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#every time i see my party (and people NOT in my party! so absolutely buckwild!)

zigzagzoom94 · 3 years

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Hey! Do you like tabletop rpg actual-play shows that are equal parts audio drama and improv comedy? You should check out the criminally underrated DnD podcast 'Dice Funk'. It manages to combine the comfy vibe of good friends chilling out together cracking jokes with some legitimately interesting worldbuilding that examines existing DnD lore and conventions to put its own spin on them.

Each season is a self-contained storyline with new characters so you can jump in at whichever one sounds interesting (you might get spoilered for some stuff 'cos the PCs have a tendency to make world-altering decisions that still have big repercussions, even with the substantial timeskips between seasons, but otherwise they limit any references to earlier seasons to non-essential easter eggs to keep things accessible).

Personally I started with seasons 3 & 4 and they served as a good introduction to some recurring concepts like "the World of Forms".

Below the Read More I'll break down each season so you can see what appeals to you:

Season 1, "Stoneroot": A noir-esque black comedy that follows a trio of varying levels of competence attempting to solve a simple missing person case that spirals wildly out of control.

I kind of think of this as the 'Here There Be Gerblins' of the show since it's the only season with a different GM so it has a pretty different feel to the rest of the show and takes a bit longer to find its feet.

Personal Highlight: One of the PCs rolls a 3 Intelligence, leading to a running segment where that player brings up monsters from the Monster Manual and asks the other players if they think it has a higher or lower Int than that PC.

Season 2, "Lorelai": A more lighthearted romp in which a cast of interplanar travellers explore the world trying to figure out the cause of a catastrophic flood and put a stop to it. According to the creators this was conceived as a cross between 'Princess Bride' and 'LoZ: Wind Waker' but morphed into more of a "moist Undertale".

Personal Highlight: The first time the GM has to portray a mysterious entity making deals with lower life forms he decides to portray them like a wheeling-and-dealing used-car salesman and it honestly made every scene they're in a delight.

Season 3, "Ilium": The party are trapped in a strange city that people can enter but never leave, taking whatever jobs will make ends meet. Inspired by 'Hot Fuzz' and 'Twin Peaks', this series places a lot of emphasis on how the supernatural elements affect people's normal lives and uncovering the many dark secrets these characters hold.

Personal Highlight: The GM wrote a custom "Wild Magic" table for the party sorcerer with some absolutely buckwild shit on it. I was on the edge of my seat every time it was rolled.

Season 4, "Valentine": A cyberpunk urban fantasy with near-future technology levels in which the cast struggle to make ends meet while doing shady jobs for uncaring megacorporations. If your familiar with DnD, this season's based on 'Shadowrun'. Probably the season most explicitly about how capitalism sucks.

Personal Highlight: One of the PCs is a wizard who uses yugioh-esque trading cards to cast their spells instead of a spellbook. I did not anticipate being so invested in their rivalry with not-Kaiba and neither did the player.

Season 5, "Markov": If you love unlikely found families then this is the season for you! It's a space-faring sci-fi story in a galaxy reeling from war with the colonialist Mind Flayers, setting the stage for a lot of political turmoil. If you're familiar with DnD, this story's based on 'Spelljammer' and absolutely riffs off of a lot of the bizarre ideas that setting introduced.

Personal Highlight: The Son Gun. I will not elaborate on what this means but you'll know when you get to it.

Season 6, "Purgatory": The season opens on a group of mortals who have just been resurrected and tasked with taking up the mantle of the Furies; interplanar assassins who traverse the various afterlives dealing with whichever god-like entities threaten the balance of power between the planes. If you've played 'Planescape: Torment' or are familiar with the city of Sigil you know what to expect.

I honestly think this might be the best individual season of 'Dice Funk'? Everyone's really firing on all cylinders.

Personal Highlight: King Badass has my heart. Y'all can't claim to support himbos and then not be supporting my favourite dumbass bae.

Season 7, "Wormwood": After all the previous seasons deconstructed a lot of elements of classic DnD ("what's up with certain species automatically being evil?", "isn't delving into a dungeon to murder its inhabitants and steal their stuff kinda colonialistic and messed up?", "how would access to magic actually affect the way a society functions?", etc.) this seasons brings this all together by having the closest set-up to a conventional DnD adventure. The world is post-apocalyptic and draws a lot of elements from the 'Dark Sun' setting.

Personal Highlight: Two of the PCs are a cult leader and his follower and I thought I knew exactly what direction that storyline was going...then it absolutely surprised me.

Season 8, "Grendel": I can't comment on this one yet since it's only just started but so far it has had a very cosy, 'Animal Crossing'-like vibe with a focus on a small community, in contrast to previous seasons' much higher stakes.

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trillgutterbug · 3 years

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Fic Writer Questions!

tagged by @palamedessextus 😊 thanks friend!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

64! only five more to the magic number ayyyyy and then i’m legally obligated to never post another one.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

289,575 apparently??? which seems way way way higher than i ever would have guessed, wow. who knew!

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

31 on ao3, although that’s lumping, eg, all marvel subfandoms together. but i have a ridiculous amount of wips in all kinds of other fandoms that i haven’t/won’t post, soooo.... more than that! and i don’t want to list them all bc that’d be a long boring read!

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

it serenely disdains to destroy us, a magnus archives fic that, i somewhat vainly note, has been orbiting in the top few top kudosed fics in the tag since i posted it womp womp.

concerning flight, because we all thirsty for thor/loki+gender and i for one support us.

untitled porny snippet (yes that’s actually what it’s called), because same as above. (i see u, kudos-to-comment ratio and i aint mad but.... i see u. all you dirty birds out there shamefully yet silently jerking it. kudos to YOU.)

an experiment in posthumous subsistence, a batman/joker zombie au i wrote fucking TEN YEARS AGO ALMOST. why???? why is this fic so popular?? i’m barely a good writer now and i sure as shit wasn’t one a decade ago! the terrible title alone should disqualify it from being read, but i guess the people want what they want. and what they want is batman and joker handcuffed together, trying to escape the zombie apocalypse ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

all good things, some stucky hydra trash party-adjacent smut regarding piercings. i stand by this one 100%, it deserves every kudo(s?) tbh.

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i do, depending on the comment! i don’t think comments like “loved this!” / “thanks for writing!” are written with the intent to receive a response (or at least, when i write them on other people’s fics, i certainly don’t expect one). they’re like an extra kudo(s?), and i appreciate them a lot, but they’re not really an invitation to Discuss. whereas if someone clearly has put a lot of thought into a comment, or asked a question, or made some observations that i jive with, or just seems like they want to engage, then hell yeah i jump in there. love that shit.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i guess arguably thine own self, which is some hydra husbands abo. laugh all you want, it’s one of my fave of all my fics lmao. probably specifically bc of the unpleasant/open ending.

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

probably moderation is a memory! since it, unlike 99% of all my other stuff, isn’t just total smut, and the whole point of writing it was to wallow as deep as possible in the sauce of giddy teenage infatuation, it got the opportunity to have an actual emotional arc (more or less). furthermore i could not possibly bring myself to break johnny lawrence’s tender little heart ever, that would hurt me far more than it would hurt him.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

i only realised while answering this question that apparently.... no i don’t write crossovers! which is not at all a deliberate choice, i guess a compelling enough one just hasn’t occurred to me yet!

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

shockingly no! by some accidental miracle i’ve managed to fly under the radar so far, despite some of the really buckwild stuff i’ve posted. however, considering some of the stuff i’m probably ABOUT to post.... that clean track record might soon come to an end lmao.

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

lmao. uhhhh. almost exclusively, and i guess??? all kinds? this is clearly a question composed by someone who does not write smut.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of, and i wouldn’t really care if i did.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

yeah i think a few....? a number of people have asked anyway and i always say yes, so probably there’s at least one floating around out there somewhere.

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i have! just once, and we really made it count. it’s called a reptile dysfunction, which should tell you all you need to know.

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

thorki, probably. i always have and always will come back to it, no matter what. it’s got such a ferociously timeless staying power and so much potential variation, i don’t think i could ever get bored of it, regardless of what level of marvel-exhaustion i might feel at a given time, or what tropes, kinks, or stage of literary pretension i’m at. truly the oh tee pee.

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

ohhhhh all 836575927 of them, but. there’s this one thorki fic i started almost ten years ago as an experiment with a new-to-me style, which turned out over the intervening years to become my main style, and looking back on that fic, which for many years was a touchstone of writing-to-aspire to for me, it’s actually Not Very Good lol. but i still love the core concept, which is a canon divergence berserker thor au, but not only is it a somewhat inaccessible (admittedly less so since the deadpool movies came out, which was a hilarious pipe dream back when i started writing it) x-force comics crossover, but i wrote myself into a bunch of corners and have yet to dig up the energy to write myself back out of them! i go and reread it every year or so and think “hmm... maybe now...” but tbh it’s just not really good enough to bother! perhaps someday i’ll repurpose the best elements of it into something new.

16) What are your writing strengths?

man, it’s so hard to say. in much the same way that you can spend hours every day staring at yourself in a mirror, yet be utterly incapable of picking yourself out of a lineup, i spend a lot of time eyeballing my writing, but stepping back it seems like a chaotic mass of nonsense with few cohesive throughlines. i’m good at writing smut, i know that much! and in that vein, i think i am good at smut bc i am very good at committing to the bit, as it were. getting into the nitty gritty of experience and sensation (physical or emotional) and rendering largely abstract internal concepts in fairly comprehensible ways. i think my prose is quite decent on a sentence level too.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

utterly incapable of finishing anything! or plotting anything! can’t mange a cohesive emotional arc! write myself into overly structured corners or out onto a vast plain with no structure in sight! all the macro elements of storytelling totally elude me, which is very frustrating when i have all this tasty fleshed out micro-level character stuff, but no narrative skeleton upon which to drape it.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? don’t! unless you are very sure you know what you’re doing, and the other language bits are a) very few, b) easily contextually understood, and c) actually adding something other than a weird flex that you know google translate exists.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

11yo me wrote spock/kirk/janice rand and thought she invented the concept of a threesome. brand been stronk since day one 🤘. (the vulcan salute is right next to the devil horns in my emoji list, so....)

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

i love the (ongoing) better with you series very much, not least because i’m still absolutely flabbergasted that i wrote something that long. i think it’s actually pretty good all things considered and it’s very dear to me on many many levels. but the fic that i just viscerally adore, that i love the style of, and that i had such a transcendent, invigorating, organic Experience writing, is temper its strength, adding honey until quite cold, which is a terror fic with the inexplicable pairing of edward little/hartnell, featuring crossdressing and gender stuff. it just burst out of me fully formed one day and i don’t think i’ve managed to top it yet!

lowkey tagging @lingua-mortua @pitcherplant @kaasknot @froggy-babyy @deputychairman @nomercyonlytears @clockheartedcrocodile

#writing meme #whoops it's 3:30am #excellent life choices courtesy of: yours truly

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olruggioofthetorch · 3 years

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sorry you know me I like to ask a million questions so here it goes- Tinsel:5,18,20,27,31,39,40 / Nila:13,28/Roman:11,6,7/Benji:4,19/Saoirse: 20,25,27 /Fionn: 6,7,10,33/ Scone:21,23 - sorry can’t remember the other siblings off the top of my head and these are the major ones anyway right haha? and this is a lot of questions anyway soooo

Ooo we're getting into the selkies tonight

Tinsel

5. What was their childhood fear?

Being alone or left behind. It was definitely a threat when they were a kid like "if you aren't on the caravan before we leave at noon, we're leaving you behind". I don't think their parents would have actually left them behind when they were small but it was enough of a threat that they and their siblings listened for the most part. Its not so much a childhood fear as it is a regular adult fear now.

18. If they could live or visit anywhere, where would they go?

Tinsel really likes where they live but they do have dreams about living on a sunny coast with their partners when they all settle down. Idk if there's anywhere specific they want to visit? They just go where the adventure leads them. I think they would like to visit somewhere to meet up with their family, tho.

20. What did they dream of "growing up" to be?

Oh man, Tinsel wanted to be an A List celebrity actor. They wanted to be lead role in blockbusters. It was a big goal for them but they were sure they could do it.

27. Have they achieved any of their childhood dreams? Are they still trying? Have those dreams changed?

They've gotten some of their childhood dreams! They moved to Holly Bay and made tons of friends. They got to act in live theater. They were almost in a movie! They got some notoriety from adventuring and were on TV for it. They got to kiss their childhood crush. They didn't quite make it to the A List after getting blacklisted but they're def still trying.

In regards to how they changed: I don't think they changed too much but they did see how hard it was to achieve them. Plus, they started dreaming about having a family when they were with Bast so that's definitely something they want now.

31. Who are they when they aren't with the party?

When they're not with the party, Tinsel is way less open about themself. They're a master of either talking around a question or lying by omission and they use it when they don't feel comfortable sharing. Pre-adventure, they didn't really even tell their closest friends the entire truth about their backstory (which is honestly buckwild and hard to believe anyway) or their relationship with Bast or really anything about their love/sex life.

I think it's bc they don't think Kira and Zona will judge them.

39. If someone could tell them anything about the future they asked, would they want to know? Would they ask?

I think they have actually, they asked if they were going to get married. I don't think they would want to ask something super serious because they aren't going to listen to a no.

40. What sets them free?

A good support system. Tinsel's very talented and driven but they need the power of friendship to keep them from burning out.

Nila

13. How do they like to spend afternoons free?

Nila likes to paint. She dipped her toe into art forgery for a little bit but decided it was more fun to steal the real thing and do her own work on the side. She has one of those cute little travel watercolors she uses to paint landscapes when she gets some time alone. Absolutely no one knows she has this hobby.

28. If they could change their class(es), would they? To what?

I dont think she'd change her class from rogue but she would def take some wizard skills.

Roman

11. What were their teenage years like?

He was a horrible teenage boy, mostly bc he wanted attention. He started off with red hair but occasionally made it redder when he got teased about it. He activated the Cain instinct in a lot of his siblings but I think Tinsel tried to kicked his ass the most purely due to how close their ages are. He shot them with an arrow by accident once and never lived it down.

His mom taught him archery at around 14-15 and he got very good at it to try and impress her. He left home around 18/19, picked up some odd jobs/repaired archery equipment professionally for a few years until Nila called him up like "hey bro miss you let's do this heist together".

6. Did they grow up with siblings? What were those relationships like?

Yes lmao my boy has 9 siblings. I sort of talked about this in the last question but yeah he liked to stir the pot for attention. Even though they tried to kick his ass, his siblings still love him. Him and Saoirse always got along really well and I'm p sure she stopped him from actually getting murdered as a kid lol. He really doesn't have a bad relationship with any of them, though, besides still owing Scone a bunch of money. Rome's a lot of fun and he's the kind of guy who will give or share anything with you. He is just A Lot.

7. How were their relationships with their parents/guardians growing up?

He def knew he wasn't the favorite child lol. I think once Knox realized why his kid was acting up, he made sure to spend some extra time with him every once and a while. And once he showed promise in archery, his relationship with Fulki got better too. I think he has an okay relationship with his parents right now but he definitely would never live with them again.

Benji

4. Who was their childhood hero?

Their dad! They're very similar people and he looks up to him a lot.

19. How does the high noon sun make them feel?

Sleepy... It's too darn hot. He's 100% not interested in going out at high noon so he's either taking a nap or hanging out somewhere shady with Folsom.

Saoirse

20. What did they dream of "growing up" to be?

I don't know if Saoirse had one specific dream. What she did know is that she didn't want to get married and she didn't want to have kids. I think she went through a bunch of phases on what she wanted to be when she grew up until she landed on being a wizard. When that stuck, she just leaned hard into it.

25. What is their comfort item/habit?

She's definitely one of those "make a hot beverage when I'm stressed" kind of people. She's also a stress baker... Which used to be a "make potions and light stuff on fire" habit but she realized she gets muffins if she bakes instead.

She also has a bunch of stuffed animals in her room, purely because she's an adult wizard and no one can tell her not to have stuffies.

27. Have they achieved any of their childhood dreams? Are they still trying? Have those dreams changed?

Oh, she totally achieved the wizard thing and now she's a real Howl Pendragon figure. She got bored being by herself so she applied to get some apprentices, but due to a clerical error, she wound up with a couple of brothers (Max and Arseny) who were way too young to be apprentices. She's basically raising them as her kids (they call her mama and the Townes all consider them grandkids/nephews lol) but Saoirse insists they're still her apprentices in public.

Fionn

6. Did they grow up with siblings? What were those relationships like?

Fionn was the golden oldest brother! He and Saoirse were basically 3rd/4th parents so the rest of the siblings came to love/respect him. He was really good at keeping the peace. Dude would have made a fantastic diplomat. The siblings especially liked when he told them stories about life before their family left the Muirs or stories about knights/heroes. It was a rough day when he disappeared and the siblings that remember him really miss him.

7. How were their relationships with their parents/guardians growing up?

Very strained. Like, he was def the favorite child, but Fionn really had some childhood trauma from The Fall that they couldn't help him with bc they also had it. He sort of resents that he got put into the auxiliary parent role on top of it. I think ultimately they expected way too much out of him so it was only natural he'd disappear and be feral.

10. When did their childhood end?

I don't think it was a definite ending, more of a gradual thing around his early teens when he realized he had a lot of responsibilities.

Scone

21. How did they become an adventurer?

Scone's best friend Latte (a Yuke who's good with magic) sent her a letter that suggested they'd make a good caravanning team. She was itching to leave the family caravan (she was tired of bailing her siblings out and knew that adventuring was good money) so she agreed!

23. What is their role in the party? Not just their class on a meta level, but among the individuals who make up the party?

Imagine a buff accountant and you have Scone lol.

Like Tinsel, Scone is the tank in combat. However, unlike Tinsel, Scone is weirdly responsible. She makes sure all the supplies are stocked and in order, makes sure everyone takes care of themselves and she keeps track of their earnings. She can be outgoing but she prefers to let her team do the social leg work.

#This is a big one omg but I loved it #Thank u Marlo #Gwen asks #Tinsel T Townes #Nila Townes #Roman Townes #Benji Townes #Saoirse Townes #Fionn Townes

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ziracona · 4 years

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Dwight/Jake wedding headcanons maybe? They deserve it.

For sure!

It’s a couple years down the road. They’ve been living in the Indiana house with Adam, while the others orbit in and out from Springwood and Lockport and Haddonfield and Indianapolis and Bloomington and New Jersey and Missouri and New York and such every few days. It’s peaceful and fun there for them. Woods, big house, familiar smells and people and memorobelia and Ron’s grave and markers added nearby for Vigo and Alex and Lisa and Sujan and the person from the lab with no name and the survivors who came before them and never got to be buried. It’s home. They’re just chilling, Dwight and Jake talking with intent but also very relaxed about something while Adam edits a sequel in his easy chair, deep in edit mode, when Jake calls over, “Hey Adam, do you want to be a best man, or do you want to marry us?”

Which Adam hears the wrong homophone for for a second and almost takes him out before he realizes they meant the other version of ‘marry’ and remembers how to breathe again.

He stutters out a, “Well, I, uh—I mean, I can do whichever you’d prefer, but I’m not ordained. In. Anything. I know I did Min and Nea’s, but—”

“—Yeah, we know, but we just need it to be legal,” Jake shrugs, “and we don’t want a stranger at the wedding period, so someone’s getting ordained.”

“I think you can get ordained online in like an hour,” adds Dwight helpfully, “and we’re not religious either, but—and now that I’m saying this it was Meg so that means I should make sure becuase sometimes her memory for numbers is uhhh bad, but she told me like a week ago you only need ten people to officially get your new religion recognized. And we could be ‘the survivors’ or something. I don’t know I believe in much, but I believe in that.”

Jake nods. “Whatever is true, this group of people can rip a hole in the fabric of the universe for each other. I’d ascribe to that.”

“I kind of like that,” says Adam, “I would too. But if we have a spiritual ‘leader’, wouldn’t Ace be a better choice than me? Or Jane?”

This is considered a good point and they debate between Adam, Jeff, Tapp, Jane, and Ace for a bit, [Philip is also briefly considered, but they realize just as fast he’d be overwhelmed and stressed by having to do it & mercifully swap him to another role], then decide on Ace, who’s always been the kind of...not exactly dad, not exactly uncle, but not not those things, and certainly some kind of an early spiritual or morale core for them, parentish figure, and a comfort and hope leader for them all. Also, they know he’ll get a fkn kick out of being ordained for this.

Dwight takes Quentin as his Best Man, Claudette his Maid of Honor, and Jake takes Nea as Matron of Honor, Andrew as Best Man, and Meg as Maid of Honor. They decide fuck it, and it’s kinda Parks & Rec (an argument used by and against Jake many times the next few weeks) anyway, and also both take Adam and Philip as Best Men because fuck it, it’s too hard and also wedding rules are arbitrary and made to be broken, and so then Jake adds Kate as a bridesmaid, Dwight adds Laurie, they realize the number of survivors is dwindling dangerously and decide fuck it, our wedding is for us might as well be fkn weird and cool, and add David, Min, Tapp, Jane, Jeff, and Laurie as groomsmen and bridesmaids too. This still leaves Michael, Anna, Sally, Benedict, Susie, Jeff’s three Legion kids, and everyone’s families which is like fkn a lot of people, to be audience party (sans Nancy, who is pleaded with to be wedding party and run the music pre-reception because the number of people that they want involved /and/ who won’t give in to or be tricked by Meg into some kind of terrible flash mob stunt is very small, and in fact, basically is just Nancy. She is happy to do it and thinks their desperate reasoning is hilarious).

They break the news to Meg and Claudette and Ace first (after Adam), ask Ace to marry them, and tell Meg she can run post-weddding/reception music however she wants, except the songs for a couples dance & parent dances. She is /thrilled/. Claudette is very happy and cries. They call up Quentin & Nea to add to the conversation and Jake says Nea and Meg and Susie are in charge of setting up the wedding because he knows they’re gonna fight him for the role anyway, but they have to throw whatever they can together with only the stuff they own already and $50, they want only family & the other survivors/their families at the wedding, the service short and sweet, and to have it at the cabin, by the river. Meg loses her mind with indignance and joy together, and goes buckwild. They hit thrift shops for fairy lights and streamers and more.

Everyone is thrilled to be asked, Jane says “about time,” and Philip can’t think of anything to say and gets overwhelmed emotionally and taken off guard to be asked to be a groomsman. It’s sweet. Everyone with fashion sense takes everyone else shopping or through their wardrobes for fun wedding clothes and to at least have accent pieces that match a color theme. (Complimentary blues, yellow/gold, and pinks to the grooms’. More on that). It’s super fun & they make a fashion show of it. There’s no matching in form, just color, which is just the best version anyway there’s really no goddamn reason to spend thousands of bucks on a wedding when you could just have a funky cute good time with the people who love you & no stress.

Jake picks a deep blue hanbok (bc the hottest Jake I’ve ever seen is the one @eggchef did for lunar new year & the note in the tags about an actual hanbok has been banging around in my head ever since), and when they’re going through stuff for Dwight, he comments a pink one is surprisingly nice because it’s not the color he’d expected to think about, and Jake remarks offhand that if they do deep blue and pink they’ll be stealing their girls’ looks, and the second he says that, they both know there’s no other choice now. Dwight gets a light pink suit and a tie that matches Jake’s blue. They’re adorable and both look exceedingly handsome.

The wedding is short and perfect. Ace does a great job, it’s a nice day, and Meg works wonders with her $50 budget and (notably obscenely large) preexisting store of party supplies, + help from her mom who is passing down the legacy of being the best tiny budget party planner on earth. It’s very open, but with near arches and dangling glass and prisims that cast rainbows everywhere, lots of meaningfully chosen for their blessings and symbolism flowers and flower chains from Claudette. It’s a little reminiscent of the birthday decorations Min and Nea did plus the prisims, and that accidentally makes all the survivors super emotional like 1 minute in.

Only the moms get to speak in the wedding (besides Ace and the grooms), and Andrew and Meg and Nea and Quentin and such all gotta save their roasts for the reception. It’s sweet. Ace knows them super well and it shows in the best way. The grooms write their own vows, and both echo their statements in the hatch tunnel without knowing the other was going to do so too. Jake starts with an “I am deeply, unendingly, ridiculously in love with you,” and Dwight brings in a, “I wouldn’t be who I am without you.” They end it with Dwight saying, “Will you still stay with me, now that it’s all over? Through whatever we’re thrown to next?” And Jake replying, “Wherever you go, I’ll always follow.”

I cry.

The reception is a party by the house. It’s just a huge prepared buffet made by the family who can cook, so no one has to sit and wait. Meg starts the music with Cascada’s Evacuate the Dance Floor because she doesn’t “want to see people dragging their feet like a bunch of fuckin weenies, I want asses on that dance floor!” There’s a lot of 90s and early 2000s pop, but also many many classic dance songs. Lots of ABBA. Lots of it. Everyone has great fun. Min, Nea, Susie, and Meg made the playlist, except for a few of the specific dances. Muriel Fairfield’s mother-son dance with Dwight is to Song For Ten by Neil Hannon because he knows she’s a sweet big emotional nerd and it’s the song she wants, and he’s willing to do it, and she sobs and is a mess but also the happiest she’s been since the day she got the call he was alive.

They have literally zero idea where they’re going when they drive off for a honeymoon. They’re like “Uhh so I’ve been looking at our complete and utter lack of wedding structure and planning as a good thing? But we might have overstepped that a little here....”

Dwight drives while Jake searches the web for LGBT safe honeymoon locations because there’s nothing that would ruin a trip more than that not working out, and reads off a list and Dwight is like, “Wait wait holy fuck, I though you meant what US cities or maybe Canada. Switzerland? Do we even have cash for the plane fare somewhere like that?” And Jake just looks at the page silently for a few seconds, shuts the laptop, and without expression says, “...I really hate this, but I’m gonna let myself be a rich boy, just once.”

They take Andrew’s jet to New Zealand (Jake calls him and listens for 2 minutes then just monotone goes “Okay but you owe me for being a dipshit for fifteen years,” and they get the ride). Jake picks a relaxed pace and some scuba diving, some hikes, but no overnight camping. Lots of just seeing the world and holding hands and grinning at how absolutely breathless and shocked Dwight is at every chunk of nature like nothing he’s seen before. They are disgustingly, blissfully happy.

#ask #anonymous #dead by daylight #in living memory (fic)#in living memory #ILM spoilers #long post #parkfield #dwake #Jake park #Dwight Fairfield

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elichorph · 3 years

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𝗧𝗔𝗦𝗞 𝟬𝟬𝟮 ( 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗬 ) ↝ 𝗚𝗢𝗢𝗦𝗘 𝗧𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗥

once upon a time in dallas, texas, two kids from rivaling business families fell in love <3 they adopted a kid and named him gordon ... and then they got murked like fifteen years later.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗦

tw for missing people for this entire section maybe this whole thing

maddox and grace teller were basically the romeo and juliet of the business world. their families were each other’s biggest competitions in the oil world, but they eventually fell in love and said fuck it and grace, being the bad ass she is, moved her assets into maddox’s company to surpass her own family by a large margin. their whole relationship was followed by the tabloids simply because it was juicy and because the oil world is kind of very boring, the tabloids were how they got their fame and standing. after they found out grace couldn’t have kids, they adopted goose. thirteen years later though, they ended up going to a party late at night with some other business friends and never came back. their case went cold but ... well ... it’s been ten years. nobody knows that grace and maddox went missing. a lie was fabricated saying that they retired and settled down in a small country and goose will help feed this lie from time to time to feel something and to now blow his cover.

𝗠𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥 ↝ grace teller

miss grace ... absolute sweetheart. i always imagined that a lot of the traction the teller family had came from how down to earth and lovely grace was. she always really wanted kids and eventually found out she was unable to have them, so she ended up convincing maddox to adopt lil goose. she really was the best parent out of the pair, understanding what it took to raise a kid who was supposed to take over a large company while still wanting to give him a good childhood. and she tried ... she really did, trying to keep goose entertained at every banquet and pr opportunity and event that he was dragged to because a lot of the teller’s fame and business came from how loved they were in the eyes of the tabloids. really if it weren’t for grace’s efforts, goose would have lost his mind a lot earlier on. he loved his mom, he really did. his kindness and big heart comes from her, and the vast majority of his good childhood memories involve her. goose was very sheltered growing up so his mom was basically his best friend. they always got along and never fought, if anything grace was defending goose from his father who had way too high of expectations for the boy. they understood each other well and she never wanted anything besides the best for him and he kinda gets very emo whenever mom stuff is mentioned.

𝗙𝗔𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥 ↝ maddox teller

certified <3 asshole <3 the man who goose got his elites legacy from so like ... it checks out. basically a very rude man. it was cute because grace could break down his walls, but if you were anyone else (and especially goose), good luck. growing up in a big business family, it was his whole life and he took it more serious than anything to the point where he was even reluctant to adopt because he didn’t know what kind of situation they would be getting in by bringing in a son who would be set to take over. worried that goose would be a #flop, maddox treated him more like robot than anything to prepare him for the business world and goose was like 7! being taken out of school early so they could fly to new york and goose could sit and listen to talks about oil for 8 hours a day because that’s what maddox really thought it took to get goose ready! (and shoutout to orion for being his one single friend that he made at these kind of events hehe). even though goose lost his dad when he was thirteen, they really never had a good relationship up until then. it was extremely strained and without grace in the picture, it likely would’ve been nonexistent or goose would’ve gone sicko mode on his dad and ended everything. while goose misses his mom a lot, he really ... doesn’t miss dad. as bad as it may sound, a lot of goose’s liberation came from losing his dad. part of the reason why goose can’t stand to be yelled at is because it always stung with maddox. i wouldn’t be surprised if how his dad treated him is also the reason that goose decides to ultimately turn on everyone and go absolutely buckwild.

𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗧 𝗙𝗜𝗚𝗨𝗥𝗘𝗦

𝗨𝗡𝗖𝗟𝗘 ↝ lionel teller

maddox’s brother and slimy ... slimy man. after his parents got yeeted, lionel took custody over goose and became his legal guardian. and when i tell you that lionel didn’t want that shit at all? i mean it. if it wasn’t for goose entering the family, lionel would have been set to fully take over the company (lionel ended up amassing the entirety of the company though by stepping in as interim ceo after maddox went missing and goose just signed the position over to lionel in the long run saying lol gl have fun i don’t want this so you can have it). ANYWAYS. lionel didn’t know that was all going to happen so he basically treated 14 year old goose like dirt, blamed his brother’s disappearance on him, all of that. goose didn’t like the man either and literally fought with him so much that lionel just shipped him off to boarding school and refused to let him come home over summers and school breaks. yes, lionel offered to pay families to take care of him instead and thank goodness he found the jeon’s (but we’ll get to them soon). lionel chewed goose out after he vandalized his school’s statue but still handled it at the expense of the teller name and has not talked to goose since he turned eighteen. there really was no relationship between them. they just didn’t get along and zoomed out of each other’s lives as soon as they could.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗝𝗘𝗢𝗡 𝗙𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗬

when i say the jeon family was goose’s saving grace and his one chance to ever feel familial love again in his life? i mean it. goose hit it off with grayson in his first year at his second boarding school and the rest was history. the jeon’s ended up taking goose in, allowing him to stay with them over the summer and some school breaks and they truly were goose’s second family. grayson was his best friend, bestie for the restie yktv, but goose considered him a brother, and violet a sister too. goose’s life was extra messy when he met the jeon’s, but they were always a safety net that made him feel safe even if goose caused more wreckage than he will ever realize.

going to put miss violet first ... his unofficial sister <3 they were friends growing up, had big “oh you’re my brother’s best friend” energy and goose really cares for miss violet so much. he probably teased her so much, pushed her into the lake too many times to count but he always gave her piggy backs and would save the best homemade popsicles for her. they got off to a rocky start at yale, a little cursed emoji at each other just because they weren’t sure how to act after grayson had ... you know ... zoomed to another country for sus reasons, but eventually got back to where they were this year when blackmails were starting to be exposed and they realized that they were basically each other’s family and that they needed each other. goose would go to any length for violet, he feels so protective over her it’s crazy. he will self destruct if needed to ensure that she’s alright and honestly is prepared to do it at this point. xo.

( tw : drugs, addiction ) okay now grayson ... word. the besties. the chaotic duo that everyone feared who pulled up to english class out of uniform. goose felt so comfortable with grayson, opened up to him about so much. seriously, before goose got twitter, grayson was just getting @twelvebugsinmybrain face to face every day. they would pass hot summer days laying on the floor in grayson’s room, waiting for the breeze to come through the window and being typical gross teen boys with a soft side. they really didn’t start chaotic at first, just sweet. however, things got a little messy when drugs came into the picture. full disclosure, goose was the one that got grayson hooked on drugs. goose truly had no idea he was doing it, just bringing back random baggies he probably paid a little too much for and they tried it all being the curious kids they were. goose was going through his own edgy phase and got grayson into his and ... well things just went south. they slowly started losing touch with each other as drugs were something that was always in the picture and goose was ready to confront grayson and get his best friend back to his normal self until grayson was sent away before goose was able to do anything. and goose truly regrets not talking to him a day sooner more than anything in his life so! yay! now that grayson is back though ... well ... goose is a little jealous of grayson’s new friendship with avery (yes i have to larp with myself) and really just wants his best friend back and he especially willling for it as grayson starts doing his thing. you’ll see ig. grayson is not my character but i will be ominous on his and mads’ behalf. that is all.

#elitetasks002 #⌗ 𝗠𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦 | 𝙂𝙊𝙊𝙎𝙀

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the-sweetest-dragon · 4 years

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Things Can Only Get Better - Chapter Two

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Pairing: Stiles Stilinksi x OC (Evangeline Monroe)

Word Count: 12k (I went buckwild)

Warnings: kidnapping, allusions to abuse, allusions to trauma, anxiety, Stiles being an idiot, blood, wounds, injuries

AN: I am still on my bullshit with this fandom and I don’t know when it will end. This is based on the last few episodes of season one with my own little spin on it

Tags: @nerdsarebetter @audder17 (READ MY STUFF YOU COWARD)

chapter one

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“If you live among wolves you have to act like a wolf.” - Nikita Khrushchev

The months after the party went by quickly. Not much happened. Well, a lot happened but just not to me. Everything had been quickly going downhill; Lydia, Stiles, Allison, Jackson, and Scott had gotten trapped in the school one night while the alpha roamed around and killed the janitor. Which had been one of many murders that had happened since we had been turned. A bus driver had been found, not quite dead but then later passed in the hospital. I did my best to stay out of it. Derek never approached me, thankfully. They eventually figured out that the alpha was Peter Hale, Derek’s uncle who had been horrifically burned in the fire six years ago. Which was terrifying to hear, but made since in the overarching scheme of things.

A few things went down in our social group as well. Allison and Scott broke up mid-semester for reasons unknown to me. I still sit with Scott and Stiles at lunch most days, mostly just to stay in the loop about what was going on. Jackson had (somehow) figured out what Scott and I were, but he wasn’t aware I was one too, thankfully. I could feel the tension between the two boys and ultimately decided it was best if I stayed out of it.

However, it was when I finally heard all the details of the breakup, that I decided to stop sitting with them at lunch and instead moved to sitting with just Allison. We were quickly joined by an apologetic Lydia who missed her friends. I ignored Scott as much as I could, which also meant ignoring Stiles. That hurt my heart a little, a small crush blossoming in the weeks we had spent together investigating the murders.

Stiles still texted me updates when he could and we talked in the halls. We no longer pretend to be dating, or whatever people thought we were doing. A week after Thanksgiving break, Isaac Lahey asked me to go to the winter formal with him and I, of course, said yes. No one else was going to ask me and Issac was cute, with curly blonde hair and blue eyes. He was also on the lacrosse team, though Lydia didn’t recognize the name. I had said yes before thinking about Stiles, but if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t think he really cared if I went at all. Which broke my heart a little, but I did my best to ignore it. He still had a huge crush on Lydia and I didn’t really want to mess around with that.

I tried to focus on Lydia more. She and Jackson had broken up not too long after Allison and Scott had split. Lydia seemed… heartbroken. Her sadness clung to her like a second skin and nearly made it impossible to sit near her. No one else seemed to notice, besides me and maybe Stiles, for obvious reasons. She had really loved Jackson, for whatever reason. I still don’t like the guy, especially after the shit he pulled trying to get the bite. He was reckless and didn’t listen to reason, two of my least favorite qualities.

One day, after a few weeks of refusing to speak to him, Scott stopped me in the hallway. The stench of desperation surrounded me, making me want to gag. I glared at him and he held his hands up in surrender.

“I just want to talk,” he said, his brown eyes pleading with me. At that moment I spotted Isaac’s blonde head over the crowd of people and I hurried towards it, Scott meeting me stride for stride. “I need you to get Allison’s necklace for me. We think it may have to do with the murders.” I stop in my tracks and turn a glare onto him.

“So you want me to steal from one of my best friends?” I practically growl at him. His eyes go wide, and I try to calm down. Scott was one of the few people who managed to really get under my skin, and I knew in that moment that my eyes had gone yellow. I collected myself, pushing the anger and panic down. “I am not stealing from her. If you want it, why don’t you ask for it? I won’t be your go between.” He stops following me and I quickly get to Issac’s side.

“Hey, whats up?” he asks quietly. I shake my head. Isaac is shockingly good at reading my emotions, and knowing when I don’t want to talk. He just nods, and wraps an arm around my shoulders. We walked to class in relative silence, only catching a few looks in the process.

Isaac wasn’t the most popular choice in friends, but he was kind. He had a rather bad home life, so in the few weeks we had been friends, he had been over at my house nearly every night. Partially to work on homework, but also to just get away. Mom instantly liked him, and Dad seemed to like him, as much as Dad liked any of my guy friends. I wasn’t sure if Isaac liked me in a romantic way but nothing with him was ever boring, and it felt… normal.

A week before the formal, Lydia took Allison and I shopping for dresses. It was her way of apologizing for everything. Not to mention that Allison is acting weird. We had figured out her family’s secret, that they were hunters. Allison didn’t seem to be clued in on that fact, but I had decided that being her friend was more important. She wouldn’t hurt me.

We walk into Macy’s, heading towards the escalator. We had been talking about formal plans, but I tuned them out fairly quickly. I tune back in when Allison turns towards Lydia with a triumphant smile.

“I’m going with Jackson,” Allison states. I blink a few times, confused as to why anyone would willingly spend time with that snake. Lydia’s face twists with shock and I feel a little bad for thinking such things. “He asked, and I said yes.” I shrug, not wanting to dig too deep into whatever was happening between them. Lydia looked almost mad, her face going red with anger. It was almost comical.

“Is this payback for making out with Scott?” she asks quietly. Allison just smiles and shakes her head, infuriating her more. “And who am I supposed to go with?” Once her question is asked, a familiar scent hits my nose. I groan internally.

“Him,” Allison says, pointing towards the scent I had smelled. Stiles. He leans to sniff something at the perfume counter and inevitably does something klutzy. I laugh softly, covering my mouth with my hand to keep the sound to myself. I turn to see Lydia’s eyes narrow and then turn to me. She raises an eyebrow in question and I just shrug, knowing that I had no claim on him. I push down the small, insecure part of me that is screaming to tell her no, it’s not okay. That pang of jealousy would have to be explored at a later point.

After Allison points him out, Stiles follows Lydia around like a lost puppy, holding her mountain of dresses for her and shooting off sarcastic comments that make me laugh. His eyes meet mine a few times, as if asking if this was going to be okay. I nod, refusing to let that feeling overtake me. We’re friends, I can handle this weird little crush that has been lingering.

We walk around for what feels like hours, Allison disappearing to take care of her car an hour into shopping. Lydia decides on a silver dress with a black ribbon around her waist and Allison decides on a ruffled silver number that really compliments her coloring. They both leaned very heavily on the ‘winter’ part of winter formal with those colors. I still couldn’t find a dress I liked that fit me well, until Stiles waves me over to a rack a few feet from where I am.

“Evie, come here! I think I found something,” he says, a big smile on his face. I hurry over to him, excited to see what he had found. He pulls out a deep green dress with an iridescent overlay on the skirt and bodice. It laces up in the back instead of having a zipper and has some boning in the front, to keep it stiff. I run my fingers over the fabric, a smile creeping its way onto my face. “Well, what do you think?” he asks, a nervous lilt in his voice.

“I love it.” He smiles, relieved and I quickly find my size and head towards the changing rooms. As soon as I slip the dress on, I know it’s the one. I struggle slightly with tying the ribbons in the back, but mange to get it tight enough that it won’t slip off me. Stepping in front of the mirror, I admire how it looks on me. The green makes my hair look more red, and compliments my dark eyes. I twirl, watching the skirt spin with me. It gives me fairy vibes and I’m absolutely in love with it.

I step out into the main area where everyone is waiting. Lydia insists on seeing all the dresses, to help us pick I guess. I hear a soft gasp when I walk out, and my eyes immediately go to Lydia, who has a grin on her face and a look of approval shining through. Allison is smiling, her dimples really coming through from the strength of it. Stiles’ eyes went wide when he sees me, an odd look coming onto his face.

“Wow! You look great!” he says. “Not that you don’t always look great! This is just… wow.” I laugh, a blush heating up my face. I ignore the butterflies in my stomach, trying to squish them before there’s a whole horde of them in there.

“Well, you picked it out. You have a good eye, for a guy,” I say with a grin. “So, this is a yes, right? Please let it be a yes, I don’t think I can handle anymore dress-trying-on.” Lydia laughs, the first I had heard in a long time.

“Yeah, that’s a definite yes. Isaac won’t know what hit him.” At the mention of Isaac, Stiles’ light eyes go dark with what I assume is jealousy, which makes my heart do flips. Maybe he does like me the way I like him. He hurries away, mostly to help Lydia put all the no’s on the return rack, but I can hear his heart beating faster than usual. Stiles avoids me the rest of the night, and I try not to worry about it, though his actions make me nervous.

We go out for a quick bite after we buy our dresses, Lydia insisting to buy both Allison and I’s. I argue slightly, until I see the price tag and know without a doubt that I don’t have that much money in my bank account. Us girls discuss hair and makeup ideas, while Stiles does his very best to not look bored. For his part, Lydia had made sure that he had a tux that would go well with her dress. I made a mental note to ask Isaac about his tux, though I wasn’t too concerned with matching. As long as it was black and white, it would look fine.

Lydia dropped Allison and I off, Stiles going home on his own. I hurry up to my room to put my dress in the closet. I had tried my best to decorate my room in a nice way. We had painted the walls a nice ivory color, nothing too bright. One wall was covered in false ivy and had an oversized chair in the corner, next to my bookshelves. Another wall held my bed, it’s warmth especially inviting after these past few hours of tedious shopping. The weather had started to turn chilly, though not nearly as cold as it had been in Kansas, which I was grateful for. My desk was pushed up to the window, so I could see out while doing homework. Books littered my desk, some for school and others for my own downtime.

I do my nightly routine, making sure to remove all makeup before heading to bed. There had been a night about a month ago where I had forgotten and woke up to a perfect imprint of my face on my white pillow. Needless to say, Mom was not very happy with me for that one. I slide into my warm bed, a feeling of comfort seeping into my bones.

I often have dreams, or rather, nightmares. My brain seems to think that I don’t worry enough while I’m awake, so it creates scenes in my brain to have me react to and become anxious upon waking. Lately, I have been having the same dream over and over again. I was in the woods, a gauzy white gown covering my otherwise nude body, as I ran between the trees. I wasn’t being chased, but I could feel someone following me. We were laughing in the dream, and at some point it felt like I had been tackled to the ground by this person but nothing hurt. I could feel them leave soft kisses on my exposed shoulders and I felt so completely comfortable. It didn’t make sense, and I had no clue who the person was but I found myself searching for them upon waking. The urge to find them was so strong it was almost painful.

Tonight is no different. As I fall asleep, the scent of the woods hits my nose immediately. The same dress covered my body, and I could almost see the person behind me before we started sprinting through the woods, my speed surprising me. I turn back to see the person, but they’re far behind me. I slow down so they can catch up and their scent hits me. Sweat, but something else, something… manly. Before I could place the smell, I was being tackled to the ground. This time though, I was facing the person and I felt a slight pain in my back, making me close my eyes in discomfort. A hand gently cups my face and his thumb gently caresses my cheek. I lean into the touch, savoring it before the dream melts away into darkness.

I wake slowly, wanting to stay in my dream as long as possible to gather any more clues about the person. The sun hasn’t even rose, and yet here I am, awake. I sigh, deciding that if I have to be awake, I might as well use the time efficiently. I take a long, hot shower, trying to get the scent of the man out of my nose. Everything about him felt so familiar and yet I couldn’t place it. Closing my eyes, I try to mentally put it in a folder to look at later; focusing on it now would do me no good. I take a few deep breaths and turn off the water, stepping out into the cool bathroom. Wrapping a towel around myself, I head back to my room. I flip on the light and pad to my closet when I hear a soft sound.

I turn slowly, spotting a man sitting in my desk chair. I freeze, much like a deer caught in headlights as the man stands.

“Hello, Evangeline.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

I rub my eyes, yawning as I pull on my jersey. I hadn’t slept well last night, partially because of this recurring dream that left me feeling exhausted and partially because I didn’t fall asleep until very early in the morning. My phone buzzes relentlessly in my pocket, the buzzing catching the attention of both Scott and Coach, which is unfortunate for me.

“Stilinski! If you can’t shut that thing up, I’ll shut it up for you!” he yelled from across the locker room. I wince and fumble for it, nearly dropping it onto the hard concrete floor.

“Yes Coach,” I say back, ignoring the call. I sigh, putting the phone into my gym locker, not bothering to look at who had been calling me. Scott gives me a funny look before turning back to whatever Coach had been lecturing us about before I had rudely interrupted. I tuned him out most of the time, and this time was no different.

It was way too early to be having practice; the sun was barely up, but here we are, cold and running laps. Practice itself wouldn’t take that long, but it had gotten so cold this past week that no one really wanted to be out on the field. Everyone was sluggish, even Scott, who still looked like a kicked puppy about Allison going to the formal with Jackson. I still hadn’t figured out how Allison had talked Lydia into being my date but to say I was excited would have been an understatement. This was my one chance to show her how great a boyfriend I can be, and I’m not about to give that up.

Practice goes by quickly, the cold settling into our bones within a few minutes. After showering and dressing, I grab my phone from my locker, noticing that I had four missed calls. I scroll through the call log, realizing they were all from Evie and she only left one voicemail. I open it, my foot tapping against the floor, the only sign of my nervousness.

“Stiles, he found me…” a loud bang in the background and a yelp from Evie nearly sets me running. Her voice is low, barely there. “I… I don’t know where I am. It’s so dark… Stiles…” The voicemail is cut off there and I bring the phone in front of me in shock. Scott comes up beside me, his jaw set in anger. He lays a hand on my shoulder and looks at me dead in the eye.

“We’ll find her.” I nod, the situation still not quite making sense. He who? There were several contenders at this point. It could be Peter, or Derek, or Argent… There were too many people involved for anything to be clear. I take a deep, calming breath. “Do you have anything of hers that I can get a scent off of? Or do we need to raid her house?” I pause for a moment, trying to remember if she had ever left anything in the Jeep. I shake my head, coming up empty.

“No, but I think we may be able to get something from her locker.” Scott gives me a funny look and I explain quickly. “She never locks it, says that the combination takes too much time.” He nods and we head towards the hallway. I nearly walk past it and have to double back after I spot it. I open it, the pictures inside fluttering at the movement. Scott takes over from there, grabbing a sweater Evie had left in there. I refuse to focus too long on her smiling face, knowing that something very easily could have ruined that smiling face forever.

After taking the sweater out, we rush towards the Jeep, nearly crashing into Allison and Lydia in our hurry. Scott slides to a stop but I keep going, tumbling to the ground. I hiss at the pain in my knees and Scott helps pick me back up.

“Woah! Where are you going?” Allison yells after us. Neither Scott nor I stop to explain, too busy hurrying towards the Jeep to realize they were going to follow us. The two exchange a look and rush after us, their heels clicking against the floor. “Wait up!”

We made it to the Jeep in record time, me nearly running into the side window, because I was unable to slow down enough to not. The girls reach us as Scott hops into the car, leaving me to explain our rush to them.

“We got a call from Evie,” I say quietly. “She’s being held somewhere, we don’t know where.” Lydia’s eyes go huge, reminding me of an owl. Allison sets her jaw, and I can see her decision in her eyes. She reaches for the door and climbs silently into the car. I turn to Lydia, awkwardly wrapping an arm around her while quiet tears fall down her face. “We’re going to find her, okay? Everything will be ok.” I move her so we’re looking each other in the eyes, hers shining with anger now instead of tears.

“I want to go with you,” she says.

“Lydia, you need to-” she cuts me short with a curt laugh.

“She is my cousin! I will not stand by and let anything happen to her!” I wince at how loud her voice had gone, but the anger in her face makes me sigh. I reluctantly open the door for her and watch her climb into the back, a satisfied look on her face. Scott glares at me; I just shrug and get into the car. Lydia’s eyes narrow, catching sight of the sweater in Scott’s hands. “Why do you have her sweater?”

Scott and I exchange a look, as nervousness floods my body. I hadn’t thought about having to explain how we were going to find her. Scott tries to come up with a reason, but I know that it’ll never curb Lydia’s curiosity. The girl’s mind was a steel trap; she’d remember anything we told her and use it against us if anything happened out of the ordinary.

“Evie left it in the front seat one day after school,” I say quickly. That answer must have made enough sense to her, since she dropped it. I let out a breath of relief and started to drive. Scott rolls down his window under the disguise that it’s easier to see with it down. We drive for a long time, when Scott goes stiff. “What? What is it?”

“I… I think I see her.” I hit the brakes quickly, causing the girls to shout in surprise. I mumble a sorry but turn my attention to where Scott is looking. A small, pale figure is moving towards us quickly. She’s stumbling through the woods, the light making a halo around her head. “It’s definitely her.”

At that, we all hurry out of the car and I run towards her. There’s blood on her forehead, the cut already closing. Blood slips down her bare body from twin cuts along her ribs, a matching set visible on her thighs as well. She stumbles a few times when she spots us, trying to hurry while also looking over her shoulder. Lydia rushes forward, and I avert my eyes, trying not to stare at her nakedness.

Scott hands Allison the sweater and I dig a pair of athletic shorts out of my gym bag. Lydia does her best to clean off the blood with an extra shirt she found in the back of the Jeep. I make a mental note to replace these clothes and get better detergent to get the blood out. Evie is silent the entire time, only making soft sounds of pain if Lydia pushes too hard on her cuts. Her entire back is scratched up, a few deep cuts littered here and there. The sight of her blood makes me nauseous but I do my best to curb the urge to vomit or pass out. Allison and Lydia help her dress, making Scott and I turn around.

“We should take her to the hospital,” I say quietly to Scott. “Her wounds aren’t healing. They must have put wolfbane on the knives.” Scott shakes his head.

“Those are definitely from Peter. A wound from an alpha takes longer to heal,” he says. I make a face, unsure as to why he assumes that it was Peter. “He had to have done this, his scent is coating her like a second skin and the Argents don’t even know she exists.” I sigh, a headache beginning to form. I look over to the group of girls, watching as they hug, careful of Evie’s cuts and bruises. Relief washes over me and I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. She’s okay, she’s here and she’s not dead. That’s all I could have asked for.

Evie meets my gaze and gives me a small smile. I grin back at her, the situation lightening momentarily. We had found her, she was okay, and we had an idea of who took her. Then it hit me; we would have to explain this to her parents at some point. That would not be a fun conversation. She gestured us over, the smile lingering on her face. Evie pulls Scott into a hug, making him smile. He ruffles her hair slightly, getting her to laugh softly. Then, she turns to me.

“Thank you,” she says, her voice hoarse. I swallow, worry and relief warring inside me. She pulls me into a hug, her arms nearly crushing my ribs but I hug back just as fiercely.

“Don’t ever get kidnapped again.” She laughs, this time a real, full laugh. I smile, glad to know that this experience hadn’t ruined her spirit completely. Evie pats my chest after letting me out of her bone crushing hug and steps back into the safety of her friends.

“I’ll do my best not to get kidnapped again,” she says.

“So, do we need to go to the hospital or would you rather go home?” I ask. Her brown eyes go wide at the mention of a hospital and I mentally kick myself. Of course a hospital would be a bad idea. Her cuts would be healed in a matter of hours, making any stitches she got useless.

“Of course we’re going to the hospital! We just found her in the woods, naked and bleeding!” Lydia snaps, making me wince. Evie faces her cousin, a deep frown on her face. She points to the fully closed cut on her forehead, where it had been bleeding not two minutes ago.

“There’s no need for a hospital,” she says softly, taking a step towards Lydia and Allison. Allison, for her part, didn’t back away from Evie, though fear sparked in her eyes. Scott and I exchange a look, knowing that everything that Allison had been suspecting was now revealed to her. There were no more secrets left to tell, except maybe Evie’s.

“I don’t understand,” Allison starts. “You were bleeding, you had really deep cuts… and now they're just gone?” Making a so-so gesture with her hands, Evie nods, a look of compassion taking over her face. Her dark eyes have lost their usual shine and a weight has been placed on her shoulders. “What does that mean? What are you?” Evie glances at Scott, visibly tiring before our eyes. Scott nods, taking over explaining for Evie.

“Remember when you said that your family was hiding something from you?” A nod from Allison. “Well, we’re what they’re hiding from you. Evie and I are werewolves.” Lydia blinks a few times, then turns her attention to Evie.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks quietly. Evie rubs her face, smearing blood and dirt across her cheek. A part of me itches to wipe it off her face, knowing that she would hate looking so filthy.

“I didn’t want you to worry about me, after everything I’ve put this family through the last thing I wanted to do was give you another reason to worry.” In that moment my heart breaks for Evie. I don’t know all the details, but I knew that whatever happened before she left Kansas had to have been bad if she didn’t even trust Lydia with her secrets. Lydia hugs Evie tight, tears streaming down her pale face.

“You don’t get to decide what will make me worry and what won’t. If anything happens to you, I should be the first to know,” she says, making Evie laugh as they broke from their hug. Allison holds up a hand.

“Hold on. Everyone is just okay with this? No one is concerned that there are supernatural beings in this town?” Everyone looks around, and I shrug.

“Honestly? I’ve been freaking out for the past three months. Werewolves are fucking scary man.” Scott glares at me and Evie raises an eyebrow. “Current company excluded of course,” I say. “I’m more worried about the other two, the ones that want Scott, and now Evie, to join their pack.” Evie nods, a bit of light returning to her eyes. “Derek isn’t so bad but Peter is absolutely insane.”

“I’m sorry, who?” Lydia asks.

“Derek and Peter Hale are also werewolves. Peter is the crazy alpha who has been killing people and attacking us since September. They want Scott and Evie to join their pack because “we’re stronger together”, but Scott said no and they didn’t know Evie existed until now. Not sure how they figured out where she was but now we have to be on guard all the time so no one gets kidnapped.” I let out a breath, winded from so much talking.

Lydia shakes her head, her strawberry blonde curls bouncing with the movement. Another thought pops into my mind but before I can voice it, Scott is ushering Evie into the Jeep, Lydia and Allison right behind her. I look over my shoulder quickly, seeing a dark mass quickly approaching from the woods and get into the Jeep as well, hoping it starts on the first try. I rev the engine, once, twice, three times before it finally kicks over and we’re barreling down the road towards Evie’s house.

“He knows where I live!” she reminds me from the backseat.

“Well, where the hell am I supposed to go?!” I bark back, immediately regretting it when I see her eyes go yellow in the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry!” They’re quickly gone, but I know I’ve hurt her feelings. Scott looks over at me, a confused look on his face.

“Head towards the vet clinic,” he says calmly. Why is he so calm? Wish I could be calm with a lunatic wolfman following us. I nod, turning the car sharply onto the correct road.

We’re at the vet clinic in record time, though I’m pretty sure that I broke several traffic laws in doing so. The dark figure is quickly gaining on us. Scott and I usher the girls inside before entering ourselves, locking the door behind us.

“Anyone want to tell me why we’re in a vet clinic?” Lydia whispers.

“The whole building is made of mountain ash,” says a voice from behind us, making both Evie and I jump.

“You can’t just sneak up on us like that!” I whisper yell. Deaton, Scott’s boss, stands behind the counter, a serious look on his face. He pushes us behind the counter and into an examination room before locking that door as well.

We all hide in various spots as we listen to Peter talk to Deaton, or rather threaten him. Evie, somehow, has ended up pressed into my side, her warmth chasing away any chill that was left over from being outside. Scott eyes us from the other side of the room, a small frown on his face. Allison is pressed against the examination table, Lydia squished in next to her. We hear the front door slam and we all let out a collective breath. Evie scoots away from me, and I almost immediately miss her warmth. It’s freezing in here; Deaton must not have switched over his air conditioning yet.

“You can all come out now,” Deaton calls out. I hear the lock turn and pop up, everyone else slowly getting to their feet. We all make our way out into the main lobby, where Deaton is waiting. He scans Evie, as if he can see the cuts and bruises her clothing is covering. “You need some medical attention. May I see?” he asks. Evie nods and they step back into the examination room, Lydia joining them after a few moments.

Scott, Allison, and I wait outside. I pace around while they have a quiet conversation about whatever it is that they usually talk about, my brain not catching onto any words they’re saying. After what felt like hours, the trio emerges from the examination room. Evie looks freshly showered and I briefly entertain that idea of Deaton washing her like a dog in one of the sinks. She’s small, she’d be able to fit.

Scott and Allison stand, the latter rushing to help Evie back to the car. Any energy Evie had before was completely sapped by the time she made it back to the Jeep. Scott lifts her into the back seat, settling her between Lydia and Allison while I race to the drivers side. I take her back to her house, leaving Lydia with her. Allison, Scott, and I all go back to school, the day weighing heavily on our minds. Allison and Lydia know now, and there was no going back from that.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I slept for what felt like days, dreamless and deeply. A warm body is pressed against me the entire time I’m asleep and I can hear soft music coming from somewhere. I curl into the warmth, still freezing from my jaunt in the woods and being naked in the old Hale house. I feel fingers rake gently through my hair, detangling it and removing any leftover sticks that my dip into the sink didn’t catch. I sigh, awake now but not wanting to open my eyes.

“Stiles…” I say softly. The hand stops and I open an eye to see Lydia sitting beside me, definitely not Stiles. Refusing to feel embarrassed, I meet her stare. She rolls her eyes and smiles.

“I knew you had a thing for him. You should see the way you look at him,” she says with a smirk. I huff, pulling myself up with a soft groan of pain. The bruises would last for a few hours, but everything else had basically healed. I was beyond grateful for Deaton’s help, but I didn’t appreciate being bathed like a dog in the sink. I mentally put that on my list of top ten most embarrassing moments.

“I don’t have a thing for him.” Lydia just smiles, making me sigh. “Okay, maybe I have a small crush on him. You can’t say anything to him,” I plead, hands clasped. She taps her chin, making my anxiety levels rise quickly, before smiling.

“I won’t say anything.” I let out a breath, not realizing that I had been holding one. “But, you’ll have to tell him eventually.” I shake my head.

“No, by the time he even has an inkling of it I’ll be over it. I don’t need a boyfriend.” Lydia stares at me, searching my face. Her eyes narrow, a suspicious gleam in the green depths of them. Suddenly they go wide with a realization.

“You’re afraid,” she says, breathless at the realization. I hang my head, refusing to make eye contact with her.

“He deserves better.” Lydia shakes her head but I continue. “What happens if I have another anxiety attack like I did last winter? What if he finds out why I was in the hospital? I don’t think I can take the look on his face if he were to find out, Lydia.” She sighs, a soft sound that nearly sets me crying. I had put my family through so much, I couldn’t do that to another person I cared about. No one deserved that kind of pain.

“What happened wasn’t your fault Evie. Bad things happen to good people, and we have to decide how to react. I admit that several of us reacted badly in the moment,” she shot a glare towards where I assume my parents may be. They did not react that well, I will admit, but I hadn’t realized everyone else knew that as well. “But that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the quality of our character.” She studies my face, gently wiping away a tear that had fallen without me noticing. “You deserve to be happy, Evie. Especially after everything you’ve been through.”

I curl into her, using the blanket to wipe the remaining tears from my face. We stay like that for some time, not talking but enjoying each other’s company. Lydia reads quietly while I doze off, until a loud knock resonates through the house. I hear Mom saying something, but I chose to not focus too hard on it. Lydia, however, straightens up, causing my head to fall to the bed. We watch the door, and I cringe at the sound of multiple pairs of feet coming up the stairs.

Stiles is the first to burst into my room, out of breath and flannel flying out behind him like a cape. Scott and Allison are close behind him, though they enter much quieter. Lydia raises an eyebrow and stands up, stretching slightly. I turn my focus to Stiles, noticing that he had a rather large bouquet of flowers in his hands. I feel my cheeks start to burn and I glare at Lydia when I realize that the flowers are daisies, which are my absolute favorites. She just smiles at me and graciously takes them from Stiles before he can crush them anymore than he already has.

“Hi, we brought you your homework, well Allison did. I didn’t realize you were in a modern literature class, when did that become a thing and why didn’t anyone tell me? You guys are literally reading comic books.” I blink a few times, trying to keep up with his stream of speech. He spoke too quickly for my brain to handle. He smiles widely and gestures as he talks, going on about some comic book he had read a few weeks back. I tune him out and turn my attention to Scott.

“What’s going on?” I croak, my voice still not a hundred percent after screaming for so long. Peter did not have an easy time getting me to come with him, which prompted him to give me the wound on my forehead, effectively knocking me out. Scott and Allison exchange a look and Stiles finally goes quiet.

“Derek wants to talk to us. Both of us,” Scott says, his voice loud in the silent room. I narrow my eyes, considering his words.

“I don’t think he is in a position to demand anything from me. He did not help me today, and any respect or interest I had in this pack Peter is trying to create disappeared the moment he thought he could kidnap me and push me to submit to him.” I’m so angry I can feel my body shaking. Pain shoots up in my gums, signalling that I had changed. Scott raises his hands in surrender, knowing better than to fight me on this. Stiles comes closer, laying a single hand on my shoulder. Relief spreads through my body at his touch, making the fangs disappear within seconds. I don’t miss the look Scott gives me, but chose to ignore the question behind it.

“I agree with her. This Peter guy sounds like bad news and, frankly, I don’t like him at all,” Allison states. I crack a smile at that, happy she agrees with me despite not being included for so long. Lydia nods in agreement.

“The moment he took my cousin was the moment he was put on my shit list,” Lydia says. I laugh, a slightly broken sound. I clear my throat as Stiles gently squeezes my shoulder. I give him an appreciative smile, which he returns, before letting go of my shoulder. I miss it immediately but I refuse to let Lydia know how deep this crush goes by looking sad.

“You know where I stand on this Scott. And it seems like everyone kinda agrees with me,” he says. He leans towards us. “Thanks for that, by the way.” Scott just shakes his head, not seeming to upset with our verdict. I smile, glad that he agrees with us.

Everyone crowds onto my bed, Stiles dramatically flopping himself down next to me. Allison and Scott sit awkwardly on the foot of my bed while Lydia claims the small spot between Stiles and I.

“So, uh, not that I don’t love having you guys here, but is there a particular reason you’re all on my bed?” I ask, a frown making its way onto my face. I love my friends but Scott and Stiles smell like four day old gym shorts, and I really don’t want my sheets smelling like that.

“This is what is called group bonding,” Stiles points out, a grin plastered on his face. I raise an eyebrow, confused. “Well, I guess more like pack bonding, since neither you nor Scott want a piece of Peter’s fucked up one.” I laugh at that, shaking my head slightly.

“In all seriousness, we do need some sort of plan,” Allison states. “My family is still keeping things from me and I still haven’t heard the entire story of how all of this happened.”

Scott and I exchange a look, mentally trying to decide who’s better equipped to tell her the whole story. I point at Scott and he sighs, knowing that he knows more about the situation than I do. He starts at the beginning, describing the night we were both bit and what transpired after that. I input where I think there needs to be more detail, much to Stiles amusement.

“So, basically a psycho murderer is trying to get you guys to be in his pack while my family actually hunts you?” We nod our heads. “And no one thought it was important for us to know this?” I shrug, knowing that I had wanted to tell both her and Lydia immediately but was shut down by Scott. He didn’t want to freak her out, but that ship has sailed. To her credit, she seemed to be handling it very well. I reach over and grab her hand, giving it a soft squeeze.

“I know this is a lot, but I’m glad you’re here.” We share a smile, Scott looking confused as usual. I pat his knee, a slight smile still on my face. Scott may be cute but his head is totally empty. No thoughts.

We hang out for a while, just enjoying each other’s company after a very crazy semester. Lydia and Allison exchange plans for the dance, Scott complains about not being able to go, Stiles continues on his rant about comic books, and I try to keep up. We order a pizza and watch a movie, really just being normal for one night. One by one my friends start to leave, starting with Lydia. Allison is next to go and then Scott, leaving me and Stiles alone in my room. He stretches out on my bed, one arm under his head and looking completely at ease. I give him a confused look, earning me a laugh and the shake of his head.

“We agreed that until Peter is taken care of, we won’t leave you on your own.” I snort, waving a dismissive hand at him. “Hey, I can hold my own!” I outright laugh; the thought of Stiles protecting me from Peter is actually hilarious. A plan starts forming in the back of my head; I can prove that he can’t beat Peter rather easily. I stop laughing and put on a serious face. “What are you doing?” he asks rather loudly. I tilt my head at the question.

“I’m not doing anything,” I say innocently. I stand, going to my dresser to get different clothes, since I had been in the same sweater and gym shorts since arriving home. I hear Stiles get up to get his homework and that’s when I strike, moving quicker than he could process to pin him to the wall. My hands barely circle around his wrists but I keep him securely against the wall by using my newly acquired strength, my body pressed against his. I watch him swallow, a nervous look on his face and he won’t make eye contact with me. Odd. I raise an eyebrow.

“Pinned ya.” He laughs, some tension leaving his body. “Honestly though, I don’t think you’d hold up long against Peter. You can barely hold your own against me, and I’m much smaller.” I give him a triumphant smile, totally aware of my win. He takes a deep breath and I’m suddenly aware of how close we are to each other.

Against my better judgement, I lean in slightly, taking in a lungful of his scent. He smelled like the woods and gasoline and old books. His heart beats quickly, almost too quickly for what little activity we had done. I allow myself to just look at him, my eyes tracing his face and I let myself be amazed by the pattern of moles that litter his face. I rarely let myself focus too long on his face, afraid of what I may find in his eyes. Going on my tiptoes, I let go of one wrist to cup his cheek, brushing my thumb against his cheekbone. Stiles’ eyes close, a sigh emitting from deep in his chest. He wraps one arm around me, a half hug that forces me to lower my hand. I allow him to escape completely from my hold so he can wrap the other arm around me.

“Evie,” he whispers. I shake my head, knowing that whatever he’s about to say can wait. For right now, I just want to be held. As I lay my head on his chest, the music that had been playing for most of the day switching to something slow. Stiles starts to sway, in that awkward way boys do when you’re supposed to slow dance. His chin rests on the top of my head and we stay like that for a long time. Eventually, the music changes and we pull away, his eyes opening when my hand cups his cheek again.

I search his expression, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he feels even a kernel of what I feel. Desperately, I search but come up with nothing. Stiles’ face gives no inclination that what just happened was meaningful in any way, shape or form. I pull myself farther away, the beginnings of tears in my eyes. He reaches for me, but I slip out of his grasp. Gathering my courage, I put on a happy face when I turn to him.

“I appreciate the thought, but I think I can take care of myself.” Stiles frowns, not understanding my change in emotion.

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel unsafe.” I wave my hand, dismissing his worry with a smile on my face. On the inside, I’m screaming at him to leave and to never come near me again. But I can’t do that. Even though it’s torture, I would much rather have him close to me than to be separated.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” I say with a bright smile. He nods, packing up his stuff before finally leaving. I fall onto my bed, desperately trying to keep the tears in. No boy is worth crying over, I harshly remind myself. But, a few tears slip from my eyes and once those are free, the rest come rushing out. Soon, I’m a blubbering, disgusting mess. The stress from today hits me all at once, dissolving me into more tears until I have no tears left.

I wipe at my eyes, curling into myself. I calm myself down enough to call Isaac, my hands shaking as I hit the call button next to his name. He answers on the fourth ring, sleep coating his voice.

“Hey what’s up?” I sigh, and he must hear something sad about it since he snaps immediately into action. “I can be at your house in fifteen, there’s definitely some place still open for a milkshake. Be ready.” I laugh softly, already feeling better.

“See you in fifteen,” I say before hanging up.

When Isaac says fifteen, he means it. By the time I had put on heavier clothes and shoes, he was waiting patiently outside, his dad’s car still running. I hurry outside, not bothering to tell my parents where I was headed. They trust Isaac, for whatever reason. He opens his arms and I rush into them, inhaling the smell of freshly mowed grass and the citrus scent of his cologne. Issac holds me close and I feel the last of the tension in my body be released, everything melting away. We head towards the car, a small smile on his face.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing, you just look like shit,” he says with a smirk. I give him the bird, making him laugh. We both get into the car and I scrunch my nose up at the smell of it. His dad’s scent is everywhere and it kind of makes me want to vomit. It reeks of chlorine and dried blood. Isaac looks over at me, a grimace on his face. “I know it smells bad but I didn’t really wanna ride my bike all the way here.” At that I laugh, the smell forgotten.

The drive to the nearest diner doesn’t take long and we talk the entire time, the chatter keeping me together. Once inside, Isaac orders us milkshakes (mine chocolate and his strawberry because he’s an odd man) and we sit in our regular booth, three from the front door. While we wait, we talk about school and our plans for the dance. Everything with Isaac is so easy and simple. We never run out of things to talk about and he doesn’t seem to mind that I don’t tell all of every story. He does the same, so it’s hard to be a hypocrite with that sort of thing.

Seeking comfort, I reach across the table and grab his hand. Without thinking, he immediately starts gently rubbing circles on my hand with his thumb, a familiar action between us. And to think, a few months ago I was worried about making friends. I sigh, balancing my head on my other hand. Something has to be done about my crush on Stiles, but what? He’s obviously not into me the way I’m into him. Then, I remember how he reacted when Lydia brought up Isaac yesterday in the mall. His face held an intense amount of jealousy, something I had never seen him wear around Lydia and Jackson. A plan starts to form in my head, something I’m not sure will work but I’m willing to try. Things couldn’t get worse.

“I have a question for you,” I say as the waitress sets our milkshakes down in front of us.

“Shoot,” he says, letting go of my hand to put a straw in his shake. I gather my courage, deciding that if he says no, it won’t be that big of a deal. I watch him tear the wrapper off the straw, taking a deep drink of his pink monstrosity, and take a deep breath, deciding it’s now or never.

“Do you have feelings for me?” I blurt out. Isaac chokes on his shake, coughing slightly. I furrow my eyebrows and hand him a few napkins to clean himself up with. His shirt is covered in ice cream, which would usually set me laughing but I held it in, just to save him embarrassment. I’m such a good friend.

“I’m sorry what?” he asks once his coughing is under control. I play with a piece of my hair, suddenly worried about this very, very stupid plan of mine.

“Do you have feelings for me? Like, in a romantic sense?” Isaac narrows his eyes at me, a befuddled look on his face. If this wasn’t so serious, I may have laughed. “I’m being serious, Isaac. Do you have any sort of romantic feelings towards me? Yes or no?”

“Uh, no?” he says. I nod, somewhat pleased with his answer. I kind of figured he didn’t like me in that way, but it would definitely make the next part of my plan a little easier on the both of us.

“So, I have recently discovered that I have a…” I pause, searching for the right word to describe how I felt about Stiles. “Infatuation? Crush? I’m not sure.” Issac holds up a hand.

“It’s not on me is it? Because I see you as more of a sister…” I laugh, shaking my head. He sighs, relieved that I’m not into him in that way either.

“No, definitely not on you. I have a mild crush on Stiles.” He makes a face at me. “Yes, I know he loves Lydia but I have a plan.” I tell him all about our shopping trip and how when Lydia mentioned him, Stiles seemed to get jealous. I describe what happened before I called him and my plan of how to get Stiles to be interested in me.

“Hold on. You want to use me to make Stiles jealous?” he asks. I nod, confused as to what part of my plan he was confused about. “Stiles is jealous of me?” I nod slower this time. Isaac smiles, a proud look on his face. “Stiles is jealous of me.” I roll my eyes; boys.

“Yeah, don’t go getting a big head about it.” He laughs and I crack a smile. Isaac agrees to my ridiculous plan, after very little convincing may I add, and even adds his own take on things. I am impressed with his dedication to my half thought out plan and I know that anything Issac does will drive Stiles insane. We finish our shakes and head out, the smell of chlorine nearly suffocating me in the car once again. The drive home is filled with me bouncing in my seat and Issac singing along with the radio.

Once back at my house, Isaac walks me up to my front door and bids me good night. At this point it’s basically midnight and I’m exhausted. Just going up the stairs to my room takes a lot out of me, exhaustion hitting at the top of the stairs. I collapse onto my bed, still wearing the clothes I had borrowed from Stiles. My sleep is dreamless and deep, and I’m thankful for it.

The next morning, Isaac is there to pick me up, yet again with his dad’s car. I made sure to dress warm, in a black turtleneck and jeans, because the heater in the car did not work. Which is unfortunate for everyone involved, because the chlorine smell did not get pushed around and Isaac refused to put any of the windows down. I rush outside, hair still half wet from my shower and instantly regret not blow drying it. It wasn’t cold per say but the chilly wind definitely did not feel good blowing through my hair.

“Ready to make Stilinski jealous?” he says smiling. I nod, a grin settling on my face. Confidence settles into my bones and sets my face into a permanent smirk. Isaac has a matching one plastered onto his face and I know that this will work.

School goes fairly normally. Isaac and I get a few stares, most focusing on our linked hands and his arm slung casually around my waist. Things are going smoothly, almost too smoothly. We sit on our own at lunch, heads bent over our math homework, Isaac trying to help me figure out a few difficult equations. He sneaks a kiss on my cheek and I allow myself to blush, knowing he did it to sell it to my friends, who are gawking at us from across the lunch room. I look up from my book and meet Stiles stare, a smile on my face. He quickly looks away, embarrassment leaking from him. I turn towards Isaac, leaning into him a little.

“Do you think he’s buying it?” I whisper. Isaac nods, laughing quietly and dipping his head to look back down at his notebook. We eat quickly and start moving towards our next class when Lydia approaches us.

“Evie, I didn’t know you had it in you,” she says, a smirk on her face. Isaac pauses, making me stop as well.

“Have what in me?” I ask innocently. There’s a proud gleam in her eye as she leans towards me.

“You’re going to have him wrapped around your little finger before the month is over.” I laugh, blushing slightly. “Seriously. He can’t stop talking about how much he doesn’t like Isaac.” She turns towards the man in question. “You should probably watch your back though. I’ve heard lots of upset people today. Evie had more admirers than anyone thought.” With that, she flips her hair and walks off, leaving a confused Isaac in her wake.

“That answers my question then,” I say with a laugh. He just shakes his head and grabs my hand, ready to face more stares.

The rest of our day goes by quickly and Lydia insists that I attend lacrosse practice. The temp has dropped by then but I still feel comfortable in just my sweater. I had purchased a pair of glasses without a prescription to maintain my image, even though my eyesight had perfected itself after becoming a werewolf. My glasses had clouded up on several occasions while waiting for the boys to appear from the gym. Lydia wraps a blanket around herself, not used to the cool weather. I tease her relentlessly for it, but she maintains that it’s a necessary thing.

“Why are we here again? You aren’t dating Jackson anymore, doesn’t that let you off the hook for these things?” I ask, still confused as to why we’re here. She sighs, a puff of white air coming from her mouth.

“You should be here, as Isaac’s girlfriend. I’m just here to reinforce that idea and because I enjoy spending time with my cousin.” She turns her bright smile onto me. I sigh, knowing that she’s right. “Besides, these guys don’t really have a lot of support right now, especially since it’s so cold out. No one wants to come and watch when they could be at home.”

“You’re not wrong.” I turn fully towards her. I pause for a second before asking what’s been eating at me since lunch. “So, what has Stiles been saying?” She laughs, shaking her head and making me smile. Having a crush is kind of nice when you can share it with your friends.

“He doesn’t understand how Issac managed to land a girlfriend before him,” she says. I make a face, knowing that if he pulled his head out of his ass for a few minutes he’d be able to see that I was right in front of him. Lydia just nods, as if not understanding him either. “He’s so wrapped up in Isaac having a girlfriend that he hasn’t fully processed that you’re the girlfriend.” Lydia turns to me, a sly look on her face. “So, what happened last night? Stiles refuses to tell us why he left your house but something must have happened between you two for you to go to Issac for help.”

I sigh, deciding to tell her the full story. With every word she becomes more and more outraged at Stiles reaction. By the time I’m done, her face has gone completely red with anger. I have to hide my laugh behind my hand.

“HE’s an absolute idiot! Those were clear signs and he just ignored them!” she exclaims, gaining the attention of Coach, who turns to look at us. We just wave and he goes back to ordering the boys to do sprints. I sigh, upset again at what had transpired.

“He’s too in love with you to notice anyone else, unfortunately,” I say, sadness lacing my voice. Lydia narrows her eyes, clearly not aware of how Stiles looks at her. I huff; of course she doesn’t see it, she barely knew who he was before all of this. “He just doesn’t see me in that way.”

“Yet,” she says. “This plan of yours is going perfectly so far and I think that the winter formal is the perfect time to put the last nail in his coffin.” I tilt my head, confused by what she’s implying. “We are going to make you so hot that no boy will be able to resist you.” I laugh; should have seen that one coming. “Come on, let’s ditch this popsicle stand. I think it’s time for a bit of makeover.” She stands, pulling me with her. I wave at Isaac, blowing a kiss in his direction to really seal the deal. He waves back and I watch Stiles glare at him. Interesting.

Come to find out, ‘a bit of a makeover’ actually meant a complete makeover. She found the perfect dye to give my strawberry blonde hair a bit more punch to it, making it a more vibrant red shade. We went to a salon to have my eyebrows waxed and reshaped, as well as to get haircuts, Lydia deciding to do a bit of refreshing herself. Lydia led me around a few stores, picking out a few new outfits that I could wear this spring, or as she liked to call them ‘man catching clothes’. She insisted that they would drive Stiles crazy and who was I to deny her? Hell, we even got our nails done.

We dyed my hair in my bathroom, trying our best to not make a mess, which was a total fail. I’ll have red dye on my floor until I’m eighty. Lydia steals a bottle of wine from my parents liquor cabinet and we get a little wine drunk. At one point Lydia calls Allison and we all end up sprawled out on my floor, Dirty Dancing playing in the background.

“So, what’s Scott like in bed?” Lydia asks suddenly. I hit her with a pillow, directly in the face. “Hey!”

“Too soon Lyds!” I exclaim, while Allison laughs.

“No, no I can answer,” she says. We gossip like that for hours, sharing stories and just having fun with each other. No boys, no craziness, nothing to ruin our perfect day. Both decide to stay over, since it was Friday and I’m happy for the company. Keeps me from being sad about how my life has decided to go. We watch movies and just relax for once.

The next day is the winter formal and Lydia insists on helping Allison and I get ready. She curls my hair, pinning in places where I’ll forget there are pins and helping Allison apply a rather dramatic eyeshadow look. We all get dressed together, taking pictures as we go, making sure to document this happy time, especially since we don’t know when we’ll have a chance to feel normal again. The flash from the camera triggers my eyesight, making them glow in every picture but neither girl seems to notice or care.

The boys all pick us up at my house, where we make them wait in my living room while each one of us makes an entrance, at Lydia’s request. Allison goes first, with no reaction from Jackson, unsurprisingly. He’s such a piece of work. I bet I could take him in a fight. Break his fragile jaw in a single punch. The confidence those thoughts give me does not last. I go next, nervously smoothing out the fabric of my skirt and barely able to breathe thanks to Lydia pulling the corset strings exceedingly tight.

I make it down the stairs without tripping, thankfully. I hear an intake of breath and I look up from the stairs to see Stiles staring at me, open mouthed. Isaac glares at him, before turning a smile to me. I do my best to focus only on Isaac, smiling and spinning a little to show off the back. Hearing a soft gulp, I turn towards Stiles again, a smirk on my face, the confidence coming back almost immediately at his face.

“You’re drooling Stilinski,” Jackson states, making me laugh. The only time he will ever say something humorous. Stiles immediately snaps his mouth shut and steals glances at me everyone once in a while. Lydia descends rather quickly but he keeps looking at me. I do my best to ignore him, instead focusing on fixing Isaac’s tie.

After fixing his tie, I go on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek, leaving a near perfect impression of my lips there in the dark red lipstick Lydia had applied. I can feel Stiles’ stare on my back and can hear his heartbeat quicken. My parents snap a few pictures of all of us, everyone complaining about it.

We leave quickly after that, Stiles following us in his Jeep. The dance itself goes off without a hitch. Isaac and I dance, trying to ignore the fact that Stiles eventually gets Lydia to dance with him and the jealousy that comes with seeing her pressed so closely to him. I know she doesn’t like him, but it still hurts. Scott sneaks in at some point, dances with Danny, and then proclaims his love for Allison before they both disappear, presumably to go make out somewhere. Jackson also disappears mid-way through and doesn’t reappear. Not long after that, Lydia leaves to go find him with Stiles trailing after her like a lost puppy. I push aside my irritation at him to focus on helping my cousin find her awful ex.

“Hey, maybe we should go help Lydia find Jackson,” I yell over the music. Isaac nods, a grim look on his face, which does nothing to curb my approaching anxiety.

We make our way out of the school when a blood curdling scream comes from the practice field. Panic crawls up my spine; that was distinctly Lydia. Without a look towards Isaac, I start sprinting towards it, following the scent of fear and Chanel perfume that laces the air. I get there right as Stiles starts to leave with Peter, Lydia’s body bleeding profusely from multiple wounds. I stop, partially not wanting Peter to see me, but also out of pure terror.

It takes them a few moments to leave completely, and I feel Isaac come up beside me, breathing heavily. Once they are completely out of sight and I can no longer hear Stiles’ heartbeat, I dart onto the field, Isaac close behind me. I kneel down next to my cousin and check her pulse, fighting back the terror I feel in my stomach. Peter did a real number on her; her dress is torn and blood is leaking steadily from a bite on her shoulder. There’s blood everywhere, streaked across her face and other shoulder. I have to listen very closely, but I can hear her heart beating. I let out a soft sob of relief at the noise.

I hear Jackson run up behind us; Stiles must have called him to come get her. Paying the boys no attention, I manage to lift Lydia off the ground, carrying her towards the school. A deadly calm settles over me, replacing the usual panic.

“Isaac, call my mom. Jackson, call 911.” Both nod at my directions, heading in opposite directions to make their calls. After he’s done, Jackson heads towards where I’m standing with Lydia and tries to take her from my arms. “I’ve got it handled,” I growl at him, flashing my eyes. He takes several steps back, a look of terror on his face.

Isaac pays no attention to us, having a very heated discussion with my mom that I do my best to tune out. I turn towards the school, walking slowly so as to not cause any more harm to Lydia’s already broken body.

It takes the ambulance ten minutes to reach the school and take my cousin from my arms. I ride in the back with her, since I was the only relative present at the time. I hold her hand the entire ride to the hospital, managing to keep my tears in check by listening to the rise and fall of her heartbeat. As they hurry her inside, I finally let myself fall apart, that calm disappearing entirely. The tears came quick and hot, ruining whatever makeup was still left on my face. A nurse led me to an empty waiting room, got me a bottle of water and a chocolate bar, and just sat with me until my tears stopped.

“Lydia is a strong girl, I know she’ll be okay,” she said. I nod, wondering how she knows Lydia. She must see the confusion on my face because she adds, “I’m Melissa McCall, Scott’s mom. You’re Evie right? He talks about you all the time. You and Stiles are the main reasons he’s not failing more classes.” I feel my face go hot; Scott was the last person I expected to actually enjoy my company. She smiles and hands me a tissue from her scrubs pocket. “Here.” I take it, loudly blowing my nose and wiping my eyes, feeling much less panicked about the whole ordeal.

“Thank you,” I say quietly. She wraps an arm around me, pulling me into an awkward sitting hug. Melissa lets me go after a few moments, clearing her throat.

“I have some extra clothes if you want to change out of your dress.” I look down and nearly vomit at the sight of my ruined dress. Lydia’s blood had dried in the fabric, the bodice was covered in it. How I hadn’t noticed before now was astounding. I nod and Melissa takes me to a locker room in the basement of the hospital. She digs out a pair of clean scrubs and hands them to me. “There’s a shower around the corner if you’d like to freshen up. I have a feeling it might be awhile before anyone is allowed to see her.”

“What about my dress?” I ask, picking at the material of the skirt. I would be sad if we had to discard it; it really had been the perfect dress. Melissa taps her chin a few times, thinking.

“Let me see what I can do,” she says with a smile. I nod and head towards the shower, peeling the blood soaked dress off and laying it gingerly on a nearby bench for Melissa to collect while I washed myself off.

I struggle with the faucet for a few moments, not understanding which way to turn it to get the hot water flowing. Once I got it figured out, I spent several minutes just standing under it, letting the hot water relax my tense muscles. I do my best to not let the events of the evening replay, to just focus on right now. I scrub off the dried blood that leaked through my dress and try to forget about how it got there and who it belonged to. My mind wanders as I gently wash my face free of any traces of makeup and turn off the water to see that Melissa had taken my dress and replaced it with a clean towel. I gratefully dry myself off and dress in the scrubs she had given me.

I emerge from the locker room more tired than I had been when I went in. I take the elevator up to where the waiting room is, barefooted and holding my heels in my hand. Leaning against the back wall of the elevator, I watch the numbers rise as it passes each floor, the soft bell noise calming my frayed nerves. When the doors open, I pull myself away from the wall and exit. Turning the corner into the waiting room, the yelling match happening finally hits my ears, making me wince, immediately recognizing the voices as my aunt and uncle. Lydia’s mom and dad argue all the time, and, despite their daughter being in the hospital, this is no different. They scream about who’s fault it is, who’s going to pay the hospital bills, where she’s going to go after she’s let out, everything that didn’t matter right now.

I sigh and collapse into a chair as far away from them as I could. They had divorced a few years back, to no one’s surprise. Lydia’s mom, my aunt, is kind and loves Lydia with her whole heart, but marriage had never sat well with her. She wasn’t domestic and Lydia’s dad hated that. They fought all the time, to the point that even Lydia could see the cracks in their relationship before their separation was even announced. I don’t think she ever processed it thoroughly.

Eventually they quieted down and I heard her dad leave, slamming the door as he went. My aunt collapsed down next to me and I turned my tired eyes towards her. She looks a lot like my mom, though Mom has fewer worry lines around her emerald eyes. Natalie had aged well but she looked tired, it was evident in her eyes.

“Thank you for…” she pauses, swallowing. Her eyes go glossy with tears. “For everything. I don’t know what I would have done if she had… if she had died.” I nod, lacing my fingers with her own and squeezing. She squeezes back and wipes her eyes with her other hand.

“She’s going to be okay,” I whisper. She nods, though neither of us are sure of anything anymore. Natalie nods again, relaxing further into the chair and closing her eyes. I do the same, hoping that maybe sleep will find us and grant us an escape from the mess we are in.

#teen wolf #stiles stilinski #dylan o'brien #new oc #werewolf #things can only get better #teen wolf season one #this took so long #and it kinda sucks but whatever

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ladyofpurple · 4 years

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here it is: the post Literally no one was waiting for. i'd put it under a read more thing but i'm on mobile and can't be assed to get out of bed so fuck it. we air our dirty laundry on main for the world to see like men.

so waaay back in february or something, i started seeing a psychologist again. i'd been seeing a psychologist for a while last year, but she had a private practice and got too expensive over time, so i had to stop. now, however, i finally got a referral to the public mental health offices in my county. which is nice, because norway has this neat thing that means when you go to the doctor, public health care facilities, refill prescriptions for medications you have to take daily, etc, the money you spend on those things gets recorded and after you've spent like $260, you get a free card that gets logged into your medical records and you don't have to pay for any of those things for the rest of the year.

anyway, i mentioned a couple of years back that i finally got put on antidepressants for the first time. they helped a lot, but then i just... stopped taking them. there wasn't a reason, really. i just forgot to take them one week when i was stuck in bed with a headcold, and then it was hard to get back in the habit again. i tried to get back on them off and on for a long time, but i'd inevitably just forget again. until, like, i wanna say november/early december last year? i started taking them again. there were still some slip-ups every now and then, but for the most part i took them almost every day. any gaps were no longer than two, maybe three days at the most, and those gaps were maybe once a month or so on average. averages aren't really useful in this context, but i hope you get the idea.

anyway, i finally convinced my doctor that, no, seriously, i really need to see a psychologist, i've always needed to see psychologists my whole life, seeing psychologists help me, i can't afford a private psychologist so i need a public one, and after a lot of begging and insisting on my end and a lot of hemming and hawing on her end she finally agreed to refer me. except she forgot to actually send the email she'd been typing in front of me, and then she quit, so there was a lot of confusion and time spent sorting things out until i got my first appointment.

i didn't like my psychologist at first. she was way older than i'm usually comfortable with (that's a personal me-problem that i know is irrational, and i'm not gonna go into the why but yes i'm working on it), and very blunt in an exasperated sort of way. she made me angry sometimes. she made me feel like i wasn't trying hard enough. but she helped me get shit done, so i guess she was doing something right.

in june she called in a psychiatrist to help adjust my medications, so i started taking zoloft in addition to the other medication (remeron, aka mirtazapine) that i was already taking. the mirtazapine was helping with my depression, but my anxiety was still pretty bad. the zoloft helped.

by my second appointment with my psychologist, she asked me whether i could have adhd, or if there was a history of it in my family. now, i have a lot of family with adhd (how closely related we are by blood is a bit of a mystery to me, my family tree is more like an overgrown hedge and who knows who fits where), and my grandma used to joke that the women in our family "all have a little bit of that adhd brain in us", but as far as i knew, nobody in my immediate, direct bloodline had such a diagnosis. i had my suspicions about myself, of course — i knew that not every focus or attention related problem necessarily has a specific attention disorder source, but i also knew that what i was experiencing couldn't be "normal," in the sense that if i walked into a room with 100 people in it, 86 of those people wouldn't necessarily look at a list of my symptoms and go "oh same hat." i've had add on my about me for a while now. maybe that was silly of me; i hadn't been diagnosed with it, and what i knew about the specifics of it were picked up piecemeal off the internet. you know, that super-reliable place where everyone is honest and factual all the time?

anyway, this began the process of investigating the merits of such a potential diagnosis. research was begun. questionnaires were taken. my mom was invited to one of my sessions, in which she revealed that, oh yeah, bee tee dubs, she's always suspected i have adhd. did she mention that she has also apparently always suspected ocd and that i'm autistic? no? whoops, well, she has now.

end of june i was referred to the neuropsychologist devision of the public health care place. over the course of a little over 6 weeks i went in for 2 interviews, in which i answered several questionnaires, talked about my life and childhood and traumas and what my mom had told me about her pregnancy and labor, every possible symptom i'd ever had, and was sent home with even *more* questionnaries. in addition to these, i went in for two rounds of "testing," in which i was tested on my memory, pattern recognition, reaction time, impulse control, and probably a dozen other things. i was nervous. it was exhausting. i wanted answers but was terrified of what those answers would be.

end of august, my mom came with me for the big reveal. and guess what? she was right. primary diagnosis: adhd, special emphasis on the attention deficit part. bonus diagnosis: asperger syndrome. surprise! i'm autistic, i guess.

it was hard to come to terms with. which sounds really silly, since i wouldn't have even been taking those tests if i didn't think the outcome was a possibility. and it's not like the diagnoses were surprising either. the adhd part was easier to accept, mostly because i already felt pretty confident i had it. but the asperger diagnosis was harder. having to unlearn all those ingrained ableist stereotypes and social stigmas is hard, especially when you had some you didn't even realize were there. it's very surreal to think a thought and be like "no, wait, i do that. that joke is about me." it's a very surreal and slightly upsetting experience to realize how biased you are as general rule, but especially about a facet of your own identity you weren't aware of. and the feeling of everything and nothing changing all at once. i've always been like this. a doctor telling me i have two cognitive/developmental disabilities isn't an event that magically gave me these disabilities. my brain has always worked like this. the only difference between me now and me a year ago is that i have an official, medical reason for Why now.

that's another thing: coming to terms with the idea of being "developmentally disabled." it's not like i'm suddenly a different person — i have to constantly remind myself that my brain has always been like this. but having a piece of paper confirming that i am legally entitled to special allowances in the workplace or at school because i have not one, but two "disabilities" is absolutely buckwild to me.

it makes me reevaluate my life and my past. how many situations did i make worse because i did not have the capacity or knowledge about how my own brain works to self-reflect? was i high-functioning in the past because life was simpler? was it because i subconsciously had a better handle on what works for me and what doesn't, and somewhere along the way i lost that? or was it simply because i didn't have the option to be anything other than high-functioning? it's confusing.

i also lost my spot at college. i can still reapply next year if i want, but at least now i know why i was failing out lmao

anyway, by my birthday in september we started the process of adjusting my medication again. upping my zoloft, getting me off remeron, and as of 6 weeks ago or so, beginning ritalin.

it was a rocky start, but i'm up to 60mg now. two pills in the morning, one in the afternoon. i have a goddamn alarm for 8am every day, even weekends. my sleeping is still wonky, but at least im genuinely tired by 8pm every night. the psychiatrist still wants me to try melatonin for a month (even though i told her multiple times it has never worked for me, and my problem has never been "i'm not sleepy enough"), so i'm on a whopping 2mg of melatonin for the next 30 days. norwegians are fucking WEIRD about melatonin, don't even get me started.

a slightly unexpected side-effect (on my end) of these medication changes: remeron made me gain weight. like, a lot of weight. and i was constantly hungry all the time, overeating to ridiculous amounts. why did nobody ever tell me that weight gain and metabolism changes are a side-effect of anti-depressants? i was more active this summer than i'd been in, like, three years and i just got fatter. which was incomvenient because i kept outgrowing my clothes. anyway, a side effect of ritalin is a loss of appetite and general weight loss. the combination of regularly taking ritalin and dropping remeron entirely? i eat a fraction of what i used to before, i've almost entirely stopped snacking, and i've lost 15 lbs in less than a month. i've already noticed my face is slightly slimmer now. maybe by christmas i'll be able to fit into my old tshirts again.

anyway, my psychologist quit, so i have a new one now. i've only seen her a few times, but she's veeeery different from my old one. i can't decide if i like her or not.

in the middle of all this, i've been going to the social security office as well to kind of get some of my own money, possibly help me get a job at some point in the future. my caseworker is super nice. if she's over 30 i'd be shocked. i relate to her really well, she's very helpful and understanding, and she's very patient with me and my bullshit. she's the kind of person where if we met at a party or something we could probably hang out.

anyway, she's helped me get out of the house sometimes. she introduced me to this youth club volunteer group thing called the fountain house, designed for young people who've dealt with or are currently dealing with mental illnesses and such. i hung out there yesterday and the day before and did some basic office work. it's nice. and then there's a work placement place that can either give you a job on site in one of their four departments, or help you get a job at an actual business elsewhere with more support and leniency than you might get if they just hired you off the street. i'd start in their second hand store. they clean and restore all donations they recieve, and they're super fucking cheap. i treated myself to my literal lifelong dream of owning a vintage typewriter (!!!!!) yesterday, because it's almost christmas and goddammit, i've been doing so much shit the past couple of months i deserve it. do i have space for it? not really. do i have a plan on what to use it for? no. was it heavy and miserable trekking through the snow and rain yesterday back and forth? was it worth the backache in the morning? fuck yeah it was.

a fucking lot of things are happening all at once. diagnoses, medications, lifestyle changes, work placement, social clubs, dealing with bureaucracies on all sides just so i can feel like a person again, not to mention juggling hobbies like writing and drawing and maintaining my irl friendships. i'm getting as many balls rolling as i can while i have the opportunity and mental/emotional capacity to, but i'm worried i'll burn out again. i'm stabilizing and slowly building my life back up, but jesus christ it would suck if this stupid house of cards collapsed again. but i'm tentatively optimistic. who knows, maybe it's not to late to course-correct my mistakes.

so long story short, that's why i've barely been active on tumblr for months. that's why i haven't been writing, drawing, or reading fic. it's coming along, but it's slow.

i guess the most important thing is that it's coming along at all.

#the tmi nobody asked for and will probably never read — you're welcome #Lady of Purple's slice of life #mental illness #medication #adhd #autism #personal

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annarosewriting · 6 years

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Star Wars Has Always Been Political.

I’m always so baffled when some jabrony looks me right in the face and tells me “stop trying to make Star Wars political, it’s never been political!!!” And then I have the absolute pleasure of telling him that Star Wars has always, and will always, be political. Here’s the thing, Star Wars THRIVES off of whatever the current political climate is.

So let’s go on a journey shall we? Through god-awful prequels, the gift that is young Harrison Ford and how Oscar Isaac is ready to fight Disney single handedly to make Poe gay.

A New Hope/The Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi

Let’s kick this shit off with the OG movies. When these movies came out, people were so excited. Here was a film that was buckwild! The Stars were at War! There were swords made out of light! There was a young Harrison Ford to stare at for an hour and a half!

These movies came out during the late 70′s and early 80′s. This was a time when the Vietnam War and the Watergate Scandal dominated headlines. The U.S. was trapped in a cycle of never ending wars, leaders doing the bidding of faceless dictators and the fear that gripped the American people that the individuals they had elected to power were willing to do whatever shady shit they had to do to stay in power. They were starting to lose hope in the big organizations that were supposed to be leading them with their best interests at heart.

The O.G. Star Wars films play off of these fears. Never ending wars in far off places? The battles in space between the Empire and the Rebellion. These battles lasted too long and racked up too many casualties for the rest of the galaxy to be comfortable with.

Faceless dictators trying to stay in power by any means necessary? Emperor Palpatine giving orders to Darth Vader and staying in the shadows until the final confrontation with young, idealistic (twink) Luke Skywalker.

These movies played off the idea that there are bad people out there who wouldn’t show their faces but with some guts, luck, some sassy droids and a lightsaber or two anyone could take down these faceless figures and make the world safe again.

The Phantom Menace/Attack of the Clones/Revenge of the Sith

Let me get this out of the way first, these movies are garbage and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees. SQUARE UP HAYDEN CHRISTIANSON. But, hey, Disney, if you can get working on that stand-alone Obi-Wan Kenobi movie with Ewan McGregor I’ll personally give you the funds for the cape budget alone.

Anyway, these movies start with the Republic trying to take control of everything. The best part of these movies is the fact that the Republic is just a thinly veiled excuse to call out the Republican Party during this time.

During the early 2000′s the political landscape was consumed by the tragic events of 9/11 and the fear of terrorism and the constant wars.

The prequels play off these events of the early 2000′s by having each movie focus on a different war. The Phantom Menace has a war between the Trade Federation and Naboo. Attack of the Clones focuses on the Clone Wars. And the war in Revenge of the Sith is the war between the Republic and the Jedi as Anakin Skywalker (SPOILERS) straight up MURDERS kids because he’s a goddamn monster. But these events kick off a war that lasts for the next several years.

The Republic is run by power hungry, old, white men who kept these wars going because they knew they were going to profit off of them, whether these profits be money, power or Anakin Skywalker.

When I found out that Donald had been elected all that was ringing through my head was the Padme line, “so, this is how democracy dies. With thunderous applause.”

Rogue One

Rogue One gets its own section because this movie is so incredible and so well done I could go on for days BUT I’ll try to reign myself in. Rogue One is about how a group of minorities band together and plan to take out the evil leader that is currently in power. Sound familiar to anyone else?

Rogue One came out right after Donald was elected and holy SHIT was it a giant fuck you to the Republican Party and every miserable person who voted for Donald.

This movie has everything; women, people of color, droids telling people their statistics of dying because they’re assholes and Darth Vader making a goddamn pun while force chocking someone.

This movie basically heralds the people that have to do the dirty work. Who die and aren’t remembered even though they did the bravest jobs of all. They get the information; they put themselves right in the line of fire so everyone else can rebuild a better future on their world. This team in Rogue One gave everyone ideas for how to stand up to a power that’s bigger than you are and wants to keep you down.

If you have to work for the bad guys, do their work but make sure there’s a way to destroy them embedded in your plan. Are you just standing by passively because even though the Republic has their flag flying everywhere “if you don’t look up it’s not a problem?” That shit is unacceptable because if you don’t find something to stand for Cassian Andor WILL kidnap you and have you help the Rebellion.

The Force Awakens/The Last Jedi

These movies have everything. They have Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa, they have my space dads, Finn and Poe, they have people of color, they have a giant wrinkly toe as the villain and they have Rose Tico who, as far as I’m concerned, is the best addition to the Star Wars Universe in years.

What makes these movies so political is that our trio is comprised of a woman, a black man and a Latinx man. Our main bad guy is a mentally unstable white boy, who’s way too emotionally invested in his Darth Vader memorabilia.

What’s so interesting to me in the wake of Kyle Ron is that every woman I’ve talked to about these movies has said they have either met, or dated, a dude like Kylo which Y I K E S. Men, you have GOT to do better. In the age of Me Too and Times Up, the idea of a woman beating the shit out of a whiney white dude who calls her nothing is strangely cathartic.

The most interesting part of these movies is that the Stromtroopers in the O.G. movies, and now, are based off of Nazi’s. So with Kylo being so desperate to finish what Vader started is coded as the resurgence of Nazi’s we’re seeing today which is a WILD sentence to even type because NAZI’S ARE BAD AND SHOULD BE PUNCHED.

But, to save the day, we have women and people of color. Which, yeah, we always knew this is how this would go. We get shit DONE.

So next time some fedora wearing assholes tries to make the argument that Star Wars isn’t political, take him down like Rey took down Kylo Ren.

#star wars #rogue one #writing #anna writes

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