#which makes me believe that that is why he was so sad earlier when greg was asking for advice. he doesn't like greg to suffer

[annaberunoyume]

Wirt’s gift from the Fairies

(OTGW) (Written on October 10th, 2020)

Wirt can't sleep one night in the woods with his brother Greg and Beatrice. Greg offers to sing, which Wirt initially refuses, but

reluctantly agrees to after Greg insists. The little boy begins to hum, surprisingly rather in tune...But, Greg's lullaby increases in power

when a group of happy-go-lucky fairies joins in and, against all odds, makes Wirt doze off, to the amusement of Beatrice.

To say that Wirt was annoyed was an under-statement. He was more like, extremely cross. They had been walking for goodness know how long, they still had no idea how far they were and to top it all, night was falling. Which meant another freezing night for him, while he could have been sleeping in his nice, warm bed back home, instead and it was all because of that darn Greg!

“Wirt, you okay?”, asked his bird friend, Beatrice.

To her surprise, he did not complain or panic, or just huffed as usual, but he turned around with a venomous grin.

“I’m splendid! Thank you very much!”

Greg, Wirt’s younger half-brother was just catching up to the bird and his sibling. He jumped at the harsh, angry tone of the latter. That certainly was not like him to do that.

“Gee whiz, what’s the matter with Wirt, Beatrice?”

“I don’t know, Greg. I’ve never seen him this mad, before…”

Greg and Beatrice lowered their head, uncomfortable, but unwilling to say anything more, lest Wirt become more upset…

(TIMESKIP)

The sun was now nearly gone and Wirt, while still crossed, was a little less cranky than earlier. He found a rather sturdy, hollow enough tree for him and his friends to sleep at its feet. After the trio sat down and sighed, finally resting after walking so long, Beatrice noticed something worrying. Dark circles were evident under Wirt’s worn out eyes. Could it be why he had snapped? Gosh, maybe she should not have teased him so much…

Greg was sighing happily after another fun day, but his smile faded when he saw the concerned look of Beatrice. Looking towards where she was looking, he saw his brother sitting sadly, arms around his knees, a clear look of disappointment upon his features.

The smaller plumb boy with a teapot for a hat hesitantly scooted closer to Wirt, he looked to his frog for confirmation that it was a good idea, to which the latter nodded “yes”.

“Wirt…What’s wrong? Are you sad?”

Wirt looked down at him, raising an eyebrow. He seemed to be unsure as to whether he should tell Greg or not. He ended sighing forlornly, giving in.

“I AM sad, Greg. I just…miss our home so much…I wish I could just be sleeping in my nice, warm bed…Not in this freezing forest…Where we could get swallowed whole…And I can’t believe I haven’t found our house, yet…Our parents must be worried sick…”, he sighed, a small tear rolling down his face.

“Oh…”, said Greg.

He lied himself against Wirt, deep in thoughts. But soon enough, his beam had returned.

“Hey, I got it, how about I sing a lullaby to you?”

“What?”

“A lullaby! Like Mommy sang to me before when I couldn’t sleep!”

Wirt scoffed, “Don’t be silly, Greg! I’m not a baby!”

“Well, pretend you are one, that way, I can sing to you and you can dream sweet! Come on…”, answered Greg with utter optimism, making puppy eyes…

Wirt pouted, conflicted and annoyed. Not only was he incompetent to get the both of them home, but now, he was the one offered a lullaby! That took the cake! Still…he really could use some sleep (Though he doubted Greg’s idea would really do the trick)…And maybe this could at the very least, take his mind off their dire situation, just for a little while.

He sighed, slightly annoyed, “Fine…”

And thus, Greg happily plopped down on his bottom right besides his stepbrother…Wirt frowned in dejectedly and in annoyance, in anticipation of a horrid, out-of-tune ditty…But he was caught off-guard when Greg began to hum…

“Loo-loo-loo-loo…

Loo-loo-loo-loo…

Loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo, loo…

Loo…Loo loo loo loo…Loo-loo-loo, loo-loo-loo, loo…”

Wirt’s frown lessened as his little brother crooned on…It was actually rather cute…That certainly wasn’t going to help him fall asleep, but, hey, it was the thought that counted…

Beatrice couldn’t help but smirk a little. Wirt may have been totally stubborn sometimes…But…she had to admit that right now, that very stubbornness was cute.

Unbeknownst to the trio lying at the foot of the tree, Greg’s song had attracted the attention of wood creatures…But thankfully, not the scary ones…

A group of woodland fairies of various pastel colours peeked from a dead tree on the ground…They smiled at the pretty little song. It wasn’t everyday that humans got lost in these parts of the forest. And what the small, plumb little human was doing looked so much fun…

Wirt suddenly jumped as he heard foreign voices. Instinctively, he opened his eyes, darting around. He gasped as he saw many pastel-coloured, glowing fairies harmonizing with Greg. First, it was one voice, then another and another…He made a move to sit up and defend himself, but Greg quickly and gently pushed on his shoulder, making him gently lie back down.

“Don’t worry, Wirt, they’re my new friends. And they want to help you…Just relax and close your pretty sleepy eyes…’’, he said sweetly as he gently tried to close Wirt’s eyelids by touching them.

Wirt blushed a little. He wasn’t sure if it was out of embarrassment or out of tenderness. He closed his eyes, folding his arms under his cheek and snuggled in, trying to make himself more comfortable. With eyes closed, the ditty was beginning to sound soothing…Especially with all those voices singing in a canon… He sighed, more at ease and relaxed.

But suddenly…A bright, multicoloured light penetrated his closed eyelids…He frowned a little, peeking.

He gasped, again. The fairies were closer now. All around him, in fact, holding hands and holding’s Greg’s hands as well. Greg seemed not the least bit bothered by it all as he was proudly humming still. Beatrice was on Greg’s shoulder, looking puzzled. But she hesitantly joined in the song when Greg gave her an encouraging smile. But then, Wirt gasped yet again as he looked down. He was glowing!

Just before he could freak out, though, he suddenly felt…A thick, heavy blanket…of tiredness…slowly and ever so gently settling on his entire body…Before he knew it, Wirt was feeling very warm…And oh so tired…It was as if every moment in which he had been stressed out, every nearly sleepless night in these woods, all of his scary previous incidents…Were now gently engulfing him in welcoming heaviness, as if he were slowly sinking into thick, warm molasse.

And yet, with every second passing by, he was less and less disturbed by the strange phenomenon…In fact…It was so…cozy…And rejuvenating…And…

Wirt gave out a deep, mellow yawn before he could finish his thought…He smacked his lips and “Hmmmed“ contently, curling up more into a ball…Whatever…These fairies…were doing…It was so…warm and…peaceful…Ssoo..goood…Like…hooome…

Abruptly, but still very sleepily, Wirt registered the presence of a soft, pleasant weigh on his forehead. He opened one heavy eye and looked up. His little brother was stroking his forehead and hair, smiling cutely.

Greg had thought that, since Mommy always made him fall asleep by stroking his hair, back home, then Wirt was bound to fall asleep as well this way.

“Goodnight, Wirt, sleep tight, don’t let the wood bugs bite…Sugary dreams…”

Wirt, for the first time since this evening, smiled adorably, all tuckered out, but incredibly merry, all at once…

“Niight…Greeeg…” he yawned grandly and drunkenly. And at last, he slipped into Morpheus’s sweet embrace, snuggling his young face into his folded arms. Before long, he was breathing serenely and evenly. The fairy folks’ magical song was still making his body glow with many pastel colours and it would glow just so, in this lovely, almost kaleidoscopic manner until morning.

The fairies kept singing their little canon with Greg for a little longer. Then, one by one, the fairies stopped singing, until there was only Greg. He sang the last notes with his eyes closed, smiling.

Then, Greg opened his eyes and thanked his new fairy pals and they giggled. Even Beatrice was feeling quite sleepy after singing the magic song for so long…

And thus…a little while later, anyone who would have wandered in these parts of the woods, would have come across a rather peculiarly beautiful sight:

A teenager boy in a cape and pointed hat…Cozily sleeping and glowing with pastel colours. An arm around most likely his little brother, the latter holding a big frog. A bluebird sleeping snuggled in the older boy’s brown hair, between the boy’s red coned hat and his head. But what would be most interesting to watch, here…Would be the many sleeping fairies surrounding the trio.

THE END

#otgw #over the garden wall #fanfiction #lullaby #fairies #wirt #greg #beatrice #myfanfiction

[novantinuum]

The whole "Steven turning into a monster is a way to call people with mental illnesses monsters, and he got cured by a hug" take is one of the worst ones I've seen. Like, if someone thinks this, were you paying attention? At all? Steven felt upset and monstrous for all the stuff that happened in Future (people leaving him, shattering Jasper, Diamond projection, etc) and that made him feel disgusted with himself. He transformed into a monster because he /felt/ like one, not because the mentally ill are monsters. And the whole "cured with a hug thing" was his family showing that they accepted him. Even if he isn't the "lovable classic Steven" he once was. It was a step in the right direction, Steven knowing that his family still loves and supports him through everything. And because he felt safe enough to, he cried.

(Sorry for going off in your inbox like that, I was just thinking of this today though, and seeing you post about the same thing just inspired me to go off a little.)

No need for apologies, ahah! I’ve been there XD

Also, I 100% agree with this! I see Steven turning into a monster as representative of the self-loathing and distorted view of reality that often assails individuals who are dealing with mental illness. At that moment in time, all of the mistakes Steven had made (which, some of them ARE genuinely mistakes that he’ll have to eventually own up to- see: Jasper) had convinced him that he wasn’t worthy of change or atonement, wasn’t worthy of anyone’s love or worry, because he’s just a shattering monster and that’s all he’ll be forever. Not to mention, the whole visit with White Diamond had convinced him that he truly has DESIRE to shatter, when in actuality, no- he never made a move in reality to shatter White Diamond, it was all hallucinations, and one’s intrusive thoughts are not in fact an accurate representation of what a person truly believes or wants. In many cases, they’re actually what a person fears or hates the most. Which is why they’re intrusive.

In SUF, Steven is going through that oh-so-relatable mental illness experience of “everyone else deserves love and support and isn’t forever chained to their past mistakes and can grow and change, but of course I am the one exception to this rule.” The more we the audience think about that sentiment it doesn’t make sense! It’s hypocritical in a really sad way. And that’s exactly the point. When you’re in a spot like this, dealing with trauma, dealing with all the mental baggage that comes as a result, you are not able to see the reality around you clearly. You are often not able to understand the pathways of your own mental processes clearly. 

What the Crystal Gems and Greg and Connie and the Diamonds did in episode 19 did nothing to immediately improve Steven’s ability to better understand the leaps and backflips his mind takes amidst his trauma to convince himself that he’s worthless and unworthy of love. All they did was affirm that- even if he can’t understand why at this moment- they DO love him, and they will always love him. And I honestly can’t express just how important this type of affirmation is amidst early recovery.

The hug was not a cure. The hug was just a baby step. The hug was just their attempt to carry him down from what essentially reads as a souped-up diamond version of a panic attack.

True, holistic healing did not happen in just a few minutes, nor did true, holistic healing happen by the end of episode 20.

Healing and recovery is something that takes TIME and work. It’s something that may involve one or even a combination of various tactics... support groups, talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, medication, non-pharmacologic remedies like massage therapy or sun lamps or acupuncture, etc. etc. etc. There’s tons of things people turn towards to relieve stress and begin to understand the workings of their own mind, and how to better cope, and I could never hope to name them all.

We actually see some of these tactics in episode 20. For instance, Steven has an exercise routine now. (Keeping active can do wonders to relieve stress and encourage release of endorphins!) He’s been visiting his friends instead of secluding himself away like in earlier episodes. He mentions that he’s been seeing a therapist, and plans on continuing this over his trip. He is expressing healthier tendencies when it comes to sharing his non-happy emotions instead of bottling them up. He’s not perfect at this yet. No one’s recovery is going to be perfect, nor will it be a continuous upward journey. There will be good days, and there will be bad days. That’s natural. But he is clearly trying, and that’s worthwhile.

IMO, I can understand the sentiment of “I wish SUF explored Steven’s mental health recovery in more depth,” because part of me also wishes that. But in the end, I believe the fandom needs to come to accept that there are certain dimensions of that recovery process that are just too raw and personal for a show on a kid’s cartoon channel to realistically tackle in a satisfying way. So to compensate for that, Crewniverse gave us a broad framework. They fed us details that showed he is on that path of recovery now.

They are encouraging us to fill in the blanks.

Which is absolutely why much of my post-SUF fanfiction has been seeking to do exactly that.

But quite honestly, I’m really tired of the whole idea that “Crewniverse wants us to believe Steven is 100% ‘cured’ of mental illness by episode 20,” because that’s simply not true.

#jen rambles #su #su future #steven universe #su meta #Anonymous

[pennylogue]

so pearl’s really getting into human stuff

she unironically adores a commercial jingle!

Greg: It wasn’t about burgers back then. She probably would’ve liked this though, right?

Pearl: (sigh) She would’ve loved it...

she’s making all kinds of human friends!

Rose: That’s not a problem, I LOVE humans! You’re all so funny!

she’s approaching everything human with enthusiasm and wonder, while managing to skew just left of understanding how humans actually work!

Rose: You wouldn't believe how long it took me to figure out that this and you are the same thing.

...

Greg: Why did you let him climb that thing?

Rose: He wanted to.

Greg: Well, Rose, you can't just let him do whatever he wants.

Rose: But you do whatever you want, and you're fine.

add that to the fact that pearl is now officially the team heart-throb, and i think this is a really interesting perspective on pearl and rose’s love affair with humankind. free of her lingering emotional hang-ups, most of her responsibilities, and with a brand new perspective on humans, pearl’s world has opened up. so why wouldn’t she explore? why wouldn’t she continue her experiences from “last one out of beach city”, and actually spend time experiencing the fruits of what she helped to save? and after spending so many years ignoring human culture that isn’t related to swords and being a knight, everything would seem like a wonderful blur to her. look how proud she is! look how delighted she is to go around and experience as much as possible! this is prime “humans are aliens” content, folks, pearl thinks humans are wild and is very here for it.

we’ve caught both pearl and rose in the honeymoon stage. what’s sad is that i don’t know if rose ever really got to experience something like this. pearl is currently exponentially more functional than rose was (which is still weird), is already pretty close to two humans, has a decent handle on humanity, and is generally in a much healthier place to have any kind of relationship with a human. meanwhile rose is implied to have spent large chunks of time isolating herself from humanity, whether because of immortal angst or her own psychological hang-ups. (not wanting to control people’s destiny, etc.) 

still, it would be awfully interesting to fast forward to the time when playtime is over, when pearl’s explorations lead to her getting in over her head, because how she reacts to that is gonna be very, very telling. i mean, don’t tell me you’re not interested in what pearl forging a sincere and equal relationship with a human being would look like, or what kind of person they would be. i do wonder how it would affect her thoughts on rose, though. would she be able to empathize? would she wish that she’d listened to rose about how great humans earlier? would she be angry that rose wasn’t able to enjoy humanity without hurting pearl?

either way tho, the fact that bismuth’s willing to give human stuff a go for the sake of being with pearl is a really good sign for both pearl’s connections to humanity and their relationship in general, because you know those healthy attitudes have ripple effects.

(also if you’d told me a few season ago we’d have an episode with Social Butterfly Pearl and How Do You Speak To Humans Steven i’d have said you were nuts but here we are in the future and the character dynamic reversals are here to emotionally destroy us)

#su future #steven universe future #suf #su spoilers #su meta #su future meta #suf meta #character analysis #fic ideas #so far bispearl is pearlrose if pearl and rose weren't both complete messes #which is a really interesting take on their relationship

[ventriloquistrose]

Earth and Space, Steven's Universe. Chapter 5.

The clutching tong grabbed a pink donut from the shelf and put it down into the white bag.

"Here you go, Steven." The blonde leaned over and handed him the bag of donuts.

"Thanks Sadie!" Steven grinned, folding the top a bit more.

Sadie smiled as she leaned over the counter. "Doing anything special today, Steven?" She asked.

"Nah. Not really." Steven shrugged. "Me and Connie just got here to get some donuts."

"That's nice. Sounds better than being stuck here all day." Sadie chuckled.

"Hey, that doesn't sound too bad. You're surrounded by donuts!" Steven exclaimed. "That's the best thing ever!"

Sadie just laughed as Lars stepped inside, wearing a pair of head-phones which made him dance awfully.

"I gotta go! See ya Sadie!" Steven waved at her before he ran outside.

But Lars seemed rather surprised to see him and moved down his head-phones.

"He's still here?" He asked surprised.

Sadie gave him a dead glare and punched him in the stomach with her elbow.

"Ow! What?" Lars asked, rubbing his stomach.

Steven walked out of the donut-shop. "I got the donuts!" He cheered.

Connie laughed and clapped her hands, standing by a bike which looked to be way too big for any of them.

"Ready to go?" She asked, grabbing the bike-helmet.

That's when a tall boy with fancy clothes and hair passed them.

"Nice bike, dorks. You need a big diaper too?" He teased, kicking the bike and making it fall down to the ground before walking off laughing. "Whoops." He said before walking away, leaving the kid watching him angrily.

Connie and Steven shared a glance.

They smiled and nodded.

They grabbed hands and started running around in a circle, laughing until they disappeared in a bright light and were replaced by a much taller being with long, curly hair.

She put the helmet on her head and closed the lace.

The older kid from earlier continued walking, hand in his pocket and the other holding his phone.

When suddenly, a bike dashed pass him, splashing a puddle of mud over his pants.

"Gah!" He gasped in annoyance as he stopped and stared at his clothes.

"Whoops!" Stevonnie laughed as she dashed away on her red bike, hair flying in the wind as she cycled through the town.

Not much had been fixed from the storm during the past week. Buildings were still broken and the streets were covered by puddles and trash.

But still, Stevonnie laughed as she sped up the speed and practically flew above the streets. ---------------- There was a bright light outside before Steven opened the door to the house.

"I'll be right back!" He called and shut the door and walked inside.

The house had had an odd feeling to it lately. Everyone seemed so sad, or tense and somehow the house felt... empty somehow.

He ran up to the kitchen and grabbed a few juice-boxes from the fridge and put them in his back-pack.

He was about to dash outside, but noticed how he had passed something as he passed the hall to the bathroom.

He stopped in his tracks. He walked back and saw Pearl in the hallway with a few boxes in front of her. She was crouched down, putting some stuff from the floor into one of the boxes.

She seemed upset, holding a piece of paper beneath her nose, sobbing.

"Pearl?" He asked. Pearl immediately jumped in surprise and turned towards him.

"Steven!" She gasped, quickly flying up to her feet and hid the paper behind her back, but seemed to calm down as she noticed it was him.

Steven looked at her in distrust. "What are you doing?"

"Oh!" Pearl's glance went to the boxes behind her. "I'm just doing some cleaning! Right. Can't let all this garbage lay around, can we?" She fell down on her knees again and started to pack down some things into the boxes again.

But without her noticing, an envelope escaped the back of her tights.

Steven noticed and blinked.

He made sure Pearl was busy.

He grabbed it.

"Was there anything you wanted, Steven?" Pearl asked as she turned around.

Steven quickly hid the envelope behind his back. "Nope! Nope! Nothing at all! Nothing to see! What?! I didn't steal anything! Okay I'm gonna go now, bye." He then rushed away.

Pearl just watched him in confusion. But then she shrugged and turned back to the boxes.

Steven walked out of the house, shutting the door behind him.

He then slipped out the envelope from behind his back and turned it around.

He read the text.

"Eviction order?" He hummed as he read the label. ------------------- "Eviction order?" Connie asked as she held the envelope in one hand.

They were sitting outside on the beach with the bag of donuts and juice-boxes beside them.

"I don't understand why they would hide this from me." Steven asked confused, resting his chin against his hands.

"Maybe it's a misunderstanding?" Connie asked. "I mean, have you read it yet?"

"Yeah! Well... no. Not really..." Steven muttered.

"See? That's what I'm talking about!" Connie told him. "You can't jump to conclusions without proof!"

"What more proof do you need?! It says 'eviction order'! And look!" He pointed a a small text. "It's addressed to us!"

"You got a point..." Connie muttered.

"I just can't believe we're moving!" Steven blurted, grabbing the sides of his head. "I'll have to leave everything behind! Sadie, Lars, Funland... you." He blushed for a second. He picked up his donut from the bag and then burst out:. "The big donut! What am I gonna do without my donuts?!"

"Uhh, I'm sure they have donuts elsewhere." Connie tried to encourage him.

"But not like these!" Steven exclaimed, then taking an angry bite of his donut.

Connie sighed and picked up her own donut up out of the bag.

She looked at it for a long time. "It's not that bad. I've moved tons of times." She began. "It gets easier."

"Yeah?" Steven muttered.

"But..." Connie began. "I'm still gonna be here if you want me to." She lifted her donut up. "Jam-buds?"

Steven looked up at her. He smiled. "Jam-buds" He nudged his donut with hers. They took a bite of their donuts and laughed. --------------------- At dinner, Steven, Connie sat around the table, eating a plate of mashed potatoes and meatballs.

The gems were there too, though they didn't eat. Except Amethyst who practically shoved the plate into her mouth.

Though, the atmosphere wasn't that pleasant.

Garnet was quiet as ever, sitting cross-armed on her chair and looking at... something. It was kind of hard to tell.

Pearl looked anxious, tapping her fingers against one another.

"This is really good, ma'm." Connie complemented.

"Why, thank you Connie." Pearl smiled.

The gems then began talking about something in a hushed tone.

Steven and Connie just sat by, watching them.

Until suddenly-

Connie jumped off her chair and ran outside, shutting the door behind.

"Connie!" Steven called, running after her, leaving the gems clueless.

"Did I say something wrong?" Pearl asked worriedly.

The gems were quiet for a moment.

"Probably." Garnet shrugged at last.

Steven ran outside and found Connie by the chore, holding a piece of paper by her nose.

"Connie!" He called as he ran down to her. "Connie, look, I'm-."

"I'm sorry Steven! I tried to be strong and support you, but I just can't take it!" Connie turned around and cried. A few tears ran down her cheeks and she sobbed. "I just can't believe that when I finally find a place to stay, I'm gonna be left behind by my only friend. My best friend." She dried a tear away.

"Hey, hey. Connie. I'm not leaving anyone behind." Steven told her, trying to calm her down.

"Yeah, right. Just a part of your life." Connie sobbed angrily. "Aren't I apart of your life?"

"Of course you are!" Steven assured her. "Aren't we jam-buds?"

Connie just sobbed.

"Here. Come on." Steven extended his arms and they hugged.

"You'll keep in touch. Right?" Connie sobbed.

"Everyday." Steven replied.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

After a few moments of crying and sobbing, they looked at each-other, smiling.

"Jam- buds?" Steven asked, lifting his knuckles.

Connie smiled and nudged her fist with his. "Jam-buds."

They joined hands and disappeared in a bright light.

Stevonnie sighed loudly, holding her arms around her torso.

"I'll always be there for you." She said lowly. "But only if you want me to be." ----------------------- At night Greg had driven Connie home and she waved her hand at them as they drove away.

The drive home was quiet and uneventful.

Steven stared out the window the majority of the ride.

Greg noticed the tension. "So, Steven... something on your mind?" He asked.

"No." Steven shook his head.

"You sure? You look a bit down." Greg told him.

"I'm fine." Steven mumbled.

"Steven." Greg told him. "Come on. You can tell me."

Steven sighed and turned around. "Dad..." He began. "Are we moving?"

Greg almost immediately pushed the breaks, and the wheels squealed loudly. He turned off the engine.

He sat back against the back-rest. "Oh, geeze..." He uncomfortably rubbed the back of his head. "Haven't the gems told you about that yet?"

Steven shook his head slowly.

Greg cleared his throat, trying to find the right words. "Look, Steven. The gems have lived here longer than any human and... some people don't understand that." He told his son. "And... they know that you guys just wants to protect them. But... people do bad things when they're scared." He explained.

"But if we just talk to them, maybe-." Steven tried.

"I've already tried, Stu-ball." Greg shook his head. "Honestly... I've tried ever since you were little." He sighed. "Son, humans are naturally afraid of what they don't understand. I mean, I get it, I was scared too when I first met the gems. Heck, Garnet tried to throw me back over the fence!"

Steven couldn't help but laugh.

"But once I got to know them... I wasn't afraid anymore. And soon, me and your mom had you." He smiled down at his son.

Steven smiled back, drying away an escaping tear from the corner of his eye.

Greg understood why. He wrapped his arm around him. "Hey, Stu-Ball. It's gonna be okay." He told him calmly. "We'll go on a long road-trip, live on some motels, maybe some hotels. And hey, maybe we'll even find a new place, twice as good as the temple? Huh? How does that sound?" He pat his son's back.

Steven sobbed but then smiled. "Yeah... I guess that sounds pretty great..."

He leaned against his dad's side.

Greg smiled and held him close.

"Ready?" He asked.

"Yeah..."

Greg started the engine and continued driving.

#steven universe #garnet #pearl #amethyst #greg

[asparagus-writes]

If I get my way Chapter One

Summary: Jackie has had a crush on Jan ever since they were 12. They were close since preschool but drifted apart at the start of high school. Now it’s senior year and Jackie’s life seems to be falling apart in front of her eyes. Will she be able to make the best out of a  bad situation? Will the arrival of the beautiful new girl help or hinder her?

There across the hall stood the owner of Jackie’s heart in all her blonde glory. Jan had her hair up in a high ponytail and was wearing a knee length purple dress. They had been friends since preschool when the Persian’s family had first moved to New York from Canada. Since the start of high school Jan had taken up theatre, cheerleading and soccer so her and Jackie barely spent time together other than  their annual monthly sleepovers. To say it didn’t bother her would be a lie. 

“…Jackie!” Widow called reaching over to give her friend’s shoulder a gentle shake. “Hmmn” The Persian questioned. “You were staring at Jan, again weren’t you?” Widow teased. “What! No… I…” The Persian started but was cut off by Widow. “Relax I won’t tell but I would recommend you make a move before Friday.” The taller girl assured her. 

“Why?” Jackie inquired as she continued to take her required books out of her locker. “I heard that Greg was going to ask her out after the game.” Widow answered quietly as Jackie shut her locker. 

“Quarterback Greg?” The Persian asked. The taller girl nodded with a sad smile. Jackie felt her heart drop to her stomach. 

“We have to get to English before Mrs Del Rio throws a bitch fit again.” Widow warned taking her by the arm before they set off towards the English classes on the second floor. 

On their way across the hall and towards the stairs someone slammed into Jackie  causing her to fall forward and into the strong arms of a beautiful blonde girl.

  ” Are you ok?” The girl asked. “...Yeah...” Jackie replied as she stared into the girls beautiful blue eyes. Jackie felt like she could drown in them. The girl stared back.

 “I would be happy that Jackie found her knight in shining armour under normal circumstances. Almost being late to Mrs Del Rio's class isn’t one of those circumstances though!” Widow's words brought Jackie back to reality. The French girl let go of Jackie’s waist. Widow instantly grabbed the Persian by the arm and started rushing up the stairs.

 They got there with a minute to spare. ”I can’t believe you! First you made the stupid knight in shining armour comment and then you don’t t even let me introduce myself or apologise for almost crushing her!” The Persian exclaimed in annoyance. “We both know if you were ever going to apologise or introduce yourself you’d have done it after she asked you if you’re ok. You’re just salty that you can’t continue staring at her.” The taller girl replied with a grin. 

Due to some jocks who couldn’t keep quiet they had assigned seats which meant that Widow sat in the Middle of the class between Heidi and Crystal leaving Jackie alone in the back.

 As soon as the bell rang a stream of students entered the classroom. Widow sat down at her desk giving Jackie a look that meant they’d be continuing the conversation later. A few seconds later a few more students entered followed by their teacher.

Someone that caught the Persian’s attention. It was the flawless shorter blonde girl with gorgeous blue eyes that sparkled with a hint of mischief. “Settle down. Settle down. We have a lot of work to get through today ." Mrs Del Rio announced as she put her laptop bag and her coffee down on her desk before moving to stand next to the French girl. 

“We have a new student today. This is Nicky Doll. She’s an exchange student from France. You can sit in the back next to Jackie.” She said pointing to Jackie. Nicky just nodded and made her way over to Jackie. “We meet again.” The blonde grinned. “Sorry about earlier.” The brunette replied awkwardly as she stared at her desk avoiding eye contact. 

“No worries. Do you by any chance know where my next three classes are?” Nicky asked, handing Jackie her timetable. Jackie looked at Nicky for the first time since the French girl sat down. 

Jackie took in as much of her appearance as possible. She was met with those sparkly blue eyes, high cheekbones, plump kissable lips covered in Rose coloured lipstick. Jackie’s gaze travelled down scanning her outfit from her black leather jacket and her crop top that ended a bit above her belly button exposing a bit of her toned abs to her black skirt that ended mid thigh and accentuated her  tanned legs and finally her black ankle boots. Nicky cleared her throat snapping the Persian out of her trance.

 “ At least buy me dinner first!” The French girl giggled “Oh!... No!... No it’s not like that!” Jackie babbled getting extremely red. ”Relax I get it you're not into girls.” Nicky’s smile dropped slightly. “Oh no! No, I'm into girls. It’s just that...” Jackie tried explaining without making the situation any more awkward. “Oh there’s someone else! Who’s the lucky girl?” Nicky asked with a smile.

 “Oh no I’m not dating anyone. I’m in love with this girl though. She’s beautiful, kind, extremely funny.  She’s always smiling. I’ve known her since I was six. But that doesn’t matter.” The Persian’s whole mood fell instantly. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” Nicky asked confusedly.

 “There’s this football player and he’s going to ask her out Friday night after the big game.” Jackie explained sadly. “Well it’s only Tuesday so you still have time!” Nicky cheerfully.  You're right....” Jackie replied with a small smile. 

“Ok you’ve got  Math with Heidi and Rock next. Then Science with me and finally History with Widow before lunch.” The brunette changed the topic. ”I’ll introduce you to Heidi after class, but for now we should probably pay attention.” Jackie gave her a small smile. 

Thirty minutes later the bell rang signifying the end of the period. Jackie had managed to take decent notes for the rest of the period.

She quickly put her books and pencil bag in her backpack before she rushed to where Heidi and Widow were putting away their books.  

“Hey Heidi. Nicky has Math with Mrs Visage now too, do you mind showing her where to go and letting her sit with you and Rock?” Jackie asked as Nicky made her way towards them. “Sure! I’ll gladly take her under my wing.” Heidi answered with a mischievous smile as she quickly made her way to Nicky. 

“Come on new girl! We can’t be late for math.” She said as she pulled Nicky out of the class and down the hall. ”I wonder what kind of ‘brilliant’ idea she came up with this time?” Widow smiled and just shook her head as they made their way to Mrs Petruschin’s biology class at the other end of the second floor hallway.

AN:  This is my first Rpdr fanfic. Lots of love to Zyan for not only encouraging me to post this but assisting me with my tumblr issues earlier. This has now been edited. (thanks again Zyan )

#jankie #nackie #jessence #one sided love #pinning #highschool au #rpdr s12

[moonlightstars16]

Chapter 4 ~ Magic Has It’s Price

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Connie ran and ran as far as her feet would carry her. After what she saw, she couldn't bare to stay anymore. How could she expect for him to keep her word after what he had just done. She felt sick as the image of that beast of a lion sinking it's fangs into the innocent man's flesh. Her captor just so easily turning is back on them without a shred of empathy. She covered her mouth trying not to throw up as she blindly ran. Suddenly tripping and falling down into the grass beneath her.

Feeling the pain on her knee, Connie sat up and tried to regain her breathing from running so fast; looking down at her newly scrapped up knee. Not too bad but the small trail of blood had her worried. Her elbow had the same fate. Glancing around she took note of where she was, another garden. Only this particular spot area seemed different. The plants were overgrowing, except for the grass which seemed freshly cut. Just right before her was a beautiful fountain, though cracked and worn down from time. Still the waters flowed effortlessly.

"What are you doing here?!" A deep more elderly voice rang out, as Connie gasped and turned to see an older man with long dark gray hair, dressed in a brown, yet more relaxed suit, and a navy blue robe like cloak.

"I-I'm sorry I didn't mean to come here I just-"

"Wait, you don't look like the others." The man interrupted leaving Connie even more confused.

"What-?" Then it hit her, he was talking about the human's that were held in captivity. Instantly the horrific scene flashed in her mind once more. Making her shake slightly a bit more.

"Hey you look a bit pale, my dear, are you alright?" The man's voice seemed much more calm and gentle than before. Holding out his hand for her, she took it hesitantly. His friendly gesture made her feel like she could trust him. Though after everything, her cautious side kept her guard up. "I don't believe we've properly met. I'm Greg Universe, caretaker of the gardens." He smiled hopefully coming out to be more inviting than scary. Connie smiled back faintly trying her best to be polite.

"My name is Connie, and... I just arrived here about an hour ago." Her smile seemed to waiver once she was reminded of her current reality.

"Ah so you're the mysterious guest from earth!"

"More like a prisoner...." She corrected, speaking only above a whisper, just enough for him to hear. Greg's smiled disappeared upon hearing the sadness in her voice. Then he noticed the scrape on her elbow.

"Here, my dear, let me help you." He smiled offering his hand and he accepting it once more. Leading her towards the fountain. Then gesturing for her to sit as he dipped a couple small pieces of cloth, from his robe pocket, into the fountain. While she adjusted herself, lifting the hem of her skirt just enough over her knee. Then lifting her elbow, he gently pressed the cloth against her skin. Connie hardly felt the pain, but that was only the beginning of her curious questions. Eyes widening as the scrape was healed instantly, not even a small scab left behind.

"How is this possible?" Her voice full of wonder and amazement. Greg smiled while dipping the cloth again before handing it too her. Taking it as if it was made of glass, Connie barley touched her knee before the scar disappeared, just like her elbow, nothing was left behind.

"Well magic has it's place here."

"Magic?! I thought it was all just in fairytales and imagination." Greg chuckled slightly at her remarks.

"Well that is partially true. Any strong imagination can hold even the most powerful of magic on earth. Well actually anywhere that humans thrive. They just don't know it's potential. Now here they exist as if they lived in the oxygen itself." Greg was the most kind soul she met yet, well aside from Pearl. It made her feel happy to know she wasn't alone.

Still even knowing another human who could understand her, didn't change the fact that she was a prisoner. Thought flooded back to her as she gulped and gripped both her arms. "I'm sorry you had to witness what he had done." He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "I know it's hard to understand but-"

"I prefer not to understand him, he's a monster." Connie said with hidden anger in her tone. He looked up as if owning up to something terrible.

"Steven's my son." She moved her hand to her lips, realizing what had just happened.

"Forgive me, I'm sorry, I didn't realize..."

"I have no intention of justifying him. I know the things he does is terrible." He paused sighing, standing up from the fountain and continuing. "But I also know he wasn't always this way. When he was little, there was so much hope and light in his heart. Curious about the world and caring for every soul he met." Greg suddenly laughed at an old memory. "When he was little he could sing the 'Cookie-Cat' ice cream commercial jingle to memory. And since then I never regretted teaching him music."

"Wait, 'Cookie-Cat'? You lived on earth?" Her tone now more confused as she stood up and walked towards him.

"He was born there actually, and we lived in peace for a long time. Steven, myself, Pearl, Spinel, Amethyst, Garnet, Bismuth, Peridot, Lapis and...." he stopped glancing at the fountain statue. "Rose..." Connie assumed the rest were other gems but why did he look so sad? Who was Rose? As if reading her thoughts, Greg answered with a voice full of love and sorrow. "Rose was my wife and Steven's mother." She followed his gaze to the fountain and saw that the statue must've been her image.

"She's beautiful"

"She was truly the most beautiful gem I ever laid eyes upon." His words felt so sincere and full of distant longing that she ever wondered if anyone would love her like Greg had for Rose.

"Where is Rose now?" She asked hesitantly not wanting to tear him away from his memory, and yet curiosity consumed her once again.

"She died giving birth, well gave her form to him that is... it's complicated." 'It sure seems like it' Connie thought. "This fountain is a memorial for her. She had the power to heal and her healing tears flow freely forever." He said before shaking his head and smiling at Connie who was giving him the most sincere, empathetic look she could give. "You know I think she would've liked you."

"And I see this is where you've been hiding." Connie gulped as they turned to see Steven leaning against a tree amongst the shadows, arms folded across. His eyes were glowing bright though he seemed less angry than before. Still his intimidating look didn't help make her feel less anxious. "Father, it would be nice to see you spend less time in this pathetic garden and more time on your new duties."

"I know what I have to do, son." Greg fought back the urge to say more. He himself grew tired of their quarrels.

"How did you find this place?" Steven's gazed directed towards Connie's.

"It was by accident, I didn't know where I was looking-"

"Of course it happened that way." He sighed stepping out from the shadows. "Pearl has been waiting to discuss how you will present yourself to the Diamonds. If you are done wasting my time, follow me." Steven turned and began to walk away with Connie following suit. She glanced back only to give a passing smile to Greg, who returned the favor.

Though he was only a foot taller than her, his strides were very long which made her almost run to keep up with him. Suddenly he stopped, herself almost bumping into him, thankfully she avoided that. The glow in his eyes faded upon seeing her expression. He could notice her fear a galaxy away, to him she was an open book of emotions and yet so confusing. The guilt that she even saw kept gnawing away at his gut, but couldn't place why. It's not like he cared about what anyone thought.

"I'm not someone to cross with. Everyone here knows there place, one step out of line and consequences will be had. What you witnessed earlier was only a part of what I can do." Though trying to hide it, her trembling couldn't be helped. Upon seeing this his demeanor changed to a much calmer state unintentionally. Still she had to understand her place now, even if it was only temporary. "Now do you truly understand?"

"Yes" was all Connie could say. She couldn't even find the right formality to address him as. Besides monster, asshole, and a few others she would surely get killed over. However lifting her gaze to match his, expression full of anger as if to say she wasn't going to be belittled or be used as a puppet like the others. "I will obey your orders, but I want to remind you this is only temporary. Once we both hold up our ends of the deal, then I no longer will serve you." Her defiant tone and words were shocking. The strength to stand up to him gained his interest. Normally Lion would be called in and she would've been bleeding to death. Still he somehow found it amusing and quite refreshing that someone like her would challenge him. So he decided to "play" along.

"Is that so? Well while that's true, how about we add to our deal?" Her empathy and compassion for humans she never even met was remarkable to him. In fact the idea that came together was perfect for this. "Let's say this deal is done, you are free to go. However if you stay here with me, I can offer you anything you desire. I will comply to do so. In turn, you will be my companion for the rest of your life." She gasped and tried to maintain her composure though faltering slightly.

"As in...marriage?" the words felt almost poisonous in that moment.

"I suppose you could say that. And before you answer, let me remind you I stated I will give you anything. Including perhaps sparing the humans from the zoo, or in fact all of humanity. Hell I'll even throw in no more shattering of gem kind!" He chuckled villainously. Allowing all his words to sink into her own thoughts. Before she would've rejected him, but now he made an offer so impossible to refuse. Still the conflict inside tore her in two. Doubting that he would keep to his word.

"All of humanity?" She asked hesitantly and unsure she heard him right.

"Not a single human from now until the end of time, will I hurt. However if you refuse, then I suppose me taking a few humans while transporting them to their new location would satisfy me and my human zoo." If what he was saying was true, Connie felt the weight of her choice balance in her hands. This could save humanity from the beast that stood before her. All she would have to do is surrender her own life to him. Though she knew her answer, that sickening feeling once more overtook her at the thought of being his. Even so she had to do the right thing... just hoping it was the right choice.

"Alright... you have a deal." She said before slightly gasping, feeling herself being backed up against the wall; under his intense gaze. As if hypnotizing her into a trance like state. He advanced towards her with every step she took. Pressing his left hand against the wall next to the side of her head. Gently caressing her cheek  with his right; gloved leather fingers so supple and warm against her skin. Removing her glasses to get a good look behind her eyes.

"I-I need them too-" She began before his finger touched her lips.

"You are truly...beautiful...." He cut off, the words spoken with such a sensual tone made her silent. His eyes bore into hers as if paralyzing her soul in submission. Feeling her tremble and hearing deep breathing apparent but becoming much calmer with every passing second. Then without warning he leaned towards her and placed a gentle yet passionate kiss upon her lips. Being careful to avoid the mask touching her face. He cradled her cheek in his hand. Whimpering slightly, though muffled from the kiss, feeling something inside her twinge in pain. Once he pulled away, smirking as he watched her expression. Wiping away the single tear that fell from her cheek.

Flinching slightly Connie slowly opened her eyes. Gasping as everything suddenly became more clearer. Her glasses where still in his possession, she wasn't wearing them! As if by a miracle her sight returned in full force. She could see everything without any blur and in such intricate detail... including him. Steven watched as the moment of realization striking her. Though he despised his own mother, he did have to face the truth that he had her healing powers. However they were of his own design.

"H-how-...?" The shock was still slightly overwhelming for her to form complete sentences. He chuckled slyly as he ran his hand through her hair, twisting a single lock around one finger. Gazing into her eyes with such intensity once more.

"You belong to me....that is the price you must pay." The heaviness of those words weighed on her heart, knowing what he is now and what they had just done. Connie was paralyzed from what had just happened. 'I just let a murder kiss me... What have I done....' It was too much for her to handle in just a short amount of time. Her head suddenly felt light and darkness clouded her vision before she felt her strength being taken out from under her. Steven caught her just in time as she fainted in to his arms. Her body molded almost perfectly against his.

'Completely hopeless...' He thought as he adjusted her head to be more against his upper arm and shoulder. Walking away, barely noticed a certain long limbed gem watching in the shadows. But he did notice. Stopping in his tracks he awaited for her to speak.

"Do you really think she could love you?" Spinel's tone was full of spite. Seeing the scene laid out before her was sickening. It seemed he had feelings for the human, while else would he carry her and not let her drop too the floor. Something was definitely going on with them.

"Love?" Steven scoffed laughing "As if there is such as thing for me. No this is just a game of wits and deals. Nothing more nothing less."

"Why not add 'bet' to that name." At the subtle suggestion, he turned to face her. Spinel smirked, pleased to have captured his attention, walking forward with her hands behind her back, posture straight.

"I'm listening"

"I bet she won't hold her end of the deal. It'll be hard to do, after all, seeing your true nature earlier today. Oh and that kiss, man her face was almost priceless to see after you planted one on her." Steven maintained a powerful composure as he took in all she was laying out before him. "Anyways, she wont' last very long I can almost guarantee that. However if I loose the bet then I-"

"Will become the Diamonds playmate." Steven smiled wickedly as Spinel went silent. The Diamonds always knew Spinel was Pink's playful pet (at least that's how they saw her as). Though they had let her stay with Steven in a sense to torture him. Recently however they took interest once more in the playful gem. Seeing how they understand that Steven was never going to be Pink. Still they have there fun. Perhaps it was the nostalgia from Pink's 'sweet' days before the war. Or maybe just another obsession to hoard over, perhaps even both. But they wanted her.

However the thought of being away from Steven hardened her heart even more so. He was strong, intelligent, powerful. She craved it all. And if he were gone then she would be in control. Plus the fear for being in the Diamonds control again was far from ideal. Looking at the unconscious human in his arms made her smirk, there was no way this human will keep up her promise. 'Weak and fragile, just like all the rest of her kind.'

"Alright, but if I win, then it is me whom you must marry." Steven laughed once more at the preposterous idea. Knowing full well she never truly cared for him, but only what he had. It was truly a pathetic site. Still he couldn't turn down a bet, especially one so challenging.

"Let the games begin."

#shatteredbloodsufau #au #fanfiction #evil steven #steven universe #steven universe future #connverse #steven and connie #garnet #amethyst #pearl #greg universe #spinel #the diamonds #pink diamond #pink steven

[basement-critics]

I watched "I Have A Complaint" so you don't have to...

Okay so I know @carmensandiego-againstonision already did one for this video, and if I knew how to link the post I would, if you haven't seen her's please do, but I have some things I want to add to the video as well.

• Starts off saying they have a bone to pick with the planets and life. And that this video is a vent video so they can "vent their sorrow and pain"

• Says that they didn't mean to look like Archie from Riverdale, but you can pretend they are Archie complains at you

(Okay I don't even like Riverdale, but you look nothing like Archie, like at all)

• Claims Mercury Retrograde is fucking up their life, also states they are a skeptic in all the astrological stuff. But are starting to believe in Mercury Retrograde because "everytime Mercury is in Retrograde shit starts to go down hill for me"

(Or could it be that it's just a bad day/week and you are looking for something outside of yourself to blame it on?)

• "Every small little inconvenience that could happen to me is happening to me"

(Oh snap, it's almost like you are an adult)

• Says they are losing their shit over this

• For the first time I've ever heard, they call themselves Kai

(Looks like Greg finally wore you down huh)

• It all started a week ago, when their car didn't work right. Their power steering shut off, but they made it home safely, where they told Greg and he went to look at the car. And it worked fine for him

• Says stuff like that happens often, they will be trying to get something to work but it won't, and then Greg will use it and it works fine

(Same fam, it's just a thing that happens to everyone)

• That was the first sign, and the first inconvenience

• Says they were feeling weird for a while

• They had trouble talking to people, and they had to go into a meeting where they had a hard time getting their point out, and they felt dumb because of it

(Again same, I did this today in English 1. It happens to everyone)

• More little things like that started happening but they don't go into detail

• Then they started to feel bad and sick, so they scheduled and appointment with the Doctor. Then they make a point to say how they never go to the Doctor even when they are really sick

(Yo that is so not healthy)

• So they go to the Doctor, but they only have an 8 am appointment

(Oh no, an early appointment that means you can get done earlier and get more stuff done later in the day)

• Greg had to drop them off

• And then they had a bunch of extra time after their appointment "which was awful by the way"

(Oh no, some time to yourself)

• They are salty about having to go to "a women's health clinic" and said it wasn't the funniest thing and they almost cried the entire time they were there

(Okay I get that this could cause dysphoria I do, but Lainey you have to realize you have the body of a women. If you need to go see a Doctor they are going to put you down as a woman regardless of where you go because you are biologically a woman and that affects your care and your medication you can be put on a lot. Also if you knew this was going to bother you, why not try going to other health clinics. There are general health clinics that aren't gender specific)

• They finished their appointment early and decided to walk to Starbucks that was a mile away

• But oh no, it was up a hill and it was cold out

• They got their Starbuck "so all in all, not that bad"

• The clinic called them and told them they had an infection and need to be on antibiotics

• The antibiotics are making them sick

(Like they do with everyone)

• They say it's not fair to be on a medicine that makes you sicker than the illness it's treating and they are depressed about it

(Which I can agree with, but that what antibiotics do. They make you sick, that's a well known thing)

• The first and foremost indicator of the Retrograde is that, they and to run errands, and it was hard and they had to do it themself

(I've been running errands by myself since I was like 14, it's not hard)

• They decided to treat themself with a Green Tea Frappuccino from Starbuck, because they don't get Starbucks often

(Sure you don't Lainey, sure. *looks at all the videos where they have a new Starbucks cup*)

• Then they dropped their Green Tea Frappuccino

• Lainey almost had a break down in the Target parking lot over a spilt drink

(It's a drink, from a place that burns their tea and coffee so you can't taste how low quality it is)

• Their alarm hasn't been going off all week so they had to rush out the door and didn't get to eat breakfast

• Lainey stops at McDonald's and orders food and a coffee

• So they order, and pull up to the window. The woman handed them the bag, Lainey says they do not remember, to this day, taking the bag from woman, like it's a complete black spot in their memory

(LAINEY GO TO THE DOCTOR, THAT IS NOT NORMAL)

• They get their coffee, and sit there waiting. The woman comes back and asks Lainey if they need anything else.

• Lainey tells the woman they haven't gotten their food yet, so the woman goes and gets Lainey another order

• They go park so they can get their maps up and their food ready so they can drive

• And they see they have two bags off food in the seat

• They say they feel like an asshole and that they can't take it back, and how they never want to go back to that McDonald's again

(Like I get the feeling like a jerk part, but hey, free food)

• They almost broke their ankle by tripping over the stuff all over their dirty house

• They laid on the floor for 30 minutes afterwards

(1, clean your house. 2, you are a mother, if you fell and hurt yourself then so will your children. 3, you are a mother of 2 children, you shouldn't be laying on the floor for 30 minutes while your kids were doing God knows what)

• "It still hurts, to this day"

(Because it happened that week Lainey)

• They then show us their gross feet

(I don't know if their feet are gross by normal people standards, but I really hate feet so all feet are gross)

• They say their emotions are going haywire and they are sad about everything

• If someone looks at them the wrong way they feel like they cry

• They feel betrayed all the time as well

• They also say they are lonely, and that Greg is working all the time

• So they lay in bed and cry

(Again, mother of 2 small children)

• They cry themselves to sleep almost every night

• They feel like everyone is ignoring them

• They get upset when people leave them on read, even though they do that to everyone

(Okay Lainey, this is coming from a genuine place. Please, please go get help. Being sad all this time, crying all the time, being on the verge of a break down all the time, is not normal nor is it healthy. You may have a hormone imbalance, or you may have an undiagnosed mental illness that you really need help for.)

• Says that in 6 days they won't feel like this anymore because Mercury will be out of Retrograde and they will "be the happiest bean to ever bean"

(They keep usuing really cringing language like this, it's like a middle age mom trying to fit in with her kids and their friends)

• They are doing a binder video soon where they compare an expensive binder to a cheap one

• And even though they already have an expensive binder, they ordered another one to use and ordered a cheap one

• The cheap one is dangerous because they feel like it is going to crush their lungs even though they put in their measurements

• Their expensive one was supposed to ship in 1-6 days, but it got delayed. When they emailed the company they got a code for free shipping in their next order

• Claims that they need it soon because it's urgent

(1, free shipping in your next order? Hell yes. 2, you are a YouTuber who makes your own schedule and doesn't upload daily, it's not that urgent)

• They can't talk about the last thing, even though it was supposed to be the craziest thing that they have ever found out in their life and really proved the Mercury Retrograde stuff

• They say it's not normal for things to be like this, so unless they "pissed off the magical sky spirit" they don't know what's going on, but they want it to stop

• There have been other minor annoying inconveniences that have happened, but nothing so important to remember

• Lainey says that once Mercury goes out of Retrograde it will all stop and life with go back to normal

• They like to complain

Conclusion

Lainey, I really think you need some help. You are overly emotional all the time from the sounds of it, and that's not healthy for you. Also, this is stuff that happens to everyone, this kind of stuff is normal. We all have bad days or weeks, that's just how life works. Don't look to blame something outside of yourself, when it's just life, these problems happen to almost everyone, sure it's annoying, but it has nothing to do with Mercury Retrograde.

#laineybot #anti laineybot #long post #i watched this so you dont have to #text post #life happens

[darnedchild]

I’ve Always Trusted You

My response to @sherlollyappreciationweek‘s July prompt - Sherlock’s Other Life AU

Sherlock is having flash backs…but of what he is unsure. Images of himself as different, as someone else…as something else flash through his mind. He cannot reconcile the life that he lives with the life that he feels like he should be living. Primal urges keep springing up in the pit of his belly and he has to shove them down, move on, solve the next case. Two different pasts fight for control of his memories, making it impossible to know which to believe. After months of turmoil and personal destruction Sherlock comes to Molly knowing only one thing for certain - she is the only one he can trust.

A/N : While I’ve never watched “Sliding Doors”, I have read the IMDB plot summary and that’s practically the same thing, right?  This fic is very, very, very loosely based on that plot summary (very).  I’m also pulling dialogue directly from rewatching certain scenes of “The Reichenbach Fall” and transcripts compiled by Ariane DeVere (arianedevere on dreamwidth).  Not beta’d because I literally finished it two minutes ago and I’ve got another fic to work on by tomorrow.

I’ve Always Trusted You

“You’re a bit like my dad.  He’s dead.”

Sherlock barely restrained his annoyance at Molly’s continued interruptions.  He didn’t bother looking up from the microscope as he rebuffed her.  “Molly, please do not feel the need to make conversation. It’s not really your area.”

“When he was dying, he was always cheerful.  He was lovely, except when he thought no one could see. I saw him once.  He looked sad.”

Either she hadn’t picked up on his mood or she deliberately chose to ignore the unsubtle hint to drop it.  He issued another warning.  “Molly.”

“You look sad . . . when you think he can’t see you.”

He immediately knew who she was referring to.  Sherlock’s gaze found John, confirming the other man wasn’t paying attention to them.  He turned to look at Molly, unwillingly drawn into the discussion. 

“Are you okay?”

Sherlock wanted to scoff.  What sort of inane question was that?  Before he could say anything to remind her—yet again—that they had work to do, she was speaking once more.

“And don’t just say you are, because I know what that means. Looking sad when you think no one can see you.”

His fingers flexed on the microscope knobs as he supressed the urge to immediately deny it.  Yet she wasn’t wrong.  As much as he would have preferred not to care about the outcome of Moriarty’s newest little game, this time he was very aware of just how much he could lose.  

Of who he would lose.

Lestrade.  Mrs Hudson. John.  Even Molly.

Molly who was still intently watching him as if she could read his thoughts in every twitch of his lips and shift of his eyes.  

Perhaps she could.

“You can see me.”

“I don’t count.”  For the first time since he’d turned to her, she broke eye contact.  

How could she say something like that?  How could she even think it?  

“What I’m trying to say is that if there’s anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all . . . you can have me.”  She almost recoiled as her wording registered.  “No, I just mean, I mean, if there’s anything you need . . .”  Molly shook her head.  “It’s fine.”

He couldn’t even fathom what she might be offering.  They were already in the lab working together, so it wasn’t her assistance on the case.  She already gave him access to the bodies and equipment necessary for his experiments and research.  He couldn’t remember the last time she’d truly denied him anything, so what more could she possibly expect he would ask for?  “Wha-wha-what could I need from you?”

“Nothing.”  She shrugged as she turned back toward him, already beginning to look as if she regretted saying anything at all.  “I dunno. You could probably say thank you, actually.”

Something had happened.  Something important.  Yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.  He felt completely out of his depth, that much he recognized.  Almost as if he wasn’t quite sure why he was doing it, he did as she’d suggested. “Thank you.”

Molly quickly passed behind him, hurrying toward the door and away from whatever it was that had been gathering weight between them.  “I’m just gonna go and get some crisps.  Do you want anything?”  

She didn’t even give him a chance to respond.  “It’s okay.  I know you don’t.”

He didn’t actually.  He abhorred wasting time eating when he could be working on a case, but the stiff set of her shoulders and her closed off expression made him start to say that perhaps he would like something.  

She cut him off with a stiff “I know you don’t,” and left the lab before he could protest.  

Sherlock watched the door swing shut with unfocused eyes as he picked the last few minutes apart in his mind.  Why had he wanted to placate her?  Was it because she had seen him?  He couldn’t remember the last time someone had truly done that; Mycroft obviously did not count because he was . . . Mycroft.

“Sherlock.”  John’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Hmm?”  Sherlock briefly looked toward his friend before returning his attention to the closed door.  He pushed his stool back and stood.

“This envelope that was in her trunk.”  John held the crime scene photo up so Sherlock could see it if he were looking, but he wasn’t.  He was already moving across the room toward the exit.  “Sherlock?” John tried to attract his attention once more.

“In a moment.  There’s something I need to do first.”  Sherlock pushed his way out the door, ignoring John’s sputtered questions.

The corridor was empty but Molly had said she wanted crisps so he hurried in the direction of the closest set of vending machines.  As he’d hoped, she was still standing in front of the machines sorting through the small pile of coins in her hand.

“Molly,” he called softly, trying not to startle her.

Her fingers closed around the coins before she slowly looked in his direction with an obviously forced smile.  “Did you figure it out?”  

“No, not yet.”  He cautiously moved closer, unsure of his welcome.  “Molly, I wanted to say thank you.”  Unlike before, there was no hesitation in his voice.  

She turned to face him fully, puzzled by his sudden change in attitude.  “For what?”

He shook his head.  “I’m not sure, honestly.  Anything. Everything, probably.  I just-I just wanted to make sure you knew that I appreciated what you said.  What-what you offered.”

After a moment, she offered him a soft smile.  “You’re welcome.”

“Sherlock.  Sherlock, we’re here.”  John’s sharp tone cut through the memory like a blade, and Sherlock’s eyes snapped open.

No, that’s wrong.  Not a memory.

He took in the sight and sounds of a busy street as the cab pulled up in front of New Scotland Yard.  Whatever that had been, the false images that had invaded his thoughts when he should have been preparing for their upcoming meeting with Lestrade, were pushed aside as they exited the cab.

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

Sherlock stared out the window, not really paying any attention to the view as his mind raced with all the new data he’d accumulated over the last few hours.

John was right, it made no sense.  Why would the little girl, Claudette, scream when she saw him?  

Lestrade’s voice echoed in his head.  “Something about Sherlock reminds her of the kidnapper.”

That was important.  Why was it important?

Several lights flickered on in the building across the street. The letters I O U were painted on three of the windows.  Before he could do more than draw in a sharp breath the lights were off again.  He knew it would be no use to mention what he’d seen to the others in the room.  By the time someone was sent across the street to check the message would have been removed.  

He vaguely registered that John and Lestrade had left the room. Standing there was doing him no good, he’d think better in the familiar space of Baker Street.  

Donovan’s words stopped him just outside the conference room door.  “Brilliant work you did, finding those kids from just a footprint.  It’s really amazing.”

Molly was standing with Lestrade, their heads nearly pressed together as Molly pointed at something printed on the papers Lestrade held in his hand.  John was near the other two, impatiently waiting.  As was Anderson.

“Thank you,” Sherlock remembered to respond to Donovan.  Why was Molly there?  

“Unbelievable.”  Donovan’s tone wasn’t complementary at all.  Almost suspicious.  And she looked rather smug, as if she knew something that he didn’t.

Molly’s head snapped up.  “Not really.  I mean, anybody here could have done it.”

Donovan and Sherlock both stared at her.  He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of irritation at the implied insult to his deductive skills.

“Obviously Sherlock did it faster; but from what I’ve heard, someone in forensics would have eventually discovered the bottle of linseed oil and most likely put two and two together and found the footprints.  Unless they were too busy wasting their time canoodling and gossiping around the water cooler to spend time at the crime scene or in the lab, of course.”  Molly’s gaze landed on Philip and then pointedly slid toward Donovan.

“What just a minute-“ Philip began.

Molly plucked the papers from Lestrade’s hands.  “As I was discussing with Inspector Lestrade—Greg.” She looked at the older man and lowered her eyes.  Sherlock noted her cheeks flushed slightly.  He didn’t like that.  Not one bit.

“As I was explaining, the official report won’t be ready for another day or two but the preliminary results Sherlock brought with him earlier document what tests were used on the samples.  I was there during the testing, my name is right here on the form, authorizing the use of the equipment.”  She wagged the paper in Anderson’s direction until he took it.

“Once the samples were broken down, well, it’s just a matter of having the right resources to put it all together.  Right?”  She looked at Lestrade again.  “You said you had people out looking.  I’m sure they would have narrowed it down eventually.  Sherlock just had access to better, faster resources.”

Molly turned to Donovan again.  “So, there you go.  Brilliant and quick, yes.  But not so unbelievable.”  She took a deep breath and smiled at them all.  “Well, I’ve got to get back to Barts, if you don’t need anything else, Greg?”

“No.  I’m good. Thanks for coming by, Molly.”  He reached out and snatched the papers back from Anderson.  “I’ll give you a call tomorrow to check on the final report, yeah?”

“Sounds good.”  Molly nodded at the others.  “Philip. Sgt Donovan.  John.  Sherlock.” Then she pointed toward the left. “That way?”

Greg shook his head.  “You know what, I’ll show you out.  You two coming?”

John followed along but Sherlock took a moment to glance back at Donovan.  Her earlier smug expression had wilted considerably, but he still felt bit of unease.  

Somehow John managed to wait until they were in the street to grin at him.  “So, anybody could do it, huh?  That must have stung.”  

“How many times have I told you lot that you don’t observe the obvious?  She only said the same thing I’ve been telling you for ages.”  Sherlock refused to admit his ego might have been the slightest bit piqued.  

“Still, it was rather nice to know that Molly’s got your back. I’m not sure what Sally was getting up to, but I didn’t like it.”  John raised his hand to hail a nearby cab.

“Yes.  To both counts.”  Sherlock reached for the cab door the moment it pulled up to the kerb.  “This is my cab.  You get the next one.”

The city lights passed by as the taxi made its way down the street, almost hypnotic.  Sherlock blinked several times and realized they must have been traveling for nearly ten minutes already.  He had to have been lost thought.  

That’s not what happened.  Molly wasn’t there.  Just Donovan and her insinuations.  Focus, Sherlock.  Why does this keep happening?

He pinched the bridge of his nose and scrunched his eyes shut as tightly as possible.  He heard the sound of the small telly on the back of the driver’s seat click on.  That was absolutely the last thing he needed right now.

“Can you turn this off, please?”

The telly remained on and he asked again, louder this time.

The image on the screen changed and Jim Moriarty was grinning at him.

“Hullo.  Are you ready for story?  This is the story of Sir Boast-A-Lot.”

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

“Can he do that?” John asked in disbelief.  “Completely change his identity?  Make you a criminal?”

Sherlock paced up and down the street.  “He’s got my whole life story.  That’s what you do when you sell a big lie; you wrap it up in the truth to make it more palatable.”

John nodded as he began to flip through the pages in the folder he’d taken from Kitty Riley.  “Your word against his.”

“He’s been sowing doubt into people’s minds for the last twenty-four hours.  There’s only one thing he needs to do to complete his game, and that’s to-“ Sherlock froze on the spot.

Suddenly, it clicked.  Everything that the last few months had been leading up to, from the moment Moriarty broke into the Tower and left his message—GET SHERLOCK—it was finally coming to an end.

“Sherlock?”

Numerous options ran through his mind.  

John wouldn’t be able of any use.  He was loyal enough, but he wouldn’t be able to see the bigger picture. If anything, he’d be a distraction. A liability.

He’d already spoken to Mycroft on the matter, although neither one had predicted quite how far Moriarty would take things.  He’d have to contact his brother soon enough, but not yet.

He could go it alone.  It was what he’d always done before.

But there was another option this time, wasn’t there?

Wasn’t that what those not-memories had been trying to tell him?

He made a split-second decision.  “Something I need to do.”

“What?”  Ever eager to join into the fray, John asked, “Can I help?”

“No.  On my own.”

இڿڰۣ-ڰۣ—

“You’re wrong, you know.”  Even without looking, he knew he’d startled her.  An unexpected voice coming from the darkness.  He didn’t blame her for being jumpy.  “You do count.  You’ve always counted and I’ve always trusted you.”

It was true.  It might have taken those waking dreams, or whatever they were, to make him recognize it. But it had always been true.

He finally looked toward her, almost afraid of what he would see. “But you were right.  I’m not okay.”

#sherlollymonthly #sherlolly #prompt fill

[saturnmyg]

Lichterloh  | Kim Taehyung

Synopsis ⤑ you’ve heard endless stories about small towns. That the folks living there loves to gossip all day, that theres always that one kid dreaming of making in in the big city. And of course the tales about supernatural beings lurking in the woods. After moving into town your’e surprised that you landed in a place that seems to be brimming with those beings and how the town just accepts them. Yet somehow just shortly after you’ve settled down you find yourself pulled into a scavenger hunt on the lookout for a glowing head that belongs to the Dullahan named taehyung.’‘

➵ paring: Dullahan Taehyung  x Human reader

➵ A/n: happy halloween peeps!! 

 this is a part of the halloween collaboration!

| 12.9k words | Horror au |  gore | Major character death | action | small town horror au

| warnings: description of ungodly beings/ body horror

masterlist 

⤑ ⤑ ⤑ ⤑

''Ah, that belongs into the living room'' you tell the movers and they nod at you.

You've lived your whole entire life in a high rise city, where theres constantly something going on. With the years passing by, the stress of trying to function in a system that forced you to think about your value as a human being, based on how productive were /how much money you can made, caught up to you.

So when you found about the small town named Silverdell you instantly packed your stuff and got ready to leave. Of course your mother opposed, saying that moving so far away from the family, to a small town that barely made it on the map was just dangerous. Nothing could change your mind so you proceeded with the moving, but you had to promise her to call her at least four times a week.

The weird thing though was that at first, you couldn't find the town. For some reason no matter who you asked for directions, they'd tell you that they never heard of that place and that you should ask someone else. Finally after driving for a few days through the midwest you finally arrived in silverdell, only to find the truck that had your belongings already standing in front of your house.

''You know'' you turn around to face the man thats standing next to you smoking a cigaret ‘’I’ve been wondering how that truck arrived here before me, considering that i couldn’t find this town’’

The man, who goes by the name of sam, chuckles. He’s a man of average height with a full beard and wild hair that lowkey reminds you of a pirate. ‘’that happens to every newcomer’’ he takes a long drag  of the cigaret ‘’you wont find silverdell until the town accepts you’’

You furrow your brow ‘’accept? as in the town council accepting you?’’

Sam shakes his head ‘’Silverdell has a mind on its own, no one can know about it or leave and come as they want without its approval’’

‘’so you have to send a letter to let them know you're leaving for a certain amounts of days?’’

‘’Nope'' Sam answers '' it will know’’

With furrowed brows you look away. His answer is confusing, sure he earlier said that silverdell has its own mind but its not like its actually alive, or even sentient. Your'e sure the reason why you couldn't find the town was because you're bad with directions.

‘’Oh please that one belongs into the kitchen, careful it has kitchen utensils inside.’’ You say to a young mover.

The blasting of the siren is so loud you jump out of your skin. Panicking you turn around to look up at the sky, where the sun is hanging low in the horizon and the blue hue has turned red.

‘’Whats going on?’’ you turn to sam with wide eyes.

Sam on the other hand, his expression is still the same, almost as if he knew that would happen and was counting down the seconds. He presses the cigarette against the fence to put it out ‘’The headless rider is about to come out’’

Slightly annoyed you look at the burnt mark of your wood fence before turning back to sam ‘’he what?’’

‘’No time to talk, first let’s get into the house’’ he ushers you towards the house where you see that all the other movers are already inside, peaking their head out of the door waiting for you two to enter.

''Wait whats going on, and why are you all in my house?'' you ask bewildered and shut the door behind you. Walking into the living room you see various movers sitting on the unfurnished floor while unpacking  your boxes.  

Embarrassed you walk up to them. ''please you don’t have to do that i can do that on my own’’ you scratch your cheek

‘’Don worry’’  one of the boys answers. ‘’Until the night rider is gone we have nothing to do anyways , might as well help you unpack’’

‘’Who’s the night rider?’’ you ask

Sam whose standing by the windows, closes the curtains and turns around to face the you all with a grim expression on. ‘’The headless rider is a being you shouldn't talk or think about’’

The boy whose the closest to you, and spoke up earlier, rolls his eyes ‘’there he goes again’’ and turns around to look at you again ‘’ theres a tale amongst the elder that the headless rider is a being that eat’s human souls and sometimes their body too but there hasn’t been such an incident in over two hundred ears’’ he explains and stretches his hand towards you ‘’anyways i’m jun, don’t worry about sam he's an old grim man who thinks death is lurking on every corner of this town’’

Jun looks around your age. He has dark honey colored skin with almost waist long black hair. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up, showing an intricate tattoo on the right arm.

‘’I’m Y/n’’ you take his hand into yours and shake it ‘’but back to the headless rider’‘

‘’Ah yes’’ jun counters ‘’if you go by folklore then the night rider is the harbinger of death but if you go by what towns folk say then he’s a human eating monster’’

You raise your eyebrows at that

‘’Every sunset the rider comes out of the forest, holding a lit torch and gallops from one end of the town to the other with creatures from following him, weirdly though it’s always only one direction that he brings them to.  There are some theories that the reason he does that ,is because at sunrise he brings them back, but theres no evidence backing that up ‘’Jun finishes

‘’why has no one ever seen him?how do you even know that he exists? or know about his activities?’’ you ask baffled that the towns folk just believe something wholeheartedly without even having it seen with their own eyes.

‘’Because those who aren’t inside a building the moment the last siren ring, usually go missing the same evening’’ Jun answers with a serious expression

‘’That still doesn’t explain how this tale got spread around’’ you counter ‘’dead men tell no tales’’

Jun just blinks at you for a few seconds before shrugging his shoulders and continues to take items out of the box.

‘’Thats just how it is’’ Sam speaks up ‘’ when the siren rings you hide, when you see angels you ignore them, thats how it has been for decades’’ He faces the small radio thats on the table ‘’in this town its very dangerous to question traditions or rules, you ought to be careful’’ and curbs the knob.

The radio makes a static noise for a few seconds until you hear a bewildered nasal voice speak up

''Yoongi how can you say you don’t believe in them, even though you starred one dead in the eye and showed me a picture of it?''

The movers in your house all chuckle at that

The other person, presumably yoongi ,just sighs deeply almost as he's used and tired of the first host's outbreaks. '' first of all it was around eight feet tall and skinny like a stick figure i thought that was an abstract piece of art , theres no way that was wendigo''  

you stop in your tracks and look at the radio in perplex, ‘’a what now?’’ you ask no one in particular.

Sam who sees the look of confusion on your face just shrugs his shoulders, as if to tell you to get used to it

Hoseok just sputters '' man come on we all know what a wendigo looks like , yoongi how stubborn are you?, did you not notice the never ending eyes on its body?’’

‘’I 'mean it did but i was too occupied to not vomit from the stench of  greg’s butchery’’ yoongi counters

‘’God that store should be banned to serve people, i’m pretty sure he uses inhuman creatures to- hold on why were you even near that place?’’

''Clearly to not buy meat Hoseok'' yoongi answers ‘’i was just taking a stroll when i found it standing by the butchery’’

‘’Wouldn’t surprise me if it actually eats the shit Greg sells’’ Hoseok says ‘’but anyways back to reporting, as for no-’’

‘’-as for now no one's dead because we all know to stay inside if you don’t want to be taken by the council for seeing the headless, and i’m putting quotations marks on ''headless'' dear listeners,  rider'’’Yoongi interrupts

‘’Really?’’Hoseok asks ‘’so you think that the headless rider is something that the city council has made up to, i dont’ know , manipulate us?’’

‘’Lets be realistic’’ Yoongi counters ‘’no being can be alive without a head, even vampires are known to die if you cut their head off’’

‘’chickens do though’’ Hoseok continues ‘’like they'll continue to run around, which is frankly creepy as hell’’

‘’The minute you separate the brain from the neck, just like in humans, you’re going to get tremendous movement of the limbs, please did you not pay attention in biology class?’’

‘’Firstly i majored in art’’ Hoseok answers ‘’secondly everything that happened before college i have no memory of, hell i don’t even remember half of the shit from college.’’

‘’Thats sad’’ Yoongi states

‘’Anyways’’ Hoseok deviates from the topic ‘’as Yoongi said there are no reports of anyone gone missing this week, besides old Berta's cat but thats nothing new.’’

‘’It really isnt’’ Yoongi continues ‘’after this ad we'll open up the lines so please listeners stay tuned’’

While the ad is playing, you faintly hear the sound of the siren go off again but this time only for a few seconds. worriedly you look over to the window and see that another mover, this time a woman,  is pulling aside the curtain very slowly almost as if she's expecting a monster's face instead of hers to appear in the reflection. After inspecting the outside for a few seconds she finally turns around and gives the people in the room, that are watching her ,the thumbs up.

‘’Alright then’’ Jun says , stands up and stretches himself.

With him standing there in that pose you notice how well build jun is which adds more to his attractiveness and your’e just a little bit envious on how good he looks.

Jun notices you looking at him with your head tilted and with a slight pout and raises an eyebrow.

‘’Do you work out to have a figure like that?’’ you ask

Jun lets his arm fall down and runs one hand through his long thick hair ‘’oh hell no, this job is already working me out ,going to a gym would kill me’’ he laughs ‘’its all genetics’’

‘’Oh’’ you hum ‘’you sure are blessed’’

jun strikes a ridiculous pose that probably a character from Jojo's bizarre would do ‘’i know right?’’

Shaking your head you laugh and turn to the others who are still in the living room  ‘’thank you for helping me unpack’’

A large hand lands on your shoulder and you turn your head to see sam smiling at you ‘’no problem , thank you for letting us into your house otherwise we'd be dead meat’’

‘’Lets go’’ Sam hollers and some of the movers come out to the hallway, you didn’t even notice them going into your bedroom.

‘’The bed is set up’’ The man standing at the entrance of the living room, says and gives you a big smile.

You smile and bow slightly in thanks and the movers slowly trickle out of your house .

‘’Dont forget to tune in to the  community radio, they often announce stuff from the city council’’ sam says as he standing in the doorway ‘’ but dont worry if you forget it will turn on itself’’ he laughs and you just furrow your brow.

As you bud him goodbye you notice another figure standing next to you and you turn your head to see jun.

''Hope you don’t mind that i ripped a paper off but heres my number, lets hang out or go shopping or something, i feel like we'd be good friends’’ Jun hands you a piece of paper

Usually you're not one to take numbers from men's, since a lot of them , if not almost all, have a hidden agenda.  Which you don’t feel that Jun currently has, the feeling you get from him is more of a theatrical person thats always dramatic. You know, like, laying in a field of roses after your crush got asked out by someone else- type of person.

Basically hilarious.

So you accept the small piece of paper and smile at him ‘’sure , i'll text you, might take a while though because i first have to get used to this place’’

‘’No problem’’ Jun waves his hand dismissively ‘’if you got any questions though just text me i'll help ya’’  and walks out of your house , waving his hand with a big smile on his face.

Chuckling slightly you close the door and walk down the hallway into your bedroom.

You truly are grateful that the movers helped you unpack and put your furniture together, because you really wouldn't know how to without getting confused because you're so bad at following instructions. Well its not like Ikea makes it easy to follow and they keep giving people extra assets that just end up frustrating everyone who buys the furniture

The big queen sized bed takes up most of the space in your room but you don’t mind that, at least you're able to have one not like when you used to live in the big city , where the apartments were narrow but expensive.

besides the bed and various boxes that contain clothes there really isn't anything in the bedroom yet. The emptiness makes you slightly uneasy and you're overcome with the feeling of panic and dread. It’s the type of emotion you get after the excitement and adrenaline is gone, your’e left with uneasiness and panic thats slowly seeping yet throbbing from your chest as if you have a hole where your heart is supposed to be. For whatever reason you feel like you're back to being 18, back to the kid who kept getting panic and anxiety attacks over everything,  back to the kid who never lived without a family , yet alone in  another city.

That emotion over comes you so strongly, that for a second you feel like the walls are closing on you and you're getting choked. You shake your head and slap your cheeks a few time, before letting your hands fall down and almost run into the bathroom.

You slam the door open and in two quick long strides you're standing in front of the sink. Your hands are trembling as you reach for the faucet and turn it. The water feels cold underneath your finger tips and you gather some of it onto your palms before leaning down and splashing it onto your face. The coolness of the water a little bit takes the panic away but its still lingering in your chest.

You step away from the sink and lower yourself to the floor ,where you wrap your arms around your legs with your head hanging between your knees. For the next 20 minutes you're slowly rocking yourself from side to side , while taking in deep regular breaths.  It’s a technique you learned online a while ago and has up to now proven to be useful.

As you finally have calmed down , you slowly get up from the floor and see your reflection in the mirror. Your hair is messy, sticking up in different directions, your complexion is slightly green, which you think has to do with the fluorescent lighting if anything, and you turn away.

You walk out of the bathroom, down the hallway back into your bedroom.  You open one of the boxes that has clothes written on it and take out a shirt. Not even bothering to look for pants , you get changed , open up another box that has the blanket and pillows inside, and throw them on the bed before getting onto it.  You remember that your phone fell earlier and lean down to pick it up, scroll through your podcast app before finally deciding on which episode to listen to. You put the phone right next to your head and just a few seconds later you're out like a light.

⤑ ⤑ ⤑ ⤑

Closing the door behind you , you take a deep breath. Yesterday night was , well to say, horrible. You've always had anxiety issues , not in the way that you have trouble talking to people or talk in public , its more that once you're left alone you get the so-called "what-next thoughts". Which always plays out the worst case scenario that could happen to you. Meaning you instantly realize how insignificant your existence is and that if you died right now, it would take weeks for anyone to notice. You've been getting help for that though. Before you moved to silverdell you doctor gave you a prescription so that you could get it refilled at the pharmacy.

which is where you're currently headed to. Silverdell is a beautiful town. Alongside the street there are trees ,which leafs already have turned brown and orange. The air is so crispy to the point where if it wasn’t so sunny you'd think it might snow at any time.

A breeze of cold air blows and you tighten the scarf around your neck. It’s getting close to the end of september and the streets already smells of cinnamon and mulled wine. As you're enjoying the view you notice a trail of kids running past you while giggling and shoving each other, and you smile.

You've always liked working with children, they hold a lot of freshness and innocence , live in their own little creative bubble , and yet are very understanding of a lot of things that parents be overreacting about. The only reason why they then later on sometimes turn out  to have a bad attitude / personality is because of the way they were raised. They subconsciously tend to soak the behaviors in their environment  ,up like sponges, not even realizing that those behaviors aren't socially acceptable. Thats why you became a teacher, to at least lead the kids in the right path but also protect them from the cruelty of the world and society.

Speaking of school, tomorrow will be your first day as a teacher in silverdell. You're slightly nervous but excited, you just hope that your coworkers are nice and not demons disguised as humans like at the last school you worked at.

You shake your head at that thought, you'll cross the bridge when you get to it.

‘‘god please let me find the pharmacy’‘ you silently pray and take out your phone , according to google maps its only a few meters away from you

Turning around the corner you finally arrive at the pharmacy. It’s a small white store that has mint colored decorations, you also spot various pot, plants, around the entrance that gives the store a welcoming feeling.  

Walking up to the entrance, you see that one of the plants is a cactus. When you arrive you bend down to inspect it. It’s a huge dark green cactus that has  multiple vertical lines going down the round figure with needles sticking out. At the top there is a hole, you're not really sure if its an actual hole or if its just an illusion that was created by the lighter color, but you see that there is where the most needles are gathered.

Out of curiosity and impulse you reach out and softly lay a finger on the plant, to which you are, to no ones surprise, stung by a needle. You straighten up while clutching your hand to your chest  and look at your hand. you press the finger together to see a tiny drop of blood coming out of the wound and sigh.

Shaking your head you let your arm fall down, give the plant a last glance before entering the pharmacy.

At the counter stands a woman that seems to be in her forties. Her hair is tied into a braid with stray strands framing her face that has a warm yet gentle expression on as she works on some documents.

She lifts up her head as the little door bell rings for the second time when the door closes behind you.

‘’Oh my’’ She says with a surprised expression ‘’are you new in town?’’

''Is it that obvious?'' you ask bashfully and walk up to the counter

‘’Not at all dear’’ she smiles ‘’its just that this town is quite small so we all know each other, but anyways how may i help you?’’

‘’Right’’ you answer and take out the prescription from your wallet and hand it to her, alongside with your insurance card ‘’i need a refill of my medication’’

‘’Coming right up’’, she takes the card from you, puts it on the table before disappearing in the backroom.

You look around while waiting for her to come back, the inside of the store is just as lovely as the outside. The walls are stacked with various medicine but you notice the same minty color peeking out behind the shelves. The air is very clean, almost biting with the disinfectant still lingering in the air, and for a moment you regret forgetting to take your mouth mask with you. Its not like you're asthmatic but strong smells usually give you a migraine , and using a mask usually helps to dull it down to a slow throbbing.

‘’Here we go’’ The pharmacist says while walking back to the counter, scans your insurance card and furrows her brows as she looks at the computer display.

‘’Is something wrong?’’ you ask. You've paid your insurance bill so there shouldn't be any problem but sometimes the card doesn't function or doesn't get accepted by the pharmacy and you really hope that that isn't the case today.

‘’Oh no no’’ the pharmacist laughs ‘’i just forgot to wear my contact lenses today so i had a bit of trouble reading the display’’

you sigh in relief

‘’But’’ she continues ‘’i just saw that your doctor has written in the data that these medications have to be taken continuously’’ she hands you back your card and the medications. ‘’if they're finished just come back and i will refill them again’’

‘’will do’’ you answer and put the medication into your purse, bid the nurse goodbye and walk out of the store.

The minute you're out of the pharmacy you stop in your tracks. You're not sure if you just imagined that but when you bid her goodbye her smile looked weirdly large for her face and for a second you thought you saw branches ,that looked like antlers ,growing out of her head.

Slowly you turn back and see the pharmacist, typing something on the computer looking normal and you furrow your brows, turn back to the road.

‘’What in the hell’’you mutter and continue walking towards the mall thats quite close to the drug store.

.....

As you're walking past various stores, an unimaginable stench makes it way to you and the urge to vomit is so strong that you slam your hand to your mouth and turn away for a second. The odor is one of a corpse decaying, well you don’t actually know what a corpse smells like but you're pretty sure it would be similar to this.

Turning around you face the way you were talking towards too and frown. On the left side of the building stands in bold red, almost blood like, letters '' Gregs Butchery''

''They weren't wrong about the smell '' you think and hurriedly walk, no  run past the building into the big grocery store thats two stores away from the flower shop and the ''butchery''

The grocery store is just like any other.  Worn out regals stacked against the washed out yellow walls ,while in the background a remix of an eighties city funk song plays.

‘’God that was disgusting’’ you mumble and wipe your mouth with the sleeve of your hoodie. You take out your phone and reach over to the stack of baskets thats right next to you, and take one.

looking at the shoppings list you made in the notes app , you subconciously bite your lip and walk further into the store.

...............

You're looking at your phone again, not for notifications or anything, just checking if the items in the basket match the ones on the list. Which they do ,but you have a feeling that you earlier forgot to write down something important that you need but cant remember what it is.

‘’garbage bags?’’ you mumble ‘’no i - ouf-’’ With all the thinking you're doing you aren't even paying attention to your surroundings and walked straight into something, or somebody.

You take a step back and rub your nose thats stinging slightly '' my bad'' and look up. The first thing you see is black, a black thats so dark where if someone shone a flashlight at, whatever is in front of you, the light would not be reflected. It’s almost as if the void has manifested itself somehow in this shop. The second thing you notice is that the being standing in front of you has the thousand upon thousands of branch like looking bones growing out of it , how you even missed something so grotesque looking, is baffling , but then again this is you we're talking about.

The being turns its body around and you see that its face is empty of facial features. Theres not even a slight dent or shadow of a nose or mouth that could indicate that it’s wearing a mask. Slowly the creature tilts is head, almost as if it’s wondering why you approached it, and leaves without a word.

Not like it could say anything without a mouth anyways

You on the other hand have already astral projected into another dimension.This whole interaction is so surreal to you, that for a second for a second you think you're on mtv's candid camera show, and that this whole thing is just a set up.  

You come back to your senses when you feel a hand on your arm and jerk in surprise.

‘’dazed ain’t you?'' the woman next to you chuckles ‘’everyone is when they see they see an angel for the first time’’

‘’Huh?'' you turn your head towards the woman and blink a couple of times  ‘’excuse me , a what now?’’ She’s a plump 5′2 tall woman with amber skin and undercut and a gummy smile that makes her eyes disappear into crescent forms when she laughs. On the other side of her’s shes holding a hand of a roughly ten year old child thats boredly starring into nothingness , probably waiting for her mother to finish so that they can go home.

The fact though, that she called the ominous being an angel is baffling because to you it looks more like something that jumped out of h.p lovecrafts book.

‘’An angel’’ she shakes her head ‘’they're very nice, they always help me with any chores or escort luna home, and despite the fact that theyve lived here forever people still ignore their existence’’

‘’but thats not how angels look?’’ you quietly retort not wanting to seem disrespectful

The  woman chuckles again and pats you on the arm ‘’what you know as angels is what society taught you with no actual evidence of them ever looking like that’’

''But the bible-''

‘’The bible described them as terrifying which they are’’ she points at the angel thats at the counter waiting for the cashier to ring their stuff up, which he isn’t cause when you look closer you see that the magazine the cashier is holding is slightly crumpled and shaking , probably out of fear.

‘’also it has been translated into other languages so many times that by now half of was originally was written is lost in translation’’ she continues

You tilt your head ‘’so basically everything i know is a lie?’’

‘’No no, not everything is just that in this town, the laws of nature and society don’t apply’’

Great, what type of town did you move into. Yesterdays fiasco was already weirder than anything you've experienced and you kinda swept it under the rug. but this? this is something that even a skyscraper cant hide, and obviously the emotions you're feeling  shows on your face because the black woman bursts out laughing.

‘’Im sorry’’ you apologize flustered not wanting to offend her and come off as uptight

‘’No need to apologize’’'' she says and waves her hand ‘’newcomer’s reaction are always funny to watch but you're the first one who didn’t run away’’

''yeah one day that will be the death of me'' you think and smile wryly at her.

‘’I have to go’’ the woman continues ‘’try to greet the angels once in a while ,theyre harmless’’

You give her a tight lipped smile and nod. The woman chuckles for the last time and walks off , towards the angel whose still at the counter apparently waiting for her to come pay since the cashier is still ignoring the being.

You shake your head and sigh again, glance back to the counter for the last time before proceeding with grocery shopping.

⤑ ⤑ ⤑ ⤑

‘’We're so glad to have you in our team’’ the dean says as you're walking down the school hallway. The dean is a elderly short baldheaded man with round glasses. He's wearing a suit thats a little baggy on him but it gives him character. He kind of reminds you of popeye but with a softer , creakier voice.

It took you some time to find the school, since google maps seems to not always work it took which gave you the same problem you had yesterday  when you were looking for the pharmacy. You'd think for such a small town it would be found easily , which it wasn't because it took you around forty minutes to find the facility. Its located on the other side of the town, which in your opinion is just unethical and slightly annoying.

Whoever the founder was of silverdell clearly wasn't thinking logically, it would be way more proficient if the school was in in the middle where it would take the same amount of time for anyone to reach it

‘’I'm excited to be working here’’ you reply and smile down at the dean who just, not chuckles but makes a similar sound to it.

‘’Let me introduce you to the other teachers’’ he says as you two come to stop in front of a dark wooded door and opens it.

The room is pretty normal. Various abstract drawings are hanging on the eggshell white walls giving the place a slightly modern feeling. In the middle of the room theres a long table placed along side with books and other items. On the left side, the side you're actually standing in, is a small kitchen that has a coffee machine and freshly washed cup and glasses.

‘’Oh?’’ a honey voice speaks up and you turn your head to the person you think it came from. ‘’Who do we have here?''

The voice that you just heard belongs to possible one of the most beautiful human beings you have ever seen in your life. He has midnight black hair where one side is falling into his face while the other side is slicked back. Thick plump lips that are stretched into a smile ,revealing a row of pearly white teeth. He's not particularly tall, you're pretty sure you're taller than him but then again you're taller than most women, but you see from the outfit he's wearing he's well build.

Honestly he's so beautiful its like god took his sweet time making him, plus he's sending you a smile thats so bright you want to shield your eyes, it’s like you're looking at the sun.

‘’Didn’t hear that there would be someone new’’ another low voice speaks up and your eyes wander to the person thats standing right next to him. He's a tall man that looks around your age with strawberry blonde dyed hair, thats slightly hanging in his face. He has a strong yet straight nose and thin lips alongside with big doe eyes that makes him look even younger than he already is. You already have the feeling that out of the two, he's the slicker one.

The black haired boy stretches his hand towards you ‘’i’m Park jimin''

You take his hand into yours and for a second you notice how long your fingers are compared to his but thats ought to happen with your height. ‘’Y/n’’ you retort and give him a firm shake before letting his hand go.

‘’Jeon jungkook’’ The strawberry blonde man says not even bothering to shake your hand as he's preoccupied with twirling the volleyball on his finger like a basketball.

Jimin just sighs at Jungkook’s retort, turns around and slaps the ball off ‘’we're not in college anymore where are your manners?’’ he scolds

Seeing Jungkook's expression you hold your laughter in. His lips are pursed but the look in his eyes sell him out that he's planning to pull a prank on the shorter man. Obviously jimin notices the look and slaps him on the arm to which jungkook just grins before turning around to you with an outstretched hand

‘’Again'' he starts ''i’m Jeon Jungkook ''

you nod ‘’nice to meet you’’

''Which class are you teaching?'' Jimin asks and crosses his arms

''1A'' The dean speaks up and you jump in surprised. You didn’t even notice him joining you three with a cup of coffee in his hand. ‘’speaking of’’ he continues and turns towards you'' classes start soon i hope you understood everything but if you have questions don’t be afraid to ask mister Park and mister Jeon.’’

Jimin and Jungkook both smile at you and you nod ‘’will do’’

‘’Alright then’’ Jimin says and yawns ‘’1A is right next to my classroom i'll show you the way’’

‘’Thanks’’ you smile, bid the dean and jungkook goodbye before leaving the breakroom.

‘’Are you nervous?’’ Jimin asks as he's walking next to you down the hallway

''More excited'' you answer ‘’i’m good with kids but i just hope everything goes okay’’

Jimin turns his head ‘’you just moved here right? what do you think of silverdell?’’

carefully you mull over your words, not sure if its appropriate or too soon to tell him about the supernatural beings and weird customs that you've come across. ‘’it will take some time for me to get used to this town’’ you answer him instead.

Jimin laughs, a laugh that sounds like angels are singing and you smile too ‘’well thats to be expected, but don’t worry everyone settles down pretty quick'' He stops in front of a classroom. ''this is 1A, i’m right next door if you need something’’ and bids you goodbye.

The classroom is just like any normal middle school classroom is supposed to look like. Since it’s not the start of a new school year, you see that the decorations on the wall probably were made by the students and you smile.

You walk up to the teachers desk thats right by the window and put your bag down and take your items out. You're so lost in your thoughts as you organize the your items on the table you don’t even hear the bell ring.

The sound of the door slamming against the wall and the chatter of high pitched voices rip you out of your thoughts and you look up to see students walking into the classroom. At the sight of you at the desk they stop in their tracks and whisper to each other.

‘’Good morning’’ you greet them and some greet you back while others just nod in silence as they walk towards their desks. After all the students are sitting at their desk you walk to the blackboard and write your name on it.

‘’'I'm your new teacher’’ you turn around and face the students ‘’i just recently moved here from the city and i have to say i’m surprised in how much greener it is here, meaning we could once go hiking in the forest’’  you clap your hands together

The moment those words leave your mouth the entire classroom gets quiet. The eyes of the kids are almost glued to you in a creepy way, the expressions on their faces are kind of empty.

A chubby boy with black hair raises his hand ‘’ma'am no one ever goes into the forest’’

Oh boy , this is exactly what you feared, that the kids would be just as weird about the town as the adults are. So instead you give them a tight lipped smile ‘’why?’’

‘’Because the monsters will eat you’’ another student says , the tone indicating that you should already know about the taboo.

‘’Or the headless rider’’ the same chubby boy finishes.

This is the third time you're hearing about the headless rider. His existence still makes no sense to you, how can everyone be afraid of him and tell horrible tales on how he kills humans but yet no one has actually ever interacted with the said being.

‘’Marissa did see the headless rider once’’ a girl speaks up and almost every student turns around to look at her with a scornful expression on their face.

''Whose Marissa?'' you ask and tilt your head.

‘’Someone that has turned into a memory’’ the girl from earlier answers, whom you recognize to be the daughter of the woman from the store you met few days ago. Just like her mom she has brown skin, dark hair and intelligent looking eyes, that seem to know way too much than what a ten year old should know.

‘’Alright then’’ you clap your hands together to get the attention of the students ‘’lets play two truths and a tale to break the ice so i'll get to know you better.’’

⤑ ⤑ ⤑ ⤑

‘’Goodbye ma'am''! the chubby boy, who's name you learned is Evan, says and waves as he leaves the classroom.

‘’Bye!’’ you smile and wave back. The moment the door slams shut your hand instantly falls down and you sigh deeply. ''Well that was a train wreck'' you think and gather the books together and walk over to the regal thats by the wall and put them in neatly. You walk back to your desk pick up your bag not before flickering the light off and walk out of the classroom.

As you're walking down the hallway you see a tiny baldheaded figure that couldn't belong to anyone else but the dean. Who apparently saw you coming because he stops walking and wait for you to catch up to him.

''Y/n'' he greets cheerfully '' how was your first lesson?''

''Good evening'' you greet back '' it was good actually'' you finish. The dean just chuckles and starts walking down the hallway with you following him.

‘’say’’ you start ‘’what happened to Marissa?’’

The dean turns his head to face you, anger mixed with fear clouds his eyes for a second before returning back to normal ''someone thats better not to be spoken of if you don’t want anything happen to you'' he answers.

At the ominous answer the hairs on your neck raise and you resist the urge to take a step back. The way he worded it its like the town will kill anyone who questions their traditions or goes against the rules, plus his whole demeanor screams that you shouldn't ask any more questions.

''A-alright'' you stammer and the dean sends you a tight lipped smile in return.

'' The dean turns around in the doorway he’s standing in ‘’i'll see you tomorrow’’

‘’Have a nice evening’’ you reply and bow slightly. When the door slams shut you sigh and put a hand on your chest, feeling the rapid heartbeat underneath your fingertips. You adjust the bag strap on your shoulder and walk down the hallway towards the entrance and out of the facility.

When you're outside you notice that the shun is already starting to set. That isn't surprising considering that its fall and the days are getting shorter but at the same time that means that you'll either have to hurry back home since the sun sets around at five pm. The other option would be you waiting at school till the coast is clear but considering todays conversation you0d like to spend as little time as possible with the dean. Especially since now it seems that he's keeping an eye out on you.

You shake your head and look up at the sky.Azure blue has now turned into spectacular colors of orange and red mixed with purple, its so beautiful that you take out your phone and take a picture of it. Satisfied with how the picture turned out you send it to your mom and put it back into your pocket.

‘’I should buy a bike’’ you mumble and continue to walk home.

..............

''Hey mom'' you greet your mother and wipe your hands on the towl thats hanging at the wall right by the kitchen sink.

‘’Y/nn dear are you alright?’’ your mother asks loudly sounding frantic.

You grimace and hold the phone away from your ear ‘’i am, why did something happen?’’

‘’What do you mean? , you sent me that ominous picture with no text whatsoever nor did you call me ever since you arrived at wherever you are’’ you mom rants

You know your mom has only your best interests at heart, ever since she found out about your anxiety it’s like she herself developed it too with how much she worries about you being alone. Which on one hand is reassuring but on the other you're already twenty eight and kind of need to venture out in the world on your own.

''ominous picture? what are you talking about? i sent you a picture of a sunset'' you retort and furrow your brows

‘’sunset?’’ your mom's voice pitches up a few octaves ‘’all i got was a picture of a black cracked background with the letters '' if you did, you wished you didn't’’

‘’oh go-’’

‘’and where are you?’’ your mom continues ‘’iv’e googled the town name but nothing showed up, i even asked my coworkers and no one knows about silverdell’’

''Silverdell has a mind on its own, no one can know about it or leave and come as they want without its approval''

you grimace, hoping that whatever Sam said was just some good o'l superstition ,but up to now  with everything that you have experienced, it looks like thats not the case

‘’mom seriously i’m safe, i’m not being held hostage by some mobster or anything like that, why it doesn’t show up on google though i don’t know.’’ you say , trying to calm her down. Theres no way you're going to tell her about the towns strangeness , knowing how she is she'd probably get into her car while she's talking to you and drive off, ending up lost in the middle of nowhere.

Your mother hums on the other side of the phone, by the tone of it you know that she's not fully convinced but will believe you for now. She then continues to talk about her annoying coworker, thats always trying to one upper her in everything and how she wants to screw her head off.

While she's rambling off you're finishing drying the dishes and put the back in the cupboard, occasionally humming in agreement to let her know that you're still listening. Reaching over you take the other towel and dry your hands, put it back on the wall before turning towards the living room. You notice that the blinds are still open and a wave of panic comes over you. you dash over to the other room, of course not without you stumbling over furniture, and quickly close the blinds.

Your heart is beating wildly against your ribcage and it takes you a second to calm down.

''Sweetie are you okay?'' your moms voice comes out of the phone that you’re still holding

‘’uhm yeah!’’ you heave ‘’just stumbled, fell almost on my face’’

your mother sighs deeply ‘’you were always the clumsy one’’ and you just chuckle. Though it quickly fades as you start hearing noises coming from the ceiling. your eyes widen and you jerk your head upwards . The dull sound of something similar to heavy footsteps becomes louder and louder and you furrow your brows. ''are they trying to break my roof?'' you ask yourself and hold the phone closer to your ear.

‘’Mom let me call you back, someones knocking no the door’’ you interrupt your mother, hoping that she doesn't hear your voice shaking.

‘’sure’’ she reluctantly answers ‘’'i'll talk to you later, and remember call the police if something fishy is up’’

‘’Will do’’ you say and hang up ‘’ the police might not help in this situation''

You jump when you hear the static of the radio ripping, slowly you turn around and tilt your head sideways. ''Did you just turn on by yourself?'' you ask out loud , but the radio doesn’t answer instead it continues to flip through channels until you hear a familiar voice coming out of the speakers.

''dear listeners we just received a report stating that  the roof inspectors have already begun their work, we would like to remind you to leave a plate of cookies or milk with honey on the porch as a thank you gift. Another reminder would be that you should absolutely not look directly at the workers as they like to be unknown to the public. Not meeting the criteria will have consequences''

''They like to be private?'' the voice you recognize to be yoongi asks '' we're literally broadcasting this to every citizen in silverdell ,how is that private? on top of that they want food'

Hoseok laughs nervously ''lets not trash talk about the roof inspectors ''

''Or what? they're going to break in and kill me?''

''That are dangerous words yoongi'' hoseok chokes out

''Oh don’t give me that look, i’m not planning to have a chat with them all im saying is that its suspicious''  yoongi exclaims

''maybe so but you should know better than to voice out your thoughts considering we're on live broadcast''

You have a sneaking suspicion that that warning is towards you, maybe its just you being paranoid but the sounds coming from the ceiling sound almost impatient? agitated? you're not sure and you don't want to find out.

So you venture back into the kitchen, open the cupboard and take out a plate and a glass. Fill the plate with chocolate chip cookie, not sure if your choice of cookies will fit their taste you reach into the fridge to take out milk. Pour three spoons full of honey into the glass and mix it up all together. You take out a tray, put the dishes onto it and slowly walk to the front door of the house.

Putting down the tray you unlock the door and slowly open it, praying that whatever is making the noise isn't standing in front of your door. Of course mother nature ignores your plea, because nothing ever goes the way you want it to and you stumble back at the sight.

In front of you dangling from the lowest part of the rooftop edge  hangs a long arm that has white fur on it, which lowkey looks like it belongs to a yeti. Its fingers, if you can even call them that, stretch out like its impatiently waiting for you to hand it the tray. With shaky fingers you pick up the tray, avert your eyes and hand it to the worker, trying to not touch it.

It takes the tray from you, makes a sound that could be described as a mixture of a growl and grunt and vanishes.

With wide eyes and a rapid beating heart you close the door and clutch your chest '' what the absolute fuck?!'' you whisper and run to the kitchen.

There you grab the salt and a chair before returning to the front door,  sprinkle salt along at the gap and barricade it by putting the back of the chair underneath the doorknob. Sure the inspector might be able to kill you and you doubt that a little bit of barricade will hold it back but it sure as hell makes your anxious self feel safer.

Quietly you walk down the hallway and switch off the light, before walking into your bedroom and locking the door, hoping that tonight you'll at least be able to sleep.

⤑ ⤑ ⤑ ⤑

‘’Jimin’’ you call out .

Jimin who's sitting at the table reading a book ,that looks like if you tried reading it it would fry the remaining braincells you have, looks up with raised eyebrows. ‘’yes?’’

‘’So’’ you drawl out ‘’i sent a picture of the sunset to someone and apparently the picture they got was different from what the original one, do you know whats up with that?’’

Jimin leans back in the chair and runs a hand through his hair ‘’ honestly we've been having this problem for a few months now, the after school science club is trying to figure out what the problem is.’’

You raise your eyebrows ‘’the who?’’

Jimin waves his hand dismissively '' thats their name don’t ask me how they got it, but they’re really smart though and have saved silverdell many times when we were in a pinch’’'

‘’well did they find out at least something?’’

‘’not really’’ jimin puts a hand on his chin ‘’we just know that silverdell is putting out some sort of high frequented waves that interferes with the phone, theres a theory that it doesn’t want people outside of silverdell knowing about it.’’

The expression on your face currently can be described as one of pure listlessness. Mentally you already clocked out days ago, but mother nature or as in this case; silverdell has it's way of surprising you. Sighing deeply you put one hand on the table and lean against it

‘’you know’’ you start’’ when i first moved here i was in love with the idea of a small town where the environment is beautiful, the people are nice'' you move your arm in a half circle motion ‘’not this’’

‘’How is that our problem’’ a voice says and you turn around to see jungkook leaning against the door frame.

‘’Jungkook!'' jimin scolds and frowns

‘’What?'' jungkook asks and pushes himself away from the door '' isn't that her fault for having high ass expectations? weren't you suspicious that you couldn't find silverdell?’’

‘’In my defense’’ you bristle  ‘’i just thought i was bad with directions ,who would've thought that its because this town is located in the twilight zone’’

Jimin and jungkook both chuckle at that ‘’hats what a lot of newcomers say’’

Picking up the empty cup of coffee you retort '' well maybe something needs to be changed so we don’t all keep repeating the same thing'' and walk over to the sink.

⤑ ⤑ ⤑ ⤑

Its been over a month since you've moved to silverdell. You somehow got used to the weird customs of the town and nowadays you're not even fazed by the angel's anymore. on the contrary you sometimes let the angel's carry your grocery home or you when they don’t fit on the basket of the bike. In the beginning you were quite shocked and afraid ,when the ominous being stood in front of you and reached out of the bag. Which resulted in you screaming out loud in horror thinking that you're going to die. It took one staff member to calm you down , which took quite some time because apparently the angel didn’t realize that you were scared of it , and kept starring at you as if you had the answer to the Da Vinci code.

⤑ ⤑ ⤑ ⤑

‘’I forgot to tell you , you did well today’’ The woman, miss lewis, whose standing at the door says smiling brightly and leaves.

Todays parent teacher conference day and you just had your first meeting. You're so glad that instead of a soccer mom who has a blonde bob and a nasty attitude you got miss lewis. Maybe she noticed that you were nervous otherwise because her whole presence was reassuring. From the smile to her body language nothing indicated that she was being hostile and you look forward to working with her in the future.

Gathering the documents on the table you put them aside and take out another one that has all the information about your student named calypso. Calypso is a smart girl with a peppy attitude and a mouth that can talk forever, yet she never disturbed the class and always hands in her homework so this meeting should be short and go well.

As you're standing up from the chair, the door slams open and you jerk in surprise, letting out an embarrassing squeak. Looking over to the door your’e see a tall woman slumped against the doorway as she's clutching her chest and breathing heavily. The woman is dressed in a black suit and the first button of her white dress shirt is open. Her black hair is cut into a blunt bob with bangs that stop right by the eyes.

‘’I hope i’m not late’’ she heaves

You shake your head and smile ‘’ don’t worry you came just in time''

The unknown woman nods and walks towards you and you notice that she's almost as tall as you are. ''Min yoonji i’m luna’s mother, nice to meet you’’

‘’Y/n’’ you say and take her hand into yours ‘’ and likewise’’

‘’My wife had an emergency so i had to run from work here’’ Yoonji says and sits down

You put a hand on your cheek ‘’i hope its nothing serious’’

Yoonji waves her hand in front of her face ‘’she's just clumsy , i hope she doesn’t’ burn down the kitchen again though’’

You hold your laughter in and turn your head away, not knowing if it’s appropriate to laugh or not but the fact that Yoonji said the word ‘’ again’’ makes it even more comical.

When you hear Yoonji chuckle is when you turn your head back towards her and see her smiling faintly and you can see how much she loves her wife.

‘’So lets get started’’ you say and clear your throat ‘’luna is a very smart student who up to now has always done her homework’’

Yoonji nods

‘’She participates in class , i see no behavioral problems besides her sometimes making remarks towards her friends.’’ you smile and so does Yoonji ‘’what i did notice though is that when it comes to math her way of calculating slightly differs from what i teach her but that can be managed’’

you put the notes down ‘’this would be all, do you have any questions?’’

Yoonji claps her hand together ‘’not a question per se but my wife and i would like to be notified if the class is going on a school trip’’

You nod '' thats mandatory otherwise i wouldn’t be allowed to leave the school ground with the students''

Yoonji then picks up her bag and stands up with you following her actions.

‘’if later on you have any question please feel free to call me or mail me’’ you say and stretch out your hand

Yoonji shakes your hand firmly nods. She opens her mouth to say something but the noise of the classroom door slamming against the wall interrupts her. In the doorway stands a woman that looks ,well to put it nice, like the wicked witch of the west's third sister.

oh boy

‘’Hope you have a nice evening’’ Yoonji says through gritted teeth and lets go of your hand before walking towards the door and giving the other woman a nasty glare.

The woman totally ignores yoonji and walks towards you instead, a scowl on her face as she musters you ‘’cant be even on time huh? did they hire a incompetent teacher this time?’’

You raise your eyebrows, it takes everything in your body for you to not glare at this atrocity of a human being in front of you ‘’actually ma'am you're just early theres a reason why we agreed for you to come at a specific time’’

She just huffs '' well i don’t have the time because i have to pick up Charles in twenty minutes from fencing’’

''why don’t we start then'' you say and point at the table, before sitting down

well looks like it will take longer than twenty minutes.''

..............

After the conference is over you collect the documents and put them on in the drawer. Getting up you look out of the window and see that the sun is already setting and a wave of stress overcomes you. Picking up your bag from the floor you speed walk out of the classroom, not before flickering the light off, and almost run down the hallway towards the entrance of the building.

Thankfully the parking lot for the bikes isn't that far away from the main entrance and you quickly get  onto it and pedal. The sky is already deep red and you can see that in around five to ten minutes it will be completely gone.

You're pedaling so fast that everything is a blur to you, how you haven’t fallen yet is a miracle because lord knows , that everything that could go wrong in a situation , usually does, when it comes to you.

''am i going to make it?'' you ask yourself and sharply cut the corner. Down the road you see a vast grass field and wonder if you should take a shortcut or not. But driving on the grass usually slows one down .but at the same time you cant afford to lose your life just because you aren't on time.

So you drive through the field instead. It only takes a few seconds before your legs become tired of pedaling so hard, to the point where you jump from the bike , hold the handlebar and run.  A few times the bike smacks itself against you but you don’t feel pain due to the adrenaline running through your veins.

Looking at the bike you see that it’s just dragging you down and it literally takes you a second to make a decision. Letting go of the bike makes your heart clench but you continue to run for you life till you finally leave the field and arrive on the street your house is on.

You heave as you take a three second break before continuing to jog down the road. The closer you get to your house though the more everything starts to flicker. Its like reality stopped functioning and your’e in a glitch. Looking around confused you almost stop in your tracks when you see a figure sitting on a black horse thats standing on the opposite side of the street, linear to your house. Its the Headless rider, his body turns towards you ,as black smoke comes out of the cut off neck and forms a question mark.

Your heart drops and your hand comes up shielding the left side of your face and you run even faster before jumping over the fence towards your house

With shaky hands you take out the keys from your purse and open the door before slamming it behind you. Sliding down to the floor you hug your knees as a wave of panic over comes you. You're about 99.9999.2% sure you're about to die today. Theres no way you're going to survive now that the headless rider has noticed you.

With shaky legs you walk into your bedroom and lock the door, praying to every god thats out there that they will bless you with divine protection and that if you do die , it will be at least painful.

⤑ ⤑ ⤑ ⤑

its been two days since you saw the headless rider. To your surprise you actually woke up the next day and on top of that without any injuries, even your house is unscathed! Yet for some reason you cant help but feel like someone has been following you ever since. Its like you keep seeing something flimsy out of the corner of your eye, but its never really in your field of vision.

''im just being paranoid'' you think and grip the bag tighter as you walk out of the grocery store. It’s almost midnight but you were craving some sweets and ramen noodles so of course you went out and bought them.

You're so lost in thoughts that you don’t even notice the tall figure standing in front of you and promptly walk into them. The person, if you can even call them that cause the body is so hard it feels like you walked into a wall, grips your shoulder and steadies you.

'’You rub your nose ''thank-’’ the words die on your tongue as you look up and see that its the headless rider. Now that your’e closer to him you see that his skin is glowing slightly green giving him a frankensteins monster type of look and that his hands are long yet bony.  The smoke moves in slow motion as it comes out of his head and you feel sick to the point of needing to vomit.

‘’Have you seen my head?’’  an ominous voice booms through your skull so loud that you push the headless rider away and clutch your head instead, You just know you'll have a migraine later on.

you look up ‘’can you please try to not scream in my head?’’

''My apologies '' the being says

Slowly you stand up and rub your temples ‘’i haven’t seen your head, i wouldn’t even know how it looks like’’ you turn around and with shaky legs take a step before an arm grabs you. The feeling of dread overcomes you instantly.  His hand is so cold that it seeps through your jacket into your body and you shudder. ''is this what harry potter felt when he was around dementors?''

''Help me find it''  he says , no, demands.

‘’please stop touching me first’’ you manage to say without stuttering and he releases your arm.

‘’What would happen if i refuse?’’

''You don’t want to know'' he answers and you shudder. with the way his neck is leaning sideways you can almost see how if he had a head he'd be cocking it and waiting for your reply, what expression he would have on you can say though.

Between choosing to go with him and come back unscathed or being hunt down and killed by him and other creatures, its only logical that you chose to go with him.

‘’Alright'’’ you say and hold up the bag higher ‘’can i bring this home first though?’’

The headless rider points at the convenient store ''you can also just ask them to put it aside for you''

You furrow your eyebrows at that suggestion ‘’sure..’’ and squint at him. For someone so inhuman he sure does have a suspicious amount of knowledge of how humans work. ‘’ill be right back’’  and walk off

The little bell rings as you walk through the doors and the cashier raises her head ‘’good-’’ the word dies on her tongue as she she's you walking towards her. Her face completely pales and her eyes grow as big as saucers.

00would you be so nice and deposit this for me? an emergency came up and i cant go home right now’’ you ask with a wry smile and she nods . With shaky hand she takes the bag and puts it right behind her on the counter and gives you something thats supposed to look like a smile if it weren't masked with fear.

‘’thank you'' you say , turn around and walk out of the store. What you don’t see is the cashier's eyes following you until she sees you stopping in front of someone else and showing them your empty hands. The other figure nods and you both walk off . In panic mode she grabs the telephone and frantically dials a number, cussing under her breath as she’s waiting for the person to pick up. after the fifth ring she finally hears a click going through the phone and she speaks up

‘’He has her’’

⤑ ⤑ ⤑ ⤑

Standing on the outskirts of the forest you look at the direction where the houses are located ‘’am i hearing sirens?’’ you ask out loud. From what you can see theres no where a house burning, so that either means someone is dying or that there is someone about to give birth

''Not important for us'' the headless rider says and puts a hand on the small of your back. ''let's go'' he says and pushes you forward into the woods.

The forbidden forest is nothing like you imagined, as a matter of fact you don’t even know what you expected but not this.The trees are so close to each other that you can only see the occasional streak of moonlight peaking through through the thick fog. Yet that doesn’t provide enough light for your eyes because you stumble over a root thats twisting on the floor.

Before your face can make contact with so said floor ,the headless rider grabs you by the arm and yanks you up.

''be careful '' he says '' shedding blood will only cause the creatures to come after you''

‘’jesus christ thanks’’ you retort and peel off his fingers ‘’by the way do you have a name? i dont want to keep calling you ''you''’’

the voice hums in your head '' a long time ago i did'' he answers '' a human once used to call me taehyung''

‘’Okay i'll call you that then’’ you say and look up to him ‘’another question though , were you once a human?’’

A deep sound that can be described as a chuckle rumbles from his chest ''never , i’ve been like this since the beginning ''

‘’ou yikes’’  you slap a hand to your mouth , you cant believe you just said that out loud ‘’sorry’’

''it's alright''

You nod and turn around to continue to look at the environment. Theres a dampness alongside with this weird feeling hanging in the air, it ripples on your skin like water making, all the hairs on your arm and neck stand up. This place might have once been full of animals roaming around, but right now its so eerie and empty ,you feel like if depression could manifest itself into something it would be this forest.

You grab Taehyung by the arm and you both stop. looking up, your eyes widen and blood leaves your face. Above you hovering are hooded figures with long boney limps. Their garment fluttering in the non existent wind yet they look so serene , almost as if they're taking a nap. But the longer you stare the more the figures seems to draw in closer

''don’t look at them'' Taehyung's voice rings through your head '' they feed on human souls and with each second passing a piece of your soul gets chipped away''

''Couldn’t you have told me that sooner''  you hiss and grip his arm tighter to the point that your finger nails leave half moon dents in his jacket.

''do not talk any louder, we're not the only ones here'' he warns you instead and you shut your mouth. With every step you're taking you're cursing at the gods and mostly at yourself. You can already hear your mother screaming in horror if she knew what you're doing. She'd probably lecture you about going with a stranger to the forest saying that that is the number one place for murderers to bury their victims bodies and how she raised you to know better.

''Sorry mom''

Taehyung pushes the leaves of the bush aside to reveal a glade. Its surrounded by trees as tall as cathedrals and a strange green light - almost holy - shimmers through the vast canopy of leaves.Giving you the impression that you're underwater. Deafening silence lays over the land and you feel like you're in a video game about to defeat a mid level demon boss.

''where are we going?'' you whisper to taehyung

''the place where all creatures go at sunset''

you furrow your brow ‘’and why do you need me for that?''

thats where my head is buried at for some unknown reason they’ve always been drawn to it, though it has a protective shield that nonhuman being cant enter''

your voice raises a few octaves as you realize that this is a part of his scheme  ‘’did you just lure me into this place so that you can kill me? Don’t tell me you don't actually need my help, you just wanted to eat me because i look what; appetizing to you?’’

Taehyung lifts his hands and one covers your mouth while the other slam chokes you against the bark of a tree ‘’you think very highly of yourself human'' he hisses '' but i do need it and after i received my head i could also leave you here ,since your so adamant about making our location known to every single living organism''

A branch breaks in the background and Taehyung lets go of you.  choking ,you slump against the tree, as you try to get air into your lungs and look up through your teary eyes. Behind taehyung stands a huge creature that looks similar to the angels that usually help you with chores. But unlike the friendly them, this creature looks like it's out for blood. Its mouth opens and a foul smell , that reminds you of corpses and rotting food, waves over to the two of you and you feel sick.

A scream bubbles its way up your throat and before it can leave your mouth , taehyung picks you up bridal style and starts running. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you close your eyes and just hope that he's faster than the creature and that you aren't about to meet your demise

Minutes later he stops and you open your eyes to see that you're on  the top of a hill. Getting out of taehyung's arms with shaky legs you look around.

‘’Wow’’ you say in awe, amazed by how much the forest changes the further you go into it.

You see a river passing through the jungle wide and opaque. The water is so black it might as well be used as a mirror and for a second you're tempted to walk down and touch it .Yet you know better. The river is a sleeping cobra, It lies across the land in smooth seductive curves, singing an unknown song to its viewer, while it hides a myriad of dangers.

The forest seems to have an intelligence of its own, you notice.  An apparent system thats so complex no human would understand, yet it doesn't seem like it would work anywhere else but  here.

A sudden shrill noise, that possibly belongs to the earlier creature, echoes through the forest,  before it quietly settles, and suddenly it feels like a thousand eyes are boring into your back.

They know you're here

''Lets go'' Taehyung says and walks ,no, jogs down the hill.

‘’why don’t you just pick me up and run like you did earlier?'' you ask '' that would be faster''

Taehyung doesn’t need a face for you to know that he's complete done with you for using your three braincells over its capacity ''that would attract too much attention''

‘’You glow green for fucks sake’’ you call out and point at him ‘’we might as well be wearing a big ass sign that says ‘free food’’ 

Taehyung turns around and stomps towards you and you flinch

''Since you insist''  he says and picks you up and starts running down the hill. Seconds later you two arrive in the valley and he puts you down. ''We're close''  

You look up at Taehyung, his whole entire being suddenly gives off the vibe of a predator. Like he's watching your every move and waiting for the perfect chance to come so that he can pounce on you . Goosebumps rise on your arm and neck and you take a step back ''where is it then?'' you ask

Taehyung stretches his arm and points with a long bony finger behind you. Slowly you turn around to see huge fallen logs layered on top of each other forming a triangular shape. Underneath you find a huge pile of fallen leaves and in the middle something thats glowing green.

''I can only accompany you till where the shield is'' Taehyung says and you nod. You don’t like how he said that sentence, its full of hidden agenda and you're not sure if your mind is playing a trick on you , but you swear you felt the blood thirst coming off him. Another thing you notice is the closer you get to the head, the more the shield surrounding the huge logs, starts to glow the exact same green light that also taehyung is covered in.

As you stand right before the shield , your hand comes up and you try to touch it with no avail. Your hand goes straight right through it and your’e just a teensy bit disappointed. ''hold up''  you think and turn around to squint at the being named taehyung ‘’the shield doesn’t exist’’

''it does, i told you only a human can enter it'' taehyung answers patiently and walks up to you, stretches out his hand and touches the shield. sparks start to fly and you cover your eyes.  

''see?'' Taehyung says and lets his hand fall down

Instead of answering you start walking up to the log. Its in the worst place ever, not exactly on top of the hill but neither in the valley, just right in the middle. Which is a huge burden to you, the mud keeps sticking to your shoes yet it also makes you stumble multiple times.

You finally reach your destination but now you're heaving heavily and your legs feel like they'll buckle in any seconds. ''God do i have to touch the leaves?'' you murmur in disgust. You dont hate the nature as a matter of fact you like it, thats the whole reason why you even moved out here. That doesn’t mean though, that you want to stick your hands into muddy leaves that probably has all sorts of insects crawling and pick up a decaying head.

Mentally prepping yourself you sigh deeply before reaching into the pile and grabbing the glowing head. The head is just as cold as the body it belongs you and it seeps through your entire being. The longer you hold it, the more flimsy your surrounding begins to look and you have to squint your eyes in concentration so that you don’t fall down.

‘’Here’’ you say as you stand in front of taehyung and hand him the head.

''thank you''  he says and takes it from you and puts it on his neck. Suddenly taehyung starts to glows a green light thats so bright ,that you have to shield your eyes. Few seconds later the light dims down back its usual , glow int he dark slime, state.Despite that you're in awe when you look up and see that the neck is connected to his head, and for the first time you see what he looks like.

Taehyung is beautiful beyond words. Long dark lashes kiss his cheek as he looks down on you.  On the right side theres a mole and he has another one, on the slightly plum yet longish underlip.  dark hair that hangs low enough to touch his beautiful sloped nose as he dips his head lower to be at  your eye height. A smile overtakes overtakes his features and at first you're struck, until you start noticing thousand of eyes starting to glow behind his back. Your eyes widen and you look back at Taehyung who's smile grows into unnatural hideous grin that touches both sides of the head and bears one too many teeth.

you take a step back to which he slowly follows until you stumble over a root and fall down. Taehyung chuckles deeply at your cowering state and bends down.

This is it, this is how you’re going to die, in the forrest surrounded by blood thirsty creatures that are ready to pounce on you in any second. And for a millisecond you’re annoyed at yourself for going into the woods with the dullahan just to meet your demise. 

A growl rips you back into reality ‘’'what a foolish human you are Y/n'’ he says and your vision goes black

#bts x reader #kreativenetwork #prettyboysnetwork #kkreationsnet #btsguild #kpop scenarios #bts scenario #kim namjoon x reader #kim taehyung x reader #kim seokjin x reader #min yoongi x reader #park jimin x reader #jeon jungkook x reader #jung hoseok x reader #happy halloween!!!! #lichterloh

[hulahoopingholt]

Greg always had his own motivations which is why I feel he's consistent despite recast. We watched him decide to go back to school, struggle, transfer to Emory, go into recovery, graduate, move home, start a business. Josh and Nathaniel until the very end existed only for Rebecca to react/interact with. Do you think that was planned by the writers to set Greg apart or a due to a lack of time or clarity from the writers? I never warmed to Nathaniel but I still don't know if I "should" have.

Yup, completely true. Greg’s path makes sense, and he’s able to exist as a character in his own right. As you said, he had his own motivations outside of Rebecca. Nathaniel and Josh eventually just seemed like plot devices to me. Especially Nathaniel, who seemed to just fill whatever role they had a need for at the time. Want an asshole boss antagonist but with sexual chemistry? MEET NATHANIEL. Need a soft love interest for Rebecca? HERE HE IS AGAIN. How did he get to become the soft love interest? ermmmmmm....*elaborate hand waving* HE’S NICE NOW. Josh feels less egregious to me because I think the writers just didn’t know what to do with him post-priest school. Obviously they needed to separate him from Rebecca, which makes sense, but any time it seemed we’d be creeping toward some genuine growth with him it’d disappear. Remember when Josh was sitting there struggling to write the objective of his resume in S3? The show ended and we STILL didn’t know what he wanted out of life, other than he felt ready for a real relationship. Which....yay, good for him, I’m happy for him, but he’s one of our few OG main characters, and ultimately I don’t feel we got to learn a whole lot about him, and that makes me really sad because I LOVE Josh Chan. 

I have a friend who stays farrrrr away from any and all fandom who tried to convince me that the lack of focus on Nathaniel and Josh’s development was an intentional decision on behalf of the writers, that Nathaniel was just supposed to be the “basic white guy” and Josh was the nostalgic, unattainable dream, but honestly...........I don’t have that faith in the writers, especially with the interviews about how they set the trio up to be equally viable options. Because, and maybe this is just because I’m a cynical bitch lmao, but I have trouble reconciling the fact that Nathaniel, who spent most of the series being an asshole who engaged in truly horrific behavior, cried once, decided to be nice in large part because of the influence of an unattainable woman, read a lot of books, and that means he’s therefore evolved, is reason for me to believe there’s actually genuine change that’s going to be long-lasting. Sure, he still seemed nice at the open mic, so that seems encouraging, but at the time of Rebecca’s dates? It had been only a few months. If I were Rebecca, I would NOT be able to view Nathaniel as a legitimately viable option, especially since just a few months ago he was calling me selfish for wanting to prioritize my self-care and used my childhood diary to manipulate me into falling for him. But according to Aline and Rachel, that’s not the case, soooo...

It’s actually really frustrating to me. Because for instance, when Nathaniel was going on in the finale about how he was frustrated working at the firm, I was like, “oh wow, okay, that actually makes sense, I can see this,” and I was glad he was able to do something with his life he found more fulfilling. But I would have found that ending SO much more satisfying (and prob would have actually liked Nathaniel a lot more) if they had started revealing that earlier in the show. Because while it’s no secret I didn’t like Nathaniel and Rebecca as a couple at all, I actually did enjoy a lot of Nathaniel’s interactions with other characters and found him LOADS more interesting. I know the rom com ep is really popular among some folks, but personally, I would have rather had an episode of Nathaniel coming to terms with why he’s unsatisfied with his own life than an episode that again just hinges on his relationship with Rebecca. 

I remember once upon a time on an interview they asked if we’re supposed to ship Nathaniel and Rebecca and Rachel/Aline basically said they didn’t care, do whatever you want. And then they went on this “equally viable” schpiel, so.......I think we are supposed to like them all? Or at least understand them/see why Rebecca would consider them. For me personally, it was a swing and a miss but....idk, maybe it worked for other people.

#hottokatratzi #I'm so sorry I meant to just answer your question and instead #you got all of this #I just have a lot of feelings and I need to release them somewhere #also filling up tags not to get into tracked tags #bc I just don't have the energy to get into battles of this haha #this post actually originally included a line that insulted a writer of another v popular tumblr show #and I removed it bc em #you're already in hot enough water with one fandom why tempt fate with another LMAO #okay I think we're at five now byeee #Crazy Ex Girlfriend

[wordsandshawn]

Before Now - chapter 7

Previous Chapters 

Disclaimer: I know nothing about photography, but making Skylar interested in photography was the best way I could think of to make some of the main plot points work out, so please just bare with me.

7.

May 2018

Greg doesn’t know about the calls to Shawn. I don’t mean to keep secrets, but I know that if he found out he would be upset, and he wouldn’t approve. Besides, I’ve only spoken to Shawn a few times over the past couple of months. It’s really not a big deal and I don’t want it to be blown out of proportion. Greg has the tendency to do that sometimes. He’s not just protective. He can be possessive. I know it’s only because he loves me, but I don’t want to deal with it over Shawn, so I keep secrets.

Shawn invited me to a show he’s playing a couple hours away from my campus, and I haven’t told Greg. Under any other circumstance, I would have definitely said no, just like I did the last time Shawn invited me out to his show, but Shawn’s offer this time was too big for me to turn down. He invited me to come out and photograph the show because his normal photographer wouldn’t be able to be there. Up until now, my main focus in photography has been portraits, so I don’t have much experience at all with concert photography. I’ve done a few events at my University for some of the organizations, and I love photographing people in general. I’ve never been opposed to concert photography, especially because I love live music. I just didn’t have an opportunity to try my hand at it until now.  

Even at the risk of Greg being mad at me, I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t say yes to this opportunity. This could be my career one day, I’m not going to say no to this just because Greg might be mad and might not support me.

I tell Shawn I’d love to shoot the show, and he sends an email of information. I make up a lame excuse to Kristen, telling her that one of my photography professors had connections and got me this opportunity to shoot the concert. She’s completely ecstatic, especially when I tell her we’ll get in for free. I’m still trying to figure out the details of how I’m going to do this without her completely freaking out, but I didn’t trust anyone else enough to ask them to go with me and drive me. Even though she can be a crazy fan, I still trust her with my life, and I trust her with this.

The weekend of the show quickly approaches. I tell Greg I have a photography project to work on Saturday, and Kristen and I drive the two hours to the festival. She can’t stop talking about Shawn the entire two-hour drive there. I’m not exactly looking forward to her reaction when she actually sees him in person.

“We’re probably going to meet Shawn,” I tell her this when we’re about five minutes out from the festival grounds. The only reason I’m telling her is because I’m hoping that by giving her some time to prepare, her reaction will be a little less extreme, but knowing Kristen, that’s probably not going to happen.

“WHAT?” I’m afraid for a second that she’s going to drive off the road accidentally in shock.

“We’re probably going to meet him,” I repeat, even though I know she heard me the first time.

“How?” She’s still in shock.

“I told you, I’m photographing him, so I’m pretty sure that means we’ll meet him.”

“Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Because I knew you’d freak out, just like this.” She continues to freak out and is still freaking out while we’re trying to figure out where to go. It’s a little after 2pm when we arrive. I tell the guard at the front my name, and I have to show him my ID, but then he lets us in and tells us where to go, directions to Shawn’s trailer.

Now Kristen is freaking out even more after she heard we’re going to Shawn’s trailer. I’m trying to calm my own nerves, wondering how I even got here, and what I think I’m doing. If Greg finds out, he’s going to be pissed, and I don’t even fully understand why Shawn would ask me here in the first place, after everything that happened with us, and after the way I acted toward him. We’re at the door to Shawn’s trailer, and Kristen is about to faint from excitement. I knock. The door opens, revealing someone who looks familiar, although I don’t think I’ve ever met him, “Hey,” I force myself to speak, “My name’s Skylar Evans. I’m here to photograph Shawn.”

Recognition crosses his face, and he lets the door swing all the way open. “Of course, come in. It’s nice to finally meet you.” He sticks out his hand, “I’m Andrew Gertler, Shawn’s manager.” And that’s why he looks so familiar. I’ve heard his name so many times but just didn’t put it together in my mind before he introduced himself.

“Nice to meet you,” I say. Andrew extends his hand to shake Kristen’s, and for once, she doesn’t seem like she has a lot to say.

Shawn strides over to the doorway and pulls me into a hug. “I’m really glad you came.” He says, sounding genuine. Now Kristen really has nothing to say, as Shawn introduces himself to her, despite the fact that he probably knows he needs no introduction, and of course, Kristen goes in for a hug, although, thankfully she doesn’t scream. I think she’s in too much shock to realize that this is not my first-time meeting Shawn.

Andrew speaks before anyone else gets the chance to, and I’m glad for that. “You can leave your things in the trailer. Here are lanyards for you both to wear.” He hands us each a laminated lanyard that says, SHAWN MENDES CREW with ALL ACCESS right underneath. “This will give you access to pretty much anywhere on the festival grounds, so please don’t lose them. Shawn goes on in an hour. You’re welcome to explore or hang out and just let us know if you need anything.” His phone starts ringing. He pulls it out of his pocket, and I glance at Kristen who looks at me with wide eyes, like can you believe this, I just nod a little.

Andrew apologizes, saying he has to take the call and excuses himself. Shawn introduces us to the others in the room, most of them are his band members. They looked like they were practicing something, and I don’t want to be in the way, so I tell Shawn, “I think we’ll just go walk around for a bit.” He nods, and I put down my camera bag, taking my camera before forcing Kristen outside with me.

As soon as we get outside, she turns to me. “How are you so chill? I’m freaking out.” She says, actually starting to hyperventilate.

“Breathe,” I say, before walking off to see what else is going on here. I spend the next forty minutes wandering around with Kristen and taking photos, generally enjoying the atmosphere.

The goal for tonight is to get some solid photos, but also to be able to put together around a thirty-second video for the performance. I’ve roped Kristen into helping me, which worked out well because I had my own assistant in a way.

I snap a few photos of Shawn before he steps on the stage, and then once he’s onstage, I’m able to shoot from sidestage and even directly behind the stage. At one point, I even make my way down to the crowd, standing in the space between the stage and the barriers to keep the crowd back. His set is far too short for my liking, and I fear that I haven’t gotten good enough shots, but when his performance is over, there’s nothing I can do about it.  

Shawn’s sweaty, but clearly high off the adrenaline of the show, and I’m surprised I’m feeling very much the same as he is at this moment. Taking photos and feeling the energy radiating from the crowd was exhilarating. A feeling I haven’t felt before, but can’t help wanting to feel more. 

When Shawn steps off stage, I manage to see him for a few seconds. I tell him the performance was great, and he asks how it was for me shooting it. Its honestly the most normal conversation, but everything feels so strange. I keep trying to remind myself that it’s just Shawn, that he’s Shawn. This is so out of context for the Shawn I know, for the Shawn that I’ve always known that its strange for me.

I just watched his performance and realized that he’s amazing at what he does. I knew that he was good. I’ve always known that he was good, even when he used to force me to sing with him when we were little kids putting on shows for our little siblings, it was always clear he was good.

This was the first time I saw him live since the very beginning. When he was first starting out, my whole family would always go out to support him, but after his career blew up, I started trying to avoid any attention that came with knowing Shawn Mendes, which meant I stopped seeing him live or being seen with him in public.

He hugs both me and Kristen, and I don’t even complain that he’s sweaty. I ask if he’s going to stay to see the other performers, and he only shakes his head, and I see a hint of sadness in his eyes, although I’m not sure where it came from or why he’d be sad after a performance like that in front of so many people. “We have to head out to catch a flight tonight, in a couple hours actually.” His crew is rushing around getting ready to go, and he glances over at them before looking back at us, “I wish we could stay, but I have another festival tomorrow night.” That’s crazy. He’ll be in another city tomorrow playing another show. “Thanks for coming out, though. I hope it was worth it for you.” He genuinely sounds grateful, even though I should be the one thanking him.

“Thanks for inviting me, I really hope that you like the photos.”

“I’m sure I will. I saw you during the show, you were everywhere.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Thanks, I really do appreciate you asking me to shoot this show. It means a lot.” I say, trying to convey my gratitude. 

He just nods with a smile, like it’s no big deal, even though it’s a huge deal to me. I excuse myself, stepping back and picking up my camera for a few last-minute shots. Kristen starts talking to him for a few seconds. It’s taken pretty much this entire time, but she finally seems to have regained her composure. I take a few photos of them talking before filming the interactions and some of the cleanup going on around as Shawn and his whole crew get ready to leave.

Kristen and I decide to stay and watch a few of the other performers before heading back home. I put all my gear away and find Shawn to say goodbye to him.

“Thanks for coming,” He says as he hugs me goodbye. He tells Kristen it was nice to meet her and she basically swoons.

“Are you driving back tonight?” He asks and even Kristen is taken aback by this inquiry.

I nod, “We’re gonna stay for a while, but yeah we’re going home tonight.”

“Drive safely, okay?” He says with genuine care in his voice, and Kristen nods since she’s the one driving. “Text me so I know you got home safe?” He’s looking at me as he says this, and I nod, saying goodbye and dragging Kristen away.

She’s asking about what just happened, asking if I have his number, and about a million other questions. But I rush us both out to the crowd of people, ignoring her questions and glad for a distraction.

I almost made it out of there without Kristen realizing anything. At first, she was too excited to notice that Shawn and I weren’t meeting for the first time, and then everything else we talked about was all business, nothing too out of the ordinary. I could explain it all away, saying something about how I’m sure he talks to all his photographers that way, and he’s just a friendly person. But that last one isn’t something a singer would tell a photographer he just met. No matter how I try to frame it, I don’t think I’ll be able to explain that one, and Kristen is going to be looking for the truth.

For now, the questions are left unanswered, and she’s momentarily distracted by the crowd and the music, which means I have about an hour of complete and utter bliss of live music at a festival before I have to find a way to explain to my roommate that I grew up with her favorite singer.

chapter 8

#before now #Shawn mendes #Shawn Mendes imagine #Shawn Mendes fanfic #Shawn Peter Raul Mendes

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Chapter 54

Uguguhghghg right off the bat I’m gonna say fuck this chapter, I had basically no fun writing it and it sucks. The end. Enjoy if ya can. 

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/174794145519/universe-falls-chapter-53

Chapter 54: Evergreen Inn

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Though the Crystal Temple had been permeated by an unshakable feeling of tension the past several days following Garnet and Pearl’s bitter falling out, Steven had, interestingly enough, found that tension somewhat more bearable when his friends were there to help alleviate some of it. Hence why, awash in thoughts of all of the anguish, heartache, and betrayal he had been witnessing from his guardians as of late, he inevitably ended up calling Dipper, Mabel, and Connie over to hang out in the hopes that they could take his mind off of the ongoing stress he had been experiencing ever since he found that memory tube in Lion’s mane.

And so the kids crowded up onto the loft, all of them engaged in different activities, from reading, to watching tv, to drawing. Since Mabel had already been hanging out with Candy and Grenda earlier that morning, she had brought them up to the temple along with her, something that Steven readily welcomed. After all, the more the merrier when it came to distracting himself from all of the burdening thoughts he truthfully wanted to avoid.

“I can’t believe this is the first time me and Candy have had a chance to hang out at your house, Steven!” Grenda exclaimed loudly as she looked up from the picture her, Candy, and Mabel were working on. “It’s so cool!”

“It is cozy, yet mystical all at once!” Candy noted, equally impressed as she leaned back against Lion. “Complete with magical, fluffy pink lions and all!”

“Heh, yeah, thanks, guys,” Steven said with a halfhearted smile, his gaze focused on the temple gate rather than on the TV in front of him. “It’s… pretty great…”

“Steven, are you ok?” Connie asked upon glancing up from her novel and easily taking note of the young Gem’s melancholy.

“Huh? O-oh, uh yeah, I’m fine,” Steven quickly assured, forcing a smile.

“Are you sure?” Dipper asked, sharing Connie’s newfound concern. “You seem a bit… distracted.”

“Distracted? Me?” the young Gem scoffed as he turned his attention back to whatever was on TV. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m completely-”

“Are you… worried about the Gems maybe?” Mabel ventured, taking note of how Steven had been looking to the gate earlier. Needless to say that her getting right to the heart of the matter however, managed to catch the young Gem quite off guard.

“N-no! I…. I mean, yes! I mean-” Steven cut himself off  tightly, realizing that now everyone was looking to him with both confusion and concern. “I…. I’m—I don’t-”

Fortunately, the young Gem didn’t have to explain himself any further as the warp pad suddenly lit up, startling all six of the kids as they quickly turned to see Pearl unexpectedly arrive. The white Gem’s expression was awash in dread and woe, her hands held close to her chest as she looked down to her feet. However, before she could even really take a step off of the warp pad, she was quick to discover that she wasn’t as alone as she had hoped she’d be upon her return.

“Pearl!” Steven exclaimed, hurriedly rushing down from the loft and up to the white Gem. Though the other kids were still somewhat worried for Steven, given how strange he had been acting just a moment ago, they all soon followed after him to meet up with Pearl as well. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since the other day.”

“Oh, w-well, I’ve just been looking for Peridot!” Pearl informed, wringing her hands anxiously. “For… a few days straight…”

“Did you have any luck in finding her?” Connie asked.

“Er… n-not really…” the white Gem sighed, shaking her head morosely as her tone turned sad, yet sincere. “Kids, I know I might have… disappointed all of you. I know Garnet is very upset with me, but I’m going to prove to her that she can trust me again, no matter what it might take!”

Of course, the kids harbored nothing against Pearl for the obvious mistake she had made in deceiving Garnet, especially since the white Gem truly did seem to be very remorseful about her wrongdoing. And yet, before any of them could really reassure her in her admirable mission to win back the Gem leader’s favor, said Gem leader herself happened to enter the temple through the front door. Garnet’s expression was stoic and unreadable as she walked inside, offering neither the kids nor Pearl any sort of greeting as she instead silently passed by them en route to the temple, clearly in no mood to converse.

“Oh! Garnet!” Pearl exclaimed with as much of an amicable smile as she could muster. “I was just out looking for Peridot! She’s bound to be somewhere, r-right? Any new ideas?” Much to the white Gem’s despair, Garnet said nothing as she simply continued on ahead, staunchly ignoring her teammate just as she had been doing for the past several days. Which left Pearl with only one idea to try and bridge the unbearable gap still between them. “I-I’m sorry,” she said, her tone genuine and rife with guilt as she looked down shamefully. Much to her surprise, Garnet did stop at this, though she didn’t turn around, leaving the white Gem with essentially no idea as to what her reaction to her sudden apology was. Even so, Pearl was prepared to continue and finally voice her earnest appeal for the Gem leader’s forgiveness. Or at least she would of if an unexpected intrusion hadn’t happened at the very worst of times.

“Who wants to go on a ROAD TRIP!?” Greg exclaimed excitedly as he burst into the house, brochure in hand. Stan burst in right behind him, packed suitcases in tow and his manner every bit as bombastic as Greg’s.

“You kids do, that’s who!” the conman proclaimed. “Whether you want to or not!”

“Aw, come on, Mr. Pines,” the former rock star chuckled, amused. “They gotta have some say in this-” Greg cut himself off upon glancing over to the group before him, taking note of how caught of guard the kids were as well as the palpable tension between Garnet and Pearl that just about anyone with eyes could clearly see. “Uh… is this a bad time?”

“No,” Garnet finally spoke up, turning to face Greg and Stan. “Please continue.”

“Well, like we were saying, Greg and I are headin’ upstate for a few days on some… business,” Stan began to explain.

“Business?” Dipper raised a suspicious eyebrow. “What kind of business? Are you on the run from the law again?”

“Pfft, no,” Stan rolled his eyes. “At least not this week I’m not. Besides, I’ll have you know this trip is a tradition. Every year, my tourist trap competitors prank the Mystery Shack, and every year, I set out to prank them right back. Last year, those hooligans duct taped Soos to the celling for 78 hours and then there was that year when they covered everything in the shack in plastic wrap!”

“And he means everything…” Greg remarked, shuddering at the memory from his days of employment at the shack.

“Which means I gotta hit them back fast and hard this year,” Stan said with stark determination. “We’re gonna visit every tourist trap along the Evergreen Highway and I’m gonna prank every single one!”

“And I’m going because I met a guy on an internet message board who’s selling car wash brushes for real cheap!” Greg said with a wide grin. “And the place where we arranged to meet is right along the same route Mr. Pines is taking, so we figured we’d make things easier by riding together.”

“I don’t like those brushes…” Steven said with a frown. “They feel weird on your fur.”

“Fur?” Connie, Candy, and Grenda all asked in confused unison.

“It’s a long story,” Mabel quickly whispered to them.

“Well, do like inns?” Greg asked his son.

“Probably!” Steven ventured, having never really stayed in one before.

“Think you’d like to stay at an inn with your favorite dad?”

“I don’t know if you’re my favorite…” the young Gem teased, his spirits raising as his father let out an amused laugh.

“Oh, you kidder! Come here!” the former rock star laughingly accepted his son into his arms, hoisting him up onto his shoulders.

“I can’t wait to get room service!” Steven exclaimed, stars in his eyes.

“You’re thinking of a hotel,” Greg corrected. “We’re going to an inn. It’ll have a pool, and free ice, and its right down the road from the best diner in the world!”

“Oh my gosh, this is so exciting!” Mabel chimed in, sharing Steven’s elation and passing it onto Candy and Grenda as well. “Maybe if we’re lucky, it’ll be one of those inns that has free cold bagels for breakfast every morning!”

“Why cold bagels, specifically?” Dipper asked, confused.

“Well, cause they probably can’t afford toasters to warm ‘em up, duh!”

“Whoa, there, eager beavers,” Stan shook his head. “First of all, an inn with continental breakfast is way too fancy for my blood. Second of all, we’re only staying there one night. For the rest of the trip, I’ve rented out an RV for a cut rate price, one that’s guaranteed to not explode or I’ll get half my money back!”

“Good luck getting that money back if it does explode…” Pearl remarked sardonically, crossing her arms.

“Can we go too, Mr. Pines?” Grenda asked with an eager smile.

“Eh sure, the more the merrier,” the conman shrugged, pulling out a stack of legal forms. “Just sign these non-disclosure agreements. None of your parents are lawyers, right?”

“Well… my dad is a cop, so… we should probably be careful…” Connie advised with a worried frown.

“Bow wow!” Grenda cheered after she finished signing the papers. “Time to let the road dogs bark!”

“That is us, we are the road dogs!” Candy quipped, cheerfully joining Grenda and Mabel in bouncing up and down in unshakable elation.

“I’m coming too,” Garnet said, instantly cutting through the ongoing excitement over the trip as everyone paused to look at her in apt confusion.

“W-what?” Pearl spoke up first, bewildered by the Gem leader deciding to leave at a time like this.

“Oh my gosh! That makes it even better!” Steven gasped, delighted to see that Garnet wanted to come for more reasons than one. After all, not only did it mean that he would get to have a fun trip with one of his beloved guardians, it was also a sure-fire sign that perhaps she wasn’t as upset over the Sardonyx incident as she seemed to have been the past several days. Or at least, he could only hope that she wasn’t.

“Hey, uh, Garnet?” Greg spoke up in a whisper. “I know me and Mr. Pines are talking this whole RV/inn thing up, but… it ain’t exactly the ritz…”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” the Gem leader remarked with a hint of a smirk.

“Eh, I guess you can come along, shades,” Stan crossed his arms. “Just be sure you don’t cramp my pranking style.”

“I didn’t ask for your permission, Stan,” Garnet deadpanned, though she was still grinning all the same. “But don’t worry, I won’t.”

“Well, in that case…. Road trip!” Greg exclaimed with renewed vigor.

“Road trip!” Steven, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda all cheered, eliciting amused chuckles from Dipper and Connie.

“Road trip,” Garnet nodded, much more calmly as her smile faded.

“Um… that’s… wonderful!” Pearl quipped, clasping her hands together anxiously. “I’ll make sure that Amethyst knows that-” The white Gem didn’t get a chance to finish as Garnet succinctly walked past her once more, not sparing her a single word as she instead headed outside, leading the way for the others to do the same. “Uh… f-fine,” Pearl said with a forced smile as she waved the others off before letting out a small, remorseful sigh. “Well… goodbye…”

“This is gonna be fun! Right, Dad?” Steven asked, still perched on Greg’s shoulders as they headed out.

“Uh… sure, Stu-ball!” the former rock star assured, even if he was a bit wary now that Garnet had volunteered to come along. Normally, he wouldn’t have minded her company at all, but given how unsteady things had apparently been amongst the Gems lately, he wasn’t so sure what brining one on a trip like this would end up entailing. But even so, Greg didn’t want to spoil Steven’s excitement, and so he said nothing else, hoping that the trip would turn out to be just as fun and peaceful as the young Gem was clearly looking forward to.

But of course, as usual, it would end up being anything but.

It wasn’t very surprising that the RV Stan had rented for the road trip had seen better days. Its exterior was ridden with dents and dings and was in desperate need of a good washing, while its interior was cramped and cluttered and barely enough to contain its nine passengers. Even so, they all managed to find space as they set out on the road, everyone taking shifts in sitting up front in the less crowded passenger seat as Greg and Stan took shifts in driving down the long yet lovely Evergreen Highway.

“Man, RVs are amazing!” Grenda exclaimed as her and the other girls sat at the table near the back. “I can’t believe we’re sitting at a table in a moving vehicle.”

“Ooo, and look! Informational travel pamphlets!” Candy quipped, pressing a pile of said pamphlets to her cheek. “I want to read them all and gain their travel knowledge.”

“Uh… I’m pretty sure all these pamphlets are from the 1970s…” Connie noted as she leafed through a few of the dusty handouts.

“Whoa… they’re vintage!” Mabel remarked with genuine fascination. “That means they’re probably super accurate!”

“Ah, this is the life, kid,” Stan said to Dipper, who was currently sitting up front alongside him. “The open road, the clear blue skies, the fumes comin’ from the RV’s engine… What more could anyone want? Its no wonder me ‘n Amethyst always call this yearly trek the ‘mother of all Revenge Trips’, huh?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said with a curious frown. “Why didn’t you ask Amethyst to come with us? This whole thing with pranking all these tourist traps seems like it’d be right up her alley.”

The conman flinched, realizing he had let his nostalgia get the better of him, something that only made things awkward in the present. “Uh… usually she does tag along,” Stan began, not meeting his nephew’s gaze in favor of keeping his eyes on the road. “But this year, I just… uh… d-didn’t get the chance to ask her, that’s all.”

“More like you you haven’t had the chance to talk to her in general since what happened with the portal, right?” Dipper asked somewhat knowingly.

“I-I’ve talked to her since then!” Stan snapped defensively, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. Even so, Dipper hardly believed him.

“Which is why you asked all of us to come along on this trip,” he continued his line of rather accurate reasoning. “So you wouldn’t feel lonely going around and pulling off a bunch of pranks without Amethyst. Am I somewhere in the ballpark of being right about all that?”

“I-I’ll tell you what you are in the ballpark of: moving out of the front seat!” Stan growled, catching Dipper off guard with how suddenly angry he was. “Now, get back there and get your sister, its her turn to sit up here.”

“But I just got up here-”

“Well you should have thought about that before you started asking a bunch of annoying questions,” the conman huffed, sending his nephew a sharp, warning glare. “Now, scoot before I toss you out and leave ya for a pack of wild hitchhikers.”

Dipper begrudgingly did as his uncle said, getting up from the front seat with a frustrated sigh to go switch places with Mabel. Things seemed much more peaceful in the furthest back seat in the RV, where Garnet and Steven both sat; the young Gem had been keeping himself occupied by enjoying the scenery go by through the window and occasionally pointing out what he saw as well as his ongoing excitement about the trip in general, to the Gem leader. Who, much like the past several days, didn’t have much to say in response.

“Whoa, check it out, Garnet!” Steven exclaimed as he pulled a coin out from under his seat. “Another penny! I guess someone must have spilled a whole bunch back here too. And probably some grape juice at some point based on this big stain right here. Still, between the pennies and the RV and the inn we’re gonna get to stay at, I’d say this trip is already turning out to be pretty great, wouldn’t you?”

“Mmm…” Garnet responded, her lips pressed into a thin line and her hands laying heavily upon her knees. Though there was plenty of room in the small back quarters of the RV for Steven, the Gem leader was admittedly a bit cramped, though that was hardly what was bothering her at the moment. In fact, what was agitating her lay far beyond this trip at all, but she was hardly about to let Steven, or anyone else for that matter, in on her internal conflict. As far as she was concerned, this was something she could just as easily sort out solely by herself.

“Look alive, everyone!” Stan announced roughly an hour later as he pulled off the highway. “We’re coming up on an attraction run by the most black-hearted proprietor in all of Oregon: Granny Sweetkins’ Yarnball.”

“Uh, Mr. Pines, are you sure about this?” Greg asked, rather concerned as they arrived at the unassuming, rather welcoming attraction, its main feature being a massive ball of soft, colorful yarn.

“Don’t let the face fool you,” Stan glared up at the nearby sign depicting Granny Sweetkins herself. “This woman lit my car on fire on two non-consecutive occasions.”

As soon as the conman parked the RV, everyone filed out, taking a moment to be amazed by the yarnball’s quite impressive size before leaping right into action. “Girls, I’m going in,” Mabel said with determination, brazenly leading the way before Candy and Grenda eagerly followed after her directly into the ball of yarn.

“Wait for me, you guys!” Steven laughed, jumping in after the trio as Dipper and Connie watched on in bewilderment.

“Why do I have this terrible feeling that we’re gonna get caught vandalizing this thing?” Connie asked, anxiously glancing around for any signs of incoming security.

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry,” Dipper shrugged. “Whenever we do something mildly illegal like this, Stan usually makes sure we end up making a clean enough getaway. Usually.”

“Yeah, Mr. Pines does have a knack for pulling off daring escapes,” Greg added with a chuckle as he watched Stan supervise the other kids in taking the yarnball apart from the inside out. “Right, Garnet?”

The Gem leader offered no answer as she simply stood alongside the group in silence, apparently paying little attention to what was going on before her. Greg, Connie, and Dipper all looked over to her in slight concern over her lack of any sort of response, but even so, Garnet still said nothing, almost as if she was lost in her own thoughts entirely. However, before any of them could try to properly garnish her attention, Stan suddenly rushed past them, Mabel, Candy, Grenda, and Steven following hot on his heels as they all carried sizable clumps of yarn from the gradually shrinking yarnball.

“Everyone, book it! Now!” the conman ordered, prompting the rest of the group to flee back into the RV. No sooner had the door shut behind them than Stan floored it, the camper taking off at a surprising speed despite its age. As the group made their hasty retreat, Granny Sweetkins herself rushed after it, outraged as her world-famous yarnball unraveled right before her eyes.

“Why, you gall darn, no good, son of a-!” the elderly woman cut herself off, taking the knitting needle that had once held the yarnball together out of the ground and tossing it after the speeding RV with a vicious vengeance. “I’ll get you, Stan Pines!”

This incensed sentiment was shared across all of the owners of all of the tourist traps that Stan pranked across the next several days, his route meticulous and his methods always quite destructive towards whatever attraction was involved. The gang’s visit to Upside-Down Town resulted in all of them working together to flip the overturned house rightside up, essentially taking away the main thing that set it apart and turning it into a normal home. At Log Land, they untied the spectacular stack of wood the attraction was known for, resulting in a potentially deadly logslide that fortunately no one was injured in (save for the tourist trap’s revenue and reputation). The Corn Maze was easy enough to ruin simply by taking away the plentiful scarecrows positioned throughout it and waiting for the mass of crows to fly in and eat just about everything in sight. And in a similar fashion, the rest of the tourist traps they stopped in at fell, Stan raking in the sheer delight of taking his competitors down several pegs, the kids getting to join in on the exciting, rather morally ambiguous mischief, and Greg cautiously supervising to make sure none of them got hurt. The only one amongst the group who seemed completely adverse to participating altogether was Garnet, who usually barely moved away from the RV when they stopped, if she left it at all. And yet, with as much fun as they were having, no one really seemed to notice the Gem leader’s lack of engagement, even as she grew more and more closed off as the days rolled by. For the most part, they all just assumed that it was her usual stoic manner; but in reality, what it really was, was something much more concerning.

The group had been on the road for roughly three days when they finally arrived to their stopping point for the final night of their trip: the supposedly legendary Evergreen Inn. Still, despite Greg’s fanciful description of the motel, it was admittedly anything but impressive. Tucked just off of the Evergreen highway, the inn was a small, two story establishment with apparently plenty of vacancies as the clearly bored front desk receptionist implied. Still, the inn did have a decently-sized, mostly clean swimming pool claiming most of its tiny parking lot, which presented Stan with something of a challenge in finding a place to park the RV when the group arrived. They had ended up checking into two rooms right next to each other, one for Garnet and the girls to stay in and one for the Stan, Greg, and the boys. But since they had made it to the inn rather early in the evening, the kids all decided to congregate in the boys’ room first in order to enjoy what few amenities the inn had to offer.

“Another great thing about inns,” Greg said to the kids as he unlocked the door to the room. “You can drive right up to your door!”

“Or at least we could if that ol’ rust bucket out there didn’t take up three parking spots,” Stan remarked sardonically, though the kids were hardly paying much attention as they got their first glimpse of the room. By all accounts it was nothing special, a simple two bed setup with a standard bathroom, TV, desk, and décor. But even despite its almost dull normality, most of the kids were instantly taken with excitement over it.

“Its so beautiful!” Grenda proclaimed dramatically.

“Yes! Two beds!” Mabel cheered, readily hopping up onto one of them before jumping across to the other. “You guys gotta try this! It’s just like a trampoline, only with a huge, potentially dangerous gap in the middle!”

Candy and Grenda both rushed to join Mabel in her bed-hopping campaign, the three of them clearly enjoying themselves despite how simplistic their form of entertainment was. “Well, they’re easily impressed…” Connie remarked to Dipper and Steven with something of a bemused grin.

“Can you blame them? This place is amazing!” Steven exclaimed, stars in his eyes as he rushed forward into the room to better explore it. “I’m gonna swim in the pool, order a movie, get free ice, it’ll be great!”

“N-not before we check for bed bugs, it isn’t!” Greg cautioned, hurrying to do just that as Stan also properly entered the room. Garnet came in behind them, easily toting everyone’s bags, though no one really heard the somewhat burdened groan come from the Gem leader as they each took a look around the room for themselves.

“Good news! We’re bugless,” Greg let out a sigh of relief upon lifting one of the mattresses up before Steven, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda all landed squarely on top of it.

“Then that puts this place above 90% of the motels I stayed in back during my drifting days,” Stan remarked with a wry grin before briefly checking his watch. “Oh, Greg, looks like its about time for us to get those… what were they again?”

“Oh that’s right! The brushes!” the former rock star exclaimed as he quickly stood. “Hey, Garnet, do you mind holding down the fort until Mr. Pines and I get back?” Garnet responded to this simply in the form of a rather shaky thumbs up as she sat on the opposite bed, her other hand twitching rather erratically and her expression tight and terse. Even so, this was good enough for Stan and Greg. “Great!” the former rock star grinned as him and the conman headed out the door. “We’re going to see a man about a tunnel brush. An internet man… If we’re not back in an hour, call the police.”

“Pfft, please, Greg, we’re not gonna need any pansy police,” Stan rolled his eyes. “If we run into any trouble with this guy, all it’ll take to shake him off our backs is one good slug in the jaw with these babies.” The conman smirked as he pulled his infamous brass knuckles out of his suit pocket before quickly slipping them back into hiding.

“Mr. Pines, we can’t just beat the guy up.”

“Ha! Try tellin’ that my old parole officer.”

“Bye!” Steven called after the pair as they left, leaving the kids behind with Garnet, not that she was really paying any of them much mind to begin with.

“Oh my gosh, you guys, wait!” Mabel gasped, halting the ongoing barrage of jumping between beds. “What if this inn has vending machines?!”

“Inns can have vending machines too?!” Steven asked in amazed surprise. “Seriously, how could this place get any better?”

“We should go see if they have one, and if they do, we should get a bunch of candy!” Mabel exclaimed, hopping up and down in place on the bed.

“Call me crazy, but for some reason I feel like candy is the last thing any of you guys need right now,” Dipper pointed out with an exasperated frown.

“He is right,” Candy conceded with a small, steadily growing, wry smirk. “After all, I’m already here!”

“Oooo! I see what you did there!” Grenda laughed, Steven and Mabel readily joining in as even Dipper and Connie managed to get a bit of a chuckle out of this joke.

“Garnet!” Steven called over to the Gem leader with another small laugh. “Did you hear what Candy just-”

The young Gem cut himself off upon hearing a rather tense, rather loud groan that came from Garnet herself. The levity in the room was all but shattered as all the kids looked to her with apt alarm, though she largely ignored them in favor of carrying on what seemed to be a quite intense argument with herself. “Calm down…” she advised, her voice shaking as it quickly hitched with anger. “I don’t feel like forgiving Pearl! Y-you don’t understand, we must. Augh! If you’re not going to listen, then you can just GO!”

On this harsh, sudden proclamation, a sudden, bright light overtook the Gem leader, though it only lasted for a brief second before, without hardly any warning at all, she quite literally fell apart. Ruby and Sapphire both let out startled cries as they fell onto the floor, though their surprise was quickly replaced with the still strong sentiments left over from their internal struggle, even as all six of the kids stared at the couple in shocked, silent awe.

“We must move past this, Ruby,” Sapphire began, her voice stoic and steady as she sat elegantly on the floor, facing away from the red Gem.

“No! She lied to us to form Sardonyx!” Ruby snapped harshly, practically shaking with rage. “She tricked us! Don’t you feel used?!”

“Oh my gosh!” Mabel squealed amidst the couple’s ongoing squabble as she looked to Candy and Grenda, who were clearly still in shock over what they had just seen. “See? Garnet really is a fusion, just like I was telling you guys!”

“Ruby! Sapphire!” Steven greeted the pair brightly. “We-”

“You’re just choosing to take it personally,” Sapphire said to Ruby, neither of them paying any attention to the kids amidst their own conflict.

“It’s fusion, Sapphire!” Ruby hopped to her feet hotly. “What’s more personally to us than fusion?!”

“I know you’re still upset-”

“Oh, so its just me then, huh?”

“Of course not,” Sapphire turned to face her partner, her expression completely dour and emotionless. “Can’t you see I’m engulfed with rage?”

“Well, it doesn’t feel like it,” Ruby growled, impatiently tapping her foot. All the while, the kids continued watching on, none of them quite sure what to say to interrupt this rather intense argument, if it was even a wise idea to do so at all.

“The sooner we forgive Pearl, the better it will be for all of us,” Sapphire assured, finally lifting herself up off the floor to, oddly enough, levitate just above it. Ruby only glared at the blue Gem as she gracefully lifted herself up onto the bed to take a placid seat upon it.

“You’re not as above this as you think you are!” the red Gem shouted fiercely, her rage coming out in the form of visible steam that rose up from her.

“Yes,” Sapphire hummed, gently placing her hands in her lap. “I am.”

“Grr… Why doesn’t this bother you!?” Ruby groaned, slamming her fist onto the lower end of the bed.

“I never said it didn’t,” the blue Gem countered evenly. “I’m just choosing to be reasonable about it. Something you should do too, Ruby.”

“I don’t have to be reasonable about anything!” the red Gem barked, though she quickly paused upon realizing what she had just said. “W-wait! That’s not what I meant! I just… I… AUGH!”

“Its like I said,” Sapphire continued calmly. “You can’t stay angry with Pearl forever.”

“Wanna bet?” Ruby scowled, clearly not retracting her firm, angry position.

“Ruby, the carpet,” the blue Gem nodded down to the floor, which her partner just so happened to be burning a hole into simply by standing upon it.

“You… c-cant even… augh!” Ruby cut herself off with another frustrated shout before she ended up storming out of the room altogether, brutally slamming the door behind her. A beat of rather awkward silence passed as the kids, who had all been largely spectating the argument between the two Gems, slowly all looked towards Sapphire, who was still sitting on the bed, her gaze fixated solely in front of her and her expression as unmoving and seemingly unfeeling as ever.

“Nice to… see you again?” Steven was the first to break the silence, offering the blue Gem something of a small smile that she didn’t return.

“Nice to see you too,” Sapphire replied, her tone and manner quite stately.

“So…” Mabel began innocently enough before rather bluntly getting to the heart of what they had just seen. “Does that fight you and Ruby just had mean you guys are getting a divorce?”

“O-okay!” Dipper quickly interjected almost as soon as his sister had voiced this awkward question, not even giving the rather confused Sapphire a chance to answer it as he abruptly pushed Mabel towards the door. “I think its about time that the six of us get some fresh air! Like… right now.”

“Aw…” Steven frowned in disappointment as Connie helped pull him, Candy, and Grenda after the twins. “But we just-”

“Now,” Dipper insisted as he finished shooing everyone out of the room before exiting himself.

“You know, I gotta admit,” Connie began as soon as they were all congregated outside of the room. “Based on what you guys have told me about Ruby and Sapphire and their relationship, what happened in there was… pretty unexpected.”

“Well, the first time we saw them together, they actually got along really well,” Steven shrugged.

“Yeah, they did!” Mabel chimed in brightly. “They hugged and kissed and danced until they fused back into Garnet, augh! You guys should have seen it!” she quipped to Candy and Grenda, who were clearly taken by this romantic recounting. “They were so adorable!”

“Aw, man! I wish we could see them being adorable together!” Grenda pouted, crossing her arms in disappointment.

“Yes, but at the moment, it seems as though they are having… relationship issues,” Candy noted just as solemnly.

“Seriously, you think they’d at least be willing to talk to each other about this whole thing instead of arguing about it,” Dipper said.

“Wait a second…” Steven mused, a sudden idea coming to him. “That’s it! If Ruby and Sapphire won’t talk things out on their own, then maybe we can help them instead!”

“Oh my gosh, that’s a great idea, Steven!” Mabel readily agreed. “And it makes perfect sense too! Garnet’s always helping us without our relationship problems, so its about time we return the favor and help Ruby and Sapphire work theirs out!”

“You know what this means?” Candy asked with a growing grin. “It is our turn to be-”

“Romance experts!” Mabel and Grenda chimed in alongside Candy, all three of the girls more than excited to be taking up this rather daunting undertaking.

“Uh, I don’t know, you guys,” Dipper interjected much more rationally. “Maybe getting in the middle of Ruby and Sapphire’s, uh… disagreement isn’t really the best idea. We should probably just let them patch things up on their own.”

“But who knows how long that could take!” Mabel said with an impatient huff. “We all saw that lil’ spat they just had; those two need some serious relationship help STAT! So here’s how its gonna go down: it’ll be easier if we all split up to talk to them first so we can convince them to talk to each other.”

“Huh, that… actually makes sense,” Connie remarked, realizing that this idea wasn’t as bad as it had originally sounded.

“Of course it does! Now, me, Steven, and Grenda will go try to cool Ruby down,” Mabel continued explaining. “Meanwhile, Dipper, Connie, Candy, you three go see if you can do anything to get Sapphire to warm up. Ya see what I did there? Cool? Warm? It’s a-”

“Yeah, we get it, it’s a pun,” Dipper interupted, rolling his eyes. “By the way, I still don’t think this plan is gonna work, but… I guess anything’s better than listening to those two argue all night so, its probably worth a try.”

“Don’t worry,” Steven assured before the respective groups split up to carry out their missions. “All we gotta do is convince Ruby and Sapphire to hear each other out and then I’m sure everything else will work itself out. Or at least… I really hope it will…”

Despite her abruptly storming out of the room earlier, Ruby wasn’t all too difficult to find thanks to the trail of ashy footprints she had left behind, one that Steven, Mabel, and Grenda found led towards the pool. And so, for the sake of being discreet in their goal as well as to have a little fun at the same time, the trio quickly changed into their bathing suits and hurried out to the pool, hoping to get the incensed red Gem to simmer down somehow.

Upon slipping through the pool’s open gate, the trio found that, sure enough, there Ruby was, pacing angrily around the parameter. A plume of steady steam rose up from her all the while as her hands remained in tight fists at her sides and her expression set in a bitter downward glare. For a moment, the kids simply watched her, all of them noting that she apparently hadn’t noticed their arrival at all, at least until Steven spoke up to greet her.

“Uh… hey, Ruby,” the young Gem began with a tentative smile and wave as he put his towel down. “You wanna swim in the pool with us?”

“And, I dunno, maybe we can all talk about our feelings?” Mabel suggested innocently enough. “They say pools are the best place to work your pent up anger out, after all.”

“Whoa, really?” Grenda asked, apparently amazed by this fact. “Wow… and all these years, I was doing that by hitting things!”

“Uh… yeah…” Steven said as both him and Mabel looked to Grenda with confused frowns before he turned back to Ruby, who was still pacing intently. “Anyway, we-”

“It’s fusion, Steven!” Ruby suddenly snapped, her manner every bit as hostile as it had been back in the room. “It’s like Sapphire doesn’t even care! And we’re supposed to be ‘the bigger Gem’ about this. We’re always the bigger Gem! Well, not this time! Not about this!”

“Uh… well… y-you could always try talking to Sapphire about it,” Mabel mused somewhat awkwardly, knowing that it probably wasn’t wise to push the red Gem too far. “You know… calmly?”

“I did that already!” Ruby retorted hotly. “You three were there, you saw how she just refuses to admit that she could ever be wrong about anything just ‘cause she can see the future. But I can see plenty of things myself, and I can see that she’s wrong this time, I know it!”

“Um, r-right…” Steven said somewhat nervously before throwing on a reassuring smile. “Well, why don’t you come cool down in the pool with us?” At this, the young Gem promptly cannonballed into the pool, Mabel following right after him. Grenda was last and the earlier pair was rather caught off guard by the large splash her jump created, one that ended up splaying Ruby with water that quickly turned to steam as it evaporated off of her very warm form.

“I don’t need to cool down,” the red Gem grumbled, crossing her arms as she glared away from the pool.

“Aw, come on, Ruby!” Mabel urged brightly. “The water’s niiice!”

“And there’s only like 4 or 5 bugs floating around in here, which makes it cleaner than most hotel pools I’ve been to at least!” Grenda added just as exuberantly.

Ruby paused, taking another sour glance over at the pool before finally relenting and stepping down into it, continuing her ongoing rant all the while. “Why does she always act like I’m being ridiculous!?” she huffed, walking straight to the bottom of the pool and staying grounded there as she resumed pacing. “Just because she wants to pretend like she doesn’t have feelings?! Oh yeah, I don’t have any feelings, well I…” Ruby continued her frustrated ramblings, though much of it was muffled by the several gallons of water she was under, though apparently not hindered by whatsoever.

“Wow, Ruby’s a really good swimmer,” Grenda noted, duly amazed as they all watched the red Gem pace about.

“Is she… ok down there?” Mabel asked with a slightly worried frown.

“Yeah, I think so,” Steven mused, even as Ruby continued to pay none of them any mind amidst her ongoing venting. “Uh… Ruby? Oh!” the young Gem gasped as the water around them began to bubble with sudden warmth. “Heh, you made a warm spot!”

“Hey, yeah! It almost feels like a hot tub in here now!” Mabel chuckled along with Steven and Grenda before the water’s temperature unexpectedly spiked from comfortably warm to unbearably hot. “Ah! O-OK, now it’s a really hot tub!”

“M-more than hot! Boiling!” Steven cried as him, Mabel, and Grenda all frantically scrambled to get out of the piping hot water. The pool was still largely bubbling over even as they hurriedly climbed out of it, sitting on the dry edge as they all panted in a desperate attempt to cool down from the near-burns they had almost received. A beat of awkward silence passed as they tried and failed to spot Ruby amidst the rapid bubbles she was unwittingly creating from her quite literally burning rage. Even so, in the end it was rather clear that as stubborn as someone like Ruby was, it would take more than just a few apprehensive words of convincing to get her to hold anything close to a civil conversation with Sapphire at this point.

Or at least this fact was clear to Steven and Mabel, since Grenda turned to the pair with a rather satisfied grin just a moment later. “Ya know, I think that went pretty well!”

Upon splitting up from the others and reentering the inn room, Dipper, Connie, and Candy all immediately noticed that the room itself seemed a bit chillier than it had been when they had stepped outside mere minutes ago. Even so, the trio didn’t really put too much thought into this apparently coincidental change as they greeted Sapphire casually enough.

“Uh… hey, Sapphire,” Dipper began with a tentative wave as him, Connie, and Candy moved to take a seat on the other bed.

“Hello, Dipper, Connie, Candy,” Sapphire nodded in return, her tone flat as she maintained her spot on the bed, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

“Are… you doing ok in here?” Connie asked, not really sure where to start in convincing the blue Gem to talk things out with her significant other.

“I’m… fine…” Sapphire said somewhat tightly, a bit of frost creeping up on the wall behind her. As it did, the kids happened to notice the room’s temperature fall from refreshingly cool to blatantly cold in almost an instant, most likely as a result of the blue Gem’s tranquil dissatisfaction. Even so, none of them decided to address that fact to Sapphire herself, lest doing so result in the room growing somehow even colder than it already was, which was quite an unsavory thought given how frigid it was already becoming.

“H-how about we watch some TV?” Candy suggested with a shiver, unceremoniously pulling the bed’s blanket up and wrapping part of it around herself before offering the rest to Dipper and Connie.

“Sure,” Sapphire remarked, as unexpressive as always.

“Oh, uh, l-look at that, the TV channels are different here than they are in Gravity Falls,” Dipper said upon turning the television on before addressing Sapphire. “M-maybe you could use your future vision to point us to a good one?”

“Hm… 43,” the blue Gem replied after only a brief moment of thought. “But there’s not much on.”

Even despite this, Dipper switched to the aforementioned channel and all three of the kids burrowed themselves deeper into the blanket, which admittedly offered them little warmth amidst the still ever-dropping temperatures of the room. For a moment or two, the doldrum sounds of the TV filled in what would have otherwise been awkward silence as frost continued climbing up the walls, particularly behind Sapphire, who didn’t really seem to have much to say regarding her and Ruby’s falling out at all. Which meant that perhaps all she needed was a bit of good prompting towards the subject.

“H-hey, Sapphire-” Connie ventured to begin, but the blue Gem succinctly cut her off before she could continue.

“Even if I do, Ruby won’t listen.”

“H-huh?”

“You’re going to say that I should talk to Ruby,” Sapphire correctly predicted. “But it won’t help. At least not right now.”

“A-are you sure?” Dipper asked, shuddering from the bitter chill that seemed to have no relief in sight. “Cause she seemed pretty upset earlier.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Sapphire concluded firmly. “She’s simply overreacting. It’s a longtime habit of hers, one that usually doesn’t cause too many problems. But in the off chance that it does, she always comes around eventually. She can’t stay mad at Pearl forever and she can’t stay mad at me forever, and then she’ll come back and see that I’m right.”

“B-but don’t you think talking to her might smooths things over between you two… I-I don’t know, sooner?” Connie attempted, her eyes widening as she realized she could see her breath in the apparent icebox they were now in.

“There’s no need to rush this,” the blue Gem shook her head. “I can see the path of fate as it stretches on the horizon. The rift between us isn’t destined to last. Ruby can’t avoid the inevitable. She’s just letting her emotions get out of hand.”

“N-not you though, right?” Dipper asked, rolling his eyes rather knowingly as he realized they weren’t really getting anywhere with the practically immovable blue Gem.

“No,” Sapphire said, even as the bed she was sitting on completely froze over, not that she paid it any real mind at all.

By this point, while Dipper and Connie were trying to come up with a last ditch attempt to convince Sapphire to speak to Ruby, Candy had apparently decided that the frigid conditions had become too much for her to bear. “I-I must use the bathroom!” she cried, hopping off the bed and rushing for the smaller room that she hoped would be just a bit warmer.

“Also inevitable,” Sapphire noted dryly.

“O eoseo!” Candy shouted in frustrated Korean before poking her head outside the bathroom door. “T-the toilet is frozen!”

“Such is fate,” the blue Gem said, completely apathetic to the trio of practically frozen kids, none of whom could really stand the subzero conditions any longer.

“S-so I guess its our fate to pee outside in the grass too, then?” Dipper huffed in annoyance as him and Connie began to follow Candy out of the room, all three of them more than frustrated by how little progress they had made with the supposedly sensible blue Gem.

But all the same, Sapphire kept up her “calm” composure, barely even effected at all as the kids left her behind in the effective tundra of a room she had created. “…Yes.”

Coincidentally enough, just as Steven, Mabel, and Grenda were trudging back from the pool, fanning themselves off all the while from the heat Ruby had unwittingly subjected them to, Dipper, Connie, and Candy emerged from the frozen room, all three of them more than glad to be out in the balmy summer night’s air after their frigid stint with Sapphire.

“H-hey, you guys,” Steven panted as the two groups converged, all of them taking a seat on the curb near the room. “How’d it go with Sapphire?”

“N-not so great,” Connie admitted, still largely chilled to the bone. “She’s pretty dead set on thinking that Ruby the wrong one here and that she’ll eventually realize that which means they don’t need to talk things out.”

“And then she froze the entire room over!” Candy added fretfully. “Including the toilet…”

“That’s… basically what Ruby said about Sapphire…” Mabel frowned worriedly.

“Before she accidentally boiled the three of us in the pool!” Grenda huffed hotly.

“Well, that’s… not really that surprising,” Dipper remarked dryly. “You know, despite basically being opposites with the whole fire and ice thing, those two really are pretty similar, especially when it comes to how stubborn they are. No wonder they usually get along so well.”

“Well, I wish they were getting along now…” Steven sighed sadly as he flopped onto his back. “What are we gonna do, you guys? We can’t just… let them stay mad at each other like this! Its great seeing Ruby and Sapphire again, yeah, but I already miss Garnet so much! What if… what if they never make up a-and they never form Garnet again!?”

“Aw, Steven…” Connie said, placing a sympathetic hand on the young Gem’s shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll make up sooner or later.”

“Yeah, and until they do, we’ll just have to step our ‘romance expert’ game up so we can really help them get back together!” Mabel proclaimed with a daring grin.

“Or… maybe we should just leave well enough alone,” Dipper countered, rubbings his arms in a continuous attempt to warm them up. “After all, the last thing I wanna do right now is step back into ‘Antarctica’ in there.”

Despite their somewhat lowered spirits, this did manage to get something of a small laugh out of the kids, one that was all too short lived as they quickly returned to their former dejection over their failed missions. While they all figured that the squabble between Ruby and Sapphire would end eventually, the underlying fear still existed, however small it was, that this conflict between them would last, that they’d stay fixed in their positions and refuse to find some sort of compromise. That, worst of all, they’d never see Garnet again as a result.

Fortunately though, none of them had too much of a chance to stew in such unsavory thoughts as the bright, telltale headlights from an oncoming RV encompassed all of them. As soon as their eyes adjusted to the light, they were able to see that the camper had indeed returned, now with a set of brand new car wash brushes tied to the roof.

“Hey, kids!” Greg greeted warmly as he popped out of the RV, two pizza boxes in hand. “We brought dinner!”

“Hey, Dad,” Steven replied with a halfhearted smile. “How’d it go?”

“Well, he wasn’t an axe-murderer,” the former rock star said, joining the kids on the curb.

“And I didn’t have to use these babies,” Stan added as he got out of the camper, letting out a disappointed sigh as he held up his brass knuckles. “At least not this time…”

“…Which was probably a good thing,” Greg remarked, scratching the back of his neck. “Anyway, what are you kids doing outside anyway? And why are you three in your bathing suits?” he asked Steven, Mabel, and Grenda in particular before turning to Connie, Dipper, and Candy. “And why do you three look so cold? And where’s Garnet?”

“You… don’t wanna know,” Dipper deadpanned in clear exasperation.

“Uh, yeah, we kinda do,” Stan remarked, his hands on his hips. Prompted by curiosity, both Greg and Stan took a tentative peek inside the boys’ room, only to find it largely frozen over, ice and frost coating the walls, the floor, and just about everything else. And of course, Sapphire still remained sitting on the bed, still completely unmoving, though she did briefly turn to the pair, her expression completely unmoved as she offered them a bizarre, almost ominous prediction. “They’re not gonna like that its square…”

At this, the conman and the former rock star quickly closed the door, leaving the blue Gem to her privacy as they both turned to the kids, slightly baffled. “Oh great…” Stan grumbled, rolling his eyes knowingly. “Those two again…”

“Uh… where’s the other one?” Greg asked worriedly, glancing around for any sign of Ruby.

“She’s pacing around in what used to be the pool,” Grenda informed, pointing over to the now completely dried up pool, where the red Gem was still marching around and muttering angrily to herself.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Mabel interjected, her eyes wide with newfound curiosity as she looked between Greg and Stan. “You guys have both met Ruby and Sapphire before?!”

“A… few times,” the former rock star admitted. “Its not like they’re really around that much seeing as how Garnet’s usually pretty steady.”

“Then how come you never bothered to tell us that she was a fusion all that time?” Dipper asked, giving Stan in particular a critical glance.

“Cause it never came up,” the conman shrugged with a bit of a scoff. “What were you two runts expecting me to tell you when you got off the bus at the beginning of the summer? ‘Hey, kids! Welcome to the Mystery Shack! Keep your fingers away from the goat! The tall, square-haired lady who lives up the hill is actually just two small fries in a trench coat!’”

“Eh, yeah I guess that would probably have ruined the surprise,” Mabel noted in agreement.

“Something pretty serious must be going on if it made Garnet split up,” Greg said, getting the conversation back on track. He was quick to change gears, however, upon noticing his son’s rather forlorn expression over this fact. “B-but hey! All of us can still have a good time!” The former rock star smile as he finally opened up one of his pizza boxes, revealing something that made just about all of the kids groan in exasperation.

“Square pizza!” Steven cried fretfully. “What’s wrong with this crazy place!?”

“Son, there will come a time in your life when you learn to accept all pizza,” Greg said with a hint of sagely wisdom in his tone.

“Besides, it could be worse,” Stan remarked dryly as he grabbed a slice. “Could be street pizza from an overworked delivery guy who ya snubbed a tip to.”

Despite the conman’s attempt at bringing some levity, it didn’t really work as most of the kids still looked just as downtrodden as they had been before, especially Steven as he decided to earnestly voice his ongoing concern. “Why can’t Ruby and Sapphire just… make up?”

“Aw, Steven…” Greg frowned sympathetically, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Sometimes people that love each other can hurt each other’s feelings without meaning to. We should probably just give them some space.”

“Aw, but who knows if they’ll ever talk to each other again if they don’t have help from a bunch of romance experts like us?!” Mabel asked, deeply worried.

“A bunch of what?” Stan asked, raising a confused eyebrow.

“I’m sure everything will be better in the morning,” Greg reassured warmly.

“You bet it will be,” the conman remarked with a daring smirk. “Tomorrow’s our last stop on this route of revenge against all these lesser tourist traps. Everything up until now has been a walk in the park compared to our next attraction.”

“Is it a walk in the world’s biggest park?” Candy asked curiously.

“Eh, sort of, actually,” Stan shrugged. “But I’m not saying any more about it until we wreck the place tomorrow.”

“B-but before that,” Greg interjected, holding a brochure he had picked up earlier. “We’ll all go to the best diner in the world, which just so happens to be right inside this place! And there, all of us, including Ruby and Sapphire, will have the best brunch in the world, which is bound to smooth things over between them!”

“You really think that’ll help?” Steven asked, hopeful.

“Nothin’ like a little breakfast to bring people together,” the former rock star nodded firmly, finally garnishing much needed smiles out of all of the kids, including his son.

“You really are my favorite dad,” Steven sighed happily, finally partaking of the square pizza as he leaned against his father.

“Heh,” Greg chuckled, sincerely hoping that he was right about his assumptions concerning the bickering Gem couple, if for no one else’s sake than Steven’s. “I knew this pizza would put me over the top.”

The next morning saw the entire group rising early to get a head start on their nearby final stop of the trip. Since Sapphire had frozen one of the rooms over entirely, Stan, Greg, and the boys had resorted to sleeping in the RV, which was fortunately much more temperate, though perhaps a bit balmy thanks to the incredibly warm aura put off by the nearby pool, or rather, the red Gem who had spent the entire night hotly pacing around in it. While the staff of Evergreen Inn were far from happy about the messes the couple had unknowingly made, Greg and Stan managed to smooth things over enough that they were able to check out without too many complications. And soon enough, they were on the road again, though fortunately it didn’t take too long for their penultimate destination to peak over the forested horizon.

“There she is, kids,” Stan scowled, gripping the steering wheel tight as a tall, mist-covered mountain loomed in the distance. “Mystery Mountain. Five times the size of the Mystery Shack, and what’s worse: she actually has real attractions.”

“Oh! I have read about this place,” Candy remarked, unfolding the brochure about the attraction she had picked up at the inn earlier. “It has a sky tram. And a mummy museum. And sightings of half human, half spider people.”

“Ooo, and a gift shop!” Steven chimed in as he took a peek at the brochure for himself.

“And that diner I was telling you kids about last night,” Greg added with a smile as he glanced over his shoulder to the rest of the passengers. “Who’s hungry for some brunch?!”

At this, all of the kids excitedly raised their hands, leaving only Ruby and Sapphire out as they sat beside each other on the couch wordlessly, both of them averting each other’s gaze as they instead devoted their attention elsewhere and maintained a noticeable distance away from each other. Still, no one made any real note of that as Stan continued showing his quite apparent envy of everything Mystery Mountain had to offer.

“Enjoy that brunch while ya can,” the conman said with a growing, vengeful smirk. “Because today, that mountain falls!”

After Stan recklessly pulled into the attraction’s parking lot and everyone filed out of the RV, they were all able to see that the conman hadn’t been exaggerating when it came to the scope of Mystery Mountain. The tourist trap was grand in scale and presentation, the mountain towering high above and carrying an all around aura of mystery and intrigue to it that actually almost felt genuine. A slow-moving sky tram carried guests up and down the massive hill, giving them a scenic view of the area, though many other tourists favored hiking the mountain’s fascinating trails as well. The place wasn’t lacking for any business at all either; satisfied tourists were abundant, all of them apparently enthralled by the secrets and surprises Mystery Mountain had in store, something that irritated Stan in particular as they all took a cursory look around.

“Ugh, stupid place thinks its so great just because they have a bunch of fog and mummies and free public restrooms,” the conman scoffed haughtily. “Well it won’t be after we’re through with it! Kids! I got five bucks for whoever can tip that big blue ox over there! Go! Go! Go!”

On this prompting, the kids all gladly hurried over to the large ceramic ox nearby to do just that, Greg rushing after them to make sure no one would hurt themselves as they all clamored up onto it. Satisfied with this, Stan prepared to join them, though he paused upon glancing back towards the RV only to notice Ruby and Sapphire both standing near it, their backs practically turned to each other and their expressions every bit as harsh/unfeeling as they had been the night before.

“You two aren’t just gonna stand there and look angry at each other, are ya?” Stan asked, giving the couple a critical glance as he turned to face them fully. “Cause I didn’t agree to bring you, or, uh… Garnet, or… or whoever along on this trip just for you to argue and do a whole bunch of nothing.”

Ruby was the first to let out a sour scoff at this, sending a fierce warning glare up at the conman before flames suddenly burst around her hand. “How’s this for nothin’, Stan?” she asked crossly, preparing to ram her flaming fist into the RV itself before Sapphire fortunately stopped her.

“No, Ruby,” the blue Gem chastised calmly, her hands folded neatly over her skirt.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve actually decided to care about something for a change like this dumb old RV!” Ruby growled, her hand still smoking even if the flames did diminish about.

“Well, it is our only ride home,” Sapphire pointed out rationally.

“What, you think I don’t know that?!”

“I know you know that.”

“Well, you always act like I don’t know anything!”

“I never once said that. Ever.”

“Well, ya might as well have!”

“Don’t misconstrue things, Ruby.”

“I’m not misconstruing anything! You’re the one who’s-”

“Alright, alright, enough already!” Stan suddenly interjected, severely annoyed by the couple’s ongoing bickering by this point. “Yeesh, and I thought you two were supposed to head over heels for each other. But if you’re gonna go at it like two rabid chipmunks, then clearly your relationship needs some serious work.”

“Stan,” Sapphire began evenly enough. “You really should stay out of-”

“What did you just say?” Ruby growled, her hands curled into tight fists as she scowled up at Stan.

“You heard me, shorty,” the conman shrugged, surprisingly nonchalant. “Seems to me like your ‘fling’ or whatever you two call it is heading downhill fast. Maybe you should go see one of those crackpot marriage counselors or something to help you work all this junk out. And maybe bring a firefighter along with you just in case you end up setting the whole place on fire.”

Upon hearing this, the red Gem let out an outraged shout, steam steadily rising from her all the while as Sapphire had to essentially hold her back from physically going after the still rather unphased conman. “What would you know about our relationship!?” she shouted hotly. “We’ve been together for thousands of years!”

“Oh really?” Stan asked, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. “Then I guess the spark between you guys really is gone after all that time. Maybe what you need is to see a good example of what real romance looks like.”

“A real romance?!” Ruby scoffed incredulously, practically shaking with rage by this point. “Why I oughta-”

“Before you say or do anything else, Stan, I should warn you that what you’re thinking is a very bad idea,” Sapphire spoke up, her manner quite firm, especially as she noticed the conman happen to glance over at the blonde, relatively older woman running the ticket booth a few feet away.

“Yeah, yeah, bad idea, schmad idea,” Stan remarked with an uncaring wave of his hand as he put on a wry, charming grin. “Watch and learn how a true master does it.”

“Again, Stan, you really shouldn’t talk to that woman,” Sapphire attempted to warn as the conman started heading over to the ticket booth. “She’s actually a-”

“Hey, there,” Stan greeted the woman casually enough as he leaned against the counter and searched his pockets briefly. “Oh, I seem to have lost my number! Can I borrow yours?”

Upon hearing this corny pickup line, Ruby let out a disgusted groan and Sapphire shook her head disapprovingly. The woman, however, was seemingly taken by the conman’s flirting as she let out a loud, apparently amused chuckle. “Oh, you are a riot!” she exclaimed laughingly. “What brings you here? We don’t normally get men so handsome around these parts!”

“Heh, well-” Stan cut himself off briefly to steal a glance at the woman’s nametag. “Darlene, between you and me, what I’m doing here is a little secret.”

“Oh, you seem like a man with secrets,” Darlene coed, leaning forward in intrigue. “You know, I’m going on a break. You wanna take the sky tram up to Widow’s Peak?”

“Only if I go with a looker like you,” Stan remarked coyly as Darlene got out of the ticket booth.

“Ohh, fancy!” the woman grinned wryly, taking the arm the conman as offering to her. As the pair headed off on their so-called ‘date’, Stan stole a glance back at Ruby and Sapphire, offering them a smug, triumphant grin before he left them alone for a beat of awkward silence.

“Uh… what did we just watch?” Ruby asked, still quite put off by the previous display of tawdry flirting.

“A mistake,” Sapphire deadpanned in response, her future vision making the outcome of this situation quite clear. “Trust me.”

“Well, we managed to tip that ox over without breaking any bones or getting caught,” Greg said with a relieved smile as he returned to the couple a moment later. “Uh… hey, where’s Mr. Pines?”

“He’s busy showing us what a ‘real’ relationship looks like,” Ruby grumbled, her arms crossed as she glared in the direction the conman had just left in.

“Um… ok?” Greg frowned in confusion. “I guess he’s gonna miss brunch then… Kids, come on! That diner’s right over here!”

Upon mention of a much-needed meal, the kids all readily hurried over from the remains of the now fallen ox, more than eager to follow the former rock star to the so-called ‘best diner in the world’. Of course, the place was really just a modest, run of the mill all-day breakfast joint, tucked away at the base of Mystery Mountain for its guests to have a decent meal before exploring the attraction. All the same, the group got a sizable booth, one that was fortunately large enough to accommodate everyone as they waited for their food to come in a mostly comfortable silence. That is, save for the still largely ongoing tension between Ruby and Sapphire as they sat next to each other, refusing to really even spare each other so much as a second glance. Fortunately though, the diner was quick with its service, and before anyone really had a chance to bring this tension to light, everyone’s breakfasts arrived, including the meals that the former rock star had decided to order for the Gem couple, who had failed to do so for themselves.

“Aw, an eggs and bacon smiley face!” Mabel cheered upon receiving her meal. “It’s deliciously cheerful!”

“It is almost too adorable to eat!” Candy chimed in just as brightly, even as Grenda began hungrily scarfing her own food down beside her.

“What’s the matter?” Greg asked curiously upon noticing that Ruby was simply staring blankly at the food in front of her. “Not hungry?”

“Gems don’t need to eat, Dad,” Steven reminded as he took a bite of his bacon.

“Eh… well, Garnet likes to eat sometimes,” the former rock star pointed out with a shrug.

“AUGH!” Ruby suddenly snapped, throwing herself back against the back of the booth bitterly. “Well, Garnet’s not here right now!”

“Man, and I thought last night was awkward…” Dipper remarked to Connie in a very aside whisper.

“Tell me about it…” Connie replied with a frown, one that all of the kids gradually shared as a quite uncomfortable silence settled in at the table. With the Gem couple as at ends as they were, no one quite knew what to say or do as they simply ate their breakfasts quietly, hoping that this awkward brunch would pass by soon enough. Even so, Greg couldn’t help but steal a glance over at Steven, who had pressed himself close to the table, a fretful expression on his face as he absently cut into his eggs, though he hardly seemed interested in eating as he devoted his worried attention to pair of quarreling Gems across the table from him. Clearly, the young Gem was quite dejected over Garnet’s split and Ruby and Sapphire’s still-ongoing bickering, or at least that’s what Greg assumed as he tried to lighten the otherwise heavy mood a bit.

“Mm! Oh boy, this really is the best diner in the world!” Greg exclaimed with a bit of a forced grin. “Mr. Pines doesn’t know what he’s missing! I wonder where he is anyway…”

Given Stan’s self-perceived talent when it came to wooing women, he had found it rather easy to keep up the flirtatious dynamic he had built up with Darlene earlier going as they ventured into the so-called “Giant Spider Forest”. Given that the trail was seeped in deep fog, dense forestation, and creeping spider webs, it carried a bit of an ominous vibe to it, though the conman attempted to play this off as romantic as he led his date to sit down on a nearby bunch to relax for a bit.

“Oh, are you sure you wanna go this deep into the forest?” Darlene asked with exaggerated concern. “It’s soooo scary.”

“Heh, don’t worry, toots,” Stan smirked, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “That spider people stuff is just an urban legend. I can’t believe people fall for it.”

“Ooo, you’re so brave…” Darlene cooed almost knowingly.

“What can I say?” the conman shrugged obliviously. “I’m a real catch.”

“Yeah, you sure are…” the woman’s grin turned rather sinister. With a simple blink of her eyes, they turned black completely, irises completely gone as her voice distorted and dark as an alarming transformation began to take place. “The catch of the day…”

“Uh… did your contacts fall out or-” the conman’s confusion was quickly replaced with apt fear as Darlene changed completely before him, her size and number of legs tripling as her unassuming appearance turned into something truly monstrous. Something that was more than eager to trap Stan in the tightened web he had unknowingly gotten himself entangled in.

Despite Greg’s best efforts of starting up a conversation, the brunch table was still largely seeped in awkward silence. That is, until Ruby absently began bumping the bottom of the table with her impatiently tapping foot.

“You’re shaking the table,” Sapphire broke her longstanding silence to point out, her manner calm as she glanced over at the red Gem.

“OH?!” Ruby suddenly slammed her fist down on the table, growing increasingly frustrated by the second. “I’m kinda surprised you felt anything at all, to be honest!”

“I didn’t need to feel,” Sapphire countered evenly. “I saw.”

“Oh, everything’s just so CRYSTAL CLEAR TO YOU, ISN’T IT?!” Ruby shouted, now actively shaking the table out of her sheer, unabridged fury. Everyone else was quick to lift their plates off the rapidly quaking table to avoid making a mess, all of them watching the Gem couple with wide eyes out of slight fear of what might transpire next.

“This will pass,” Sapphire reassured them over Ruby’s noisy raging. “She’ll eventually just burn herself out and-”

“That’s what you think!” the red Gem snapped, summoning her single gauntlet and holding her fists high above the table. “I AM AN ENTERNAL FLAME, BABY!” And with that outraged exclamation, Ruby brought her hands down, smashing the table cleanly in half and sending what food was left on it flying everywhere as the couple’s hostile argument continued.

“You don’t know me!” Ruby shouted at the blue Gem, standing up on her seat. “You always act like you know everything-”

“How could I possibly not know you?” Sapphire retorted even as Ruby continued over her. “We always fuse. Why are you being so-”

“-But you don’t even know yourself! You just wanna pretend that-”

“-Difficult, look at yourself. Look at what you’re going on about, you’re being ridiculous about-”

As this seemingly ceaseless bickering between the two Gems continued, the kids largely just watched in stunned dread, all of them knowing better than to try and intervene in such a heated conflict. Steven, however, was by far the most upset by this unexpected explosion, one that demonstrated to him that things between Ruby and Sapphire were showing no signs of getting better any time soon. If anything, it only looked like they were going to get worse.

“H-hey, it’s ok, pal!” Greg quickly attempted to reassure his son, especially as he noticed tears starting to well up in his eyes. “We can still save this! Why don’t we just bag all this up to go and-”

The former rock star was abruptly interupted by Steven suddenly tossing his plate onto the floor, where it shattered instantly. At this, Ruby and Sapphire’s fighting came to a stark halt as everyone turned to look to the young Gem in alarm, only to find his fledgling tears finally falling as he promptly stood and rushed out of the diner without saying a single word.

“Aw geez…” Greg sighed sympathetically, scratching the back of his neck as he watched his upset son retreat.

“Should we go after him?” Connie asked, unanimously worried about Steven along with the rest of the kids.

“Eh, I think maybe we should just give him a little time by-” Once again, Greg was cut off, only this time by Ruby and Sapphire as they both darted up out of their seats, their expressions rife with concern and guilt as they hurried off after the young Gem themselves. “O-on second thought…” the former rock star frowned as he looked between the door and the messy remains of what used to be the table before them. A mess that he wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to deal with, if he was perfectly honest. “Maybe we should go too…”

As Steven ran out towards the nearest cluster of trees closest to the restaurant, he let out one of the several sobs he had been holding in ever since Garnet had first split up. And yet, in reality, it was likely a sob that he had been holding in much longer than that, since Pearl’s deception against Garnet was uncovered, since the Gems had recovered their lost memories. Since he had ruined the tight-knit bond between his guardians by uncovering those apparently bitter memories in the first place.

It was hardly a new thought for the young Gem, the realization that all of the tension and grief that had been transpiring between the Gems as of late was entirely his fault, but as he faced that thought now, it was perhaps the most painful it had ever been. Because Steven knew that if he had never found that memory tube, if he had never reunited the Gems with echoes of the past that were clearly better left forgotten, then certainly none of this would have happened. Certainly, Pearl wouldn’t have felt the need to heal her own pain by tricking Garnet into forming Sardonyx. Certainly, Ruby and Sapphire wouldn’t have split apart and their usually strong relationship wouldn’t have crumbled apart as a result of this schism. Certainly, the Crystal Gems would still be the strong, healthy, inseparable group Steven had always known them to be if it wasn’t for him, for his meddling, for his reckless need to fix his mother’s massive mistakes. True, he had given them back their lost memories. But what he had taken from them in doing so was something arguably even more important than those memories altogether: their unity.

And the worst part of it all was, that unlike their memories, that precious, missing unity was something he hadn’t the faintest idea about how to restore to them whatsoever.

“Steven!” the young Gem’s mournful musings were interrupted by a simultaneous cry, one that came from Ruby and Sapphire as they hurried out of the diner to find him. Greg and the others weren’t too far behind, but unlike the Gem couple, they lingered back, knowing that this wasn’t really their place to intervene considering how poorly their previous attempts had turned out.

With another harsh sob, Steven turned to the couple as they approached, not even trying to hide his disappointment and dejection as he instead finally let it all out. “I was so happy when Garnet said she was gonna come on this trip with us!” he began sharply yet still sadly. “Home’s been awful. Here’s been awful! I thought you wanted to have a fun time but… everyone’s been acting awful too! I-it just came with us! I don’t understand!” He let out a deep breath, one that really didn’t do anything to calm him down as he instead looked to the ground in tearful guilt. “Is… is it me? Is it because I found your memories? B-because… I thought that would make things better, that you guys getting your memories back meant that you wouldn’t be so lost and confused anymore. But I was wrong. It only made things worse. I only made things worse…”

“No!” Ruby readily exclaimed, catching the morose young Gem off guard. “Steven, you didn’t make anything worse! It was all us!”

“Steven, you returned something very important to all of us when you found our memories,” Sapphire assured, her tone shaken, yet serious. “Something that we’ve been missing for years. True, what we saw was… unexpected, but what’s been happening isn’t your fault. It’s…” The blue Gem trailed off, pausing for a moment as she looked down with dawning shame and realization before looking to Ruby with a soft gasp. “It was us…”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Both Steven and the Gem couple were caught off guard upon hearing Greg, who was suddenly quite alarmed as he stood alongside the other kids, taking on the phone to someone. “Slow down, Mr. Pines. You’re where?!”

Before Stan could explain, Greg put his phone on speaker so that everyone could hear his concerning, but oddly enough not very urgent message. “I’m sorta… tied up at the moment… literally,” Stan said, keeping his phone pressed to his shoulder as his hands were pinned in the web cocoon he was entangled in courtesy of Darlene. “Turns out the lady tried romancing to show Thing 1 and Thing 2 up is actually one of those spider people. But beyond that, the date’s been ok.”

“Wait, what?” Dipper asked with apt surprise upon hearing this.

“Oh no! Grunkle Stan!” Mabel cried with fretful concern.

“To be fair, I tried to warn him,” Sapphire remarked, having anticipated this turn of events all along.

“Yeah, it was weird,” Stan remarked, still largely not too apparently worried about his current plight. “One minute we’re having the perfect date, and the next minute, she’s growing extra legs and encasing me in webbing. Women, right?”

“You couldn’t tell she was a spider?” Connie asked rather incredulously.

“Hey, I was blinded by flattery!” Stan exclaimed defensively as he repositioned his phone. “Also, the acid she spit in my face. Anyway, I’m up at the mountain at Widow’s Peak.”

“Uh, o-ok, we’re on our way, Mr. Pines!” Greg assured, though he was rather anxious about the idea of facing off against a spider person. “Stay put!”

“…I don’t really have much of a choice, Greg,” the conman deadpanned, glancing down at his web-encased body that was essentially stuck to the floor of Darlene’s spider cave.

“Alright, kids, looks like we better go save Mr. Pines before he gets eaten by that evil spider lady,” Greg said to the kids before pausing for a brief beat. “Huh. Well there’s something I never thought I’d say.”

Not wasting time on any further deliberation, Greg and the kids hurried off to the nearest trail, hoping to rescue Stan before it was too late. Ruby was the first to follow after them, knowing that she was obligated to help since the conman had indirectly gotten himself into this mess because he had been trying to prove a point to her and Sapphire. However, before she could really go anywhere, Sapphire suddenly stopped her by unexpectedly grabbing her hand.

“R-Ruby, wait,” the blue Gem sighed, glancing down with clear remorse. “I-I-”

“Hey, i-it… it’s ok,” Ruby assured, her tone calmer than it had been since they had split up as she placed a tentative hand over her partner’s. “We’ll, uh… we’ll figure all this out when we get back, alright?”

Sapphire hesitated, rather caught off guard by how Ruby wanted to talk things out instead of projecting her anger as she had been all this time. Still, she knew that now wasn’t the time for such discussion; now was the time for action. “R-right…” she nodded, her voice quiet as she hurried after the red Gem. Both of them still could feel the unsteadiness between them, an unsteadiness that was unfamiliar and unwelcome given how open and close they usually were. But at the very least, this newfound armistice between them was something, even if it was really nothing more than just a start.

No sooner had Stan gotten off the phone with Greg than the phone itself was snatched out of his hand by a sudden burst of sticky webbing from Darlene. The spider woman caught the phone squarely, her upper half still in her prior human guise though her lower half was completely spider-like, complete with eight legs, a thorax, and all. Even so, she seemed to be quite satisfied with her latest “catch” as she skittered forward, sending Stan a triumphant grin all the while.

“Tryin’ to escape, huh?” she asked, raising a knowing eyebrow before she ultimately tossed the phone to the ground, breaking it.

“You tricked me!” Stan shot back harshly. “I’m 80% certain you don’t really love me at all!”

“Ha!” Darlene laughed coldly. “Men will fall for anything. ‘Oh, you’re so funny, great story, I love a man with shoulder hair!”

“Y-you didn’t mean it about my shoulder hair?” the conman asked, genuinely offended.

“Tell me, Stan,” Darlene ignored him as she stepped a bit closer. “Before I transformed, who’d you think was in charge here? You, with your cheesy pickup lines and your ‘knack’ for ‘romance’? Please. I’m the master pickup artist here, so sorry, toots! This time you’re getting used for your body! Which, to my weird species, is food. Allow me to slip into something more horrifying.” At this, Darlene used her frontmost legs to pull the remains of her human skin down, unveiling her frighteningly grotesque, full spider form, much to Stan’s apt alarm.

“A-aw, geez, all I wanted to do was show two annoying, tiny lovebirds up!” the conman exclaimed fearfully, cringing as he watched Darlene maneuver her mandibles hungrily.

“Well ya should have thought twice before you decided to get tangled up with me,” Darlene goaded smugly before fortunately turning away. “Now, I wonder what beverage pairs well with a vintage 70-something old man? Be right back!” she called, heading deeper into the cave and leaving Stan on his own, as completely trapped and vulnerable as ever.

“Please,” the conman began, glancing up pleadingly. “I don’t know if you’re really up there or not, but if you are… please save me, Paul Bunyan!”

“Mr. Pines!”

“Whoa, did that actually work?” Stan jolted as this unexpected voice called out for him, only to spot Greg, the kids, Ruby, and Sapphire all rush into the cave to rescue him. With a steady battle cry, Grenda rammed into the conman, freeing him from the stalk of webbing holding him in place.

“I realize now might not be the best time to say I told you so,” Sapphire remarked to Stan as stoically as ever. “But-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Stan rolled his eyes in exasperation. “The last thing I need right now is you grilling me. Or, uh, I guess… icing me? Ugh, forget it.”

“Uh, t-that spider woman isn’t anywhere around here, is she?” Greg asked nervously as the kids worked on freeing Stan from the rest of the webbing.

“No, but she will be if we don’t hurry and hightail it outta here already!” the conman exclaimed, haphazardly picking himself up off the ground and leading the way out of the cave. And the group made it out just in time too as they slipped out right as Darlene happened to notice that her hostage had been freed.

“No!” the spider woman shouted, skittering out of the cave on all eight of her thin legs. “Get back here!”

Knowing that Darlene would be hot on their tails, the group rushed for what they unanimously assumed would be the quickest way down the mountain: the sky tram.

“Quick! Everyone get on!” Candy shouted, making it to the tram first as everyone crowded into one of its cars.

“Haha! Yes!” Mabel cheered once they were all safely onboard.

“Ride like the wind, sky tram!” Stan exclaimed, glancing out the window in the hopes that Darlene wasn’t chasing them. However, instead of the tram zooming down the line to the bottom of the mountain as they had hoped, it instead began to crawl down it at speeds that were almost painfully slow.

“Welcome to Trambiance,” the tram’s built in recorded greeting announced in a calm voice, completely contrasting to the current situation. “The world’s slowest tram ride. Enjoy the sights at 0.1 miles per hour.”

“Ugh! Move! Move! Move!” Grenda shouted, slamming her foot down on the floor of the tram in an attempt to make it move.

“Seriously? Can’t this thing go any faster?” Dipper asked anxiously.

“No, it can’t,” the recording answered almost knowingly. “This is Trambiance.”

“Uh, i-it looks like she’s coming!” Connie exclaimed fearfully as she pointed out the window to Darlene, who had already hopped onto the tram line and was jumping from tram to tram, searching for the one containing her missing prey.

“Enjoying the view?” the recording asked innocently as the tram line rocked violently. “Take a picture!”

“We’re doomed!” Stan shouted, his eyes wide as he spotted Darlene drawing dangerously close to their tram.

“No we’re not!” Ruby growled, her hands in tight fists as she looked around the tram. “Cause I got a plan. But uh…” The red Gem trailed off, her confidence dissipating as she glanced over at her partner almost anxiously before she continued. “Sapphire, I-I… I know you think I don’t know a lot compared to you, but… I-I need you to trust me on this one and help me. Y-you know… if you want to…”

“Oh, Ruby…” Sapphire sighed, her manner rather sad and remorseful as she briefly glanced down. For a moment, it looked as though the blue Gem wanted to say quite a bit to her partner, but of course, given the dire straits they were currently all in, such sentiments would have to wait. “O-of course, I trust you. And I know your plan is going to work. So, what do you need me to do?”

Ruby offered Sapphire a warm, thankful smile at this, glad for the confidence and support that she hadn’t really felt from her in quite some time. But of course, despite how happy she was with it, the red Gem was quick to focus her attention back on the matter at hand. “I need you to freeze the box connecting the tram to the rail until it breaks off,” she began, her tone firm and steady. “I’ll keep 8-legs out there busy while you do. Everyone else, hold on! Things are about to heat up.”

With a smirk, Ruby summoned her gauntlet, punching through the nearest window just as Darlene launched herself towards the tram. She didn’t get far though, as before she could land, the red Gem lashed out, a bust of intensely hot flames flying out of her first and towards the spider woman with great speed. Though Darlene maundered out of its path and landed on another tram instead, she failed to notice the thick layer of frost that had begun coating the connector box on the tram. Sapphire maintained her focus well, even as everyone else was panicking around her as the tram shook from Ruby sending out wave after wave of fire at Darlene in the hopes of keeping her repelled. Few of her flames hit their mark, but that wasn’t exactly the intention anyway. At most, they were a simple distraction while Sapphire worked away at freezing the connector, and, sure enough, it began to crumble under the intensity of the cold being pressed upon it. With a simple nod from the blue Gem, Ruby let up, allowing Darlene to finally make her approach and land squarely on top of the tram car, only for it’s frozen connector to finally give way with her added weight pressed upon it.

Everyone inside the tram did their best to maintain a hold on anything they could as the car itself began rolling down the side of the mountain roughly, Darlene following not too far behind. As it neared the bottom, Ruby and Sapphire both reacted accordingly, with the red Gem using a burst of strong flame to launch the car one last time while the blue Gem created a sizable snow drift for it to land in. Fortunately, the car hit its mark, the soft snow cushioning its otherwise abrupt landing as it barreled into the Paul Bunyan statue near the parking lot. In one last ditch attempt to recapture her pray, Darlene shot a string of web at the now still tram car, only for the large statue to end up falling squarely on top of her right as she zoomed by it. The spider woman let out a surprised cry as the statue’s foot pinned her down, and despite her best efforts to wriggle free from its firm hold, she found that she was ultimately unable to do anything to escape from under it.

“Augh! My only weakness! A giant boot!” Darlene grumbled in defeat. “A giant newspaper or a giant cup would’ve also been pretty bad.”

After making sure no one was injured from the fall, everyone climbed out of the fallen tram car, tumbling through the snow drift and back onto solid ground as the recording offered one final farewell. “Thank you for riding Trambience sky tram. Tell your friends it was a boring, boring ride!”

“You guys, that was amazing!” Steven exclaimed to Ruby and Sapphire, stars in his eyes. “The way you two worked together back there, I gotta admit, it… it was really nice to see that again.”

“Yeah, who knew you guys could kick just as much butt apart as you can when you’re fused?” Mabel asked with a wide smile.

“Eh, it wasn’t that great,” Stan deadpanned, hands on his hips until Greg gave him a bit of a prompting elbowing. “Ow! Uh, I mean… I guess I was wrong about the whole ‘relationship’ thing I was going on about earlier. Not that you two would know much more than I do though, what with all that all that yelling and magic you’ve been tossin’ at each other all day.”

“Uh, Grunkle Stan, I’m pretty sure its safe to say that Ruby and Sapphire know more about relationships than most people do,” Dipper remarked somewhat sardonically, to which Stan only let out a disbelieving scoff to.

“Actually… no…” Sapphire interjected, holding her hands close as she frowned morosely. “He’s right. We… we really don’t know much about keeping a healthy relationship. Or… at least I don’t…”

“S-Sapphire?” Ruby asked, suddenly concerned as she took a step closer to her partner.

“I can’t believe how blind I was this whole time…” the blue Gem said, her voice almost a whisper as she shook her head in shame. “I couldn’t even see what was right in front of me. W-we made Steven feel like… like this was all his fault…” Steven frowned as he heard this, though he didn’t interrupt, instead opting to listen with apt concern as Sapphire continued, her voice starting to choke up with clearly oncoming tears, especially as she finally looked over to Ruby. “I keep looking into the future, when all of this has already been solved… a-as if it doesn’t matter how you feel in the present.” By this point, a few of the blue Gem’s tears had already started to fall, streaking right down the center of her face as she let out a guilty sob that she was unable to suppress any longer. “No wonder you think I don’t care!”

For a moment, Ruby was starkly silent, her eyes wide as she took in her lover’s distress with growing panic that quickly rose to the surface the moment Sapphire started crying. “No no no no no!” she exclaimed, shaking her head frantically. “This is all my fault! I-I didn’t want to look for a solution! I just wanted to be mad! Y-you’re right, you’re always right! I was just being stupid-”

“I don’t think you’re stupid!” Sapphire quickly countered, deeply upset by even voicing such a ludicrous thought at all.

A beat of unsteady silence followed after this, but when Ruby finally broke it, her voice was small, soft, perhaps even a bit sad as she finally reached out to touch her distraught lover gently. “I… I’m sorry…” she whispered, brushing the bangs out of Sapphire’s face to reveal the source of her mournful tears: a large, singular, light blue eye in place of where two would normally be. And while the kids were somewhat surprised to see this, to Ruby, this sight was perhaps one of the most beautiful she had ever had the privilege of seeing as many times as she had before.

“You honestly think I’m not upset about what happened?” Sapphire asked just as gently, her tears still streaming down from her lone eye until Ruby slowly wiped it away. “I was just… trying to do the right thing…”

“I know…” Ruby admitted as Sapphire pressed her hand against her own, letting out a small, but comforted sigh as she did. Silence lingered between the pair for a bit, one that was filled with regrets that were finally starting to lift as they at long last started to reach an understanding. It was true that the pain of the past few days had left them both in quite a painful spot, but now more than ever, they both knew that the only way they could move past such profound pain was by doing what they always did: standing together. And perhaps, through their support, through their solace, through they love, they could go on. After all, even though they were as different as fire and ice, they belonged together. They always had, and they always would, and no amount of restored memories or deceptive betrayals could ever change that fact. “You know what’s nice about being split up?” Ruby asked a moment later, a small, almost coy smirk slowly appearing on her face.

“W-what?” Sapphire asked, somewhat concerned, though by this point her tears were mostly gone.

“I get to look at you,” Ruby grinned fully, not even bothering to hide her flirtatious manner whatsoever.

“Pfft, be serious!” Sapphire laughed, pushing her lover away from her playfully, though Ruby was quick to pull her right back into a fond embrace.

“There’s my Laughy Sapphy!” the red Gem exclaimed happily, joining her partner in a warm, welcome gale of laughter.

“Shh! You’re embarrassing me in front of the kids!” Sapphire blushed deep blue, stealing a glance over at said kids, who were all still watching this exchange with apt intrigue. While Steven, Dipper, and Connie looked away upon this mention in slight flusterment, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda were all more than eager to watch the admittedly adorable interactions between the Gem couple, especially as Ruby took things in an even more romantic direction.

Without warning, the red Gem hoisted her lover up into her strong arms, eliciting a surprised, but delighted gasp from Sapphire, who laughingly accepted every single gentle kiss Ruby peppered across her cheek and neck. This bout of playful affection continued between the pair even as everyone else decided to give the couple their privacy, though not without complaint in some instances.

“Ugh, geez, get a room already,” Stan remarked dryly, though his comments were largely unheard by the still-cuddling couple.

“Well, what do you know?” Connie remarked to the other kids with a small smile. “It looks like they really did work things out after all.”

“And its all thanks to us being a bunch of awesome love experts!” Mabel concluded with ample satisfaction.

“Love experts! Love experts!” Grenda cheered in boisterous support.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure what just happened here had basically nothing to do with us,” Dipper remarked, crossing his arms. “But if you wanna keep thinking that, then I guess nothing’s stopping you.”

“Well, I don’t care how it happened, I’m just glad to see those two finally getting along again…” Steven said with a tired, but relieved smile. “And who knows? Maybe this means things really will start to get better back home after all…”

The other kids all offered the young Gem a round of reassuring smiles at this, though they were soon interupted as Greg joined them, having just emerged from the diner. “Well, I paid for brunch,” he reported. “…And the damage to the booth… As for that tram car, well…”

“Who said anything about paying for that?” Stan interjected with a scoff. “We’re here to prank this place, remember? Not pay for damages and tell them to ‘have a nice day’ like a bunch of armatures would.”

“…A-anywho…” Greg continued after a beat of awkward silence. “I think I’m all vacationed out. Anyone else ready to call it a day and head home?”

The kids prepared to answer this, but before they could, they were suddenly distracted by a bright, familiar burst of light nearby, one that signaled the return of a fusion that they had all sorely been missing. “Not before we get our free ice,” Garnet grinned as she stood tall and confident once more, no signs of Ruby and Sapphire’s unsteadiness or disagreement remaining as the usual harmony between them had returned in full force.

“Garnet!” the kids all exclaimed in excited unison, running up to embrace the Gem leader, who accepted them with a warm, amused hug. The levity of the moment was short lived however, as Darlene interupted from her spot still pinned underneath Paul Bunyan’s large wooden boot.

“Staaaaaany!” she called to the conman, pulling her human guise back over her upper half as she offered him a flirtatious wave. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me! You’ll let me out, right?”

“What? After all that?” Stan asked harshly. “Seriously, do I look like an amnesiac?”

“Ha! You’re so funny!” Darlene falsely complimented, pulling her pickup tricks on the conman once again. “Have you ever considered becoming a comedian?”

“You know, actually I have!” Stan grinned proudly, falling for the bait. “Comedy is too subtle these days. My style involves more over-sized props. Here, let me get you out from there and-”

Fortunately, the kids managed to pull the conman away from the spider woman just before he could foolishly release her, even as she reverted back into her full spider form and reached out to take a bite out of him. “Oh yeah, right,” Stan said stiffly, remembering just how dangerous Darlene was, even despite her fake womanly wiles.

“You win this round, Stan!” the spider woman growled in angry disappointment. “But mark my words: as long as there’s men like you out there, with their dumb one-liners and pickup moves, I’ll never run out of prey!”

“Mm, actually, I think you will,” Garnet interjected, crossing her arms knowingly. “After all, Stan only fell for your tricks because he’s really gullible.”

“Hey!” Stan exclaimed hotly, sending the Gem leader an offended glare. “You know, I kinda liked it better when you split up. At least then you two were too busy ragging on each other to get on my case.”

“Well sorry to disappoint you, Stan,” Garnet remarked with a hint of a wry smirk, one that grew into a genuine smile as she glanced down to Steven, who was still happily hugging her leg in lieu of her long-awaited return. “But I don’t plan on going anywhere for a long time.”

Though the ride was rather lengthy, the group ended up making it back to Gravity Falls before the sun even sank over the distant hills. After dropping Connie, Candy, and Grenda off at their respective homes, Stan did the same for Steven, Greg, and Garnet as he let them off at the base of the temple hill. After waving goodbye to the Pines, the trio headed up to the house, Garnet toting the bag of ice they had gotten from Mystery Mountain as Steven happily hung in between her and his father, genuinely glad to home now that he carried the belief that things would, in time, start to fix themselves. And really, that was all the young Gem could really hope for.

“We’re home!” Steven proclaimed as they burst into the house. Pearl and Amethyst both happened to be in the living room, carrying on a rather low-tone, serious conversation that came to an abrupt end as soon as the door opened.

“O-oh! You’re back!” Pearl exclaimed, somewhat startled as Amethyst removed her hand from her knee to wave at Steven and Greg. “Uh… y-you look like you all had fun!”

“Yeah!” Steven said with a smile of clear relief. “Everything worked out!”

Pearl prepared to say something more, though she stopped short upon noticing Garnet step inside behind Steven and Greg, her expression largely neutral as she began to make her way over to the temple gate. “Um… G-Garnet, how are you?” the white Gem asked, her tone anxious and tentative.

However, unlike before, the Gem leader didn’t simply ignore her. Rather, she put a calm hand up, pausing briefly as she spoke authoritatively, but fortunately, not angrily either. “Not now,” was all she said before she disappeared into the temple, leaving Pearl rather shocked by this exchange, however short it was.

“S-she… she’s speaking to me again…” the white Gem mused in both surprise and relief. “Well, kind of…”

“You know, that really was a great trip,” Greg grinned as he placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“Can we go back?” Steven asked eagerly, excited stars in his eyes.

“Uh, maybe one day… but not to that diner!” Greg paused for an awkward beat, knowing that they had all been effectively banned from that diner thanks to the destruction Ruby had caused. Not that he had any intentions of telling Steven that. “Oh boy…”

“This trip was so much fun!” Mabel exclaimed as the RV neared the Mystery Shack. “We gotta do it again sometime, complete with the pranks, the inn, Ruby and Sapphire, and heck, even the evil spider people!”

“Eh, leave the spider people outta it and I’m down,” Stan remarked with a shrug.

“You know, I still feel a little bad about wrecking all those tourist traps,” Dipper said somewhat apprehensively.

“Ah, come on,” Stan said with an unconcerned wave of his hand. “Everyone loves my pranks! And the best part is, I never have to face any consequen—SWEET LORD!”

The RV came to a screeching halt as they arrived back at the shack, only to find that it was in the midst of being completely ransacked by the proprietors of the tourist traps they had just pranked. Toilet paper was streamed all across the building, and several rather rude tags had been left on just about ever surface with spray paint. In their round of destruction, they had even ended up shattering several windows and defacing the shack’s signage by removing several of its letters entirely so that it read ‘Mr. Hack’, no doubt a direct dig intended for Stan himself.

“Oh come on!” the conman shouted fretfully as he jumped out of the RV, the twins following not too far behind. “I just got this place fixed up from the last time it got destroyed!”

Upon realizing that they had been caught in the act, the other tourist trap owners quickly began to flee, their work already completed as they all laughed triumphantly at Stan’s misfortune. Still, to add insult to injury, one of the owners used their baseball bat to quickly smash the headlights of the nearby RV out, much to Stan’s continued surprise.

“That’s what you get!” the owner shouted fiercely before following the others off into the woods. “That’s what you get!”

“I don’t understand!” Stan exclaimed to the kids, looking over the absolutely ruinous state the Mystery Shack was now in. “I completely don’t deserve this!”

Of course, matters were only made worse when Ford happened to emerge from the shack, apparently unaware of the damage done to his home as he instead greeted his family casually enough. “Oh, you’re all finally back,” he said, offering the twins a brief smile though he didn’t really bother to do the same for Stan. “Strange, for a moment I thought you had returned earlier since I heard some sort of odd banging noise a while ago, but I just figured it was-” The author sharply cut himself off upon stealing a glance at the shack behind him, one that was more than enough to shock and enrage him all at once. “Stanley!” he shouted, correctly placing the blame for this disaster.

“Kids, get back in the RV,” Stan said starkly, already pushing the twins in that direction so he could avoid Ford’s very obvious fury.

“Grunkle Stan, wha-” Mabel attempted to ask before the conman quickly interupted.

“RV, now!” he ordered again, rushing into the camper before the author could catch him.

“Stanley, no!” Ford yelled hotly, even as Stan put the RV into reverse and began peeling backwards into the woods in what was, by all accounts, yet another daring escape. “Get back here and explain the meaning of this mess immediately! Stanley!”

“Aw, geez…” Stan muttered to himself, glancing out the side view mirror to see that Ford was angrily running after him, intent on making him answer for the destruction done to his home. “I wonder if its too late to go back to Mystery Mountain and have Darlene eat me. It’d be better than having to deal with this, that’s for sure…”

 Next: 

#jen writes #universe falls #evergreen inn #steven universe #gravity falls #crossover #au #steven #dipper #mabel #stan #connie #greg #candy #grenda #ruby #sapphire #ford #pearl #amethyst #garnet #keyword is eternal flame #im fuckin tired #fuck this chapter #im out

[thewingedwolf]

Part Three of my “Milah Should Have Been Hook” rewrite

Part One here, part two here, in case u like care but i think there’s literally two other people that do so

Idk how I would even begin to fix Hook's story after Cora dies.

I mean at the very least, I set it up where she's going to know that Rumples is still alive, so u guess right off the bat she isn't as fucking useless.

I guess if I were a depressed pirate lady who is on a mission to murder my ex husband, get my son to love me, and figure out how the fuck I brought my lover partially back to life, the first thing I'd do after my plan gets fucked up and my biggest ally gets murdered.....I'd probably go get my other allies?

So that means, in my story, breaking Ariel out of jail and finding Smee (bc Smee is loyal and on her crew bc absolute bullshit we don't get any smee/hook interactions beyond like two scenes). If she's successful at it, that means she actually manages to accomplish finding herself new allies unlike hook in the show who gets jumped by two ordinary humans who have like minimal fighting skills and convinced into fighting on their side (like...........it's not just Hook who I have this problem with, it's that every single god damn villain on this show is a freaking weenie baby except Cora and sort of Ingrid and I would like for all of them to show a little more competence. Like. Just a little, miniscule amount).

ANYWAYS ok I guess Milah would probably use August as a cover, get people focusing on him so she can break into the Sheriff's station and get Ariel back, then sends Killian to look for Smee (idk what August is doing at this point bc obviously I'm revamping a lot of his story bc it was racist and a fucking cop out but I'm not sure exactly of details so. Idk he's distracting in *some* sort of way). They take out the guards Emma posted and move the Jolly Roger someplace harder to find. This gets us to Lacey and honestly - Milah is probably gonna thrive here? Rumples is not doing himself any fucking favors and acting just the way she's been saying he is - violent, rotten, and cowardly. And he's already skating on thin ice here with Neal so a whisper here and there from mama is gonna go a long way. Now, I think she's gonna overestimate Neal's patience, in the same way Rumples overestimated it in these episodes as well. He's not looking for them to slowly get better, he's looking for them to already *be* better. Milah threw showing she's changed out the window when she tried to kill Rumples, and now Rumples throws it out the window with Lacey. So I'd have the episode end where he throws it in both their faces (separately tho, they're not ready to go toe to toe again) and then tells them to fuck off.

Milah teams up with Tamara and Greg but she goes to them herself because she figures out they’re Up to Something. She figured out they’re trying to travel and she hints at where but doesn’t outright tell the audience, only says that if anyone could help her with Killian, it’s “him.” and she’ll help (there’s no torturing Regina because that was unnecessary. They do capture her but she’s left mostly unharmed).

Tamara knows about the magic and Neal is fully aware she’s been researching how to get back to her brothers so he thinks nothing of her sneaking around. Emma is suspicious because of her own Unresolved Issues Surrounding Family and Henry is just sorta along for the ride because why not - he likes Tamara though. A lot. She makes him sad sometimes because he’s a smart kid and he can see very clearly that she used to be optimistic like him and believed in love like him and all of that has faded away with the abuse from Pan and the loss of her brothers and living on the streets with Neal.

By the two-parter, all our villains are left in precarious positions and all are tied to one thing - Henry. Tamara has grown fond of him against her own better judgment, and Regina loves him, and Rumples fears him. The only link left is MIlah, but this one is obvious and comes into play after Neal falls through the portal.

Which - Greg shoots him, not Tamara. He’s pleading and begging, telling her this isn’t the way, using dark magic to fight dark magic won’t help and we see her wavering until Greg takes the shot and throws the bean and drags a distraught Tamara along with him. The finale plays out basically the same but I think in general it feels tenser and makes the hell face turns more dramatic. Regina's is admittedly already v good in the finale so not much to fix there besides pacing earlier on, Milah, Neal’s *actual parent* getting to say that line "the things we do for our children" and then finally abandoning her vengeance to save her grandson, and Rumples putting aside his issues with Milah (he doesn't say that one like about wanting to kill Hook, altho he probably does spend a solid 10 minutes giving her the stink eye) and his fear of powerlessness to save Henry.

They get aboard the ship and then BAM - THEY’RE IN CAMELOT! END SEASON 2

#rani's great ouat rewrite #rani attempts to be creative #milah jones #greg mendell #c: i set my mind to wandering and i walk a broken line #c: i sure as hell ain't lost #killian jones #rumples #i say fear of powerlessness bc i think thats the root of his issue #he spent a lot of time feeling powerless - couldnt stop his father from leaving couldnt get milah to stay couldnt protect baelfire #hes terrified of being put in a position where he cant protect himself or the people he loves #and i would want to properly deal with that trauma instead of just yelling that hes a coward every five minutes #thats not how a proper character arc works guys #HE'S NOT OWEN WE GET A REVEAL NEXT PART OK i think the owen thing did nothing but woobify regina and it was bad and i hated it #so he's gonna be something else still tied to regina but something else #hey when i become a famous author and i have a character with an arc like milah do u think abc will sue me for it since i posted this or nah

[takaraphoenix]

Crazy Ex Girlfriend?

Sorry for getting back at you thaaat late, but I kind of had to binge-watch the show first. Damn, have you sent me on a wild rollercoaster ride there.

Just to make that clear: I’m not gonna watch every show I don’t know. But this one, I have literally never heard about, I wasn’t even aware of its existence. So I looked it up and the premise sounded like fun and I decided to check it out. And well, I fell down a hole and only crawled out of it with the season 2 finale last night.

But before I get started, sure it’s been half a year now but still, if you haven’t seen the season 2 finale yet and don’t want to be spoilered, then don’t read ahead because I’m getting into the entire show here and particularly into the finale of season 2. There be spoilers.

Okay, so the show is fun, but definitely different from what is advertised.

When looking at it from the Wikipedia summary point of view, it sounds like just your average rom-com without substance. Girl falls for boy, girl follows boy to his old hometown to make him fall in love with her, shenanigans ensue.

That is not what it is.

We have our mentally unstable protagonist Rebecca, who has a panic-attack slash mental melt-down in the middle of the streets, sees her high school sweetheart Josh and talks to him. He talks about happiness and how happy he was in his hometown and that he’s moving back there. She doesn’t remember what happiness tastes like and sees this as a sign from above.

She claims - to everyone - that she didn’t move there for Josh, but everyone “knows” that she did. Even though, if you actually read between the lines, her claims were right. She didn’t move there “for Josh”.

The thing is, Rebecca doesn’t know happiness. So in the moment Josh starts talking about it, he becomes her anchor, her symbol for happiness. She chases him as a crutch. “If I can get him, I can get happiness”.

In West Corvina, Josh’s hometown, a love… square?… ensues with Josh’s best friend Greg falling for Rebecca, while Josh is in a relationship with Valencia.

Throughout this ridiculous love square plot, it becomes abundantly clear that it’s not the boy Rebecca wants, it’s the concept of happiness.

First she chases Josh for that, but with Greg in the mix, it becomes decidedly too easy for Rebecca to jump ships. And she jumps them a lot. It’s a constant back and forth between declaring love to one and then to the other. All she wants is The Boy and it doesn’t really matter whose name is attached to that title, really.

She lives in this fantasy girls are raised on thanks to Disney movies where “the hero gets the princess and they lived happily ever after” equals happiness and as a person with no own concept of happiness, she decides that is it.

My personal favorite episode was when she noticed that she’s not the princess but the villain in the tale. Because Josh is dating Valencia and Rebecca has done a wonderful job of completely ignoring the fact that she’s trying to sabotage that relationship and break Valencia’s heart - something that has been bothering me from episode one because I hate cheats and I hate home-wreckers. That she was completely unaware of the fact that this was what she had become, the villain (literally, she does a villain-song on that - yes, there are songs in this. It’s a musical show. Forgot to mention that. Will get back into this a little later). It was good, it showed strength.

Rebecca evolved. From the girl chasing Josh and Greg and Greg and Josh into someone who was trying to find herself. For that, she found friends. In Valencia and in her former-neighbor-turned roommate Heather. And for a little while “happiness” and “having friends” seem to be equals, but then she spirals down the Josh-road again.

They finally pull through with the ship and Rebecca and Josh are together, just for Rebecca to have a break-through and actually put to words that it was never about Josh, it was always about fixing her life and finding happiness and somehow, Josh had become the symbol for that to her.

But that moment is ruined by Josh stumbling in and proposing, so yeah.

Now, before I get to the season 2 finale and to what I love most about this show, I need to mention what I hated most about it first.

Rebecca’s new best friend Paula. I hate her character. I hate her so much. With season 2B, she became… an okay character, finally. But I loathed her throughout the first one and a half seasons.

Because she’s crazy. I mean, she’s more crazy than the titular crazy main character. She meets Rebecca, is the first one to realize that Rebecca moved to West Corvina for Josh and, in that moment, Rebecca has a moment of clarity and realizes how crazy that sounds - that is where Paula jumps in and starts telling her that it’s not crazy and that it’s love and that she’ll help her.

Paula is a self-centered enabler. Clearly, Rebecca isn’t mentally stable and clearly, her obsession with Josh is not healthy. Instead of helping her friend get better, Paula completely enables her. Every single time, Rebecca starts realizing that what she’s doing isn’t good for herself, Paula keeps pushing this fantasy of True Love Conquers All.

Paula does ridiculous, illegal stuff for the sake of pushing Josh toward Rebecca. Stuff that Rebecca never even asked for. Paula is more obsessed with that romance than Rebecca is, because Paula is a sad, lonely housewife who projects her own lack of romance onto Rebecca.

When Paula realizes that however, she doesn’t try to change in a good way, she basically abandons Rebecca by putting up a “friendship agreement” that forbids her from getting involved. So, basically, their friendship turns into a “Nice weather we have” kind of situation because the plotting and scheming was all that connected them from the start.

Coincidentally, Paula is going through a tough time by realizing she’s pregnant and having to decide to have an abortion. She doesn’t tell Rebecca that. Not even when, after the abortion, Rebecca comes visit her at her bedside because she thinks Paula has the flu. I’ve never had a friend who would come visit me when I just have the damn flu. And Rebecca asks her point-blank if something’s wrong, but Paula still keeps her mouth shut.

That, in itself, is okay. I understand if you don’t want to talk about your abortion, especially not right away. But this leads to ridiculous accusations on Paula’s behalf that Rebecca doesn’t care and that their friendship is a one-way street of Rebecca always taking and Paula always giving.

Which is… the opposite of what happened? Because yeah, Paula gave. Unwanted things that did not do anything good for Rebecca. In the end, Paula took more than she gave by continuously using Rebecca as her source of entertainment. Because that was what Rebecca was to Paula; not her best friend but her entertainment-program. Best shown in the Christmas/Hanukkah episode where she gives Rebecca a brooch with a camera and then spends her own Christmas dinner watching Rebecca on her phone, like one of those uninterested dads who rather watch sports secretly during dinner.

Paula is a pathetic excuse for a “friend”. Without her, I believe, Rebecca would have had her break-through a season earlier. That she then actually accuses Rebecca of being the only self-centered party in this “friendship” is simply ridiculous. Yes, Rebecca is overly self-centered and she didn’t do much for Paula, but damn she was there. She was there to stop Paula from cheating on her husband.

Though she did win bonus points with me when she immediately kicked her husband out for cheating. But... she lost those bonus-points by taking him back in the end, so there’s that. I mean, it is a little balanced by the fact that if not for Rebecca, she would have cheated on her husband first, but still the fact that, so shortly after the abortion he cheats on her... That makes it even worse. Because, even though they agreed on that abortion and it was the best solution, that shit isn’t easy on anyone. And instead of being there for each other, they drift apart and he drifts into the vagina of another woman and that shit is not okay.

Okay. Now that that’s out of the way, I need to get into my favorite part. The season 2 finale. The big pay-off.

In a ridiculous plot-twist, Josh realizes that he’s been doing the exact same thing as Rebecca. Using a romantic partner as a crutch for happiness.

He literally leaves her at the altar and goes to become a priest. Rebecca has another break-down, but this one is very revealing.

We learn that she has once had a boyfriend before who left a huge impact on her life, Robert. He left her, she burned down his house - and that is where it gets juicy. She’s sentenced to get help. During the sentencing, the words used are identical with this season’s intro-song.

After that, we get a blurry short scene of Rebecca, as she looks today, in a mental institute, with the nurses commenting that “this one always sings”. Rebecca, in her wedding dress in West Corvina, all the while looks dizzy and confused by this.

The thing is. That last part in the mental institute? That was not a flashback. That was a short view into reality. And now let me get into why and why this is the amazing part.

Every single thing that has happened in this show is only in her head - and it makes so much sense. Literally everything that bothered me or was strange and out of place makes perfect sense in this context.

Let’s start at the beginning, again.

Let’s start with Josh. He’s been dating Valencia for fifteen years. But she’s living in West Corvina while he’s living in New York? She’s… a yoga-instructor. She could have moved with him and easily found a job in New York. She’s not tied to West Corvina, in fact she doesn’t seem to like the place so much so why would she stay there and have a long-distance relationship with him? We never even learn why Josh was in New York to begin with. He doesn’t have a career or anything and when he first talks to Rebecca in New York, he doesn’t mention going back home to his girlfriend, it sounds more like going back to living with his parents.

It makes no sense at all why Josh was even in New York.

Unless all of this is only in Rebecca’s head anyway. She was committed into the mental institute while she was still a law-student. That was when her delusions start. Back then, the perfect fantasy of happiness meant being a top lawyer. So she became a top lawyer in New York in her head.

But when that fantasy grew stale, her mind supplied something new. Bringing forth a happy memory. A happy relationship, not like what Robert did to her. Josh. Josh was good. Josh was safe. Josh became the escape deeper into the fantasy.

There are many things that don’t make sense in the show and I don’t like the cop-out excuse of “It’s comedy, it’s funny so don’t think too hard”, or “It’s a musical, everything is possible!”.

For one, her job and her money. We learn that she got her job by promising she’d work for real cheap. But she keeps buying expensive, ridiculous things and literally leaving money left and right.

Which yes, does get a moment when she’s actually broke. But miraculously she receives a “bonus-check” - we never learn how much that is or what for it is exactly - and it fixes everything. The concept of money to her seems like the concept of someone who has never worked a day in her life, like a law-student stuck in a mental institute. At one point, she realized she must have spent too much money so she instantly went broke, but that problem was easily fixed and so far not brought up again even though she continues spending ridiculous amounts of money.

Said job where she’s working for barely anything? She also basically never works. She leaves work early all the time, she invests all her time in her persuit of Josh and/or Greg. She never actually works, aside from that one big case that she only takes on because it’ll bring her closer to Josh.

And then the new big lawyer comes in and buys out the firm. Nathaniel. He claims that she is the one who brought this firm onto their radar, only… How exactly? They did have this one big case, as just mentioned, but they lost it. What about that would make a big name law-firm interested, really?

Unless. Unless her mind grew bored with things as they were. She slowly started figuring out that The Guy is not what brings her happiness, that part of the fantasy was slowly unraveling, so her mind supplied this new character, who literally as she says stands for everything she left behind in New York. He stands for the career. For the dream that worked before. Like her mind is desperately trying to melt both those things together. Career and handsome man, both wrapped in one. As, you could say, a safety net in case the Josh-dream failed too.

A very big part of why all of this being in her head is plausible are the musical elements. In the beginning of the show, I thought that her singing was a sign of her mental problems and the fact that she flushed all her meds.

But everyone sings.

Characters who aren’t her or who aren’t even in the same scene as her also sing. Which, yes, you can go the musical cop-out excuse there. They just sing, it’s what they do in musicals.

Or… it’s what they do in the mind of a musical-obsessed crazy person who invented this world, those people and thus their songs and can listen to them even when “she” isn’t in the “scene” herself.

Another smaller instance were Heather’s parents, who were just retconned in. Everything so far set it up that Heather was living on her own. Suddenly, when Rebecca was in dire need of parental love, it is revealed that Heather has parents. Not just parents, but doting, caring, loving parents. Everything Rebecca ever wanted from her parents. And despite her being an entitled and rude brat, they take her in and treat her like a second daughter right away. Because her mind wanted and needed that comfort.

The biggest thing to “confirm” this theory to me however is the scene where she decides to pack her things and move back to New York. She’s on a flight and has a dream-revelation. Only. Only that her dream-scenario is literally one-by-one exactly what’s happening. She dreams of all her new friends being in her house and worrying about her. While her friends are actually in her house worrying about her. That scene has bothered me so much because it was the most unrealistic part of this show - and that’s saying a lot in a musical show about a crazy ex-girlfriend. But that she could actually see what “really” happened while dreaming in a plane? That was just too much.

Unless it’s all in her head anyway. The friends she made up were worrying in her apartment and, as the all-knowing being who created this world, she could of course see into her apartment and see her friends worrying even though she was on a plane miles away.

So, yes, to sum it all up, the show is great as a simple musical story with an unreliable, unstable narrator, but it becomes amazing if you view it as a fantasy in a crazy person’s head. And if, down the road, this show’s finale actually reveals that yes, she’s the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend but that was always meant as Robert’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and not Josh’s, because she’s actually in a mental institute because of him and that all of West Corvina is only in her head, it’d be the most amazing end.

Not that I want it to end any time soon. I’m very much looking forward to season 3 and I will be looking very closely for any more hints at all of this not being real but in her head.

#ask me a show and I shall rant #TV Rants #Fandom Rants #Crazy Ex-Girlfriend #damn that show is good #spoilers if you haven't seen the season 2 finale yet #mycasualobsessions #Rebecca Bunch #Conspiracy Theory

[boardwalk-absurdist]

ALL OF THE QUESTIONS (you did this to yourself)

1. Would you have sex with the last person you text messaged? The last person I messaged was Eclair ( @chaoticgoodlooking) so uh thanks but no thanks.2. You talked to an ex today, correct? Nope3. Have you taken someones virginity? I have indeed. At a party, no less. ;D4. Is trust a big issue for you? Yes. Trust is hella important, though it comes in different levels, and I can count the number of people I trust completely on one hand with some fingers left over.5. Did you hang out with the person you like recently? No, alas, my Cotton Candy is a great many miles away. (But I’ll see him in November!!)6. What are you excited for? The aforementioned seeing Cotton Candy in November, and also the show that I’m in!7. What happened tonight? Studying. I have a molecular genetics exam in the morning so I’ve been blowing off lab work to study all day.8. Do you think it’s disgusting when girls get really wasted? Of course not. I think it’s disgusting when people drink to the point of throwing up but that’s just because vomit is nasty, and I don’t find it any more or less gross depending on gender.9. Is confidence cute? Confidence, yes, arrogance, no.10. What is the last beverage you had? Decaf mocha~11. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust? 2, maybe 3 depending on whether someone I no longer talk to but still trust counts.12. Do you own a pair of skinny jeans? I am wearing a pair literally at this moment.13. What are you gonna do Saturday night? Dude if you think I plan my life that far in advance, you are in for a Surprise.14. What are you going to spend money on next? Some nice pens and a notebook~15. Are you going out with the last person you kissed? Uh no. I am not. (Don’t worry, Cotton Candy and I are in an open relationship, all is well.)16. Do you think you’ll change in the next 3 months? Of course.17. Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything? Cotton Candy, obvs.18. The last time you felt broken? Earlier today.19. Have you had sex today? Nope20. Are you starting to realize anything? Starting to realize that this test is gonna be fucking awful and I can’t wait to be done with classes and settled in lab.21. Are you in a good mood? Sort of? I guess.22. Would you ever want to swim with sharks? Sure, why not? Probably only in a cage, though.23. Are your eyes the same color as your dad’s? Nope. My mom’s brown eye genes were too strong for my dad’s blue eyes.24. What do you want right this second? Some motherfucking chocolate covered pretzels. Those good milk chocolate Flips ones, in the blue bag.25. What would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy? “Where they cute? Tell me everything~”26. Is your current hair color your natural hair color? Yep~27. Would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh? No. We gotta be able to laugh.28. What was the last thing that made you laugh? Some silly joke that someone in my lab made, I don’t really remember.29. Do you really, truly miss someone right now? *points to posts about Cotton Candy and sighs*30. Does everyone deserve a second chance? Yes, although they need to demonstrate genuine effort and proof of change before they are forgiven/trusted again, and there is no requirement to accept said change.31. Honestly, do you hate the last boy you were talking to? Nah32. Does the person you have feelings for right now, know you do? I sure hope he does~33. Are you one of those people who never drinks soda? Yeah. Bubbles hurt my tongue.34. Listening to? Ambient Starbucks noise and my friendos studying across the table from me.35. Do you ever write in pencil anymore? Sometimes, yeah. 36. Do you know where the last person you kissed is? In line at Starbucks.37. Do you believe in love at first sight? Not really. I believe in connection and potential at first sight, but love takes more than that.38. Who did you last call? My parents, probably.39. Who was the last person you danced with? I genuinely do not recall. Myself?40. Why did you kiss the last person you kissed? Cuz I was bored and stressed? And he’s fun to kiss.41. When was the last time you ate a cupcake? I do not know. That is sad, I should eat a cupcake.42. Did you hug/kiss one of your parents today? Nope, my parents are p far away from me.43. Ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush? Oh dear god all the time.44. Do you tan in the nude? I do not.45. If you could, would you take back your last kiss? Nah46. Did you talk to someone until you fell asleep last night? Nope.47. Who was the last person to call you? Probably also my parents.48. Do you sing in the shower? Oh of course. I listen to music in the shower and sing along.49. Do you dance in the car? Duh50. Ever used a bow and arrow? I have, but only in gym class in middle school.51. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer? My friend took some legit pictures of me in a hair and makeup experiment that Sundae did~52. Do you think musicals are cheesy? Some of them are. But they’re still great.53. Is Christmas stressful? Yes.54. Ever eat a pierogi? Yes.55. Favorite type of fruit pie? Apple56. Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid? Microbiologist. Which, hey, that worked out~57. Do you believe in ghosts? Not actively but I’m not discounting the possibility.58. Ever have a Deja-vu feeling? Dude, who hasn’t?59. Take a vitamin daily? I should but I don’t.60. Wear slippers? Sometimes, if it’s chilly. Usually I just wear socks.61. Wear a bath robe? Sometimes.62. What do you wear to bed? My underwear?63. First concert? Oh man it was this Greg Brown concert cuz he has a CD of children’s songs that I listened to and I was the only little kid there and apparently he was really tickled that I liked his children’s CD.64. Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart? I hate Walmart but I do go there more often.65. Nike or Adidas? Speedo.66. Cheetos Or Fritos? Fritos67. Peanuts or Sunflower seeds? Neither, but if I gotta pick I’ll go with sunflower seeds.68. Favorite Taylor Swift song? I think Love Story, or Welcome to New York.69. Ever take dance lessons? Nope70. Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing? ...nuclear engineer.71. Can you curl your tongue? Yes72. Ever won a spelling bee? YEAH73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy? Yes74. What is your favorite book? I have several. I love Augusten Burroughs, I love the book Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, I love the Truth series by Dawn Cook...75. Do you study better with or without music? With76. Regularly burn incense? Nope77. Ever been in love? Yes. More than once, and I am right now.78. Who would you like to see in concert? Marina and the Diamonds79. What was the last concert you saw? BRUUUUUUCE80. Hot tea or cold tea? Hot tea81. Tea or coffee? Coffee, but only if it contains things that are also not coffee (like chocolate).82. Favorite type of cookie? This is worse than the favorite book one, honestly.83. Can you swim well? Pretty well. Better than the average person, slightly worse than the average competitive swimmer. (Mostly cuz I’m out of shape but also I’m not that fast)84. Can you hold your breath without holding your nose? ...there are people who can’t?85. Are you patient? I can be. I don’t want to be, but I can be.86. DJ or band, at a wedding? Probably band? Though DJ would have more options...87. Ever won a contest? I honestly don’t remember. I don’t think so.88. Ever have plastic surgery? No89. Which are better black or green olives? Ew, I hate olives.90. Opinions on sex before marriage? It’s fine, live your life, be safe and respectful.91. Best room for a fireplace? Living room.92. Do you want to get married? Yes.

#meet the blogger #thank you!! #this was fun and a good distraction from studying #not that i need a distraction bc i have not been studying enough #Anonymous #carmen answers

[rockcandyshrike]

Info on Chirrut and Baze from the Guardian of the Whills Book (Part 1/???)

Hey y’all so @senator-organa is the bestest person in the whole wide universe and she let me read an epub of the book and there’s SO MUCH GOOD STUFF I WANNA SHARE/POINT OUT. Spoilers ho below the cut!

Okay first, I am pleased as punch that some of the characters of Jedha in the Visual Dictionary show up and weren’t just interesting bits of world-building to never be touched upon again. They are Angber Trel, Silvanie Phest and Killi Gimm (the red-robed ones on the first page) who are Disciples of the Whills, and Kullbee Sperado, Beezer Fortuna, and Leevan Tenza (the ugliest motherfuckers ever on the second page) who work for Saw. Good on Greg Rucka for utilizing them.

LOOK AT THAT UGLY TWI’LEK

After the Empire came to Jedha and stripped the Temple of its artifacts and kicked everyone out, there are only a handful of Disciples left, and only two Guardians.

“Or, if you were to listen to Baze Malbus tell it, one blind Guardian and his long-suffering  friend husband.”

Which makes me think there weren’t that many Guardians in the first place and they were likely outnumbered by Disciples.

We called it fandom, Chirrut panhandles not for credits, but to listen to the pulse of the city.

A Disciple comes to them for help with someone at the Temple who is (falsely) calling himself a Jedi in order to foment violence and Baze immediately wakes up from napping in a patch of sunlight to say, “No.”

What a man.

There’s an entire paragraph talking about how “No” is the “perfect embodiment of who Baze Malbus had become.” No to the Empire, no to the suffering of Jedha, no to the Force. (Greg Rucka you are already murdering me.)

Interestingly enough, the Disciple still refers to Baze as a Guardian, which he quickly denies by saying Chirrut is the only Guardian.

“Chirrut’s smile turned to a grin as he felt Baze jerk a thumb in his direction.” 

They’re so married.

There’s a part where Baze turns on a faucet and has to wait for thirty seconds before it turns from rust red to black to “something approximating clear.” (Ye gads.)

Two good lines on how they feel about what the Empire’s done to Jedha

“It made Baze, who had nursed an anger all his own for so long, even angrier.”

“It just made Chirrut sad, and all the more determined to keep his faith in the Force and to find a way to ease the suffering of those around him.”

The sentence is a little inaccurate because there are several lines that clearly illustrate Chirrut is also angry as fuck, but he tries to hide it.

It also makes me think that maybe a little part of why Chirrut keeps his faith is to say “Fuck you” to the Empire which suppresses all faiths.

Chirrut’s sense of smell is ridiculously good and he can smell fear on everyone in Jedha, and even sometimes on himself.

“But never from Baze.” (Hmmmm, interpret that how you will)

He’s able to smell that the dude who’s trying to pass himself off as a Jedi is actually from Jedha and used to work in the kyber mines. (holy shit Chirrut has got one helluva super sniffer)

We called it again fandom! Chirrut is Force-sensitive, tho minorly so. He can sometimes high-tune his senses and feel people’s auras.

Baze is *twice* called “reassuring.”

Gay

Baze confirmed for walking armory; carries a shock-stick up his left sleeve. (He also carries around a pair of macrobinoculars in his belt.)

Baze confirmed for tea snob; most people like Tarine tea but Baze thinks it’s foul and only good for washing the taste of dust out of his mouth.

Baze confirmed (again) for being Extra™ as fuck; before he got his cannon he had an E-5 carbine he’d modified to be able to punch a hole *through* a stormtrooper.

And it “no longer [had] a stun setting. There was a time when this would have bothered him. He had been a younger man...”

;n;

Baze confirmed for giving best hugs; “he stepped in and wrapped his arms around her and lifted her in a hug that took her off her feet.”

Baze confirmed for BIG BUFF BOY.

He rips the tops off of a couple crates with his bare hands.

He also lifts one of these crates like it’s no big deal, when earlier the stormtroopers needed *gravhooks* to lift them.

His friend Denic is shook. “Her eyes widened for a moment at the display of strength.”

Much later he pushes aside a heavy metal panel door that survived being blown up and “It moved, grudgingly, and he leaned into it even harder, heard the metal grinding against the frame, against the sand, until it gave with a sudden snap of broken cable.”

Baze is also surprisingly quite in shape; he easily parkours a block without breaking a sweat.

Though when he does a superhero landing (totally impractical, they all do it) “he landed heavy and hard, felt the ground stab back at him, sending pain through his legs to his knees.”

THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD ROLL WHEN YOU LAND BAZE

The next line is intriguing tho, “There had been a time when such a jump wouldn’t have given him even the slightest discomfort.”

YEAH AND THAT’S WHY YOUR KNEES HURT NOW BAZE

Both of those points and Chirrut being -waves hands- yknow, Chirrut, are feeding my headcanon that the Guardians of the Whills were trained to be akin to supersoldiers in terms of abilities.

*coughcoughWinterSoldierAUcoughcough* (http://lionmettled.tumblr.com/post/157044874024/cindy-semi-reluctantly-presents-a-spiritassassin)

Also zawa-shimo canonically allows a person to do “near-supernatural” things. Baze may no longer be a Guardian, but that doesn’t erase the years, maybe decades, when he was.

Chirrut confirmed (again) for cheeky little shit; wisecracks a bunch, makes at least two blind jokes. Baze thinks he’s hilarious.

“Baze roared with laughter, loud enough that the crowded street took notice of them, including two helmeted and robed worshippers of the Central Isopter, who stepped curiously closer. Baze grinned big at them, showing his teeth, and they stopped, then stepped back...”

Baze. No.

I kept count. Chirrut makes Baze laugh 4 times and Baze makes Chirrut laugh 2 times.

They’re so fucking cute I love them so much.

Chirrut confirmed for saying ridiculous shit; ““There is a space between ‘next to impossible’ and ‘impossible.’” Chirrut smiled at something only he knew was there. “That is where we will fit.” “This guy, you believe this guy?” Denic said to Baze. “Yes,” Baze said.”

Chirrut confirmed for loving kids; he hears a child laugh and wants to laugh too (He’s such a sweetie).

Chirrut also had a friend he used to teach zawa-shimo (operative word being /had/).

CHIRRUT CONFIRMED FOR CONMAN AND BAZE HELPING HIM.

I won’t quote the one that most ppl have probably seen in the spiritassassin and associated tags about “my stick! I seem to have dropped it! -gropes around on the ground and holds up stormtroopers-” Instead, have this good bit (with a few things cut out for brevity)

“Where?” Chirrut asked. He sounded convincingly innocent. “There. In there.” She [indicated] the broken door. “Where?” Chirrut repeated. “Several people saw you forcing your way into the building. We were standing right here when you came out. In there, the building, there.” “This building?” Chirrut reached out with his left hand [to touch] the stonework. He managed to look surprised. “He gets confused.” Baze told the sergeant.

*I love them so much.*

Chirrut confirmed for being a goddamn nuisance; “In [Baze’s] experience, Chirrut could be a tremendously frustrating person when he chose to be, and often enough, even when he didn’t.”

Baze can read Chirrut so well he can tell Chirrut is going to fight some stormtroopers when he moves his hand by a *centimeter.*

This level of married and drift compatible I cannot deal with

LET’S TALK ABOUT BAZE’S GUN (no, not the one in his pants)

Baze’s cannon is not for personal use. His buddy Denic tells him this *twice.* It’s supposed to be mounted on a vehicle. 

“He looked back into the crate...He looked at Denic. He grinned. “I like it,” he said.

BAZE. NO.

The smart targeting system doesn’t work well without the person being chipped or wearing power armor, but Baze still manages to use it later to take out almost the entirety of a landing bay. -shrug-

He can use it with one hand, which a person really shouldn’t be able to do since it’s supposed to be a vehicle-mounted weapon I just want to point that out again, but he’s Baze fucking Malbus he does what he wants (to keep Chirrut happy and safe and to kill Imperials)

The cannon was actually Imperial property they were going to use  to slaughter Jedhans “for crowd control”, but Baze and Chirrut stole it when they jacked an Imperial supply speeder for the food and medicine it was carrying.

Denic is the one who helps Baze by making the body armor/coolant tank rig for him. Denic is a good bro. If you’ve ever wondered how it hooks up, it uses magnets (magnets, how do they work?)

And it’s capacity for 35,000 rounds has been jossed! In actuality, IT SHOOTS CLOSE TO *40,000 ROUNDS* BEFORE RELOADING.

I’M /HOWLING/

The next scene is great too. Baze walks into their home saying, “Honey, I’m hooooome” “Chirrut, I found a new gun.” Saw’s recruiters who’d been stalking them that day are drinking tea with Chirrut. He points his gun at them and Chirrut says, “Resist, please, the urge to use it.” *awkward pause filled in with audience laughter*

Okay it’s 2am I’m crashing I’ll write another thing later where I gush over Denic, my new pilot wife ;)

#spiritassassin #chirrut imwe #baze malbus #i love my gay asian space dads #guardian of the whills