#do you think i can be the first ever person to convince my leo grandma that she shouldn’t do something. only one way to find out 😐

[not-playable-character]

Edit: new link https://archiveofourown.org/works/32099263

ITS DONE!!!!  Finally, the RE8 meets RE7 fic is finished and posted!  so for everyone wondering and if you didn't figure it out already. The image I posted earlier is the seating arrangement of the gang as they play the game.  As always its posted on AO3 and under the cut.  I hope you enjoy @ibest14 I never actually played RE7 but I watched a walkthrough to write this.

It was a normal Saturday afternoon when the Winters family got a very strange package.  It was addressed to the whole family and had no return address.

“What the heck is this?” Rose wondered aloud carrying the small package inside, “Hey mom! Did you order something online?”

“Not that I remember, why?” Mia asked curious why her daughter was asking about the mail, “Who is it addressed to? Maybe your dad ordered something.” She went and stood next to Rose to look at the package.

“Hmm, I think we should wait for dad to get home to open it, I mean it is addressed to all of us.” Mia agreed with her daughter and went to continue making dinner.

Ethan got home a few hours later and was greeted by his daughter with a warm hug, “Haha, hey there kid how was your day?” He asked returning the hug and picking Rose up.

“It was good! We got a weird package in the mail, mom and I decided to wait for you before opening it.” Rose said leading him into the kitchen after he put her down.

“Welcome home, Hon! How was work?” Mia asked kissing Ethan on the cheek.

“Ugh, Williams was an absolute pain again.  He somehow unplugged all of his equipment and disconnected his computer from the ethernet cable again.” Ethan complained sitting down at the dinner table next to Rose. “Chris somehow changed his computer to Arabic and Sal’s computer was changed to have wingdings as the default language and it bricked the whole thing, he said it was an accident, but I think it was one of the dicks that keep harassing him.  I told Chris and he’s looking into it.” Ethan picked up the package and looked at the outside.

“Ugh why can’t these douchebags see that Sal is way better than them.  Probably just jealous of him.” Rose said frustrated at the harassment her uncle was receiving.

“We should invite him over for dinner sometime, lift his spirits some!” Mia suggested placing a glass of juice down for Ethan.  He agreed and thanked her for the juice.

Ethan handed the package back to Rose who tore into the packaging.  Inside was a video game box, “Resident Evil? Isn’t that a game from the nineties?” Rose asked confused.

Ethan leaned over to get a better look, “Yeah it is, I played almost all of them, but I’ve never seen that one.  It looks like its supposed to be the seventh one, but they only made six that I know of.” Ethan became confused taking the box from Rose studying it, it strangely didn’t have a back cover.

“Weird, maybe they are rebooting the series, but why wouldn’t there be a lot of news about it?” Rose asked.  Ethan’s face lit up at the possibility of a reboot of his favorite childhood series.

“Man, I hope so, I always loved Craig Bluemarsh and Leo C. Harrison.  They were the best!  The whole M.O.O.N.S squad from Badger City.  Special Ops turned paranormal investigators was the twist of the decade! And the whole thing with Egbert Walberk and how he possessed himself with countless demons to become basically a god.” Ethan sighs as he reminisces.

“You clearly have bad taste honey because Julie Easter was the best character in the series.  The ace of the M.O.O.N.S squad, the one that Walberk kidnapped to force demons into her with a mind control amulet.  Oh, and don’t forget Chloe Bluemarsh, college kid turned aid worker for those affected by the demons.” Mia added as she chopped vegetables for dinner.

“Ahh yes, how could I forget! Anyway, this looks like a cheap bootleg or fake.  Probably just a prank from Dani or Angie.”  Ethan said tossing the case further on the table looking upset.

“Aw man…. That’s lame dad.” Rose says dramatically throwing herself over the back of the chair.  “I’m keeping it anyway; the box looks cool.”

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A month after the whole package incident, Rose bursts into the house beaming.  “Dad, Uncle Chris just told me that we are having a meeting with the whole gang! We should totally bring that janky game we got and show it off!”

“Whoa, slow down Rose! You’re gonna hurt yourself running around like that.” Ethan says watching his daughter bounce in place.  “Why do you think we should bring that thing anyway? I doubt there will be anytime to just sit around and play a game, if it’s even real.”  Rose rolls her eyes at him.

“Dad, I’m sure Uncle Chris can pull some strings so we can have a little get together.  We never get to see each other all at once!” Rose states, putting on her best puppy dog eyes, “Don’t you want to see the gang, Dad. It would be so much fun.  You know how much I miss them all.” She begs.

Ethan can physically feel his resolve crumbling at his begging daughter, always caving into her once she pulls out the puppy eyes, “Fine, I’ll talk with Chris and we can bring the game with us, but you are responsible for the PlayStation and if it gets damaged or broken you have to buy the new one.” He says in his dad voice, trying to be stern.  Rose squeals and jumps into his arms hugging him.

“You’re the best dad ever!” She says running off to prepare for their long weekend at Blue Umbrella.

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“Ok, is everyone comfy, I’m about to start the game!” Rose said excitedly setting up the PS4 in the Blue Umbrella lounge room.  Everyone was present, Rose even convinced Miranda and Elena to join them after Milena was put to bed.

“I am unsure of what we are even doing sweet thing.” Alcina said settling into her chair near Donna.

“Well, I’m gonna play this weird game I got, maybe Dani can take over if I get tired.  We are just gonna check it out, if its good, Great! If not, we can make fun of how bad it is!” Rose explained sitting down on the couch wedged between Daniela, Angie, and Heisenberg with Bela and Cassandra on the floor in front of them.  Alcina wasn’t convinced that it would be fun, but she couldn’t deny Rose’s request considering how excited she looked.  She sighed and pulled out her reading glasses seeing the small text on the screen.

“Psh, what are you a grandma?” Heisenberg teased. Alcina growled at him.

“Oh, please grow up you child.” She replied trying to de-escalate the situation knowing Rose and her daughters hated when they argued.

“I see making your head bigger didn’t help your eyesight.” He continued to tease sensing her anger.

“I grew proportionally you ignoramus, becoming larger would not fix my farsightedness.” She growled out becoming angrier.

“Guys….” Rose said sadly at the two arguing.  Heisenberg immediately stopped his next sentence and turned to give Rose a side hug.

“Sorry kiddo, I forgot you hate it when we fight.  I’ll stop, I promise.”  He says sincerely as Alcina nods looking guilty, Rose smiles accepting their apologies.

“No more sappiness get to the action I’m getting bored!” Angie cried out from Daniela’s lap.  Rose rolls her eyes at the doll’s bratty attitude and begins the game.

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The game begins with a very familiar video to Ethan and Mia and the sight of Mia recording her warning message on the ship.

“What the…. How is this happening?  It showed the recording from my eyes, but I never recorded that…” Mia says stunned.

The next scene starts with the sound of a phone ringing and the overhead video of a car driving down a highway.  Ethan begins to speak to and unknown man in the voice over explaining how he was contacted by Mia and that she wants him to come and get her.

“This has to be a sick prank!  How did these people get that phone call!” Ethan shouts getting more and more upset as the clip plays. Mia places a hand on his arm to comfort him.

“Maybe there will be an explanation later.  There has to be….” Mia says trying to calm Ethan.

Rose pauses the game as it shifts to Ethan’s perspective in the car, “We don’t have to keep playing if this is making you guys uncomfortable.” She says to her parents.

Ethan takes a deep breath, “No, no… it’s fine, you were really excited for this.  I was just shocked.  I’m okay to keep going, as long as you are okay too Mia.”  She nods in agreement with her husband clearly rattled but pushing through.  Rose nods continuing the game as she walks Ethan through the thick Louisiana swamp towards the Baker house.

The first obstacle they encounter is a locked gate.  She moves him down a path leading to a trashed car with camera equipment scattered around it.  Looking in they find a scrip proposal for Sewer Gators Ep. 17.

They then come across a broken gate with a sign that says, “Accept Her Gift”, “Oh yeah definitely just walk through that incredibly ominous gate into the disgusting swamp.” Heisenberg says gesturing towards the screen, “I’d just say, ‘sorry lady I’m not that desperate for a wife’ and dip.”

“He has a point dad, I mean really its been three years.  Just move on.” Rose says to her father.

Ethan blushes, “Hey you can’t judge a man in love.  I had to know what happened.”

“Nah man, just accept the death bro.  Totally not worth it.” Daniela says interjecting.

“I’m right her you know.” Mia says scolding them.  Rose giggles and continues on.  They come across the remains of a fire with Mia’s purse laying there.  They then enter the Guest house finding it to be disgusting and in disrepair.

“God, I forgot how gross this place was.” Ethan says wrinkling his nose.

Rose looks around the living room area, finding a hidden chain that opens a hidden room they go through. Exploring further leads them into a flooded basement they are forced to crawl through.

“Oh, please Ethan, I know you are insanely stubborn but the corpse in the flooded basement should have been an indicator to leave immediately.” Alcina says as the dead body floats up in front of them.

“Ok, Ok I get it I’m a crazy person for going on, but can we please stop commenting on it.  I’m aware of the insanity.” Ethan replies as Rose comes up into a basement room with a jail cell containing Mia as well as other information on people who were listed as turned or dead.  They pick up the bolt cutters and break open Mia’s cell.  While they are being reunited Mia acts strangely warning him of the dangers and of Daddy.

“Pft, seriously? Daddy?” Dani snickers at Mia.

“Don’t start.  I was possessed by a child obsessed with family.” Mia says glaring at Dani.

Rose follows Mia through the basement where she and Ethan stop to talk about the last three years.

“Come on! This is a life or death situation, get a move on!” Cassandra yells out at the screen.

Rose continues to creep through the basement following Mia as Ethan learning more about her capture as they walk.  They come across a living room type area where Mia starts to act strangely, talking about family and when Ethan leaves, they hear her crash through the wall revealing a staircase to the house.  They move through the house looking for Mia.  They hear crashing coming from the stairs they came from and return to find Mia on all fours crawling up the stairs.  She attacks Ethan looking monstrous as she throws him back up with superhuman strength. She then attacks him with a knife stabbing him through the hand.  After a struggle she regains control rambling about a strange her as she slams her head against the wall.

“Jesus man, that is hard core…” Heisenberg says in awe. Mia grimaces at the memory.  Rose continues on wandering before they are attacked by Mia once again.  They fight her off with an axe.  “Ethan, my friend, you always have to double check that your enemy is dead.  She is definitely gonna get up again, classic horror trope.” Heisenberg says wisely.

“Karl, this actually happened.  I wasn’t thinking about ‘horror tropes’.  I was focusing on surviving.” Ethan says to him.

“Also, of course I’m going to get up, I’m sitting right here.  I’m clearly not dead.” Mia says exasperated.

Rose moves on with the game ignoring them and answers the phone that had begun to ring.  “Dad why did you answer the phone? Just leave.” She says as Zoe gives her warning to Ethan.  “Oh yeah let’s listen to the random phone lady and not just break a window.” She says rolling her eyes.

They move on solving the puzzle for the stairs catching a glimpse of the not at all dead Mia.  Replacing the fuse, they are jumped by Mia again who attacks him with a screwdriver pinning him to the wall before chopping his had off with a chainsaw.

“My god man! How did you keep going!” Sal exclaims looking at Ethan who just shrugs.

They find a pistol in one of the rooms and use it to take care of the attacking Mia as she rants crazily. Finally taking her down, they are ambushed by Jack Baker who punches him in the face.

“See I told you that you should have moved faster, now ‘Daddy’ caught you.” Cass says as Ethan falls over and is stomped on by Jack.  They see him being dragged and Mia being carried by Jack, the scene changes to Ethan strapped to a chair with Zoe staples his hand back on.  He finally fully awakes to a disgusting family dinner with the whole Baker family.

“Ugh, I miss Momma’s cooking so much.” Mia says reminiscing happily.  Everyone stares at her as they see the disgusting meal on the table in game.  She blushes, “Before she went fully crazy, she was an amazing cook.  Her gumbo was to die for, oh and Daddy’s fried chicken, mmm.”  She explains to them.  No one seems convinced as the scene continues with Lucas throwing food at him and Marguerite tries to get Ethan to eat, and Jack cuts off Lucas’ hand. Jack comes over and forces the rancid food into Ethan’s face as Marguerite rants and leaves angrily, Jack then cuts Ethan’s face before being interrupted by the doorbell.  They escape and flee through the house trying to find an exit. They find a key and are chased by Jack before escaping to the crawlspace.

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They explore the house before a police officer tries to ask Ethan questions.

“Man, that officer is kind of a dick…” Heisenberg says realizing how rude and unprofessional the officer is.

“He was a massive dick.” Ethan says frustrated at the memory of their interactions.  They make the way to the garage to meet the rude officer who refuses to take the situation seriously which leads to his death and Ethan’s continued entrapment.  “See, massive dick, we could have escaped, but noooo.” He says.

Rose nods in agreement as she avoids Jack in the garage and tries to defeat him with the car.  The car crashes and catches fire revealing an on fire Jack who is knocked down by the resulting explosion.  They collect the items in the room before climbing up the revealed ladder. Jack stops Ethan and shoots himself in the head with Ethan’s gun.

“I’ll say it again, he ain’t dead.  He’s coming back sooner or later.” Heisenberg says again.

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock. This game’s been full of tropes so far.” Cassandra responds to him rolling her eyes.

Rose continues on solving puzzles and making their way through the labyrinthine house avoiding the obviously not dead Jack and the molded that are scattered around the house. They see Jack mumbling to himself about being “her” and talking about how he is going to kill Ethan.

“God he’s so cool.” Dani says as he leaves the room getting looks from the others, “What? He’s a cool villain.”

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The fight with Jack was a bit of a struggle for Rose, but she made it through with Heisenberg, Dani, and Cass cheering her on.

When he finally exploded, both Heisenberg and Dani called out in joy, “Now that’s how you kill a villain!” Heisenberg shouted out with a laugh and high fived Dani over Rose’s head. As they make their way through the house again completing puzzles and finding Grandma in random places.

“She is the one who caused all this.” Alcina says pointing at Grandma.  Ethan and Mia looks shocked.

“How did you know that?” Mia asks. Alcina scoffs as if it is obvious.

“She hasn’t had the focus at all, yet she appears at random seemingly following Ethan, who we know is the next victim in mind.  She is clearly Eveline.”  She says smugly to everyone’s shocked faces.

Rose moved on ignoring the gloating.  She came across a trailer in the yard, exploring it revealed that it was Zoe’s home containing some useful items that she ignored moving to leave as the phone rang. Zoe explained about the mold and how to progress.

“Why are you so trusting of this woman, you don’t know her, and she has admitted that she is a part of the family trying to kill you?” Bela asked turning to face Ethan.  He opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out, he paused thinking and shrugged.  Bela rolled her eyes at him, “Typical man thing.” She mumbled out returning to her original position.

They move on to the old house and Marguerite just as Zoe instructed. Coming across baby dolls strung up from the rafters of the bridge.  “Whoever made those should be killed.” Donna said quietly.  Everyone looked at her confused.  “The look like such poor quality dolls, anyone who cares would never let them fall apart so easily.  Cheap plastic is the worst fate a doll can experience.” She explains confident.

“You aren’t upset at the fact that they are strung up, just that they suck?” Rose asks her.

“Of course, you can do what you like with them, but the craft must be respected.  These cheap factory made ones are a disgrace.”  Donna explains upset at the virtual dolls.  Rose mumbles an ok before moving on into the bug infested old house.  They make their way through the house avoiding mutant bugs and solving puzzles.

“Gotta say girls, these things really remind me of you three.” Heisenberg says as Rose burns her way through the nests of bugs.

“How dare you compare my girls to these disgusting things!  They are clearly superior in every way.” Alcina says angrily defending her girls.

“Thank you, mother, but he has a bit of a point.” Bela says to her mother with Cassandra nodding in agreement.

“Momma has a point though too! We are better than those things!” Dani says beaming at her mother. Cass mumbles suck up under her breath and is smacked by Dani.

Soon after they find Mia in game again, she explains her amnesia and is taken away by Lucas.  Not being able to help they continue on through the house again.  Eventually they are found by Marguerite who begins to stalk them through the house attacking them with her swarm of insects, insane rants, and vulgar obscenities.

“This lady is something else…” Heisenberg says cringing at Marguerite.

“For once we agree on something Karl.” Alcina agrees cringing as well.  The others nod in agreement with them.

They make their way through a secret passageway revealed by the spider shadow puzzle.  The wall space was infested which had everyone cringing at the writhing masses of centipedes.  They collect the crank and the crow key and try to enter Marguerite’s room before she throws him down the stairs and through the floor.  After a short encounter, she falls into the hole and melts into black goo. They collect information on the D series pieces and Zoe calls again, and she mentions they only need the arm piece as she has the D series head.  They return to the hole to see the goo gone and a long spindly arm take the lantern needed to progress.  They follow the monstrosity to well in front of the old house returning to Zoe’s trailer. They return to a new section of the old house where they are attacked by a mutated spider like Marguerite.

They run around the house, avoiding her swarms and attacks while burning her with the flamethrower and peppering her with shotgun shots to the disgusting nest on her lower half.

“I take it back; you girls are way more similar to the bug lady.” Heisenberg says once she finally dies. Alcina slaps the back of his head and growls at him.

“Momma can we mutate like that too!” Dani says excitedly as Bela and Cass cringe.

“Absolutely not.  Do not even think about trying.” Alcina scolds while Heisenberg and Rose chuckle at them.

“Why would anyone want to have a gross bug vagina?”  Cassandra turns around asking her sister.

Dani shrugs, “I don’t know, I just think it would be neat.” Rose shoves the controller into Dani’s hands and takes Angie from her.

“No more bug talk, you play, I’m getting tired.” Rose says stretching.

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They find their way into Eveline’s secret room and collect the arm.  They go to meet Zoe in her trailer only to find that no one is there.  They answer a call from Lucas where he tells Ethan that he has both Zoe and Mia, and that Ethan needs to play his game to save them and get the head.  They make their way back to the main house’s dissection room where they pull the snake key out of the dead deputy’s neck hole.  Lucas’ voice come out through a speaker explaining they need to find two keycards so they can meet.

“Ohhh, I love this guy! I’m getting so many ideas for new games, hehehe!” Angie says excitedly bouncing in Rose’s lap.  Donna glares at the doll chastising her through their mental link.  Angie pouts at the scolding.

They make their way through the increasingly molded main house solving Lucas’ puzzles and dodging the molded shambling around.  They find the blue keycard and make their way down into a secret room containing the red keycard.  Lucas calls again at the phone in the main hall, leading Ethan to a party in the barn.

They enter the barn to thumping music and glowing paint under a black light.  They come across a room with a television showing Lucas ranting and waving the D series head around, ranting about how he doesn’t want to give up his gift and that they can only get the serum from him before the television explodes.  They make their way through the barn avoiding trip mines and coming up to a locked gate with a passcode.  Lucas makes an appearance taunting Ethan and giving him incorrect passwords before a trap springs and a secret door opens up.

They wind through the barn avoiding the traps and taking out the molded arriving at Lucas’ arena where they fight off a giant molded.  After the fight they find the correct passcode to enter the birthday room.  They solve his puzzles and escape through the hole created by the dynamite.  They see a television with Zoe and Mia, Zoe explains where they are before Lucas cuts the camera to himself ranting about nothing.  They collect the D series head and leave the barn making their way to Zoe and Mia.  They release Zoe and Mia before collecting the completed serum.  Just after they are ambushed by a fully mutated Jack.

“Wait he isn’t dead?! I can’t believe I didn’t call it!” Heisenberg calls out as Dani fights Jack.

After a long grueling fight, taking out Jacks many swollen eyes and using one of the two serums to calcify him at Zoe’s request.  Walking down the pier they are faced with a choice to cure either Zoe or Mia.

“Well clearly we are supposed to cure mom. Its what dad did in real life.” Rose says.

“True, I did.  I did feel bad though, Chris ended up saving Zoe and her uncle, so it all ended up good.” Ethan says.

“Yeah, sure choosing Mia is what really happened but what if we chose Zoe?” Dani asks hovering over Zoe in game.

“No! We can do it later right now we are choosing mom.” Rose says sternly.

“Fiiiiinnnnnee.” Dani whines out giving Mia the serum.  They take the raft down the river listening to Ethan and Mia talk about the situation before they come across the wrecked boat Mia and Eveline arrived on.  They are attacked by the mold, and they switch to Mia’s perspective as they hear Eveline speak to her through their mental connection.

“Well, this is going to be interesting, I’ve never seen this before.” Ethan says as they move into the ship. They find an unconscious Ethan who is taken by the mold deeper into the ship.  They move through the mold infested ship as Mia, getting flashbacks as they move on.  They follow the phantom Eveline to a room containing a television where they watch a video tape that blends into them playing through the situation leading to the crash of the ship and the infection of the Baker family.

They see Mia’s partner Alan who explains he is the reason Eveline escaped he explains that she needs to fix his mess and they begin to track Eveline through the ship.  They finally come across Eveline in the engine room before she runs off again.  They find Alan again in the room next to the one where they started the video tape. As he explains that Eveline is deteriorating, he insults her, and she overtakes him with the mold.  The mold then spreads to Mia infecting her.  They then see Mia recording the warning video from the beginning of the game.  The section ends with Mia being blown off the ship and floating unconscious in the water, before returning to the present with Mia and the Phantom Eveline talking. Making their way to the bridge they use the surveillance cameras to find Ethan trapped in mold in the engine room. On the way there they are impeded by the phantom Eveline and the remaining molded.

As Mia finds Ethan, the perspective swaps back to Ethan’s mind as he speaks to a sane Jack.  He explains that Eveline is the cause of all the murders and kidnappings.  He says that they were infected when He rescued her from the crashed tanker.  Jack also explains that stopping Eveline will stop the mold.  Before Ethan awakens to Eveline and Mia arguing.  Mia rips him free from the mold prison and gives him the tissue sample before locking him out of the engine room urging him to kill Eveline.  They continue through the bayou to a salt mine near the Baker house.  They hear a military broadcast explaining a team was sent in to take down Eveline. They traverse the salt mines finding an underground lab with information on Eveline and the E series mold.  They use Eveline’s tissue samples to make the E- Necrotoxin that is used to kill her permanently. As they exit the mine, Ethan sees flashes of Eveline as she sends the molded to kill him. They exit the mine into the original room Ethan found Mia in where he has a vision of Mia panicking.  He continues to see visions of Mia’s attack on him and Eveline controlling her.  They stab Eveline with the serum, and she reveals her true form as Grandma before melting away and mutating into a large monstrosity.

As Dani fights the massive face of Eveline, Miranda mumbles to herself, “Absolutely fascinating.  How she responds to different stimuli and the delayed injection of the Necrotoxin.” Rose and Dani scream forgetting that Miranda was sitting behind them.

“Jesus Christ! What is wrong with you! You scared the living hell out of us!” Rose yells at her turning to face Miranda who has a notebook open in her lap.  “What are you even doing?”

Miranda blushes at being caught, “I was taking notes on how E-001 reacted and how the family responded to the infection.  It is incredibly fascinating that the whole Baker family mutated without becoming one of the shambling molded.”

“Trust me she was about to run off and work more before I stopped her.” Elena interjects into Miranda’s rambling.  “Don’t worry, I won’t let her work on the Eveline project outside of simply watching videos.” Miranda’s blush deepens and she looks embarrassed at being called out by her lab assistant.

“Good, no more mind control children allowed.” Dani says rudely turning back to the screen continuing the final fight.

Ethan is thrown from the house and sees helicopters arriving at the house as he is attacked by Eveline. He uses an unknown gun to shoot Eveline calcifying and crumbling her finally.  After the battle, Ethan and Mia are rescued by Chris.  The final shots of the game are Ethan speaking over clips of marshlands and the reveal of the Blue Umbrella helicopter.

“Well that certainly was something….” Ethan says as the credits roll.  Mia wide eyed and shocked nods in agreement.

“So, all that actually happened?” Rose asks her parents, they both nod. “Ok well that doesn’t explain how the heck this got made or why we were sent it or by who!” Rose rants.

“Who cares, it was awesome!” Dani exclaims high fiving Angie who cheers with her.

“Can we leave now? My back is beginning to hurt.” Bela complains standing up and stretching.

Rose boos her, “Fine be boring.  What did everyone else think?” She asks everyone left in the room.

“Amazing! Fantastic! Ten out of ten!” Dani exclaims clinging onto Rose.

“It was interesting, very cinematic.  A bit tropey at times but it works in its favor.  Especially since this technically happened.  The villains were enjoyable and empathetic at the same time.” Heisenberg critiques.

“Yeah, whatever it was fine.” Cass says getting up and leaving the room.

“I had quite a nice time, I’m glad you suggested this, Rose.” Alcina says picking up the sleeping Donna. “I’m sure Donna will apologize for falling asleep tomorrow morning.  Have a good night.”  She kisses the top of Rose and Dani’s heads and leave the room.

“It was quite informative, thank you for inviting me, Rose.  I truly appreciate it.  Now I must go and review my notes.” Miranda says looking at her notebook as she slowly leaves the room.

“We are actually going to bed, but thanks for inviting us, Rose.  We’ll have to do it again soon!” Elena says grabbing Miranda’s arm and taking her notebook.

“I think your mom and I have some talking to do, but you guys have a good night sweetie.” Ethan says getting up before kissing Rose on the head.

“Yeah, outside of the horrifying content of this ‘game’ it was fun.  Have a good night honey.” Mia says following her husband to their room.

“Alright seems like the party is dying down and someone has to get Sal to his room.  Seems like he and Donna can’t stay up late like us cool kids.” Heisenberg laughs out shaking Sal awake.  Sal stands up groggily and leans ion Heisenberg as they leave to their respective rooms.

“Lame everyone left. You want to stay up or are you hitting the sack too?” Dani asks Rose.

“I think I’m going to bed too.  I have a lot to think about.” Rose says hugging Dani, “See you in the morning Dan.”  Dani decides to follow Rose and they head to bed.

In his assigned quarters, the Duke watches the group scatter to their rooms for bed, “I’m glad they enjoyed my little gift.  Hopefully, it answers some questions for them.” The Duke says to himself chuckling.

#resident evil #resident evil 8 #resident evil village #resident evil 7 #ethan winters #mia winters #rose winters #alcina dimitrescu #karl heisenberg #salvatore moreau #donna beneviento #mother miranda #elena lupu #daniela dimitrescu #bela dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu #the duke #happy au #the four lords grace #after stories #god this was a monster

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 19

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: Hazel gives Calypso some advice.

A/N:  Keeping things short and sweet this time. Time to bring Hazel back before we finally get to some important 'talks'! As usual, I hope you guys enjoy and please comment because that's the best motivator I can get!!

Characters in this ch: Calypso, Hazel, Frank (mentioned)

Words: 2300+

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / next chapter / AO3

…

“Hey,” Hazel gently grabbed Calypso’s sleeve after an art class when they were about to go home. Calypso had been pretty quiet (quieter than usual) during the class and she had been worried that Hazel would notice that. As she turned to look at the speaker, Calypso felt she should have known she wouldn’t get rid of her that easily.

“I’m going to meet my friend Frank in an hour but I don’t have time to go home before that, so I’m going to kill some time somewhere nearby. Would you like to join me?” Hazel asked.

Calypso admitted to herself that she had been dreaming about locking herself into her room and maybe screaming into her pillow just a bit because she had felt very frustrated ever since the ‘Percy incident’ had happened. In the history classes she and Annabeth no longer talked to each other if they could avoid it. One awkward time their professor had ordered them to do their group work together but instead of actually spending time discussing the topic (or other matters) Annabeth had told Calypso to make some notes at home while she’d make her own and send them to her then for her to combine. Calypso had wanted to protest and say the whole situation was ridiculous but she had already learned to know that Annabeth was very strong willed especially when she wanted to be and arguing about it would most likely have caused more harm than good.

Aside from that they hadn’t interacted much, but from Piper, Calypso had heard that she and Percy were having a bit of a rough phase. Calypso herself wasn’t doing much better with her flatmate who had recently been spending more time with his family and friends or working behind the shut doors. Sooner rather than later she knew she would have to deal with both Leo and Annabeth but it was easier said than done. Especially because in her old home the issues had been just brushed under a rug and never talked about again.

Thinking about all that, Calypso had almost forgotten what Hazel had asked in the first place, but when the younger girl cleared her voice to get her attention, she finally responded: “Oh, sure, why not? I don’t have any place where I should be right now…” She tried to convince herself that maybe this would be a good thing, to get something else to think about. “Where do you want to go?” She asked Hazel “There’s a nice coffee shop nearby!” Hazel replied, casting a slightly worried look at Calypso. She could sense the older girl didn’t have her brain fully present. “And they have student friendly prices. Can you believe I once saw a coffee shop where they sold a regular cup of regular coffee for over four dollars?

“Wow, that really is expensive,” Calypso agreed but had nothing else to contribute to that topic.

“Yeah…” Hazel simply nodded and the girls continued walking for a while in a silence.

“Um, listen…” Hazel eventually spoke. “I can’t help but notice that something’s on your mind… If you don’t want to come with me, that’s OK. I understand.”

Calypso felt embarrassed, not wanting her new friend to think that she didn’t care about her company.

“Oh, no, I’m sorry! I do want to join you. You’re right, though, things have been a bit weird in my life lately but I promise I’ll try to push that into the back of my mind for a bit. I think this will be good for me.”

“Alright,” Hazel accepted. “Just so you know, I’ve seen a lot of weird things in my life… so if you do want to talk about it at any point, feel free.”

“Okay, I will.” Calypso promised.

The coffee shop they went into was small but cozy, lots of students either hanging out with their friends or perhaps doing some homework after classes. Hazel and Calypso did still manage to find free seats from a more quiet corner and once they had made their orders (fruit tea for Calypso, latte for Hazel), they discussed the art classes for a bit. Hazel hoped to get more experience with portraits soon while Calypso admitted that she was more interested in painting landscapes. The younger girl also revealed that she was planning to draw something for Frank’s birthday, which made Calypso wonder again what the relationship between those two really was like.

“You and Frank seem really close based on what you’ve told me,” she commented. “I probably sound too curious, but are you two really just friends?”

Hazel chuckled a bit. “Don’t worry, you’re not the first person to ask me that. And the answer is: sadly, yeah. I mean… I’ve told him I’d be ready for a relationship but… Frank seems to be worried about how it might affect our friendship. We’ve been friends for a long while, after all. And recently his grandma hasn’t been feeling well so that’s taken a lot of his time and attention. Frank doesn’t have other close relatives so he’s the one who’s been taking care of her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Calypso said sympathetically. As weird as it may have sounded, somehow hearing other people’s stories made her feel less alone in her situation. “I hope things will get better for both him and his grandma.”

“I have a feeling they will,” Hazel said mysteriously, not explaining why she felt that way. “And Frank is strong; he just isn’t aware of his strength yet.”

For some reason that comment made Calypso think of Leo, and ironically Hazel’s next question was: “Since I was honest with you, what about you then? Any special someone in your life?” Calypso felt her heated cheeks betray her yet again.

“Um, no, not really…” she replied, pretending to focus on her drink.

“Hey, I can detect a lie pretty easily,” Hazel noted calmly. “You wouldn’t have blushed if there wasn’t someone…”

“Well… it is true that I am not seeing anyone.” Calypso tried to dodge Hazel's comment.

“But…”

“But… the situation is a bit complicated.”

Hazel watched her curiously while tasting her drink. “Oh, how so?”

Suddenly Calypso noticed she was telling her new friend a lot more than she had intended. Something about the girl’s aura just made her feel she could trust her.

“I… There’s this guy called Leo. He’s my flatmate. He can be a bit irritating and immature at times… For example, one time he tried to make me eat a very hot chili pepper even though he knew how hot it was… To be fair, though, I only ate the tip.” Hazel chuckled at that comment. “And he tells a lot of bad jokes and doesn’t seem to have a filter. I think he may be covering some of his insecurities with his jokes. That’s just my guess, though. But either way…”

“You like him,” Hazel finished for her.

“Uh… Like? I don’t know… No? Maybe…” When Hazel raised her eyebrow, Calypso was forced to say: “Okay, there is a small chance that I do like him. Sometimes his jokes are kind of funny. And his stupid grin has grown on me and his fluffy hair makes me want to ruffle it. It’s frustrating! He’s good with his hands - I mean, he can build machines from scratch - and he’s also really smart, like, he can solve problems I couldn’t even imagine trying in a very short time. He loves his dog and his family a lot. He can make pretty great tacos. And he’s trying very hard to get over a fear of his… but…”

“But it’s complicated because he’s your flatmate?” Hazel guessed this time.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Calypso said. “I mean, of course that is something to be considered. If we ever got together and then broke up, it would be really awkward to live in the same flat. But I’m not even sure how he feels about me. There are moments when we have a lot of fun together. But sometimes I feel like we can’t be 100 per cent honest with each other, and recently… he found out that I used to, well, I think ‘date’ is not a correct word to use because we only met once in real life, but I did use to talk a lot with a friend of his online, with a relationship in my mind. It happened over two years ago and we never were serious, but… it seemed to bother Leo and I’m not sure what I should tell him.” In reality, those weren’t the only reasons why Calypso thought the situation was complicated but she had to draw the line somewhere.

“Did you already tell him what you just told me?” Hazel asked while stirring her hot drink.

“I did try to explain it when Percy came to our place to pick his girlfriend… Who is, or was my friend and she’s not talking to me either… but I don’t know. He’s been acting very distant ever since that happened; just talking to me when necessary and even then it isn’t more than a couple of sentences. It’s getting pretty frustrating…”

“I can imagine that,” Hazel nodded. “I’m not a relationship expert by any means but there must be some reason why he reacted like that, right?”

“I guess so.” Calypso shrugged. “But… I don’t know. It could be anything. Maybe he’s worried about his friends.”

“I may be wrong but to me it kind of sounds like he wasn’t happy to hear about you and his friend because he might like you back. If he didn’t care at all, he wouldn’t be giving you silent treatment,” Hazel noted.

“You really think so?” Calypso, a tiny hope rising in her even though she knew she shouldn’t wish too much.

“Hey, why wouldn’t he?” Hazel nudged Calypso’s elbow. “Haven’t you noticed that some of the guys in our art class keep whispering about you? One of them actually asked me if I knew if you are dating anyone. They are all over you. Don’t worry, though, I told him that even if I knew it wasn’t my business to tell.” She smiled at her encouragingly.

“Oh… thanks for taking my side there. I had no idea… But why didn’t they ask me directly?” Calypso asked, a bit flustered.

“I have a couple of guesses,” Hazel replied. “Either they consider you a bit intimidating… because you are pretty and smart and what not… or they think that someone like you possibly couldn’t be single and wanted to make sure before asking you.”

“That… feels weird,” Calypso said quietly. “I am not used to being a center of attention. Or in general being noticed by people who don’t have something to do with my family.”

“But how?” Hazel asked. “You’re exactly the kind of person who the others will notice.”

“It’s a long story… one I don’t like sharing… but the short version is that when I was a teenager I didn’t get to leave my house unless it was something really urgent or necessary. I was basically a…” Calypso couldn’t finish the sentence, the reality of that situation hitting her still very hard whenever she thought about it.

“A hostage,” Hazel said, looking shocked. Calypso nodded as a response. “That’s… that’s awful.”

“It… yeah,” Calypso said sadly. “We had a big house so I did have room to do a lot of things there but… my communication with people other than those who worked or visited there was cut to minimum. But… my father had reasons for doing so… I can only blame myself.”

“What do you mean?” Hazel asked with confusion.

“I did something…” Calypso hesitated. “I’m so sorry, I’m getting tired of saying this but… I can’t tell you. I haven’t told anyone…”

“I see.” Hazel nodded. “I’ve had some difficult experiences as well so I know where the limits go… Don’t worry, I won’t ask more. But if you do ever want to talk, you can trust me.”

“Thank you,” Calypso said, giving Hazel a small smile.

“No problem. Hey,” Hazel decided to change the topic, “you gotta introduce me to this Leo of yours at some point. He sounds like an interesting guy.”

Even though Calypso knew Hazel was just teasing her in a friendly matter, she couldn’t help but say: “He’s not ‘my Leo’! He’s just a flatmate. And sometimes he can be quite a pain in my butt.”

“But you already confessed that you may or may not like him,” Hazel said, sipping her coffee calmly, smiling into her cup.

“Whatever,” Calypso mumbled, without realizing it sounding a whole lot like the young man she was thinking of. “Well, what about this Frank? When will I get to meet him?”

“He will be here soon so if you want to, you can tag along with us for a bit.” Hazel looked at her watch.

“Do you think that’s OK with him? I don’t want to be the third wheel or anything.” Calypso asked.

“No worries, I’m sure Frank will be happy to meet you too.”

“Oh… OK. If you guys don’t mind, then I might come with you. I am not feeling like going home quite yet.” Calypso sighed, thinking about the sulking boy back in her flat.

“Alright! And hey, Frank is a nice guy, I think you guys will get along.”

“OK, I believe you,” Calypso nodded.

The girls continued talking about other things after that until Frank called Hazel that he had gotten out of the work and was waiting for her nearby. He said he was cool with Calypso tagging along and soon she learned that Hazel’s description of a teddy bear in a real bear’s body was quite accurate. He and Calypso had a shared love for animals so they talked a good while about Frank’s internship and other things related to the topic. Hanging out with Hazel and Frank, Calypso thought that it felt good for her to notice that there were people who did seem to like her company despite her background; maybe there was hope that Leo and Annabeth would come around eventually too.

#caleo #leo valdez #calypso #heroes of olympus #percy jackson and the olympians #trials of apollo #my fics #caleo uni au

[jacqcrisis]

i feel like you're pretty biased in that quest post, can make every quest in FO sound bad if you just phrase it a certain way :/

Oh no, I am absolutely biased, but for good fucking reason.

Even if you boiled down the New Vegas companion quests to single lines, they still have a hell of a lot more going for them story wise then 80% of the Fallout 4 ones.

Lets compare two quests from each game, Lily Bowen’s in Fallout NV and Nick Valentine’s in Fallout 4. i pick these two because a) they are both non-humans who’s quests revolve around memories, b) they are diametrically opposed in terms of length and gameplay, and c) they both end in three choices.

Lily Bowen���s quest isn’t even really a quest as it isn’t marked in the game as one. All it encompasses is a short conversation ending in three choices for the player. All you have to do to start this ‘quest’ is a) see her go into a rampage as Leo and b) hear her listening to tapes of her and her grandkids before she became a mutant. Each choice has different consequences both good and bad, and making that choice is entirely up to what you personally think is more moral.

Do you tell her to keep taking her meds to become a more stable mutant. but effectively giving up her past humanity and family? Do you tell her to stop, eventually becoming worse and worse but fully able to remember her grandkids? Or do you tell her to keep taking the half dose, always muddled and confused but still able to cling to her memories as she has been?

 At the end of the game, you are shown what happens to Lily based on your choice. Her life is affected permanently by you and you have to live with that. Depending on what you choose, Lily either throws away those tapes, having gained clarity and stability from the meds, but no longer able to remember who is even on the tapes, she loses all sense of herself without the meds, becoming like every other Nightkin, or she continues as is, confused and unsure, eventually leaving the Mojave to try and find answers. 

Now Nick Valentine’s quest in comparison is gamewise long and with many different components. First you have to reach a certain affinity with him, and then he tells you about how the personality used for him was of a cop whose fiancee was brutally murdered. Even though this person was not Nick the android’s fiancee, he still feels the hurt and loss at her death and wants answers in regards to her killer. You have to travel across the wasteland to find 10 tapes. 

Once all 10 are found its revealed that his not-fiancee’s killer, Eddie Winters, is still alive 200 years later, having ghoulified himself, in a sealed bunker. Once he is found, you have three options, kill Eddie, help Nick kill Eddie, or Nick kills Eddie. No matter what you chose, Eddie will die and the quest ends by walking a few yards outside of the bunker to where Nick’s not-fiancee is buried and you have a short conversation. Nothing about him changes. There’s no real choices. There’s no endings you’ve influenced or questions the game made you ask yourself.

Compare and contrast. Lily is probably the weakest in terms of character in New Vegas as she is introduced as a joke when you first meet her. ‘Oh a mutant who thinks she’s a grandma! She thinks I’m her grandson, Billy! She’s wearing a funny hat!’ It makes the resulting revelation and choice even more of a gut punch. There was subtle build up to it because you knew all of the factors going in, just not how important they really were, and it made you view Lily in a new light and made you question if you had done right by her.

Nick started out as a really strong character, was extremely well written, so his quest should be just as strong but the result falls flat in comparison to him. There’s no real build up to it, there’s not much depth to it. I don’t think he even mentions having the not-fiancee memories before the quest begins.

The only F4 quest that holds a candle to NV is Danse. You spend time with him, you know how much he and his organization hates synths, you learn about how much he cares about his fallen friend and how much the BoS means to him, which are all things you learn BEFORE the quest begins, only to find out he’s everything he’s ever hated. And there are choices at the end! Do you kill him for the Brotherhood, convince Maxson to keep him around, or have him defect? Each of these is a moral choice on your part and makes you think, and would have a marked effect on Danse as a person. It makes you, the player, feel something for this person you’ve been putzing around with for hours at this point, which is what a backstory quest should, in my mind, do. It should be a culmination of everything you’ve come to learn about this person over the game. Which Danse’s quest absolutely does.

But that’s one companion. Out of 13. And one backstory quest. Out of 5. And the other four of those five are shallow, lackluster puddles in comparison. Cait is a psycho addict due to past trauma and you fix her addiction with a machine. Curie wants to be more human so you make her a synth. Macready has a sick son, made some bad choices because of that, and you need to kill two people after him and fetch a cure to send to the absent son.There’s little depth. There’s little nuance. There’s nothing that invokes thoughtful reflection, nothing that makes you wonder if you made the right choice. It’s just ‘here’s my problem, this is what you need to do to fix it, have my perk’.

Compare it to New Vegas, where even my 2nd least favorite companion, Boone, had such an evocative backstory quest that I was questioning why I didn’t like him. Over the course of the game, he went from ‘sad sack military boy who’s wife and unborn child were sold into slavery so he mercy killed them how edgy’ to ‘ex-soldier who has PTSD because he followed orders on a miscommunication that resulted in him actively participating in a mass slaughter of innocent civilians that haunts him to this day and you need to help him relive these memories, save that same settlement he once open fired on, and come out the other side with a new perspective on life for better or worse’. His ending can be anything from joining back up with his old unit in an effort to atone for past mistakes to committing suicide due to his apathetic nihilism over what he’s done, and that is all dependent on your choices as a player and the end slides have you confront that. 

Which is why I find Lily’s barely-a-quest quest and Nick’s multi-location, at least half an hour long quest so indicative of the two games and their differences. One was a moral choice that had you questions your own personal thoughts and feelings and in the end, face those consequences. 

The other was a glorified fetch quest. 

So am I biased? Yes. Do I have a good reason to be so? Abso-fucking-lutely. 

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fallout 4

[laurajameskinney]

Title: Dancing With The Devil

Rating: T for language

Characters: APH Hungary, APH Romania, APH Ukraine

Pairings: HunUkr, background RomBul

Summary: When college students Elizaveta and Vladimir attempt to summon Satan, they're in for the shock of their lives when a completely different demon shows up instead due to a botched ritual.

Additional Notes: Hi so literally no one asked for this demon hunukr au and yet here is is, i hope yall like it (if you even read it)

Read it on: ao3 , ff.n

“Grandma, how did you and Gramma meet?” a small child asked of an old woman sitting in a rocking chair, looking for all the world as cliche as can be.

“Ah yes, I still remember it clearly now,” she responded. “It all began back in high school,” she started, only to be cut off by a loud groan.

“Ugh, we get it Grandma, you and Gramma met in high school and fell in love. Gross. Not much of a story there,” a different child whined.

“Be quiet, Peter, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” a little girl snapped from beside him.

“Wendy is right, Peter, that isn’t what happened at all. But Wendy, dear, it isn’t necessary to be rude just because you’re right,” an elderly woman reprimanded gently as she stepped onto the porch.

Both Wendy and Peter mumbled “sorry Gramma”s and hung their heads, before the woman they had called “Gramma” kindly  ruffled their hair.

“Now, if you bunch are talking about what I think you’re talking about, then it’s a tale much better told over milk and cookies, don’t you agree Eliza?”

“Hm...I don’t know, Katyusha, what kind of cookies are they?” the woman now dubbed Eliza asked playfully of “Gramma”, craning her neck around nearly backwards to see her face.

“Your favourite, Eliza, just like always” Katyusha answered before kissing her sweetly on the lips, much to the disgust of Peter and Wendy.

“Guys, Grandma and Gramma kissing isn’t gross! Love is art!” the first child declared passionately.

“That’s lovely, Leo dear, but I think your cousins disagree with you. Now come along all of you, inside,” Katyusha said sweetly, causing the three children present to jump up and rush in the door.

“Come on Elizaveta, you too! I’m sure you want to tell the kids how we met, right? After all, there are some parts only you can tell!” Katyusha encouraged, pulling Elizaveta up by her arm.

“I suppose…” Elizaveta said playfully, a youthful spark lighting in her eyes despite her apparent old age.

She stood up, and the two women headed inside to be met with the clatters of glasses. Katyusha laughed softly and asked everyone to settle down, passing out napkins and glasses, and then warm heart-shaped cookies, fresh out of the oven.

“Grandma, Grandma, you were gonna tell us how you met, right?” Leo asked impatiently.

“Yes, I was, wasn’t I?” Elizaveta sighed. “Well, it was a night not unlike any other, years and years ago…” she begane

“Vladimir, this is stupid,” a young Elizaveta criticized  in annoyance. “I’m almost certain that Satan doesn’t exist, and even if he does, there’s no way that you’ll be able to summon him.: “I bet you’re just saying that ‘cause you’re scared,” Vladimir said, not looking up from the satanic symbols he was chalking onto the floor.

Elizaveta huffed, pulling her arms tighter around herself in an attempt to ward off the chill permeating the air of the run-down old church they were in. She wasn’t scared, she refused to be - but she was cold.

“Why did you even bring me here? It’s not like I actually care about your occult shit.”

“Because, Eliza, the summoning ritual needs the blood of a virgin to work, and, well, we both know that discounts me,” Vladimir said with a smirk that was partway smug, partway triumphant, and partway practically begging for Elizaveta to punch his teeth in.

“Shove it, Vlad. Just because you got yourself a hot Bulgarian boyfriend doesn’t give you the right to make fun of my love life - or my sex life! - no matter how abysmal it may seem to be,” Elizaveta snapped.

Vladimir raised an eyebrow and looked at Elizaveta, before continuing to draw out his summoning circle. “And besides, I’m perfectly fine with the way things are right now! I don’t need anyone else to be happy!” she squaked indignantly, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself than anyone else.

A few moments passed in silence.

“Ugh, could you hurry up?” Elizaveta demanded, letting out a breath of mist. “I’m freezing over here!”

“If you’re so cold, you should have brought a jacket or something,” Vladimir responded tartly.

“It was warm when we left, but it took for-fucking-ever to get up to this decrepit old hellhole - excuse me, I meant sad excuse for a former church,” she gripped.

“Well, I’m done now, could you come over here?”

Elizaveta harumphed and made her way over to Vladimir in an almost leisurely fashion, holding her palm out to him when she reached his side. Vladimir, in turn, pulled out a knife and, dragging Eliza’ hand to hover over the center of the summoning circle, drew it roughly across her palm, causing blood to spill out and onto the demonic markings.

Hissing in pain, Elizaveta quickly pulled her hand back, clutching it to her chest and backing away as Vladimir started chanting, ancient words long forgotten flowing from his lips as easily as the blood did from Elizaveta’s new wound.

As Vladimir continued chanting, shadows started moving around the room, seeming to cause a chill wind to blow. The young man ignored this, as he did many things, but Elizaveta drew in on herself, eyes darting nervously around the ramshackle church. Shadows weren’t supposed to move on their own, or cause wind.

She decided right then and there that now was an awful good time to start being afraid.

Slowly, the shadows coalesced in the centre of the circle to form the body of a young woman who couldn’t be much older than Elizaveta herself. She had short-cropped blonde hair, and was fairly thick-set, wearing all black clothes that seemed at once both tight fitting and loose enough to flow around her.

Elizaveta suddenly found it strangely hard to breathe.

The young woman waved her arm in front of Vladimir’s face. Vladimir didn’t react, as his eyes were closed. “Uh, sir, I think you summoned the wrong demon,” she said rather meekly.

“Mister!” she tried again. “I really don’t think you were looking for me!” the blonde tried again, before noticing Elizaveta in the corner and waving desperately at her.

Still quite unable to untie her tongue, Elizaveta nevertheless forced her slightly shell-shocked body to walk over behind Vladimir, before roughly shoving his shoulder.

“Hey!” he barked indignantly, beginning to wheel around to face Eliza before seeing the other person in the room and stopping short.

“You aren’t Satan,” he observed, rather dumbly in Elizaveta’s opinion. Not that anyone had asked for it, of course, but she was always willing to give it.

“No of course I’m not Satan!” the young woman objected.

“But how did I mess up? I’m certain I had everything this time!” Vladimir wailed.

The blonde backed away at his shouts, and he stopped. He may have been an oblivious piece of shit in Elizaveta’s humble opinion, but even he could tell when he was scaring someone.

The blonde looked down at the markings on the floor. “Well, everything here looks about right...you did use the blood of a virgin, right?” “Yeah, duh. Unless Eliza had sex with someone in the five minutes between saying I needed the blood of a virgin and making the sacrifice,” Vladimir replied sarcastically.

“Er, um, well...when rituals ask for the blood of a virgin, they aren’t actually talking about sex..” the woman trailed off. “They’re talking about previous summonings, and - and anything else, really, even failed rituals count,” she added in a whisper.

Vladimir dragged his hand down his face, sighing exasperatedly. Of course attempting to summon Cthulhu in the tenth grade would come back to haunt them, of course it would.

Suddenly, the young woman rushed over to Elizaveta and grasped her hands. “You were the one that made the blood sacrifice, right?”

“Y-yeah,” the brunette stammered out, slightly in shock due to the proximity of such a woman who was, in Elizaveta’s opinion, so amazingly beautiful.

“Well then, I have to do any one thing that you ask of me, so long as it’s within my power,” she paused, blowing out a puff of air. “Unfortunately, I don’t really have much power. I’m really low-level, which means I can only do the most basic illusions and stuff. Do you have anything you’d like me to do? Elizaveta shook her head no. The two of them - she and Vladimir, that is - had been attempting to summon Satan to ensure success at college, but if the blonde was telling the truth, that would be far out of her abilities.

“Well, you’re hurt,” she said, holding up Elizaveta’s palm. “I know! I’ll protect you, then! Make sure you don’t get hurt. It’s a dangerous world out there!”

“W-what? No! I can protect myself, thank you very much!” Elizaveta exclaimed. She may have been tongue-tied, but she would never let someone think that she was in any way incapable of defending herself.

Vladimir winced slightly, no doubt remembering the many times Elizaveta had demonstrated her defensive capabilities before.

“Oh…” the blonde chewed her bottom lip nervously. “Well, see, this is kind of awkward now, because me saying that sort of bound my life to yours.”

“It what?” Elizaveta shouted, yanking her hands out of the other’s.

“Ah-ah-ah you two, no fighting!” Vladimir chimed in, pushin in-between the two women. “And Eliza - no I don’t care that you hate me calling you that, shut up - what our new friend here is saying is that now, her health depends on your safety, basically. The long and short of it is that if she fails to protect you, then she also gets hurt.

The silence hung in the air, thick, smothering, and unbroken, or at least until Vladimir clapped his hands. “Well then, demon-lady, it looks like you’re going to be spending a lot of time with us, so we should probably all introduce ourselves. I’m Vladimir, and this charmer you see in front of you is Elizaveta. And you would be?”

“Yekaterina. I’m pleased to make your acquaintances, Elizaveta, Vladimir. I do hope I won’t be much of a bother,” Yekaterina said with a gracious dip of the head. Elizaveta would never have thought a demon could ever be so polite.

“Oh, I assure you, you’ll be no bother to us at all. In fact, you’re welcome to stay with us,” Vladimir offered.

“That would be lovely, thank you,” Yekaterina said before walking out of the church with a quick “places of worship make me uncomfortable, I’ll be outside.”

For one fleeting second, Elizaveta allowed herself to think that maybe, just maybe, Vladimir had offered shelter to Yekaterina out of the kindness of his heart, but then he turned around with the absolute most shit-eating grin she’d ever seen and said “So. Are you still so content with the empty void that is your love life?”

“Grandma, you can’t just end there!” Peter whined.

“I can and I will, Peter, Leo’s father is here to pick all of you up. Besides, I thought you didn’t want to know how Katyusha and I met,” Elizaveta responded playfully.

Leo frowned pensively, face comically serious for the nine year old that they were. “Storytelling is a form of art, you know. Can you tell us what happened next time?”

Yekaterina laughed, ruffling their hair affectionately. “Of course we will, Leo. Now, all of you get your things, okay?” The old couple stood in their doorway, waving the children off as they left. “Bye! Have fun at the pool!” Elizaveta called out, lowering her arm as the car faded into the distance.

The old woman sighed, resting her head on Katyusha’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around her waist. The blonde, in turn, rubbed soft circles onto the back of her hand and entangled her fingers with those of the other.

“How long has it been?” Elizaveta murmured. “Sixty? Sixty-five years since that night?”

“I’d put it closer to seventy,” Katyuska whispered.

Elizaveta let out another sigh. It was suddenly hitting very hard very fast just how very old the two of them were, and frankly, neither of them liked the reminder.

#hetalia #aph #hetalia fanfiction #aph hungary #aph romania #aph ukraine #hunukr #demon au #human au #(?) #idk #hunukr fanfiction #background rombul #*shows up ten years late with this*

[romaniassexdungeon]

LeoJidemic- gay and terror

Day two- social media

Pairing: LeoJi

Second fill for @rarepairsonice

I’m gonna be honest- most of these are LeoJi. This was the one that first gave me the idea to fill these prompts out as fics and not art, when I kept thinking of what Leo and Guang Hong would say watching a certain bad film together, and how they would probably make a habit out of watching awful films and laughing about it, so at least something good came out of me watching Birdemic. Not a lot, but something.

Unfortunately, it meant I had to watch the film again to write this and now I wanna die. You might want to have the film open in another tab to understand what’s going on.

Warnings: alcohol and some sexual humour

...

There were moments in Guang Hong’s life when he knew the best course of action would be to say a firm ‘no, that sounds like a terrible idea and something I’ll regret’ but deep in his heart, he knew the only thing he’d be saying was ‘let’s do this Leo. That’s a great idea, Leo’. ...I’m in love with you, Leo and would do anything for you down to watching the worst films in existence.

At this point, Leo didn’t even need ‘Viktor Nikiforov will be there’ to convince Guang Hong to do the reckless and ridiculous. He could do it with his own charm. Nothing Leo suggested they did was something Guang Hong would be genuinely uncomfortable with, or either illegal or immoral, just things that made him question what exactly his heart was doing here. It was now thanks to Leo that he’d taken Viktor Nikiforov’s actual real life boxers to the face; had stayed up til four in the morning swapping local memes when he had an exam the next day, purely because it was fun; prank-called half their friends; both dressed up as playboy bunnies last halloween to go trick-or-treating, which ended up in them receiving more money than candy; and end up buying a whole horde of stuffed animals every time they met up without fail.

Still, this would be a laugh. Sure, he’d hate himself, his life and worry for the future of cinema, but there would be a few laughs along the way, right?

Right?

Movie ‘dates’ between them were commonplace now, squeezed into whatever time they both had together that wasn’t interrupted by school, college, practice or much-needed sleep. First thing on the agenda was both their top favourites, get that squared out of the way, then films that had been banned or censored in each other’s countries and new releases neither had seen yet. When the pool of possible films to watch started becoming a little underwhelming, Leo suggested they go all out with finding films so bad they were an adventure. As something of a film snob, Guang Hong wasn’t sure he could see where the humour was there. Even when Leo put on ‘the Room’, Guang Hong had mostly been terrified. For humanity and every film industry in the world. It was agony. Torture. Only the start of a string of terrible ideas.

Over time, Guang Hong did find these late nights all the more enjoyable, no school or practice the next day, curled under his bedsheets in his and Leo’s own little world. Well, maybe Leo couldn’t be there in person, but Guang Hong could cuddle up to his tablet. Between Leo’s jokes and some genuinely unbelievable moments, Guang Hong found himself having to stifle laughter more often. He still felt bad for the world though.

There was no way one could not laugh in mild terror at the poorly animated Titanic musical with the rapping dog, though Leo’s laughter seemed to turn to sobbing at the singing mice. The other Titanic musical, the one where no one ended up dying, created more confusion than humour though, but even they had to laugh at the ridiculous plot. Foodfight was just straight up disgusting though, same with the bee-human relationship in Bee Movie.

And now, all Guang Hong had to do was read the title of the youtube video on their shared screen to know he was in for a long night.

Birdemic.

Birdemic…

Bird… demic...

BIRD-FUCKING-DEMIC?

Or to give it it’s proper title: Birdemic: shock and terror.

Shock and terror seemed to be pretty apt words here.

“Where do you find these?” he groaned.

On a webcam in the corner, Leo just shrugged. “Internet.”

“Why can’t you watch hentai like a normal person?”

“We can watch some of that together if it floats your boat, babe,” Leo told him slyly.

“Nah, my parents might walk in. Not that I’d want them to walk in and see me watching this either.”

“Shall we start then? I’m in the mood for some self-loathing.”

Guang Hong chuckled. “I’m not but play away.”

“Let’s do this.” Leo hit the play button, and after some poorly animated company logos, Guang Hong was greeted with a car scene. Not a car chase, but a guy driving his car along a country lane. For the first four minutes of the film. That was it. There were credits, of course, and some calming music; an overture? Really? Didn’t that go out of style in the sixties or something? Okay, not a terrible start, but it was a little dull.

“My favourite bit so far is the Portuguese subtitles,” Leo commented. “I think whoever wrote them’s brain broke from this.”

“I don’t speak Portuguese,” replied Guang Hong sadly.

“Neither can I, technically, but you don’t really have to to understand a sarcastic ‘Ator 10/10’,” he gave a slightly worried smile, “I should warn you, I’ve only seen one scene from this beforehand and… we’re in for a treat, let me tell you.”

“Yay,” Guang Hong groaned, “camera’s a bit… lopsided.”

“So’s his parking,” replied Leo once the overture had finally stopped and what was presumably the main character got out of his car.

“He looks lost.”

“And confused.”

When the main character finally entered a cafe, the waitress greeted him… or what Guang Hong thought was meant to be a greeting. It seemed more like a threat. Who edited this? “What the-”

“I’m gonna need to replay that.” Yup, the waitress definitely seemed to shout ‘hi’ at the protagonist. What did he ever do to her? Was it going to cut to a ‘one month earlier’ scene of him leaving a lousy tip?

“Why does the audio keep cutting out?” he asked.

“Because someone apparently got their cinematography degree free in a cereal box.”

“I wish those were really a thing.”

“I wish this wasn’t a thing.”

I wish we were a thing, Guang Hong’s brain slyly told him. He hoped he’d not said that out loud. It was hard to tell this late at night.

“Hot girl alert!” cried Leo, breaking Guang Hong’s heart ever so slightly. “What’s she doing in a movie like this?”

“Probably can’t act.”

“Yeah...”

“Did he just get up without ordering anything to chase after her? Who does that?”

“Yeah, wake up and smell the restraining order already!”

“He’s so creepy,” Guang Hong whined.

“And you were right, she can’t act,” replied Leo, “I mean, he’s still the worst, but-”

“Lee Seung Gil trying to be sexy is less wooden than him,” the boy finished helpfully.

“He’s creeping me out too,” Leo wrinkled his nose.

“I’m a fashion model.” “And a beautiful one too.”

“Ever seen an ugly model?” asked Leo.

“He’s running after her again?”

Leo burst out laughing. “She looks so uncomfortable leave her alone!”

“So are we just watching his day now?” asked Guang Hong after a few minutes, “like, his whole boring day?”

“Seems so.”

“Give this film all the awards. All of them.”

“Oh good, now he’s at work. Fucking riveting.” Leo flopped back in his chair, giving a groan like a dying buffalo.

“At least it’s going well from him.” The protagonist had started cheering, but even that sounded fake and half-assed. “I hope his office is more than fifty feet away from any modelling studios.”

“Speaking of which,” Leo nodded at a shot of said studio, “let’s see how she’s getting on.”

“Are we just watching her have photos taken in different clothes now? Yay.”

“Oooh, she got signed by Victoria’s Secret.”

“That easy, huh?”

“So they’re letting everyone’s dreams come true before they’re killed in the Birdemic? That’s nice of them.”

A few moments later, and Leo burst out laughing. “She has a flip phone? What the hell? Even my grandma has a smart phone.”

“This conversation’s so fake I’m surprised Phichit isn’t using it as makeup.” He didn’t know why he said that; Phichit was lovely. He’d probably have laughed at that anyway.

“That’s mean,” Leo chided, “they’re not very good at splicing each shot together though. Wow.”

And a few moments even later, Guang Hong was watching a basketball scene, for some reason. Or two guys giving up playing basketball because of a heatwave… in winter? Okay. “‘A day without sex is a day wasted man’? What on earth-”

“A day watching this film is a day wasted.”

“I had cake today; I wouldn’t consider that a day wasted.”

“I wish I had cake.”

“I wish we were watching something else.”

The next scene, however, was even more absurd.

“This guy’s installing a solar panel… is that all there was to that scene?”

“Seems so,” Leo gave a shrug.

“Where are the birds anyway? You promised me a birdemic, de la Iglesia.”

“Give it some time. There’s the bad romance plot to get out of the way first.”

And bad romance plot there was, complete with dates devoid of all chemistry. Really, it was the characters repeating pretty much what had happened in the movie already, with bad audio. It was so boring, in fact, that Leo left halfway through to make himself a Margarita. The cocktail, not the pizza. Guang Hong didn’t blame him, but it also meant Leo missed an actual moment with some chemistry involving the love interest talk about her cat.

“If I could afford it, I’d have at least ten of them.”

It was then that Guang Hong wondered, in horror, if this was actually a webcam filming one of Yuri and Otabek’s dates. He was going to throw up.

When Leo came back, complete with alcoholic drink, Guang Hong requested he pause the movie so he could sneak into the kitchen and grab a milkshake. Maybe they could make a drinking game out of it. The next scene involved Love Interest [he couldn’t remember any of their names] summarizing to her mother everything that happened. Leo downed his cocktail and went to make another.

“Did her mom suggest she get herself a sugar daddy?” he asked when they’d resumed watching.

“Best character in the whole damn film.” Guang Hong wondered if that’s what Yuuri’s mom had told him at some point.

“Please don’t let the two friends do it,” whined Leo, “I’m not sure I could take the weirdness.”

“Why does she have one plain white poster with ‘imagine peace’ on it? Who has that in their room?”

“She’s hot too,” Leo mumbled.

“If only she could act… if only any of them could...”

The next scene almost broke Guang Hong. “Are they just gonna… keep clapping… this whole time?”

“Whilst the audio keeps cutting out? Oh God.”

“Your God cannot help you anymore,” Guang Hong moaned.

“No really, that was the whole meeting? Them all clapping? Who made this?”

“Oh no wait, the guy’s friend has a remote controlled car. Think that was in his briefcase?” Guang Hong giggled, “it’s what I would take to a meeting.” Oh boy, did he just love Perpetually Horny Friend.

“-Chicks love cars, if you wanna get into their pants you better have a nice, hot ferrari.” “She’s my hot ferrari.”

“You’re my hot ferrari, Jiji,” said Leo with a lopsided grin, now on his third Margarita. Guang Hong really needed to have a word with him about that nickname...

“You’re mine, treasure.” Sometimes Guang Hong didn’t know if what they had was bromance or just straight up romance. That was also something he needed to talk to Leo about at some point, and was looking forward to it less than explaining Leo kept affectionately referring to him as ‘penis’. It was funny when they were alone, less so when walking down a busy street in Shanghai.

“Wow, a double date to see ‘an inconvenient truth’, how romantic.” Leo rolled his eyes. “And is that girl wearing an ‘imagine peace’ t-shirt?”

“Of course, guy who wants ferrari how wants an environmentally friendly car. This by any chance trying to push a clean energy agenda?”

“Maybe. Though to be fair, when I saw ‘an inconvenient truth’ I wanted to live in a cave.”

“If they wanted to make more of an impact with their global warming message, they should’ve set it here instead.”

“Is that guy’s friend talking about sex again?” Leo pulled a face, “he makes Chris look like a nun.”

“Funny image. Wish there were birds in this.”

“Give it time.”

So Guang Hong did. What he got instead was more stiff, lifeless romance right up to a drawn out dance scene in an incredibly empty bar. Seriously, just the main couple and the guy singing. Not to mention the dancing was less than impressive. Or was it impressive in how bad it is? It was like watching his parents, or a drunk Yuuri. No wait, drunk Yuuri was way more entertaining.

“I know what my next short programme music will be,” Leo commented with a laugh.

“Not if I do it first,” replied Guang Hong, grinning stupidly. He’d even steal the couple’s crap dance moves.

That scene, as long winded as it was, ended all too soon for them, and now they were faced with what could be the most awkward, wooden sex scene in the history of film. No really, it just looked like someone was filming to random people making out in their underwear. It was just unedited kissing on a bed… Oh God, was Leo showing him porn? He wished it was them in that motel. Was that what Leo was trying to say?

He didn’t have time to dwell on it though because, at last, he was greeted with the birdemic. And boy was that worth the wait. He’d almost jumped out of bed at the sudden onslaught of screeching from what he assumed was poorly-animated birds.

“Holy fuck,” whispered Leo.

“Are those birds… dive bombing into houses and exploding… whilst making plane noises?” Guang Hong’s brain was on the verge of melting at this point. Oh, and the explosion effects were just as bad as the birds themselves. This was hell for him, but at the same time there was something glorious about it.

No wait, the animations of the birds hovering in the air was the worst special effect. He was going to cry.

“They’re just floating in front of those houses,” hissed Leo in disbelief, peeking out between his fingers, “there’s no attacking animation.”

“I know this is probably not what needs to be focused on,” said Guang Hong, “the couple are wearing the exact same clothes from the night before. They’re not even rumpled or anything, not even their hair.”

“Must’ve got tired from sucking face and not done anything else. Just gone straight to sleep.”

“Weak.”

Leo’s eyebrows shot up. “Christ. I’m almost scared to find out what it would be like to make lo-”

“Oh I’d cover you like a birthday cake. I would condition your hair with my jizz.”

“Dude, same,” Leo drew out the last word, grinning stupidly. “I’d bend you over like a car seat.” No wonder Phichit- along with everyone else- had no idea if they were dating or not.

“It’s late and I’m being silly,” Guang Hong tried to explain.

Leo wiggled his eyebrows and held up his glass, “don’t worry about it; I’ve not been adding lime juice to the last five of these.”

“You’ve had five...”

“Have you been watching this damn film?”

“Not recently, we’ve been talking.”

“Well the best scene’s about to come up,” Leo rubbed his hands in anticipation.

Guang Hong’s eyes flickered back to the video on screen. “Who’s this dude and why is he collecting coat hangers?”

“To fight the birds.”

“...Coat hangers?”

“I know right? They’re birds, not abortions.”

“Leo!”

Leo held up his glass again. “Five! Remember?”

“Bloody hell...”

“Here we go,” Leo grinned with glee and Guang Hong’s brain finally melted.

They were swatting at birds… with coat hangers. If that wasn’t enough, the birds were just poor animations, barely moving on the top layer of the shot. They weren’t hitting them, and the birds kept flapping, stationary. This was it, this was what was going to kill him.

“What the fuck,” he whispered, covering his face with his hands and keeping the tablet propped on his knees.

“Told you!” Leo had actually fallen off his chair laughing. He was purple in the face by the time he’d managed to climb back up.

“How long of this crap is there left to go?” he moaned.

“About forty minutes. Why?”

“I’m not sure I can make it,” Guang Hong wiped his forehead, “the birds got me… go on… without me… tell my wife I love her...”

“Babe please, hold on for me!”

“I… can’t...” And Guang Hong collapsed on his pillow, eyes shut and tongue lolling.

“Come on man stop fucking around we still have forty minutes of this shit to go.”

#leoji #leo de la iglesia #guang hong ji #guang hong x leo #rarepairsonice #yuri on ice fic

[jillmckenzie1]

The Silver Lining – Online Dating on the Road

Once upon a time, in a galaxy not so far away, I came across a guy on Bumble who immediately proclaimed in his bio that faith was the number quality that he was looking for in a woman. Okay. He then proceeded to say how much he loved positivity and hated photo filters: “Real is beautiful.” You got it, bud. I second the filter hate train. I mean, I’ll send you a dumbass video of me with cheeseburgers circling around my head, but a hard no on the cat ears for public visibility. In true Stephanie fashion, I led with: “Should I start sending all my Snapchat filter selfies now or later?” (don’t worry, the answer is yes, I do amuse myself). Here’s the part where you sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. His response: “Funny, Funny. I wonder what a vagina looks like filtered? Huh [insert light bulb emoji]. I have an idea. Test it out for us. Send me one both ways. I’ll let you know [insert smiley face emoji].”

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Yep, this actually happened. Seriously. I responded and questioned why, on any planet in any point in time, he believed this response would be an acceptable way to speak to a woman. Ever. I recall using words like “disgusting” and “degrading” (I’m sure the screenshot is somewhere deep in the abyss of my iPhotos if you need evidence). His response? He was joking. Right. Super funny, dude. Real funny. Report. Block. Terminate. Bye.

If you’re single, you’re not surprised by this story. If you’re in a relationship, I hope to God you are completely astounded. And, while I often think dating apps are the absolute devil, it is also the current means to an end. Are you even a real single person if you are not on a dating app? Not even kidding. Okay, slight over exaggeration, but truly, never in our wildest teen years did us 30-something-year-olds imagine using our phones to score a significant other (AIM, sure, but not our phones).

So, I exist in my current reality. Fact: I’m single. Fact: I’m transient. Fact: I’d like to be in a relationship. Fact: I don’t care whether or not that relationship exists in a transient or stationary state. So, yes, if our vibe is high and you want to hop in the Airstream and explore every end of the earth, great. If you work in a job you love in a city that you call home, ask me to stay. Let’s ride the wave. Together. Because, seriously, doing life with someone who really gets you better than anyone else ever could is the real damn deal.

Back to dating. I don’t think anyone actually dates anymore. I am actually convinced that it’s not really a thing these days. There’s like pre-dating in which you entertain the idea of actually dating. And then there is friend-zoning or jumping deep into the abyss of quasi-matrimony. I speak with experience from the former, not the latter. And, mark my words, “friends with benefits” is so hot right now. I actually went toe-to-toe with two guy friends at a bar last weekend in a pursuit to convince them that the typical Millennial male is more often than not seeking a friend with whom he can simply have sex than an actual committed relationship (let’s just say they didn’t disagree). Because, I actually do believe that most men do not want to sleep around with handfuls of random girls. They seem to be perplexed by their own paradoxical existence of not wanting anything serious (i.e. being forced to attend your grandma’s 80th birthday with you) while simultaneously wanting to have sex as much as humanly possible.

Let me present to you exhibit A.

I moved to Denver in my Airstream last spring. I met a guy on Bumble who happened to be on the way to a bachelor party for the weekend. I assumed we would engage in an hour-long text conversation that would end with him asking me to send nudes or with him sending me a completely unsolicited dick pic (because, yes, as you can assume from the above scenario, guys really do that). I’d tell him to (a) Google a nude, any nude (most certainly not mine), if that’s what he wanted, or (b) I’d cuss him out for exposing himself like a disturbed and arrogant asshole, and I’d add another tally to my list of douchebags found in the wild.

Welp, surprisingly, he proved me wrong. Beyond that, he actually seemed interested in who I was as a human being, and he proceeded to text me non-stop over the course of the weekend. While at a bachelor party (I feel that this detail needs repeating).

So, he returns home three days later and we commit to actually meeting face to face (like, whoa). And, for lack of a better word, it’s flawless. We’re super funny together (priority one), conversation is natural, and chemistry is fire. We hang out for a few weeks, which inevitably leads to sex. Immediately, he drops the bomb: let’s be friends. Let’s. Be. Friends? Oh wait, I’m sorry, correction, let’s be BEST friends. Perfect. Great. Because, I’m really lacking in the best friend department (insert massive eye roll here).

At this point, I assume it will die out. I assume that he used the nice guy “let’s be friends” card in an attempt to save my feelings and he will vanish as quickly as he had appeared. But, no. He quite literally continues to pursue my friendship. For a month he asks me to do nearly everything with him. He also proceeds to pay for everything: climbing, concerts, movies. Let’s note here that he also proceeds to take my clothes off on a semi-regular basis (despite his constant commentary on us needing rules to prevent such happenings). Final bomb: after a Luke Bryan concert, while sitting on a bench enveloped by a Colorado night sky, he tells me that he loves my soul. I’m sorry, what? Like, we are dating, bro. We. Are. DATING. I don’t care what you title me, but let’s call this thing by its Urban Dictionary definition. He follows up this statement with the fact that I simply deserve better. One, I think I am being dumped for the first time without ever actually having been in an established relationship. Two, fuck off. No one gets to tell me what I deserve. I decide that. So, no, I don’t deserve better. You simply deserve less based on your own evaluation of whatever this thing is that we’re doing. Say that, please. Own that.

So, spring came. And, spring went.

Summer roared in like a lion, and I committed myself to rock faces and mountain peaks, two things that I find to be (surprisingly) much more predictable than men. I also dove even deeper into my work (don’t worry, the digital dating gods still delivered amidst my commitment to my professional projects).

Enter exhibit B.

As a freelance creative director and brand strategist, I work remotely for all of my clients. Idaho. California. Kentucky. Texas. I sometimes wonder if I have a subconscious goal to knock off all 50 states. With all that being said, I met a guy in another state who pursued me completely on his own accord. My vision had always been to travel with my Airstream, but I was never 100% certain on dates. This guy gets my number, he uses round-about questions to engage me in some witty banter, and low and behold he says, “Move down here and I’ll fix all your dating problems.” Wow. Bold statement. I like it. So, after a couple months in this state of flirting euphoria, I commit (amongst a sea of many factors, but I’m intrigued by what’s happening here). He calls me pet names and we have running jokes, and if you know me, these are the keys to my heart. So, I’m smitten kitten. Without any expectation of what will actually become of it. If anything.

The point here is that I show up. I have the luxury of saying yes and then doing something about it. I want to be next to him, so I choose that. Because his voice brings this uncanny smile to my face, and when his name appears on my iPhone notifications, there is a simultaneous level of excitement and comfort. He is fireworks, and he is coming home. And the beauty lies not only in the feeling, but also in the reciprocation of the feeling. Because, there is zero bone in my body that has interpreted anything that he’s told me as being untrue.

Until I’m there. Until I’m standing in front of him begging for every inch of contact. And, that alone becomes the culmination of months of aggressive flirting. Me. Begging (like, seriously, just kiss me before I scream). Because he likes me, but he doesn’t know. I’m sorry, what? Yes, he likes me, but he doesn’t know. Because, self-admittedly, he is a tease. And, he likes it, even though he’s not proud of it (his words, not mine). Perfect. Great. Because, my character flaw is not consuming enough water daily. The effect of this flaw on other people: zero.

At this point, I need to clarify two things. One, I respect people who have an awareness about what they do not know. There is nothing wrong with not knowing. I would take harsh honesty over a sugar-coated lie ten times out of ten. My frustration or disappointment or bewilderment exists in the actions that suggest otherwise. I get it, the pursuit is fun, but if you are not ready to take the elk out of the woods after the hunt, then why are you going hunting in the first place? Terrible metaphor, by the way, but rolling with it. Two, I do not believe in forcing anything in life. I spent far too many years making things happen in the pursuit of checking off items from some proverbial checklist (which is entirely bullshit, by the way). So, for someone not to choose me does not devastate my being. Yes, I have feelings. Lots of them. Too many of them, probably (hello, Leo over here). But, in a world where we get to choose everything (for argument’s sake), I’m not into forcing anyone into a choice that involves me.

What I have observed in this last eighteen months of singledom is that no one wants to commit. To anything. There is no need to commit to anything. Most guys are on dating apps to have sex. Okay, rephrase, most guys are on dating apps posing like they want something substantial in order to get sex. I actually have the most respect for bios that read, “If I’m being honest, just looking to hook up.” Bravo. Kudos to you, dude. Because, I have had my own seasons of wanting more and wanting less. And, there is nothing wrong with either choice. There is nothing wrong with existing in either space. It’s the lack of honesty that burns me to my core. Stop flirting with me if it’s not going anywhere. Stop wasting my time. I don’t need more friends off of Bumble, or sliding into my DMs, or through obscure means of getting my phone number. Truly. I’ve reached my lifetime quota after 34 years.

In tandem, what I have observed in the last eighteen months about myself is that I am, most certainly, a lover and believer of words. And, that is the crux. That online dating, or simply just dating, is this whole show of words. That are so easily believed. And it’s just all shit. If I had a dollar for every guy who suggested running away with me in my Airstream, I would have been able to pay straight cash for my new F-150 a few weeks ago. Seriously. There’s one in LA, and a couple in New Jersey, a handful in Texas, and so many in Colorado that I’ve actually stopped counting. Because the minute I say, “Okay, I’m calling you on this statement,” my experience indicates that they can’t live up to it.

Great, tell me all about your fantasies, homeboy, only to ghost two days later (or, better yet, I find out about your undying love for your current girlfriend on your second to last Instagram post from five days ago). Newsflash, smoother operator, this is my actual life over here. Hope you enjoyed your glimpse.

So, yes, I’m attempting to not grow cynical. I’m also attempting to unpack two very real personal questions. One, if a game must be played in order to win the affection of another, and that game requires me to act outside of my normal state, then am I even winning if I do “win?” For example, guy articulates that he doesn’t know if he wants anything. Then, the same guy asks for me to bring him food because he’s stuck at work. I show love through service, so naturally, my being is dying to deliver said food. But, guy advice (based on my current inner circle) is usually, don’t bring him the food: “He’s using you. If he can’t say that he wants you, but is willing to get favors from you, show him that you don’t have time to do him favors without him giving you a respectable level of commitment.” And, this is fair. This actually makes sense. But, still, I deliver the food (yep, that’s me) because, yep, that IS me. And, I don’t want to be anything but myself. Ever.

Two, what is my responsibility to give people space to be honest and themselves but also to guard my own heart in that process? I believe in ease. I believe that there are certain things in life that mysteriously and beautifully fall into place. I’d like to believe that a romantic relationship would unfold in a similar fashion. But, if this guy says he doesn’t know and then proceeds to engage with me in a fashion that suggests otherwise, should I believe his actions or his words? And, the fact that I’m asking that question is my answer, right? If the right person were standing in front of me, I’m confident I wouldn’t have to be choosing between his actions and his words in the first place because there would be an alignment in both areas that carries the level of integrity that I demand for in my own self. Yet, here I am, FaceTiming my best male friend at 7:32pm on a Wednesday night to ask how to respond to the 47th text message from a guy who just doesn’t know what it is that he wants from me, making me perplexed on how to proceed with my own verbiage and actions.

At this point, let’s add the nomadic element to the mix. And, I am quite confident that therein lies a bigger piece to this commitment-phobic puzzle. Because, it is easy to fall into a routine with someone who resides within your city limits and has a similar schedule to your scripted life. It is an entirely different thing to choose a person who has the freedom to leave. To ask someone to stay requires a deeper level of commitment. It means that someone is choosing for me to do life alongside him, and it means that we are taking off into the sunset together or I am abandoning the road to call someone my home. Ultimately, that choice is my desire. Because, the more I embark on adventures alone, the narrower the gap becomes for me to experience those things for the first time with someone else.

And, I’m starting to question whether or not anything is actually beautiful without it being shared, without it being seen through two sets of eyes in the same moment, if anything is real without the conversation of that thing existing between two coherent bodies.

So, I continue to sit and manifest these desires in the belief that, one day, I’ll be done with the exhibits. That, one day, someone will choose me, and I will choose him back. Without force. Without fear. Without the twenty questions. Granted, maybe I’ve already missed out on Mr. Perfect somewhere in between. Because I didn’t like his shoes. Or his haircut was weird. Or, I swiped left because he failed to include a bio (c’mon, guys). Regardless, I know that wanting something requires attention to that thing. I know that wanting someone requires intentionality to his existence. So, I’m here. Showing up. Attempting to live outside of our digital dead zone. Attempting to keep doing the work to have that one thing that my heart yearns to explore. I can reason that if it were easy, then everyone would do it. Like, really do it. It’s not easy. Not everyone does it. Like, really does it. But, it will damn well be worth it.

Meanwhile, if you need help with your pickup lines, don’t hesitate to slide into my DMs. They’re currently still free for the taking.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/the-silver-lining-online-dating-on-the-road/

[iamthegiant3]

all for the dreamy ask meme!!

 oh wow okay!

angel; have you ever been in love?

yes lol. i was vv in love with someone a while back but it didn’t work out oof

petal; favorite novel and author?

three way tie between Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Flowers for Algernon by David Keyes and The Picture of Dorian Gray by my mans Oscar Wilde

honey perfume; favorite perfume/scent?

l love the smell of like coffee and lavender and also the smell of cigarettes? idk why but its rly comforting lol 

sweet pea; what’s your zodiac?

im a leo/vigro cusp. idk shit about horoscopes but i think its cool that i’m two of em fgfdfggfghjkjk

softie; talk about your sexuality.

more fluid then a ballerinas movement

sugarplum; what’s the color of your eyes and hair?

light brown hair and dark brown eyes

wings; coffee or tea?

coffeeeeeeee 

fairytale; are you a cat or dog person?

i’m gonna be real; i love cats so much. i like dogs too but cats are calmer 

feather; which mythical creature would you transform into if you could?

a vampire (they’re mythical right??)

snowflake; favorite time period?

20s and late 70s thru the 80s

nymph; name 3 films that have changed your life and have shaped you into the person you are today.

hair, party monster, and elvira mistress of the dark

vanilla; do you believe in ghosts?

sure

delicate; diamonds or pearls?

diamonds

lavender dream; favorite album?

Demon Days by Gorillaz

silky; what’s your biggest dream?

to make art and be happy

strawberry kiss; do you have a crush right now?

yes and they follow this blog ooooo

roses; dream destination?

down the street from my grandmas house there was a dirt road that lead to a marsh with an abandon farm shed next to it that i was convinced was haunted. one day in june when i was very small me and my cousins stayed there all day and caught bugs and frogs. wanna go back

glitter; favorite fictional character?

luv me some fox mulder

swan; share a quote or passage that means something to you.

“theres comfort at the bottom of a swimming pool” 

lace; what’s your favorite plant/flower?

roses

mermaid; do you prefer the forest or the ocean? why?

the ocean because its calming and vast and nice. especially on a cloudy day

honeymoon; do you keep a journal?

no my handwritings too messy i can barely read it myself

starlight; do you believe in love at first sight and soulmates? why/why not?

yeah i do feel like people can have a genuine connection when they first meet but its up to both of them to make the relationship work

princess; what do you value most in people?

honesty, open-mindedness and a hatred for capitalism

thx to whoever sent this!!!

#ask

[krumpwrites]

MHAM Post #11: Corinne

This piece is written by someone that I’ve known during many stages of her life. Corinne has been a friend that I can honestly say I have grown with. I have known her since high school, and together we have experienced all of the ups and downs that come with your teens and 20s.

My favorite thing about our friendship, is that I can honestly say I’ve watched her learn and grow into herself over the years. She has become such a mature, self-aware person and it shows in her writing. 

I liked that, in a sense, her story contrasts the previous story, with regards to her opinions on medication. She also touches on her experience with therapy, and other coping mechanisms shes learned over the years. 

Read her experience here: 

It was my senior year of college. I came back to school after a summer that felt like an eternity of missing “The Promised Land” and mourning the breakup of a college relationship that, for some reason, shook me more than I ever imagined a short-lived relationship could. Going back to JMU after being at home for the summer was the best feeling in the whole world (I know all my Dookz can agree). It was then, upon the return to my favorite place, that I started experiencing what I would soon learn was my anxiety, something I would carry with me for the rest of my life.

I remember exactly what I was doing the first time I felt this then unfamiliar feeling, which I now know to be a panic attack. I was walking into the library, up to the front desk to check out a laptop. As I approached the front desk, I felt my heart begin to race. I became increasingly hot. The floor felt like it was moving below me, and I experienced an out-of-body feeling that I had never experienced before, for what seemed like no reason. I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. I felt like I needed to escape as soon as humanly possible, like I was in danger or something.  I thought it was weird, but ultimately I brushed it off.

It wasn’t until these feelings started to appear, not just in the library, but also on the bus going to class, while giving presentations, and while doing seemingly “relaxing” activities, like eating with my friends in the dining hall, that I started to become worried about what was happening to my body. (Side note: all of these were place I had previously THRIVED...I mean I AM a Leo SO you know…).

Krump was actually the first person who told me that what I was experiencing sounded like anxiety. I’ll never forget laying in my bed in Forest Hills googling “symptoms of anxiety” on WebMD, a website that, once I actually learned I had anxiety, I’d never visit ever again (hello hypochondria). I remember thinking, “holy shit, this is it, this is all of what I have been feeling”. And then I felt scared. What does this mean? Why do I feel this way? How do I make it stop?

Luckily in college, you’re surrounded by friends and LOTS of booze. So much so, that admitting to my roommate that the only time I didn’t feel anxious was when I was drunk, felt so casual to me. That fact didn’t actually scare me until I was out of college, and drinking until you can’t feel anything isn’t really a normal life coping method anymore.

Fast forward almost 5 years later and here I am, still learning new things about my anxiety and what comes along with it every single day. Sometimes I think I have it totally under control. I think that the 5th antidepressant/antianxiety medication I have tried and now take religiously, the seemingly healthy food I am putting into my body, the chamomile tea I drink both at night and during the day (I almost threw a fit when someone at work wanted to get rid of the sleepy time tea because “who needs that during work”.. umm hello anxious people do!), the 9 PM grandma bedtimes, my Himalayan salt lamp, my adult coloring book, my lavender candle, and the meditation, have somehow made my anxiety disappear. But then, BAM, I’m hit with a brain zap that comes with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, fear, worry and my least favorite, the out-of-body feeling I referenced earlier.

That’s the sneaky thing about anxiety though…just when you think you have it under control, it’s there hiding in the darkness, just waiting to come out. It appears when I am at brunch, laughing and enjoying time with my friends. It appears when I am driving down the highway. It appears when I am alone at night. It appears when I am grocery shopping. It appears when I am watching TV. It appears at times I can’t always explain.

Now let’s get to the positive side of things! I have spent a lot of time thinking about the differences between the ways that I used to cope with my anxiety versus how I cope with it now, and I feel like I can finally pat myself on the back. The people closest to me always say I never give myself enough credit, so here I am. I’m working on it! For starters, less than a year ago, I also was petrified of medication. I had some of the worst days of my life while on antidepressants that were pushed on me in the past, and I didn’t think medicine was the answer for me. Turns out, once you find a doctor who truly listens to you and genuinely cares about your well-being, this can change. I take my anxiety medication two times a day, and I can genuinely say it has changed my life for the better. Of course, I still have my moments where my anxiety creeps up on me like I described before, and it still happens way more often than the average person, but believe it or not, the number of these instances have decreased significantly. I can actually breathe again.

Less than a year ago, I was constantly looking for life situations to blame my anxiety on and so did my ex-therapist.  She taught me to search for answers or reasons as to why I felt this way. Like maybe it was just my post-grad anxiety/depression (my doctor said she saw so many people for this, so it must be true right!?). Maybe it was the toxic two-year relationship I was in. Or maybe it was the aftermath of the breakup of that toxic relationship. Or maybe it was the fact that my physical health is all sorts of fucked up and that carries so many unknowns. Or maybe it’s because I was transitioning jobs, or my work environment wasn’t good... this list could go on forever. Telling her about an experience I had with sexual assault was like a goldmine for her, because she was convinced she had found the answer to all of my anxieties. In reality, this wasn’t the case at all (hence the “ex” in ex-therapist). She made me feel like anxiety was something you could “fix” but it’s not. It’s actually quite the opposite. While, of course, the experiences I shared with her do play a part in the state of my mental health, even when I can’t recognize it, addressing those experiences doesn’t mean they, or my anxieties as a result of those experiences, suddenly go away. I now know that my anxiety has always been with me, it just chose the year 2012 to come out in full force.

And finally after all this thinking (it’s what us anxious people do best right!?), the #1 thing my journey has taught me, is that despite anxiety being a part of me, I am not “anxious all day every day for no apparent reason at all” like I used to believe I was. In the past, I was convinced that every ounce of my body felt anxious at every second of every day. I used to only noticed the times when I wasn’t anxious, in the same way people who don’t have generalized anxiety disorder only notice the times that they are anxious.

Since then, I have grown to learn how my past and present experiences have shaped me as a person, and how they have shaped my anxiety. I have learned what many of my triggers are, and how to talk myself off the ledge when I feel myself ramping up. I have switched from having the mindset of blaming my anxiety, to accepting it. My anxiety will always be part of me. There will always be time when it hits me and I can’t explain it. And it will never be “fixed”, but I know one thing is for sure, my anxiety does not define me and yours does not define you either.

**Disclaimer: I still think that therapy is one of the best things a person can do for their mental health, despite my personal experiences thus far. I know my prefect therapist is out there somewhere, just gotta find him or her!

#mental health #mental health awareness #mental health awareness month #mental health month #mhm #mhm2017 #anxiety #college #jmu #friends #parties #therapy #medication