#but Naomi was like it's chill go live your own life

[punkpandapatrixk]

Full Hunter’s Moon in Taurus ♦︎ Moon Magick Pick A Card

I read around the Internet; it seems this year’s Full Hunter’s Moon in Taurus is a big deal for all people, because it marks the end of a 2-year long cycle of Taurus-Scorpio eclipse. That cycle began in November 2021. So, if you could remember what specific misery started then, this year’s eclipse is the end of that suffering😊BANZAI!🎉Or, for some people, an intense healing journey might’ve started then and this eclipse marks your full-recovery or something along those lines🥰

Aenergetically, I feel that this Hunter’s Moon in Taurus is inviting us to take stock of many elements in our lives that no longer serve us. That’s such a cliché, right? We do this every full moon anyway, but with this powerful eclipse, and it being in the Taurus-Scorpio axis, this releasing of old narratives extends far back into childhood conditioning. And in some cases, childhood traumas.

Taurus is the ruler of the 2nd House of personal autonomy and how we view ourselves in relationship to our immediate, closest environment: the family environment. This sign/house tells us how we perceive our individuality in relation to the grownups immediately near us, and how they perceive us. When elements of life ruled by this sign/house is afflicted, disregarded, ignored, dominated and manipulated, traumas in childhood develop and…

Scorpio as the ruler of the 8th House of traumas can tell you a lot about ways you could pull yourself out of this loop of misery caused by terrible conditioning or bad parenting. Often, for many people, the development of new traumas continues to happen way into adulthood and so, when you carry a lot of pains, you will need to heal yourself over and over again until almost all of those layers of a false concept of your Self are taken down.

This full moon eclipse in the Taurus-Scorpio axis, I feel, brings immense relief from the maelstrom of a healing journey that is often quite world-shattering. I have faith that even now as you’re reading these words, many things in your world—your inner world—are already calming down and the winter season will allow you plentiful of rest, before the spring of your Life begins again next year🌱😜🎍

‘Chill…

You’re going to end up where you’re supposed to be.’

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Pile 1 – King of Your Own World

outdated patterns, DISSOLVED – King of Pentacles

I sense you’ve come from a very restrictive background. When you were growing up, parents or teachers were incredibly strict. They placed so much cruel expectations on you without caring for your feelings as a person. For some of you, this debilitating sense of restriction could also have come from religion, tradition, custom, race/ethnicity bullshit, and all such things. You felt like there were so many things you weren’t supposed to do because you belonged to a certain religion or because of your ethnicity or whatever. Meanwhile, for the same reasons, ridiculous expectations on you were abound as well.

You constantly felt like the sky above your head was so low and you couldn’t do anything about it. Naomi Campbell’s quote fits perfectly here: ‘The sky has never been the limit. We are our own limits.’

Recently, you’ve been able to overcome so much of this bullshit patterning from your childhood. I think you’ve been working on this unravelling for a number of years. You are free now. Quite nothing is restricting you anymore; you’ve figured out how the Matrix works. And now, you’re the King of your own Reality. What are you going to entertain and create in this brave new world of your own making? Your North Node sign and house placement will have some hints for you to know what options would make you feel the best about yourself in this incarnation!🥰

authentic self, EMBRACED – 4 of Wands

In spite of all the conditioning you were subject to, you’re essentially a Soul who’s always been rather clear about who you are on a fundamental level. Actually, you knew yourself, you knew what you liked, you knew what you wanted to become. But yeah, those restrictions put around your sky caused you to feel confused a lot. Or that you felt helpless on so many levels. What you wanted, what you knew you could be so good at, and what you were allowed to do… they seemed all to be separate circles.

But now, now that you are your own person, you’re reclaiming those bits and pieces of your authentic self that became dormant as you were trying to survive! They are all coming online one by one. For some of you, I feel old skills/abilities are going to get reactivated and this will point towards what you’re meant to do in this incarnation. For some others, you may suddenly gain insane skills you never knew you were capable of and this might shock you a lot. These are actually skills you’ve polished in past incarnations. They’re coming back to help you ascend into New Earth more easily! This is your time to shine, baby!🌤

life purpose, EXPRESSED – 4 of Cups

Okay, let’s get to the real stuff here. For a lot of you reading this, I sense you may be occasionally dealing with stagnation or a sense of feeling absolutely stuck in the manifestation of your ideal world, ideal reality. There’s this feeling like, even though you know what you’re supposed to do as part of your Life Purpose, you feel like there’s just no way you can build that bridge towards that life purpose at the present moment. Don’t worry, honey, I promise you that you can’t fuck up what’s meant for you.

Many of you, you’re currently in that gestation phase where you’re supposed to gain a lot, A LOT, of spiritual strength before you’re ready to take on the world. Your path may sound unnecessarily tougher than other people, but it’s because you have a higher calling to be of service to your community. Maybe even the world, WHOA. Your experiences have shaped the amazing individual you’ve become, and even now you’re still becoming even more awesome than you could ever imagine in the meantime.

You are where you’re supposed to be. Learn as much as you can, enjoyably. Breathe as deeply as you can, enjoyably. Play your videos games. Watch your favourite series. Aren’t you aware you’re having so much time on your hand now to be building new positive habits, too? All of these seemingly unrelated activities are leading you towards your Life Purpose; embrace everything nice and calm that you have now. It is going to get wild sooner than you realise!🎆

full moon self-care🔻🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 2 – Comfortable New World

outdated patterns, DISSOLVED – 5 of Cups Rx

Not to touch on conspiracy theories, but if there’s a new world order on a microcosmic scale, you’re having it all to yourself XD You are dissolving an old world order that involves mental lethargy and a general sense of spiritual confusion, which I think you’ve needed to deal with for almost your entire Life. I sense, for many of you this was caused by a very traumatic childhood in which you were constantly, systematically let down by the people around you, or your environment in general. It feels like, you were never given what you wanted, what you needed; whatever you asked, if you asked, you would be granted its non-delivery.

I think you had toxic parents? Grandparents? Maybe teachers? Just incredibly venomous adults who actually saw your potential for success, and so, they deliberately attempted to murder your Light from a very young age. At this point of reading, I think you’re healing and transitioning into more peaceful waters by your own conscience. I’m sure you’ve worked really hard to heal yourself, work on your inner demons, defeated negative thought patterns that weren’t even your own, and created new neurological pathways all on your own. You’ve successfully made the unconscious conscious. You have better control over your own emotions, thoughts, choices and conducts now. Congratulations!🎊

authentic self, EMBRACED – 3 of Pentacles Rx

Before this point, you were probably a people-pleaser of sort, right? You thought too much about other people and I think you were conditioned to think that self-love or prioritising yourself is incredibly selfish. That choosing to live Life on your own terms was incredibly selfish! The adults around you were probably the type of parents that would say, young people choosing not to have babies is incredibly selfish! Whereas such adults are choosing so precisely because they don’t want to bring into this miserable world babies that are unloved and unwanted. That’s all gaslighting, you know that, right?

With this energy, I’m seeing you choosing to cultivate solitude for the time being. You’ve finally been able to tap into this consciousness of calm and harmony. You are in rest and recuperation mode for both your mental and spiritual. You are not yet ready to connect with people. Right now, it’s time to build a deeper connection with yourself, perhaps your inner child and all the things that make you feel joyous from the inside. This is also your time to feel more connected to the Planet herself as well as understand your unbreakable bond with the Cosmos itself. If you ask me, I think you’re currently in a really good stage where you’re being led to your best Life as of yet!🌞

life purpose, EXPRESSED – 2 of Pentacles Rx

As of right now, your Spirit Guides and Higher Self are sending you many synchronistic messages that give you a clearer idea as to what your next steps should be. It’s perfectly OK to be casual and relaxed about them though. You are not at all in a rush. Even when you see these YouTube readings that say crap like URGENT MESSAGES FROM THE UNIVERSE, no, you’re not in a rush anywhere. Your new world order is gestating right now and you can be patient with yourself. Those types of titles are just for the algorithm or for grabbing your attention, but in reality, there is no such thing as the Universe or Higher Self or Spirit rushing you towards anything. You can’t fuck up what’s meant for you, trust that.

When you allow the process of your new world of comfort to unfold naturally, in the future, you will always know when to make the right decision for almost every life choice you will be making. You will be guided more by your intuition and so, whatever choice you make will reflect the highest good of you and those you care about. That’s the spiritual lesson you’re learning as of right now and I think it’s such a wonderful stage to be in! Trust that you’re being prepared by your Higher Self to receive so much abundance and joy in the next chapter of your Life. You’ve come so far😊

full moon self-care🔻🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

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Pile 3 – Bittersweet Transition Into the Light

outdated patterns, DISSOLVED – 6 of Pentacles

In spite of the title, I feel that your transition into the Light is actually a pretty lighthearted one! More like, all the rough times are over, for realz for realz. You’ve been to the depths of hell and returned safely; scathed, yes, but you’re still alive, so you’ve won! For this Pile, I feel like you might’ve been attracted to the other piles, too, and they contain insights about the kind of struggles you’ve had to deal with. But if you feel that this Pile is your main pile, you’ve literally crossed over many bridges and the Light is dawning fast on you! You’re travelling at light speed towards a world of your ideal!

If up until now you’ve been the character who receives help and charity from other people, soon you’ll finally embrace a transcendent version of yourself with which you’ll be the one sharing your riches and knowledge! You are now the enviable main character but without the envy… hopefully XD But those who are actually envious of your transformation or success are not your people, so I hope you know how to protect yourself from the beady eyes of those who will be seeking to harm you in the future if you let them!

authentic self, EMBRACED – 7 of Cups

For the most part, I’m sensing that you didn’t necessarily come from extreme poverty or anything like that. But the manifestation of your dreams has been nothing short of difficult damn near impossible at times. I hope you understand now that this has been your script only because the things that you want to see manifest in this world are so precious, pure and high-vibrational that Earth herself was not ready to assist their manifestations. Do you understand? Often we hear about needing to raise our frequencies so become a vibrational match to our higher desires. But what happens when our desires are SO high-vibrational Earth herself couldn’t contain those dreams? LMAO

So it was that the collective of Mankind needed to collectively raise their frequencies enough for your time to come. It may sound weird to some people but I didn’t make the rules, hon, so just take these words, I promise you it will make sense soon enough XD And with that said, have faith that you will see all that you’ve ever dreamt of manifest in the physical. Never lose your sight on the prize and don’t settle for less; you’re meant to see it all happen😉

life purpose, EXPRESSED – 5 of Pentacles

Do you perhaps have significant Capricorn, Scorpio or Aquarius influences in your birth chart? These three, in all of the zodiac signs deal the most with a sense of restriction (Capricorn), ridiculously dangerous people/situations and traumas (Scorpio), as well as a disturbing sense of not belonging anywhere in the world (Aquarius). These energies tend to be really difficult to navigate through, but there’s always a great prize to be had when you’re through! Essentially, you needed to go through your experiences to really understand how poverty mindset works or how it’s developed in the first place. Poverty mindset can deal with many things beyond just the conception of money.

It is part of your life’s blueprint to come in touch with it, transmute it via first-hand experience, and dissolve it for all of Mankind. It is part of your Life Purpose to help other people learn to overcome this lack mindset on their own. You don’t necessarily need to become a teacher, but through your own example, or your self-expression whatever it may be, you help others realise their beggar patterns and tendencies. This energy is reminding me of both Bob Marley and Bob Ross though as you can see, their expressions or styles were very different from each other, but they showed people there was more to Life than just numbers in your bank account and that there is so much joy in giving and sharing your gifts with the world. That at the end of the day, what truly matters is Love and what’s truly exciting is charity to others💝

full moon self-care🔻🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

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#Moon Panda Pick A Pic #full moon #full moon in taurus #revolution #evolution #punk #youth #culture #trauma healing #childhood trauma #pick a card #pick a card reading #tarot pick a card #pac #pac reading #tarot pac #tarot community #tarot reader #tarotblr #tarot #mental health

[akajustmerry]

would LOVE to hear more about your tabitha and naomi headcanons!!!

and yee shall receive !! idk these are probably silly n basic because we know SO LITTLE about both, but whatever it's free real estate!!

considering we meet tabs at the underground rich ppl party, its a fair bet she's probably a rich nepo baby like everyone else in succ, but she seems pretty chill about it. she's just vibing, wooing her hot rich peers.

tabs has the laidback vibe of old fuck off money. older than the roys or pierces, i think. probably in property or land which is why she has no interest in the Roy trust or the pierce's or politics. we know that makes her more attractive to rome but probably to naomi too. here's someone so rich they really are only in it for you!

i imagine naomi and tabs crossed paths and hooked up occasionally in the past, but grew closer during/after naomi's accident. naomi told ken in the show she was struggling cos of press, trust, trauma, addiction, etc, during that time. from what we see of tabs with roman, she is a pretty patient and understanding person, at least to a point (everyone has limits). i imagine after her accident, naomi would have appreciated having someone like tabs in her life who isn't after anything and is relatively non-judgemental and chill.

don't really count this as a headcanon cos it's just true but tabs and Naomi were hooking up that whole weekend at the Pierce estate. I know it's framed as the "Ken and Roman attempt to get Some" weekend but we know neither of them got any lmao but u know who did?? my gorls <3

for what it's worth I do think naomi and Tabs both genuinely liked kendall and roman. i don't think there were any ulterior motives on their parts. as we saw, neither naomi or tabs had any power or insight to sway the deal in any way. equally, tabs and naomi really gain nothing power-wise from dating these guys so u gotta assume it was genuine on some level. like they really just saw these human shaped messes of men and went "hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii <3" kinda very bisexual of them both really. I felt v represented by it I must say

i dooooo think in the immediate aftermath of naomi and Kendall break up, the next time she hooked up with tabs, they defs had a little "what IS wrong with them?" convo where they probs just showed each other roman and Kendall's lame texts, had a laugh, and then washed their hands of the roy boys

when it's announced tom is ceo of waystar, naomi calls tabs like, "isn't that literally the guy who swallowed his own load because you told him to 😂" and she's like yeah turns out he never stopped and idk they probably start dating seriously again after that.

after naomi gets her share of the money from the sale to the Waystar I like to think she uses it to start some overpriced rehab centres or something. eventually, her and tabs get engaged. nan pierce never acknowledges the relationship and passively refers to tabitha as a friend of the family, even at their wedding because she honestly seems like that kind of bitch.

honestly they probably just continue living cool beautiful bisexual women lives. maybe naomi has some rough patches here and there cos you know addiction isn't easy, but tabs is there for her. they just become this quietly classy wealthy lesbian couple who throw great parties with other philanthropic influential gays and closeted wealthy folks. I'm imagining something like what the kindness blind items say sandra bullock does with all the Hollywood lesbians gays.

shiv invites them both to her baby shower because they're honestly the closest thing she has to friends who are women after everything. they don't go though cos they assume shiv is just inviting them to mess with the boys. they send a very precocious expensive gift though like literal gold and silver baby cutlery or something

tabitha becomes like an insanely successful ghostwriter or something. idk why I just have the impression she's kinda been a wallflower in all these insane wealth spaces and eventually tells all those stories somehow

I feel like if I don't stop I'll just be writing fanfic so I'll stop but idc if it's just projection I jus love that there's 2 beautiful aloof bisexual women in this show and the only thing we really know about them for certain is that they were both way too good for the Roys <3

#naomi x tabitha #tabitha hayes #naomi pierce #succession

[primeministerofantarctica]

F for the OC alphabet ask?

(link) (link)

Fritz! (Full name Friedrich Baumgartner). He was born on a farm, technically as an only child but with plenty of cousins all living in the same house. After turning 13 (which, culturally, is around the time children are expected to take on responsibility for their future; most of them go on to secondary or boarding school but a lot of them also enter apprenticeships or just go directly into working. it's very dependent on how much money your family has but that's a whole other thing. anyways) he moves to the city and gets a job in public works labor, basically constructing and fixing buildings under government contracts. For the most part he's running around collecting and delivering tools and stuff to the more experienced workers. Large cities that draw in young workers tend to have at least one community youth home, which are basically like. dormitory buildings that provide housing and two meals a day to said kids that moved there for work. They do have to pay to live there. He sends most of his money back home to his family after that. It's also how he met Naomi, because she was volunteering at the youth home for class credit (volunteer work is considered very important in public education, in fact you can raise your grade just by having enough volunteer hours on record). And now he has a crush on her 😌✌️.

He has a silver watch that his dad passed down to him, and his mom is sick more often than not which does make him worry somewhat. He's also very religious and takes the mandatory rest days and dietary restrictions very seriously. For the most part he's pretty chill and operates on the philosophy of Minding His Own Business (insert that one anime screenshot: "hey, that guy's got horns! that's not normal. well, it's none of my business. not gonna let it ruin my day.") which is a handy personality trait when your friend pops up and says hey, I can control fire now, also I'm wanted for treason bc I uncovered a conspiracy by the government and couldn't keep my damn mouth shut. Deep down inside though he thinks he'd much prefer to live a normal, mundane, non-adventurous, non-constant-threat-of-dying life.

#ask #soliioquising #this is like half-worldbuilding but whatever. context is important! /lh #oc tag

[dirigibleplumbing]

I really enjoy season 8 and I like the tablet arcs and the stuff with Naomi (and yeah my name is Naomi and I’m pretty sure this is the only fictional Naomi I’ve ever encountered? definitely the only one with this large a role). I just wish they’d never tried to depict what Hell looks like in any extended way, or the parts of Heaven where angels hang out. I like them better when they’re more metaphysical and left to the imagination. 

I still like the episodes where they do this -- “Goodbye Stranger” being one of my faves -- but I think it kinda weakens the Heaven and Hell concepts by showing them so concretely. for Heaven I think there’s a kinda handwave of “this is how a human would perceive what’s happening, and the audience is human, of course this isn’t what it looks like to Cas and Naomi” but I don’t so much get that with Hell. 

also, what happened to Crowley’s endless queue? 

#posts I created #naomi watches supernatural #naomi watches tv #sometimes I have feelings about the evil brainwashing angel having such a Jewish non-angelic name #but other times I'm like... eh... #Naomi is from the book of Ruth. Ruth was her daughter-in-law #Ruch had converted to Judaism to marry Naomi's son and after he died #she was supposed to spend the rest of her life helping out Naomi #but Naomi was like it's chill go live your own life #and Ruth was all no way I meant it when I converted I'm Jewish all the way #which from a religious perspective is a lesson about faith and so on #with Ruth as the heroine #but from a secular perspective -- and honestly from a Team Free Will perspective -- #I think Naomi is the hero for being like: hey it's your choice! your call Ruth! #and with that in mind it's kinda shady that that's what they used for the name of the angel who brainwashes everyone into falling in line! #but it's Supernatural #I'm pretty sure all the thought they put into it was 'this is Biblical name' lol #I've decided not to spend energy being offended by shit like this #especially when there's episodes like 'Man's Best Friend with Benefits' 😬 #ugh okay one of those tags is super confusing because puncuation #it should be 'and Ruth was all no way! I meant it when I converted! I'm Jewish all the way' #I need to find an add-on that lets me edit tags or something

[saintobio]

YEAR 2200

↳ suna rintarou/reader (spinoff to wastelands)

“Gosh, it’s so crazy that we have a way to know what happened to us in our past lives.”

“I was a freaking widow in World War III.”

“History books say there was also a zombie apocalypse in the twenty-first century.”

“So, what were you in the past?”

“Dude, I was like born in the 1920’s or something.”

“What about you, Y/N?”

For the past hour of listening to your friends’ conversation, it was no denying that you became essentially bored and you wanted nothing else but to just change the topic. Both Naomi and Niko were enthusiastic on the topic of the past, and unlike them, you were a person who was rather interested in the future. Due to that contrast alone, your response was of insouciance, “I don’t know. I never bothered to find out.”

“Lame. What if you were married to the king of Japan or something?” Naomi presented the idea with a grin.

Niko, who was seated across the table, took a sip from his glass and allowed the alcohol to fuel his talkativeness. “Or maybe Y/N’s scared to know her past.”

You weren’t. You just didn’t like the thought of looking back knowing that it could ruin whatever you had at the present. “First of all, you guys are drunk so this talk about the past life doesn’t make it interesting to me.” You counted off your finger before you spoke, “Second, I’m gonna need a quick smoke so I’ll leave you guys for sec.”

“Boo, party pooper.”

“Call us if random guys tried to hit on you,” Naomi joked.

You gave them a playful wink before sliding out of the bar stool. It was only 11 PM but this university life was getting more and more laborious each day. Although going to this rooftop bar was supposedly a stress reliever, you would rather be in the comfort of your bed to recover from sleep deprivation.

Somehow, the air outside was surprisingly calming. You indulged on a few steps near the handrails to get a full view of the stretch of urban night life before you. The cityscape was a constellation that mirrored the starry night and rested in silence in contrast to the chattering noises and soft r&b music coming from inside the bar.

While the lack of human presence in the smoking area brought you serenity, there was a sudden heaviness in your heart that you couldn’t understand. A pounding that came out of nowhere as if your heart had fallen out of rhythm. You ignored it by fishing out your juul, inhaling the strawberry-flavored smoke from the small rod.

“Shit.”

The manly voice made you cock your head to the side only to see a man with middle-parted hair arriving in his chosen area. He was frowning at his own juul, tapping it against his palm in desperate attempts. You haven’t seen this man before but there was an uneasy feeling of déjà vu that you’ve chosen to just shrug off in your head.

You blew out the puff of white smoke from your mouth and returned your gaze at the luminescence of the moon that stared back at you in its heavenly brightness.

A clear of his throat was what gained your attention. That, and his decision to speak to you, “Do I know you?”

Once again, you looked at the stranger. He was wearing a dark sweater that matched his raven hair that was gelled in opposing directions. His fox eyes complemented his thin face and you would be a liar not to acknowledge his handsome, boy-next-door look.

But then again, you remembered his question and your pique arose. “Shouldn’t I ask you that?” you retorted, watching him lean on the handrail with an impressed grin. “You talked to me first, so why do you think I know you?”

“Chill, babe. I just feel like I’ve seen you somewhere.” His gaze on your face was full of interest.

You? You could only roll your eyes, betting that he was one of the notorious fuckboys in town. Although it was a bit surprising that he, too, felt a spark of familiarity towards you. “Yeah, right. Heard that from a lot of guys,” you ended up saying it to him as you were never one to let your guard down. Classic fuckboys. Maybe he was just trying to make a move.

“Do you live around here?” he inquired while you took another drag. The smoke filled your lungs in satisfaction before you released it back into thin air.

“Mhm,” you replied, “I’m in college.”

The genuine smile on his face caused another loud thumping on your heart. “Me, too. You go to Creston?”

Oh... Maybe that’s why. “Yeah, do you?”

He responded with a nod before offering a hand. “Cool, my name’s Rin.”

Despite your hesitation to fully entertain the man, your instinct led you to shake his hand. “Y/N.”

You wondered if something else crossed his mind because the slight crease on his forehead confused you. It seemed as if he was trying to discern you in his head, searching his deepest memories as if he could find any.

You doubted it. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just...” he trailed off, “my chest feels tight that’s why I went here for some fresh air but now I feel even more odd.”

“Well, too bad. I guess I should take my leave, then,” you excused yourself and prepared to leave, “my friends are waiting for me.”

And before you could, a tug on your wrist stopped you from your tracks. “Wait, can I at least have your number?” His smile was inviting. God, it must be the effect of his charm. “I really think we should date some time.”

You laughed under your breath, amazed by his confidence. “I really think you should know that I don’t date random guys I met at a rooftop bar.” Before you pivoted on your heels, you gave him an amused smirk. “See you around, Rin.”

hq general taglist: @x-cloudyyyy @iwazubean @cottonheadedninnymugggins @centvry @kageyamakock @sunnsettee @bluesylveon2 @tsukkisfatsimp @cuddlesslut @mysteriousparker @asdfghjkl7things @02hhsailor @anejuuuuoy @minswags-posts @chemnerdkuroo @misssugarless @deeznutss @tanakax123 @oikawa-bubs @lust4keiji @stel9 @tsumuuwu @daylghits @ems1des @the-golden-jhope @wonyoschubs @bakus-stuff @melty-kisses @softy-woo @dekuspet @kittycatkrissa

wastelands taglist: @6mattsun9 @kity @kuroosbb @agaashesmilktea @strawberries-en-cream @hokageyamz @ermahgerd-larry-and-ziam @omisemi @aonenthusiast @oikawaisamood @atsumusoup @chaiteabeebee @bongofrito @yoshikomoonara28 @rinstars @suhkusa @shrimpypenis

#suna rintarou x reader #suna rintarou x you #suna rintaro x reader #suna rintaro x you #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #reincarnation #suna fluff #haikyuu fluff #suna drabble #haikyuu drabble

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

Monster of the Week: The Undead!

From spooky scary skeletons to the original zombies, let’s have a look at the undead who have risen around the globe! This will not include vampires (which I have already compiled a post on) or ghosts (which I plan to compile a post on.)

Note that many of these can best be understood -- or only understood -- in their original cultural context, and I encourage you to continue your research if the lore interests you.

Skeletons/Skeletal Creatures

I am, for whatever reason, enthusiastic about skeletons. There’s a drama to them. They look like they’re perpetually grinning, or grimacing, which makes them oddly relatable. As an artist, I’m always thinking about them as the framework for poses. 

More importantly, there’s one in all of us -- sorry if that made you uncomfortable -- which makes them a universally recurring being in global folklore. Let’s take a look at just a few.

Gashadokuro

Literally translating to “rattling skull,” the Gashadokuro is also called Odokoru (giant skull) or simply “the hungry skeleton.” That basically tells you all you need to know. 

These big boys (and I mean REALLY big) wander around the countryside at night. Their name derives from the eerie rattling noise produced by their giant skulls. As chill as this may sound, the Gashadokuro is not actually chill at all, and if you come across them they will not hesitate bite your head off. This may seem like a jerk move, since they don’t even have a stomach, but they need the energy of the living in order to sustain themselves.

Like most undead fellas on this list, the Gashadokuro has its origins in the real world. They are thought to originate from the mass-graves, usually of those who died under violent or inhumane circumstances, the supernatural byproduct of countless skeletons. 

The first Gashadokuro was thought to have originated after a specific bloody rebellion, in which the bereaved, sorceress daughter of a samurai summoned a giant skeleton from the mass grave of the rebelling soldiers and used it to attack the city. Queen behavior, if you ask me.

Santa Muerte

Image Source

Let’s conclude this portion with my favorite skeleton (excluding Baron Samedi, who doesn’t count, as he is often depicted as a man, or a man with a skull-like face), the goddess/folk saint Santa Muerte.  

I still have a lot to learn about the rich folklore surrounding Santa Muerte, but to my understanding, she was born of a combination of pre-Columbian Indigenous religions and Mexican-American folk Catholicism. 

Depicted as a skeleton in beautiful, feminine attire and considered to be embodiment of death, Santa Muerte is a healing and protective figure. She is beloved by legions of worshippers, despite condemnations from the Catholic church, and symbolizes a culturally positive relationship with death. 

Despite appearances, she is a life-affirming figure.

Zombies and Reanimated Corpses:

The Draugr

When we hear “zombie,” we don’t traditionally think of “Norse mythology.” And yet, the Nordics had their very own zombie mythos, boasting some truly terrifying undead.

It is said that they first emerge from their graves as little more than wisps of smoke and a stench of decay, before adopting a humanoid form that boasts superhuman strength, the ability to change size at will, and the ability to shape-shift. 

They aren’t mindless -- far from it. They boast an anthropomorphic intelligence, which makes them all the more dangerous.  

As to what drives them from their graves? Jealousy and bitterness towards the living. Relatable, honestly. 

The Jiangshi

(Note: I wish they were all as adorable as the one in this gif.)

This Chinese hopping corpse may have evolved into more of a vampire by Western influences, but it was originally far more zombie-like. And a unique zombie at that. 

Due to rigor mortis, the Jiangshi hops stiffly from place to place, holding its arms straight out. What’s even more singular is their origin. Try to guess. Go ahead, try. You won’t be able to.

The Jiangshi is what occurs when a bereaved family, lacking the proper funds to send their loved one’s body back to their ancestral land for burial, hires a necromancing corpse driver to reanimate the cadaver and guide it as it hops back to its resting place. They’d travel at night to avoid or minimize decay, either prodded by a stick or to the beat of a drum.

Other ways to create a Jiangshi include improper burial, suicide, or possession.

Looking upon a Jiangshi is said to be bad luck, and presumably very unpleasant. However, the real problem is their insatiable appetite. 

But fear not: if you see an unhealthy looking fellow hopping towards you with pasty, possibly decaying skin, you can protect yourself with mirrors, the hooves of a black donkey, or the wood of a peach tree. They can also be scared off by the sound of a crowing rooster, though that would require a bit of planning, and the cooperation of the rooster in question. Which, knowing roosters, is unlikely. 

Haitian Zombies

All legends of the undead have roots in real tragedies, but this one is particularly upsetting -- and the source of the zombie legend in the Western world today.

The enslaved people of Haiti believed that death would set them free, sending them back to an idyllic version of their homeland unburdened by colonialism. But only if death came naturally. Suicide would turn them into mindless husks, carrying out the drudgery of their captors. A haunting parallel to the practice of slavery itself. 

The concept was introduced to a contemporary audience by the 1932 film White Zombie, which sees a white “voodoo master” (who clearly didn’t know anything about the actual Voodoo religion) using witchcraft to create obedient slaves. He eventually uses this (ahem) “”voodoo”” on a white woman to try and force her to fall in love with him. 

With the term “zombie” in public consciousness, it became an applicable allegory for all of society’s ills, and can now be used to refer to anything from mob mentality to consumerism. But few are as haunting and as disturbing as its origins.

Videos on zombies: 

The Origin of the Zombie, from Haiti to the US

Where Zombies Come From

100 Hundred Years of Zombie Evolution in Pop Culture

Best Contemporary Zombie Movies*

*That I know of. Will update with more.

Night of the Living Dead - Though White Zombie introduced the term, it was arguably this film that popularized zombies as we know them today, particularly as an allegory for herd mentality and consumerism. Its successors, including Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead, prove similarly influential. 

The Evil Dead Trilogy - Established that zombies can be fun, while also serving as an allegory for various societal problems. Also features undead that are refreshingly ravenous and evil without necessarily being mindless.

The Re-Animator - These days, the average zombie movie pushes the bounds of creativity is “make ‘em faster!” The Re-Animator’s take on the genre, however, would make Mary Shelley proud. Based loosely on the Lovecraft story, “Herbert West - Reanimator,” the films greatest triumph is its ability to have fun with its grisly premise, and compel the audience to have fun, too. It’s also a cautionary tale about why it’s important to be careful while getting a roommate. 

Shaun of the Dead - I’m not kidding. This film is great, and shows that you don’t need a serious tone to be heartfelt, scary, or provide a thought-provoking social commentary. Way back when I was a sixteen-year-old college freshman, I turned up to class as a zombie cheerleader, and my psychology professor recommended Shaun of the Dead to me. She’s a woman of impeccable taste, and it did not disappoint. 

28 Days Later - Before Cillian Murphy gave us Tommy Shelby, a gangster so pretty he could give Al Capone a sexual identity crisis, he was proving his mettle in the zombie-addled UK. For 2020 reasons, watching him wander the abandoned streets of London with a questionable haircut feels very topical. Add a stellar performance from Naomie Harris, and there’s a reason it sent me into a bisexual panic it’s considered a modern classic of the genre. 

Little Monsters - An egregiously underrated flick, featuring a kindergarten teacher (who happens to be, you know, Lupita Nyong’o) protecting her class during a zombie outbreak. A must watch if you want a zombie movie with a powerhouse lead, a happy ending, and perhaps the most badass kindergarten teacher in cinematic history. 

#monster of the week #writers reference #writers resources #skeletons #zombies #blood for ts #racism mention for ts

[solange-lol]

hiii in celebration of AUctober, what are some of your fav solangelo AUs?

Anonymous said to solange-lol:

Hi! Kinda a random question: do you have any favorite riordanverse fanfics that you’d suggest reading? I’m looking for ones to read, but I’ve been having trouble finding new ones! Thanks!

rec list #1 | rec list #2

all recs can be found under the tag ‘lizs solangelo fic recs’ on my blog!

technically its past auctober now, but better late then never to drop my third solangelo rec list!! especially considering the state of the world rn ... lets just say its a celebration of me actually participating in sw for the first time in a while

rec under cut as always!! its not all aus but its the count that thots

Find Another Place to Stay by @unwieldyink

personally i think breakup fics are incredibly underrated, and i also think annie is incredibly underrated, so enjoy ur little cry if you read this one (tw // violence in this one)

Hershey’s kiss by @unwieldyink

we love a godswap!! it’s actually been a while since ive read this one and i reread this while making this rec list and can i just say that zeus!nico and hermes!will are both such valid concepts and this just has a rly good dynamic to it

Actors by @buoyantsaturn

i could talk about this fic for hours but lets just say ao3 has told me ive visted this fic 40 times. im not kidding. fake dating is just a godtier trope

start of something new by jinniefic

if you know me, you know that i fricken LOVE high school musical, and this is literally just the start of the first movie but solangelo and honestly a little more iconic please read even if ur not a hsm fan

paper/plastic by @rosyredlipstick

the fact that this is from 2018 and took this long to get into my rec list is tragic because i think about this fic a lot... a lot. mortal au. very chill, strangers to lovers, very good vibes, will be rereading soon (everything rosy writes is amazing we already knew this)

10:37pm by @buoyantsaturn

surprise another cj fic! fun fact she debated with us for a good half hour about what to title this fic so go read it so you can tell her you like the name (and the fic itself... its a very good fic) (tw // alchohol and drug use for this one)

Sunflower by ChiseHatori

3 days in the infirmary is probably the easiest trope u can find in the solangelo tag but i have to say this one really made me soft just bc it feels a lot more in character than some of the others ive read, and it basically picks up right where they ended in the books

Will You, or Will You Not? by @thebluesideofmyworld

marriage fics... also very soft. just boys bein boys. dual engagements. mortal au. all that good stuff vv soft i loved it

let your heart win by @justanothervampiregirl

this one is short but its also probably one of the most in character fics ive ever read and i really like this style of writing mixed with canon compliance so :)

The Magic of Naomi Solace by Sweetymomo

naomi solace, underratted legend. i aspire to have her relationship with will. lots of familial background if you like that!! and its set at a bnb!!

forget all the shooting stars and silver moons by itotallyreadthatbook

when i saw this in the tag i was SO excited bc we love high school aus here and it was!! very good indeed!! this trope is one ive never seen before and i recommend 10/10 good banter

They won’t always live by Phantomxlegend

will overworking himself and coping with loss always makes me :(( so if ur okay with some will angst then buckle up

“I am fully capable of kicking your ass” by @unwieldyink

i remember i saw the email notification for this one and immediately was like yup absolutely im in and it 100% lives up to its title we love capture the flag solangelo

the night we met by peachyytomlinson

a lil ooc but also very angsty and did make me emotional when i read this late at night. i think i wrote something similar a while back but i just aaaaa will angst man

“look how hard i can cry FWSHHH”  by @buoyantsaturn

call me biased bc i like to claim that i originated the idea of demeter!will and cj dedicated this fic to me but like BRO its so soft and i love it here nico leave the plants along challenge failed

femboy hooters, or the time percy jackson failed to keep a secret by luciethebean

its all fun and games until the fic turns out to genuinely be really good. like, yes the title is exactly what you think it is but it doesnt matter bc its so fricken well written im^@*#&(*)($_$#&^@$(@*)* yeah

Of Ties and Significant Annoyances by seokjinvilla (@thechampagnecocainegasoline)

we dont support jkr in this household but what we do support is this bc this plot is genius and i love it

everything’s going swimmingly by tsunamiroll (@catboy-ethan)

fun fact i posed the idea of a sports/team prompt to the sw mod crew literally just so someone would pull through and write a swim au and ethan DID without even knowing. i love them and their writing style is so !!!! please read it

when you smile (the whole world stops) by tsunamiroll (@catboy-ethan)

another ethan fic!! this is the perfect fic for a rough day where u just want some cuddles bc thats literally the plot of the fic. i love this one with my entire heart its very fluffy 10/10 do reccomend

pumpkin spice (i hate it, it's not nice) (ok maybe it's a little nice) by tsunamiroll (@catboy-ethan)

ethan fic part 3!! bc i binge read these all in one night!! literally again their writing style is so amazing and the witty banter!!!! also we love a retail bookstore au 

Burnt Plastic (and Other Bad Ideas) by More_of_This

so this one isnt exactly romantically solangelo but it is hilarious in my opinion and i absolutely adore well written college aus and while i know nothing about college this fic is so funny to me (if you read the tags there is, in fact, a raccoon involved) (tw // drinking for this one)

all because you kissed me goodnight by @buoyantsaturn

i have been WAITING for a mortal counselors au and im sure theres some out there already but y’all already know im a cj stan! lots of slowburn, friends to lovers, coworkers, all the good stuff (and i named this one and offered cj a lot of materials from my own camp so this one especially hits!! i reccomend for those good ol summer vibes!!) (tw // drinking for this one)

Waiting With You by @buoyantsaturn

oh boy buckle up if u want an angst ride because this fic tore me apart. i keep threatning cj with “dont pull another waiting with you”. that being said, very much feels like a movie while youre reading it, very fluffy in the middle, we love mutual pining. 

Little Italian Boy by @buoyantsaturn

stream little italian boy by grace gilmore. youll get it. thats it.

The Clues by @thebluesideofmyworld

secret dating when done well is legit one of my favorite tropes of all time and this!!! this!!!!!!!!! its outsiders perspective also which is another one of my favorite tropes, and just little views on nicos life and i love it

So Come On, Talk it Out (your voice brought me back from the dead) by @buoyantsaturn

will solace, sponsered by kitkats, cj edition

no but if you read tower of nero you’ll really like this missing pieces pre-ton fic this is a really soft little fic with a bunch of easter eggs from the book in it, so i highly recommend! if you havent read ton yet and are still avoiding spoilers, come back to this one!

reaching for the sun (you, you, you) by moonswords (@tortadelimao)

i just read this one about 2 hours ago for the first time and i am Still thinking about it. its like the getting together that i literally feel like is canon and the vibes are Immaculate (also william “what about me looks straight” solace)

“Are we on a date right now?” by @unwieldyink

overworked will, nico helping out in the infirmary, first dates & hikes, canon compliant, we love to see it (also its an annie fic so ur required by law to read it)

Outrunning karma by Phantomxlgend 

more will angst! featuring angry overworked will!

Everlasting Ring by minyoongurt (@blueblackslowtown)

i was Very excited when i read the summary of this one, and i think minyoongurt did a really good job!! healer will, injured nico, the whole dynamic. also i love the idea of nico only knowing “thank you” “go away” and “fuck you” in sign language. im pretty sure thats canon

The Little Thing by Rainbow_Mess

i belive this is also a pre-toa fic thats just exploring all the stuff we found out about will in ton and its very short and sweet :)

and of course, a few of my recent works for your consideration

who is he (and what is he to you?)

just doing my silly little tasks

i don’t need three bars to tell me we’re meant to connect

truly, madly, deeply

#solangelo #will solace #nico di angelo #pjo #heros of olympus #lizs solangelo fic recs #mine

[gayenerd]

These are “outtakes” from Billie Joe’s 2010 Out Magazine interview. The link is still up, but for some reason they took out his answers about masculinity and femininity????? And those are obviously the most interesting answers! Anyway, here’s the whole thing I had saved in a doc

March 19, 2010

Billie Joe Armstrong Tells All

Photo: Kurt Iswarienko

Our April Broadway issue features Green Day's front man Billie Joe Armstrong chatting about music, politics, and the new musical, <i>American Idiot,</i> based on the band's last two albums. The writer of the piece (and former Popnography editor) Shana Naomi Krochmal filed the following exclusive extras from her interview with Armstrong that didn't make it into the piece. In them, Billie Joe touches on masculinity, his queer influences, and meeting Lady Gaga:

ON MASCULINITY:

Out: Is masculinity important to you?

Billie Joe Armstrong: I think it can come in handy, if it’s used the right way.

What’s the right way?

I think you learn a lot from Little League baseball. Like how to be a good team player, what do you do in situations when you’re at bat and it’s just you and another person. When you lose, how do you deal with losing? When you win, are you a good winner? And a graceful winner? How do you contribute to a team situation selflessly? I think there’s a lot of leadership skills in that. I don’t know if that’s masculinity or just good leadership or just life lessons. I just used Little League baseball because it’s male dominated.

Do your kids play?

They did. My oldest is done now, and my youngest one does. It was a real good bonding experience. I think masculinity is a lot more feminine than people give it credit for. Or it can be. Jim Morrison seemed very masculine to me, but also completely feminine at the same time. That balance in between -- and it’s not those morons on the bus in Borat. That’s not masculinity, that’s insecurity at its worse. Masculinity is something that women can have.

What is feminine about you?

I’m not sure. Let me think. It’s all about being a well rounded a person. I think being a singer is very feminine. Being a singer is a very feminine thing -- performing is definitely. Women have a lot more courage I think than men do, in a lot of ways -- if you think about what Madonna does or Lady Gaga or Beyonce. Women have a much easier time of reinventing themselves than I think men do. Hmm, I think -- a little bit of eyeliner. [Laughs] But I think there’s a big difference between vanity and femininity. I think that feminine side has served me a lot more than my masculine side has in a lot of ways.

ON PERFORMING AT THE GRAMMYS:

That was such a great night. There’s a whole thing where you’re worried about the awards part of it, and it can make you kind of irritable, kind of stressed out. But the great thing is that we had a chance to play with the cast, which has never really been done before.

ON THE MOST EMOTIONAL PARTS OF THE SHOW:

When Rebecca [Naomi Jones] sings “Letterbomb,” that really blows me away. The scene where Tunny’s on the gurneys and they’re singing “Before the Lobotomy.” And “Last Night on Earth” is an amazing scene with the couple doing this heroin dance. Tony [Vincent] is singing the song -- the first verse while they’re slamming smack -- and then the next verse is Mary coming out with a baby that she’s had with a guy who turns out to be a loser father. I get chills thinking about it right now. The juxtaposition between the two scenes is like -- wow.

ON WRITING AN ORIGINAL MUSICAL:

I’d definitely be interested in it. I think we’re in a really rare situation where this is gaining momentum. I don’t want to screw it up by working on something else. I’d love to do something with Michael [Mayer]. I’ve always wanted to see what it would be like to score a film -- but this, this is even more special, I think.

ON KNOWING TOO MUCH:

When you start getting into politics, what I’ve realized is that if it seems to be black and white, it’s shooting off into so many different directions. You can’t really keep up with what’s happening in the House of Representatives. Things like Hurricane Katrina, Haiti, troops in Afghanistan, financial crisis -- even Tiger Woods. It seems to be one thing after the next.

ON HIS QUEER INFLUENCES:

My uncle. There were different punk singers, from a guy named Cretin Chaos in Social Unrest to guys like Morrissey. And also guys that would genderbend a little, like Bowie, or Mike Ness from Social Distortion wearing makeup. I’ve always liked music that was non-gender specific, like the Replacements song called “Androgynous.” It was just always those little things or people that were willing to make you think, whoa, that’s not what I’m hearing on the radio these days.

ON MEETING LADY GAGA AT THE MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS:

She had this outfit on -- she had so much shit on her when she walked by! She couldn’t move her arm because she was going on to do her performance, and it was like shaking hands with someone in a cast. She had this handler that was like, “Don’t touch the costume! Don’t touch the costume!” She said something about how she loved Dookie so much she used to lick the pages. I thought it was really cool. She’s influencing a lot of young people, and she’s doing it in a way that’s provocative. And a lot of people don’t realize that she’s an artist, and she’s been one for a really long time. She’s taking something that Bowie or Madonna did and taking it a step further.

ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “PUNK ROCK”:

That’s like a 10 part answer. I think of it as something that you need to have of your own. For me it’s about community. I think it’s kind of spiritual in its own way, because people fight over it so much and the meaning of it. It’s a sense of self-discovery. But also a new set of ideas and a new poetry, a new music that you discover that you notice that no one else is really into, or goes against what other people are normally into. It’s like you’re free to be an individual and taking on new ideas and challenging old ideas. I think it has a lot to do with burning down the establishment to create something new. But at the same time, you find relationships within that too. It’s something that’s supposed to empower you. It’s about starting something new. Part of the problem with a lot of punk rock is that people believe that it’s supposed to be one thing. Everything for me starts off with punk rock when I’m writing songs -- it’s almost like I’m stripped down to the bare bones of music again. It’s kind of in my DNA in this point.

ON HIS WIFE, ADRIENNE:

She’s great. She’s beautiful. Without her, I don’t know what I’d do. She empowers me to challenge myself in a lot of ways. She inspired the song “American Idiot” by playing me this Midnight Oil song that she really loved. She runs a store called Atomic Garden, all about sustainable living. She’s really active in NRDC, politically. Sometimes I think she’s a hell of a lot more interesting and a cooler person than I am.

ON HIS “MISERABLE” HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE:

Academically you have to completely re-figure out how to prioritize your life. And suddenly you feel like the whole fucking world is against you because they’re prioritizing for you. And it’s forced on you. And if you don’t get it at that age, if you don’t catch it -- that’s what happened to me, I didn’t prioritize anything. I just got to a breaking point where it was like, by my later high school years, “You’re all full of shit anyway. Everyone’s full of shit. I know what I’m doing, and fuck school, and fuck schoolwork, and I’m not going to go to fucking college anyway, and I’m gonna play in a rock band, and you’re all gonna be sorry.” You get vengeful -- it’s a natural instinct, all those hormones going and shit.

ON BEING HAPPIER AT AGE 38:

I kind of feel like things are getting better. It goes in stages. I loved my early twenties. I hated my late twenties. I was a drunk. I was trying to figure out how to be a father, a husband, but I still wanted to live my life like a crazy punk rock rock star. You start noticing things about yourself. You have to change your health habits. But you don’t want to change. In your twenties, change is hitting you over the head whether you like it or not. Right when I got to about 30 I was like, thank God that’s over. But it gets complicated again.

#Billie: 'Masculinity is something that women can have' #Me: 'OmG hE's TaLkInG aBoUt Me' #article #interview #articles #billie joe armstrong

[cloveroctobers]

• JENIFER “JEN” MARLOWE •

IG Info/bio: @/justjenw1n | 220k followers | Fashion | just a LUVer who owns a lovely blog that you’re more than welcome to check out here... astoldbyjenmarlowe.co.uk 🪞🛍🪄

22 (24) (25 in 2021) years of age

From London, England

Her family has French origins

Tends to visit once a year mainly with her family

For her 18th bday, her parents also sent her to Paris with her bf that she’s been dating since she was 14

they broke up since he wanted to stay in Paris to pursue his dreams and she felt like she needed to be back home...which she felt Paris was not

Extremely close to her parents, some may say a little TOO close...

See, I feel like jen comes from a family that spoils her where her parents did everything and took care of everything for her. She had the privilege and didn’t have to work too hard to get things she wanted so that made her a little bit different than a few of her friends, hell—even her bf

Didn’t have to work until she reached her twenties

She also didn’t have too many friends because her parents felt like her cousins and/or her sibs were really only allowed to hold that title

However her parents had some sort of a soft spot for her when they allowed her to date her bf at 14 since he came from a nice background...

And to have at least 1-2 best friends...

I can’t decide if I see her having 3 other sibs with her being the second eldest, or her being the eldest with a younger sister? I can also see her being a only child too? Idk y’all can decide

Because her family is a tight knit one, she values everything they say and do...which is canon/evident

She got her thigh tattoo in Paris and even thought about asking her parents permission but her bf talked her out of it

she later showed them that night while he was in the shower. Her mother openly disapproved saying it was, “unladylike or unclean” while her father was more lenient towards it 

Her mother even scheduled her for laser appointments but this was one of the things jen was sure of, she loved her tattoo and she didn’t want to erase it from her body which led to her mother not speaking to her for about a month—even tho they live in the same household

I feel like she looks more like her dad with her mom’s hair and smile

Got into fashion due to her maternal grandmother who seemed to live a extravagant life as a old time actress, she always had and owned the finest of things

Jen loved having sleepovers there, it felt like she had her own personal Liz Taylor inside of her nan...but better!

Definitely found inspiration through Liz Taylor, Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham, and Naomi Campbell

she had no clue what she wanted to do in life (she never had to think too hard about it until now, it’s true what they say about your twenties) and she made the choice not to continue thru with uni & I’m not going to make her out to be the stereotypical “dumb blonde” I think she did well in school—so she kinda just chilled after it was all over

Her first job at 20 was probably working in retail where she learned all about the bs you put up with but she loved clothes! That never changed

So she decided 6 months into her job that she was going to make a fashion blog

she made one separate from her tumblr but kept it under construction since she needed to brain storm what exactly this blog would entail

It didn’t take too long to her to figure it out by how she wanted the blog to look then discussing pieces from celebs/models then slowly discussing her own wardrobe + advice

She didn’t immediately gain success for it —altho she did have a good 1k people follow her thru her tumblr where she also provided the link to her separate blog... but she worked/works hard at it, hoping one day it’ll get her somewhere and that maybe she can get paid for it too?

Retail fucking sucks and people are horrible twats so when she was approaching 21 she deff quit with her parents still hammering...more so her dad on what she needs to do with her life but she found happiness in her blog and no one was going to take that away from her —not even her parents

‘What’s the use of working if it doesn’t make you happy?’ She thinks but again! she has the privilege of living under her parents roof and not having to pay bills so she didn’t have to worry too much rn she knows they’d never kick her out right?

she has two bunnies named “bugsy” and “Lola”—u know the reference right?

I feel like she values the flinstones & jetsons because it was something her dad loved watching as a kid and still does , probably has the dvds showcased in her room that she watches when she feels sad

Seems like a smiley person but when she’s sad? It kinda sucks to see cause she turns into a whole different person and she always seems happy with a smile so wide that turns her eyes squinty

If she disagrees with something, she’s 100% giving her opinion whether you like it or not? Wrong is wrong. But when the shoe is on the other foot? She hates being wrong LOL or doesn’t view herself being wrong. Doesn’t take accountability well...at all!

She’s also showed her ass by being a gossiper and fake as hell with Allegra about mc with the whole, “let’s pretend like we’re there for her” if you’re not fucking with somebody just say that or SHOW it sis cause that snakey shit will come back to bite you in the ass (I forgot about this lol as I’m replaying)

she’s all “mega resting bitch face” until she breaks out into a large smile

Libra sun? + Virgo moon? + Gemini rising?

I feel like she only knows what she wants when it comes to relationships but not with the rest of life?

Lol she was very determined with levi in the beginning, explored shit with jake, (I can’t remember if that was after you/mc showed a interest in him or not in that route? I’m doing a talia/Rohan route rn But that’s kinda foul if she’s smiling in ur face and then boom goes and does what she wants but hey that’s the game right? Fck that tho) and then stood by Tim after only some time?

She wasn’t feeling him in the beginning either cause he thought she was too posh for him and snakey which he’s right to some degree but she’s also right if she finds him too immature for her liking

To you jim? Ten? Stans— Idk what their ship name is but it probably wouldn’t have worked out in the long run either because I don’t see both of them wanting to change themselves completely to satisfy the other. (Tim tried) Sure if you’re showing unhealthy behaviors and are open to diminishing that for yourself then trying to work on your relationship then that’s great! But they already started from the jump not liking each other’s personalities/characteristics....

And hey! Ofc I know people grow to like things they might have disliked about you in the beginning but you can also find yourself not fully accepting it in a relationship and that doesn’t mean you didn’t try

+ it’s been hinted at that they’re not endgame & if you love yourself some Tim not platonically then this works in ur favor. if not? Then you can keep them endgame by all means! For me? That endgame shit is a no! For those that don’t gaf about either of them that’s fine too lmao

YES I feel like they were both hurt over the breakup and it probably happened right around the holidays or either a couple of months after Christmas/New Years 2019

Jen is probably the type to keep checking up on her ex, not necessarily talking to them but finding out who they’re with now

and if it’s Tim with mc she’s definitely gossiping about the shit with erikah and Allegra or making shady tweets or posts on IG for sure

“5 outfits to wear when you run into your ex” type posts on her blog looool

She hopes if she runs into Tim, she’s looking her best and she would 80% go up to him & mc/his new girl if not mc and be all huggy with him and holding conversation before she even thinks to acknowledge mc/new girl and when she does it’s a shady convo with fake smiles

Absolutely loves watching housewives so she was prepared for that moment if it ever does come

Her parents openly didn’t like Tim which made him feel like shit since it seemed like jen never defended him in front of them but again, she values her parents opinion and always wants their stamp of approval that’s just the way the girl is/ was brought up

She owes them everything but deep down knows that in her relationship with Tim she could have been a little more understanding of his needs like he was with her love for her parents...but she’ll never admit that

Doesn’t get over breakups as easily as it may seem like her exes do in her opinion.

It sure didn’t take long with Tim to date mc/new girl months after they broke up! Which was like a slap in the face

The ex bf she spent time w in Paris who looks like Matthew Noszka is now engaged, lives in AMERICA—& of all places??? California to be exact, and just released his debut album!! She knows which songs are probably about her, it’s a nice album she screamed about it for hours into her pillow and cried for what felt like weeks

Lost her voice over that breakdown too

Her mother even went as far as sending a nasty letter to this ex bf’s new address...since ya know? jen’s dad is a private investigator & all!!! but dad had no knowledge of this being done

She’s still fond of Levi and jake but not like in love with them? Like she thought/felt she was with Tim but she still considers them her mates

Maybe in 2021 she’ll be open to dating again and hopes erikah and Allegra will be her wingwomen when the time comes BUT she’s focusing on her blog rn and it’s the best it’s ever been!

She had the show to thank for that now that she has a manager and is getting paid for running her blog now! That’s right this girl is officially employed!

“At least one good thing came from the show ;) 🧽🥐🥂” type of tweets

There’s never not a moment where she’s not connecting her posts whether thru ig or Twitter to her blog: astoldbyjenmarlowe.co.uk!!!

Both erikah and Allegra talk a little shit about that together...WHEN they DO talk, the pair only really socialize when jen initiates it but if one pisses the other off?? they’re going to gossip about it with the other forsure

She doesn’t look that tall to me? Taller than erikah? 5’2-5’5 the 5 is pushing it for me? Maybe? lol I’m still deciding between her and Allegra far as height and I’m too lazy to go back and see what I put for her

Hates straightening her hair, that pin straight look is not cute to her. She loves having waves and body to her hair

Get her eyebrows micro bladed since she doesn’t have much hair up there to begin with

Adores French cuisine, always has since she was a little girl. Bisque used to be her fav back then and all that she would eat

Loves spring season especially pastel colors when it comes to her wardrobe

The type to say one thing and do the complete opposite

I feel like she probably has a little bit of lisp and it’s not really noticeable until she says some words, she’s insecure about it and thought it had something to do with the structure of her teeth and begged her parents to get them fixed but it literally had nothing to do with them

Yet she still got colorful braces in middle school even tho her teeth were pretty straight. She didn’t have to wear them for a whole year, thank goodness

Went to speech therapy to help

Has stacks of fashion magazines even from the early 90s all over her room: her night stand, her vanity, her closet, underneath her bed etc...

Adores the Hadid sisters, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, & Georgia May Jagger

Makes the best white chocolate chip (that’s right, white not just regular chocolate) banana bread but cooking/baking? Isn’t really her thing

Early riser

Loves yellow: yellow phone case, yellow laptop, yellow room, yellow tulips, yellow shades, etc...

Getting Prada shades was probably one of the best things that happened to her, s/o to her nan for granting her this wish

Words of affirmation is her love lanaguage, this girl is a talker and a bit of a thinker too I mean duh? She runs a blog

Likes bright colors on her toes but nude and clear polish on her hands?

Loves a good mascara but she also loves magnetic lashes but is trying her best to grow her lashes out rn! Thanks to erikah for sending her some good ol’ coconut oil!

Smokey eyes? Set her up

Gets a belly ring, and two more tatts one in between her boobs and the last on her ankle & that one she shed a tear over!

Maybe she’ll start changing her physical attributes more so than the way she carries her life at first? (Or ever) She’ll cut her hair below her collarbone to the top of her chest, and maybe she’ll try a light light LIGHT brunette (she loves being a natural blonde) with blonde highlights? Who knows

loves espadrilles and wedge sandals

Loves going wine tasting and visiting vineyards, if she’s vacationing? You can bet ur ass she’s looking for a vineyard to visit

Deff a lightweight

Here’s her unpopular opinions on s2: Thought Felix was a wannabe Tim and hates the fact that he follows her, thought graham was unattractive and said so to Allegra who snickered, thought marisol’s clothing choices were rather boring,

didn’t feel 100% bad for Hannah but disagrees with the way Gary and noah spoke about her + the way Gary tried to slide back over to Hannah on her comeback episode

but doesn’t feel like Lottie is wrong for choosing Gary after Hannah left

isn’t a fan of priya but is glad she’s doing fashion since jen strongly believes in if something isn’t making u happy then u need to let it go

Thinks Hope should have won and cannot tolerate Bobby. Feels he’s WORSE than Felix,

would be open to dating Ibrahim or Carl from that szn

has spoken to Harry from s3 due to his drunkenness and actually made a friend out of him? But low key wants to get to know seb? Take that info as u will 👀

Her anthem: Michelle — SUNRISE

#litg #litg jen #litg tim #litg mc #litg oc #litg erikah #litg Allegra #litg Levi #litg jake #litg headcanons #litg headcanon #litg moodboard #happy new year lol I I’m back at it? #personally didn’t hate her but also wasn’t crazy about her after she said that shit cause it’s like? I can’t trust anything u say #yet Idk why I feel like Allegra will try to regrow herself first over jen #jen just seems like she’s stuck in her ways idk #litg2 #litg s2 #litg3 #Litg harry #litg seb

[wormstacheangel]

Day 7: Domestic

Word Count: 1475

Summary: A few years after God d-worded and family dinners are still a bit weird.

——

Seeing demons now is strange as Rowena has a protection order over them. Dean will quote because he was there when she said it so quietly and scary that even he had chills running up his spine, “Don’t touch my boys. They’re under my protection and if anyone or anything dares touch any wee hair on their delicate heads,” She stopped to scoff as she crossed her legs clearly relaxed when she sat back on her throne. “I’ll just get creative.”

Their Auntie Rowena, well Sam doesn’t like calling her that but that’s what Jack refers to her as now, had demons walking out of rooms when they were near. Or they’ll just get up to introduce themselves and let them know they were just there to eat or enjoy the movie. Which was worse because now Dean can’t just gank the one’s that were being polite to them because it felt weird.

Of course, they had those rogue ones that still didn’t like that the royalty from hell seemed to have a thing for the Winchesters. Crowely and now Rowena, hell even Lucifer and Asmodeus were always talking about the Winchesters. Though he considered the Mom and Son duo more like family, well Crowley was a friend but dying for them kind of earned him the family title.

He liked the rogue ones though, they talked a lot. They are always so personally offended by the Winchester’s mere existence but Dean found it flattering how famous they are getting. Maybe they won’t be remembered by normal society but the underworld, heaven, purgatory, and some hunters from Earth will remember them. Maybe as hero’s, he did kill Hitler after all and not to mention his son killed God himself, so maybe legends will be more appropriate. It’s nice to know their legacy will live on.

“Dean, are you coming?” Cas laced their fingers together as they headed down to hell to visit Rowena. Jack had been asking to come, not wanting to go alone even though he was the second favorite to Sam. “You have been quiet lately. Are you okay?”

They followed Sam and Jack down to hell, something only they could really say. He could also say his kid is God and his husband was an angel of the lord. Of course, he’ll never say this out loud to a normal person but he wished he had a shirt or bumper sticker. Like one of those My Kid is an Honor Roll Student magnets.

“Our lives are weird, man.” Dean quietly said back to Cas as he squeezed his hand gently.

Cas only chuckled, pulling their hands up and kissing the back of Dean’s hand before letting them fall again. “Yes, well, I have never experienced normality in a human civilian way. So this is normal for me. Though, in my thousand years of life,

“Damn, you’re old.”

Cas ignored Dean and continued. “I never would have believed that the Queen of hell would insist on me calling her Aunt. Or that I would be having dinner in hell with said Aunt. Or that I would love her like family. So yes, our lives are weird.”

Dean pulled his husband in as he smiled and kissed his cheek cause he had this damn cute expression with a head tilt and all. He could hear some demons snicker at them and Cas was quick to show off his angel blade as they walked down the hall to the throne room. While they were protected Rowena didn’t say anything about the demons being off the hook and even though Cas was a human now doesn’t mean he’s any less intimidating. He was still the best damn fighter in Team Free Will 2.0. Jack doesn’t count cause he cheats with his powers.

“My wee boys! Look at you!” Rowena walked towards them with her arms stretched out to bring Jack, who already was making a beeline towards her, into a hug. “Oh, how I missed you! How’s my little God doing? Good things I hope?”

Jack nods with a big smile on his face that only grew when Rowena pinched his cheek. “I learned how to create Angels out of scratch. It’s a slow process but now I won’t need human souls like before.”

“That’s my boy!” Sam was next to get the biggest hug, the favorite of the bunch as he is her protégé after all. “Samuel, how’s the wife?”

“Rowena.” He kissed her cheek as a hello as he pulled back to look at her. “She’s good. Hunting something as we speak. She says she looks forward to her next lunch date with you.”

“Oh, glad to hear it! Eileen is a keeper.”

“I think so.” Sam chuckled as he gave her one more squeeze before letting Cas hug her hello.

Cas and Dean’s hugs were quicker than the other two not because they didn’t love the witch because obviously, they did, she’s one of the reasons they’re married now, but because Rowena always pulled away to comment on their marriage.

“Oh look at you two, old married couple!”

“Old?” Dean looks between Cas and Sam before he touched his own face. “I’m not that old. Cas maybe but-”

“Dean.” Cas said in a way that said, Dean for the love of God or Jack whatever just shut up.

The dinner passed by in a blur as they all caught up with each other. Since they are more separated than together nowadays and luckily they weren’t poisoned like the last time they had dinner there. Jack was quick to heal them and Rowena had no hesitation in punishing. Demons say you can still hear the screams of the poor bastard. A reminder apparently.

They promised to visit soon. Jack promised to take her upstairs to visit his throne room that he rarely visits himself because he’s 6 and would rather spend time in his room playing video games.

“Dad’s?” Jack calls for Dean and Cas as they walk over to the Impala, Sam heading over to his truck. “Can I stay over at your house tonight? I don’t wanna work tomorrow.”

“Sure but call Naomi to let her know.” Cas quickly answered before Dean can lecture the kid about responsibility.

Jack’s grin was enough for Dean to swallow back the lecture and instead say, “We can get some ice cream on the way back and maybe have a family day tomorrow? We don’t have a hunt to worry about right now.”

“Can we?” Jack asked and while his kid is God with the capital G he was still his kid. He looked his damn age when he smiled up at Dean like that. Like he just surprised him with a Disneyland trip or something. “Can we go visit Grandpa Bobby? I’ve been spending too much time with Mom that I forget to visit.”

“Sure kid.” Dean puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder and leads him to the Impala. The other world Bobby wasn’t keen on being apart of the family much but since Jack got a new promotion he has visited all their old friends and family. Bobby is the most excited for a grandkid. Barely pays attention to Dean and Sam when they go visit as it was all about Jack when he’s around. Saying something about how Grandparents need to spoil their grandkids while the parents do the hard work.

Yeah. Their lives are pretty far from normal but finally, fucking finally, Dean is in the light at the end of the dark tunnel.

“Can I drive?” Jack asked while looking at him with wide puppy eyes and a tilt of the head, a mix of Sam and Cas things that make it hard for Dean to say no to but Jack forgets one thing.

“Nope.” His Baby is number one priority.

Jack snaps his fingers, making them all flinch, but he just pouts as he says, “Damn, I was sure that would work. Dad Sam told me it would.”

“Maybe if you would have asked for something reasonable like the moon.” Cas jokes as he gets in the passenger seat and Jack slides into the back.

They wave at Sam as he honks at them and drives in the direction of his house, the opposite way from Cas and Dean’s home. The bunker, though it was hard to let go of, is now used as a hunter base. One Sam and Cas run while Dean just stays back to watch. He wasn’t much of a leader but his husband lead armies in heaven, still does for Jack, and his brother was the most trusted in the hunting community.

Dean drives them back to their home with the sound of his brother on speaker because they didn’t just talk for the last 3 hours, while Cas held the phone. The rambling of his family filling the car made him smile. He loved his normal family.

#suptober20 #spn #supernatural #My writing

[naomixhill]

“Aren’t you the one who got expelled from DeSales?” These were the first words that you said to me as you approached me at David’s bonfire in 2011. We were seventeen years old. A group of us came here after a Friday night football game. There were a handful of neighborhoods in our village, perhaps five important ones, but the one we were in that night was the best – the one where sophistication meets elegance meets English-inspired architecture. There was a twenty-seven Jack Nicklaus golf course in front of David’s home. Inside the house was a grand reception room, medium sized ballroom, martini parlor, two dueling libraries, a small art gallery, and a wine cellar. Throughout the home, opulence of the tenth degree: marble floors and 18’ high ceilings and two servants. Just beyond where I was sitting, there was a heated pool, veranda, and small tennis court. Jews get everything. This whole village was Jews, new money snobs, and plastic surgery. But I never minded.

 You repeated the question, “Hellooooo, Naomi, right?” I looked up at you with red, glossy eyes. I was stoned, and David’s two servants had been serving Cabernet since we got there. I smirked, raised my head at you, and said, “Who’s asking?” You extended your hand and introduced yourself with the charismatic, all consuming smile that I would one day become familiar. I did not return the warm reception; I had a magical sadness about me that year that began with the death of my rapist and ended with my name being the topic of more than one scandal. I hardly remember much of the year at all, but I remember meeting you there that night. In That Place.

 You acted like you were meeting a celebrity. You mentioned a few of the rumors that spread around DeSales about me, most of which were incredibly true, and I told you that night, “It doesn’t matter what people say about you unless you believe it.” You told me that you had just transferred to the village school and that you were incredibly lucky: You lived in a modest home on the edge of town that had not been seized by Wexner for further construction of his brick empire. I was completely awestricken by you. You were so bold, so empowered to speak truth, so nonchalant in the way you spoke, and had this magnetic flowerchild persona. If it hadn’t been for you that night, I would have drank alone at the firepit of David’s home. It was true that I was still frequently invited to events that year and next, but I was never really one of these people and I always remained on the outskirts of parties and social gatherings. When the night ended, I told you not to talk to me again. You needed a fighting chance to assimilate in this odd, wealthy village school that was more reminiscent of an episode of Gossip Girl than a place in Ohio. You were never going to get that if you associated with me.

                                                       ~

We reconnected in February 2014. It was a historically brutal winter in Ohio, frequently closing down the university, and I was frailer at 106 lbs, more contemplative, and battling an autoimmune disorder that was so severe that I was sure it would have killed me. Looking back on it now, there is no doubt in my mind that your antithesis to everything that I was saved me. From the moment we reconnected, there was rarely a moment that we were apart. Every morning, you held back my hair as I spent the morning vomiting into a dormitory toilet. When I would try to crawl back into bed, you would force me into a warm bath, lay out clothes for me, and often blow-dry my hair when I was too weak to do so myself. Without fail, and for the entire semester, you would walk me to the cafeteria, watch me eat breakfast, and we would undoubtedly end up back on the bathroom floor for several more hours. But you’d still make sure that I attended my afternoon classes, even if that meant sitting on the business halls’ floors in effort to see that I didn’t leave. You were the only person who knew how bad my health had gotten that year.

 Because to everyone else, I was confident and had accomplished in my studies precisely what I had in my social circle of business students—complete mastery, complete command. I was fastidious, wearing almost exclusively Brooks Brothers button downs that tucked into dark colored slacks or designer jeans, and carried myself with an air of superiority that few ever questioned. In school and in the finance society, I was the best. I maintained a portfolio of investments that had achieved a 56% return that year, and when I shared my opinion on what our club should be investing in, I was rarely wrong. It awed some, and frustrated many male egos that couldn’t understand it. I was an excellent financial analyst to be, interviewing at several bulge bracket investment banks in New York and Chicago that year. And when anyone questioned me or alluded that I couldn’t possibly being doing as well as I was, I would raise my prominent nose nostrils at them and say nothing at all.

 I didn’t dress, walk, talk, or play like other college students did. I was incredibly aloof and malicious, whereas you were a never-ending ray of sunshine. You were bohemian and buoyant and wise all wrapped into a blonde package of beauty. My persona was much more overpowering and chilling. Yet, you liked me, and you held my secret, and no one ever questioned why you—the special education major—were in the business hall at 2 pm, 4 pm, 8 pm, and 10 pm everyday. In fact, most of my companions that year really preferred you to me and it was often a relief to have you there as a shield.

 In the summer of 2015, we moved into an off campus apartment in what would be considered the Chinatown of Columbus, Ohio. With my full-time job in financial services and lucrative investments from the prior year, I had tried to convince you to live downtown in a high-rise apartment, but you wouldn’t have it. You always wanted to pay your own way, and Chinatown was what you could afford. So we lived there with Ethan Allen furniture, your bohemian nonsensical decorations, including a plethora of crystals, bags of cannabis, and music posters. By the end of the summer, I was showing signs of recovery, though the months of medical bills had put me in a tougher spot financially than before. I was still able to casually pay our rent and fixed expenses, afford food, and pay my own tuition without much concern. Though it was in September that everything changed.

 You worked at a Bob Evan’s right behind the university that summer to save for college, but you had racked up $17,000 on a credit card that was accruing monthly interest. You wanted to save, but you were forced to pay that down and there was never an expense that you met that you didn’t like. It has always been who you are: you spend too much on others, too much on holiday decorations, too much on latest clothing styles, too much online, too much on fast food, just too much. So even though you worked your sixty hours a week until that political bill made everyone like you work thirty-seven and a half hours and not a moment more, you couldn’t make tuition. And I couldn’t help you.

 I remember one night we were in Cincinnati for a Cal Scruby concert when the idea came to me. I said, “There are a lot of girls in Pi Phi that I know that use this escort site to make fast cash, and you are much prettier and have a much better personality.” So while we waited for the concert to begin, we turned the Marriott hotel room into a glamorous studio for photos, and wrote you a descriptive, alluring profile on that website. Looking back on this now, I am not sure what I was thinking except that it seemed like a perfectly sensible thing to do, and everyone else was doing it. An older, established Cleveland man solicited you within the hour. You planned to meet him later that week. A thousand dollars just like that.

 But that fateful morning, you confessed that you couldn’t do it. And I knew then that if you didn’t return to school that semester, you might never. And I thought about your credit card debt, your newly broken down car, and your ambitions slipping away from you. And I couldn’t let you, the brilliant bohemian with so much to offer to the world, possibly lose it all that easily. So I knew what this all meant for me, but the way I saw it, and still see it, is that it was the least I could do for the person who likely saved my life. So I became you: I went to a hair salon that day and dyed my harsh, almost black hair, to bleach blonde; I bought extensions; I bought baby blue eye contacts; I used makeup to manipulate a small mole on my cheek; I contoured my face, used drugstore eyelashes, and it was convincing enough. That night, I wore a pink kimono with ripped jeans and pale high heels. I wasn’t nearly as tall as you, but I hoped our Cleveland man wouldn’t notice. And he didn’t. And that was that.

 These visits continued twelve times, and we never spoke about them. It was our next big secret, and one I never planned to mention them to a soul. Your fall tuition was paid and I was relatively healthy, and we had our oasis in Chinatown. Everything was finally alright, it seemed, until December.

 There was only one problem: That Piece of Shit Heroin Addict. Back in the summer before the school year began, you had met Josiah. Perhaps it was my jealously of losing part of you, but I never took to him. You could have had any of my friends majoring in finance – we both know that they all loved you, and could have given you the life you wanted – but you chose him. I am certain that your biggest flaw has always been loving flawed people and thinking that you could positively influence the outcome of their lives’ through love and belief alone. Josiah was everything that I loathed about a person: he was uncouth to a fault, sported a horribly unkempt appearance with long, blonde, greasy and tangled hair, had terribly patchy facial hair, had lightly yellowed teeth from years of smoking and drug abuse. Best of all, he drove a sports car. His family was from the neighboring county, and in Ohio, if you don’t live in the capital county, you might as well live in the middle of a fucking farm wasteland infested with heroin, blue-collar jobs, and Mountain Dew.

 I tolerated this boy in the summer because you loved him. But it worried me when you would come home at 3 a.m. with him and his cronies, and they would all end up sprawled out on the floor of our apartment. These people were not good enough for you, and they brought you down with them. I would have done anything to better myself that year—I associated myself with the most elite people our university could offer, all of whom today ended up becoming prominent investment bankers and private equity directors, some traveling internationally, some making over half a million dollars annually – but you always found yourself attracted to the bottom.

 He manipulated you. He told you lies about me, and made you think differently about me. He fed you drugs. He sedated your sunshine and stole your youth. And then in December, he convinced you that I was nothing more than a haughty, arrogant, self-serving person, which perhaps was right to some degree, but never with you, and that you needed to leave. So one night in December, when I was traveling, you stole everything out of our apartment – right down to the kitchen table and bath curtains – and left me to come home to nothing. You never returned my calls or texts, and it was more than a year before I ever got an explanation.

You went from my fascination to my friend to my caregiver to my roommate and best friend to my deepest regret.

 In fact, for the next six years, you tried to contact me sporadically, pleading for forgiveness, but there was nothing that I could offer you. At times, you would comment on my life events that you could see through social media. You told me how happy I looked in my wedding photos, but little did you know for those four years that I was getting beaten, evens sometimes being held at gunpoint, literally; you told me how successful I had become from my work, but little did you know that I was facing more than one harassment suit; you would tell me you were happy that my life had become so wonderful, but you had no idea that at the very time you sent that, that I was sitting in a hospital waiting to be radiated for cervix cancer. And through all of it, I thought of you frequently, sometimes spitefully, sometimes with more regret than a person can carry, sometimes with fondness.

                                                        ~

But I never returned any of your correspondence until last week. And now, here we are at a Panera in a rundown suburb, and I am staring right at you. The passage of time has not been your friend: you wear bold framed glasses that remind me of Buddy Holly. Pregnancy has turned your beautiful blonde hair into an ashy brown shade and your long, cascading curls have been cut into curly short strands. You have gained perhaps thirty or forty pounds, hidden under a large, flowing hippy blouse – so that has remained, your style.

 When I approach you, you throw your arms around me for what feels like an eternity. I had planned to dig into you; I had wanted you to feel the internal war that has been raging inside of me since your departure. But I can’t do it. As you pull away from our embrace, you try to speak but your lower lip trembles. Your eyes are red and strained and you weep as you grab for my hand. People around us begin to stare, but my sole focus is on you. I suppose it always has been. You begin a long soliloquy of apology, that at times is so incoherent and sincere, I can only help but think that this has eaten away at you for as long as it has me. So I don’t chide you for abandoning me, I simply smile and say, “I Forgive You.”

 As we catch up, it seems our friendship is a marker in time for you much like it is for me. There was before you, you, and after you. Your “after you” is dark – things have been much harder for you for the past six years than they have for me. One unplanned pregnancy, another planned pregnancy, multiple lost jobs, government assistance, an alcoholic partner, and death threats galore. It is hard to imagine the young bohemian that I once knew has achieved such a disappointing life. You never finished college and you work as a PSA in a hospital. You mentioned repeatedly how tired you are, and I see you: it’s a spiritual exhaustion that knows no bounds. It is the type of exhaustion that one can only feel when they have done nothing that they set out to do in life. I am familiar.

 I often take your hand in mine. We talk until the Panera closes, and then promise to meet again soon.

#b #memories #best friend

[pocket-monsters-precure]

Chapter 20: A Lesson in Friendship! Sparking Kala’Au!

“Dys is starving…how dare you all deprive him.”

 “We’re sorry, sir…” Entropy, Bedlam and Ataxia chorused as they knelt before Tumult’s shrouded form.

 “It is not just your forces on this so-called ‘Unity Island,’” Tumult continued, “But the forces I have stationed across this accursed world. The Precure are growing in number, and they’re reinvigorating the masses. This will severely hamper the production of nega-energy to feed Dys.”

 “But what more can we do?” Ataxia asked. “Using the nega-ring to nega-evolve humans causes the ring to break, though humans make much more powerful nega-evolutions…”

 “And while we get the people and creatures around the target to panic, generating more nega-energy,” Entropy went on, “Precure show up almost instantly.”

 “They’ve garnered a lot of support from those who lack their powers,” Bedlam added, “And it’s slowing down any sort of production of nega-energy. People believe in the Precure.”

 “Yes…they are symbols of protection for their people.”  Tumult seemed to ponder this for a moment.

 “…sir.” Bedlam spoke again.

 “What is it, Bedlam?”

 “Allow me a chance to conduct an experiment. These Precure are almost all young ladies—they must have an adult supervising or guiding them. I want to track them down and see if I can nega-evolve them. But, I’d like to try it with two nega-rings.”

 “Two!?” Ataxia gawked. “You’ve got a lot of nerve even asking for one of those! You’ve already proven you can’t handle the responsibility!”

 “I have never granted two nega-rings to a soldier before,” Tumult mused. “And they, as they say, ‘do not grow on trees.’ However…”

 Tumult’s ethereal form leaned forward, seeming to gaze deep into Bedlam’s eyes. Mist surrounded Bedlam’s wrists, as the nega-rings formed around them.

 “I will allow this experiment. Just once. Locate and turn their support…and we have the chance to trample the Precure.”

 ===

 Mewtwo glided slowly across the room, a tablet floating at eye-level in front of him. Precure, nega-evolutions, nega-energy…so much to update himself on; now that he had allied himself with Doctor Pierce and the Precure under her supervision, he had access to information he lacked previously from merely skimming the minds of the populace. It was a temporary truce, but a beneficial one.

 …except for the matter of fascinated children like Kailani, who was watching him with stars in her eyes and a grin from cheek to cheek.

 “Kailani…” Naomi sat at the table nearby, doing homework and looking very unimpressed. “Stop staring. You’re being all kinds of rude right now.”

 Kailani shook her head a bit, and turned to face Naomi. “I’m sorry, it’s just that…well, a highly-intelligent, super-powerful legendary pokemon is right in front of us! And it’s reading a tablet!”

 “He, not it. Male designation, remember? And calm down. Stop treating him like some kinda sideshow attraction; I’m sure he doesn’t appreciate it.”

 “I don’t mean to be offensive…” Kailani glanced over her shoulder at Mewtwo as he raised a paw and swiped at the screen, changing the information displayed. “But…this is a chance to make an amazing ally and friend. In Alola, our culture emphasizes working alongside pokemon, and considering his intelligence is on par with a human’s, this could be a whole new kind of bond!” Kailani took a breath. “I’m…I’m gonna try and make friends with him!”

 “….uh-huh.” Naomi looked back to her homework. “Just don’t get yourself horribly maimed.”

 Kailani turned and went to approach Mewtwo. “Hey!”

 Mewtwo glanced up. Kailani made an arch with her hands.

 “A-loooo-la!” She gave him a toothy grin.

 …beg pardon?

 “The traditional Alola greeting! You try!”

 I’d rather not. I’m busy. Mewtwo focused back on the tablet.

 “Come on…I feel we’d be much stronger allies if you’d just open yourself up a bit more to us. We could be great friends—“

 I have no interest in friendship with any of you. I merely agree with your efforts to solve this nega-evolution epidemic and am offering my strength in exchange for information.

 “But…”

 “Kailani, try not to press him too much,” Dr. Pierce walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder, “This is a huge step out of his comfort zone, and we’re all still strangers to him. He’s lived his life not trusting humans at all.”

 “I know, but…” Kailani’s shoulders dropped a bit. Dr. Pierce noticed the tablet floating back to her; she took it in her hands as Mewtwo teleported out.

 “Come to think of it,” Naomi spoke up, “Where do you think he goes when he leaves here?”

 “I’m sure he’s doing his own investigation…” Dr. Pierce mused.

 “Maybe we can help with that! We’ll investigate, too!” Kailani piped up, “I mean, all we’ve really done is just fight the nega-evolutions; we should do more!”

 “Like what?” Naomi asked, not looking up from her homework.

 “Let’s ask around town! Get all the information we can get from firsthand accounts!” Kailani grabbed Naomi’s arm. “Come on, let’s get started!”

 “Wh—hey! I’m doing homework!” Naomi complained as Kailani pulled her out of her seat and out the door. Dr. Pierce sighed as she closed the door after them.

 Getting an idea and immediately heading out the door, she thought, Reminds me of my brother.

 ===

 “It’s like mega-evolution, kinda,” a shopkeeper was saying to a customer, “But….evil, I guess, is the word?”

 “Y’know, it’s kinda like that dynamaxing thing that’s goin’ on in Galar?” one shopping girl said to another.

 “It’s worrisome,” one nosy old lady sighed, “What if the Precure are the cause of the problem in the first place? Humans shouldn’t be fighting pokemon…”

 “It’s no use…” Kailani sighed as she sat on a bench with Naomi. “It’s either info we already know, or speculation!”

 “Why are we trying to help out a psychic who can just pick up information from scanning brains, again?” Naomi bit into a cookie she had bought during their search.

 “I mean, he can’t scan every brain all at once, right? I just…” she sighed.

 “Look, I get it. Where you’re from, working alongside pokemon is a huge cultural thing, right? But you can’t help people who don’t want help, Kailani.”

 “He didn’t say he didn’t want it!”

 “That’s not my point…” Naomi put a hand on her shoulder. “Look, we tried, and we got nothing. Let’s just call it a day.”

 “I guess…” Kailani slumped a bit.

 “How about we get some ice cream?”

 “…did you not just eat a cookie?”

 “It wasn’t that big a cookie; don’t judge me.”

 The pair began to walk toward the ice cream parlor in town, Kailani still hemming and hawing the entire time.

 “Look, if you wanna try and make friends with the guy, don’t get up in his face,” Naomi continued, “Maybe…small, subtle gestures are what work with him? Baby steps.”

 “Baby steps, huh…?” Kailani mumbled, staring at the ground, only to become distracted as she noticed Naomi had stopped walking. “What is it?”

 “Check out the ice cream parlor…!”

 Kailani followed Naomi’s gaze, seeing the ice cream parlor in question was completely coated in ice. “Whoah! Did the blast freezer go haywire!?”

 “That’s no haywire blast freezer…”

 “Everyone, stay back!” A police officer declared, trying to keep the gathering crowd under control.

 “There’s people still inside!” A bystander declared.

 “We better call for the others,” Naomi said as she looked to Kailani.

 “Call for ‘em, but we gotta get in there and help.”

 “The ice is spreading!” A woman shrieked, as people began to flee; true to her word, the ice was spreading out, seeming to be trying to enclose the people outside.

 “It’s full of typos, but a panicked, misspelled text should get them coming,” Naomi hurriedly put away her phone, grabbing Kailani’s hand and heading toward the chaos, against the flow of fleeing bystanders.

 “Neeeeeegaaaaaaa…..” a loud, low voice rumbled.  The pair looked to each other.

 “And, here we go,” the pair said in unison, not sounding thrilled in the least. A wall of ice shot up behind them, and the two slowly turned to see a sinister, but distinct, trio of faces within the ice leering at them.

 “NEGA-VANIIIIILUXE!” It bellowed. The girls let out a surprised yelp, scrambling back in surprise before pulling out their Cure Compacts.

 “Precure! I! Choose! You!”

 Sunrise and Starlight stood before the icy wall, as a massive spike of ice shot toward them. Quickly, Sunrise grabbed onto the end of the spike.

 “Wake-up Shock!” she cried, as electricity surged up the spike and struck the three massive faces, but to no effect. “What!?”

 “It might not be the real monster!” Starlight theorized. “It’s gotta be nearby, though!”

 “Right…! Let’s get into the parlor!”

 As the pair started to run, however, they immediately slipped on the ice, toppling atop one another.

 “Forgot about that,” Starlight muttered sheepishly, “Whoops.”

 “Come on..!” Sunrise scrambled to her feet with some trouble, helping Starlight up and heading toward the parlor. Though the door was frozen over, the pair teamed up with a powerful kick to break the ice and force it open. As they rushed through the door, they were struck by a full-body rush of cold air.

 “…I don’t remember the ice cream parlor being this big,” Starlight spoke.

 Before the two girls was a frozen wasteland; icy cliffs surrounded them, as the bitter cold chilled them to the bone.

 “Wh-what happened to the ice cream parlor!?” Sunrise wailed.

 “This is no ordinary nega-evolution,” Starlight muttered, deeply concerned. “And they said people were still inside!”

 “There’s a cave over there!” Sunrise pointed to a hole in the cliff side, grabbing Starlight by the arm and, after testing her footing, running toward it, stumbling a few times from the harsh wind.

 “Aaaand GO!” Starlight threw her weight forward, pulling herself and Sunrise into the cave as they landed in a pile. “Oof—!”

 “P-Pretty Cure…!” A voice gasped. The girls looked up to see the parlor owner, as well as a few customers, all huddled together to stay warm.

 “Is everyone alright?” Sunrise asked.

 “C-Cold, but safe,” the parlor owner frowned. “What has happened to my poor little shop? And my Vanilluxe?”

 “Hold on, that’s your Vanilluxe that got nega-evolved?” Starlight asked incredulously.

 “Well, only as of recent,” he replied, “I received it in a trade with a dear friend—I hoped we would become good friends, but….it hasn’t taken to me very well.”

 “That sounds like a recipe for nega-evolution, alright,” Sunrise muttered to Starlight, before looking back at the parlor owner, “What do you mean by ‘hasn’t taken to you?’”

 “I’ve tried everything—making snacks for it, talking to it a lot, spending lots of time with it…but I feel like every time I tried to get closer to it, I just pushed it away.”

 “I kinda get that,” Starlight reasoned.

 “What…?” He blinked in surprise. Sunrise even looked to Starlight, confused.

 “Think about it,” Starlight responded, “The Vanilluxe was in a new environment with a new trainer, who instantly acted like they were best friends. It’s basically like expecting a wild pokemon to love you right away.”

 Sunrise stared back at her, her stomach twinging as she connected the dots. “So it was stressed and scared in a new place…making it right for nega-evolution.”

 “Now you’re gettin’ it,” Starlight nodded. “Well, now we know what caused the problem, but now we have to solve it.”

 Sunrise frowned, deep in thought. “Well, we need to find Nega-Vanilluxe and fight it, but it turned the ice cream parlor into a snowy wasteland! How do we find it?”

 “Well, we’re Precure, and it’ll wanna fight us…I’m sure we won’t have to look for long. In the meantime, we should try and help the people here warm up. Do you have a fire-type on you? I admit I only have my Absol with me today…”

 Sunrise clapped her hands together. “Yes! I had pulled my Torkoal from my PC for a class today!”

 Not much later, the Torkoal was now standing in the center of the parlor, venting heat from its shell as the guests gathered around it, praising and thanking it. The two Cures shared a grin, before nodding to one another and running outside.

 “Come on out, Nega-Vanilluxe!” Starlight shouted, the pair taking offensive stances opposite each other. To their surprise, what appeared to be eight vanilluxes appeared around them, giving off sinister auras.

 “Shadowlings!” Sunrise exclaimed; the pair were caught by surprise as each unleashed a burst of Powder Snow.

 “No you don’t!” Starlight attempted to throw a Comet Burst, only to miss completely as she was blinded by the snow.

 “Wake-up Shock!” Sunrise clapped her hands together, unleashing a thunderclap that startled the Shadowling Vanilluxes into stopping their attack. “We’re here for the Nega-Vanilluxe! Stand down!”

 “They’re not legitimate pokemon, Sunrise,” Starlight frowned, “Just imitation puppets. They’re not gonna listen!”

 Suddenly, a snowball struck one of the Shadowlings, prompting it to look over. Some of the customers had come out of the parlor and were now chucking snowballs at the Shadowlings to distract them, all while Torkoal toddled out and putted out bits of fire to keep the Shadowlings back from the innocent civilians.

 “Do your best, Precure!” A child customer cheered, “Find the bad pokemon!”

 “Stay safe, guys!” Starlight said with a wave, the pair of Precure running through the group of Shadowlings to continue their search.

 “Okay, have a look around,” Sunrise suggested, “I know it’s a wasteland, but there has to be SOMETHING of note here—“

 “The mountain,” Starlight had stopped running and turned around, staring up. Sunrise soon followed her gaze—and she saw it. The three sinister faces peering out of the mountain’s three peaks as it loomed over the wasteland.

 “How did we not notice that when we got in here!?” Starlight squawked.

 “NEGAAAA!” Nega-Vanilluxe roared, shooting a storm of ice spikes at them; the pair opted to jump up, vaulting over and bounding off of the soaring spikes to get closer to the main “head” of the beast. As they successfully struck the creature’s face and bounced back, the leftmost head blew them away with icy wind, causing them to go sailing, screaming in alarm.

 “Gotcha!” A pair of voices shouted; Wish and Willow had arrived and caught the pair, landing safely on the ground.

 “Just in time!” Sunrise sighed in relief.

 “Sorry, we had trouble getting through the wall of ice,” Wish admitted, “What are we up against?” She squinted at the Nega-Vanilluxe through the wind and snow.

 “Recently-traded pokemon stressed and overwhelmed by everything,” Starlight replied. “I kinda don’t blame it—the new trainer just instantly started treating it like a best friend without getting to know it, apparently.”

 Sunrise had fallen silent, thinking this over. She couldn’t help but draw parallels. Then, she nodded. “Well, we can talk to the trainer about it, but first we need to turn the poor Vanilluxe back to normal!”

 “Look out!” Wish threw up a Full Moon Aegis to block another barrage of ice spikes. “First we need a way to get close to it safely!”

 “I bet I can do something! Cure Ball!” Willow held out her hand, as a pastel-colored pokeball formed in it. “I’ll use a Cure Aura attack with my Cyndaquil!”

 As Cyndaquil was released from the ball, Willow nodded to Wish, who dropped the barrier. As yet another wave of spikes was launched at them, Willow attacked.

 “Type: Fire!” She shared a warm aura with her Cyndaquil, which jumped onto her back and clung to her shoulder. “Precure Passionate Inferno!”

The oncoming spikes were met with a wall of flame launched back at them, while the remaining three Cures ran underneath the chaos to get close to Nega-Vanilluxe.

 “Wish Whimsy Pop!” Wish sent an attack at Nega-Vanilluxe; the balls of light exploded against the base of the mountain-shaped monster, prompting it to roar in anger. Mounds of snow began to rise up around them, taking the form of shadowling Vanillishes and Vanillites.

 “We just made it angry…great.” Starlight threw a Comet Burst; she snapped her fingers and the ball split into five, striking five targets. Sunrise, meanwhile, was now jumping from ledge to ledge up the steep beast. “Sunrise!”

 “I have an idea!” She called back, then yelped as spikes began to shoot out of the icy walls, narrowly dodging them and using them to jump and climb higher. “Keep fighting!”

 “Keep fighting, she says,” Starlight muttered, releasing Absol from a Cure Ball to help keep the number of Shadowlings down.

 It’s scared, it’s frustrated, it’s confused… Starlight thought, I wonder if…maybe it can hear me, like Mewtwo could hear Wish…

 With one last spring upward, she found herself staring face-to-face with the main head of Nega-Vanilluxe.

 “Listen to me!” She called, “We’re here to help you! We know the real you is locked inside this body, inside this mountain!”

 “Negaaaa….”

 “I know your story!” She landed on a spike that shot out. “I know you were overwhelmed with your new home and new trainer! He didn’t mean to upset you! He just wanted to make you feel welcome and overdid it!”

 The creature stared back at her, a low rumble emitting from it.

 “I promise…I won’t give up on you!” She declared, “None of us will! And things will get better!”

 Nega-Vanilluxe rumbled and trembled, before unleashing a vicious roar, shaking the very air. Sunrise remained firm.

 “Don’t shut us out!” She shouted, thrusting her arms out. It was then that she felt a warm sensation running down her arms, as two long, thin rods began to form in front of her palms. She grasped at them, as they took form into white sticks, orange gemstone lightning bolts running up their sides and small, winglike details emerging from the top of each one. As she stared at them, their name came to her.

 “…Sparking Kala’au….” She whispered. Indeed, they resembled kala’au, a traditional instrument from Alola. She struck the sticks together, the lightning bolts beginning to light up from the bottom.

 “Let’s go!” She struck them again, the light rising up the bolts with each strike. Lighting surged around her, and she felt the tempo come to her as she fluidly continued to strike the sticks together.

 “Precure! Festive Ho’olaule’a!”

 Sparks shot down from the sky like confetti, striking Shadowlings and chipping away at Nega-Vanilluxe’s defenses, as it seemed paralyzed from the numerous small shocks.

 “Now!” She jumped back, landing in a crouch with her teammates down below.

 “Precure Quartet Refresh!”

 ===

 “I’m sorry for rushing you into things, Vanilluxe….” the parlor owner frowned, offering a pokepuff to the restored pokemon. “I’ll give you the space you need, but don’t hesitate to come to me if you need something, okay?”

 “…Vaniiii….” Vanilluxe hesitantly ate the snack, then started to smile.

 “Looks like things will be okay here,” Willow remarked with a smile as the group stood a ways away.

 “Yep,” Starlight looked to Sunrise, “Shame we couldn’t find out any new information for Mewtwo like you wanted, though.”

 “It’s okay,” Sunrise replied, “….I think I learned something, myself.”

 “What is it?” Wish asked.

 “I shouldn’t be rushing to try and get on Mewtwo’s good side,” she replied, “He’s got a history that makes it hard for him to trust people, right? So…baby steps.”

 “Just like I told you,” Starlight pat her back. “C’mon, let’s head out.”

 ===

 The next day, the girls were gathered at Dr. Pierce’s house again, doing homework, when Kailani arrived.

 “I brought malasadas!” She declared with a big grin, “I made them in class! They’re a native Alolan treat!”

 “Oh, I’ve had them before; they’re so good!” Fae beamed as she set down the plate of treats.

 “Thank you, Kailani,” Dr. Pierce added, taking one for herself. Kailani grinned back, then noticed Mewtwo floating in a far corner of the room, again reading the tablet floating in front of him.  She took a breath, then walked over, setting down a malasada on the nearby end table.

 “Here. There’s one for you if you want it,” she said with a smile, before tipping her head and turning to go sit with her friends. Mewtwo briefly glanced up, watching her leave before looking to the snack on the end table. As the girls engaged in conversation, he went back to the tablet. But moments later, the malasada floated up to him. Kailani snuck a peek over her shoulder, grinning a bit before turning back to her friends.

   The group was unaware that outside, Bedlam was seated in a tree, leaning against its trunk with a scowl.

 “So, they do have someone acting as a guide….” He looked to his nega-ring. “I won’t fail Dys..I’ll destroy the Precure piece by piece, starting with their most ardent supporters.”

#pocket monsters precure #pocket monsters pretty cure #pokemon precure #pokemon pretty cure #precure #pretty cure #fanseries #precure fanseries #pretty cure fanseries #fancure #fanfic #magical girl #pokemon #chapter 20

[andersunmenschlich]

Episode 17: The Boneturner’s Tale

Ah, finally. It’s about time I got another episode listened to. Amazing how long that takes; so much to do. And still I have no bookcases. Oh well. This one’s the statement of a Sebastian Adekoya, and apparently it has something to do with books. I am pleased.

...Oh, I am very pleased.

It seems to me that Sebastian Adekoya understands books very well. I’ve said before (and will doubtless say again) that all books are books of magic. Just as this episode’s statement-giver says, opening a book allows you to enter the mind of someone who may well be long dead. In such cases, reading is a form of necromancy.

To read a book is to change your mind: to place thoughts there that are not your own, to see things you’ve never seen, walk through worlds you’ve never been to, that no longer exist or don’t exist yet, or that never will.

To write is to preserve a fraction of your own mind, freezing it in symbols which wait to be decoded by the incautious.

You don’t know what thoughts you’re inviting to live inside your mind when you settle down to decipher a lexical set. You can’t know what they’ll do to you, nor you to them (nor what they, changed, may do to you again). The promises in the titles, in the genres and the labels, can only tell you so much. What does this set of words contain? Have you even understood what is meant by the description—are you sure you know what it means when an old story is called a “romance,” or when a newer one is labeled “wuxia”?

Some thoughts won’t be able to live in your mind. Some you’ll never be able to get rid of. Personalities and people, scenes and scenarios, images and ideas... foreign things birthed in the minds of others; decode the twisting lines on the page before you, and they’ll spring to life in your mind as powerful as the day they were written.

Words can be wonderful—and dangerous.

Books are beautiful—and bewitching.

You should never read unwarily, because when you read you’re bringing alien thoughts to life in your mind, and you may not want them to make a home there....

Sebastian Adekoya says he used to work at Chiswick Library. As he describes it, it’s a local library very like the one I grew up with: cheaply furnished, full of battered paperbacks, open-feeling, and frequented by friendly, quietly chatting patrons. Probably the occasional Children’s Corner with a librarian who reads aloud well and a much-loved copy of, say, Matilda or Owl at Home, depending on the audience.

Our statement-giver says it was 1996 when the thing happened.

He’d been working for the library about a year at that point, and knew that the library bought its books new, when it bought them (though he didn’t know where they bought them from).

A patron returned five books at the front desk. One of them, he’d never seen before. It was not, however, new. “The barcode and ISBN,” Sebastian says, “both registered as being that of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, but the book itself was an almost featureless black paperback, with a title on the front in faded white serif font: The Bone Turner’s Tale.”

Confused, he calls the librarian (Ruth Weaver) over to look at it.

She also didn’t remember ever seeing it before, but it had the appropriate markings for a book from Chiswick Library, and the stamps on the lending label indicated it’d been in their collection for several years.

Weaver shrugs and says not to worry about it: they’ll get it put on the system properly. Sebastian, however, is bothered. So he does a bit of quick research.

The man who brought the book in, one Michael Crew, apparently only checked out four books, not five. Our statement-giver thinks maybe he’s a self-published author trying to get his book into the local library, and suggests this possibility to the librarian, who laughs and says that’s probably it—though why anyone would bother trying to get a book onto the shelves of this particular local library was beyond her.

Sebastian Adekoya notes that the book looked worn, “like it had seen decades of being read, with a line creased down the spine and one half of the cover faded from the sun. Nor, from what I could see, did it list any author at all.”

At this point, our fascinating book story is interrupted by the arrival of another character.

According to our statement-giver, this Jared Hopworth is, “not to put too fine a point on it, thick as mud.” He was also Sebastian’s best friend when the two of them were kids: inseparable. Hm. I must admit, I never had (nor wanted) anyone like that in my life. I suppose there was that other preacher’s oldest kid, from the church in the next church region over (it’s not called a diocese when you’re Protestant, but the effect’s much the same...). We were mostly friends in name, though, and never spent much time together.

In any case, Sebastian went to college and Jared hit the back alleys. For some reason, it seems, Jared Hopworth saw this as Sebastian Adekoya betraying him by being too smart, not him betraying Sebastian via being an idiot too stupid for college.

I do have to wonder how intelligent our statement-giver actually is, however, given that he apparently decided to just put up with what he describes as “a campaign of petty terror” for the sake of a memory of childhood friendship. Oh, sure, “he was always very careful to stop before he did anything that might get the police involved—but let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we?

You should only brush off malicious behavior from others if you’re enjoying it, and want to encourage them to do more.

...And now we get an even larger interruption. Excellent.

I do believe this is the very first time another character has actually broken into the middle of a recording. I don’t like it. Who is this Miss Herne, and why is her complaint so important that my story has to be disrupted?

I don’t even remember ever hearing her name before. I don’t know her, I don’t care about her—weren’t we in the middle of something?

...Oh, no, wait... I do remember her.

Naomi Herne, the annoying woman who doesn’t know how to appreciate a misty moonlit graveyard meadow. The one with the unusual attachment to that large piece of headstone. What’s she complaining about? I don’t remember that she had anything to complain about besides her own unfortunate lack of, as the children say, “chill.”

Well, whatever the case, it seems Jonathan Sims considers Naomi Herne’s statement a waste of time. It wasn’t, it was beautiful—but never mind. The interrupting messenger, someone named Elias (which rings a faint bell), tells the head archivist that the Lucas family gives the Magnus Institute financial support, so he shouldn’t annoy anyone connected with them if he can help it. Does Naomi Herne count as “connected to the Lucas family”? Her Lucas husband’s dead. She doesn’t even have the name. No children that I’ve heard of. No reason she should be connected that I can see. And they didn’t seem terribly interested in a connection at the funeral, did they? I think Mr. Sims can antagonize her all he wants without damaging future Lucas donations, frankly.

Our interrupter is also looking for Martin (the supposedly-but-not-apparently incompetent archival assistant). Mr. Sims says Martin is off sick with stomach problems this week, and Elias leaves.

...Wait.

Elias Bouchard? Jonathan Sims’ boss? Why is he running messages down to the archives? This makes even less sense than Rosie the receptionist being in charge of upkeep on recording equipment. Just how much disbelief is supposed to be suspended here? I’m asking seriously, because the Magnus Institute seems like a very badly put together organization if you think about it too much. Or at all.

Well. Elias Bouchard leaves, Mr. Sims expresses “blessed relief” at the fact of Martin’s being sick and thus not at work, and we return to the statement.

...Our main character really dislikes this particular assistant, and for (it would seem) no good reason. Is there history there? Did Martin do something especially bad to Mr. Sims at some point in the past?

Or is it just some kind of negative bias, like thinking a man will be no good with children because he’s a man, or that a woman will suck at math, or that a Hispanic cleaner will steal your jewelry because they’re Hispanic (you dropped your necklace down the back of the dresser, Grandma—I am never going to forget that unjust accusation, nor how plain you made it that your suspicion was based entirely on race).

In any case: back to the library.

Sebastian Adekoya notes that it’s typically a bad thing when Jared Hopworth turns up at the library, because it means Jared’s “bored enough to seek me out for harassment.”

This is apparently exactly what Mr. Hopworth has in mind, because he waits for Weaver to go back to her office and close the door, then knocks the returns cart over, spilling books everywhere. Which is a horrible thing to do. I can’t stand seeing books mistreated this way, I’d rather watch someone bash innocent children around (which, I realize, isn’t saying much given I’m the one talking—but still).

Despite obviously having done it on purpose, he smiles and apologizes.

I’m familiar with this particular method of annoying people. Deliberately doing something terrible, then acting as though it was accidental? Yes, indeed.

People have trouble dealing with this. You did a bad thing. You clearly meant to do the bad thing. This should give them the right to demand retribution. But then, instead of continuing in the “person who does bad things deliberately” role, you switch to “friendly mistake-maker,” and it throws them.

Really they shouldn’t give you the benefit of the doubt.

There’s no doubt!

Sebastian Adekoya bends down to pick the books up, and as anyone with a capacity for noticing patterns of behavior could have predicted, Jared Hopworth hits him in the back of the head with a book.

Which is, again, a terrible thing to do to a book. Human skulls are, on average, much sturdier than the covers of books.

This book, however, may be capable of taking care of itself.

“Behind me, Jared stood holding the book I had put aside—The Bone Turner’s Tale—and had apparently picked it up to hit me with. But rather than offering me a fake apology, or further violence, instead his eyes were locked on the book. We stood there in silence for a few seconds, until he said something about needing something new to read, turned around, and walked off.”

According to our statement-giver, Jared Hopworth isn’t much of a reader, “and the look in his eyes when he left had something in it not entirely unlike fear.”

Yes, I think this work might be able to handle that book-abusing felon just fine.

On his way home after leaving the library that night, Mr. Adekoya passes Mr. Hopworth’s house. Apparently they’re both living in the same houses they occupied as children, which is rather unfortunate for Sebastian, don’t you think? It’s late September, which is a nicely spooky time of year, and something’s moving in the pool of orange light under a streetlamp.

It’s a rat. A large white rat that looks as though it was once a pet. Something’s wrong with the back half of it, and its head seems to be turned around farther than it should be as it drags itself along by its front paws.

Which is also deliciously spooky.

Sebastian Adekoya stares at it until it drags itself off into the darkness and disappears from sight.

He notes that the lights were off in Jared Hopworth’s house. As someone who sleeps days, works nights, and routinely doesn’t turn the lights on as I go about my nightly affairs, I don’t find this particularly indicative of a lack of activity—but that’s me. I suppose most people, when their lights are shut off, don’t make and eat food, read books, do jigsaw puzzles, etc. Ah, how limiting it must be to have such weak senses.

Jared Hopworth more or less vanishes from the scene for a while. Weeks go by without him turning up to torment Sebastian Adekoya, who begins to feel worried. Almost a month with no torment? Surely something must be wrong!

...Hmm. Do you suppose our statement-giver might be just mildly masochistic?

Whatever the case, he’s not eager enough for unpleasantness to actually go to Mr. Hopworth’s house and check on him, so the Jaredless time rolls by until late October, when Jared’s mother turns up at the library with her arm in a sling, wearing an unnecessarily bulky coat and a hateful expression, carrying a familiar black-bound paperback book, which she flings onto the floor at our statement-giver’s feet before turning to leave.

Sebastian Adekoya asks after the health of her son, which arrests her departure and provokes a bit of an outburst: “She spun back and started to swear violently at me, told me I had no business with her son and that I—and my books—were to stay away from him.” This outburst also gives Sebastian a bit more time to inspect the arm... which reminds me markedly of the rat.

“As she spoke, I couldn’t look away from her arm and the odd ways it twisted as she gestured. How her fingers seemed to bend the wrong way.”

Well, well, well.

Before leaving, Mrs. Hopworth spits at Mr. Adekoya—and I find it interesting that, while she clearly has no problem throwing the book onto the floor like it’s a live animal and she wants to smash its skull, she avoids spitting on it.

Despite the absence of spittle, our statement-giver decides to employ paper handkerchieves in picking the book up, rather than touch it with his bare hands.

He sticks it in the book returns cart, locks up the library, and goes home.

It rains heavily that night and Sebastian Adekoya, in his converted attic bedroom, can’t sleep. He’s worrying about the book. He’s worrying that perhaps he shouldn’t have just left it there, unsupervised, as it were. “What if Ruth came in earlier than I did tomorrow and took it? What would happen to her?”

Frankly, that strikes me as an interesting experiment. What would happen to Weaver? Come to that, what happened to Hopworth? Was the idiot eaten by the bone book? Twisted beyond telling? Possessed, perhaps?

I’d quite like to know.

“Should I have destroyed it?” Sebastian Adekoya asks himself.

I’m not sure this question would even occur to me. “Should,” after all, presupposes some kind of ideal state for things to be in.

Should you do thus-and-such a thing? It’s an incomplete sentence. You’ve left off your goal. “In order to [X], should I [Y]?” That is a complete sentence. So—should Sebastian Adekoya destroy The Bone Turner’s Tale? It depends on what his goal is. If he wants to study it, then no: he definitely shouldn’t. If he wants to stop it from doing what it seems to be doing, then yes: he probably should.

Completely failing to define his goal for an ideal state of things RE: The Bone Turner’s Tale, Sebastian discards the idea of destruction on the grounds that he wasn’t sure he had it in him to destroy a book—”even one with such a strangeness to it.”

Well now. Thank you, Mr. Adekoya, for letting us know that you consider strangeness a helpful push towards destruction.

...Oh, I’m not really surprised. I do have a passing acquaintance with humanity, after all.

Sebastian Adekoya lies awake in bed until sometime around two in the morning, when he finally gives up and goes to get the book. He gets out of bed, dresses, grabs his gloves and a jacket, and walks twenty minutes to the library in the rain, where he unlocks the door, goes in, deactivates the alarm, and begins turning on as many lights as possible without making it too obvious that there’s someone in the building.

He tells us that part of him wanted to keep the library in its nearly pitch-black state, but he turned on lights anyway. I’m guessing this is due to his weak eyes, since he says “I had to half-feel my way through the foyer and into the library proper.” [with a complete lack of sympathy] Must be rough.

He also uses a flashlight—but not before he puts his bare hand on the book returns cart, catching his balance, and his fingers come away wet.

The books, it would seem, are all bleeding.

...That is very annoying. I think I would be very nearly angry. Blood-soaked books!? Have you any idea how difficult that is to clean? Frankly, it’s impossible! This had better be the type of supernatural blood that vanishes without a trace.

The Bone Turner’s Tale, meanwhile, is as dry as... well... a bone.

Sebastian Adekoya puts his gloves back on (which means, unless he washed his hands without telling us or this is the type of supernatural blood that vanishes without a trace, that the inside of at least one of those thick gloves is going to need some rather tricky cleaning done), and picks up The Bone Turner’s Tale. He puts it on the desk and—clumsily, because of the thick gloves—begins reading.

He doesn’t begin at the beginning, just opens it randomly, which I suppose is understandable given the current unwieldiness of his fingers, but still. I can’t really approve.

“It was written in prose, and certainly seemed to be a story of some kind. The part I read dealt with an unnamed man, at various points referred to as the Boneturner, the Bonesmith or just the Turner, watching an assembled group of people as they made their way into a small village.

“It’s unclear from what I read whether he is traveling with them, or simply following them, but I remember being unsettled by the details he observed in them: the way the parson would move his hand over his mouth whenever he stared too long at the nuns or how the cook looked at the meat he prepared with the same eyes that looked at the pardoner. It was only at that point that I realized the book was describing the pilgrims from The Canterbury Tales.”

You know, I’ve never read The Canterbury Tales.

“Now, this certainly wasn’t some lost section of a Chaucer classic,” our statement-giver tells us. “It was written in modern English, with none of the archaic spelling or pronunciation of the original, and besides that the writing itself was of questionable quality. There was something compelling about it, though.”

“I flicked ahead a few pages, and found the Bonesmith had apparently crept up to the miller while he slept. It described him silently reaching inside him, and… it’s a bit hazy. All I remember clearly is the line ‘and from his rib a flute to play that merry tune of marrow took’. And as for the rest, I don’t recall in detail, but I know that I almost threw up, and that the miller did not survive. This was on page sixteen, and it was a thick book.”

Funny, since he described it as a small paperback earlier. Hmm. Something like my paperback copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, maybe? 6.75″ x 4.25″, over 1000 pages long—a veritable brick of a book. Hmm. Could be.

It also gives a bit of a hint as to what might have happened to the rat (and the mother... and possibly the son).

I like it.

Our statement-giver is notably less pleased, and turns to the frontispiece to see if he can figure out where this book came from. Apparently he’s given up on the idea that Michael Crew wrote and self-published it? I don’t see that that’s entirely out of the question at this point. I mean—what, after all, do we really know about Michael Crew?

Peeling off the Chiswick Library label, Sebastian Adekoya discovers another library label beneath.

This label is not in excellent shape. According to our statement-giver, it says something like “Library of Gergensburg” (or “Jürgenleit,” or “Jurgenlicht”), which suggests that the last library wasn’t in Britain.

I wonder whether it was still written in English there?

Giving credence to my tentative hypothesis regarding masochism, Sebastian Adekoya prepares to return to reading the book that nearly made him throw up.

At this point, however, Jared Hopworth breaks in. Literally. Through a window. Sebastian Adekoya recognizes Jared via voice, which is one of the only ways I ever manage to recognize anyone. (Why, yes: I am indeed borderline prosopagnosic. I blame humanity’s insistence on all looking basically identical. Two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth—and all in the same arrangement, at that. How, I ask you, is anyone supposed to tell any of you apart?)

As far as visuals go: Jared has apparently decided to dress himself in baggy pants and a thick coat with a face-concealing hood. This strikes me as a very reasonable way to dress, particularly if both coat and pants come well-supplied with those deep and useful pockets I take so much for granted in my clothing.

Sebastian says that Jared is now “longer” than he used to be, whatever that means.

If he meant “taller,” I’d expect him to say “taller.” But “longer”? I’m not entirely certain.... Does he mean to say that Jared has, perhaps, been a bit stretched? That would seem to fit with the pointyness of his fingers.

His bones, I’d say, are longer than they once were.

Jared Hopworth is also “standing at a strange angle, as though his legs were too stiff to use.” That’s interesting.

If I were to guess (which I’m about to), I’d say that reading this book gives people the ability to manipulate bone inside living bodies. Now, I might hypothesize that the book simply warps things all on its own... but that rat really did look like an experiment, and Jared coming for the book strikes me as an “I haven’t mastered this skill yet, I need more practice, give me the manual” type of thing.

Sebastian Adekoya, declining to give Jared Hopworth the book despite the obvious tidiness of giving a strange thing to a strange thing, decides to punch Jared Hopworth right in the solar plexus.

Whereupon Jared bites Sebastian with, not his teeth, but his ribcage.

“...I felt his flesh give way and almost retract, drawing me in close. And then I felt his ribs shift, shut tight around my hand, as though his ribcage were trying to bite me. They were sharper than I would have thought possible, and at last, this was what actually started me screaming.”

Now, if that isn’t just perfect for late October, I don’t know what is.

Sebastian drops The Bone Turner’s Tale. Jared grabs it and runs off. Sebastian starts chasing him, but....

“I started to chase after him, until I saw how he was moving. How many limbs he had. He had… added some extras. That was the moment it finally all got too much for me; I stopped running. It wasn’t my book, it wasn’t my responsibility and I had no idea what I was dealing with, so I didn’t. I just stood there in a daze and watched the thing that was once Jared disappear out into the rain. I never saw him again.”

Uh.

Well, that’s probably all for the best so far as Sebastian Adekoya’s concerned, but does he really think things are going to stay that way? Jared Hopworth likes bullying him; I somehow doubt that gaining new powers will have changed that.

Our statement-giver, I think, is just as doomed as... huh. As pretty much all of the others seem to have been, come to think of it.

Somebody heard Mr. Adekoya screaming, it seems, and called the police. They turn up to receive the best lie Sebastian Adekoya can come up with on the spur of the moment, which involves falling asleep at his desk and being awoken by an attempted robbery. He can’t remember how he explained the bloody books, which seems to me like a thing that would take some explaining.

Hmm. I wonder how many strange things the police see in the Magnus Archives universe. Maybe Sebastian didn’t explain the books at all—perhaps there are some things the police in this universe just... leave alone.

The blood, apparently, was not the disappearing type. Mr. Adekoya says “it took weeks to get out,” and I assume he means to imply “out of the carpet,” because let’s face it: blood-soaked books don’t clean. Those books had to be thrown away and we all know it.

...I wonder what the blood type was.

Jonathan Sims describes himself as “deeply unhappy” about this statement.

“I’ve barely scratched the surface of the archives, and have already uncovered evidence of two separate surviving books from Jürgen Leitner’s library. Until he mentioned that, I was tempted to dismiss much of it out of hand, but as it stands now I believe every word.”

So interesting, the things he believes and doesn’t believe. I’m becoming more and more convinced that he stubbornly denies things until evidence actually forces him to believe—which might seem like a good way to remain sane in a universe like this one, but consider: is the denial of reality sanity? I don’t see that it’s even safety, since not knowing about a thing (germs, say) has never prevented the thing from killing you.

An interesting side note: Mr. Sims’ boss, Elias Bouchard, apparently has a very hands-off attitude when it comes to the supernatural.

“Record and study, not interfere or contain.”

Personally, I think that study and interference aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive... but that’s me. In any case, I do think Sebastian Adekoya’s either very dense, or that library label was very oddly written. Two separate words with two separate capitals (Jürgen Leitner) seem difficult to confuse for a single word! “Jürgenleit”? Really? Come, now.

Tim and Sasha, two of the three amazingly competent archival assistants, have done research which proves that yes, Jared Hopworth had a warrant out for breaking and entering and assault, but no, nobody found him and the case was dropped.

And aha!

About seven years after giving this statement, Sebastian Adekoya was found dead in the middle of the road, body so messed up they figured it had to be a hit-and-run.

Even though there were no signs of crushing or trauma marks.

That’s lovely.

I’d like a Leitner.

#The Magnus Archives #episode 17 #commentary #late to the party

[toothpastecanyon]

Noie’s Brother, Chapter 17

Thank you so much to @feferipeixes for betaing this story!!

Fate sometimes rhymed, but Alcor felt like this one was a little on the nose. A newborn Mizar fading away in the hospital and a loving father pleading to him from behind a circle of candles.

Fate sometimes rhymed, but Naomi Argenta just wants this stupid vampire to stop harassing her brother. It’s making him go… weird.

See most updated version on Archive of Our Own.

______________________________________________________________

                 Out of the door.

                 The door.

                  The door.    He reached for it, but his skin was on fire.

                 His vision. It flitted in and out of focus as vitreous humours dribbled onto the carpet, and he watched the blurry smudge of her leave.

                 Leave? No, be led away. There was quiet talking behind the door, and what his melting ears heard…

                 “Dad?”

                 “Stay here just a moment, okay?”

                 “But Dad! Dipper, he-”

                 “Just stay here, please. Play with your toys.”

               Anger. They made him angry. They made him angry, and he lunged for the door-

 “R̶̯̞̣̥̗̤͙̮͉̖͇̭͕̼̭͓͘ͅŖ̴̻̙̝̼̯͇̪̰̤̗̦͖̠͈̖̺͕͟͝͠ͅR̴̸̴͔̞̜̱̦̱̯͈̥͢͠R͏̷͓̥̦͕͔̼̳͈̭̫͉̹̫̟̦̣̦͓̘R̴̨̛̞̤̫͈̙̠̲̱̥A̫̙̠̹̱̦̗̲̤̖̖̜̬̣͎͖͘͞Ą̡̫͉͔̙̙̯͉̞̠͙̥̗͉͍͟A̴̢҉̷̛͈̝̜̮̙U̶̖̻̣͈͎̮͉̯͈̬̰̙͜G̳͎̟̫͎̪͝G̨̨͎̹̻̗̰͡Ģ̵̫͈̮͈̳H̴̠̺̲̯͎͔̻̗̣̗̘͇̻̬͘ͅḨ̹̣̬̪̦̩̼̝͈͉͓̙͖̠̝̮̫ͅH̨̟̼̬̕͡H͍̙̗̫͔͘̕͞!”

                 Pain. Not every part of him followed. And the knowledge leaking into his mind rushed through the fissures, and the carpet burned beneath his claws, and two feet came to stand before him.

                 “Dipper?”

                 Knowledge.      Knowledge.    He snarled.

                 “Alcor.”

                 That name. That was what he was, wasn’t it? And that was all he’d ever be.

                 With a roar he turned and ripped at the sofa, disemboweled its stuffing. His claws - they were too sharp, and his teeth were too big, and his mind was too clear because that was all he’d ever fucking be!  

     WHY WASN’T THIS WORKING?!  

______________________________________________________________

                 “You don’t want your fries?”

                 Noie watched Dipper look up at her, like he was surprised. She stretched a smile.

                 “Hello? Earth to bro bro?”

                 A slow blink. “Do I want… oh, fries!” He nudged them towards her. “You can have them, it’s okay.”

                 Noie frowned at him.

                 “What? I said you could have-”

                 “You haven’t eaten anything all day.”

                 She tried not to sound accusing, but the hours of watching him space out in class clearly bled through. Dipper sighed at that, and opened his mouth to explain-

                 “You need to eat things, you know. You need to.”

                 “Noie…” He took one look at her expression, and begrudgingly picked out a fry. “Okay, I’ll eat this one.”

                 Then he put it in his mouth, and chewed it. Noie let out a little breath at that, and grabbed a few fries. She tried for a smile.

                 “They’re pretty good, huh?”

                 “Uh, yeah, sure.”

                 “Better than the peanut butter sandwich days. Wayyyy better, right Dipper?”

                 “Yeah, sure, I guess?”

                 “I dunno, are you sure?” She rattled the fries at him. “C’mon, eat some more!”

                 He frowned. “Noie-”

                 “Come onnnnn!”

                 “I don’t want to. I’m not hungry.”

                 “Of course you are! You can’t live off one measly fry, Dipper-”

                 “I can, though!” Dipper snapped, and there was a flash of yellow in his eyes that made her shoot out of her seat. His expression immediately turned to horror. “Oh, I’m sorry! A-are you okay?”

                     Those eyes… Noie was gulping down a scream. She put a hand on the table, and realised it was shaking.

                 “Noie?”

                 “I’m. fine.”

                 She could feel Dipper looking her up and down. His arm was half-stretched across the table, like he wanted to touch her.

                 …She didn’t want to touch him. She looked at his fingers, and realised that.

                 “You sure?” Dipper’s frown was out of concern now. “Y-you know, Noie, this is kinda why I wanted to talk to you. I know it’s, um, weird, with me being a-”

                 “Nothing’s weird!”

                 “Noie-”

                 “Nothing’s weird! Everything’s normal!” Noie finally managed to look at him again. “Didn’t we say we were gonna talk about this later?”

                 “When is later?”

                 “I don’t know, after school or something?” She gave him a shrug. “Whenever, I don’t care! I don’t mind talking-”

                 “So, after school then?”

                 “...I don’t care when! I-I just said I didn’t care, I-” She gritted her teeth. “Look, can we just have a nice lunch? Or are you gonna interrogate me this whole time?”

                 She met his gaze with a scowl, and he sighed. “Okay. Sorry. I just thought-”

                 “Oh, that’s your first mistake. Too much thinking, not enough eating!” She nudged the fries towards him. “C’mon, chill out, eat some fries! We’re having a good time!”

                 And they were. They were.  

                 Noie sat with her brother for the whole lunch hour. At an empty table in a busy cafeteria, she talked the silence away.

______________________________________________________________

                 “Noie, don’t freak out.”

                 Given that Dipper had suddenly grabbed her while they were going home on the bus, that was not a reassuring statement.

                 “Dipper?” Noie looked at him; he’d gone pale, and was staring off into the middle distance with a rapidly deepening frown. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

                 “I’m-” he gripped the seat with his free hand. “Getting a summons, I-”

                 “A summons?”  

                 “I think I can stay here. It’s strong, but I think I can… argh, shoot.” Dipper glanced her way and managed a nervous smile. “Be right back, okay?”

                 Then he disappeared into thin air. Noie sat there for a second, stunned.

                 “Dipper?” Her voice sounded small. There was no reply but for the rumble of the bus. She touched his seat, then his bag, and panic fluttered in her chest.

Where the fuck did he go?!  

                 He was gone, and the bus sped along, and the floor seemed to fall out from under her feet and- she pulled the stop signal.

                 The bus swerved over. Ground to a halt. Heart thumping in her chest, Noie grabbed both bags and stepped off onto solid ground.

                 Her knees wobbled. Her eyes stung. She stared at the bench for some time, then stumbled over to it and sat down.

                 Where was he? Where was he?  

                 She hugged his backpack to her chest…

What had happened to her brother?  

                 And frowned. Her slow, shaky breathing counted out the minutes she spent sitting there, trying not to dwell on questions she didn’t want answers to. The sun slumped lower in the sky, and by the time Dipper finally decided to drop back into her life again, that frown had deepened to a scowl. She didn’t look at him when he put a hand on her shoulder.

                 “Hey, Noie. Sorry about that-”

                 “Have you got that sorted out?” She didn’t watch him flinch. “Is everything back to normal? Are you gonna stop leaving me every five minutes?”

                 There was a sigh. “Noie-”

                 “Well? Are you?”

                 Dipper just stared at her; she could feel his eyes on her back. He didn’t say a word, and Noie played with the strap of his backpack. She looped it around her finger, and tried not to think about things.

                 Closed her eyes, and tried not to think about      that morning     for just a second, just a goddamn second…

                 “Noie, we need to talk.”

                 And his voice was not helping. She shot him a look, then stood up.

                 “Noie, where are you going?”

                     “We’re going home, Dipper.” She stretched out a hand. “Unless you’ve got somewhere better to be.”

                 Dipper frowned at her. “Noie…” he started, but she took his hand and squeezed it tight. He let her do that, let her lead him down the street. Almost like old times.

                 Almost, but for all the ways it had gone terribly wrong.

                 “Hey, kids.”

                 David was in the living room again when they came home. Dipper stopped abruptly at the sight of him; with a tug, Noie dragged him inside.

                 “Hi, Grandpa!” She waved with the hand holding her brother. “Dipper says hi, too!”

                 “Does he.” David looked at him. “How’re you feeling, kid? How’s those headaches?”

                 Dipper just stared back, completely white-faced. Noie laughed for him.

                 “They’re      aaall     better, aren’t they, bro?” She shook his hand. “Aren’t they?”

                 He blinked. “Wh-what? Oh, yeah. Yeah!”

                 David cocked an eyebrow. “You sure?”

                 “Yeah, don’t worry about me!” He backed into the hallway, taking Noie with him. “Don’t- sorry. Sorry, I… sorry.”

                 Once they were in the bedroom, Dipper near-slammed the door closed. Noie snorted.

                 “What was that all about?” She saw him open his mouth and quickly added: “I mean… so, homework! Man, I can’t wait to get started on math - Dipper, can you help me out with a-”

                 “Noie.”

                 She started rifling through her bag. “One sec, I gotta find it-”

                 “Noie,      please.”  

                 “Puh-lease, haha. Oh, found it!” She whipped out the sheet and grinned at him. “Let’s do this… Dipper?”

                 Dipper was not smiling back. Dipper had covered his face with trembling hands, and as she watched he pressed himself into the doorway, shaking his head when Noie reached out.

                 “Dipper? What’s wrong?”

                 “I… I can’t.” He got out. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Noie, b-but I can’t keep this up any longer, I can’t…”  

                 Her hand hovered over his shoulder. “What do you mean? Are you okay?”

                 “I know you don’t want me to talk about it, b-but I did so many terrible things- I can’t just, just stand here like nothing’s wrong! I need to tell you, and you’re gonna hate me, but-”

                 “Whoa, whoa, Dipper! I’d never hate you!”

                 “You can’t be sure about that!”

                 “What? Of course I’m sure! I know you, Dipper, I-”

                 “No you don’t!” Dipper snapped. “I’m sorry, but you don’t know me as well as you think you do and you need to let me tell you!”  

                 At that, Noie staggered back. Her throat closed up; she couldn’t breathe. She watched Dipper sigh, and look away for a moment. He turned back, and locked eyes on her, and despite the blotchy face, despite the human eyes she thought she knew so well, despite everything…

                 He looked so terribly ancient.

                 “Noie?”

                 Noie backed away.

                 “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout at you.”

                 “Shout at me? I don’t care if you shout at me, I…” Noie’s chest was heaving; she couldn’t look him in the eyes. “What am I supposed to do if I end up hating you?”

                 It was silent for a moment. Noie stared down at the floor, and tried not to see how her brother slowly drew back his arm and stood still. He had no words to say to that, no reassurances to give to her, nothing.  

                 He had nothing, and it was unbearable. Noie turned abruptly away and picked up a sheet of paper that had fallen to the floor. Awkwardly, almost mechanically, she held it out to him.

                 “I have some, um, homework,” she said, and before he could interject she added, “I know, I know, but… Can we not, for a little while longer? Like just for tonight?”

                 Dipper didn’t say anything; he just stared at her with that tired,      ancient     gaze. Her face crumpled into a smile.

                 “Please? We can just have a good time, then you can tell me whatever you wanna tell me, and…” She gulped. “Well, let’s just have a good time now, okay? Okay?”

                 After a long pause, Dipper finally took the paper. He read it. Noie watched him read it. She watched as he sighed, opened his mouth, and then:

                 “Since when did you start calling homework ‘a good time’?”

                 The tension finally eased a little, and Noie let out a laugh. She laughed harder when she saw Dipper look up at her, a weak but teasing grin tugging at his cheeks.

                 “Alright, he said, and shuffled over to the desk. “I guess we’re, uh, doing homework, then.”

                 She hopped on his bed. “Hell yeah we are! Take us away, bro!”

                 At that, he grinned and started to explain, but she couldn’t miss the wariness in his eyes, the tremble in the hands he held the page with.

                 She couldn’t miss how he almost put his elbow on the desk, but saw the USB and flinched away.

______________________________________________________________

                 Despite everything, it was a good afternoon. Dipper was Dipper, and Noie was Noie, and everything was right with the world.

 (Right enough anyway, if you didn’t count the USB that sat between them like an omen.)

                 That was until there was a knock at the door. Dipper’s grin, which had been wide as he explained something about derivatives that was definitely a little above their grade level, suddenly dropped; he shrank back as David poked his head in.

                 “Hey, kids. Me and Allie, we got dinner going.” He jabbed a thumb at the kitchen. “Pasta. It’ll be ready in a minute, so wrap up whatever you’re doing, and… are you two doing homework?”

                 Noie glanced at her brother, then forced out a laugh. “Yyyep! What, are you surprised?”

                 “I gotta say a little, yeah.” He grinned at her. “Good for you, kid. Wrap it up for now and come back after dinner, okay?”

                 “Yeah, yeah, thanks or whatever, Grandpa.” Noie watched him close the door, then immediately rolled her eyes at Dipper. “Well, that was patronising. I do my homework! Sometimes. He’s seen me do it before, he doesn’t immediately have to be like ‘ohhhh, goooood joooob Noie, you stupid idiot, you’re actually doing your…’ uh… Dipper?”

                 Dipper didn’t move from his seat, didn’t even look at her. He had that same deer-in-the-headlights expression from the last time he’d seen David, and Noie couldn’t help but wonder what was scaring him so badly about his own grandfather.

                 Her eyes flitted to the USB, and she put that out of mind. She touched his leg.

                 “Dipper?” When he jumped, she jumped back. “Dipper, did you hear that? We’re going to dinner.”

                 He finally turned that expression on her. “Dinner? With David?”

                 “With Grandpa, yeah-”

                 “I’m not-” He shook his head. “No. I’m not, I-I won’t-”

                 “Won’t what?”

                 “Won’t… j-just say I have a headache, okay?”

                 Noie frowned. “Why?”

                 “Not- I’m not going to sit a-across from them, I can’t- I won’t be able to hold it together!”

                 “What do you mean?”

                 Dipper’s eyes flitted to the USB, and her breath caught in her throat. She shot up.

                 “Okay!” Noie spoke loudly. “I’ll do that! Noooo problem bro, haha!”

                 He just looked at her, panic fading to that ancient sadness that made her want to shrivel up. She opened her mouth, then closed it and awkwardly shot finger guns at him as she backed into the door.

                 “Alright, uh, don’t have too much fun without me!” With one hand, she scrabbled for the handle and pushed it down. “Seeya, uh… seeya! Love you, Dipper.”

                 “I love you too, Naomi.”

                 Noie’s smile stretched at that. She tried to keep her eyes on him, but as she closed the door, they couldn’t help but gravitate to the USB on the desk.

The USB.  

                 It shut with a click, and she hurried down the hallway to get away from it all.

                 “Allie, what are you- don’t touch that!” She rounded the corner, and saw David pulling his wife away from the stove.

                 “Hey!”

                 “You gotta watch yourself! I don’t want you getting hurt.” David noticed Noie and waved her over. “Hey, kid, could you drain the pasta for me? I’m gonna get Allie sat down.”

                 “I can help!”

                 “You can not give me a heart attack, that’s how you’ll be helping.”

                 Noie saw Allie’s frown, and opened the cutlery drawer. “Why don't you set the table, Granny? We need four knives and four forks.”

                 She let her grandmother wander over, then got out a colander. David grunted.

                 “Four, eh? Dipper not coming?”

                 “He has a headache.” She said, and nothing more. She took the lid off the pasta, and the steam rose up in a puff.

 (Rose up like the void, far above her head, and suddenly why was she suppressing a shudder?)

                 “Another headache… we really gotta get that sorted out.” He scratched his chin. “When’s his next appointment with the neurologist?”

                 “Next Monday.” She said, and lifted the pot. Walked it to the sink. “You guys are free that time, right?”

                 “Monday?” Allie made a face. “I’ll have to check my shedule-”

                 “We’re free, Allie.” David waved his hand. “We’ll be free.”

                 Noie poured the pasta through the colander. Steam rose thick and high from the water, and she could feel her heart thudding in her throat. The pasta slid down, little bowties splattering into the sieve with a slimy sound that drilled into her brain; it sounded like      his     brain,      his     skull splitting apart and      his bloody spaghetti slopping onto the tile...  

                 She felt sick. She felt      sick,     and she tried very hard not to let it show in her smile as she scraped it into a bowl.

                 “Dinner’s, uh, up.”

                 “You’re not done yet.” He pointed at the cold glass jar sitting out on the counter. “You still gotta put on the red sauce.”

                    Noie unscrewed the cap, and got blood on her hands. They trembled as she took what she’d done to the table.

                 “And there we are!” David grinned at her. “Thanks, kid.”

                 She just nodded.

                 “Alright, bon appetit everybody, why don’t we dig in? Here’s the serving spoon, Allie, help yourself… Allie?”

                 “Are you alright?”

                 Noie looked up at that, and saw her grandmother staring at her with a look of concern. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

                 “Huh?” David frowned at her. “Wait, is something the matter, Naomi?”

                 She shook her head, vigourously, but her throat was betraying her. Dammit, fuck, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry-  

                 Too late. David shot up from his seat and had his arm around her in seconds. Allie rose with a little difficulty, but she was there just after him.

                 “Whoa, hey, what’s the matter, kid?” David’s bewildered expression filled her vision, and she shook her head. “What’s wrong? You gotta tell us what’s wrong.”

                 “It’s-” Noie managed. “It’s fine, I’m f-fine, I-”

                 “You’re not fine - look at yourself! What’s gotten you so worked up? Something at school?”

                 She shook her head. “No, i-it’s fine-”

                 “Something at home? Uh, homework? Homework’s hard? Is that it?”

                 “No, no, it’s fine-”

                 “Then what is it? Naomi, we can’t fix it if you don’t tell us. Naomi. Naomi-”

                 “David!”  

                 That voice was Allie. David and Noie jumped a little at the sound, and turned to her.

                 She was glaring at David. “You need to give her some space,” she said, and he backed off sharply.

                 “O-oh, sorry. Sorry, kid.”

                 Noie wiped her face. “It’s okay, Grandpa. Look, I am okay, i-it’s just…”

                 She stared down at her hands, cringing at the silence that followed, at Allie’s hand squeezing her shoulder. A new wave of      stupid crying     was building up in her throat, and she swallowed.

                 “I j-just…” She clenched her fists, shut her eyes. “Am I… Am I a b-bad-d-pers-son?”

                 “A bad person? What?”

                 Noie didn’t have an answer to him. She just didn’t, and when she felt Allie hold her a little tighter she just shook her head.

                 “Bad person?” David sounded like he was in disbelief. “Is this because we had a little spat?”

                 She gave a helpless shrug. “I-I d-don’t know, k-kind of?”

                 “Oh, Naomi… I told you, you’re at that kind of age, it’s fine. It’s healthy, even!  You’re not a bad person for getting into arguments…”

                 She stared down at her hands, her bloody hands.      It was so much more than this…  

                 “You’re growing up! You’re getting older, and, y’know, testing your limits?” He made an uncomfortable sound. “Does that, uh, make you feel better? How’re we doing, kiddo?”

                 When Noie didn’t respond, Allie spoke in an undertone. “I’m going to call her fah- her Leo, okay?”

                 “What?” David watched her walk over to the kitchen and start looking around for her phone. He took a half-step forwards to stop her, then glanced back at Noie, sighed, and turned back to her.

                 She just stared into her hands. Leon… when she closed her eyes, the video seemed to scream in her head. The watery shine in Leon’s smile, the hoarseness in his voice, and the words he spoke - they stabbed at her.

                     They dug deep into the pit in her stomach, and stars she couldn’t take this anymore, she couldn’t, she couldn’t-  

                 Noie clenched her trembling jaw, and finally looked up at David. “Grandpa?” She started.

                 “Yeah, kiddo?”

                 “Can I ask you… something weird?”

                 Something like panic flashed in his eyes, but he managed a smile. “Uh, sure? What’s up now?”

                 She looked at Allie, opening the cutlery drawer, and leaned in close. “Um… about Leon?”

                 David froze. She cringed at his expression, and forced out the last bit.

                 “How did he… um, how exactly… did he…” - and David’s face had already blanched - “...d-die?”

                 There was silence, broken only by Allie looking for the phone. Noie watched him gulp, hard, and she was already regretting this.

                 That was when the air seemed to drop ten degrees. The shadows in the room seemed to starken. A sudden, undeniable      presence     had turned its full attention to her, and she couldn’t help but look.

                 Look past David, to the boy standing in the hallway.

                 Clenching his fists.

                 Staring right at her.

                 They locked eyes, and though Dipper didn’t have claws, or glowing eyes, or wings… there was something immutably ancient, there. Something… disappointed.

                 He gazed at her like a god watching the folly of mortals, and Noie knew in an instant that this creature’s name was not Dipper Argenta.

                 Was it Pines? Was it Alcor?

                 Whatever it was, it wasn’t the brother she knew. Maybe it would never be again, and David was talking now.  

                 “I thought…” She heard his voice come in thick, halting. “I-I-thought… you kids were told the story, right?”

                 Noie couldn’t take her eyes off the creature in the shadows. “I… I want to know what happened.”

                 The creature’s eyes had a strange gleam to it now. David’s breath caught, and he cleared his throat.

                 “Well, uh… I-I mean, there’s… there’s not much to know, you know?” He squeezed her shoulder. “Just, it was the night after Allie spoke a-at a park. You were with us, ‘cause Dipper had that magic emergency and had to go to the hospital…”

                 His voice got very tight. The creature looked on, unnaturally still.

                 “W-w-we got a c-call.” He gestured with a shaking arm. “The entire… the entire street block, it was… incinerated, th-there was just a b-black c-crater where all the houses were supposed to be and…” He gulped.      “Stars,    i-it was all gone, and L-Leon - your father, y-your house… that was… you know.”

                 The creature finally looked away. David took a shuddering breath.

                 “You know.”

                 Noie gritted her teeth. “Who caused the explosion?”

                 “Huh? It was… some sort of demon attack, kid. A really awful, terrible… demon attack.”

                 “Which demon?”

                 “What?”

                 “Which demon did it?”

                 At that, David sighed. “Sorry, I wish I knew, kid. They never could figure that one out, it was just a demon attack.” And then a frown. “They said it was Leo, just ‘cause he married a demonologist and his house was in the centre of the blast. But he wasn’t a demonologist!” He gripped Noie’s shoulder tighter. “I don’t know what they think he was doing there, besides looking after his sick kid, but he wasn’t responsible for that! He didn’t get twenty six people killed! He didn’t!”  

                 “David?”

                  “He-” David glanced over to Allie, and his mouth clamped shut.

                 At that moment, Noie flinched as the creature stepped out of the shadows. It strode across the room, and though it was in plain sight, David and Allie didn’t react to it at all.

                 Maybe they were just preoccupied, Noie thought. She watched it reach for her hand, then step back and motion her forwards when she didn’t move.

                 She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to see where this was going to take her. But her grandfather was saying hoarse words, and Allie had gone back to searching through the pots and pans for a phone to call her dead father with, and she didn’t know what she was supposed to do other than follow.

                 Maybe she said goodbye. Maybe she said she needed to go lie down. Maybe she said nothing at all, and was led to her room like a prisoner led to her cell. Either way, she was in here now, and the creature she could believe was Dipper shut the door.

                 The USB. It was on the table. She stared at it, and not him.

                 “Noie.”

                 Was she still crying? She touched her face.

                 “Noie. We need to talk.”

                 Yes, she was.

                 “I’ve tried to put it off for you, but I can’t. Not any longer. So can you just, please, let me explain?”

                 Oh, stars.      Oh stars. Oh stars oh starsohstarsoh-  

                 “N̨͖̤̼̱̘̗̰̭̞͜o̶̱̲̞̜̻͘͞ḭ̬̳̺̕e̪̘̘̤.̢̟̤͎̖͕͘͝ͅ”

                 The reverb rattled her chest, and she glanced up just in time to see the demon shed his human form. The air crackled as Alcor unfurled wings of pure void; reality itself seemed to twist and fold up, fold out, as he suddenly became twice his size, as his clothes burned away to a charcoal-black suit, as his glowing, deeply inhuman eyes opened and fixed on her with a glare that stopped her heart.

                 His feet lifted off the ground and he floated forwards. Noie shrieked. She staggered back, pressing herself into the corner of the room like she wanted to force her way through it… and suddenly Alcor was holding his hands out.

                 “It’s okay, it’s okay!” He was saying, and oh my stars those were claws on his fingers- “It’s still me, Noie.”

                 She was shaking her head. She kept shaking her head. No. No.      No.  

                 “It’s still me. This is still… me.”

                 No it isn’t. No. No, it isn’t.

                 “It is, though.” He looked at her with a gaze so ancient, so tired of this. “Noie. We can’t keep this up. I can’t keep this up.You can’t keep this up - look at you.”

                 She couldn’t look at herself. She couldn’t tear herself free from those terrible, terrible eyes…

                 She watched them dim. She watched them look down, then flicker back up again.

                 “Okay.” He said. Flatly. “You don’t have to hear me tell you.”

                 A hand. A clawed hand, glinting and outstretched. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. He spoke again.

                 “But let me show you.”

                 The world seemed to ripple, seemed to shimmer, seemed to narrow and fall away until it was just him, and his hand, and the terrible truth that shone through his eyes.

                     “Let me show you who I am.”  

#transcendence au #Noie #Noie's Brother #toothwrites

[themoonandotherslikeit]

Gone - Epilogue

Dean

It wasn’t functional, but when has anything that Dean Winchester has done been functional?

He signed in at the front desk and walked down the long hallway. It was the fifth door to the right, he had it memorized at this point. The door was unlocked, as it always was, because he wasn’t permitted a lock. He was too unstable, and it was understandable given the circumstances. Dean opened the door and stepped through the threshold. “Hey,” he said softly into the dark room.

There was a muffled response through the darkness, and Dean shook his head. “Listen, man. The light is good for you. We’ve talked about this.”

“No ‘s not.”

Dean smiled and shook his head, his heart aching. “I’m going to open the curtains.”

“No.” It came out as a whine, which normally would irritate him, sending a sharp pain through his temple, but it didn’t. Not now. Not anymore.

“Come on,” he pleaded. “I want to see you.”

There was a huff and shuffling, a groan from the bed as he moved with a bit of struggle. “Fine.”

Dean walked through the room, stepping over piles of clothing, discarded blankets and pillows that were thrown off in fits of frustration.

He opened the heavy, dark curtains, letting the sunlight stream in through the windows. He turned to find Castiel twisted in a pile of blankets, looking sleepy and riddled with irritation. Dean smiled at him warmly, nonetheless. “Good morning.”

“What is so good about it?” Cas groached.

Dean walked to him and leaned down to kiss his pouty lip. “I get to see you and,” he said, standing back up, “Naomi was convicted today.”

They’d caught her. Her confession’s to Castiel were enough, and he was not only deemed a victim of her, but also a hero.

“Okay,” Cas said quietly.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Is it any better today?”

Dean hadn’t gotten to him in time, Cas broke his promise, and he barely made it. It could’ve been worse, but it was bad...really fucking bad.

Naomi had poisoned him. Cas told him that he thought it was whatever she used to drug him before, to confuse him… but he was caught. It was arsenic. A huge dose. It was a miracle that he was alive, but he didn’t escape unscathed.

The sun caught Cas’ blue eyes, and he sat up with some struggle. “I haven’t gotten up to try,” Cas admitted.

“Let’s get up.” Dean offered a hand to him, and Cas took it. He pulled Cas up, his weight straining on Dean’s arm. He slid his arm through Cas’ and held him at the waist. “We should put on your shoes.”

“I’m fine,” Cas said through gritted teeth.

He had been in a coma for a month and was still recovering. The poison damaged his nerves, and he was working with a physical therapist to learn his new way of life. There was a chance that he would never regain that feeling back. Dean had been with him everyday, honoring his promise of making Cas laugh, being with him, loving him despite his bad attitude and continuous struggles.

Cas’ nails were planted in Dean’s arm, stinging the skin, but he didn’t mind, because when he ran into that room, gun extended only to find Cas slumped in his chair with a broken mug at his feet on the floor, Dean’s heart stopped in his chest. He knew then that there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to see Cas again. “Get on the fucking ground! Naomi Smith you’re under arrest for the murder of Meg Masters…” He couldn't breath. The EMT’s were running in after him, poised, and ready to help. He felt far away, like he was in a dream, and every day he regretted letting Cas go into that room.

He was a fool.

They stepped outside, and Cas sucked in the fresh air. “Summer,” he commented. “I never liked it before.”

“Why not?”

Cas smiled a bit, turning his face to the sun. “Didn’t like to be outside.”

“Ah so that’s why you’re so pale.”

Castiel shot him a look, and Dean grinned back at him. “Before being inside, locked in that morgue was the only place I felt like myself…”

“How about now?”

“Now… the only place I feel like myself is when I’m with you.” He tilted his head to the side, leaning into Dean’s touch just a bit more than he had been before.

“When did you turn into such a sap, Cas?”

Dean felt Cas’ shoulder nudge him in defiance at the question which just made him grin wider.

“Maybe when I almost died?”

Dean’s heart cracked at that and ached deep inside of his chest. “Yeah,” he commented quietly, squeezing Cas’ waist. “Made me a sap, too.”

“I was kidding,” Cas said, looking up at Dean, squinting from the sunlight.

“Not funny.” He leaned his head against Cas’ as they walked. “You know, I was thinkin’ about that first day on Meg’s case.”

They didn’t talk about it much. It was a potential trauma trigger for Cas, and when he said it, Cas’ blue eyes seemed to glaze over, but it was on Dean’s mind, and he couldn’t shake it.

He felt Cas tense under his fingers. “What about it?”

“I asked you to call me if you found out anything… I did think things were weird about the case, but more than anything I wanted you to call me. I just wanted to see you again.”

Cas looked up at him incredulously. “You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not,” Dean said, defensively. “I’d seen you around before, and I always thought you were handsome.”

Cas clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I’m odd.”

“Yes, I never said you weren’t.” Dean grinned down at him. “But I’m kind of into it.”

Cas laughed, filling Dean with joy that seemed to warm his entire being. “I was thinking… after all of this is over maybe you’d want to…” Why was it so hard? He loved Cas. Cas loved him. The worst part was over. The bad guys were gone . As far as what Cas said things were clear in his head for the first time in a long ass time. So why was it so hard?

“I would want to what, Dean?”

“Um… maybe… stay with me? And Sammy. He’s back with me now and doin’ good by the way.”

Cas smiled up at him warmly, his cheek not rising completely from the damage to his nerves, but the smile traveled all the way up, settling in his blue eyes. “I’m glad to hear that.”

It was like he’d asked the guy to prom. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach, making his fingers tap at Cas’ side. “Yeah, it’s good.”

“Yes,” Cas agreed.

“And uh, the rest?”

“Hm?”

Dean stopped their walking and turned to face Cas, still keeping a hold of his hip. “If you don’t want to stay with me, Cas, just say it. Okay? Can’t take this…”

His beautiful lips parted and a laugh escaped them, poking at Dean’s annoyance, making his own jaw twitch. “What the fuck is so funny?” Dean snapped.

“You,” Cas said softly, reaching forward and touching Dean’s nose. Even the minimal contact had chills running up his spine. “Asking questions you already know the answer to.”

“I don’t know the answer. That’s why I asked.”

Cas’ reached his thumb up and touched Dean’s bottom lip, stroking it gently. “Of course I will. I’m not in a good place right now… I haven’t been for a long time. I don’t know when I will be okay, but I do know one thing. When I’m with you, I feel sane.”

Dean pulled Cas to him then, in a pressured, feverish kiss.

+++

Castiel closed his eyes, leaning into the kiss, the warmth of Dean’s lips fading into his own. He pulled back, breathlessly, opening his eyes to tell Dean that he loved him, and of course he would live with him. It felt like the most pointless question that had ever been asked, but he had his answer anyway. He opened his eyes and his stomach dropped out from under him, his breath ripping out of his body like he’d been punched.

Dean was gone.

The outside air.

The grass under his feet.

He stood in the morgue, his hands dripping wet from where he’d scrubbed them in the sink trying to stop the bleeding, and he was staring at the table in front of him. The table that had a woman laying out, exposed, her chest sewn up, her hair spilling out across the shining silver.

+++

Masterlist

Thank you for reading! 

#destiel #ppb2020 #dark!fic #twist #love #pain #mortician!Cas #detective!Dean #MCI