#like she just went 'uh thats a big brain oh good its gone'

[mumms-the-word]

(Im)possible Odds

Day 10 of the BG3 Fic February Challenge

So.....I have always sort of thought that Gale's little scene when he sees the Elder Brain in Moonrise was rushed as hell. Especially if you romance him. Man does a 180 so fast it's a wonder he doesn't start the fight Dazed or Off Balance.

So I thought I'd fix that a little.

For dramatic purposes you are welcome to either imagine companions in the background being like "GET A ROOM" or pretend they have slunk off to get a different vantage point for the fight, leaving Gale and Dani conveniently alone to be dramatic as they please

Check out my masterlist of BG3 fics!

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10. A tearful, hard kiss before battle. Bonus points if it’s a confessional kiss!

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Dani hid herself behind a structure of mixed stone and flesh, watching with growing horror as the elder brain rose slowly into the air, dripping brine from the green pool below. An elder brain, extremely powerful and dangerous, lashed to control by the three figures that stood below it. 

How could they possibly fight something like that? Maybe if they had weeks to plan, to prepare, maybe if she had twelve kingdoms worth of explosives, or an army of her own, maybe—but a handful of them? Even she couldn’t fool herself.

Dani was not a fighter, or at least, she wasn’t a good fighter. In the shadow of that thing, she felt small. Insignificant. She’d never felt so tiny in her life. Her heart started to race and her vision grew fuzzy. She reached out a hand to grip the stone next to her, not even noticing when her fingers gripped into fleshy illithid matter instead.

“Look at that crown,” Gale whispered. She turned her head to find him standing practically at her shoulder, his gaze fixed solidly on the brain. He looked…awed. Enthralled. “It radiates with power unlike anything I’ve ever seen. To have it…to hold…” He shook his head slightly. “If only I could…”

A new fear gripped her chest, warring with the panic that was threatening to choke her from the presence of the elder brain. There was a look in his eyes that she did not like. 

Hunger.

“Gale…?”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He stared at the brain for another several seconds before closing his eyes tightly. “No. I can’t. I…” 

He paused, his expression almost pained. Then he opened his eyes to meet her gaze. “This is it. The moment we’ve…I’ve…been waiting for. I must do as Mystra commands.”

There was no fighting the panic that welled up in Dani then. What he was suggesting—no. The orb? Here? It wouldn’t just kill the brain, it would kill him—and her, and everyone within a city-wide radius. Yes, defeating the brain right now felt insurmountable but to resort to the orb…

“You can’t,” she whispered hoarsely. She shook her head and took a step closer to him. “Gale, no, you can’t. You can’t condemn all of us like that. We’ll find another way, we’ll think of something else, we—“

“What other choice do we have?” Gale interrupted. He flung out a hand toward the brain and the figures controlling it. “Do you see the size of that thing? Do realize what’s controlling it, what is giving it that kind of power? More than just a goddess counts on my courage in this moment, Dani. Whole worlds hang in the balance.”

“We’ll find another way,” Dani said, but even she could hear the desperation in her voice. The clock was ticking. She could feel the waves of power emanating off the brain, a mix of illithid power that felt all too familiar and some sort of sick, twisted magic that threatened to buckle her knees if she let it. She couldn’t let him use the orb but she didn’t know what else to do either.

She reached out a trembling hand and gripped the front of his robe. “Gale. Please. Don’t do this. There has to be another way.”

“Another way to fight an elder brain? Dani.” He took her shoulders in her hands, gripping them tightly. “I don’t want to do this. But what choice do we have? It could be over. Just like that. If you get a head start—you have spells that can get you safety. I’ll stay here, and—“

“No!” She shook him using her hold on his robe. Gods, she wanted to slap him, hoping he’d see sense, but she knew that was just her panic fueling her head with terrible ideas. “Stop it. Please.”

Her voice broke on the last word, tears welling up into her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. She ignored them, tightening her hold on his robe and giving him another little shake.

“Please,” she whispered. “I don’t care what Mystra ordered. I don’t care that I’m terrified of that thing out there. You can’t do this.”

He stared at her, taken aback. It was the first time he’d seen her cry, she realized, the first time she’d admitted to being truly, genuinely frightened of something. She swallowed, reaching out to grip his robe with both of her hands. 

“Choose me instead,” she said, blinking away the next wave of tears. “The one who loves you. Choose me. We’ll find another way. We’ll figure something out.”

He swallowed hard, his hands still on her shoulders. “Dani…”

“Please, Gale. I love you.”

He looked from her to the brain behind her, eyes momentarily watching whatever the figures were doing in the distance. Then he nodded and looked back down at her. “I love you too. Much more than myself. More even than Mystra.”

He closed his eyes again, as if fighting briefly with his decision. But when he met her gaze again, there was determination in his dark eyes. His hold on her shoulders tightened.

“I choose you,” he said softly. “Whether I condemn this world or not. I choose you.”

His hands cradled her face and he bent his head, bringing his lips to hers in a crushing kiss that took her breath away and sent her reeling. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close, forcing him to shift his hold on her but never breaking the kiss. She parted his lips with her tongue, deepening the kiss, feeling him shiver when her sharp teeth briefly caught his bottom lip.

If this was the last kiss she would share with this man she would damn well make it worth it.

They parted for air, breathless, their gazes locked. As he reached up to brush the tears from her cheeks, she brushed her thumb against the magic-darkened veins that trailed from his left eye down toward his neck. 

“I hope you realize I don’t have a plan for fighting that thing out there,” she said, before she could think better of it. “We could both die anyway and make everything worse. Not that I want you to change your mind but—“

“But a chance with you is better than guaranteed death at Mystra’s command,” he said. He kissed her again and she suppressed the urge to hold him to her and kiss him for another five minutes straight. “I chose you. I love you. I’m not going to change my mind.”

“You’re with me, then?” she breathed. “Whatever happens down there, whatever we have to fight?”

He nodded. “I’m with you. All the way, Dani.”

“Good. I—good.” She hesitated, wanting to say more, but coming up with nothing. So she just kissed him one last time.

“For luck,” she said. “Call it bardic inspiration.”

A smile flickered on his lips, even as she pulled away, out of his embrace. “Consider me more than inspired…my love.”

Together they turned to set their eyes on the elder brain, and prepare for whatever would come next. Dani wound her fingers with his, squeezing tightly. Whatever happened, they would do this together. Not Mystra’s way.

Her way.

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BONUS: an endgame scene for you friendlies.

Dani paused at the base of the Netherbrain’s stem, clutching a stitch at her side, trying to catch her breath from their sprint up the crumbling ruins of High Hall. Gods. Did the brain have to be so stupidly high up?

Gale was at her side, barely out of breath having misty-stepped his way through. Together they craned their heads up to look at the brain.

“The brain,” he said. “It’s high above the city now—far away from any innocents.”

Dani straightened and looked at him, setting her hands on her hips as she caught her breath. They had fought their way through and still had a big fight ahead, but she was feeling confident. Perhaps over-confident. They had an army of allies at their call and a dozen boons and blessings to strengthen them in the battle. She didn’t want to say victory was assured, but it was looking damn near possible.

“I hope you realize that I don’t have a plan for fighting that thing up there,” she said.

He smiled slightly and looked skyward. “You always think best on your feet, my love.” He paused, his expression shifting, growing grave. “I…you know I can end this now. Stop the Absolute and spare the city.”

She looked sidelong at him and crossed her arms. “Gale.”

“I mean it, Dani. The stage is set for my final act.”

She tilted her head, a little exasperated. They had just talked about this. “Gale.”

“You’ve brought me right where I need to be—“

“Gale.” She reached out and took hold of his robe, pulling him into a deep, lingering kiss. Silencing all his words, all his logic, all his lingering doubts. When she pulled away, he looked a little dazed.

“I’m not letting you get away that easily,” she said softly. “Choose me, Gale. The one who loves you.”

“I…but…”

“We can do this.” She cupped his cheek in her hand. “Do you remember what you told me, when we first saw the elder brain in Moonrise? When you chose me then?”

He nodded slowly. “A chance with you is better than guaranteed death at Mystra’s command.” He looked back up at the brain, and then once more to her. “Dani, if you’re mistaken, this could be the end of everything. We will be failing, right as the last hurdle.”

“Fail? Us?” She grinned. “When have you ever known us to fail?”

“I shall avoid answering that with what I know to be an entire catalogue of anecdotes but…” He returned her grin with a soft smile of his own. “I know I have only made it this far thanks to you. So who am I to question such sterling guidance now?”

She tilted her head, smoothing the wrinkles she’d made in his robe. “Good. So. A kiss for luck?”

“Always, my love.” He leaned in and kissed her, soft and sweet and lingering. 

She ruined it with a smile, whispering against his lips, “A little bardic inspiration to get you through.” 

She pulled away and took a step back, indicting the brain stem with her head. “Now. Let’s go kick some massive cerebral ass.”

#bg3 #bg3 fic #bg3ficfeb #my fic #oc #dani #meridan zavrai #gale dekarios #gale #in the game's original scene at moonrise #the scene is just so quick that in my head dani sort of took everything in stride #like she just went 'uh thats a big brain oh good its gone' #and then proceeded to kill ketheric twice over #but i wanted to explore a more vulnerable side of dani here #she doesn't really get to show fear much in the game but this seems like a reasonable thing to be terrified of #but i digress

[badxsshottiexllie]

Plotted starter for @spoocys-glade-of-dreams

Ellie, riding her hover bike, was on her way to her rebellion groups hideout which was located outside of Eden. She needed to discuss what had happened to her the night before at the United of Eden. Originally, the woman had gone there to relax. However, there would be a series of events that would occur that said otherwise. The woman not only got to rescue Eden's biggest celebrity, but also got herself involved in trying to help his friend who was in a situation that was beyond her control.

"Whats the password?" A male voice said behind the door.

"Cabbage is perfect to eat in the dry heat." Ellie responded.

"Hey! Hows my favorite isekai protagonist doing?" The door opened to reveal a panda hybrid named Steven. Since he was a big fan of anime, he often referred to her as an isekai protagonist, someone who is randomly sent from one world to another.

"Oh hey Steven, pretty crazy shit happened last night. I wanted to see if mostly everyone was here to talk." The woman replied.

"Yeah, unfortunately, most of us are just doing are own thing today. So its just Cody, the boss, you and I here today." After Steven said who was here, you could see a teenage human named Cody playing a gaming PC. You could also see the boss, a human woman around Ellie's age named Natalie, reading a book.

"Sup Ellie, how did last night go?" Natalie asked, putting her book down.

"Hey boss, uh...well...thats what I wanted to talk to everyone about..." The redhead scratched behind her head.

Natalie got up and gently nudged Codys shoulder so that he could listen too since he was wearing headphones. "Ellie's got something to tell us."

The teenager took off his headphones and looked into Ellie's direction and gave a brief yo in greeting.

"So last night, I went to the United of Eden to relax. Well...I thought that was going to happen. I stopped a fight from happening there. You'll never guess who I saved..." There was a bit of a pause before she revealed who it was due to awkwardness. "It was none other than everyones favorite poster boy himself....Rayman..."

"WHAAAAAAT?!?!" Steven, Natalie, and Cody said in unison. They couldn't believe what they just heard.

"But why? You do know the risks involved in associating with him right?" Natalie told her.

"Like that hasn't been drilled a million times in my brain before. But I couldn't just stand there and do nothing. He needed help. Anyway, theres this other part of it where he asked me to help his friend Mona Lisa, whose in a situation thats beyond her control."

"Mona Lisa as in...the famous painting? That Mona Lisa?" Steven asked confusingly.

"Not to be confused with the painting of the same name." The redhead corrected. "Its her stage name and believe it or not shes a limbless like Rayman. But thats not the important thing right now. Shes in a situation involving Hoyt Volker. Do you guys know who he is?"

The trio had a mixture of pale expressions and disgust. Natalie, however, was the one to speak up between the three.

"Human trafficking." Natalie spoke softly. "Murphy told me about it. Its really gross."

"Murphy? Whose that?"

"Hes someone who works with us but hes from another resistance group like ours. Hoyt Volker offers good paying jobs but its disguised as selling them to Eden for work or other crime bosses."

"No way..." The gingers eyes widened at this new discovery. She needs to tell Rayman this asap! This was huge! "Boss! You are a live saver, thank you!" Ellie gave her boss a big hug and stormed out the door.

The rebel hopped on her hover bike making her way back to Eden. Once she got back safely and into her apartment, she made sure to give Rayman a call. "I wonder if he'll pick up..."

#spoocys-glade-of-dreams #this was extremely long due to multiple npcs but you do not have to match length #human trafficking tw #long post #cut for length #captain laserhawk au #let me know if you want me to change anything!

[reidsnose]

love letters

overview: spencer has a wonderful idea after finding out that reader had never gone to her senior prom

genre: fluff fluff fluff

a/n: i mixed two ideas that have been sitting in my notes app for this lol but i think its sweet!! i wrote it a little rushed and definitely not bc im not getting a prom this year due to miss rona👀 LMAO but as always please lmk what yall think ab it :)

masterlist

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the idea had fully occupied his thoughts the second after the words left your mouth.

it was "the buttcrack of dawn" as you had called it, though spirits were high on the late jet ride home. it was a rare but much needed positive end to the case, and everyone was happily chatting with each other. since the case was involving high schoolers, the subject fell on prom. everyone went around sharing their prom stories one by one, recalling awful dresses and questionable dates til the questions turned to spencer.

"what ab you, pretty boy, what was your prom like?" morgan asked, still smiling widely from recalling his own.

you watched spencer shift uncomfortably for a second.

"i uh..i never went to prom." he stammered, a tight lipped smile on his face.

"no! you just dont wanna tell us!" prentiss cried, throwing her hands in the air.

"i graduated high school when i was 12! why would i have gone to prom?" he reasoned.

"you had to have gone when you were older or something! everyone has!" jj countered.

"thats not true, i never went to prom either," you defended, subconsciously inching closer to spencer.

before anyone could even ask you to explain why, spencer got the idea. he mentally left the conversation after you gave your answer. he spent the whole rest of the ride home and the next couple of weeks brain storming and planning.

and casually after work one day, as he was walking you to your car, he asked you if you wanted to hang out with him that weekend; at his house.

you and Spencer had hung out before, but mostly at your house or at coffee shops; he didn't invite people over very often.

of course you agreed but you grew confused when he told you to dress fancy.

you raced home afterwards to raid your closet, looking for any fancy dresses you may have stuffed in there.

spencer spent the whole day preparing his apartment. he put up streamers and balloons. he made a playlist of all your favorite songs. and then he rushed to get his clothes from the cleaners.

and when you knocked at his door the breath that left your lungs struggled to come back after he opened the door.

he stood in a gorgeous suit, different than he had ever worn to work. he rubbed the back of his neck and gestured to the living room, revealing the adorable (albeit poorly made but its the thought that counts) decorations.

"um.. welcome to prom," he said, turning back to you, revealing a blushy smile.

he tried not to stare too much at you, but it was difficult. your eyes sparkled as you stepped inside and looked around. and the dress you were wearing fit you so gorgeously he truly couldnt take his eyes off of you.

"spencer, i..." you trailed off, enchanted by what he had done.

"sorry if it looks bad. or if you think its weird that i did this. i just thought cause neither of us went to prom maybe you wanted to have a little one with me? yeah now that i say it out loud maybe you hate it im sorr-" he rambled behind you.

you turned quickly to him as he got lost in his words, eyes glued to the floor. cutting him off by wrapping your arms around his neck and hugging him as tight as you could. you could feel the tension leave his body as he melted into the embrace, returning it gladly. he doesn't like to be touched by anyone really, except for you.

"i love it. thank you," you whispered, giving him one last squeeze before letting go.

he has a spread of snacks lying out on the coffee table which he has mooved to the corner of the room to make space for a makeshift dancefloor.

he turns on the music and you two start talking and dancing and laughing. two fools with four left feet completely and obliviously in love. well, oblivious the the other anyway.

a slower song came on, an old one that you had wanted to slow dance to ever since you were a little girl. and somehow naturally you two came together, his hand dropped to your waist, the other delicately cradling your own. your other hand found its way up to his shoulder, feeling as though a magnet was pulling you two closer. and closer.

he looked absolutely stunning. the soft lights he had strung around the apartment sparkled like stars in his eyes; its was...dizzying, in the most incredible way.

unbeknownst to you, as you stared at the stars in his eyes he was looking at his whole world that he had been somehow lucky enough to hold in his arms.

he held his arm out, allowing you to spin and when he pulled you back both of your arms ended up wrapped around his neck, and his around your waist. you were less dancing now and more...hugging. with your head pressed to his chest, he hoped with all his might that you wouldn't be able to hear his hammering heart. you most definitely could, but it was calming to know he was as nervous as you were. you smiled, listening more to his heart than the music he had played for you.

you were both sure that you could burst from pure bliss. the song ended a little too quickly for either of your liking and reluctantly you let go of each other. and suddenly Spencer was hit with the realization that he forgot something.

"oh my gosh," his eyes widened as he looked around the room.

"what?" you asked, mirroring him and looking as well.

"i can't remember where i left your corsage! i was gonna give it to you at the door but i forgot!" he exclaimed, running around the room checking shelves.

you smiled to yourself. he got you a corsage!

"ill help you look" you decided.

"please do," he chuckled.

"i thought you had an eidetic memory, shouldn't you know where you left it?" you joked, shooting him a smug smile.

"y/n, my brain was all jumbled to day and it wasn't just from being around you," he realized what he had said and quickly turned back to the shelf he was looking at, "could you check in my room please?"

his heart was racing at his own stupidity; how could he just say that so nonchalantly? he had been planning to tell you that he liked you for the longest time he cant afford slipping up and having it be anything less than perfect.

you slipped into his room, your cheeks warm from the idea that you make his big brain all jumbled. he probably didn't mean it like that, you were just looking too much into it.

you sighed as you crouched to look under his bed for it. you found a small wooden box that you slid out from underneath. it had your name on it.

is it normal to keep a corsage in a wooden box? you wouldn't know, you never went to prom.

you shrugged your shoulders, "i found it spence!"

with out thinking you opened the box, except instead of a band of flowers you were greeted with letters, all addressed to you. there were annotations written in the margins with purple ink. you furrowed your eyebrows as you scanned the various letters.

dear y/n,

today you complimented my glasses and my heart skipped a beat. thats dumb spencer dont start like that

dear y/n,

im in love with you. too forward

dear y/n,

you make life worth living. shes gonna think youre a creep

you felt a rush of euphoria fill your chest. did he really feel these things for you? your thoughts swirled in the most wonderful way. a wide smile broke across your face, butterflies running rampage through your stomach as you reread his words. his words addressed to you.

"oh thank God i really thought i lost-oh. oh no." spencer started as he walked through the door of his room immediately walking back out. you followed, blinking your watery eyes at him. "i can explain.

"i think youve explained enough, theres like 20 letters in here!" you chuckled, flipping through them.

"i didnt know how to tell you and i dont want to ruin what we already have and i-"

"it wasnt too forward." you stated, grabbing one of the letters.

"what?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"in this one," you held up the letter, "you wrote dear y/n, im in love with you. and then you crossed it out and wrote that it was too forward but i dont think it was."

"youre not mad?"

"mad? spencer ive been trying to admit the fact that im in love with you since i realized it myself, why would i be mad?"

"youre..you feel the same way?" he looked back up at you, a hesitant smile pulling on the corners of his lips.

"more so," you beamed, stepping closer.

he wrapped his arms around you, "thats good or else the rest of this prom would have sucked."

you chuckled, pulling him impossibly closer to you as another perfect song played.

-

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ultra mega super cool taglist

@mac99martin @imhreid @spencersmagic @hollydaisy23 @raelady1184 @a-broken-pact @padfootswife @hey-there-angels @star-stuff-in-the-cosmos @sonnydoesrandomshit @averyhotchner @laurakirsten0502 @reidyoulikeabook @rem-ariiana @spencerreid9 @vampire-overlord @takeyourleap-of-faith @spenxerslut @violetspoetic @aperrywilliams @b-a-utiful @eevee0722 @srhxpci @reidemandweep @imdefinitelyfloating @random-human-person @gurkiloni @luvspence @calm-and-doctor @ssavanessa22 @singularityjc @sydnee-kom-spacekru @sydneekomspacekru

#criminal minds #spencer reid #reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x reader fluff #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fluffy #doctor spencer reid #dr spencer reid #spencer reid x you #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid cute #derek morgan #morgan #prentiss #emily prentiss #jennifer jereau #jj #platonic!bau x reader #bau #bau x reader #behavioral analysis unit

[heavcnslyre]

never leave me again — leo valdez x reader

in which you return from years of being missing, only to find that your boyfriend, leo valdez, has been missing as well.

warnings swearing

notes it’s been a few months since i’ve read the books so i kind of just made this my own. also this took me DAYS to write so pls appreciate it w me

events in this are not all canon

masterlist

the scent of camp half blood was familiar— yet something felt different. it had been years since you had smelt it, and being there again brought upon a feeling you couldn’t quite explain. you listened for the familiar ruffle of the trees and the rippling of the lake, but heard nothing. it was silent; eerily silent. it was the middle of summer, yet the camp was still.

although, you had been away from everything for so long, you didn’t actually know if it was summer or not. truthfully, you didn’t even know exactly what year it was.

you inched towards the entrance of camp nervously. something inside of you was scared that you weren’t even going to be let into the camp— but as you read the ancient greek at the entrance fluently and your foot went through the barrier, you instantly calmed down. the familiar atmosphere of the camp was comforting, even if you could automatically feel how different it was.

making your way to the big house, you gathered that it was still early in the morning as you saw the sun peaking out in the east. it was chilly and the grass was wet and suddenly you realized how tired you were. you wanted nothing more than to collapse into your bunk in cabin 18. your cabin was often lively, as it was common for children of hebe to enjoy parties and be social; but you only had a few siblings and you were one of the oldest. they listened to you if you asked them to quiet down, and the environment of your cabin was soothing. you found yourself longing for it on rough nights, and now that you were back, you debated on just going straight there as if nothing happened.

but, you fought the temptation and knocked on the door to the big house. you found yourself anxious for a moment that no one would be awake, but you heard movement from the inside and the door opened seconds later. you looked down and saw chiron sitting in his wheelchair. he looked the same, as you assumed he would. somehow, he didn’t look surprised to see you.

“(y/n). i thought you’d be here today,” he said, moving himself out of the way. “come in, we can talk.”

you followed him to the main table in the house and took a seat across from him. he settled his hands into his lap and studied you. suddenly aware of how you may have changed, you shifted in your seat awkwardly.

“chiron, can i ask...” you said after a moment. “how long has it been? how long have i been gone?”

“a little over two years.”

you sank down in your seat. “oh.”

“do you want to fill me in on where you’ve been, or should i tell you what happened here first?”

“oh, uh— i guess a lot of its fuzzy,” you started. “i was with hera, and she sent me to do... different quests. time doesn’t really feel real, at this point. i never got a break, i don’t think. she sent me places and i forgot a lot about... my life. and everything.”

“do you remember everything now?”

“i remember all of my life before hera— yeah,” you paused, taking it in. “but i don’t remember a lot of what she had me do, or whatever she said to me when i wasn’t off on a quest. that’s why i didn’t know how much time passed, it feels like it’s been three years and three days at the same time.”

chiron sighed. “i get that. the gods have the powers to do whatever they want to time and your memory— but they rarely use the ability. but hera, after all she’s done...”

“why is she so against demigods? after she switched jason and percy for no reason we thought she was done, why did she need to take me?”

“i guess we’ll never truly know her intentions,” chiron said. “i did assume now is when you would return, though. leo valdez is missing.”

you felt your heart skip a beat. leo. he had been a constant in your mind in the past two years that you had been gone, just like how percy explained that annabeth was all he could remember. you had started dating a few months before you disappeared. suddenly you yearned for his warmth, remembering the feeling of his arms wrapped around you. your heart ached for him for years and now that you’re home— he’s gone.

“how... how long has he been missing?” you asked. chiron frowned.

“a few months. after the war ended, he disappeared, basically into the sky. (y/n)... there’s a good chance he didn’t survive.”

you could almost feel your heart breaking, but you knew that wasn’t the main issue at the moment. you took a deep breath to gather yourself. “how’s everyone else doing?”

“it’s been rough, obviously. the prophecy of the seven was fulfilled, which was hard enough on the campers. and with leo gone... no ones sure how to continue. but, we are at peace with rome and some campers are planning on college in great rome,” chiron said, obviously proud. you smiled gently.

“thats... amazing. is everyone here now? piper, annabeth, percy and jason?”

chiron nodded. “everyone is here. it is early, though. i suggest you head to your cabin for some rest, unless you have anymore questions?”

“honestly, i have hundreds. but... my brain is foggy. i can’t really focus on anything right now so, later. later i’ll bombard you with the questions,” you joked and chiron smiled.

“go, get some rest. breakfast starts in about an hour and a half, but you take all the time you need,” you stood up.

“thank you, chiron. it’s good to be back.”

as soon as you slipped into your cabin, you felt at home. you saw your younger siblings sleeping soundly and that warmed your heart to see. they were safe; they were okay.

your bunk was obviously saved for you. there were organized bags of your stuff laying on top, and the sheets were made neatly. you could tell that no one had slept there since you left. the thought of this was bittersweet; you were happy they waited for you but... you couldn’t imagine how worried they all were for you.

the more you thought about it, the more you realized how many people could have been worried for you.

when percy and jason were switched back, everyone seemed to be at ease. the romans and greeks seemed to be getting along, and things were good... for about an hour.

you were walking around rome with leo. the seven of the prophecy had been decided; leo was one of them, you were not. this wasn’t easy for either of you, as you had recently began dating, but you both knew that this didn’t mean forever. cherishing your time together, you walked hand in hand down the beautiful streets of new rome. after a while, leo decided he was going to go check up on the argo ii, make sure it was ready for the quest to come. you kissed him goodbye, and told him to iris message you whenever he got the chance.

before you knew it, camp jupiter was being attacked. and leo was the one behind it.

you ran through the crowd, trying to push towards the ship to see what the hell was happening to leo. but the romans were angry— and you were wearing an orange shirt.

you didn’t know exactly what happened next. one second you were pushing through the crowd, the next second you woke in a bright room, hera standing over you.

thus the years with hera began. she told you that she needed you— and she’d bring you home when you were ready. she brought you places and gave you quests to do, and the more time you spent with her, the more you weren’t sure how much time had passed, and the more you forgot your real life. you were stuck in an endless loop, until this morning, where hera plopped you down right outside of camp half-blood; with a fuzzy memory and a million questions.

you woke up later to an empty cabin. it was obvious people had been in and out of it, and you wondered how everyone reacted when they saw you in your bed. you were just internally grateful no one woke you up.

after getting ready (putting on a new camp t-shirt was so refreshing) you slipped out of your cabin and out into the sunlight. at first, it didn’t register how much time had passed, because everyone was in the dining hall as they would be during breakfast. but, after examining more, you gathered that you had awoken just as dinner was starting, and you had slept all day. you stood back, taking in the familiarity of the buzz of mealtime. as you stood there, unsure on how to present yourself to the campers, you heard your name.

“(y/n)?” you looked forward to be met with the gaze of your best friend, piper mclean, standing by her table, staring at you in disbelief. “i can’t believe it.”

the entire hall hushed as everyone looked in your direction. you were suddenly aware of every little thing about yourself, and you hated the attention. but when piper rushed forward to hug you, you ignored your surroundings and let yourself feel comfort in her hug. it had been so long since you had felt so... loved. after these past couple of years, then the news that leo was missing, taking in the scent and warmth of your best friend was the most comforting thing you could imagine.

piper pulled back from your hug and studied your face. you studied hers as well, noticing everything you could; any change you could find. but, she looked almost the same. she was the prettiest person you had ever seen, and although she seemed slightly older and wiser, it wasn’t in a negative way. “are you okay?”

“i’m fine,” you said. “obviously i’m... adjusting. but, i’m okay.”

“what happened to you? where have you been?” piper asked gently.

“when the romans were angry at us, after leo...” you hesitated and piper’s expression softened. you cleared your throat. “i was attacked, or something. next thing i knew i was with hera and basically did anything she needed. i was so tired, constantly doing work for her. everything i did with her is sort of fuzzy though, just like my personal life was when i was working for her, if that makes sense.”

“hera’s the worst,” piper said. “guess switching jason and percy just wasn’t enough for her.”

you raised your eyebrows in agreement before being approached by annabeth chase, one of your other closest friends, who hugged you tightly. “i’m so relieved you’re alright.”

“back at you,” you said. percy and jason followed close behind annabeth, and you hugged both of them as well. “i can’t imagine things have been easy for you guys.”

“it’s been rough,” jason agreed. “but we got through it.”

your mind went straight to leo, and the four of them obviously noticed. piper put her hand on your shoulder and jason frowned. “hey, i’m sure he’s...”

“no,” you stopped him. “it’s fine. i... i’m really proud of you guys. seriously, saving the world and shit. that’s pretty cool.”

they all laughed which brought a warm feeling to your chest. it was going to be rough without leo, but you adored your friends. you knew they’d be there for you no matter what.

“c’mon, you must be starving,” annabeth said. “plus, i think you have a few more people to chat with.”

annabeth motioned towards your cabins table, where your siblings sat anxiously, watching you with wide eyes. you grinned at the sight and made your way over to the table, only to be met with smiling faces and lots of questions.

weeks past since you had returned to camp. you were settled back in and at ease with everything, but things still felt off. you figured it was just because you were most excited to come back to camp to see leo, but he was gone. and you didn’t even know if he was still alive.

you spent your days training and reconnecting with your friends. they had been through so much, and you couldn’t imagine how painful it was for them. they asked you questions about what you had been up to, but you weren’t able to answer them. you couldn’t remember a thing— it was like the past years had never happened. as days went on you forgot more and more about what you had done.

one morning, you stayed behind to finish cleanup in your cabin. now that you returned to camp, you returned to your position as head counselor. you were protective over your siblings (since you were the oldest), so when everyone was running late for breakfast, you volunteered to finish cleanup.

after you finished making all the beds, you fixed your hair and slipped out of your cabin. when the mess hall came into your line of vision, you paused as you saw a group of campers gathered around something. the scene was similar to how everyone reacted when you returned, and you watched curiously. but when you studied the campers who were grouped together, you realized it was a majority of the hephaestus canon who was standing. your eyes widened and you hurried forward, into the mess hall.

nyssa barrera, one of the older hephaestus kids, looked over at you and her eyes widened. she pulled a few of her siblings back to make room, and you were met with the grinning face of leo valdez.

your leo, standing there, in the flesh.

it took him a moment to see you, but when he did, his expression softened. he visibly relaxed, and his eyes studied your face. you were frozen in your spot and your eyes never left his. he inched towards you, and before you knew it you charged forward to him and threw your arms around his neck. he buried his face in your neck as he held you tightly around your waist. you took in his natural warmth and his vague scent of campfires and motor oil. he rubbed your back as you held him as tightly as possible. you never wanted to let go.

when you finally did pull back, you missed his warmth immediately. in his arms you felt safe, and that was something you had missed with your whole heart.

“are you okay?” was the first thing he asked you, tucking your hair behind your ears. you smiled at the sound of his voice. you didn’t realize how many little things you had missed.

“i’m okay. are you?”

“i’m... amazing,” he studied your face again. “gods i’ve missed you.”

“i’ve missed you too, you have no idea,” you said. your eyes drifted to a girl you didn’t recognize standing awkwardly behind leo. “who is that?”

leo raised his eyebrows and turned around to look at who you were referring to. “oh, this is my friend. calypso.”

“oh!” you said, remembering the story of calypso. “thats... hi! it’s really cool to meet you.”

“you as well,” calypso responded, her voice smooth. “leo talked about you non-stop.”

maybe it was the longing look on her face, or the fact that you had just finally reconnected with your boyfriend, but you moved towards calypso and pulled her into a hug. she tensed, but after a moment she relaxed and hugged you back. when you pulled back, you gave her a warm smile and when she gave you one back, you knew that there was no bad blood between you. calypso wanted to be loved— but she wasn’t interested in leo.

you turned around to find your way back next to leo. he watched you with a fond look on his face, and when you were closer to him, he grabbed your hand tightly. at this moment you made a promise to yourself — you would never lose him again.

chiron ended up coming over to tell people to sit at their tables for breakfast, but leo leaned over to whisper to you, “want to go chat? just the two of us?”

“absolutely.”

the two of you snuck out of the mess hall (although, if anyone had seen you, you doubted they would stop you from leaving). you made your way down towards the lake, hand in hand. you sat down next to each other, leo’s arm around your waist and your head on his shoulder.

“so how did you get calypso off her island?” you asked him after a moment of silence.

“well, i landed on her island a little while ago but i had to leave, obviously. was in the middle of a quest,” he said. “but she was miserable there, so i promised i’d come back to get her. and a few months ago, i landed on her island again, but with a plan this time.”

you listened intently. “and it worked?”

“for the most part. i had to work really hard to figure out a way to make it work, but it did. i just hope she gets a real chance to be happy now that she’s off her island.”

“that’s amazing. you did it against all odds, right?”

he chuckled lightly. “guess so. what about you? what happened to you?” you sighed and sat up to face him.

“i guess i’m not completely sure,” you started. he knit his eyebrows. “i was working with... or i guess, for, hera. but i don’t remember most of what she made me do. i just know i went on quests for her, and time didn’t really feel real. i had no idea how much time had passed when i returned.”

“gods that sounds... terrible,” he said genuinely. you shrugged.

“i got through it,” you grabbed his hand and started tracing lines on it. “and so did you.”

leo hummed and moved his other hand to your cheek. “i always knew you’d come back.”

“i knew you would, too.”

“promise to never leave me again?” you leaned into his hand.

“only if you promise me the same thing.”

#leo valdez #leo valdez x reader #leo valdez x you #leo #valdez #percy jackson x readers #pjo #hoo #toa #calypso #piper mclean #percy jackson #jason grace #annabeth chase #percy jackson and the olympians #hero’s of olympus #heroes of olympus #riordanverse

[halfhappyhooligan]

a voltron au? in 2020? it’s more likely than you think

look. LOOK. i know that voltron is stupid and we hate it but lets be honest: everything up until season 3 was pretty good and had lots of potential !!

today i was rewatching voltron and a thought struck me: what if, instead of shiro being cloned, he was chipped and turned to the side of the galra?

so here it is, i did not blink since i thought of this

(warning, i have not seen voltron in a while and this is just knowledge i have stored in my moss brain and stuff i know from rewatching the first season)

au where shiro goes evil bc of what happens @ end of season one instead of the clone thing bc 1) haggar rly could not have made thousands of shiros after bumping into team voltron like what twice? its hella improbable and 2) just… weird

so instead they insert a chip in him that helps them spy and control him just like kuron (the clone) did minus the unlikely storytelling

eventually after the convo with sendak when he was in the pod trying to temp shirp, he does have thoughts about helping zarkon

(“im already infiltrated with the arm, i could just speed up the process by leaving now. save the team the trouble of investing in a leader that’s doomed to fail from the strart.”)

shiro ends up leaving team voltron in season 2 after zarkon goes crazy w the black lion n stuff

^^ this adds to Keith’s reasoning of joining the Blade of Marmora (shiro is his main stability and one of the main reasons he even stuck around with team voltron, so with shiro gone and keith questioning his place as the leader and paladin of the black lion, he decides the BoM is just.. what’s best for him) 

obviously lance isn’t happy with this (“you just told me that i’m a valuable member, now you don’t think YOU are? what logic is that?”)

ofc keith goes anyways

lance becomes paladin of the black lion

allura takes on the red lion

who has blue lion? ...idk this isn’t that thought out (maybe matt after pidge finds her family) (which will happen earlier in the plot since we can forget about the miniplot of black no longer responding to shiro)

enter lotor only this time he has a sidekick and what omg its shiro wow

shiro has that bigger version of his arm that was once offered to him

he’s stronger and scary, but his eyes aren’t the same, he has the strength of a galra but lacks the passion 

in the fight between lotor and zarkon, (and after, of course lots of self doubt and questioning) shiro comes between them and convinces lotor NOT to kill zarkon

then zarkon kills lotor

everyones like oh shit bc surely someone who’s life was just spared wouldn’t kill the person who seems to have the most power

but he did. bc he’s zarkon. and he’s fckn crazy.

shiro doesn’t go back to team voltron bc its too much too easily

instead he takes the place of lotor in the group of gals 

he convinces them all to rebel against the galra

eventually they teach him all about quintessence and all the shit lotor had planned that they can’t do anymore

(lotor wasn’t harvesting alteans in this universe bc what the heck even was that subplot that had little to no relevance to the main storyline?

instead he was trying to find a way to technologically bring back alteans (kinda like how allure’s dad was originally preserved in s1)

i know nothing about How Stuff Works and i dont remember much about quintessence n shit but the basic idea is that when tying in some of a persons artifacts with technology stuff and some quintessence then boom. a weird route from astral projection land to the team is created and ppl can come back or smth idfk

but lotor was never able to get the comet so shiro decides he and the gals will get that comet and try to bring back as many alteans as they can

^ all this while infiltrating as many galra fleets as possible + saving planets under galra empire

they personally visit every planet that lotor was in charge of and release them from galra control

they are able to bring back an altean (its romelle) and she talks abt her friend who lives on the balmera and they go to the balmera and its revealed that it was shay’s great grandmother so romelle asks where shay is and shay’s family is like with team voltron of course

so

they take her

obviously team voltron, the BoM and the Rebels r very hesitant to make contact but they decide to try it out

keith refuses to meet, instead he’s on the team that stands guard

reunions !! 

romelle and shay hit it off and hunk makes a dinner much like roselle’s past (allura and coran also hang out and they all vibe)

lance talks to shiro abt everything to do with keith and shiro is like dude do u??? like him?

and lance is like what? no ofc not—oh shit.

and keith ✨overhears ✨

pidge matt and shiro catch up n shit

meanwhile keith is like Hey Lance Uhhhhhh What The Fuck

they end up being like hey since we’re all here and we hate zarkon what if we make a plan to end the galra’s reign Right Now

so they do

and y’all.. it’s hella baller plan

except something is going wrong and in the middle of an attack zarkon is able to get the upper hand 

due to haggar’s magic and lance’s mental and emotional instability, zarkon is able to get in his head

everyone is trying to talk him down but they’re all under a lot of pressure

allura is also conflicted bc she wanted to be black lion bc she wanted to rub it in to zarkon’s face that she was stronger than he and that she could beat him at his own game

but the negativity and instability feeds into zarkon’s power and makes him and haggar stronger as they pull in voltron to finally take over the team and regain their status as the most powerful alien race

hunk realizes this and is like okay can y’all stop being negative? its clearly affecting them in a good way and it makes us an easier target

and pidge is like im literally a child pls i don’t wanna die i just got my family back it can’t end like this

shiro realizes what’s going on and he goes to save them

he uses all his energy, pulling in the positive memories (everything: first learning about space, becoming a teacher, meeting adam, meeting keith, first making team voltron, his friends and family--all of it) to push back zarkon and haggar’s powers and battle once more in the astral realm 

in defeating zarkon, shiro loses his life

afterwards keith enters the ship in a hurry and is like where the fuck is shiro where’s my brother what did you do what happened

and team voltron is like hey man.. we are so so sorry

and keith cries because the last thing he ever said to shiro was mean

lance feels like its all his fault since he was supposed to be a good leader

they talk about separately while hunk pidge and allura discuss

krolia is like keith we, ur family, are here for u

and axca is there and shes like um?? hey?? sry for trying to kill u bro

and he’s like i absolutely do not wanna talk i just lost my closest friend

they talk about it later

axca tells keith abt shiro finishing lotor’s work and abt bringing people back and well.. 

they use the methods to help keith visit shiro in the astral realm

shiro is like oh uh hey i was just having a drink w adam we r happy

and keith is like shiro u fuckhead why would u sacrifice urself

shiro sighs bc cmon keith you KNOW why “remember what i always said? we can’t focus on what went wrong..”

“we’ve got to figure out how to make it right” keith finishes

keith breaks tf down crying and screams apologizing

“i love u shiro. ur a like a big brother to me.”

and shiro is like yeah i know and ilyt but hey. everyone’s safe and happy. im safe and happy. & you deserve to be too. you don’t need me anymore.

so the galra rule is over and everyone goes to their respected planets

romelle and the other alteans as well as some galra babes hang in earth

romelle and shay r in an apartment together and have a garden

allura realizes she may not have been the strongest leader for voltron, and  couldn’t stop zarkon on her own but that physical strength doesn’t define her as a whole

her heart is strong enough to care for everyone, so thats what she does

allura starts running an inn for alteans filled with painted sceneries like altea in case anyone ever needs a reminder of home

when lance reunites with his family its a real tearjerker

rachel finally gets her jacket back and veronica is like So.. Axca 👀

the McClain’s host a huge party for everyone and it’s filled with lots of hugs and loud music and even tho lance was way too tired, he danced all night

he wouldn’t trade his family for the world—genetic and chosen

when hunk reunites with his parents they don’t let him out the house for hours, he tells them all about his new best friend shay as well as hundreds of his favorites stories from space

they are so, so proud of him

hunk spends the next days playing minecraft and animal crossing with pidge, giving their brains a rest from being on hyperdrive for 3 yrs straight

when pidge gets home she finally gets grounded by her mom, only being allowed to leave the house to see her old teammates

(same for matt and her dad)

(her mother cries so hard when they opened the door to the home)

the holt family holds movie nights filled with popcorn, cuddles, and tears

keith moves in with the holt family, and finally accepts that he has a home as well as a family

he often goes on trips with the BoM but mostly just stays on earth

after a Team Voltron sleepover in the altea inn keith and lance decide to get an apartment together and live their lives in love and in peace

everyone gets together once a year in celebration of shiro and the sacrifice he made for them

they use the ship to visit Astral Shiro and once they even met adam

everyone laughs and catches up and just... live their lives

everyone is happy

pls ignore any and all errors lmao

again, just a thought !! maybe i’ll write a fic abt it idk for sure but yeah

feel free to add anything <3

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #vld #voltron au #shiro #shiro voltron #adam voltron #keith voltron #keith kogane #lance mcclain #lance voltron #klance #klance voltron #hunk voltron #pidge holt #pidge voltron #matt holt #matt holt voltron #allura #allura voltron #lotor voltron #lotor #writing #au

[vanityloves]

anyways im gonna listen to/read the fuckin...rise of the ogre shit bc ive been putting it off 🪓🥴 im gonna put stuff under the cut bc im gonna be TALKING n dont wanna make a new post everytime

piss

ok he performed for 2 pounds 50. which is basically $3 today i- well it was absolutely a power play on his father behalf that also had the promise of money so.

also lol he said Rejection fueled my ambitions which, yknow,, i already knew but it still hurts and i will continue to talk ab it xoxo

AH HELP. "...if ebay had been invented at the time he would've sold me online there and then,"

"man hands on misery to man, yknow"

THEN PROCEEDS TO CONNECT IT TO MUSIC/HIS CAREER. this man said :) the one thing i truly have a passion for. the one thing i fucking like.

oh yeah. bullied by students AND teachers.

oh god hes 42ish during this interview? ok.

the fuckin school bully saying he wouldve acted differently if he knew what hed become

getting called "faceache", then proceeds to call 2d that. jfc he really does just repeat what everyone says. really "treating others how i was treated/how they treat me"

maybe thats why? hes kinder to fans? bc :] you support me and like me so, ok ill return that energy

MURDOC GETTING HIS ASS BEAT N PARADING HOME LIKE WELL I WON BC 'I PISSED YOU OFF' SJDJD

a real rowdy boy. absolute nasty boy. fraud and arson... shooting ppls windows with his air pistols

black sabbath being a huge inspiration? fucking absolutely.

became a satanist n shit at age 16? "it fitted me like a glove" "heavy metal and devil worshipping became my favorite past times" ajsj funny that ppl in trying times often seek religion or following of some sort

heavy metal being his favorite, n loving the clash, while hannibals was more punk based

hannibal breaking murdocs nose for the 2nd and 3rd time for playing his music on hannibals turntable

he doesnt sound that bitter? ab hannibal? he doesnt sound incredibly fond but he talks ab how he got him into a lot of music. so, i imagine they we're a bit closer than i thought?

international baccalaureate in antisocial? anthropology?

MURDOC IS ACTUALLY SMART HE WAS JUST. NOT INTERESTED IN THE SUBJECTS? I GUESS? (also,,, he literally Built cyborg noodle and i think he had a PhD too lol. but its always nice to hear hes actually...yknow, interested or good at other things)

alright but murdoc having a fascination w/ other cultures - or at least some interests, that lead him to actually study the damn subject and "pass with flying colors"

'fuck college though. im gonna be a rockstar'

he sold his soul at 18ish? whenever the fuck he got kicked out but college was mentioned so my brain goes to 18ish idk

he lived with his father still and paid rent via low paying jobs one including 'part time dressing as santa'

help he was ab to take a Personal Job for quick cash and uhh well, "still made me call him sir though" he really said 20 dollars is 20 dollars, huh "that story was totally true"

alright, 1997,,,

2d stuff

loves zombie stuff? thats really cute, and is freaked out by the way they move. god he rambles

both he and murdoc are horses in the chinese zodiac

[[jfc ok if the official shit compares them a lot i understand why ppl ship them but Dont. its a narrative foil and that doesnt always mean Romance jfc.]]

SUMTHINK.

truly... a lil stinker. super cute bouncing baby and a "bit thick" which is stull so endearing to me. hes just a happy man!

excitable 10 year old and would dance around his room

jfc the fact he has normal/caring parents. i kinda forget how opposite hes supposed to be from murdoc but i think thats another thing jsjsysg (murdoc said why isnt my tragic story making me famous why does he get to be the Star. no wonder he acts like a loon)

i still dont get how gettin bonked by a tree branch made him go bald and also turn his hair blue

big tiddy nurse mommy,,,

went to the same school as The Cure and got decent grades despite hittin the noggin quite hard. WANTED TO BE A STORM CHASER... OMG??

oh thats really cute, hed bond with his dad by building keyboards toegther 🥺💕

messed around with paints and graffiti? artistic king

MURDOC AGAIN: QHDJ 'VILLANOUS' GANG HELP

oh yeah d day...new instruments, new band, new singer - and 'had to be the best or no dice' and absolutely CONFIDENT that his songs were bangers ajsjd

but on that same note, had absolute faith (or desperate) in 2d which i love

ransacked the fucking music shop jdjdj and 2d said he was Just Standing There behind the counter the whole shift hdhdh

"thats when your eye came out, yeah" "yeah!-" HELP WHY DOES HE SOUND SO HAPPY AB IT ?? yes he said ut hurt but he sounds...ok

jfc murdoc ragdolling this poor mf around. dunking him and slapping him around. actually? so incredibly terrible and abusive and i hate him for that 🔫 im sorry 2d stans. we dont condone that behavior here ong.

how and why the FUCK did 2d's parents allow that fucker near their child after that i??? help. wtf. his moms a nurse why didnt she just have murdoc sit in plain view of other people. god damn.

2d flying out the window n hitting the curb "whoops"

"just two black holes...[ah] it looked great...a blue hair, blacked eyed GOD- the girls would go wild-" "pretty boy looks" ???? HELP. HE DOESNT GO LIGHT ON THE COMPLIMENTS, HUH

RUSS TIME

oh yeah, he straight up kiddnapped this man help. idk how he managed that, russ is a Big Man??

AND MURDOCS MUSIC WAS SO FUCKING SEXY GOOD that russel said hm alright ill stay, :] out ifbhis owm free will im screaming.

"oh this is one of them febreeze commercials" "uh . yeah sure. *murdoc turning on his Sick Tunes*" but that either means? it was just his guitar playing the convinced russ? unless he and 2d recorded sumn?

"2d was the looks, murdoc the brains, then russel truly was the heart"

'while 2d and murdoc liked music, this man was a MUSICIAN' god fucking bless this book holy shit ny man russ getting some respect. he said back hurts from carrying this band.

murdoc basically heard this guy had big trauma that gave him So Many Skills n said "thats what i want" ok idk thats actually really? inch rest ting to me. seems that murdocs fine handing out compliments but i guess that where his charisma really helps out yeah?

"he was going to be in my band whether he liked it or not" ...murdoc-

HELP. 2D IS LIKE BRO GO ON IM LISTENING 🥺 despite hearing the story 50-60 times and murdoc said fuck off you lil shit.

ok irrelevant but i love his voice! its super comforting n nice to listen to 🥺

HELP MURDOCS SO BITTER. "NOTHING THAT HAPPENS TO US IS NORMAL" WELL YEAH. THIS IS TRAUMA CENTRAL.

idk how/why he sucked up all his friends souls though ... how are they all possessing the same person. they said "its my turn on The Russ"

DELL IS HIS ACTUAL, LITERAL SOULMATE...KING...😭

went to a private school,,, and was already possessed? and the thing where he gets bigger and smaller is a reoccurring thing?

was in a coma for 4 years?

hiphop machine...time and history...the ultimate set i guess.

his knowledge was infinite and hes a "Renaissance man" hes so fucking smart our king. jack of all trades but a master of drums. he said i know im good and what of it

PAULA.

HELP. HE RMBRS THE STALL: CUBICAL NUMBER 3 🥴 IF I DO RECALL 🤤

yes russel our king. fuck up his nose 5 more times. probably stunted his growth too. he shrunk after russ gave him a wallop im sure

why dies paula sound like tracer overwatch

also only dated 2d for 2 months before joining the band?

HELP SHE REALLY WAS THE FIRST MURDOC FUCKER: "but when i saw murdoc with his thick greasy hair, green teeth and yellow skin i thought 'oh this is the ine for me!'" "OH HES SUCH A DANDY-" HELP ME IM HQJDHD

sick in the head...like i want to hurt people help girl. shes fucking Crazy. but she rly said damn i didnt hear back from him again 😭 and my purse is gone JSHHD

MURDOC: SHE WAS DEPRESSINGLY UGLY *still fucked her*

NOODLE TIME

"small japanese person!"

2d: we werent gorillaz until noodle arrived!

im dying the reason he chose gorillaz. 'swinging through the jungle baring my ass'

noodle really said "im just happy to be here" and she balanced everyone out 😭 "she gave off pure love and the fact that she could laugh at murdoc REALLY helped too" RUSS... IS BABY

JFC MURDOCS SO FUCKING CONFIDENT IN THIS BAND IM LIVING FOR THAT. HE SAID YOU WANT US SO BAD IT MAKES YOU LOOK STUPID. THE CHARISMA

2d rambling ab some girl he met and "ssSs" "whats the s stand for hawhaw" "i dont know!".

THE RECORD LABEL GUY.

one song is all it took i ❤ good for them

just murdoc talking ab the party that they threw for thier deal and saying "you dont know how much of a dick i felt like [when carrying one of those huge checks]" like oh thats whatll make you a dick? alright.

A FOOD FIGHT THAT WENT SO HARD THAT IT KNOCKED 2DS TONSILS OUT? WHAT THE FUCK

ahshdj damon and murdoc not getting along bc of Rival Band One Uppery + damon calling murdocs cuban heels crap since ge wore steel ones with gold spurs.

MURDOC FEELIN EMBARRASSED BC HES 'QUITE PROUD OF HIS SHOES'

but the band and damon getting over music and their ambitions and became a "paternal figure"

HELP MURDOC SAID AWIOGA @ RACHEL WHICH MADE HER THROW HER DRINK IN HIS FACE AND SPLIT FROM 2D. kinda sad actually, she said i still like 2d but murdoc kinda ruined it by trying to get it in with me, it put a strain in our relationship :/ oh god murdocs That Dude

nov 31 1998: started recording :]

40 tracks that got cut down to 15 holy shit

KONG STUDIOS 🤲

hooking up cameras in every room ejdjsu

webby artist of the year in 2006? holy shit

noodle learning ab kong studios omfg

JFC. YES I KNEW KONG WAS BUILT ON/IN A CEMETERY BUT I DIDNT KNOW PPL FOR THE FUCKING PLAGUE WHERE THROWN THERE HDJD

built in 1739?

the ghost of the first owners ghost still roams around in the kitchen in the early hours and moans 'aaa glass of water'

theres some rotting bullshit near the studios and in the summer its fucking TERRIBLE

the former owners were a biker gang, and they all died in a fire

murdoc said this place has bad vibes. i want it.

grim weather

the building feels impossible to escape from huHgg

#rip lol i feel annoying but my blog my rights ig #brainworm ivy #gorillaz rambles

[getallemeralds]

Explorers of Arvus: uhhhh / 3.23.21

today's notes are different from usual bc. well. you'll see

LAST TIME ON EXPLORERS OF ARVUS i broke my sleep schedule and am barely existing so this is fine. we went back to camp vengeance an uhhhhhhhhhhhh we are now going to fuck off into the forest to die or prove a very important point

oh god we forgot to level up

[mgd voice] BOOSTING NYX TO MAXIMUM LEVEL

im so fuckin tired. what on earth am i doing. how do i level again

k is not here this time but instead we've got mae+nii bonking their heads together to simulate 2 braincells and so far it is not working. i might just have to like fuckin, drop out n zzz partway thru or somethin. would be fun to see how chaotic michael makes charlie in my absensce

oh wait i can do d&dbeyond i think. how do i work this again. will i ever remember i have shield

what level am i. level 6? pog. oh shit i think i have a new thing

. new spell

. 3 total 3rd level spell slots

. bend luck! i can now screw people over on purpose (and will probably use my sorcery points FINALLY)

michael is leveling charlie up bc my brain is apple sos

ASDXFKLJFH I FEEL CALLED OUT zec rb'd my most recent art of MaX with "all i know about xem is that leo likes xem a lot that's the extent of my knowledge" THANK U FOR SUPPORTIN ME ANYWAY

there will be less blaseball distractions than last time bc blaseball is now on siesta. however i will still have MaX brainrot in the background bc i was drawing xem

wyatt mason my beloved

OKAY I GOTTA MUTE THE TACO STAND FOR THE ENTIRETY OF D&D i cannot and will not get distracted. we can do this. we

nintendo wii

we havent even started yet and im already incoherent

ok i have made a decision and that decision is that i do not have the brainpower to play. however i do have the brianpower to take notes hopefully! so ill just like. vibe. this will be a first

oh man im gonan pick up Blink. charlie is gonna be a fucking menace to herself and others

oh my god its not concentration so charlie may continue teleporting while unconscious. thorne is going to hate this

[charlie gets her soul eaten by a ring] [charlie singing dragonston din tei at halvkWAIT JORB HAS A PRIZE

jorb got a thing! an evil genius thing! figure man. fugrine. figuring. help

GREEN HAS DIAGNOSED ME AS TIGREX MONSTERHUNTER i love this

my notes are a disaster. this is so sucks

serotonin is stored in the wiggly zoomy jorb camera

jorb: his pinky is the size of the rest of his fingers

leo: he has a disease

jorb: he has a disease.

jorb: that disease is male pattern baldness

leo: [reduced to tearful giggling for mysterious reasons]

LAST TIME, ON EXPLORERS OF ARVUS: we've returned to camp vengeance! taure is still unconscious, which is not very great. camp vengeance is doin better tho!

michael, as part of the recap: ingrid is getting railed by her new girlfriend,

first dice roll of the day is michael rolled a 1. good start

OH THORNE IS AN ARTIFICER NOW thorne took a level in artificer!

"...it's like figuring out the right mathematical equation to summon a gun."

group is gonna go check out the statue that we passed by now that we're not WHAT DO YOU MEAN PONK AND GEORGE CANONICALLY HAVE IBS thats it im not looking at 772 anymore

im doing a bad job of paying attention but at least im Present

SIERON LEARNED FLY AND USED IT ON CHARLIE

michael: what do you want to do with your new flying powers?

leo: how many problems can i cause in 10 minutes

guard 1: ...why is the halfling flying?

guard 2: [rolls a 3 on intelligence] i think they can just do that

groundhogs, the real scourge of the campaign

silje and sieron are gonna hunt a big elk. they got distracted and sieron is putting grass on silje's head. i think

WAIT WE'RE ON WATCH NOW FUCK

we have discovered kali's tragic backstory whoops

update i am. too sleepy for this. good nigh everyone

[ and then leo went and somewhat took a nap! solar, normally playing thorne, started playing charlie in my stead. @jorbs-palace, local hero, started taking shitpost notes in my stead. ]

jorb's ghostwritten notes for leo:

help solar is immediately doing a cursed voice for charlie. charlie can do so many crimes

congratulations, charlie is now temporarily immortal!

dwarves can hit things with their beard

kali wants to know if she's legally allowed to bail

she'd feel really bad if she had to loot our corpses for payment if we died.

we have entered the Tree Zone

one of the corpses is now a flamingo (has one leg)

silje has decided to stab the ground. take that, dirt

kali was large size for a second there but then she remembered to not be a giant

"you accidentally deleted my cat?!"

silje has learned naruto cloning jutsu

be gone, thot

oh boy, making an int check to look at a statue! 11! silje is dumb apparently.

hmm. the statue has divination magic. it's also affecting silje.

SILJE LEARNED A 6TH LEVEL SPELL? its only single use but still

you solved my statue riddllllleeeee

thorne forgot to have eyes

its a shame mac and cheese doesnt exist in the d&d universe

wizards are just math criminals (the criminal part is setting people on fire)

sieron crit fails a check but it was still a 9 because of having +8

thorne is looking for what's weird!

uh oh music got scary, never a good sign

hmm. those leaves over there weren't dead a moment ago.

UNDEAD TROLL TIME! rolling initiative

"it's ok, im a wizard, it's my duty to be correct." "wow! waow!"

woooah here he comes

IT JUST DID HALF SIERON'S HEALTH AS A PASSIVE END OF TURN EFFECT?

thorne backed up and cast eldri- oh, ray of enfeeblement. character development continues

charlie is going to just blink out of existence for a minute.

big chungus has grabbed silje and sieron. BIG CHUNGUS HAS THROWN SILJE AND SIERON.

sieron is using hit and run tactics! isn't good at his extra attack yet though

silje is activating bid bid blood blood blood

thorne uses beam of skipping your leg day. troll's legs are now skipped.

michael is trying to determine what a 'clavicle' is

"does that mean the star trek kind, or the bdsm kind?"

charlie wants to cast magic missile.

charlie has vanished back into the ethereal plane mid-taunt

silje has decided to not get bitten today

silje may or may not have stats.

oh, right, trolls are weak to fire! and also we forgot to upgrade sieron's firebolt. so it actually hurts now!

silje is full of knives and blades and does 31 damage in one turn!

charlie shouts words of encouragement from the ethereal plane. a nearby ghost vibes with this.

🎉 eldritch blast 🎉

kali remembered she hates the sun

silje is enthuasiatic about charlie saying "get him cat boy!"

charlie contemplating using fireball to nuke the troll and also the entire stonehenge

charlie has decided to use magic missile instead, probably for the best

the troll bit at charlie SO POORLY it broke some of its teeth on the ground

charlie is too small to hit

accidentally rolled advantage on a firebolt, so got to learn it WOULD have done 29 damage with a crit but instead it missed because it was not actually with advantage

silje has just sliced open its entire back and made a spray of frozen blood! radical. big boy is down!

we have burned the body because we are not stupid. well, we ARE stupid, but not stupid in the way of leaving a body full of necrotic magic around

[dr coomer voice] i think it's good that he died!

we're also doing a funeral pyre for the other corpses that were around. just to be sure.

our loot is: the satisfaction of a job well done

thorne is cosplaying as charlie

charlie has located the direction troll came from! she found the 'the way to sweet loot' sign

thorne is apparently better at survival checks than our hired guide? wack

we found a viking house! it has: mead, a shield, gravestones,

found a gold coin in the mead! maybe it was thirsty

oh theres a LOT Of coins in there actually. 60 gold and 120 silver!

have successfully pointed out a hole in the DM's logic :)

there was a raven! it cawed and left. ok bye buddy

and that's where we leave it! heading back to camp vengeance next time.

someone rated this session a 7.2 out of 10, which is very specific

good night mr coconut

#leo chirps #ttrpg #explorers of arvus #jorb #thank u based jorb

[draco-slander]

fremione.

ladies, gentlemen, or whatever else you identify as, may i proudly present to you: FREMIONE

(i apologize in advance for the horrible grammar, its late but this thought just came to my head so leave me alone)

ANYWAYS,

here’s some of my headcannons for how they started to get closer then the start of their relationship :)

THIS IS AN AU WHERE EVERYONE LIVES BTW SOOOOO ANYWAYS YEAH

when hermione discovered the twins plan for WWW, they expected her to be mad, but she kind of discovered that george and fred werent just two idiots who broke the rules, but they actually had some knowledge inside their brains!! (took you long enough, mione.) so she began to help them with their plans for the shop, going to the library after hours when they couldn’t to grab some books they needed, staying up in the common room late to help them study

george could obviously tell when fred started to fall for mione, and though they had only been friends for about two weeks, he was already head over heels for her. and he was going to make sure she knew that. hermione, as well, started to notice when her eyes would wander to fred’s gorgeous red hair, or stare longer then usual at his beautiful hazel eyes, but she, per usual, pushed her feelings aside. i mean, why would some amazing, gorgeous, pure-blood, hogwarts prank king fall in love with some nerdy, bushy haired muggle-born like her?

Fred was always finding little excuses to touch her; ‘hey, granger, you’ve got something on your face.’ he’s say in the great hall during dinner, taking his warm fingers, gently wiping her chin, george playfully gagging in the background, hermione turning a deep crimson red.  or while the three of them were reading in the common room late at night, hermione’s hand on the page of her book. ‘woah, mione, you’ve got mighty small hands, let’s compare.’ he would say, picking up her hand, placing it against his own.

hermione soon became more comfortable with physical affection with the twins. they had gotten to the point where they were comfortable snuggling up with eachother on the common room couch late at night, while flipping through potions text books, skimming paragraphs. with george, it was all friendly, but when he went to bed early and it was only her and fred, it felt...different. fred would bury his head in the crook of her neck, his hot breath on her making her blush.

after a few months of being close, the two were practically an old married couple. sure, they had never admitted their feelings for one another, but it was almost like they didn’t have to. after classes, while hermione was studying on the couch of the common room, fred would sneak up to her side, twirling her hair while watching her eyes slowly move from one side of the page to the other. ron and harry, who were playing wizards chess on the other end of the room, slowly looking over at the two of them, ron gagging while harry playfully winked at hermione.

and hermione, while she usually would be in her dorm studying during quidditch games, always made sure she cheered the hardest for fred. 

one day after the O.W.Ls, (when fred and george werent taking them), hemione arrived back in the common room, looking tired and worn out. fred noticed this almost immediately, and got to work rubbing her shoulders. she chuckled lightly, before pushing his hands off. ‘i’m not a princess, fred.’ ‘you are to me, mione’ he said with a wink that made her blush

AND OH, THE NICKNAMES. he would come up with at least 5 new ones every day. mione, princess, kitten, granger, darling, love, etc

literally EVERYBODY at hogwarts though they were dating. enough said.

while hermione stayed at the burrow for summer holidays, the two found it a lot harder to be comfortable around eachother when molly’s eyes were plastered to their backs. (BOOK MOLLY!!!!!!!!!!!) hermione somewhat found this easy. it felt weird to her when fred would cuddle up to her on the couch, or kiss her temple repeatedly when she found something that would help with their shop. she always thought that it would be odd for the both of them if they dated, even though she knew she loved him. fred always made little excuses as to why he and hermione were so close. ‘don’t worry, mum, she’s just helping me study! you do want me to have good grades, don’t you?’ ‘oh, no worries, mum, we just fell asleep studying last night. oops!’

one night in the burrow during the summer, fred had gone to bed early, so it was just her and george on the living room couch skimming through books. george knew this was his opportunity. ‘hey, mione, you do know my brother is, like, head over heels for you, right?’ she stopped reading almost immediately, looking like a deer in headlights. ‘he does?’ ‘of course! i really thought the brightest witch of her age would have know that by now’ he said playfully.

after that, she became more comfortable with freddie, never feeling like he didnt like her back.

fred thought long and hard about how he was going to work up the nerve to ask hermione out. ‘should i make it big? i mean, thats what we always do, but it’s hermione’ ‘maybe ill just ask if she wants to go to the library. she likes that right?’ ‘wait, she likes butterbeer...ILL ASK HER TO HOGSMEADE! OH, IT’S PERFECT, GEORGIE!’

so, he did. ‘hey, love, can i ask you something?’ she sighed. ‘first of all, i told you to stop calling me that. second, make it quick, there’s a new potions book out in the library that i think will really help with the puking pasties.’ ‘yeah, for sure, so, uh...i was wondering if you maybe wanted to go to hogsmeade with me this weekend? IFYOUDONTTHATSOKAYIWASJUSTASKINGIUH-’ she chuckled slightly, and couldn’t tell if she was glad he had asked her out or amazed that she had just witnessed fred weasley stumble on his words. maybe a bit f both. ‘i would love to go to hogsmeade with you, fredrick gideon wealsey’ she said with a smile, while he let out a sigh of relief.  ‘well then, darling, how about that book, eh?’ he said, grabbing her hand and interlocking it with his own

[toonqueen]

DARK ANIMANIACS/TINY TOONS LORE

It's 9 am time for dark Warner sibling thoughts

First let's roughly establish:

-The warner siblings locked in the tower takes place in the same universe as Roger Rabbit.

-Tiny Toons, though not interacting with non animated  humans, takes place in the same universe as well. It does have the same fourth wall break that toons are actors since they're going to school for it.

-Bonkers and House of Mouse also exists in this universe but that's a detail I won't get to today.

This is written without doing research, just based on my memories of eps so things may be off. Woo.

Main plot  of the Warner siblings is that they were too wacky probably didn't fall in line to act to produce shows, pranked everyone, so they were locked up in the studio water tower. FROM LIKE THE 30'S TO THE 90'S JAYSUS. Though I believe there were some flashback eps where they broke out in the past. Lets roughly say from the 70s to 90s it had been completely silent in that tower. And that's kinda creepy.

BECAUSE TINY TOONS establishes toons can fade away if they are forgotten. There was an ep where Babs was looking for a female mentor. She finds old black and while films of a forgotten 1930s lady toon  that no longer exists cuz I remember it is stated that she faded away because she was forgotten. There was also an ep where the Dodo bird was captured by a villain and started to fade because while imprisoned he couldn't be wacky so he was literally fading away.

So did the human WB studios get so annoyed with the Warner siblings they locked them away to disappear- pretty much the toon form of a death sentence? Damnnnn. But then, they don't lock them away in some vault in the basement. No, they lock them away in a water tower that is seeable from  anywhere on a studio lot. Why?

TO SERVE AS AN EXAMPLE TO OTHER TOONS. To be a threat if you don't stay in line and make us money you can suffer this same fate of not being seen by humans and forgotten and then fade away. 

HOLY HELL.

Anyways this next part was written late at night due to too much caffeine: 

Now let's get back to Tiny Toons for a moment. What I remember from the ep that covered the kids and school origin was some animator had made some of the Tiny Toon’s villains first but they did not like the show premise he pushed or something? Anyways, he creates Babs and Buster bunny with Bugs bunny in mind. (No relation, all three of them. ha.) He creates the other kiddo versions of Loony Toons? GOD REMEMBERING THIS IS LIKE A FRIKKING ACID TRIP. Anyways, the kids make a ruckus? Bugs and maybe Daffy show up? Bugs just makes the University that the kids can go do. Like I bet he literally just painted it on a map and then it exists like the freaking elder god level powers well known toons have like DAMN. So thats how that all went down in show. 

Now my headcanon is that Daffy probably at first didn’t want to go along with this whole, ‘lets have this school for these new kid aged toons and be their teachers and we’re kinda responsible for them now.” lol since Babs and Buster was made with Bugs in mind, Daffy can make the side comment of something like, “Why am I responsible for your accident babies?”  Now the funny answer Bugs can give is something like, “Well there’s a duck that there too that has your eyes.” the more serious answer Bugs can give if he is irritated that Daffy is being difficult about helping is, “We don’t want another water tower incident.”

Because OH DAMN Bugs and Daffy would have been created around the same time as the Warner siblings were. And here’s the thing. Most toons are ‘created’ being adults just already. Some could argue the Warners were children. Hyperactive children with all the sorta powerful abilities that all toons have. Then they were expected to behave and make shows that were watchible to make the studio money and instead were just locked away. THATS SOME MESSED UP SHIT YO. 

So canonly Bugs made the school and headcanon he did it so the same thing that happened to the Warners wouldn’t happen to this new group of kids toons. Okay. Y’all still with me?

Okay, BACK TO THAT EPISODE where Babs finds out there is a lost female toon that would be a great mentor for her. What I remember once she saw the old reels of this toon’s stuff and found out of someone is forgotten the disappear. Just here seeing the vids doesn’t bring back this toon though.  She went to Bugs I think asking for the lost cartoons to be shown in class or something. And I remember Bugs being a HUGE jerk about it. Not helping Babs showing the cartoons. Like cold about it. Like DAMN BUGS. Anyways Babs rents? Builds? A movie theater herself and shows the cartoons. It then surprisingly brings back the lost toon in question so YAY. 

Now I don’t remember why canonly why Bugs was a dick in this episode but here is my headcanon. What if toons (At least WB toons) were lead to believe that only real humans believing in them lead to them not being forgotten and disappearing. What if this thing Babs did was a new discovery that TOONS not forgetting other TOONS could still keep them from disappearing. Bugs and Daffy would share a knowing look at this new information. One of them jokingly says, “I wonder if the Mouse knows about this.”

See something else is going down at Disney but I’m not getting into that now. Woooo.

Now let's assume soon after this incident is when the Warner siblings start getting active again, since their whole show was about them breaking out of the tower in now modern times after being locked away there for 50 years. Let's say that theater Babs made/used then started regularly showing old cartoons. Purposefully. Like a conspiracy to get faded out toons back real again. *cue X-files theme.*

BACK TO THE WARNERS PLOT.

Okay now the kids are back… mysteriously. The real human studio seems to have given up on having them be erased from memory and well, what was done in the 1930’s isn’t acceptable now so like they get that Dr. Scratch and Sniff to therapy them into good behavior??!?!?

Meanwhile while that's going on canonly I’m betting that Bugs, Daffy, and main Looney Toons crew are planning a Oceans 11 style heist to actually get the siblings out of there and to ToonTown/Acme Acres. Now they know they’d be in big trouble of the human studio knew they were behind this so they would go one step further and take the kids to Wackyland. Because while ToonTown in Roger Rabbit seemed like a place humans could go, I always got a vibe that Wackyland is this one step forward that no real human has ever stepped foot in so GOOD LUCK. 

Anyways I’m sure their plan would work. I TOLD MYSELF I WAS NOT GOING TO LOOK UP ANYTHING WHEN WRITING THIS BUT I HAD TO CHECK SOMETHING. Daffy was created in 1937 and Bugs was 1940 so even though Bugs is the brains of the operation and the more popular one and has better skills Bugs needs Daffy to make first contact with the Warners because Daffy was the only one that had known them before the whole water tower lock away incident. Like he is the one that has to be, “Hello Fellow kids, how about you -uh come with us.”

Once everything goes right and blows over they would either introduce the Warners to the school OR have them stay in Wackyland and ‘homeschool’ them.

Also rewind there are two things that could have gone on with the Warner siblings in the tower. A: They were around the whole time from 1930 to 1990 and did not fade away because they had each other. Since they didn’t have much exposure to the real world they still are toons that are kids. Or B: They had faded away for decades, came back because a duck and bunny plotted to have their shows shown to new toon crowds. <_< They came back but have no really emotional scarring from it because they don’t remember it.

NOW EVEN DARKER LORE:

But okay Yakko always gave me this strange- offness sometimes, in the show. He’s the oldest sibling of course so the only one out of three that seems to sometimes make mature decisions. I mean, as much as these three can. 

NOW IN THAT CANON BABS EP with her finding a mentor, get this- I remember from that old cartoon the toon that disappeared was from her male counterpart in the show was still around. Had not completely disappeared yet?!?!

What if- what if Wakko and Dot had disappeared in that long period in the tower but Yakko, being the oldest and still vaguely remembered, was all alone on that tower for decades. SHIT DAMN FFFFFF.  He seems completely okay but like, Bugs or Daffy pick up that something is off? Like hey kiddo, everything okay? Man I think Yakko is so elated and happy his siblings are back he doesn’t even realize he might have some bad feels.

I don’t know where I was going with this its time for bed. Bleh. 

#animaniacs #tiny toons #bugs bunny #daffy duck #yakko wakko and dot #yakko warner #wakko warner #dot warner #who framed roger rabbit #toontown

[theskyexists]

she-ra 4

the reason i stopped watching she-ra is the same reason i stopped watching the dragon prince.

the narrative doesn’t take the situation seriously. instead of leaning into the anguish of war and violence (atla, teen titans) - they make light of it. EVEN when the characters’ guardians are KILLED!!

when Angella died and they spent 2 seconds on Glimmer’s grief at the end of season 3 i was like......actually fuck this. HOW can i take any of these stakes seriously when they insist on brushing them off???

anyway just had to complain about that - especially because the start of the first ep of 4 is them joking AGAIN about something as grim as Glimmer now carrying all the responsibilities of her mother - who may i remind you IS DEAD

but catradora became canon apparently so now i have to struggle through

her aunt, her mother’s sister, is fuckin, joking about cakes, her friends are laughing at the joke. COME ON! how goddamn unrealistic and insensitive. EVEN if they wanna make a point of it - it’s silly! because the narrative PARTICIPATES in making light of the situation. if it was just the characters it would be less jarring

‘we’ll make sure this day is perfect’  WHAT? how could it EVER BE IF HER MOTHER IS FUCKING DEAD????????? AND THAT”S THE ONLY REASON SHE’S QUEEN????? ‘must be hard’ YEAH IT’S HARD - IN FACT IMPOSSIBLE. instead of pretending to be happy maybe you can show some genuine sensitivity. these people are so crazily emotionally underdeveloped my god. what age are they supposed to be? 16? 17? The problem that She-ra has (just like the dragon prince) is that there are no relevant adults. Oh sure there’s a Queen, and some Soldiers, and a Sorceress. But there isn’t a single relevant competent adult around who is concerned with running a bureaucracy or the emotional stability of children

I do like how Catra has overcome her fear of Hordak. but i think i remember being fuckin furious at her for almost destroying the whole world and hurting Scorpia and betraying Entrapta just to spite Adora. vaguely.

the rebellions problem is that they’re all extremely stupid himbos. like literally, in the whole story, only catra and shadowweaver have any smarts, while glimmer gains the ability to think during full moons on wednesdays. meanwhile everybodys is a slave to their emotions - which destroys any brain cells that shadowweaver or catra (or angella or anyone) might have managed. they could literally have killed hordak the entire time but just let him order them around because they’re so hot for acknowledgement

I’m glad Glimmer reflects my frustrations now hahahahaah

‘everyone is already acting like she doesn’t matter’  - yeah dudes, you fucking insensitive bastards

‘im supposed to take care of you glimmer’ - but unfortunately i have the emotional intelligence of a crab! FUCK!

this is another thing about this show that makes me groan. sappy quick resolutions of emotional turmoil through re-affirming the fuckin power of friendship in the first episode of the season.

also couldn’t Adora have done this she-ra stuff from the very beginning

that was badass.....miss glimmer’s other hair though. ok the emotions at that hologram and statue though...

the coolest part of she-ra for me is finding out more how the ancient systems all fit into Etheria and the She-Ras and Hordak Prime etc.

THIS IS A GOOD SPEECH. love this badass.

love Hordak getting put in his place. Love Catra realising she has power - love Hordak reaping what he sows. its unfortunate that she’s a shitty brat who JUST can’t get over her inferiority complex

if i could endlessly teleport i would do what glimmer does

also, glimmer was willing to fuckin murder catra before and she DEFINITELY will be now lol. love that for her.

why did they only introduce adora learning to transform her sword NOW ahahaha, theyve had SO MANY SCENES in which she doesnt have it and then suddenly does - and then its gone again

scorpia is the funniest and most likeable person in the whole show

they really suddenly can’t take five people on with she ra and fuckin huntara on their side??

i remember that little sadistic righteous twist in my stomach when Adora finally was like: FUCK!!!!!! YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! Catra!!!!!!! and the stupid idiot got it

FINALLY A GLANCE AT THE PEOPLE OF ETHERIA AGAIN! i love the party sequences in this!!! the people of etheria are so beautiful! nobody ever comments on the main characters all looking plain human in contrast....

‘and i fell for it!’  yeah cos you DUMB AS BRICKS ADORA

so first they quietly take out the guards....and then literally break open the door hahaahahahahaaha

‘we forgot the bots regenerate’ - yeah cos you DUMB AS BRICKS ADORA

i just dont understand why they insist on making the main characters so DUMB ahahahahaah

Adora and Catra are great at hitting where it hurts. the difference between them is that Catra KNOWS that she’s hurting Adora - she does it deliberately.

wow that could be some pretty angsty stuff constantly leaving her to struggle on the floor while painfully electrocuted. Catra has also moved to kill Adora straight up so many times. im sure she really wants to (but it would destroy her later). But now, Adora swept something at Catra that might have actually killed her. I get Catra though, I would’t want to get beaten by some blonde, blue-eyed, glowing golden kid who always gets to win and do better. this is truly the first time Adora has moved to kill Catra......

does flatterina not have parents who’d be like: uhhhhh maybe leave the soldiering for a couple more years?

catra truly burning all her bridges. hahaha. it’s so satisfying to see her use her anger and power to truly destroy herself - because of guilt!

no other villagers were like - HMMMMMMM this random new kid is here? weird..... i didnt see that coming either.

Adora doesn’t think about what Catra might have even been doing there - cos she’s DUMB AS BRICKS

the interesting thing about this show is that they’re setting up a dichotomy. they’re treating war like a high-stakes game because they have the good side adhere to an aesthetic of ....magic. they will not make the two sides equivalent in any way - which makes questions of morality moot. the show is purely an emotional drama. the horde is an army of brainwashed kids in an industrial wasteland - they fight with tech and guns. but the good guys cannot fight with an army or tech, they fight with cleverness and magic. they’re called the ‘rebellion’ - they HAVE to be underdogs because they have to follow the script of good - even though what’s really going on is war, not a rebellion. That’s why they have a single strike team that do ‘missions’. They are presented as FUNDAMENTALLY different - on the level of identity which they cannot change lest they destroy themselves - and in that way the good guys can never become the bad guys. it is ALMOST meta. think they’re gonna do something with that at one point. i hope

also Netossa has such a super cool design.

‘everyone knows you’re needed in bright moon’ - uh. really? i dont know. some random person i’ve never seen before demands you go to meetings. so? is that important? why?

spinerella can literally FLY???????? why has she been in the background this whole time??? hahahaha military inefficiency.

there was an explosion that ripped trees apart - but bo’s alive!! honesty why didn’t they try explosive suicide bots before. they’re very lucky he was still alive to heal

‘could they be tracking she-ra?’ WHAT? isn’t the obvious suggestion - A SPY???? they just assume that the general is right hahahahaa.

i love how double trouble is so meta.

actually, why wasn’t glimmer trained as a sorcerer anyway?

glimmer is upset about her growing magic plants but not her having magic ingredients

why do they present good strategic thinking (for once) as evil influence from shadowweaver

what a fuckin badass. honestly - glad that this show finally utilised glimmer’s extremely op powers like they should be. honestly, she’s much more powerful than She-Ra.

that bit with spinerella was so contrived jfc.

‘by using me as a decoy’ adora says, pissed off. uhhhh YOU went off on your own to get smushed by fuckin bots adora. Glimmer didn’t do that to you. she just used your stupidity.

glimmer really left catra to die. hahahahaa

i like adora best when she’s on her own and being a dork

they definitely managed to foreshadow that Light Hope was evil but im glad they picked up the thread now

am i seeing this wrong or did scorpia have two mums??? but also. where the fuck are they

lolololololol because everybodys dumb as bricks and emotionally volatile they’re incredibly easy to manipulate

‘i cant risk hitting flatterina’ pffft - ALL YOUR ARROWS ARE NON-LETHAL BO. ugh i cant deal with these contrived stakes

I LOVE THIS BADASS EFFICIENT HARDCORE GLIMMER

they’re really gonna spin it like this is a bad development? fuck off. finally some grit.

‘you took things way too far’ - but she got results! dumb as bricks adora

(this may seem harsh but adora is DUMB shes so fucking DUMB!!!! and she has many good qualities (such as an almost innate sense of morality) but goddamn. i guess its good to sometimes have a show about all around dumb characters. i mean, it’s not unrealistic per se, it’s just.....weird.)

the interesting thing about these characters is that you can SEE every single one of them struggling with cognitive dissonance. thats the big story of this show. they see the world a certain way - and then when something challenges that, they fight to the death to destroy or deny or ignore that new information - to everybody’s detriment. and they can’t back down because every step they’ve taken - would turn to sins they can’t live with. it’s interesting and its also a kind of conflict that‘s frustrating if not resolved at SOME point. thats why i love this season for its characters going off the rails. adora aiming to kill catra, catra destroying her last relationships, glimmer growing more and more militant.

they’re all acting like teens - that  is - highly volatile - unable to keep from provoking others or be provoked - but they ARE teens.

‘catra doesn’t care. she’ll hurt people to get her way (implied: EVEN people on her side)’ - we must remember that Scorpia was entirely fine with KILLING the trio (it was Catra that wasn’t at the time).

‘you’re a bad friend’ OH OUCH. Catra - who’s always been treated as a whipping girl by those in power - does the same to those she is in power over. But on some level she doesn’t WANT to be that. she’s just always always been rejected and take advantage of and lashed out at and abandoned by the people she considered important (shadowweaver ---- doing the same to catra that was done to her is so goddamn....it’s the story of this show. the simplicity and banality of damaging and hurting others and that carrying over to harm even more people - is the story of this show and it’s immeasurably frustrating and REALISTIC)

she still flinches at Hordak’s lashing out. but she imprints on him the exact lesson she’s trying to school herself in. If you don’t need anybody - you don’t want anyone - if nobody matters but the mission and winning - then you can’t be hurt. she wants to prove her worth - but she doesn’t realise that inherently means that she’s putting somebody in power over her - again and again and again.

mermista coming  in clutch with the braincells: there’s a spy! I love how this is played as completely implausible and just Mermista nonsense (who i love learning about) - while it’s so obviously true/

i actually love Adora when she’s being serious and heroic, or a huge dork. and she has the wit to RECOGNISE good ideas. but i just don’t understand why Adora is being big b about being used as a distraction. like....why?

i love that the underside of Mermista’s sneaker has a figure. but why the fuck is a common soldier with them (flatterina) and do they really think they can interrogate the whole castle filled with some shitty guards and...what - the guerilla troops they sometimes employ? where do they even live? ah in a tent city. ok

why is the GENERAL in front line combat WITHOUT SOLDIERS???? oh wait. glimmer did that too when she was general. lolololol

i understand why Adora doesn’t trust Shadowweaver and doesn’t want her around most of all - and Glimmer getting buddy buddy with her is hurtful. but...it’s not helpful to needle glimmer about it. but dismissing the guards around shadowweaver however? stupid of Glimmer. unnecessary. ‘what has she done but help us?’ - uhhhh she kidnapped you, corrupted your powers, almost wiped Adora’s mind. I wish Adora had summed up those things instead of leaving them implied.

so perfuma and mermista come across inconsistencies in the stories - but then. forget about it? i just...... UGGHGHGHGHGHGHGH. people really aren’t this dumb are they? they’re just NOT.

‘no more secrets and doing things without us’ - that was a good speech. but like, glimmer is right - she’s surrounded by INCOMPETENT IDIOTS lolololol. but good leadership is corralling idiots, Glimmer. not going off on your own. but she’s already planted the bait about the dining room.

‘we were the only ones who knew about the plan to take back dril’ ---- THEN WHY DID YOU INTERROGATE OTHER PEOPLE AHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHA

‘stop questioning my choices, stop whining about being a decoy’ YEAH FUCKIN HELL ADORA STOP BEING SUCH A FUCKING SHIT. IS THIS REALLY ‘TAKING CARE OF GLIMMER’????

‘all you do is question my authority, it’s exhausting.’ yeah god...it really is. adora needs to fucking BACK! OFF! but im loving these fights because it brings out the grievances. Adora is right to be worried about Glimmer no longer including her in her decisions. and she makes a good point that that’s bad. She makes a good point that Shadowweaver cannot be trusted. And Glimmer makes zero good points - except that it’s been hard for her and has garnered 0.1% understanding from the people around her. Oh they were working together. BUT those were definitely real grievances.

GLIMMER CAN ALREADY DO A CONTAINMENT SPELL LIKE THAT??? godDAMN. castapella completely flunked her responsibilities to Glimmer but shadowweaver did NOT.

hmmm so Solinius was....destroyed. but like, did the people die? like....the people? that’s the important bit isn’t it? i mean, they were under the sea right?

i suppose the problem i also have is that this show will NOT hurry up. normally i love filler stuff but ...the characters are too.....cheery. too flat. their quirks are fun and funny until they’re literally character flaws.

are the horde just literally attacking civilians? jezus. the war crimes. how did shadowweaver ever expect to trick Adora when she was released into the field?

‘you can’t just keep going off on your own!’ - SHE LITERALLY SAVED THE WHOLE FUCKING TOWN. SHE’S THE QUEEN! EVERYBODY SHOULD LISTEN TO HER! lolololol

the problem with Adora’s points is that everything about their dynamics are always so nebulous. why cant glimmer keep showing up to help out? WHY??? she’s the most capable fucking soldier in the field! she’s supposed to have full fucking authority! like, Adora isn’t in the right here. the problem is that her needling is only a symptom of her worries - which is that Glimmer doesn’t trust her any more. but the needling does NOTHING but make her seem like an idiot

i do love this trope reversal here - Seahawk deliberately damselling them to let the princesses save the boys? pffft

love catra getting the consequences for her actions regarding Scorpia. You can’t keep lashing out at people and expect them to stay my dear cat.....

oooohhh Glimmer.... you’re treading close to very hurtful territory. Blaming Adora for the Rebellion failing? for things she couldn’t do anything about? stupid.

really?? you’re really gonna fucking fight-resolution BLOCK ME? are you FUCKING kidding me? edging me for the whole GODDAMN SEASON??? and finally Adora cries at Glimmer going over the line????  fuckin I HATE the narrative decisions in this stupid show I FUCKING HATE THEM FUCK THESE WRITERS GOD FUKCING DAMMIT!!! this has been the whole GODDAMN SHOW!!!!!! ARGHGHGHGHGHGH

i’ve been waiting for a fucking resolution for Adora and Catra the whole! goddamn! SHOW! NOTHING! else matters! you do the exact same for glimmer and adora and now you let it fester again??? because of some no-stakes BULLSHIT? just give me the fucking godddamn PAYOFF for watching these kids be IDIOTS.

this fight on the boat is COOL and really wonderfully animated

really? Glimmer’s response to Adora being hurt and not wanting to be TOUCHED is to be angry herself? what a fucking IDIOT. god i can’t stand this. I CAN’T STAND IT

is this how people act? do they never take a moment to breathe and think and reflect and realise their priorities and take a step back and fucking apologise?

jezus FUCKING! CHRIST!

‘no matter what glimmer thinks of me’ oh that HURTED. oh damn. that’s so relatable. it’s a way to run, it’s a way to internalise the hurt and then prove the things that hurt wrong. the one that hurt you

I know Bo is supposed to be the emotionally intelligent one but he’s also too soft. He should go up to his friends individually and ask them the sharp questions. not - ‘communicate more positively’.

I just like Adora so much better when she’s alone. Her friendships’ positive moments are always so sappy or so....like over-exaggerated, the negative moments always so fucking annoying. Alone, Adora is generally driven, tragic, and cool. the problem is perhaps that i don’t care for the constant fucking drama

god i LOVE Mara so much - she’s so beautiful. and i LOVE learning more about the Old Ones. So they were trying to study Ehteria’s magic.... but then Bright Moon and the princesses were already here. The Magic-Like systems of the Old Ones are pure tech.

wow! even Mara’s transformation is way cooler.

so why was the first one’s tech (she ra) responsive to the magic? why does Raz know about She-Ra? when she ra is first ones tech????

WAIT ONE SECOND. She-Ra is ‘magic’ ??? it’s the SWORD that’s the first one’s tech! She-Ra is Etheria’s magic ! but how if the First Ones chose Mara. Did they steal She-Ra from Etheria?

so what im getting is that. the Old Ones colonised Etheria. Etheria has magic, and when Mara was chosen they made that girl an elite soldier - giving her a first one’s tech sword so she could ‘control’ Etheria’s magic. Then Mara was told to study the magic of Etheria - the ship implying that she’d not been on the planet before. then they created a Heart of Etheria project - which will probably turn the magic into a weapon. this was going to be used against Hordak Prime, im sure. I mean, Mara saved Etheria, but she did doom the rest of the universe to...extinction.... like, judging from Hordak’s strategy, Hordak Prime just literally exterminates planets and repopulates them with his clones....

But why would the planet choose a girl from amongst the colonisers - twice?

OOOHHH that anguished scream. i love anguished screams

why dont they put fucking safety belts in these ships. it’s not like the ship didn’t survive. only Mara got splatted (i guess)

also i love Mara. but damn Adora just got some more shit on her plate. why the fuck was she pushed through a portal again? for a She-Ra chain reaction?

I love madame Raz.

So they didn’t explicitly use it against Hordak Prime. and it wouldn’t have destroyed Etheria back then but it will now...

guh this showmakes it so hard to enjoy catra’s pain.

well they did finally have a good talk about it. I have to say, Glimmer is making good strategic sense - it’s just that this show only rewards harebrained schemes

Catra having a crazy panic attack cos she can’t find Scorpia and she’s completely lost and she knows its her fault. kinda love that for her. my heart

my dear Glimmer, theres a difference between absence of trust and absence of agreement.

they’re bringing king micah back just when angella is dead? oh fuckin lol

the horde....exiled micah? they exiled Micah instead of killing him???

why do they ALWAYS interrupt important conversations? i hate that shit. it’s cheap. it’s unsatisfying.

now THIS is what im here for - that unstoppable WILL!! john gonzalez is right - we watch stories for characters overcomign obstacles. writing, is creating the obstacle course. .....what does that say about me and my life....hmmm.

‘light hope told me everything i need to know’ - uhhh no she didn’t. she didn’t tell you how to harness the energy at all. ugh

how the fuck did double trouble escape. seems to me that they didn’t actually. they were let go....

it’s always so stupid when people try to tell other people: oh no you’ve got no plan - this is too risky! when that’s NEVER a problem

Glimmer is going to activate the weapon just in time for Hordak Prime to use it. And naturally she misses the return of her dad. fuck this

they’re gonna have Hordak and Catra fight? hmm

Double Trouble is right - this IS good for her - and it IS Catra - except for Shadowweaver’s case - she was an abusive bitch

I love Scorpia’s new cool fight music and also glowy eyes

is glimmer going to throw herself into lava??

the unfortunate thing is that Hordak Prime is right on the doorstep and he took over the whole universe or whatever. so they could probably have used that weapon. i mean the Old Ones must have seen something coming. there must be a reason they’re all GONE maybe????

why did Adora assume that all those stars would be destroyed?

THE ANIMATION ON THAT FINAL STUFF WAS INCREDIBLE AND EPIC

how the fukc are they going to beat Horde Prime lolololol.

i guess Glimmer really shouldn’t have done that. but at least she was in time to bond with Catra.

#my stuff #vidi #she ra

[winchester-reload]

I accidentally drunk-posted this to ao3 last night, so I might as well post it here too since it’s episode-related. There’s a second half I’m not done with yet, but this bit stands on its own as a coda, or whatever.

Pairing: Dean/Cas

WC: 1400

tags: first, kiss, angst, episode 14x12 pre-coda

also on ao3

Cas came into the bunker like a thunderstorm, expression cloudy and eyes hot enough to start brush fires. He dropped the big book that’d been tucked close to his chest onto the library table in front of Dean, and it coughed dust as the water-warped pages accordioned together, fluffed up again. Kicked the old, thread-bound cover back, revealing the yellow vellum page; Possessionem, atque tutelam &, Vatican Ed. 1723, it said.

Dean uncurled from his book, hands slipping to the edge of the mahogany as he pulled in tight. Cas wasn’t supposed to be back yet. Last text Dean got said maybe Tuesday would see him in Kansas, and that meant Dean wasn’t supposed to have to deal with this. He should have already been gone.

Wonderful.

He cleared his throat. “Who’s your friend?” he asked, trying to keep it light.

“Oh, that?” Cas puffed, carelessly spilling into the chair opposite Dean. The airiness of his response was drowned out by the vinegar he had pickling his words. “It’s a book, Dean.”

“Well, shit, Cas. You don’t say—?”

“Yes. It’s a book that Jack and I managed to track to— and retrieve from—a catacomb in New York. Now, ask me why we went to all that trouble.”

Dean hesitated. Then, “Why?” because he was nothing if not a glutton for punishment.

“Well, because we heard it had some particularly potent protection sigils, which, might— ” He pecked an elbow onto the tabletop, twisted his hand in an overly-animated open shrug “—hypothetically—be beneficial to someone harboring an unwanted invader. Why? What did you do this last week?”

It was baited. Dean didn’t need the all caps, period-after-each-word, version of it to see that. He chewed his cheeks, slid his copy of Vonnegut away. Dog-eared pages flat against the table now until someone else bothered to pick it up. “Okay,” he said scratching his neck. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you talked to Sam.”

“What would give you that impression?”

“Cas, it’s a ma’lik box—”

“Yes—” Cas said, mocking, “I’m familiar with them.”

It triggered that little muscle twitch at the back of Dean’s jaw. “Okay, here we go—” and Cas shot back out of his chair.

“Jack and I were out trying to find literally anything that might help you, and all the while you were out building some stupid, secret box to go bury yourself in— And you weren’t even going to tell me—? So, yes, Dean. Let’s “go”,” he spat, throwing the quotes. “Why are you so impossible?”

“Alright, back off—” Dean bristled. He wanted to keep it civil—fuck, he needed to. The last thing he wanted was to have to ruminate on a fight with Cas for the next forever-billion-years, but the asshole was a button-pusher. Always had been. “I get it, okay? You’re pissed. You wanna be pissed, be pissed, but it ain’t gonna change anything. Billie said what she said.”

Cas rounded on him surprisingly quick, leveled a look so dark, it practically bred its own shadows. “No,” he said, flat, “you’re right, of course, it doesn’t change anything. But do you know what does, Dean? The fact that you’re lying!”

A fingernail of shame suddenly surprised Dean, twisted into his chest. “No—” he stumbled. This was getting away from him quick. Too quick. He scoffed, smiled, tried to brush it away. “Uh, no. You’re wrong—”

“Uh, yes. I’m right—” Cas contested. “See, because if Billie’s answer was to bury you with Michael at the bottom of the Pacific, there would have been no death note to hand you— because, in that scenario, Dean, you’d never die! And maybe Sam doesn’t know that, but I do!” He plucked his chest, tie swinging as he leaned in. It dredged up all those old, angelic chills Dean had filed in the archives of his memory; the weight Cas carried with him like churning ozone when he was all keyed up. “So, why don’t you tell me what the book really said?” he suggested with a low growl. “What you’re actually running from.”

Dean swallowed, tried to hold Cas’ eye, failed. They were close enough now that Dean was all but boxed in his chair, and butterflies played his pulse in response, kicked his heart up into his throat. “Okay, you’re—” he started. Then, “But, that’s totally—” and he stopped, watched Cas’ balled fists turn white at the knuckles. Fuck. “Did you tell Sam?”

“No, but I will tell him. I’ll tell him right now.”

“Don’t—”

“Then what did it say?”

“It said I die old,” Dean muttered, and it was like prying nails from his ribs just to get it out. “ It said I die happy. Natural causes. No Michael. No monsters.”

Cas blinked, caught off guard. The anger in his face diffused then fused again into something so much more knotted up. “I don’t understand—”

“There’s nothing to understand because it doesn’t matter! All the rest of ‘em said I die bad, Cas. All of ‘em! Michael burnin’ me out while he destroys the world—!”

“How does ignoring this one spot of hope fix that?”

“That ain’t hope! I don’t know what to do with that— I don’t even know where to begin to try to make something like that happen! The box is what fixes it! The box, I know how to do!”

Cas’ fingers spread, hands coming up like he wanted to strangle Dean, but couldn’t bring himself to get close enough. “Did it ever occur to you—?” he said slowly. Eyes rolling closed before peeling open again. “—that, maybe, your first step in accomplishing a happy ending, is to stop running? To stop this— suicidal ideation? To just... love, and let people love you?”

Dean shook his head, Cas’ words pooling at the hinge of his jaw and making it hurt. “It wouldn’t matter,” he said, looking at the bookshelves, the corners. Anywhere but Cas.

“Why—?”

“Because no one's gonna love me—” Dean spilled. “Who’s gonna love me like this? An archangel stuffed up in my attic and the rest of me so fucking screwed to hell, I can’t even sleep on a good night!”

Cas balled hands into his own chest, shoulders high and body tight like they were both about to go over some invisible cliff if he didn’t stop the vehicle soon. “I love you!” he pleaded. “Sam loves you! Your family— You are not unloved, Dean!” He had tears in his eyes, but it was easier to ignore them.

Dean shut his eyes, heat washing him. The image of Cas dying on an old couch at the back of the barn flared fresh in his brain— I love you, I love all of you— He tried to swallow it, but it was too sour. Tried to rub it away with the heel of his hand, but it only spread, made speckles. He shook his head, instead, pulled his already loose collar looser. “No, I… Not that kinda love,” he said quietly.

Cas suddenly deflated, arms falling to his sides, weight shifting between his feet. He sunk to the floor at Dean’s knees, looked up, face raw and open and done. “Sam loves you,” he said again quietly. “Jack loves you. Your mother—”

“Cas—”

“—loves you…” He suddenly touched Dean’s knee, stretched up onto his own, wedged between Dean’s legs, quiet and hot, cheeks wet with tears as he pulled all that electric energy in. “But, I—” He grabbed Dean’s face, cradled it between his hands as Dean’s fingers clawed into the fabric at Cas’ sleeve— holding him there, holding him back, he wasn’t sure which. “I love you,” Cas whispered. Something in Dean cracked, split open. He let their foreheads brush. Their noses.

Let Cas kiss him, soft and slow.

Cas kissed like he’d imagined it a thousand times, mapped it. Studied it over and over and over again, until every jump of his lips timed with the thrum of Dean’s heartbeat. The curl of his fingers at Dean’s jaw.

Then it broke, quick as it started, but Cas and all his hasty energy didn’t move back. Neither did Dean. “I don’t know another way to say it,” Cas admitted to the small space between them. His voice finally wavered, broke. His hands uncurled, flat palms drying the tears Dean didn’t know he’d lost. “You have to tell me because I don’t know.”

Dean suddenly remembered to breathe and it came in sharp and unsure. It came in with the smell of Cas and a hit of his blue eyes close enough to taste. Dean swallowed the salt building in the back of his throat and dug his voice out of Cas’ rubble. “That was it,” he whispered back. “You just said it.”

And it seemed utterly ridiculous how everything suddenly felt so simple.

#destiel #destiel fic #first kiss #season 14 #canon divergent #episode coda #idk what this is #i have destiel anxiety okay #I need something canon tonight #14x12 #14x11 #its been a minute since I posted some fic #so take this i guess

[simply-sams-things]

We can try to make it work

Something I thought of a few days ago.

Reader is 13 weeks pregnant in the beginning

Spelling is not the best cuase I'm tired.

Summary:You meet the cast of Bohemian Rhapsody 6 weeks after you found out you were expecting your ex boyfriends baby. He knew but wanted nothing to do with you or the baby. So you put on a brave face and continued your daily life but with a bump. You are a make up artist for big movies and today was your first day on the Bohemian Rhapsody set. You were excited becuase its a Queen biopic which who dosent love Queen!?

****************

You walked into the tralior you parked next to which said Joe Mazzello and Ben Hardy on it because thats were you were told to go. You felt a little sick but you took a bottle of ginger ale in your purse incase you got sick. You walked in to see a man with lite brown hair and a man with blond hair trying to make a conversation but failing.

"Hi I'm Y/N nice to meet you" you started off when you put your purse on the counter with your name on it.

"Hi I'm Ben. Ben Hardy" the blonde one said putting his hand out for you to shake. You shook it.

"Nice to meet you Ben" you said "and you are?" You said looking at the brown haired man.

"Joe. Uh Joe Mazzello" he replied

"Well hi Joe I guess I'm doing your make up today since your in my chair but we can't start till 8 and its 7 so we have an hour" you told him. "Ben I think Ryan will be here in about ten minutes so dont worry you're not being left out"

Ben chuckled and said he was going to go find some food and asked if anyone wanted anything the both of you said no but thanks for offering.

"So Joe where ya from" you started

"New York. You?"

"Oh I'm from ______"

"How long have you been doing makeup if you dont mind me asking"

"Well since I was small but I didnt get into it until I was in high school and after high school I went to beauty school which lead me into the film industry and now I'm here"

"How about you with acting?"

"Oh I've been doing it since I was very young and I played in some big roles but now im playing John Deacon in a Queen biopic which is amazing" he said excitingly

"You were in Jurrasic Park" you realized

"Yes yes I was!" He said laughing which caused you to giggle.

Ryan walked in at that time and said hello and set up his situation and you realised you had to set yours up. Joe watched you and you knew so you simply gave him a smile through the mirrior which cuase him to blush.

You felt it get hot in the tralior suddenly and took your sweater off showing your tiny bump and Joes eyes quickly adverted away from it as soon as he realised he was staring at it.

"Joe its okay to stare at it I dont mind" you told him knowing the look he gave it. It was one everyone gave after they saw it. Mabye it was becuase of no ring on your finger or mabye it was becuase you were only 25. Either way who knows you were used to it.

"Sorry I just umm wasnt expecting a bump"

"Nobody does but it kinda happens when you get pregnant mine just popped out a few days ago" you said with a chuckle.

"Sorry again"

"Dont be Joe its okay I dont mind you looking at it just don't stare at it to long cuase that's a bit weird" another laugh to lighten the mood. Ryan had no idea what was going on and just listened to the strange conversation unfolding in front of him. Ben, thank god, walked in and sat down and greeted Ryan. It was 7:30 so you thought it was a good idea to start Joes look but of course the second wave of nausea washed over you and Joe noticed.

"Y/N you okay?" He asked you.

"Yeah just wait a bit I'll be back in a minute" you grabbed your Ginger ale and walked outside in the still cold morning air. You walked around the trailor and sat on the curb. You were chugging the Ale and didn't notice Joe looking at you.

"Are you okay?" His question scared you and you jumped. "Sorry. Sorry didnt mean to scare you just making sure you're okay." He sat down next to you.

"Yeah no its okay I'm fine Joe go back inside I'll be there in a few minutes just needed air"

"Are you sure it looked like you were going to get sick"

"Just morning sickness thats all but it wont be until a few more weeks till its gone im fine though really" you told the man.

"Okay well I dont want to be rude and leave you so I'll stay here with you until you want to go and do my face"

You laughed. "You dont have to but thanks I'm ready to go back just needed fresh air."

You both walked in and you did your thing while only almost throwing up once. You walked to set together and for the next six weeks you talked about your families and lives and you had enough courage to tell Joe about your situation with the babys father with the rest of the cast one night at dinner.

"Wow thats just a loss for him" he told you.

"What do you mean?" You asked

"He misses out on being in the life of a child and its mom" he said

"Joe are you flirting with your makeup artist?" Rami, the man who plays Freddie Mercury, asked Joe. You had grown close to the rest of the cast quickly and helping them when their personal artist were not around.

"No I'm just saying he lost something a lot of people want to have" Joe said looking any were but your eyes. At the time of the conversation you were 19 weeks.

Gwilym, Brian Mays actor portrayal, noticed the tension and asked you a question you never thought about.

"So Y/N are going to find out the gender?"

"Well I haven't thought about it yet" And the truth was you hadn't then you realised that appointment was in three days. "Crap I have an appointment in a few days"

"Why is that a bad thing?" Lucy asked. Mary Austins look alike.

"No its not but I have nobody to come with" you said with a frown. Everybody looked at you and then Joe and then back to you and then back to Joe.

"What?" Joe asked.

Ben then spoke up.

"How about Joe and I go with you? If thats okay with you of course"

"That would be lovely Joe you listening?" You asked

"Yes I am but that's your thing I dont want to interrupt that moment"

Everyone groaned.

"Joe its alright you and Ben can come with I think it would make it more interesting to be very honest."

Two days later Ben texted the group chat saying he can't go cuase he had a date. But Joe and you knew what he was doing. He pulled a move were three people had plans but the one who invited backs out and leaves the other two too do the thing.

Joe picked you up so you didn't waste gas and energy and he wanted to talk about the whole Ben thing.

"Y/N you look lovely this morning" he said when you opened the door. You were wearing leggings and a black maternity shirt that said 'coming this June' as well as a big jacket.

"Well thank you and you look good as well" you told him. Joe was wearing jeans and a blue shirt and a jacket. Simple outfit for a normal thing he thought.

He opened the car door for you and went to the driver side and started the car and the radio was turned on full blast which Joe had forgotten about and apologized when turning it down.

You were laughing and said its okay multiple times. Joe was embarrassed.

At the appointment you had to get your blood drawn and was going to get called back right before you found out the baby's gender. You hate the thought of your blood getting drawn. It scared you to the point were you wanted to leave.

"Hey its okay but you need to do this I'm right here incase you need me" he told you.

"Can you come back with me please?"

"Of course"

"Y/N Y/L/N" a nurse called "Hi I'm nurse Gina your husband can come with you cuase we will head right to the ultrasound room after the test"

"Oh he's not my husband just a friend" you explained

"Umm okay well he can come back"

"Joe?" You motioned for him to follow

You sat in the chair and set your arm out while Gina put the blue band above your vein. Joe noticed your scared face and put his hand out for you to hold. You grabbed it and he started to distract you.

"So Y/N what do you want the gender to be?"

"Oh I dont know a boy maybe?"

"A boy would be nice you can teach him all your tricks to make people focus like you do on set"

"Yeah" you felt the needle but then it was done and you looked over and saw that she was done. You let go of Joe's hand and said sorry for crushing it.

You were taken back to the room and you got on the table and gave Joe your purse.

"Okay so I'm swole right now so dont judge my mountain" you said with a chuckle

"I would never" he said bashfully. You lifted your shirt and Joe poked it. Making you laugh.

"Okay Y/N this will be what?" Gina asked

"Cold!" Joe and you said at the same time and that caused you all to burst into a fit of giggles. You wondered how Joe knew that.

"Here we go" Gina said and put the cold gel on your belly and then the doppler. She started with the normal stuff like heart and brain and lung growth and she even did the heartbeat. Joe was amazed by that part. And then Gina took a few pictures of the baby.

"Alright are you finding out the Gender today?" She asked

"Yes we are" You replied

"So let me just go and find were the part is cuase your baby is kinda low but thats great right now cause it needs to be head down for delivery" she said while moving the device around your belly.

"Its a.....boy!"

"Really!?" You asked about to cry and then you looked at Joe who had a big smile which cuased you to cry.

"Yep! And he is very healthy so dont worry about that. I'll leave you two be" Gina said cleaning off your belly and leaving. Joe helped you get off the table and gave you a hug and kiss on the head.

"You got your boy"

"I did!" You exclaimed still crying

"Hey why you crying?"

"Oh just becuase in happy and hormonal."

"Lets go get brunch to celebrate there is a nice place down the street"

"Okay!"

A few weeks later it was the week before Christmas and you were going to visit your family at your grandparents cabin in Vermont but you had told them you were bringing your boyfriend. Problem was you didnt have one and that's how you ended up on Joe's front door step scared shitless and wanting to leave but as you were about to leave Joe opened the door.

"Y/N is what are you doing here? Are you okay? Is the baby okay?" He asked pulling you inside.

"Yeah everything's good nothings wrong. you were leaving I should go" you said turning but Joe grabbed your hand.

"No whats going on? My date can wait family is first"

"Date? Joe go its fine it doesn't matter"

"Yes it does Y/N whats up?" He said pushing you to the couch and sitting down next to you.

"Well umm okay so I'm in big trouble with my family" you started "I told my family that I have a boyfriend and that I would bring him for Christmas but you see I dont have one and now I'm going to show up pregnant which they know but I told them that I was still with his father but obviously I'm not cuase he's a dick and is a no-show to anything" you said fast needing to take a breathe.

"I dont understand why you're here though" he told you

"I was going to ask if you wanted to come to my familys cabin and pretend to be my boyfriend but now I feel like an idiot so I should just go" you started to get up but Joe pulled you back down and into his lap.

"Joe I'm going to break you"

"No you won't" he said "I'll do it"

"You dont have to if you dont want to" you said

"I want to plus it would be fun a free cabin trip"

"Joe are you sure?"

"Yes I am Y/N"

"But dont you want to be with your family I'm sure you do Joe"

"To be honest I was actually going to Rami's house so this is an upgrade" he said with a chuckle.

"Okay then 'boyfriend' what are your limits?"

"What do you mean?"

"What can we do and not do, to convince my family we are a copule?"

He told you all the stuff he was willing to do such as holding hands, hugging and even a kiss on the cheek. You agreed and set your boundaries.

Four days later Joe and you took the journey all the way to Stowe, Vermont to your grandparents cabin. He drove but it took awhile cuase you had to pee a lot but it was still fun. You took pictures in every town you came upon and had lunch in a little town outside of Stowe. When you got to the cabin, your parents were already there including the rest of your family.

"Joe they will ask you a bunch of questions and I'm very sorry about that"

"Its okay, hey its okay are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes"

"Okay then lets go 'girlfriend'!" And he hopped out of the car and went to open your door. You walked up saying you would get the bags later. When you got to the door your aunt opend it and grabbed you into a big hug saying you has gotten so big since she saw her last and was kissing your face and hair. Joe was trying not to laugh. She saw Joe and brought him into the hug and said welcome to the family.

"Kathy let those children inside they are freezing!" Your mom said.

Aunt Kathy moved and let Joe and you inside. Your mom and dad knew joe and what he was doing so he was happy to have familiar faces around.

"Joe! Y/N! You made it!" Your dad said.

"Yes we did sir" Joe said

"Hopefully she wasn't to much for you!" Your mom said

"Of course not! He on the other had was a bugger!" He said pointing to your belly and laughing. You held on to his hand the whole time.

"What was my grandson doing that could be so annoying?" You mom joked "have you felt him move yet?"

"No not yet but the doc said this week we should feel him move" you said

"Well come on in you must be tired and hungry"

The rest of the day was spent talking and having many family members asking Joe his whole life story and also touching your bump and waiting to feel any movement, but your boy was stubborn and wouldn't budge.

Joe and your dad brought in the bags and took it to your room. You were in the kitchen with your mom when she asked a question.

"Do you like Joe?"

"As a friend yes" you said low incase anyone was listening

"No as boyfriend materiel silly!"

"I dont know mom, he is my best friend in a way. I feel more connected to him more then i do with others. I like him yes but I'm afraid he wont like me back mom."

"Baby he likes you too I can tell by the way he looks at you and trust me I know that look because your father gives that look to food and you know he loves his food"

"Mom!" You said laughing

"What he does!"

Later that night, after your shower you walked into the bedroom and saw Joe on the bed looking at the t.v. looking for a channel. You decided to climb in next to him and try to fall asleep but it was hard cuase it was cild in the room no matter how many blankets you had on you.

"Are you alright?" Joe asked "You're shaking the bed"

"I'm cold" you said sounding hopeless and that broke Joes heart.

"Well we could uhh...if you want to...cuddle to keep you from dying of frost bite?" He finally manged to get out

"Are you sure?"

"Yes"

And before he knew it you were next to him still shivering but next to him. Your swollen belly touching his stomach and your arms pulled close to you while his arms managed to find their way around you. But he started to get annoyed cause you kept poking his stomach.

"Stop poking me"

"I'm not the baby is poking you...wait you can feel that too!" You said looking up at him

"Wait that's the baby!?" He said looking down at you. His hand then found its way onto your belly trying to feel him kick again. You then guided his hand to the right place and he said 'wow' under his breath and you smiled and put your head on his cjest and kept moving his hand wherever the baby was kicking.

"I like you too you know" he said out loud. Your heart went a million times fast becuase he heared your conversation with your mom, but then it sank cuase he probably was doing it only becuase you were a single mom.

"Joe-"

"No listen I like you in fact I love you becuase you are so strong and are raising this little guy all by yourself and the moment you walked into that trailor a few months ago I was certain you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. When you took that sweater off and I saw this guy for the first time I got sad cuase I thought you were taken but when that dickwad of a ex boyfriend called you saying all those horrible things about you at Gwils birthday party I was enraged becuase how could anybody say that to you or anybody-"

He was stop by you becuase your lips were crashing against each other. He sat up more and sitting you into his lap. You leaned back from the kiss smiling.

"Joe I love you and I have since that first day" you gave him another long and passionate kiss. "You have changed my world in so many ways-" you felt a few tears run down your fave. Joe brushed his thumb over your cheek to wipe them away."-I love you so much"

"I love you to Y/N more then the world combined" he said leaning into another kiss but just then your son felt jealous and kicked you extremely hard Joe felt it and winced a little.

"Ow!" You said putting your forehead on Joe's chest and he started rubbing his hands up and down your back.

"Are you okay love?"

"Yeah just hurt a little he must feel left out I guess" you explained

Joe leaned down aa bit just above your belly and started talking to it.

"Hey little man I know you can hear me so listen up! I like your mom a lot and I was trying to kiss her before you made yourself known which is great becuase your moving but before I kiss your mom I want your permission first okay? Can I kiss your mommy?" He asked and you bursted into a fit of laughter.

"Joe!"

"What?" He asked smugly

"He is kicking like crazy now thanks a lot" you said moving off of him and looking at the clock noticing it was 10:30 at night.

"Well I should take that as a yes" he said before moving back down to cuddle you again.

"Okay mister we should go to bed tomorrow is Christmas eve and I'm tired" you said moving your head on his chest and he wrapped you back into hos embrace.

"Damn it" you whisperd

"What?"

"I have to pee."

The next morning as you got dressed you felt a pair of arms wrap around your shoulders and you leand back and looked up at your lover.

"Hi" you beamed up at him.

"Hi" he said before placing a kiss at your lips.

"Are we the real thing now?"

"I guess" he said before spinning you around to hug you.

"Well, boyfriend I'm happy becuase after last night I wanted to eat some sour patch kids and well since you get the honor of being with me this means you get to go to the store and get sour patch kids for me" you squealed patting his chest before looking for your bra and shirt for the day.

"Wait thats no fair I want some too!" He said looking at you looking through the drawrs trying to figure out were you placed your bras.

"Middle one honey" he told you

"How do you know that?"

"I watched you unpack yesterday and then you told me to remind you that you put them in there" he said after pulling his shirt over his head.

"Well I'm going to come to the store with you so i can get my candy as well"

You walked down stairs hand in hand and saw your mom cooking breakfast you then wanted to instantly help but she asked for Joe and told you to find your father. You gave Joe a look but he waved you off and you wandered around looking for your dad.

"Joe I heard you and Y/N talking last night and I couldn't be happier but I want you to know if you hurt my baby and grandbaby in anyway no one will find your body" she told him "understand?"

"Yes Ma'am" he said "I love both of them alot in fact with all my heart and soul. She has changed me and that baby boy has changed me as well. I love them to the moon and back and I could never hurt them."

"Good because they are my world Joe and you are now because you're in our family now! Now help me with this food or your girlfriend will be angry and she is a mean angry hungry person like a very mean one!" She told him pulling him into a hug. She noticed that you and your dad were listening the whole time.

"Ease-droppers!" She exclaimed letting go of Joe who turned around to see you and your dad standing there smiling.

"Mom stop threatening my love" you said going up to give Joe a hug and grab some bacon.

"I will as soon as you stop stealing the food!" She said playfully slapping your hand and you retreated it with two pieces of the bacon and handding one to Joe before walking out to the living room. Your sister was there talking to her husband and watching their three kids play. You had two nephews and a niece. The twins, Gabe and Quinn, we're 6 and Katy was 4. They adored you and when they saw you they all fought about who was going to sit next to you and on your lap.

"Hey kiddos I love you and all but nobody is sitting on my lap" you told them.

"But auntie why!?" Katy asked.

"Well your baby cousin is making it hard for anyone to sit on my lap even doggies can't sit on my lap anymore!" The three gasped.

Then Quinn got down close to your stomach and started talking.

"Hi baby cousin it's your biggest cousin Qinn I want to ask you a favor! Can you move back so I can sit on auntie's lap because I want to and I haven't in a long time love you baby cousin!" Every one in the room chuckled and you sister asked you and Joe a question about the baby.

"Have you guys got a name for him yet? because I have a few!" You looked at Joe who shrugged.

"No we haven't actually but I have thought of a few" you said looking back at her.

"Really? What are they?" Your brother-in-law asked.

"Umm well I liked the name Landon, I thought it was cute. I want a unique name cause I can tell he is going to be an interesting baby already. I also like the name Ashton" Joe watched you and listened with a passion.

"What about you Joe? Do you have any names" your sister asked Joe didn't want to admit but he thought of names for his own children in the future so he just said those ones.

"I like the name Sutton. It's a gender neutral name I've always liked." Your heart melted that was the name but you would tell that Joe later.

"Those are nice names!" Gabe said.

"Yes auntie they are but the name Katy is the best!" Katy said

"Of course it is Katy girl!" You smiled "how about we go play in the snow! So we can pass time while we wait for Grandma to finish breakfast!" You suggested

"Yay!!" Everyone said

*******

After your Christmas Eve feast also known as Chinese food, your whole family say in the living room. You were on the couch and Joe was at you legs while Katy sat on your lap. She somehow fit and because you just ate you knew that the baby would start kicking soon and he did Katy looked up at you in awe and squealed. Everyone looked at you both.

"Auntie's baby is kicking me!" She said joyfully

Everyone rushed over and felt him kick and then they sat down.

"Is it wierd?" Gabe asked

"A little but I'm used to it now"

"Alright kids time for bed because santa is coming tonight!" Your sister said

"Can auntie put us to bed?" The three said all at once rubbing their eyes.

"If she wants to" she looked at you

"Of course I will I am happy too but after you guys are out I'm going to bed because I want to know what santa brought me!" You said heading up stairs behind the three.

Once in their room you tucked the twins in their big bed and gave them a kiss on the heads before going over to Katy's bed and tucking her in.

"Can you sing us a song please?" Quinn said very sleepy sounding.

"Okay loves what song Gabe?"

"I don't" he yawnd "know"

"Well how about moon river? I sang that to all three of you when you were baby's"

"Okay" they said

"Moon river wider than a mile

Crossin' in style someday

My dream maker

Heartbreaker

Wherever you're going I'm going the same

Two drifters off to see the world

It's such a crazy world you'll see (What I see, who I become)

What I see, who I become

We're all chasin' after our end

Chasin' after our ends

Life's just around the bend, my friend

Moon river and me"

You ended the song and kissed all of their heads as they fell into a deep slumber dreaming of tomorrow. The baby was going crazy the whole time and as you walked into your room you saw Joe on the bed with a big smile on his face.

"What? Do I have something on my shirt?"

"No"

"Then why are you smiling like an idiot right now?" He laughed and motioned you to sit on the bed and you did.

"I like your voice"

"You heard that!?"

"Oh yeah and it was beautiful and sexy"

"Joe!"

"It was and it adds another reason to love you even more"

"Thank you for that compliment and I guess your not the only one who thinks so because he was going crazy the whole time!" You kissed Joe and he hummed.

"Sutton is a nice name Joe I like it"

"You do?"

"Yes I do it's a beautiful name"

"I wasn't going to mention it to you but I'm glad you like it." He kissed your head as it laid against his shoulder "Do you want it?"

"What no that's your name babe I could never take it"

"I want you to have it" he thought for a second "well him have it" he rubbed his hand over your belly.

"Are you sure because we can name him something else"

"We?"

"Well yeah because we are together I'm sorry it's to soon I shouldn't have said anything"

"No no no I like it the sound of we and that you trust me with this"

"Joey I love you stop being perfect but don't stop please" you said getting up to change into more comfortable sleep clothes which ended being Joe's shirt and some flannel pants.

"Don't stop being sexy please?" He said while you cuddled into him.

"Okay I won't as long as you're enjoying the veiw I won't!"

******* part 2 coming soon

#joe mazzello x reader #joe mazzello #rami malek x reader #rami malek #gwilym lee x reader #gwilym lee #lucy boyton #lucy boynton x reader #ben hardy #ben hardy x reader #x reader #queen x reader #bohemian rhapsody #john deacon x reader #brian may x reader #roger taylor x reader #freddie mercury x reader

[artificialqueens]

for all the honest world to feel (trixya) (5/8) - dare

Brian stared down at his screen, trying to understand what he was seeing – the mild frown on Katya’s face, and the other queen, hands raised, standing just out of frame beyond the gap in the bus bunk curtain.

(AN: so this is… long and sad. finally-throwing-in-an-angst-tag-at-the-bottom levels of sad. warnings for unsafe alcohol use and overdrinking; as usual, “she/her” for adore and “he/him” for trixie (brian) and katya. also, this might read a little weird, but i made the executive decision not to name the weho queen who’s been giving trixie shit because (contrary to, uh, all other signs, i guess) i don’t actually want to speculate on who’s a douche and who isn’t in the ru girl community. so that’s also a thing. 

(OH, and, there’s more lyrics in this one, please don’t judge me, it’s very hard to try to measure up to trixie’s irl songwriting chops lmao)

this week on honest world: shit’s sad. shit’s real sad.)

| ch. 1 | ch. 2 | ch. 3 | ch. 4 |

FROM: SHEA - 9:57 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

[Attachment: IMG_3782.MOV]

Girl.

If you dont wife her up I will.

FROM: KIM - 10:03 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

holy shit

i don’t think i’ve ever seen her mad. like for real

FROM: SHEA - 10:04 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

This was some WWF shit girl. That bitch will be feeling it for a while.

FROM: KIM - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

katya’s from boston. she’s 90% salt, 5% feelings, 5% inner saboteur and 100% ready to fight

FROM: SHEA - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

Thats a lot of math, Kimberley

FROM: KIM - 10:05 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

are you being racist? don’t be racist shea. omg.

someone had to count trixie’s tips for her when she was passed out drunk in my bed

FROM: SHEA - 10:07 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

*Steal trixie’s tips from her.

FROM: SHEA - 10:15 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

Trisha baby if you’re out there we love you girl okay? call us any time xxxx

*

Brian stared down at his screen, trying to understand what he was seeing – the mild frown on Katya’s face, and the other queen, hands raised, standing just out of frame beyond the gap in the bus bunk curtain.

“You know,” Katya was saying, perfectly conversational, “I found it kind of cute at first? Like a puppy trying to fight itself in the mirror – or one that can’t, you know. Stop pissing itself. You know what I mean? Funny but sad. But I don’t think I find it funny anymore.”

The other queen laughed nervously. “Come on, Katya –”

“I’m not laughing. Why are you laughing?” said Katya, raising his eyebrows. “I’m not laughing.”

The laughter stuttered into silence. Over the mic, Brian heard Shea expel a slow, cautious breath.

Katya tilted his head, and the expression on his face darkened like a spring storm. “I want to make it really clear to you how far you’ve managed to over-reach yourself, that you’ve actually crossed my limits. ‘Cause I don’t care how you run things in your club, how you treat your friends, whatever – that’s none of my business, since I don’t work in your club and I’m not your friend. Oh, in case you hadn’t noticed – I’m not your friend. FYI. Because you’ve been acting like I am, and I think it’s time for that to stop.”

The raised hands dropped out of sight. “Jesus. Why don’t you tell me how you really feel.”

And that – Brian winced despite himself. That was a mistake.

Katya grinned, showing too many teeth. “Can I? I’d like that, thanks.” He tapped his fingers rapidly against the side of his thigh. “I feel like you’ve gotten a little too comfortable as top dog in your scene, and when Trixie showed up and didn’t line up to eat you out like everyone else does, your ego plummeted out of your ass. And what we’ve been seeing for the past half a year – can I repeat that? It’s been half a year, which is beyond pathetic – what we’ve been seeing is some kind of hemorrhoidal psychosis, as you take obsessive potshots at someone who couldn’t give less of a fuck about you. It’s not just pathetic – it’s harassment. You’re showing your whole ass right now but guess what, girl? We’ve seen it.”

“You said yourself you’re not in my scene, so don’t talk like you know shit,” the queen snapped back. Her voice tightened like a screw being ground into drywall. “The bitch could have tried to be friendly, for fuck’s sake –”

“You aren’t being very smart right now,” Katya interrupted, with all the force of a tire iron punching through a sheet of glass. “This might be a good time to consider your word choice, if there ever was one. That would be the smart thing here.” Teeth again, manic. “You want friendly? I can do friendly. We have another week on tour – you want me to do friendly. Because the alternative is that I freeze you out, publicly and professionally, and I make your life and your career outside of that fucked up, incestuous bubble of a scene you’ve pissed all over very difficult. Am I – am I being clear? I want to be very clear. You’ve messed up enough shit in my life, and I want this over with.”

There was a pause and a shift in the shadows beyond the curtain – nodding.

“Good. So here’s how this is going to go.” A wooden sound, rap, Katya’s knuckles against the bunk frame. Brian could make out the rise and fall of Katya’s chest, shallow and too fast, in the gap between the curtains. “You don’t post about Trixie. You don’t talk about her. If, God forbid, the opportunity arises, you don’t talk to her. That last one is for you – I’m a lover, not a fighter, but it is my strong suspicion that if you pull this to her face one more time, she will beat the ever-loving shit out of you. Just a – a pro-tip, let’s call it. An insight.”

There was a weak laugh. “She can try it. Jesus, Katya, come the fuck on –”

Slam – an open-handed palm against the wood. “Do you think I’m fucking around here? I’m not. Don’t fucking push me on this.”

Brian had heard Katya angry a handful of times in his life. He’d never heard him like this. This wasn’t Katya out of control; this was Katya very near the end of his rope, and aware of every inch he had left, making them count.

The sick feeling in Brian’s stomach crept higher. He pressed his knuckles against his mouth.

“You stop coming for Trixie,” Katya was saying. “No more posts on facebook, no more whispers at shows. No more shit-talking to promoters – yeah, I asked around, I heard about that. Not that it did you much good. It has to hurt, I think – does it? Knowing that Trixie’s booking is worth more than your word? That’s gotta sting. But I’m not sure how much of a hold your word even has anymore, you bitter fucking cunt.”

Shea, behind the camera, drew in a shocked breath at the pure vitriol in Katya’s voice.

There was a stillness to the air for a long moment, like the silence after a hurricane has swept the earth bare and ragged. Then the other queen laughed again; louder this time, acidic, but with a definite note of finality – of defeat.

“If everyone could see you now,” she said.

Katya barked a laugh of his own. “Girl, they wouldn’t care. I’m America’s fucking sweetheart.” He stepped back and waved a hand in the space visible between the curtains; it was shaking finely, Brian could see it. “Get the fuck out of here. I’m not dealing with you today. Call back tomorrow – I’ll be friendly again.”

The curtains fluttered as hurried footsteps passed by and receded out of the room, the door to the common lounge sliding open and then shut.

Katya’s shadow shifted. Back and forth, like he was caught up on a decision; then he said, quiet, muffled: “fuck.” Footsteps rang in the opposite direction – towards, Brian assumed, his own bunk, as there was the fumbling sound of feet on rungs and then the rattle of metal rings as the curtains were pulled shut.

The camera reversed. Shea stared up at it, her eyes filling most of the screen, hilariously wide and scandalized. Then the video went black – and flicked back to that first still, frozen, the anger on Katya’s face deepening the hollows of his cheeks, his eyes throwing sparks through the screen.

Brian stared down at the rictus of his face, then pressed the phone down screen-first beside him into his mattress. The hard lines of its body bit into the insides of his fingers.

Fuck. What the fuck.

He could stop the video, but he couldn’t make his brain put away the tired lines that had cut into Katya’s face, or the ragged edge of his voice, or how the sound of his palm hitting solid wood had rung through Shea’s bunk, bouncing thickly off the walls.

The room was too small. Brian dragged himself up and went out into the living room, phone in his fist tucked into his pocket, but out there it was too big, and his skin felt all wrong, and he wanted to call Katya but he couldn’t make himself do it.

Katya hadn’t called or texted since the night of the pageant, when Brian had waited and waited all night but the internet – and that fan in the bar who’d clocked him – had stayed miraculously silent. Katya hadn’t called, or texted, or tweeted, or even updated his fucking instagram.

God.

Brian’s phone buzzed suddenly in his pocket and he almost threw it at the balcony doors in his haste to get it out. He fumbled it awake – and then he saw the name on the screen, and his shoulders slumped again.

FROM: ADORE - 10:28 AM - Sunday August 24th, 2017

I forgot to ask but can u water my plants??? this is the longest ive gone without killing any of them :(

LA sucks.

it’s like *jaws theme* all the time. and i forgot my sunglasses

He swiped his phone unlocked and read through the texts, mouth twitching feebly towards an almost-smile. It buzzed in his palm again and a picture appeared – Adore, nose scrunched, squinting into the sky.

Brian typed back, i promise, you can definitely afford another pair of sunglasses. and yes, your plants are safe in my hands.

The answer came quickly, every letter infused with the kind of wry snark that Adore was so good at: dont make promises my lawyers can’t keep

Brian huffed a quiet laugh. The sound was swallowed up in the space of the apartment, a small rock dropped in a large lake, not even reaching far enough to touch the walls.

*

Adore had come out the morning after that night to find him on the couch, his guitar abandoned on the coffee table, staring out into the thin morning light. It wasn’t even 7 AM. He’d gotten four or so hours of restless sleep before giving up on it; the room was lit such a soft grey that he might as well have wrapped in a dream anyway. He’d been staring out at the clouds and the inkstain crows flecked along the telephone wires for so long that they’d blurred, like an impressionistic painting – barely real.

Adore had gone and sat beside him. Then she’d leaned over, carefully, and rested her head on his shoulder. He’d shuddered – one long wave through his whole body. She was warm. When she breathed her chest expanded against his arm, slow and steady like waves coming into the shore. He’d only been able to bear it for a few minutes before he’d had to get up, fingers twitching at his side; he’d given her an apologetic smile, and she’d watched him walk back to his room with her chin on her wrist, her forearm braced against the back of the couch.

He’d checked twitter one more time, and then fallen into deep, exhausting sleep.

*

“That’ll be thirty-two dollars and forty cents, please,” said the bored young woman behind the till, eyeing his – genuinely embarrassing – collection of groceries: ramen noodles, tomato sauce from a jar, the kind of shitty white wine he’d drunk in senior year of college, and stuff to make a salad, out of the idealistic hope that he might actually make a salad.

“I’ll just put that on my credit card,” Brian said. He watched her surreptitiously as she entered the amount onto the card reader. Adore had brought him here a few times, but he didn’t recognize her.

“This your first day?” he said, then winced.

“Huh?”

“I mean. Are you new?”

Now she was eyeing him, even less impressed than she’d been by his groceries. “No…”

“Oh.” He ran a hand over his head awkwardly. He’d forgotten his cap at home. “I just, I haven’t seen you here before. I thought…”

Her mouth twitched, and she popped her gum, a sharp snap in the air. The sound was somehow scornful. “Listen, mister – I’m working, you know, and even if I weren’t, I don’t go out with the kind of guy that bothers –”

“Oh my god, no,” Brian said, flushing, “Oh my god, no, I’m gay. What? No.”

“Oh,” she said. She started turning red too. “Oh. Shit – uh, I mean –”

He laughed awkwardly. “Don’t worry about it. Sorry for being, uh, super weird and stuff.”

The lights overhead were the sickly fluorescent yellow of small-time grocery stores everywhere. He could have been anywhere – east coast or west, north or south, any timezone, any city, any tour. His shoes squeaked on the floor when he shifted from heel to heel.

How was it less than a week ago that he’d felt so at home in this city he didn’t know at all?

“Your receipt,” the cashier said. She held it out towards him, then hesitated visibly. “Listen, uh… are you okay, man?”

He shrugged, stilted, and took the receipt, then grabbed the bags by their handles. “Oh, you know. More of the same,” he said.

It was awful to realize he meant it.

*

Touring was a little bit like being a ghost in your own body. You were breathing and eating and sleeping, but you might as well have been walking through walls, the way you drifted from place to place, squinting at google maps on your phone, talking to people whose names you’d either forget within five minutes or never knew in the first place. You could be anywhere at all; you might as well be nowhere.

Brian drank shitty wine and played into the night, the notes echoing hollowly across the big empty space of Adore’s living room. Music usually anchored him into his body on the road. Every chord brought him a little closer, the muscles, tendons, bones of his hands all tuned in to the melody with the ease of years. He could close his eyes and wherever he was, he was home.

But each time he opened his eyes again he was someplace new.

Seattle wasn’t a tour stop, but its grey skies, the neighbours he ran into on the staircase, the people he saw in the grocery store – none of them were home. But, fuck it, neither was LA, where he spent a few days every month or two and sometimes found himself waking up wondering whose walls he was looking at. And where the fuck did that leave him?

He played a sour note, paused, and corrected himself. Breathed. Tried to bring Emmylou’s lilting refrain back under his fingers.

Without Adore’s voice in the next room livestreaming her way out of boredom, the apartment grew stale and shadowed; without Katya’s calls every night, the days seemed endless, a pale stretch of hours where he did nothing and saw no one. And as each hour ticked past on the clock it became more and more obvious that the veneer of sunshine he’d pasted over Seattle with Adore’s friendly warmth and the sound of Katya’s smile was just that – a veneer.

Another sour note. He stopped and lay his guitar flat in his lap, then picked up his glass on the coffee table and drained it.

His phone lay still and silent beside the wet ring his glass had left on the wood.

He flicked a bit of lint from the couch off his boxers and took up his guitar again, tracing out the melody that he’d been chasing these past weeks on automatic. The sky outside was ripening, edging into evening. It was almost fall. He’d been in Seattle for three weeks, and it seemed he really hadn’t moved an inch.

He could call Katya. He could suck it the fuck up and call Katya, because maybe Katya was waiting for him to call. Maybe this whole ‘respecting Katya’s space’ thing he was doing was totally misguided, and Katya was waiting beside the phone every minute that he wasn’t out there defending Brian’s honour or whatever that was.

I fucked you up, he could say. I was so busy pretending that everything was fine now and my problems were gone because they weren’t yelling in my face every two seconds that I didn’t realize I was setting us both up to get hurt. I was so fucking stupid, Katya, and I’m so – I’m so sorry.

And Katya would say…

What?

I just want you to be okay, if he was feeling self-sacrificial; it’s your irrepressible Virgo energy, if he was feeling avoidant. Maybe, maybe, I thought you said you didn’t lie to me, and you weren’t going to start, if he was feeling particularly honest.

Katya was always honest, more or less. It was just that the truth was flexible, more conversation than monologue, and irony always had to have the last word. Brian, meanwhile, was just a bit of a liar.

Not with Katya, though. Not before. And he hadn’t meant to – he really hadn’t meant to, not even for a second; it was just –

Fuck.

It’s worse than I was letting myself feel, Brian could say. There’s things I don’t know how to tell you. Because it is about you.

His throat tightened; he let go of the frets. He grabbed for his drink blindly and for his notebook with his other hand. Resting it against the body of his guitar, he opened to a blank page and scrawled,

You fought yourself to bring all your feelings down to heel,

and if you stopped yourself from looking, was it ever really real

but everyone’s been looking

and you –

Something inside of him was drifting dangerously, thin tethers tied to his ribs all that held it in place, like a threadbare sail on fraying ropes. The words on the page blurred in front of his eyes. He raised his glass to his mouth but the rim bumped against his teeth and nothing came out. Empty.

He frowned down at his cup. Like, fuck that nonsense. He’d put good money down on those teeth.

The wine sloshing into the glass when he poured himself another sounded like the ocean creeping onto the shore on a windless day. Like Provincetown – another place he’d gone to hide; another town full of strangers. He set the bottle back on the table, cap off, and picked up his guitar again.

*

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday he went running in the morning like nothing had changed. Before, Adore would be waking up when he got back; one of them would make breakfast, then they’d jam for a while, and then Adore would smoke up and Brian would text Katya, if he hadn’t already done so.

Now Brian just jogged. Further and further each day, until Thursday found him running along the seaside, pounding the pavement with salt stinging the inside of his mouth on every inhale. The sky was a soft feather blue, the ocean a deep silk bedsheet wavering in his peripheral vision – and then the mass of Pike Place rose up in front of him. Before he could think about it, his feet were carrying him inside; past the florists, past the bursting orange and red arrays of fresh fruit, and down the stairs to the magic shop’s door.

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the collar of his tank top, grimaced, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was just-opened quiet on the floor. No customers, no music; just a vague shuffling from behind the counter. “Just a minute,” the shuffler called. “If this accursed speaker breaks on me one more time…”

There was a crackling sound from the speakers set high in the walls, like a cheap firework skidding along cement, and then a whole storm of swearing below the counter.

“Uh,” Brian said. He approached cautiously. “Can I take a look? I might be able to help.”

“No, it’s really fine –” A frazzled head popped up from behind the register. “Oh! It’s you! I know you. You think you can fix it? The damn thing goes off all the time, the wiring’s too old –”

Brian shrugged. “I work in clubs and theatres and stuff, so I’ve picked up a thing or two. Let me see.”

Steph – that was her name, he remembered – was as curly-haired and strangely-dressed as when they’d met, with a sprig of rosemary tucked behind the large crow-shaped brooch pinned to her blouse and dust all over her knees. He crouched down beside her and squinted at the mess of wires and cords, poking a hesitant finger around and hoping he wouldn’t get fried. That sound had not been good.

“I think,” he said after a minute, “I think it’s this. Hang on. I’m gonna – if I die, tell my momma I loved her, and tell my dad –” he ducked further under the desk. “Well, whatever you like, if you can find him.”

She barked a laugh behind him.

He didn’t die, although he did burn his fingers a little bit, and when the music started playing (some kind of witchy Swedish wailing, possibly Bjork, Katya – Katya would know –) he let out a “Hah!” of triumph. Eat that, three years on the road and four years of theatre school and thousands of dollars funnelled directly into the University of Wisconsin’s incredibly deep pockets. Eat the shit out of that.

Steph helped him out with two hands around his forearm, shaking him delightedly once he was more or less standing. “You’re a miracle worker,” she said with a bright smile. “I should hire you on the spot, because clearly you’re the real magic here.”

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his free arm and grinned down at her. Clear bright light was streaming through the high windows in the walls, glinting off her brooch, her earrings, the silver in her hair. Her smile and easy warmth was the same as it had been before, and, god, that was nice. “I’ve got greasepaint coming out of ears,” he said, shrugging modestly. “You can’t really call yourself a theatre kid until you’ve nearly died a dozen different ways trying to string up the speakers on the janitor’s old ladder. ”

“Different ways?”

He waved a hand. “You know, falling, electrocution – so boring. A good old-fashioned garrotte is where it’s at.”

Her eyes scrunched at the corners when she laughed. “I like you,” she said, grinning, “you’re strange,” and he grinned back, feeling lighter than he had all week.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. Then: “Oh, hey, the book you sold me is great. Who knew reading about the end of the world could make you feel better about life?”

“That’s right, the apocalypse poems, you…” Steph said, then paused. “God, I’m so sorry, I don’t remember your name. But you’re Danny’s friend, right?”

Brian blinked. Swallowed.

“Yeah,” he said; it came out forced, like he was overcompensating for something. “Yeah, sorry, it’s Brian. Yeah. I took some time off work and I’ve been staying with Danny.”

“Oh, do you work together?” she said, brightly and obliviously twisting the knife. “I know he does something or other with clubs and theatres and whatnot too. He’s very private about those things, but such a sweetheart. I haven’t seen him around in a while, though, how he is?”

“Away on business,” Brian said, “and, you know, we’ve been keeping busy otherwise. I’ll tell him you asked.” He wiped his palms against the sides of his shorts. “Listen, I actually – I should probably be going, actually. I’m supposed to be skyping him in about half an hour.”

An absolute lie, but Steph swallowed it without a flicker of suspicion. She smiled and pressed a hand to his arm. “Tell him I send my love. And thanks again for your help, Brian. I don’t know how many more shocks my old heart could take.”

“Oh stop,” he said, chuckling, and gave a little wave. “See you around, I guess?”

The polite small talk of strangers. Preferable to a slow death, but not by, like, a lot.

Brian took the stairs back up to the ground level slowly, although his heart rate was well back to normal by this point. He wandered out of the arcade, and turned, and walked, and turned, and then he was on a raised dock, leaning against a wooden rail next to a locked gate, which guarded the ramp down to the boats. The wood pressed into the front of his ribs. He curled his palms around the rail, ignoring the bite of splinters.

A light breeze ruffled his shirt and cooled his pink cheeks. The ocean stretched out before him, golden sunshine catching in the crests and troughs of the waves.

He closed his eyes.

*

At home, he typed, i hope you’re doing okay. i love you.

Deleted it.

Typed, today someone didnt recognize me and THAT made me sad. i think i need an intervention.

Deleted it.

Typed, went to the beach to sea what all the commocean was about but idk im still not shore

Deleted it.

Sighed, stared out the window, looked down at his feet.

Typed, i’m sorry. katya, i’m so sorry.

Deleted it.

*

“You’re so white from these shadowed winter months,” Katya crowed, shielding his eyes dramatically. “I don’t know if I can be seen with you.”

“You’re real white from being born, you know, caucasian and unfortunate, but I’ve suffered your company for years,” said Brian. He frowned and wiped at his nose where something wet was dripping – sweat or sunscreen, he didn’t know. “If you really can’t bear it, I’m sure I can find one of these tanned, strapping, oiled-up hunks of meat who’d be willing to walk with me –”

Katya grabbed his arm mid-gesture. “No no no, don’t you dare!”

“I’m just saying,” Brian continued, “you invited me, bitch –”

The shine of Katya’s grin, open-mouthed and laughing, was enough to blow his whole awful night out of the water.

They walked. The sun drew rippling air waves out of the too-hot cement; the ocean crashed beautifully green into the white shore. But it somehow wasn’t too crowded, for all that it was the dead of summer, the very peak of beach days. They moved in blissful anonymity. At one point, Katya bought him an ice cream. Brian ate it one-handed, making panicked noises and laughing as it dripped closer and closer to his hand. His other hand was – well. He’d taken Katya’s as they stood waiting for the cone, and he hadn’t let go yet. His stomach flipped giddily every time their steps fell out of sync – their palms would drag against each other, just for a moment, each time making him newly aware again of the calluses on Katya’s palm.

He traced his index finger along the big tendon on the back of Katya’s hand, and Katya glanced at him sideways, quick, lips parting on a short intake of breath. Brian licked at his ice cream and said nothing, warm and smug all over.

Sea breeze and the sting of salt. They leaned over the wooden rail, right into it, shoulders and hips pressed together. The blue stretched endless.

Katya started to turn red in the cheeks around four so they ducked for shade. Brian slouched back against the blush pink wall of some souvenir shop, under the awning, and Katya stood in front of him to block the sun from his eyes. One moment Brian was looking over Katya’s shoulder at the white gulls darting and dipping over the sea; the next, he was blinking up, and Katya was closer, leaning in, one hand on the wall beside his head, his gaze flickering over Brian’s face with the same combination of lazy ease and breathless flight as the birds in the air.

Brian blinked, processing, then licked his lips to wet them. “Feeling tall?” he said.

“Feeling lots of things,” said Katya, smiling faintly. “Tall may or may not be one of them. No one’s ever accused me of a Napoleon complex, Tracy – and my psychological rap sheet is longer than the Mariana Trench. You always take me to new and exciting places, did you know that? That’s why we’re friends.”

“I thought it was for the free therapy and life coaching.”

“Don’t undersell yourself, mama. What’s newer or more exciting than uncertified therapy and dubious life coaching?”

Brian laughed. “I don’t know that ‘new’ and ‘exciting’ are words that many people have applied to me – out of drag, at least.” His mouth twitched. “You might be du-biased.”

He expected Katya to throw back his head, lean away and laugh, but instead – Katya leaned closer, his eyes glinting with mirth. “I’m gonna kill you,” he said, “I’m gonna kill you right here and dump your body into the ocean in front of the tourists, God, and everybody, and no one will punish me when they hear about the years of pun-spewing bullshit you’ve put me through.”

He was so close. Brian’s stomach flipped again; he could feel Katya’s warmth all along him, make out the freckles on his nose. “Kill me?” he said, mouth dry.

Katya blinked. Something about the set of his jaw, the small lines around his eyes, seemed suddenly vulnerable, intense and somehow opened wide.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Or, I dunno. Maybe that other thing.”

Brian held his breath. All he could hear was the crashing of the waves, loud and close – or maybe that was the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. He reached up and brushed the tips of his fingers along the sharp line of Katya’s cheek.

Katya’s chest hitched.

The breeze chased the sunlight through the empty pier, stirring the sand across the wood, and Katya leaned in, slow enough that Brian could stop him if he wanted. Brian didn’t. He lifted his face, eyes slipping shut; and Katya’s mouth fell on the corner of his, once, soft, then warm against his right cheekbone, and again on his left. Brian exhaled shakily.

“What,” he said, unsteady. “Can’t kiss me when the cameras aren’t on?”

Katya huffed a laugh, the breath warm on Brian’s face. He curled a hand below Brian’s ribs; his fingers dipped into the hollow in his tank top to brush against bare skin. Brian shivered. Voice barely louder than the wind in the distance, Katya said, “My life would be so much simpler if that were true.”

Brian opened his eyes. He looked up and met Katya’s gaze, and his mouth twitched, almost a smile. Katya’s stubble scratched at his fingertips as he settled his palm more firmly along the curve of his jaw. “Well, you’re not really a simple woman,” Brian said, and Katya was laughing when he leaned down and kissed him properly.

When he opened his eyes, the sun’s lowest rays had dipped below the edge of the awning, lighting Katya up in gold, and he tipped his head back to rest against the wall, wrapped his free arm around Katya’s waist, and said, “Come home with me.”

Except that’s not what happened at all.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was shining, and Katya was lit with gold, and he tipped his head back against the wall and thought about saying it –

– then smiled crookedly, and said instead, “You kiss like you have heat stroke.” And Katya threw back his head and laughed, wheezed, “no, just heat rash,” while the sun caught in his hair and lashes.

It’s not what happened, but it could have been. He could have taken Katya home, and pressed him up against the hallway inside his door, all that sun-warm skin under his hands. He could have kissed him the way he wanted to. He could have blown him right there with his knees sore against the hardwood, or taken his hand again and drawn him back into the bedroom, kissing him all the way. And after – Brian could have asked him to stay.

That wasn’t how it happened, but, crashed out on the couch in Seattle after his run, Brian dreamed every moment of it. Every inch of hot skin and the rasp of sheets and falling asleep together and waking up together. And when he woke up – alone – he pressed his hands flat against his stomach, feeling like something had been taken out of him. Feeling ill, feeling exhausted, feeling like his head was buzzing and his mind was five feet outside of his body.

Eventually he dragged himself up and fumbled for his phone. He wiped at the inner corners of his eyes with his knuckle as he thumbed it awake; then he pressed his palm over his face, exhaling shakily.

No new messages. Of course.

His whole body hummed feverishly, the twinned effect of the sun on his morning run and the one in his dream. Maybe that was what fucked over his self-control, that sick feeling like he was out of his head, or maybe he was just giving in to the inevitable – but, whatever it was, he opened his messages and, despite all his better judgement, typed out: check in?

Hating himself a little, he hit send.

When there was no response thirty minutes later, despite the read receipt that had popped up almost immediately, he left to go find something to drink.

*

“Oh hey, it’s you,” said the girl behind the counter. She eyed his purchases. “Wow. I didn’t think it could get sadder than last time…”

Brian huffed a short laugh. “Still gay, don’t worry.”

“Uh huh,” she said. She ran the first wine bottle – yes, first, thanks so much – under the scanner and hit a few buttons. “So is the whole sad and gay deal an aesthetic thing? How much Lana have you listened to in the past three days? I’m trying to decide if I should be staging an intervention that I’m – full disclosure – not really qualified for.”

“Do sad gays get a discount at this establishment?”

“Nope,” she said, popping it like bubblegum. “Sorry.”

She finished ringing him, his three bottles of wine, his pack of sour key candies, and his thoroughly depleted dignity through the machine.

“Credit,” he said, offering it over.

He was threading his hands through the bag handles, waiting for his card back, when she said, “Hey. What’s your name, man?”

He blinked. “It says on the card.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she said, handing it over wrapped in his receipt with an eye-roll. “So what is it?”

“Brian,” he said, and looked at the sallow lights on her face, wondering where she was going with this.

“Brian,” she repeated. “Hi, Brian, I’m Mariam.”

Her tone was conversational but somehow serious, weighted, and Brian – Brian swallowed against the sudden and unexpected feeling of his throat going tight.

“Now who’s hitting on who?” he managed, and she chuckled, but didn’t lose that look in her eyes.

“Brian. Take care of yourself, hey?” she said.

The lights glared brightly across the empty floor, the rows upon rows of no-name brands and the scuff marks on the shitty linoleum. She was watching Brian like maybe he needed watching. He swallowed again, and nodded, and left without another word.

*

Dust motes floated in the slowly draining sunlight when he returned to the apartment. The whole space of it echoed with the closing of the door. He kicked off his shoes, cracked open the first bottle, and went to get his guitar, glass in hand.

Hours passed. He drank more. He scribbled in his notebook, crossed things out, scrawled corrections in the margins. There was too much in his head. Words tumbled out like a hole had been torn somewhere, all the loose change and lint of his brain escaping despite his best efforts to plug the gap. His writing got sloppier, slanted; he wiped wine from his mouth with the back of his hand and turned the page.

The beach, the dream, the night before. The months of build-up, the moment of release. Wanting, wanting, he wanted so much and he had told himself, when he was a kid, that someday he would be able to have all the things he wanted. If he was smart enough and good enough, quick enough on his feet, he could make anything happen. But here he was: trapped into stillness as the path under his feet cut off abruptly. Because how could he have all the things he wanted when they existed at such cross-purposes?

Or was it just him? Not the fame, not the fans, not the industry, and certainly not Katya – maybe it was Brian at cross-purposes with all of it, putting himself in his own way, selfish and stubborn and cowardly, refusing to accept with good grace what the universe was offering him.

The sun dipped below the blocky Seattle skyline, the buildings across the road cast in radiant red, as he stumbled into the kitchen to open the third bottle. His hands slipped on the cap; he blinked wearily down at it, then out the window at the purples and pinks of the sky, dappled and streaked like watercolours. The sun was just a winking and burnished glare over the lip of the buildings. He inhaled deeply and it almost seemed like he could still taste salt in the air.

The skyline blurred before his eyes, replaced by the memory of the things his dream had omitted. Walking the long way back down the pier, Katya with one arm hooked around his elbow and the other hand clutching at his bicep like an ingenue, twitching with laughter every minute or so because apparently this was the most heterosexual he’d ever felt. Which, Katya had definitely licked at least one pussy in his day, so. What he meant was probably that it was dumb, and romantic, and brought them so much closer together than held hands as they made their way between the shadows of the tall lights that lined the boardwalk. The sun set in brilliant gold in the distance. Brian remembered the warmth of Katya’s chest against his arm; he remembered looking at Katya’s lips, then away, and wash, rinse, repeat; he remembered the sign they passed, jutting up out of the middle of the boardwalk: END OF THE TRAIL.

He remembered going home alone, flushed and giddy with the heat of the day, and turning on his phone to see a new notification from his facebook messages. date night tracy?, it said, captioning a photo of him and Katya on the boardwalk, arm in arm, the soft look on his face all too bare in the deep amber light of the sun setting over the ocean.

Brian shook his head, and poured himself another drink.

The night after that was all in flashes. His fingers sliding along the strings of his guitar. Losing his pen under the couch; hunting through Adore’s drawers for another one. Sweet sad notes filling the room, lingering in the air like sea salt. Fumbling with his phone; his guitar; his own hands.

Love’s the kind of feeling that’s not easy to derail, that was good, that was fine, but I find that I’ve been tryin’ ‘cause, ‘cause what, ‘cause what –

He lost another pen. After that… he didn’t remember much after that.

*

Brian woke to a splitting headache and a buzzing phone.

The phone was on his stomach; his head was on the arm of the couch. He blinked into the bright morning light and groaned, covering his eyes.

His phone buzzed again.

Whatever it was, it could fucking wait. He let it fall to the side as he rolled over, taking in the mess of paper and pens – what the fuck, where did he get so many pens – on the coffee table, the empty wine bottles, his guitar abandoned carelessly on the floor. The glass doors to the balcony were open, though he didn’t remember opening them, and the harsh cawing of the crows outside made his eyes water.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He stood unsteadily and made his way to the kitchen, where a bag of sour key candies lay splayed open and empty on the counter and a plate with the mysterious remnants of what might be a drunken midnight snack lay beside the sink. He stared at one, then the other, then turned decisively to get a glass out of the cupboards and fill it from the tap. He downed it in one go and poured himself another.

Back by the couch, his phone was buzzing again.

Katya, he realized through the groggy fullness in his head. That could be Katya.

He returned to the couch and lowered himself gingerly, full glass clutched in one hand. He fumbled the phone trying to grab it, which probably said bad things about the balance of alcohol to water in his system at that moment; then he thumbed it awake and scanned it as quickly as he could through the low-burning nausea of his hangover.

There was, in fact, a notification from Katya. A missed call at 2:23 AM. Brian’s heart leapt and his mouth went dry; but then he looked past that, at the avalanche of notifications from twitter and instagram, and his whole body turned cold, shoved into full wakefulness and unholy sobriety.

What the fuck had happened last night?

He unlocked his phone and opened instagram to see notifications in the thousands. Thumbing over to his profile, he found a post he didn’t remember making, dated 1:57 AM. That was – he looked at the little clock at the top of his screen: 7:13 AM – barely five hours before. The little thumbnail showed his shoulders over his guitar; when he opened it, he saw it was a video.

Brian stared at the post in horror for a long moment. Then – because there was literally no other choice – he flexed his fingers, which had gone numb, and he hit play.

The screen cut to his face, frowning blearily and too close, as he tried to prop his phone up. He looked – exhausted. Shit. Dark circles under his eyes, a tight, stressed set to his mouth, which twisted down as he failed to make the phone stand steady a third time. Finally he – the Brian on screen – muttered a sharp fuck, and just leaned the phone back against something or other, putting his glass of wine in front of it to hold it upright, so the rim blurred out the bottom of the frame.

He stepped back, sat down, and pulled his guitar into his lap.

Brian, the Brian watching, took shallow breaths against a rising nausea. His pulse thrummed loudly under the thin skin of his neck.

The camera captured the body of his guitar, the slouch of his shoulders, and part of his mouth, which he wiped at with the back of his hand, pick balanced easily between his fingers. Then he sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders and sliding his other hand up the neck of the guitar into place – Brian remembered that, cool smooth wood under his palm, he remembered glancing at the camera and thinking fuck it, fuck this –

The Brian on screen played an open chord and then set into the melody that made up the verses, the tumbling notes, middle finger – pinky finger – ring finger, and, watching, his brain cut through the fog to focus on that, ring finger, ring finger, the song he’d been working on all this past month coming together despite the drunken way he slid between the metal frets.

And then he started to sing, and Brian went from feeling slightly nauseous to being absolutely certain he was about to throw up.

It wasn’t the verses, thank god. Not the harried scribbles that filled pages upon pages in his notebook, most of them awful, all of them never to be fucking revealed to the world at large because they were his, ugly and sincere and too personal. All the moments that made him want to try; all the things that made him afraid. But this –

“Love’s the kind of feeling that’s not easy to derail

But I find that I’ve been trying ‘cause

I can’t see the when and where –”

A chorus is a vague thesis; but, watching, he still felt stripped wholly bare.

“I hear waves in my dreams at night,

Feel the sunlight and your stare,

So maybe it’s to no avail –

And maybe ‘stay’ won’t turn out stale –”

Brian swallowed, fumbled for his glass of water, tried to hear anything but the roaring in his ears, see anything but his face dipping into frame as he bent lower over the guitar, eyes closed, face pained as he sang stay. And he was sliding through the notes like a drunk stumbling through a door, graceless but functional and – worst of all – far too honest.

“But I still don’t know if I can go

Off-road at the end of the trail.”

Fuck.

The video didn’t end abruptly – apparently, when drunk, he couldn’t make the crop function work for him – but with an agonizing slowness, the last, aching note from his guitar hanging hollowly in the air. His shoulders on-screen rose, then fell; then finally he reached forward for his phone. A flash of his mouth, his cheek, his eyes squinting – and then it went dark, and looped back to the beginning.

He jabbed at the screen to stop it, and stared down at his phone in mute horror, jaw slack and mouth dry.

First things first, he deleted the video. It wouldn’t shut people up, but he couldn’t just let it sit there, all of him laid out in the bare daylight. The raw sound of his voice, scratchy with exhaustion, on his shitty phone mic; that one glimpse of his face, like opening a door you’re not supposed to by accident, the kind of door you can’t close again or back away from. All a room’s quiet secrets, the small ones that cut deepest, framed starkly by the open doorframe.

He wasn’t going to load twitter, or look at the texts that had come in from his friends who’d seen, but then a new one appeared at the top of his screen as his phone buzzed in his hand. It was Shea – a youtube link. His phone buzzed again with a second message, a third, more, all from Shea. He thumbed messenger open, still numb all the way through, and scanned the group chat dispassionately. Then he stopped, and read it again.

FROM: SHEA - 7:17 AM - Friday August 29th, 2017

youtube.com/watch?v=Jf1L34kn0

Please watch this, get your collective shit together, and stop making me feel sad for both of you

Ive got better shit to do with my time

And PLEASE reach out to us, jesus, brian, we care so much and i know youre doing your own thing but we’re really, really worried.

Well. I cant speak for kim. Im worried; that bitch is probably just hungry

He huffed a laugh, but it didn’t feel like one. It felt like something was cracking open inside of him.

His phone buzzed again.

FROM: KIM - 7:18 AM - Friday August 29th, 2017

i can be hungry and worried at the same time cunt

but sheas not wrong, bri.

please.

Brian swallowed, then swallowed again, throat tight and eyes stinging. He took another gulp of his water, then, after a moment’s hesitation, typed, i’m here. i’ll watch it in a minute. i love you guys and im sorry

He wasn’t sure what he was sorry for. There was a whole laundry list of reasons he should be; he might as well cover his bases.

It wasn’t – it wasn’t that he’d been wrong to leave. It wasn’t that he’d been wrong to want out or to go silent. It was just that it could be right for him and wrong for them, and he could be sorry for that, even if he wasn’t sure yet that he regretted it.

He hit send all the same.

His phone buzzed almost instantly with their replies, but he didn’t look, pulling up the youtube link instead. Then: for the second time that morning, his heart stopped and his body went cold.

“help me i’m not dying fast enough”, said the title under the loading video. “Katya Zamolodchikova Periscope (August 29, 2017 @ 2:40 AM)”.

He didn’t want to click – he knew he didn’t want to, and also that he shouldn’t – but he did anyway, because sometimes he was a masochist like that. Lately, especially.

Katya, on-screen, stubbed out a cigarette and lit another one, inhaling deeply.

“I’m not going to tell you how many of these I’ve had tonight,” he said to the camera. “Because it’s none of your business what hell cycle of ideating and ovulating I may or may not be going through right now. That’s first of all.”

He looked… gaunt. Unkempt. Worse than in the video Shea had taken a week earlier.

“It’s a funny thing, to have – kind of – resolved myself to wanting something, and always having it sort-of in reach, and then to realise maybe I can’t have it at all. I could have, but maybe I missed my moment, maybe I didn’t lay out my thesis convincingly enough – maybe maybe maybe. Maybe what I wanted isn’t on the proverbial table anymore. That’s harder, I think, than knowing all along you can’t ever have it. It’s a different kind of wanting. I don’t know.”

He flicked his fingers in the air by his ear, ash falling grey and soft like snow from a rooftop.

“I’ve never been good at wanting things. That’s funny, right? From an addict, I mean. It’s funny. You can laugh – I’m laughing. Maybe you are, I don’t know, I can’t see you. I don’t care.

I’ve never been good at wanting things – I’ve had them, or not had them. It all seemed kind of –” he paused, then laughed, a hoarse bark. “You know, insignificant in the face of the rapid decay of the environment, our bodies, society as a whole, and ultimately the universe itself. The universe is dying, by the way, in case you hadn’t heard. I took a first year physics class, girl, so I know what I’m talking about.”

You read Neil Degrasse Tyson’s book once, you fucking idiot, Brian thought; it rung hollow, as if it came from someplace a good distance from his own body.

“So I’ve never been good at wanting stuff. Drugs isn’t want, drugs is need. And that’s not – I know I look like a mess right now, but a) not on drugs, and b) still not about need. I’m not in some kind of I’ll-die-without-you pseudo-love psycho-abusive Nicholas Sparks kinda bullshit. I’m just – I’m just sad. I’m just really fucking sad. And I’ll delete this tomorrow, and anyway –” Katya looked sharply into the camera, and for a moment, Brian felt seen – “I figure it’s only fair.”

“So anyway,” Katya continued. He turned away, towards the road; his eyes lit up with amber streetlight, glass-green and shadowed. “We’re all dying. I know, Brenda, I’m a broken record over here about it, but we’re all dying, and that’s kind of a big deal. And I love it! In some strange, existential way, it’s liberating, it’s electrifying, it brings you closer to your own body and soul and maybe even God, if, I don’t know, that’s your thing sometimes – ‘your’ being mine – but then –”

He stopped himself. Brian watched as his fingers tapped frenetically against the side of his cigarette for a moment, then he raised it, pursed his mouth, inhaled. Exhaled. He lifted his face to watch the smoke rise and disappear.

When he looked back down, he was smiling, crooked at the edges, like it hurt. “But then something comes into your life, and suddenly, it’s like, wait. Hang on. I want to see more of that – let’s stop the death train, maybe. Let’s put a hold on this dying shit. Because whatever it is I’m feeling, I want that, and – and – and why the fuck am I wasting time killing myself when this has been here, maybe all along. Self-indulgent fatalism suddenly starts to feel – selfish.”

“I mean,” he interrupted himself, suddenly and obviously changing tacks as a thought struck him, “please still come to my show. It’ll be so good. All these questions and more will be addressed – not answered, because who cares about answers, but asked? Yes. More questions than you ever wanted. Please come.”

He flashed a smile, plastic-white, but it melted away too quickly into the same tired pallor.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if anything I’m saying is true. I want all sorts of things all the time, but it’s always a little bit – intellectual. Like, wow, I wonder what having that would be like? Feel like? I’ve never experienced this kind of wanting that doesn’t have an endpoint – it won’t just stop once I get it. It goes forward. It has a future. What the fuck is up with that, you know?

But it’s not – you don’t just get to have things.”

His voice cracked.

“No. Okay. One second,” he said, and then he disappeared around the camera. Brian could still hear him breathing, though, quiet in the night air, an eerie echo of so many phone calls over the past month.

When Katya returned, he lit himself another cigarette, and this one didn’t shake between his fingers. “I’m going to delete this the minute it ends, for the record. I don’t know why I’m even doing it. I guess I’m just lonely. I know, I’ve been on tour, and that’s great, but – I dunno. It’s lonely. Work is lonely. Dying is lonely. And there’s one thing I want and I thought I could have it but – turns out – I probably can’t, and that’s – that’s lonely too.”

His mouth twisted, an almost-smile.

“I always thought that was such a cliché: to feel alone in the middle of a crowded room. And I love a cliché when it’s not played straight, but. Maybe, sometimes, the crowd doesn’t matter when one person’s not in it.

Anyway. I’m doing a lot of whining for someone with not a lot of problems, comparatively. And this problem isn’t even really mine. Not at its core. Selfish, right? But hey – no one’s making you tune in, Elizabeth.”

He took a final, decisive drag on his cigarette.

“Okay. I’m gonna go listen to some ambient noise and try to sleep.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Ocean sounds, track four: a classic. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Bye.”

The streetlight blanketing his face in fragile white, he looked into the screen again, directly, as if he could see Brian there looking back at him, heart sore in his throat. Then the video went dark.

Brian sat and stared down at the phone in his hands. Between the low buzzing nausea of his hangover and the Seattle morning greyness, the world around him felt – distant. Not quite real. Not as real or as close as that twitch of Katya’s mouth, or the wry, exhausted humour in his voice. The frustration and sadness and longing in every line of his body. 

They were both so stupid. And so fucked.

He tapped out of Safari and into his messages, where he typed again, check in?

Knees tucked into his chest, he waited, and a minute later the reply came in – the little OK emoji, thumb pinched to index finger.

He exhaled loudly and pressed his hand over his eyes.

The phone buzzed against his thigh a moment later and he looked down again. It wasn’t from Shea or Kim like he thought it might be – it was, unexpectedly, another text from Katya. All it said was: you?

He bit his lip, thinking about it. He wasn’t going to let himself lie, to himself, to Katya, not again. He wasn’t going to do that to them. But the honest answer was – yes. He wasn’t good. He wasn’t better. But he was okay, for all the values of okay that the check-in had meant since the first time Katya had needed it: I’m alive, I’m safe, I’m here.

Yeah, he typed and sent, that’s about right.

He looked up from his phone at a sudden noise beyond the front door – a thump, like something heavy had been dropped.

It could have been one of Adore’s neighbours, so he dragged himself up and started to walk over, ready to offer assistance if needed. The woman upstairs was older, and generally bought more groceries than she could carry. But as he was approaching the door he heard the scrape of a key in the lock, and then the handle began to turn.

Adore wasn’t supposed to be back until that evening.

“Hello?” he started to ask, but then the door swung open, and he was staring into a pair of very tired, very startled eyes that definitely weren’t Adore’s.

“What the fuck,” said Bianca del Rio.

To his own surprise, a burst of laughter punched out of Brian’s stomach. “Yeah,” he said, staring back at Bianca, at the douchey sneakers on his feet, the Shangela shirt he was wearing, and the small duffel he’d dropped behind him. Brian found himself smiling, just a little. “Same.”

#I've said this to u already but… why #trixya #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #dare #angst #submission #fathwtf #canon compliant

[ryleejaybyrd]

ANSWER ALL THE EVENS BWAHAHA

Jesus christ Taylor XD Nobody cares but here I go!!!!!!!

lol like how I tried to play it off cool but I’m actually super stoked rn

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day?

Yes and no... for like the first day of winter when it’s all pretty and pristine but when it get’s to the point of ‘fuck me do i still have toes?’ I’m over it.

4: how do you take your coffee/tea?

I like my coffee with french vanilla creamer and lovingly call it my princess froofroo bullshit drink. On the tea side of things I like herbal without anything added becuase I feel like a fairy drinking flower water.

6: do you keep plants? 

I love thinking I could, but the only plant I haven’t killed is the one that I keep in my papa’s sunroom where I’m never anywhere near it because everything I touch dies screaming.

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?

Is internal screaming a viable medium? I like to think I can write, but that’s still under investigation

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?

I’m all over the place, you can usual tell by my hair tho. Seeing as it sticks straight up on whichever side I sleep on.

12: what's your favorite planet?

Jupiter!! It has all those awesome moons that are v cool.

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?Hmmmmm, it’d probably be a homey mess of books, fandom knicknacks and random coffee mugs with random socks laying everywhere. (there may or may not be a smiley face painted on the wall that is outlined with bullets.. crazy night..)

16: what's your favorite pasta dish?

I’m very uncultured so spaghetti is how imma roll

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up.

oh god, you mean every other moment I’m in their presence? My shining moment would probably be when I had a minor stroke after getting v excited about making cinnamon pancakes for @klskipper13​ and I stuttered so bad I said “ Cinininamonon pancancancakes” 

20: what's your favorite eye color?

Probably green! 

22: are you a morning person?

HAHAHAHA. that’s cute

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets?

Honestly I’m a pretty open person? I’ll tell anyone anything, especially if I think it’ll make them laugh.

26: what are the shoes you've had for forever and wear with every single outfit?

YOU MEAN THE ONES THAT JUST BROKE AND I’M STILL GRIEVING OVER. They’re brown combat boots that go to just under my knee with laces all the way up. I lovingly named them my Katniss boots, may they rest in peace.

28: sunrise or sunset?

I like the idea of sunrise. There’s just something about beginnings that make me all poetic and shit

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared?

Yup, 100% when my friend and I got busted after drinking at her mormon grandmothers house. In retrospect, probably should have done it elsewhere.

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.

At my 13th bday party my friends and I were staying at a house on a golf course and we streaked nude up and down the 18th hole. Till this day I wonder if they had surveillance cameras.

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it?

It was a doe deer beanie baby named Whisper. She was that stuffed animal that went everywhere with me. At age 12 I lost her somewhere at my cousins house and am still sad about it till this day. She had one eye and a pink nail polish stain on her chest. Bonus story: my oldest friend @haleygalik​ had that same beanie baby and gave it to me since I was so upset about losing mine. I still have Whisper 2.0 till this day

36: which band's sound would fit your mood right now?Right now? Uuhh, I’m not sure tbh. I’m kinda feeling serene so something celticy. I’m also uncultured in music.

38: tell us about your pet peeves!

Dogs that beg when you try to eat. My dad passed that down to me. I will literally stare a dog straight in the eye and eat slowly. Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs more then humans, but that bothers me. I also get very twitchy when a computer desktop is just full of icons (yes I’m talking about you Tay.)

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what's it's story? does it have any meaning to you?

I have this wedding band set that I found when my great grandma jay passed away. I think it was her wedding rings, but I never knew for sure. I wish I knew their story more then anything.

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it!

There’s a shop that’s in our town called grump monkey. Its small and kinda modern themed but still comfy.

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything?Hmmm, probably when I was swimming in the ocean last November. The ocean is my home.

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of.

The fact that Barbara Dunkelman from Rooster Teeth is so bad at puns she gave herself the title Barbara Punkelman....

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today?

Being abducted by one of the aliens from Signs. Well duh.

50: what's an odd thing you collect?

Tbh I don’t collect anything really... but I do have a thing about small intricate boxes and bottles. I don’t usually keep them long tho. I move a lot.

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far?

The only one I’ve noticed is the thing with the cowboy hat. I’m not the most observant

54: who's the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face?

I just saw a friend of my mom’s who’s brother passed away, that was rough.

56: what are some things you find endearing in people?

It is so great when people talk with their hands more and more as they get excited. The best story tellers look like they’re being pulled around by a drunk marionette person.

58: who's the wine mom and who's the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why?

@brigadepuppy​ is probably the wine mom, and @klskipper13​ is the vodka aunt who doesnt really drink but has a bottle thats filled with water so people wont nag her to drink with them.

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?

Robert Frost is my main bitch. His path diverging in a yellow wood will always be my fave. tho in english class we once read this poem about a lady who kept one of her lovers locked away in a hidden room and continued to sleep by the body even after the person died... to this day i cant find it anywhere. had something to do with roses. creepy as fuck but great.

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind?

Orange is the bomb!

64: what color is the sky where you are right now?

a black satin canvas speckled with the iridescence of millions of different cosmic lights

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like?

Oh! I really like colorful leaves and vines instead of flowers.

68: what's winter like where you live?

A mythic bitch. #upperleft

70: have you ever used a ouija board?

Fuck to the no. I like not being haunted thank you. Tho, I am 100% convinced a ghost named Tina haunts me. I’ve had flickering lights, random bangs, and things falling off shelfs happen every once in awhile. I’m surprisingly calm about it mostly.

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you'll forget it?

Absolutely. Helps keep my mind clear too. If i write it down it’s not swirling around in my brain and distracting me. Once its tangible its easy to toss aside.

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.

I have only two friends

Friend 1: My lil Asian

Friend 2: Lil Bitch

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren't?

Oh for sure. I should be buying a ticket from Florida to New York, researching my trip to New Zealand, and double checking my bills are payed. HAHA NEXT QUESTION

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?

I’m a fanclub! I have a lot of love for people I’ve never met

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?

White, sadly. I didn’t, like I said. I move a lot.

82: are/were you good in school?

100% was a fly on the wall. Put in minimum effort and left with a 3.5 GPA cuz our school system is a joke.

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?

Yas!~ I want to do my Harry Potter house with my friends and something to do with space/the ocean or mythical creatures

86: do you like concept albums? which ones?

Uh sure, I totally know what those are and they’re great...

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy?

The lil animatic videos people are doing for musicals! I love them so much!!! For example @galactibun​ and @raythrill​ do some really neat ones! (or at least I’m pretty sure they do??? I always see them blogging that style anyway)

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities.

Austin! Mainly because Rooster Teeth, but also it was such a vibrant place! I would like to live their someday.

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch?

All the cheese. It’s cheese with a side of pasta. I love cheese.

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday?

My Aunt Kelly!

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? 100%  procrastinator. They take forever.

98: when's the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it?

Way to long... uh probably last summer with a friends dog! Of course! Being outside is always cathartic

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why?

I’d go into the past! I’d miss so much if I were to skip ahead that I’d feel anxious I think. 

Here you all go, XD thanks Tay, I appreciate you booboo

[mysticimaginations-blog]

Kpop1237: Hello! I saw you posted your first HC (loved it btw!!) and decided to request one. RFA + V and Saeran meeting MC at a coffee shop. Either they work there, MC works there, or just meeting there in general. How would they go about asking them out?

Aww! Thanks Kpop1237! We really appreciate it! And, thank you all for all your support recently, everyone! ~Admin Mazz

AWW SO CUTE! This is was so fun to write! Thanks so so much for the love! We both really appreciate it! ^///^ Really hope everyone enjoys these HC, including you Kpop1237! Hope it isn’t too long hehehe.. ~Admin Lily 

Jaehee

Jaehee doesn’t get many breaks poor angel

But, when she does, she loves to go to the café

Coffee runs in her veins anyways

Work was the last thing on her mind

All she wanted was to relax while drinking a nice warm cappuccino

As she pulled out her wallet, she walked up to the counter to see MC standing behind the register

She had such a big smile on her face, “Hello! How may I help you today?”

She seems really nice

While she’s making Jaehee’s cappuccino, she begins to easily make small talk

At one point, she brought up Zen’s latest movie

Fangirl mode activated

That was all Jaehee needed

She liked this MC and wouldn't mind talking to her again

And again, and again, and again

They became pretty close, you know?

MC was just so supportive and sweet and always there for Jaehee! She really was… cute!

Jaehee began to feel the butterflies

MC was really cute aww! <3

Maybe, Jaehee should try and ask MC out?

Wait, no way! They both have too much work to do and why would she be interested.

But… maybe it’d be worth a try?

One day, as they sat together and started talking, like they normally did, it just slipped out

“MC… you know I… like you a lot, right? And-And I appreciate you being my friend.”

MC is literally thinking “booyah”

“Did you know that I happen to like you a lot too,” MC would reply with a smile

“So, would that mean you'd like to come with me, not on a day out, but… as a date?”

“I'm pretty sure I'd love to.” GUYS THE FEELS RN SO SWEET

Yoosung

Okay, this boy works so hard (at LOLOL of course)

Sometimes he's gotta go out and get a latté because being the top guild is rough, okay?

But the coffee place isn't that big

And its packed

Yoosung had just snagged a table

Oops, but someone else had sat down at the other side too

Guess who lol

MC and Yoosung just looked at each other in surprise

Should I stand up…?

But MC just started giggling

Hey… she's kinda cute, isn't she?

“Hi!” MC would hold out her hand, “I'm MC, and you're trying to steal my table.”

Yoosung laughed nervously at her joke and shook her hand, “uh, sorry. I'm Yoosung Kim.”

She doesn't make him move, though, she just starts a conversation

And oml is that hard for him

Cute girl + nerd equals train wreck

Very stuttery and has rosy cheeks

He tells he's a college student and she immediately bombards him with questions

She seems so fascinated

But, he's really not a good student atm

He switches the convo and starts asking about MC

And, he starts to like her even more

Their convo seems to go on forever

But, her coffee is gone

“Oh, so you're leaving, huh?” Yoosung asks in disappointment

“Other people need tables, don't they?” She would smile

“Um, hey. Is there any way I could talk to you again?”

“well, you could ask for my number,” she would hint flirtatiously, “or you could ask me if I'd like to come back for more coffee sometime.”

Yoosung blushed but he was smiling, “I'll do both. How does that sound?”

Did Yoosung just get a girl’s number?? Yoosung got a girl's number! see even losers like have a chance

Then again he’s adorbs so

Zen

Okay, so Zen has been to many coffee shops, and let's just say it usually ends up in a pretty bad situation.

It’s not that the café itself that’s bad, it's just that…

Someone finds out who he is and his fans begin to swarm the café.

So, he rarely goes into them unless he’s in dire of need of coffee or something to eat.

Well, the day he meets MC is one of those days.

Zen had gotten off of work late, and was pretty much starving for some type of food.

Near the practice hall was a little café about a five minute walk from.

It was almost midnight, so he decided to take the chance and enter the café.

There only seemed to be one guy working the station at the moment,

which was a relief.

Just wait Zen it gets better

When he gave his order, the barista called out for someone in the back.

A really cute girl comes out in an apron.

The previous barista switches place with her to make his order done

Here comes the small talk.

She introduced herself as MC, and Zen thought she was the sweetest girl he’s seen.

It’s past midnight already  and she had more energy than a normal person should have around the time.

“Oh it’s because I had like three cups of coffee! Gotta stay awake for late night people like yourself!”

Throughout the whole chat, never did once MC bring up that he was an actor.

She treated him like a normal person

He took his drink and gave a farewell to MC, promising to come back.

He’ll be back in a hour 4 u MC

After his first encounter, he came back after every practice.

MC was always there to welcome him, and each day their conversations changed.

He told him about his new role in the play, and she seemed enamored

“I didn’t know you had a new role! I knew you were an actor, but I didn’t want to seem like every other person and fan over you…”

That was one of the things that made him want to see  MC over and over again.

She treated him like a normal person.

He learned that she was just working these night time shifts for some extra cash

“How’d it go? Your practice?”

“I went alright… Say, MC? How’d you like to go to dinner with me a night instead of working here?” hides nervousness like a true actor

MC is overjoyed, “I’d love to!”

Jumin

Jumin rarely goes out like this due to the fact that reporters would usually swarm him

So he usually has Jaehee get him his coffee

However, even our little angel Jaehee can get sick sometimes and Jumin has to take matters into his own hands

He began to start searching for a café that delivers

Score, he found one

Guess who delivered

MC, lookin all nice and cute in her little uniform delivered the coffee

Jumin wanted to take it and go, but MC tried to start a small convo

“Hello, sir!”

“Um, good morning.”

“Wow this place is big. Is the intern out or something?”

“Um, yes, she is.”

“Hope she feels better. Have a good day, Mr. Han.”

“How do you know my name?”

Awkwardly points to name on coffee cup

“Oh. Yes, have a good day.” notorious Jumin throat clearing

She gave him such a bright smile

And that coffee was goood

He saw on the receipt the name of the creator and it was the same as the girl who delivered

Even though Jaehee came back, he wants more of that coffee so he ordered again but specifically asked for “MC”

MC came back and gave him another bright smile that morning, ‘so you liked my coffee huh? Here you are.”

“Thank you, MC.”

“Oh! Someone who used my name!” MC said, teasingly, but it kind of went over Jumin’s head

Oh my god, this coffee is so good

Jaehee never has to get Jumin coffee again cuz good ol’ MC is his new personal coffee girl

Convos became a little more than just small talk

MC’s always asking how his week went and he’d explain business statistics and crap

But, wait, she’d understand?

She went to business school for a while which is astounding to him.

She begins to help him with his ideas and promos, and he’s so thankful

This girl is so strange, he’s never met anyone like her

He actually becomes really interested in her

So much so that he wants to see her more often, so he offers her a job there

Happily, she takes it and quits her coffee job

For a while, they work together and she makes him his favorite coffee without him asking

He really starts to like MC

So much so that Jaehee recommends that he ask her on a date

And he takes it like what that actually worked

And, guess what she said: “Took you long enough!” thats a yes btw

Seven

This boy has a lot on his mind alright

Always workin and hackin so coffee is his life

And he thinks cafes are such cute little places with cute little human beings to swarm~

And cute girls too

This one day, as he was enjoying his third coffee while bein on his nice laptop, he noticed a girl walk into the café

She was really pretty like oml the kind of pretty that makes you widen your eyes and try to look away to not seem like a creep

And Seven wasn’t any different

But, since he was so close, he could hear what the girl was saying

“How may I help you?”

“Um, hi… Hey, your name’s Mario. Isn’t that Italian? I heard Italians are so good at making coffee because they naturally like to espresso themselves~”

Omg Seven was ready to explode he spit up his coffee a little

“Har har…” Poor Mario where did he go wrong he just works there

Seven loved this girl already he had to get to know her name or something

“Name?”

“MC,” she giggled pretty girl giggle

Okay, okay, Seven think

He had a ton of great ideas, but they were lost… somewhere… in his brain

She had already grabbed her coffee so Seven gave up, thinking maybe it wasn’t meant to be anyways

Suddenly, Seven noticed the girl had placed her coffee down on his table

“I’m so sorry,” MC apologized, “just trying to get the keys out of my purse”

“No problem” Seven said with a smile don’t be stupid don’t be stupid

MC gave him a smile and a wave before grabbing her coffee and going to leave

This trainwreck grabbed his coffee and went to take a sip, but he realized “Seven” wasn’t written on his cup

He ran out to MC and called, “wait! Wrong coffee”

MC turned around and glanced at the name on her coffee before laughing nervously, “oops! Sorry!”

“You know…” be prepared here comes the pun “stealing someone’s coffee is called ‘mugging’, you know?”

She bursted out laughing nailed it

Seven was successfully able to ask her for her number and she happily gave it to him

V

Cafés are such quaint little spaces and V loves to take pictures of them even tho, ya know, he can’t really see

He usually goes to smaller cafes to limit his chances of being swarmed with fans and artists (he is famous)

One day, he got himself a nice cup of coffee while he began to observe his surroundings

Then, the magical camera was pulled out and he began to take pictures

Took pictures of the workers, the windows, the customers

At one point he pointed up to take a picture of the door, but a girl had walked in and looked at him in shock

She was beautiful prettier than that witch Rika that’s for sure

V immediately apologized, “excuse me! Just taking some pictures, don’t mind me.”

“Of me?” MC asked with a nervous giggle

“Hold that smile!” V said before finding the perfect angle and snapping a picture “very lovely.”

MC blushed, ‘aww, thank you, Mr…?”

“Call me V.” he smiled

“V… Um, alright.”

“Do you, uh… come here often?” smooth V real smooth I bet she’s never heard that one before

“Well, yeah. This is my favorite café.” she has, but she doesn’t mind it when it’s from this blue-haired cutie

“Ah… Well, I should be going. Thank you!”

“Bye, V.”

Guess which café V went to again?

He was obviously really hopeful in seeing MC again because MC is infinitely times better than Rika

Overjoyed, he sorta sees her in her cute little dress and he pulls out his camera to take a picture

Of course, at the perfect timing she looks up at the lens as he takes it it’s not creepy if it’s true love guys

She lets out a laugh and he looks embarrassed, “Sorry, I-uh…”

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” she smiles

“Well, I mean it’s a lovely little café. Perfect for pictures.”

“I see…” MC began to blush as she messed with her fingers, “Um, hey V? Would you say yes if I offered to buy you coffee?”

“I don’t see why I wouldn’t,” he’d smile, “as long as you’d help me take more pictures.”

“Sounds fair,” she smiled brightly.

Saeran

I can totally see Saeran working at a small coffee shop because it’s just so calming to make all these drinks and talking to a person only a few seconds at a time

Especially since this boy can be really intimidating

I bet you he likes all the nice plants that surround the building too

The people can get annoying though

Because some actually try to start a conversation

MC is one of those people

“Hello, how are you?” she would smile

“What can I get you?” trying so hard to ignore this human being and do his job

“Um, you pick.”

Really. “Me?”

“Yeah. You,” she smiled.

She had such a big smile

“Well, alright. What’s the name?”

“MC.”

Of course, as she leaves she says his name, “thank you, Saeran.” Which doesn’t happen often to him

“Uh, no problem?” He hands her the coffee and she pays him

The day goes smoothly and Saeran thinks nothing of it

The next day the girl comes back, “Hello, Saeran!”

“Hi…” Not her again, “What can I get you?”

“You pick.”

Again, he picks and thinks nothing of it

But she keeps coming again and again and asks the same thing

He sees it as almost an attack or something he just doesn’t get it

“Is there something you want from me?” he’d snap

MC would be so calm “I don’t want anything from you. You just seem nice”

Her smile is just... so bright and her eyes are so sparkly

Saeran didn’t know what to do then

Nice? Nice?? Huh… She thinks he’s nice

“Okay,” he sighed, “well, I’ll get you your coffee”

This poor guy finds it so hard to say this “Have a good day”

MC just gives him her stupid bright smile with her eyes lighting up, “thank you! You too, Saeran”

After that, he starts to adjust to her

“Hey MC.” She’s such a nice girl she always asks him how his day is going

One day, he’s having a rough day and MC noticing so she buys a coffee for him too because he mentioned that it was his favorite

“Hope that makes your day better, Saeran”

Of course it does, he loves the gesture but he doesn’t show it

Finally one day he asks, “Uh, hey MC. Why do you come here so often to see me?”

“I told you I like you.”

“Alright, well, maybe we should actually hang out sometime?”

“As in a date?” happiness levels at max

Immediate blush, “no, just… a hangout.” yeah, a date don’t lie

“Of course I’d love to.”

#mystic messenger #mystic imagines #mysme #luciel choi #jaehee kang #mystic messenger zen #jumin han #yoosung kim #V #mystic messenger unkown

[jessiewre]

Day 64

Sun 8th March

Safari day 2 - Ngorongongo & Serengeti National Parks

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a safari jeep before, but they go a little something like this.

Drivers Front seats

- two actual front seats - with a fold out flap roof section. Not ideal for spotting animals as the seats are low down and the roof flap obscures the view ahead.

Main section

- two front seats - best view in my opinion when on safari, as you can stand up in the vehicle and see straight ahead of you plus you have a clear standing head space to get up and look out the roof. Good leg room.

- two middle seats - pretty good seats, again has an easy stand up angle.

- two back seats - my least favourite. Least amount of room, as often has a fridge in between the seats, plus standing up is awkward as the roof opening finishes above you. AND you have to be the first in and last out all the time.

So the next day, we all headed to the jeeps (after breakfast on separate tables again) and everyone gathered around as the drivers packed the jeeps and opened the doors. Then we noticed two new people hovering around that we didn’t recognise. Looked like the group numbers were increasing. Where were these new people going to sit??

Sean and Jane came over and started talking out of the side of their mouths:

‘Apparently they are joining our vehicle’ they said, looking concerned. They were not exactly pleased about this, as each vehicle now had a chef to carry too. I mentally fist pumped that we didn’t have to take them but was starting to feel a little awkward.

Wonderfully for Phil and I, our Romanian companions insisted we had the two front seats again. We couldn’t believe our luck. We told them several times we were happy to swap and take it in turns but they claimed they were all happy with their original seats FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE TRIP! Only if that was ok with us of course. Uh, yes, yes it was. How bloody fantastic!

Meanwhile, over in jeep number two (cough) we noticed the Irish couple seemed to be stuck in the two back seats for the second day in a row. Then we saw the CHEF was sat on the fridge in between them. The vehicle was packed.

Things were beginning to mount.

Well, we had a very long but amazing drive through the Ngorongongo National park and the Serengeti National Park (ya know, the one that Toto sings about in ‘Africa’ (tune)). The famous Ngorongongo crater (the one we were pushing Chet to visit) is inside this first park, but is officially separate with its own entrance going down to it - we were visiting this one towards the end of the tour.

So on the long drive, we saw thousands of wildebeests on migration, giraffes, more stunning landscapes and of course, we all chatted and laughed amongst ourselves like old friends (lucky too, cos at one point we went through empty savannah for over an hour and saw NOT EVEN ONE living creature. It was weird). And eventually we reached the campsite for the night.

Oh gad. This was one serious basic bitch of a campsite.

The tents looked older than the park itself. There were no cover sheets, like we’d had on the previous nights tent (this is extremely useful - essential you might say - to protect the tent from the elements, especially the rain. Oh yeah, and it was also raining). Plus the beds were just a thin mattress on the actual floor. As soon as we were out of the vehicle, everyone from our vehicle went to use the loo but I remembered, it was each person for themselves goddammit! So I hung back. I tried to make myself known to the campsite manager, who would take us to our tents, but it had to be your Jeep driver initiating this process apparently - I did not expect this red tape protocol in the middle of the Serengeti but sure, crack on guys 😬

Jeep 2’s driver was WAY more on the ball that ours, so he charged ahead with his group and I sort of lamely trotted behind trying to interject and make myself known and to get a tent that was not complete shite. Come to think of it, I’m not sure there was one that fitted that criteria, but still. A large tent I had my eye on went straight to Jeep 2’s newest couple (sweet injustice!) and the rest of them got a small tent. The rain began to get worse and I could see the Irish couples eyes shifting around, then asking if they too could have a big tent. He said no. He enjoyed saying no. Everyone asks this don’t they. They didn’t look too pleased with their tent but everyone was pretty tired and the weather wasn’t helping.

The campsite manager (he sounds so official when I say it like this, it was more like a 14 year old boy in a tracksuit and wellies) asked me how many tents my group needed and then pointed to the first three in sight. He didn’t look completely sure about it either. I wondered if he definitely was the campsite manager. Maybe he was a chef too, these people are jack of all trades from what I could see.

It was not a brilliant tent, but we chucked our stuff in and got on with it. Only one night eh.

I could see Sean and Jane exchanging cross words between themselves and hoped everything was alright before slinking out of view into our half-tent.

The chefs piled into the kitchen area and began the food prep. It was a mesmerising operation. The kitchen was a large tiled caged unit and each chef had their own area with various pots boiling, vegetables getting sliced, soups getting stirred. We went over with our Romanian pals and helped to bring stuff from there to our dining area, as well as watching these guys, maybe 15 of them, laughing and casually working away in this seemingly impossible space that was completely possible.

I went back to the jeep to grab something but it was gone and another driver told me that our driver had gone to collect something. In the Serengeti? Really?? Sure whatever. I walked back and decided to stop off to take some snaps of the kitchen. It looked so cool all lit up in the pitch black of the park.

As I left the kitchen, being the intelligent person I am I tried to take a shortcut across some concrete rather than the long way round on the path. Nice one Jess, thats gonna save you 4.5 seconds mate.

But just as I committed to take a step, my eyes caught up with my brain and I could see where my foot was going to land. It was not concrete. I felt almost in slow motion as I tried desperately to avoid it. This last-minute hesitation resulted in me half-pirouetting, while spasming out to the left, while jerking my arms to the right. It was, of course, too late. I could not avoid my fate and my right foot landed with a huge SPLASH in a giant & very deep puddle. Well luckily, there was a witness to the whole thing too 😐 and out of the dark I heard a friendly Romanian accent ‘Jyess, arre you o-kaay?’.

I hopped on the spot for a second trying to look as casual as possible. Looking casual while hopping is quite hard. Give it a try.

‘Yeah Miknei, totally fine, ha yeah! Phwa (exhale)! Big puddle that! All good though!’

We walked to the dining area together, well I sloshed there, squelching with each second step, and sat down with everyone ready for dinner. A cold chill began to set in on my foot.

‘You alright?’ said Phil

‘Yeah cool, god silly me stepped in a puddle didn’t I! Funny really’ I smiled and laughed.

Then as soon as everyone was talking amongst themselves,

‘Phil, my foot is cooooold’ I whispered ‘And the bloody jeep is not here! Thats where my only other shoes are!’.

Well Phil came up with the obvious solution, providing both warm footwear and comedy value. I headed back to the tent and Phil insisted on joining me for moral support (or did I insist? I can’t remember) and I climbed in and tied up Phils size 11 trainers to my size 5 feet. Oh, to have a dry foot must never be underrated, even in clown shoes.

We sat down waiting for dinner and the rain suddenly began to get quite heavy. One of the drivers ran in and went to every table to remind us that we MUST check our tents were properly zipped up. Oh sugar! The Romanian guys offered to check our three tents - legends - and came back to inform us ours had been open a bit! Thank goodness we’d had that reminder before the rain got worse!

Another evening of laughter and joviality commenced, and we loved our Romanian friends more and more. Again, the tables were separated by jeep and this time, Jeep 2 were on the other side of the room completely. We gave them a wave and I couldn’t help notice the atmosphere on their table looked pretty tame. We’d really got lucky with these Romanians.

After dinner, everyone headed to their tents and we went to see if our jeep was back to grab my walking boots and some water. Suddenly the Irish couple appeared looking anxious and the only person around for them to express their concerns to was our driver.

‘Our tent has flooded. Our beds are SOAKED’ she said.

She looked very unhappy but he looked fuming.

Our driver on the other hand looked bewildered.

Sean’s turn now.

‘It’s completely flooded, the mattresses are soaking! We are NOT sleeping in that tent!’

Our driver stayed silent and looked completely out of his depth (excuse the pun).

Oh gaaaaaad.

We tried to offer some support and told them to come and find us if we could help at all, then rushed back to our tent wondering how soaked our mattresses were after the initial downpour on our open tent...

Dammit one of our mattresses WAS pretty wet. But it was only on one side and we managed to deal with it sufficiently by turning it over. Phew. We crossed our fingers that the Irish couple had managed to get it all sorted and went to sleep. The feeling of discomfort was growing...