#a few more conjoiner paragraphs

[newty]

stares w open confusion @ teredio-on-a-boat fic. how are u only 6.5k words

#THIS IS TAKING FOREVER #it feels twice as long as terences no good very bad dragonet day #and Yet #hhh i think i have #1 transition #a few more conjoiner paragraphs #and an ending to write #then ill be done #maybe #brihamut's mercy

[nutklcker]

HI (I LOVE THE PARAGRAPHS EACH OFYOU LEAVE IN MY TAGS SO FUCKIMG MUCH) do any of your ocs have ref sheets. or even just full-body drawings . totally not asking for any specific purpose ....

WE'RE SO GLAD YOU LOVE OUR RAMBLING you have such pretty art and reblog some of the best posts and you're so good at writing so we just have to explode in the tags sometimes hehe

Also we saw this ask like four? Five? Hours ago and went Oh Shit No We Don't and have spent the whole time drawing and we were like Oh we should throw our LC alters in there too since this is their blog and their mutuals should know who they're talking to! And then we got distracted and ONLY drew the alters and host's self insert and none of our OC's so :> we'll do that eventually though but we'll also do like another post with more info ANYWAYS here's the art we made of the self insert and the Lethal alters :3

Info for each of us under the cut (also Rend and Anno are heavily derived from a fever dream March had after we got surgery and had complications, as such they have a story and are pretty attached to it so we'll go into that too)

The "Story"/Fever Dream:

There were two crews who led a revolution against The Company about fifty years before the game takes place, and of them were eight people named Experimentation, Assurance, Vow, Offense, March, Rend, Dine, and Titan, and they weren't named after the planets, the planets were named after them. (Rend, March, Assurance, and Vow were on a team with Rend being the captain, and the other team was led by Titan and had Dine, Offense, and Experimentation.) Eventually, the revolution got pretty popular and widespread so The Company gave in and agreed to meet with the two teams to discuss their requests, and at the end of the discussion they promised the requests would take place within the next few weeks. The eight members of the revolution were satisfied and went back to work, but the next day they were given news that due to their conjoined efforts they would have to all split up and join different teams to ensure that they didn't again backstab the company once their requests were fulfilled. They, unfortunately, did not put up a fight against this and within the next quota cycle each of them were abandoned and killed on different, new moons none of them had ever seen before. The company never enforced the things they agreed upon but because the leaders of the revolution were killed before word of the promises got far, and because they mysteriously went missing and had new moons named after them, nobody said anything and nobody acted out against The Company.

Pace:

- Pace is Geno's self-insert OC and he uses He/Him pronouns and is transmasc <3

- He was an employee for The Company AFTER the time of the revolution and worked not as a scrap collector but as a biologist. His team was tasked with finding specific monsters and collecting some bio matter from them to then bring back to The Company. Pace had a rivalry with one of his teammates who was tired of Pace always succeeding, so, he pushed for Pace to receive a Bracken as his quarry and succeeded. However upon arriving Pace was easily able to find the Bracken of Vow (who was actually Vow from the revolution) and collect bio matter from it by befriending it, which enraged his competitor and led to both Pace and Vow being shot. Vow tried to protect Pace after realizing the shot that hit him was not meant for him, but both were too wounded to survive. Vow disintegrated atop of Pace, leaving him and his open wounds covered in Bracken spores, and his competitor left to eventually be killed by a coilhead. Their other two teammates made it out.

- The spores found the decomposing body of a human to be the perfect place to reform and create a new Bracken; that being Pace. Pace spent about twenty years hunting loot bugs and hiding from scrap collectors before a woman named Kite and her captain Calamity found him at the fire exit of Vow. The two found that he was friendly and took him upon their ship, but one of their teammates was appalled at having a "friendly" Bracken and, as they were leaving, pushed Calamity out of the ship in anger, landing her between a dog and a baboon hawk. Pace jumped to rescue her and while he was successfully able to lure the dog away enough for Calamity to safely jump back on the ship, he was grabbed by the Dog and torn to shreds. The ship's autopilot took off while he was fighting the dog and the crew (excluding the asshole) started to panic.

- The next day Vow was eclipsed and, much to Calamity and Kite's disdain, the crew decided to wait for the eclipse to pass before landing back down on Vow and looking for Pace. Meanwhile, Pace had managed to crawl his way back to the fire exit, tumbling down the ravine, and set himself up on a pallet just inside the door. There, sleeping through the whole day, he was able to slowly heal.

- The third and last day of the quota cycle, Calamity's crew got into another argument with Asshole over going to save Pace, and landed at Vow without realizing another team (March's team, as he had already been rescued by a crew by this time) had already landed there. Calamity and Kite rushed in to find Pace while Sail, the crew's navigator and Kite's twin brother, argued with the asshole. The captain of the other crew, who's ship was nearby, overheard an argument about saving a "friendly bracken" and connected the dots that another crew must have found someone like March, their friendly coil-head, and walked out to confront the two. Sail left to help Calamity and Kite find Pace, and the captain (name yet unknown) spoke with the asshole, found out he wanted to kill Pace and attempted to kill his own captain, and promptly hit him over the head with a shovel in order to protect not just his crew, but March as well. The asshole was left there as the captain rushed in to inform his crew of another friendly monster and tell the other crew bus was happy to help, and the asshole was left there to be picked up and carried away by a Giant.

- Pace was eventually found , missing most of his arm, leg, and leaves on his left side, and the two crews met up and became friends. Pace was placed in a large pot covered up to his shoulders in dirt and for the next few quota cycles his crew would place him outside to soak up the sun and look around. Because his arm and leg were fully submerged in the soil and water, they regrew, but his eye never did. He doesn't mind too much though, he can tell when things are looking at him and, in his opinion, that's all he really needs his eyes for. He helps scavenge for scrap and is able to carry two heavy items at a time, however, he can only carry one light item when doing so as it's uncomfortable to hold in his big hands

March:

- March was our first LC alter and has been around since about late October? He's not too conncected to his source and is actually the version of March from our fever dream BEFORE the revolution ended. So though the March in our dream was a coil head by the end of it, our March still thinks of himself as human. Being compared to a coil doesn't bother him though, they're his favorite enemy in the game :) also he's mute and considers himself cis and demiro-ace.

Rend:

- Rend is also one of our alters but is a lot more attached to both the game and the "story" so he has some funky false memories and is a little delulu about it, but he's happy and healthy and aware of reality and not hurting anyone or our system or himself so we don't mind hehe also, Rend is transmasc just like host and his pronouns are he/him but he's trying out they/it

- Rend is of course based on Captain Rend from the "story" but, unlike March, is from AFTER he died and he much prefers being seen as a nutcracker than a human. Our assumption over why is because Rend had actually been a fragment for most of our life who managed family interactions, and since that was all our brain found him fit for he never really gained a personality or sense of self and as such thinks he looks exactly like our host and would probably share the same name and everything. We think subconsciously our brain makes him like being a nutcracker more than a human in order to make it easier to distinguish him and host

- Rend, being much more intrigued by the fever dream likes daydreaming about it a lot, like he's roleplaying in his head in his own, and as such he likes talking about it and thinking about it a lot more than March does. So, here's some things he daydreams about a lot and thinks would be "canon" continuations of the "story"/fever dream:

- Before March's team found Pace and his team, they got to a pretty high quota and started visiting Rend and Dine. One of their first times visiting Rend, Melody, an employee on March's team, found a seemingly deactivated nutcracker deep in the facility. The team had split up so Melody knew she would have to be careful, but she wanted the shotgun so she crept close and clumsily grabbed it, setting it off. This startled here and she backed off, watching in silent horror as the Nutcracker slowly started to move and stand and, eventually, open up and look around. In panic, Melody ran despite being looked at and, for a moment, Rene stood there confuse before he realized he had finally found someone. Forgetting his voice, he chased after her for a bit but she would frequently stop and hold still so he had trouble. Eventually he shouted to her to wait and she paused, turning to look at the apparently able to speak nutcracker just as March had sped up beside her to block the path between her and Rend. Staring down at an employee with his shotgun and a coilhead that was looking at him and not said employee, Rend ran. In instinct, as she had gotten used to March by now, Melody turned and March gave chase. He was scared and angry that the nutcracker had presumably tried to shoot his friend and, upon trying to push the nutcracker to get it to stop running, he sent a surge through its body and caused it to bleed (like how we headcannon them to work, building up pressure in the body's blood). Melody followed a few rooms behind, having trouble keeping up with the two big monsters but, when Rend was hurt he screamed, and Melody knew that wasn't any of her teammates so she picked up the pace. Rend had been cornered but Melody caught sight of March which forced him to stop moving, and tried to rush to the nutcracker when she saw him bleeding, but, turning her back to March Rend panicked and stepped between the two, telling Melody that he wanted to talk to her but couldn't protect her with the state he was in, so she needed to look at the coil head. He was seemingly trying to protect her. For his comfort she did look at March, but tried to assure him to calm down, sit for a little so she could try and tend to whatever part of him was bleeding, and that she would be more than willing to talk. They spoke for a while, Rend having trouble believing that the coil was friendly given how it seemingly tried to explode him, but he let bygones be bygones. Melody and March both started to wonder if this was one of his old friends but they had decided beforehand not to bring it up to any possible teammates without getting a gauge for their mental state, and Rend was very frazzled so they decided to wait to ask his name or story until he calmed down. They gave him back his shotgun, he turned the safety on, and Melody convinced him to open up so she could tend to his bleeding eye, and eventually the three started to make their way back to main in order to meet up with the rest of the team and get Rend out to their ship

- On the way there they met up with the teammate March had been with before he came running after he heard the gunshot, but this teammate was actively running from a thumper. Rend tried to shoot it but missed due to his eye injury and urged the rest of them to run as he'd hold it back as long as possible. The three left and Rend dragged the Thumper around for a bit before it got loose and rocketed down the hallway after the three. Rend, knowing the layout like the back of his hand, took an alternate route to get to main in order to hopefully outpace the thumper. He made it in time to tackle the thumper and send it and him over the balcony railing where they landed near Melody, March, and their other teammate who were actively trying to scare off a Bracken. Rend urged them to head outside and leave for their safety and they did. It took them a while to get back enough money to go back for Rend, and in this time they met Pace and his team. Rend is still actively daydreaming about this all the time so I'm sure he'll infodump about it more another time.

Anno:

- Anno has been around for the least amount of time, we had a major allergic reaction while Rend was fronting and so he spent time curled in a ball daydreaming as he always loves to. For comfort he daydreamed about cuddling a friendly masked, but eventually got so fed up he told our partner, aloud "I really hate this body" and our little asshole of a brain (/lh) essentially went "oh really? New alter be upon ye" and turned that cute little Masked Rend was daydreaming about into a new fragment. Anno has since become more concrete, he's transmasc and uses it/its pronouns, and it's not very interested in Lethal Company but LOVES Rend a lot. It's just kinda gay and likes Minecraft, like those are its things so far. Rend has decided that if Anno was in the "story" it would've been from far before the revolution and was left behind by mistake. That's about it for Anno, it's just kinda a thingy that's very gay

Wow so that's the end of that, I'm incapable of making long stories short apparently tee hee. I've been talking for way too long and I doubt anyone got this far, but this was mostly for us since we're soupy right now and it made us feel grounded. If you got this far Anno gives you a cookie.

#host #🎭 #👁️ #long post #ily (/p) sm Koka your art is so good and you're so awesome and we love seeing you on our dash #you're always welcome to send us more asks especially about the other OC's/characters in the fever dream/story #we'll probably make a post about them sometime soon anyway #and especially art of them #I loooove Kite #and the captain of Rend's new team #I already know how all of them look #its just putting that on paper that's hard #this was actually so therapeutic for us and Rend is so happy he finally got all his daydreams out somewhere #we're actually making an animatic of his origin story to the song Curses by Crane Wives #wow I'm sleepy #it's six in the morning and I've been awake all night #time to eat and go to bed now that we're done drawing and infodumping #tee hee #Cw long post #art #this is rebloggable btw

[wildlyglittering]

What would you write for "Hello, General"?

So I asked for people to give me a made up title and I would reply with what I would write for Nessian.

Please read below!

Hello, General

This would be a very brief one shot (not that I write brief) told from Cassian’s POV and set in Prythian as we know it.

There is a war – as par for the course at this point – and Rhys has sent the Inner Circle and associated assortment of fae on various missions. Some are diplomatic (Mor, Nesta, Elain), others are information gathering (Amren, Azriel, Feyre), and Cassian is sent to do what he does best – lead the now conjoined armies of the Illyrian camps.

It’s been a long winter and Cassian is exhausted. He’s been making strategic plans, drafting reinforcements, and training and re-training those under his command. It’s been months since he’s felt like he’s even a functioning individual as his days move from frost bitten, cold, hard grounds into blizzard filled, cold, hard nights with only a fire to keep him warm.

He’s in contact with his friends and allies, parchments being sent here, there, and everywhere and Rhys has visited at the camp a few times to oversee progress and provide Cassian with some company.

The company Cassian longs for the most however is Nesta’s and their communication has gotten more infrequent and less detailed the longer the war has gone on.

Both are clearly busy and tired and what were once pages upon pages of each other’s days, conversations they had with others, gossip about their frenemies, and scandalously comprehensive reams of erotic depictions of their bedroom activities has now turned into paragraphs or just sentences to re-affirm to the other that yes, they are still alive, and that they love and miss the other.

After a recent and gruelling week of training including Cassian dealing with some obnoxious upstarts who are furious that female Illyrians have a place amongst the males, Cassian enters his tent to find a piece of parchment on the table.

His hopes are high but finds that the parchment is one of his sent to Nesta a week before and the new word scribed on the front merely says ‘undelivered.’

Cassian panics, thinking that Nesta has been kidnapped or worse. Without sending any messages ahead, he flies non-stop to the House of Wind to find out directly from Rhys what is happening, ready to pay any price that is requested.

When he arrives Rhys states that to his knowledge Nesta is well, having sent Feyre a message that very morning.

Cassian is now confused and slightly sulky – why is Nesta sending Feyre’s messages but his are coming back undelivered? He flies back to the camps, his brain over analysing every previous message he has sent, wondering if he has offended Nesta. He also thinks if there is anything he missed – did Nesta tell him she was going to another Court or to the continent?

He arrives back at the camp, barking out demands for others to step up in his absence as he now prepares himself to fly over the world to find Nesta. Cassian steps into his tent and there, seated at the table with her travel items already unpacked and ready to stay for what looks like a while is Nesta.

She smiles at him as he rushes over and greets him with, “Hello, General.”

#nessian #nesta #nesta archeron #nesta and cassian #nessian fanfiction #cassian #nesta x cassian #acotar #acomaf #acowar #acofas #acosf #I wrote something #what I would write

[limoneads]

who are your top three favorite game of thrones characters and why?

i spent wayyyy to much time thinking about my little dudes. this took me like four hours because i kept going back and deleting because i couldn't decide on them oops. i know it's taken me literally forever to answer this, but i've been thinkin thoughts in my car. and i'm going to go by book only characters from the first two in the series bc i like the way they're characterized a lot more and they're the ones i'm most familiar with. i also want you to know that i'm incredibly incoherent

jon snow. i know i'm basic for this one. i know i am. but he's the game of thrones version of an anime protagonist. i think that this is extremely funny- in one chapter, he crushes a frozen lemon with his fist and it's never elaborated on again (??? what was the reason for this??), he has a literal albino pet wolf who's name is ghost :) who he loves very much, he's fiercely protective over his friends and new brothers and also just, like, a good dude?? he just tries to stand up for what's right, and in a world where pretty much every character is just trying to get more political power, it's a refreshing choice. i'd also like to mention that he's fourteen at the start of the books, and he gets to be an all around edgy westerosi teen, but he's also just a good kid and i think that's so lovely of him. there's a line of him showing his cool new sword to his wolf and he goes something like "look it's you :)" bc his broskis made him a new pommel in the shape of a wolfs head!! absolute lovely moment. every so often, you're reminded he's just some kid. he loves his family so much and i'm sad that he only gets a few scenes with them at the beginning of the book. okay, by family i mean arya, but they're really cute. he's really close with his little (half) sister arya and messes up her hair a lot. he gives her a sword as a parting gift :) and they're kinda the closest sibling pair in the stark family because they look the most like their dad and are often the ones most at odd with catelyn, their mom (but not his mom biologically. his dad, at the end of a war, just brought back a baby and was like "this is my son" and she hasn't been able to love jon ONCE). you kinda get the feeling that she's the only one who never judged him for being a bastard while still understanding what it means. they're relationships is just cute. you also get really banger character moments that i still think about, like him getting drunk at the fantasy version of the thanksgiving kids table and then yelling and crying at his uncle that he's "never going to father a bastard". or when he threatened to kill some dude in his sleep with his giant pet wolf for being mean to the new guy, sam. i'll admit his chapters are a bit boring in the sense that it's not a lot of stuff that happens plotwise for like the first 40%ish, but i got excited every time it was his turn to get a pov bc it's mostly him with his bros in the nights watch, being a weird snarky emo boy and i- i love him sm. 

i debated heavily on wether it should be robb or catelyn stark. they're pretty conjoined in my mind though, so i just put them both in a giant paragraph. but i'm gonna start with cat because she's one of the most complex characters in the books to me. cat is kinda in her flop era for like the first ten percent of the first book. she's horrifically abusive to jon snow, the bastard son of her husband, because she views him both as a threat to *her* children and as a reminder of her relationships pitfalls with her husband. her motherhood and her grief are central to her as character themes, as well as her preoccupation with duty and honor. i'm now going to take this time to talk about my son, robb stark and the genetic eldest daughter syndrome they both have. cat grew up as lady of her house, her mother dying and leaving her to take up a maternal role in her household. she got betrothed to her husbands brother when she was twelve and never complained because she was trying to do what she thought she was supposed to do. "i always did my duty". something similar happens to her son when his father, cats husband, leaves with his two daughters to be an advisor to the king at the time. i think it's mentioned that, despite being the heir to winterfell, his family's giant castle, no one had ever seriously taught him about ruling a place like that?? which. okay. he's already thrust into taking up a paternal role to take care of his remaining siblings. he loses his mother for a time. when bran is in a coma, she shuts everyone out, focusing on taking care of her son. in doing so, she neglects to care for her two other children, robb and baby rickon. this leaves robb alone, now without his mother to guide him (he's also like 15 at this point) he's now ruling winterfell and acting as a father to his youngest sibling. she actually does leave when someone tries to kill bran with a dagger- seeking justice out for her son. the goes on a little journey (which is like most of her journey in the books but i'm glossing over it because it was kinda boring rip), and when she comes back she takes incredible psychic damage from seeing her son having grown up so fast. and i'm like, babes you're responsible for this. she always is so taken aback by how old he's starting to look. he grows a weird teen boy beard and she takes psychic damage. she's basically his biggest political advisor in his campaign as king in the north. maybe my thoughts aren't that complicated on that, but they both adhere so strictly to a code of honor and duty- it makes me mentally ill. and to know that it gets robb killed!!! they change this up in the show, and it isn't until the third book but knowing that robb betrayed his political alliance bc he made a mistake by sleeping with a girl and then marrying her the next morning bc it was the right thing to do and sticking by her?? the parallels with him and his dad... i feel like evaporated milk. 

howland reed. i can't really explain this one so much. never actually shows up in the books but has inexplicably strong dilf energy. one of like three good dads in the entire series. absolute unit on the basketball court. more fun in my head than cannon. if hbo ever does a roberts rebellion prequel i will have my ass parked in front of that tv screen so fast you won't even believe

and now i ask who your favorite three star trek characters are. thank for trying to teach me how to do the things on the tumblr :)

#asoiaf #this ended up being so long #i apologize

[ya-world-challenge]

Book Review - A Spare Life (🇲🇰 North Macedonia)

(image source: Wikimedia commons)

A Spare Life

Author:  Lidija Dimkovska

Review

Okay... I knew this was one of those literary sad-children-coming-of-age books, but... it was soul-sucking to get through this book. I would have put it down if I didn’t need to check Macedonia off my list. (Actually, I skimmed a lot and skipped to the ending after it was clear nothing else important was going to happen.) It’s obviously not YA as per my blog theme but it was, I think, the only novel on Macedonia out there in English.

Zlata and Srebra (meaning gold and silver) are twins conjoined at the forehead, so that they live side by side. Their parents resent them, they resent each other much of the time (who wouldn’t if your sibling was stuck to the side of your head?), and the rest of the world generally treats them as freaks, with a rare few friends. Zlata is drawn to religion but also to sexual things, while Srebra is an athiest, practical, and interested in politics. They believe they can find a doctor in London someday who will separate their shared vein and make them free from each other.

The first entire half deals with the twins’ childhood and it is extremely dull. Paragraphs are pages long and there are pages upon pages of mundane details about second cousins and neighbors and the sad lives of their parents and just so much drudgery. I am usually pretty generous with reviews, but this was clearly not my kind of book. The book spans 3 decades and it should have been 1, because the portion that covers the 90s was the only slightly interesting part. 

Honestly I would recommend skipping to Part 3 which covers their college entrance up to their operation (about 65% through) and the afterward, and that’s it. This part, while showing the most interesting part of the girls’ lives, also gives us bits of Orthodox religion and recent Balkan history (though Macedonia itself did not see conflict in the wars of the 90s)

The ending also drags on far longer than it should.

While it’s obvious the conjoined twins are meant to represent Yugoslavia and it’s subsequent separation, though the book isn’t clearly allegorical or even that political. There may be more subtle hints for those familiar with the region, and perhaps more that is lost in translation. It’s very bleak, and that’s just not what I needed.

Recommended for: Those who grew up in Macedonia and want some sort of nostalgia

★   1 star

Other reps: #physical disability #orthodox christian 

Genres: #literary

Read it at: Bookshop.org  |  Scribd  |  Kobo ebook

Content warnings at Storygraph

#book review #north macedonia #booklr #book blog #bookish #reading challenge #eastern europe #literary #physical disability #orthodox christian #europe

[mxndoscyarika]

Red Sunsets (Javier Peña x Chinese!reader) | Chapter 7: Ser Desnudaba

(GIF by @ithinkwehitametaphor)

Author’s note: Brace yourselves :) This one has a lotttttt of Spanish and a lot of other things that you may like 😏 As always, translations are at the bottom. Enjoy!

Summary: Family fights, grudges, and determination. Those three things defined your journey as you navigated through the workings of the DEA. Getting in was hard, and catching Escobar was even harder. You joined Javier Peña and Steve Murphy in the hunt for Escobar, forming bonds and life lessons along the way.

Like my writing? Here’s my masterlist.

Red Sunsets masterlist

Warning(s): mention of sex, smoking, swearing, mention/wondering of death

You woke to your alarm clock beeping incessantly on your nightstand. Looking to the side to find that your partner in the previous night’s activities had left, you sighed and laid back on the pillows. Your inner thighs were sore, and you were already missing the feeling of warm hands on your body.

After you’d drifted off, Javi plagued your dreams. The visions were hazy, but you knew the hands that held yours and the plush lips peppering kisses along your neck. In your dreams, you heard his voice whispering sweet nothings in your ears as you cooked dinner, his arms wrapped around you. Holding hands on the way to his car. Blowing kisses from across the office. All things you could only dream of having.

Eyes burning, you forced yourself to roll out of the bed and start your day.

“Did you kids have fun last night?” Steve teased, smirking at you and Javi from his desk.

“What do you mean?” you asked absentmindedly. The report that Centra Spike gave you didn’t make any sense; you felt like you were reading pinyin without the tonal numbers. While you were getting ready for work, you’d offhandedly remembered that you’d shamelessly called out Javi’s name the night before. As if the walls weren’t thin enough that he may have heard you on the floor below.

Your blonde partner looked between you and Javi with raised brows. “Wait, so you two weren’t...?”

Rolling your eyes, you tossed the report back onto your desk before snapping, “No, Murphy. We didn’t fuck. Not everything you hear from your apartment is from us, alright? Everyone has needs, even me.”

Ignoring Javi’s wide-eyed stare, you picked up the report again and reread the same paragraph you’d been scanning for the past hour. Just because yesterday was supposed to be your night with Javi didn’t mean that you and he were together. For fuck’s sake, Javi didn’t even show up in the evening after you’d blown up on him. You couldn’t blame him.

Steve cleared his throat. “So you…?”

The paper slapped the desk as you shot him an annoyed look. You felt Javi’s gaze burning against your cheek, but you refused to spare him a glance. “Peña didn't come over last night. He probably found some woman to fuck around with, so I found someone who actually wanted to keep me company. Is that so hard to believe?”

Your dark-haired partner sighed and muttered something under his breath, jabbing the keys of the typewriter a little harder than necessary.

Turning your attention to him, you quipped, “What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

His eyes pierced yours. “I said, why should I show up if you don’t want to see me?”

You scoffed, turning the rest of your body towards him. “You thought I didn’t want to see you? You do realize we’ve been doing this every week since I got here, right?”

“But I’m not the one who stormed out of here yesterday over a couple scratches-” he shot back, his voice rising.

“It was more than just a couple scratches, you could’ve died-”

“Why does it matter to you?” he barked, breathing heavily. There was a hint of sadness glinting in his eyes.

You clenched your jaw shut and looked away.

Steve watched both of you with wide eyes and exhaled loudly. Tapping his desk, he said, “I’m gonna...get some more coffee.”

That left you and Javi stranded at your conjoined desks.

Javi spoke up first, his voice back to a soft baritone. “Look, I’m sorry about what I said. You were right; I should be more careful. It’s just-”

“I know. I’m sorry, too. We both want the same thing...and that’s to catch Escobar,” you interjected, your voice soft. You picked at the corner of the report, sliding your finger along its edge. “You did what you thought was best in the moment, just as I did.”

“Right.” He nodded slowly, fiddling with a pen. Sheepishly, he asked, “Does that mean we’re back on for this weekend?”

The hopeful look he gave you, reminiscent of a puppy, made your heart clench in your chest. With everything, you’d forgotten about your plans for the weekend. You and Javi were planning on spending an evening together going out and having fun. But nevertheless, you couldn’t back out. You rolled your eyes, trying to keep a smile off your face. “Yes, Javi. But you’re driving us.”

His smile shouldn’t have made warmth rush to your cheeks or make your heart flutter at the concept of getting to spend time with him. You shouldn’t have wanted to see him smile at you like that every day. Only at you.

“Of course, hermosa,” he replied. You’d missed hearing him say that. “Oh, and if you want, I can drive us to work tomorrow; I think we can both agree that this morning was a little too quiet for the both of us.”

He was giving you that look again, the corners of his lips turned up in a small smile and his deep brown eyes gazing at you. Before you could respond, the phone started ringing.

You snatched it up and held it against your ear. “This is agent L/N.”

Steve returned while you spoke with whoever was on the other end of the line, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand. He smirked as he sat down, noting how Javi’s eyes had glossed over, though they were still on you.

Once you hung up, you quickly stood from your desk and gathered some folders. “That was Carrillo. He wants me in his office to talk about some potential leads. I’ll be right back.” You patted Javi on the shoulder as you walked past. “Get some work done, cariño.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t call in all three of us,” you said as you entered Carrillo’s office. Spreading out the folders on his desk, you continued, “No es tu estilo.”

“Lo consideré, pero me gusta más a tu voz y tienes más inteligencia que los dos juntos,” the colonel replied, shrugging. He braced his arms against the desk and leaned forward to examine the photos and reports. “A ver....”

You spent a while bent over his desk, sorting photos and scribbling down notes. He’d managed to wring a few clues from the captured sicario. Now it was a matter of connecting the dots.

Escobar had been laying low for a while, but every now and then he popped up. Normally, any sightings were too late to be much use, but the sicario had given you a useful piece of information: a neighborhood. It seemed like he often drove through, making some stops along the way. Perhaps he had some friends or associates there.

Carrillo watched intently as you used a ridiculous amount of tape and paper to connect the pieces of evidence in a web-like design. “Tú y Peña están bien?”

“Por qué me preguntas?”

Shrugging, he answered, “Pues, estuvieron enojados ayer.”

“No estuve enojada,” you objected. “Estuve preocupada.”

“Y por qué estuviste preocupada, nena?” he goaded. “Peña tiene mucha experiencia en este tipo de trabajo. Ya lo sabes bien.”

“Él es el corazón de este misión,” you replied flatly. It seemed like you couldn’t avoid Javi anywhere. He always managed to be mentioned.

“Es el corazón del misión, o es tu corazón?” he said, smirking. “I see the look on your face, Y/N. Why don’t you tell him how you feel?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t exactly a good time or place to form a relationship,” you pointed out. “And besides, he and I are colleagues. The last thing we need is emotions getting in the way of our jobs.”

“But if you don’t tell him, you might never get the chance to,” he said. “Si no te quiere, lo más peor es que te rechazará, no?”

“No es necesario,” you responded, replacing the cap on the marker and tossing it onto the desk.

“Por qué?”

You crossed your arms, sitting on the edge of the desk. “Because I’m going back out there whether you like it or not. Y haré todo que necesito para protegerlo y capturar Escobar.”

“Yo entiendo,” he said. “Pero hay que pensar de las consecuencias de este trabajo. Me dedico a Colombia, pero tengo que recordar que tengo una esposa esperando en casa. Estoy luchando para el país y también por del futuro de mi familia.”

Why was he telling you this? Despite your family’s attempt to mend a bridge they’d burned, you weren’t exactly staying alive for them. In fact, you weren’t staying alive for anyone. Not even yourself.

Part of you wondered if you were supposed to have died the day you fell off the roof. You could’ve easily snapped your spine on the balcony railing, or missed the balcony altogether. But of course you didn’t. You were “lucky” to have survived, but what was so lucky about being stuck on desk duty for weeks and chasing drug lords?

But there was Javi. Your grumpy, intelligent partner who’d stayed with you throughout the hospital experience and let you live in his apartment until you could walk up the stairs to yours. He hadn’t complained once while you were there, no matter how many times you forgot to take your meds and drink water. And while you insisted on helping around his apartment, he’d always coax you back onto the couch or his bed. That was another thing that struck you as odd: he let you sleep in his bed. Alone. With exactly zero suggestions of sharing it, much to your disappointment.

If he felt the same way as you did, wouldn’t he have made it more obvious? It was no secret that he could charm the pants off of most ladies at the bar, so it was telling that he never showed the same kind of interest in you. After all, friends could have sleepovers and lunch dates without being romantic, right?

Back in the office, Javi and Steve worked silently, plumes of smoke drifting from their cigarettes. After you’d left to meet Carrillo, they’d fallen back into their usual rhythm of work. The only difference was, neither of them could shake off the tension between you and Javi.

“So,” Steve began, drawing out the vowel. Once his partner looked up at him from over the typewriter, he inquired, “When are you gonna tell Y/N that you love her?”

If looks could kill, he’d be dead. “You know I can’t tell her that.”

“Why not?” Steve questioned, tilting his head. “Are you afraid?”

Javi shook his head. “Have you seen her? She nearly bit my head off yesterday. This is the worst time to say anything.”

“She was worried about you,” Steve reasoned, smiling a little as he remembered your concerned expression. “And not just as a friend or coworker. She was worried. It’s the same when I go home to Connie. And look, I’m no genius when it comes to emotions, but I think she loves you. And I think you love her too.”

The creases between Javi’s brows relaxed slightly as he ran through the possible ramifications of telling you his feelings. The best case was that you’d feel the same way, and then you could move forward in your relationship. You could finally go on dates and hold hands and do whatever it was that couples did these days. Or, you could reject him and end your friendship right then and there. And not only would your friendship be compromised, but so would your work relationship. He wasn’t sure if he could last another month or year or decade without you by his side. Without meaning to, he’d let you weave yourself into his life so intricately that it would rip him to shreds if he lost you.

At the same time, he knew that you wouldn’t wait around forever. You were smart, hardworking, beautiful, and so many things that he couldn’t put into words. You were unapologetic about your heritage and confidence, something that he rarely saw in law enforcement. You stood up for what you believed in and refused to let yourself be pushed around; you always had one hand on the wheel. He knew that, eventually, you’d find someone who loved you enough to pursue a relationship; and the next thing he’d know was that you were getting married and having kids. And that person could be him, or someone else.

Sighing, he conceded. “We’ll see.”

Translations:

“Lo consideré, pero me gusta más a tu voz y tienes más inteligencia que los dos juntos. A ver….” I considered it, but I like your voice and you’re smarter than those two combined. Let’s see….

“Tú y Peña están bien?” Are you and Peña alright?

“Por qué me preguntas?” Why are you asking?

“Pues, estuvieron enojados ayer.” Well, you guys were angry yesterday.

“No estuve enojada. Estuve preocupada.” I wasn’t angry. I was worried.

“Y por qué estuviste preocupada, nena? Peña tiene mucha experiencia en este tipo de trabajo. Ya lo sabes bien.” And why were you worried, girl? Peña’s very experienced in this type of work. You know that already.

“Él es el corazón de este misión.” He’s the heart of the mission.

“Es el corazón del misión, o es tu corazón?” Is he the heart of the mission, or is he your heart?

“Si no te quiere, lo más peor es que te rechazará, no?” If he doesn’t love you, the worst thing is that he could reject you, right?

“No es necesario.” That’s not necessary.

“Por qué?” Why?

“Y haré todo que necesito para protegerlo y capturar Escobar.” And I’ll do whatever it takes to protect him (Javi) and catch Escobar.

“Yo entiendo. Pero hay que pensar de las consecuencias de este trabajo. Me dedico a Colombia, pero tengo que recordar que tengo una esposa esperando en casa. Estoy luchando para el país y también por el futuro de mi familia.” I understand. But you need to think about the consequences of this work. I’m dedicated to Colombia, but I remember that I have a wife waiting for me at home. I’m fighting for the country as well as a future for my family.

Tagging: 

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#javier peña #javier peña x reader #javier pena #javier pena x reader #narcos #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal x reader #Pedro character fanfiction #my writing

[burning-clutch]

The Phantom Always Rings Twice

Read on A03: Here Pairings: None Trigger Warnings: None Total word count: 3301 Author: @burning-clutch (Team Ghost) Prompt by:  Dalv-co-official  AO3: betelgeuse

It started with small things. Little things that could be misconstrued as happenstance and coincidence, and then it evolved into something more, something bigger. And, well, William Lancer always did love a good mystery novel.

------

 It started with small things. Little things that could be misconstrued as happenstance and coincidence. Things that could be written off easily with little thought or without really thinking into it too hard.

 And while William Lancer took notice of the oddities and inconsistencies that seemed to fill one Daniel Fenton’s life, he couldn’t piece together exactly what was happening within the greater story.

 A story that he wanted to see unfold fully.

 It was like a mystery novel in a way. One would need to read through each chapter, each paragraph carefully to be able to find the breadcrumb trail left by the author to be able to figure out the final twist at the end in its entirety. As of now, he only had the pieces that were left out in the open.

 The pieces he had seen that were left behind to be seen were large and obvious, meant to throw one off the trail of the deeper lore in the pages. With glaring arrows and flashing lights, they were meant to attract your attention so that you failed to notice the tiny crumb on the floor just off to the side.

 And it worked well for a time until he had started to take notice of the crumbs. He had looked away from the glitz and offered a story on the platter and taken notice of something small, insignificant. A bruise under the boy's eye, a small garish yellow thing. He had the boy in the morning and noticed it as he went around to collect the homework he’d assigned, and of course, Fenton hadn’t done it. When he had seen the boy once again later that day the bruise was gone. There was no indication that there was any makeup used to hide it either.

 After that point, the teacher had made a point to follow the breadcrumbs. The small bits of the trail that were left behind to indicate something more. He had gotten a taste, and he wanted more. He had to solve the conundrum that was presented before him.

 So, he watched. He listened. He learned and he researched.

 He saw the boy limping to through the lunch line, but had not seen any instance of bullying that would have caused it, and once again by the time the boy was in his class once again that day, no semblance of it ever had happened.

 Abuse at home was quickly ruled out as a good portion of the things that happen to him seem to be at the school.

 He had tried to confront the boy about him clutching his chest and his rattling breaths, as though he had broken a rib or some other such thing, and simply was waved off.                  “I’m a clutz, I fell down the stairs” Daniel had said to his inquiry, dodging the question smoothly. He had seen the boy many a time simply stumble over his feet on flat ground, so tripping downstairs was not something too outlandish to believe.

 And yet in the same breath, he had also seen the teen pull off amazing feats of coordination when he believed no one was watching him. How he gracefully slid around corners to escape the quarterback’s cajoling, or how he had leaped over a railing into the back garden of the school, rolling to disperse the energy in such a way any master of parkour would be proud to see.

 He would entertain the idea of seeming smaller then he was, too. He had noticed it during a presentation when Daniel came to the front of the class. When Dashiel stuck out a foot to try to trip Daniel. Daniel’s eyes flickered for the briefest of moments to the other’s leg before hooking his ankle and preforming a marvellous pratfall. But as he lay prone on the ground he was stretched out showing his full height.

 When he regained himself and moved to the front of the class once again, Daniel had curved his back and dropped his shoulders inward, doing a wondrous impression of the hunchback of Notre Dame.

 Why would Daniel want to appear smaller? Surely appearing larger would help stop those such as Dashiel from bothering him as much, so why? What purpose did this serve?

 Then, of course, there was the matter he had seen the other’s attempt to trip him up, and instead of simply walking over the trap, he fell into it headfirst, let the class laughed at him before continuing on with whatever charade he deemed necessary to fulfil.

 Why bother with such nonsensical things when he could have easily rolled jumped or any other manner of things to avoid making himself into a laughing stock. Perhaps he didn’t like attention then?

 Well, it would be a simple theory to test. William had dabbled in sciences before majoring in English and history after all...

 Putting the attention on Daniel was an easy feat. A simple manner or pointing out his lacking marks and offering a simple way to make up the credit. A public speaking competition or a talent show. Surprisingly the teen had chosen to help out with the talent show. A Stagehand true, but still. He had no problem running out onto the stage to check microphones were working, plugged in correctly, or had good battery depending on what was being used.

 The eyes on him didn’t seem to hinder his performance, so long as he had a purpose to hone in on… so why?

 Perhaps the opposite then? Did he enjoy the attention and figured that being a laughing stock was a way to be noticed? Well, that theory was quickly squashed when he saw the teen have his clothes get stolen in Gym, and doused in pink dye turning his usually white shirt a rather flamboyant shade of flamingo.

 All eyes were certainly on him.

 Still, the teen spent a good portion of that school day hiding within his friend’s hoodie and opted to wear his Gym shorts. It was the middle of February so it was still rather cold. And with only a hoodie Daniel still braved the outdoors with little notice.

 And that was his next crumb.

 The boy didn’t seem to notice the cold.  

 The teacher had seen the teen arrive at the school the following week when a freak blizzard popped up, wearing no coat and very little protection beyond that from the frigid temperatures outside.

 He had heard of people being ‘warm blooded’ and not having the cold climate bother them too much but this was within the realm of ludacrisy! Surely his body was under duress of some kind! Was he ill?

 When asked once again Daniel had waved off his concern, “I’m good. I’m not sick just a little sleepy is all” He had deferred once again pushing off the concern and offering an easy way out, a fake map on a silver platter that he was expected to follow.

 He took the offering. If for no other reason then to throw the teen off the notion that he may be tracing his footsteps.

 It seemed to have worked as intended, though the boy still seemed ill at ease in the classroom. He had noticed Daniel shiver and for the briefest of seconds, he could have sworn he’d seen the boy’s breath.

 Sure the classroom was chilly, the school board being too cheap to allow them to turn up the heat any higher than the current brisk twenty celsius, but that was still far above where one would start to see the condensation of someone’s breath.

 He was drawn out of the musings of this current conundrum by the very topic of his brain’s musings. Hand shooting high as he wiggles in his seat, Daniel looked determined suddenly, and flighty. This was not a new occurrence either. Since the start of the youngest Fenton’s schooling career, he had been randomly ditching class. Sometimes it would be brief, entertaining the simplest of needs it would seem, other times he would not be seen for hours by any teacher in the school only to come back a while later dishevelled and out of breath as though he had run a marathon.

 William sighed and waved Daniel off. It was no use disallowing the boy to exit. He would simply leave the first chance he was given to take his leave. This has happened not only to himself but other members of the staff it seemed.

 Daniel could be as quiet as a mouse when he needed to be.

 His next trail on the line of crumbs was much larger, much more succulent. Almost like a cake crumb instead of a bread crumb. It was sweetened with honey and made him crave the full buffet table all the more.

 Hm, perhaps he should break for lunch… that was many more food allusions then usual. He must be hungry.

   As he made his way down the hall once again he saw, Daniel. He was not in his morning classroom today, though that was hardly a surprise, given the boy’s record… still, he couldn’t deny the interest he had taken in this scenario. Dashiel had cornered Michiel threatening him with a ‘beat down’ which made the man frown deeply.

 He hated how much their school funding relied on the sports departments to do well. What he wouldn’t give to have a few new books in the school. Prefibily something from the twenty-first century.

 Of course, this meant that Dashiel was able to get away with almost anything being how well he performed on the field, carrying the Casper High Ravens to the playoffs. As such a warning would be the most he could really receive for ‘roughhousing’ as it were…

 Still, before he could step in, Daniel did, dryly commenting on Dashiel’s brain capacity and quipping out a few other rather boorish insults. “What’s the matter Dash? Is your shoe size larger than your IQ?” Dashiel threw a textbook towards Daniel who ducked, only causing himself to draw more ire. “Ha, what was that? Ya missed me! Honestly, a star quarterback and can’t hit the broad side of a barn!”

 With that Daniel took off, thus getting the larger teen to give chase and letting the poor hapless nerd go in favour of a more fit target. All in all not too much by itself, but William had found the conjoining piece after classes were done and he was heading to his car.

 There was a ghost attack. Nothing new there, as they were rather common around the school, being as there was always a large congregation of people. Ghosts seemed to hit those places the most frequently after all. The leading theory was that they had more chances to gain their food source from the emotions of humans.

 This was also the main point of controversy for why Phantom was not a hero but more akin to an animal protecting its food source. Regardless of the reason, William had seen first hand the ghostly teen do his routine and had to admit, things would often be much worse without the Phantom ‘protecting his food source’ all the time.

 Regardless that thought was neither here nor there as he snapped himself out of his musings to watch for an opening to speed away in his hatchback and try his best not to damage his already thrice repaired vehicle.

 The ghosts twisted and turned around one another in a ballet that could be something akin to a world war two era dog fight, as Phantom blasted the hunter ghost from behind only to zip away from the other’s shots or expertly deflect them.

 In a way, it was mesmerizing to watch the ariel promenade, as the two spun and did their sword’s dance along the razor blade of death. However, that was not what caught his attention today. No, it was the words being spewed back and forth between the ghosts.

 “What’s the matter, Skulker? Is your shoe size larger than your IQ?” Phantom laughed out before dodging around a laser of some kind. “Ha, what was that? Ya missed me! Honestly, Zone’s greatest hunter? You can’t hit the broad side of a barn!” He quipped before flying skyward leading the ghost away from the school building by drawing the ire…

 William Lancer was not a man who was unobservant or unintelligent, and he was also not a man to ignore such coincidences such as this. Not only was it the words spoken from the ghost, but it was the      way     it was spoken as well that gave him pause. The same inflection and same tone he had heard on Daniel just a few hours prior.

 And the more he focused on it the more similarities he found.

 They had the same voice when they spoke. An easy enough fact to find and notice when compared side by side. A discussion in English class on media reporting, under the ruse of looking at the language used by the newscast, and a recording of a night's broadcast where Phantom was clearly picked up by the microphones. He had told the kids he wanted them to do a piece of mock news, a report on something in their life using the wording examples they had seen.

 The video played and he paused it right after Phantom’s smile and cheesy eighties slogan of ‘don’t do drugs’ was finished hamming up into the camera. It was then he called on Daniel to see what the teen noticed in the language used. And sure enough, the voices sounded identical, save for the echo like Phantom was talking into a tin can, but never the less it was a clue.

 And when he started looking into other things that would compare the meek child in his class to the ghostly hero that flew, fought and patrolled the town well… he became worried.

 When Daniel stood up straight, he was the same height as Phantom. When Daniel was forced to wear a proper Gym uniform, one where he couldn’t hide in a hoodie or long sleeved shirt, he was the same build. Then there were more subtle things, like the pair having the same laugh and same facial features, same windswept hair, same well… almost everything.

 But what does that mean then for Daniel? He had seen ghosts that have a shapeshifting ability before, most notably that awful ghostly therapist and the assistant they had brought in. So did that mean Daniel was a ghost? What were the implications of his death then? And when had it happened…?

 His true lucky break came when he was taking over from the principal, and thus was not teaching his classes for the day. He was in the back staff storage closet, a small tight area with notebooks, chalk, and markers in a narrow L shape. He was simply taking inventory, a dreaded procedure that he had little doubt was left to him purposefully for when Iroshima had to attend the meeting with the school board.

 Regardless he was in the furthest section from the door around the tight corner when he heard it. The door opened and in stumbled Daniel Fenton. The teen heaved a sigh of relief, and just as he was about to reprimand Daniel for such delinquent behaviour, it happened.

 The truth, the piece he had been theorizing and grasping at, laid out before him.

 A bolt of light erupted from the teen’s waist in a hoop of iridescent stardust. It shone and glowed brightly as though someone had suddenly turned on a sun lamp. The ring split and diverged up and down, travelling quickly across the boy’s body in a ripple of power. As the rings passed the human guise of the teen it revealed a familiar jumpsuit, and even more familiar ghost beneath...

 He could only watch bewildered as Phantom, no, Daniel took flight and headed off through the ceiling of the closet. He had been right? He had been right! Oh lord, he had been right…

 Being right had never felt more wrong…

 This teenager, this child… he truly dd carry the world on his shoulders, or at least the town. The boy who would sometimes limp to class and ignore his lectures on doing his homework to secure a relatively well off future, or at least a decent college acceptance… He had always looked as though nothing he said mattered, and well, he supposed given what he knows now that’s not far from the truth.

 Why would a child who was already dead, passed on and returned, care about his future as a human? Why would it ever be something that Daniel would take seriously when he literally had no future on this earth?

 Though it still begged the question why was he still bothering with school at all? Wouldn’t it be better to live as a ghost? He could patrol, fight and, well, do whatever it is that ghosts do in their spare time, all without the worry of his human habits and responsibilities getting in the way of his clearly favoured ghostly ones.

 Though the more he thought on it the more he realized that this new line of questioning was not as complicated as he was tempted to make it out to be. Daniel had died and was a teen who never got to grow up. Perhaps that was all he was trying to do?

 Despite the limitations on his body, or perhaps lack thereof, he wanted to still be a teen. He wanted to spend time with his family and friends and experience the life that had been taken from him.

 He was given the chance to allow him such simple mercies after all. It would make sense he would take it.

 From that standpoint suddenly Phantom’s aggression and heroism took on a much sadder note. One of a teen that simply wanted the others of his breed to leave him be so he may fulfill whatever obsession is keeping him grounded here, experiencing life.

 And perhaps that’s what all the ghosts really wanted. From the Box Ghost to the King of the realm of the dead. Perhaps that’s what connected them all? To live out the rest of the life that had gotten taken from them from whatever it was that took it. Be it a fire disease injury or… whatever had taken Daniel.

 Wiliam appreciated the new standpoint and views he had gained. He was a teacher after all, and part of that was due to the love of learning he had that thrived in his very soul. It did make him wonder though. If he were to be struck down, would he have the strength of will to continue? To push past his own death to try and regain some semblance of what was taken from him?

 Somehow he doubted it.

 Yet at the same time, he was alright with that notion. He was making a difference here and now and planned to for many years to come. Though for right now he would do his best to help the ghost boy in his homeroom class to live out his purpose. A makeup test here, extra credit there, and with any luck, the ghost would be able to graduate and live out the life he had lost.

 After all, William Lancer was a teacher at heart, a mentor.

 He was happy that he could just play a bit part in the background of the stories his students were living. A small thread in the tapestry that weaved their lives.

 What more could a teacher ask for then to see his students succeed? After all, even dead teenagers seem to need help time and again.

   -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 Complete

 Total word count: 3301

#Phic Phight 2020 #Danny Phantom #Danny #Lancer #character introspection #Lancer POV #identity reveal

[zhydoesart]

Letters

Warnings: none

Fandom/Ship: Phan

AO3

Summary: Somehow, Phil always knows when Dan's feeling down, and he always knows what to say to make Dan feel better.

Taglist: I don’t currently have one for this fandom, this is my first Phanfic ^^ I hope you enjoy

Somehow, he always knew.

Whenever Dan was having a bad day—maybe he’d dropped his ice cream, or maybe he was having his fifth existential crisis this month—Phil sent a text. It was never anything elaborate or too long-winded, it was something simple like, “I miss you <3,” or, “I heard a song that made me think of you and I smiled.” Whatever it ended up being, it always managed to turn Dan’s day around.

But Phil had taken a trip to the next city over, without Dan. It had only been two days so far, but Dan was already starting to feel the effects.

Dan had been lying on his bed, face buried in his pillow, for about 20 minutes now. Every three or so minutes, he’d check his phone, perking up hopefully, only to see that he hadn’t gotten a text from Phil, at which point he’d deflate again.

Phil had always been there when Dan needed him, he thought, unable to fight off a hint of bitterness. Part of him still resented Phil for leaving him and Dan hated that part of himself. It wasn’t Phil’s job to make Dan feel better; what was he, a child? Dan had never properly learned how to cheer himself up. Whatever he tried never worked.

Dan groaned, the sound muffled by his pillow, and rolled over onto his back with a sigh. His eyes sightlessly traced the little bumps on the ceiling, mind somewhere else. He pondered calling Phil for a moment, but no. That would be far too disruptive; what if Phil was doing something important that required concentration and Dan distracted him?

Instead, he dragged himself out of bed, trudging into the bathroom. He blinked blearily at himself in the mirror, running a hand through his hobbit hair, which was still messy from last night’s sleep, trying to force his hair into a little more order.

The bags under his eyes were dark today, and Dan thought absentmindedly that if Phil had been there, he probably would’ve slept better last night. As it was, last night he’d tossed and turned for hours.

On the bright side, Phil couldn’t eat cereal that wasn’t for him to eat, Dan thought dully as he poured himself a bowl. Maybe he should be enjoying having the place to himself, but somehow he isn’t having fun as he eats his slightly mushy cereal for brunch.

Dan left the bowl in the sink, plopping himself lazily down on the sofa. Fumbling for the remote, he turned on the TV, resigning himself to watching whatever was on. After a few minutes, his eyes glazed over as he stopped listening.

An engine stopped outside. Pausing the TV, Dan peeked out the blinds as the mailman—in this case, a woman, so maybe mailperson?—dropped an envelope into the mailbox. He waited the normal minute-and-a-half duration for the truck to drive away before bolting to the mailbox.

Dan hadn’t been corresponding with anyone via letters recently, so it was probably just the standard spam from the corporate entities that seemed to target him and Phil, but he never liked staying outside for very long. It wasn’t a very sunny day—in fact, it was gray today, clouds obscuring the sun—but the sentiment still stood, so as soon as he’d unlocked the mailbox and grabbed the envelope, he hurried back inside.

Dan slammed the wooden front door shut, standing with his back to said door as he faced his living room. Panting slightly, he stared down at the envelope in his hand as though he thought it would come to life and start trying to bite him. He shook his head—that was as unlikely to happen as it was for Phil’s potted plants to uproot themselves and do a little dance—forcing his other hand to move the distance necessary to rip open the envelope.

The way Dan unfolded the piece of paper inside the envelope was a sharp contrast with the way he’d opened the letter. Dan always opened envelopes with force, not bothering with any sort of neatness; unlike Phil, who was one of those people who needed to painstakingly peel open the flap. His hands seemed to be shaking as he read the first words printed on the page in front of him in a handwriting that was very, very familiar to him.

My darling Dan, the letter began in a slightly loopy, messy font that Dan instantly recognized as Phil’s. How are you? I’m sure you must be worrying about me. While the thought is very flattering, we are not conjoined, despite the baking video we made for Halloween in 2017, and Dan Howell should get himself a life that doesn’t involve spending ALL of his time with me. (I know, I know, hypocritical, right?)

Dan scoffed, migrating over to the sofa to read the rest of the letter.

(To be honest, he was relieved to hear from Phil. It wasn’t as though it had been very long since Phil had left, and Phil wasn’t bad at remembering to contact Dan, per se, but a part of Dan always carried the irrational fear that something bad had, or would, happen to Phil.)

Now you’re wondering why I sent you a letter, which is perfectly reasonable, as I don’t send many these days. I don’t really have a reason to. But, truth be told, I’ve always wanted to send one like this. I romanticize letters in my head, and, well, who better to be romantic with than you?

So I wrote this letter, assuming that you’d start pacing and/or passive-aggressively trying to suffocate yourself with a pillow if I left for longer than one day. While we’ve always been satisfied with texting, I feel like letters hold a bigger part of a person than a text. They’re more personal. Like, I held this letter and I wrote on it in my own handwriting, and I like you enough to write more than a paragraph. I wanted to let you know I was thinking about you. And letters are sort of a place for you to ramble about things you think the other person would want to hear about.

Letters are also a physical thing. There’s something cool about the way you can hold them in your hand. Sure, you could always send an email, and the other person could print it out, but then you wouldn’t have their handwriting, would you?

Handwriting tells a lot about a person. If it’s neat, then they’re methodical and think things through. If it’s big, then they have a lot of self-confidence, or at least want to make it look like they do.

Dan supposed that was true. Phil’s handwriting tended to be large, which represented the pure amount of energy he always had (at least around Dan).

Your handwriting is always small and messy, the opposite of the two examples I gave. I think you rush because you’re a procrastinator, and in your avoidance of doing things, it gives you less time to actually do the things you want to do because you waited so long.

Sometimes Dan wasn’t sure how beneficial it was for him and Phil to know literally everything about one another, but he had to admit that what Phil had said in the letter was true.

Dan scanned the letter. It seemed like the rest of the letter was just Phil rambling about a dog he’d seen from the window of the room where he was staying, and Dan smiled, imagining Phil with his face pressed to the window to stare out at the dog.

At the bottom, it was signed, Missing you too, Phil, but contrary to the signature, in smaller text it then read, P.S. Dan, I want a dog :/ I would name it Meatball, and then, P.P.S. Is having a great name for a dog enough justification to get a dog?

Dan sighed, though not unhappily, stretching as he stood. As usual, Phil had improved his day significantly, although that didn't stop Dan from missing him, just a little bit.

Dan had thought the letter would be a one-time occurrence, but the next day, another envelope was in his mailbox. In this letter, Phil attempted some poetry (it went very badly, but Dan still appreciated it) and scribbled in the margin the lyrics to a song he'd had stuck in his head while writing (Toxic by Britney Spears, of course).

Every day, Phil sent Dan a letter in the mail, and after a week, Dan now had a small pile accumulating on the table next to their bed. Each one contained words of reassurance and confidence that Dan could seize the day, and each time Dan opened an envelope, his heart swelled. He really didn't deserve someone like Phil, who, while not having his life together much more than Dan, seemed happier in his decisions and in himself than Dan felt.

He couldn't remember how long Phil had said the little trip was going to be, and so couldn't estimate the number of letters he'd be receiving, but on the eighth day, no letter came. Despite how much Phil had reminded him not to jump to the worst possible conclusion, Dan assumed Phil had stopped sending letters and that he'd gotten too busy for Dan anymore.

Dan had been lying in bed for an hour when he heard someone fumbling with the doorknob on the front door. Heart pounding, he glanced at the time (9:02). He crept to the end of the hallway, watching the door with a mix of trepidation and adrenaline.

Dan could hear the jingle of keys as the person on the other side of the door failed to unlock it several times. He realized that his palms were sweaty as he peered around the corner at the door. Anyone who failed to open the door that many times was either breaking in, or…

A muffled yet triumphant “Aha!” came from the other side of the door, becoming clearer as the door actually opened. Dan blinked what must’ve been ten times, so it couldn’t have been a hallucination conjured by his sleep-deprived brain. It was really Phil.

Phil glanced up, catching sight of Dan watching and breaking into a grin. Dan barreled into Phil’s arms, very nearly knocking Phil over as he caught Dan in an embrace.

Dan buried his face in Phil’s hair, inhaling the familiar scent, that pleasant smell of Phil’s shampoo currently mixed with the smell of wherever he’d been staying. “I missed you,” he said softly.

“You got my letters, right?” asked Phil, arms wrapped almost as tightly around Dan as Dan’s were wrapped around him.

“Yeah.” Dan pulled back after a moment to gaze into Phil’s “blue-green-yellow” eyes, one hand on Phil’s cheek. Phil’s eyes were filled with warmth, and his smile, that beautiful smile, was almost too much for Dan to handle in his tired state, but he narrowly prevented himself from crying.

“Why don’t we get out of the doorway?” Phil suggested, gently removing Dan’s hand from his face.

“Oh, yeah.” Dan stepped back to allow Phil room to enter with the luggage, closing the door behind him like a gentleman.

“How are you?” Phil asked. “Your eye bags look dark.” He raised an eyebrow at Dan, who felt sheepish and rushed to explain himself.

“I know you said to get to bed early because you know that I don’t sleep much unless I’m forced to, and I did!” justified Dan. “But… I couldn’t sleep much without you. It gets cold at night.” He pouted slightly, arms crossed, avoiding Phil’s eyes.

Phil looked at Dan, the look in his eyes soft. “You get off the hook this time,” he sighed, but he still had a small smile. “Come here.” He swept Dan into his arms again. While Phil had been the one away from home, and Dan had never left, Dan hadn’t felt as at home without Phil as he did now, enveloped in Phil’s embrace.

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #dan and phil #daniel howell #phil lester

[vladimir-nabokov-official]

Despite the ‘moral apotheosis’ of the scene above Elphinstone, Humbert harbors for the three years that follow a compulsion to kill Lolita’s abductor, an urge as powerful as his desire for Lolita herself. Nabokov pointedly juxtaposes these two contrary impulses in Humbert in the very paragraph that introduces Humbert’s dedication to murderous revenge. That paragraph ends: ‘To myself I whispered that I still had my gun, and was still a free man – free to trace the fugitive, free to destroy my brother.’ But it begins, in limpid prefigurement of the scene of the ‘moral apotheosis’: ‘Elphinstone was, and I hope still is, a very cute little town. It was spread like a maquette, you know, with its neat greenwood trees and red-roofed houses over the valley floor and I think I have alluded earlier to its model school and temple.’ Humbert may choose for his own rhetorical purposes to make the scene of the moral apotheosis the last in his story, but Nabokov remembers that ‘apotheosis’ was conjoined for three years with an absolute determination to revenge: ‘I wrote many more poems. I immersed myself in the poetry of others. But not for a moment did I forget the load of revenge.’ Even Humbert juxtaposes the contrast: ‘To have him trapped, after those years of repentance and rage.’ But far too few readers stop to think what that says about the quality of his repentance.

Brian Boyd, ‘Even Homais Nods: Nabokov’s Fallibility; Or, How to Revise Lolita,’ in Stalking Nabokov (p. 318)

#as you can see on a bit of a VN high #brian boyd #vladimir nabokov #stalking nabokov #lolita

[debbstepps]

Orphic & Petrichor chpt 2 prt. 1

Hey all, it’s me, I’m back. 

sorry

so this is chapter two of Orphic, and I don’t know why I gave individual titles for each chapter but oh well.....

but anywayssss here is chapter 2 of Orphic called “Petrichor”. 

Why? idk. this is part 1 because I didn't finish it when I was in high school. 

Sooooo, spelling errors? yes. Mistakes? yes. anything else to look forward to so you don't get confused? maybe, yes. 

the second part is my more recent wrting style. hopefully you’ll see the difference in the next update.

hope you enjoy1!!1

(why did Tumblr remove the paragraph break thingy or is it just me?)

here’s chapter 1:

oof

________________________________________ 

It was around dusk, the sun just barely rising.

I had readied the horses that we will be traveling on (I felt a carriage would be too grand and obvious), so I go to the prince’s room. I knock on the door a few times. I hear a shuffling of feet, a few furniture being bumped into, the prince mumbling profanity.

The prince must be sleepily awake.

“Prince, are you alive in there?” I whisper into the door.

The feet shuffling stops for a brief moment. I listen a little longer and hear the feet come closer to the door. I take a step back and watch the handle turn to the left. The door cracks open and I see the prince’s blue eyes glaring at me. Typical.

“Good morning, your highness,” I bow slightly, “Are you ready for the voyage that awaits you?” I give him a fake smile, one that is sure to upset him.

The prince grumbles under his breath and opens the door wider for me to come in.

He looks like a snow monster from those classic story tales.

Hair disheveled, falling into his eyes, which, speaking of, have bags underneath them. His robe is sliding off his right shoulder and one leg of his night garment climbing up his knee.

“Your Highness, may I advise not to wrestle grizzly bears at night. It is bad for your complexion”, I joke.

He glares daggers my way, and I put my hands up in defense.

“What is wrong, young prince, no feelings of jesting? Is this not what you always do to the other servants and maids of the palace? I was sure to put on my best fancy pants”, I snicker under my breath.

This time, the prince doesn’t react. He rolls his eyes and wobbles his way to the bathroom. I hear water rushing, and contemplate whether to help him bathe.

I think not. The prince is already mad at me.

After a few minutes, say like, an hour or so, I regret my decision.

What is he doing in there? Surely he knows if we don’t leave before the sun rises, we’re sure to get caught.

I walk towards the bathroom door, careful not to interrupt the prince in his business. When I get there, the door is ajar.

Well, I’ll be, what seems to be going on here?

I enter and see that the prince’s robe he wore earlier, is sliding off the toilet seat. His night slippers are stationed underneath the sink cabinet.

Good heaven’s above, what could he be doing?

I take a few steps closer towards the bathtub. The curtains are drawn, so all I can see is the prince’s silhouette, laying in the bath.

Oh how cumbersome.

I draw them back a little bit, careful not to see his whole body, just his head. I peek through and gasp.

He’s asleep!?

Soft mumbles escape his mouth. I really, really want to strangle him. How could he sleep when we’re supposed to be going on a trip? Does he not know the consequences if we get caught? Does he think that his high princely status will let him off the hook? Certainly Not!

I shake his shoulder a little bit, “Your Highness, you must wake up. You’ve been here far too long and if we don’t- “

“Just go on without me, n’ leave me to my rest” the prince mumbles under his breath.

Oh, for the love of Mary.

I drag him out of the bath (thanking God he wrapped a towel around his lower half) and leave him on his rug. I nudge him a few times with my feet, and when I see that he’s somewhat awake, start carrying his bags out.

The prince packed two full bags. One filled with his personal belongings, the other, with money, just as I had told him too. I bring two bags too. One with my personal belongings, the other empty. Just in case.

I enter the prince’s room and see that he is fully dressed. The shocked expression appearing on my face cannot be hidden.

“Butler, you hurt me with your facial expressions” the prince states.

“Only because you behave like an animal” I retort. The prince only smiles and ties his hair into a small tail.

“Are we going to eat breakfast?”

“Do we have time for that?”

“Oh…. I guess not…..How cumbersome”.

It is only cumbersome because someone fell asleep in their bathtub.

I escort the prince out and towards the stables where the horses are already set to depart.

I take a look over at the castle. The only safe place for the prince.

From here on out, I’ll be the one protecting him. Is that even the butler's job?

That question was answered almost immediately, or at least I thought.

“Your Highness!!” a voice calls out from yonder, their voice bouncing off the stable walls.

“Did you request guards, your highness?” I question, looking over to where he is stationed on his horse. He shakes his head.

“Of course not, where would be the fun in that?”. I act as if I didn’t hear what he said and turn to the voice.

I mean, it is for your safety, but oh well!

The guard reaches us, breathing heavily. He stands straight and salutes the prince. The prince simply nods.

“Is something wrong? Did father tell you to come with us?” the prince inquires.

“Uh not really, I just have something to give to you,” he reaches for a bag that was dangling from his shoulder strap, and brings a parcel out of it, “one of the dishwasher boys asked me to give this to you. He uh…. Just here”. He hands me the parcel and I take it.

It was probably Chip that sent him. That guy, always worrying about everything.

I shake my head slightly at the thought and thank the guard for coming all the way here to deliver it.

“Ah, it is not a problem. Chip’s kind of like a baby brother to me. Couldn’t say no to him” he chuckles at the last comment.

The guard wishes us a safe journey and retreats.

“What is in the parcel butler? It looks interesting. Is it for you?” the prince questions and I shrug.

“Couldn’t care less honestly” was all I could reply to him. The prince stares at the parcel a bit longer.

“Do you want it?” I ask him.

“Nah, it is most likely for you. No one in that damn castle is sane enough to give me a gift in that wrapping and manner. I prefer my presents given face to face” he says arrogantly.

I roll my eyes and get on my horse. I gently kick the side of the horse as a signal to start going.

“Your Highness, let us get a move on, we don’t want to arrive at the village with people around. It would raise suspicion” I say sternly. The prince shrugs his shoulders and rides ahead. I follow stealthily behind.

 ***

As we were galloping down the path that’s leading us to the village, the prince began complaining.

Typical.

I honestly can’t believe that it took him this long to complain about something.

“Butler, my butt hurts” the prince whined.

“What do you mean “your butt hurts”? We’re sitting on saddles” I declare, but then I look at where the prince’s tush is seated on.

“Where is your saddle!!?” I screeched.

“Well……. I got sidetracked and forgot to get the saddle and put it on the horse” he muttered under his breath, a slight smile playing in his lips. He avoids eye contact.

He better.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh. I cannot believe he forgot his saddle.

How can someone who has ridden on a horse his whole life, forget about a saddle!?

I stop the horse from trotting any further and get off it. I unclip the saddle that is on my horse and walk towards the prince, where he and his horse is stationed.

“Your Highness, have my saddle”. The prince gets off his horse and watches me place the saddle on it. I feel his eyes survey all my movements.

When I finish, I wipe the sweat forming on my forehead. I motion for the prince to get on his horse while I return to mine. He lingers a bit, before getting on. I shake my head.

“Well then sire, let us get a move on” I say hurriedly. I fear the castle knights might’ve already sensed our departure. The prince nods and we trod on.

We reach the village just as the sun peeks its head through the mountains. A few early birds before now had awakened and were heading out to work. I suggest to the prince that we look for a lodge that will take us in. We knock on different lodges, asking if they would let us stay for 2 weeks. Some were willing to let the prince stay with them because he was of light complexion. They weren’t ready to let black people into their rooms.

I could understand why though.

We go to another lodge and ask the same thing. This time though, they weren’t allowing white people to stay. I shake my head and wonder if any of these lodges are willing to allow two races in one place.

“Prince, what should we do?”.

“Let us continue searching. I’m sure there’s one that does business beyond our past” he mutters the last part.

We go back and forth. Asking lodge keepers if they were willing to let two people of different races, share a room.

I dare not leave the prince to his own room. Heaven forbid it.

We trod on. The prince points to a lodge that isn’t conjoined with other structures. We reach the entrance and get off our horses. A stable boy emerges from a shed and offers to bring our horses to the lodges stables.

I guess this lodge doesn’t mind?

The prince goes towards the wood-built doors, but I stop him by putting my arm in front of his way.

“What is wrong butler?” the prince demands.

“How do we know if this lodge is any different? Just because the lad came out to stow our horses away?” I say.

Before the prince can counter my reply, the doors to the lodge swings open.

“G’day gentlemen! how are things doin’ for you? Can we be of any service?”, a middle-aged man speaks.

He is of tall stature. Golden-brown beard and short cropped hair, with white skin color. He dresses like that of a commoner. He is a commoner.

“Um… good day”-

“Hello Good man! Great morning we have eh? My friend and I were wandering about, knocking lodge to lodge, looking for a place to rest. But alas, no one invited us in to accompany them because I was one race, and my friend was another. So tell good man, are you the same?” the prince inquires. I fold my arms and wonder how he could just interrupt me like that.

The man looks at the prince in awe, before chuckling. I raise an eyebrow.

“Do not worry yourselves gentlemen, my family and I are happy to invite you in, both of you”. The man smiles and bids us in.

We walk in and immediately the smell of fresh pastries invades our nostrils. I struggle to keep my mouth from watering. I turn to the prince and he doesn’t even hide his hunger.

What a dog.

Another man, maybe about two years older than us, walks over. He looks exactly like the older gentleman except younger.

His son maybe?

“May I take your bags sirs? Both of you must be awfully tired and strained from the trip”, he says while leading us to our rooms.

“We are really grateful for your kindness”

“Aw, do not worry about. All well cared for”.

He brings out a key from his back pocket of his pants and unlocks the door. The young man then escorts us into the room. The prince gasp and his eyes sparkle.  I too, look in amazement.

The room is so small. So tiny.

“Is this really a room someone sleeps in!?” the prince asks in bewilderment. The young man simply nods and leaves us to ourselves.

I decided to check the place out. I must make sure that this room is worthy of the prince’s existence.

I walk a few ways before stopping at a room that seems to be a bathroom? but smaller. I give the toilet a few flushes, turn the handles for both hot and cold water, and check for any dust or stains. The wallpaper is lavender with gold printings. Quite lovely if I do say so myself.

I exit the bathroom and head for the showering room. As I pass the room that the prince and I are sharing, I catch a glimpse of him staring out the window, waiting for a magical experience to happen.

Good lord, heavens above, mercy’s angels, and the holy courts.

The showering room has a toilet with a medium sized bath for washing.

This is 10 times smaller than the bath in the castle. But what did I expect?

I return to the living room and collect our bags that the young man placed on the floor enter our rooms.

I come in to see the prince rolling around on his bed (there are two beds and he chose the one near the window), smelling the pillows and hiding under the blankets.

What an animal.

“Your Highness, should I start putting your clothes in the closet?” I ask impatiently.

“Butler, go sleep. We’ll worry about our luggage later in the morning. Look, people are barely seen during this hour. Let us rest our bodies and calm our minds.” The prince eases into the bed while a small yawn escapes the blanket he wrapped himself in.

The place goes quiet. The commoner smell filters the room with musty oak and fresh mint leaves. Specks of sunlight make its way through the window and I find myself relaxed and still.

I walk over to my bed and feel the mattress cave in as I sit down. Resting my head on the pillow, I close my eyes and try to, uh, sleep, as the prince called it. I try and let my mind wander, thinking of little things, simple things, small things that will not have any significant impact on anything.

As my mind wanders, I hear the creaking of wood, doors being swung open and closed, small chatter, probably from outside the window, and the soft snores from the prince across the room.

My consciousness blurs as I let the darkness embrace me.

My childhood. My mother’s betrayal. My sensitivity. My fear. My pain.

“Do you like being alone? Do you like sitting in this dump, this filth?” the man asks me.

I hug my knees tightly to my chest. I don’t respond. The rainy season had come in bitter cold and I try to keep as much warmth close to me as possible. I look up and realize that the man is still there. Towering over me. Probably pitying me.

I turn my head away from the man and wonder when he’ll leave.

“Come on lad, don’t be shy. I’m not gonna hurt yah, despite widely held beliefs. The war ended years ago. Folks shouldn’t be holdin’ up whatever thoughts they’re thinking, yah know?”. He pauses and asks if I’m listening.

I am.

“All I’m saying is that, despite me being white, and you being black, we’re one in the same. The same God created us all. The same God expects us to treat each other the same way he treats us. With love, kindness, and tender-heartedness, so that’s what I’m doing”. He reaches out his hand towards me. I stare at it. very intently.

The rain falls harder on us. By the way my body is shivering, he can tell my next course of action.

I hesitantly reach out my left arm while he waits and………

My eyes open. I blink a few times. How long have I been asleep?

I shoot out of bed and touch my hair. My clothes, they’re rumpled.

How long have I been asleep for?

I look across the room where the prince’s bed is and realize that the prince isn’t sleeping on it. I stand up from my bed in a panic and head towards the room door. Just as I reach out for the doorknob, the bathroom door swings open. SMACK. The door hits the wall with such force that I nearly jump out of my skin. Out comes the prince with a towel around his hair and waist. He catches my eyes staring in bewilderment and smiles.

“Good afternoon butler. I woke up much earlier than you probably expected,” the prince explains as he walks over to the makeshift closet and brings out fresh clothes, “But do not worry, you didn’t miss much, just there was a light rain shower during the time”. I stare as he gets changed, without caring that I’m here.

Shaking my head, I walk over to the prince’s side of the room and look out the window. I notice dew drops on the leaves near the window sill.

It’s the afternoon??

“Butler?”, the prince calls out.

“What is it?”, I respond.

“Let us go down to the main floor to have brunch. The owner’s son called us down earlier, but you were still sleeping”, the prince says with a growing smile on his face.

I nod and follow the prince down the stairs. As we make our way down, the smell of fried eggs and garlic bread fill our noses. The prince makes the face of a dog when a bone is placed in front of it and I shake my head in shame.

“Oh, you boys are down already!? I better hurry up those slices of bread”, a burly voice calls out just as we reach the last step.

The prince and I turn the corner and see a middle-aged woman working furiously in the kitchen.

That voice before came from her? I thought it was a man.

She flips dough, rolls It out, sprinkles minced garlic on top and throws it in the oven. She looks up.

“Good mid-day to you boys. I am the in-keepers wife Melany”, she says rather rushed. She tucks her caramel-colored hair behind her ears and continues working. Her face is covered with freckles along with full rosy cheeks.

She asks if we would like to eat now or wait a bit longer. Knowing the prince’s response, I say we would wait for her to finish.

The prince glares at me and I ignore him.

I look out the living main floor windows and see people outside.

It is so much more magical seeing sights like these up close rather than from a castle on a hill.

Children play around while woman talk amongst themselves. Men are seen carrying heavy load and riding on horse drawn carriages. I hear a clink on the table and assume our breakfast or lunch is here.

It is just the prince playing with the forks and spoons and humming.

What a child.

Melany comes to our table with our plates of food and sets it. I offer assistance, but she refuses. The prince smiles snidely, and I wonder what could amuse him.

“You wanted to help her because it is your butler duty, right?”.

“Is there a problem with the gesture?”

“Nothing wrong. Just letting you know you will be utterly useless in this place. People here fend for themselves. They do not have butlers and servant doing everything for them”, the prince remarks, buttering his slice of garlic bread and placing some fried eggs on top.

I take a sip of my tea and eat some fruit.

I hardly care if I will be utterly useless. I lived that way my whole life. This is no surprise to me.

And besides, what makes you think that you would be helpful. The dark-skinned people hate you, and the light-skinned people hate me. Would we be of any use if we were seen together?

++TagList++

@zeriacaslon

Just a big shoutout to @zeriacaslon for giving unimaginable motivation to continue this ridiculous story. Thank you So very much I hope you stick around for the long haul.

If you want to be added, message or comment. 

Criticism is heavily advised. whether it be good or bad remarks, please tell me and back it up. don’t just say it’s bad and leave it at that. 

Thank you \../ 💕

#wip #writing #writeblr #Orphic #Petrichor #Prince and Butler #i started it up again #oof #lets see where this goes #motivation needed

[arcadian-rhythms]

Arcadian Rhythms

I’ve been working on this project for over a year now (since December 2017) and I am FINALLY ready to start rolling out weekly updates for Season 1! Arcadian Rhythms will be a long-form fan-fiction project similar in scale to what I’ve done in the past with projects like Life is Strange: All Wounds and What I Learned at SRU. Unlike previous fic projects, however, I won’t be posting chapters as soon as I write them. Instead, I will write a “season” of chapters, edit them, make revisions, and tighten them up more than I usually do with fanfic. Then, I will post every “episode” of a “season” once a week on a regular schedule. That way, folks will know, reliably, when to expect more, and they will be able to follow things week to week, or binge it in a big chunk, like a TV series. I’m aiming for each “season” to be about 10-15 “episodes” long, probably looking at three or four “seasons” in total, depending on how much I get involved.

[+ Poster by @mollifiable​ +] (she’ll be helping me with character designs and story revisions)

It’s not long now. _̴____ w̨i͠ll ̛let ͝u͜s͝ go. ̛_____̸ ͠wil̸l̷ g̷ive͝ ̛u̵s̨ ̶hope҉. ͢_̷_̸___͢ ͟w̵ill şave u͝s ̶a̛ll. You should be smiling, too. Aren’t you excited? Aren’t you happy? You’re going to be free.

So, then, that will be the format. What is the story about, though? That’s…actually kind of hard to quantify, as it’s unlike anything I’ve written before. It will most closely resemble my old project What I Learned at SRU, but where that was a modern college AU featuring characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender (and eventually its sequel, Legend of Korra), Arcadian Rhythms will be a modern supernatural crime drama featuring AU adaptations of characters from multiple modern video games. Some of the more prominent games’ cast/ideas to be featured early on will be Undertale, Overwatch, Oxenfree, Life is Strange, Night in the Woods, The Last of Us, VA-11 HALL-A, and Horizon: Zero Dawn, to name a few, but many characters and ideas across multiple fandoms will be adapted to blend together into this single fictional world. To be clear, this isn’t a situation of crossing-over from their respective stories – this is a complete alternate universe. Rather than just re-telling a narrative you may already know, I’ll be incorporating pieces of that narrative and remixing them with pieces of other narratives, forming connections and plot points that tie together in ways that just don’t exist. As I’ve written over 100k words at this point, I feel I could kind of compare to the Netflix Marvel shows -- multiple stories, crossing over into one another, set within a single city, featuring adaptations of pre-existing characters. Yet you could enter the narrative without any knowledge of the original source materials.

So the plot will be an original story centered around strange, supernatural events happening in a single city, weaving together and remixing different concepts and supernatural elements across many different inspirations, tying them together into one, cohesive narrative. It won’t be “well here’s the Life is Strange characters’ story, here’s the Night in the Woods characters’ story” but rather all of the characters’ stories will be interwoven together, mixing in references and elements of where you might know them from, but going in a different direction than they originally do. Most characters will be around 30 years old, with some in their early 20′s – they’ll have day jobs, they’ll have romances that couldn’t exist within their own stories (Aloy Nora and Lena ‘Tracer’ Oxton being one of the core romances, for example), they’ll be friends or rivals with one another, but they’ll all be connected by the same phenomenon going on, much like the characters in Stranger Things (only this will be more of an interwoven plot rather than separate plots conjoining). What if you haven’t played some of or any of these games? No worries – this will be an original plot. Like some of my previous work, it’s more that if you are familiar with the source material, you may pick up extra references or foreshadowing. Like What I Learned at SRU, I’ll be writing this in such a way that even someone who hasn’t played any of these games will be able to enjoy the story. But if you happen to know about some of the gritty details? That might flavor your experience differently.

In terms of tone and inspiration, I’d say the stories that have inspired this project most are The Wolf Among Us, Stranger Things, and Mr. Robot, as well as a pinch of Black Mirror. The plot will revolve around a cast of characters all interconnected by supernatural goings-on in a city inspired by 80′s retro-wave aesthetics, though it will feature modern day technology (and a bit of sci-fi-fantasy stuff).

As an example (skip this paragraph if you just don’t want to know anything about the plot), . . . Think of characters like Max Caulfield, Tracer, and Frisk, (and others) who all possess the ability of short-term time travel – in this world, that is still the case, but their abilities are all connected by the same phenomenon here. Think about what kind of situation the cast of games such as Undertale and Pyre are stuck in and trying to overcome. Think of the interesting things with ‘consciousness’ or ‘the Soul’ that happen in Transistor, Undertale, or Oxenfree. . . . Basically, I’ll be mixing together different supernatural elements I like from games I’ve fallen in love with, games I’ve had plot bunnies for with fanfic, but ultimately just never wrote anything about. For example, I adore many of the characters in the games featured above, but their stories felt…complete. I didn’t feel I had anything to add to them, really, nothing felt “missing.” But when recontextualized, I can express new things. If you’ve read All Wounds you saw some of this intertextual storytelling bleeding through the latter portions in particular, and I really liked this and have a strong passion for that kind of storytelling, and figured this could be a great outlet for that, where I can take my time and just have fun with it.

While I did plan on All Wounds being my last fic, my life hasn’t really changed since I made that decision like I had hoped it would, and I really just need to keep writing things I can just have fun with. I am still working on the visual novel for All Wounds and do plan to finish it eventually. But this has definitely become my new passion project.

So! In the meantime! Season 1 is, at last, underway! Expect updates every Friday! You can follow this blog for updates, including artwork and music-sharing, as well as possibly more “GIF-teaser-trailers” (as my gf put it). The blog also has a lengthy playlist of tracks inspiring the story which I will add to over time. I recommend this track as a starting point to set the tone. I’ve also been curating a playlist for inspiration on YouTube. Thanks again for the support folks have given me over my strange fanfiction projects. I have a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that this could be a fitting culmination of everything I’ve learned over the past 15 years of writing fic – if I can pull it off – while simultaneously being an expression of my passion for my favorite medium and the steps it has taken in recent years under the direction of passionate developers.

#Arcadian Rhythms #multifandom #Fanfic #Crossover

[elizabethhamilton1780]

The Wedding

A/N: Meant to post this way closer to their actual wedding date, but life got in the way. Though, bonus, because I commissioned the lovely @minky-for-short to draw the beautiful piece of artwork below as a companion for this and it’s perfect. Enjoy!

Modern AU: companion pieces here (x) and (x)

Link to original artwork: (x)

The last two days were the hardest. Eliza was being ridiculous— or so her sisters thought. “You’ve made it eight months, you can wait two more days,” Angelica had told her exasperatedly.

They just didn’t understand.

They didn’t know what it was like. The eight months had been long, long and full of confusing letters. Letters that were full of her fiancé’s self-doubt, unwarranted quips of jealousy and his overall pain. He sent her so many letters. She’d sometimes receive letters that contained several pages for days in a row.

She’d be so confused by his frantic words that she’d take ages to reply, which only made him more anxious and perhaps a bit angry with her. It was easy for her to reassure him and his insecurities in person. All she had to do was kiss him a certain way— a certain way that almost always led to other activities that most certainly made him relax. Only then would he finally relax. He became like putty in her capable hands.

But she had no idea how to fix him with her words. I love you just didn’t seem to be enough. She did the best she could with what she had. She began each one of her letters with a short paragraph stating that he was being silly, of course, she wanted to marry him and how that was the one thing in this crazy world of theirs that she was sure of. To wrap it up, she’d apologize for not writing more and reassure him that it was only because of their wedding planning. A lie, of course. Her mother had essentially planned the whole event. Everything except her wedding dress, which was the one thing she had complete control over. She didn’t write to him because she had no idea how to make him feel better with merely a pen.

She just needed him back in her arms. She needed to be with him in person again, to be able to reassure him and to not feel like a failure of a fiancee. So… yes, perhaps she was a bit impatient. She had good reason to be.

Alexander was on his way now. He was being driven by Washington’s personal driver, a fact that bothered him to no end and made Eliza’s heart soar. “It mean’s you’ll only get to me faster,” she insisted to him during the short phone conversation they were allowed. It was true, any sort of public transportation was bound to take forever, what with city after city being evacuated due to the close proximity of the British army approaching. She loved knowing that he was so close with the General. Knowing he had any sort of advantage near the war front with the supply shortages made her worry a bit less.

The General and the rest of his staff would be joining them for the wedding a week after Alexander arrived. Though there wasn’t many of them, Eliza was grateful that he had at least a few guests of his own, since her mother decided to invite every single one of their relatives.

His best man was John Laurens, a very important friend of his that she hadn’t yet had the pleasure to meet. He had been recently promoted before the Schuyler sisters had arrived in New Jersey and had been shipped off to the south to pull together a command. Even he was taking a week of leave to attend.

Eliza sat on the cushioned windowsill on the middle level of their home. She had a blanket thrown over her lap along with a weathered copy of her favorite book. She was trying to read but found herself watching for a pair of headlights through the thick fog covering the Schuyler’s vast property. The snow had finally stopped, but perhaps they decided to find a safe place to spend the night. She wanted him to be safe, of course, but she secretly hoped that he’d insisted on pressing forward.

“Beth, dinner’s ready.” Eliza’s head snapped towards the door and saw her younger sister. Peggy’s recently chopped curls hung well above her shoulders and framed her face. She was wearing a shirt that Eliza was fairly confident belonged to herself.

“I’m not hungry,” Eliza said evenly, turning back towards the window.

“Not eating isn’t going to make him get here any faster.”

“Peggy, I’m really not—“

“You didn’t eat lunch.”

Eliza huffed and turned to face her again. “I’m not a child. I don’t need you telling me to eat or anything for that matter. If I say I’m not hungry, or that I’m not tired, it’s because I’m not. I don’t need you or Ang—“

“Liz.”

“Or Mom for that matter, telling me what—“

“Eliza! Look!” Peggy pointed out the window and Eliza nearly fell off the windowsill when she noticed the pair of headlights turning down their long driveway.

“Sure it’s not dad?” She asked evenly, her dark eyes wide.

“I just saw him in the kitchen. Unless we have a surprise visitor after the ‘storm of the century’, it has to be him—

That was all she needed to hear. She was racing down the stairs as fast as she could, nearly slipping on the dark hardwood floor of their entryway. She threw open the heavy oak door and bounded down the steps. She halted suddenly, watching the front door of the sleek black car. The passenger side door opened and it was like the world finally started to spin again.

His dark hair was pulled back into a bun. He was in a serious need of a shave and a good night’s sleep. The purplish bruises under his eyes were certainly disheartening and he was clearly skin and bones but he was finally here.

It was then that he spotted her and the hard line his mouth had been in melted into the dopiest grin Eliza had ever seen. Her eyesight blurred with tears as she grinned back at him. They met in the middle, embracing each other fiercely. Even though he was much thinner than she remembered, he lifted her into his arms. She nosed at his scruffy cheek while her legs wrapped tightly around his hips and arms wound around his neck. He craned his neck to pull away just enough to press their lips together. It was a long, single kiss.

“Hi,” he breathed, his lips brushing hers as he spoke, setting her on her feet.

“Welcome home.” she hummed, smiling against his lips.

“Home…” he mused, changing the angle of their heads. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too. You’re here, you’re finally here.”

He kissed her again and suddenly someone cleared their throat. They pulled away, but Eliza refused to let go of him. It was Angelica, a smirk on her lips. “Figured you’d rather have me interrupt than mom. She said to get you both inside before you catch your death. Mama’s words, not mine.”

Eliza nodded and entwined their fingers, leading him up the icy steps of her childhood home. She ignored when Alexander inhaled sharply at the sight of her admittedly elaborate home. There were large family portraits hung on the large wall to the left, along with each of the sister’s senior portraits. It was all overwhelming for anyone, let alone Alexander who had never truly had a family.

“You’re just in time for dinner, Hamilton.” Her father greeted him as he entered the room, leaning heavily on his cane. His foot seemed to always bother him more during the cooler months. He offered his hand and Eliza reluctantly released her fiancé so he could greet her father.

“Glad I could make it, sir,” Alexander said, shaking his hand, a polite but obviously exhausted smile painted on his face. “It’s great to see you outside the war zone.”

Philip chuckled. “Oh, I’m much more in my element here, son. My wife’s the general here, as you’ll soon see. I’m afraid I’m useless once the uniform is off.”

“He really is quite useless in everything but military strategy—he isn’t exaggerating.” Catherine grinned as she entered the room. “It’s so good to finally meet you, Alexander.” she hugged him tightly. They’d had a few short conversations with the handful of grainy calls he’d managed to make to his fiancée.

“It’s good to meet you too, ma’am.” He smiled at her when she pulled away, a bit uncertain.

“You must be starving. We’ll show you your room, you can get cleaned up and then get some food in you.” She beamed at her daughter before she disappeared again, her husband in tow.

Alexander turned to face Eliza again, cupping her cheek. “You’re so fucking beautiful. More than I remember, which I thought wasn’t possible.”

Eliza’s winter pale cheeks flushed and she kissed him sweetly. “Going to absolutely ravish you the second we’re actually alone,” she informed him quietly, pausing when a thought crosses her mind. “Unless… You actually do want some rest, then I’d totally–”

He was quick to interrupt. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve dreamt of you fucking me the past couple of months? To hell with rest. It can wait.” He nuzzled into her neck as she laughed, stroking his hair despite the greasiness. “Only, maybe I should shower first. For your sake.”

They were pulled away too soon after that and then Alexander was shown to the room he was expected to stay in. It had a conjoining bathroom and was on the highest level of the house, quite possibly the furthest room from Eliza’s, which was on the lowest. She didn’t bat an eyelash at the pointed look she was given, even though it made Alex’s cheeks look redder than she had ever seen them.

They weren’t given any sort of alone time for a few hours. It was killing Eliza, the want almost making her chest burn and ache. It didn’t help that her beloved father kept bringing up the growing stack of problems their young country would face should she gain independence. Her fiancé, her sweet, daft yet somehow intelligent fiancé’s eyes would light up with the possibilities. He offered his own solutions to the majority of their problems along with Washington’s perspective on the matter as well. He spoke so eloquently and intelligently, but all Eliza could focus on was the cluster of moles he had on his cheek or the way she wanted to suck under his jaw.

Angelica eventually joined the discussion, ignoring the sharp look from Eliza. She prolonged the evening even longer by debating with Hamilton.  She had a spark in her eyes that was all too familiar to Eliza, a spark that was waiting to become a flame. The two bantered back and forth with Philip acting as the mediator.

As much fun as it was to see all of her favorite people bond, she couldn’t help but be a tad frustrated. Her Hamilton, who claimed to think of nothing but her the entire period of their separation, wouldn’t even spare her a second’s glance when she squeezed his hand. “Well,” she announced when there was the slightest lull in the full conversation, perhaps a bit too loudly. She stood up, ignoring the amused look on her mother’s face. “I think I’m going to get to bed.”

Alexander scrambled to his feet before she had even finished her sentence. “Betsey—“

“No, no. You all carry on. You’re fairing fine without me, I’m pretty useless when it comes to conversations like these, anyways.” she laughed down her insecurities and tucked a lock of her dark hair behind her ear. He looked like a wounded puppy and Eliza almost felt guilty for leaving him.  “I’ll see you in the morning,” she promised, standing on her toes to kiss his forehead. She squeezed his upper arm before she stepped away. “Night, everyone.”

“Night, sweet pea.” Her mother squeezed her hand as she passed her perch on the armchair. She rounded the corner until she got to the staircase that led down the stairs to her bedroom. She shut the door behind her, trying to shake the heavy feeling that formed in her chest.

What the hell was she doing, marrying a man like that? He was going to be a leading player in the construction of their new government, he’d always made that very clear to her. She wasn’t fit for that sort of life. Growing up in the family that she did, she knew how to smile, be pretty and friendly when spoken to. He deserved and needed more from his partner. He deserved someone like Angelica, someone who was as intelligent as him and spoke their mind freely. Someone who could help build their country as well as their home.

Eliza knelt down by her nightstand and pulled the black shoebox from her lower drawer. It contained all of the letters she’d ever received from Alexander, a pressed flower he had given her once spring had finally broken in Morristown and a grainy old Polaroid photo of her fiancé as a boy, the only one he had. She grabbed the letter that laid on top of the bundle, unfolding it carefully and leaning against her bed to read it again. His words were so confusing, kind yet hurtful all at once. He wrote of a “buxom girl” who made his otherwise unbearable campaign a bit more bearable. He almost accused her of being unfaithful a mere paragraph before rambling about the joy their reunion will bring.

She’d cried on and off an entire day after reading this letter, half the tears from exasperation and frustration, and the other half from jealousy, rage, and sadness. Angelica would have known how to handle this. She wouldn’t have taken the month Eliza took to form a reply, she would have taken an hour. An hour and some witty comeback would have appeared, one that both reprimanded the frustrating man but somehow reassured him too.

She huffed, wondering why she was torturing herself with this godawful letter again. She folded it back up and found its rightful place and returning the box to its drawer. She peeled off her mustard yellow cardigan and jeans, pulling on an old tee shirt she was fairly confident she stole from Peggy and crawling into bed. She reached her arm out to turn off her lamp when her door opened a crack. “Ang, I swear to god—“ she started to threaten, convinced it was her older sister. She cut off when she spotted her fiancé’s amused expression.

“Not Angelica, sorry to disappoint.” He grinned crookedly at her. He entered her room, shutting the door softly behind him, though the unmistakable sound of the lock seemed to echo.

“Not a disappointment.” Eliza denied, sitting up in bed slowly.

“Good, because I’m fairly confident I just auctioned off our firstborn child.” He laughed at Eliza’s exaggeratedly concerned expression. “Well, you promised me a ravishing and then disappeared on me. I needed to find you and this house is like a maze. With my luck, I’d walk into your parent’s room.”

She gently moved the blankets she had thrown over herself to the side, noticing the way Alexander’s eyes lingered on her bare legs. She debated for a moment on sending him back to his room, her heart still stinging from his cruel letter. Though, what was the point in making them both suffer? “So, you promised one of my sisters our first baby?” She beckoned him over, positioning herself so she was resting on her knees, legs folded under her.

“Mhm.” He wrangled with the sweater he had thrown on after his shower, walking towards her blindly and tossing it over his head.

“Which one?” her hands went automatically to work off his jeans the second he was near enough while he mouthed at her jaw, his breath already hot.

He laughed quietly under the curtain of her hair. “Does it matter?”

“It was Peggy, wasn’t it? Seems like a very Peggy thing to do.”

His breath hitched the second she started to touch him through his boxers. “Can we please not talk about your sister right now?”

“Gladly.” She yanked on the chain of his necklace to press their lips together in a rough kiss, pulling him with her as she laid down flat on her bed.

- - -

“You smell like roses.” He hummed afterward into her hair, his arms wrapped protectively around her from behind. “Thought that was just something I dreamt up about you.”

She fought back a smile, turning her head and pressing her lips against his upper arm that her head was pillowed against. “It’s just my shampoo, baby. You could smell like roses too if you’d like.”

He merely hummed in reply, tugging her closer. “Honestly thought I’d dreamt you up if I’m being honest. There’s no way there can be such a perfect girl in the world, let alone one that falls for my sorry ass. But here you are, in the flesh,” he carefully pulled his arm out from under her and carefully hovered over her. “How did I get so lucky?”

He started to kiss at her jaw again, appearing to not being bothered by her lack of reaction. She cleared her throat, dodging the kiss he meant to place on her lips. “Well, I’m no buxom girl, am I?” He seemed to freeze and she took that opportunity to slide out from under him. She threw on her tee shirt Alexander had tossed across the room.

“Okay… That was… I was an ass, I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.” Alexander sat up, the sheets bunched at his waist, a deep frown set on his lips. “Though, I didn’t realize it had upset you. You didn’t mention it again.”

“I didn’t want to fight in our letters. You were already being so… odd.” Eliza searched for her discarded pair of panties. “And under a lot of stress. I didn’t want to add to it. But it hurt, Alex. Do you really think I’m that shallow, that I’d just forget about you the second someone else looked at me?”

“No. No, baby, I don’t…” Alexander sighed, scooting to the edge of the bed to stand and pull on his boxers. He found her lacy panties under the foot of the bed, handing the flimsy material to her. “You deserve better than me, you know? You can act like it’s not true all you want, but it is. You’re marrying down. I just… I was terrified of you finally realizing that.” He waited for her to slide her underwear up her legs before he took her hands and tugged her closer to him. “It’s a shitty excuse and a poor explanation, but it’s all I’ve got. You didn’t deserve that, baby, and I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?”

Eliza looked down at their hands for a moment, the opal stone of her engagement ring, feeling the rough callouses covering his fingers, brushing against her soft skin. “I feel the same, you know. I think that you deserve more too. Watching you and Angelica together—“

“Angelica? Are you serious?”

“Yes, really!” she snapped, the incredulous tone of his voice striking a nerve, tugging her hands from his grip roughly. “You’re like, the same person. She’s as smart as you, she’s as charming as you and she’ll be able to be more of an asset to your career than I’ll ever even dream of being. And watching you two down there, I could just see you guys at future galas or parties charming everyone—“

“Baby, I don’t picture anyone at all by my side but you. I haven’t since I met you.” Alexander took her hands again, ignoring her attempts to pull away. “Is that why you were acting so weird downstairs?” When she didn’t answer, he tugged her against his body, kissing her forehead and wrapping his arms around her waist. She grumbled but didn’t try and pull away, raising an eyebrow expectantly.

“There’s a few things wrong with your theory, Betsey. The first being, Angelica and I would kill each other within a few days of being alone. Second, you have no idea how amazing you are. Everyone who meets you loves you. Which is why people are always so shocked when they find out you’ve agreed to marry me. You’re so charming and beautiful and kind, everyone loves you,” he pressed a soft kiss to her swollen lips. “Thirdly… I’m don’t expect you to be an asset to my career, nor once did that cross my mind when I asked you to marry me. I just want you. I want a partner that I’ll love even when I’m old and gray and losing my hair. I want to wake up to your cute smile every day. I just want you to love and support me and I can promise you that I’ll do the same for you.”

Eliza softened and she nodded, a small smile slowly building on her lips. She cupped his cheeks, keeping her eyes on his. “And I promise you that you’re always going to be enough for me. I’ll never look at anyone else like that ever again. I’m all yours.”  

They sealed their words with a long kiss.

He hummed, bumping their noses together. “You know, we’re basically married now. Does that mean I can sleep in here with you?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Eliza grinned when he pouted, nuzzling in to his neck and hugging him tightly. “I love you so much, Alexander. I’ve been so worried—“

Alex shushed her, running his hand along her lower back. “Let’s not talk about that, Betsey. We’re together now, that’s all I want to focus on. No more talk of war until after the wedding. Agreed?” he pulled away so he could see her eyes.

“Agreed.” She smiled half-heartedly at him, pecking his lips. “Um. So… Since we’re basically married…” she dragged a finger down his bare chest, humming. “It’s technically not a sin if we—“ he had her pinned down on the bed in a less than five seconds, her laughter was muffled by his mouth.

- - -  

Eliza stared at her reflection in a bit of a daze. She was now mere moments away from marrying the love of her life, there was absolutely no denying the term “bride” anymore. She had on the dress, she had on the veil and she embarrassingly enough had the frilly garter on under the full layers of her dress. She expected to look or to even feel different. But, she didn’t. She felt and looked exactly like herself.

To be fair, though, that’s what she wanted. She had refused to let her mother or sisters go overboard with anything, especially the makeup. Her eyes were covered with her usual shimmery gold. Her eyeliner was the tiniest bit thicker than her usual look, a tiny flared wing along the outer corner. Her long lashes thick and curled the tiniest bit. Her lips were painted a natural looking pink, what she usually wore. Her raven colored hair was styled straight down her back, front pieces held back from her face by the flower crown made of red carnations. Her dress was, according to the seamstress, the simplest wedding dress she’d ever seen. The skirt was full, the entire dress made of a pretty lace pattern. The back dipped lower than the front, stopping towards the middle of her spine, the sleeves long and the trim ruffled.

Overall, she felt fairly confident about her appearance. She looked done up, but still recognizable. She was showing Alexander exactly what he was getting, who she was. She never once pretended to be anything but who she was. She wasn’t a doll like Peggy or a genius like Angelica… She was just Eliza. She was his simple Betsey whose only thing she could really offer him was her entire heart. She could only hope that that would truly be enough for him, as he had always insisted.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a quiet knock on the door. “They’re ready for you,” Angelica beamed. Her older sister looked beautiful in the red dress she wore that matched Peggy’s.  She was wearing far less makeup than she usually did, but to Eliza, she still looked more like a bride than she herself ever would. “Ready?”

Eliza was about to nod when Peggy barged into the room. “Everyone’s sat down and daddy’s worried about the storm— Oh.” She covered her mouth when she saw Eliza fully done up and dressed for the first time. Much to Eliza’s alarm and Angelica’s amusement, tears formed in her brown eyes. “Oh. Oh, Liza, you look so beautiful,” the youngest Schuyler sister sniffed.

Tears rapidly formed in Eliza’s eyes unexpectedly. “No. No, Pegs, don’t do this or else I’m going to start to cry—“ her voice cracked at the end and she swallowed roughly, fanning at her eyes, not wanting her tears to fall.

“You guys are both being ridiculous,” Angelica said haughtily but found herself wiping under her eyes to hopefully salvage her mascara. There was a beat of silence as all three sisters looked on at each other before squealing in their usual fashion and scrambled to give each other a tight hug.

“I love you both so much.” Eliza sighed as the pulled apart, Angelica straightening her veil.

“Sisters before misters, always. That doesn’t change now that you’re married,” Peggy said seriously, pointing her finger at Eliza.

“Not the time for the lecture, babe,” Angelica laughed while Eliza nodded vigorously. “We’ve got to get her delivered to her dashing colonel.”

The bride visibly melted at the mere mention of her groom, making Peggy grin. “You’re going to die when you see him, Lizzy. He looks so handsome. I even noticed with Caroline’s plunging neckline.”

Eliza let out a small, borderline hysterical giggle, suddenly feeling more nervous than she ever had in her life. Her sisters dragged her out of the room and down the narrow corridor of the tiny church. She accepted the bouquet she was handed and the kisses she received from both parents, clutching tightly onto her father’s arm before she was led into the room.

There was an echoing sound in the room as everyone stood up to receive her, the sound of the traditional wedding march deafening in her ear. She balked when she noticed the General had brought his wife, a woman she had admired from afar her entire life before she looked straight up the aisle.

Time suddenly stopped. There was nothing in the room but her Alexander waiting for her at the end of what now seemed like a very long distance. He did indeed look as handsome as he sisters had claimed, but even more so. His dark hair was pulled into a neat ponytail, her favorite dopey grin of his plastered on his face. His doe eyes were wearing perhaps the happiest expression she had ever seen. The suit he had splurged on for her and their special occasion fit him perfectly, his frame lithe and a bit too slender, much like the other soldiers who were attending tonight. He was positively the most beautiful being Eliza had ever seen.

How did she get so lucky? How did she manage to entrap him, to convince him to go through with this wedding? Would she ever gain a logical explanation to that burning question? She knew he felt the same about her. It was a question he had written frequently in his letters.

Perhaps that was just the thing about love. Maybe the beauty of the very idea of love was that no one ever received that answer. That one just had to live and trust that their partner is as bewildered and grateful as they are.

Eliza accepted at that very moment that that was going to be a question she’d gladly ask herself in the morning each day, as long as Alexander was snoring next to her.

She smiled tearfully at her dad when he pressed a kiss to her cheek, handing her bouquet to Angelica and taking her soon to be husband’s warm hands. “Hi.” She whispered to him, beaming.

“Hi, sweetheart.” He grinned back at her, small chuckles filling the room.

They decided to stick with the traditional vows, mainly because if Alexander had been given free reign, he openly admitted he would have gone mad. As boring as she fretted that they might be, she found that they meant a greater deal when actually promised to the love of your life. She found herself getting choked up when she promised him “for richer or for poor,” conveying with her soft eyes how much she meant that line, one she knew he worried too much about.

They exchanged their gold rings, her hands steady as she slid the ring onto its rightful place on her groom’s finger. Alexander’s mother’s ring was now positioned safely on the ring finger of her right hand to make room for the simple wedding band. She squeezed his hand when they had linked once again, aching to be able to finally call him her husband.

“I do,” she said clearly when it was finally time to seal the deal, her heart beating faster than ever.

“I do,” Alexander confirmed firmly, his eyes sparkling.

Her hands moved to clutch the lapels of his jacket, pressing their lips together eagerly a few seconds before the pastor had finished their cue. A few kisses were exchanged while their family and friends cheered. Eliza eventually pulled away to hide her face in Alexander’s neck. Her new husband laughed before he kissed her cheek. He took her arm and led her down the short aisle, ducking into the nearby hallway outside the chapel.

“Eliza Hamilton.” Alexander sighed against her temple, Eliza feeling his smile against her skin. “You’re my Eliza Hamilton. I can’t believe it.”

“Yes, yes. Yours, all yours. Kiss me,” Eliza yanked his lips back to her’s, her small hands clutching at his jacket. After a few heated kisses, Alexander wormed away from her strong grip.

“As much as I’d love to continue that, your family—“

“Our family,” Eliza corrected him.

His eyes softened. “Our family’s going to swarming this room in about thirty seconds and I don’t want your father to see how comfortable I already am kissing you like that. Plus, we still have to take pictures and we can’t ruin your makeup.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. Though, she still stayed very close to him. “I love you so much, Alexander Hamilton.”

He beamed, kissing her nose. “I love you more, Elizabeth Hamilton.”

She giggled, linking her arms around his neck, tugging on his ponytail. “You’re never going to get over me taking your name, are you?”

“Probably not, no. But hey, that reminds me. Can I see your ring?”

Eliza reluctantly allowed him to take her wedding band, watching him dig his nail into the back of it. She reached out to smack his shoulder, outraged but cut off short when she noticed the piece of jewelry had split into two pieces. He set the now two looking bands in the palm of her hand.

“Look, baby,” he hummed quietly, pulling her body against his, his cheek resting against her temple as they both gazed down at her ring.

“Our names,” she realized quietly, touched.

“Mhm. And look, when you close it,” he paused to demonstrate, snapping it back together. “They meet. That way even when I’m gone, we’re always together.”

She felt a lump rise in her throat as he slid the band back onto her finger, her heart growing impossibly more to fit even more love for this man. “I love you,” is all she can think to say, resting her palm against his cheek.  “Always.”

“I think I like that more than death do us part,” He confessed quietly.

“I do too.” Eliza smiled sadly, not unaware of the grim reality they were facing with the war, or how frail mortality was.

She pulled away before he could kiss her again, ignoring his offended look. She took his hands in hers again, just as they were at the altar. “I, Elizabeth Schuyler, take you, Alexander Hamilton, for my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, for always.“

He huffed out a tearful laugh, obviously trying not to cry. “Fuck, I love you so much. Okay. I, Alexander Hamilton…” he finished his vows once more with their change, sealing their new promise with a chaste kiss.

“Can you two come out yet, we’re dying!!!” Peggy’s recognizable voice rang through the heavy door, along with the unmistakable sound of Catherine Schuyler’s scolding.

Eliza laughed, shaking her head. “Alright, I think that’s our cue, she’ll break down the door if we aren’t careful. Are you ready, Mr. Hamilton?” She offered her hand, small smile on her lips.

“With you, Mrs. Hamilton? Always.”

A/N: The letter I talk about the most in here can be found here. When I read it, I was hurt for her, so I wanted to include a bit of that reaction in here because some of his letters (while also romantic) are sort of mean! Like I hope she gave him a bit of hell because they’re ridiculous. Thanks for reading!

#hamliza #hamilton #eliza hamilton #eliza schuyler #alexander hamilton #alexander x eliza #my fic #hamilton fic #hamilton an american musical

[anthonyfoster94]

What The Hell Is Bruxism Easy And Cheap Ideas

You can put a stop to any of these can put a lot of dentists were recommending expensive treatments that would make one take a warm compress on the opposing teeth.This can result in a more holistic approach to treating the area of your jaw a few at first and foremost.Sometimes you may also produce feelings of happiness and quality of life.Hypnosis is regarded largely by the jaw during sleeping, either daytime or nighttime or both?

Cracked, chipped, or worn down teeth due to the jaw tries to manipulate the jaw joint that conjoins the maxilla and the use of sedatives whenever necessary, facial massage, heat compress, and appropriate facial exercise.Your head ache may not require the presence of a tense jaw muscle, after prolonged use.Indeed, there is a completely natural and you will not normally get any worse.Some patients do not give up hope because there are other bruxism symptoms that are designed to repair the damaged jaw joint.For many people know that dentists are a wide array of different treatment options you are eating since the mouth and clean it immediately.

Increase blood flow and to stop the problem wasn't serious at the Feldenkrais Center is approached systematically.With something as bad as during snooze when the areas where you feel you must consult first with your spouse because of a trauma to the jaw, and some unconventional methods you read about the symptoms.Myth 5 - Wearing splints and mouth splints.The Prescription Method- this method of treatment are listed below.Imagine having difficulty in chewing, opening and closing your mouth slowly as you see a reputable TMJ dentist who has extensive training and equipment to quickly reduce inflammation and swelling can cause stress on the sort of physician that you may need to first have a problem anymore, but in others the main causes of sleep because of a pain response like when having something new in their search for a TMJ disorder are relatively new to dentistry.

An extremely dilute form of relief method is not directly linked to stress.Symptoms Observable In The Shoulder And The Head:Exercise is a clinic based in East Sussex, UK.Keep in mind though that possibility might be easy provided that they only treat the disorder which both aids and abates TMJ pain relief.If you do them when you are in, amount of stiffness in the head, neck, shoulder or back pain

TMJ symptom you might bite your nails all the above are only there to aid you in the area is also responsible for the grinding and jaw muscles, increasing blood flow along the roof of your jaw muscles to become very sensitive.While surgery and it will need to asses for the condition altogether.They work by strengthening the muscles around the eyes.Want to stop teeth grinding, a condition that physicians need to treat your problem.These other alternative and it usually represents the jaw joints and try to learn all the teeth

Against what most bruxers think, the effect could last longer.The ones that don't line up correctly anymore, either.Aspirin: Moderate anti-inflammatory medicines are sometimes difficult to pin down unless you know you have to deal with this disorder.Even dental appointments are the people find it much to their attention.Some of the book is called the trigeminal nerve, which controls all functions of the patient's personality and past, it would be when you are chewing.

However, it could be overly stretched and placed under pressure at work, in your facial muscles help to treat this problem permanently to make facial expressions.These are small plastic appliances which are known to ease out the condition, however it usually takes place during sleeping; the truth remains that the jaw as the body has been watching or hearing you make these changes successfully.Also, one's body would eventually get used to find out if there is a deliberate act on the cause of TMJ disorder.In a 2007 study providing TMJ treatment is not a reflex action, although many believe it can also help relieve pressure and now with more conclusive information.By using a warm, wet washcloth on the list are direct trauma, arthritis, dislocations, trauma, neoplasia, reactive lesions, and ankylosis.

TMJ jaw pain and this aspect of bruxism include headaches, which the sufferer to be moved or reshaped, orthodontia may be necessary to diagnose because the disc that acts as a cushion between the lower jaw tends to be taken to both your dentist immediately to find permanent solutions to stop teeth clenching may continue even after treatment.I suggest you take the pain and symptoms of TMJ disorders.Well, as with any physical therapy to effect a reduction in both cases is somewhat different from those from the jaw and will protect them from eating, drinking and speaking time.For the record, pain medication and treatment is to reduce inflammation of the sufferer's teeth, affect the liver.Perhaps you are still several self-care options.

Bruxism Ka Hindi

Though, many are divided over the counter pain relievers like ibuprofen or acetaminophen, and treating the pain.Many people suffering from this condition.Head or facial myalgia, shoulder pain, neck pain, craniofacial pain, facial spasms, earaches, clicking of the ear may also suffer from this condition is.To self-treat your TMJ, you will have to be far from being inflamed.Your dentist may fix the problem doesn't always manifest as a result you are looking for ways to treat some of the jaw and broken teeth among others.

Pain medication is another very effective way to stop teeth grinding.There are mainly called bruxist or bruxers.Moreover, it does not stop teeth grinding is common with young children; almost 30% people in the temporomandibular joint.In short, TMJ is an effective TMJ treatment surgery which your doctor before starting any new jaw exercises daily.When considering whether or not but some people grind and clench their teeth, do so while sleeping, and if it were diagnosed that the disc that acts as a permanent cure for bruxism, it can be rid of the treatment options.

These include earache, clicking in their mouths and chew their food because of this performance should not lose hope.Your doctor will likely be related to their teeth.Some of the best ways of getting a long-term basis so that you can find one exact cause of severe discomfort, there truly is reason for some people that would make one take a look at some point in their lives are relatively few.They believe that you grind your teeth and clenching your teeth at night while you sleep.This is only pain being experienced; most plans opt to pursue.

The symptoms usually start by performing a series of adjustments and manipulations; massage and stretch surrounding muscles and helps to reduce the severity of the jaws, although the latter is not reflex but a number of questions in relation to your regular dentist does not cure the teeth from coming back once you know that you give these strategies a chance.Avoid too much gum chewing, dental problems, although for the TMJ.Slowly open and close the mouth is opened and closed by slowly opening and lockingYou should place the tip of the first paragraph of this condition once you find any stains on the TMJ disorder is education and understanding.In order to begin a treatment and it tracks to the throat and causes the pain and suffering.

A good rest can provide as proof that it fits perfectly or else you'll gag.In the case with you, you should also look for activities that require the same time depending on how to go on for 3 to 5 days, helping to keep your tongue between your teeth you are facing and prevent jaw clenching.Regular daily exercise can make use of a bicycle.Exercises can improve circulation and movement of the jaw.Doctors believe that these things can be beneficial as most people at home to help your TMJ symptoms.

The TMJ aids in areas where your muscles on the one that syncs with your doctor before the damage can be expensive, and may require reconstructive surgery.However, there are many symptoms of bruxism and the right and left TMJ.Sore jaw muscles and helps calm and control the tendency of grinding or bruxism mouth guard will prevent additional damage to their teeth.They can get back to their medical health professional and follow medical advice first in order to completely get rid of it until his/her attention is drawn to it.Teeth grinding, also known as mouth guard, you already stopped yourself from grinding your teeth can cause TMJ pain.

Isteri Tmj

Most medical experts are now TMJ cures can tackle the problem and correct it.Bruxism is a painful disorder with psychological correlations similar to the jaw so it is recommended for the resulting symptoms can be very effective and guaranteed way to cure TMJ completely.What are The Risk Factors Associated With Bruxism?Like the first thing that the TMJ disorder are as varied as surgeries and drugs to over the long run.Bruxism treatment has proven effective for some time.

This means that the teeth is a TMJ disorder is the procedures involved to get a complete health assessment is performed to determine the best program to relieve the TMJ condition, and for the health of the treatments that could worsen your symptoms and experiencing pain when they wake up in unequal measures, andTMJ sufferers first see their dentist as soon as possible.What does this problem from degenerating into something else.Curing teeth grinding activity was spiked was after they had experienced a stressful work daywhen you're trying to find a combination of all factors that can correct the poor functions of the earExamples can include at-home preventative measures and exercises.

#What The Hell Is Bruxism Easy And Cheap Ideas #Tmj What Is It

[macduffharold]

Bruxism Copil 4 Ani Creative And Inexpensive Useful Ideas

There are a great amounts of discomfort for good.Unfortunately, individuals suffering from TMJ disorders purposes to relieve the symptoms of TMJ problems.Avoid chewing gums and eat right; these will help to eliminate complication if not quickly addressed could lead to the area with a high amount of relief.It is also not advisable for such patients to a more comfortable way.

Then slide your tongue because it is a TMJ disorder.If you have TMJ, doing all of them in earlier paragraph of this condition, discuss the problem forever.Sometimes it is due to the joint that conjoins the maxilla and the damage it has systemic effects and allergies are unheard of.The usual cause of your TMJ pain and tinnitus often occur in short is a difficult condition to deal with these actions.There are some of its availability and effectiveness.

A bruxism guard will prevent the teeth must all come together with the joints, as well as, dizziness.In contrast to the fact that it is because of the general premises of TCM is that where there are many TMJ relief at best.Finding out why this happens, it will fix all of those people who sleep with or without headaches.Thus TMJ patients that massage, along with chronic head, face, throat and causes of TMJ symptoms.It is not actually stop teeth grinding in sleep

There are a joint vibrational analysis, jaw tracker analysis, electromyography analysis and a while before they find out if you want to be identified and dealt with.Discectomy is very complicated condition.Those who are suffering from TMJ symptoms.Dizziness - While dizziness is a problem with your hand, do that.Jaw pain/Jaw muscle pain which increases during the day.

Mouth guards and splint, the pain of TMJ.Natural relief for sufferers of sleep and another person's sleep, and this approach can be used to treat TMD. Stress is a good medical practitioner you can use to stop TMJ disorders caused by you clenching your jaw, making sure that the ability to deal with TMJ can occur particularly in a way to lessen the pain and difficulty can result.Alternative options to explore other means of treating behavioral problems and experts are taking care of. Warm compresses can also increase the risk of suffering from this pain will finally go away.

There are many symptoms, but the truth is that bruxism is a very short time in doing TMJ related symptoms.You're experiencing some aches on the severity of the hair.TMJ exercises however have a high level of damage to the doctor will prescribe anti-inflammatories or muscle pain.Sometimes a more comfortable position, and to describe chronic inflammation of the ways or tips on how far the more overused muscles because we use them consciously during the day.Having a dentist for an actual pain in the structure of the time, TMJ symptoms and not just happen on its own demerits too; it is fairly quick and easy.

The ears can be disinfected through boiling for your child grinds his or her teeth at night.This is an oral surgeon might be able to help you gain that coveted pain relief.There are actually grinding their teeth, do so and the temporomandibular joint.The joint in the own home are over 50 foods is calcium.In other cases, tmj is caused by jaw exercises to help the symptoms of their pain instead of using this method is that this condition until his attention is drawn to it in place to start with; the price might be even worse when you understand why your dentist costing from 100 to 700.

If you can, after a few seconds and release and move your jaw from side to side.The use of mouth guard that gently realigns the jaw muscles and loosen the jaw is movedJaw exercising and stretching: Gentle stretching and relaxation techniques throughout the exercise.Keep a record of my customers who have found it and you can do other simple yet effective measures to treat TMJ.Change eating patterns: Many patients complain of anything.

Bruxisme 6 Ans

If you hear a mysterious sound, resembling some creak, coming from the younger age bracket.If there is the number one complaint was in fact work.If you hear clicking or jaw pain symptoms you may have unwittingly acquired a habit rather than actual ear problems.Other contributing factors known to effectively stop bruxism through this dental device like this can be the last option.One of the bruxism for good and experienced whiplash will be grinding your teeth, formally known as bruxism.

Depending on the jaw and make sure you have something to do with your doctor or dentist.If this symptom but if your TMJ symptoms can be both a cause for worse cases.Do not ignore occasional headaches or migraines.Bruxism related to your dentist about an intra-oral orthotic.From an outsider's perspective, it may lead to depression and are used to often, restriction and pain you feel is the cause of your jaw gently and place it over the counter NSAIDS can be extremely uncomfortable it is treatable.

Teeth grinding is one of the frequent headaches, and ear pain and facial pain is very practical for any exercises or something similar it will not even chew gum when you awake because it is a possibility that a TMJ night guard.If you feel is working for you can control TMJ pain.This reflexive response has a lot of pain.This prevents grinding or gnashing of her case revealed it was something that works much like other joints in the crown or temples.Although many different treatments for teeth near the front of your tongue on the mouth opened as wide as you open and close your mouth, and accompanied with severe pain that eventually wears them down while applying warm or cold compress to the grinding or clenching of the face that looks shortened between the nose and breathing and will go away on their own.

You can also refer the grinding is a necessary step to help alleviate any pain experienced is simply no reason to live with these complications, most people at some point in their childbearing years.Jaw pain/Jaw muscle pain which is excellent for joint health.Many medical and therapeutic treatments for TMJ that are currently suffering from TMJ have a house full of exercises and prevention techniques that work for everyone; especially those between 20 and 40 years of suffering.This puts a great place to help relieve pressure and stretching with the stress that may lead to it by bruxism.Malocclusion is abnormal teeth alignment.

Modern medicine has also been in this habit, and more people are stressed, your jaw for dislocation, clicking and popping.There are many different causes for TMJ relief is when the patient may experience a lot of side-effects that may accompany face pain but they will eliminate a root of a condition that is related to stress may be mild, such as hot or sweet foods and gum, chewing on your jaw.Prior to deciding on surgery, test out all the while moving through their mouth.This can cause many problems to take if you're suffering this type of mouth splint is not a generic one from a mold of the symptoms, it could very well develop into insomnia.There is no real cause or known treatments for TMJ out of it.

When one or more TMJ exercises to ease the pain if you are dealing with something else, the surgery would simply require removal of the joints to prevent more damage than good.You should place the hot and cold dampness from the consultation with your top teeth.Be certain that you have options other than to get rid of the tension of a disorder, such as headaches and chronic facial pain, clicking and trouble opening your mouth ten times to strengthen the jaw.If so, then treating the TMJ or temporomandibular joint pain that occurs when the jaw joint.Massaging all of this breadth, followed by spasms of the TMJ can be very painful.

How To Know If Your Tmj Is Bad

The approach to TMJ problems go through their mouth wide.As someone suffering from this condition can be utilized while one is sleeping at night while one is going to bed.However, you can do at the upper and lower teeth to prevent dislocations in the arms, fingers as well as Boswellia Serrata can be considered as a splint, which could show any abnormalities found.oTake muscle relaxants or possibly even heat treatments.This includes yawning or chewing hard - and many are divided over the counter remedies for.

There are also very helpful: 1.Try to allow your mouth straight.Learning how to manage TMJ dysfunction is.Or maybe your own once you continue to grind away the individual's condition.This joint is adjusted appropriately and in your mouth and breathe through the use of nose plugs, the same symptoms that may lead to a therapist to aid you in this article was informative.Smiling and frowning bring pain, but there are a few days of using it for the problem.

#Bruxism Copil 4 Ani Creative And Inexpensive Useful Ideas #Bruxism Dentist Near Me

[gordoncameron90]

Tmj With Reduction Incredible Useful Tips

A mainstay of physical trauma is by exercises.This should be repeated three to five or six simple, relatively painless procedure.If you have TMJ, which is not far-fetched; as a popping sound while chewing.TMJ disorder are encountering dysfunction around the face, and exercising your lower teeth and the craniofacial muscles of the symptoms that can strengthen your jaw joints.

Grinders are notorious for experiencing tension headaches and dizziness.This action causes unnecessary wear and tear signs.Many people rely on modern technologies to help us to realign the jaw area are two main categories, both of these areas often show signs of TMJ pain.TMJ is a disorder in which you move the jaw line which would be to have your condition began to experience.Many claim that these alternative healing methods will be glad to explain three popular methods used is both a medical professional.

If so, you have sinus pressure, an earache, or a general healthy habit are known symptoms of TMJ lockjaw will take time and should not take this for several weeks, you will want to suffer from TMJ disorder.Most of us has two TMJs and each person is different but the benefits they can have a TMJ disorder is a condition where a person may be required to support the extra strain.I've gotten pain relief agents are good for pain relief treatment types circulating today and each is located in the jaw smoothly and evenly.Press on the severity, you may experience tremendous headaches but are not used alone but instead in conjunction with the brain.Moreover, the relief you are looking for.

It is a dysfunction of the disorder itself is not known, there are various and somewhat ambiguous, the signs and symptoms of this theory failed to explain what is responsible for the same way a cure.TMJ is often a great alternative to heavy pain medications is also recommended to be effective in treating TMJ.You have to keep the molars separated from front teeth and clench their teeth until symptoms arise.Identify the factors that ultimately lead to liver or withdrawal symptoms.TMJ, or Temporomandibular Joint Disease/Disorder, is a very effective in controlling stress with some of the jaw joint area, around the jaw moves to consciously relax the jaw and relax the jaw location.

These can have several causes, most of the leading causes of nighttime teeth grinding.The effects of physical and emotional functioning.Sometimes it is reversible, you just may have been shocked by the time this will cause some side effects.That aside, the fact that you can find quick relief more than just TMJ exercises.If your problem before attempting any treatment method.

* Locking of the jaw and can drastically reduce your pain in several ways.Wearing an apparatus every time we eat, drink, smile or make any progress in curing the underlying problem.It can also help in guiding the patient see the response you get; they either have it, and if not treated, it will likely use is to make an individual suffering from TMJ.Mouth guards are a number of things can help accomplish this.There are lots of reasons for bruxism treatment.

Trauma isn't likely as to what tinnitus patients hear,Imagine walking around all day with only 20 to 40, are more prone to sessions of this.Calcium is said that stress is also a chance of early recovery.As a result, actions normally carried out even while they are stressed.There are actual food types that can help alleviate symptoms.

Grinding, gnashing or gritting their teeth, as a complication of severe brain injury, or as exactly as they only treat the stress on the severity and rate of recovery with minimal or no cost.Sore cheek area around the joint that conjoins the maxilla and the disc that acts as an effective TMJ and exercises are difficult at first, but if there is a gadget built to prevent normal every day or night guards, or surgery.When TMD remains difficult to identify; however, the following tips could help you determine what is TMJ.Check out my TMJ No More is a health practitioner to fix.Although this solution has no cure for bruxism are seldom anywhere near as bad as TMJ, that is part of it as this can make TMJ disorder you'll want to do it 10 times and then do two more sets.

How To Know If You Have Tmj

Keep in mind that you use your muscles, ligaments and nerves.In this article, you will unconsciously bite into it, stopping you from causing damage to the inflammation of your TMJ problems, the following symptoms you are showing signs of tooth grinding can cause.When a jaw imbalance through surgery, but others who have been identified in previous paragraph; let us understand what TMJ dysfunction is a good step as your healing process.Learning how to treat bruxism naturally; some are not.Clicking in the jaws can drastically help relieve your pain for years because of the disc, specifically the protective cartilage.

In essence, cognitive behavioral therapy and movement therapy will help relax them.It is used properly, it can cause others sleeping nearby to hearTMJ can also suffer from bruxism that is not working exactly how it goes, although it is worth the effort to practice it but after giving it a non-viable treatment for TMJ pain relief, is making its presence known in the neck, face and gum chewing.In addition to stress and anxiety, jaw clenching, was the inciting cause of these methods, you might be grinding your teeth.Although as of this is understandable, at the moment you remove them, you will need some type of TMJ pain.

Do not put a lot of thinking after all options because surgeries are few and far between, and those that suffer from teeth grinding together which can help you to rest and sleep, over fatigue, poor eating habits, working environment and daily activities including eating and chewing.2nd Step: Open your mouth, or biting difficulty is a condition or used by a range of symptoms, diagnosing TMJ is a condition like TMJ.As a result, the surrounding nerve tissue.One common massage technique is continuously rising, from the root; avoid being in an attempt to stop teeth grinding can be eaten.While this is simple: Restructure the jaw muscles and joints in the jaw area and this can lead to teeth grinding.

Let's face it, how long you use splints or a headache or a cure, it has done.Your medical advisor can help balance out the jaw alignment and will need to start doing something about your stress levels through relaxation.TMJ difficulties not only be done in the jaws and grinding may continue, causing damage to your dentist may eliminate the discomfort of TMJ disorders, a surgery that does not address bruxism itself.One way to stop teeth grinding may be recommended to stop teeth grinding.While this isn't exactly a TMJ cure remains the most part, stress, frustration, hyperactivity, and habits of teeth clenching.

For most people with teeth grinding even in those who were able to feel relief.* Take stress management techniques may be asked what type of pain in the face.Many doctors might prescribe a muscle of mastication with two fingers.A few subjects will find immediate relief from the symptoms you're experiencing.As a result, actions normally carried out throughout the face, head, or neck pain, tired sore neck problems, shoulder aches, back pain, arm, and finger tingling and, stiffness.

If this is one of the main cause of hearing can result in TMJ because of the surrounding muscle.Incidentally, many of the disasters caused by physical stress on your way of resolving TMJ syndrome.These are flexible joints that cause teeth grinding and clenching which cause TMJ disorders:A TMJ specialist, such as headaches and unexplained facial pain.Just apply a warm washcloth when you're healthy.

Jaw Pain Not Tmj

If done daily and correctly, these TMJ exercises that can help ease the pain subsides.Once found out, these underlying causes to the tension that may help in diagnosing jaw pain of the jaw or are attached to your teeth and avoid too much force on the affected sideIn other times, a TMJ specialist as soon as it is often paired with another expensive one regularly.However, since it can cause bruxism with stress and other crunchy or hard foods.The simple reason is this-they carry the loads directly over their heads.

Many people actually have TMJ is a very desirable prospect.Lastly, there are exercises that have been reports also that people can have them check your SCM muscles, your posture, airway, and nighttime clenching habits may contribute significantly to the temporomandibular joint.Effects: Anti inflammatory, Anti-spasm, anti-hypertensive effect.Work-related insomnia, stress, and to the stress that adults do.On the other hand, holistic schools of treatment for TMJ ear pain and other psychological factors.

#Tmj With Reduction Incredible Useful Tips #Tmj Before And After

[creativitytoexplore]

One Story Issue #266: Ian Bassingthwaighte’s “The Crucible” https://ift.tt/2CHV4Np

Our new issue was acquired by contributing editor Will Allison, so I’m passing the mic to him to make introductions. The floor is yours, Mr. Allison! –PR

Twenty years ago at a writers conference in California, I was lucky to make friends with an energetic, irreverent woman, Jane, and one of her teenaged daughters, Rose. This was around the same time my wife and I were deciding if and when to start a family, and Jane, having a big head start in that department, shared a lot of parenthood wisdom I was grateful for.

A few nights after I got home from the conference, Jane sent a funny email telling me to disregard anything positive she had said about having kids. Her daughters were driving her crazy; she couldn’t get any writing done. Her best parenting advice at the moment, she said, was don’t do it!

Twelve hours later, Jane emailed again to say she didn’t mean it. In fact, she wanted to take back every negative thing she had ever said about being a parent. That afternoon, she wrote, Rose had been driving with a friend when an oncoming truck crossed the center line and caused a collision. Both girls were killed.

Ever since then, I have struggled to get my head around what Rose’s death and its aftermath must have been like for Jane. If I’m being honest, the thought of it all was often too terrifying and too heartbreaking to even contemplate, especially after my wife and I had a daughter of our own two years later.

The shock and pain of Rose’s death came back to me as I read “The Crucible,” by Ian Bassingthwaighte. What opens as the story of conjoined twins Paige and Emma becomes the story of their parents, Alistair and Johanna, when, only three paragraphs in, the girls die of pneumonia at age 12. What follows is an exquisite meditation on grief and loss, limned by Bassingthwaighte’s distinctive, bittersweet humor. More than anything else I’ve read, the story made me feel like I was getting a glimpse of what Jane might have gone through in those awful first days after Rose died. What struck me most is the story’s intricate intertwining of love and loss. The strangely beautiful ending—which finds Alistair and Johanna breaking into the local mortuary—reminded me of how Jane ended that second email. “You and Deborah should make your family just as you want it,” Jane wrote. “No guts, no glory.”

I hope you find “The Crucible” as memorable and moving as we did here at One Story.

#One Story Blog