#I keep telling myself I'll develop this more

[larkbunny]

Thorin Oakenshield

Portrait Study

#I keep telling myself I'll develop this more #but I've been staring at it for 3 months and haven't touched it #so #its done #🤷🏻‍♀️ #the hobbit #thorin oakenshield #the hobbit fanart #lotr #fanart #thorin #king thorin #portrait #my art

[help-itrappedmyself]

Danny Punches a Clown part 9

masterpost

Danny is led up an unnecessarily long flight of stairs into a fancy house. The floors are all hardwood with rugs interspersed throughout the rooms.

     Hood starts leading him down the hallway and he can see paintings and antiquities, so many rooms. He is reminded vaguely of Vlad's mansion back in Wisconsin, but this seems larger, and better decorated. They end up in a living room of sorts, lots of different chairs and couches wand a huge TV lining a whole wall.

     Danny sits in one of the armchairs. Agent A soon comes in, with another tray of food. This tray seems to be for more than just him though. Hopefully. He could never hope to finish that many snacks by himself. 

     A isn't wearing a mask this time. “No masks upstairs, Master Jason. I'll keep the boy company until the rest of you get here.”

     Hood (Jason?) leaves and A introduces himself as Alfred. Apparently, he is the butler of the people that live here. Makes sense that people rich enough to live in this house would have a butler.

     Alfred lets him sit and eat for a few minutes in silence. The room gradually becomes more full as people come in and take their seats. They all introduce themselves as they come in and sit down. Damian and Dick sit together on a couch, with a girl he knows he’s never met before, Cassandra on Dick’s other side. Jason comes in and takes another armchair. Tim sits on a couch, a blond girl, Stephanie, and another boy, Duke, sit next to him. They all start working. Seems like Stephanie and Duke are in college, and Tim works at a big company. 

     Once the oldest person yet comes in, Bruce, and sits on an armchair, they all stop whatever else they were doing and turn to face him. He’s pretty sure he’s met most of them before while they were in masks, but other than Jason he doesn’t really know who is who. 

     “Can you tell us more about where you’re from now?” Bruce asked.

     Danny looks around the face in the room. They’ve all been helpful and kind. And he’s so tired of lying all the time. They’re most likely going to kick him out once they get their answers anyway.

     “I’m from a different dimension. I fled here after a fight.” Danny admitted.

They already seem less shocked than Danny would have imagined, and they aren’t calling him crazy yet, so this is going great!

     “There is a… war, almost? Starting in that world.” Danny gets fully into storytelling mode, as none of the others seem like they’re going to interrupt his thought process. “It all started with my parents actually. They started building a portal to the ghost zone, and that’s when it all went downhill really. Especially for me. I had my best friends over, they wanted to see the portal, so I took them down to the basement.”

     Danny took a deep breath. “My parents had put the on button inside of the portal, and when I went in… I hit it on accident. The portal turned on with me inside.”

     Everyone in the room remained quiet, and Danny couldn’t bear looking at their faces right now. He did his best to move on. “The portal was open, and ectoplasm started seeping into our town, we didn’t realize at the time, but that becomes a bigger problem later. At the time, we -or I- was busy becoming a one-man army against an invasion of ghosts. My parents started developing weapons. The government declared any being whose body could process or contained ectoplasm was non-sentient and could be kidnapped, experimented on, and/or killed at will. The Anti-Ecto Acts. The government branch dedicated to ghosts, the G.I.W, invaded Amity. Me and my friends had been capturing the ghosts causing problems and sending them back into the ghost zone. Now, we had to do that while trying to play keep-away with my parents and the government, while trying not to get captured myself. The government decided they wanted to send a nuke into the portal, trying to kill all ghosts at once."

     “I had to stop it. I was gathering all ghosts left in Amity to bring them with me to the Zone. My friends were going to close the portal behind us, destroy it. My parents had just finished their new gun.” Danny’s hand went to his side. “They chased us. I made it through the portal, with as many ghosts as I could find. Theoretically, the portal was closed once I left.”

     Danny was quiet long enough that the others realized he was done. 

     “I’m sorry that happened.” Danny heard, he looked up, but didn’t know who had said it. They all seemed sad.

     “And you’re… A ghost then?” Jason asked.

     “Only half.” They all looked bewildered at that. “It’s complicated."

     “So, you can’t go home?” Bruce asked.

     Danny shook his head. “If all went well then the portal doesn’t exist anymore, not that I could leave this dimension without a portal. I’m stuck here.” 

     “You’ll be staying with us then.” Bruce nodded firmly. “Metas are protected in this world, Danny. I’ve worked on a team with a ghost before. You’re safe here, Danny.”

#dcxdp #dpxdc #batman #danny phantom #fanfiction #my writing #danny punches a clown #they unlock backstory

[contact-guy]

heyyy I hope it's okay to send an ask! I just wanted to know about your art process, if you got any advise. Because I'm in love with your SH doodles, they're so dynamic and lively and the shading is such a nice accent yet it remains somewhat minimalistic? I'm relatively decent at realism but want to develop my own character in drawing more and I'm wondering how you arrived at yours, did you have a method? Thanks in advance^^

love to talk about DRAWING......

The short answer is that because I want to draw them a lot, and have limited time, I can't be too precious about how the final result looks! So a lack of perfectionism and a desire for speed ends up forcing me to simplify and stylize them. This was an organic process (if you scroll down my art tag you can see I was drawing them with a bit more detail, finish, and care a few months ago - I was illustrating vs what I'm doing now, cartooning).

Ideally when you are cartooning, every line of the character's face is doing work to make them THEM, and to tell a story. No unnecessary lines! I find that story is best expressed through eyes, eyebrows, and mouth (this might be different for you). Those features can and should change shape to express emotion. They are usually what I draw first, to figure out the emotion, and they're what I spend the most time tweaking.

The rest of the features - face shape, cheekbones, nose, forehead, ears, hairline - are less emotive, less 'plastic', they don't change shape much. These are doing work to make the character recognizable. I try to keep them simple and have a few simple rules that I can remember about each character.

(Watson is tricky because of his mustache! I've found that treating it as part of his mouth rather than a distinct piece works best, but even so it makes his face less emotive - which, honestly, works for the character, as he is less demonstrative than Holmes)

I'll usually do a simple underdrawing to figure out what the body is doing - trying to capture the energy of a pose and, again, thinking about what story the body is telling.

Then I 'ink' in the clothing, following the lines of the body and gravity. Victorian clothing is fun to draw, I find that the structure around the shoulders and neckline lends itself to expressive poses. I did a bunch of Victorian clothing studies a few months ago and felt like I built up a 'library' in my head so that I don't need to reference it every time.

Shading is incredibly minimal and quick. In really simple drawings, its purpose is usually to distinguish characters from the background. In more detailed ones, it's to give them a little dimension and focus the eye to the faces.

Every choice I make is in service of readability rather than beauty or accuracy, if that makes sense. So it is quite a different mindset than when you're drawing realistically or painting.

I hope this was helpful! I am a professional artist but whenever I get sucked into a fandom I find myself making leaps and bounds in my craft because I want to draw so MUCH and don't care about making it polished...truly shout out to hyperfixation for the gifts it brings

#art post

[mtkay13]

A toast to freedom. more info below!

I'm back......... -sigh- I'm so behind on everything I want to post and ofc i just gotta.... post my latest pieces instead of catching up. Oh well. So the illustrations mostly speak for themselves but I know I can find stuff to say about them, so-- First of all, the right side was drawn first, and it was not supposed to be about the nails nor was it supposed to have a companion piece in the first place. I'll be real: I just wanted to draw ZZS's big chest and make it classical portrait style. But I also ended up sort of horny-bonking myself into adding some substance and storytelling to it and put a nail right there (how convenient), haha. It did give me the idea of making a mirrored image, a year and a half later, of ZZS and six nails in, right before he's about to leave--particularly because it illustrates something I've always been QUITE peculiar about when it comes to designing ZZS, and it's the state of his body. At the start, it struck me how in the book, he's described as being skeletal--and how much priest insists on that. I pretty much immediately started trying to draw TYK ZZS as very skinny, because I felt it would make the nails much more dreadful (on top of being faithful to canon which I'm also a bit prickly about). Somehow, while ZZS being well built otherwise is both mentioned in canon a couple of times and influenced by how he looks in SHL, I later found that pushing it a bit further would increase the contrast with how he looks like in TYK and make the nails' impact on his body and health even more striking. I guess that from there, over the past year, I made him bigger and bigger....... I assume because I found it was interesting? (I mean, I still do, but--) Mainly because I love that such a big dude can nonetheless make himself completely unnoticeable, and this image of a tiny grandma turning around a corner and unfolding herself into a big buff guy.... ALSO HLY's looming shadow being this big threatening guy....... IDK ITS MY JAM (not to mention, again, that it's such a strong contrast with TYK ZZS!) A little note--I think I've mentioned so before, but working in animation, I've gotten the habit of trying to "push things" or exaggerate them to make them a bit bolder and striking/powerful. I definitely feel like it has been an impulse on both ends; in the way I draw the skinnier, skeletal ZZS as well as in the way I draw the healthy, top of his game ZZS. Exaggerating things slightly and pushing them out of the molds is an interesting exercise overall, especially with character design (even if at some point we end up toning those exaggeration down, we can at least keep the more interesting elements developed through exaggeration.) So yeah. I thought the two would work well together, and I tried telling things through their expressions, posture, etc.

#tian ya ke #tyk #zhou zishu #zzs #qi ye #meta #design

[runnning-outof-time]

“Darling” | Tommy Shelby x Reader

Request: yes by @raincoffeeandfandoms

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x reader

Summary: Tommy and (Y/N) have a lot of explaining to do to the rest of the family when Tommy lets a term of endearment he doesn't normally use slip one night at the Garrison.

Warnings: language, drinking, implication/brief mention of stalker-like behavior

Word Count: 2857

A/N: I really loved this request, Flor! There’s something about Tommy using terms of endearment that just get to me. I hope you like it. Enjoy! :)

Let me know if you want to be tagged in future stories similar to this one!

(Y/N) (Y/L/N) was the only person Tommy Shelby called "Darling".

What started off as "I'll take my chances by myself, darling," — said in a rather snarky tone — after she'd offered her help one night at the Garrison, had now turned into the main term of endearment he used when addressing her. (Y/N) liked hearing him say it as much as he did...it reminded her of the journey that they'd gone on to get where they were now.

(Y/N) was hired at the Garrison by Harry, who owned the pub before the Shelby family took it over. She was kept on the staff by Arthur, who assumed the 'owner' position, although he didn't do much work behind the scenes. She met Tommy one night when he was having trouble working out what she now knew was a plot to sell the stolen guns that he had in his possession. She offered her help, but was only given "I'll take my chances by myself, darling," as a response, a curt way to get her out of his sight.

But then he started coming to her. It wasn't for things that had to deal with the guns, but rather just business in general. (Y/N) had some ideas on how to run the pub better and Tommy was, surprisingly, all ears. The more times they found each other, the more a different type of feelings developed between them.

The night that everything changed was when Tommy managed to save (Y/N) from two men he saw watching her at the Garrison that evening. He trailed them as they trailed her back to her home and was able to deal with them before they could do what they'd set out to do. (Y/N)'s question of "why did you care so much to follow me and make sure that I was ok?" gave Tommy the opportunity to tell her what he'd been wanting to do for the last several weeks. And unlike he'd been done in the past, he took that opportunity and explained to her how he felt. Thankfully, she felt the same.

And so they started seeing each other. (Y/N) stayed longer on nights Tommy was there so that he could walk her home, and then stay the night at her place. They made time to do things together around Small Heath, but always had to make sure that they'd go unnoticed. It wasn't because they were worried about the town gossip. No...someone would be dumb to spread rumors (that weren't really rumors) about Tommy Shelby and his lady. But instead they were worried about his family, who were the people she oftentimes waited on, finding out.

They both thought that it would be better to keep the other Shelbys out of it. It was all so new, and they were content with where they were at that moment, so why ruin a good thing? That's why Tommy checked in all directions and made sure that they were alone before he called her "darling". Him doing so only made the giddy feeling that coursed through her stronger.

(Y/N) was behind the bar, dealing with some customers one evening. She was pouring out some gin when the door to the pub opened. From a slight glance in that direction, she was able to see Tommy remove his peaked cap and stuff it into the pocket of his jacket. He made his way over to the bar, moving behind it just as (Y/N) was finished pouring a drink.

"We're out of mild, (Y/N), can you go and get some from the stockroom?" Harry asked as he came around the bar from the other side. He then noticed Tommy and sent a nod as a greeting in his direction.

"I can," (Y/N) answered him, setting the bottle she was using back on the shelf before she made her way through the door on the same wall and into the small stockroom. She went about looking for what Harry had asked for, hearing the sound of someone walking into the room seconds later. She already had an idea of who it could be, but a quick look taken just in case confirmed that Tommy had followed her into the room. He glanced behind him to make sure nobody had trailed him before he made his way over to (Y/N).

"When's your shift finished, darling?" he asked her, his voice low.

(Y/N) smiled as she grabbed what Harry needed before she turned to face Tommy. "Shouldn't you know when?" she teasingly asked him, her one eyebrow quirking upward as she posed the question. Tommy pursed his lips and shook his head slightly as a response to her question, making her laugh softly. "I've only got a half hour left," she then provided him with the information he was looking for.

"Good. Come into the snug when you're finished," he told her, nodding his head in the direction of the mentioned room as he spoke. It was (Y/N)'s turn to purse her lips, thinking over the suggestion that he made. Tommy, who always needed to know a person's answer immediately after he posed a question, was beginning to become impatient with each silent second that passed. "Will you?" he asked her, leaning in closer to her as he awaited her response.

A smile formed on (Y/N)'s face as she sensed his urgency to hear her answer. She always loved to make him wait; to see him become impatient, and she made sure to do so at every chance she got. There was something about seeing cracks form in Tommy Shelby's composure that scratched an itch she didn't even know she had.

"I will," she finally answered him, a beaming smile on her face as Tommy chuckled. He knew what she was doing...he'd caught onto her little game rather quickly. But he let her do it for the sake of seeing her smile.

"Good," he gave the same response that he had previously. He then stole a glance behind him, making sure that no one was in the room with them before he leaned in and kissed her lips quickly. "I'll see you in a half hour," he mumbled against her lips, feeling her smile against him.

"You will," she agreed with him, kissing him one last time before she pulled back, "I've got to take this out to Harry before he gets to wondering what we actually came in here to do," she said to him then, holding the jug up between them to assert her point.

"Go on, darling," he obliged to her statement, stepping out of her way then so that she could make her way out of the stockroom and back to the bar. He watched her go, eyeing her body over as she disappeared through the doorway. He waited for a few moments then, making it seem like he actually had a purpose for coming in here. When that time passed, he too exited the stockroom and walked back into the pub's main area. He stole a glance at (Y/N), who was still working the bar, before he made his way to the snug.

Arthur was the only person in there when Tommy entered the side room, but he quickly announced that Polly, John and Esme would be joining the group once they finished their duties back at the shop. Tommy nodded upon hearing this information, and he sat down in his usual chair, accepting the glass that Arthur slid his way once he was sitting.

They got into talking about the business then, and although Tommy would have rathered to leave that conversation rest for a later time, he took part in it. Doing so would pass the time quicker than just sitting in silence, and right now all he wanted was for thirty minutes to go by.

—

Tommy didn't know why he was anxiously counting down the seconds for (Y/N) to be finished with her shift. It wasn't like he could do anything overtly to her while in a room that was full of his family. But yet as the new hour came around, he found himself trying to suppress the smile that was threatening to appear on his lips. His family would never let him live it down.

About five minutes before her shift was due to be finished, (Y/N) opened the door to the snug. There was cheers exclaimed as a greeting from the packed room, and she sent everyone a smile before going about asking what she intended to: "is there anything I could get anyone before my shift's finished?" she asked no one in particular, looking at each person after she spoke. She tried hard not to let her eyes linger on Tommy, who had been shamelessly looking at her because he was technically allowed to...that was what you did when someone was speaking, right?

"Nah, love, we're good in here," Arthur answered for the rest of the group, "but why don't you come in after you're all finished up? 'S been a while since we've seen you properly," he suggested then, and (Y/N) had to wonder for a moment whether Tommy had told him about the two of them.

"If you all would be fine with me joining then sure, I'll come in," she answered, unable to shake the feeling of Tommy's eyes still on her.

"Of course we'd be fine! Go on and finish your shift so you can get back in here!" John hollered at her, waving her out of the room with his signature grin plastered on his face. (Y/N) shook her head and laughed at his words, saying goodbye to them so that she could go and finish her shift's final minutes behind the bar.

Five minutes later, like she agreed on doing, (Y/N) re-entered the snug. More cheers sounded off as she greeted everyone again. She then clasped her hands together over her waist and looked around, trying to figure out the seating arrangement and how she'd fit into it.

"Care to make some room for her, Pol? Bring another chair into the room?" Tommy spoke up, addressing his aunt, who was sitting on the end of the booth that was furthest away from him.

(Y/N) looked over to the older woman, who was now in the process of standing from the booth. "You don't have to be the one to move, Polly, I can..."

"No need to worry, (Y/N). I was about to get up and get another drink anyway," Polly stopped (Y/N) midway through her sentence, brushing the younger woman's statement off as she stood and moved towards the door.

(Y/N) stayed frozen in her spot though. She then turned to Tommy, her brows furrowed slightly. "Tommy are you sure about me taking Polly's seat, I can just go and..."

"Yes, I'm sure, darling...have a seat," Tommy cut her off this time, his words rolling off of his tongue without a second thought. (Y/N) nodded, not giving much thought to his response either as she went and sat down.

Everyone else in the room stopped what they were doing the second they heard what Tommy said. Sets of eyes were going between the two for a few moments before either of them caught on.

Noticing the sudden shift, Tommy broke the silence, "alright, what? What's happened?" he addressed the room, his eyebrows raised as he looked at each of his family members.

"I believe you should be telling us what's happened, brother," John answered, his gaze still shifting between Tommy and (Y/N).

"What?" Tommy asked again, confusion apparent in the single word statement.

"When have you taken to calling (Y/N) 'darling', Thomas?" Polly asked from where she was standing at the door, her brows raised.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he continued to play it off as if it was nothing, looking over to (Y/N) to see if she was still in his corner. The second he saw her wide eyes, he knew that he was on his own.

"'Yes, I'm sure, darling, have a seat' doesn't ring a bell to you?" Arthur joined in, quoting what Tommy had said just moments ago.

"That's what I said..." Tommy trailed off, not denying that those were the words that left his mouth. He looked between all of the people in the room then before his eyes settled on (Y/N). She immediately began giving him one of those 'will you speak first, or should I?' looks, hoping that he'd choose the first of the two.

Polly was the one to break the silence before either of the two could speak up. "Spill it," she insisted, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked at the guilty couple with pursed lips. She was a spitting image of a principal who was asking a child to own up to something they did; right down to the aura she was exuding.

Tommy held his gaze on (Y/N) for a moment longer before he exhaled a sigh and ran his hand along the back of his neck. "(Y/N) and I are seeing each other," he told the room their secret. He looked over at (Y/N) again to see that she was sitting in a rigid manner as she waited to hear how they'd react. Inside she was panicking, holding her breath and hoping that she wouldn't combust from the anticipation that was building.

"For how long?" Esme questioned from (Y/N)'s right. She took that opportunity to finally look away from Tommy, although his eyes burning into the side of her face reminded her that he was still very much present.

"A few weeks now," she mustered up the ability to answer the question, still waiting in limbo to see how they'd react. These Shelbys were good at withholding their emotions and reactions, and that really wasn't helping her case at the moment.

"A few weeks and you didn't think to tell us?" John chimed in, leaning out past Esme so that he could look at (Y/N) more properly.

(Y/N) opened her mouth to speak before she had a clear answer, so she said nothing, which made her eyes widen slightly. She was crashing hard here. Thankfully Tommy stepped in to cover her as she continued to draw a blank. "We didn't want it to become a big deal. Neither of us felt there was a reason to tell you, so we chose not to," he explained to them, really trying to downplay the importance of it all.

"It's not that we didn't want to tell you guys, it's just that it was...new," (Y/N) added on, making sure to let them know that this choice wasn't made solely because of them.

The room fell silent then after (Y/N) finished speaking. To her, it felt like the air was thick enough with tension that she could cut it with a knife. It made her ring her hands together and stare over at Tommy with a pleading look in her eyes. She hated the anticipation of what would be said next.

"Well in that case..." Arthur started as he stood up from his end of the booth. He didn't say anything as he made his way to the empty area of the room and turned to face the family again. Just finish your sentence already! (Y/N) was screaming at him in her mind, her nerves kicking into overdrive. Time seemed to move slow until a smile spread across the eldest Shelby sibling's face. "Welcome to the family, (Y/N)," he finished his statement, his eyes focused on the woman he was addressing, "next round's on me!" he then announced to the rest of the people in the room.

"Let's fucking celebrate!" John exclaimed, a wide grin spread across his face.

(Y/N) smiled as she looked around at the rest of the Shelby family. She couldn't help but giggle as her eyes focused on Tommy, who was in the middle of getting affectionately slapped on the back by Arthur, who John then followed with the same gesture. Her heart swelled as she saw his smile.

She kept her eyes on him until she felt a set of arms wrap around her. "Welcome to the family, (Y/N)," Esme offered her own kind words as she hugged the woman sitting to her left.

"Thanks, Esme," (Y/N) responded, pulling away to smile at her.

"Wait until Ada finds out," she said with a grin then, "she's going to be thrilled to have another woman in the family." (Y/N) smiled at her statement.

She couldn't deny the giddiness that she felt bubbling up inside of her. This moment had gone the way that she hoped it would, and it would be another that she would remember for a long time...part of the reason being because it was another instance when Tommy called her "darling".

Tagged: @mgcldydrms @the-anxious-youth @cloudofdisney @look-at-the-soul @elenavampire21 @mrsalwayswrite @julkaamazing @evita-shelby @lilyrachelcassidy @notyour-valentine @shelbydelrey @december16-1991 @onlydeadcells @peakyswritings @just-a-blackhole @watercolorskyy @strayrockette @peakyduchesss @alexxavicry @captivatedbycillianmurphy @yummycastiel @dark-academia-slut @tommystargirl @stevie75 @lyarr24 @signorellisantichrist @zablife @anotherblinder @midnightmagpiemama @cillmequick @rangerelik @lovemissyhoneybee @dandelionprints @letal-y-poetica @raincoffeeandfandoms @itscheybaby @gypsy-girl-08 @lora21 @insanitybyanothername @depxiety @dragons-are-my-favorite @sunsetbeachesandwriting @forgottenpeakywriter @cilliansangel

MASTERLIST

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby x y/n #tommy shelby imagine #tommy shelby one shot #tommy shelby oneshot #tommy shelby fanfiction #tommy shelby fanfic #peaky blinders #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders x y/n #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders one shot #peaky blinders oneshot #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic

[hausofneptune]

aspects/placements i love (and hate!) in my chart pt. 1

[astro notes no. 003]

hey y’all! i felt like going through some of my personal aspects/placements and describing the “positive” and “negative” ways they’ve manifested in my life, so here we are. this ended up being longer than i thought it would, so i'll end up doing a part two since i really enjoyed making this!

disclaimers | masterlist | ask

venus conj. neptune in aquarius (1°03’) in the 1H

this is one of my favorite placements. i feel like this + my pisces sun can make me appear to others as “ethereal” at times, but if i’m keeping it a buck, it also makes me extremely evasive. i have a good amount of aquarius influence in my chart as well, so all of this combined definitely makes me feel like i have to put in effort to not come off as too impersonal, especially towards my loved ones. 

having neptune in my 1H also makes me feel like people perceive me to be someone that i’m not. like even my close friends and family, i don’t feel like anyone actually understands who i am, and i don’t think i’ve ever had a relationship (platonic, romantic, or familial) where i felt like i was seen for who i actually am, or where i was able to connect to somebody on a deeper, spiritual level. i can also over-romanticize people and situations at times, but i’ve grown out of this habit… for the most part.

i’ve always been an extremely creative/artistic person. i’ve been drawing, painting, writing, and singing since i was a kid, and i even sell my artwork now as an adult. i’m extremely imaginative, but i do have to be careful to not get too in my head and forget to participate in reality, if that makes sense. i’ve also had issues with dissociation and memory loss throughout my life. i feel like my lived experience has more to do with that, but i can see how the Neptunian influence in my chart could play a role in it as well.

venus opposite north node in the 7H (1°40’)

there are some placements that convince me that the universe was tryna be funny when it made my birth chart. this is one of them. i have so many things in my chart that can make it challenging at times to form meaningful, trustful relationships with other people, and it’s interesting to me the fact that my spiritual growth is something that’s supposed to be found… through my relationships with other people. i try not to victimize myself too much and look at things from an objective lens, but i would be lying if i said it didn’t feel like people find it convenient to have me in their lives only when i allow them to view me in a way that makes them feel the most comfortable.

like i mentioned, i can be very avoidant, it’s something i’m working on. but i know that it’s possible for me to have fulfilling connections with other people, and obviously with this placement it’s something i need to work through my aversion to, seeing as my self-development and spiritual growth is something that’s extremely important to me and deep down i do want to want to experience having meaningful, healthy relationships. 

sun sextile lilith (within 3.0°) in the 11H / chiron in the 11H

let me tell you, most of the people i’ve been friends with over the years, regardless of gender, hypersexualize the fuck out of me. especially the men i’ve been friends with, majority of them had feelings for me that i never reciprocated. i was actually friends with a girl in high school who’s moon fell in my 8H, and in hindsight she had a very unhinged, borderline obsession with me. she would speak to me, and get mad at me, as if we were in a relationship together, and did not understand any type of boundaries that you’re supposed to have with someone you’re friends with. i don’t hold it against her now as an adult, but we definitely don’t speak to each other anymore.

i’ve also encountered issues in regards to the relationships i've with women, mainly when i was younger though, the women i’m acquainted with now i have healthy, normal friendships with (thank god). but i’ve had friendships with girls where they secretly didn’t like me, they were secretly attracted to me, or both. and i don't mean this in a weird, misogynistic, "pick me i'm different!" type of way at all, this is just a pattern i picked up on with some of the women i've met throughout my life.

in regards to having chiron in my 11H, my sore spot is most definitely my friendships. on top of feeling misunderstood and objectified in the friendships i’ve had, i’ve also experienced trauma at the hands of people i thought were my friends. and i always do my best to exercise being mindful and self-aware, and i’m definitely not on some “i’ve always been the perfect friend and people hurt me regardless, boo-hoo, woe-is-me” type shit, because i’ve definitely hurt people in my lifetime. but in terms of how these placements have manifested, i’ve always encountered difficulty in connecting to others, and i’m just now getting to a point where i feel comfortable enough to even attempt to try making new friends again. 

and this is what i mean when i say: astrology is a tool that you can use for shit that is more important than your appearance and future partner! it wasn’t until my 12H profection year when i started studying traditional astrology and learned how to read charts, that i actually began to understand myself on a deeper level and gained the confidence to end friendships that no longer served me and made new ones that actually do. 

chiron in my 11H also makes me feel inclined to take on a “therapist” role in my friendships, something that can be good or bad depending on whether the boundaries are there or not. i tend to attract people who like to trauma dump on me (that’s my moon in the 8H influence too), and i have to actively put boundaries in place and make sure people around me understand that i have to be in the right mindset to hold space for them. there aren’t a lot of pisces sun stereotypes that i can relate to, but being an emotional sponge is definitely one that i can. unfortunately. 

moon and ceres in virgo in the 8H 

LMAOOO this one might be a little heavy. i apologize in advance. feel free to skip this one if you don’t want to hear about parental/maternal loss or my mommy issues <3

my relationship with my mom is without a doubt where a lot of my emotional avoidance comes from. that plus my moon being in the 8H makes me very guarded when it comes to emotional vulnerability, even with the people i’m closest to. without telling a bunch of strangers on the internet too much of my business, here are the sparknotes:

my home life growing up (and to this day lowkey) never felt stable

it never felt like i could feel my emotions without them “consuming” me, this was mainly an issue in my youth, i was around 12-years-old when i started going to therapy and taking antidepressants  

my mom battled a chronic disease her entire life and passed away when i was a teenager 

i’ve always craved to have deep, spiritual connections with people, and ever since i was a kid i’ve been extremely intuitive and had the ability to read a room and everyone in it without anyone having to speak, but i typically attract people who are either emotionally unavailable, or emotionally unstable in some way, probably because i come off as “closed off” on the surface. 

in terms of my relationship with my mom, i love her but i could never be vulnerable with her about a damn thing, like i never really felt “heard” by her. she was a taurus sun, scorpio moon, with an aries stellium, as soon as she had her mind made up about something it didn’t really matter how i felt (pluto also falls in my 10H, and i definitely viewed her as an “authority figure” more than a mother at times). y’all remember this scene from lady bird where her mom tells her she wants her to “be the best version of herself she can be” and she asks “what if this is the best version?” - it was very much so that.

and i don’t want to give the impression that my mom didn’t love me because she definitely did. i think it was just a matter of what a lot of us eventually come to understand about our parents; that they’re products of the environments and the people they were raised by. and in my mom’s case, she did her best with the cards she was dealt and showed up the best way she could. it doesn’t make my feelings any less important, but it helps to maintain the balance between recognizing her humanity, and also validating my own frustration and trauma regarding our relationship. 

venus conjunct ascendant in aquarius (2°40’)

i didn't wanna end this post on a depressing ass note so i'm adding this last aspect lmfao. honestly i struggle with some of the venusian energy in my chart because i honestly never really felt "pretty" growing up. it might be neptune in my 1H that effects my self image, because it wasn't until my 20s that i actually started to genuinely recognize my beauty. i feel like growing up i only viewed my beauty through the lens of the "male gaze" (it didn't help that i felt objectified from the boys around me), or through the lens of euro-centric/white beauty standards, and in adulthood i'm finally approaching the way that i view myself from my perspective.

i do notice that i attract people very easily, both in a friendly and romantic way. i know this aspect has to do a lot with love and romance, but honestly, i'm not too concerned about being in a relationship at this point in my life (with the way the economy is set up i think we all got bigger fish to fry rn but that's neither here nor there-), but like i mentioned i've always been an artist at heart and the art that i create plays a really big role in my identity. i've always found it easier to express myself through my paintings or my writing rather than my words.

aesthetics and comfortability are pretty big for me too, more so now in my 20s. this aspect has a lot to do with sociability and being inclined to uplift and help others, and i can relate to the latter but when it comes to other aspects in my chart i do struggle with being "outgoing" and coming across friendly, but we'll get to that in part two.

as always, if y'all have any of the aspects/placements mentioned in this post let me know how they manifest in your life and personality, and if you have any insight or questions in general feel free to reach out!

#astro notes #astro observations #venus conjunct neptune #nepnotes #venus in the 1st house #moon in the 8th house #neptune in the 1st house #nepnotes3 #venus opposite north node #venus aspects #venus conjunct ascendant #north node in the 7th house #moon in virgo #sun sextile lilith #sun sextile black moon lilith #lilith aspects #lilith in the 11th house #chiron in the 11th house #ceres in the 8th house #astrology aspects #astrology notes #astrology observations #astrology

[mewtwoandme]

So...a bit of a sad announcement today...I'm hoping this isn't the case, I made an appointment for Wednesday to talk to the vet to get a second opinion, but for those of you who know, I own a bearded dragon, and unfortunately the past few weeks he has been showing the signs of possibly passing away soon...He's 8 years old, gonna be 9 around Christmas if he makes it that far, so for him, he's an old lad. I'm afraid the vet is gonna tell me what I don't want to hear, but honestly, I've been preparing myself for this since he started developing issues last year. Despite that, it's still painful to think about. I've been doing what I can for him in the meantime, doing my best to keep him comfortable, though lately, he has become very unresponsive...Because of this, I have no idea where my mental state is gonna be at for a while, cause, honestly, it's now just a waiting game for the inevitable. This has already been taking a heavy toll on my emotional state, and it's been weighing on me and I've been fluctuating from being okay one day to feeling depressed or crying the next...

As far as the blog/story, I'm not sure if any of my plans are gonna change. As of right now, I don't believe they will. If anything, continuing to draw will provide a necessary distraction for me. As far as Blu arriving in December, I still intend for that to happen. However, I did mention awhile back that he'd probably arrive sometime in January if I was late on it for any reason. So don't be surprised by that happening if my bearded dragon happens to pass away between now and December. Cause I'll likely need some time away to mourn properly. No matter if it's a cat, a dog, a bird, or a reptile. Pets are just as much part of your family as your own flesh and blood relatives, and there's nothing more heartbreaking than knowing you're losing a part of your family. To me, it feels like I'm losing my baby. I know I can't compare losing a reptile to losing a human child, but the similar feelings are still very real.

Of course, I'll update you all whenever it happens, and I'll let you know if I choose to take a break during that time

#announcement #mod speaks

[i-heart-hxh]

Does killua know gon loves him?

Hi anon! This is such a simple question, but not a simple one to answer. I'll do my best, though!

So, I think the answer is both yes and no, in different ways.

Yes, in the sense that Gon has directly expressed his appreciation of and admiration towards Killua multiple times, said he enjoys being with him and wants to stay with him, and even called him his best friend at the end of Greed Island (really BEST friend, 最高の友達, saikou no tomodachi--I think the translation of "best friend in the whole world" gets the emphasis of this phrase across pretty well).

He said it "Has to be Killua," (キルアじゃなきゃダメなんだ, Killua ja nakya dame nanda) in the dodgeball match, which has implications both during the match and outside of it, that Killua is the only one he fully trusts and the only one who can be by his side for something this pivotal. This phrase has romantic implications, essentially the subtextual meaning is "Killua is the only one for me," hence why Killua reacts as strongly as he does to it. Notice how much he hides his face on this page.

So, I think it's silly to say Killua has no idea Gon cares about him deeply and values him. There are so many moments where Gon says things like this. It's partly why Killua loves Gon so much, because Gon isn't afraid to express that level of love and care and appreciation towards him, as uncomfortable as he acts about it. He's just unused to that receiving kind of praise and attention simply for being himself, rather than being praised for his abilities.

With Killua's views of himself, it's hard for him to fully accept Gon's affection and take it to heart, but luckily Gon is straightforward and doesn't hold back, and keeps repeatedly telling Killua how much he means to him. As the series goes, they form a strong mutual bond and relatively good understanding of each other.

The problem is that multiple things happen in Chimera Ant Arc to disrupt Killua's sense of where he belongs in Gon's life.

He "fails" by fleeing from Pitou with Gon and "leaving Kite to die." While Gon doesn't blame Killua for the decision he made and neither does Kite, Killua nonetheless certainly blames himself for this to a degree. (Remember the scene with Morel and Knov mocking him?) It doesn't help that Bisky tells him that because of his inability to face opponents he sees as stronger than him, he'll eventually leave Gon to die. Then he watches the awful ramifications of what Kite's death does to Gon, knowing he had a role in what happened.

Gon goes on the date with Palm, and Killua variously misinterprets this whole situation to mean that Gon has been on real dates with women previously (I do not think he had been on any dates in an actual romantic sense), Gon actually might have romantic feelings towards Palm, and that they're in some degree of a relationship even after Gon tells her they can't be together and Palm quietly dumps Gon in favor of Knov after the date. This sends Killua spiraling into his whole "Are we friends? Or are we teammates?" concerns, in conjunction with the next factor.

Gon's "I swear... I'll take on that bastard myself," about Pitou, and the later "This has nothing to do with you," line. Remember how much Gon relied on Killua in the dodgeball match, and how much that meant to Killua? Remember how Killua very nearly died and his last thoughts were apologizing that he wasn't more useful to Gon? Killua stakes his whole sense of self on being useful to Gon, so when Gon makes taking down Pitou a solo mission, Killua doesn't know what role he has at Gon's side any more.

I'm sure there are plenty more factors I'm leaving out, but these are the main issues that lead to the gulf that develops between them during the course of Chimera Ant Arc.

Ever after all of this, they're still friends, they're on reasonably good terms when they part even though it's complex and fraught, but there's just so much they're not saying to each other about how they really feel.

I think Killua still knows Gon cares about him with the way they leave off--they agree to stay in touch, say they'll meet again, Killua even teases Gon about the way he treated him a few times and sees that Gon feels awful when he brings it up. I'm sure Gon apologized to Killua when they first saw each other again after all of that, no matter how non-comprehensive that apology may have been.

But, I do think Killua sees his feelings towards Gon as deeper and of a different nature than how he assumes Gon feels towards him. He may even feel a degree of guilt about the extent and nature of his feelings, with an assumption that, as much as Gon cares about him, Gon doesn't reciprocate Killua's romantic feelings. It may be one of many puzzle pieces contributing to the separation.

I think Killua has strong beliefs about Gon not returning his feelings in a romantic sense, which is part of what leads to how much pain he goes through in Chimera Ant Arc and beyond. But these beliefs are less about what Gon does or doesn't do--because *I* believe Gon has romantic feelings for Killua, even though he likely doesn't recognize them as such yet, and obviously in CAA his relationship with Killua is not at the forefront of his mind--but more about how Killua sees himself and how he projects that self-perception on Gon.

The thing is, Killua hasn't directly expressed his feelings (even on a friendship level) towards Gon either. and even hides how much he does for Gon, so Gon also doesn't fully understand the weight and degree of Killua's feelings for him either. He sees what Killua does for him and I'm sure he knows that's a way Killua expresses friendship to him, but at the same time, the reasons or feelings or depth behind those actions remain unspoken, so how is Gon supposed to know fully where Killua is coming from?

As much as he may have some inklings of Killua's feelings from reading his body language and all the time they spent together, it's not something that has been confirmed or stated the way Gon has expressed his feelings. So, it makes sense that these two boys might assume the other doesn't love them back the same way they love each other, because their own self-esteem is so low and they don't see themselves as deserving of the kind of love they have for each other.

So, in response to your question, both yes and no, and "It's complicated," too.

#hunter x hunter #hxh #killugon #gonkillu #gon #killua #meta #asks #anonymous #my posts #long post #surprisingly complicated to answer this #I don't think I expressed 100% of what I want to or stated this quite as well as I'd like #but hopefully it's a decent overview at least

[wikiangela]

fuck it friday

tagged by @tizniz @bidisasterbuckdiaz @honestlydarkprincess 💖💖

still on my bucktommy bs, I'll be back to buddie but i'm too obsessed with tommy/lou to think about anything else rn lol

so here's a bit of something short I'm wiriting for 7x05 from tommy's pov, idk what this is, what it's gonna be, but I wanna finish it tonight or maybe by the end of the weekend so posting it here to motivate myself and also tell me what y'all think bc the more i reread all of it the more i doubt myself lol

___

It took him some time, plus a lot of self-reflection and just taking it one step at a time, letting himself look at other men, this time consciously and sometimes deliberately, noticing how hot they are, how they make him feel. He let himself feel how they make him feel. It took a minute to stop feeling guilty and ashamed, and to rework all those internalized prejudices that had been ingrained in him his whole life.

He gave himself time, a lot of time, started with just chatting with guys on dating apps, later got the courage for some casual dates, and when he met the man who would be his first actual boyfriend, his first gay relationship, that he genuinely liked, he felt ready to pursue that. It didn’t work out then, that’s just life, but it was a good relationship, because he was ready for it. Now he feels settled and comfortable with himself, feels confident, and knows what he wants. And he wants- he wants love. He doesn’t want to put any pressure on any relationship he might start, but ultimately, that’s the goal. Love. 

He really doesn’t mind being this first to Evan. He likes Evan. He has those bright blue eyes that seem to shine their own light, and that wide, excited smile that makes it impossible not to smile back, with that adorable dimple accompanying it, that makes Tommy melt a little every time he sees it. Plus, those perfect, kissable lips he can’t wait to taste again, and the distinctive birthmark just adding to the charm. And he’s big and strong and so hot, too. And he’s just so nice, and so adorable and endearing, and he’s so easy to talk to. Tommy just wants to keep getting to know him, spend time with him, develop this relationship and see where it can go. And with any luck, maybe this one could last, could be something real.

The thing is, Tommy is ready for serious. He can take it slow, give Evan time to figure everything out, but he’d also like to know where he stands. He would never want to pressure him to come out before he’s ready, but he also knows he doesn’t want to be anyone’s dirty little secret. Been there, done that.

Still, he would be fine with keeping it just to him and Evan for now, for as long as Evan needs. But then…

___

no pressure tags: @elvensorceress @thebravebitch @shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @watchyourbuck @eowon @loserdiaz @evanbegins @ladydorian05 @wildlife4life @diazpatcher @lover-of-mine @monsterrae1 @thewolvesof1998 @neverevan @weewootruck @loveyouanyway @spagheddiediaz @rainbow-nerdss @epicbuddieficrecs @pirrusstuff @spotsandsocks @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @nmcggg @rogerzsteven @giddyupbuck @sunshinediaz @underwater-ninja-13 @exhuastedpigeon @911-on-abc @jesuisici33 @steadfastsaturnsrings @theotherbuckley @buddieswhvre @dangerpronebuddie @diazsdimples @fortheloveofbuddie @hoodie-buck @your-catfish-friend @hippolotamus @daffi-990

#7x05 tommy pov fic #fuck it friday #idk im creating a whole backstory for him lmao #idk this is supposed to about him thinking buck's not ready idk what i'm doing #also idk where im going with this fr i just wanted to take a crack at getting into his head #the problem is as much as i love him he's new and i don't have a grasp on him yet like i do with buddie lol #so idk what this is gonna turn into lmao #but the smutty continuation to that other bucktommy fic is coming too! just gonna take longer haha #fic snippet #wikiangela writes #my writing #my wips #911 fic #911 abc #bucktommy #tommy kinard #evan buckley #buck x tommy #bucktommy fic #911 spoilers

[photogirl894]

Hey Morgan!

Sorry to be popping in again so soon with another request. You're amazing and obviously ignore this if it's too much or anything 😂

If you don't mind, could I have a sick!reader with Tech taking care of her? I've been feeling pretty miserable and would love some clones to take care of me 😍

Thank you bestie 😁

Bestie, I am so sorry you've been feeling sick the last couple days 🥺 I would give you a big hug if I could!

I know you told me to pick the prompts myself for this, which was a fun challenge! I hope you like the ones I picked! I picked one from Fluff/Romance, one from Angst and two from Physical Affection! 😊

"Bedridden"

28. “Your smile brightens every room you walk in.”

26. “I would rather die.”

14. Comforting hug

30. Carrying someone bridal style

Pairing: Tech x fem reader

***

It had been a while since you'd been sick and it was hitting you hard.

It had started off with mild congestion that you thought had been caused by just the atmosphere of the planet you and the Bad Batch had just been to, but it persisted and got worse. Then your throat began to hurt to where it felt like you were swallowing razors.

You had Tech check you over when things didn't seem to get any better and the others were starting to get concerned. He checked your vitals and your temperature and you were starting to develop a fever along with everything else. You definitely caught some sort of virus. From what source, Tech was trying to figure out.

Though, you were stubborn, just like the rest of them and wanted to keep going and doing your part for the squad. You kept working on things in the ship, ignoring everyone's pleas for you to stop and to rest. Unfortunately, you ended up overexerting yourself and you nearly passed out on the floor. Luckily, Tech had been close by and had caught you in his arms.

"All right, my dear, enough of this foolishness," he stated as he swept you off your feet and carried you bridal style to your bunk on the ship. "You are too ill for anymore manual labor and your symptoms will only worsen should you persist. I am taking you to bed and you are going to get proper rest."

You could only groan in protest, but it was very weak.

After he put you to bed, you tried to sleep, but you ended up developing aches and chills throughout your whole body, which made you incredibly uncomfortable and sleep evaded you. Not long later, you called out for Tech and he came into the room with a small cup in his hand as well as a couple blankets.

"I assume you have aches and chills now?" he asked you.

You nodded, moaning painfully.

"I predicted this would happen," he said. Then he held out the cup to you and said, "Drink this. It will help."

You knew he was trying to get you to take some medicine that more than likely had an awful taste to it and the thought of that made your stomach churn.

"I would rather die," you said flatly.

He gave an unamused look. "I'll hear no such talk from you," he scolded you. You were shivering and, after setting the cup down momentarily, he took the blankets and laid them on you. "If you were to perish, then we would be devoid of your kind spirit and your lovely smile, which would be most unfortunate," he then said kindly to you as he tucked the blankets in around you to help keep you warm.

Through your shivers, you asked him, caught off guard, "Y--you...you th--think my s-smile is...lovely?"

Tech smiled down at you with a smile so soft, it would've made you swoon, were you not so sick, weak and bedridden. Yet it still made your heart flutter nevertheless.

"My dear, your smile brightens every room you walk in. I see it every day," he informed you. Then he took back up the cup of medicine and told you again to drink it.

With a groan of disgust, you replied, "You can't j--just compliment a girl like that and th--then tell her to dr--drink something nasty."

"I can if it means ensuring that you will regain your health and strength," he retaliated. "Now, please drink the medicine before I am forced to administer it through more assertive methods."

You gulped nervously, which was a mistake as it only aggravated your sore throat even more. Then finally, you sat up, took the cup from him and just downed it in one quick gulp to just get it over it. The flavor, as you predicted, was bitter and harsh in taste. It made you shudder and gag, but at least it was done.

Tech took the cup from you and said, "It should make you drowsy shortly, which will help you get some better sleep and combat the remainder of your symptoms. You must now focus on recovering from this ailment so you can return to normal. It pains me to see you in such a miserable state."

"I appreciate that, Tech," you replied as you leaned back against the wall and sighed. "I hate being sick...so much. I hate feeling miserable, but having to be isolated so I don't get anyone else sick. It sucks not having someone hold me or even just be there with me when I could really use someone."

"Then I will not leave you alone, even if it means your sickness transfers to me," he suddenly declared.

Then, to your even greater surprise, he pulled you into a tight yet gentle and comforting hug, his hands pressing down into your back. Even though his pressure hurt slightly from your aches, you didn't care. You were getting a hug from Tech, which was incredibly rare and something you'd only dreamed of getting from him. His embrace and the words he'd said gave you everything you needed in that moment and you gladly hugged him back.

He then stripped down to his blacks, moved himself onto the bed and continued to hold you, offering you both warmth to fight your shivers as well as comfort to ease your unpleasantness. You felt as though you could've stayed in his arms forever. The medicine soon took effect and you could feel your eyelids growing heavy as sleep took you, the last thing you heard before drifting off was Tech promising that he would be there when you awoke.

Photogirl894's Fluff/Romance prompts

Photogirl894's Angst prompts

Photogirl894's Physical Affection prompts

Photogirl894's 1,300 Followers celebration fics

#star wars the bad batch #the bad batch #bad batch tech #bad batch prompts #tech x reader #photogirl894 1300 followers

[demaparbat-hp]

Even if zuko has a plan to end the war, making katara work amongst people who likely hold racism towards her and aided and supported the genocide of her people is still weird, especially since zuko benefits from the fire nations oppression of people throughout s1 when hunting the Avatar. Not good choices to make in a zutara au :/

Believe me, I've made these arguments against myself over and over again.

I know I'm putting Katara in an extremely difficult and unjust position in this AU with—from an outsider's point of view���little to no reason other than "I just wanted to see her in Fire Nation armor and kicking ass" and no consideration for the context. I'm not trying to somehow forgive nor redeem the Fire Nation's actions in war just because...well...just because. Not at all. People who've read Soundless (or any other of my wips, really) know that's not the case. On the contrary—I always do my best to see the war through a realistic, mature lense. And that includes everything that makes the Fire Nation so terrible in the first place.

That being said, there are some things I considered when deciding to make Katara side with them (even if her true motives lie elsewhere) in this AU. And they are not excuses. Just, different layers of context.

First of all, she was desperate. By this point in her life, her mother was dead, her father had left to fight the war, her brother followed behind a few years after, and she was left filling the empty spaces when, by all means, she wasn't ready for the responsibility. She had been feeling helpless and hopeless for years, and ached to do anything to help her people beyond doing chores and taking care for the children.

Let it be known that Aang's apparent betrayal comes from a place of trauma and misplaced anger on Katara's part. Much like how she put the Fire Nation's sins on Zuko's shoulders in S3. She is not on the right here, but this is her natural way to process and understand grief. There are many different aspects of her development as a child involved in how she views the Avatar—and, by extension, Aang—but more on this later.

Katara was young, and reckless, and she had just been "betrayed" by the first person who ever looked at her and saw more than the perfect caretaker she was forced to be. She was not in the right state of mind to make a decision like that and, to be honest, she couldn't have predicted the consequences. She saw a clear path to contribute to the end of the war, and by La she would take it.

On Zuko's end, you might argue that he should have known better than to let her join him and, well, you would be right. But there were many things about Katara's trauma response and state of mind that—unless he had known her for a long time—he couldn't have known. He will definitely blame himself later on, when the racism and cruelty towards Katara begins, and especially when word reaches her family at sea.

It's Katara's job to smack some sense into him from time to time and tell him that, yes, he should have tried harder to stop her (and she would probably be better off because of it) but what's done is done. And, by all means, the decision was hers to make. If anything, it's their fault, not his alone.

Now, Katara doesn't suffer the entire AU. That would just be cruel.

Zuko's crew was handpicked by Uncle Iroh, so you can expect dissidents, traitors and a few White Lotus agents who were smart enough to keep their true opinions quiet. There are...mixed opinions in that bunch, of course, but that's expected and, to be honest, rather easily dealt with. They are mostly honourable people just doing their best to end the war from the inside.

The real problem comes when they cross paths with, say, Zhao's fleet (or Hakoda's, let's be real).

And you may ask why Zuko is hunting down Aang, then, if he's secretly a goody-two-shoes himself... I'll explain that later in depth, so stay tuned.

In short, I know the decisions I've made, as a creator, are debatable at best, and downright blasfemous at worst. But they're deliberate.

I want the readers to feel conflicted about Katara's choices in this AU. I want people to have mixed opinions about the war, the (apparent lack of) morality, the characters, you name it!

I'm not trying to glorify a victim of war joining the side of the ones responsible for her people's genocide, even if it's just for show and she's actually set on destroying their government from within. Not at all.

Katara made a stupid, horrible decision, and she's going to suffer the consequences. But she's also going to fight to reach her goals, because she's stubborn like that.

I know most people may have a little trouble understanding where I'm coming from, because they don't have all the information necessary to make a full opinion.

I'm really thankful for these kind of asks. They let me explore these concepts and AUs in depth, and see what you think about them. I'm only human—my opinions are not infalible, nor The Right Ones, and this is a kind of discussion that I love to have.

So, keep the asks coming!!!

#dema answers #atla #zutara #zuko #avatar the last airbender #katara #hunters au #Katara joins Zuko AU #zutara au #zutara fic #Sorry for making this so long. But I loved writing it and thinking about it from a different pov #So thank you again for not shying away from making these kind of questions #It's always good to see things from a critical perspective #Please share your opinions about these themes! It's doesn't matter how different or seemingly nonsensical they may be. #Every single one is important #And the more asks the more I get to share and think about this AU #So it's a win win situation

[cookierunauprompts]

This is super self indulgent buuut I like to think that shadow milk used to worm his way into the kingdoms he manipulated by being a jester or as an advisor so imagine this with a reader insert! Shadow milk just doing his thing when he sees the reader (could be anyone maid,princess etc) and thinks they are a perfect source for information but slowly starts to fall in love with them! And by the end he makes the reader watch as the kingdom they live in falls. Anyways hope you have a great day!

Requested Prompts #6 - 💓✙

TW - Mentions of violence, cannibalism

.

Everything was going perfectly, nobody knew him as more than the Court Jester, nobody could even guess that it was him stirring up the discord within the royal court. They only knew Blueberry Milkshake Cookie, the silly court jester who always kept one of his eyes covered. He was much, much more than just a Court Jester though. And he could tell that you knew that. So, his first thought was to get you... Out of the way. He quickly reconsidered that after seeing you behead an assassin cookie with your own bare hands. So, then came plan b, using you as a source of information. As the next in line to be Crowned in this kingdom of secrets, then surely you would hold some rather valuable information that he could use to further his own agenda. But of course, even then you were holding back on him. You were a locked treasure chest of secrets, and he was trapped in a room full of keys trying to find the one that was just right. Shouldn't he have abandoned this by now? Well, he hated to admit it, but he'd fallen in love with you. Hard and fast like a blazing meteor on a crash course into the planet. And then, came the day you revealed one of your secrets to him. " I hate this kingdom," You had said bitterly, bringing a surprised look to his face. " Hating your own kingdom, my liege?" He teased with a sly grin, not having believed you at first. " My apologies, but I thought that I was supposed to be the jokester here!-" " Blueberry Milkshake Cookie," You said sternly, and he watched as you turned to glare at him. " I'm being serious." He shut his mouth, these were your secrets, he'd finally found the key and gotten you to open up to him. Surely he wouldn't have to deal with this... love he'd developed for you after, right? " This kingdom is built upon lies, but I'm sure you knew that already." You walked up to him, hands finding their way under his arms to lift him up off his feat so the two of you could be at eye level. " Haven't you ever wondered why myself and my family are this powerful?" His heart was doing loop-de-loops, such as it always did when you showed off like this. " I have, yes." He answered. " It's because we eat other cookies, and I hate the fact that we do." You hissed out, biting your tongue to keep quiet and hushed. " You know those private executions? They're taking those Cookies to a slaughterhouse, some of them haven't even done anything wrong and yet they're being slain like livestock." You crouch down so his feet are touching the floor again while you get on your knees. " I despise this castle, my family, and everyone who let this continue to happen. I wish that my kingdom would be completely and utterly destroyed so that nobody will have to know what suffering went on here." Oh, he didn't expect that. He could see the tears of anger brimming in your eyes, he didn't like that expression on your face. So why not replace it with one of your better ones? Such as your elusive smile? His own expression twisted into a gleeful grin. " Aw~ Don't worry my dear, I'll be sure to make your wish come true~" He cooed, wiping your tears of frustration away with a wave of his hand. " What do you mean?" You had eventually asked him after a moment of silence. The confused expression on your face- not what he was going for, but he'd take it anyways- was just so adorable~ " Eheh he he he heh~ Oh, you'll just have to wait for my last performance, the one in three days time." He chuckled, slipping out of your hold and walking towards the door. " However, I do advise you get yourself out of the kingdom before then, Reader Cookie~ Ta ta for now~" On the inside, he cackled wildly... Not out loud of course, that'd get him found out. He hoped that you would head his warning, after all he didn't want you getting crumbled in the cross fire.

....

Might make a a part 2 for this one, mainly in Reader Cookie's POV about finding out that Shadow Milk was blueberry all along.

#cookie run #cookie run kingdom #cookie run au #cookie run au prompts #crk #shadow milk cookie #shadow milk cookie x reader #cr kingdom #cannibalism tw #I hope you don't mind the twist i put on it. I felt like sprinkling in a bit of horror #also strong af reader cookie my beloved.

[thegainingdesk]

Stomach capacity's a weird thing, isn't it? I swear, a couple of weeks ago I thought to myself "I'll never be able to consistently eat enough to consistently gain weight" - itself a somewhat insane thought, since I've gained an average of 1.4 pounds a week this year. I can clearly eat enough to gain weight. However, I also definitely can't "eat like a fat guy" like all the gaining advice tells me to - I cannot binge for the life of me. Once I've hit my limit, that's it. I naturally eat slowly and have, despite developing quite the belly this past year, frequently been unable to eat as much as some much smaller mates. I fundamentally cannot eat like a gainer is supposed to be able to.

But recently, some switch has been flicked. The past two days, I've eaten two dinners on each day, on top of otherwise fairly heavy days.

Yesterday, I had steak and chips with my partner, before going out to meet some mates I hadn't seen in a while. Once I got there, everyone started mentioning they'd not had dinner. Well, I'm not going to just sit there and watch everyone else eat, am I? Here I am, nominally a gainer and skipping a meal? Besides, it'd be rude, wouldn't it. We decide on an Indian restaurant - I order lamb bhuna, portion of rice, two roti. I mean, it's nothing insane, but that's just a regular order - more than a few of my mates ate, and this is my second dinner. I finish it all. I could probably eat more. Two dinners, five pints, sorted.

And today my partner was working from the office instead of from home so I was by myself and I thought, well, got to treat yourself, haven't you? Nipped to the shops - two cinnamon buns for breakfast, big sandwich for lunch, bought a great big sharing swiss roll to just nibble on through the day - a proper, footlong thing that slowly disappears through the day. As my partner texts me he's coming home, I'm feeling like I could eat, quickly polish off a big tub of leftover pasta salad as I get dinner started. Dinner's a roast chicken with vegetables, mashed potatoes, gravy. As we were tidying up the kitchen just now I polished both the wings off too.

What's that? At least 4 thousand calories yesterday, well over 5 thousand today easy (that swiss roll claimed to be 2k by itself). And here's the thing. This isn't just me having a couple of hungry days. I've felt absolutely stuffed the past two days. Woke up stuffed this morning. My gut feels heavy and big and stuffed (looks heavy and big and stuffed, for that matter). I've just... Not cared. Kept on eating. It hasn't even felt like "pushing through it". I've just wanted to eat. Ate like a fat guy.

Here's hoping it keeps up.

#not a story #personal ramblings #gaining #weight gain #personal #i might start doing these little personal things? feels nice to talk about gaining without it having to be a big plotted 5k+ word thing

[anticmiscellaney]

I absolutely adore your work! What's your process been like for writing NewOldRare and developing Neil and Louis? Your art and character writing feel so genuine and realistic to me, so I'm really curious how you go about it!

Thank you! I've always been obsessed with character-driven stories and interaction, so I guess this is the result of years of practice and observation, and dismantling stories that do and don't work to see why.

Unfortunately, there isn't a clear way to explain it. It's one of those "you know when you get it right" things, requiring an eye developed over a long time. I will redraw things if I don't feel like I've captured the nuance I wanted to, and a few months later I'll look at it and see where I could have done better. Same with writing. I'm obsessed with pacing and page design, I had a moment of "that's how I think about it too" when Will Eisner described comic panels like music.

The technical approach is I make notes about stories I want to write, then I expand that into outlines, then scripts, then thumbnails, then I draw the comics and colour them and finalise the dialogue. At every stage I'm asking myself if it feels right, if I'm getting across what I want to. That's not to say there aren't surprises and things don't develop organically, but every stage is an attempt to solve as many problems as I can before the next stage. My thumbnails are quite detailed because it makes pencils easier, and I spend a while on them.

I have total aphantasia so I am operating off feeling rather than any mental images. I have no idea how it works and no idea why I pursue this when I'm missing what many visual artists describe as a crucial component. I just do it and I have better things to do (art) than wonder about something I can't change. I don't think it's made me a better or worse artist, though I think it has given me different ways of approaching/developing things. But also, literally everything about you makes your work different to everyone else's work.

You need to care. If your character is into music, listen to that music. If they have an old car that keeps breaking down, read up on common problems for that model. If they work as a film projectionist, watch a training film about using the machine. The characters care about things, have things in their lives that matter, have skills and interests and challenges. If I don't care enough to understand them, why should anyone reading it care, and also why am I writing it if I don't care?

So I do, and in caring I understand them better. This helps me develop characters/story but it also gives me so much more to write/draw. Understanding how things work and how they are done from a physical standpoint makes writing/drawing them easier too. The more you put into your head, the more you can get out later. I'll do way less for a 12 page short than for a 300 page graphic novel, obviously. Pick your battles, a little can go a long way.

They tell artists to collect visual references - solid advice - but you should collect substance too. If you pay attention, you will hear and see things you could never in a million years make up.

I find online socialising difficult, so I go out regularly and talk to people, or just hang around and observe. Chatting with strangers mostly involves listening to them. No one in gay spaces is interested in flirting with me (I'm rather homely and queer men assume I'm straight) but I think an audience is just as appealing sometimes, and maybe even harder to find. You'd be amazed what people will tell you if you're genuinely interested and listening. I once spent forty minutes at a sci-fi con talking to a guy who'd recently gotten into fisting. While I have zero personal desire to partake in that activity (and he had no interest in being fisted by me), I'm engaged, I'm invested, I'm asking questions, spare no detail.

I collect behavior and movement and the ways people interact too. Reading stories on reddit or whatever is one thing, but the words might not be as interesting as the way they're standing, the way their hands move, the way they respond. A guy in a bar once literally humped my leg like a dog because he felt I wasn't paying enough attention to him. I would never think of that as a response to that situation, but he did, and he followed through. Fortunately my friend had just tried to drunkenly sit down and missed the chair, otherwise I would never hear the end of it.

I see the leghumper around sometimes, he's got a boyfriend and avoids making eye contact with me, thank god.

#newoldrare #replied

[only-angel-28]

1999, part four - final part!

oh my gosh. final part and what a surprise, she's a long one again💀💀ive loved writing this silly little series so so much and i love all of you very very much🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽please give me requests on what to write next bc my mind is completely blank rn, all i can think of is the cold war and bolsheviks from my history revison and i dont think they would make v good fics🤡🤡

lmk what you think of this part and your fav moments, enjoy!!

warnings: tiny angst, mostly fluff, swearing

1999, part one

1999, part two

1999, part three

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

conrad’s pov

Since Y/n is unable to hold a phone herself, I'm tasked with a lot, but I didn't fully realize the worry of her family until she had me working through each task with her.

No wonder she’s overwhelmed. The number of texts from Laurel, Mom, Belly, Jere and Steven she has to sift through in a given hour would drive anyone insane.

Or maybe I'm just going crazy by sitting this close to her. The smell of her coconut soap is permanently ingrained into my memory as she sits flush against me, pointing at different texts with her uninjured hand.

I can tell her nerves grow stronger as the Uber near the hospital.

Her knees bounce up and down as she dictates message after message I need to send, confusing me more and more with every word.

The work doesn't stop there. After we check in, a nurse hands us a clipboard filled with pages of information that need to be filled out. Y/n stares at it like it might catch on fire at any moment.

"Here." I pass it to her.

Her eyes shift toward the exit. "Will you help me please? I can't write like this." Her voice drops to a barely audible whisper.

"Okay. Tell me your answers and I'll write them down."

Her throat bobs as she scans the first line. It takes her far longer than necessary to read the first question.

"Do you mind reading the questions aloud for me? I'm too stressed to concentrate right now." Her overcompensating smile irritates me.

"Are you sure? Some of the questions are probably personal."

Don't be a dick. Just do what she says.

"I don't care.”

The rigid way she sits in her chair says the complete opposite.

She seems to be one minute away from breaking down, so I concede. I sigh as I grab the pen and get started on the first question. The paperwork doesn't take us as long as I anticipated, so Y/n and I sit together in silence. She stares at the exit longingly.

The way her eyes dart around the room as she gnaws on her bottom lip makes me feel merciful enough to save her from the anxiety eating her up inside.

“If it's any consolation, I hate hospitals too."

Her head swings toward the direction of my voice.

"Yeah?"

I nod. "Haven't been to one since…"

"I know." she says as she sees my chest heaves as I remember the millions of times we’ve been here before.

I keep my eyes focused on the soundless television playing in one corner.

Her good hand clasps onto mine and gives it a squeeze. I'm grateful she understands me enough not to ask any other questions. The idea of offering another raw part of myself feels like a betrayal of the years I've spent carefully developing a certain kind of persona.

"I hate them too." Her voice cracks.

"Why?"

She stares down at her swollen hand. “My dad…” She pauses, and I give her hand a reassuring squeeze like she gave me. "Let's just say mom ended up in the ER a couple of times for being clumsy."

I take a deep breath to stave off the anger bubbling beneath the surface. "And did you have issues with being clumsy?" If she says yes, I swear to God two men will end up floating in the Chicago River tonight.

She shakes her head rather aggressively. "No. No." My rapid heart rate can be heard through my ears. "If you were, you can tell me." While I can't promise I won't do anything about it, I can promise to make him hurt. A lot. With sulfuric acid or something, those pre-med studies are starting to come in handy now.

The overwhelming sense of protectiveness hits me hard, and I don't shy away from it. There is nothing I hate more than men who use their fists against innocent women and children.

"It never got to that point. Suze made sure of it." she says with a small smile.

"How?"

"She caught onto the signs and interfered before things got bad. Used her savings from my grandpa's life insurance policy to help Mom get a divorce and start a new life." A tear slips down her face, and I can't stand the sight of it.

I brush it away with the pad of my thumb, but the damp trail still lingers. A driving force inside of me wants to erase the sad look on her face. "Did her plan also happen to include a jug of sulfuric acid?"

She forces out a laugh. "I think concrete shoes were more in style back then."

I fake shudder. "Remind me to never make mom angry again."

"Forget her, you'd have to deal with me." She holds up her injured hand like a war trophy.

"I'm absolutely terrified."

"Miss Y/n?" a nurse calls out.

Y/n doesn't move at the sound of her name.

"That's you." I place my hand on her thigh and give it a squeeze.

She sucks in a deep breath as she stares down at my hand.

Her chair nearly tumbles behind her as she bolts out of the seat, throwing her one good hand up in the air. "I'm here!"

The nurse leads us through the emergency room bay.

Individual beds line the wall, each area divided by a paper curtain.

The empty bed meant for Y/n is unacceptable. Between the person retching behind one partition and the individual on the other side hacking up their lung, I refuse to let her be seen here.

"I'd like my…my friend, to be taken care of in a private suite," I speak up. I know I sound snotty right now but honestly, I’ll be damned if I let her already horrible hospital experience get any worse.

The nurse grimaces as her gaze licks across my body. "This is a hospital. Not the Ritz. Take a seat and wait for the doctor like everyone else."

Y/n hops on the bed without any complaint, and I'm tempted to grab her and go elsewhere. The nurse doesn't seem the least bit bothered by all the noise happening around us as she checks Y/n’s vitals and asks some routine questions.

Y/n answers each one while chewing her bottom lip raw. This atmosphere couldn't put anyone at ease, least of all her.

The nurse hangs the clipboard at the foot of the bed, and I decide to try again.

"I'll pay whatever it takes to have her seen somewhere quieter. Money is no object."

The nurse only replies by shutting the paper curtain in my face.

Y/n laughs while I stare at the curtain, dumbfounded to be treated like this.

"You find this funny?"

She nods, her eyes alight for the first time all night. "Did you see her face when you said money is no object? I think if she didn't put the clipboard away, she would have slapped your face with it."

"It's not my fault she isn't accustomed to how things are done in the real world."

"Wake up baby. You're living in the real world." She waves around our room.

"It's terrifying." I say, looking away so she couldn’t see the blush that appeared on my face at the nickname.

"Come here. I'II make it better." Y/n pats the bed.

Doubtful, but I'm a glutton for giving her what she wants lately. Paper crinkles as I sit next to her. I take up most of the bed, giving her little room to get away from me. My thigh brushes against hers. She tries to scoot away, but there isn't enough space.

“Isn’t this cozy?" she quips.

I give her a small smile before she asks, “Hey! Let me see your tattoo.”

God I’d forgotten all about them. I move the collar of my shirt to show the two small ivy leaves we’d gotten. She gasps and gently touches my skin, “Oh my gosh it’s so pretty Connie.” she stares at it for a moment before I ask to see hers.

She lifts up her shirt on the side, exposing her ribcage and the two matching leaves.

“I can’t believe you agreed to get a Taylor Swift referenced tattoo with me Con.” she says as I admire the tattoo for a bit.

I smile until saying, “Hey I might be quiet and mopey but at least I have good taste in music.”

She softly smiles at me before eyeing the IV bag with horror before checking out the exit.

"What’s wrong?”

She leans closer to me and whispers, "Is now a bad time to admit I pass out whenever someone tries to stick a needle in me?"

My lips lift at the corners. I don't know why I find the idea hilarious, given her ability to watch eight consecutive hours of true crime documentaries without so much as flinching.

"You're afraid of needles?"

She sputters. "No. I'm not afraid. It just happens to be a bodily reaction I can't control."

“That's good then because the nurse needs to set you up with that IV when she comes back."

“No! Don't tell me that! I thought she was one of the good ones.”

I nod, pressing my lips together to prevent myself from laughing.

"She lied to me!" She bolts from the seat and would have tripped over her own heels if I didn't reach out and catch her.

*Careful." I place her back on the bed and decide to stand guard in case she gets any ideas to flee the scene.

Her eyes fit from me to the gap between two curtains, as if she is thinking how she can get past me.

"I'm joking.”

She scans my face for the truth before she slaps my shoulder with her good hand. "Asshole! I believed you!"

Laughter explodes out of me like a bomb, stunning her.

“Did you just laugh?”

"No."

“Yes." Someone calls out from the other side of the curtain.

“Now, do you mind shutting up? Some of us are trying to get some sleep over here after having our stomach pumped."

Fuck this place and the people in here. "We're leaving."

"Not so fast. You can't leave before I check you out." The doctor strolls in and points at the bed with his clipboard.

Y/n remains tight-lipped as the doctor checks her chart. He asks her some questions about how she got hurt, all while staring me up and down like I'm the person she was trying to injure. She is taken away for a few scans, and my breathing doesn't return to normal until the nurse brings her back.

That should be my first sign that things are getting out of hand on my end. I'm inching closer to an emotional minefield without any kind of map, only one wrong step away from exploding.

The doctor checks the scans. "It looks like you have a boxer's fracture."

Her face brightens. "That sounds badass."

I glare at her. "Calm down, Muhammad Ali. I wouldn't count today as a victory by any means."

The doctor's eyes lighten. "Next time, avoid any initial contact on the fourth and fifth knuckles."

"Please don't encourage her."

The doctor shakes his head with a laugh before giving Y/n a detailed set of instructions regarding the healing time. I'm skeptical about the whole visit and, given the setting, doubtful about the level of care. I'll be damned if Y/n sustains permanent injuries because of Dean. My chest tightens at the idea.

“Great Thanks, Doc!" She hops off the bed, but I hold my arm out, stopping her

"I’d like a second opinion." The command bursts out of me without any rhyme or reason. Deep down, I know a boxer's fracture isn't the worst thing that could have happened. But things aren't right in my head where Y/n is concerned. At least not anymore.

Both of the doctor's eyebrows arch. "For a small fracture?"

"Don't mind him. He tends to be a bit overbearing." She shoots me a look as if I'm the crazy one out of the two of us.

"Okay..." the doctor says.

Maybe I am losing it because why else would I care?

You hate it when she cries.

You wouldn't mind murdering someone who hurt her.

You took her to the hospital even though you despise them with every fibre of your being.

The signs all point to one thing: our situation is quickly crumbling, and I'm the only one to blame.

Y/n interrupts my thoughts. "I'll be sure to wear the brace for a few weeks and avoid any kind of activities that could aggravate the injury."

"Perfect. And don't forget to schedule a follow-up visit with your physician. "The doctor gives me one last look before handing Y/n the discharge paperwork. "Nice meeting you."

"Will you help me with this?" She holds out the clipboard with her left hand as the doctor leaves.

I grab it from her and fill it out.

She checks the time on her phone. "Well, at least that didn't take as long as I thought it would. I'm sure you're dying to get back home."

That's the scary thing. I didn't think about anything or anyone once during our entire time here because making sure she was taken care of was my only concern. I've spent the past seventeen years of my life thinking solely about my future, and all it took was one girl to make me completely forget about my responsibilities for a few hours.

As if that doesn't scare me enough, it only takes one glance at her makeshift brace to make my blood burn hot under my skin. I know exactly why her injury angers me more than anything else.

It's the same reason I feel the urge to push Jere away from her whenever he gets too close or the way I unexplainably need to see her whenever she is out of my sight for longer than a few hours.

You’re in love with her.

Fuck.

                ༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

y/n’s pov

We’re in an Uber on the way home, sitting in comfortable silence until Conrad breaks it.

“Why’d you get with Dean anyway?” My stomach doubles over.

Comfortable silence is so overrated.

I sigh. I’ve been dreading this question for ages now.

“I don’t know.” I answer vaguely.

Conrad gives me a puzzled look, “What do you mean you don't know? You must’ve had a reason.”

His restlessness gets me more agitated.

“I don’t know Conrad. I don’t know why I got with him, I don’t know why I was waiting on you for so long either.” I look out the window as the car stops in front of the house.

“What? What do you mean?” he says as I get out the car and speed up to the front door, taking the keys out of my pocket and refusing to carry on with this conversation anymore.

Conrad keeps yelling after me as he follows me upstairs to my room, both of us trying to ignore everyone else who joined Conrad and are trying to ask their own questions.

I slam my door shut and collapse on my bed hearing Conrad trying to calm everyone down and telling them everything that's happened until he asks them all to give me some space for now.

I cry in the silence as I hear everyone leaving from outside the door until it opens.

“Hey.”

Steven. Thank God.

“Steve…” I say sniffling.

He looks at me with a sad smile before sitting on the bed with me and taking me in his arms.

“Con told us everything,” he says after a few minutes of holding me, “did you really get a boxer's fracture?”

I laugh in tears before showing him my hand and saying, “You should see the other guy.”

Steven and I laugh together before going back to the silence as he hugs me.

“He really cares about you, you know.”

“No he doesn’t. He hates me. I yelled at him and now I’m crying here on my bed like an idiot.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Steven looks down at me.

I shake my head before saying, “He asked why I got with Dean.”

“Oh. That’s not too bad.”

“No it’s not.”

“Then why are you so upset?”

“Because I’ve been waiting for Conrad for so long and I’m just sick and tired of always being there to help him get over his breakups when he’d be so much better off with me. I know I sound selfish and none of my reasons are justified but I just thought that after everything we’ve been through together, he’d maybe like me just a little bit.”

Steven hugs me again and softly says, “He does.”

After that almost everyone but Conrad came in to check up on me and make sure I was okay, making me feel even more guilty about being all emotional like this. It’s not until Susannah’s holding me and whispering sweet nothings that my eyes start to feel heavy.

I think I fell asleep after that, I don’t remember much except waking up to the sun shining its very unwelcome face in my eyes.

I step out of my room after freshening up and I’m about to make my way to the kitchen for food until I’m stopped by something in the hallway.

Or should I say someone.

“Conrad,” I bend down and stroke his hair out of his face, “Conrad wake up.” I say gently.

He stirs for a minute before sitting up and taking my hands in his.

“Have you been out here all night?” I ask.

“Yes.” he says in a raspy voice.

God that voice would make my knees give out if I wasn’t already on the floor with him.

“Why?”

“I need to talk to you.”

I sigh before he interrupts me, “Listen, I heard everything you said to Steven last night and I know I shouldn’t have and I was eavesdropping but I’m sorry it was by accident. And I know I don’t deserve any more of your time…I’ve already wasted a lot of it but just hear me out for ten minutes.”

“No.” I try to get out of his grasp.

“Stop fighting and give me ten minutes.”

“No way.”

“Nine then.”

“Five.”

“Eight and a half.”

“Six.”

“Seven.”

I pause, knowing that he won’t let me go anywhere before I hear him out.

“You don’t deserve seven seconds, let alone seven minutes of my time.”

“How about seven words then?”

I laugh. “I’d like to see you try.”

“I am falling in love with you.”

I blink up at him. Either I am still sleeping or I must have not heard him correctly because there is no way Conrad Fisher just admitted that he is falling in love with me.

Absolutely no fucking way.

Right?

I squeeze my eyes shut as if that can erase the words from my memory.

"You're joking.

"I'm not."

"This is just another part of your game." I try to push him away, but he doesn't budge.

"It stopped being a game for me a long time ago."

"You're lying."

His brows pull together. "Ask me why I hate when people touch my bookshelf."

"Are you serious right now? What does that have to do with any of this?" I think back to his bookshelf he won’t let any of the others go near but loves to let me organise and re-organise each year.

"Because I did it for you."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I read somewhere online that organising objects like books and things is good for people with anxiety, because then they can feel in control of something and know exactly what to expect especially if things are the same as they've predicted all the time. You love reading too, so I changed it. Bought all the books you like to read so that you’d stay and read with me more often. I forced everyone else out of my room and especially away from that bookshelf. All because I wanted to help you."

Emotions clog my throat, preventing my ability to reply.

What can I possibly say that could compare to that?

Conrad doesn't give me an option as he continues. "Want to know why I kept this plant you got me?" he says pointing to the small green cactus with “Don’t be a prick” written on the pot that we could see looking into his room from the hallway.

I nod.

"Because it was the first time someone got me a present that made me laugh."

If hearts could melt into puddles, mine would be liquified right about now.

I take a deep breath.

Remember what he did.

“Con that doesn't change anything you still ignored me for a whole year. Every time I tried to call you or text you, you’d just leave me on read or decline, and now you’re telling me you love me? Who does that?"

"Someone who doesn't understand the first thing about loving someone, but is willing to try if you give me a chance."

"You want me to give you a chance after everything? Do you think I'm stupid?"

He winces, and a bit of my anger fades away at his vulnerability.

"Intelligence has nothing to do with this."

"Easy for you to say when you're not the one who feels like a fool."

"Really? Because based on your reaction today, I'm feeling pretty damn foolish for ever admitting that I'm falling in love with you." He gets up off the floor, leaving me feeling chilled to the bone.

"Con..." I reach out, but he takes a step back.

My eyes sting from his rejection. It hurts.

“I’m not asking you to love me back. I don't expect that and I'm not sure if I ever will because I'm the furthest thing for lovable. I'm selfish, and rude, and don't know the first thing about being in a proper relationship with someone. But that doesn't mean I’m not willing to try for you if you let me."

How am I supposed to be angry at him when he thinks he is unlovable?

A pain rips through my chest at the thought of him talking about himself this way.

I get up off the floor and walk straight into his chest. His arms quickly wrap themselves around my waist, holding me even tighter.

"Just because you make selfish choices doesn't mean you're a selfish person. At least not completely."

This boy had been there for Belly, Steven, me and Jere for years without any kind of payback, especially when Susannah was going through her cancer and despite feeling an immense amount of pain himself, he shoved all his emotions aside so that he could be there for us. For me. If that isn't a selfless sacrifice, I don't know what is.

"Your logic is half-baked at best."

"So is yours, seeing as you called yourself unlovable."

His body tenses. "I'm stating facts."

"I don't know what bullshit your father told you over the years, but it's not true. Your brother loves you."

"He’s obligated to."

"No one is obligated to love someone else. Blood or not."

He takes a deep breath. "You're right."

I smile up at him. "I could get used to hearing those words."

He reaches up and cups my cheek. "Give me a chance and I'll tell you them every single day."

I sigh and look away. "I don't know.”

"Tell me what's stopping you."

"You don't do relationships."

“Good thing our feelings lead us here rather than our minds, and mine are willing to try then."

I avoid his penetrating gaze. "What if my feelings are telling me to run?”

“It's cute you think you can outrun me, but I'll give you a head start just to make things interesting." he smiles down at me.

"Do you always have an answer for everything?"

"Not for the one that matters most." The way he looks at me stirs up something deep inside of me.

Longing. I want to give him a chance, regardless of the potential fallout.

You might get hurt.

I might, but I might miss out on something special because I’m too afraid of the what ifs. I'm done being that person. Even if it means getting hurt, I'd rather try and fail than never try at all.

I stand on the tips of my toes and press my lips against his.

He holds me tight against his chest, as if he is afraid of letting me go.

I pull away, only to clasp onto his chin. "This could be a disaster, but I'm willing to try."

He shuts me up by pushing his lips against mine, sealing our new deal. The way he kisses me is different than any time before. He cups my face with the palms of his hands as his lips mold against mine, teasing me until I feel dizzy. His thumb brushes across my cheek back and forth, and heat rushes down my spine straight to my belly. He makes me feel cherished. Protected.

Loved in a way that makes me never want to come back down to reality.

I could spend forever being kissed like this and still feel like it isn't enough. While Conrad might not be the best with words, his kiss says it all.

He is falling in love with me. And I’m falling in love with him. No translation necessary.

                ༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

ahh i cant believe its finished omg😔💔...

anyways, onto the next one😍🙏

again please lmk what you think of this and please give me requests on what to do next!!

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