#i would deal with them but am on a deadline i gotta focus on work

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

Aww hey besties :D

Lol Cheers xD

Ooope nope Jacob doesn't want him to xd

Jacob this looks really suspicious towards You Know What but I'm gonna keep holding out hope xd

It's gotta be a mislead it's gotta be a mislead it's gotta be a mislead please it's gotta be a mislead 😭

As in it has to be please :'))

Also I just realized the detail/irony that the sub took of the bowtie when he left 💀 xD like he didn't tie it on SLFJFHKS XDD this show is so good oh my gosh

ALSO just realized that Jacob could be thinking Gregory's lonely without Janine/sad over her o.o 👀 xD like I genuinely think that could be an explanation

I am denial but I believe in myself :') it'll be okay lol

Believe as in I think I could be right in my denial

Anyway! Continuing on now that I did some things I had to do and got more food

"Water because the drinks here are pricey" 💀 XD Jacob that's such a mood though lol

Jacob no xD

I feel like that would either make him super hyper or, very tired lol

AAAAHHHHHHHHH NO-

AUOGH

AUGH

help

It's because he has a project/deadline he's working on :)!! That's all :D

I swear Jacob please don't continue to elaborate and make this less vague for me

Maybe

They go through a rough patch and Gregory thinks they broke up but it turns out they made up

OR GREGORY BRINGS THEM TOGETHER TO MAKE UP

please guys I need this

Don't do this to me xD

Okay I've spent too long focus (and time but there was a break lol) on the first 20 seconds of this scene xD

I need to get through this I can live I can do it lol

Exactly Gregory it's no big deal :D you're so right for that man :))))))

"Didn't nobody tell you to stay out of gay folks business?" SLDJFHDKS xDD also Jacob as if you don't over share literally every second of the day

I suspect he might be joking though xD

Also maybe this'll mean he won't elaborate 👀👀

Ah so that's an actual saying xD I thought Gregory was gonna believe him for a second lol

aaAAAAHHHHHHH NOOO-

Guys I'm so scared

Help

They're gonna be fine they're gonna be fine they're gonna be fine

Especially because they're telling it now so they wouldn't dare break them up after an episode of trying to figure it out/fix it

. . . would they :')

O.O Okay Jacob chill xD

He looks angry xd

See I'm laughing to hide the pain :')

Okay I need to stop thinking about the future and just enjoy the angst for now lol

Awww Jacob :((( honey 😭 :'(

It'll be alright <3 I don't think it'll be those stages lol

A month??

Oh no longer, two months?-

No wait don't say like a year-

SEVEN MONTHS??!?

SIR 😭😭😭💔

Okay I don't want you to but why have you not broken up already 😭 xd you idiots xD

Also that reminds me of the "a year. . plus another year" when he first mentioned Zach xD :') :') (first is sweet second is help me please) 😭❤️💔

Yeah exactly Gregory xD

JACOB DON'T SAY THAT

Don't you dare say pretending to still be into each other don't you dare-

He's over exaggerating :)) yeah this is fine :))

Okay right enjoy the angst in the moment xd

I'll have two reactions each time lol; one long term one right now xD

Jacobbb honeyyy 😭😭 :((

If it's bc he wants the stability bc Trauma I swear I'm gonna lose it-

In a mostly good way xD

AYY Jacob slay :D

Wait he's been missing hasn't he- YUP SLFKGHSKS

My boy <33

Also that nod/look at the cameraman just reminded me he's there and that makes it hurt so much worse somehow :')

OKAY PHEW I MADE IT THROUGH

I swear if this entire episode is Gregory helping Jacob plan how to break up with Zach I'm gonna lose it-

Maybe in doing all that he'll realize how much he still loves him :'))

Sorry guys I'm not okay xD

OKAY LOL back to the rest of the episode after that one and a half minute scene xD 💀

#abbott elementary #ae #oasis's ae chatter #that was an unhealthy length 💀 /lh xD

[giratina-plushie]

if i listen to this song hard enough on repeat enough times maybe my life will just fix itself

#ren talks #this sounds so existential but its only like a lil bit existential #i remembered a dream i had at an inopportune time and the body went OOF HATE THAT #and now i am listening to don't care crown on repeat because that's the song i listen to to drown my emotions! #i would deal with them but am on a deadline i gotta focus on work #which is not what im doing right now!! gotta get back to it!!!!!!!! this may kill me but ill go down fighting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bustin-a-hazelnut]

RAIN's ARC 4 Predictions - Part 2

So, here’s the second half of my theories on what awaits us in RAIN’s finale. I made sure to keep this one shorter & less detailed, because most of them are pretty vague & self-explanatory, and long paragraphs of this would simply be a drag to read through. No survival percentages either, as I don’t expect many casualties on the “team good” side.

Team RAIN

To start off, I fully expect our guys to win the day, eliminate the Braith threat & stay together as a team of young hunters, ready to face off against new challenges (but am not adverse to the idea of a final, that isn't a traditionally "happy ending").

Robin’s big struggle is bound to be facing & defeating Kamala.

Her fears of loosing more people could cause some disagreements (particularly with Marron), but I expect those to be resolved & for them to stay happily together.

Robin’s newly realized main motivation of being kind & doing good could very well drive her to reach out to some of the more “redeemable” Braiths & offer them a chance to give up on Kamala’s masterplan & start anew.

There’s gonna be more focus on Irving, now that his family is involved.

His & Nyssa’s “archnemesis” among the Braiths is Viola (much like Kamala is Robin’s), so it’s nice to see them face off against her.

Romance between the two of them will continue gradually developing (plz give me some precious lovebird moments ; _ ; )

Nyssa has a talk with her mom about Pitch ahead of her.

I don’t expect her to show any interest in seeing him again, though.

When it comes to Akane, I sorta draw a blank, but I fully expect her storyline to be heavily associated with William (I’m not holding out my hopes for a classic romance with a happily ever after, but the chemistry between the two is undeniable).

The Lincoln Clan

While on the subject of Willl, he’s the one I have quite a bad feeling about – the way I see it, he could very well become one of the arc’s casualties. Not many in-comic clues for this that I can think of, but his overall troubled personality, complicated bond with Akane, lack of positive connections to other characters – it just gives me this sense of danger looming over him (needless to say, I don’t want anything like this to occur, but a theory is a theory).

My precious daughter Lilliana is bound to finally open up about her struggles & get a fucking friend.

Seriously, I have very little idea of whom it’ll be or how it’ll happen, but it has to. I’ve waited since reading the first comic pages that featured her, & I believe I’m not about to be disappointed.

The only certain thing I know I am hyped about is her facing Artemis once she is rescued.

There is also her majorly unnoticed connection with Pitch, but I’ll leave that for his section of the post.

Tobin is probably about to come out any moment now, and I firmly believe, that when it comes to Braiths, her & Viorel will get a heart to heart, and she could very well get a proposition of a lifetime from them. Of course, they could be using it to manipulate her, and uncovering their plot/outsmarting them could be a chance for her to shine. I’m not sure how it’ll work in the plot technically, but these two interacting is too good an opportunity to pass up.

I expect Artemis to wake up from her coma – she needs to learn about Tobin, and also finally be confronted with Lilli's storm of emotions & realize how badly she’s fucked up with her girl (and, y’know, work on fixing it).

However, the damage she suffered will probably prevent her from fighting ever again.

I am not sure how, but Roderick will regain his courage & play his part in bringing the Braiths down. I won’t say he’ll survive for sure (the idea of Maylis as a lord seems to be favoured by some), but at the same time, killing many more members of Robin’s family feels like too much.

I’ll group Marron here, since she is basically Robin’s family at this point – it would be nice to see her gain more independence & not just stay “the love interest”. She embarked on that path already when she stood up to Sterling, and should definitely go further in that direction: take more initiative, express opinions, that don’t necessarily correlate well with Robin’s – altogether, be her own person more than just "main hero's girl".

The rest of them

The remaining free members of the Crazy Bunch (Bianca & Rufus iirc) will probably get tracked down – if Kamala can spare any manpower to silence them. It’s also possible for her to just forget about them, since they aren’t likely to confront officials about the Braith threat, and if her plan is successful, they’re going down with the rest of humanity regardless. I like the idea of them sharing the Braith money & just laying low & enjoying themselves offscreen, while the final battle breaks out.

Beyond learning more about him from Maera, Pitch isn’t likely to play a role in the plot again. I have very little hope for him making another appearance, but if that could possibly be, Lilliana has to be the reason it does (since Nyssa’s already had enough of that man for a lifetime).

I don’t think many people paid attention to it, but there was clearly some sort of semi-bond between Lilli & Pitch – probably due to them both being the clan’s outcasts. Even though he’s about to be dragged away, it’d be nice for her to seek him out & go absolutely apeshit into his face about betraying her family (and lowkey betraying her personally).

Though it’s unlikely, I would love to see more between these two – they’ve known each other for years, Pitch might as well have trained Lilli in combat, and it would be nice if he displayed any kind of emotion at realizing she fucking cared whether he’d be around or not.

“The Wishing Well” bar we’ve been teased for the first post is likely to be the place where Jin-Shi, Nyssa & Irv look for Raleigh.

I’m not sure how he’ll influence the plot surrounding Irving’s family & Viola, but once he learns what happened to Otso, I expect him to help our heroes track him down to get more info from him, consecutively causing them to stumble upon Tahlia & Gardner (as already stated, definite plot points aren’t my strongest suit, but this is how I believe they could all come together).

Please wrap my man Otso in a fucking blanket & let him have a heart to heart with Raleigh & regenerate his eyes in peace you people, I am fucking telling you-

I’ve left team JNPR for dessert, namely, because of Jin-Shi Pan – I don’t really have any guesses when it comes to Nanako, Petra or Isambard.

For now, she’ll likely busy herself helping Irving & Nyssa deal with Viola & her welcome party. But there’s a mystery regarding her, that’s been mentioned, but never elaborated upon – her lost friend, Ninety Nine, whom Nyssa promised to help in searching for.

In any other case, I’d say, we are being teased a dlc/spin-off of the main story. It might just be a part of her past, that isn’t going to come up again. But once again, I just have this hunch, that we weren’t told that for nothing. Perhaps a clue will be found somewhere down the line; perhaps some new character will surprise us with their connection to Jin. I don’t know, and this is admittedly the weakest theory on the list, but it’s here nonetheless.

And this is it for my arc 4 predictions. Gotta say, I’m proud of myself for meeting my deadline & finishing it before the first post of the arc. All of my thoughts on it have already been stated, so without further ado, I wish everyone a very exciting part of our beloved comic by @neopoliitan!

#robin lincoln #nyssa noirette #akane amaranth #irving hawthorne #william lincoln #lilliana lincoln #tobin lincoln #roderick lincoln #artemis lincoln #marron armona #rufus bayardo #bianca alpin #pitch sirius #raleigh radcliff #otso umber #jin shi pan

[theundercovermarvelfan]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 20

Whumtober Challenge @whumptober2020

Author’s Note: I’m trying to pick up the pace with these since the deadline for the challenge is coming up quick on the 31st and I’m a little behind with my pacing. So please excuse me if I start summarizing the setup and conclusions of these in order to get through them a little faster! That way I can focus more on the whump!

Day 20 Toto, I Have A Feeling We’re Not In Kansas Anymore Lost | Field Medicine | Medieval

It was supposed to be a routine mission. But really, when did that ever work out? Tony and Clint were sent out to do some reconnaissance at a potential Hydra location. Everything had gone fine, they had gathered the information that they needed and had left before anyone even knew they had been there.

Or so they had thought. 

They were flying over the Atlantic Ocean with no land in sight when the alarms in the Quinjet suddenly started wailing as the jet started to dip out of the sky. It soon became painfully clear that the jet had been found and tampered with, and there was no fixing it before they fell out of the sky. It was a miracle that Clint was able to point them toward a small speck of land in the middle of the vast, empty ocean. He took the jet down in the water near the island, knowing that a water landing was better than a solid ground landing… but the crash was still brutal. At the last second, the engine on the left side completely failed, sending the jet careening to the left and hitting the water so hard that the metal dented in far enough to shove Clint’s pilot seat out of place. 

Clint had pulled the emergency hatch on top of the jet so they could escape before the craft sunk into the water… but as he began to move he cried out in pain, his entire left side on fire. He barely made it out of the jet and into the water, at which point Tony had to get an arm around him and pull him through the water to the nearby island, dragging him up onto the shore.

Tony leaned over Clint, his hands hovering over him, panic barely contained behind his wide-eyed gaze. “What’s hurt?”

Clint took in a shuddering breath. “My shoulder,” he said, hating the way his voice shook. His entire body was in pain, but he could clearly tell that his shoulder was the worst of it. 

“What can I do?” Tony asked urgently. 

“Hopefully it’s only dislocated,” Clint said. “You gotta check for broken bones and then you gotta set it for me.”

Tony bit his lip as his eyes moved to his injured shoulder. “I’ve never set a dislocated shoulder before,” he admitted.

At this, Clint cracked a pained smile. “There’s a first time for everything.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “That’s not as comforting as you might think,” he muttered sarcastically. 

He reached out with both hands and with his first and second fingers he found where Clint’s collar bone began at the base of his neck. Using firm pressure, he walked his fingers up the bone, testing for any unnatural movement. The closer he got to Clint’s shoulder, the more the pain pulsated up and down his arm and up through this chest. Clint gritted his teeth and did his best to deal with the pain silently, but couldn’t help a few moans escaping his throat. Tony’s eyes darted toward him, but for once seemed like he couldn’t think of anything to say. 

Once he finished checking Clint’s collar bone, he moved down to his hand. He started down at Clint’s wrist, feeling each bone carefully. For a minute it was almost a relaxing feeling. But again, the closer he got to Clint’s shoulder, the more the pain worsened. By the time he made it up past Clint’s elbow, Clint could barely take it anymore. He cried out as his muscles spasmed painfully and Tony immediately stopped at the noise.

“Keep going,” Clint snapped a little more intensely than he had meant to. He just wanted to get it over with.

“Then stop screaming,” Tony snapped back, though there was a grim tension in his voice.

A strained bark of a laugh escaped Clint’s throat.  “I was not screaming. It was a very manly yell.”

Tony shook his head. “Whatever you say,” he said as he started to check Clint’s bicep again, this time noticeably going more carefully. Still, Clint had to squeeze his eyes shut and clench his jaw to keep from crying out again. 

“Nothing feels broken,” Tony finally informed him. Clint opened his eyes and saw that he was now sitting back on his heels, looking down at him unsurely. “But it’s pretty swollen up by the shoulder so it’s hard to tell. Plus there could be ligament or tendon damage or something. Without x-rays or MRIs it might not be safe to reset your shoulder.”

Clint sighed heavily. “Do you happen to have either of those machines on you?” Tony shook his head. “Then we have to do it this way.”

“But—“

“Look, we have no idea if or when help is going to get here,” Clint interrupted. “Until then, we’re on our own. And I’m not gonna last long in here with only one working arm.”

Tony sighed in defeat. “You’re right,” he admitted. “Okay. What do I do?”

“Bend my arm up at the elbow,” Clint instructed as calmly as he could. He waited for Tony to do as he was told. “Okay, now hold the elbow with both hands and rotate it out away from my torso.”

“Like this?” he asked as he carefully moved his elbow away from his body. 

Suddenly, intense pain shot up through his arm. “Stopstopstop!” he gasped. 

Tony immediately froze, looking down at him with wide eyes. “What’d I do wrong?”

Clint had to pause in an attempt to catch his breath, all his muscles tensing painfully. “My fault,” he panted. He squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to concentrate. “I tensed up. Move it back.” Tony carefully did as he was told and Clint focused on taking deep breaths and trying to relax his muscles. Then he laughed lightly to diffuse the tension in the air. “This is supposed to be the easy part.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Great,” he said sarcastically. Then he paused as realization dawned on him. “Wait, supposed to be? You have done this before, haven’t you?”

Clint flashed him a guilty smile. “Well, I know the theory behind it…” he hedged.

“You’ve never even done this before?” Tony demanded angrily. 

“I dislocated my shoulder once before, but I was unconscious when Phil set it for me,” he admitted. “He sedated me so it would be easier to do.” He paused, thoughtful. “If we can’t pop it back in this way you may have to knock me unconscious to do it.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Don’t tempt me, Legolas,” he warned, clearly straining to keep his tone light. 

Clint took one more deep breath. “Okay. Let’s try again.”

“You sure?” Tony asked skeptically. 

Clint tried to nod, but even that was enough to send waves of pain though his body. “Yes,” he said flatly.

“Okay,” Tony said, sounding determined. “Take some deep breaths and we’ll go again on the count of three. One… two… three.”

Clint did his best to relax his muscles as Tony slowly and carefully shifted his dislocated joint. There was some dull pain as it moved, but thankfully nothing as bad as last time. Even so, Clint let his head fall to the side away from his injury, not wanting to witness the unnatural motions they were about to put his joint through.

“Still with me?” Tony asked, worry creeping into his tone.

“Yeah, still here,” Clint confirmed. His voice seemed to drag out of his throat. Exhaustion was clearly catching up with him. He took another deep breath as he fought for focus. “Move it a little further, it should be perpendicular to my body.”

“Like this?” Tony asked, shifting his arm a bit further.

Clint clamped down on a groan. “Yeah,” he said without looking, hoping he was right. He inhaled for a few long seconds before quickly exhaling. “Okay. You’re gonna rotate my arm up over my head, keeping my elbow bent. While you’re rotating, put some steady pressure outwards away from my body. Once my arm is up over my head, it should pop back into the socket.”

“Should?” Tony said, raising an eyebrow. 

“If you feel resistance, stop and try again from a slightly different angle,” Clint went on. “Don’t force it or you could start breaking bones.”

“So, no pressure,” Tony said. “Great.” Clint heard Tony take a deep breath. “Okay. Ready?”

“I am if you are,” Clint said, trying to keep the tension out of his voice. He knew he needed to relax his muscles in order for this to work, but that was easier said than done.  

Clint gasped as his muscles spasmed. He let out a strange humming noise as he tried to stifle a cry of pain. Tony paused, shifted a little bit and then moved again, pulling outward steadily…

POP!

Clint let out a relieved sigh as the joint returned to socket with an audible pop, the pain immediately dulling as the strain was finally taken off his shoulder.

“Thanks,” Clint breathed. 

“No problem,” Tony said, leaning back and wiping a hand over his brow. “Now, never make me do that ever again.”

#whumptober2020 #no.20 #toto i have a feeling we're not in kansas anymore #lost #field medicine #Avengers #MCU #fic #plane crash tw #dislocated shoulder tw #tony stark #Iron Man #hawkeye #clint barton #fanfiction #whump

[set-phasers-to-whump]

“you have to let me go”

prompt: “you have to let me go”

whumpee: kurt wallander

fandom: young wallander

hi! welcome to my last febuwhump fic!! very happy to have done the whole month :) and like. a Lot more young wallander than i intended lmao. anyway i hope you enjoy this fic!!

“You have to let me go,” Kurt pleads tearfully. “Please. Let me go.”

“No, Kurt.”

“Why not?”

Mona’s hand presses to his forehead. He flinches away, coughing into his elbow. “You’re cold,” he protests.

“And you have a fever. You’re not going anywhere today.”

He crosses his arms and stares her down, though she’s a little blurry, so he can’t be sure if he’s actually staring at her or not. “I have to go to work.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes I do. What if there’s a new case?”

“Then they can manage without you for the day. And anyway, I already called your boss and told her you weren’t going to be there today.”

“That’s not fair,” Kurt grumbles. He wants to go to work. But he also kind of wants to go to sleep…  

“That’s it,” Mona says, and he feels her hands guide him back so he’s lying down in bed again. “You just go to sleep. I’ll leave some things for you next to the bed, okay?”

Leave things… ”where are you goin’?”

“I still have work today,” is Mona’s reply, and Kurt pictures himself flying up in bed and looking at her disbelievingly. He’s too tired to actually do that, though. 

“You get to go to work?”

“I don’t have a fever. What I do have is an important event this weekend and a deadline to meet. So I’ve got to leave you, yeah? But I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Kay,” Kurt decides. “Bye.”

“Bye, Kurt,” Mona says softly, pressing a kiss to his forehead before leaving. He falls asleep shortly thereafter.

--

He wakes up and he is so, so hot. He throws off the blankets, struggles his way out of his sweater, pulls off his socks, and finally gets out of bed altogether. He nearly collapses the second he stands up, so dizzy he can’t see, but he gets his bearings eventually, then promptly loses them in a coughing fit that sends his head spinning again. 

He braces himself against the wall and thinks as best as he can. He needs to go to work. Mona had told him no, but she’s not here now, so there’s no one to stop him. He’s going to go to work. 

He puts on some work clothes, struggling rather horribly with the task of buttons and zippers and laces, and takes a single look at himself in the mirror - not too bad, is his verdict - before heading off to work.

It’s a bit of a blur regarding how exactly he gets there - he just knows that by the time he arrives, his legs are shaking beneath him and his head is spinning and he feels really bad and maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. He sinks down onto the ground outside the building and waits for his head to clear. 

“You alright, man?” someone asks, walking past him on the sidewalk. He gives them a jerky nod and decides that’s his signal to get up and get inside. He just about falls over while standing up, but manages to stay on his feet. He can do this.

Kurt gets through the door and for a second just looks around, not able to think about anything like where he should be going. Everything is lights and sounds and movement and it’s dizzying and overwhelming but he needs to be here, he needs to come to work. So he grits his teeth and keeps his eyes trained on the ground and walks until he reaches the Major Crimes office. Once he gets there, he forces himself to look up and around, so nobody will think there’s something wrong. He makes his way to his desk and sinks down heavily into the chair with a sigh and a sniff.

He’s so tired. And dizzy. And generally miserable. Why, exactly, had he thought it was a good idea to come in to work? He can’t remember. He puts his head down and tries to take deep breaths, tries to think of things to distract him from how shitty he feels. 

Someone approaches him, speaking on the phone. It takes a while for Kurt to realize it’s Reza, and even longer for him to make out what it is he’s saying. 

“I’ll come by after work today, yeah. As long as he’s not contagious or -”

Reza cuts himself off. Kurt would raise his head to see what’s startled him, but that requires more strength than he currently possesses. He just kind of groans instead and hopes the greeting will suffice.

“I gotta go. I’ll call you back in a minute.”

A second later, there’s a hand on his shoulder. Kurt startles at the contact, finally raising his head from the desk. He looks around blearily until his eyes land on Reza. 

“What the hell, man?” Reza asks. “Mona said you’re sick.”

Kurt shrugs.

Reza reaches out a hand and presses it to Kurt’s forehead. It’s wonderfully cool against the heat of his own skin, and he leans into it until it’s pulled away. 

“Jesus, Kurt, you’re burning up.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re supposed to be home and resting.”

“Yeah.”

“So why aren’t you?”

Kurt sighs. He can’t really explain it...he’d just wanted to come to work. He hadn’t thought it’d be a big deal.

“Well, you’re not staying here,” Reza says. “Don’t need you spreading your germs all over the place.”

Kurt manages to find the strength to be offended. “I am not spreading my germs all over the place. I’m barely even sick.” He cuts himself off with a cough, which definitely doesn’t do much for his argument. 

“Sure you’re not. And you just happened to wake up this morning and decide mismatched buttons and untied shoes were the way to go, did you?”

Kurt looks down at his shirt, which is indeed crooked, and his shoes, the laces of which are long and dirty. Ah.

“You’re sick, Kurt.”

“Okay, okay. I’m sick.” His sentence is punctuated by a sniff, and Reza gives him a half- fond, half-exasperated smile. 

“Do you want me to drive you home? I don’t have a lot to do at the moment,” Reza offers. Kurt shakes his head vehemently, making himself dizzy again. He doesn’t want to leave, not now that he’s here. Now that he’s not alone in his apartment.

“Don’t wanna go home. Nobody’s there.”

“How’s the break room couch sound, then?”

Kurt coughs a few times, harshly, as Reza’s speaking, and Reza waits for him to finish before repeating his question. “Break room couch?”

Kurt nods. The break room couch is by no means the best place to rest, but at the moment it may as well be a bed in the nicest hotel in the world. He thinks about lying down, closing his eyes, sleeping…

“Okay, hold on, don’t go falling asleep yet,” Reza says, and he taps Kurt on the side of the face. Kurt opens his eyes back up. “We’ve still gotta get you to the couch.”

It’s a bit of an ordeal, since Kurt’s limbs don’t really seem to be in the mood for cooperating, and since his head spins every time he so much as takes a breath, but they make it there in the end, and finally he’s on the couch and lying down, completely uncaring of anything else.

Reza pulls off his shoes for him, says, “suppose you made this easier for me when you got dressed earlier.” Kurt makes an mmph noise, now too tired to bother speaking. He’s so close to falling asleep now, falling asleep and having all his aches and pains fade away. 

He hears Reza leave for a moment, and then return. He places a cold, wet cloth on Kurt’s forehead that immediately starts him shivering, but then covers the rest of him in a blanket, which balances out the cold nicely. Reza himself sits on the edge of the couch, a comforting presence, and says something which Kurt can’t quite focus on enough to understand. 

He understands well enough, though, when he feels Reza get up to leave. He reaches out a blind, heavy hand and mutters, “don’ go, please.”

“You have to let me go,” Reza says. “I got stuff to do.”

“Reza,” Kurt complains, drawing out the name. “Please.”

His best friend relents easily. “Okay, fine. But if someone comes yelling at me because I’m not doing my job, I’m blaming you.”

“Kay,” Kurt agrees. “Sounds good.”

He can actually hear Reza roll his eyes when he sighs and says, “sleep, Kurt.”

He sleeps.

aaaaaa thank you so much for reading this!!! and for reading any of my other fics that you may have read this month! i had an excellent time doing this and i hope you enjoyed my writing!

#febuwhump2021 #febuwhumpday28 #you have to let me go #young wallander #kurt wallander #sick #fever #cared for #i say things #my writing #a soft fic for you at the end here :)

[dracothedeatheatingcupcake-ao3]

oooo ooooo my guess is sunset, sleepy, perfect, and picnic!

Ahh, I'm assuming this is for that WIP guessing game thing from a couple days ago?? Nice words, I can tell what you're trying to get information about ;-)

Standard TPWM and TPWP spoilers ahead! Some are fairly big, so be warned.

(Read more added for Mysterious Reasons ;-) )

TPWM:

Sunset: "Mondo watches as Taka takes a deep breath and nods shakily, the small smile he’s wearing so utterly incredible and heartbreakingly beautiful. Mondo honestly has no idea how Taka doesn’t have a girlfriend (or boyfriend, he refuses to judge) already. He’s literally the epitome of a perfect man. Beautiful, caring, kind, smart, considerate, surprisingly funny… like, damn. He’s the whole goddamn package and Mondo has no idea how he’s not taken. Anyone would be beyond lucky to have him. It’s all he can do to smile back at the kid, eyes roaming his features, before remembering his fast-approaching deadline. If they wait too much longer, Taka won’t be able to see the full extent of the sunset, and that would be a goddamn shame, honestly."

Sleepy: "Mondo remains laying like that for an unknown amount of time, too afraid to move and look at the time. He doesn’t want to wake the kid, after all. Not before it’s time to get up. He’s quickly coming to crave these sleepy moments, moments where he’s awake but the kid isn’t. Moments where he can allow his heart to feel all the shit he’s not allowed to feel during the day, his heart beating for one person and one person alone. Moments where the world outside doesn’t matter, and only the world he’s holding does."

Perfect: "Mondo’s face is on fire with mortification at the overly sappy words he’d said, but he can’t find it in him to regret them. Not when he means them fully. Taka... yeah. Yeah, he looks good like this. Looks /amazing/. So beautiful and sharp and shit. But... fuck. It’s not /him/, and Mondo can’t help but hate it a bit for that, too. Taka... Taka is amazing as he is. His personality, his looks... his /everything/. He doesn’t have to change a single thing about himself. He... he’s already perfect, even with his flaws. So... so perfect..."

(I'm adding 'perfectly' to this, since I like the paragraph the word showed up in and I really wanna share it, ha.)

Perfectly: “"Goddamn, kid. ‘M not tryin’ ta hassle ya, just... ‘m just tryin’ ta figure more out ‘bout this new life a’ yers. Ever since Daiya... shit. I know ya were super close ta him, kid. An’ I know you an’ I weren’t that close, but ya know I viewed you an’ Dai like family. Hearin’ what happened ta him... shit broke my fuckin’ heart. I kept tryin’ ta call ya, ta let ya know ya didn’t hafta be alone, but ya never fuckin’ answered. You can imagine my fuckin’ shock when I overheard the news that not only were ya in town, but that yer attendin’ that fuckin’ high-class school now. Wanted ta reach out again, see how ya were, but I just... didn’t fuckin’ know if ya’d want that shit. Made it perfectly fuckin’ clear ya didn’t wanna see me after the funeral. Thought maybe ya might a’ changed yer mind after ya called, but I guess fuckin’ not. Just... hope things work out well fer you an’ yer kid. Mean that. Ya deserve ta be happy, Mondo. An’... know y’ain’t gonna wanna hear me say this shit, but I know Dai would be proud as fuck if he could see ya today. Fuck, ya look so fuckin’ grown up... makes me feel like an old crone, goddamn. But... it really was nice seein’ ya today, kid. Real fuckin’ nice.”" (This is said by an OC not in TPWP, by the by, ha. Mondo needs more adults who care about him. <3)

Picnic: "He continues to tell himself this as he puts the shit from the picnic away. Trash in the trash can, helmet on his counter, wine bottle and glasses on the table… the kid watches him the entire time, his eyes intent as ever, and it makes him oddly nervous. Wanting to give his mind something to focus on other than his nerves, Mondo begins to babble about how much fun he’d had that day and how he wants to do it again sometime. Part of him is hoping that it will get Taka to start talking too, but he should have known better than that. All the kid does is /stare/, giving a small, almost dismissive nod when he finishes. He tries not to let it destroy him."

~~~~

TPWP:

Sunset: “Oh, so now it’s fucking all about you again, huh?! Like fucking always! What the fuck did ya think was gonna happen, saying that shit ta me?! What, that we’d just- just fucking... ride off inta the fucking sunset together?! Ha! Yer fucking /delusional/ if ya think that would ever /fucking/ happen! Y’ain’t... y’ain’t got no fucking clue who the fuck I am! Don’t even know the fucking /shit/ I’ve done! God /fucking/ dammit, Kiyo, how fucking dare ya say this absolute /shit/ ta me, when ya’ve got no fucking clue who the fuck I am! You-“" (Have fun guessing the context for this piece of dialogue... ha. It's the only paragraph that has sunset in it outside of the chapters I've already posted, though, so it's what I'm going with here!)

Sleepy: "Taka lets out a soft noise to indicate that he can do it himself, shifting heavily to sit up. Despite all the sleep he’s gotten, he still feels so very tired... he’s not sure if the medication causes drowsiness or not, but regardless, he feels very lethargic and sleepy. He doesn’t try and argue against Mondo, though. Mainly because he finds that— despite his still somewhat queasy stomach— he is actually hungry. And the soup does smell very good, when Mondo carefully opens the top of the soup container..."

Perfect: “"Y’ain’t. Y’ain’t gonna ever be alone, Kiyo, not with me here. Shit, man... I ain’t ever leavin’ ya, an’ I don’t care how many times I gotta fuckin’ say it ‘til it sinks in, fuckin’ a million times, don’t mean shit as long as ya... as ya know I /mean/ it, okay? Ain’t a single, fuckin’, goddamn thing that’ll make me hate you. Not... not anythin’, okay? I may get mad or upset, ‘cuz I ain’t fuckin’ perfect an’ I know I got my own issues ta deal with, but... but no matter how mad I may get, ain’t ever at you, okay? I’m just... mad. At myself. At the world. At just... all a’ it. But not you... not- not ever /you/. Okay? A-an’ I’ll tell ya this every fuckin’ day if ya need me ta, every goddamn minute. Ain’t goin’ nowhere, man. Not unless ya want me ta go. Yer kinda stuck with me, heh. So don’t... don’t worry, okay? I’m... I’m here, Kiyo. I’ll always /be/ here. If there’s one thing I want ya ta know... it’s that, okay? Ain’t ever leavin’ ya. /Never/. Okay?”"

(I'll do 'perfectly' here too, since... why not, ha.)

Perfectly: "And if Mondo- a-ah. /If/ Mondo works through his own issues and realizes that he does... does /want to be with him/, well. Then, Taka will do everything he can to make /them/ work. To make... to make them work. After all, he highly doubts he will ever love someone quite as much as he loves Mondo, even if he might be able to find some form of love again. If he believed in such fanciful nonsense as /soulmates/, well. He’d think that he and Mondo are it. Two pieces of the same puzzle, made perfectly to compliment the other, even if they’re not at all the same. Their similarities are just enough to make the differences all the more striking and beautiful, he feels. He doesn’t quite know if Mondo feels the same about him, can’t quite get a feel for that, but he doesn’t doubt that Mondo feels /something/ for him. Something more than just friendship. Something deeper than just that. Something decidedly not /familial/, too."

Picnic: “"Yeah, it sure fuckin’ is, Kiyo. We, uh... we should come back here one day. Have a picnic or some shit. Maybe when it ain’t fuckin’ freezin’, but uh... fuck, dude. Shit’d be nice, yeah?”" (This is legit the only other time I use the word "picnic" in this fic other than in chapter 16, ha.)

~~~~

(Link to the original post so everyone knows what this is about, ha)

Fanfic Work-In-Progress Guessing Game

#Ask Answers #wip guessing game

[mhdiaries]

Frights, Camera, Action! – Hauntlywood Honey Swamp Diary

2 April

Mama Swamp has always said that navigating the waters of New Goreleans gentility is tougher than a cypress stump, but looking at what’s waiting for me this year, I’ll swear high society has nothing on high school! What with advanced film studies, the school newspaper, Fearbook photography, and all those lil’ social engagements a lady must keep, my calendar is filling up faster than a cistern in a hurricane. Nothing to fret about though, as I’ve formulated a ghoul-proof plan to make this year a success;

Create a student film that simply overflows with passion and originality

Impress Mr. Rougarou, my film teacher, so very much that he enters it into the annual Bayou Boovie Fest

Win accolades galore from the judges for my breakout cinema-togre-phy

Get discovered by Hauntlywood and move out west to work with the  monstrously talented SoFeara Gorepola. We'll make a divine boovie-making scream team!

My student flick last year—"Lurking on the Levees"—scared a major coup thanks to my expert eye for film decomposition, but the script was... well, just a teensy bit lacking, I must confess. Visually I'm always top of my class, but I'll be honest; cryptwriting is not my forte. That's why this time I'm going with a much more "cinéma scarité" approach—my neck of the woods is fairly alive with true stories to tell! Now I just have to find a subject that screeches "Hauntlywood", and I'll be all set.

10 April

Creeping kudzu, I do wish my hair would behave! I've been so busy dealing with the humidity I've hardly had time to think about anything else. Monsters outside this little soggy neck of the world don't know how lucky they have it with the weather; I may have been born here, but my lovely locks have not adapted. Lately they've been either limp as a wet noodle or more ornery than an itchy gator. I should whip up a batch of my famous smoothing marsh mud and see if that helps. A ghoul has to look her best, even if I'm more comfortable spending time behind the camera than in front of it.

19 April

My mama has, at least to my mind, a particularly unusual fascination with vampire royalty. She can tell you all the queens and their names and who their families were down to their 20th generation. She also has a whole bookshelf just stuffed full of stories about the "missing vampire queen" and who she is and where she may be hiding, and if the current jewel they use to detect who the true queen should be is real or a fake. There have been supposed sightings of her all over the world. One ghoul even wrote a whole book that says the missing queen has actually been unliving her life as a high school student. Now I know some drop dead debutante divas in my class that would give any royal highness a run for her money when it comes to acting like a queen but none with the pedigree for it. So, although I don't pay much mind to it, I have to say it has been rather interesting here lately, especially since now the news is saying that the new vampire queen has been found at... a high school. Now there's something you might be able to turn into a film or a book.

25 April

Today in film studies we had to give a presentation about our industry scream job. Most of my ghoulmates talked about being cryptwriters, directors, and boovie stars, of course; I was the only cinema-togre-pher in the class. Not that I'm all that surprised, mind. Most monsters get into booviemaking to see their names in lights, but cinema-togre-phy is a lot of responsibility without nearly as much recognition. A cineme-togre-pher defines the "look" of a boovie; she's a director's right-hand-monster for everything that you see on screen. The lighting, the camera movement, the special effects—everything has to look its beast if she wants an audience to lose themselves in the film. If she does it right, it's almost undetectable—but if she does it wrong, it's all anymonster will be able to see! I must have made a convincing case, because when I'd finished my presentation, half the class wanted to change their focus. Mr. Rougarou was impressed (all according to plan!) and said he'd be "very interested" to see my finished film, which makes me as nervous as a long-tailed werecat in a room full of rocking chairs! I gotta find a subject, and soon.

2 May

Still lurking for the perfect subject for my documentary. So far I've rejected half a dozen concepts, from an exposé on Mardi Claw (too cliché) to a search for the perfect gum-boo recipe (mine, of course, so it'd be a hideously short film). So far, nothing quite has that spark of inspiration I crave. My friends, bless their scary-sweet hearts, call me a perfectionist. Which I absolutely am! But unlike them I don't think of it as a weakness. After all, being a perfectionist doesn't mean you do it right the first time, every time—it just means never giving up until you're satisfied, even if that means you have to do it a hundreds times. That's how truly great art is made. Rotten Scaresese or Alfeared Hitchshock never would have given up after trying just one measly lil' time, and neither will I. Besides, I still have a hundred other ideas I have yet to give a fair shake—a little more time and screesearch should have me in the pink.

5 May

It was club picture day; always a busy one for the Fearbook team. I'm still learning about film, but photography will always be my first and dearest love—even when it's just snapping shots of my ghoulmates making freaky faces. The only fangup was a couple of vampires sneaking into every photo—of course, their faces didn't show up, but the out-there accessories they were wearing sure did! It was so funny I about fell out laughing... and then I realized we'd have to do all the shots again. Sigh... so not scare.

10 May

I took some time this weekend to haunt around Jackson Scare, looking for inspiration for my boovie. The deadline is still far off, but time is flying by and I have to admit I'm getting a lil' bit nervous—what if inspiration doesn't strike in time? I've got a half-dozen half-shot films, but nothing I can really call a boovie yet. And I want it to be good enough to blow away not just Mr. Rougarou, but all the judges at the Bayou Boovie Fest. I had some coffee and boue-uiets at the Cafe du Moau, watching the tourists stroll by, but still nothing came to me. If fangtastic southern cooking can't make your brain give up the ghost, what can? I clearly need to shake the ol' idea tree a little harder and see if something else falls out.

14 May

Last night, Mama hosted a dinner for some visiting digniscaries and asked me to lend a claw with the cooking. Entertaining is a big part of a Southern gentleghoul's repertoire, and you gotta be good at it. Photography isn't my only skill! I come from a long line of excellent cooks on both sides—Mama's always said one of the reasons she married my daddy was for his dead beans and rice! It's hard work, but between the two of us Mama and I kept the ladies and gents grinning all evening. Eventually talk turned to famous New Goreleans legends. It's an old town, and hauntings and happenings are all around. Our frights are famous and our mausoleums are second-to-none! One of the monsters in attendance mentioned the legend of the Bayou Bijou, and I sat right up. I'd heard of her, of course, but had no idea she was still floating. I should mention, "she's" a ghost ship, rising from the waters and floating across the bogs in the dead of night, with the famous plays and performers that appeared there still echoing on her stage. I asked the gentlemonster why this information wasn't better-known, and he said it was because the Bijou is so deep in the swamp that sightings are rare, and information rarer still. But nowhere in the bayou is unreachable for a Honey Swamp. Finally, an idea with bite!

15 May

There are advantages to being born and raised in the bayou—you get to know the lay of the land like your own scales. It was the work of just a few hours tracking through the swamp to find where the ghost ship rises. Seems she only appears on the full moon—so I had to lie in wait for a bit, but patience is one of my many, many virtues. Pretty soon I had the first-ever footage of the Bayou Bijou in all her beauty! It'll take a few more stakeouts, but I think I can finish my boovie in time for the festival—and with a subject so unique and fabulous, it won't be hard at all to make a film worthy of recognition. Just wait, Hauntlywood... Honey's comin'!

#monster high #monster high diary #frights camera action #hauntlywood #honey swamp #sometimes I really question the fonts chosen

[lettuce-seize-the-day]

Found ch. 5

AO3 link

Summary:  Jack Kelly is a 17 year old kid who has been in the foster system for more of his life than not. By now he's given up on finding his forever family and is counting down the days until he turns 18. Four months before the deadline, Miss Medda Larkin decides she is going to adopt him.

Chapter summary: The boys and Medda have dinner together. Medda reminds each of them that she is there for them. They do not hear her. Jack and Race are not okay.

TW: self harm and eating disorder stuff

That evening, they all sat down to dinner together. “How was the first day?” Medda asked the table.

Race shrugged. “Same old, same old. Nice to see David and Katherine again, though.”

“You oughta invite them over for dinner some night soon! It’s been too long,” said Medda.

“Yeah, fuh-sure,” said Race. “Maybe lata this week?”

“Absolutely. I’d love that,” said Medda. “What about you, Jack?” she asked.

“What about me?”

“How do you like the school?”

Jack took a bite of pasta. “Same as all th’others I been ta, I s’pose. S’fine.” He was mostly focused on watching Race, and trying not to seem like he was watching Race. Race was watching him watch him. “Race ‘n I got chemistry class togedda.”

“Oh, ain’t that somethin’!” said Medda. “It’ll be nice for you two to get to spend some time together in school.”

“We’s sit togedda at lunch, too,” said Race, taking a huge bite of food and making sure Jack saw. “So’s Crutchie.”

“Yeah, it’s fun,” said Crutchie. What he didn’t say, and what no one else did, was that he wouldn’t have anyone else to sit with if Race hadn’t invited him to his table. He’d only had one friend in his grade, who he had sat with at lunch every day since he had started going to school, and she moved away over the summer. As sweet and funny as Crutchie was, he had pretty severe social anxiety, which made making friends difficult. He just didn’t know how to initiate conversations, and with his crutch, people were slow to do it for him.

“He’s thinkin’a tryin’ out for theatre,” Race said proudly. “I think he’d be great at it.”

“I dunno, it was just a thought I had,” Crutchie said shyly. “Youz all just seem so close and so happy when ya get ta perform togedda. I dunno if they’d even let me in, though, on account’a my leg.”

“Well, you boys already know how I feel about the theatre,” said Medda. That was for sure. She was the owner of an off-Broadway theater. She was a very passionate advocate of the arts, and did all she could to make that abundantly clear. “Ain’t no better place to escape trouble. And there’s something for everyone.”

“That’s exactly what Katherine said,” said Race. “I dunno when auditions are, but ya betta believe I’ll letcha know when I do.”

“Jack, do you think you’d audition?” asked Medda.

Jack took a final bite from his plate. “Nah, prolly not,” he said as he stood up. “Thanks fer dinner, Medda. It was great.” He set his plate in the sink and went down the hall back to his room.

Medda looked a bit distraught. “Somethin’ I said?” she asked Race and Crutchie.

Race shook his head. “Nah, he jus’ needs some space. He don’t wanna get involved wid anythin’ here or get too close to anyone.”

“How do you know that?” she asked him.

Race looked at her and gave a small, sad smile. “‘Cuz that’s how I was, when I got here this time last year.”

Crutchie took his dishes to the sink. He cleared his throat and gave Medda a kiss on the top of her head. “Thank you for dinner, Medda. I gotta go get some homework done.”

“Alright, hon. I’m just down the hall if you need me, got it?”

“Yes ma’am,” he said as he walked himself out of the kitchen.

For a minute, they continued eating in silence. Then, Medda said, “Race, can I ask ya somethin’?”

Race looked up from his mostly-finished plate, a bit nervous. “Sure, Medda. What’s up?”

“I was just curious, what made you… stop feeling that way? What made you feel like you belonged?”

He tried not to look too relieved. “Uh… I dunno, I’d hafta think about it.” He took a slow, painful bite, even though he already felt full. He was trying to finish his food so what happened with Jack would never happen again. “I guess when I got ta start takin’ dance classes. Ya know, doin’ what I cared about. Helped me find my place, and wanna find a place.” What he didn't tell her was that he really never stopped feeling that way, not fully, and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it.

“So you think if I could help Jack find what he cares about, he might feel more welcome here?”

Race gave a shrug. “Ain’t no two fellas gonna work exactly the same way, but it sure seems worth a shot, don’t it?”

“I suppose it does,” said Medda. “I know he likes art… Maybe I could do somethin’ with that. Find him a club, or somethin’. They got any kinda art club at school?”

“Not sure. I’m sure there’s gotta be somethin, though. If anyone’ll figure it out, s’you. Ya gotta gift for helpin’ people.”

She gave him a look, then smiled as she ruffled his hair. “When did you get so smart?”

“I gotta good teacha,” he said, playfully pushing her off.

“You got that right. You finished?” she asked, gesturing to his mostly-empty plate.

“Yes I am, thank you, Medda,” he said, handing it to her. “I’m gonna go practice for dance class tomorra, alright?”

“Alright sweetie. You let me know if you need anything.”

“You got it,” he said, trying not to seem like he was rushing off. But he was. He did need to practice, that was true. But after he stood up, he was overwhelmed by how incredibly bloated and weighed down he felt from how much he had eaten. He started to panic, feeling suffocated by his own body. It was too much. It was too much. And he had to get rid of it.

____________________________________________________________

Jack did not feel good. Having people to sit with at lunch was nice, but also overwhelming. It had never happened before. Not like that. Up until now, he only ever sat with people at lunch when he was going to a school where sitting alone was against the rules and a group of do-gooders felt enough pity for him to let him sit with them. Now that he had had some time to himself, he couldn’t stop thinking about how weird he acted today. They must have pitied him, too. But he didn’t care what people thought. Except... that he did. He knew he could never make friends, but here were the kind of people he had been wishing to know for his entire life. And he didn’t know how, but he knew it was a trap. It had to be.

He was worried about Race. But what Race did or didn’t do was none of Jack’s business. He didn’t want him to cross a line he couldn’t come back from, but he also worried that he had crossed a line by asking him about it. He knew how much he hated it when people asked about his scars. At the same time, he worried that he didn’t do enough. How could one person be simultaneously too much and not enough? God, all he did was fuck up.

He needed to get out of his head. He grabbed his art supply bag and fumbled through it, looking for his special pencil sharpener which he knew was there. He pulled out the loose blade and held it in his hand. It had been awhile. But not terribly long. He hadn’t done it once since being here. This would be the first time. It was like seeing an old friend. He felt so many things at once; disappointment and disgust with himself for still doing this, relief at having something he had control over and knowing some things never change, sadness about letting Medda down, loneliness and despair because all he could do was let people down and it didn’t even matter because he’d be out of here soon enough. It was too much. It was all too much. The walls were closing in and he couldn’t breathe, there was no oxygen because the world around him was shrinking, squeezing the life out of him. He closed his eyes and did the only familiar thing. And then, he felt nothing at all. Just a sharp, familiar sting. He breathed a sigh of relief and kept going until the world came back into focus and his arm was covered in blood.

__________________________________________________________

Race sat hunched over the toilet bowl trying to catch his breath, the shower running to cover up the sound. His heart was pounding. Tears had forced their way out of his eyes. He cleared his throat, then slowly stood up on shaking legs, holding onto the counter for support. He closed the toilet lid and flushed. After taking a deep breath, he looked up into the mirror. His cheeks were red. His eyes were bloodshot. He didn’t look at the rest of his body- he couldn’t, not right now. He quickly brushed his teeth and shut the shower off. He splashed his face with cold water to bring the puffiness down.

He didn’t ever do this. He really didn’t. Only when his anxiety got the better of him. Usually, he just skipped meals here and there, and that was enough. But he didn’t like when people asked him about what he was eating. Or what he wasn’t. And he couldn’t risk Jack finding out. No one had, and he had to keep it that way. If anyone found out, he could lose dance. So he ate dinner. But it was too much. Too, too much. He had it under control and it wasn’t a big deal, but today was too much. It wouldn’t happen again. He promised himself it wouldn’t happen again, and did his best not to remember how he made that same promise to himself more often than he’d like to admit.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to focus on the positives. No one else suspected, and he’d be sure to keep Jack off his trail from now on. Besides, he wasn’t even underweight. Especially not for a dancer. There were people at his studio that he swore were just walking skeletons. He always watched them in awe and admiration, wondering how they didn’t shatter every time they landed a jump. He didn’t necessarily want to look quite like that, but he did notice that they tended to be more successful in the field.

Plus, there was Spot to think about. He knew it was naive, but he just couldn’t shake the thought that if he just had a nicer body, he would notice him.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. None of that mattered. He just needed to go practice. Everything always felt better when he was dancing. He washed his hands again, cupped some water in his hands and drank it, then looked in the mirror one last time. He looked normal, like nothing had happened at all.

#newsies #newsies fic #newsies fanfiction #jack kelly #racetrack higgins #self harm cw #eating disorder cw

[uzumaki-rebellion]

“Stark’s New Intern” Chp. 7

Summary: Erik receives a clue from his past...

"Leave me breadcrumbs for the ride To guide me back Leave me breadcrumbs for the ride To guide me back Leave me breadcrumbs for the ride To guide me back Leave me breadcrumbs for the ride To guide me, guide me back…"

Jamila Woods (Feat. Nico Segal) —"Breadcrumbs"

Devika pulled in front of Erik's apartment unit and Maria was already standing by the curb waiting for him.

"Thanks for the ride," Erik said.

Devika nodded and Erik was surprised to see Giselle walk down their apartment steps to meet him too. Her eyes glanced at Devika in the BMW.

"See you tomorrow, Erik," Devika said.

She drove away and Erik faced Maria and Giselle.

"Where have you been?" Maria asked.

"Stark had me at his—"

Maria's arms were thrown around his waist before he could finish speaking.

"I thought you were gone for good until I saw your luggage," she whispered into his chest.

"It's all good. Stark had me work in another lab and then he took me to his house."

"For what?" Giselle asked.

Erik hoped she would hug him too, but she stood next to Maria with concern in her eyes. She was worried about him too.

"He had a party and I followed him around. That's it."

"He doesn't have a house. He has a mansion that is out of this world. I saw pictures of it in Architectural Design," Maria said.

"So you're not leaving the internship?" Giselle asked.

"Nah."

She let out an audible sigh and he followed them both back into the apartment.

"Who brought you home?" Maria said.

"Stark's secretary."

Erik looked at Giselle.

"Why are you over here so late?"

"Maria called me."

Maria showed him her cell.

"I received this email from our Project Manager. It says I have to meet in a different department tomorrow morning—"

Maria's face looked stressed out and beyond worry. Erik removed his bowtie and pulled off his tuxedo jacket. Both women ogled his clothes.

"Don't trip. You and Valentina are moving to a new department with me."

"Why? I thought…I thought they liked my work—"

"They do, but Stark let me move to a place that wanted me and he asked me to name two people from my team to go with me. I chose you. And Valentina."

"You chose me?"

Maria's face lit up and she hugged him again.

"Lemme change real quick," Erik said prying her fingers from around him again.

His luggage was on his bed and he quickly slipped into shorts and a t-shirt.

"I gotta warn you Maria, where you're going is pretty intense. The boss of that lab ain't no joke."

"I can handle it," Maria said.

"I know you can," he said.

"I'm going to bed so I can be ready. I can finally go to sleep. Night Giselle!"

Maria scurried into her room, her spirits lifted, and Erik let his eyes rest on Giselle. She looked shy almost, her eyes breaking away from his stare.

"Guess I'll head home," she said.

"You don't have to leave."

"It's really late. I'm glad things worked out."

"Me too."

He walked over to her, stepped close enough so that his face was near hers. Her energy was pleasant, but she wasn't welcoming in the way he wanted. Professional. Bet.

"Night then," he said heading to the front door and opening it for her.

Giselle patted his shoulder and left.

###

Valentina and Maria brought their A-game.

Erik was in the middle of trying to interface two software programs that had maddening glitches that stumped him all morning when Janine pulled him aside.

"You gave me some sharp picks, Stevens," Janine said munching on baby carrots.

"Yeah?"

"Valentina and Maria fit right in. You have a good eye for talent. Tell me something…what do you want to gain from this internship?"

Erik rolled back his standing chair and faced Janine as she snacked in front of him.

"Practical real-world experience with coding applications—"

"No, your endgame. Don't give me the resume speech. What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Erik smiled.

This always happened.

His work ethic, extreme focus, and interests in multiple fields always brought the curious his way. His being Black never let him blend into the background with white people like the Asian staff. Being the small five percent of Black faces in Stark's offices never allowed anonymity. And when one was as good as Erik, that subconscious threat always reared its ugly head: Who is this uppity negro blowing up the spot? Janine wasn't even aware of how she was sounding to him. They never were. It showed up as curiosity, but the goal was to assess where they stood compared to him. Was he coming for their spot? Janine really had nothing to worry about, but after two weeks of him helping that department make progress in such a short span of time, she needed to know if Erik was aiming to become permanent.

"I'm joining the Navy. I want to be an officer."

Janine bit into a carrot and nodded.

"A Navy career. No interest in working for us at all?"

He shook his head.

"Been wanting to be in the Navy since I was little. It's why I went to the Naval Academy."

"Our loss," she said walking away.

Erik rolled back to the computer viewscreen. Janine was glad he wasn't trying to stay there. And she would use his brain up all she could before he left.

"Erik, can I see you for a minute?"

Valentina's face popped up on the viewscreen in a smaller chat screen. Erik closed down his work station and padded over to another station.

Valentina lounged in a beanie bag with her keyboard on her lap and her floating screen hanging above her.

"'Sup," Erik said.

"Does this look right?"

Erik enlarged the string of code near his face.

"What are you trying to do?" he said.

"Bypass all this junk code. There's got to be a better way to streamline all of this. We're on deadline and Janine wants a working simulation by Friday. This is going to take longer than Friday."

"You tell her that?" Erik asked swiping images, searching for problematic links.

"I'd like to keep my head on my shoulders."

"Want me to talk to her?"

"No. If you do that, then she might question why I'm here. Can you look this over later? Maybe you can catch something I'm missing. I'm getting a migraine over it."

"Let's go to lunch."

"Outside of the cafeteria?"

"Yeah."

Valentina powered down her computer and grabbed her purse. They walked through the hallway and found an express elevator they could crowd on. Once they made it to the lobby, Valentina gave out a loud sigh.

"How can you deal with Janine? She makes me feel like I'm not pulling my weight," she said.

"She giving you grief?"

"She doesn't say anything, just gives you those looks with those creepy eyes of hers. It's like playing poker and she has that neutral poker face, but with shades on. And a ten-gallon cowboy hat. And six-shooters on her hip waiting to take you down."

"She ain't that bad."

"I enjoy the work that I do, so don't think I don't appreciate your name dropping me, but sheesh…every time she comes to my station, I feel like I'm under a guillotine."

A bit of a ruckus stirred up near the entrance as Tony breezed in followed by reporters. Security surrounded the paps as Tony pulled off his shades. His head security officer, a big dude he heard Tony calling Happy, posted up next to him with his hands folded in front of him but his green ear bud glowing as he whispered instructions discreetly to the rest of his staff.

Tony held his hands out to the paps.

"There is no connection between my deal with the Afghan government and the SICA rebels. I am a businessman who works with many countries and I don't deal in politics—"

"But your weapons systems give certain groups advantages that our government has questioned because of anti-democratic behavior and human rights abuses—"

"And our government does business with plenty of countries with anti-democratic behavior and human rights abuses…China anyone?"

"Tony-!"

"Mr. Stark-!"

Tony turned away from the paps and Happy herded them out of the lobby with security in tow.

"Stevens, Berlotti…"

Tony's eyes swept over them.

"We're heading out for lunch," Erik said.

Valentina stood next to Erik a bit starry-eyed.

"Where to?" Tony asked looking at his platinum watch.

"The taco spot—"

"Cool, let's go," Tony said.

They followed Tony to a side exit.

"You not worried about reporters following you out here?"

"Happy has that under control," Tony said.

Alberto's Tacos was a small vendor cart that Erik found to his liking. The carne asada street tacos were flavorful and cheap and washed down with a cold Coke, it was heaven. The three of them sat on a bench not too far from the Stark building. White-collar workers streamed past them and no one took notice of Tony scarfing down greasy meat with his fingers.

"This is really good. Had no idea this stand was here all these years," Tony said licking his fingers.

Erik gulped down his Coke and Valentina kept quiet as she listened to Erik shoot the shit with Tony. He couldn't understand why she didn't ask the questions she was burning to ask him that she was always pestering Erik about during their lunch breaks. Tony took notice.

"You're really quiet Valentina," Tony said, his eyes taking her in.

"I'm just soaking it all in, Mr. Stark," she said, her eyes darting over to Erik.

"Things working well for you in your new set-up?"

"Yes—"

"Janine makes her nervous," Erik said.

Valentina nearly choked on her Sprite as she pulled the can from her lips.

Tony chuckled.

"You alright there, Berlotti?"

"Yes…yes, Sir. Went down the wrong pipe," she said wiping her lips.

"Janine is a tight ass, but don't let her chilly façade scare you. Are you worried about something?"

Erik gave Valentina a look for her to open her mouth and speak on her concerns openly. Her perfect bow lips quirked and then she put her soda can down. Erik nodded his head slightly at her.

"I'm worried about an assignment I have due on Friday. I won't be able to finish it because I need more time to work out the kinks because there are so many of them. There is no feasible way to have a working simulation up and running by then. There are four of us working on it and I'm the lead, but I can't…I can't fix it under this rigid time limit."

She pushed her hair back behind her ears. Her face looked ashamed. She sipped her soda again and Erik felt all of her confidence drain out into the ether.

"What do expect to happen on Friday?" Tony asked.

"Failure. I asked Erik to take a look at the work—"

"What about your immediate team?

"They are working on it—"

"Why aren't you with them now?"

Tony's eyes were bright and firm looking. He wasn't here for excuses.

"I have to eat."

"Working lunches are a thing Berlotti. You are the team leader. You wrangle your people and you figure the problem out. Why are you asking Stevens to look at your work? He has his own deadlines and team to worry about. You want him to take on your workload too? Alvarez has the same deadline and you know where she is right now? At her desk grinding. Janine said jump, Alvarez asked how high."

Valentina crushed her soda can and tossed it in a trash receptacle. She stood up and stared at Tony.

"I better get back to work," she said. The click-clack of her heels echoed as she left them.

"That was cold," Erik said.

"Cold? How?"

"She was confiding in you."

"That's what you're for. Not me. I expect results. Janine answers to me. So who do you think needs those codes running on Friday? Me."

"Did you have to throw Maria in her face like that though?"

"Maria works her ass off—"

"Valentina does too. She just hit a snag."

"And she will unravel the snag."

Erik finished his taco and Tony made a quick call.

"Let's get back to work," Tony said.

Erik followed him back to the offices and when they separated, he texted Valentina.

You okay?

He thinks I'm shit.

No he doesn't. Just high expectations.

Did he talk bad about me when I left?

Said you'd figure out the problem. Want me to look at the codes tonight?

No. I'll figure it out.

I know you will. Badass.

She sent him a happy face emoji.

"Erik Stevens?"

A guard at the information desk stopped him from going to the elevators.

"Yeah."

The guard reached down behind the desk and handed Erik a FedEx package.

"This came for you twenty minutes ago."

"Thanks," Erik said.

He walked over to a lobby couch and sat down. The return address was from his Uncle Bakari in D.C. Erik quickly opened the package. A folded note was taped to a small black notepad.

"JaJa,

Hope this finds you well. We found this in some of your mother's belongings when we cleaned out our attic for some installation issues we were having. Don't know how we missed it. Looks like it belonged to your father. We didn't want to throw it out. Not much written in it, but we wanted you to have it.

We are proud of you and look forward to seeing you at the end of August.

Love and Hugs,

Uncle Bakari & Aunt Shavonne"

Erik quickly pulled out the small black notepad. He flipped through the pages that had his father's distinct script written in it. All in Wakandan.

His eyes darted around where he sat. No one was paying attention to him. He jumped up and walked briskly to the nearest restroom.

Locking himself in a stall, Erik pulled down the toilet seat cover and sat down. He opened the notepad again and flipped to the first page. His fingers touched the paper gingerly, and he saw his fingers shake. His tongue touched his top lip and he felt the sting of tears prick the corners of his eyes.

"Baba," he whispered.

Wiping his eyes, he tried to gather himself together. The writing was neat, legible, and concise. Erik's brain shifted its language mode. Memories flooded his mind.

Sitting in his room back in Oakland tracing letters.

Wakandan letters.

Baba singing to him in his language, telling him stories about his homeland. Copying Baba's habit of writing in journals.

Stringing symbols to make sentences that looked otherworldly.

Think.

Remember.

Translate.

These were numbers. Cardinal directions.

Coordinates. GPS coordinates.

His father had made a handwritten map. For himself or someone else?

The numbers came to him quickly, but it took several minutes to accurately make out the rest.

Three places.

There was something buried in three different locations.

One of the places wasn't that far away. Joshua Tree. A little over three hours away.

Erik stepped out of the restroom stall and washed his hands. He stuffed the notepad in his shirt pocket right over his heart.

He wiped his face with a paper towel, and when two interns walked in chattering away, Erik slipped out and onto an elevator.

Baba left him a treasure map.

He just needed to figure out a way to go find what was buried in all three places.

###

Part 8

Tag List:

@fd-writes​ @soufcakmistress  @cherrystainedlipsbaby @tclaybon  @thadelightfulone @allhailqueennel @bartierbakarimobisson @cpwtwot @shookmcgookqueen @yoyolovesbucky @raysunshine78 @the-illllest @terrablaze514  @l-auteuse @amirra88 @jimizwidow @janelledarling @chaneajoyyy @sweetestdream92 @purple-apricots @blackpinup22 @hennessystevens-udaku @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @bugngiz @stariamrry  @honeytoffee @meilintheempressofdreams

#stark's new intern #killmonger #erik stevens #n'jadaka #tony stark #black panther fanfiction #killmonger fanfiction

[kaydeefalls]

3, 4, 15, 20, 44 (:

3. Least favorite part of writing.

When you're not in the zone at all, but have to force yourself through the boring bits and somehow make them not-boring to readers. I am PANTS at the boring middle bits. I hate them so much. But that's the only way to connect the dots between point A and point B. Sometimes I try skipping ahead and writing the scene I'm actually excited about first, but honestly, not often. I discover a LOT about a story as I write it, and jumping ahead tends make it harder for me to get there in the end. The big exception to this for me being 5 Things style fics, which is why I sometimes default to them when I've got a fic challenge deadline to deal with.4. Do you have writing habits or rituals?

I like knowing that I have a solid chunk of time carved out for writing. It's hard for me to write in short bursts -- I do better when I can settle in for uninterrupted hours on end. (Moving in with my partner really threw off my groove for a while there!) Apart from that, not really. Sometimes I like having quiet music on in the background -- I have like five specific albums on rotation in a playlist (mostly movie soundtracks -- Inception & Cloud Atlas are GREAT for this) that help me focus.15. Where does your inspiration come from?

No idea. Fic challenges like Yuletide help because they force me to come up with something -- I like prompts, they help me focus. Most of my X-Men fic have come out of prompts of some kind -- LJ kinkmemes, back when XMFC came out, or Secret Mutant. I've been on a Fusion AU kick for a while because I like the assembling-puzzle-pieces element of figuring out how one set of characters would fit into another fannish universe, and by putting them in place a plot will usually develop.20. Post a snippet of a WIP you’re working on.

Much to my own dismay, I am writing a Poe/Finn soulmark AU. In which it will apparently take 8k words of Poe Dameron backstory before we even get to the events of TFA. Snippet:

Poe's first real boyfriend, Niko, has a familial mark; it's refreshing to hook up with someone else who isn't waiting for any kind of Force-destined romance."It's all bantha shit anyway," Niko remarks once, when they're fooling around in Poe's bedroom. "I mean, the data clearly shows that something like a quarter to a third of all Forcemarks wind up being non-romantic in nature. Blood kin, or best friends, or whatnot. I read sometimes they're even between members of species that can't interbreed at all, though that's gotta be freaky as all get-out.""Oh, my papa knew someone like that once," Poe says idly. He traces invisible constellations across Niko's back. "His general back during the war. Han Solo."Niko frowns, propping himself up on one elbow. "I thought Solo was married to Leia Organa.""Yeah, but they aren't markmates, not according to my papa. Supposedly Solo shares a mark with his co-pilot. A Wookiee." Poe shrugs. "I mean, it just goes to show, like you said. Marks aren't the be-all and end-all.""No," Niko agrees, with a very particular grin. "So kriff 'em."

44. Best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.

I adore long, thoughtful comments, though I'm also the asshole who almost never leaves them on fic I read. So I'll just say that @turtletotem leaves the best comments, always.

Outside of writing, though? Best concrit I've ever received (from a stage manager I ASMed for): "Solve problems, don't create them." Applicable to fucking everything.

#ask me anything #Anonymous

[savrenim]

I gotta say I think my favorite part of Jeremy as a DM is that he takes the stupid half-jokes that I make offscreen and just. turns them into things for me. that also fit perfectly into the plot and the story seamlessly but feel special 

like I was making goddamn jokes about “okay but. but I want a bloodsword. we do blood magic. please. Jeremy. Jeremy what if I could make my blood into a sword. b l o o d s w o r d. I could go to parties and never be unarmed because mY BLOOD IS A SWORD. YOU CAN’T DISARM ME YOU WOULDN’T PART AN OLD ELF FROM HER BLOOD WOULD YOU, SO LONG AS I HAVE BLOOD I HAVE SWORD.” and then, like. because it was only half a joke and I got attached to the aesthetic I actively started planning on how to make one of my own, which was pretty much going to be that there are some shadow weapon spells either on the cleric/oracle or witch lists and I was just going to take one of those as I was leveling up in Caedic magic and request that because it’s blood magic can we please flavor it descriptively as being made of my blood and not of shadows like, just as a cool aesthetic piece, and I’d have my bloodsword. 

and then halfway through Book 4 Galen fucking Torus out of nowhere makes a really fucking rad bloodsword from his own blood and hands it to me and I kill a bunch of enemies of the Empire and feel hella cool and I go “c a n  y o u  t e a c h  m e” with starry eyes the next day and he goes “okay sure” and starts teaching me how to make a bloodsword and there are cool bloodsword mechanics and just. Iria Strell got a bloodsword. after I spent six months joking about it. this is an actual legitimate bloodsword not a cheap knockoff made from a flavored shadow spell, real genuine Caedic blood magic here.

and, like, there are a couple of other obvious things (I spent a while being excited about a Feat tree that I’ve now totally forgotten because I think I was looking for some weird way to add Int to attacks and there was something similar to feinting you used bluff for a round and I’ve forgotten about it because it became irrelevant because Iria has developed mechanical combat spurs that give her a pretty similar option, not a “sooo then in five levels I’ll be able to do this!”) I guess another one was joking for months okay not joking about how much in love I was with Arcadia Dominus and holy shit she liked me back and the “gay murder elf bachelorette” bit actually becoming a part of the campaign, this campaign got literally infinitely more gay because I made a dumb joke and then Jeremy went “okay” and followed up on it, we went from no gay to one of the longest running and at least emotionally important plotlines is “oh no Iria is so gay you utter disaster fire of a lesbian how are you going to mess everything up now because Pretty Girl”

but, like

the one that is hitting me really really strongly now-now is that I have been half-jokingly complaining for months and months that I regret So Much Iria Strell’s background as a minor noble because it limits the fanciness and quantity of dresses that I can get for her and goddamnit I want to put her in all the shiny things all of them and how Painful it is to pass all these cool costumes that I Want To Pull just in fashion posts and stuff but uuurgh I can’t because Iria Strell isn’t the sort of noble who would wear all those and she kind of isn’t allowed and that just goddamnit I need to make a character next game who whatever the context wears Cool Clothes so that I would get to actually do a shit-ton of character design and costume design 

and I am 1000% sure that this didn’t change from the original plans, like, the outlines have been in place for months well before I got obsessed with noble costuming, but the big objective of this book is Iria is investigating a maybe heresy/conspiracy that maybe involves nobles, and to do so, she has to go to a bunch of noble parties, and Galen Torus gave her an unlimited credit card and went “material resources are no worry go ham request whatever you want” and what her wardrobe is actively affects all the interactions she has with people and how well she can gather the information she needs to

which means that OOC I get the chance to design a full and changing wardrobe for Iria Strell to look cool as it is now her job as the secret leader of an investigation to actually do noble business and look pretty sometimes and talk to a bunch of nobles and go to parties but just. I’m limited in interesting ways by what is tasteful, but I have been given the full resources and an active in-character reason to utterly go ham on costuming, which makes me so excited as a person

and it’s just. super tiny details like this that idk make the games feel....more than just special? or maybe it’s that I’m not used to being listened to? like. the game is so good. I’m having so much fun. we have gotten to book 5 and it is once again the coolest fucking thing I could imagine. and so was book 4, and book 3, and book 2, and book 1. it is completely unnecessary to throw in tiny things like the bloodsword in order to make me happy and it is all done so....seamlessly? like. if one of my hunches is correct. the bloodsword and a ritual that Galen Torus performed telling Iria it would make her better at the bloodsword wHICH IT DID BUT THAT WAS NOT THE MAIN POINT OF THE RITUAL, THE MAIN POINT OF THE GODDAMN RITUAL WAS TO CONSECRATE PRIESTS AND PRIESTS HAVE MORE ACCESS TO BLOOD MAGIC SO A SIDE EFFECT IS BETTER THAN A BLOODSWORD BUT A CONSECRATED PRIEST IS A SUPER HIGH RANK AND THIS MAKES HER A CONSECRATED PRIEST AT AGE EIGHTEEN WHICH IS VERY VERY VERY UPSETTING TO HER AND POSSIBLY UNPRECEDENTED EARLY 30S IS CONSIDERED RIDICULOUSLY EARLY TO BE A CONSECRATED PRIEST FOR INCREDIBLY TALENTED AND FAST-CLIMBING CAREER-FOCUED NOBLES NOT A MINOR DISGRACED KIND OF EXILED LESBIAN DUMPSTER FIRE LIKE SHE IS

but consecrated priest thing aside and that being one way or another a major plot point and that coming so seamlessly and so perfectly a surprise from the fact that she asked an Exarch if he’d teach her how to make a bloodsword

again I’m pretty sure “Book 5 is noble politics book” was always going to be a thing so it’s not “oh Jeremy wrote it into the plot that I get to be ridiculous and pick out every single dress and everyday wear and hair and makeup for my character all the time multiple times a session and have that matter” because it was always abstractly going to matter as that matters as a part of being a Caedic noble but just 

here and is everything I wanted and was everything that I was totally joking about for months except no joke I just. get to do it. which I’m just actively so excited about. I guess it just...feels weird to me because I’m... sometimes used to making my own fun? or just, like, making things happen in my own life? there have been way too many “well if you want to survive it’s only you that you can rely on” situations not even in a bad sense of my life is horrible like. I could go on a rant about how I....not don’t trust people as people but don’t trust people to be 100% reliable and so always make a backup plan so that if a person falls through I can still get what I need done to be done and it’s just more pleasant for everyone involved if I don’t pin pressure on people or things? but in a different way I do the same thing for the games that I’m involved in, I will find things to make me have Feelings and will make my own fun and write letters and befriend NPCs and insist on staying in touch and, like...I dunno I guess I’m not used to trusting any world, be it fantasy or real, to give me what I want, if I want a thing I have to carefully plan and invest time and energy to earn and take it and be prepared to fail and just because Jeremy’s my friend and I goddamn narrate everything jokes or not of how I/my characters feel and “okay but here is the 1000th picture of a cool dress that I’m sending you and because Iria Strell doesn’t get to wear cool dresses we’ll say it’s the Gothicus Maximus Spring 2019 collection” and just

I guess I’m really not used to a world that cares about what I want

and, like, is sometimes fucking brutal Iria is dealing with slowly losing her mobility and ability to fight to an injury that was her fault and she is descending into a lot of really fun mental health places that push fun buttons and Marian is spelljammer and is Marian don’t even get me started on Marian’s family suddenly reappearing or just. characters from the thousands upon thousands of words of backstory showing up but just idk it feels like even when things are really brutal to the characters......the world is still kind to me? it’s aware of what I care about and it cares about me?

and I’m just so not used to the world being kind

I don’t need the world to be kind to love it. I love this world even with how fucked up and hard it is, and I love the games that I play and the stories that I get to be a part of without them caring about me at all, I don’t need them to care about me, that’s not why I’m playing

maybe I’m just hella tired and the move has been awful my old housemate gave me a deadline less than 12 hours before when there was never a deadline in our original conversations and then she and her mother were also going through my room and my stuff I guess to try to determine how quickly I’d get out of there but, like, I do not like it when people go through my stuff and there was a scare about the landlord selling the new place and the new landlord would have to honor the lease for a year but then maybe not wanting me to have my cats so suddenly for two days even my new living place was up in the air and I was already jet lagged and stressed and barely slept to try to finish a week’s worth of work that I was under the full impression I had a week to do in a day and a half and definitely sprained my ankle but got to keep walking on it and internet took forever to set up and trying to fix my furniture and all my stuff is in boxes and I’m still walking around on a twisted ankle because it’s just me there’s no one here to help me, if I want things to be okay and to get done I have to make them be done myself and these boxes need to be unpacked by Saturday morning because the landlord wants to fix the floor and just. I’m stressed and emotional so maybe I’m hella overreacting to “oh you like costumes? well an aspect of this book is noble interactions and parties so sure I’ll let you pick out literally every dress that you’re wearing” but it just

it matters so much to me

Jeremy is really really good at the DnD thing

#have a long rant about my feelings and partially about dnd #I'm real tired #my life #gay murder elf bachelorette #I guess #this game is so fun and it keeps surprising me

[neuroweird]

There something inherently wrong with selling fanfic. It goes against decade old moral codes and ideas of fandom and I feel deeply appalled by you advertising it. Write original works, advertise those if you have to. But writing fanfic on commission is just wrong on so many levels I can't even put it into words

Let me tell you I was more than a little disappointed to receive this. 

Before I jump into this and try to unpack it, I’d just like to point out that it is very clear to me that you CAN in fact put this into words since you sent me 55 whole words expressing your displeasure.

I am absolutely flabbergasted that you’re wasting my time with an argument about decade-old fandom moral codes despite the vast evolutions and changes that fandom as a whole has undergone in the last two decades. I was on FF.net, I was in a fanfic Livejournal group I am aware of fandom. 

I can deeply agree that selling fanfiction is wrong but only when it’s trying to get a book deal for anything like Fifty Shades. AKA not nearly divorced enough from its source content, nor adequately put through the editing blender, poorly researched (if any), caused actual injuries to people who tried to repeat the BDSM scenes… 

Do you know what these commissions are? People liking, trusting, and willing to pay for my time and my style to create for them their personal and specific scenarios with characters they deeply enjoy and appreciate.

Are you sending this very unhelpful message to every single person who offers fanfiction commissions? Because this idea didn’t bloom out nowhere for me, I happen to have been inspired by someone who is very successfully (in my eyes) offering fanfiction commissions, with a whole Patreon account to go with it! And I also went through the ‘fanfic commissions’ tag to get a better look at what kind of prices other people may be offering.

Are you perhaps also sending this very unhelpful message to the heaps and heaps of people who draw FANART COMMISSIONS? Because it is the exact same thing. It is artists being paid for their time and their style to draw a particular character or characters from fandoms that their customers enjoy and want to see with a personalized twist.

It may come as a surprise but I am, actually, actively working on a piece of original fiction, and on top of that I have 11 original works-in-progress, and one of them happens to be nearly 74′000 words at the moment. But I really think you are failing to understand the fundamental differences in creating and profiting from the written word in these two cases. 

I have to write the WHOLE novel, which so far has taken 5 months, and if I meet my own deadlines— school and tutoring and LIFE notwithstanding — it will be May (7 months) before I am finished the first draft, then I have to do rewrites and the first round of editing, and then the second, and maybe just maybe it will be ready enough to start pitching or querying to agents or editors for publication. 

You know what that long process isn’t doing? Making me any money.

You know what offering one-shot fanfiction commissions is doing? Making me some money.

Do you know what I, a student and a disabled lesbian, kind of need? Some MONEY.

Do not come here trying to compare creating a work of original fiction to creating fanfiction. They are not comparable. You are in it for the long haul with original fiction, and for the most part it is a LONELY commitment. Fanfiction is a beautiful, complex, and immediately rewarding form of creative work.

Besides the fact that I take pride in the understanding that there are people who enjoy and trust my writing enough to pay me to write something special for them I would very much rather not HAVE to offer fanfiction commissions in order to make literally any money besides my occasional babysitting jobs.

I would love to be able to do a normal job for a normal salary, but I guess I’m fucked in that department since my chronic pain doesn’t tolerate standing too long nor sitting too long, and lifting anything could further exacerbate my injury, and looking at a screen too long triggers headaches and migraines.

So you’ve gotta understand, I’d rather be able to focus on JUST my original works so I can get them published or produced, but that takes a lot of time and a lot of free labour that I cannot afford in the interim. 

It’s not like people are offering to finance me for a year (or more) like Michael and Joy Brown did for Harper Lee in 1956 so she could write To Kill a Mockingbird. So while there are people potentially interested in paying me to write fanfiction for them I AM GOING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT.

If I were charging you as I do for my fanfic commissions this would cost $42.

Please refrain from offering your unsolicited opinion about this again. I don’t know what you were trying to achieve with it, but it definitely hasn’t deterred me from pursuing fanfiction commissions since I kind of need them.

To offer your support, buy me a KO-FI !

#answered asks. #anon. #fanfiction commissions #Anonymous

[eligrantbooks]

gotta vent about my day real quick

highlights of the day

> be professional ghostwriter.

Agreed to edit a 25000 word segment of a finished manuscript for a much loved regular client, who said the MC’s dialogue needed to be punched up. Easy enough. I figured it would take a few hours.

Was briefly excited to discover the manuscript was for a concept I had outlined and written several chapters for a few months ago.

Excitement rapidly dwindles as I realize that beloved client has hired another ghostwriter to write the majority of the book. Which would be fine, except this other ghostwriter has no fucking idea what they are doing.

Formatting is a god damn disaster and I spend several hours just getting the document into a workable condition.

You ever open a word doc, look at the navigation pane, and just see a wall of blank links, because someone applied the header formatting somewhere and then just hit enter a million times instead of using a page break like a civilized god damn human being?

in the middle of this forest of blank headers, actual chapter titles are scattered at random, and also they only applied the header to roughly one out of every five chapters or so, you know, just, when they felt like it. when the spirit took them. when the stars aligned. when the feng shui was right.

Also, apparently they like the way first line indenting looks but don’t know how to make word do that (spoiler: its easy as shit and takes like two clicks) so every once in a while they start manually hitting tab before every line, until they get distracted and stop for a while, luring you into a false sense of security before they remember and start doing it again.

Sometimes, when a scene transitions but they dont want to just end the chapter for some reason, they break it up with spaces. Other times, they like to use asterisks. Once or twice, just for flavor, they throw in one of those page width lines that word makes when you type a line of hyphens.

There is random highlighting in places, for no discernible reason.

Once I have the document formatted in a way I can bear to work with, I start actually reading through it. About the first seven chapters were written by the client. They’re cheesy but solid.

Then I get to chapter eight, and the suspicions i had begun to form while putting the formatting through traction (namely that whoever did this was a fuckwit) quickly crystallized into a shining certainty that my beloved client had mistakenly hired An Ass Clown.

Not just An Ass Clown, but An Ass Clown who thought 50 Shades was a beautiful love story, actually.

And they gave This Ass Clown, this literary reprobate, this paste eating remedial english mother fucker, my outline.

let me clarify that i did not expect to have sole control of this story when i produced the outline for beloved client, and I was okay with that. That’s how it works. If I’d been dead set on writing this myself, i wouldn’t have sold the outilne to beloved client. but it really rubs salt in the wound to have spent hours of my life crafting the bones of this story, which i really liked and was excited to see take shape

and then find out it has been put into the pie fondling hands

of An Ass Clown.

first hint that something has gone drastically wrong: the arrival of completely unnecessary and ridiculous fantasy names for things.

“oh we dont drink coffee in this book. it’s kofee. at least until three chapters from now when i forget and it becomes kofe. Oh, and watch out for those thornaby bushes! I’m going to misspell that one literally every time I use it! It’s entirely possible that this isn’t a fantasy name at all and I just have a small seizure whenever I try to type the word thorn bush!”

second omen of my impending anuerism: phonetically written accents which are so comically stereotypical and inaccurate that native speakers of that accent should be entitled to financial compensation, except they can’t even stick to the stereotype accurately, producing gems such as  “It’s not safe in that there pen with ‘em swine, young miss.” I don’t even know what accent that’s supposed to represent. To top it off these accent abominations are sprinkled in with all the consistency and reliability of a lactose intolerant cheese enthusiast’s bowel movements.

But this, I tell myself, moving on, is not my problem. I just need to punch up the mcs dialogue. It’ll be fine. I can do this. I just need to take this shit: “A fond idea, but I doubt I have that ability.” I joked. “I can’t imagine living without true sunshine. Even the triplet moons must shine less brightly without their sister sun.” and make it… not like that.

Except, and here’s where I start hitting the real roadblock guys

this book is in first person.

essentially, the entire novel is the MC talking.

So sure I can change the spoken lines, but her internal monologue

which is, i remind you, the entire narrative

her internal monologue is going to keep being maggie gyllenhal’s character from The Secretary if her copy of the script had been swapped with just a binder full of sonnets written by a middle school english class during the Shakespeare unit.

I get to chapter ten around three in the afternoon. I have been working steadily, with an unusual degree of focus thanks to my recent adderal prescription, since ten in the morning.

this is where shit begins to go truly bananas.

this is a YA beauty and the beast type fantasy

that good fun indulgent shit that’s almost as enjoyable to write as it is to read

usually. previously. before i had to endure this traumatic twelve hour experience.

Chapter ten is the first big “dinner” scene. this book isn’t being shy about pulling from the source material, but that’s fine. the beast “apologizes” (heavy quotes there) for having earlier used magic to force the heroine to answer his questions truthfully. They talk and almost seem to making progress for a bit, and then have a fight and storm off. Standard stuff.

Except, uh, the beast’s apology is, essentially “Yeah I shouldn’t have done that.” “so you’re apologizing?” “no but it’s the best you’re going to get so deal with it.”

and the headstrong, independent heroine who wears pants and wrestles pigs and dont need no man

just kinda rolls with this. There’s giggling.

They have their big dramatic fight, exit stage left, much angst and todo.

The next morning heroine wakes up to find the beast has (presumably) snuck into her room while she was sleeping and dumped a bunch of new dresses on her. he has also (apparently) replaced her brain with Bella Swan’s more vapid cousin.

She forgives him instantly. Because pretty dresses. She also starts calling him master, because why not. She has, over night, become the darling submissive Tumblr doms dream of.

This is not a bdsm book. I am eighty percent certain it doesn’t even include soft core smut. I’m telling you this so that you understand this transformation was not a contrivance in order to facilitate kinky sex. I have written a contrived set up to a sex scene or two in my day. This is not that. This is Not what is in the outline. I know, because i wrote the outline. It is My Outline.

No, The Ass Clown just… decided to do this. Apropos of nothing. I’m beginning to think the Ass Clown’s decision making process involves whipping pies at a comically large dartboard. And all the options on the dartboard are just “lol whatever”

By the time I get to chapter eleven, wherein our newly lobotomized heroine is “excited to wear a new frock and please the master!” - direct quote I have given up any pretense of editing dialogue and I am just straight up rewriting shit using the previous garbage as a loose outline.

I have eaten, maybe, three bites of a bowl of oatmeal all day. I have not taken a bathroom break since before noon. I have missed my deadline. Beloved client is concerned. I’m sure I can still do this, I just need a few more hours.

the words sound like truth but my soul knows i am a liar

I frantically restructure scene after scene, deceiving myself each time that it will be the last, and I will be able to get this crazy train back on the rails. But this crazy train has no interest in being on the rails. It’s a direct line no stops right off the edge of the cliffs of insanity.

The beast jumps unpredictably from homicidal rage and threats of violence to jokes and flirting as though he did not just declare her his property and threaten to rip her tongue out a few paragraphs ago. Heroine swoons and sighs and giggles regardless of whether she is dealing with Dr.Jekyll or Christian Gray on PCP.

But I’m still sure I can do this. I’ll just adjust these two full chapters to make her appropriately scared and angry, and then replace this weird conversation here with a heartfelt apology from him and an effort to do better. That will totally work. Unless, you know, it turns out that conversation I want to replace only starts out with them joking and laughing together, and turns into him berating and abusing her mid paragraph of a fuckin montage a page later! But, haha! Why would The Ass Clown ever do that? It would be completely irrational, tonally jarring and out of character! Only a seltzer slinging rainbow suspender-ed peanut butter fumbling son of six fucks would do that.

so of course The Ass Clown did that.

It’s eleven at night. I know when I’m beaten.

I inform beloved client that the Ass Clown has bested me and I can do no more.

She is very understanding.

I send her what I managed and I check the added word count while im at it

i added a full 6,000 words to that manuscript just trying to patch up this sloppy motherfucker’s lopsided prose and gossamer thin understanding of narrative structure

son of a bitch had about as firm a grasp of romance as i currently have on the trembling shreds of my sanity.

their grip on character writing could not be more tenuous if they had first dipped the target brand Hulk Hands which I assume they always have on their person into a barrel of adult-film-grade silicon lubricant and then taken their Leapfrog 2-in-1 Leaptop Touch down a waterslide.

Do you know how much I usually make for 6000 words?

$180.

Do you know how much I made for enduring this ass blasting, which I naively believed I could tackle in a matter of hours?

$100.

You owe me $80 Ass Clown. And I aim to collect.

Also I lost my damn mind for a minute and said the words "i dont know shit about fuck my guy” to my actual father on facebook

so there’s that.

#reposting from my rp blog #i need to get better about not using it as a personal

[erydiel-art]

(ENDED)CASTING CALL FOR: Voice Actors/Music Artists!!! Multiple Roles Available!

DEADLINE MARCH 31ST, 2018!!!

Hello everyone! I’m Erydiel, and I need your help! This is a long post, so beware!

I am currently working on my own anime called “Changing Fate.” To not give away too many spoilers, the anime is in a modern setting with fantasy-like elements, and involves romance, action, angst, etc. You can think of something like Naruto/Bleach, but closer to a Sailor Moon-type style. It’s a little weird of an explanation, but I hope that I’ve grabbed your attention! If you’re interested, read more below!

Now, here’s the deal: this project of mine is a one-man team. I make the story, the script, and do all of the artwork and putting everything together. Since I’m the only person doing this, it takes time to finish all of it. At this point, I will most likely release 1 episode at a time, OR finish all of the episodes and release them once a week. I’m still not sure what to decide yet, which is why I’m doing a casting call now.

Right now, this casting call is for both voice actors and music artists! To prepare you on what you’re getting into, Changing Fate will have:

- 15 episodes of various lengths

- 2 OVAs

- a trailer for the anime

- an anime intro/outro song

- a character reveal trailer

All episodes will be released on Youtube (and Vimeo, possibly). Now, I am a college student on a very limited budget, so I cannot pay you for your hard work. However, you will receive credit on every episode/video that’s released that you’re on, and you can absolutely add this series to your resume. (I’m sure that employers would love to see that you’ve worked on a long-term project, right? I know I would!) I WILL attempt at making a kickstarter to raise funds, so if it is at all successful I will be able to pay you then depending on the work you’ve done. Of course, this is something that will be discussed when we get closer to that time.

So, are you still interested? Wonderful! Here are the requirements in order to apply:

VOICE ACTORS:

1) Must have a good microphone, and/or be able to remove any background noise/static/etc. from the file before sending it to me.

2) Send files in either a .mp3 or .WAV file format

3) Be able to work with me in making sure that voice files are correct, and if needed re-do a line if the tone of a scene needs to change.

4) You will also need to be okay with scenes that either include or imply: torture, blood, death, pain, etc. Torture scenes will only be for 1 episode or so, but the situation is implied multiple times in the anime. DO NOT apply if you are NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THIS. I do not want to accidentally hurt you. I may not know you personally, but I always try to make sure that everyone is okay before moving forward.

MUSIC ARTISTS:

1) Be able to create several tracks (if needed) to fit various scenes in the anime.

2) If you can sing, or know someone who can sing, and be able to get them to sing the intro/outro song for you in the music file.

3) Send the files in a .mp3 or .WAV file

4) Be okay with certain scenes as stated in the Voice Actors Section above.

5) If you can do an intro/outro song but can’t create certain tracks, etc. (and vice versa) that’s OKAY. I don’t expect for only 1 person to do everything: I know different artists can create different genres of songs/tracks, so I’ll be expecting to hire more than 1 person. Just be you when applying!

6) Be okay and patient enough to be able to make any tweaks or changes to a song/track if needed. This may happen multiple times.

FOR BOTH:

1) When applying, send all applications to [email protected]

2) The email subject heading should have either VA or MA, the character or track/song you wish to do, and what lines (for VAs only)

EXAMPLE:

Voice Actors:

VA (Accalia) Lines 1-5 Sample

or

VA (Accalia + more) Line Sample (Use this if applying for more than 1 character)

Music Artists:

MA (intro song) Sample

What I will be looking for in the emails:

Voice Actors: What character(s) you wish to apply for, plus the files that have the sample lines. EACH line (given below) MUST HAVE it’s own file, and named! For example, if you are doing Accalia’s sample lines, you would do: Accalia-Line 1 for the 1st sample, Accalia-Line 2 for the second sample, etc. Please make sure that you do this when sending emails!

Music Artists: Tell me what you wish to do: intro song, outro song, or background music. Then, I want you to include either a demo reel or examples of your work that either fit or are similar to the music that you wish to do for Changing Fate.

——–

Okay, now that all of that is done, time for the fun part! Voice Actors, this section is for you! Here are the Characters that you can apply for:

MAIN CAST:

Accalia Enelya (Ah-Kay-Lee-Ah Ee-Nel-Yah)

Gender: Female

Race: Nashoba (werewolf)

Accalia is one of THE main characters of the show. She will be one of the main focus in the anime, which also means she will have many, many lines. She is Tsundere to most people, but is heartwarming/acts normal to those that are the closest to her. She is a fierce protector who does not like Humans for the most part, but also knows that she is just a tool for their protection.

Lines:

1) “Humans…they disgust me.”

2) “Hey, get back here you scum!”

3) “It’s time to change.” (The line that’s spoken before a transformation scene occurs)

4) “I’m sorry…but I can’t. Not now, not ever.”

5) a file of a *sound of disgust* or a sound of “disapproval” (Similar to Cassandra from Dragon Age Inquisition)

Natsuki Arai (Naht-Su-Kee Ah-Rye)

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Natsuki is a soft-hearted man who is the love interest of Accalia. His voice is softer/feminine than most males, but NOT too feminine. You can clearly tell that he is a male, especially if his voice is raised in anger (which is quite rare). He is a gentleman at heart and tends to be the peacemaker in arguments.

Lines:

1) “Hello, my Lady.”

2) “I assure you that this must be wrong. Can we not resolve this another way?”

3) “Accalia, please, let me help you! You don’t have to do this alone!”

4) “All of this pain that you went through…I’m so sorry, my Love.”

5) a file or track of a *gasp* sound.

Paula Kisurugi (Paul-Ah Kiss-oo-ru-gee)

Gender: Female

Race: Human

Paula is Accalia’s best friend and closest ally. They have known each other for years, and will depend on each other if everyone else is against them. Paula is known to be a klutz, but she makes up for it with her sarcastic remarks and jokes. She will defend anyone who she is close with, although Accalia is most likely to protect her first.

Lines:

1) “Hey, get back here you jerk!”

2) “You know we gotta get them together, right?”

3) “Lia, you know you can trust me, right?”

4) *crying* “I can’t believe this…why did you have to suffer so much?!”

5) a file or clip of giggling or laughter. Be creative and feel free to send more than 1 file of this!

Cain Kazuhaya (Kayn Kah-zu-ha-yah)

Gender: Male

Race: Natissa (Vampire)

Cain is similar to Accalia in being Tsundere, but it’s not as strong. Instead, he’s almost like the classical annoying Jock that gets on everyone’s nerves. However, despite that persona he is a protector of his friends above all else, and is especially kind to Accalia because he owes her for saving his life long ago. He is also the love interest of Paula.

Lines:

1) “Yo.”

2) “Heh, hey Shortie. Did ya lose on the bet already?”

3) “Hey, back off!”

4) “They’re going to pay for this.”

5) a sound file of anger or yelling (like a battle-cry for a fight)

Damerick Bennett (Dah-Mer-Ick Ben-nett)

Gender: Male

Race: Nashoba

Damerick is known to be a Jack-of-all-Trades and makes constant jokes to make others laugh and be happy. He is an old friend of Accalia and Cain, and looks out for them often in times of need. Like Cain, he also is close with Accalia due to saving his life long ago, and wishes to pay her back for her sacrifice. If you ever feel down and need a pick-me-up, Damerick is the guy to go to.

Lines:

1) “Yo!”

2) “Dude, you gotta be kidding me!”

3) “Looks like it’s time to dance, yeah?”

4) “I don’t understand…why do we have to suffer like this?”

5) a sound file of a “WOO!!” or a yell of joy. Take your pick and be creative!

OTHER ROLES:

Sasha Anderson (Sah-sha An-der-son)

Gender: Female

Race: Human

Lines:

1) “Hey, what’s up?”

2) “…Really?”

Hampton Yamazaki (Hamp-ton Yah-Ma-Za-Kee)

Gender: Male

Race: Natissa

Lines:

1) “Huh?”

2) “…I don’t think we should be doing this…?”

DeAndre Parker (Dee-Ahn-Dre Par-ker)

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Lines:

1) “So…what do we do now?”

2) “Uh…what?”

Tran (Tr-Ann)

Gender: Female

Race: Human

*Vietnamese accent preferred, if able*

Lines:

1) “Hi.”

2) “…Thank you.”

Jordan Roan (Jor-dan Row-Ann)

Gender: Male

Race: Nashoba

Lines:

1) “Are we going to do this or not?”

2) “…Really?”

Various Female/Male Random voices/roles

*There are no lines here, just let me know if you can provide a voice for these smaller roles! They are of different ages, from children to old.

GODS/GODDESSES:

Zaman (Zah-Mahn)

Gender: Male

God of Time & Knowledge

Lines:

1) “Hello, my children.”

2) “My child, I’m afraid that it will only get worse from here.”

Xantara (Xan-Tear-Rah)

Gender: Female

Goddess of Earth

Lines: 

1) “I have failed you, my children. I…am sorry.”

2) “Do you think it was mere chance that you two are together? You two are together by fate!”

Araceli (Ah-Rah-Cel-Lee)

Gender: Female

Goddess of the Heavens

Lines:

1) “My child, do not look so down upon yourself. Your soul is too pure for such a sad look.”

2) “…I see. I have not thought of that before. You surprise me, my child.”

Asar (Ah-Sar)

Gender: Male

God of the Underworld

Aznil (Az-Nill)

Gender: Female

Race: Demon

Lines:

1) “Just give up already, Nashoba. We WILL rule over this world!“

2) “You don’t know what it is truly like to suffer. So, I will show you what it’s like myself!”

Aaaand that’s everything! Quite a long post, but it was necessary. If you all have any questions about this, please send in an ask! I will be happy to answer any questions or concerns.

Also, if you have no interest in this, please still reblog this! I need to get this reblogged everywhere so that others can see. Thank you SO MUCH if you do!!

DEADLINE IS MARCH 31ST, 2018

So please apply before it’s too late!

~Erydiel

#ad #advertising #va #voiceover #voice auditions #voice acting #voice actor #voice actress #looking for voice actors #help #anime #animation #music #music artist #singer #singer songwrtier #looking for music artists #music production #anime project #animation project #changing fate

[dominavontana]

Unbecoming - the #zerofucks post or on Vampires and radical #selflove

The call was to go down to the river. The plan was to go the the library. But my guides were incredibly insistent so I relented, scraped my plans and pointed the truck towards the mountain.

I’ve long since given up on wearing a bathing suit when I swim alone in the mountains. What’s the point and naked is how the river is meant to be experienced.

Once I crammed myself down in the crevice between a rock and a hard place - the perfect natural bath tub - I said to who ever was directing and supposedly listening now, “Well, I’m here.”

“That thing you think you been doing?” Came the reply.

“Yea.” I said.

“That work you think you been doing?”

“Yea,” I said again, this time with a bit of a proud smirk, thinking back to when I went pro over ten years ago.

“That was all just your training (translation: you ain’t done shit yet), the real work begins now (stay humble).”

Message received.

More like message finally articulated because I gotta say there has been a type of clarity on the rise in my life in the past couple of years. Call it coming out of the fog of some many things but it is clear to me I have built the house, and now it is finally time to begin living in it.

My house is the network of relationships that I maintain thanks to the digital aids that surround me constantly. I am always in touch. Ever alone and always in touch. Being in touch allows me to have the support, lover, reminders, and deadlines that I need to do the real work, the work that starts now. That started months ago, years ago even, but that is finally ready to be unleashed to its full potential. Being alone allows me the time to make good on those nudges.

I’ve learned I’m a severe introvert - what I mean is my alone time is mandatory and my need for it runs deep. You can always count on a warm reception when I’m out in public because I assure you I have planned it that way so that there is plenty of Me time before I have to take that leap again that every empath must take every time they go out in public.

When you’re born poor to uneducated parents it doesn’t take much to feel like you’re “dreaming big”, so suffice it to say my dreams were astronomical by the standards I grew up with. I was preached to about poverty and the woes of money and then that was spoon fed to me with a side of how honorable it is to be poor and futile to wish for more and both are bullshit.

Right now a lot of vows I took knowingly and unknowingly earlier in life are coming to light. I’m experiencing the breaking or renewal of these vows, like the vow of poverty I was spoon fed as a child. Abundance is not a bank account, it’s a state of mind. The two are irrevocably linked though. I know a lot of people who are very financially “successful” and never feel satisfied. I call them clients. Desire is the root of all things. Hunger is the shadow side of desire. One without the other is hollow.

Asia. Check.

Emotional Sobriety. Check.

#MeToo. Check.

Turning 40. Check

Etc Check Check Check

Conclusion?

Zero fucks.

Zero fucks is not not caring. It is the opposite. Zero fucks is a radical act of self love.

I am no longer available prey to the emotional vampires that often occupy the front of lyft rides or appear across the counter when I didn’t ask for their help. By some magical grace of the divine I have finally learned how to flip that god damn switch. I can cut a bitch off now and it actually sticks. No more mansplaining. Or hideous flirting. When you’re being abused it’s easy to accept one sided behavior from strangers because you don’t even realize it’s wrong. You’ve been conditioned. But I’ve removed myself from that cycle juuust long enough now and have juuust the right kinds of all the kinds of love in my life right now that I feel strong enough to say no and expect to be heard and respected. Intent. It’s everything. I’m slinging a lot of self affirming, loving and creative intent right now.

That and a ton of time to rest. Like months and weeks and years of being alone on the land or in another land to find the stillness inside myself because fuck they fucked me up as a child aaannnddd simultaneously prepared me to perfection to follow my divine path. So thanks Mom (Sag) and Dad (Pisces). Any astrologers in the house? You’re welcome. It’s a good laugh. The bitter, helpless, ironic kind that makes millions on stand up tours.

I don’t feel fragile exactly. Just new. Full of Wonder. But it’s all so familiar. I’ve changed. They’ve stayed the same but my changing has changed the way I see them. See all of it.

I have more than the current social climate and my own history to thank for this milestone. I also have my husband to thank, the slave. He was once dubbed “the sniper” by a group therapist. My husband has the magical gift to cut a bitch off so fast so low there is nothing left to say literally nothing and he does it energetically more than anything else. He used it against me many times during the early years of our relationship. Obviously he was dealing with addiction and I forgive him and that hasn’t happened in a very long time. Yes and however, I also have stood on the other side of it now. I recognize much of it for him is cultural. There’s more than one culture that will shut a bitch down three times before even taking the time to listen. This much I know is true. I think of him each time I accomplish this new magical feat. There’s been a lot of turmoil, but my slave is also the most brilliant man I’ve ever met and I’ve learned a lot from him. Along with his hot bod and ability to melt my heart with a giggle it’s is why I married him.  

It is not cruel to set up boundaries with strangers and then insist that they be respected but it’s challenging for an empath. It was challenging for me, until now. Each day I feel stronger and more present than I did the day before. Part of me feels like I’m waking up to a dream. And it’s real. In Bali they would call this an activation, the new found awareness and the paradigm shifts that I am experiencing right now. I would call it turning 40 and Venus retrograde through my sun and ascendant and taking a year off to travel and finally kicking my codependent habit and building the family by choice of my dreams for over ten years now and seeing that really, really come into focus in all it’s beauty.

Happy halloween you freaks.

[zeltricstudio]

'CAPTURE THE MOMENT'

DAWN

AUGUST 2015

“What is this shit?” Tony said as he slapped a few polaroids onto the table. The pictures were of a blurry figure in the woods at night

“Proof” Johnny replied as he lit a cigarette

“This isn’t proof. This is blurry nonsense”

“No it’s not, it’s an unknown creature in the woods” Johnny said, not paying as he continued smoking

Tony took the cigarette from Johnny’s mouth and put it out.

“Hey! I was up in the woods till 2 am trying to get you these photos, that’s gotta be worth something” Johnny said, sitting upright

“I have been very patient with you Johnny. I covered for you when you missed deadlines, showed up reeking of alcohol and even when you feel asleep in the bathroom but this is one incident too many” Tony said, rubbing his temples in frustration

“Come on, you know how hard I work-“ Johnny began to talk but was cut off

“Oh I know. All you do is fuck all, and taking shitty pictures. If I wanted shitty pictures I would do it myself”

“Please, give me one more chance, I promise I’ll fix up my act” Johnny begged

“Okay” Tony took in a very deep sigh “I’ll give you one more chance, but if you fuck this up I am done with you” Tony said sternly

“Okay thank you, I promise I won’t mess this up”

“Stop with the false promises, just actually do it. If I don’t see some goddamn proof of something in those fucking woods you’re getting the boot. Now get out of my office!” Tony yelled.

“Thank you once again, I promise not to let you down” Johnny said as he quickly got out of the room. He knew better than to push his luck when Tony got angry with him.

“Fucking prick” Johnny said once he was out of the room and the door was closed. Johnny lit another cigarette and proceeded to make his way out of the building.

Johnny was a competent photographer working for the Happyvile Paper but it didn’t take long before his charm would wear off and people began noticing he was not as good as he claimed to be. At first his excuses could past but now his boss was beginning to get annoyed with how bad he was. Johnny knew if he wanted to keep his job, he was going to need something good to show his boss. Johnny returned to his apartment and once inside, he put his equipment onto the ground and immediately fell onto his sofa, not bothering to change out of his work clothes as he went to bed.

A few hours later, around 7 pm he was woken up by some loud banging.

“Who the fuck is that?!” he shouted out, still laying on the couch

“It’s Ella”

“Oh shit” Johnny whispered to himself as he immediately sat upright and tried to make himself look presentable. “One moment” he said as he straightened his jacket and pants. Johnny slicked his hair back and opened the door.

“Hello love-“

“You’re a piece of shit” Ella said as she pushed herself past Johnny into the apartment.

“Come on it” Johnny said and closed the door

“I can’t believe you forgot” Ella said with a pissed off tone in her voice

“I didn’t forget, I just took a nap is all. I was going to call you”

“Oh yeah, where are we eating?”

“Uh- well um- there’s- there’s this uh” Johnny began stuttering, trying to think of someplace

“God, I can’t believe you!”

“I’m sorry, I’ve just been caught up in work is all”

“With work? Getting drunk in the woods and taking pictures of trees isn’t work at all”

“Babe please-“

“Take your ‘babe please’ and shove it. I feel like I’m the only one trying to put in any real effort into this relationship”

“I put plenty effort into this relationship, okay? Sorry if I forgot this one time”

“I’ve made dinner plans the past 7 times! I’m the one who is constantly changing my schedule to suit yours! The amount of times we’ve had to go to the pub because you ‘forgot’ fucking hurts” Ella said, using her fingers to make air quotes for the word ‘forgot’

“Look, I’m having a really bad string of luck, just please, let me deal with work first and I’ll focus on us okay? If I do this next assignment well, I promise to take you out to a fancy dinner. I’ll make plans and everything”

Ella stood there in silence, angrily fuming as Johnny patiently waited, giving her sad eyes to gain sympathy

“You promise?” Ella asked

“Yes, 100% I promise” Johnny said with sincerity in his voice

“Okay, but I’m serious if you forget we. Are. Over!” Ella said and began leaving the apartment

“Thank you babe, I love you so much-“

“Go fuck yourself” Ella said as she slammed the door shut on her way out.

“Fucking hell” Johnny said once she was out and laid back onto the couch. After a few minutes, Johnny sat back up and lit another cigarette, before taking his laptop out of his bag and turning it on. Johnny searched “creature sightings in Sunshine” and began looking through various links. Most were obvious clickbait headlines, but one caught his attention. “The Dawn Animal Study Group”. Johnny began reading it and this was the ticket he needed. Lots of discussions about various creature sightings in Dawn and a few more images of possible creatures, but none with enough clarity. Johnny saw a number to one of the members and called them.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end spoke

“Hey mate, this is uh Jim calling about your latest photo in the study group animal thing”

“Well hello Jim, the name’s Zac. I’m glad you’re interested in our study group”

“Very interested. I’m a photographer and I love exploring wildlife and all that” Johnny said, trying to fake his enthusiasm

“I agree. Was there something you called about specifically?”

“Yeah, I was wondering if you might know of any good spots to take pictures. I tried in Happyvile but there is just nothing here”

“Happyvile? That is quite far away, are you sure?”

“Oh definitely. Got the weekend free, I am prepared to just get out there and spend the weekend taking pictures”

“Well that’s wonderful to hear. If you’re serious I might know a few spots you could head to”

“Great, that works”

“We all are exploring different parts, I’ll give you an unmarked area to explore. Who knows, you might be the first in finding something new. If you drive out to Camp Star National, you can park your car their and go venturing into the woods. It’s near a trail so if you get lost you can find your way back”

“Cheers mate, you’ve been a great help”

“Anytime. Take care”

“Take care”

Later that night, Johnny began researching about the trail and how to get there. Thankfully he was a frequent camper so he had all the gear ready to go. Johnny called Ella to let her know where he was going.

“I’m not here at the moment, please leave a name and number and I’ll get back to you *BEEP*”

“Hey babe, I’m going to be heading into Dawn tomorrow for my assignment. Normally I would ask you but I know you’re mad so I’ll just give you some space. I promise when I get back, I’ll get to work on making those dinner arrangements” Johnny hung up the phone and went to bed.

The next morning, Johnny woke up early at 5 am and began making his drive. After 2 hours of driving, Johnny arrived at Camp Star National. Johnny went to the Ranger’s Station to report in.

“Name?” The Ranger asked as he clicked his pen

“Johnny Finn” Johnny replied

“How long will you be camping?”

“2, 3 days”

“Have you been camping before?”

“Yes, plenty of times”

“Okay, I know you know the basic rules but I got to go over them”

“Yeah I know” Johnny said as he began lighting a cigarette

“1. No littering of any kind. This includes clothing, camp gear and other item, especially cigarettes.” He said and eyed Johnny, who stopped himself and put the packet back into his pocket

“Whatever you bring with you, you take back with you.

2. No hunting or disturbing the wildlife.

3. If you have animals, make sure to clean up after them.

And 4. No going beyond the yellow tape”

“Yellow tape” Johnny asked, curiously

“We are still exploring the area and making a trail. Anything past the yellow tape is unexplored and most likely not safe to go through”

“Ah right”

“Yep. Please sign this to acknowledged you heard the rules and agree to them. Failure to comply can result in a fine”

Johnny signed the paper and he began setting out to explore. Johnny ventured off the main path and continued walking through the dense woods. The further Johnny went, the less he saw people camping and eventually he was all alone until he came across the yellow tape. Johnny thought for a few seconds and thought ‘fuck it’ and went anyways. He most likely would be returning the next morning and figured he couldn’t get lost easily. Johnny ducked under the tape and went off.

After a few hours of walking it began to get dark. Johnny was prepared to set-up camp until he noticed something in the distance. Johnny saw what looked to be train tracks that were still intact. Johnny followed the tracks for a bit and that’s when he noticed there was movement ahead. There was a group of men in black clothing moving what looked to be a metal box on wheels. The box was strapped down with chains and was shaking violently as whatever inside was trying to get out. Johnny would’ve turned away but he needed something and this was the best he was going to get. Johnny put his equipment down and took his camera with him as he slowly trailed behind the men, sticking to the trees.

As Johnny trailed behind, he began silently snapping a few more pics. The tracks lead to what appeared to be a tunnel. The entrance to the tunnel was closed off by security fences with a sign on them saying “NO TRESSPASSING”. The men removed the fence and wheeled the metal box through before closing it. Once the men began descending, Johnny waited and looked around and once the coast was clear, he climbed the fence over and began his descent. Soon it began to get darker and darker and Johnny took out his lighter to light the path. The closer Johnny got, the more the rotten smell began to intensify. It was putrid, so Johnny hiked his shirt up over his noise to try and block out the smell. Johnny reached the bottom of the hill and contemplated if he should venture further into the tunnel.

“Fuck, fuck” he said quietly to himself, debating his actions. “Come on Johnny, you’ve come this far, don’t pussy out now” he reminded himself and continued walking into the tunnel. The tunnel was very wide, with 4 tracks running through. Some were still intact and others had been stripped and removed. The eerie silence and darkness didn’t help Johnny as his heart began beating faster. The sound of his feet and the flickering of his lighter were amplified in the tunnel and sounded much louder than they were. After a few minutes of wondering in the darkness, Johnny noticed a light in the distance. As Johnny got closer, he noticed a small living area had been set up. There were train carts that had been stripped of their wheels and some couches and folding chairs in poor condition strew around several barrels on fire, lighting up most of the area. Johnny could hear the men up ahead and went into a train car and hid in the darkness to peak on them.

“Okay, easy now” one of the men said as he and another man were setting down the metal box onto the ground and removing the chains.

One of the men from a side room walked into view, dragging a man who had been bound and gagged, viciously struggling against him.

“Relax pal, quit squirming” the man in black said before gut punching the bound man, making him double over and fall to the ground, curling up

“Okay we ready?” one of the men said

“Yeah” the others all agreed and all of the men left the area and went into the backroom. One of the men took out a small knife and stabbed the bound man in the arm.

“MMMMMM” the bound man tried screaming, but his gag prevented it.

The last man ran into the backroom and shut the door. The metal cage began beating faster and faster. Johnny was horrified but he still continued taking pictures, making a mental note to alert the Ranger to what was happening. The metal box began to break, first the hinges popped and then the chain surrounding the door broke free. The door popped open and a creature came tumbling out. The creature was the most horrific thing Johnny had seen. He appeared to be a humanoid figure, with most of the skin stitched together, giving the appearance of a melted man. His arms were massive and building out, as if there were about to pop. It’s head was covered in giant bubbles of flesh, obstructing his face. The creature got up and began walking over to the bound man, who tried to wiggle away but the pain was too much for him to push past. The creature grabbed the bound man by his neck and easily lifted him a few feet into the air, strangling him. The creature then grabbed his shoulder and began pulling the head apart. With a single motion, the creature tore the head off the man, spraying blood all over the area.

Johnny was in completely shock and nearly vomited, horrified at what he just witnessed. The creature was about to continue ripping apart the man, until he stopped and stared directly at Johnny. The sudden stare made Johnny stumble, giving away his location. The creature threw the man’s body at the wall, making a sickening splat noise as it hit the concrete with intense force. Johnny quickly got back up and began running to the exit as the creature began running. The creature’s footsteps were extremely heavy, making loud thuds as it slowly began closing in on Johnny. The darkness of the tunnel were suddenly illuminated by red lights that filled the entire room. With the entire tunnel lit up, Johnny began noticing all the dead bodies slumped against the walls. All of them were torn or destroyed, with their guts sprayed out and stretched across the walls. Johnny didn’t have time to stop as he heard the sound of mechanisms activating. Near the hill leading up, a giant metal gate dropped down and made an extremely thunderous slam as it fell to the ground.

“No no no no!” Johnny began screaming as he reached the gate. The bars were too tight together, not allowing enough room to squeeze past. Johnny turned around and saw the creature running towards him, followed by several more creatures rushing to him.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck!” Johnny kept screaming to himself, as the creatures surrounded him and charged at him. The first creature gripped Johnny by his throat and lifted him into the air silencing him as he began choking. Another creature grabbed Johnny by his arm and began tugging him. More and more creatures began grabbing Johnny’s limbs and began pulling. Almost simultaneously, all of Johnny’s limbs were ripped off, their blood spraying all over the gate and walls. Johnny’s head was detached from his body and thrown away. The creatures threw the body parts away from them, some hitting the walls and others hitting the gates. The creatures left the gate and returned to the tunnels.

“*BEEP* You have 2 new messages *BEEP*”

“Don’t bother coming into work today, you’re dead to me. If you show up, I’m calling the cops on you. You are officially fired!” Tony screamed and hung up.

“*BEEP*”

“I really thought you changed Johnny, I really hoped you did. But no calls, you’re not picking up. I’m done with you. Don’t bother calling me, I don’t ever want to see or hear from you again” Ella said and hung up.

“*BEEP*”

“We got anything?” A man in black asked as he put the phone down

“Nothing. Aside from a phone call to girlfriend and some guy named Zac, Johnny only told them he went to Dawn” Another man in black responded as he continued searching through Johnny’s apartment.

“Guess we’re done here”

The man in black pulled out a phone and called someone.

“We’re clean here. Johnny Finn died after being mauled to death by an angry animal. He shouldn’t have crossed the yellow tape”

“Understood” the man on the other end responded.

The man in black hanged up the phone and the two of them left the apartment.

#THoS #TheHorrorsofSunshine #ZeltricStudios #HorrorStory