence in front of everyone else, so that they would stop picking on his intelligence.”
Max nodded. She had been there for a couple of those smack downs. And she approved.
Now that you’ve established a shared interest, you’ll want to get them alone with you as often as possible. It’s harder to make moves on oblivious jockus, when there are others around to block you, make fun of your attempts, or even catch on to what your doing. Because if they figure it out before the jock, then they’ll tell him and ruin your plans. You want him to come to you all on his own and not because his friends told him to.
But as I said, I had to build his confidence first.
“Look, I know what a gorgon is,” Steve complained. “And I know what a demogorgon is. But what you just said right now, the gelatinous cube thing? That sounds like something I did at a rager.”
“Can you not talk about your slutty past while we’re talking about D&D, please?” Dustin asked, rolling his eyes.
Steve threw his arms in the air. “I’m not! I’m just saying it sounds stupid.”
“It’s not stupid!” Mike cried. “It nearly ate me. And it destroyed my shield. And and part of my armor!”
“This isn’t real life, man,” Lucas said. “I know we’ve gone up against some pretty heinous shit, but in the game world it’s pretty scary.”
Eddie ran his tongue over his teeth and he grinned that closed mouth grin that made him look condescending. Steve raised an eyebrow, fully expecting Eddie to join in on the dog piling.
“It’s pretty lame, guys,” Eddie said, kicking back and putting his feet up on the table, interlocking his fingers behind his head. “In fact it was pretty pathetic you got caught in it all.”
Steve pointed to Eddie. “See?”
Eddie grinned. “I was bored. And we weren’t really moving forward in the campaign so I threw it at you to see what you would do. And Mike pretty much tripped and fell into it.”
Dustin, Mike, and Lucas all winced.
“And Steve is allowed an opinion,” Eddie growled. “Even to an outsider, a gelatinous cube sounds lame. Now everyone apologize to Steve.”
The three boys looked at each other in shame and they mumbled their apologies.
Steve straightened up.
Once you start building up his esteem, give your jock opportunities to show off his intelligence.
Steve was waiting for Eddie to divvy up gold and experience. He frowned at all the stats they were rattling off.
“How do you keep track of all this stuff?” he asked.
“Well,” Mike said with a sneer, “if you weren’t so slow...”
“Hey,” Will defended. “You try remembering all that stuff with three concussions.”
Eddie just shook his head. “It’s not about intelligence, Steve. It’s about interest.”
Dustin frowned. “No it’s not.”
“I can prove it,” Eddie replied. Steve had his hands on his hips, his mouth a firm line. “Hey, Steve whose team is arguably the best in the NBA?”
Steve’s frown deepened, but he starting talking about who had the best defense and whose offense was superior before landing on a specific team.
All four boys stared at him in shock.
“Now who understood that?” Eddie asked, gleefully rubbing his hands together.
Lucas raised a tentative hand.
Eddie nodded. “Because you’re interested, right?”
The boy nodded.
“Hey, Steve?” Eddie called again, this time Steve looked a little less leery. “Who do you think will win the World Series this year? Not your favorite team, but the best one overall.”
Steve’s eyes lit up. And he rambled on for about five minutes explaining who had the best chances of going all the way.
Again all mouths remained slack jawed and all eyes remained wide open.
Eddie grinned. “Now who understood that?”
Will raised his hand. “A little. My dad used to watch baseball.”
Mike nodded. “I understood that a little bit more than I did the basketball.”
“That’s because someone you know would watch it all the time,” Eddie said, “that you kinda pick up a little bit. But you wouldn’t be able to rattle off those stats yourself, right?” He leaned forward, putting his hands on the table.
Mike and Will shook their heads.
“It’s just like I can name all of Metalica’s albums or my five classes in D&D,” Eddie continued. “Steve isn’t slow or stupid. He just has different interests. And it’s not as though you had all that D&D stuff memorized when you first started. And I bet Steve didn’t either, but years of watching and playing gave him that knowledge.”
“How did you know Steve could do that?” Dustin asked.
Eddie laughed. “He and my Uncle Wayne get together on the weekends when I’m practicing with my band to watch sports. They are often argue stats.”
Steve stared at him in shock and then blushed. “I didn’t realize you were about paying attention.”
Eddie just smiled.
Once you’ve given him chances to show off his smarts, make sure you shut down further attempts from his friends to insult his intelligence.
Steve was cleaning up after movie night with the help of Eddie and some very reluctant gremlins.
“You guys made the mess,” Steve insisted. “You get to clean up. Except Max, who, you know, is still using crutches?”
Max smiled up from the couch. “I get to supervise!”
Steve laughed. “Which you won’t use to lord over us at all...” he said sarcastically.
She just grinned bigger.
Steve started by handing out assignments. Lucas was on garbage duty, Will and El were on dishes (the only two Steve trusted not to break anything), Dustin was on vacuum duty, and Mike was wiping down counters.
Mike rolled his eyes. “This isn’t a sport, Steve. Just tell us to clean up and we’ll do it.”
Eddie paused from where he was putting away the food in the fridge. “No you won’t.”
Dustin frowned. “What? Yes we will.”
Eddie scoffed harder. “No, you won’t. As evidenced by how you guys clean up after D&D.”
Lucas stopped picking up the garbage. “We help.”
“You do,” Eddie agreed. “Will, too. But Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum here,” he pointed to Dustin and Mike, “will sit on their asses and chat about the campaign, while the rest of us clean up.”
Dustin and Mike opened their mouths to argue, but Eddie leveled a glare at them and they closed them again.
“Besides,” Will said, “there’s nothing wrong with everyone being assigned a task. It gets everything done quicker so we can all go home.”
Steve smirked. “And order isn’t just about sports. Even you guys have an order in your game, right? Initiative, right?”
“But that’s different,” Mike whined.
Eddie grinned. “You remembered!”
The boys paused and then turned to Steve with open mouths.
“I told you guys it was about interest,” Eddie said. “Right, Steve?”
Steve grinned. “Right, Eds.”
“I still can’t believe he missed the fact that you paid attention to his interests,” Max said, rolling her eyes.
Eddie shrugged. “I think he was impressed, but didn’t want to get his hopes up.”
“I mean Steve gives as good as he gets most of the time,” Max said, “but even I didn’t realize what a number they’ve done on his self-esteem until you started calling it out.”
Eddie shrugged. “I don’t think anyone realized it was affecting him. Because like you said, he can bitch with the best of them.”
“It’s some times the questions are dumb,” she said, a bit defensively.
“You talking about the vampire/Vecna comment?” Eddie asked.
She blushed. “That’s one of them, yeah.”
“Is it really that outrageous that the Upside Down might have vampires?”
She paused and thought about it. She huffed a laugh. “No I suppose not.”
Getting your jock alone. Depending on their friend group this can either be very easy (offering to do something together that the rest of the friends don’t want to do) or very difficult (having friends that are willing to go outside their comfort zone to spend time with them).
“Steve must have been a hard one to get alone,” Max said.
“Very,” Eddie agreed. “And it wasn’t just people wanting to hang out with him, it was someone or several someones wanting rides. So I had to get get creative.”
Steve showed up the government funded house with Robin in tow.
“Buckley,” he greeted warmly. “I didn’t realize you were coming, too. I only got stuff for two of us.”
Steve blushed. “We looked up the movie at work and she thought it sounded interesting. I guess I should have called before we came over.”
Robin on the other hand looked unapologetic. “It’s fine, I brought my own goodies!” She held up a bag of Twizzlers and a bottle of soda.
Eddie sighed and let them both in. He put in the movie and sat in the middle of the sofa, forcing Robin and Steve to sit on either side.
“Why do you get the middle?” Robin asked.
“My house, therefore I get the best seat,” Eddie said smugly.
Steve looked around him to look at Robin in the eye. “He’s got a point, Robs. Plus, we did surprise him with your presence.”
Robin rolled her eyes and settled into watch the movie.
Eddie had seen it before so there weren’t even anything so much as a thrill, but Robin had her hands in front of her face, fingers spread so that she close them in a hurry if she needed to.
What Eddie loved was when Steve jumped twice. Because each time he jumped, he got closer to Eddie. By the time the ominous warning came at the end he was practically glued to Eddie’s side.
“Nope, nope, nope...” Robin said. “Never again. I don’t even like old horror, I’ve decided.”
Eddie shrugged. “I mean I was assuming that Steve and I were going to watch it together and he was going to preview it for you. Like he usually does.”
Robin’s jaw dropped as she looked at a smug Eddie and a Steve that had “I told you so” written all over his face. It wasn’t mocking or cruel.
She crumpled. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have crashed your movie night. It was mean and apparently stupid. I won’t be doing that again, that’s for sure.”
“How the hell did Steve not recognize his own moves when thrown directly in his face?” Max asked, rolling her eyes.
“Obliviousness is their best trait after all,” Eddie teased. But the smile slid from his face. “With Steve?”
“Yes,” she said, realizing he was about to drop something deep about the boy she considered her brother.
“I think it’s because in all the time he’s dated, he’s never once been the one that got taken care of,” he murmured. “He’s had to shoulder all the emotional burden. So cuddling up on the sofa watching a scary movie didn’t register because he’s always watched those kind of movies alone first and never had someone to lean on when he got frightened.”
“That sucks,” she deadpanned. “I’m glad he has you, Eddie.”
“Me too,” he said softly. “Me too.”  
Now that you’ve established that there won’t be any further interference from the best friend, set up a regular time to do the activity. That way it becomes a routine that when asked if they’re doing something at that time, they’ll say they have plans.
“Come on, Steve,” Dustin said. “We want to go to the arcade today, they’re having a two-for-one special on pizza when you buy a game pass.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “I told you have plans. Ask someone else.”
Dustin let out an exasperated sigh. “We did. We asked Eddie, but he has plans, too!”
Steve raised an eyebrow.
“You know, we call our jocks oblivious,” Max said, “but their friends can certainly be dense fuckers too.”
Eddie laughed. “I know, right?”
She shook her head. “Who did they think you had plans with?”
Eddie shrugged. “My bandmates would be my guess.”
“But then you would have said that,” she said exasperated. “Who did they think Steve had plans with?”
Eddie laughed.
“Robin will be fine if you don’t spend every waking moment with her,” Dustin continued, rolling his eyes. “When was the last time you went to the arcade with us?”
Steve’s other eyebrow shot up. “Last week, dude. And the week before that. I have plans. Both Mike and Will have siblings that drive. Hell, now that Argyle is back in town, I bet he would love to try out the arcade, he’s never been.”
Dustin looked leery. Steve threw his arms in the air and stormed over to the phone. He pulled the rolodex of party numbers that he kept on the counter closer to him and hit “A”. It went to Argyle’s number and he dialed it.
“Bro!” Argyle greeted.
“Hey, it’s Steve,” he said with a smile.
“My dude,” Argyle said cheerfully. “How can I help you on this fine fine day?”
“Hey, the kids wanted to go to the arcade today,” Steve explained, “But Eddie and I have plans, so I was wondering if you wanted to go. They have a special on pizza today and they wanted in on that.”
“You said the magic word, my dude!” Argyle said. “Pizza is my middle name. I just don’t know where the nugs live.”
“You know where I live, though, right?” Steve asked.
“Of course, man,” Argyle said with a grin. “Biiiig house. Hard to forget.”
Steve laughed. “You can pick Dustin up here and then he can direct you to the other ‘nugs’ houses.”
“Sounds totally awesome, my man!” Argyle said happily. “I’ll there in fifteen.”
Steve hung up and turned to Dustin with a raised eyebrow. “Now was that so difficult?”
Dustin sighed. “No...”
“I remember that!” Max said. “Argyle brought Jonathan and they were way more fun then with Steve because they didn’t try and mother hen us.”
Eddie laughed. “He just gets worried because he’s seen you guys in way too many situations that were literally life or death. It kinda skews things.”
Max clicked her tongue. “That’s fair.” She paused for a moment. “So we’ve established a routine, what’s next?”
Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
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whatsnewalycat · 6 months
Text
Psychomanteum / Chapter 14
Pairing: Dieter Bravo x OFC Louella (2nd POV)
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Chapter 14: Wish You Were Here
Chapter Summary: Dieter takes action.
Word Count: 9.9k+
Content / Warnings: dieter pov, implications of suicidal thoughts, swearing, alcohol use, airplane, uncertainty, parker/jackie, infidelity (not our heroes), thoughts of cocaine use/relapse, opera, fame, very vague understanding of the criminal justice system excuse that pls, bribery, lotta fucking dialogue, lotta yearning and self-reflection, angst, our boy is a big sappy mess and we love him for it
Notes: Chapter title from “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd. First and foremost, everything is gonna be ok, ok? I promise. Also, good news for people who like this story—since we’re nearing the end, I’m going to make it my primary writing focus for a while. Will be posting to AO3 later bc I can’t from mobile it’s a nightmare.
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— Dieter senses your absence before he even opens his eyes. 
Oftentimes you wake before him, still weaning off your internal alarm of 5:30AM EST (not-a-fucking-chance o’clock PST). When this happens, you brew some coffee and drink your morning cup in bed, passing the time by reading, or fucking around on your phone, or writing in your journal. 
Most of the time he opens his eyes and finds you deeply engrossed in one of these activities. Sometimes you’re cuddled up into his side, silently tracing patterns onto his skin. Even when you’re not in the same room when he wakes, he can still feel you, your life force brushing up against his. 
But this morning is different. 
Dieter winces at the morning light and sits up, rubbing his face before looking around the room. He clears his throat, then calls out your name. 
It echoes back to him. 
The silence that follows is eerie and distinct, its vacuousness an exclamation point that hurts his ears. 
How can nothing be so loud? 
Swinging his feet over the side of the bed,  he goes to grab his phone off the nightstand and instead finds a note with his name on it. He sits there staring at it for a minute, rubbing the layered notebook paper between his fingertips. 
The gears in his brain start to turn. 
He looks at the armchair where your suitcase has been sitting the week and a half. It’s gone. 
Understanding twists his guts bowtie. 
Denying the cardstock confrontation, Dieter puts on a robe and searches the house. 
He finds nothing. 
Each empty room accumulates buzzing and hot beneath his skin. 
He goes outside. 
The patio, the garage, the driveway, the street. 
Calling your name like a kid who lost his mom in a department store, panic building with every utterance, a desperate crescendo. 
By the time he returns to the origin point, his thoughts are stumbling over one another trying to explain what the fuck could be possibly be happening, because this can’t be real. 
It’s a joke, it’s a terrible joke that you’ll laugh about later—or, no, there was an emergency and you had to go—but wouldn’t you wake him? Wouldn’t you tell him? Maybe you went to the store and you’ll be right back. But why would you bring your suitcase? 
He snatches the paper off his nightstand and unfolds it.
Dee,
I need you to know this isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. I love you as much as humanly possible, and then some. Please understand that I couldn’t make you choose. That burden shouldn’t rest on you. 
I’m sorry for ruining everything. I’m sorry for leaving like this. I’m sorry for not giving you a choice. 
I love you with everything I am. 
Until the next life, 
Lua 
PS: I stole some cash from your wallet. I’m sorry for that, too. 
The words don’t compute at first. 
He shakes his head and reads it again. 
And again. 
And again. 
A thousand-pound weight drops his stomach to the floor. Adrenaline pumps through his heart and turns his limbs gelatin. Blood whooshes behind his ears, and—God, he’s going to be fucking sick. 
The note wavers in his grip and the text starts to blur.
This isn’t right. 
This can’t be happening. 
He needs to talk to you right fucking now. 
Overcome with this sudden rush of panic, Dieter grabs his phone off the nightstand, ignoring the barrage of notifications littering the screen, and calls you. 
The line trills, and further away, he hears “I’ll Be Your Mirror” by The Velvet Underground and Nico play. 
He follows the noise into the kitchen, where your phone buzzes on the countertop, displaying your contact photo for him. The one where you’re both mid-laugh with red lipstick and black face paint smudged all around your faces. 
Your voicemail picks up.
“Hey, this is Louella, sorry I missed you. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back, thanks.” 
A tone signals the start of recording. Dieter clears his throat, then says, “Hey, doll. It’s me. This is probably stupid because your phone is here, but I don’t know,” he pauses to gather himself as everything around him becomes blurred by tears. When he speaks again, his voice is somehow gummy and ragged at the same time, “I don’t know what to do. You’re gone, and there’s this note and… Fuck, whatever it is, we can figure it out. Please, Louella—Lua, baby, I love you. If you hear this somehow, please call me.” 
When he hangs up, all he can do is stand there, staring at her phone. 
The air particles around him throb with this deep, dense sorrow that cracks him wide open and hollows him out. It’s heavy. Infinite. All-consuming, like loss on loss on loss on loss. 
He knows, like he just knows things, that this is what you were feeling before you left. He knows you left your phone so nobody could find you. 
Beyond that, though… It's a brick wall. He tries, although he doesn’t really understand what the fuck he’s doing, to send out some kind of a psychic ping. Sometimes he can get a sense of you this way. 
This time he gets nothing. 
He can’t hone in on anything, can’t even feel the rough edges of your life force. The string that connects your tin cans has been severed.
What the fuck does that mean? 
The not-knowing makes him anxious. His imagination starts wander deeper into the dark forest, showing him taxis and mirrors and riverbeds and— 
Your phone jumps to life. 
It starts ringing to the tune of “Take Your Mama” by Scissor Sisters, lighting up with a photo of you and Parker. 
He scrambles to grab it and answers, “Parker—”
“Dieter?”
“Is she with you? Do you know where she is?” 
“What do you mean? Isn’t she with you?” 
“No, I just woke up and she’s fucking gone and there’s this note,” he sighs and throws his hand out at his side, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“A note, what does the note say?”
“Hang on, let me,” he tucks the phone between his ear and shoulder, rummaging through the pockets of his robe, “Here we go, ok…” 
He reads it to Parker, who remains silent for a long while afterwards. 
“Until the next life?”
The tips of his ears heat up, and he runs a hand through his hair, “Yeah.”
“Have you talked to anyone else this morning?”
“No, I just woke up,” he starts pacing the length of his kitchen island, explaining, “Last night we were talking about moving in together, having her come out here, and… I don’t know, did I fucking scare her off or something? She seemed into it, but maybe I’m wrong, maybe I was going too fast—”
“Whoa whoa whoa, ok, slow down, papi,” Parker interjects, “It’s not like that. Her apartment was raided this morning.” 
Dieter frowns, “Wait, what?” 
“Yeah, some fucking journalist went poking around, talking to her neighbors and shit, digging into stuff about Ethan, their business, all that. He brought it all to the cops and demanded they do something about it, so they got a search warrant.” 
Dieter stays quiet as his mind whirrs, trying to comprehend this information. 
Parker continues. 
“I went over there this morning, just to check in on the place, and it was fucking crawling with cops. I FaceTimed Lou and told her, then she hung up and I haven’t been able to reach her since. Figured she was talking to you, but…”
Poisoned words cycle through his head, begging to be released, but he traps them behind clamped lips. 
“I called Reese to see if he knew anything, since he bumps elbows with a lotta those criminal justice guys, you know?”
“Reese?” Dieter furrows his brow, “Married guy? I thought you were done with him.” 
“Yeah, well,” a sigh crackles in his ear, then Parker says, “Good thing I’m not. Turns out, he’s friends with the DA. He told Reese about the journalist shit, said they have a warrant out for Lou. Wanted on possession with intent to distribute and drug trafficking for the pot stuff, oh—and possession of cocaine, because apparently they found one of Ethan’s hiding spots.” 
“Fuck.” 
“I know.”
Hundreds of thoughts ricochet around his head screaming for attention. The whole goddamn dashboard is lit up and blaring WARNING WARNING WARNING—
The nausea returns. Dieter plucks a half-smoked joint from the ashtray on his countertop and lights it, then turns and slides down the cabinet onto the kitchen floor. 
He takes a few hits, waiting until the overwhelm dims a bit before whispering, “Fuck, Parker, this is bad.” 
“I know, baby, I know.” 
The skunky smoke burns his lungs as he inhales again, holding holding holding, then lets it go. 
Things start to slow down enough for him to backtrack, “Did you say a journalist?” 
“Yeah, Reese couldn’t get a name, but there was this guy outside the building this morning who was—oh, fuck.” 
“What oh fuck?” Dieter wrinkles his nose at the roach and takes one more drag before stubbing it out on the shiny hardwood floor. 
“It was that point dexter motherfucker that did your interview. That was the guy! And I was on a video call with Lou—”
Parker cuts himself off with a gasp.
I couldn’t make you choose.
“Oh fuck,” Dieter breathes, “I gotta call you back.” 
He hangs up and trades your phone for his own, rejecting an incoming call from Darlene. 
It takes him three seconds to find it. 
Dieter Bravo Girlfriend Wanted On Drug Trafficking Charges, Claims In Email to DIRT: “He Was In The Dark” 
The header presented at the top of the article is your mugshot from your previous arrest. Your eyes appear puffy and dull and hopeless. Below it, the article continues: 
Dieter Bravo’s newest girlfriend reportedly has a warrant out for her arrest in relation to drug trafficking charges. 
Early this morning, the NYPD hit Louella Friedman’s Downtown Brooklyn apartment with a search warrant. Friedman was not present at the time the warrant was executed, so no arrests have been made, but law enforcement sources tell us that she is now wanted by the state of New York on multiple drug charges. 
This is not Friedman's first run-in with the law. Just days ago, she appeared alongside Dieter Bravo for an exclusive interview with DIRT, in which she admitted to being convicted of felony drug trafficking in 2018. She stated during this interview that she has “changed a lot since then … we don’t want people to think we’re trying to hide any of this, because we’re not. We’re just trying to move forward together.”
The email we received from Friedman this morning paints a different picture: 
“As you probably know, my apartment is being raided. I need one thing to be clear: Dieter is not complicit. He didn’t know about and did not take part in my illegal activity. He was in the dark. My mistakes are my own, and I ask that the blame be placed appropriately.” 
It’s assumed that Friedman is still in the LA-area, as she and Bravo have been spotted out and about a few times this week. Before that, the pair were seen in New York, which leads us to wonder how much time the Academy Award winner actually spent in her apartment. 
Bravo himself has a notoriously checkered past with drugs, and although his antics have been subdued since the “publicity stunt” for the movie Limbo (premiering next May), it wouldn’t be considered out of character for him to become knowingly involved with a drug dealer. 
DIRT will continue reporting as this story unfolds. 
The first person Dieter calls is Lincoln, who answers on the second ring with a cheerful, “Good morning, Dieter!” 
“Lincoln, where the fuck are you?”
“I’m grabbing breakfast from that pla—”
“Change of plans,” Dieter leafs through the clothes hanging in his closet, “Get over here now.”
“What about—”
“Listen, I need you to get me the next flight to New York. And, uhh,” he rips a few shirts off their hangers and tosses them into the open suitcase on the floor, “Clear your schedule for at least two days. I need you to housesit.”
“Is everything alright?”
Dieter ponders the question for just a moment, long enough for a sharp ache to pierce through his chest, then says, “Hurry the fuck up, ok?”
He hangs up. 
The second person he calls is his lawyer. 
When he tells the guy about your situation, he says, “Well, it sounds like there’s enough room for deniability, I don’t think they’ll bring charges against you—”
“Yeah, no shit,” Dieter scoffs, “What about her, how could she get out of this?” 
“With all due respect, Dieter, you’re my client, not her.” 
“Come on, man. What if, you know, I was in her situation?”
On the other line, the lawyer sucks his teeth, then says, “Well, theoretically speaking, you would be looking to either turn yourself in or see if you could get the charges dropped.”
“How would one get the charges dropped?” 
“The District Attorney would need to drop them.” 
“Uh-huh,” Dieter nods and rubs his lips, then queries, “And if—you know, like you said, theoretically—if he were to be convinced to drop the charges—”
“See, that is a tight line to walk, and one must tread very carefully, you understand? Many methods people attempt to use in persuading district attorneys, for example, bribery or blackmail, get sticky quick. They offer the wrong amount of money, or don’t get enough dirt, or what have you, then they’re in a world of hurt.” 
“Well, sure. Those people don’t use their head. But if someone wanted to just… sit down and talk to him, would that automatically raise a red flag?” 
“Depends. If someone of similar notoriety as you reached out to him to set up a meeting, it might raise a red flag. But if they happened to run into each other… probably not as much.” 
“I see.” 
The front door swings open and he looks up, expecting to see Lincoln, but instead locks eyes with Darlene. She’s holding a phone to her ear and says, “Yeah, he’s here.” 
“I gotta go,” he says, then hangs up the phone and greets Darlene, “Hey.”
Her heels click-clack on the floor as she strides over, taps on the screen of her phone, and says, “Ok, Mark, you’re on speaker. Dieter’s here.”
Darlene sets the phone down on the counter and starts rummaging through the leather bag hanging off her shoulder. The phone speaks: 
“Dieter, we need to talk. Is Louella there?”
“No.” 
“Is she going back to New York?”
Not sure how to answer the question, Dieter rolls his eyes, “Is that what this is about?”
“Yeah, look, this isn’t good. I’ll cut to the chase. If you endorse her claim and cut ties, we can keep you on, but if you don’t, we gotta let you go, bud.” 
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Darlene answers this time, “We’re serious, Dieter. The optics are terrible—”
“The fucking optics, un-fucking-believable,” he mutters, pushing off the counter to pace the kitchen. 
“Is it really unbelievable?” Darlene blinks, her scathing gaze steady on his, “Coke head dating a felon who’s wanted on drug charges? You don’t see how studios will react to that?”
He doesn’t answer. She continues. 
“If you release a statement corroborating her story, explaining how you didn’t know, and things are over between you—”
A groan of agony rises in his throat. 
“—it will work. She gave you an out, Dieter. Take it.” 
His nostrils flare. Heat rises to his face and he hisses, “You never liked her, did you?”
Darlene scoffs, “What?”
“Did you even give her a chance, or did you just write her off the second you met her? That shit weasel from DIRT is the one that set all these fucking dominos up, did you know that?”
“No, of course not—”
“Dieter,” Mark sighs, “This isn’t personal. Look at the facts. You’ve done three stints in rehab just within the past decade. Beasts of the Bubble depicted you as a drug addict—Christ, you overdosed in that hotel. You just got divorced, had a ton of bad press from that. Now you’re in this very new, very serious relationship with a widowed felon. And, what, a week after swearing she’s a law-abiding citizen, cops find enough shit in her apartment to issue a warrant for her arrest? Do you know how that makes you look? Does it sound like you’re a person anyone could trust to sign onto a project?”
Dieter presses his palms against the kitchen counter and leans over the phone, “It sounds like you’ve already made a choice, Mark. You wanna drop me as a client, just fucking do it.” 
“If you make a public statement saying you were shocked to find out that she took advantage of your vulnerable state, you’re not using, blah blah blah, this could go away relatively quickly. Most likely she’d be painted as a con woman or gold digger or something along those lines, which makes you the victim. Granted, that makes you look a bit like a sucker, but we can live with that.” 
The nausea returns. 
“I can’t,” Dieter shakes his head, “I’m sorry, but I can’t live with that. Saying that she tried to steal my money—god, not a fucking chance in hell—”
“Of course, you wouldn’t say that,” Darlene cuts in, “People might infer that, is all Mark means. You know how this works—”
“Yes, I do know how it works. And no, I can’t. I won’t. It’s all fucking bullshit, the whole thing. Darlene, you’re bullshit,” he directs his voice to the phone, “Mark, you’re fucking bullshit. Fucking… optics and public opinion and the two of you trying to stage direct my fucking life—my life. Mine. I am my own person. And I love her. I’m going to find her, and fix this, and spend the rest of my fucking life with her even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else but us.” 
Darlene holds up her hand, “Dieter, you’re making a mistake—”
He laughs. 
It booms, dry and humorless, through the house.
She jumps in surprise at the noise, then looks at him like he’s fucking crazy. Which is fair. He sounds fucking crazy. 
But for once, he feels completely sane. 
His spine straightens flag pole and he shakes his head, “Trust me, Darlene. I’m not.” 
They sit there, staring at each other in a silent standoff. Her hazel eyes flick around his face, then drop to the phone.
“Mark, I’ll call you back.”
Darlene ends the call before Mark can respond and stomps around the dining room table to a solid oak credenza, popping the top off one of the decanters of booze. 
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I need a drink.”
“It’s 10am.” 
Whiskey sloshes into the crystal tumbler. Darlene glances over her shoulder at him, holding up the bottle in question. He sighs, which she interprets correctly as a yes, and pours a second glass. 
Dieter murmurs a thanks when she returns and hands it to him. He takes a big swallow of the liquor. Leaning back on the counter beside him, she does the same. 
“How’s she doing?” 
His stomach twists. 
He takes another swig and shrugs, then digs the note from his robe pocket and gives it to her. 
She reads it, then passes it back and empties her whiskey down her throat. 
“Fuck.”
“My thoughts exactly,” he mutters into the tumbler as he drinks the remaining booze in one large, burning gulp. 
“So you don’t know where she is?”
Dieter pinches his eyes closed, tilting his head up at the ceiling, and shakes his head, “She was gone when I woke up. Took her suitcase. Left her phone, funny enough.” 
After a brief silence, she tells him, “I didn’t know David was looking into her. Even if I did, I would never try to get her in trouble. You know that, right?” 
He shrugs. His shoulders weigh a million pounds. 
“Look,” she sighs, “Maybe I don’t see whatever it is you see in her, but I do see that you love each other.” 
“Yeah.”
“Do you think she’s turning herself in?”
He furrows his brow and looks down at the floor, shaking his head, “No.” 
Dieter breathes it in, that palpable emotion still clinging to the air. He sinks into the dense, dark feeling—blackest ink in the world—letting it carry him downstream. There’s a glimmer of something. A spark of you. 
He speaks it out loud. 
“She’s in the fucking woods now.” 
“In the woods? Dieter, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles, scrubbing his face with his hands, “I don’t fucking know. I’m scared, you know, with the note…”
He doesn’t want to say it. If he doesn’t speak it into existence, maybe it won’t be true, that you’re looking for a place to die. Like how dogs do when they’re ready, crawling off into isolation to protect their loved ones. 
Darlene stays quiet. 
He swallows hard and starts pacing the kitchen floor again, running his fingers through his hair, “If I can get the DA to drop the charges, maybe it won’t be too late. Maybe I can fix this. But I have to find her, too.“ A hot rush of frustration overtakes him. He slams his fist down on the countertop with a thud and barks, “FUCK!”
“Ok,” Darlene turns to face him, placing a hand on his arm, “It’s gonna be ok—”
“But what if it’s not?” 
Emotion clouds his vocal cords and vision, warping both into a wet, smeary mess as he says, “What if she fucking—fuck, Darlene, what if she goes through with this? I can’t do this without her. I won’t.” 
“We don’t know that this is a suicide note—”
His whole body twists up into a snarl, a guttural moan rising from his throat as the idea shreds him to bits. He shakes his head in protest, because he does, he knows that’s what this is, but he can’t fucking bear to speak its name. 
Darlene watches him unravel for a moment before taking the crystal tumblers back to the credenza for a refill. When she returns, she holds one out to him and asks, “We need a plan to track her down. Have any ideas?” 
He rolls his head on his shoulders to look at her, glancing down at the cup, “We?”
She nudges him again, so he takes it and sips while she grimaces, “If I didn’t raise hell about the interview and get David in trouble… who knows, maybe we wouldn’t be here. I doubt he was looking to write an exposé on her before that.” 
“Maybe. Maybe not,” he shrugs, “Doesn’t matter now.” 
“Still, I’m… sorry,” she stares down at her glass and swirls the amber liquid around a bit while telling him, “The contract, too. I’m sorry about that. Like Mark said, it’s not personal. It’s business.”
“I know.” 
“You’re sure, though? That you don’t want to corroborate her story?” 
“Yes, I’m sure I don’t want to throw the love of my life under the fucking bus, Darlene.” 
She holds up a hand in defense, “Ok—”
“Even if that’s what she wanted me to do, no fucking way. She’s a good fucking person and I won’t sit here and agree with people saying she’s some fucking lowlife, because she’s not—”
“Ok ok ok—Dieter, I understand. I was just making sure.” 
He huffs and takes a drink. 
An uncomfortable silence settles over them. The booze starts to course heat through Dieter’s veins, sedating his agitation, making his head swim. 
“If you’re not my publicist anymore, why the fuck are you still here?”
“Because I’m still your friend.” 
He looks over at her, meeting her hazel eyes, and senses sincerity. 
His jaw works back and forth. He takes another drink, then tells her, “I’m going to New York to meet with the DA. Lincoln should be here any minute, he’ll stay here in case she comes back while I’m gone. I’m gonna have him try to track her whereabouts, see if she left any breadcrumbs—”
“You have a meeting with the DA?” 
“Not… necessarily.” 
“Then, what—” she pinches the bridge of her nose, “I don’t wanna know, do I?” 
“Doubt it.” 
“Right,” she sighs, shakes her head, then starts pacing, “Well, if Lincoln is here, he can call around to places, but I’m assuming you don’t want him to leave the house? In case she comes back?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll help follow up. Call around, and if needed, go to the places she might be. See if I can’t track her down.” 
Hope swells in his chest. His posture softens, and he nods, “Thank you.” 
She waves him off, “You said she left her phone, right?” 
“Yeah, uhh,” he pulls it from his robe pocket and stares at the lock screen, “I felt, I dunno, weird… about going through it. So I haven’t yet.” 
Darlene holds out her manicured hand, so he gives it to her. 
“Zero two one four eight eight.” 
She types in the passcode and starts tapping around as she paces, sipping her whiskey every now and then. 
Meanwhile, Dieter finishes his drink and stares at the empty glass, wavering back and forth on whether or not to pour another. A hungry buzzing works through the tendons in his neck. There’s an old, familiar voice at the back of his head, urging him for more more more, begging, pleading for sedation, anything to make these big feelings less so. 
Booze would be great, but you have the morphine, too, or the coke, fuck—now would be the perfect time for coke. It would straighten out your thoughts. Sharpen you. It could help you, Dieter, really. Help you clear your head and get to the bottom of this fucking mess, it could be the thing that saves her—
“She made an outbound call this morning,” Darlene murmurs as she punches the number into her phone, then raises it to her ear. 
Dieter hears the faint voice from the speaker answer, “Hollywood Checker Cabs, how can I help you?” 
She snaps her fingers at Dieter and pantomimes writing. He scrambles around the kitchen trying to find paper and a writing utensil while she asks, “Hi, my friend ordered a cab early this morning and I’m trying to track where she might’ve been dropped off, can you help me with that?” 
Dieter finds a notebook on the counter. He pulls the pen from its spine and writes down your phone number and full name, then slides it over the island counter to Darlene, who nods and reads your phone number, then says, “Yeah, she called at 5:32, the pickup is—yep, that’s it, that’s her.” 
She grabs the pen and starts scribing. Every few seconds she murmurs an uh-huh or ok. 
Behind her, the door to the garage swings open and in comes Lincoln, carrying a brown paper bag and a backpack. 
Concern creases his forehead as he approaches, and drops the paper bag on the counter, whispering to Dieter, “What’s going on?”
“Shh.”
Darlene glances up at them, then back at the notebook, and nods, “That’s incredibly helpful, thank you. Appreciate it.” 
When she hangs up, she says, “The driver dropped her off at Union Station around 6:30 this morning,” then continues typing in her phone, “From there, she could’ve taken another taxi, or a bus, or a train—”
“She took a bus.”
Lincoln asks, “Who took a bus? Lua?” 
They both ignore the question. Darlene blinks up at Dieter, and before she can question him, he shrugs, “Gut feeling.” 
“Gut feeling,” she snorts, shaking her head, and tosses her phone in her bag with a sigh, “Well, I’ll drive over there and see if she’s still there. When does your flight leave?”
Dieter looks at Lincoln, who perks up and pulls out his phone, “Let’s see… A car will be here in… fifteen.” 
“I’ll call you when I know more, ok?” Darlene says as she pulls her purse up onto her shoulder. She regards Dieter for a second or two before patting him on the shoulder, “We’re gonna find her.” 
He doesn’t trust himself to verbalize the uncertainty churning in his guts, so he acknowledges the sentiment with a flaccid smile and a nod, thinking, “I fucking hope so.”
“Hey, this is Louella, sorry I missed you. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back, thanks.” 
“Hey, love. I’m, uhh… leaving you an update, I guess. I’m going to New York to sort this shit out, talk to some people, see what I can do. But if you get this somehow, please, baby… please come home. Ok. I love you, bye.” 
Suspended miles above the Midwest, with Dieter packed in a tin can alongside all the other mouth-breathing sardines, the in-flight WiFi goes out.
He tries watching a movie, but none of the information computes. His mind keeps wandering to you. What you’re doing, where you are, why you didn’t just fucking wake him up and talk to him. 
Seconds twist under his skin. 
The minutes lodge inside his throat. 
The tiny screen could be showing him fucking anything, and his demeanor wouldn’t change a drop. 
Tight-lipped. Hostile. Dead-eyed. 
That’s what he gleans, anyway, from the way people react to his presence. The downcast glances and wide berths. How the flight attendant doesn’t even try to protest when he requests four mini-bottles of vodka. 
Wincing with every swallow, Dieter drinks them and scrolls through his text history with you. It’s not uncommon for him to do this while idly passing the time alone, within the past few months especially. 
Re-reading each conversation, admiring the photos and screenshots, allowing himself to daydream about you… usually, he finds it comforting. 
This time it’s different. 
It’s steeped in the knowledge that he may never receive another message from you. 
Flipping his phone face down on the little shitty tray, he looks up at the Q*bert air vent and releases a big sigh. The thoughts of you creep back into his brain. He doesn’t shoo them away, though. It’s fucking pointless. 
Please understand that I couldn’t make you choose. That burden shouldn’t rest on you. 
A burden. 
What a load of shit. 
As if he wouldn’t let hellfire lick his bones to dust for one more earthly second with you. As if you don’t revive him every single time your lips meet his. As if he could breathe without you in the atmosphere. 
Of fucking course he would choose you. 
Over anything, really. Especially acting. Fuck, maybe that’s exactly what he needs. It’s all just stupid Hollywood bullshit anyway. Being owned by a dozen different people at any point in time. Everyone trying to get their finger in the goddamn pie. He’s tired of being a billboard first and a human second. 
The more he thinks about it, the madder he gets. He douses his stomach with vodka, thinking about the fame machine, how it chewed you up and spit you out in no time at all. 
He resents the public spotlight. His whole adolescence, he dreamed of having a successful career as an actor. He worked hard and got lucky and his dreams came to life, and now, well… he’s right back where he started. 
Watching, helpless and terrified, as the person he loves gets pummeled half to death. 
Dieter leans on the doorframe and gives apartment 14C three firm knocks. 
The blaring music inside cuts. Parker stomps up to the other side of the door, “Who is it?” 
“Fucking Santa Claus, who do you think?” 
A thunk sounds from the deadbolt, then Parker swings the door open, propping a hand on his hip and shaking his head, “Santa Claus? Really?”
His face is fully dragged up in the style of Jackie Lantern, with blue eyeshadow and hot pink lips and harsh contour, while the rest of him is Regular Parker, with sweatpants and a baggy Bikini Kill t-shirt. 
“Ho ho ho,” Dieter enters the cozy, dimly lit apartment and pulls him into a one-armed hug, “Good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too,” Parker mumbles as he wraps his lanky arms around Dieter and squeezes, “Wish it was under better circumstances.” 
“Me too, bud,” Dieter takes a step back and ventures into what looks like a new-age opium den. 
Incense and pot smoke cloud the air. A loom-woven tapestry, depicting a unicorn standing triumphant in a field of wildflowers, takes up almost the entire wall behind a well-worn sofa. On the opposite wall, at least 50 framed bug specimens hang on display. 
Between the deep-seated couch and the TV sits a big octagonal coffee table, its glass top all littered with books and water bottles and cannabis paraphernalia. 
Dieter, finding none of this surprising, looks around and nods, “Nice place.“
Parker bolts the door closed and turns to scan Dieter up and down, “Nice suit.”
“I hate this fucking thing,” he mutters, rolling his shoulders in a feeble attempt to make more room inside the jacket, then points to Parker’s sweatpants, “Is that what you’re wearing?”
“Shade,” Parker scoffs and starts off down the short hallway into his bedroom, “I’ll be ready in a minute, help yourself to whatever.”
“Where do you keep your liquor?”
“On top of the fridge.” 
Dieter wanders into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of whiskey from its home, then starts flipping through cabinets. When he finds the one with cups, he calls out to Parker, “Want a drink?” 
“Lord, please.”
He unscrews the cap and pours two generous servings. Before returning the bottle, he takes a pull off it. The cheap booze burns the whole way down, settling like fire in his belly. 
Parker comes stomping back into the room, clawing at the back of his blue sequin gown, “Do me a favor, love, help me zip this?”
Dieter signals for him to spin around, then guides the zipper up his bony back as Parker asks, “Any updates from your neck of the woods?”
He taps on his shoulder, giving him the all clear. 
Parker turns and leans back against the galley kitchen’s countertop opposite Dieter, who hands him a drink. 
“Yeah,” Dieter nods, takes a sip of the shitty whiskey, then explains, “Darlene was able to convince the security team at Union Station to let her review footage from this morning. At 6:30 this morning, Lua boarded a Greyhound bus that dropped her off in Fresno around 11:00. Darlene couldn’t get much over the phone from them, so she’s driving up there to raise hell, see what she can find out.” 
The words come out dull and matter-of-fact. Offline, disconnected from the treasure chest labeled LUA. 
Parker studies him, “How’re you holding up, papi, you doing ok?” 
“No.” 
He stares down into his cup and thinks he should probably say something else, but comes up with nothing. It feels both pointless and too painful. 
“Wanna talk about it?” 
“No.” 
When he glances up at Parker, and their eyes meet, he recognizes the melancholy there. His own, reflected back at him. 
He shifts a little and adds, “After we get this part over with, though, maybe we can… I don’t know, get hammered, cry about it. Drown our sorrows or whatever. If you want.” 
The corner of Parker’s hot pink lips turns up in a smirk and he chuckles, “Long as we don’t get arrested doing this stupid ass shit, I will take you up on that.” 
“We’re not gonna get arrested, I promise. He’ll take the offer.”
“And how do you know that?”
Dieter could make a reference to The Godfather here, or mention the thick wads of cash lining his Armani suit, but thinks better of it. Probably best he doesn’t know. 
Instead, he asks, “Do you trust me?” 
“You know we wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” 
“Then trust me, we’re gonna be fine. Just follow the plan.” 
Parker snorts and shakes his head, muttering something about ‘you cryptic ass motherfucker’ into his glass as he takes a sip. 
Dieter drinks, too, then tells him, “I like your dress.” 
“Thanks,” he smiles, eyes flicking to the clock on the stove, “Fuck, I gotta finish getting ready or we’re gonna be late.” 
“Can I pick out your hair?” 
Parker groans a little, feigning annoyance. He pushes off the counter and starts towards his room, “Fine, but I reserve the right to veto.” 
“Hey, this is Louella, sorry I missed you. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back, thanks.” 
“Hey, doll, it’s me. I’m uhh… in New York, at Parker’s place—”
“Who are you talking to?”
“I’m leaving her a message.”
“Give it, I wanna say something.”
“Just hold on—”
“Hey Miss Lou, I love you, I miss you, and let me tell you, your boy is a goddamn mess. And, um… so am I. I’m worried about you—we’re worried about you. Just… let us know you’re ok, ok?”
“Me again. We’re gonna go fix this. I love you, Louella. Please come home.” 
Instead of conversing en route to the Metropolitan Opera House, they pass a flask of whiskey back and forth and occasionally sing along to the music on Jackie Lantern’s “PUSSY POWER” playlist. 
Although neither of them mention it, Dieter knows they’re essentially doing the same thing. Hyping themselves up. Trying to ban the performance anxiety from their brains as they get into character. 
By the time he and Parker arrive at Metropolitan Opera House, the booze has fully assimilated into Dieter’s bloodstream. 
Thank fucking god. 
It grinds down the coarse edges of reality and allows him to slip effortlessly into a familiar skin.
Dieter Bravo: Washed-up Actor. 
Dieter Bravo: Party Monster. 
Dieter Bravo: Brazen Jackass. 
A carefully curated persona so convincing, it had him fooled for years before you coaxed the real him out of hiding. 
That guy, the real him, or whatever the fuck, is not the right man for this job. Too soft. Too emotional. Guy is a pansy, he would fucking cry or make a scene or something. 
Seriously. 
He has no jurisdiction here. 
Here, in this glitzy opera house, among the other black-tie patrons who regard him and Jackie Lantern with a kind of grotesque curiosity that guy couldn’t fucking handle. 
But, Dieter Bravo: Attention Whore? 
Eating. This. Shit. Up. 
“Literal fucking pearl clutching, ho-ly shit,” he murmurs to Jackie’s big, white blonde afro wig as they walk up the red carpeted stairs into the lobby. 
It opens up into a huge space that reminds him of a cave. 
Brightly-lit, thanks to the starburst chandeliers dripping from the ceiling like stalactites, but a cave all the same. All four stories of shining white marble look to be hollowed out over centuries. Smooth, curved staircases flowing into terraces, filled with hundreds of well-dressed people and the abstract murmur of their conversations. 
For the millionth time today, he wishes you were here. 
You would be awestruck, gazing around with starry eyes that would make him appreciate its beauty that much more. You would look at him, in that way you do, and everyone else would melt away. You would smile and make those crystal chandeliers look like bare fluorescent bulbs. Put the goddamn place to shame. 
“Whaddaya think, sugar? Get a drink?” 
He glances up at Jackie over the rim of his sunglasses and tosses his sloshy head back and forth, trying to gauge how drunk he actually is, then shrugs, “Fuck it, why not.” 
She leads the way while Dieter follows in her wake, delighting at the number of people who ogle Jackie, with her big hair and her commanding presence and her blue gown, shimmering aqua and cyan and turquoise in the light. 
Only a few people seem to notice him trailing behind her. Fewer yet glint any tell-tale signs of recognition. The little upright jolt. The furrowed brow leaping into a surprised expression. The whispered “Is that who I think it is?” to the person beside them. Or, his favorite, the scramble to grab their phone and snap a photo. 
They order drinks and find a tall table in the corner to lean against. From this vantage point, they survey the crowd for their subjects. 
“How much does your man know?”
“My man,” Jackie mutters to herself with a little scoff, glancing down at her martini, “He’s not my man. I’m just a rental.” 
Dieter peels his eyes away from the crowd to look at her, “A rental?”
“Not good enough to invest in long-term.”
His head rocks back in understanding, and he frowns, “How long have you been seeing him?”
“Off and on for two years.” 
As she says this, she looks up, flicking her eyes around the room. Then she zeroes in on something. Her posture perks to attention. That little glint of recognition. 
Dieter follows her gaze to what can only be described as the most average looking white man in Manhattan. Dusty blonde hair, athletic build, black suit. 
He would’ve completely overlooked the guy if not for the precision of Jackie’s stare. 
Well, that and the fact that you’ve gone on your fair share of angry rants about the man, which involved you showing Dieter his Instagram. This is how he also recognizes the mousy woman standing at his side. 
“He brought his wife?”
“Yeah.” 
“Have you two me—”
“Nope.” 
The sullen aura radiating off her makes Dieter tick his jaw back and forth. He looks between her and Reese, then asks, “Does he know the plan?” 
“Kind of,” she shrugs, “Bare bones, enough to maintain plausible deniability.” 
“Uh huh. How did Reese know about Mr. Lindorm’s uhhh…” 
He scrunches his face up and turns his wrist around, trying to find the right word. 
Jackie raises an eyebrow, “Proclivities?” 
“I was gonna say fetish, but sure.” 
She lands a playful smack on his arm, then sighs, “Sometimes it’s best I don’t ask.”
“Don’t ask don’t tell, good policy.” 
This earns him a side-eye with very little humor attached. Sore spot. Fuck. 
“Look,” he leans harder on the table, “All I’m saying is you could do better. No doubt about it. You uhh… I don’t know. You deserve someone who loves you so much, they would pluck the stars from the sky and craft them into a crown for you. Not someone who keeps you a secret.” 
“Craft them into a—?” She blinks at him, “Ok, papi, what the fuck’re you talking about?” 
He tries to formulate an answer, to figure out where the fuck that came from, but admits, “Fuck if I know.”
“I’m cutting you off.” 
“I am not that drunk.” 
“Better not be, cuz it’s fuckin’ showtime. Here they come.” 
“Sorry to interrupt.” 
He looks to the source, flicking his gaze up and down Reese’s neat tuxedo. 
Reese extends his hand, “I don’t believe we’ve met, but I’m Senator Reese Bernard—”
“I don’t endorse political campaigns, sorry.” 
He starts to turn back to Jackie, who mirrors the action, then Reese, right on cue, says, “Oh, no. Nothing like that, I’m just a big fan. Could I buy you and your um,” his eyes shift to Jackie, “Companion a drink? Maybe pick your brain for a bit?” 
Dieter finds himself slightly surprised with Reese’s acting ability. That is, until he remembers the man acts every single day of his life. He raises his eyebrows in question at Jackie, who holds his gaze and shrugs, “Fine by me.” 
“Alright, yeah.”
A boyish grin spreads across Reese’s face, then he turns to the little mouse of a woman behind him and murmurs something to her, jerking his head towards the bar. 
She nods and walks off as Reese joins their table, glancing between Dieter and Jackie, “Well, this is certainly a way to shake things up at the opera, huh? Kind of exciting,” he settles his gaze on Jackie, giving her a charming smile, “You look gorgeous.” 
“Thanks, love,” she tilts her head at him, batting her lashes. 
The way they look at each other, all goo-goo eyes, inspires Dieter to finish his drink. When he slams the empty glass down on the table, they both jump, snapping out of their nauseating little bubble. 
“When’s our guy supposed to be here?” 
“Ahhhh,” Reese frowns at his watch, then starts searching the lobby, “Should already be around somewhere. We always meet him and the missus over here for a drink before the show.”  
“You guys do this often?” 
He shrugs, “Every couple of weeks or so. Not really my cup of tea, or his even, but the gals love it.” 
“Cute,” Dieter mutters. 
Jackie shoots him a look, then asks Reese, “Do you really think this is gonna work?” 
“Oh, definitely, definitely. The guy is smart when it comes to law, but thinks with his dick when it comes to most everything else,” he smirks at her, “And you’re just his type.” 
In response, Dieter grunts and searches the room. His head feels weighted, brain sloshing around in the sea of alcohol he consumed throughout the day. 
Maybe he should switch to water for a while, slow down this freight train. 
Or maybe we should go in a different direction. Try to get a hold of something that will straighten us out. 
This thought overrides his entire body, blaring and hot and uncomfortable in his veins, and he wonders if that’s why it’s called an impulse. 
Wouldn’t it make you feel better? 
His leg starts to bounce. He grits his teeth and reminds himself that he promised you he wouldn’t use cocaine again. Reminds himself of what you said in return:
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Your voice in his head makes his heart flutter, while the content of your statement sits heavy in his stomach, warring with that concentrated dose of urgency buzzing through him. 
“There he is,” Jackie murmurs into her wine glass, “Over by the stairs.”
Jerking to attention like he fell asleep at the wheel, Dieter follows her laser-focused gaze to a distinguished salt-and-pepper man posing for a photo with a tall blonde woman. 
The way they stand next to each other, all rigid and precise, their perfect, practiced smiles spread wide beneath dead eyes… it strikes him as familiar. 
Middle-aged Barbie and Ken. 
A fair comparison, although she looks closer to 20 than 40. Either that or she has a stellar plastic surgeon. 
There’s something else, though. 
It’s in the way they take a big step apart when the photographer gets his shot. How they seem to be bickering at each other out the side of their faces between fake smiles. 
Anika and Dieter. 
He studies them with a morbid kind of curiosity, wondering if that’s what they would have eventually been like if they tried to make it work. If, almost a year ago, he would’ve gone home to her instead of boarding that plane to New York. 
They would’ve fought about it. Maybe they would’ve cried and had make-up sex. He probably would’ve gone to rehab, and couples counseling, and, hell, maybe they would’ve had a kid or something. Things would’ve felt real and good with her for a while. 
But it would have faded. 
After a while, he would have strayed again. He would have started getting high and fucking around all the time. He knows this like he knows you’re alive, like he just knows things, certain and right at the very core of him: He never would have found peace until he found you. 
Instinctually, he wants to say you changed him, that you made him want to be a better man. But it dawns on him, with stunning clarity, that you didn’t. You didn’t change him any more than an astronomer changes the universe when they discover a star. 
Which is to say, darling, that you just brought him into focus so he could see himself for who he really is. 
Anything else would have been a plastic, miserable cohabitation. 
As this sinks in, that hungry buzzing in his chest wanes. He understands that he can’t break his promise to you. More aptly, he won’t, because he’s not that man anymore. 
Sometimes things go sideways. 
For instance, sometimes the love of your life thinks that disappearing is the best solution to both save your career and evade a second felony. 
Sometimes, though… the universe aligns in your favor, and a plan goes off better than you ever could have imaged. 
Sometimes your girlfriend’s best friend’s boyfriend’s wife, who Dieter eventually learns is named Rachel, runs into her friends, Mr. and Mrs. District Attorney, on her way back from the bar and invites them to join your table. 
They introduce themselves as John and—no fucking joke—Barbara Lindorm. Just as Reese predicted, John is captivated by Jackie the second he lays eyes on her. He occupies the open space next to her and laughs at her jokes, frequently splitting off into quiet little side conversations, where Dieter hears him ask where she’s from, what she does for a living, and whether she and Dieter are dating—which is great news, because it means he has not placed him as Dieter Bravo: Louella Friedman’s Meddlesome Boyfriend. 
If Barbara notices her husband flirting, she doesn’t let it show. Dieter surmises it’s because he’s doing a bit of flirting himself, letting his gaze linger on her longer than appropriate, complimenting her dress, her hair, her nails. Not because he’s interested or anything, but rather to provide a bit of a distraction while Jackie reels in her husband. 
It’s a little fucked up, sure, but you’d understand. Think big picture, baby. The greater good or whatever. 
At one point, he sees Jackie pull out her phone and tell John, “Oh, I have to show you this picture from my last show, you’ll love this.” 
This is the move. The part where she shows him a typed out message telling him to follow her at intermission. 
Dieter calls attention to the other side of the table, asking Reese, “So, what, do you guys have regular seats or something? Since you come here so often.”
Reese sees the setup and nods, “Oh, definitely. A box, actually, they’re great seats—“ he cuts himself off with a gasp, slamming his palms down on the table, “Hold on, I’m getting a crazy idea. The other couple we usually come here with dropped out at the last minute. Do you two want their seats?” 
Dieter glances over at Barbara, meeting her demure gaze, while he hears John murmur to Jackie, “You’re right, I do love that.”
“Why the hell not,” he licks his lips and shrugs, departing from Barbara’s eyes to meet Reese’s, “Let’s keep this party rolling.” 
Reese grins, “Fantastic! Ok, do you guys wanna go now, or…?”
The lights wax and wane in brightness a few times, signaling curtain call, and Dieter smirks, “Lead the way.” 
While waiting for the gilded curtains to part, Dieter flips through the program for Ariadne auf Naxos, tuning out the meaningless chit chat taking place around him. 
He skims the synopsis provided, mostly just trying to look busy. One sentence catches his attention. 
Ariadne is alone in front of her cave. 
He tilts his head at it, lingering for a moment before resuming the skim. His eyes snag on the words stars vanish, then backtrack to the beginning of the sentence. 
Entranced by Ariadne’s beauty, Bacchus tells her that he would sooner see the stars vanish than give her up.
Like he did with the last line, Dieter stares at it, slightly stunned. He shifts in his seat, glancing around before leaning over the program to re-read the opera’s synopsis from the beginning. 
The passage briefly recounts the story of Ariadne, who assisted Thesus in escaping a labyrinth because she loved him. They were betrothed, and Ariadne left her family to be with him. On the trip home, Thesus abandoned her on a remote island while she was sleeping.
Ariadne woke and found herself alone on the beach. Heartbroken, she longed to die. When Bacchus arrived on the island, Ariadne first thought he was the messenger of death, then mistook him for Thesus. Bacchus explained that he was neither, he was a god. They fell in love and rose into the heavens. 
Dieter sits back in his seat and fidgets, trying to find comfort despite this goddamn suit jacket, all stiff and tight with wads of cash. Despite the painful parallels his mind keeps drawing. 
You are fucking everywhere. 
The opera. The crystal galaxy chandeliers that hang from what looks like a bright white tunnel into the afterlife. The scalloped ceiling, backlit with a warm, golden light, reminding him of goldfish scales. 
Are they signs or is he just losing his fucking mind? 
“Probably both,” he mutters to himself. 
Jackie looks up from her program at him, raising an eyebrow, “What?”
He shakes his head, nervously tugging at the whiskers that sprout from his jawline. 
Before she can prod him further, the chandeliers float up into the white abyss and all of the lights dim, then the curtains part. 
As soon as intermission starts, Jackie is on her feet. 
John waits one cool second before excusing himself and following her into the hall. Reese hears this and turns around in his seat, asking Barbara how she likes the show so far. As she leans forward and begins to answer him, Reese locks eyes with Dieter and gives him a wink of approval. 
Dieter nods and rises to his feet, then slips into the hall, weaving his way through the crowd.
See, when Jackie used to work catering gigs here, she got to know a member of the opera house staff who showed her a few private rooms that aren’t necessarily secret, but aren’t exactly advertised, either. They’re reserved for VIPs, when they want them, but mostly remain unoccupied during performances. 
He follows the path Jackie mapped out for him earlier today to an unlabeled door on level three. Inside, he hears a familiar giggle and knows it’s the right one. 
He pats down his suit jacket with both hands, double checking that he didn’t somehow drop all his money en route, then grabs the doorknob, twists it, and pushes the door open to reveal the smallest Victorian parlor he’s ever seen in his life. 
It contains an antique sofa, a coffee table, and an armchair in the corner, and still feels cramped. The back wall is entirely occupied by a mirror. Probably an attempt to make the room look bigger. 
On the ornate red sofa, Miss Jackie Lantern and Mister District Attorney are so busy making out, neither of them seem to notice his presence. 
Dieter makes a point of closing the door with a loud bang. John jumps up and starts scrambling away from Jackie, his face all covered in hot pink lipstick, stammering out clichés, “I can explain, this isn’t what it looks like—”
“Save it, that’s not what this is,” Dieter waves him off as he approaches the couch, unbuttoning his suit jacket. 
“What is this, then?” he looks from Dieter, who shucks off his jacket and sits down beside him, to Jackie, “A three way?” 
Jackie sticks out her bottom lip in a sympathetic manner, shaking her head. 
“This is an opportunity.”
John turns to him, narrowing his eyes, “Explain.” 
“Well, see,” Dieter tosses his jacket on the coffee table, “I’m going to give you a stupid amount of money, I mean—really, truly, a fucking obscene amount of money. In return, you’ll drop the charges against Louella Friedman.” 
He studies Dieter carefully.
“You and I both know that warrant was bullshit. Based on witness statements obtained by fucking paps, really?” Dieter clicks his tongue against his teeth and shakes his head, “That man is a gossip monger with a grudge. Zero fucking credibility. It wouldn’t hold up in court. It would be a waste of everyone’s time and money. This is an opportunity to cut through the red tape and get a little something for yourself in return.” 
John sits back, crossing his arms. He frowns at the jacket for a while, seemingly running calculations in his head, then asks, “How much?” 
“Hundred thousand.”
His eyebrows make a surprised jump. He presses his knuckles to his lips, considering this. His leg starts bouncing. He looks between Dieter and Jackie, these quick, sharp glares, “I don’t appreciate being set up like this.” 
Dieter nods in acknowledgment. Jackie just blinks at him. 
He releases a big sigh. 
Sitting up, he grabs the jacket and digs into one of the pockets, then pulls out a few $10,000 bundles. 
As he inspects them, Dieter asks, “Well?” 
“You two are good,” John chuckles, then extends his hand to Dieter, “I’ll look into her case for you, see what we can do.” 
He takes it, giving him an overly enthusiastic shake, “Good man. Thank you.”
“Louella Friedman?”
“That’s right. I, uhhh—I put her info in the front pocket.” 
“Got it.” 
Dieter stands and looks at Jackie, nodding to the door. 
“Thanks, Johnny,” she winks, then rises to her feet and starts towards the door. 
“Thank you, Jackie,” he grins at her for a second before returning to Dieter, “And thank you.” 
“My pleasure,” Dieter pulls up the sleeves on his dress shirt, “Don’t spend it all in one place.” 
John laughs at this, so Dieter feels compelled to clarify, “No, but really, the IRS might start asking questions if you do. So—don’t, ok?” 
“Oh, well, yeah—”
Dieter turns on his heel and follows Jackie out of the room, closing the door behind him. 
“Johnny?” he raises an eyebrow at her as they walk away.
“He’s kinda cute. Good kisser.”
“Thinking about adding him to your roster?”
She snorts and gives him a playful shove, “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
Within thirty seconds of entering the apartment, Jackie has locked herself in the bathroom with the shower running. 
Dieter collapses on the couch and slowly dismantles the remains of his suit, unknotting the bow-tie, taking off his dress shirt, wriggling out of his pants, until he’s left in boxers and an undershirt. 
Exhaustion, emotional and physical, drains any remaining adrenaline from this evening’s success from his limbs. 
Figuring it will take a while for the de-Jackiefication to take place in the bathroom, he checks his phone for updates, then decides to call and leave you a message before letting sleep take over. 
“Hey, this is Louella, sorry I missed you. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back, thanks.” 
“Hey, doll, it’s me. It is… just after midnight here in New York. Just wanted to let you know, I talked to the DA. He’s dropping the charges, because they’re bullshit, and uhhh… yeah. You can come out now, if you want. I… I miss you. All day I missed you. I wish you were here, and—listen, Lua, I get what you’re doing. You think you’re saving me or something by disappearing, but let me tell you, you are fucking not. Ok? I don’t think you understand… you save me every single day. Just by loving me. The acting, publicity, fucking—whatever, none of that fucking matters to me. I swear to god. You are—you are it for me. The end all be all. My sun, my moon, the stars, you are my whole fucking universe. You are… everything to me, Louella. I love you. I hope I see you soon.” 
[ Next Chapter ]
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red1culous · 10 months
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Loved
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“…but you see you would need to put into context those slugs against the slugs of the world.” She hears your voice through carried on the air. Careful to avoid the loose plank on the floor she keeps in the shadows as much as possible walking in the direction of your voice. 
“Like what?” A tiny voice asks and she hears you chuckle softly. 
Natasha shuffles to the threshold of the door. It stands ajar so she peeks inside. She sees you perched on the edge of Morgan’s bed hugging one of her elephant plushies. Morgan is tucked into bed propped against too many pillows it looks like she’s being swallowed by bedding. 
“Well…” you continue as you take the opportunity to bop her button nose, “have you heard of the banana slug?”
Morgan scrunches her nose in slight disgust and Nat has to hold back a giggle of her own. “Eww no what is thatttt?” She whines. 
“That, sweet girl, is a slug this big” you raise your arms out in front and to your side and Morgan’s eyes grow as wide as width of as your arms. She pulls the covers over her head and screeches in horror. 
You laugh and weakly wrestle with her trying to pull the covers back down. “You wanna hear some more?” You say with a pause as you ask softly searching the covers for her a glimpse of her face. “Or do you wanna…” you continue but she cuts you off with a loud “yeaaaa” followed by an even louder yawn. 
“Ok well,” you say as you tuck her back into bed and stroke her hair a few times, “this slug gives off slime, or mucilage as it’s called, that’s so thick and gelatinous,” you pause noting how her eyes start to droop, “unctuous you might say,” you smile running your fingers slowly over her eyelids forcing them to close, “that it can slide down a razor blade and be unharmed” you finish your sentence reducing the volume of your voice as you reach your conclusion. You wait watching her to make sure she’s really gone to sleep. Once satisfied you whisper as you leave a kiss on her forehead, “good night sweet girl”.
Gently you ease yourself off the bed and creep towards the door. When you get close enough Natasha pushes the door open wider and your eyes shine when you see her standing there. 
“Hi” she says taking hold of the hand you offer her. 
“Hi baby. How long have you been standing there?” You smirk when she pulls you in for a chaste kiss to the lips. 
“Long enough to learn more than I’d want to about slugs” she smiles as you lock your fingers behind her neck holding her there. 
You groan and hide your face in the crook of her neck. “You must think I’m such a nerd,”
She chuckles into your hair. “It’s a good thing I find nerds kinda hot.”
You turn your head slightly and start to kiss her neck. “Mmm” you moan, “you smell good”.
“And you shouldn’t be doing that here” she answers bringing her lower lip in between her teeth holding back a moan of her own. 
You bite down on the supple flesh of her neck and she digs her nails into the backs of your forearms. 
“Sorry” you soothe the skin with your tongue. 
She laughs. “No you’re not.”
“No I’m not” you repeat her words and place a kiss to her hot flesh. 
“Let’s get out of here” she untangles herself from you and leads you away by the hand, “you can tell me more about your slugs”. 
You wrap her arm over your shoulder letting her lead you down an endless corridor past wood panelled doors. “Or I could just show you the biggest slug…” you say wriggling your eyebrows at her. 
She cuts you off with a kiss to the forehead before you are able to finish that sentence, “you’re really disgusting sometimes, you know that”.
-----
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saigawrites · 10 months
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My dear gelatin orb pet,
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Seelie! Genshin x Platonic! Gn! Reader
Inazuma edition
Tags : crack, fluff, scenarios, headcanons
Warninigs : mentions of stalking, animal attack
Summary : you took home a strange creature that looked nothing like anything in your world. So you somehow try to live and be friends with the peculiar pet of yours.
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A strange flying orb is now basking in your presence, observing you attentively. Uneasiness filled your entire being as you were stared down at, so you attempted to break the suffocating atmosphere by talking to the orbit. Minutes pass, and there is no reaction whatsoever, until the little thing flies off somewhere, only to return with a torn off paper sheet and a pencil in their tiny nubs.
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Heizou ♥︎
"Hey~! I am Heizou, the great detective of Inazuma! It sure was a dream of mine to one day meet someone as odd as you! I hope we can get along with each other, even with our different physical traits. I was wondering, could I please make a psychological study with you? I want to know if there's any more oddities about you, especially your mind!"
Okay, why is this period blood blob trying to attempt psychological experiments with you now? You just met, and he's already looking through your soul 🧐.
You might suck at geography but you never heard anything about the so called 'Inazuma'. Wait, so he's an alien?
That theory have already explained why he was so interested in your psychology, and honestly, you were kind of scared of him after the realization.
But it was still hard to feel threatened by an dark red floating circle with a little bouncing antenna. Maybe he used that to communicate with his species?
You weren't familiar with the behavior of different creatures from another planets, but you discovered that these one seemed to be extra clingy.
He floats after you everywhere, always watching with the most attentive gaze, looking out for any type of quirks you might have. You became all the more aware of him, secretly staring at him with your peripheral vision so that he couldn't try anything funny🤨.
He would startle you a lot, annoying you and scaring you on purpose. He LOVES your reactions, whether it would be you losing your temper and tossing him around like a basketball, or you screaming at the top of your lungs when you feel something slimy wiggle under your shirt.
You're lucky that he doesn't do that all the time. Surprisingly, the cherry colored orb has his own business to do, which is just as strange as his appearance. He likes to go out, watch and stalk random people on the street. You found out when you caught him red-handed in the act, hiding behind a bush and looking at all the people passing by.
You tried to scold him, tell him that it's dangerous to go around for him like that, but to no avail, he would always nod in confirmation and then do the same thing on the next day.
So you decided to find him a hobby, something that would distract him long enough from harassing strangers on the streets. And that is, television. News channels in particular.
It was completely accidental when you found out about his interest. You were extra bored, and decided to finally watch the TV in like a decade. Soon you found your crimson red companion levitating in the hall, glancing at the TV and back to you a few times before flying to your side and nuzzling in your lap, making himself comfortable in your warm hoodie. Petting his tiny body, you both took in the situations happening all around the world.
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Arataki Itto ♡
"HEY THERE!!! IM THE FAMOUS ARATAKI ITTO!! THE LEDER OF THE ARATAKI GANG!!! ITS NICE TO MEET YOU!!! WHATS YOUR NAME? LETS BE FRIENDS!! YOU LOOK SO COOL!!!! DO YOU WANT TO JOIN MY GANG?"
Woah, that's one... energetic light bulb. Bouncing on your office table cheerily while his long vertical horns wobble a bit, he squeaks excitedly as if he just found out he won a lottery. Well, he kinda did though, if you're the one to take care of him.
At least that's what he thinks, as your demonstration of desiring to bathe him from all the dirt and dust he somehow gathered gave him all the right signals.
Even if he splashed and spilled all the water onto you, and wiggled and squeaked under the turned on faucet like an over-energized parrot, still, you would rub his soapy circular body with care, patting him with the softest towel of yours that he was sure you were the fittest blob-parent of all.
Did I mention parrots? He is one. An even more chaotic one. You have to hold him with your most strong grasp from him speeding across your house like a flash, bouncing off walls, ceiling and the floor like a deflated balloon. You always have to scold him like a concerned parent about how his form is not exactly unbreakable, and he still needs to be careful with surroundings.
And that escalated into him finding your bed as the best trampoline he can access. You want to stop him and tell him that he's going to break the carcass if he continues, but you just can't resist the sight of a palm sized jelly ball jumping on your bed gleefully, ridiculously rotating in the air as he lets happy sounds escape his nonexistent vocal cords.
Sometimes you would curse the universe for making your circle companion this cute, because he sure can cause a lot of trouble. Almost getting mauled by the neighbors dog because he wanted to pet it two days ago and almost breaking all of your glass dishes because he wanted to help you make the table yesterday. Oh boy, I'm sure excited for what's in store for the future😀.
Though, it was what you should've expected from a supposed gang leader. He even invited you to be a member of this band of his, remember?
You do agree now with all those shoujo mangas where the gangsta would actually be a softie inside, because your glowing orange ball friend sure is, no matter how destructive he acts.
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Yae miko ♥︎
"My, my... such a interesting creature you are! It is sure a blessing for me to be in your presence, another amusing humanoid~. I am the Guuji of the Grand Narukami shrine, Yae Miko. I am also the owner of the Yae publishing house. As a grandee of the kitsune clan, it is a pleasure of mine to be familiar with such a high being like you. I am in your care from now on, my dear~"
WHAT IS THIS LIGHT PINK DOWNTURNED FOX EARS GAS FILLED BALLOON ON🗣🙌💯🔥🔥
On all seriousness though, you tried your hardest to understand atleast half of what she wrote, but so far what you seemed to catch is that she's nowhere near an earth creature. Oh and her name is Yae Miko.
Confusedly glancing at her then at her message, your nerve cells steamed as they tried to figure out what type of emotions you should be feeling in this case. The guuji seemed to be quite entertained by your puzzled face and somewhat judging side eye.
Her actions make you no less confused, as you question why would she harshly tug on your clothes at the most randomest times of the day. Out of nowhere, the pink squishy orb would just sail in the air over to you, and then pinch a spot on your clothed body and pull it with an incomprehensible strength.
Which leads you to chasing her, speeding up after her oddly fast self. With groans and screams you would finally catch up to her and squeeze her annoying ass to smitherins☠.
If you don't react to her antics, she'll keep being even more of an ass and pinch on your skin, hard. So far atleast half of your body now itches and pulsates because of your flying jelly companion.
Other than annoying you, the cherry blossom blob with ears likes to do research. Literally on anything. It ranges from politics, history, culture to bitcoin, nfts and all of the other shady stuff. She doesn't take half of the happening seriously, finding the stupidity of your kind ridiculous.
Oh, and she is going to shove it in your face. Always giggling when you two would watch an educational video on some topic, as if making fun of you. When she would write her opinion on your communication notebook she would always leave a snide remark like "the absurd that your kind ensues never ceases to humour me" or some shit.
She really just makes fun of your whole existence as if she's superior in any way. You do your best to hold yourself and not slap her into the oblivion. Oh, but she knows you would never do that. She knows.
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Kokomi ♡
“I, Sangonomiya Kokomi, want to greatly express my gratitude towards your actions, human-like creature with a pure soul. Your kindness will always be remembered and appreciated in my heart. Now, as you read this, I shall, as the grand seigneur of Watatsumi affairs, be taken care of by you, as you are in capability to do so. I am one of the descendants of the Sangonomiya clan, and my full form being taken away from me is a major cause of danger for me. I hope you understand my demands, and I hope you will comply with them.”
A lot of confusing words and hard to spell names didn’t stop you from looking at her with puppy eyes and an ‘aww’ escaping your lips. Even though her tone might sounded a bit bossy near the end, your inner mother instincts still kicked in and your heart swore to protect the light globule that looked at you with anticipation.
Her colour pallet reminded you of aqua monsters, something along the lines of mermaids, sirens, and the similar. And you kinda guessed it, since the way your pink and ocean blue pearl like friend gravitated towards water was as if a magnetic pull was in between them.
The funniest thing is that at the first few days she didn’t even know you had water in your house. Modern furniture confused her senses and for a while she thought your biology didn’t require water.
Until one day you came particularly tired home, and the only thing in your mind was the thought of running a warm calming bath with the aroma of your sweet candles. Not noticing your dwarf merblob levitating right after you and watching you turn on the bath faucet, made you jump in your place when she plopped herself in the filling water.
You were about to groan and ask her to get out, up until your gaze fell on the itty-bitty joyous expression that she demonstrated while floating in the lukewarm liquid. With a snort, a small smile followed along with a defeated look. Letting the spheroid bathe instead of you, you contemplated about her otherworldliness.
It all escalated into a degree where she would spend almost all of her time in your bathroom, swimming in your bathtub hours on end. On your knees, with pleas and begging, you would query her to get out of the pear shaped tank, but to no avail, the deep sea creature would just ignore your whines and continue flowing around in the water.
“Komi please, I haven’t bathed in a decade.”
“Splash. Blub blub blub.”
And there she goes again, making bubbles and blowing them at your face as a response. Even so, you still let the marine pearl have her way, as she’s way too adorable to be mad at.
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Kazuha ♥︎
“Come driving rain or winds that churn, I shall return, by blade alone, armed, if barefoot, to my home... I am Kaedehara Kazuha, a wanderer who roams the land. Fate alone has destined us to meet, thus it is a great gift for us to be able to communicate, distinctive individual. May I put a question to your origins, your story, and your name?”
What is he, a poet of some sorts? Such a distinguished gentleman, saying such extravagant things, but looking so ridiculous it could kill a person.
Guessing was probably your only best talent, as this japanese flag jello was immaculately successful at using all of the paper and stationary that he could find in your house to make his pieces of art.
Or the “haikus” as he calls them. Paper scrolls all over any hard surface, fully scribbled over with elegant handwriting. You wonder how the heck can a round strawberry marshmallow with nibs instead of hands write so much and also write prettier than you could ever manage.
Reading through those is one embarrassing of a trip as more than 70% of the writings are about you. The other 30% are about the environment, the furniture, the nature, the textures and sometimes about his homeland as you assumed.
And no you definitely didn’t bawl your eyes out while reading those and no you certainly didn’t feel sorry for the tiny little guy and no you for sure didn’t hug him in the most gentlest way and promise him that you’ll somehow get him back, no, beyond any doubt that didn’t happen.
On another note, this guy was unquestionably the cause of your literature grades significantly improving. Both you and your teacher are raising a brow at how good you instantaneously became at writing essays and other in the sorts. You even caught yourself in the act of speaking flowery, as if your 18th century self out of the blue found themselves in the modern world.
And that’s all thanks to Kazuha, and his litres of poetry inside your house. What’s outside your house though, is his music. Yea, turns out your spherical friend is talented in tunes too.
On one particular morning when you two were in a public garden, choosing an outlying area to have your picnic in, you came across a eerily wholesome phenomenon.
Holding a tree leaf in his itty-bitty arms, he seemed to be performing a tune with the help of the frond. You stared at your pal in awe, mouth wide open as a beautiful melody rang through your ears.
When your homeboy finished his little concert you couldn’t help but clap gleefully and throw wows at his excellent performance. Just how lucky were you to befriend such a talented jelly orb.
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ARGGFDDDDGJSFICGGV IM SORRY FOR BEOMG SOOOO SLOW😭😵😰😓 I’m currently in a middle of a whole makeover of my house so it’s kinda unmotivating for me to do literally anything but no worries, your homegirl will always find a way to deliver🔥🔥🔥🔥
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adobe-outdesign · 6 months
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Snom review! :3 (and frosmoth too ig)
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Snom basically became a hit as soon as it came out, and that's no big shock. Based off a jewel caterpillar, Snom replaces the usual gelatinous covering with icicles and some matching ice-typing, which is a nice twist on the original organism.
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As an added bonus, the fact that icicles are made of water means that its spikes are semi-transparent, and you can see its body through them. Not only does this match the actual caterpillar, but it also just makes for a cool effect.
Outside of that, the design is super simple. The compact, fruit-gummy-esq body is super cute, and I love that it just has a tiny dot eye located far back on its head. The stylized mandibles are also fun.
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This line is one of the ones that skip the middle stage in favor of jumping straight to the moth. I don't have any problems with Pokemon doing this (they're fantasy creatures, they don't need to match real life all the time), and this line does feel good as a two-stager.
That aside, I do find Frosmoth fairly forgettable. It's not really a bad design or anything; it's just that we've gotten tons of moth Pokemon over the years, and there's not much going on conceptually with Frosmoth to really make it stick out (compared to Snom, who's status as a jewel caterpillar instantly makes it look pretty different compared to the other caterpillar 'mons out there).
Visually, I do like how chunky its body is. It's more akin to a silk moth than an actual jewel moth caterpillar (which tend to be very fluffy but with smaller abdomens), but it is something very moth-like. It also has little "paws" hidden against its body, which I wish we saw more often because they're very cute.
The shape of the antennae are also very pretty, as are the snowflake-like patterns. And you can't tell it here, but the gray areas of its design are actually semi-transparent, which is a nice callback to Snom:
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But there's just no singular element that really stands out to make it memorable; Volcarona, for example, has six wings. I don't know what its thing might've been (maybe it could've retained some spikes somewhere in the design), but it does feel like it's missing something. regardless, its still a pleasant design from a visual standpoint.
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Anyway, overall, Snom is adorable and has a fun concept and design. Frosmoth is a bit more generic, but still pretty, and both designs are nice and simple.
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xavier-is-online · 3 months
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Courtney Autism Headcanons I have because all of my favs are neurodivergent
Fun fact- my very first headcanon of Total Drama was that Courtney is autistic. Is this me projecting? YEAH AND WHAT ABOUT IT????
She got diagnosed at a rather early age (3 years old) with Autism, though her family always stressed to her that she should never tell anyone for fear of it messing with their reputation
Her special interest is court cases, funny enough. She loves looking up court documents and watching trials and she enjoys talking about how if she was a judge/ lawyer, how she would proceed/defend the case. Her parents noticed this and began pushing her into pursuing a career as a lawyer
She also has special interests in geography, birds of prey, MMA fighting and musical theater (though that last special interest often gets repressed since she's been taught that things such as theater are frivolous)
REALLY good at masking, so much so that she unintentionally will mask. Years of suppression has really helped in making people believe she's fully neurotypical! She was masking in the 1st season, up until she gets (unfairly) voted off
No, she doesn't have a fear of green jelly, but it is a MAJOR sensory issue for her. In fact, most gelatin and gelatin-like foods trigger her. She can't eat anything with a gummy texture
She unfortunately has a very hard time regulating her emotions since her parents couldn't be bothered to assist her anymore beyond getting a proper diagnosis. She can have very big reactions to very little inconveniences (especially if she knows she has no control over the situation)
VERY routine-oriented, so if that routine veers even slightly off track, she gets upset. She plans her week out in advance since schedules give her a sense of security
When she's not wearing shoes she walks around on her tiptoes
She also has a stim of balling her hands into fists and moving her arms up and down
She doesn't tell anybody about her diagnosis when she first arrives on the island, since it's been imbedded into her head that people will see her as less than if she tells anyone (and it's 2007, people- especially teenagers- are absolutely ableist)
Harold figures it out pretty quickly though and just outright asks her in private while they both are on Playa Des Losers since he wanted to know. She denies it at first but literally no one has just ever plainly asked her that and so she kinda breaks down and admits that yes, she is autistic, and Harold just stands there confused because why is she acting like she just got caught doing something horribly wrong
Turns out, in Courtney's eyes, something IS wrong with her. Harold straight up tells her that there's nothing she can do to make her autism "better" but it's not like being autistic is a death sentence. It's part of what makes her, her
That sorta blows her mind because all Courtney's life she's been made to feel like something is wrong with her. She never thought to just…. accept her neurodivergence. Huh
From then on she learns to just accept herself for who she is. It's a lot better than living your life ashamed of something you can't change
Duncan doesn't figure it out until like 5 years later LMAO
She doesn't keep many fidget toys, BUT, she really likes typing on keyboards. She keeps a couple out-of-use keyboards around and that's partly why she also loves her PDA
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ohtobealady · 6 days
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Love your cobert drabbles and fanfics!! Please write more!! Hope you are doing well 😘🥰😉
So I had a very, very old request for a long-lost prompt list. They requested #18 which was an angsty “All you had to do was stay.” I do not know where that request went, so I am answering this more open-ended one from 2020 instead. Thank you Anon of Bygone Times. I am doing well! And I hope you are, too.
Just felt like doing a little something! Hurt/Comfort really. Post ANE. Please forgive the clunkiness xoxox
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Angst #18 - All You Had to Do Was Stay
Her mouth felt as if it was stuffed with cotton and her tongue felt dry and thick. It was over, but the taste remained: mineraly and sharp, a bitter tang. It filled up her entire mouth and nose, the taste and smell indistinguishable from each other. She needed water.
Cora opened her eyes and immediately blinked. She worked for a moment to adjust her vision, pressing her eyelids softly and then peering into the afternoon rays of sun coming in at an odd angle to the room. Oh, her head pounded and throbbed. Water; where was the water?
She closed her eyes again and rested her head back against the thin pillow. She’d prayed it wouldn’t be like this. The first few times she’d done the treatment, as Doctor Clarkson had called it, she’d gagged, of course. But she managed the small measured portions of raw liver she’d been prescribed to eat over the course of the day. She could have the injections just as soon as they were shipped from London; this would get easier—less frequent. But after a week, and with the shipment still missing, she found she could no longer stomach it. She managed her portion at luncheon, just barely finding the strength to swallow the gelatinous mush in her mouth that had once been neat cubes upon her plate. But then the vomiting began at tea. And it didn’t stop. The smell of it, the vomit a dark red in the basin, set her mouth to watering and nose burning as a precursor to even more retching.
So Robert had taken her here the next morning—this morning—, in spite of her protesting, to the hospital.
Cora groaned. Whatever strength and newfound energy she’d enjoyed before was completely depleted now and what remained were aches and fatigue. She wouldn’t think of what it may mean—that the incessant vomiting of the last day and night had undone all of her progress—but instead tried her best to look at the bright side. The injections would be in soon, and there’d be less liver. Not no liver, she knew. But less. She could stomach less.
With this, she opened her eyes again. Late afternoon, she could tell. The hospital bed beneath her felt stiff and narrow. The quilt was rough. She attempted to ease herself up slowly, the blood in her head thumping and her stomach sore from its terrible labor.
But then the small creak of a wooden chair to her right, and the warm weight of his hand upon her blanketed shin stilled her.
“Lie back.”
“Robert,” her voice croaked softly, her protest pitiful and weak. “I’m alright.”
“You aren’t. You need rest.”
Despite her scoff, Cora did lie back. She hadn’t even the energy to roll her eyes. “I’m alright. Really.”
“So you said.” His voice was gentler in his contradiction than before, and even though her eyes were closed, Cora could feel the way he shifted in the wooden chair. She could feel the way he leaned closer to her, and she felt his hand move from her leg and to her arm. His fingers encircled it, and she felt him draw a soft line along the thin and fragile bone of the inside of her wrist. She sighed; her head hurt a little less. “We were pleased to see you’ve kept down the last portion.”
She hummed a reply. “Best not to speak too soon.”
“Doctor Clarkson says if you can keep down the next, he’ll send us home to bed.”
She swallowed down what she wanted to respond: She didn’t want another portion. The very thought of it prickled up beads of cold sweat upon her hairline. She did groan, but took in a long breath to steady herself. “I’ve been resting all day.”
“Yes. And he has given you direction to rest as much as possible tomorrow. That is, if you’re well enough to leave.”
“Oh, Robert,” she opened her eyes. “I don’t wish to take up a bed for anyone who may really need it.”
She felt the way his fingers moved upon her wrist. “I suppose you think you don’t?”
“I don’t need it. I’ve been ill, yes, but not ill enough for constant monitoring.” She shook her head, closed her eyes, and swallowed down the dry burn of her throat. Her voice was hoarse from the vomiting. “Besides, I’d like to see you try keeping all that liver down.”
His fingers tightened. The chair creaked. And in the absence of what she thought would be a low chuckle, Cora slowly opened her eyes to find him looking down at her.
“I wish I could do this for you.”
She sighed. “Do what?” she asked, even though she knew.
“All of it.”
She knew. Her chest ached when he looked away from her, his chin trembling. Yes, she knew. For she felt the same when he was lying in this bed a few short years ago and she was the one on the creaking chair praying that somehow they could exchange places. She’d suffer it for him, she knew. And he would suffer this for her. “Oh, darling.“
“I hate seeing you so ill. Last night. I’m so terribly sorry you must endure this.”
It took more energy than she thought she had to slip her wrist from his grasp and for her fingers to find his hand instead. She squeezed, quickly and firmly, and smiled when he at last met her eye.
“No. I don’t want that. No apologies or pity. Hmm?” She smiled wider for his sake, and she tried her best to level her voice, to not sound quite so weak. “All I want is this. For you to stay beside me. Holding my hand.”
He chuckled, softly and sadly. “You’ll have some of my pity. It can’t be helped.” At this, he brought her fingers to his lips and pressed them. They felt warm against her skin. “But I will hold your hand.”
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prettybrownelf · 1 year
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I need Eddie Munson x male reader who Acts lile Wednesday Addams!! Pleaseeeee
a/n- I hope you enjoy!
The Cold Goth And The Eccentric MetalHead
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Non MLM/NBLM DNI
Pairings- Eddie Munson x Male Reader
Summary- Eddie finally gets a date with the goth he's been obsessed with
Word Count- 926
Content Warnings- None, Slight Fluff
To say Eddie was excited was an understatement.
He had been working up the nerve to ask you out for weeks, and he honestly didn't expect you to say yes. Of course, you didn't exactly seem excited about it, you just gave him a stone-faced ‘ok’, but that doesn't matter now. He finally gets to go out on a date with the boy he couldn't stop thinking about.
Robin said it probably wasn't a good idea, that you would probably break his heart in some way, but Eddie didn't care. He understood why everyone else would think that about you, but he saw something different. You weren't just a cold-hearted goth to him, there's more to you, and Eddie wants to see it.
Eddie's legs refuse to stay still as he paces in front of the carnival. ‘Did he stand me up? Did he just say yes to get me to go away?’ Eddie's thoughts are stopped by the familiar monotone voice he loved so much. “Munson?” His eyes shoot to you immediately, scanning over your black and white clothes. You stood with perfect posture, hands held firmly behind your back. Eddie a soft smile crawls over Eddie's face as he messes with the chain at his side. “Hey! You look great.” You seem weirded out by his compliment but nod anyway. “Likewise.” Eddie moves to the side and bows jokingly. “This way my good sir.” You say nothing as you make your way past him, Eddie standing beside you as you both make your way into the carnival.
Bright lights and colors surround the two of you as Eddie stops at one of the games. He picks up one of the fake guns as the woman behind the counter takes a ticket from him. Sweat builds on his hands as he tries to keep his concentration straight. ‘Don't embarrass yourself. Don't embarrass yourself.’ But ultimately, he does.
Eddie groans as he puts the gun back, looking at his score of three. The woman shrugs and wishes him luck next time. He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly as he turns back to you. “Sorry, I was trying to win you that big back bear up there.” You're silent as you hand the woman one of your tickets, picking up the fake gun. The wooden panels move back and forth as Eddie watches in awe. Your face is straight as normal as you effortlessly hit every single panel. The woman behind the table seems taken aback as she asks which prize you'd like. You wordlessly point up to the large black bear. Eddie stands like an idiot as you look up at him, holding the bear in your arms. “Let's go.”
Eddie follows quickly behind you as you make your way further into the carnival. “Holy shit dude, how’d you do that?” “I loved hunting with my father when I was younger, it was a great bonding experience.” Eddie nods. “I used to hunt with my uncle, mostly deer though. What did you guys hunt?” You look up at him, face never changing. “Anything that wouldn't run fast enough.” Eddie nods slowly as you look away from him. Eddie was getting nervous. You didn't seem to be enjoying your time, no matter how many jokes he cracked you didn't even give a hint of a smile. Eddie walks with you to the entrance as the night comes to an end.
Suddenly, a small booth catches Eddie's eye. “Stay here for a minute.” He says as he runs off before he can hear your response. The old man behind the counter looks up at him and smiles. “Hey, could I get that scorpion necklace?” He nods as Eddie ruffles through his pockets for money. The second the chain is in his hand Eddie runs back to you, quickly thanking the man.
Normally Eddie would try to be more put together, but his mouth is moving before his mind can tell him to stop. “Listen, I know this really isn't your scene, and I'm sorry if this was just a huge bore for you.” Eddie pulls out the small necklace, a small scorpion contained in gelatin in a small jar.
For the first time all night, Eddie sees a spark of something in your eyes. “So I got you this, I thought it was kinda your style.” You wordlessly turn around for him to put it on you. Eddie prays you don't notice how he clearly enjoyed touching your skin as you turn back to him, holding the small jar in your fingers.
Eddie's face lights up as a small smile crawls to your face. “This is magnificent.” But the smile is gone just as quickly as it came as you look up at him. “I will cherish it till my dying breath.” Eddie smiles as he walks you to the front of the carnival. Before he's able to say his goodbyes, you turn away from him. “I really enjoyed our time together tonight Munson, I would like it if we could do this again.” Eddie can feel the blush on his face as you turn back to him, refusing to meet his eyes. “Yeah! Yeah, we can absolutely do this again.” You seem conflicted as you take a small step toward him, Eddie moves closer, feeling his face getting redder. You quickly kiss him on the lips as you immediately begin walking away, leaving Eddie in shock. “I'll see you later Munson!”
Eddie smiles to himself as he watches you go. “Yeah, I'll see you later.”
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