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scintillyyy · 1 year

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Did Jack really didnt realize Tim was missing for months??? Like i know this is comic book fuckery, but still dude holy shit

alright anon, i believe your ask is referring to my comic book references in the endnotes in my janet fic where i mention that jack doesn't notice tim is gone for like 4 months during no man's land, so i'm going to answer it as if it is. correct me if i'm wrong, tho! and i'll be honest: some of those are meant to humorously poke fun at jack's parenting (or lack thereof).

but to answer your question, yes and no? it kind of boils down to two main points

honestly, in jack's defense, i truly don't think that chuck dixon's intention was to make it seem like jack was totally unaware of and not super concerned about tim being missing for months on end

due to the utter wackiness (and wonderfulness) that is the canon of the no man's land timeline, it definitely comes across that jack is very unconcerned about and/or unaware of tim being gone for a...not insignificant amount of time

under a cut for length

so for starters, we have to take a look at the no man's land official timelime as laid out in the no man's land secret files

our important months here are may and september. in robin #67, tim and dick sneak into no man's land together. based on the official timeline given, this happens in may. robin is then noted to be staying in no man's land and assisting batman through the months of june, july, and august. you'll notice it's not until september that he defeats killer croc and secures the west side.

this is important, because tim doesn't call his jack and let him know that he's in no man's land until robin #72 - after he defeats killer croc.

so now we have a 4 month gap of may to september where tim has been MIA and out of contact from jack and we, uh, haven't heard anything about this disappearance from his dad. no concerns, nothing. which, in all likelihood is because they didn't want to devote any page space to a subplot like this with jack when they had a lot of other stories they needed to tell, but since they don't flash over to jack worrying about tim at all, it kind of reads like jack isn't necessarily super concerned about the fact that tim has been gone for months on end.

and this is strange because, honestly, in canon jack is not the type who would just let his son be missing without addressing it at all, considering tim has gone missing before and jack....didn't take it well. right before cataclysm, tim runs away due to doubting himself as robin and jack not only notices within a couple of days that tim is gone, he goes all out to try and find him.

he contacts the police in robin #48 and robin #49

he even goes to talk to bruce in his desperation to see if bruce knows anything about where his son could have gone (which is actually my favorite bruce & jack interaction)

so we're left with this interesting juxtaposition of how we know jack will react to his son being missing for weeks and how jack is...not really reacting to tim being gone for 4 months at this point.

now we do get a panel that implies that jack is vaguely aware that tim has been gone for a bit. when tim calls him in robin #72 he does say this:

he does ask where tim is and where he's been, but also....

well, i generally disagree with policing people's reactions to stressful situations like this (unlike a lot of true crime enthusiasts), but, uh...idk, to me jack is not really acting like his son has been gone for 4 months at this point. because we've seen how he reacts to tim being gone for multiple weeks, if not months. it looks like this (from robin #52):

you can see here he is palpably relieved and downright exuberant that his son is alive and contacting him after being MIA for so long. he's not angry at all, just filled with relief that his son is okay. compare this to the no man's land one, where he just seems annoyed and angry, like it's just a situation where tim was supposed to be home for dinner or something and he never showed up because he went out with friends and didn't call and let his dad know his plans. like, nothing about the no man's land example reads to me like a father who has been worried sick at his son casually disappearing for 4 months (after recently doing this to boot and jack was shown to be absolutely sick with concern over it all!) without contacting him at all, considering we do know how jack reacts to this very situation. like, almost everything about those two panels are framed differently, even though it's basically the same situation. and of course, after jack finds out that tim is in no man's land, he immediately reacts like he did prior to cataclysm: with immense concern for tim's safety and a goal to find him and get him home. he calls the media and does everything in his power to get tim out safely! so as readers, we're left wondering about how this gap was handled since we didn't hear from jack at all during that time and we've got a couple of options, actually:

most likely, jack was very concerned offscreen over the four months actually, but at the same time he was also very annoyed because didn't they just go through this? he's very upset that tim just keeps running off like this. he probably reported it to the police and we just didn't see it because chuck dixon didn't want to rehash the tim is missing story with jack again or devote limited page space to how jack is reacting to his son being missing.

more hilariously, jack didn't really notice tim was gone for as long as he was. teenagers are slippery, okay? jack is doing his best, but it's really hard keeping track of your fifteen year old when you're jack drake. he just assumed that tim was having a busy summer with his friends and, you know, jack was busy too, working and doing stuff with dana and it's not until dana casually mentions around the end of august, hey, i notice tim hasn't been around recently, shouldn't he be starting school in a few days? and jack's like, huh, that's weird, where is that kid, i expect him home for dinner, i guess i haven't seen him in a few days, now i'm starting to get worried and then his kid calls and is like, hey i'm actually in no man's land.

and honestly, i don't think this whole 4 month thing is something chuck put a lot of thought into, or he definitely backtracked on how unreasonable it was to have tim be gone for so long and never show jack being concerned about it prior to tim calling him considering in robin #74, he has tim say this:

where tim is like "oh, he's mad because i disappeared for a month", which i think is trying to make it better in that maybe tim wasn't gone as long as the timeline would suggest, and jack clearly spent a couple of weeks with his media circus between when he finds out tim is in no man's land and when tim is able to get rescued from no man's land which would give us the rough month tim claims to be missing for, so the implication is that tim maybe didn't actually go missing for 4 months?

but this also directly contradicts the official timeline of events, and actually gives us an even more hilarious implication: you see, jack finds out in september that tim is missing and the issue that tim gets rescued at is meant to be read before catwoman #75, which is catwoman en route to to NML, which our timeline places in october...which is about a month from september. so there we have a month that tim is gone that jack is aware of, so to jack, tim went missing for a month in no man's land.

but for that to work, jack has to be unaware that tim was actually also missing for the four months prior. so there it is! jack being seemingly completely unaware that his son is MIA for four months. in large part, due to the utter ridiculousness of the no man's land timeline rather than any actual intent on the writers' part to do so.

fun times!

#scintilly ask tag #jack drake #tim drake #batman #dc

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beccastareyes · 6 months

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It's Time for Scream about New Book!

The Innocent Sleep + bonus Novella. But with spoiler tags, because I'm not a monster

(The tag lets everyone block things right? I am inexperienced at the Tumblr.)

I have a lot to say, and I'm glad we got the look at what the spell looked like from the outside. Some things I noticed:

Tybalt noted that Berkley was always independent, and that while most people assumed it was because of the university, it was not.

Confirmation that 'Eira' was Karen Brown, but a further mystery of what role Cassandra was playing.

It seems like Titania took three days to get some things straight; Raysel and Tybalt were booted as soon as possible, but the Cait Sidhe spent 3 days stuck in the Court before the 'we have always lived in the castle' thing hit.

For someone who was always about refinement, Titania really got lazy, or just assumed that since she caught Oberon and the Luidaeg off guard and Maeve continues to be MIA, she didn't have to care about the details herself since it was only 4 months. Because a lot of people seemed to key into 'this makes no sense' when confronted with it. As soon as Grainne realized the Cait Sidhe were alive, she connected 'that's why Candela can still access the Shadow Roads -- we couldn't be sustaining them ourselves. Gabriel noted that there shouldn't be this many thin-blooded changlings among the Cait Sidhe if they'd been trapped for centuries without contact with the mortal world. Even Toby herself -- with a double dose of the illusion -- had the realization that she would have had to have cut herself once during a childhood, but she never remembered it.

Since I assume Quentin was the intended sacrifice, having 'Evening' taking a more active role in his fosterage to create the illusion that he had seven years of paradise probably didn't help. (I also wonder if Titania edited out the memory of his sister; Quentin was pretty miserable in Shadowed Hills in canon because he knew what having someone close to you and equal enough to call you out on things was like, in addition to 'Sylvester is not doing well'. )

(I do appreciate the irony that Titania gave Amandine what she thought she wanted -- look, here your husband and daughters all love you, and everyone is willing to flatter and celebrate you... because you are the only one who can sustain Faerie as Titania made it, so get to work. Probably because Amandine's bloodworking meant she could penetrate the illusions, so she needed something to buy her off, with the promise that once the spell was anchored in the Heart of Faerie, they could reopen the doors to deeper Faerie and Amandine wouldn't be needed.)

... I probably should be breaking some of these up. This is getting long.

I also liked the novella. Which... Helmi noticed that the magical signature during the Earthquake was 'roses and wood smoke'... that's August's signature. (Well, roses and 'campfire smoke' but close enough. Unless the source isn't August but is part of the explanation for why Simon's magical signature is unlike Sylvester's despite them being twins.) (Also Mary stating that the Roane were only sure about Dianda's daughter after Simon started having sex with Patrick and Dianda, and the daughter's magical signature including whitebeam flowers when Simon's has whitebeam smoke seems to suggest that the daughter will be biologically Simon and Dianda's.)

#october daye #the innocent sleep #spoilers #october daye spoilers #the innocent sleep spoilers #doubtless and secure #doubtless and secure spoilers

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allthefakepeople · 2 years

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Thank you for fulfilling my prompt 💕. Please don't apologize for taking a few days. I can only agree with the last anon. I love everything you have written, thus far and you did brilliantly with my prompt. I especially love this line:

"He’s gone and I’m what’s left. And I’m right here."

I think it is unbearably sad that Wille percieves himself as only the 'spare' and is to a large extent also treated as such. Because I clearly only want someone to take proper care of him, how about "Thank you, mama" as a new prompt. And you decide whether he says it to Kristina, Malin, Linda or even Simon. And how he says it fond, grateful, jokingly...

ok ok ok a few things. one i'm so so sorry this took so long to get out. i just got a little busy but today i was suddenly hit with this storyline and had to write it down. to say sorry i'm pretty sure this is one of my longest prompts haha. i hope it's okay that i combined these prompts i just thought they would work well together. it's definitely pretty fluffy but there is also for sure some hurt/comfort and some minor angst. @eyeofthedrgn i'm so so glad that you've enjoyed all my others.

also i have to admit part of this one was slightly influenced by a scene from the show teen wolf in which stiles calls melissa mom (if you've seen the show, if not then ignore this part of the message)

anywhoooo i hope you all like this one and that you haven't gotten sick of my writing yet haha

-Miels💜✨

Writing Prompts (yes i am still accepting them, though again it might take a bit to get to them)

“Thanks Mama”/“Don’t worry, I’m staying right here,”

Wille doesn’t think he’s ever felt this sick and out of it in his life. To be completely fair, he probably could’ve gotten a handle on this before it got this bad, but his mother had hammered the point into his head that “the Crown Prince should never appear weak” so what had started as a minor cold had become… hell. It had become hell. His head was fuzzy, he was sure he had a fever, he had chills but was also burning up, his throat felt like he’d just taken up sword swallowing and he wasn’t very good at it. In short, Wille felt like shit. He knows he probably looks like shit too. He curses his past self for not taking it easy and resting but with all the new responsibilities of crown prince and returning to Hillerska after Christmas, with all the stares and whispers and Simon, he instead thought he could just push through it when it was just a runny nose. Fat chance of good that did him now. Deep down, a part of him wondered if he let it get this bad on purpose as a punishment for his behavior before Christmas. He tried to push those thoughts away knowing they wouldn’t do him any good right now. Plus, in a wild turn of events, Wille and Simon had somehow developed a tentative friendship since Wille’s been back.

When he initially returned to school his first mission was to find Simon and, even if he pushed him away, tell him that August was the one who had posted the dreaded video. He had been almost eaten alive by the guilt over the holidays over not telling Simon on that last day before break but he had just wanted to give Simon the chance to have, at least somewhat of a, joyus holiday. He knew it was pretty unlikely that he hadn’t managed to completely fuck up Simon’s chance at a happy winter break with all of his drama, but he still hoped it was the case anyways. It was part of the reason he didn’t text Simon the information either, although part of the reason for that was the minor fear that Simon had blocked him and wouldn’t get the message anyways. He knew this was something that had to be done in person, so even if Simon didn’t ever want to talk again after, he was determined to let Simon know who had ruined them beyond recognition.

He knew the conversation was not going to go well when he’d finally approached Simon on their first day back, looking as beautiful as ever though a twinge went through Wille at the dark circles under Simon’s eyes that hinted at restless nights, and Simon had immediately turned away from him.

“Wille, please. I can’t do this today. Not yet at least,” Simon practically pleads. Wille hates himself even more for having to push past this boundary that Simon is clearly trying to set, but this is important.

“I understand you don’t want to speak with me Simon. But this is really important.,” Simon still had his face buried in his locker looking for a nonexistent book, his shoulders had become even more tense the longer Wille stood there. “Look, you don’t have to ever talk to me again after this if you don’t want to. But Simon, please.” He noticed Simon’s eyes flick to him when the word please, softened like butter, had flown out of Wille’s mouth. Wille lowered his voice even more and cast his eyes around. Luckily the hallways were practically empty. “It’s about the video,” That got Simon’s attention. His face snapped. Simon’s eyes darted across Wille’s face, clearly searching for some sort of answer to what this could be, before settling on Wille’s eyes. Wille put all the emotion he could into making his expression as open and vulnerable as possible. Simon let out a big sigh, Wille tried to bite back a small smile knowing that he had him, before nodding slowly.

“Fine,” Simon then gestured to the open door of the empty music room a few paces down. As Wille led Simon into the room and closed the door, the feeling of deja vu wrapped around him and squeezed at his chest. The last time they had been in here, Wille had never felt more helpless around Simon before. He was feeling that right then. Wille brought his hand up to his lips and bite at his nail but quickly pulled it away again, knowing that Simon’s eyes were on him. Wille’s were on the floor, not quite able to look Simon in the face when he explained who had ruined Simon’s life… Well apart from him of course. It was quiet between them for a few moments as Wille tried to organize his thoughts and Simon, who had always been more patient with him than he ever deserved, let him. However the silence started to stretch and bend, but not yet break, as Wille’s mind raced from how to tell Simon this into… Should he tell Simon this. Especially when he doesn’t have a plan on how to fix it. Eventually it seemed like Simon gave up on waiting for Wille.

“Well? What do you have to tell me,” Wille’s eyes darted up to meet Simon’s quickly, where Wille himself actually entered the room Simon had stayed right at the door probably so he could make a quick exit if things went south, before darting away. Simon sighed again, though this time Wille could tell he was getting frustrated.

“Wille please. I don’t have time for this.” Simon sounded so defeated and lost that it brought Wille’s eyes back to his. Wille realized he couldn’t drag this out any further. Simon deserved to know even if it didn’t change anything.

“I know…” Wille started then stopped again, eyes still skittish. “I know who posted the video,” At Simon’s sharp inhale, Wille looked back at him. This time he didn’t let himself look away. Simon looked like he wasn’t sure if he should feel relieved or angry or anxious so he settled on an expression that somehow conveyed all three.

“Well?” Simon insisted. Wille took a deep breath, both quelling his own anxiety as well as his rising anger at the information he had.

“It was August,” At the expression on Simon’s face over this, Wille almost wished he could take it all back. Simon looked resigned, angry, heartbroken, but also like he should’ve seen this coming.

“August…” Simon scoffed. “Of course it was August. Who else could it have been?” Wille stayed silent as he let Simon work through his emotions. Something seemed to occur to him.

“Wait… How long have you known about this?” Wille was dreading this question. He looked away, and hugged himself with his arms trying for some comfort but being unsuccessful.

“Felice figured it out right before break and told me,” Simon scoffed again, Wille flinched at it being directed at him.

“Before break… and you didn’t think to tell me when you first found out?” Simon’s voice rose slightly. Wille kept his gaze firmly on the floor now, not wanting Simon to see the tears steadily building up at the corner of his eyes.

“I.. I just…” Wille started out stuttering. “I just wanted you to have a nice holiday. I didn’t want out last conversation to be about that,” Simon let out a harsh laugh at that.

“That wasn’t your choice to make Wille. I deserved to know,” Wille nodded at Simon’s words. He knew he had fucked up. He always just seemed to keep fucking up around Simon.

“I know. And I’m sorry. It’s why I wanted to tell you as soon as I could after coming back.” Wille looked back up at this, Simon still looked disappointed before something seemed to occur to him.

“But… wait. If you knew it was August, I’m positive you would’ve mentioned something to your mother.” They were getting to the part of this that Wille hated even more. “So why the fuck do I still see him wandering the halls of Hillerska?”

“My mom…” Wille stopped to get a hold of himself. “My mother appears to have already known… before I had even made the statement,” At this Simon’s mouth dropped open. “She says the reason she didn’t tell me is she knew I’d ‘react like this’ whatever that means. Nothing is going to happen to him because she’s protecting him. But Simon,” He takes a tentative step towards where Simon is still stationed at the door looking ready to bolt. “ You have to know that if I knew who had posted the video or knew that she had known before I made my statement, I never would’ve made it,” This didn’t seem to be the right thing to say. Simon’s face darkened at the mention of the video.

“I… I don’t know if that makes it any better Wille,” Simon’s voice cracks at the same time as Wille’s heart. Wille nods.

“I understand.” They briefly stood together in their grief. Wille could feel the panic and sadness rising in him again. While he knew this conversation wasn’t going to fix anything, he had hoped they’d at least come out of it less broken. He wanted to be out of this room. He knew it probably made him a coward to want to run from this but he’d never claimed to be brave. He also didn’t want Simon to witness just how broken this all had left him. “That was all I had to say. Now if you want, you never have to speak to me again,” Wille’s voice hitched at the thought of him and Simon going through the rest of Hillerska, practically strangers who somehow knew just how the other person liked to be kissed, tears now making their way down Wille’s cheeks. He squeezed his arms even harder around himself, though it did little to help.

“Wille,” Simon’s voice was soft but broken. Wille interrupted not being able to handle that tone of voice. “Honestly, it’s okay Simon. You wanted space and I’ll give you as much space as you want for as long as you need. I’m sorry I pushed you to talk even now.” At his next words he made sure to look Simon in his eyes even though it broke him in two. “You deserve for everything to be on your terms now.” That seemed to break something in Simon, because tears were now running down his cheeks as he tried to keep them at bay. Wille couldn’t help himself. He walked right up to Simon and hugged him just like he’d wanted to since he’d let go of him before the break. Wille melted into Simon and his familiar smell and his familiar warmth. Simon held on just as tight, hiding his face in Wille’s neck. Wille could feel where his shirt was getting wet with Simon’s tears but there would’ve had to be a natural disaster going on outside for him to have pulled away. They cried against each other for what could have been hours or minutes or years or seconds. Wille knew they’d missed part of a class at least. Eventually Wille slowly started to pull back. He felt his heart clench at the small whimper that managed to escape Simon’s lips before they clamped down. Wille brought his hands from around Simon’s shoulders up to his face, where he gently brushed Simon’s tears away with his thumbs. Wille noticed Simon shiver at the soft touch. In a quiet voice, looking Simon in the eyes, Wille mumbled

“I’m serious, Simon. You don’t owe me anything. You can’t take all the time you want. I won’t force anything from you after this,” Simon’s eyes bore into his, so beautiful and so broken. Wille slowly brought his lips down and brushed them against Simon’s cheek, who closed his eyes and let out a breath at the soft touch. “Just don’t give up on me yet,” Wille whispered against Simon’s ear before slowly pulling all the way back, so they were only connected by a single joined hand. Simon looked him in the eye and opened his mouth. Wille braced himself.

“I could never,” Wille squeezed Simon’s hand and offered him a small but genuine smile that Simon just barely returned. Then Simon nodded once and opened the door. Wille let him.

That whole conversation felt like a lifetime ago, but since then Wille and Simon had slowly but surely built back up to a friendship. Neither were ready to cross the line into something more yet, but they could both confidently say the other was their best friend. If they sometimes clung to each other a little longer than necessary or Simon caught Wille’s eyes on him lingering longer than strictly friendly, well they didn’t mention it.

Either way, the second Wille had woken up on this day feeling like death warmed over, all he wanted was to go to Simon’s. A few weeks after Simon and Wille had started up their tentative friendship again, Simon had invited Wille to come over and, although he had originally protested worried that Linda hated him, Wille couldn’t deny the opportunity to spend time with Simon. It also seemed like his worries were for naught because the second he stepped into Simon’s house again, he was being pulled into a warmed, loving embrace by Linda. He melted into it completely and almost missed Simon’s unbearably fond expression at the scene in front of him. So yes, he wanted to spend time with Simon, who was slightly exasperated with him for not taking better care of himself, but what’s more is he wanted to spend time in Linda’s warm company. His own mother had never known how to deal with a sick Wille (or a sick anyone for that matter) so he’d never experienced the loving way Linda cares for her children when they’re even slightly under the weather. He knew for a fact that Simon wouldn’t even be home yet, since he had choir practice and Sara had riding, but Linda had always said that Wille was welcome anytime and right now, Wille was having a hard time resisting that pull.

He doesn’t even know how he managed it, but somehow he found himself in front of the Erikkson’s door. He was knocking before he’d meant to and then the door was opening and Linda’s angelic face was on the other side. Wille’s pretty sure he even caught sight of a halo over her head but that could very well have been a hallucination from having a fever of 102.

“Wille!” See, this is why Wille came here. No one was ever this excited to see Wille.

“Hi Linda,” Wille attempted a smile but it probably came across as a grimace. He’s not sure how Linda didn’t immediately catch on to how awful he felt considering how awful he must look, but Linda had always been too polite for her own good. However she did let Wille come into the house, Wille vaguely noticed that Malin was hovering just slightly behind him. Huh, I guess that’s how I got here. Linda turned to him once he’d entered.

“I’m afraid Simon isn’t here,” Linda looked sincerely apologetic.

“Oh yes… I know that already,” Wille was pretty sure he was going to start swaying pretty soon. He caught on to the slightly confused expression on Linda’s face.

“Sara isn’t here either,” Now Wille was starting to feel a little sheepish at coming here.

“No, I know that too.” Linda studied him for a few more moments and then seemed to actually clock in to the fact that something was wrong.

“Wille, are you okay?” Wille tried to nod his head rapidly but that just made him dizzy and he put his hand out against the wall.

“Umm. Not really,” Wille tried to look directly at Linda who now looked sincerely worried.

“Do you need me to call Simon?” Wille panicked at the idea of Linda worrying Simon over something like this.

“No no. I just… ummm I haven’t been feeling too well today and… I just wanted to be somewhere that makes me feel safe… and that’s… well here but also I kinda wanted to be around you since I know you take care of Simon and Sara when they’re feeling sick and I…” Wille could tell he was just gearing up before suddenly he was pulled into some loving arms. He melted into it immediately, feeling the motherly glow of Linda. Even though Linda was significantly shorter than Wille now, he felt just like a kid again in her arms, burying his face in her neck.

“Of course I can take care of you. You shouldn’t even have to ask,” Linda whispered into Wille’s ear. Wille nodded before seeming to realize this close contact wasn’t the best idea. Hating himself slightly for it, he pulled gently out of Linda’s arms, who rubbed her hands down his arms comfortingly.

“I shouldn’t be hugging you. I don’t want to get you sick too,” Linda waved her hand at this.

“I don’t get sick. Don’t even worry about it,” Then before Wille could protest, Linda’s hand was reaching up to his forehead.

“You sure are burning up though, how would you feel about laying down. I’m sure Simon wouldn’t mind you borrowing his bed for a few hours,” Wille felt entirely too weak to resist the idea of sleeping in a bed surrounded by the smell of Simon so he just nodded, leaning heavily into Linda. She easily took his weight and led him down the hallway into, what Wille knew to be, Simon’s bedroom.

“Give me one moment Wille,” Linda had Wille lean up against Simon’s desk as she pulled back Simon’s covers and grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms from Simon’s drawers. It didn’t take too long and before he knew it, Linda was sticking her hand out for Wille to take, which he happily did, and led him to the bed. She had him sit down first.

“Do you want to change into something a little more comfortable?” Wille nodded sleepy at those words, before slipping his own shirt off and taking the pants from her. He knew that when he was more aware of it, he would be embarrassed about stripping in front of Linda, but right now he couldn’t be bothered to care about that. Once he was changed, Linda gently helped him lay back in bed. He melted into the pillow and the surrounding smell of Simon before he felt the covers being brought up around him. His eyes fluttered as he felt a gentle hand against his forehead and a whispered

“Sleep now, Wille,” He felt so safe and so comfortable and he was quickly slipping into dreamland but he let one thing slip before he did.

“Thanks Mama,” He didn’t hear a response as he was dragged under.

—--------------💜💜💜—----------------

Meanwhile Simon was slightly panicking. He hadn’t heard from Wille all day, nor had he really seen him. When he had seen Wille, Wille had seemed so out of it he hadn’t even noticed Simon was there. Simon was worried. He knew Wille hadn’t been feeling great all week, had been pushing him to rest, but Wille had been stubborn. Simon had texted Wille a few times to no response, which was already strange because Wille almost always responded. Simon saw a text from Linda pop up at the top of his screen as he refreshed his messages with Wille hoping for some form of response, but he brushed her message away, pretty sure it was about dinner or something. Then Simon had been called into Choir practice and had been able to distract himself for a little while even if Felice had made his worries flare up again by saying she also hadn’t seen or heard from Wille for most of the day. Simon ignored the face Felice made over Simon’s clear distress for Wille. Simon would have felt this way if any of his friends had gone off the raider. I mean, yeah he was pretty sure he was in love with Wille and had been since Wille had said it to him all those months ago, but that doesn’t change the fact that he would do this for any of his friends.

When he finally left choir practice Simon pulled out his phone but he still didn’t have any messages from Wille. He decided to check Wille’s room once more to make sure Wille wasn’t just hiding away for whatever reason. When he got to Wille’s he was almost immediately sure that Wille wasn’t there because Malin wasn’t stationed outside but he knocked anyway. Not getting a response, Simon yet again started to panic. Pretty soon, Sara would be getting annoyed for having to wait for him so slowly Simon made his way to the stables, thinking maybe just maybe Wille might be there.

He didn’t find Wille, just a frustrated Sara who he apologized to profusely. He quickly explained why he’d been late and she softened slightly at that.

“Maybe text Mama and see if she knows anything,” Simon thought about that for a moment and realized it couldn’t hurt. He also remembered the message she had sent before choir practice and felt guilty over having ignored it for so long. However a completely different emotion filled up Simon when he actually read her message.

Hi Mi amor. Just letting you know that if you’re looking

for your boy, he’s resting here. He looked pretty worn

out and seemed to need a place to crash. ❤️

Simon let out a breath of relief at knowing Wille was safe and then a whole new emotion filled him when he realized that Wille had gone to his house, knowing Simon wasn’t there, because he needed comfort from Simon’s mother. If Simon thought about it too long he might just burst into tears.

Gracias mama I was getting worried

when I couldn’t find him. How is he?

He seemed pretty out of it but he’s sleeping and

hasn’t woken up so I’m letting him rest.

I think he’d probably appreciate it if you

were here when he wakes up

Yeah Sara and I are on our way back now

Now that Simon knew where Wille was, he couldn’t get home fast enough. Sara seemed to notice his change in emotion because she didn’t comment, just let Simon drag her to the bus. By the time the siblings got back to their house, Simon practically broke the door down in his haste to open it.

“Jesus, Simon. He’s not going to disappear,” Sara teased. Simon just huffed and walked through the door. Immediately heading for his mom.

“How is he?” He knew he still sounded slightly panicked but Linda didn’t comment on it.

“He’s fine, Mi amor. He’s still resting. I was about to bring this soup in for when he woke up but why don’t you bring it up for him.” Simon nodded and took the tray from Linda. He gently opened his bedroom door, setting the tray down on the washer across the way as he softly closed the door again, before grabbing the tray again and bringing it into his room. He couldn’t help but melt slightly at the sight of Wille curled up in his sheets. He quietly walked over to his desk, placing the tray on it before he was surprised by a sound behind him.

“Simme?” Simon’s heart jumped, both at the surprise of hearing Wille’s voice and at the nickname. When Simon turned around, Wille’s eyes were hazy but open, settled gently on him. He kept his own voice quiet when he responded.

“Hi Wille. I brought some soup if you want some,” Instead of answering that, Wille stuck his hand out and Simon couldn’t do anything but take said hand. He gently brushed Wille’s hair off his face as he looked down at the boy in front of him. He felt like he was filled with molten lava over the feelings that were rushing through him.

“Come down here,” Wille gently tugged at Simon’s hand. Simon nodded but released Wille’s hand anyways. Wille let out a sound like a whimper that Simon quickly squashed, bringing his hands through Wille’s hair again.

“I’ll join you in a moment. I’m just going to change into something more comfortable.,” That seemed to placate Wille for now because he let him go and Simon, as quickly as possible, changed into some pajama pants and a shirt. He would brush his teeth later. He slipped back over to where Wille was, who opened his eyes again when he sensed Simon coming closer. Wille grabbed Simon’s hand and tugged again.

“Okay okay Wille,” Simon chuckled lightly. He then climbed over Wille into the small bed behind him. Simon then wrapped his arms around Wille from behind, who seemed to melt into the touch immediately. Simon knew this wasn’t strictly friendly but he didn’t really care at the moment. Not when he had Wille in his arms again.

“Will you stay with me Simon?” Wille’s voice was barely a whisper and heavy with sleep and raspy from his, what Simon had to guess, sore throat, but Simon heard it just the same. He briefly tightened his arms around Wille before responding.

“Don’t worry, I’m staying right here,” That seemed to be enough for Wille because he nodded, probably more to himself than to Simon, then he sighed.

“Thank you.” Simon thought that that was going to be it, but as sleep pulled Wille under he uttered one more thing. “Love you, Simme,” Simon freezed. It’s not like this was new information. Even though he hadn’t said it since, Simon knew Wille had loved him since well before Christmas. However, Wille had been very careful with Simon’s boundaries since. He made sure that Simon was comfortable with everything and always made sure Simon knew that he could take moments to himself if things got to be too much, even if they were only friends. It doesn’t change the fact that hearing those words again from Wille, despite it probably being a byproduct of being sick, filled Simon with a feeling that he could only describe as pure, unadulterated relief and joy.

He waited a few moments to hear Wille’s deepened breathing, making sure Wille was asleep, before leaning down and placing a gentle kiss on Wille’s forehead.

“I love you too, Wille,” Even though Wille couldn’t hear him, Simon still felt insanely happy over being able to voice those three words to Wille.

He knew that in the morning, if Wille was feeling better and up to it, they would have to have a talk about this and even though Simon was pretty sure he was going to catch whatever Wille had, Simon stayed wrapped up in Wille. He wasn’t going anywhere.

#young royals #young royals writing #young royals fanfic #young royals fanfiction #yr writing #yr fanfic #yr fanfiction #wilmon #wilmon fic #wilmon writing #wilhelm and linda #linda being a mother figure to wille #sick fic #wille x simon #miels writes #writing prompts #eyeofthedrgn #positivity-and-love

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i-bring-crack · 1 year

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So apperantly there is(was) a Saint DOG,

God I love medieval Christianity.

Name's Saint Guinefort and it is this baby whose cult started from 13th century and lasted till 1930(with community practices still present in the 1970s) who brought on such a controversy that it shook the catholic church.

God I love medieval Christianity.

Basically he was the sacred Patron Saint of Infants, as his story tells:

He was once a lovely dog whom stayed to protect the child of a knight, and in one night a snake had crawled in and tried to harm the baby, but the dog stepped in and battled said snake. Both came out injured but the snake eventually died so the baby was fine. Unfortunately the knight had come and thought the worst, that the dog had killed the baby. So the knight made no hesitation to kill the dog, only for the baby to finally move and the knight to see a dead snake with the baby still alive and well. In grief, the knight made a burial for him and granted him honors, essentially making a shrine for him [throwing him down a well, covered it with stones and planting trees around it].

Eventually the people got around to hearing the dog's martyrdom, and considering all the infancy rate that happened in the medieval ages, mothers soon started to pray to the shrine of the dog for their kid's sickness until eventually it became a cult and was worshipped as a patron Saint with his feast on August 22.

Of course, controversies started with the reformation and the Protestants mocking Catholism as a whole for having a Dog Saint since animals have no soul [>:(] and therefore can't do blessings or be a Saint. Catholisim heard it and they started to surpress the worship by saying that cult was actually worshipping the devil, ostracizing practitioners and giving them fines.

"Despite this early attempt to ridicule and dismiss the cult of Saint Guinefort, the local tradition continued." - Vayssière, folklorist who found Saint Guinefort's wood still intact in 1879.

Legit guessing, people just really loved that dog. Considering the rest of Anthropromorphic religions/deities It doesn't sound like a wildly impossible story. Not to mention that at the time they really had a lot of respects for dogs within the celtic culture, and unlike people who had moral codes to live by, this dog was just naturaly doing what he deemed right, to protect his family.

Honestly, this just proves that dogs are the true embodiment of saints. Im not ought to say that they should or shouldn't be worshipped, belief is up to you, but this story was too good not to share and I'm still crying tears over the poor doggo. At least he is still within the list of folk saints.

But anyways, we have finally found the Goodest Boy.

#San Guinefort #HE IS LIKE ANUBIS #BUT #CHRISTIAN AND SNAKE FIGHTER #god i still love medieval Christianity #christian lore #dogs #dogs with jobs #love dogs #and he was #in fact #a good boy #that lived #catholic #catholism #medieval times

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 3 months

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Long-ish personal story about my job and about music and it sort of slightly connects back to comedy at the end, but only a bit (and unlike most of my personal posts lately, this one isn't even about how difficult it is to not drink alcohol, though it is a story that I'm writing on a Saturday night to distract myself from wanting to drink alcohol, so not entirely unrelated). Regular comedy posting will resume shortly.

There’s this SMBC comic that I really love:

(Source)

I’ve been thinking about this comic lately in a weird way, as I’m nearly six months into this job as a therapist for autistic kids. I don’t write much about my job, partly because it doesn’t have anything to do with the general topic of the blog, partly because I try not to talk about my job much in general due to confidentiality. But we are technically allowed to talk about it in ways that don’t give identifying details, and I have a story I really want to tell, and I don’t think anyone is going to be able to work out which of the hundreds of thousands of kids in Canada I’m talking about from this post on an anonymous blog.

There’s one kid I work with for three hours, three nights a week. He’s ten years old and he’s quite severely impaired in a number of ways; he’s not completely non-verbal but he can only say a few words and doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to express himself well, he understands more words than he can say but he still doesn’t understand anything beyond simple sentences, we’re trying to teach him to read but it’s at extremely early stages, he mostly doesn’t understand what’s happening. He semi-regularly has meltdowns during which he mostly just cries and tries to hurt himself, but can be aggressive against other people too.

He’s someone that people mean when they talk about “low-functioning autistic people” (I know the language is loaded an complicated, but there’s no term for it that isn’t loaded and complicated so I’m going with the clearest one). Most of the clients I work with are. They’re in the “low-functioning autistic” category that I usually hear referenced as a way to invalidate the neurodiversity movement. You know, when higher-functioning autistic people try to claim that autistic people should be treated as fully human and able to self-advocate, and then people will reply that this only applies to high-functioning autistics, but actually there are lots of low-functioning autistics and they’re not fully human, they can’t even talk or understand speech or read or write or dress themselves.

Sometimes I see people reply that of course autistic people can do all those things, and I’m not sure that’s always a helpful reply, because there lots of them who can’t do those things. Who can’t join the neurodiversity movement and self-advocate because they don’t have the cognitive capacity, who do actually need to be taken care of full-time for their own safety and well-being. But I think what we should be arguing is those people are still fully human, it matters how they think and feel, we can still make an effort to not just keep them alive and in line, but to understand them and meet them where they are and see that they have preferences and personalities like anyone else.

When I started this job in August and was trained to take over from this kid’s previous therapist, I was told that music can sometimes keep him in a good mood, so I should bring the centre’s laptop in the room during my sessions with him and play kids’ songs on YouTube sometimes. I asked if they had to be kids songs and was told no, I can experiment and see what he enjoys, the only rule is the lyrics should be clean.

I started this with fairly selfish intentions: I don’t enjoy listening to children’s songs all the time, so I thought I’d see if he liked anything else. I’m not completely selfish; if he’d hated the other stuff, I’d have played the kids’ songs that he likes. But on my first day with him, I put on a couple of the more upbeat and accessible Lennie Gallant songs, and had the absolute pleasure of watching his eyes light up with delight. I could see every tiny moment of the music hitting him, of him processing this thing he’d never heard before, this huge smile spread across his face and he got up and danced. When the song ended, he used one of the very few phrases that he’s able to consistently say with full understanding of what it means: “Put the music back on.”

Lennie Gallant is a folk singer from Rustico, Prince Edward Island, who now lives in Nova Scotia, and those are all places on the East Coast of Canada. Canada’s East Coast has a huge folk music tradition, including a lot of Celtic music that comes from the Celtic immigrants there (by and large, Scottish immigrants to Nova Scotia, particularly the island of Cape Breton off the Nova Scotian coast, and Irish immigrants to Newfoundland), but also a lot of stuff that’s developed in its own way in Canada. From when I was very young, my dad raised me on Canadian folk music in general, but particularly a lot of East Coast music, I’ve gone to folk festivals with him every summer since I was too young to talk. Lennie Gallant has been one of my favourite singers for nearly 25 years. To give an idea of how true this is, my parents currently have a cat named Rustico, because they let me name it, and I went with Lennie Gallant’s hometown as my inspiration.

I remember the first time I heard Lennie Gallant. I was nine years old, we were sitting in the living room, my dad put on the new Lennie Gallant Live album and Pull of the Fundy Tide started playing. And I remember how it felt. It felt like I’d never heard anything like it. There was so much going on. I closed my eyes and couldn’t process how much I liked it, and I made him play it again. If I try really hard when I put the song on now, I can still feel that.

It was so fucking cool to watch the same thing happen to this kid on that night, but this time I was on the other side of it. I watched him struggle to take it in, to have a whole new concept of what music can be opened up to him. He wanted to hear it over and over. I kept playing different Lennie Gallant songs, he kept playing and smiling and dancing.

In folk music there's a basic dichotomy between the stuff that's more trad or less trad (I mean, I guess that's true in any genre), more trad meaning less production and either no lyrics or very traditional lyrics and less of a beat and lots of other factors. So I figured as long as I stick to the less trad side of my collection, I can play this kid anything, I don't need to make it children's music. Over the next few weeks, I kept playing him my more accessible stuff. This, for example, was his favourite:

youtube

Another great Nova Scotia singer, Dave Gunning, has a couple of Christmas albums, which I figured are good crossover between folk music and music that's for kids. So I started playing him some of Dave Gunning's Christmas songs, which he also loved. Then one day, while trying to navigate back to the Christmas album, I accidentally touched this song, and put it on:

youtube

It's a medley of fiddle tunes off this great album that Dave Gunning did called A Tribute to John Allan Cameron, John Allan Cameron being a legendary Cape Breton singer who popularized traditional Celtic music in Canada, so a lot of that album is further to the trad side than most other stuff Dave Gunning does. When I accidentally put on the medley of fiddle tunes for a ten-year-old I was trying to entertain, I quickly realized my mistake and went to pause it until I could find the Christmas stuff.

But in that moment I saw his face, and a whole new sense of recognition was spreading across it again. Just like that first day when I put on music for him, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing, but loved it. Breaking slowly into a huge smile, snapping his fingers along to it. When I pressed pause, he said "Put the music back on," so I did.

After that, I set out to find just how trad I can go with this kid. I found out, pretty fucking far. Butterfingers Medley is actually pretty accessible as far as medleys of fiddle tunes go, but I tried playing him slower and more complicated and/or traditional fiddle tunes, and he enjoyed all of them. Then I tried playing Gaelic-language stuff, and this induced a whole new wave of shock and amazement at how beautiful it was, he could not get enough. One day he was "scripting" - which is the word for when autistic kids will repeat phrases they've previously heard (usually from a TV show or more likely a YouTube show these days, sometimes they repeat phrases that their parents or teachers have said, it can be anything they've heard before) under his breath around another therapist, and she asked me if I knew what he was saying because she couldn't figure it out, so I got closer to him to listen, and then had to tell her that the reason she couldn't understand him is he was speaking Gaelic. Specifically, scripting the lyrics to this beautiful song by Cape Breton band The Rankin Family:

youtube

I tried as hard as I could to go too trad for this kid, just because I was curious to see what the boundaries were. I played him the most out-there thing in my music collection, which was the Barra MacNeils' (another great Cape Breton band) Mouth Music, and he fucking loved it:

youtube

This kid is the best. At some point I did abandon my quest to find the boundaries of what music he'll like, and just started trying to put together a playlist of his favourite stuff. Because he doesn't indiscriminately love everything. Sometimes I'll put stuff on and he won't be that into it, and there is a pattern to what he likes and what he doesn't, but the pattern isn't, as I'd initially expected, that he likes the most accessible stuff and dislikes the most traditional stuff. Or that he likes the faster stuff and dislikes the slower stuff (if anything, it tends to be the opposite of that). The pattern is that he likes some things in music more than others, just like any other person does, and even if he can't have conversations about that more complex than just saying "Put the music back on" after songs he likes and not saying that after songs he dislikes, that is still enough for him to communicate those preferences. Which is where I come back to the idea that even the "low-functioning" people still have fully formed personalities, which obviously I knew full well before I played some music for a kid at work, but this sort of thing seems like a good example for people who don't know it already.

He's got a fairly broad palette, though, and it does include some of the faster songs that sound like the sort of thing a kid would be into. I wish I could have legally taken a picture of his face (I can't because confidentiality) the day I first played him this one:

youtube

My job is stressful and scary, both due to the nature of the job and due to the nature of me, specifically the part of my nature that gets easily overwhelmed and I am constantly terrified that the next day will be too much and I'll have a panic attack at work from the social overload and then I'll get fired. It's not easy, and I haven't managed to find a lot of the "rewarding" parts of an allegedly rewarding job like this, because I'm so focused on just getting through the day. But this is one part of the job that I have really, really loved. I love getting to play music for this kid and watch him be amazed at the existence of something he never knew about before.

And that's what makes me think of the SMBC comic. I've actually been thinking a lot lately about my own dad, how he raised me on this music. How he took me to a folk festival every year since before my first birthday, and he played me his favourite music in the living room when I was too young to know the words to have a conversation with him about it, but I'm sure my body language let him know what I liked, just like this kid does with me. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad singing me to sleep with folk songs when I was three and four years old, because I refused to sleep due to "the world going upside down and almost explode" every time I closed my eyes (I was first diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at age 8, which seems young until you consider that it was four years after I started telling my parents that I can't sleep at night because it makes me feel like the world is going upside down and is about to explode). My dad's singing got me to sleep, it got into every aspect of my head.

I've always been really grateful to my dad for the way he introduced me to music so early, gave me a love of it. I feel lucky that I get to trace my favourite music back through my whole life. My favourite songs and artists and albums from when I was five years old, and eight years old, and ten years old, and twelve years old, and fifteen years old, are still among my favourites today.

When I play music for this kid, I bring back my early memories, of the first time I heard my favourite songs, when I was young and everything still felt new to me. I remember the amazement that music could sound like this, that something this good could exist, that the range of potential human feelings included all these new things that I was experiencing for the first time because of this song. I remember that, and I know from the look on his face that that's what this kid is feeling right now, as I play him a new song for the first time.

But I also bring back my early memories of my dad. I remember the look on his face as I ran around the living room dancing to The Rankins and The Barra MacNeils and The Irish Descendants when I was a kid. I remember his smile, how proud he looked when I liked stuff, how he'd dance with me, he'd excitedly tell me to listen closely before putting on the next song, because he couldn't wait to see my reaction. I don't think I understood until this year how special that was for him too, to get to share this with me. Because it's the way I feel when the smile of amazement passes across this kid's face during a new song.

And of course it was amazing for my dad to get to share that with me! We all love that! This is everyone is desperate to give music recommendations to anyone who will listen, because it feels really, really good to take something that induced a good feeling in you and watch it induce that same feeling in someone else, especially if you can know you're the reason why that's happened. I am currently writing an entire post just as an excuse to give people a bunch of recs for my favourite music (and to avoid thinking about wanting a drink). Of course that feeling is special. Of course it made my dad happy to do that for me. Zach Weinersmith of SMBC comics wrote that nice comic strip about how that's one of the best parts of being a parent.

That's all been happening for months now, and the kid has heard most of my best stuff. I've developed a couple of playlists for him - one for when I want to get his energy up and put on something upbeat, and one for when I want him calmer. It has a range of stuff, and I try to mix it up. I know his preferences now, I know what his favourite songs are and what they have in common so how to guess if he'll like a new one or not. And he doesn't look amazed when they play anymore, because he now knows that music like this exists. But he still smiles, and dances, and says "Put the music back on", and loves them.

One day last week, he was struggling hard. Crying off and on, and I was doing all the things that normally help: turning down the lights in the room, stepping back to give him space, soft and soothing music. But he kept getting upset.

I was alone in the gym with him when he had a meltdown that was worse than any I'd dealt with before. He started banging his head against the wall, and it scared the hell out of me, because of course I don't want him to hurt himself. I blocked it with a mat and he came after me, scratching my arms and hitting me. He pushed away and screamed.

I turned the lights down and grabbed my phone to try some music. Music had gotten us out of bad situations before. During the worst meltdown I'd seen him have before last week, I finally got him to calm down by putting on The Mingulay Boat Song off Dave Gunning's John Allan Cameron album, I just played it on a loop until he sat down on his knees and closed his eyes to take in the music and slowly stopped crying:

youtube

But since then I've played that song for him lots, it doesn't have the same impact as it did when it was a novelty. It worked the first time because I was able to induce that "Wow, I didn't know music could sound like this" feeling in him, and that'll distract a person from anything. But he knows music can sound like that now. He knows all my music, or at least, all my music that could be at all appropriate for this situation.

Well, he knows almost all my music. Because as I was starting to panic and look to my phone to decide what to play for this kid who was scratching at me and posed a threat to his own safety (because "head banging" sounds like one of the less severe behaviours, at least compared to behaviours that involve committing violence against others, until you actually see a kid do it and realize how badly they can hurt themselves if you don't block it), I realized I did have a new folder in there.

And this is where the post comes back around to my usual topic. Did you think I'd finally taken a break from the constant posts about John Robins to write a heartfelt story about my history with music and connecting with a child at my job? Nope! This was secretly a John Robins post all along.

So, in one of the radio episodes, John Robins listed his top five favourite albums of all time. Van Morrisson's Astral Weeks at number one (Elis specifically checked with him that he really means number one of all time, better than all Queen albums, and he said yes), and 2-5 were: In the Aeroplane over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, I See a Darkness by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Ghosts of the Great Highway by Sun Kil Moon, and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Obviously I wrote all those down and downloaded them, because I am a normal person who is not too far down a fandom rabbit hole.

Van Morrisson, weirdly, was actually my first ever favourite singer. In that when I was three years old, the first time I was old enough to have any kind of preference, my favourite thing to do was run around the living room dancing to this album called Irish Heartbeat by Van Morrisson & The Chieftains. My favourite song on the album was Step Be Gaily, a song that is actually called Marie's Wedding, but when I was three I called it Step Be Gaily because that's how the first line of the chorus sounded to me (it's actually "Step we gaily"), so my whole family still calls the song Step Be Gaily. The song is still in my music collection and it's still great.

youtube

I spent years listing Van Morrisson as a singer I very much liked. Until I was about ten, and my parents told me that since I like Van Morrisson so much, they'll play me some of his other stuff. And I quickly learned that actually, I do not like Van Morrisson. What I like is a Celtic folk band called The Chieftains, and the one album they made in collaboration with Van Morrisson, who is otherwise quite a blues-y and R&B-type singer and I'm not into that. I did try the Astral Weeks album on John Robins' recommendation, and I did not like it, because that's not my kind of music, but I'm glad the people who like it are having a good time.

The other four albums were different, though. I already knew some of the songs off the Bonnie 'Prince' Billy one, but listening to the whole album turned out to be a great idea, I've added it into my common rotation. Neutral Milk Hotel was exactly what I'd always assumed Neutral Milk Hotel would be, from years of vaguely hearing about them but not actually hearing them, which was ranging from all right to pretty good. The Sun Kil Moon album I quite like, and I'm still in the process of listening to some of its songs again because I feel like it's the sort of thing that rewards repeat listens.

The Godspeed You! Black Emperor album was exactly as weird as you'd expect from a band with a punctuation mark in the middle of their name, that made an album with four tracks that are 20-ish minutes each. Experimental music isn't normally my sort of thing, but I gave it a shot because John Robins told me to, and I was glad I did.

I tried listening to the first track while on a break at work, lying in the hammock that they have in their gym, closed the doors and closed my eyes and played my noise canceling headphones and tried to feel like I was at home so that I could recharge my social battery a bit and lessen the risk of overloading to the point where I have a panic attack at work and get fired. This song started and it was all weird and experimental and I didn't know what to make of it, but as it went a bit further in (like I said, each track is around twenty minutes so there are lots of changes throughout each one), it got to a part that was really lovely and relaxing. I closed my eyes and let it wash over me and it did, actually, help me to stop feeling all the stress of the job and transport me to some state of mind where this wasn't happening and it was okay.

I probably don't really have to write the rest of this story, because now that I've written the various parts of the backstory, I'm sure you can guess the ending. I needed a song that a kid who loves music would find beautiful and relaxing enough to calm him down, but the regular ones weren't working because he was too upset, and I thought the only way to solve it might be to induce that feeling of "Oh my God I had no idea music could sound like this", to distract him with the shock of novelty. I also had a song that I'd never played for him before because even I had only recently discovered it, and I barely knew what to make of it, but I did know it was amazingly relaxing.

So I put it on, and he stopped in his tracks, and I watched him tilt his head while he considered what he was hearing, and in that moment of quiet I managed to get him to sit down on the hammock, and I turned the lights all the way down and closed the doors to the gym, and I sat in front of him and rocked him very slowly and gently, and then of his own accord he went from sitting in the hammock to lying in it, and I played the music softly. After a few minutes he stopped crying altogether, and I hit pause on my phone, and he said "Put the music back on," so I did, playing that section of the song over for half an hour, just me and him sitting the gym listening to this weird band I got from a comedian on the radio, blood drying on my hands and my arms from where he'd scratched me, until his dad came to pick him up.

youtube

And that's my story. I wrote this instead of drinking alcohol. Sometimes my job is fulfilling. Autistic people are people, even the ones with a significantly lower cognitive capacity than neurotypical people. John Robins' taste in music is a mixed bag. I hope everyone is having a good night.

#Youtube

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5sosfanfictioncatalogue · 7 months

Text

Horror Masterlist

Always, The End (ao3) - Astroash94 ot4 N/R, 12k

Summary: Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t exist.

“...I wish you would hurt me harder than I hurt you...”

fear the fever (ao3) - kingscrossinseptember luke/ashton M, 8k

Summary: The breeze shifts and Ashton catches a whiff of a new scent that makes his heartbeat stutter. It’s cold and metallic and hungry in a way that shouldn’t be possible to emulate via smell, which means it can only be one thing: a vampire.

Heavy On Our Heels (ao3) - Branithar M, 1k

Summary: While working on a space ship, Ashton, Luke and Geoff are captured and held hostage by pirates.

i'm not alone (ao3) - orphan_account ot4 M, 22k

Summary: calum had worked hard to get into uni on a sports scholarship. all he wanted was to play football, pass his classes and meet the occasional hot guy.

instead, he moves into a haunted house with his best friend and discovers he might have magic powers? this starting to smell like a netflix original series to anyone else? at least there are still hot love interests, right?

It Happens In April (ao3) - Astroash94 luke/calum/ashton N/R, 15k

Summary: In August summer ends. In September autumn starts. In February, winter ends. And in March spring begins.

But what happens in April?

mirror :: malum. (ao3) - eaty0urveggies michael/calum M, 11k

Summary: "you really should be afraid."

or,

When Michael receives an old mirror for his birthday with a scary past.

lowercase intended

stay on the path (ao3) - mimi_reads T, 1k

Summary: It's common knowledge that when one goes into the woods, one should stay on the path.

or, another horror story about 5sos

Tears Remind You You’re Alive (ao3) - NarryEm niall/harry, zayn/louis, luke/ashton, michael/calum, liam/sophia

Summary: Niall, along with eight other guys, are chosen to participate in this year’s Run and they dread it so much. None of the survivors ever come out of the Heartbeat Mansion unchanged and the details are never released to the public. Can they all survive the horrors that await them?

The ghost of you (ao3) - Goldrush23 luke/ashton M, 589

Summary: 3 stupid boys play 1 stupid and end up setting free a ghost from 1890

the world is vast (and filled with terrible horrors) (ao3) - riibread N/R, 4k

Summary: “Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, cosmic horrors beyond our comprehension, yadda yadda,” Michael rattles off, “yo what the fuck?” All four of them huddle around Michael’s laptop screen. There it is, Luke gives a casual glance at the information, what little he reads brings the nausea back tenfold.

What happens when four musicians have to deal with terrors beyond their comprehension? The answer is fucking around and finding out and the power of friendship.

To Be Unbridled And Unburned (ao3) - Branithar michael/calum, luke/ashton E, 8k

Summary: Since a wealthy businessman found his pelt while he was relaxing on a beach several years ago, Calum's done his best to make the most of his new life. He hasn't been able to like his wife or their home or their neighbours, but he's surviving, at least. Unbeknownst to him, rumours of what his father-in-law did have spread and a shady group of traveling magicians have taken interest in his situation.

Trapped in a Horror Movie | Niall-Centric (ao3) - xdistorted_cliffordx T, 12k

Summary: It was the night an innocent prank went bad.

All these six teenage boys wanted to do was mess with their friend Niall on Halloween by going to an abandoned mansion. That's all. Just to give him a little scare, to change up their age old tradition of watching horror movies.

But it's a night that will alter their lives forever, one they'll never forget.

Because unlike years past, the boys will be trapped in a horror moie, fighting for their lives, trying their best to escape the mansion.

With each other.

ALIVE.

would you kill for me, my darling? (ao3) - mimi_reads michael/luke M, 1k

Summary: Michael and Luke have a conversation with unexpected consequences.

Your Eyes Are Cooler Than My Beating Heart (ao3) - CliffordAffliction michael/luke E, 64k

Summary: Michael is a demon who somehow makes Luke want to die and live all at the same time

#5sosfanfictioncatalogue #5sos fanfic #5sos #masterlists #horror #horror masterlist

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mxtcha-tea · 1 year

Text

Where I've been and where I am now

Alright, please read the pinned post first. That's more important than this.

WARNING; IMPLICATIONS OF SUICIDE

Anyways, hi

Oh gosh, it's been such a long time since I've step foot in here. It's unbelievable that this was here since 2021. But anyway,,,

Hi, I go by citrus now! Not an exciting or groundbreaking name. I decided to change my name, yet again, and just went with citrus. I think its sounds nice? Idk

Alright, back to what I wanted to talk now. So, after this post I sorta got back to reality?? I mean, since I spend most of my time in tumblr back in uh, 2020 to 2021, it kinda became a little place for me to stay in the internet.

But after my leave, I didn't have anything else to hold onto other than trying to keep my grades alive because believe it or not, my grades plummeted after that!! How sweet!!

While the internet has been one of my worst addiction, it was still a place that I'm (fairly) comfortable to be in since I could talk about my interests whenever I want(believe it or not, I have no one to talk to at school, wow, shocker)

And that's where the storm started, I was thinking of not-so-friendly thoughts and attempted, yknow, forever sleeping. I was lost and I was too scared to tell anyone about it.

It went from me thinking of that, and then denying and then telling myself that I only think that way to make myself be pitied and then forget about it and the cycle continues.

That's until around, maybe August 2022, I started to think straight again and tried (emphasis on tried) to make myself better again. There's time it works and didn't but slowly as October came in, I started to feel better.

I still think about forever sleeping but very rarely. And now that my mind is (slightly more) okay now, I wanted to get back here and apologize for my past behavior and for leaving everyone in the dark.

Alright enough about the depressing stuff, I wanna talk about how I am now. Well, I'm good now! Maybe still a little lazy like I was before but nonetheless, I am a-okay

I managed to socialize a bit at school and got myself a friend that I'm more close to than others (technically best friends, but they still don't know a lot about me like how I don't know a lot about them, so there's still a little gap there)

(And if anyone cared enough to know) my main interest as of now is Twisted Wonderland. After the English translation was announced, I went ham and eating up content about twst like it was my last meal.

Anyways, here are more infos that are more than less interesting;

I got myself in reading more literature, whether it's in English or malay tbh

I also got interested in coding and believe it or not, I'm kinda trying to make a game using renpy

I still write and draw thankfully

....i got myself some cat headphones

I have an exam later in uh, I think January so I've been trying to get myself motivated to at least study

And that's about it. And to conclude it all with a question, actually 2 questions

What are you gonna do with this account now?

Well unlike my old account that I deactivated, I'll keep this one up for obvious reasons

Do you have another account on tumblr? (and maybe accounts on other platforms?)

I do have set a new account on tumblr for my twisted wonderland interest. But i'm still trying to fix the theme and clearing my drafts over there so I won't tell the @ for now

And yeah, I do have other accounts on other platforms (but that's a story for another time)

Thank you for reading this all the way through and have a nice day!

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lumpyrock · 1 year

Text

This is going to be a very long post about Pufnstuf. It has some unpopular opinions. I had no clue where my DVD copy was, so I watched it on Internet archive, some of the notes will by biased because of that. You have been warned.

My notes on H.R. Pufnstuf from August and September of 2022

Ranking of the episodes

The Birthday Party (episode 7)

Jimmy Who? (Episode 17)

The Visiting Witch (episode 14)

The Golden Key (episode 6)

The Magic Path (episode 1)

The Wheely Bird (episode 2)

Tooth For A Tooth (episode 13)

The Almost Election Of Witchiepoo (episode 15)

The Mechanical Boy (episode 4)

You Can't Have Your Cake (episode 9)

The Stand In (episode 5)

Show Biz Witch (episode 3)

Dinner For Two (episode 11)

The Box Kite Kaper (episode 8)

Flute, Book, And Candle (episode 12)

Whadda Mean The Horse Gets The Girl? (Episode 16)

The Horse With The Golden Throat (didn't even watch it, episode 10)

I took statistics, because of course. (This discounts episode 10, because I am kind of scared of it, (and also I am an imperfect human) so take this with a grain of salt)

Number of times "witch" was said (discounting Witchiepoo but includingthe intro): 245

Average per episode: 15.3

Number of times "Flute" was said (including the intro): 86 (why so low?!)

Average per episode: 5.3

Number of times someone got whacked (as in a witch (including Jimmy in that one episode and the lackeys) hitting someone else): 70

Average per episode: 4.3

Number of times someone (Freddy) said "I'm scared" (again, discounting episode 10): 10

Average per episode: 0.6

Number of times it was the full intro: 13

Number of times it wasn't: 3

"I sure hope so": 7

"Keep those cards and letters coming": 8

This is already so long. ☆ means I thought the episode was notable. W is how many times "witch" was said in the episode, F is same for "flute", WH is for whacks. (This means I'm adding context or new notes), 'this means it is not a quote from the show but is supposed to be said by a character', "and this is a quote from the show". Let's get this long post even longer. Will use shortened titles, and the notes are in order of The Magic Path to Jimmy Who?. I have no clue what I was thinking for a lot of these, please forgive me.

Magic Path notes ☆ (full intro)

Why don't ya just get rid of the witch? You're the mayor!

Pufnstuf seems really fed up with Dr. B (Blinky) in one scene.

Dr. B is comedy gold!

This song feels really close to home.

Judy! *starts screaming*

The idea that those skeletons are real.

Even though we never saw him in the real world, it feels like he was actually there. (I think that was in comparison to the movie)

Unlike the coloring book, the order they run out of the castle Jimmy, Judy, Pufnstuf. (Had just done a coloring book video)

Other episodes have more characters, so it's harder to say goodbye, they've been here like a day.

How does the Magic Path work?

It didn't dissappear! It's still there!

Just runs away.

Racist. I love Jimmy's reaction shot right after.

80's freeze frame in 1969.

I sure hope so!

I love this, I love this so much.

W 16, F 10, WH 5

Wheely Bird notes ☆ (full intro)

It's wheely bird, not whirly bird.

Are the other candies alive?

"Nothing, we wanna do nothing."

'I would die for him', that sounds pretty gay.

"I just gotta protect Jimmy", that sounds pretty gay.

Forget about Freddy song.

I think Dr. B is just like that.

"All the good guys (...)", thousands died because of them.

And the trend of using real fire goes on.

Cling and Clang seem like toddlers.

Pufnstuf flirting with Orson joke.

Orson is one of those people.

"It worked too well, he's fallen in love with us!"

"Now, how do we get rid of our boyfriend?" (Not sure if that's an actual joke)

'I'm kidnapped and my first thought is Jimmy', these jokes write themselves.

'I would die for you!' 'I would die for you more!'

Another gay joke.

Are wands guns?

Forget about Freddy song, again!

This episode was gay.

I sure hope so!

W 10, F 12, WH 1

Show Biz Witch notes (full intro)

Judy's in the background doing what I do. (I think I ment stimming, but I'm not sure)

Jimmy's face.

They don't tell you about buttons until episode 3.

Jimmy says MC.

Pufnstuf saying weird things.

Love yourself like a witch.

A pear isn't square. (What?)

Dr. B and LL (Ludicrous Lion) are the only two that don't run off and instead hug each other.

I never realized how gay this show is.

Breaking up the band will come back later.

The idea that Witchiepoo has killed and is willing to kill.

Assault the guards, great morel for a kids' show!

'I cannot live without Jimmy.'

'We just threw someone into boiling water.'

Pufnstuf and Jimmy are kinda jerks in this one.

I sure hope so.

W 11, F 7, WH 4

Mechanical boy notes ☆ (full intro)

Wow, the Jimmy Diaries were based on something. (Old fanfic I wrote when I was 12)

First time (pretty sure only) Jimmy gets misgendered.

"Big dumb-o!"

Again with the real fire.

Cannon, Cling and Clang make bubbling sounds.

"I am sorry, I can not give out that information!" (ICONIC!)

How the hell do you know it's a time spell?

First time Jimmy gets brainwashed.

'Here Dr. B, take Freddy!' *throws Freddy*

Outside of backgrounds, first time we see the clock people.

"I have 24 hours." 'Jimmy, sit down.'

Pufnstuf is cute to the women of the island.

Time dohicky, only works once!

I love the Cuphead music in the background! (???)

I sure hope so.

W 15, F 10, WH 4

Stand in notes (full intro)

Very jarring, all of a sudden in wide screen. (That is on internet archive)

There's a second floor to Pufnstuf's cave.

Hi Shirley, thanks for confusing Pufnstuf lore.

The only Pufnstuf girl I didn't want to date.

It's as if they took all the pink and put it on her, she sticks out like a sore thumb.

"If it wasn't for this man," turns to Puf, "my producer, Toadinof!"

Shirley with her dead arms.

Jimmy's face.

Jimmy always plays the bad guy in Shirley's films.

Make up!

Jimmy and Pufnstuf saying goodbye makes me sad.

"I don't think of you as a woman, I think of you as a witch!"

Sweet karma with setup and payoff!

Again with real fire! At least it has a cute story. (Cute long story.)

Keep those cards and letters coming!

W 17, F 4, WH 7

Golden Key notes ☆ (full intro)

(This is a better magic path, sue me.)

This is hyping up a lot more than magic path, and we aren't even a minute in!

"A secret, genuine, escape map which leads to the golden key which opens the magic golden escape door." (Magic Path never that world building!)

"Quick, let's hide!" Someone found them in two seconds.

"Makes every war sound!"

Use the magic compass key!!!

At the end of the road, halfway through!

Does Witchiepoo use Amazon? (No!)

Jimmy sounded like he was in a horror movie.

They said it! They said it! (What did they say?!)

I sure hope so!

I really like this episode!

W 9, F 8, WH 3

Birthday! Notes ☆ 💔 (full intro)

Jimmy Diaries was based on something.

The camera's shaking like crazy.

Oh Jimmy, be happy! It won't last long.

This makes me feel really happy!

I love this song!

Now I'm mad cause Witchiepoo has to ruin it!

We're getting the band back together!

I'm really sad now.

Why can't this episode just be happy?

"When the witch finds out, *ha ha*, she's gonna kill me!" *laughs then faints*

This got really dark really fast.

At least Judy's in this one.

The witch is willing to kill a flute!

Very relevant.

The freaking puppets wear it (the masks) right.

Witchiepoo seems like such a Karen.

I sure hope so!

This broke my heart. 5 stars.

W 10, F 8, WH 2

Box kite kaper notes (full intro)

How much is a gold button worth? Is it like gold standard? (Fun fact, a normal button is worth $2.50 USD!)

LL is a gambler!

LL would pay off the four winds. (What context would lead to that?)

'Hey dad, can we get a box kite? For going home reasons.'

Jimmy just looked at Puf like he said an F bomb.

I love the Witchiepoo costumes.

There's a top level entrance. (Huh?)

(Drawing of a wand being broken I think?) Does it snap? (What?)

She's drugging them, again!

Like I said, it'll get harder to say goodbye.

Kite pun.

Don't say anything until you're safe!

Bomb an 12 year old!

Almost murder a 12 year old!

Joke from the movie.

I sure hope so!

Not very good, too much filler.

W 4, F 9, WH 2

No cake notes ☆ (full intro)

Judy! Moon walk! Argh!

When measles wasn't almost gone!

Maybe I should memorize it! (Refering to the moon walk, if I need to prove my endurance, I'll do it.)

Clang's hat tip.

"How stupid do they think I am?" "Very." "Very what?" "Very stupid."

"That's what I think, I think."

First full Judy episode since Magic Path!

"He's drunk with power!"

'I'm just gonna jump out and scare some toddlers!'

'Let's defeat them with dancing!'

And Judy is safe!

Keep those cards and letters coming!

I rank it Judy, I love her!

W 4, F 4, WH 10

Dinner for 2 notes (cut intro)

Time dohicky: probably not gonna go right!

Is it bad I can relate? (I think it's a note to loneliest witch but I'm not sure)

Jimmy, you're never going home.

Alright, it is stated he's 12.

"At least I think he's alive."

"Is that your nose, or are you eating a banana?"

Hot milk and cookies: the way to Jimmy's heart!

Find the witch a man! It's for your own sake!

Witchiepoo was a baby at some point!

Keep those cards and letters coming!

Meh, not very notable.

W 16, F 2, WH 1

Flute, Book, & Candle notes (full intro)

Terrible video quality. (This is on all platforms)

Mushrooms, just mushrooms.

Books can have siblings.

His name is just Candle.

Artful Dodger reference.

*kicks them* "Bye now!"

The book has a beard.

It just cut off half the song!

There was no see you next week!

Worst episode so far.

W 9, F 2, WH 3

A Tooth For A Tooth notes ☆ (cut intro)

So a love potion?

The fact that a witch raid is par for the course.

A doctor has to treat a patient.

"Yoo hoo, feathered medicine person!"

7:08 (on internet archive), this scene cracks me up.

The origin of the 'oh, my poor ace friend' meme. (Meme I created. It's not a real meme.)

Witchiepoo's face.

This episode's giving me tooth rot.

This was the closest he ever got to going home.

Keep those cards and letters coming!

I like it but I don't know what to say about it.

W 22, F 0, WH 11

Movie Episode notes ☆ (cut intro)

Slowed down, yay! 🙄 (on internet archive.)

Judy! And others.

Yay! Their gonna kill off horse!

If I get a kiss from Judy, Hell yeah I'll go! (No. Shut up. Don't don't do this to us.)

Stupid bat and horse have the same voice.

That means Judy has to leave... 😥

Another kiss?! Sign me up! (SHUT UP!)

Why do they have to say witch so much?

Buy our Pufnstuf plush!

Judy is the idea frog!

Jimmy does drag!

'How dare you say I'm not pretty.' (I think it was supposed to be an incorrect quote, but I'm not sure.)

*lifts up wand* *recoiled*

*breaks wand*

"I hereby banish you from Living Island, forever!" (Why can only boss witch do that?)

Keep those cards and letters coming!

W 69, F 0, WH 10

Election notes ☆ (full intro)

Slowed down (on internet archive), again!

No one wants to run against Pufnstuf.

"If a lumpy dragon can be mayor, why can't a pooped out pigeon?" (I'm not a dragon, I'm changeling!)

"We women have a right to change our minds!" Take that as you will!

Jimmy writes his own songs.

Judy!

Yeah, but Judy kissed you too! This is why I don't like horse. (No, you hate him because he's a backstabbing hypocrite and because of episode 10.)

"There's only one thing to do... PANIC!"

Jimmy shrugs.

'I'm a shooter and I'm running for president. See? I didn't bring my gun.'

The witch just did a Trump move.

'Uh, uh, he's honest!'

I love Pufnstuf sobbing.

You went down to her level!

Keep those cards and letters coming!

W 10, F 2, WH 2

Western Horse notes (full intro)

Horse has a crush on Shirley. Ugh...

You need to make money to get rid of the witch?

Freddy's a background character nowadays?

I forgot about the witch.

Nothing about Freddy. It's the forget about Freddy song all over again!

This is why I hate horse.

'Jimmy doesn't need to go home, let's make a movie!'

Not even a word about Freddy.

"I ain't Mary Poppins!"

"What happened to Horse and Shirley?" And Freddy.

Suicide joke! You know, for kids!

What happened to Freddy? I want my dude in distress!

"Now, I got the whole gang." What about Freddy?!?!

Keep those cards and letters coming.

😒 0/5

W 10, F 2, WH 1

♡ Jimmy who? Notes ☆ yes! (Full intro)

Jimmy falls and almost cracks his head open.

Horse.

"No, who's Jimmy?"

Yay! Freddy's back!

I love a jump cut.

"I'm an owl, I'm supposed to say who!"

'Jimmy, sit down.'

Birthday flashback.

'I'm getting outta here.' 'Jimmy, sit down.'

Artful Dodger flashback.

'Let's leave the kid who wants to leave alone! He totally won't leave!'

And Freddy's gone. Well, it was fun while it lasted!

The trees go into the castle.

They mentioned him! (Freddy)

Mechanical boy flashback.

Milk and cookies. Our hero, lady's and gents!

"Why did you break in here? Leave this poor lady alone!"

He chooses wrong!

'Witchiepoo who?'

Keep those cards and letters coming!

W 13, F 6, WH 4

And that is all my notes. That was so long. I'm sorry.

#long post #like seriously #this post is so long #hr pufnstuf #sid and marty krofft

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daenysthedreamer101 · 2 months

Text

Youngest Original ~ TVDU

Ch 2 - The Reckoning

Mikaelson!OC

Masterlist

Warnings: mentions of blood, murder, injury, death, usual TVD shenanigans, female OC, Klaus being a bad person lol

Corresponding episode: TVD 3x5

Mystic Falls, August 31st 2010

After Matt unintentionally ruined their Senior Prank Night plan, Elena decided to continue with the plan and glue Alaric's desk. She walks down the hall of her school and walks through one of the doors. She takes a turn to the right and bumps into an unlikely visitor.

"There's my girl," Klaus says as Elena gasps in shock.

"Klaus!" Elena exclaims, clearly surprised to see him here.

Elena turns and tries to run away but he blocks her way again.

"You are supposed to be dead," Klaus said matter-of-factly. "What are we going to do about that?" He asks and grabs Elena and starts dragging her through the hallways.

Stefan's POV

Stefan wakes up in a truck. He looks up and sees Rebekah standing by the edge of the truck.

"Ah, he lives," Rebekah stated with a smirk.

"What happened?" He asked.

"You took a beating. My brother's been breaking your neck all afternoon. Quite the temper." Rebekah informed him as she leaned against the truck.

"Why did he bring us back to Mystic Falls?" Stefan asked as he got up from the floor.

"You can stop playing dumb now. It didn't take him long to figure out what you've been hiding." Rebekah said.

"I'm not hiding anything," Stefan argued back. "I've done everything Klaus has asked me to."

"No, you just failed to mention that the doppelganger's still alive." Rebekah reminded him.

Stefan looked down, not saying anything back. "Where is Klaus now?" He asked as he turned his back to the Original.

"With any luck, ripping that cow's bloody head off," Rebekah answered. He waits a second then he pushes both of them out of the truck and onto the ground.

"Where is she?" He growls into Rebekah's face as she's pinned beneath him.

"You really do love her, don't you?" Rebekah asks and pushes him off of her and pins him against the truck. She takes a nearby crowbar, smacks him in the face with it, and then pulls him closer.

"Consider me jealous." She then proceeds to stab him with the crowbar in the stomach. He falls to the ground, groaning in pain, and eventually blacks out.

"You put a rather large kink in my plan, sweetheart. The whole point of breaking the curse and becoming a hybrid was to make more hybrids." Klaus explains to Elena as he drags her to the gym.

"I haven't been able to do that. Now my bet is, it has something to do with the fact that you're still breathing!" He growled as they kept on walking down the hall.

"If you're gonna kill me, just do it," Elena argues back.

"Not until I know I'm right. But I do have ways of making you suffer." He said as he pushed her into the gym.

He then proceeds to dismiss all the other students from the gym, save for two whom he compelled to stay.

Tyler and Caroline were in the hallway, gluing doorknobs. They talk about Matt and what he's been going through. They start kissing but are interrupted by someone.

"You two are adorable," Rebekah said as she walked over to them.

"Uh, do we know you?" Caroline asked as Tyler pulled away from her.

"You're Caroline, Elena's friend, which makes you Tyler, the werewolf," Rebekah stated as she looked at the dark-haired boy.

Caroline walks over to Rebekah, standing in front of Tyler. "And who are you?" She asked the mysterious blonde.

Rebekah smiled. "I'm the new girl." She answered. Black veins appeared under her eyes, her eyes turned blood red, and sharp fangs protruded from her mouth. She hissed before attacking the young vampire.

Elena's POV

"Where's Stefan? What did you do to him?" Elena asks Klaus.

"Stefan's on a time-out," Klaus answered as he crossed his arms.

Bonnie and Matt enter the gym. Klaus explains that Bonnie's magical interference in saving Elena from his curse-breaking sacrifice caused some undesirable side effects.

Then, Tyler is dragged into the gym by a blonde girl Elena has never seen before.

"I'd like you all to meet my sister, Rebekah." Klaus introduced his sister.

Rebekah then pushed Tyler toward Klaus. "I'm going to make this very simple. Every time I attempt to turn a werewolf into a vampire hybrid, they die during the transition. It's quite horrible actually." He explains to the group as he holds Tyler by the neck.

He then bites his wrist and feeds Tyler his blood. "I need you to find a way to save my hybrids, Bonnie. And for Tyler's sake...You better hurry." He says and snaps Tyler's neck. Bonnie, Elena, and Matt all gasp in shock as Tyler's body falls to the ground.

Outside of the school, Stefan wakes up and manages to remove the crowbar from his stomach.

"He's killed him," Matt said as he looked at Tyler's body.

"He's not dead. Klaus's blood will turn him into a vampire." Elena explained.

"And if Bonnie's successful, he'll live through his transition. Go on then, fetch your grimoires and enchantments and whatnot." Klaus said to Bonnie as he walked over to Elena.

"I'll hold on to Elena, for safekeeping." He said as he grabbed Elena's arm. Bonnie looks at Elena who nods for them to go. Bonnie and Matt run out of the gym in search of a solution.

"So this is the latest doppelganger...The original one was much prettier." Rebekah commented as she looked Elena up and down.

"Enough, Rebekah." Klaus drawled, annoyed with his sister's behavior. "Take the wolf boy elsewhere, would you?" He told his sister.

The blonde smiled menacingly at Elena then walked over to Tyler's body. She grabbed one of his arms and started dragging his body out of the gym.

"Just ignore her. Petty little thing." Klaus whispered in her ear as they watched Rebekah drag out Tyler.

Klaus's POV

Klaus sat on the benches as Elena comforted the two students. Then Stefan walked into the gym. "Stefan..." Elena whispered as she got up, her eyes on Stefan.

"Come to save your damsel, mate?" Klaus asked as Stefan walked over to him.

"I came to ask for your forgiveness, and pledge my loyalty," Stefan explained.

"Well, you broke that pledge once already," Klaus commented.

"Elena means nothing to me anymore," Stefan said as he looked at the doppelganger and walked closer to Klaus. "And whatever you ask of me, I will do."

"Fair enough. Let's drink on it." Klaus said as he walked down from the benches. "Kill them." He said and pointed to the two humans.

"No! Stefan, don't! He's not going to hurt me. He already said-" Elena protested but Klaus slapped her, annoyed with her talking. Stefan tries to help her, but Klaus grabs him by the neck.

"She means nothing to you? Your lies just keep piling up." Klaus says as he chokes Stefan.

"Let her go. I'll do whatever you want, you have my word!" Stefans begged.

"Your word doesn't mean much. I lived by your word all summer, during which time I never had to resort to this...Stop fighting! " He looks Stefan in the eye and starts compelling him.

"No, don't do this. Don't do this!" Stefan pleaded.

"I didn't want to. All I wanted was your allegiance. Now I'm going to have to take it." Klaus said as he locked eyes with Stefan once more.

"You will do exactly as I say when I say it. You will not run, you will not hide, you will simply just obey." Klaus compelled Stefan. He lets go of the younger vampire who stares blankly into nothing.

"No...Stefan!" Elena said in shock as she took in Stefan's expression.

"Now kill them. Ripper." Klaus commands and points to the humans. Stefan looks at them, his eyes turning red, his true face showing and then, he attacks the girl.

Elena gasps in horror.

Rebekah's POV

She sat on the floor in one of the halls where she snapped Caroline's neck. She browsed through Caroline's phone. Then the blonde in question woke up with a groan.

"We didn't have mobile telephones in my day. Would have made life a whole lot easier, I suppose. " She commented as Caroline came to her senses.

"Where's Tyler?" Caroline asked.

"He's dead. Ish. " Rebekah answered as Caroline went over to Tyler.

"What did you do to him?" Caroline asked as she looked over Tyler's body.

"Think of it as he's having a nap. When he wakes up, he'll be a hybrid." Rebekah explained. She scrolled through the photos on Caroline's phone. She came upon a picture of Stefan and Elena together.

"Ugh. Vomit." She muttered. But then as she took a closer look at the picture, she saw it - her necklace. Elena was wearing her necklace!

"Is that my neck...Why is that doppelganger bitch wearing my necklace?" she yelled.

"It's always nice to see a vampire in his true element. The species has become such a broody lot." Klaus said to Elena as Stefan killed the other human.

"No. You did this to him." Elena argued as Stefan wiped the blood off his face.

"I invited him to the party, love. He's the one dancing on the table." Klaus explained with a smirk.

The doors open loudly to reveal a furious Rebekah. "Where is it? Where's my necklace?" She yelled as she angrily walked over to Elena and Klaus.

"What are you talking about?" Klaus asks.

"She has my necklace! Look." Rebekah stated and handed Klaus the phone. He looked at the photo.

"Well, well. More lies." He commented as he looked at Elena and Stefan.

"Where is it?" Rebekah asked Elena angrily.

"I don't have it anymore," Elena admitted truthfully.

"You're lying!" Rebekah accused and threw herself onto Elena and bit her neck.

Klaus yanked his sister away from Elena. "Knock it off!" He yelled at Rebekah.

"Make her tell me where it is, Nik!" She yelled back. He sighs and gets down to Elena's level.

"Where's the necklace, sweetheart? Be honest." He asked.

"I'm telling the truth. Katherine stole it." Elena revealed.

Klaus smirked. "Katerina. Of course." He then gets up and turns on the gym clock.

"Twenty minutes. If Bonnie hasn't found a solution by then, I want you to feed again." He says as he walks over to Stefan. "Only this time, I want you to feed on Elena. You know you want to."

"No, Klaus! Don't do this to him!" Elena pleads.

"No one leaves. If she tries to run, fracture her spine." Klaus orders Stefan. He and Rebekah leave the gym.

Elena locks eyes with an emotionless Stefan.

In the meantime, Bonnie and Matt were trying to get in contact with Jeremy, not knowing that he was taken by Katherine and Damon. Bonnie waits for Matt by his truck. He is in the changing room and sees that his clothes are scattered across the floor in such a way that they're making a path to something.

The trail of clothing leads him to the school pool. He sees that his keys have fallen into the pool. All of a sudden one of his shoes falls into the water. Matt gasps in shock. He then sees a message from an unknown person on his phone - "I can help you, Matty".

"Vicki?" He says out loud.

He calls Bonnie and tells her he has a plan. He then ties weights to his waist and jumps into the pool.

Outside of the school, Bonnie realizes that something is wrong and rushes back into the school. She sprints toward the pool and sees Matt drowning. She jumps in and releases the weights from his waist and drags him out of the water.

Back in the gym, only six minutes are left on the clock. Stefan paces across the gym, growing more frustrated by the second. Elena tries to calm him down and tells him to try resisting the compulsion.

"Stefan, you can control this. When that buzzer goes off, just...just drink from me." Elena tries to convince him.

"You don't get it. I can't stop Elena! I'm a ripper! A ripper doesn't stop!" He yells at her. She looks at him with worry in her eyes.

"I listen to the words that come out of your mouth, and all I hear is the sound of your heart pumping blood through your body." He explains to her.

"And when that clock ticks down...I'm going to have to feed on you. And you know what's worse?" He asks her.

"I'm not going to be able to stop." He answers himself. Elena argues that he can fight it and resist it.

He says to her that he can't change what he is, and the more blood he has the more he wants it. "...And if I get so much as near yours...You are dead." He concludes.

The time on the clock has almost run out. Stefan begs Elena to run and leave but in her stubbornness, she decides to stay. The buzzer goes off, signaling that the 20 minutes have passed.

Stefan says he can't hold it anymore and yells at Elena to run. This time she does so. He runs after her. He purposefully slams himself into lockers to slow himself down. Elena runs through the halls and once again comes face to face with Klaus.

"We've got to stop meeting like this." He jokes.

Stefan finds himself in the cafeteria. He takes a nearby broom, breaks it in half, and stabs himself with it. Quickly after, Elena and Klaus enter.

"Now this is fascinating. I've never seen this before." Klaus comments as he drags Elena toward Stefan.

"The only thing stronger than your craving for blood is your love for this one girl. Why don't you turn it off?" He suggests to Stefan.

"No!" Stefan grunts in refusal.

"You're strong. But you're not that strong." Klaus comments and pulls out the broom from Stefan's stomach.

"Turn...It...off," Klaus commands.

And just like that a switch inside Stefan's head responsible for his humanity is turned off, leaving behind an emotionless ripper.

"What did you do?" Elena asks as she takes in the scene in front of her.

Klaus turns around and looks at her. "I fixed him."

"But I think a test is in order, don't you?" Klaus says as he walks over to Elena. He puts his hands on her shoulders and looks at Stefan.

"Ripper...Perhaps you'd like a drink...from the doppelganger's neck." Klaus suggests to Stefan while moving Elena's hair from her neck.

Stefan's eyes turn red, black veins pop out beneath them and his fangs come out. He looks at Elena for a couple of seconds before attacking her.

Elena screams.

In one of the classrooms, Caroline and Rebekah waited for Tyler to wake up.

After leaving Elena to Stefan's mercy, Klaus goes to find Tyler. He gives him a vile of Elena's blood and tells him to drink it. Caroline tries to stop him but Rebekah shuts her up.

Tyler, having no real choice, drinks from the vile. He falls to the ground, coughing blood and shaking violently. He screams in pain and writhes in agony. Klaus looks on as the young boy suffers.

Tyler screams and holds his head. He finally looks up at Klaus, revealing golden eyes and black veins underneath them. "Well, that's a good sign," Klaus says with a smirk.

Outside of the Mystic Falls hospital, two Originals stand and talk about Elena, how her blood is the solution to Klaus's problems, and about the Original witch.

"A thousand years in the grave and she's still screwing with you," Rebekah comments as she sits on the hood of the car.

"Well, it makes sense if you think about it from her perspective. It was her failsafe in case I ever broke the hybrid curse." Klaus explained to his sister. "The doppelganger had to die in order for me to become a hybrid, but if she was dead..."

"Then you couldn't use her blood to sire yourself a new species." Rebekah finished his sentence.

"Leaving me alone for all time." Klaus laments.

"Is that what this is about? Your obsession with hybrids. You just don't want to be alone?" Rebekah asks. Klaus's eyes grow wide.

"You had a family, Nik. You still do. The only problem is most of them are in coffins, with a dagger in their heart. All of them, until you woke me up." Rebekah continues.

"I still can't believe you daggered Kassie. I never thought you would do it. Didn't you promise to never hurt her? Though I assume she will be livid once you wake her up. You broke your promise and you know she's all about trust." She wondered out loud about the vow he made to their youngest sibling.

"Why don't you, uh, why don't you get the truck and I'll get Elena?" Klaus said, avoiding the actual subject of their conversation.

Klaus's deflection did not escape Rebekah's notice, but she decided not to press the issue further for now. She knew her brother well enough to understand that certain topics were off-limits, and his decision to dagger Kassandra was one of them.

"Fine," Rebekah replied with a resigned sigh, pushing herself off the hood of the car.

He then has a quick run-in with Damon Salvatore who tells him that they have awoken Mikael and that he knows that Klaus is in town. This news changes Klaus's plans.

In an old cemetery in Charlotte, Jeremy Gilbert and Katherine Pierce investigate. They're trying to find the tomb that holds Mikael, the vampire hunter Anna said could kill Klaus.

"How do you know that Anna wasn't tricking you?" Katherine asked the young Gilbert boy as they approached the doors leading up to the tomb.

"This is the place. It's the oldest wing of the largest cemetery in Charlotte. She said that a witch entombed him here in the 90s." Jeremy explained to the doppelganger.

Katherine proceeds to open the door. They walk in and she slides her hand across the lid of the grave. She then pushes the lid off the grave revealing a desiccated vampire with his entire body chained and binded.

The man opens his eyes.

***

Ok here it is, ch 2! We don't see Kassie in this one but she is mentioned at the end. Next chapter we'll get to see Kassie back when she was just a normal human girl and how the Originals came to be.

Hope you liked it and thanks for reading! ❤❤❤

If you have any opinions feel free to comment.

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fluffydragon22 · 2 years

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Replacing the Memories and Afterglow

(My own view and thoughts regarding certain life events that changed the way i see people completely.)

It sounds absurd, of course, but i would like to be able to delete and/or replace certain memories. Just like what we could see in the novel "Hujan" by Tere Liye.

It's true when people say that memories should be treasured because when a person has gone, all they leave is the memory so we have to cherish it.

But certain memories bring nothing but painful flashbacks. So wouldn't it be cool to delete those memories and be free from 'em? I wonder when will humanity can make that kind of machine, i hope i'm still alive if it does come true.

Memory is not only connected between people, but also other things like pictures, places, musics, and so on. So obviously, when someone has a memory of another person, there's a high chance that it will also involve those things.

The problem is if the memory itself is the bad one, or let's say, the sad memory that's connected to those lifeless things. You can delete someone's contact or block them completely off any social media, or their pictures, but you can't delete places or musics.

Place will always be there regardless of whether you like it or not, unless it's completely destroyed and/or completely being rebuilt.

Music will not be deleted unless the artist or whoever is in charge take it down. Even if you stop listening to certain music, unliking the song, or whatever it is, it still has the chance of being played elsewhere and at the same time there's a chance of you "accidentally" listen to it.

Back to the top point, the easiest and best thing to do is to delete the memories related to those stuff, is it not? But for now, unless you have amnesia, it's nearly impossible to delete them.

I know that it's not my place to give advice, but i just wanna remind you that if you can, please leave the nice memories for those you're close with. You'll never know when the tide will change which can get you separated from them in a blink of an eye.

Bad or sad memories are worse than the good one in terms of the effect. Speaking from my own experience, i've abandoned some of my favourite hobbies because of those bad memories.

Being shouted by my parents to stop drawing cars and focus on studying because drawing is useless, or being told by my friend that my laugh is cringe, or being told by someone that i love so much that i'm not a good person because i can't be like what she wanted.

Those memories left huge scars within myself and i'm not even sure if it can be healed. I'm not saying that i was pure and never did the same thing to others, in fact one person once told me that i went beyond her boundaries and i'm sure it also counts as bad memory for her.

That's why i said that it's not my place to give advice, but then again, please, be nice and leave the good memories for those you're close with. You never know, maybe what you do can be the reason they give up or the reason they keep going.

Everglow

Everglow was one of my favourite song. It was released by Coldplay in the album A Head Full of Dreams from 2016 if i'm not mistaken. Since it's release until the end of January 2022, Everglow stood as my all-time favourite song.

But then you perhaps wonder "Why do you say until the end of January 2022 when it's already August?"

Memories, as i said above, tied to every kind of thing in our lives, including music. Mine is no different.

On my last birthday, someone i love so much sang me that song, yes Everglow by Coldplay. I fell in love with her harder than ever the moment she sang it. So then my memories of that song was tied to her surprise singing that night.

About a month after my birthday, she decided to breakup and instantly blocked every social media that i have. No sufficient explanation about why she wanted to breakup so it was the second most painful, one-sided goodbye for me. Second after the death of my friend back then.

You see, that Everglow song was related to that someone that i love so much. Now she was no longer there for me and the memories she left became the painful one to remember. So i decided, a week after she left, that i would forget about that song altogether, including the original one from Coldplay themselves.

You may call me as overdramatizing the situation, but that's the reason. Everyone is different and the issue that i faced forced me to take this measure in order to save myself from worse scenario. I don't need your validation, i just wanna write about it in this section.

But i think you can get the big picture of what happened, right?

"I wish our parting wasn't like that, i wish our parting was my death so then i don't need to live in agony of wishing her to comeback."

To be continued in part 2

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wrestlingisfake · 2 years

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G1 Climax night 11 preview

Hiroshi Tanahashi (2-1, 4pts) vs. EVIL (1-1, 2pts) - This is for 2 points in C Block. Evil has a chance here to improve to 2-1, joining Tanahashi, Zack Sabre Jr., and Goto at the top of the block. On the other hand, if Tana wins he be ahead of everyone at 6 points.

For the July 31 show I talked about how Evil was suited to the role of making it seem like Tetsuya Naito was doomed but then losing the match anyway. I don't expect him to play that role twice in a row. So I expect the story of the match to be the hope of Tanahashi taking the lead and shutting Evil down, until Evil ruins that story.

At this point I think the story of C Block is going to be Evil threatening to win the whole thing until he's stopped at 4-2, which would leave room for Tetsuya Naito to take the lead at the last minute. For that to be possible, Tanahashi has to lose at least one more block match, and this is the place to do it.

Jeff Cobb (2-1, 4pts) vs. JONAH (1-1, 2pts) - Another MEAN GUY MATCH~! in A Block, with 2 points at stake. Jonah is 2-1 in singles matches against Cobb, but those matches were on the US indy scene; this is their first encounter on the cerulean blue canvas of New Japan.

I dig Jonah's work in New Japan, but I get the feeling it's not his time yet. If they're going to push one big boy in this block as a serious threat to Okada (currently 3-0), I think it'll be Cobb.

Tetsuya Naito (1-2, 2pts) vs. Aaron Henare (1-2, 2pts) - This is another C Block match for 2 points. The loser of this match will fall to 1-3, which will make it impossible to score more than 6 points. It's extremely unlikely that 6 is enough to win the block. So this is a must-win situation for both guys.

Like I said above, I think Naito will be kept in a position where he could win the block at the last minute. I'm not certain that he will win the block, but I think he'll be kept alive until the end. That would require him to win this match and beat KENTA on August 9, which should be doable. That's not great for Henare, but that's probably why they gave Henare the big win over Tanahashi, to make up for knocking him out of the running midway through.

Taichi (1-1, 2pts) vs. Chase Owens (1-2, 2pts) - It's a B Block match for 2 points. This is the second singles match between these two, after Owens beat Taichi (!) in last year's G1. I don't even remember that match, so maybe Chase brought a machete to the ring or something. Taichi is far from the most protected guy in this tournament, but he has no business losing to Chase Owens, for cripessakes. I expect Taichi to improve to 2-1, while Chase falls to 1-3 and be (almost) mathematically eliminated.

Juice Robinson (1-2, 2pts) vs. Yujiro Takahashi (1-2, 2pts) - Two points are up for grabs in D Block. I believe this the fifth Bullet Club vs. Bullet Club match in this year's tournament, with one more after this (Juice vs. El Phantasmo on August 7). You know the drill by now.

I expected Yuj to have a hot start and collapse right away, but I wasn't expecting Juice to be in the same situation. Losing back-to-back against David Finlay and YOSHI-HASHI is a tough break for Robinson, and at his level he cannot afford a third straight loss to another prelim guy. Lucky for him he's the favorite even in a screwy Bullet Club match. Yujiro won't lay down and stay down for Juice, and there will be a real match, but I think he'll still end up looking up at the lights, and basically knocked out of the tournament.

Jay White & KENTA & El Phantasmo & Gedo vs. Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano & Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI - We're just coming off of Goto vs. Kenta on August 2, and Yoshi vs. Phantasmo is set for August 6. I keep forgetting to point out that Kenta is obsessed with Goto's staff because I kind of don't give a fuck. Gedo should lose the fall in this one.

Lance Archer & Zack Sabre Jr. & TAKA Michinoku vs. Shingo Takagi & SANADA & BUSHI - None of these guys are scheduled to meet in block matches. It feels like we've seen every possible combination of Suzuki-gun vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon. Taka remains winless in these tag matches, so I guess he'll be doing the job again here.

Will Ospreay & Great-O-Khan vs. Tom Lawlor & Royce Isaacs - Nothing to preview here as Ospreay, Khan, and Lawlor are all in different blocks. Isaacs will be getting beat here.

Tama Tonga & Jado vs. David Finlay & Kosei Fujita - Tama and Finlay are in different blocks, so this match can't preview anything. Expect Fujita to lose the fall.

#njpw #g1 climax

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mozukumi · 2 years

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HEYY IT'S ME AGAIN!! since it's ready christmas in my timezone, i remembered the spring troupe dads unleashing The Gift Reckoning on christmas!! if ur still doing mankai swap au asks, i wanna know how they all celebrate christmas (and maybe the days leading up to it?) :D!!

-🌸

HI 🌸 ANON!!! i still am doing these - although i can't make any promises on how fast I'll respond, aha. this is a bit late, but like, it's still December in my timezone. it kind of counts!

under the cut for length!

SPRING TROUPE:

Sakuya - do you ever think about the part in Merry Xmas Mr Blooming where Sakuya is like "oh i remember one year i did my best to be a good boy but still santa didn't ever come to me" and hisoka is like "put up your stocking you've been a good boy i'm sure santa will come". i think about that part a lot. Because Hisoka most likely never got to truly believe in santa, and I think about how christmas is so tied up to gekkagumi, and I think about him trying to give Sakuya a better life, and I - okay that's enoug canon stuff but it's just a sweet story.

Anyway, by this point, he's old enough to have figured out santa and all - but it's his hope to try and keep the spirit alive for the younger kids. I think that Guy and Sakyo would probably be the only kids who still believe, but even for all of the ones who "know better" by now, he tries to create a really happy atmosphere. He's still a freeter, so he has to work in retail a lot this time of year, but he manages to keep a grin on his face despite the rude customers.

And of course, the Gift Reckoning. Although he doesn't have that much money to spare, he makes sure to get a gift for every single member and tries to organize some quality time for each one.

Masumi - I think for a while he spent his Christmas's with his grandmother, until she passed on. For the next few years, he spent them in his Bachelor Pad or whatever, so he's definitely not used to having so many people around for Christmas.

But as you mentioned, he has a gift reckoning to unleash. He can afford to give out more gifts then Sakuya, but after their first year of doing this, Masumi tries to tone back so it doesn't seem like he's trying to one-up Sakuya. Unlike Sakuya, who arranges one-on-one time with each member, Masumi goes with the flow. If he overhears the kids talking about wanting to go to a movie, he offers to buy them the tickets and go see it with them, etc.

Tsuzuru - I think this dude deserves to just fucking relax at christmas. He's spent his previous ones busy with taking care of his siblings, but at this stage, they are starting to grow up more - so he vows that this christmas he is just going to fucking Chill. no cleaning! no cooking!! he is going to sleep until 12 pm!!! he will CHILL!!

... i don't think he succeeds, but it's a nice, thought.

Citron - ... yknow, I actually don't know if they celebrate christmas in Zahra or not! If anybody knows, feel free to tell me - I tried to check Citron and Guy's Christmas cards, but the ones that were translated didn't help.

So I'm not sure how he used to celebrate Christmas, but these days I think he has a lot of fun with it! I think since he's a bit younger in this AU, he's a bit over-eager and forgets to hide his wealth a bit - so he gets everybody extravagant presents and they're like ? how does a college student afford this?

Itaru - Christmas is for one thing, and one thing only: seasonal scouting in his gacha games. At least, that's what he used to believe!

He's used to getting really impersonal gifts (from his parents) or passive-aggressive gifts (from his sister), so when the adults actually give him gifts that match his interests, he's really moved.

Chikage - how long do we have. do you want me to cry over gekkagumi for an hour or for 2 hours-

Anyway, christmas is a lot more light for him then it is in canon - August is still alive, and he never believed that Hisoka betrayed him. Christmas is baking gingerbread together, a symbolic compromise. Sweet and spicy as one.

I think because he wasn't used to much fanfare around it, he's the kind of person who sleeps in big on christmas - much to the chagrin of everybody else, who wants to open their damn presents!

SUMMER TROUPE:

Tenma - His first Christmas outside of the media spotlight is... weird. He's used to having photoshoots lined up, and scheduled tweets by his PR team. He doesn't have that anymore, as he's recovering from his scandal.

It's so much more quiet then he's used to, which unsettles him, but overall he doesn't hate it. He's finding that there's a lot to be gained from going through life as a Person, not as a Celebrity.

I also think he believed in Santa for an embarrassingly long amount of time (I forget if this is canon or not?), so he's with Sakuya on trying so hard to protect Sakyo and Guy. Because it's COMPLETELY normal to keep believing in Santa at that age.

Yuki - Yuki is a big fan of Christmas! It's got a lot of potential from a fashion designer's perspective, for cute limited outfits. He loves designing himself cute pajamas for christmas eve and a classy outfit for christmas day.

At this point, Yuki is probably an uncle - I know in canon, his sisters are already getting married, so it's likely they've had kids when he's in his 30s. I think he takes to that surprisingly well, and they probably love getting presents from Uncle Yuki.

Muku - As a shoujo manga author, Muku probably more focused on the romantic connotations of christmas. He has to crunch a bit to make his seasonal chapters, but aren't they so heart-throbbing?

As for the family side, the first year has his first Christmas with Juchan again, which is definitely an experience! He's missed him so much, but of course, Juza is a bit closed off...

Kazunari - kazunaris rough draft of a character arc in this is that like, um. he has to rise and grind for the freelance work he does as an artist. im sorry that im introducing the anime boy to capitalism.

but aside from having to worry about his holiday bonuses, i think kazu celebrates much like in canon! he's still got a great relationship with his family, and he's super hyped for all of the christmas partying.

Misumi - Misumi celebrates much like in canon as well - with all the money he's saved up from his part-time jobs, he's able to give every single person a special triangle gift. He's also able to reconnect with Madoka bit easier, as Madoka would already be in college by Captain Sky's Pirates, so I think they try to spend some time together as a family. It's still awkward, but they're working on it!

Kumon - oh boy the kumon juza relationship in this AU makes me cry so much because like... Kumon still does idolize Juza! But he's also still mad at being abandoned! And Juza thinks Kumon was foolish to ever idolize him! And a part of him still worries that reconnecting with Kumon is going to hurt him!

But at Mankai, they're together again at last, and while things are awkward.. they're still the Hyodo brothers. i think they still give each other really thoughtful gifts and then they cry because after all this time they still know.

AUTUMN TROUPE:

Izumi - Izumi has mixed feelings about celebrating Christmas at Mankai, at first. because I think her dad probably celebrated there too. So it's just a reminder that this place was more important to her dad then she was, and that's a bit raw.

But despite all that, she still has fun. Like all of the youngsters, she's doted on by the adults, and she realizes she can do better then her father. She can have love here without abandoning her family - which she doesn't! She either invites her mother into Mankai to celebrate, or she goes to visit her mother herself

Sakyo - so i've mentioned that I think Sakyo still believes in santa. this is because I think that'd be hilarious. like, sakyo is really having to carry a LOT on his back in this au, because he's still izumis childhood friend but he's ALSO the juza but he's ALSO kind of the azami. he is a man of many talents.

so instead of azamis like, really flustered and prim and proper thing about relationships, i just think it'd be funny if sakyo was still a santa believer despite otherwise being very edgy and stuff. it's charming. what else can i say.

I still need to figure out the exact timeline, but I think this would be around the time his mother remarried? So this might also be his first christmas with a step-sister and step-father! But since he's not actually joining the yakuza in this au, he's not trying to seperate himself from them, so they actually get to grow closer.

Omi - omi is one of the casualties of this AU because he was like, basically the center point. the metric i used only made him one year older. he is Barely different. which is part of why he got the spy role, as a way to give him something to Do.

so aside from feeling a bit more guilty, otherwise the same! he's still doing the cooking AND the cleaning.

Taichi - ? taichi is a character i have not thought about enough in mankai swap. i literally dont know what his job is. im so sorry taitai.

His siblings are getting older, so I think christmas has started to wind down a bit for him - so he's super excited to have such a high-energy christmas atmosphere at mankai! Even if his siblings think they're too cool for christmas, he's NEVER stopped being hyped.

Juza - juza my little onglydoop.

in Merry Xmas Mr Blooming, Juza says the following:

Every Christmas, I looked forward to eating the cake my mother made.

A day I could eat sweet foods. That was what Christmas was to me.

Which um. He's been estranged from his mother for like, 10 years in this AU. So I think his christmas tradition for a while was to try and make his own cake, and then he'd cry because it was never quite like his moms.

The christmas he returns to the family is very awkward, and makes him worry that he never should have come back - but of course, his family sets him straight! He gets to have his cake once more, and he probably still cries, this time tears of joy.

Azami - azami is probably used to celebrating with the ginsenkai, and i bet he still does! he scolds anybody who stays up too late on christmas eve, since it's bad for their skin, and sakyo joins in - because what if santa doesn't come! i just think it's a funny image to imagine both of them going around barking orders at people.

WINTER TROUPE:

Tsumugi - he spends it with zabi. next question-

but nah. honestly, i think a part of him secretly dreads christmas, because his birthday is so soon! and he kind of just wants to get to that. not that he'd ever actually say that out loud, since that'd be rude, but it is always a bit depressing to get your christmas and birthday gifts squished togethert... which is why he's so happy when mankai throws him a seperate birthday party!

Tasuku - I think Tasuku and his family are usually pretty low-key about christmas, which makes celebrating with Mankai... a new experience, to be sure. as always, though, tasuku is a pretty good sport - and will go through with it all, to get new experiences if nothing else.

Hisoka - gekkagumi crying session part 2. i think year one is really hard for him, since it's the first time he's celebrated without august and april - and unlike in canon, he KNOWS what he's missing. but he can't talk about it.

it's tough, but when he mentions wanting to make gingerbread, it becomes a whole deal that everybody gets involved with - and he knows this won't replace what he's missing, but maybe it can add on to create a new tradition.

Homare - full of poetic inspiration, truly! alongside his gifts, everybody is also given a custom poem. he's not used to christmas being this lively... at home, it was always a very formal affair, but he quite enjoys the atmosphere.

Azuma - i dont know if theres a non-depressing way to say "he's probably still not used to celebrating christmas without his family." but um. ya.

but at least he doesnt have to celebrate alone anymore!!

Guy - as said earlier i think guy is a santa-believer. why? because this would be charming.

i think he's along with sakyo like, very seriously warning people to not be naughty because it'd be a shame if they got coal.

STAFF:

Banri - it's so nice for him to have a christmas that isn't just about company parties and end of year goals - instead, he can focus on whats important. SEASONAL GACHAS his theater family.

Isuke - i think about the 1 year gap a lot. the 1 year in this au that isuke spent at mankai alone. also tumblr isnt letting me unbold this help., but anyway uhh i think he's just really grateful that he wont have to spend another christmas alone.

OKAY MAMMA MIA THIS GOT LONG. I STILL CANT UNBOLD . thank you so much for the kind ask!!

#mAnkAi swAp #🌸 anon

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lilacmoon83 · 4 years

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A Darker Curse

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 27: A Land Without Magic

David looked back at town and saw a blueish black glow.

"It's happening…" Rumple warned, as the sapling glowed brightly, creating a protective radius for those around it.

"Everyone get down!" David called to those outside the town line. He took Snow and Emma's hands, as they made their way back toward the truck. But Cora was not finished and grabbed Snow's leg. She kicked her away and the other woman saw the blueish black wave of destruction coming at them. She let go of Snow's leg and started running for the town line.

"Mom! Dad!" Emma called, as she got to the box of the truck. She was about to go back for them, but they stopped her.

"No Emma!" Snow called, as they hurried toward the truck. David saw the shock wave coming through and tackled his wife to the ground, as it swept over them all. Emma peered up from the box of the truck and heard her son coo between her and Neal, as she began to check him over.

"He's fine…" Neal assured her and her eyes widened.

"Mom! Dad!" she cried, as she jumped out of the truck and looked around. Fear knotted in her stomach, as she could find no trace of them. But that was alleviated when she heard her mother's voice.

"Emma…" Snow called, as she and David rolled out from under the truck. Somehow, her father had managed to roll them beneath it and into the protective cocoon that their sapling had created around the vehicle. She breathed a sigh of relief and helped them to their feet, before they enveloped her in a hug between them.

"Do you think any of the town survived?" Emma asked.

"There's only one way to find out," David replied, as Regina approached the town line and the confused, cursed citizens just outside it.

"Everyone...there was a very large explosion set off in our town," she announced.

"Was it a bomb?" Archie questioned.

"In a manner of speaking...yes and it was caused by my mother, your former Mayor, Cora Mills," she announced.

"Why would she do that?" Marco asked.

"Uh...have you met the woman? She's pure evil," Granny chimed in.

"Widow Lucas and I are in agreement on that and she will be held accountable...if she's still alive," Regina announced.

"Oh...she's alive," Tink chimed in, as she was standing by the road and looking into a ditch, just inside the town line. Regina walked over and gasped, as she looked down at her mother. She was awake and had suffered severe burns to part of her face and probably several other parts of her body.

"Regina...help me…" she cried in pain.

"Help you?" Regina asked in outrage, as Ethan gently sided up to her. But her mother was the reason he was Ethan and not her husband, Robin.

"Please...I'm your mother…" she pleaded.

"You just tried to kill us all! And you want us to help you!?" Regina cried in outrage.

"I'm…I'm your mother," she repeated and groaned in pain.

"I don't care," Regina said coldly, as she turned away.

"You...you can't leave me here," she pleaded.

"Oh, we won't be," she replied.

"You'll get treatment, but that's only if there is any medical equipment left, let alone a hospital, but you'll be handcuffed while you receive help," Regina said, as Emma moved in to cuff her.

"Sheriff Graham...please help her into one of the vehicles and then you're officially on paid leave until further notice," Regina decided.

"You know it's not his fault, right?" Emma muttered.

"I know, but my mother still has his heart somewhere. We can't take any more chances until we can find it," Regina whispered back.

"I understand...and for what it's worth, I am sorry for doing her bidding. I didn't want to...I still don't know why I did," he stammered, but she put her hand up.

"I know and trust me, it's not really your fault. But in the meantime, Emma will assume the role of Sheriff," she announced.

"Me?" Emma asked in surprise.

"Yes...you," Regina replied.

"But in the grand scheme of things...Dad has way more experience in this stuff," Emma said.

"No...it should be you. I'm perfectly content to be your deputy," David interjected, giving her a loving smile.

"If there is even a town left to Sheriff," Gold interjected.

"Papa…" Neal chided.

"It's a valid interjection," he argued and none of them could refute that. They had no idea what level of destruction awaited them.

"Wait...if the town was just leveled, then why the hell are we going back?" Leroy questioned.

"Yeah...shouldn't we leave if we have no home?" Walter questioned.

"Some of us, unlike you two, had businesses here. We have to at least see what's left and if any of it can be salvaged," Tom Clark argued.

"He's right…now is not the time to abandon our home," Archie agreed.

"If there is one," Gold muttered.

"Always a ray of sunshine," Neal deadpanned.

"It's a valid argument. Meanwhile...remind me again why we're not leaving her to die in that ditch?" Gold questioned, as he glared at an injured Cora, though he was enjoying that her injuries had been caused by her own doing.

"Yeah...why aren't we?" David agreed and Snow did not chide him for it either. There was a time she might have, for she had always tried to show mercy to those that had done her wrong and did not deserve it. But Snow had no mercy left in her for this woman and she was no longer ashamed to admit that she wanted to see Cora Mills in a grave.

"Because it will be more satisfying to lock her away in a dark cell where she gets to rot for the rest of her miserable life, while we take back our happy endings," Regina said.

"If you say so, dearie...but her in a grave would be more satisfying," Gold commented, as Cora was put into the bed of the truck.

"You people are crazy! This bitch just set off a bomb in town and you're going back into it? We need to call the National Guard!" Michael cried. August rolled his eyes.

"So...he's completely clueless on all of this, isn't he? Unlike you and Greg?" he asked the former fairy.

"As far as I know, but I also don't know what his superiors are after either," Tink replied, as she pointed at Greg.

"I don't know either. I told you that I am here to see that she pays for killing my father," Greg insisted, as he pointed at Cora.

"I don't even know who you are," Cora said.

"Of course you don't...but my father died, because of you and I agree with everyone else. Why the hell aren't we killing her?" he asked.

"She's getting locked up," Regina insisted, as she turned to the other detective.

"Detective Bishop...I think it's safe to say that it's in your best interest if you leave now. Storybrooke does not need your assistance," Regina said.

"I have orders to bring Neal Cassidy back to Oregon on grand larceny charges and Emma Swan as well on charges as his accomplice. I'm not leaving without them in handcuffs," the detective refuted.

"Well...then you're not leaving, because there's no way in hell you're taking them anywhere," David refuted.

"Is that a threat?" Michael questioned.

"A threat...a promise...whichever one you want to call it. But you're not taking our daughter or Gold's son," David refuted.

"The hell I'm not...that's it. I don't know what the hell is going on here, but I will have more officers here in a matter of hours," he said, as he pulled out his phone.

"Don't…" David warned, as he surprised everyone and pulled his gun on the detective. Except Gold maybe. He just wore a smirk on his face. The Prince had been pushed way too far to lose his daughter to some stupid detective from muggle land.

"You're not going to shoot me," Michael said, calling his bluff.

"I literally just got my wife and daughter back and you really want to try me on this? I've waited too damn long and suffered too much to lose one of them to some fool with a badge," David said as Emma tossed him a pair of cuffs and he put them on the detective.

"This is an unlawful arrest...you are all going to jail once I get my phone call," Michael warned.

"Under the laws of this land...you're right. But under the laws of where we're from...I actually have the power to deny you anything I want and so does he," Regina interjected.

"None of that makes any sense! What the hell do you mean by any of that!?" Michael questioned.

"Trust me...it's probably best you don't know. On the other hand, if you did know, it might send you running for the town line and never look back," Emma quipped.

"Oh no way...I don't know what's going on here, but I am a Detective and I will fight to uphold the law," he announced. Snow rolled her eyes, as she hooked her hand on her husband's elbow.

"Well, my husband is a Prince and he'll fight to protect his family, as will I. And trust me, that's a battle you'll lose," Snow promised, silencing him.

With that, a caravan of cars and confused citizens, followed David's truck back toward town.

~*~

Tamara angrily slammed the phone down and contemplated her next move. Neither Greg nor Tia were answering her calls and that meant something was off. She hadn't been planning to do so this soon, but she didn't see any other course of action. She exited her office at the precinct and grabbed her jacket.

"I'll be out of town for a while. You'll report to Lieutenant Brown while I'm gone," she said to her subordinates.

"Yes Captain," they answered. She smirked, as she left the building and looked at her badge. She had never really earned it and had only gained this position to do the bidding of the Home Office and she intended to carry out her mission...

~*~

When they arrived back in town, they were stunned to speechlessness by the level of devastation. Their first stop was the hospital and the building was lopsided and there was no way it was operable. Regina quickly put the dwarves on the detail of getting tents set up in the park, while the hospital staff gathered what they safely could.

The center of town, around the clocktower was the worst hit, being the epicenter and Granny's was completely destroyed. They sent several off to gather canned goods and packaged foods from the grocery store, while David, Emma, and Snow assessed the situation at the Sheriff's station.

"What a mess," Emma said, as she looked around at their half collapsed building.

"It could have been worse if there was magic to fuel the trigger," David said.

"Small favors...there would be nothing left if that trigger had gone off in a town full of magic. It would have been like a nuclear bomb," Snow reasoned.

"Cora got everything she deserved," Emma muttered.

"No arguments there...I still think letting her continue to breathe might be a mistake," David said.

"Agreed...there's not much to salvage here I guess. We should probably head to the park and see what we can help with," Snow said, as they felt a sudden rumbling beneath their feet.

"What now?" Emma wondered, as David took Snow's hand and they hurried out after her. They ran toward the shop, where Gold, Neal, and Lacey exited with the little David.

"The shop held up surprisingly well. It's a mess, but a lot of it survived," Neal said, as they heard another rumble.

"We have much bigger problems than that right now. There are swords and a bow inside the shop. You're about to need them," Gold said, as they went back in and found the weapons.

"Why are we going to need these?" Emma asked. Her question was answered though, as what remained of the clocktower literally exploded and a dragon emerged into the sky.

"Oh shit…" Neal uttered.

"It seems Cora's stunt has awakened an old friend," Rumple said.

"Maleficent…" Snow said.

"Why is there a dragon?" Emma asked in disbelief.

"Because that was her punishment. Cora trapped her beneath the clocktower in her other form, but the trigger has awakened her prematurely," Rumple answered, as she roared angrily. Lacey was stunned at what she as seeing, being that she did not have her memories yet.

"She seems pissed," Emma commented.

"You would be too after what my mother did to her," Regina said, as she arrived.

"What did she do? Because that story isn't in the book" August replied, as they dogged her fiery breath.

"No time for that now…" Regina said, as she stepped forward.

"Maleficent! It's me!" Regina called, but she was beyond reason and obviously looking for someone specific.

"Give her Cora...it's the only way to calm her down," Rumple reasoned.

"I agree with him…" David said.

"Dad...we're not savages," Emma chided.

"No...but Cora is, honey. The short story is that she forced Maleficent to work with her against us. She held her egg hostage and so Maleficent did her bidding," Snow explained.

"And in return...my mother destroyed her egg," Regina added.

"She's going to rip through this town until she finds her," David said.

"Keep her busy...and keep trying to get through to her. I'll be back," Regina said, as she stormed to her car.

"You did this mother...and you're going to fix it," she growled. But distraction wasn't possible, as Maleficent abandoned them in search of her true target, sending the rest of them following Regina to the park.

Cora hissed in pain, as Whale not so gently dabbed her burns with a burn treatment patch.

"Does it hurt?" he asked sarcastically.

"I was good to you, Dr. Whale...you know what happens when you cross me," Cora warned.

"Perhaps in the past, but for the first time, you are at the mercy of this entire town; not the other way around, former Mayor Mills, so I think it goes without saying that everyone is enjoying your pain a bit," Whale commented, as he started patching her burns when they heard a roaring sound.

"What the hell is that?" Tom Clark asked, as he arrived with a box of supplies from his store.

"It's coming!" Leroy shouted, his face alight with terror.

"What's coming?" Archie asked.

"A dragon!" Leroy cried.

"Okaaay...guess you found a stash of your favorite sauce, cause you're drunk," Whale said, as they heard the roaring again and peered outside the tent. Screams of terror ensued, as an actual dragon dive bombed on their makeshift camp. They all ran, abandoning Cora, as she attempted to get away as well.

"Help me!" Cora cried, as they arrived at the park.

"Maleficent!" Regina called, trying to get her attention. The dragon roared, but then seemed to calm down when she saw the toddler in Neal's arms.

"What's she doing?" Emma asked fearfully.

"It's the baby...she won't risk anything with the baby around," Snow said.

"Yeah...this may be what gets through to her," David added.

"What...what did you do to her, you bitch?" Emma demanded to know, as she glared at Cora.

"The same thing I was going to do to you, Miss Swan…" Cora revealed and she saw the pain on her parent's faces.

"And I would have eliminated you like I did that egg if your father hadn't put you and your mother through that wardrobe. Snow choked back a sob, as she remembered that night vividly. It had haunted her for twenty years, after all.

Snow sobbed almost uncontrollably, as he led her to the nursery.

"I can't do this...I need you!" she cried. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her tenderly.

"I know...but you know we must. Your father and step-mother will kill our baby if you stay. You'll go through the wardrobe and be safe from the curse," Charming promised.

"But what about you? How can I leave you?" she protested.

"It won't be forever...you'll find me and save me as I did you," he promised, as he pressed his forehead against hers.

"This isn't fair...we're supposed to be a family," Snow sobbed. Tears slipped down his cheeks as well.

"I know, my love. But as long as you and Emma are safe, then there will be an end to curse and we'll be reunited," he said, as he kissed her again, this time deeply and passionately.

"I love you," she sniffed.

"And I love you. When you share an eternal love like we do...there is nothing that can keep us apart, not forever," he promised, as he lifted her into the wardrobe.

"I'll find you!" she promised. He smiled and gave her one last fleeting kiss, before closing the doors.

"I know you will, my darling," he whispered, as he heard the Black Knights storm into the nursery with Cora following.

"Where is she?" the Evil Queen demanded. He smirked smugly.

"She's gone...far away from here where you can't hurt her or our daughter," Charming replied.

"But Maleficent wasn't so lucky. My mother and Snow's father stole her egg and made her do their misdeeds for a while. Then, as a reward, she burned Maleficent's castle to the ground with her egg inside. We weren't able to recover it," Regina explained.

"That's when I told Gepetto that he had to get the wardrobe done...that we couldn't risk you being born in our land. I knew you'd never be safe from her," David said and tears filled Emma's eyes.

"And you guys gave up everything for me," she said.

"Oh no sweetheart...you're our baby. We did what we had to in order to save you. You're everything to us," Snow said, as she took her husband's hand.

"We knew our love was strong enough to survive anything, even the worst situations," she said.

"And we were right," he added.

"Yes...it has survived everything so far, despite my best efforts," Cora rasped, making her presence known once again.

"But let's see if your love will survive this," she growled, as Emma felt a sharp pain in her side, as Cora stabbed her with a dagger. Snow's blood curdling scream chilled them all to the bone. Emma fell into her father's arms and he became covered in her blood, as he cradled her.

"WHALE!" Regina screamed, calling him over.

"Pack the wound!" he called to his nurses, as they moved in and tried to stop the bleeding.

"She's losing it too fast and I have no way to do surgery. Her only chance is to stop the bleeding. I'm going to have to cauterize her wound," he said. David nodded and saw his wife lose it, as August held her back from ripping Cora apart.

"Mother...what have you done!?" Regina cried.

"I finished the job, but you'll get your wish. You wanted to break the curse and so it shall be when she dies!" Cora growled, as she glared at Snow and Charming.

"I finally did it...I won again and you two idiots lose," she declared. But an angry roaring caught her by surprise from behind and she saw her death seconds before it came, as Maleficent breathed fire down upon her. Cora screamed in agony for a few seconds, before the flames cleared and her ashes floated to the ground. She was dead, but the damage was done.

"This is going to hurt like hell...you need to give her something to bite down on," Whale instructed, as David removed his leather belt and kissed Emma's forehead. Her eyes were glassy, as she stared up at her sobbing parents.

"It's going to be okay, princess...this is going to hurt, but it has to be done," he said in a soothing voice, as Snow cried against him. Whale used fire and cauterized the wound, causing Emma to scream in agony, as her father gently rocked her. Maleficent looked on, the concern still obvious, even in her dragon form.

"I can save her...if I get what the Prince hid inside you," he whispered to the dragon. She seemed to regard him with scrutiny for a moment and then opened her gill, allowing the golden egg to slip out.

"Papa...what is that?" Neal asked desperately.

"Just a shell protecting the real magic on the inside," Rumple replied.

"Magic?" Neal asked.

"Light magic...true love in a bottle that I made from her parent's hairs," Rumple replied.

"Can you save her?" he asked.

"Yes, but I must get this to the well...and I don't have much time," he said, as he walked toward his shop. Little David whined and he turned away from the scene. He was young, but Neal didn't want him to see Emma like this.

"It's going to be okay, buddy...it has to be," he whispered, as he kissed his head.

"Where are you going?" Lacey called, as she watched him unlock the egg and extract a bottle with a sparkling pink substance inside.

"I need to get to the well and you should come with me if you want to see something incredible," he said, as she got into his car with him and he sped off toward the edge of town. Fortunately, it was a short drive and Lacey followed him on the trek to the well. He popped the cork on the potion and dropped it into the well.

"What...what is that?" Lacey asked, as pinkish/purple smoke began to billow from the well.

"Magic…" he said, as they were suddenly struck with a rainbow wave of rainbow colored light.

"Oh no…" he uttered.

"Rumple…" Belle cried, as he enveloped her in a bittersweet hug.

"I remember…" she said, with a smile and then she frowned.

"Does that mean…" she started to say.

"I'm afraid so...but magic is here. There might still be a chance for Emma," he replied.

"We have to go and now," he said, as he felt the magic at his fingertips once more and they disappeared in a puff of red smoke...

#Snowing #SnowxCharming #Charming family #Emma Swan #Neal Cassidy #swanfire #august w. booth #Tinkerbell #Wooden Fairy #Rumbelle #Regina Mills #evil Cora #CORA cast the curse #romance #angst #family #adventure #a darker curse

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thrillingdetectivetales · 5 years

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So I know you haven't been writing much in Mag7 lately, but I was hoping you might be inspired to write some Varaday for one of these prompts?? ❝That was said so horribly wrong but you sounded very cute while trying. A for effort.❞❝I don’t go shopping, I get and retrieve. I have a narrow focus, unlike some people.❞❝Whiskey is a breakfast staple, anyone who says otherwise is fucking lying.❞❝I installed a stripper pole while you were gone because it made me think of you.❞ (I'm bad at favorites)

So I’ll admit that I waffled on whether I wanted to write a fill for Mag7 or not, because it has been Awhile, but I’m so glad that I did, so thank you so much for this prompt! I went with “That was said so horribly wrong but you sounded very cute while trying. A for effort.” I changed the actual literal dialogue up to make it sound more character accurate but the spirit of the prompt still absolutely stands.

I’m putting it behind a cut because probably not everyone wants to read about asshole cowboys in love, but if anyone else would like to play, the Obscenely Domestic Starters Meme is here.

“Jesus Christ,” Faraday groused, sagging against the boulder at his back and mopping his sweat-soaked brow with the rolled cuff of his dusty gray sleeve. “It’s hotter’n hell out here.”

Vasquez snorted and leaned over to spit into the dirt. “Dime algo que no sepa, guero.”

They were posted up on a high outcropping overlooking a narrow valley pass just outside Blackwater, with squat wedges of barren red rock and withered husks of scrub grass the only cover from the brutal late August heat for miles. The sun had meandered across the sky some hours before to hover stubbornly overhead, glaring yellow eye trained viciously upon them where they were waiting on Sam and Miz Cullen to drive a wagonful of banditos—helpfully infiltrated by their own Billy Rocks—into the pinched channel.

Goody was belly-down on a narrow overhang about halfway up the cliff face with a rifle in hand and Red was supposedly loitering somewhere on the opposite ridge, though they had lost sight of him as soon as they parted ways down by the shallow creek at the bottom of the bluff and likely wouldn’t spot him again until the bullets started flying. All in all, warrant hunting seemed to be mostly a whole lot of hurry up and wait, with a hearty side helping of blistering derision courtesy any one of the traveling companions he’d rubbed wrong that day, present company included. Faraday hadn’t quite decided yet if he liked it, but this morning wasted boiling alive in the wilds of the Arizona territory certainly wasn’t doing much to convince him.

“You gonna talk at me in Mexican this whole time?” Faraday grumbled, knocking the scuffed leather toe of his boot against the gaudy silver cap gleaming at the tip of Vasquez’s own. The other man shrugged, rolling the unlit butt of a half-smoked cigarillo between his teeth. He was settled near enough to Faraday that their shoulders brushed and an altogether different sort of heat fizzed under Faraday’s skin at the contact.

“Tal vez,” Vasquez offered. “Could talk Mexican at me, too, you know.”

Faraday snorted. “Now why would I go and do that?”

“You could use the practice, mijo.” Vasquez arched an eyebrow and shot a fond, intent look from beneath the sweeping black brim of his hat. “Remember what you said the other day?”

“No,” Faraday said, pointed.

“You told the whole saloon you were pregnant,” Vasquez provided helpfully. “Sheriff Martìnez laughed so hard he spit beer out his nose.”

It was a small blessing, Faraday considered, that he was already flushed red from the heat. With any luck, the flood of sheepish irritation bleeding up from his chest wouldn’t show in his face so clearly as it normally did, though the sudden smug curl of Vasquez’s smirk suggested otherwise.

“How I was supposed to know that’s what it meant?” Faraday snapped. “It’s got ‘embarrassed’ right in there!”

“It was a good effort,” Vasquez assured, voice thick with delighted condescension. He reached up to bump his knuckles affectionately against Faraday’s chest but Faraday caught his hand in the air, wrapping his fingers tight around it and yanking none too gently until they were standing side by side with their arms tucked down between them, halfway to holding hands like idiots.

“Shut up,” he snapped, and Vasquez snickered through his teeth.

“It was!” he insisted gleefully, that wheezing coyote cackle warping his words. “I’ve never seen you try to apologize before, mijito. Though,” he added, leaning in with his voice low and rough, “if it always goes that badly, I can understand why.”

“Fuck off,” Faraday snarled. He abandoned his grip on Vasquez’s hand in favor of half-turning to shove him away, but Vasquez just laughed and rocked with the motion, slipping even further into Faraday’s space on the return arc.

“It was adorable,” he cooed, plucking the cigarillo from his mouth and stepping up in front of Faraday to press him back into the sun-baked rock. Faraday leaned willingly back but tipped his chin so their noses bumped together. “Y tan dulce en tu parte.”

“I told you I ain’t puttin’ up with that Mexican horseshit,” he grumbled.

“Te gusta esa mierda Mexicana,” Vasquez assured easily. He turned his face just a little, so that his beard dragged against the scruff on Faraday’s cheek and murmured, “Besame.”

“I’m sorry,” Faraday breathed snidely into the half-inch of space between them, grinning sharp. “Did you have a request you wanted to make in English, muchacho?”

“Yo se que me entiendes, pendejito,” Vasquez chided fondly. He nudged Faraday’s nose again. “Besame. Vamos, rápido. Before Sam rounds those ladrones up and we have to go to work.”

“I said English, cowboy, or get - ” Faraday started, but was almost immediately cut off by the hot press of Vasquez’s mouth.

His tongue was soft and slick and tasted largely of tobacco after an hour spent gnawing on the very thing. It curled so sweetly around Faraday’s own that a hard shot of lust ricocheted firecracker-bright all the way down to his toes. He reached up and took a fistful of Vasquez’s vest, canting his head for a better angle, and swallowed down the warbling moan that Vasquez licked into his mouth. He set both hands to Faraday’s hips, fingers digging hard enough to bruise, and Faraday sucked a breath past his teeth, short and sharp.

“Well, now,” he teased, voice low and rasping with want. “Ain’t no reason ever to learn Mexican if this is the reward I get for not speakin’ it.”

“Idiota,” Vasquez said, rolling his eyes. He delivered a quick, chaste kiss to the corner of Faraday’s mouth and then pinched his side, hard, just as the thundering rattle of a carriage picked up in the distance.

“The hell was that for?” Faraday yelped, glowering at Vasquez’s back as he turned to peer down into the ravine.

“Being a stubborn ass,” Vasquez supplied benignly. He pulled one of his pistols from its holster at his hip and wagged it in the air, summoning him over. “Let’s go, guero. Showtime.”

“I oughta push you off this goddamn cliff,” Faraday grumbled, gamely drawing Ethel and pulling her hammer back. There was a gauzy plume of dust rising in the distance, bricky orange against the flat blue sky.

“Go ahead,” Vasquez invited cheerfully. “Good luck finding anyone else who’ll put up with you.”

Faraday snorted and swatted him in the shoulder. “Love you too, jackass.”

——–

Translations & explanations:

The joke is that in Spanish, “embarazada” means “pregnant” but sounds to an unfamiliar English-speaking ear like it should mean “embarrassed.” It’s a very common mishap for learners of the language to make.

Dime algo que no sepa, guero. - Tell me something I don’t know, guero.

Tal vez. - Probably.

Y tan dulce en tu parte. - And very sweet on your part.

Te gusta esa mierda Mexicana. - You like that Mexican shit.

Besame. - Kiss me.

Yo se que me entiendes, pendejito. - I know you understand me, (affectionate form of) asshole.

Besame. Vamos, rápido. - Kiss me. Let’s go, quick.

ladrones - thieves

All Spanish provided with the caveat that, while I was technically considered fluent in the language at one point in time, I haven’t used it regularly in, oh. Seven years or so? There may be some mistakes and I welcome corrections. :)

Thank you again, @gatesofivoryandhorn for the prompt!! I hope you enjoyed it!

#mag7 #varaday #joshua faraday #vasquez #joshua faraday/vasquez #the magnificent seven

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