#angela my least favorite human being ever | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nella09archive · 8 months

Text

Marriage. 64

Chapter 64: Teach me

My baby is look stress out lately, and he won’t tell me why. When he gets home, from a long day of school and crimefighter, he looks so worn out. I try to make my boys the best meals, and make sure they leave full and sleep full. But I’m starting to feel it’s not enough. Goten at least tells me about his day, but Gohan seems off. I even feel bad when I ask him to run errands, when he gets home. But what can I do? I can’t really send Goten. Not yet, anyway.

As Gohan sits for dinner, I notice he’s wearing a smile this time. I wonder what got my boy smiling like that. “What’s with the smile?” He just tells me how he has a group project to do, and it’s on his favorite subject. But somehow, I don’t feel that’s the reason for the smile. Ever since his first date, he been spacing out a lot. Almost as if, he’s thinking about something or someone. Maybe that’s it. Maybe my baby is heartbroken, and is trying to hide it. That’s it. I’m making his favorites for lunch tomorrow, and I’ll make extra for snack when he gets home.

…

Another day, and she’s following me again. What is with her? So what, if I so happen to not be in class when Saiyaman shows up. So what, if I live five hours from school. Why all of sudden she wants to know my every move? I rather she follow me as Saiyaman, since I get to mess with her. Like this I have to be careful. I have to be the closes thing to human. But that’s getting very hard.

Another weekend of catching robbers. And she’s following me. Wow! She cut me off, for once. I can get out of here easily, but I’ll humor her. I can’t believe it! I touched her cheek. My hand was gloved, but still. I touched her cheek! All I was trying to do was take dirt off it. I don’t know why I did that. I also don’t get why I’m excited about it. Now that I think about it, I didn’t touch Angela during our date. Maybe that’s why I’m excited. Probably because it’s my first time touching a girl, that isn’t my mom.

I can’t believe I was still smiling, and mom questioned it. I wasn’t lying about the group project. I am excited about it, but I didn’t want to admit my other excitement. Mom would probably yell a lung if I told her. Now I can’t sleep. I wonder what Videl cheeks feels like without my gloves. They look soft. CRAP! So, what about how her cheeks feels like. That’s not important. If I have the energy to be up, I’m going to start on the group project. I wonder if Videl would like my idea for the project. I just slapped myself. What is wrong with me?

…

Gohan is smiling today. It’s probably that girl. Why did he say it’s because of a project? Is Gohan lying to mom? I can’t wait to tell Trunks. Whoever this girl is, is sure making Gohan smile a lot. I can’t wait to meet her. I wanna know what’s so special about her, that got my big brother acting weird.

Today school is close for a teacher’s meeting, whatever that is. So, mom is allowing me to go play. I’m going to visit my favorite pterodactyl family. Even Gohan is free today, and is joining me. If Gohan is right, the baby should have recently born. I want to go see, and play with them.

When we get there, no one in the nest. This is bad. Baby pterodactyls can’t fly yet. But Gohan says it’ll be already. That maybe Chobi is with his parents. Maybe Gohan is right, but I have a bad feeling about this. When we get home, Gohan decides to put on the news. He’s been doing that more since becoming a superhero. As we watched the news, we see Chobi. I just knew something bad happened. He’s being held by a mean circus, and I just look at Gohan. “You just gotta save him. You just have to!” Even mom agrees with me. And Gohan promises he’ll do so, first thing in the morning.

…

She just had to figure it out. Now not only do I have to enter a tournament, but teach her to fly. I tell this to Bulma and she’s laughing at me. Then something both amazing and shocking happens. It’s dad. DAD! He tells us that he’s coming back to the living for a day, and even joining the tournament. Dad is coming back! DAD IS COMING BACK! For that moment I completely forgot about the whole issue with Videl, and rushed to tell everyone about dad. Vegeta is even joining the tournament. Forget the tournament. I get to see my dad again! Mom gets to see dad again! Goten get to… to… MEET DAD!

This is so incredible! When I tell Krillin, he’s super trilled. 18 ask if Krillin is even joining, since she’ll join. Mostly due for the prize money. Krillin doesn’t want me to tell Piccolo, but it wouldn’t be fair. As I fly home, is when I remembered one little problem. I haven’t even asked mom if I could even join. But I have to join, or Videl will tell everyone who I am. What could I say that would convince mom to let me join?

As we eat, I tried to tell mom about the tournament. I then mention how if I win there will be huge prize money. She gets all excited, and talks about how it’ll go to my college funds. As I take the next bite of fish, I finally tell her about dad. Now mom is beyond excited. She’s even in her own little world. She’s even hugging Goten to death, saying he finally gets to meet dad. Now for the million-dollar question. “So, you don’t mind if I take a few days off, form school, to train?” She was in the middle of talking about how she’ll get all pretty for dad, and then stopped. She gave me the face that usually came before a no, and instead yes.

…

Well, here goes nothing. Oh wow, is that Gohan’s voice. Wow, it’s deeper than I remembered. He sounds so happy to hear me, and even more from hearing the news. With that out the way, I could finish my last bit of training. I really wish Baba would just let me see how everyone looks. But same time I’m glad she doesn’t. Soon, very soon.

King Kai had been doubling my weights every month, and I’m up to 10 tons each. It feels great training like this. But I feel I could do more. Either way, I can’t lose focus now. It sound like Vegeta stood on earth, after all. So, now I know for sure I’ll be getting a good fight back home. Another thing to be excited about. I finally get to see my kids! I get to finally lay eyes on my perfect Chichi! I get to hold my family! And now, there’s a little rematch I get to look forward to.

…

I get to meet dad. Wow. I’m scared. What if he doesn’t like me? What if what Gohan and mom say about him isn’t true? What if they only say those things to make me like him? But what if they telling the truth? And if he’s as nice as everyone tells me, then what do I have to fear? Maybe the fact that I don’t know him. Everyone is so excited about him coming, and I feel left out in the excitement.

At least I got to spend more time with my big brother. Mom was allowing me to enter the tournament, too. Maybe I could make mom proud and make it to first place. But then I remembered that Trunks was now going to enter. So, if I could make it to top two, than I would be happy. I get to show mom how much stronger I am. I get to make mom and Gohan proud of me. Even though, they say it, but I want to do something that would make them proud. And I will even get a chance to show dad, too. Now there’s a thought.

What would dad think of my fighting? Will he praise me? Or will he be like uncle Vegeta and tell me where I went wrong? Maybe even point out my weakness. Gohan and mom do say that dad is the strongest man in the world, maybe the whole universe. Gohan say that even though Mr. Piccolo was his first real teacher, he learned way more under dad’s teachings. Mr. Piccolo taught him by beating him every day. Dad watched him, and pointed where to work on. Then showed him the proper way. Almost like how mom been teaching me. She shows me, and then when I try it, she corrects me.

That thought got me excited to show dad what I can do. Even though he’s only going to be alive for a day, I’m going to try to learn as much as possible from him. I’m going to watch all his moves, and try my best to memorize everything. Maybe if he got time, he could watch me and point out where I can improve. “Earth to spurt!” That’s when I finally looked at Gohan. “Hey, bro. You ok?” I nod. “Are you ready for our sparring match?” I got into my stance, and began.

…

Just as I’m telling Goten that I’ll teach him to fly, his classmate decide to make herself know. She’s flying to my home. Oh great! I almost forgot all about her. Well, time to face her wrath. Somehow, I’m actually can’t wait to see her angry face. I don’t get why that excites me. I race Goten back to the house. Of course, I can win, but I let him beat me this time. When I get home, she’s arguing with mom. Great, just great. Wonderful first impression. It took me a moment to tell mom about Videl, and how she’s the one who convinced me about the tournament. Mom is allowing me to teach her to fly, thank goodness. Now, I can’t stop laughing at mom and Videl making faces at each other. This is just too funny.

Sadly, we have to go to a field near the house, since Videl can’t keep up easily. Goten keeps looking at her, and then back at me. He then gives me this evil smile, and runs ahead of us. What was that about? I don’t like this. I stop a moment, to let Videl catch up. When she does, I continued walking. She asked how for is the field. “Not that far now. Just pass a small creek, and we’ll be there in no time.” She then asked where is Goten. That’s when I quickly sense for him, and he’s behind us. “I don’t know, but if he times anything funny, it’s not my fault if something goes missing.” That’s when I feel him stop. Jerk. Don’t push it squirt.

When we get to the meadow, I tried to explain that you use ki to lift yourself up. It took Goten to show what ki was, and she still didn’t believe it. After some more explaining, and sending Goten off, I tried to teach Videl about ki. For the first time in a long while, I had to think back to how dad taught it to me. I was so happy he taught it to me like that. It was somewhat easy to explain to her. When I did the ki ball, she was coming really up and close to me. I was feeling nervous.

She’s super close. Close enough for her scent to pass my nose. This is the first time I smelled it so clearly. It was nice. Even the smile she gave me was nice. She never smiled at me like that. Well, since I’ve known her, she rarely smiled. When she did, she looked angry or ready to beat someone up. This smile made her eyes shine. I found myself wanting to see it more often. And the way her voice sounded with that smile, was really wonderful. CRAP! Need to focus!

I told her to try bring her ki out. It took a while, and she look like she’s forcing herself. She looks so sad that she can’t get it. Did I just see a tear? We can’t have that. I told her to relax, and let it come out naturally. To not force it. “Just relax, and feel it being pulled out.” After a while she finally did it, and the smile she had after left me speechless. We then went home for lunch.

There Videl made a comment about mom’s cooking, and then mom made a comment about me marrying Videl. “WHAT THE HELL MOM?” I swear I was going to die from that very comment. Goten even comment if that meant that Videl is his big sister now. I swear my family is trying to kill me. What made it worst was that Videl didn’t say no or fight back what they were saying. That’s it. Today I’m going to die. If not by my family, it’ll be because Videl killed me.

As we went back to the field, I dragged my feet. I can’t believe mom did that. Now Goten is walking along Videl, and talking about it’ll be so awesome if she was going to be his big sister. Dende kill me. My family is embarrassing. Wait, why hasn’t Videl snapped yet? Could she being waiting to give me an ear full? Or didn’t want to be rude to mom, since she cooked? Either way, I’m a dead man. I hope I live long enough to see Goten’s face, when he meets dad. Now that I think about it. What would dad think of Videl? Wait! Why am I even wondering that?

“Earth to Gohan! Is someone in there?” The moment I stopped I fell into the creek. This day is sucking the more it continues. Now I could stay in these wet clothes, and go back home and change. Forget it. I’ll just deal with it. I got up and watched, a now angry looking, Videl walk my way. When she reaches the edge of the creek, she reminds me to pay more attention. That angry face is starting to grow on me, for some weird reason. As we continue our walk, I found myself just looking at her. Doesn’t she ever relax?

0 notes

bellaslilpapercut · 3 years

Text

Eclipse reread part 3 bewr bewr bewrrr! Covering the entire rest of the book in ONE post so buckle on in baybee:

1. Absolutely everything about chapter 15 (wager) is disgusting. To a certain extent I appreciate how successfully meyer captures how frustrating assault is as a woman, how futile it feels to fight against it. But at the same time the way she handles the aftermath is unbelievably disappointing and infuriating. Charlie doesn't get up to help his own daughter, Jake trails after Bella into the house and sticks around, there's just no relief or reflection that feels satisfying. Bella can ask where the justice is when she finds out Jake isn't aging but just ignores Charlie defending her assailant? And to some extent I get it, I've shut down after assault before to the point where it took years to recognize that some of the things that happened even were assault. But when there's a pattern within the series of men being narratively rewarded for assault and abuse and women being punished for reacting to abuse it feels like the narrative is reinforcing the status quo of women<men. I'm not stupid, I understand when a book is trying to make me uncomfortable and I don't need villains to be punished to know that they're villainous. This doesn't come across that way at all. Meyers handling of misogynistic abuse and violence lack the nuance to make me believe that she sees this violence as something to be critical of rather than something that just happens to women. And again, because it's a pattern in her writing, women getting no reprieve from gendered harm, I don't believe she's making a statement. There's just no self awareness and that's the key difference between a story like Brave New World or Lolita and Twilight.

2. Also this quote that precedes the assault is just so so frustrating:

Bella is not mean for setting boundaries! She isn't stringing you along! I would love to hit meyer in the head with a rolled up newspaper. Anyway.

3. Bella keeps saying things like "this would be annoying if it weren't so scary" in regards to having her clothes stolen by vampires that want her dead and having to lie to people around her, again because dozens of vampires want her dead. And y'know after the third time she said she would be annoyed if she weren't scared I'm just left to believe she isn't scared at all. I don't feel rising tension, the newborn army feels like a minor nuisance and even after they connect it to victoria (who still hasn't shown up at all) I'm just like...okay well get on with it then! Meyer makes bella "shudder" (I'm still tempted to make a comp of every time she shudders in this fucking book lol) instead of showing us her actual fear. I don't believe she's scared, I don't care about the "threat," and I don't believe anything bad will happen to Bella. There are Literally No Stakes here. I'm not invested in this story at all.

4. Alice is a bad friend lmfao

Girl, you're psychic you know she wanted to wear red why are you just dressing her up for your brother.

5. Okay returning to point 3 because I read chapter 17 and had an epiphany: Bella says she isn't scared for herself and I get that I do. But smeyer also hasn't shown us that she's selfless- just that she doesn't care if she dies. If bella actually cared for her human friends, in any way, I would believe that the newborn army was a scary threat because the people she loves might get hurt. But I don't believe that she cares about that I only believe that she- like Edward- has a weird martyr complex.

6. The Mirror chapter also reinforces this. I can’t stop thinking about how much more impactful it would have been narratively if it had been Angela in Bree’s position (because she’s the only human friend Bella seems fond of but if Bella showed interest in any of the other humans, honestly any of them would do). Imagine the moment where the newborn vampire first lifts her head to look into Bella’s eyes and it’s someone she knows. Someone she cares for. There should have been consequences for Bella beyond “Jake got some bones broken and now I feel bad :(” which was also a shitty punishment because smeyer is inflicting physical trauma on an indigenous character just to make Bella feel bad. Okay. Anyway, it would have built the tension I was missing for- quite literally- over 300 pages of this book if Bella’s friends and classmates and Fork’s residents had been going missing the whole time. Suddenly, at the end of the battle, there’s Angela. Or Jess. Or Katie fucking Marshall. Someone Bella knew should have been there and maybe I would have cared about this book at all.

7. Going back in time to this quote which comes before the battle:

UGH!!! SHUT UP SMEYER! She literally poisoned Jake’s character from the moment she made him a main character and she has zero self reflection to see the damage that she’s causing here. I’ve said before that I don’t think Jake’s actions were a romantic deal breaker and that stands out now more than ever after reading Eclipse. THIS is the moment that Bella realizes she’s in love with Jake too. Smeyer not only sees abuse and aggression as romantic, she also lacks the braincells and reflection to see that she’s playing directly into racist stereotypes. Edward got to grow up- marginally- but Jake had to remain aggressive. I still don’t think she ever once meant to villify Jake- I think that there was no way in a hell a racist woman could ever successfully portray an indigenous character. His tenderness is tainted by the aggression she forces on his character and in the end he never had a chance because- again- he was being written by a racist woman with fucked up views of indigenous people.

8. Okay, I get it. They’re like Cathy and Heathcliff. Fine. I buy it.

This isn’t even the last time she compares them to Cathy and Heathcliff. Kate Bush isn’t gonna write a song about you, meyer! Give it a rest! (Also lol at “like wuthering heights”)

9. Jumping right to the end here because to be completely honest the only actual event in the entire book was the newborn battle. Jane was a bitch, fine. Edward talked at Victoria and bored her to death (presumably) and the action never felt very action heavy. I knew if from the “best friend (and werewolf)” line that this book was presumably written for idiots given how little is left to the imagination at any given time. I can’t stand when books treat the audience like dummies and I especially can’t handle YA books that do this. Teenagers aren’t stupid!! Young adults can pick up on subtlety in literature!! AND young adults can handle suspense and action. smeyer doesn’t do either well and the editors never once said “hey you know teens aren’t stupid right? like your audience will pick up on hints that you scatter you don’t have to forcefully explain everything?”

10. Smeyer can’t stop interrupting herself even in the very last sentence of the book proper:

What, pray tell, is wrong with “Where it would stay for the rest of eternity.” Why did you have to sow doubt in the sentiment right after Bella made her For Real Final Decision???? And why the em-dash!? Again: the editors of the twilight saga are my nemeses but also my favorite conmen. What were they paid for?

11. Back to the editors real quick: if i was given a draft of eclipse I would instantly say: this story is almost 400 pages of nothing, you need to play with the structure of the story. You need to build suspense and if that means playing with POV like you randomly start doing in the epilogue, then do that. Or you can play with the plot. Nothing happens for 300 pages. It takes 300 pages to get to the newborn battle and nothing that happens before the newborn battle makes me feel worried about it. Again, kill off some humans, raise the stakes, do SOMETHING. This was so painfully slow to read because meyer tried to center this book on a love triangle that I didn’t even believe in myself. And even then, it took 14 chapters for the love triangle to get real action (as in an Event, not necessarily physical action).

12. The epilogue. Oh man. Was the r-slur really so acceptable in 2007 that not one single editor questioned its use? I won’t type the quote in full but Jake refers to his fake arm sling as r-word. Like??? What? And THEN smeyer has him call Leah a “bitter harpy.” Shut up.

In conclusion, nothing felt like a bigger waste of time than Eclipse. Genuinely, to be completely honest. Two (2) important things happened, at least in Bella’s narrative (I agree with Vinelle that the Volturi debacle was important from Carlisle’s perspective, it adds nothing to Bellas and Bella learns nothing important from it.): 1. Bella made a decision, she chose Edward. Who could have seen that coming? Whaaaat? 2. Rosalie told Bella her backstory. Not that Bella even used that to reflect on her decision to become a vampire but hey, at least it felt like an important moment. Jasper’s backstory only mattered for the newborn battle which didn’t matter at all (and it never informed his character and no one ever brings up that the confederacy was a terrible dark stain on US history (along with the rest of US history but that’s a full dissertation or two on its own)). I can’t imagine a way to improve this book as a standalone book. You could split up the plot (using that term loosely) so that New Moon and BD are both a little longer and BD a little more organized. But without completely changing the plot beats in Eclipse, its just pointless.

#eclipse reread #saga reread #long post #very very long sorry lolol

12 notes · View notes

inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 3 years

Text

Eccentricity [Chapter 11: You Don’t Come Around No More]

A/N: I apologize profusely for the long wait. Thank you all so, so, so much for your support. Every single reblog, message, comment, emotional rant, and/or screech of despair makes my day, and I couldn’t do this without you. 💜 Only THREE more chapters left!!!

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “More To Life Than Baseball” by Petey.

Chapter Warnings: Language, angsttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

Word Count: 7.5k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @youngpastafanmug @simonedk

The Rain

I wish I felt empty.

I’m supposed to feel empty, right? I’m supposed to feel steeped in grey, oceanic misery; I’m supposed to dip in and out of depressive naps all day and sob delicately over creased photos and fading, wistful memories. I always envisioned heartbreak as a soft and inherently feminine sort of affliction: the hems of nightgowns and bathrobes sweeping along hardwood floors, Kleenex boxes and concave couch cushions, weepy phone calls to friends and aunts and mothers, Queen Victoria wearing black for the rest of her life after Prince Albert’s death, Mary Todd Lincoln sinking into dark and hushed obscurity. Women, hollowed out by despair, cross the history of the earth like lines of latitude.

I don’t feel empty at all. I don’t even feel sad. I feel razored by sharp, red, ceaseless anxiety. I am consumed by thoughts of what I did wrong, what I said that started the wheels of doubt spinning in his mind, if he had known how it would end from the start. I dream of white, clawed hands dragging me down through cold waves. I hear words scream to me as I toss at night in my suddenly too-spacious bed, words that now hit me like knuckles to the gut: Shhh, hey, it’s just me, don’t get up, as Joe slipped beneath the Arizonan blankets, wrapped an arm around my waist, kissed my collarbone as I tumbled back into sleep; I love you to death, as his Subaru idled in Charlie’s driveway; Baby Swan, listen to me, nothing is supposed to hurt, okay, so if anything hurts, ever, at all, you tell me and we stop, deal? as we stood in the doorway of our hotel room at the Four Seasons in Chicago. And now...and now...

And now everything fucking hurts.

It doesn’t make any sense; and yet it does. Look at him. Look at me.

The Polaroid photo from Homecoming was still taped to the top of my full-length mirror. I peeled it free like a layer of translucent, friable reptilian skin, tore it straight down the center, burned both halves over a brand new three-wicked, lemon-scented Bath And Body Works candle—a gift from Renee and Paul—and closed my eyes like a child casting a wish over her birthday cake like a spell. I wished for my memories to vanish with the photograph. I wished to get hit by a truck and wake up in the hospital with no recollection of the past two and a half months. I wanted the Lees to dissolve into distant, enigmatic mystery; I wanted to join the rest of Forks in believing that they were nothing more than bewildering and yet harmless freaks, barely worth noticing, one of those glitches of the matrix that were better off ignored like liminal seconds of déjà vu. I wished to carve out every part of myself that they had ever touched.

And Joe’s voice came rushing back from where we stood by that star-lit fountain outside the Church of Saint Lawrence, accompanied by falling raindrops and a crooked grin: I can make wishes come true.

The three tiny flames flickered in the breeze that sighed through my open window. The bright, citrusy scent of the candle reminded me of Lucy. I couldn’t fucking win. What else is new?

I turned back to the mirror. I flinched when my gaze snagged on my reflection: bloodshot-eyed, swollen-faced, utterly unbeautiful, restless like a caged animal. Look at him. Look at me.

I ripped the last memento off the mirror—Official Citation!! No More Sad Spaghetti!!—and watched the yellow square of paper catch fire, curl up around the edges, become unrecognizable, turn to ash. And I wished over and over again, like a poem, like a prayer: Let me forget, oh god please let me forget.

Charlie keeps asking if I’m okay. The answer, of course, is no; but I can’t tell him that. So I wear a serene smile like clip-on fangs, a cheap polyester cloak, crimson smudges of lipstick like trails of spilled blood down the side of my neck. Every day is Halloween for me now. I dress up as someone who isn’t haunted, who hasn’t become a ghost.

And when Charlie turns up the World Series or I’d Do Anything For Love on his geriatric, staticky kitchen radio—the same radio he’s had since my mother was the one joining him for daybreak coffee and Pop-Tarts—I choke back tears like dragonfire.

Missing In Action (Revisited)

Joe wasn’t here. Neither was Ben.

Lucy, Rami, and Scarlett were sipping cups of tea at the Lees’ usual table, their eyes downcast, their voices low and murmuring, their pristine lunches neglected. Lucy and Rami were dressed in matching charcoal grey turtleneck sweaters; Scarlett had come from Fencing Club and was wearing royal purple yoga pants and a black tank top, her duffle bag of gear on the floor by her sneakered feet. Her hair was in a long fishtail braid. Archer hadn’t mentioned her since Joe broke up with me. That either meant that it was going blissfully and he didn’t want to injure me further, or that Scarlett had ended things as well.

Since Joe broke up with me. That sounds so fucking pedestrian.

I stared at the three present Lees, almost leered, commanding them to see me, to acknowledge me, to admit that I had once meant something to them, that this hadn’t all been some transitory delusion to fill the cavernous void of losing my home, my life as I knew it in Arizona. They took no notice whatsoever.

Jess kicked me beneath the lunch table. My attention snapped back to her.

“Sorry, what?”

“You want to go shopping with me and Angela tonight?” Jessica’s hands were folded just beneath her chin, her voice gentle, her eyes large and sympathetic and watery. This was her version of being supportive. I appreciated it...in a perpetually tormented and preoccupied sort of way.

“No thanks.” I forked my cold, sauceless spaghetti listlessly. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch. I didn’t have an appetite anyway. I had deleted the GrubHub app from my iPhone and had no intention of using it ever again in my comparatively short and calamitous human life.

“You could come to temple this weekend,” Jessica pressed.

“Uh.” Mingling with a churchful of sociable, wholesome, marriage-obsessed adolescent Mormons sounded like the absolute last thing I’d want to spend my evening doing. “That’s a really generous offer, but I’ll pass.”

“Well you have to do something,” Angela said. “You can’t just sit in your bedroom alone all weekend and stare at the wall and wallow in self-pity.”

We’ll see about that. I turned to Jess. “How’s Vodka Boy from your Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class? Did he ever reappear? What’s his name again, Elmo? Ellington? El Chapo?”

“Ellsworth.” She frowned as she slurped her patron-drink-of-Mormons Sprite. “And no, he definitely failed out or overdosed or something, because he never came back.”

“Tragic,” I noted.

“But I’m pretty sure Mike’s coming over this weekend, so we’ll see if I can get some Netflix and chill action going.”

“Jess,” Angela chastised, widening her eyes and nodding to me subtly (but not quite subtly enough). No talking about getting lucky in front of the heartbroken single loser, that look said.

“I think I can be emotionally supportive without taking a goddamn vow of chastity, Angela!” Jessica hurled back.

“I gotta go.” I stood, threw on my backpack, discarded my nearly untouched lunch.

“You’ve barely eaten anything!” Angela protested. “You’ve barely eaten for a week!”

“I’ll live.” I picked my umbrella up off the slippery tile floor—peppered with muddy shoeprints and pearlescent drops of water fallen from coats and limp, sopping locks of hair—and headed out into the pouring rain. I hated the rain. I hated it. Maybe I had forgotten that for a while, but it all came hurtling back now like a hurricane, like a hand cracking across my face. I ached for the desert, for blatant and unapologetic heat, for palm trees and cacti and naked stars in the night sky. I had been researching marine biology graduate programs in the Southwest. There were good ones at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, Texas A&M, the University of Southern California, UCLA. I would miss Charlie and Archer—and maybe Jessica and Angela on occasion—and absolutely nothing else about Forks. At least, that’s what I promised myself.

This is a no-giving-a-fuck-about-Lee-boys zone, I thought morosely.

Ben was brooding at our table in Professor Belvin’s classroom. It was the first time he’d shown up to Chemistry since that day Joe met me on the beach at La Push, since the place I’d once occupied in his universe had closed like a wound. I took my seat beside Ben. The window was shut today, the downpour outside torrential. Ben recoiled, just enough for me to notice; he was wearing his oversized black hoodie and practicing his Welsh, his handwriting messy and unbalanced.

“You could have warned me,” I said.

Ben didn’t glance up from his notebook. “Would that have made it any easier?”

“No,” I realized in defeat. I guess it wouldn’t have. I pulled my own notebook, my favorite pen, and a can of Diet Coke out of my backpack.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ben said. “You really need to know that. It had nothing to do with you. And none of us are happy with the current situation. None of us.”

None of them. That included Joe. “Interestingly, that didn’t stop him from creating it.”

Ben was thoughtful, debating his next words. “We’re probably going to be moving soon.”

“What?” I startled; my turquoise blue pen dropped out of my grasp and rolled across the table. Ben snatched it up and returned it to me. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“And what, just redo this whole college thing?”

Ben shrugged. “We’ll probably start our junior years over again. Gwil will say there was some horrible family tragedy and we needed a few semesters off. I could use the extra time to figure out Calc anyway. Parametric equations make me want to kill myself.”

I just stared at him. It didn’t make any sense. “But...why would the whole family leave Forks? Because of me? One pathetic, aggrieved human? Do you all pack up and relocate every time Joe fucks and dumps someone? That must be exhausting.”

“It’s better for everyone if we get some distance. Put more space between our world and yours.”

“But...” I tried to imagine never seeing any of them again: no Mercy humming merrily as she tossed handfuls of homegrown carrots to the alpacas, no Dr. Lee dabbing away my blood with an ageless sort of patience, no Scarlett or Lucy or Rami, no brief glimpses of Joe as he avoided me in the campus library. It’s exactly what I wanted; and yet it wasn’t. It so, so, so, so wasn’t. It keeps getting worse. How is that possible? My voice was flimsy and quivering, absolutely pitiful. Disgustingly pitiful. “Who will be my lab partner?”

Ben peered over at me with wide, confused green eyes. And then—gingerly, awkwardly, like holding an acquaintance’s baby for the first time—he laid his hand over mine. “I’ll miss you too.”

Professor Belvin lectured about coordinate covalent bonds. I didn’t absorb a word. I conjugated Italian verbs with my turquoise blue pen, sketched disordered whirlpools of ink, tried not to think about whether this was my last-ever Chemistry class with Ben, whether it was my last-ever weekend sharing Forks with the Lees. Those rageful, frantic thoughts were back. What did I do wrong? What didn’t I do right? Why did he have to leave?

My nomadic gaze caught on a flier on the wall next to our misted window. I had assumed it was a leaflet for some club or protest or seasonal dance that I would definitely not attend, but it wasn’t. It was a missing poster.

Have you seen this student? the flier asked in bold, businesslike black font. It was urgent, but not quite despairing; not yet, anyway. I could hear a Dean of Student Affairs cajoling some affluent, strings-of-pearls-adorned mother over the phone: Yes ma’am, you have my full attention and I can assure you that we’re very concerned, but I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding...he’s probably gone backpacking or sailing with some friends and forgotten to call home. You know how college students can be. Beneath a large photo of a grinning blond kid—pink polo, flushed cheeks, clever crop job to nix a can of Natty Light clutched in one fist—was a name: Ellsworth Jonathan Griffin.

Ellsworth, I thought, my stomach plummeting. The guy from Jessica’s Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class. He hadn’t failed out. He was missing. Missing like a 20/20 episode or a true crime podcast, missing like the pregnant stillness before a murder is confessed in some glaringly florescent-lit interrogation room, before a distended and bloodless corpse washes up on shore.

I turned to Ben. He noticed me eventually, crinkled his brow, shrugged in that way that seemed so petulant if you didn’t know him well enough to not be offended.

I pointed to the flier and raised my eyebrows. Ben twisted around in his chair to look. Then he sighed, scribbled a sentence in the corner of a piece of notebook paper, tore it free, and slid it across the table.

Ben’s note read, in atrocious penmanship: Are you seriously asking me if I ate that guy?

Maybe, I wrote back after a moment’s hesitation. Maybe that wasn’t exactly what I was asking; maybe I just wondered if he knew anything about it.

In either case, Ben’s reply was swift and resounding, and underlined three times: No.

Sorry, I wrote, abruptly remorseful. I am a jerk. And I added a frowny face for good measure. Ben chuckled when he saw it, shook his head, gave me a drawn little smirk. His words tiptoed around in my skull, leaving searing imprints like footprints in the sand. I’ll miss you too.

I have to forget about them. I drummed my turquoise blue pen against my notebook as Professor Belvin drew families of molecules on the whiteboard with squealing dry erase markers. I have to find a way to make myself forget.

Jessica was waiting for me in the hallway after class. It was part of her convince-Baby-Swan-not-to-jump-off-a-cliff initiative. “Hey.”

“Okay,” I told her with steely resolve. “I’m ready for you to set me up with one of those guys from your church or temple or whatever. I’m ready to be a nice wholesome wife, pop out like six kids, learn how to scrapbook, give up caffeine and horror movies, do the whole white picket fence thing. Sign me up.”

Jessica blinked at me. There were flecks of fallen mascara on her cheekbones like ashes. “What?”

“You’re a Mormon, right?”

“Girl, I’m not a Mormon,” Jessica said, puzzled. “I’m a witch.”

Lucille

I found Joe where he usually was these days: sprawled on the sofa, engulfed in the same blue Snuggie he’d been wearing for thirty-six uninterrupted hours, gazing catatonically at the big-screen tv. A 90 Day Fiancé marathon was on. Some rodentish guy named Colt was apologizing to his gorgeous, aspiring-green-card-holding Brazilian love interest for calling the cops on her during their last screaming match. He was also apologizing for the fact that they lived in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother. I didn’t need clairvoyance to see where their future was headed.

“Hey,” Ben said when he spotted me. He was sitting next to Joe and occasionally tried to shove pieces of popcorn into his mouth, which Joe accepted passively like coins plinked into a gumball machine. Ben had been his shadow for the past week; he was perhaps the best equipped of us to understand this degree of melancholy, of hopelessness.

“Ciao.” And then, to Joe: “How are you?”

“Terrible,” he replied, not tearing his eyes from the tv.

“I figured.” I squeezed between them on the couch, curled up next to Joe, rested my chin on his shoulder. He ignored me completely. I could hear Mercy tapping at her laptop keyboard out in the dining room; she was browsing through Zillow listings in Portland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland. Dear god, please don’t let us end up in fucking Cleveland. “Guess what.”

Joe stared at the tv for a long time before he answered. “What.”

“I had a vision of you. Just now, as I was doing laundry. Crystal clear and very scenic too, I might add.”

“Fascinating,” Joe said flatly.

“What happened in this vision?” Ben asked, far more invested, which I was thankful for.

“It was pretty far away, maybe a year from now. I saw you in the desert at night, under a full moon. There were cacti everywhere. The shadow of the Milky Way was threaded through the sky, and the stars were very bright. I could make out the constellations Pegasus and Cassiopeia. You were filling up a tiny glass bottle with dirt.”

“That’s remarkably helpful,” Joe said.

“It is, a little bit,” I insisted. “It means you get through this. That you have a future. I get nervous when I go too long without a vision of someone in the family. But now I know you’re going to be okay.”

The reflections of the feuding 90 Day Fiancé couples danced in his glassy eyes. “Being alive doesn’t mean you’re okay.”

“That’s dark,” Ben said. “Even I think that’s too dark.” He pushed a handful of popcorn into Joe’s mouth. “Are you gonna hunt at some point or what?”

“No.”

“You’re just gonna sit on this couch and waste away?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to bring you anything? Grizzly bear? Brown bear? Fuck it, I’ll get you a polar bear if that’s what you want. There’s probably some on the black market. Rami would know.”

“He what?” Mercy called from the kitchen. Her typing had stopped.

“Nothing, Mom!” I shot back.

“I don’t want anything,” Joe said. That was a lie, of course. We all knew what he wanted. Rami couldn’t stand to be around him; the thoughts were relentless, smothering.

I linked my arms around Joe’s neck, laid my head against his chest, sighed deeply and mournfully. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I know that doesn’t fix anything. But I’m so, so sorry. And I’ll help however I can. We all will.”

And I had accepted that Joe wasn’t going to respond at all when he finally whispered: “I just wish I could forget.”

Cato

My rolling suitcase snagged on the cobblestone driveway. The tiny spinning wheels bashed against concrete as I scaled the front steps. As the taxi pulled away, I dug around in my suit pocket for my keys, found them, unlocked the enormous front door, stepped inside the palace as my suitcase trolled along the marble floor.

“Cato’s back!” Charity announced as she breezed down the nearest staircase, beaming and embracing me. She was a lovely, innately warm woman from Pointe-Noire, Congo; she still wore the silver cross necklace her mother had once given her around her neck. “Did you have a nice flight? Wait, let me check.” She pressed the fingertips of her right hand to my cheek. I felt the memories rush up like blood to a flushed face: the bite of sipped champagne against my tongue, the thin semi-transparent newspaper pages gliding between my fingers, the husky voice of the bearded, bearish naval officer who sat in the seat beside me, the misted silhouette of Vladivostok as it rose up out of the Pacific Ocean. “Uneventful, but pleasant enough. You flew commercial?”

“The jets were otherwise occupied, apparently.” Charity could see things with the predictability and precision that Lucy so often lacked, but only the past. I pushed her hand away. “Was that really necessary?”

“You’re not mad,” Charity declared, confident, impish, helping me shed my suit jacket and draping it over her arm. “You’re never mad.”

She was very nearly correct. “Where are the rest of the kids?”

“In the kitchen. Go say hello, they’ve missed you dreadfully.”

“I know the feeling.” I kicked off my Berlutis, ran a palm over the wiry fur of the Irish Wolfhounds that appeared to greet me before they resumed padding watchfully around the palace, and went to the kitchen, my black socks slipping a bit on the marble floors.

I could hear their voices before I reached the door: laughter, teasing, complaints, requests. The scents of pancakes and cold butter and maple syrup were thick in the air. Charity was one of our four newest recruits, and they all still had that energetic lightness of being human, a youthful enthusiasm, a relative normalness. I spent quite a lot of time with them. It was my job—to help with the transition, to keep them happy, to facilitate the welding of their individual parts into the beastly machine that was the Draghi—but oftentimes it felt more like a reprieve. Some would stay close to me as they matured, others would grow in different directions, like ambitious vines climbing the skeleton of a garden trellis. I usually missed them when they ‘grew up,’ so to speak...although there were exceptions. I had never liked Liesl. I had always liked Ben. I opened the door.

“Ah, you are home!” Ksenia cried from where she stood over the stove, a spatula in her right hand, bouncing excitedly in place on her small bare feet.

“Hey!” Max and Austin called together. They were both sitting with their shoes propped up on the unglamorous kitchen table. There was a massive formal dining room that could accommodate up to twenty-five guests, but we rarely used it.

“Good morning,” I said, aware that I was smiling for the first time in days.

Max groaned as he scrolled through his Google search results on a burner phone. “What the fuck. My name is one of the top five dog names again. I think I’m gonna have to change it.”

I ruffled his long blond hair, stealing a piece of bacon from his plate. Max had grown up a trust fund kid in Perth, Australia. His mother was old money; his father was a professional surfer. “Your name is fine.”

“Really, Kato Kaelin? Is it really? How am I supposed to intimidate people when I have a fucking dog name?”

“So make them call you Maximilian,” offered Ksenia in a heavy Ukrainian accent. She’d only been with us for eight months, but her English was coming along swimmingly. She flipped a massive A-shaped pancake on the sizzling griddle. That one was for Austin.

“Seriously?” Max said. “That is just way too many syllables. They’ll be halfway down the block by the time I’m done introducing myself. ‘Hey, come back mate, I haven’t killed ya yet.’”

“At least you aren’t stuck with a basic-white-boy-circa-1992 name for all of eternity,” said Austin Tyler McInerny, originally of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He was chomping on a multicolored Fruit Roll-Up, which swung from his mouth like a lizard’s tongue. He’d been working at an ailing skatepark when Larkin found him. He still enjoyed showing off his kickflips, and kept insisting that he was going to teach me how to ollie. I didn’t have the faintest idea what an ollie was.

“Do you want a pancake, Cato?” Ksenia asked, passing Austin his plate and wiping her hands on her pink apron. Her black hair was tied in a high ponytail with a matching rose-colored ribbon. She looked so young. She was so young, actually. Nineteen. And she would be forever.

“No, thank you dear. I’m alright.”

“I like Alaric,” Max decided. “First king of the Visigoths. Alaric is a name fit for a vampire. Creepy, yet dignified. Or maybe Silas. Or Draco.”

Austin shook his head as he swirled a river of viscous maple syrup over his A-shaped pancake. “Definitely not Draco.”

“Why not?”

“Well, the Harry Potter connection is unfortunate. People will hear Draco and think of that obnoxious white-haired kid from the evil snake-people house or whatever.”

“Oh, right,” Max sighed. “Like I said. Alaric would work.”

“So many A-shaped pancakes!” Ksenia poured a K on the griddle for herself.

“It’s good for you,” Austin replied, pointing at her with his fork. “We’re practicing English.”

“Alaric Luther,” Max mused, scrolling through his phone. I didn’t think he’d find that on any list of trendy dog names. “Alaric Lothaire...Alaric Lucian...”

“I like your name, Max,” Larkin said from the doorway. None of us had heard him arrive. He was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, wearing a deep maroon suit and a ring on every finger, grinning hugely. He was exactly as I remembered him: stunning, captivating, terrifying. The kitchen fell quiet. I could smell Ksenia’s pancake beginning to burn.

At last Max chuckled nervously, pushing soggy pancake hunks around on his plate with his fork, averting his gaze. “Guess I’ll keep it then.”

“I thought I heard you come in,” Larkin told me.

“It’s always a pleasure to be home.”

He nodded out towards the hallway. “Come. Regale me with the stories of your travels.” Then his eyes flicked down to my socks, and he grimaced—slightly, briefly—before turning away. “And find your shoes.”

I followed him through the hallway, the living room, the grand front foyer with the crystal chandelier, into the elevator. Larkin did not speak, but he hummed as we ascended: House Of The Rising Sun.

It hadn’t always been like this. It was difficult for me to pick out the details of what had changed—the tone of his voice, the proportion of wonder and gratitude I associated with him versus fear, the way this palace (or the one in Reykjavik, or Juneau, or Ivalo, or Murmansk, or any of the others) felt when I stepped inside it—but I knew something had. It had begun before Ben left. It was much worse now. Older vampires, in my fairly learned opinion, are something like the stars. They mellow as they age, temper their character flaws, grow wise and patient like Nikolai or Honora or Gwilym Lee; or they rage until they burn away every last atom of humanity, until they destroy themselves and take entire solar systems down with them. Increasingly, I harbored fears that Larkin was a vampire of the latter variety. And we were all his planets.

In his study, Larkin dropped into the chair behind his desk, brought a hand to his forehead, surveyed a disarrayed flurry of papers: letters, notices, deeds and titles, meticulously managed accounts of finances and disciplinary actions. Larkin had a laptop and burner phone, of course, as we all did; but he liked to work in paper as much as possible. That’s how he’d done things for centuries, since long before the name of the inventor of the internet (or harnessed electricity, for that matter) was a whisper on his parents’ lips. The sky outside was clouded and seeping soft rain.

“Things have been busy?” I ventured.

He frowned, gesturing to the cluttered desk. “I’m in purgatory.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that. Can I help?”

“The Lancaster coven says they’ll need an extension for their dues. That’s the second year in a row, now it’s not just an exception, it’s a precedent. If you let one coven bend the rules, others will follow. So something will have to be done. Then there’s Stockholm. Anders’ coven has eaten a few too many locals—including the mayor’s favorite niece—and now the city is launching an investigation. Fucking idiots. They’ll probably all have to relocate. There’s some new territory dispute in Lima between Alejandro’s coven and a group of strangers that just came out of the Andes. We’ll have to make their acquaintance, of course. And as if all that weren’t enough, Rigel accidentally fed on a heroin addict and he’s currently detoxing in a cell in the basement. Would you check on him for me? I’m sure your presence will be a...” He waved his hand distractedly, almost dismissively, searching for the words. “A comfort to him.”

“Of course.”

“How are the Lees?”

“Fine. Typical. Gwil’s putting in a lot of hours at the hospital. Rami’s planning to get another law degree. Ben is, uh, adjusting. Slowly, very slowly. He’s not particularly content. But he hasn’t murdered anyone that I’m aware of.”

“How nice.” Now his eyes darted up to catch mine: focused, luminous, unreadable. “Nothing new at all?”

And instantly, I wanted to tell him everything. I forgot why I had ever planned to blunt the girl’s existence, to conceal her talent entirely; I felt her name rising in my throat. And then I remembered again. I’m doing this for Gwil, for Ben.

I pretended to ponder Larkin’s question, as if it was so difficult to remember, as if there was nothing left to sift through but a trunkful of mundane details from the trip like a grandfather’s tattered correspondence and tarnished war relics. That was something an average family might have squirreled away in their attic, I assumed; I’d never met my own grandfather, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have had anything to leave me if I had. “Joe’s got some new girlfriend, but I don’t think it’s serious. I doubt she’ll be around long. You know how Joe is. Scarlett’s seeing someone too, actually. A Quileute kid.”

“Poor boy.” And Larkin grinned like a shark beneath burning eyes. “He’s in for a lifetime of disappointment. Who will ever be able to hold a candle to those memories?”

Larkin had a moderate preoccupation with Scarlett’s beauty, her...tenacity. Her lack of talent was a great disappointment to him, a somehow more egregious fault than Joe or Gwil or Mercy’s. What a shame, Larkin often said. And I believed I knew what came after in his mind, although never aloud: What a partner she could have been.

He was still grinning at me. His expression was hollow, vacuous. A shiver clawed down my spine. He was waiting for something. No, he was searching. I stared back, and I willed for that intangible, contagious harmony I carried around like a wedding ring to hit him like carbon monoxide or bromine: undetected and yet inexorable, knocking him off his path of inquisition.

What does he suspect? What does he already know?

“Anyway,” Larkin continued abruptly, turning his attention back to his paperwork. “I’m glad there’s nothing to worry about in Forks. Liesl will be back in the next few days, Rigel will be ready to work again, I’ll come up with a plan to handle all this and my mood will improve tremendously.”

And where has Liesl been? I almost asked; and then I didn’t. It was a good sign that she was coming home. I had looked for her once while I was in Forks. When I made up my mind to find someone—when that switch flipped in my skull or in the tangle of nerves of my solar plexus or wherever it lived—it wasn’t like poking around on Google Earth: zooming in here, scrolling over there. A goldish trail lit up on the floor, a ‘Yellow Brick Road’ Honora and I sometimes joked, and I followed it. And I had no way of knowing how far that trail might lead. A route heading dead east from the palace might stop in the next town over or continue across the Pacific Ocean; my search might last one day or a hundred. In Forks—as I perched in a soaring western hemlock tree in the forest outside the Lee residence on a cool October evening—Liesl’s trail had led north. North to Vancouver, to Victoria, to Dawson, to Alaska? Who the fuck knew. I was just relieved it hadn’t led to the tree next to mine.

“Well, as always, I’m happy to assist however I can,” I told Larkin. “Just let me know and I’ll be on the next flight out of Vladivostok.”

“I appreciate that, Cato.” He smiled, paternally this time. And then he spun his chair around to peer out the window into the episodic flares of lightning that illuminated great dark clouds like neurons in a celestial brain. I hate thunderstorms. They remind me of South Carolina. “But I think you’ve earned a rest.”

After checking in on Rigel—irritable, frenetic, pacing, and yet predictably pacified somewhat by my visit—I trotted up the main staircase to the second floor of the palace. I found her in our bedroom: sitting at her easel, a paintbrush held in one graceful hand, an image like a photograph on the canvas. I promptly pried off my Berlutis for the second time today and tossed them into the closet.

“Ciao, amore,” I said.

“Ciao!” Honora replied, beaming. Her curly brunette hair was pinned up and away from her face; wayward tendrils spiraled down to brush her bare shoulder blades, the back of her neck. “Just give me five minutes...I have to finish the shadow of this tree...”

There weren’t many in the Draghi who survived the transition from Nikolai’s leadership to Larkin’s, but Honora had. She was gentle to a fault, a hopeless warrior, turned into an immortal on her forty-fourth birthday when Rome was still an empire; and she was without any talents whatsoever, except for one which was useless in combat. Her paintings, drawings, and sculptures adorned every palace the Draghi owned. Each year, Larkin would ask her to paint all of us together, incorporating any new faces, erasing the memories of those who had proven themselves unworthy. One such portrait, I knew, hung in Gwilym Lee’s home office.

I went to the woman I called my wife, laid my palms on her shoulders, leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “Take your time, love.”

“Everything’s alright?” Honora asked, looking hopefully up at me with large, wide-set jade eyes. No, not just hopefully. Trustingly.

“Everything’s alright,” I agreed, not knowing if I believed it.

Shadows And Spells

“He just...just...disappeared?!” Jessica sputtered, scandalized, gaping at me as she held a Styrofoam cup of spiked apple cider in her clasped hands.

We were on a quilt near the outskirts of the sea of beach towels and blankets that circled the bonfire. Women—wearing flowing dresses or robes or tunics or not very much at all—flounced around the flames banging tambourines and reciting chants that I didn’t know the words to. Some carried torches, beacons of heat and light in the darkness. Jessica was wearing a short black shirt, fishnet tights, and a black crop-top turtleneck sweater; I had opted for a bohemian blue dress patterned with stars, an old thrift shop find and the closest thing I owned to Wiccan festivities apparel. I had a cup of hot apple cider as well, enhanced with a generous splash of Captain Morgan, but hadn’t quite conjured up the rebelliousness to drink it yet.

I suddenly recalled Mercy bringing me an endless supply of virgin autumnal sangrias as Joe and I swam in the hot tub on the Lees’ back porch. As soon as you turn twenty-one, you can have the real thing. I frowned, shuddered, took a bitter and burning sip.

“Yeah,” I replied. “He told his roommate he was going to a frat party or something and never showed up and never made it back home either. The parents are blaming the university, the university is insisting he must be off with a girlfriend or on some hipster soul-searching nature adventure or whatever, it’s a mess.”

“Jesus,” she murmured. “What does your dad say?”

“He’s been helping the state police with the investigation. There’s really no evidence of anything. No witnesses, no footprints, no surveillance footage, no handy anonymous tips...”

“No body,” Jessica finished.

“That’s morbid.” I downed the rest of my cider. Was the world already beginning to list like a ship on choppy waves, or was that just my imagination? I guess it would be possible. I’d barely eaten all day.

“You were thinking it.”

“Well, one’s mind does tend to wander towards homicide under such circumstances.”

“It is the season of the dead.” She grinned wickedly, then took my empty cup. “He’s probably fine. I bet he wants to drop out to become a weed farmer and hasn’t worked up the guts to tell his parents yet. You want another?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. I’ll be right back.” Jess rose to balance on black boots with five-inch heels and staggered off to the foldable table piled high with cans and bottles and snacks. I was getting the impression that her Wiccanism was more of a novelty than a spiritual commitment.

The season of the dead. Now that’s VERY morbid.

There were some guys laughing, smoking home-rolled cigarettes, and toasting glasses of red wine on a nearby mandala blanket, bespectacled intellectual types who were probably getting PhDs in Anthropology or Medieval Studies at the University of Washington. One of them—curly-haired, pale-eyed, wearing a sweater vest and a cautious smile—raised his wine glass in my direction. I waved back without much enthusiasm.

“He’s cute, right?” Jessica asked, plopping back down onto our quilt and shoving a full cup of spiked cider into my grasp. She motioned for me to drink. I did. “That’s Sebastian, but he likes to be called Bash. He’s twenty-three and speaks fluent German.”

“Charming.”

“He’s very...uh...gifted. I’m not saying I know from personal experience, but I’ve heard it from a very reliable source. And his parents own a beach house in Monterey. You could go skinny-dipping.”

“In the ocean?” The world was definitely wobbling now. I was warm all over, numbed, fuzzy; it was becoming difficult to picture Joe’s face, to hear his voice. This was good. I kept drinking. “No thanks. Too many sharks. They have great whites down there.”

Jess tossed her long, loose hair and sighed impatiently. “I’m just saying that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. So you should pursue that.”

“I’ll totally consider it.” I lied. I would not consider it.

She smiled, sympathetically, fondly. “I can’t believe you thought I was a Mormon.”

“I can’t believe I’m out in the Washington wilderness commemorating the Gaelic festival of Samhain, but here we all are.”

Jess glanced over my shoulder. “Oh my god. He’s coming over here.”

“Ugh.” I craned my neck to see. Sebastian—whoops, my mistake, Bash—was approaching. “Please distract him. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Also I’m pretty sure I’m getting drunk and I don’t want to do anything humiliating, like sob uncontrollably about how much I miss my ex-boyfriend.”

“Don’t worry. I gotchu, Baby Swan.”

“Hey Jess,” Bash said, but he was looking at me. He pitched his cigarette off into the trees. What the fuck, who does that?

“Only you can prevent forest fires,” I told him in a woozy, mock-Smokey Bear voice.

“What?” he asked, baffled.

“Ignore her, she’s drunk,” Jess said quickly. “So what’s up? Come on, sit with me. Keep me toasty. Teach me some German...”

As they chatted and giggled and snuggled closer together—I’m starting to think that Jessica might have been her own reliable source—I studied the forest, watching to make sure the cigarette didn’t begin to smolder in the damp brush. The voices and crackling of the bonfire and sharp ringing of the tambourines faded into one muted, uniform drone. The trees reeled in the haze of the spiked cider; the cool wind moaned through them. And then, for only a second: a glimpse of something impossibly quick, something silvery and reedy and sunless.

What was that?

I blinked. It was gone. I blinked again, staring penetratingly. The swarming heat from the cider evaporated from my skin, my blood. There were goosebumps rising all over me.

What the hell was that?

I remembered how Calawah University students sometimes reacted to Ben: flinching, withdrawing, autonomically fearing him on some primal, evolutionary level. They knew he was a predator. They knew they were prey. It was chillingly similar to what I was feeling now.

I have to get out of here. I have to go home.

I shot to my feet. Oh, wrong move, that was too quick. I swayed, and Jessica reached up to steady me. “Are you—?!”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I gotta go home now.”

“What?! We just got here! Look, chill out, let me get you some vegan samosas or something—”

“No, seriously, I have to go.”

“Okay, okay,” Jessica conceded. “I’ll finish my drink and we’ll call an Uber, alright?”

“Really?” Bash asked, crestfallen.

“I’ll call an Uber,” I told Jess. “You stay, I’ll go.” Maybe she shouldn’t stay, I thought foggily, irrationally. Maybe it’s not safe.

“I can’t let you go alone. I got you drunk and now you’re a mess and if you end up murdered it would be my fault. There are unsolved mysteries going around, you know.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Girl, there’s no way I’m gonna—”

“I’ll call you as soon as I get in the Uber and I’ll stay on until I’m physically inside my house, okay?”

Jessica considered this. Bash leaned in to nibble her ear. I could smell the red wine and nicotine and animalistic lust sweating out of his pores. And unexpectedly, agonizingly: a biting flare, a muscle memory, Joe’s fingertips skimming down the small of my back and his scent like winter nights saturating the capillary beds of my lungs. Stop, stop, stop. “Okay,” Jess agreed at last.

“Awesome.” I was already opening the Uber app on my iPhone.

My driver was a Pacific Northwestern version of Santa Claus: wild grey beard, red flannel, L.L.Bean boots, rambling about his upcoming trip to hunt caribou in British Columbia. I honored my promise to Jessica and kept her on speakerphone for the duration of the twenty-minute drive. I rested my whirling head against the seat, let my eyes dip closed, watched the intermittent streetlights appear and disappear through my eyelids. I let myself into Charlie’s house when I arrived, wished Jessica goodnight (and reminded her not to get pregnant), and meandered clumsily into the kitchen for a glass of water and a cookie dough Pop-Tart to ward off a possible hangover. Charlie was snoring quietly on the living room couch. I watched him for a while, smiling and achingly grateful, before heading upstairs to my bedroom.

My window was wide open; that’s the first thing I noticed. I didn’t remember leaving it that way. I was always neglecting to lock the window, sure—I kept forgetting that there was no one to leave it unlocked for anymore—but I hadn’t left it open when I went to meet Jessica this evening. Icy night air flooded in. The stars were bright and furious in an uncommonly clear sky.

“You trying to give me pneumonia, old man?” I muttered, thinking of Charlie. I tossed my iPhone down onto my bed and crossed the room to close the window. And as it creaked and collided with the sill, I heard my closet door open behind me.

Someone’s here. Someone’s in this room with me.

I turned, very slowly; it felt like it took a lifetime. She was standing in the doorway of my closet, sinuous and white-haired, wearing black leather pants and stiletto heels and a long-sleeved lace blouse the color of blood, the color of her eyes. And she was harrowingly beautiful; not like Lucy or Mercy, not like Scarlett. She was beautiful like a prehistoric jawbone, like a serrated crescent moon, like a blade.

The owl. The goddamn albino owl.

I recognized her immediately. I heard Joe’s words as he introduced each vampire in the immense painting hanging in Dr. Lee’s upstairs office to me, though I desperately didn’t want to: She’s literally Satan, only blonder.

Her name tumbled from my trembling lips. “Liesl.”

“Wonderful, we can skip the introductions.” Her voice was like windchimes, cutting and brisk, with a hint of an Austrian accent like a shadow. Now she was at my bedside and picking up my phone, scrolling through it with lightning-quick and dexterous thumbs. “Hm. No texts from any of the Lees in the past week. So we don’t have to worry about them dropping by, I suppose. Joe got bored with you already, huh?”

“Evidently.” My own voice was brittle, anemic, weak; just like my ineffectual human body.

“That’s quick, even for him. How sad.” She sighed, tucking my iPhone into her red Chanel purse. “There’s a private jet waiting at the Forks Airport. Pack a bag. You have five minutes.”

“Please don’t hurt my dad,” I whispered, scalding tears brimming in my eyes.

“Of course not,” Liesl replied with a savage, saccharine smile. “Not yet, anyway.”

51 notes · View notes

swiftlymoniquesblog · 3 years

Text

A Real-Life Disney Prince: Chris Evans x Reader

Summary: Reader reminds Chris that he is, in fact, a real-life Disney Prince.

A/N: Hello friends! I am so excited for this because it’s my first time writing for Chris Evans! I may not talk about him as much but I LOOOOOOOVE him! He is an absolute cutie and I love him with my whole heart! I may or may not have had to watch The First Avenger for inspiration but it’s fine! I hope everyone likes this one; please leave feedback!

Warnings: A bit of sadness and missing someone but LOTS of fluff!

Word Count: 1,966

Marvel Masterlist| Masterlist of all Masterlists

Requests are open! Feedback welcome! Tag list requests open!

Almost every little girl longs to be a princess and since the 1920s, Disney has been the mastermind behind the world of princesses. They knew how to capture the attention of girls young and old from around the world, on what being a princess is all about. Over the decades, however, these ideals change. More and more skin tones, backgrounds, and cultural influences have changed these princesses. Not every princess desires to fall in love with prince charming, has the influence of magical singing animals or fairy godmothers to guide them on how to be a princess. Now, there are stories of real-life stories of struggles to conquering them that draw a vaster group of individuals. Anyone from any background can be represented in films and that is overall, the greatest representation of the human race. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Are there ways representation needs to change? Of course! But you need to start somewhere and now the tables are turning.

Never in a million years did you think you’d find yourself with one of these ‘princes.’ Sure, you believed in love and believed in a happily ever after of sorts, but what you didn’t know, was you’d have your own version of Prince Charming. He came in the form of an actor; tall, handsome, bright blue eyes. He was brilliant when he stood in front of a camera, immediately capturing your attention. Hailing from Boston and taking the world by storm with his one recurring role, he won the world over and took his character into the real world. With all different movies under his belt, how did you manage to date someone like him? Well, it wasn’t something you’d ever expected; isn’t that when they say you find ‘the one?’ Your story, however, is nothing close to traditional but that is what makes it interesting.

“Hey, (y/n), I know I said I was supposed to be coming home soon, but they asked me to stay on set longer. I know, we had plans and I am sorry for having to cancel them. I feel like a shitty boyfriend and you deserve to be treated so much better, but I promise, as soon as I get home, I am all yours. I love you,”

Your boyfriend left a voice message on your phone, leaving some of the worst news you can imagine; he wasn’t going to make it home. At this point, you were really surprised he was canceling because his demand as an actor was through the roof, but you never wanted to stand in the way of his job, something you knew he was passionate about. Dating Chris Evans was no easy task but you knew that when you agreed to go out with him. You’d been friends for a few years before he finally admitted he had felt more than friendship for you. His schedule though, was constantly changing and it was hard for you to keep up with, but even being in the beginning stages of your relationship, you knew he was special and worth the time.

You sigh, disappointed that he wasn’t coming back yet, so you gather up your things and load them into your car. You had plans to spend a week with him at his place in Boston, as he would take you around and show you where he grew up. But now, you figured that wasn’t the best idea so you packed up and went to stay at your best friend’s apartment. When she heard about the new of Chris, she offered you a place to stay, in hopes that would take your mind off the disappointment you felt. He spent so much time at your place, that everything there, reminds you of him. Thinking it was the best decision for you, you agreed and were now on your way to your friend’s house.

“They, thanks Angela for letting me stay here for a bit,” you say as Angela opens the doors and lets you inside, hugging you before you had a chance to put your bags down.

“Oh, of course! I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you right now. I know you were looking forward to Chris coming home and going to Boston with him. But he’ll be home soon; I have a good feeling,” she said, helping you settle into your shared room.

“I hope so,” you say, not knowing Angela was absolutely right.

A few days had passed and you did everything in your power to keep yourself busy. Anything to keep Chris off your mind, you’d do it, but it was no easy task. In a short period of time, he had become the most important person in your life and he took over every thought in your mind. You kept busy with work and when you weren’t working, you spent your free time cleaning around the apartment and volunteering in your community. Ultimately, your attempts failed; he was always on your mind. At least you kept yourself busy. A week-and-a-half had gone by, and Angela said she had a surprise for you.

“What are you planning?” You ask, questioning your friend the next morning at breakfast.

“Not me, well sort of me, I helped a friend plan something, but I can’t say what it is,” she rambled for a minute, causing you to laugh at the way her words ran together.

“Whoa, whoa, take an easy, Angela, one word at a time! Now, this surprise, what do I have to do?” You ask, tilting your head to the side like a puppy.

“All you need to do is stay in today; don’t go out,” she says.

“What? But I had plans to get my nails done and go to lunch with my Mom!” You whine, not believing what she was asking of you.

“It’s okay, I canceled your appointment twenty-four hours ago and called your Mom to reschedule lunch,” Angela said.

“Why do I need to stay at home? What’s going on?” You ask, now really questioning what was happening.

“All good things to those who wait,” Angela says, winking at you. That was odd; she knew that was something Chris always says so why was she saying it now?

She had left the room to get herself ready for her day, before leaving for the day. Oh, so she could go out but you couldn’t? As angry as you were, you had to put that all aside. You could definitely use a day off since you’d been busying yourself with not thinking about Chris. Deciding to take Angela’s advice, you stayed in your pajamas and cooked up some food for breakfast. However, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t stop thinking of Chris. He loves breakfast and loved having lazy days at home with you and Dodger.

After you finished eating, your emotions of the last week-and-a-half, got the better of you. Another message from Chris was left on your phone.

“Hi babe, I miss you. I was just thinking about you today, well every day really. It’s been too long since I’ve seen that pretty face of yours or held you in my arms and the thought of all those things, is what is keeping me going right now. I’ll be home before you know it; I promise. I love you.”

At a few months of the relationship, Chris admitted first that he loved you. Normally, you wouldn’t jump to those three little words so soon but you had known Chris for monger than you two had been dating and you knew from the very start, that you loved him. Grabbing some blankets and pillows from your room, you head into the living room, wrapping a blanket around you and a few pillows for you to lie on, and spread out on the couch. With the remote in your hand, you switch to Disney+ to find a movie. Seeing the tabs at the top of the screen of the movie collections, your heart breaks momentarily but you go along with your plan. The tab? Marvel. You scroll through all the Marvel films and land on one of your favorites with a great performance from Chris; Captain America: The First Avenger. Where we were introduced to Steve Rodgers and Captain America for the very first time. Just as the movie was reaching a vital part, a knock on the door interrupted your attention. You groan at whoever was crazy enough to interrupt you in the middle of a movie, you unwrap yourself from the cocoon you made for yourself and answer the door.

“Oh my God,” you say, unbelieving who you were seeing before you with a bouquet of roses in his arm.

“Ah, there’s my girl,” Chris said, smirking at your surprised facial expression.

Without another spoken word, you throw yourself into his waiting arms, the flowers dropping to the ground at your feet. He holds you tight and spins you around as you bury your face in his shoulder. He was right; it was too long since you two saw the other. It wasn’t until you were both inside that he set you back down, and he took the empty space of the couch next to you.

“What are you doing home so soon?” You ask, surprised to see your boyfriend sitting beside you.

“I finished my time on set. They said I could go home so I jumped on the next plane out and here I am,” he says, smiling at you. “I am so glad I am home to my girl.”

“I can’t believe you’re here, Chris. I missed you so much,” you say, scooting over on the couch and cuddling into his side. His arms find their way back to you so you nuzzle your head on his chest.

“Oh, so we’re watching me, huh?” He jokes, seeing the movie had been stopped on a shot of him in full patriotic uniform.

“Oh no, we can turn that off. I have something better we can watch.” Fishing for the remote that somehow lodged itself deep in the couch cushions, you turned off Captain America and found another Disney movie; Beauty and the Beast.

“So, I see, this is what you want to watch,” he says more as a question than a statement.

“Yeah, because I think our story is similar to Belle and Beast,” you state.

“So, you think I’m a big hairy monster?” He jokes and you laugh.

“No, I don’t think that! But you are a real-life Disney Prince you know?”

“I am?” He asks, genuinely wondering about what you meant.

“Yeah! Because you did films for Marvel for what, 10 years or so? And you were a leading character too! And since Marvel is owned by Disney, then, you are a Disney prince,”

He stopped for a minute to think about your comparison, and then smiled to himself.

“You know what, you’re right. I guess I’ve been living out a childhood dream for a long time now. Thanks for making me realize it,” he said, leaving a lingering kiss on your lips.

“So, how long are you home for?” You ask, afraid of his answer.

“Until the next project comes up. I don’t know when that’ll be but right now, I want to enjoy every minute with my girl,” he says, rubbing a thumb across his shoulder.

“Well, I hope you don’t have to go anytime soon; I missed you.”

“I missed you too, baby. And we still have our trip to Boston coming up and I have quite a few surprises up my sleeve,” he says winking at you.

“I can’t wait,” you say.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Chris,” you say, cuddling back into him and enjoying the movie with your own Disney Prince.

Taglist: @tloveswriting @fandom-princess-forevermore @thinkinghardhardlythinking @to-my-beloved-fandoms-2 @damn-stark @lunalovecroft @calaofnoldor @angeredcrow @marvelfansworld @440mxs-wife @hobby27 @lovabletomholland

#Chris Evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans x you #chris evans x y/n #chris evans fluff #dodger #captain america #marvel #Marvel MCU

27 notes · View notes

jbbarnesnnoble · 4 years

Text

Hello lovely humans!

I’ve recently hit the 500 follower milestone and want to celebrate with another challenge! This time, dark fics are welcome!

I have a lot of prompts here and what doesn’t get used will probably be put aside for a future challenge. I like to make sure there is a wide array of prompts to be chosen from and tend to go overboard. Whoops.

The Rules:

1. Use the hashtag #JBBNN500

2. Dark fics are welcome - Just be sure to utilize trigger warnings and indicate that it is a dark fic.

3. Even if you aren’t writing a dark fic, use trigger warnings if the content warrants it. If you write something that has heavier themes, like those that delve into mental health topics, be sure to label it appropriately.

4. Selecting Prompts: Just let me know which one you want to do! 2 people per prompt! Tell me which subheading and the number of the prompt so I can mark it down! If it’s a lyric prompt, please give me the song and the number!

5. You don’t have to be following to participate!

6. Deadline: January 11, 2021

Yes, I’m giving about 3 months for this. January 11 also happens to be my birthday, so I figured that would be a good date to choose.

The subheadings are: dialogue prompts, sentence prompts, quotes from popular media, and song lyrics!

Find the prompts under the cut!

Dialogue Prompts

“Life is made up of maybes and regrets. I don’t want this to be one of them.”

“You can’t do this. It’s my choice to make, and mine alone. If you don’t agree with it, the door is there. Feel free to use it.”

“I used to be afraid of the dark, you know. Until I learned that the real monsters thrive in the light.”

“So, what you’re saying is if I gave you a nickel, you’d do it.”

“No, I don’t know how the cheese got there, and honestly, I don’t think I want to know.”

“You’re sounding more like a cult leader every time you open your mouth. Don’t think I’ll be accepting any Flavor Aid from you anytime soon.”

“How did you...you know what, I’m going to forget I saw a thing, and go read a book. Or bathe in Holy Water. Or both. Both is good.”

“If you say one more word I swear--” “One more word” “I hate you”

“You can’t come in here singing my favorite song and expect forgiveness, that’s not how this works!”

“No. You mean nothing to me. You never did. You never will.”

“But if it did, it would work and you can’t convince me otherwise.”

“You are simultaneously the smartest and least intelligent person I have ever meant. Truly, an amazing accomplishment.” @bonkywobble

“Next thing you’re going to say is that ghosts are real...please tell me that’s a joke”

“All I’m saying is, I could do that blindfolded.”

“But why was there pizza on the ceiling?”

“If you write me a four thousand word essay on why you think that’s a good idea, then sure.”

“I didn’t think you were serious. Do you know how illegal this is?!”

Sentence Prompts

Feel free to change the pronouns used to suit your needs, even if they aren’t bracketed! You can also change the tense if you need to!

The January rain fell, feeling like razors against [your/her/their] skin as [you/she/they] stared out over the horizon.

This was it, the moment where life as [you/she/they] knew it ended.

[His/her/their] gaze fell on [her/you], like a lion circling its prey.

You never thought that it would come to this, come to being the one to end it all.

You took a moment to calculate [his/her/their] next move, figuring out the perfect counter.

Hanging by your ankles from a tree was most definitely not how you planned on spending your Saturday.

Glancing around the room at the decor, one thing was obvious: it was [his/her/their] doing.

Hurt was the only thing you felt, the only thing you could cling to in this abyss.

Lies, it had all been lies and they were crumbling around you.

The screech of tires on the pavement sent a shiver down your spine.

He/She used to love this time of year, the beauty of it all.

It was like climbing Everest: ambitious, dangerous, and maybe a little insane.

Forgiveness was not something you were willing to offer so freely, not this time.

Chaos may as well have been the code name of this mission. @nekoannie-chan

Silence was your new best friend, one that never seemed to leave you alone.

That smile, that smile was something you could get used to waking up to every day.

Your face twisted in disgust as you realized what you had fallen into.

You were beginning to wish you had taken [him/her/them] up on that trip to Madrid.

Quotes from Popular Media:

With these prompts specifically, you can use the full thing, paraphrase, etc, since some of them are quite long, or just write something based off an idea it sparks.

“There are so many stories where some brave hero decides to give their life to save the day, and because of their sacrifice, the good guys win, the survivors all cheer, and everybody lives happily ever after. But the hero... never gets to see that ending. They'll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference. They'll never know if the day was really saved. In the end, they just have to have faith. Ain't that a bitch.” -Epsilon, Season 13, Red vs Blue

“We're so arrogant, aren't we? So afraid of age, we do everything we can to prevent it. We don't realize what a privilege it is to grow old with someone. Someone who doesn't drive you to commit murder or doesn't humiliate you beyond repair.” - Daniel, P.S I Love You

“After centuries of men looking at my tits instead of my eyes and pinching my ass instead of shaking my hand, I now have the divine right to stare at a man's backside with vulgar, cheap appreciation if I want to!” - Denise, P.S. I Love You

“Life isn't just death. Don't ignore the living.” - Vada Sultenfuss, My Girl

“Life's full of barbaric customs. But I hope they all end with a kiss like that.” - Vada Sultenfuss, My Girl

"You're a little scary sometimes, you know that? Brilliant ... but scary." - Ron Weasley, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends." - Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

"I’ll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I’m not there." - Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“Sweetie, this is one of those times when I know what's right and everybody else is confused.” - Angela Montenegro, Bones, Season 3

“Oh, God. I'm in the middle of something, aren't I? Oh, look! Dead guy!” - Cam Saroyan, Bones, Season 5

“Don’t make it sound trivial when you know it isn’t. You keep talking about how we just need a little more time, but you’re not the one having to struggle.” -Nora, RWBY, Volume 7

“It's called survival. But I forgot, you two at best are functional morons.” - Crowley, Supernatural, Season 5, Episode 10

“I once had to judge a tighty-whitey contest for Lambda Kappa Pi. Trust me, I can handle anything.” - Elle Woods, Legally Blonde

“How were we supposed to know? It's not like we run background checks on all her boyfriends.” - Kathryn Kennish, Switched at Birth

“Don’t try to get on my good side. I no longer have a good one” - Ouiser, Steel Magnolias

“I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.” - Shelby, Steel Magnolias

“You have the handwriting of a serial killer” - Clairee, Steel Magnolias

“I didn’t know if you would hire someone who might be married to someone who may or may not be a criminal” - Annelle, Steel Magnolias

Lyric Prompts

What Do You Think Of - Lauren Alaina ft. Lukas Graham

What do you think of when you think of me?

When you look back on us what do you see? Is it the good times, is it the bad times, is it somewhere in between?

I can’t even drive down 8th Avenue because the whole damn town reminds me of you

Hurts to Know - 1551

But you stayed when I made another promise to keep

And you waited and waited for the life you saw in your dreams

You walk in and begin to try to heal me again, but each night is a fight that’s getting harder to win.

Sick - 1551

Everyone I meet feels like another target

I’m feeling sick, I’m feeling twisted, I wasn’t home before this feeling existed

I never knew that wrong could feel so right

seven - Taylor Swift

Sweet tea in the summer, cross your heart won’t tell no other, and though I can’t recall your face, I still got love for you

Passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long

I think your house is haunted, your dad is always mad and that must be why

We’ll hide in the closet, and just like a folk song, our love will be passed on

the last great american dynasty - Taylor Swift

How did a middle class divorcee do it?

The wedding was charming, if a little gauche

And they said “There goes the last great American dynasty. Who knows if she never showed up what could have been.”

epiphany - Taylor Swift

With you I serve, with you I fall down

Something med school did not cover

And some things you just can’t speak about

Chapters - Brett Young

Chapter one, I was raised on the Dodgers

There’s no perfect life, you can’t hold back time

Everybody expecting perfection

Things change in the blink of an eyelid, guess my body knew way more than I did

The Daughters - Little Big Town

Girl, know your place, be willing and able

Girl, watch your mouth and watch your weight

Pose like a trophy on a shelf, and dream for everyone but not yourself

I wash the dishes, feed the kids, and clean up all this mess, do my best, forgive myself, and look good in this dress

It Won’t Always Be Like This - Carly Pearce

I remember how I couldn’t wait to get out of my hometown, now I’m looking for every excuse to go back on the weekend

I remember hearing the door slam, twenty-two, didn't have a clue who I was, who I could trust, and who were my real friends

The heart won’t ache forever, no matter how hard it gets, it won’t always be like this

Next Girl - Carly Pearce

You overlook a lot when he looks like that

He’ll charm your mama with that smile, hide the red flags for a while

He’ll make you think it’s love, but I promise you it’s not

Bar Back - Lauren Alaina

You can have that coffee shop we went on our first date

I’ll give you back that sweatshirt, that one you know I love

I’m taking back that little hole in the wall, the red door sign saying “come on in y’all”

If I Was a Beer - Lauren Alaina

Honey you’re in luck, ‘cause I’m a fine, fine, wine. I’m a slow sweet pour, I can be a little bitter, but I ain’t a hard hitter, like a 30 from the grocery store

Waiting for Superman - Daughtry

She says “he’s still coming, just a little bit late”

She’s talking to angels, counting the stars, making a wish on a passing car

If life was a movie, then it wouldn’t end like this

Before You Go - Lewis Capaldi

When you hurt under the surface, like troubled water running could, well time can heal but this won’t

Before you go, was there something I could have said to make your heart beat better?

Our every moment, I start to replay, but all I can think about is seeing that look on your face @arrowsandmixtapes

Hard to Forget - Sam Hunt

It's kinda funny how I can't seem to get away from you, it's almost like you don't want me to

You’ve got a cold heart and the cold hard truth

Told me to leave all your things out on the porch on the swing

Oh you’re breaking my heart, baby you’re playing hard to forget

This is It - Scotty McCreery

You can open your eyes

Can’t you see forever

On top of the world here together

If there ever was a time for a perfect kiss, this is it

Wish You’d Miss Me - Chase Wright

I was good for you, you were bad for me

I was solid ground, you were broken wings

I gave you love you gave me pain

You gave me hell, I gave you grace

I knew all along that you were gonna leave

What a Man Gotta Do - Jonas Brothers

I’m not trying to be your part time lover, sign me up for that full time @unnuevosoltransformalarealidad

This Feeling - Chainsmokers ft. Kelsea Ballerini

I lay out all my reasons you say that I need help

They tell me think with my head, not that thing in my chest

They got their hands at my neck this time

I tell you all my secrets and you tell all your friends

Hold onto your opinions and stand by what you say

What Are You Gonna Tell Her - Mickey Guyton

She thinks life is fair

But what are you gonna tell her when she’s wrong?

What are you gonna tell her when she figures out that all this time you built her up just so the world could let her down?

Do you tell her not to fight?

Can you look her in the face and promise her that things will change?

#writing challenge #marvel writing challenge #jbbnn500 #mcu #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #bucky barnes #sam wilson #wanda maximoff #marvel

29 notes · View notes

purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1197

survey by ohsh1t2wksl8

Layers

Layer 1: The Basics

Name: Since there’ve been several people who’ve followed me recently anyway, HI I’m Robyn.

Age: 23.

Birthday: April 21st.

Gender: Female.

Zodiac Sign: Taurus.

Layer 2: Your Family

Do you have any brothers or sisters? Yes, I have one of each.

Do you have any pets? Yup, two dogs.

Do you still live with your parents? I do. I’m not in a rush.

Do you have any stepparents? Nope.

How many cousins do you have? 11 first cousins. Throwing my second cousins into the mix would dramatically increase the number and I don’t feel like counting rn.

Layer 3: Your Friends

Who is your best friend? Angela and Andi.

Who have you been friends with the longest? Angela and I have been friends for 16 years and it’s stronger as ever these days because of our mutual love for BTS hehe.

What do you like to do with your friends? It really depends! There’s no one thing I like doing most with any of them; as long as I’m with them I’d consider it time well spent.

Do you have more friends online or in real life? Real life. It’s hard to form friendships online once nearly everyone starts becoming younger than you.

What is a good way to make friends with others? One thing I learned is that you have to be okay to initiate, and that’s not really something I like doing all the time.

Layer 4: Your Home

Do you live in a home, apartment, duplex, trailer, etc? I live in a house.

How many rooms are there in your house? There are 4 bedrooms and 5 other kinds of rooms – that’s 2 bathrooms, the living room, dining room, and kitchen.

Is your home large or small? I’d say it’s medium-sized. It’s not small that I feel cramped or inadequate, but it’s also nowhere near a mansion. It’s very comfortable for a family of 5.

What is your favorite room in your house, and why? Rooftop. My family barely goes there (and what a shame they don’t), so it’s a nice place to go to when I want to be alone but can’t get out of the house. Not to mention that it’s open-air and windy there, so whenever I feel as if I’m getting cooked inside I can always depend on the rooftop.

Do you prefer having people over to your house, or would you rather go to theirs? I’d rather go to theirs. Our house is really deep into the village and is a challenge to get to, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the general area.

Layer 5: Can You

Can you fold your tongue into the taco shape? Yes, but that’s the furthest it can go. I can’t really bend or twist it into shapes more complex than that.

Can you touch your toes without bending your knees? Nah, I lost that ability years ago. I didn’t make the most out of my flexibility back when I still had it.

Can you tie a cherry stem in a knot with your tongue? I never tried.

Can you hold up your end of a physical fight? I bet I can’t.

Can you do any yo-yo tricks? No, I was always terrible at the yo-yo.

Layer 6: Who

Who inspires you the most, and why? I don’t have any ~inspirations. I do like looking up to whoever my current obsession is – be it Rhett and Link, Paramore, BTS, etc. – to help me be happy and have something to smile at, but I try not to let any of them govern every single aspect of my life.

Who helps you maintain your sanity? My best friends. And these days, surprise surprise! – BTS.

Who do you go to most often for advice? Depends on the topic; I always run to either of my best friends. If I need a collective opinion, I go to my college friend group’s group chat.

Who knows you better than you know yourself? At one point it had been Gabie, but *shrug* Nowadays, the person who knows me best would probably be Andi.

Who is someone that you would die or put your life on the line for, no questions asked? Any of my friends.

Layer 7: Do you

Do you still eat sandwiches without the crusts? Nah - I’ve grown to be a fan of the crusts. I used to make my grandma slice them off as a kid or else I wouldn’t even think of touching the sandwich; then something changed as I got older and now I absolutely have to have the crust. At home, I even call dibs on the first and last pieces of bread (the ones that are all crust) whenever we get a new pack of sliced bread.

Do you typically finish your meal at a restaurant, or need to take a container home? I usually ask for it to be packed up for takeout.

Do you pull an Oreo apart in order to eat it? No, I just bite into it.

Do you read a lot of gossip magazines? As a kid/teenager. I’m over that now.

Do you make friends easily? I’m not the biggest social butterfly, but I’m also not super closed off. I’ll be happy to talk to anyone who approaches me.

Layer 8: How Many?

How many people live in your house with you? Four.

How many pets have you had in your lifetime? In my lifetime...I guess a good rough estimate would be somewhere around 10? I’ll never know exactly how many we’ve had since I never kept track of how many goldfish we kept.

How many tries does it take you to become successful at something? Depends. I never learned how to ride a bike even if I’ve pushed myself to practice ever since I was 5, but there are other things I’m able to pick up easily.

How many meals do you eat a day? One, dinner.

How many people can you honestly tolerate? This isn’t really an issue to me haha, I like being around people and my patience around them is usually long.

Layer 9: How

How do you typically get to school or work? I work from home at the moment and probably would for a little while longer; but if things were different, I would be driving myself.

How do you deal with a breakup? When I was going through mine, I was stupidly stubborn at first and refused any form of help. I deactivated all my social media and shut both my best friends out; it even got to a point where mutual friends were beginning to ask Andi where I’ve been as I’ve “disappeared off the face of the Earth” (an actual quote they relayed to me). I cried day in and day out, cried during my shifts, stayed holed up in my room; and I skipped hundreds of meals, sometimes not eating all day. It wasn’t a good place to be in.

But I knew I was on the right path to recovering the moment I reached out to friends again and acknowledged that I needed help. I started to help myself, too; I cut the person off slowly, and I started to look for new things to get into, new hobbies to invest in. I let my friends give me tough love and show me the reality of my situation, and I listened this time around. I don’t know what drove me to make a sudden change in my life but I’m really glad I came around to the decision, because I’m happier than ever these days.

How do you like to help others? All sorts of ways. I always want to make others’ lives a little easier.

How do you know when you’ve found “the one”? I don’t trust that instinct anymore.

How do you sleep in bed? On my side, clutching a pillow. No pillow to hug, no sleep.

Layer 10: What

What do you think happens when we die? That I just fall asleep for a very long time.

What do you do if there’s no toilet paper left on the roll and you’re already peeing? Turn around and hope there is at least a bidet in the stall.

What do you eat most often? Rice.

What toys did you enjoy most as a child? Anything with a lot of buttons or features to play around with, like detailed dollhouses.

What do you do if you witness someone being awful to someone else? Intervene, for the most part.

Layer 11: Where

Where is your favorite place to eat out? BGC has great ambience and restaurant choices, but it’s been a while since I’ve been there. I also still feel weird about the place since Gabie and I had dates there pretty often, sooooo I really ought to make new memories there with new people once I can.

Where is the place that has the best ice cream in your area? We don’t really have places known for ice cream...most people just buy pints or tubs of them at the grocery lol.

Where did you meet your current or last significant other? School.

Where can you be found at 7 PM. typically? Wrapping up work in my room.

Where can you find the best French fries? Potato Corner.

Layer 12: When

When did you find out the truth about Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy? Never believed in the first two. Tooth Fairy I lost hope in when I placed a tooth under my pillow when I was around 6 or 7 and woke up to nothing.

When do you typically fall asleep? Early hours of the morning tbh. I’d sleep anywhere between 1-4 AM these days.

When was the last time that someone paid you a compliment? Kata and I often make sure to compliment one another for our hard work by the end of particularly grueling shifts.

When do you feel most comfortable? Friday nights when I’m sure I can finally close my work group chats for the next two days.

When did you last go to the bathroom? Around an hour or so ago.

Layer 13: Why

Why do you enjoy taking surveys so much? It’s a stress reliever that has never failed me, and it lets me answers quirky random questions no one would ever have to ask me.

Why do people gossip so much? For one, probably the thrill of knowing something that's meant to be a thing.

Why can’t humans fly? It wouldn’t have been a necessity, I’m guessing.

Why aren’t you doing something else right now? Because I just spent the last 24 hours streaming Butter on Spotify and YouTube to raise views and plays for the boys, and taking this survey is actually the first thing I’ve done all day after taking a quick nap this afternoon to recover from all the streaming I did hahaha.

Why is the sky blue? I don’t know.

Layer 14: If…

If you had a million dollars, what would you spend it on? Buy chocolate chips because I’m craving them rn; get all BTS merch in one go; give a chunk to my parents; keep the rest.

If you found out someone was cheating on you, would you ever take them back? I don’t really have consistency when it comes to this situation. I know I definitely would’ve been stupid enough to stay with Gab if she hypothetically cheated on me while we were still together; I’m not sure if I’d stay when it comes to another person entirely.

If you found a wallet with cash in the street, including identification, would you turn it in? Why or why not? Yeah, I’d look for the owner. I’m not that desperate for money, personally.

If you could have any food right now, what would you like? SUSHI.

If you found out that the world was going to end tomorrow, how would you spend your last day? Go to the mall and get some much-needed air, then probably drop off some japchae and tteokbokki at Angela’s place.

Layer 15: Firsts

When did you lose your first tooth? I was in Prep and it actually fell out while I was in school. We were having storytime and I had to interrupt the session to tell my teacher it was starting to feel loose, so she got me some tissues to help me get it out.

Who was your first teacher that you ever had? Her name was Kathy. I don’t really have any substantial memories of her because I was 4 lmao, but I know she was nice.

When did you first learn how to ride a bike? ...Still learning...

When was the first time you had sex? Like a day or two after turning 18.

Did your first birthday have a theme to it? Not necessarily but my parents threw me a party at Jollibee, so it kinda had to be Jollibee-themed lol.

Layer 16: Lasts

Last person you texted: I don’t feel like checking because it was most definitely a work-related text and I don’t want to be reminded of work on a Sunday, but it was a media person.

Last drink you sipped: The last of my coffee.

Last time you rode a bike: Like, March last year when the pandemic had still been fresh and I thought I could use all the free time to finally learn how to ride a bike. Absolute clownery.

Last time you swam in a pool: August 2019.

Last person you hugged: Not sure. Angela, I think.

Layer 17: Favorites

Favorite Color: I think pastel pink is still taking the lead for me.

Favorite Season: We don’t have the usual four seasons, but I do have a liking for winter. It just seems very cozy for me.

Favorite Shape: I don’t have one.

Favorite Letter: Mmmmm, don’t really have one of these either.

Favorite Number: 4 or 7.

Layer 18: This or That

Pepsi or Coke? I don’t drink softdrinks.

Movies or Television? Movies, but I haven’t really been watching much of either recently.

Phone or Tablet? Phone. Haven’t used a tablet in yearrrrrsssssss.

Fruits or Vegetables? Veggies. Hate fruits.

Animals or Humans? I think I like both an equal amount.

Layer 19: Which

Which Poke’mon is your favorite? Chikorita.

Which day of the week is your favorite? Friday, because of course.

Which birthday celebration was the most memorable for you? My 18th, even though out of all the friends I celebrated my birthday with I only have one of them left in my life. I know I was happy during that time so I wouldn’t invalidate that experience for myself.

Which holiday is your favorite? Christmas, only for the sheer amount of food I get to have.

Which shoe do you put on first? I always switch it up, I’m pretty sure. I don’t have a particular habit.

Layer 20: Love Life/Relationships

What is the name of your first love? Gabie.

How many times can you honestly say you’ve been in love? Once.

Have you ever been in a relationship before that was abusive in any way? After being able to take a step back and analyzing it deeper, yes.

Have you ever been engaged or married before? Nope.

Do you have any children? I don’t.

Layer 21: Jobs, Dreams, & Goals

What did you want to be when you grew up (as a little kid)? I couldn’t decide among being an astronaut, firefighter, or veterinarian.

What do you aspire to be now? What interests you? I realized I wanted to be in the field of media and public relations, and that’s where I am now. I like being able to use my writing skills for something I find fun and fulfilling, instead of rotting away in a newsroom writing news I’m usually too sensitive for.

What is the most recent goal you’ve achieved? I got regularized! :)

What is a goal you are still striving to reach? A salary increase would be nice, and then a promotion down the road would also be awesome.

Have you ever won any sort of awards before? If so, for what? Sure. I was consistently on the honor roll in college and graduated with Latin honors, if those count as awards.

Layer 22: Opinions & Beliefs

Pro-life or pro-choice? Pro-choice.

Were you raised with any sort of religious background? If so, then what? Yesss, I was and am raised in a Catholic household. Weirdly enough my parents have grown more laidback in the last few years and my mom no longer berates us for not doing the sign of the cross when we pray before eating (my siblings have taken after me and refuse to do it as well). No idea what sparked that change but I’m just glad I never have to do gestures like that one anymore.

Democrat, Republican, or Independent? We don’t have the same parties here.

For or against the death penalty? This is a very complicated web and for reasons largely relevant to my country and the issues we have, I am mostly against it.

Thoughts on assisted suicide? I am ok with it as long as there is consent involved.

Layer 23: Currently/Today/Present

What day is it? It’s Sunday again, blegh.

What’s the weather like outside? Sunny.

What have you eaten? Just a Fudgee Bar so far but I’m having breakfast with my family in an hour or so.

Did you run any errands? Well it’s only 8:37 AM so not yet, but one or two might come up throughout the day.

What time is it? 8:38 now.

Layer 24: Yesterday

Did you have a work shift? No, I don’t work Saturdays.

Did you eat out anywhere? No :( I’ve wanted to for a while, though. Maybe I might today, actually – they’ve loosened up quarantine protocols so restaurants have opened up again. Let’s see if I’ll feel like driving today.

Was it snowing? It doesn’t snow here.

Who did you last say goodnight to? Cooper.

Did anything unusual happen? It rained and there was cold breeze during the evening.

Layer 25: Tomorrow

Do you have to go to school/class? No, but I do have to go to work.

Does this day have any sort of significance to you? May 24...I don’t think so. Nothing comes to mind.

What is a chore that needs to get done? My veeeeeeery long list of to-do tasks that I’m trying not to think about rn.

Will you hang out with friends? No chance of that happening.

What time will you be expected to be awake by? 9 AM.

Layer 26: Have You Ever

Performed a magic trick successfully? I don’t think so.

Sat or laid on a rooftop and looked at the stars? I’m at the rooftop all the time but I only occasionally lie down to look at the stars.

Walked around with your underwear on inside out or backwards all day without realizing it? Nope.

Touched a snake? Yep. I’ve had one wrapped around me before, too.

Been bitten by an animal? If so, what animal? Just by ants and mosquitoes.

Layer 27: School Life

Are preschool and kindergarten mandatory where you live? Not sure about mandatory but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of people who went straight to first grade as kids, either because of advanced intelligence or financial limitations.

Were you or anyone you knew homeschooled? I have one set of cousins who are all homeschooled; and I also used to have classmates who eventually transferred out of my school to be homeschooled instead.

Did you attend public or private school? Private.

Were you bullied in school, popular, or somewhere in-between? I was a loner for the most part, but after befriending the popular groups in high school I kind of got dragged into that scene as well.

What is the highest level of education that you completed? Undergraduate degree.

Layer 28: Your Appearance

Eye Color: Dark brown/black.

Hair Color: Black.

Height: 5′1″.

Weight: A little under 100 lbs.

Do you have freckles, moles, beauty marks, or birthmarks - and where? I have moles on my right arm, under my jaw, near my left knee, and under my left boob. I have a birthmark behind my left shoulder.

Layer 29: Electronics, Internet, & Social Media

How much time do you spend on the internet per day? Hahahah yeesh, way to put me on the spot. I wanna say anywhere between 16-18 hours? I’m online the second I wake up until the moment I turn in for bed.

Which social media platforms do you belong to? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr.

When’s the last time you replaced the batteries in your television remote? 4975493875495743 years ago.

Are you more likely to stream movies and shows on your laptop, or cast them to your television? Laptop.

Do you have an e-reader, or do you prefer actual books? I don’t read regularly anymore, but I’ve never liked reading from a screen. I prefer a physical book as much as possible.

Layer 30: Are You

Are you still in school? No. I’m not opposed to grad school either, but it has to be a REALLY REALLY REALLY fucking great opportunity for me to sink my teeth into it. We’re talking getting accepted to grad school in like Spain or NYU; otherwise I wouldn’t take it.

Are you a member of the LGBTQ+ community? Yes.

Are you looking forward to anything coming soon? Festa month!

Are you dreading anything coming soon? Work tomorrow.

Are you gullible or naive? I can be both.

Layer 31: Does

Does your workplace make you feel like you can never take a day off without feeling guilty about it? Not at all. I’m really grateful they take vacation leaves seriously; we even have a Mental Health Break Day scheduled two Fridays from now. Purely a company thing.

Does someone currently hold the key to your heart? Kim Taehyung... :/

Does anyone out there hate you? Idk and I couldn’t give less of a shit if anyone does.

Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? No.

Does crying make you feel less strong? Nope. It took me a while to realize it, but acknowledging feelings and processing them is actually one of the strongest things you can do for yourself.

Layer 32: Would You

Do the Polar Bear Plunge? Idk what that is.

Ever try to walk across a room blindfolded? I’ve done it before, so sure.

Swim with sharks? As long as I’m surrounded with experts, yes.

Go into outer space, given the chance? In a heartbeat.

Go out in public, looking how you do right now? Nope.

Layer 33: Pets/Animals

Do you have any pets? If so, what type, and their names… Yesss. There’s Kimi who’s an aspin, and Cooper the beagle.

If not, what type of pet have you always wanted?

What is your favorite animal? Dogs and elephants :)

Do you think it is cruel to have circus animals? Yes, or having animals do tricks for show, in general. I always discourage my parents from booking tickets to animal theme parks when we plan vacations.

How often do you walk your dog, if you have one? How often do you scoop the litterbox, if you have a cat? Every week.

Layer 34: Food

What is your favorite breakfast item? Fried rice.

What is your favorite kind of dessert? Macarons and cheescake.

Do you eat all three meals everyday? Nah. I have one meal on weekdays, and two meals on some weekends.

What’s the longest you’ve gone without food? Around 24 hours.

What do you like to eat when you are feeling sick? Greasy things haha. If I’m feeling like death, might as well be having good food.

Layer 35: Past

Does your past ever come back to haunt you at times? Not really.

What is one of your favorite memories of the past? Spending my college years with the right people.

What is something that you used to do in the past, but no longer do? Harm myself.

If you could have a meal with someone from the past, who would it be, and what would you ask them? Audrey Hepburn, but I don’t really have a question for her. It would just be nice to get to spend a few minutes with her.

Which historical time period would you like to go back to and check out? Precolonial Philippines.

Layer 36: Future

Do you think you will ever get married one day? It’s definitely a lovely scenario to have but I’m really unsure about it at the moment just because there’s no one I have in mind and I have no plans to start dating around again soon.

Do you plan on ever getting a different job in the future, or are you happy with the one you’ve got? I’m happy with the one I have and I don’t see it changing any time soon.

What age do you plan to retire at? Or do you plan on working til you’re dead? Probably the latter haha.

What is something on your bucket list worth mentioning? Going to Wrestlemania.

If given the opportunity to see how your future plays out, would you take it, or no? Yes.

Layer 37: Hygiene

How often do you shower? Once daily. Twice if it’s stupidly hot during the day.

How often do you brush your teeth? Once or twice a day.

Do you actually iron any of your clothes? Mm, not really. But if I was planning on wear something that gets easily crumpled, I iron that in advance.

How often do you do laundry? I’m not in charge of laundry.

How long do you use a bath towel before switching it out? Around 1–2 weeks.

Layer 38: Clothing, Makeup, & Style

Do you wear nail polish? If so, how often do you paint your nails? Nah.

How would your describe your sense of style? I like sticking with trends as long as I feel comfortable in them.

Are there any popular trends that you do not find appealing? Just makeup in general.

Where do you typically buy your clothing from? Local small businesses or H&M.

What sorts of accessories do you wear/use? I don’t really invest in them, but I wanna start buying more headbands, bucket hats, and earrings.

Layer 39: Hobbies

Do you still color, even as an adult? Occasionally.

Do you/would you like to crochet, knit, cross-stitch, etc? Yeaaah I do embroidery but I’ve stopped for a while since finding other interests and hobbies to dabble in. I have no plans to ditch it completely though; I’ll come back to it when the time is right.

What’s the last thing you crafted all by yourself? Not sure.

Do you use Pinterest at all? Nope.

What’s the last thing that you cooked or baked? Lol.

Layer 40: Dislikes

List some of your pet peeves here. Driving slowly on lanes intended for overtaking; taking too much of my food; being subtle about asking for favors.

What are some things that annoy you about yourself? Easily punishing myself for mistakes, no matter how small; I also find that putting others first before myself 100% of the time can sometimes end up being an inconvenience for myself.

Is there anyone out there who you actually hate? Who? Nope.

What is a feeling that you dislike? “I should have done/said this.” Not sure what feeling this falls under (maybe helplessness?), but having these thoughts irritate me to no end especially if I can’t do anything about the situation.

Do you get some ugly road rage while driving? Yep.

Layer 41: Random

Have you ever successfully pogo’ed on a pogo stick? Nah, I’ve never even seen one in real life. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been dying to try getting on one lol.

Have you ever mastered the jump rope? I wouldn’t say I’m a master, but I can do the basic jumps and last a long time doing them.

Do you know what it feels like to be truly happy? I don’t know if I’ve determined this already; I have a lot of years ahead of me and lots of experiences I’ve yet to go through.

Is it winter in your part of the world right now? No.

What’s your favorite type of survey, and why? Random ones or ones with categories, like this one.

Layer 42: Music

What are some of your favorite genres of music? Alternative, folk indie, punk rock, R&B...and BTS.

What are some music genres that you can’t stand? Country, screamo, techno.

If you had a blank pair of concert tickets, who would you hope to be going to see? Any one of my holy trinity: Paramore, Beyoncé, or BTS.

Do you still listen to music on the radio from time to time? Not anymore, come to think of it. I’m completely unaware of the Top 40 space right now, and have been for a while.

iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, or YouTube? Spotify.

Layer 43: Books

What were some of your favorite books as a child? The Septimus Heap series and the Percy Jackson series.

What genre of books do you typically read most often? Memoirs.

What are some of your favorite books as an adult? I don’t read anymore.

What is a book that you were required to read for school that you actually enjoyed? Hands down, Without Seeing the Dawn. I remember fairly enjoying Charlotte’s Web and Number the Stars as well.

Do you read any newspapers or magazines anymore? No.

Layer 43: Around the World

Where’s the best place you’ve taken a vacation and/or day trip to? Jeju, South Korea; Bali, Indonesia; Palawan; Batanes; and Boracay.

Where is somewhere that you’d like to go someday, assuming you have the funds to do so? Seoul, South Korea.

Where do your family members originate from? Just Philippines.

What is your favorite type of ethnic cuisine? All Asian cuisines. Each of them is so unique and always has something new to discover.

What is something that is typically representative of your own culture? Jollibee? Hahaha.

Layer 44: Would you Rather…

Drink apple juice or grape juice? Apple.

Wear pants or shorts? Shorts, as much as possible.

Be taller or shorter? Taller.

Go to a zoo or an aquarium? Neither if possible.

Visit an art gallery or a museum? Museum.

Layer 45: Movies

Do you remember what the first movie was that you saw in theaters? Stuart Little 2 when I was 4.

What are some of your favorite movies you’ve seen? Two for the Road, Gone with the Wind, Roman Holiday, Revolutionary Road, Toy Story, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Room.

What genre of movie do you typically enjoy? Drama.

What is a movie you’ve seen that you weren’t expecting to like, but were pleasantly surprised? Requiem For A Dream, but maybe remove ‘pleasantly.’ Anomalisa is also a good answer for this.

How many movies do you own? Are they all DVD’s, or do you still have some VHS ones left? I just watch them on Netflix, haha.

Layer 46: Personality

Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert? I’m really more of an ambivert than anything else. I can deal with alone time and more social days equally well.

Are you more easygoing and laid back, or anal? Again, I can be both depending on the situation.

Are you kind to everyone who shows that they deserve kindness? Yes.

Describe your sense of humor. I can laugh over anything from dad jokes to crackhead memes.

Do you tend to over-share? Not really. I tend to have a good sense of how much I should share depending on the person/group I’m with.

Layer 47: Celebrities

Which celebrity has given their child the most unique name, in your opinion? I mean, Elon Musk and Grimes have to be up there, right? The Kardashians have also given their kids unique names, but I actually am a fan of them all.

Are there any celebrities that you keep tabs on/read articles about often? Nah, I’m past that part of my life lol. As obsessed as I am with BTS and as unavoidable rumors about their personal life are, I literally don’t care and just want them to have happy private lives. That’s one of the reasons why I know I’m truly in my 20s now hahaha.

Who is/are your celebrity crush(es)? Kim Taehyung, Hayley Williams, Kristen Stewart.

Have you ever personally met someone famous before? If so, then who? A lot of local celebrities and personalities since it came with the nature of my course.

Who is a celebrity that you’re getting tired of hearing about all the time? Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift.

Layer 48: Emotions

When was the last time you cried? Earlier, but they were happy tears.

What are some things that you’re afraid of? Big change, injections, drowning, sharp objects.

What is something small that makes you happy? Cold weather.

Who is the last person that you were angry with, and about what? My mom wrongfully blaming me for something I had very little to do with. Both my siblings are very sensitive and are never scolded, so I usually take the heat even for things I’m barely involved in. Such is the life of the eldest daughter in an Asian household, lmao.

Are you typically a shy or outgoing person? I’m always shy at first, but end up being perky and outgoing once warmed up.

Layer 49: Digging Deeper

What is your favorite alcoholic beverage? Mixed drinks.

How old were you when you got drunk for the first time? 18.

Do you smoke? Very rarely. I don’t want to make it a habit.

Have you ever taken and sent naked pictures of yourself? I have.

Have you ever done any drugs other than marijuana? If so, which ones? No.

Layer 50: Games

What are some of your favorite video games? Mario Kart, Resident Evil, and Legend of Zelda are some of my favorite series.

Do you have any computer games that you play regularly? I don’t play computer games.

What was your favorite board game, growing up? Scrabble.

How about your favorite card game? I also don’t play card games.

How good are you at solving puzzles? (such as a Rubik’s cube, word puzzles, or putting together a jigsaw puzzle) I don’t like puzzles.

#survey #surveys

5 notes · View notes

empyrealarc · 3 years

Note

[ What draws her towards taking one form or another? Does the personality of the original figure deter her from trying on that image or does she see it as a challenge or opportunity to mess with them? What are her passions and hobbies, and how are they different from form to form? What does she enjoy about people not knowing who she really is as Angela and what does she enjoy most about not being known? Who are her favorite and least favorite people? ]

Onyx is a font of inspiration and love!

Okay! Wasn't expecting this volume, but I love it! Lets hit these one at a time, hey? Before that, though, thank you very much, Onyx. I'm very much love of you, my ele-friend.

What draws Ana to one form or another?

Assuming this is in reference to her 'permanent forms' and not just her shifting around for laughter and fun, the answer is vanity. Ana'Hira was created with the express purpose of being divinely alluring. She's supposed to be the princess, the socialite, the Superstar and the sweetheart all in one. Make her way into a society, take on its most beautiful, and attractive features, and lure the dominant society into her clutches. She may be officially divorced from the will of the Empress that spawned her, but training doesn't disappear. It's burned into your very bones.

Does the personality of the original deter her from trying on these forms, or does she consider it a challenge?

It's a challenge! Ana'Hira is a born actress, a superstar in the flesh! If you want to look into it a bit deeper, Kyka'Rauri, the skrull that consumed Ana'Hira and usurped her identity and soul, is an even greater actress than Ana'Hira ever could be. She's playing a role within a role, and it's just business for her. It's what she does.

What are her passions and hobbies and how do they differ from form to form?

ANGELA is the showboat. She loves performing, she acts, streams, cosplays, interviews and more and more. If she's not in the public eye, she believes her time is being wasted.

BEATRICE is the lover. Interpersonal relationships, se matchmakes, goes clubbing, throws parties, flirts as a sport. She wants only to be around others, to love and be loved and as single-minded as it may seem, she's fulfilled with it.

CHERIE is the matron. Caring for others, she volunteers at shelters and drives. She's a holy figure who gives of herself freely and wholly to anyone in need, because she believes EVERYONE needs her. Humans are weak, pathetic creatures of meat and bone... of course they need someone like her looking after them.

What does she enjoy about people not knowing who she is as Angela and what does she enjoy most about not being known?

Lying to people's faces is both Hilarious and Empowering. Imagine being sent to a hostile planet to subjugate and conquer it, and yet people greet you as a celebrity, as a GODDESS! It's intoxicating! She literally invented herself and can control an entire people's perception of her and she does it every day, with every stream, with a LAUGH and a smile. It's no wonder she becomes corrupted so easily later in life... but- well, we'll get there down the line.

Who are her favorite and least favorite people?

Oh, boy, here we go!

Faves, in no order:

Peter J'Son Quill

Wendell Vaughn

Hal Jordan

Jack 'grand supervisor' Snakeman

Karen Page

Kiran Datta (Silver~)

Drake Mallard

Arelette Gatecœur

Ricky T!

Wanda Maximoff

Not Faves! In no order:

Miles Upshur

Roman Nemeth

Genis-Vell

Lana'Bita S'byll-Breed

Lance, that jerk.

Ethan Winters

Maria Hill

Abigail Brand

Everyone who works for SHIELD

Stephen Strange

Thanks for asking, love you!

#bokketo #headcanons.#a whole lexicon of ana lore #you hate to see it

4 notes · View notes

sweetpea-willybee · 3 years

Text

Four way lovelies (part 1/2)

Fandom: sanders sides

Pairings: LAMP

description: Virgil doesn’t have the best relationship with his family. He never has. But when he meet Roman, Patton, and Logan, thing look like they might turn around. (P.S. everyone is cute, fluff happens)

Warnings: !THIS IS A TICKLE FIC (in part 2)!, bad family relationships (for those who are triggered by that), slight angst but it gets better, FLUFF✨❤️☺️🥺💅🏽😭🏳️‍🌈🤫😚😛☠️

—————

Virgil never really had the best relationship with his family. He loved them, he really did! But...he was always in his room and his family never knew how to help/deal with him when he needed it. They just didn’t understand each other. And that’s fine. He’s fine. He doesn’t need people to live his life.

At least, that's what he thought two years ago.

~ flashback ~

“I can’t deal with you right now Virgil” , that was his mother speaking. Virgil currently sat at a small coffee table at the corner of the college roof. He had been trying to enjoy the pleasant weather and soft breeze when she called. “Look- I love you, really, but ever since your dad left and your sister moved away with her partner I just haven’t had the patience to try to put up with you. You’re never out of your room when you are at home, you always hide when I invite guests over, you never wear anything but hoodies even when it’s in the middle of a heatwave, you just never do anything like a functional human being except keep your room clean! I can’t deal with that right now, ok?!” His mother sighed heavily as if his introverted tendencies actually hurt her. Her ego maybe. “Just- just stay at the dorms this weekend, please. Or, you know what? Stay at the dorms until summer break. During the break I’ll be visiting your sister so you can have the house to yourself, I doubt she’d want you to influence her daughter to be like you.” And with that, his mother, his own mother, hung up on him after acting like he had killed someone.

Powering his phone off, he numbly bent over the table. Tears silently dripped down his cheeks and left streaks in his makeup. He didn’t know if he was sad or if he even cared, but his tears seemed to decide for him. He didn’t even care about what she thought about his behavior, it had always been that way and it always will be. But the part that really gave him a sting, was the part about his sister not wanting him to be around his niece. Angela was only 2 but was being sucked away from him like the rest of his family. Huh, figures. No one wanted to be around the guy who barely spoke and wore spooky makeup, not even his family could see past that.

A bitter sadness washed over him but before he could drown, a strong hand landed on his shoulder. Startled out of his thoughts, Virgil jumped out of his seat and whipped around to face the newcomer who’s hand didn’t let go but migrated to gently cradling his shoulder. When he faced the owner of said hand, he was almost blinded. The person -a medium height man- was decked head to toe in white and gold and bright red. His dress shirt was tight fitting but loose at the elbows and down, with small gold tassels hanging from one wrist. The man’s pants were made similarly but one difference was that a strip of bright red fabric with gold designs was tied at the top and the excess hung to his left hip. He looked like a real life Disney prince. But what made Virgil shrink into himself was not the man's attire and confident build, but his soft sympathetic expression.

“Oh- uh- I’ll leave if you need this table. Sorry about the noise.” Virgil managed to stutter out, looking towards the ground. At that, Virgil heard two more footsteps approached and looked up to find a short man with a light blue t-shirt littered with puppies and kittens and brown slacks, and a tall tense man in a dark blue polo shirt with a silver tie and black work pants that rolled up to reveal light blue and red ankle bracelets. Suddenly Virgil was very aware of his messy appearance in front of these very attractive men.

Violently, Virgil reached up to scrub his smudged eyeshadow away as he turned his back to the beautiful strangers. He scrubbed with one hand and the other fumbled for the discarded phone on the table. Eventually his hand found it but just as he was about to break for it, a hand softly snaked around his bicep and caught his attention.

It was the man in light blue, he realized, who was currently holding onto his arm and tucking Virgil’s head into the crook of his neck. Virgil’s breath caught in his throat but just as he thought to pull away, the man’s other hand found a home in his chocolate hair. Dangit, Virgil thought defeatedly as his body sagged unwillingly into the strangers warm embrace.

“Why- why are you hugging me?” Virgil hushedly questioned, worried he’d scare the other away if he spoke too loudly.

“Because we heard your conversation accidentally, and you looked like you needed a hug.” The man said simply. They stayed there for a few more seconds before the stranger in blue abruptly tore away and gasped loudly. Virgil was about to apologize for whatever he did wrong when he noticed the excited stars in the others' eyes. “We never introduced ourselves! Silly me! Anyways, my name is Patton Costly, that’s Logan Croft-” the man in dark blue nodded “and that’s Roman Pascal!” The first stranger in blinding colors beamed and waved. “What’s yours?”

Blinking at the question, Virgil dumbly let out, “huh?”

The other man - Patton- just giggled and exclaimed “your name, silly! What’s your name!”

Virgil felt his face heat up and choked out “Virgil Rayne, sorry for the distraction. You probably didn’t plan to be cheering a random stranger up for your Sunday afternoon.” He finished with a mumble.

“Nonsense! I’m always up to meet new people, plus, Roman had heard you did the scenery art for his theatre club and wanted to thank you!” Patton dismissed cheerily, his warm persona never dropping like Virgil kept expecting it to.

“Of course! I always wondered what fine artist allowed us all to be blessed with their masterpieces!” The golden man -Roman- gushed. The man in the tie still hasn’t said anything, but this was the moment he decided to interject.

“Indeed. If I may ask, what was your inspiration? The second to last piece you did seemed very similar to Claude Monet’s pieces. I’ve never met anyone who outwardly expressed an interest in him, most only mentioning their favorites and leaving it at that. I find your version of his style quite interesting, I'd like to ask about it some other time if you’d let me?”

Blinking at the tense man, Virgil barely registered what he said. It seemed he was just as nervous as Virgil felt.

“U-um, sure” Virgil hesitantly agreed.

“And, kiddo, you don’t have to talk about that phone call at all, but would you like some company? It’s never fun to be completely alone once someone close hurts you like that. We all know that by now.” Patton added softly. Virgil’s eyes widened and he turned to look at the other two, though they didn’t seem to have any objections. One nodding more enthusiastically than the other. Turning back to Patton, he searched the man's face for a lie. A trick. But al, Virgil found was honesty and soft hope. Which was different.

The only times Virgil had seen someone hope he would be around, they were more demanding than asking. But here he was, being asked whether or not he wanted to spend time with someone. Not demanded, and not ordered. Asked. He could say no if he really wanted to and they wouldn’t stop him. But…

Virgil found himself being drawn to these people. They were all so different from each other but seemed really close. Like, a family. Virgil wanted to be like that too. So he shyly ducked his head and quietly agreed.

~ end of flashback ~

That day had led to many more days of just hanging out and supporting each other. A couple days in Virgil had found out that they were all dating each other and that had stung a little. He didn’t know why, but it did. It wasn’t until he was pulled into one of their impromptu cuddle sessions did he realize, the realization coming in a life crisis and gay panic. Though, as long as they were happy, he was happy.

Years passed like that, and they became closer every passing day. At some point they all agreed to move in together, the being all the family they needed. The apartment was small but was more than enough for each of them, and they soon fell into a rhythm. Eventually, the best day in Virgil’s life came along. That day is today.

“Virgil~!!” A voice rang through the apartment. Roman’s, judging by the dramatic flourish ending his name. Virgil, who was laying on his bed, groaned knowing they would get complaints about it from their neighbors later. He resigned himself to his fate though, and pushed out of his room.

“Virgil, come here kiddo!” Ah, there was Patton. Ok, Virgil decided it was safe since Patton was there, Roman couldn’t get away with his shenanigans with patton.

“Virgil, we require your company please!” Logan? Ok, now Virgil was curious. It had to be something important if they got Logan in on it. He sped up his walk a little, getting worried. However, right as he was about to step through the doorway to the living room, there was a pop and suddenly pastel purple confetti rained down on him. A hand shot out from behind him and wrapped a cloth around his eyes, effectively cutting him off.

“Wha-” he began to exclaim before he felt strong arms sweep him off his feet and start carrying him in another direction.

“Relax stormcloud, it’s just us!” Roman’s voice said, obviously amused.

“Yeah. Okay. But why is this happening? I seem to have forgotten the “get kidnapped by the others” bit in my schedule” Virgil deadpanned, the curious tilt in his voice ruining all attempts to sound disinterested.

“It’s a surprise, blackberry!” Sounded Patton’s voice somewhere off to the side. Virgil blushed from the fond nickname but didn’t question them anymore. They walked for a little longer before he got settled onto what seemed to be the couch.

“Okay, on the count of three you can take off the blind fold!” Patton squealed excitedly.

“One” Logan counted from somewhere in front of him.

“Two~!” Roman sang from around Logan’s left.

“Three!!” Patton rushed out a few seconds early, seemingly too impatient to wait any longer. He was coming from Logan’s right.

Virgil pulled at the knot behind his head and immediately gasped at what he saw.

In front of him, Roman was on one knee with Logan and Patton mimicking him on either side. They all held a rose (Logan’s was black, Patton’s was light purple, and romans was white) up to him in an offering. Each of them wore beautiful suits (Logan’s was navy with a black tie and silver hemming, Patton’s was white with a light blue tie, and Roman’s was red with a golden tie) that fit their shapes perfectly and complemented their features. They all looked a little goofy though, considering they never wore suits (except for Logan) so Virgil couldn’t help but bite his lip so as to not laugh. Even before they spoke, Virgil started blushing and tearing up.

“Virgil, we’ve been dating for four years now. Throughout that entire time it felt like something or someone was missing. When we met you it felt like we were finally whole. At first we decided not to tell you because we didn’t know how you would feel.” Roman began, pouring his heart and soul into every word.

“We thought you might push us away, and we would go back to being half of a whole. We didn’t want to risk losing you, our lovely Virgil. Though, we recently decided that if anything was going to push you away from us, keeping this secret was going to be it.” Patton continued, a soft smile playing at his lips.

“So here we are. We know we probably haven’t done much to earn your romantic feelings, but we wanted to try. It’s perfectly ok if you say no though, we wouldn’t want to force you into something you didn’t want. But, just know that we...we love you Virgil. We are so lucky we met, so lucky we get to call you our friend. So, will you do us the honor of letting us call you our boyfrie-“ Logan never got to finish his sentence, because a moment later Virgil launched himself off of the couch and hooked his arms around all three of them, pulling them into a hug. The hug was a bit awkward and not very cushiony, but none of them would have it any differently.

Both Virgil and Roman burst into loud sobbing while Patton laughed hard and Logan wore a dazed, relieved and proud grin. They stayed there for what felt like hours, just hugging each other and never letting go. Though at some point they decided to take themselves to the couch, instead of staying laid out on the floor.

“You never answered though.” Roman murmured once they all settled into a pile on the couch. Virgil was laying on his chest with Logan seated behind him, petting Roman’s hair where it got messed up during Virgil’s attack. Patton was sitting in between Logan’s legs, letting Roman lay his head on his lap.

“Seriously? I’d think pouncing on you guys and staining your shirts with happy tears would be enough of an answer for you.” Virgil mumbled back, a teasing lilt to his voice. “Sorry about that by the way.” he added sheepishly.

“Not to worry, Virgil. The stains won’t last. Though, Roman has a point.” Logan reassured him.

Virgil didn’t know how to deny the others so aphe blushed furiously, pouted, and said “Logan, Patton, and Roman, I love you with all of my heart and would love to be your boyfriend.”

When he opened his eyes again, all of the others were staring at him wide eyed and slack jawed. Blushing darker, Virgil glanced to the side and asked “what?”

“Just never thought I could love you even more than I already do. Turns out I was very wrong.” Roman replied without missing a beat, still staring Starry-eyed. The smooth show off.

“I take it back, I love you a little less now.”

“You wound me, panic at the everywhere!”

4 notes · View notes

kirajw · 5 years

Text

I’ve allowed myself to stan a new show: Fox’s ‘911’

Since ‘Supernatural” is ending, I need to used my fangirl powers for good, and I’ve totally fallen for Fox’s ‘911.’ I’ve always watched the show here and there, because Angela Bassett, y’all. But I’ve been burned by Ryan Murphy before (#JusticeforTheTroubletones) so I never let myself get invested in his shows.

Here’s some of the reasons I love it:

BUCK (2.0)

Upon first glimpse, it would seem like Buck is the poster boy for toxic masculinity, but even before he became Buck 2.0, he was basically a selfless, slightly reckless golden retriever who imprints on everyone and just wants to help people.

He loves kids, and happily spends his time with his best friend’s son.

He speaks in italics. (It’ll make sense when you re-watch his scenes).

As reckless as he is, we’ve never seen him drunk or violent. In fact, he’s been assaulted a few times, even by Bobby, and he could have thrown him into the ceiling and he’d rather de-escalate the situation than fight back.

He doesn’t care if people think he’s gay, which I don’t officially give him points for. He’s been mistaken for Christopher’s father and Eddie’s husband at least once, and didn’t correct the person as most men would. Because he knows there’s nothing wrong with it.

He cries easily and embraces it.

He has a dope facial birthmark. LIKE ME.

You can do pretty much do anything to him (EXCEPT mess with his family or his job) and he’ll forgive you.

He knew Doug was a scumbag even as a teenager. He sent Maddie cards and things even after she broke off communication with him just to let her know that he was there.

He gave Maddie the tools to rebuild her life and kept reminding her of her strength. He also never pulled the douche “Don’t bang my sister” nonsense when she started dating Chimney. He supported her to make her own decisions.

He’s constantly trying to better himself. Since the show started, he’s learned to have more intimate relationships, how to cook and clean, and to tone down the reckless behavior.

He looks a caricature of Justin Timberlake.

HAVE YOU SEEN HIM? He’s hot AF.

2x04 and 2x08 are basically perfect episodes. The writing is gimmicky and cheesy, but it’s actually really good. The continuity is FANTASTIC.

DIVERSITY: In every sense of the word: sexual, ability, racial, etc. Similiar shows (”Chicago PD”, “Law and Order: SVU”) don’t even know black women exist or they bury them in the coroner’s office. And it’s MOSTLY done well. I’m side-eyeing Athena’s “It was a bad stop” nonsense this week. Because we all know she’s set a cop on fire who pointed a gun at her babies.

Eddie and Buck: Best bromance ever! They talk about emotions, share his son, and work through shit in a mostly healthy way. I don’t need them to date, though it’d be cool if they did. I ship their bromance. It’s one of the healthiest male relationships I’ve ever seen on TV. Sorry, not sorry, Sam and Dean.

Bobby: I actually hate Bobby. He’s so boring, and his backstory isn’t the tale of redemption; it’s more of a sage of how white privilege lets a man who should probably be in jail continue to fail up. Peter Krause also can’t seem to generate a spark of chemistry with Angela Bassett, which means he’s either sleepwalkin’ though the role or a far worse actor than I originally thought. I do like him though because he found a brother (Eddie) for Buck. That’s it.

Maddie Buckley

Her domestic violence storyline was one of the most refreshing I’ve seen on TV in the sense that it addressed how hard it was to leave an abusive husband. And then, she fucking killed his ass. They could have easily had Buck and Athena arrive in time to kill Doug, but Maddie made the decision to fight back and to save herself. They’ve done a decent job of showing her recovery as well, including the PTSD. She’s not magically better, and she probably never will shake those triggers.

She also seems like a great sister. Maddie and Buck scenes are some of my favorites. I’m bummed we haven’t really seen them together after the tsunami.

I remember the Jennifer Love Hewitt craze years ago. And it kind of disappeared when she DARED to gain a pound and age like a human being. But we totally slept on her talent. And I want her to have her own Ryan Murphy show, preferably one where she beats up men by night and runs a flower shop by day.

I can’t wait for her and Chim to get married. Or for her to have a baby. That Buck delivers. During a mudslide.

#911 on fox #911 spoilers #evan buckley #maddie buckley #henrietta wilson #oliver stark #jennifer love hewitt #aisha hinds #eddie diaz #ryan guzman #911 fox

122 notes · View notes

kallypsowrites · 4 years

Text

Ranking the Walking Dead Seasons

I’m in a mood so everyone gets more of my opinions, what’s up:

10: Season 7

Season 7 is just...its just depressing and ultimately it ends this low because I almost never rewatch the first half of it. It was the pinnacle of torture porn. I actually really enjoy when Negan is on screen (he’s a fun villain) but seeing my favorite characters broken down for SO MANY EPISODES is just not my idea of fun.

9: Season 8

Season 8 isn’t quite so depressing as season 7 but it also is SLOW in a lot of parts. Slow and very boring. Not to mention it keeps doing some artsy film shit that gets a little annoying and drawn out. Good episodes for sure but I also disagreed with the main death of the season (even if the final episode was a tear jerker). I don’t think that death should have happened.

8: Season 2

Season 2 has some hella effective moments for sure. But it takes its sweet time getting to them. Slow, slow, slow. And I also hate Shane so you can imagine it’s not a joy for me to watch him. Obviously love the intro of the Greene family though, and at least it’s short? Imagine if it was 16 episodes. Woof.

7: Season 5

I’m torn on season 5 because on one hand its opening may be my fave episode ever. And I love the Alexandria stuff and the culture shock that comes from them finally being in a community. But the hospital arc still pisses me off because I think they threw away a perfectly good character who could have had more development and killed another character the next episode for no reason. So a mixed bag.

6: Season 6

Another season that has some slow moments but I’m a big fan of a lot of the episodes. Not to mention it has a lot of great Glenn content (which is a shame, considering). And there’s Richonne, the introduction of Jesus. it feels like a shifting point for the series. So despite some of its flaws, over all good

5: Season 10

Haven’t seen the finale yet (this week, woot) but I love Angela Kang as show runner. This has one of my fave episodes in the set (episode 4) and I love seeing Daryl stepping up. The whisperers continue to be freaky, freaky villains. There are a few more slow bits and a little more forced character conflict but I still enjoy it over all.

4: Season 1

The OG. I think I like it cause its short and sweet. And it’s always nostalgic to go back and watch and look at all the dead characters. That being said, the characters don’t quite feel like people yet in this season (and side characters are more caricatures than anything). But I still think it was effective and a good starting point.

3: Season 3

Number 3 and 2 were close, because I love them both so much. Season 3 is the first time we get to see the group really moving as an effective unit. They’re survivors now. They’ve been through it. They’re at the beginnings of being a real family. This is the first season where the deaths start to hurt. And since it was the first ‘humans can be bad too’ season, it was kind of fresh. The Governor is a great villain even though I haaaate him. Still some slow bits in here and kind of an anticlimactic finish

2: Season 4

Season 4 is the first time we see the crew in a legit community and I like that transistion a lot. Feels like progress. The sickness arc is legit scary. The mid season finale is devestating. And then there’s some absolutely stunning character focused episodes in the second half of the season. Still, Alone and the Grove come to mind. Not to mention the strong finish with Terminus. Really was a great watch and I love it dearly

1: Season 9

I just wrote about my love of season 9 today so I won’t carry on here. But in sum up: its the only season I never skip episodes on rewatch and it’s the first season I can truly characterize as ‘warm’ in its tone. The characters love each other and that’s at the center. And togetherness and helping others and trust is seen as strength even when terrible things happen. The show has given mixed messages on that theme since the beginning, but in this season, it really drives home. I just love this season.

I’m curious to know other people’s rankings (or even favorite seasons)

#twd #the walking dead #sorry for dumping so much the walking dead on you today #I have thoughts

2 notes · View notes

neirawrites · 4 years

Text

I was a Twihard in high school. Then I was a Twilight hater. In 2018, I decided to reread the first book, to see for myself on which side I belonged. I wrote my thoughts as I read, in multiple parts, but on my main blog, so I thought I might share them on my writeblr too, because I kinda had fun with it.

Enjoy my many, many notes

Pages 0-50

I’m actually kinda into it. Yeah, there are a many issues every article on editing tells you to fix (filter words, -ing verbs and things like that), but i feel it. I don’t know what it is, but it’s there.

Bella isn’t that bad of a protagonist. Nothing too spectacular, but she’s fine. She is depressed, self sacrificing and hides her feelings, but also a lot more self aware than i though she would be(like when she notices mike, my son, likes her). She’s a typical teenage girl, the introverted type, way into reading. there’s nothing wrong with that.

I don’t know why i remember Edward being a draco in leather pants,but he’s also fine for now. mysterious and handsome and a bit weird. The first real conversation they have, he’s polite and nice and charming. I expected him to be a dick for like 150 pages at least.

Pages 50-100

I’m still really into it.

Yeah,Edward kinda ghosts her/gaslights her after the whole van incident, but with the benefit of hindsight,i kinda get it. It’s a wonder he didn’t pick up his entire family and moved to Alaska again. I also get her mood during that time and I've been there so i feel ya,Bella,it’s not your fault.

And yeah, Bella gets invited to the dance by three different guys and it’s all kinds of fan fic-y, but the fact she turns them down furthers my belief she’s wake up married to Edward in like a few years and realize she would rather be with Rosalie (a solid choice, might i add).

Edward’s really pushy, especially when it comes to the scene after she faints. like, let her go, you jerk, she can drive herself, but he’s more weird than he’s a jerk and i think that was intentional.

A big surprise was the line “what if i’m not the hero, what if i’m the bad guy?” which isn’t this super cheesy, extra dramatic sentence but a jokey joke told with a laugh. actually, that whole conversation in the cafeteria where she tries to guess what he is is gold and don’t try to tell me otherwise.

I’m reading her interests in him as less of a romantic thing, and more of frustration at his behavior,like she would still be fascinated by him if he wasn’t so hot because he’s just so weird (but being hot is definitely a plus).

Plot? What plot?

Still, while the flaws are there, i’m still enjoying it very much.

Pages 100-150

Is Stephanie Meyer into anime? Cuz she wrote a harem light novel,that’s what she did and that’s how i’ll read it from now on and have more fun doing it. (Might make a post elaborating on this further).

All this to say that we got to Jacob. Not gonna lie, I kinda forgot about him. He seems like a nice kid and i’m glad Bella has some positive interaction. Team jacoj 4 life (jk,man,i was team jasper in high school which is in retrospect very weird of me). I know he becomes a friend-zoned dudebro later, but for now, he’s fine.

Meyer, lady, you’re winning me over as a half hearted defender of your work, but why are the girls so bitchy? Yeah,i know, bitchy girls exist in real life, especially in high schools,but girls are our friends and we need more positive female on female interactions. Just my personal preference, I guess.

Things are getting interesting. Bella’s dreaming weird dreams (just fyi, not a big fan of dream scenes in general), she’s googling like crazy and we’re going to Port Angeles.

I never felt she has any sort of affection for Angela or Jessica who seem really nice and have done nothing wrong. Like loosen up Bella, give them a chance. I know, depression makes you into a bitch sometimes, but it would warm me up to her character if she was a little more affectionate with people around her.

That whole scene where she almost gets at best beaten up and mugged and at worst raped and killed is… not my favorite part of the whole thing. I get what Meyer needed to do, to have her be saved by Edward, but there must have been a better way to go about it. What do I know? I’m the queen of forced plot contrivances. I do like their conversation at the restaurant (again, why do we hate the female waitress, Steph?). I don’t know why, I expected Edward to be mad at Bella for what happened to her and he seems genuinely concerned and his anger feels… human. Some of his actions, however, do not.

He stalked her which is weird and creepy and I hate it. Don’t stalk people, Edward. most of us don’t like it. you’re lucky Bella’s a weirdo.

150-200

I kinda love how ok she’s with the whole vampire thing. she’s just “well, this kid i barely know told me a scary story, so i guess the guy from school is a vampire. it be like that sometimes.” my first assumption would be it’s all an elaborate prank to make fun of me (i have some deep seeded trust issues origins of which remain unknown). and he’s waaay to quick to confirm her suspicions. I think there’s an explanation in the part of midnight sun that got leaked, but that was like a century ago.

I would criticize her for being ride or die with Edward so fast, falling in love with him so quickly, but i exchanged like 5 sentences with a cute girl last night and a part of is ready to propose based on the artiness of her instagam, so who the eff am i to judge?

and i get why he’s fascinated with her. she’s the only one he can’t read.

why? i don’t think that question ever gets a good enough answer, but it’s a fictional story about a girl falling in love with a sparky vampire. i’m not here for complex science or detailed explanations.

he seems waaay too protective of her. She’s a big girl, Ed, she can take care of herself. It’s actually kinda annoying. i dislike how he treats like a child a lot of the time. he seems pretty condescending. also, if he broke her car, i’m taking back everything nice i said about him.

ok, let me finally address bella’s biggest character flaw, her clumsiness. i mean, i get why she has it but Meyer goes a bit too hard on it. i’m clumsy, i really am, full of bruises, always bumping into things, but Bella can’t walk 20 meters without tripping. i guess i’m just glad she becomes a vampire in the book four, otherwise the book five would have been about her struggles when she’s diagnosed with a stage four inoperable brain tumor that’s been mesing with her sense of balance and the whole things turns into a weird version of the fault in our starts.

if i were writing it i would focus on her trust issues and being unable to form real bonds with other people as her main flaw, maybe even use it to try and justify the whole thing with the mind Edward can’t read. Like, she’s too different in a way that makes her unable to connect even on a basic level, like that one Blue whale that sings at a different frequency than all the others. Idk,i write pulpy sci fi. but it’s easy to be a general after the battle.

we got to the two infamous lines:

how are you? 17. how long have you been 17? is another line that’s more jokey than i though it would be, but also the most realistic piece of dialogue in this book. i would so ask the same thing.

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, this paragraph has been memed to death. Second, there was a part of me-and I didn’t know how potent that part might be-that would know every word of it till the day i died. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in like with it.

200-300

Not gonna lie, the whole part where he goes around asking her questions he is legitimately interested in knowing the answers to is at the same time my kinkiest fantasy and my deepest fear. like, yaaas, daddy, get to know me on the personal level and don’t be turn off by the fact i’m a tabula rasa.

We got to the infamous meadow scene and Bella is sooo horny on main for that vampire stake it’s actually kinda funny. She gets so effing into it she faints. I fucking love this girl. Go get that adonis dick, Bella, you deserve it.

I don’t mind vampires sparkle.i mean,it’s lame and fanfic-y but in Bosnia we have the lampires so vampires are creatures with a high dose of plasticity. i don’t know why that was like the worst thing anyone has ever done to the vampires. They are kinda too strong and could use a real weakness tho.

So the lion fell in love with the lamb is kind of another joke. Also, this is the skin of a killer is sadly just in the movie.

I do have the feeling he likes the project that he sees in Bella more than the real girl,but ok. Also stop nagging her. He watches her sleep. What a creep. I don’t know why, but the fact that he’s a vampire who doesn’t have to sleep makes it kinda less creepy for me. I don’t know why.

But “if i could dream at all i would be about you,” is the kind of ultracheese i can get behind. they are both such teenagers and i kinda looooove it.

Also non of the boys were her type is such a lesbian excuse. I feel ya Bella, i feel ya. I hope you discover your gayness after the end of breaking dawn.

We meet the cullens and every single one of them has a backstory like 528 times more interesting than Edward. i need novels about them, all of them ffs. it would be so cool. but, one of my favorite oc’s Errien Lark gets like 30 lines in the whole book so i can only be as harsh on Meyer as on myself (which is to say a lot. neither of us deserve these characters, honestly)

This book would have been more interesting if Bella fell in love in any other cullen. Like, Bella and Alice, Bella and jasper (Bella and Jasper and Alice. Sorry, i’m into solving love triangles with ot3s).Bella and Rosalie, Calilise, Esme, even Emmett, who i remember as mike of the vampires, but it’s been a decade.

300 pages in and plot is yet to happen, but it’s ok. we have the vampire baseball next.

the last part.

get your hot takes! hot takes right here

I kinda like billy. He seems like a nice guy. Also billy/charlie as my new otp.

“The beautiful one,the godlike one.” Bella, you are such a teen.

The less fucks she has about him being an all powerful ancient creature of the night who can murder her in a heartbeat, the funnier it is. She is just soo casual about it. Comedy gold, i tell ya. i mean, this is actually part of the narrative, Edward comments on it, meyer knows what she wrote.

Ed,maybe is you stopped saying she smells good, you would be better at not thinking about her as food. Mind over matter. Just a thought. Maybe i misjudged his virgin ass. Maybe ed the incel actually fell in love with her. Or at least what he thinks is love since they’ve been dating for like two days (look who’s talking?the girl who reads any sign of affection as a statement of love and then gets disappointed).

“Emmett could never be compared to a gazelle”. That’s sexist steph. Emmett, honey, you are as gracious as you want to be.

Also a big yaaaas on the whole concept of vampire baseball. we needed more of it.

Plot! Plot! Plot! Plot! Plot!

We have encountered plot. Only 320 pages in. three bad vampires came into town.

Story time: when i was in high school, all like 20 of us in out class were really, really into twilight (dudes included). we quoted it all the time but the height of comedy happened when someone brought their friend from another school to out class and someone else was like “you brought a snack” and a meme was born to be quoted endlessly for months. it was actually kinda fun. and probably very annoying for anyone who wasn’t into twilight.

Also, any development? Backstory? Motivations other than for the hell of it for out boi James and his ginger girlfriend? come on, it wouldn’t even be that hard. Also, some foreshadowing? There was like one line before. This is a legitimate criticism. it’s kinda shitty writing and a wasted opportunity.

Edward is being a dick again. I get he’s scared but her dad could die. Or maybe they’ll trun him into a vampire too (charlie/Edward? Think about it). But they all call him out on it which is nice. Bella’s plan isn’t bad, but “let me go charlie” is the straight up coldest thing i have read in a long time. it’s supposed to be, this isn’t criticism, just stating the obvious. But she showed like an inclining of love for her dad who has been nothing but nice all this time. Yeeey, she’s not a robot.

“It was the best idea. Of course it was mine” . Yaas, queen, you’re not that much of a doormat; take that credit.

i would do something to foreshadow the ballet studio thing in the first half of the book. at least, have Bella or Charlie looking at pictures from her recital, just to intricate it to the plot a bit more.

Ok, now i remember why i was team jasper. He is so effing nice. And he would be awesome for my depression. Neira/Alice/jasper, i ship it.

i’m kinda digging the explanations of how vampires work and the whole venom thing. They are still op af and need to be nerfed, but i wanna be one.

Of course, he used the mom. She’s like the only person bella actually cares about. She falls for it. i would probably fall too, but i’m dumb.

the fact that james hunted Alice is a nice and a very much needed twist. it did catch me of guard. i would be more mad he’s a bad guy monologing, but i can only introduce stones to my own glass houses.

Bella’s now more into the idea of being a vampire than into Edward and i’m living for it. she’s going to use him for his venom and a baby and run off with rosalie.

“and how many times did she fall our of a window?” (yes, that is a Sherlock reference in the year 2018 of our lord. maybe i should do that for my next project. should i wait a few more years?)

her mom is not worried enough, honestly. my mom would be freaking out. but my mom has anxiety issues, so idk… (i couldn’t get her smooth hairless legs, or her blue eyes but i got that gene. thanks, i guess) .

“And i have a couple of girlfriends” now that’s a novel i want to read but i guess i’ll have to write the lesbian twilight myself.

“I want to be superman too”. yeeees, finally, kristen steward in the role of superman casting of the century. you would all watch it and love it, and you know it.

Charlie doesn’t deserve this shit. when will he retire with his husband billy in their cabin where they can fish all day.

“Do you want me to bolt the door so you can massacre the unsuspecting townsfolk?“ Are we sure she hasn’t been a vampire from day one?

Jacob is a sweetie (for now) just putting that out there.

Edward is kinda being unreasonable. being a vampire in your universe isn’t that bad.

Aaaaw, and that’s a wrap.

i actually kinda digged it. it’s nothing special, but i read these last 150 pages in one sitting. my main issues are writing oriented. very little foreshadowing, many filter words and things like that, but i guess if you aren’t that into writing, you might not even notice more of that.

it’s not the death of literature, it’s not the worst love story ever told. it’s just a silly and mostly harmless wish fulfillment novel.

edward can be a controlling and condescending prick but he gets called out on it very often. it’s not like meyer is completely oblivious to what she’s writing. and even tho he’s 100, i guess they are all mostly stuck mentally at the age when they were turned. or at least that’s how it seems to me. bella is kind of a bitch to everyone who’s not a vampire and she’s never called out on it, there’s a glimpse of change in the epilogue, but i don’t think meyer really considered it a character flaw. which is a shame, as it could have made for an interesting character. all the vampires have stories i would rather read about, as i said before, but what can ya do? that’s what’s fanfics are for.

i may write more of cohesive thought on it when it settles in my brain, but first, i need to watch the movie. i have a hypothesis i need to test.

but i don’t regret doing this. it was kinda fun and now i’m no longer ashamed of my twihard phrase. i could have done worse, as far as teen phases go.

Someone should like write a fanfic, but Edward is not a vampire, but a rich guy. And he’s into some hard core spanky business. And they should take all the problematic elements and just crank them up to 11. And add a looot of sex. I bet they could make millions.

Tho, honestly, how can you read twilight and not make bella the kinky dom? you fundamentally misunderstood the story. for shame

#twilight #stephanie meyer #the midnight sun #edward cullen #bella swan #long post

3 notes · View notes

ginnyzero · 5 years

Text

5 Books that Got Me Interested in Werewolves

I like werewolves. Both of my current book series, Heaven's Heathens MC and the Dawn Series include werewolves. And if you've read any of my previous blog posts, you'll know that The Lone Prospect (Heaven's Heathens MC #1) was inspired after watching the Expendables 2 during a binge watching of Sons of Anarchy.

My interest in doing werewolves instead of say vampires came from reading a lot of books about werewolves, where in the series werewolves weren't the main focus. I wanted a series of books that wasn't expressly romance that focused on werewolves and werewolf dynamics and adventures and being a werewolf was more an accepted part of life than "woe is me, I am a monster."

Monsters more often than not have human faces. See Frankenstein.

These are not necessarily recommendations. But if you like werewolf books and aren't picky, you may like these.

1. Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

Elena Michaels is the only female werewolf that has ever survived the change. A journalist good at investigating, she used her skills to track down rogue werewolves and kill them. Until she got tired of the violence the life required no matter how much she loved the male members of her pack. She's been trying to live like a human, but an old enemy is about to resurface threatening the pack she loves. Now, she's being drawn back into that world.

This was Kelley Armstrong's first novel. I liked the original cover and that's why I bought it. It focused completely on werewolves and was an interesting start to a new series. Book 2 started introducing other races and after a while I gave up on it when it focused exclusively on the young witch that was also introduced in book 2, Stolen. Bitten doesn't really hold up to any sort of in depth critical thinking when it comes to werewolves. Why is Elena the only female werewolf? She's also an orphan who has been sexually abused and then her boyfriend changed her without permission. I can see why she left the guy. I don't care how hot he's supposed to be. My last gripe for this book was Elena really felt like a stand in for the author. They are both Canadian and the politics commentary was really heavy handed. Maybe it was supposed to make the book feel relevant in 2001. It just made me grimace a bit.

2. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

Business has been slow, no dead, for Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional Wizard. Until Karen Murphy comes with a case of brutal murder. Mutilated corpse, strange paw prints and a full moon. It's going to take all of Harry's knowledge and skill to get to the bottom of which werewolf group is performing the murders. And the answer may be closer than he thought.

Fool Moon was Jim Butcher's second Harry Dresden Case File. He hadn't quite hit his writing stride yet. (That didn't happen until book 3.) In the book, Jim Butcher went through and used about every single type of werewolf he could think of to blow the readers off the scent (see what I did there) of who the real murders were. He used a lot of "classic" Universal studios werewolf lore and lore from other werewolf, lycanthropy, berserker type werewolves as well. And then he pretty much dropped the whole werewolf thing like hot potatoes in the books after this in order to pursue his Black Council and Winter Court Fae big story lines. And the times he does end up using the werewolves, it can be rather offensive, such as werewolves going into heat and the general way he describes the female werewolves. (He also has this problem with most of his female characters. I digress.) It was a good starting point for me at least to look at the different werewolf types and go research more on my own.

3. A Fistful of Charms by Kim Harrison

Rachel Morgan's love life has never been that great. Now, Nick, a former boyfriend who cut and run needs Rachel's particular skills as a runner. A thief, he's stolen an artifact that could give the werewolves more power over the vampires and now he's been caught. It's up to Rachel to find the artifact and free him from the werewolves. The problem is, he's not in Cincinnati, but up in Michigan and on an island in the middle of one of the Great Lakes. And it's going to take more than a few magical spells and wishful thinking to get him out alive.

This was book 4 of Kim Harrison's Hollows Series. In one of the previous books, she'd made a one off character, an insurance adjuster, who was a werewolf. Kim Harrison is not someone who really outlines her books in advance, so this insurance adjuster suddenly became a lot more important and so did werewolves for this fourth book. Because Rachel Morgan is so caught up in vampire, demon and fae politics, other than some consequences of what happened because of this book and her joining the insurance adjuster's pack for ... insurance... purposes, after this, werewolves were dropped. So, this book was the best look at the way werewolf packs worked in her world. I liked it because there was one part of the book where it was clear that the lead female of the pack had as much power as the male leader. And in other books, there were female pack leaders as well. But the series became very much about Rachel Morgan, her love life and how she was so special. I read until the last book, but left feeling very unsatisfied as a reader. But this wasn't that bad of an adventure! I especially loved Jenks in this book. Jenks is one of my favorite characters in the entire series. This was "his" book so to speak.

4. Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Mercedes Thompson is part Native American, part mechanic and all coyote shifter. When a scruffy werewolf teen ends up at her auto shop looking for a quick job and a place to sleep, she helps him because of the werewolves that raised her. When his dead body ends up on her doorstep. She goes looking for who killed him and ends up getting entangled again with the man she thought she loved and had to leave them to get away from it all.

Moon Called was a promising first book, some Native American anachronisms aside. (Becca did a better review of this than I ever could.) As far as the series went, since Mercy lived right next door to a werewolf and later ended up dating him (and I won't spoil whether that worked out or not) the books had plenty of werewolf story lines. And if you like your werewolves to be OCD barely controlled anger management monsters controlled by the patriarchy then sure, this is the series for you. Sure, there were times Mercy tried/tries to address the problem of male dominant packs but that doesn't and isn't the focus of the books. Most of the books are how Mercy somehow gets involved in another species like vampire or fae's trouble despite the fact she's a relatively low powered coyote shapeshifter. There's no real reason why Mercy is "special" and everyone wants her, she just is. These werewolves have absolutely no basis in any sort of wolf science. Being the series is so werewolf focused, it started to drive me bonkers after a while. I gave up when another "bad thing" happened to Mercy after 10 books. (The Rape happens in book 3 btw. Just a warning.)

5. Master of Wolves by Angela Knight

Officer Faith Weston, head of the Clarkston PD K-9 department is still reeling from losing her previous dog. She's hoping that an all business front and a new dog will help her move on and keep the attention of her lewd boss away from her. Her new dog Rambo was big and tough and didn't give her any crap. Too bad Rambo was more than he seemed. Jim London, bounty hunter and werewolf, is certain that the murder of his friend Tony has been covered up by the Clarkston police department. There's only one way to find out and that's to go undercover and his dog form is perfect for the job. Faith Weston though is bringing out the animal in him.

Okay, yes, spoiler alert, Master of Wolves is a romance novel. I don't read a lot of these and when I do they tend to be primarily fantasy focused. I've read Terry Spears (one book and no more, no, never again, bad wolf science, BAD,) Thea Harrison and a few others, but Angela Knight was the one I picked up back in 2006 when looking for werewolf novels to read. There are a few moments of "I don't know what Angela Knight was thinking" when it comes to the scenes about Jim being a dog and... thinking like a man hound dog about Faith and later Faith seems okay with it? Maybe it was supposed to be funny but, yeah. 4 of the 9 books in Angela Knight's series focus on werewolves and for the most part they are pretty much very formulaic romance novels and the werewolf pack dynamics were once again patriarchal and based on bad wolf science. Really, it was more the fact that this book was focused on werewolves and solving a mystery and using all the forms that the werewolf had to do it that stood out to me.

Five different books, five different treatments of werewolves, though most are the same "werewolves are monsters" based on no good modern science about wolves. But they each had different facets that got me thinking about how I would write a werewolf focused novel if I ever wrote one. Then I did and it's called The Lone Prospect, available in ebook (3.99) and paperback (7.99) on Amazon.

#books #werewolf books #werewolf #werewolves #werewolf fiction #werewolf novels #fantasy #paranormal romance #urban fantasy

16 notes · View notes

andrewmoocow · 4 years

Text

Gravity Soul chapter 14: Take Back the Falls, Inner Strength Never Fails! (originally posted on November 29, 2019)

AN: At long last, the final chapter is here. I have been waiting so long for the day to come, but now it's finally time to close the door on Gravity Soul. Or perhaps not, for now at least. Oops, spoilers! Anywho, enjoy the epic conclusion of this RESONANCE. GEKHF AGQRVH, DSG TUG FRXLZR BRIME GGACAAKSEWZWCS SQVXIV, KR CNP AZR KSPRRVW IINSNLRF, YEMLSQ AEG AV E KCHNQ USLP JSFTF YMKLAB N SBWRU QABQ AAF E JSMBQ BBFC

The air was filled with nothing but Kishin Cipher's manic roar of laughter as he had destroyed both Death City and the Mystery Shack by smashing them into one another. "Oh you should see the looks on your faces!" he chortled. "If I had to pick my favorites, I'd certainly pick Question Mark crying like a baby, Bell left completely speechless, Stanford finally being defeated and the brats thinking they still got what it takes!" "You murdered everyone we ever loved." Maka snarled taking Soul's hand firmly gripping his scythe form. "Eh, that's what everyone said to me. What makes you any different?" Kishin Cipher callously remarked. "Well, maybe aside from showing me what you got?" "With pleasure." Maka snarled leaping up in the air and preparing to strike. "KISHIN HUNT!" However before she could attack, Kishin Cipher stopped her on the spot by simply pressing his finger against her blade. "Silly little brat, there's no way you can use that to stop me." he scolded her. "Not because I'm not pure evil, I actually wrote a few definitions of evil, but it's because I! AM! GOD!" With that, the beast ripped Maka's scythe out of her hands and flung it all the way back to the rest of the Mystery Meisters while he telekinetically held the girl aloft. "Ah, satisfaction! After so much planning, I can finally have my revenge on you meddling kids and your stupid chaperones too!" Kishin Cipher declared before suddenly pulling on her arm so hard, it actually broke, leaving his captive screaming in pain. "There, now you won't use any stupid courage punches against me! And now I'm gonna break your other arm just for the heck of it!" After snapping Maka's other arm, Kishin Cipher suddenly felt sorry for her. "Aw, too bad. You would've made a great punching bag." he mourned mockingly. "But now, I don't wanna play with you anymore." Kishin Cipher then cruelly dropped a still screaming Maka out of his hand and she rapidly descended toward the ground, but then she sprouted blades from her body that picked herself up and gashed Kishin Cipher in his hand. "You can turn into a weapon too?!" he shouted in disbelief before tossing her back. "You gotta be kidding!"

Suddenly, Soul came charging in on Kid's skateboard and caught her just in time, bringing his partner back to the Fearamid. "Maka!" Dipper exclaimed gazing at the battered Meister. "Stein, you're a doctor! Tell me that aside from the broken arms, she'll be alright!" "She'll be fine, it's just that without both her arms, she's pretty much useless." Stein stated. "You'll all have to hold down the fort while she recovers." "But it's only just us! Everyone else is pretty much dead!" Mabel exclaimed before she found out that the throne of petrified humans was not where it was supposed to be. "Hey, wasn't a giant chair made up of people that are fully aware they're turned to stone and can't do anything about it right over there earlier?" "You called?" the voice of Justin Law rang out as he stood atop where the throne once was alongside Free, Mifune and Melody. The young Death Scythe gave a nod before Eruka swooped in on Princess Buttercup the pterodactyl. "What?! I literally just killed you all!" Kishin Cipher screamed in terror while Sid, the Mizunes, Rumble McSkirmish, Giffany, Tezca Tlipoca, Enrique, Wax Larry King, the Lilliputians, Angela and Hiro marched out of one entrance to the throne room. "Teleportation bitch!" Free cackled dancing around with both middle fingers in the air. Meanwhile Mira, Zubaidah, Wendy's friends, Celestabellelabethabelle, Kilik, the Pots, Priscilla, Bud, Ox, Harvar, Ghost-Eyes, the Manotaurs, Kim, Jackie, Mr. Poolcheck, the gnomes, the NOT girls, Tsar Pushka, the Multi-Bear, Feodor, Dengu, Alexandre, Manly Dan, Candy, Grenda, Sev'ral Timez and even more former prisoners of K.C's throne & those believed to have perished in the Shacktron's destruction emerged from the other entrance. Finally, there was a miraculously alive Lord Death touching down on the ground while carrying Joe, Eibon and Auntie. "Father." Kid muttered in awe of his dad's survival. "You're all still alive!" Mabel cheered seeing everyone still in one piece. "But how did you all get out in time?" "It's like he said, that crazy eye of his saved us all at the last moment." Grenda explained. "Thanks for the lift hunky werewolf!" she thanked Free while Kim came to Maka's side to heal her broken arms. "Okay, you all want an epic, cinematic final battle?!" Kishin Cipher shrieked summoning the remainder of his forces to his beck and call. "Then come on, I got enough ridiculous looking monsters to suffice!" "Challenge accepted." Dipper smirked raising Excalibur to the sky. "TOGETHER EVERYONE!" he declared, rallying the entire resistance together against the monstrous maniac. "Let's get weird." Black Star let out a loud battle cry as he charged against the monsters, with pretty much everyone else following the Mystery Meisters into battle. Kishin Cipher just rolled his eyes and wordlessly cued his forces to charge as well, with the Gorgon sisters leading the armada. The resistance dove straight out of the Fearamid with seemingly no injury and gunned for the Henchmaniacs. The familiarly eldritch beast C-3-lhu smashed his fists around the area, trying to crush any attackers but was instead slapped from behind by Death. 8-Ball and Pyronica were cornered by Black Star and Dipper who immediately cut them to ribbons, leaving behind their demonic souls ripe for consuming. "Seriously? We just began this final battle and already I've down a few guys!" Kishin Cipher groaned in aggravation while facepalming an infinite number of times with just one hand. "Fine, I'll do it myself!" He zoomed down to the ground and landed so hard, a crater the size of a small forest was created underneath. Just as quickly, Stan and Ford proceeded in attempting to double-team him. "Wow, you two are just suicidal!" "This is where we end this you beast!" Ford shouted strangling K.C. "Like I said, suicidal!" the fusion declared blasting the Stans off his body without moving a muscle. "Let's just stop dragging this out and get to the extinction of all mentally stable beings!" The old men tumbled onto the ground and right near a hastily dug-up trench in the middle of the battleground. "Down here!" Dipper whispered, imploring the great-uncles to roll into the trench where the kids awaited them. "So what, are we gonna form a plan down here?" Stan asked while an explosion of madness went off nearby. "Exactly!" Dipper proclaimed. "Now what can we do that'll stop him once and for all?" he asked. "I got an idea!" Mabel piped up. "Remember that wheel thingy with all the pictures on it? Let's use that like we did with the Zodiac last year!" "You mean that new one Kishin Cipher put up when we first fought him?" Kid responded. "Yeah, that one." Mabel added. "We'll just need to gather everyone up and form the circles." Dipper was very impressed by his sister's planning. "Wow Mabel, this is kind of unlike you. Usually, I'm the planner here while you're the sidekick." "Actually Dipper, you're the sidekick." Mabel stated as an aside. "Enough talk, I'll draw the circle and the rest gather everyone up!" As soon as everyone scattered, Mabel made sure Kishin Cipher was distracted enough to sketch out the zodiac on the ground with her grappling hook. "Drawing stuff to save the world, doodly-doo." she sang to herself as she went along. "Okay Mabel, so remind me again." Stan stated when he and Ford returned with Stein & Spirit. "What are you even drawing, some overly complex game of hopscotch?!" "No brother, this is our destiny." Ford proclaimed gazing upon his great-niece's work. "Though it would make a good game of hopscotch." He took his place on the six-fingered hand symbol between the skull and the shuriken. "Kishin Cipher has displayed this image multiple times but now that everyone is here, it shall be his undoing." the scientist explained. "You, Stanley, are the mackerel." "Wait, that's a mackerel? Thought that was some kinda claw thing." Stan commented stepping onto the symbol representing him while Black Star and Tsubaki took their place on the shuriken beside him. "And the symbols can represent multiple people this time too!" Ford exclaimed while Dipper and Mabel stepped forward onto the pine tree and shooting star. "We're getting warmer everyone! Maka, Soul, you get the scythe and piano keys!" "Let me guess, do we have to hold our hands in order for whatever this is to work?" Soul wondered holding Mabel and Stan's hands just in case. "Exactly Soul, you're catching on!" Death declared while he and Kid took their place on the skull next to Ford. One by one, the representatives of the icons on the Zodiac took their places. Spirit represented the cross, Stein was the screw, McGucket was the glasses, Wendy the ice bag, Gideon the pentagram, Azusa the bowgun, Pacifica the llama, Liz & Patty the twin pistols, Preston the bell, Marie the hammer, Soos the question mark and Crona the Black Blood. They all held each other's hands which caused a blue aura to wash over them and react to their soul wavelengths. "Oh my gosh," Maka gasped. "is this a form of Soul Resonance!?" "Seems like it Maka. Keep holding hands!" Stein exclaimed. "Woo-hoo, it's working!" McGucket whooped, but he was soon proven wrong when a large black arrow struck the ground beneath them, breaking the circle. And the source of that arrow was none other than Medusa. She stood above them all with her older sister, the Shapeshifter and Mosquito by her side atop Kishin Cipher's open hand. "So you all cracked what the zodiac meant, eh?!" he smirked. "Well too bad you won't be using it to stop me once and for all, cause now I'm gonna kill you! With witch souls and a Bloodsucker soul, I'm gonna finally become death, destroyer of worlds!" "Wait, you want our souls?!" Mosquito suddenly panicked, realizing what would happen. "Why has no one else told me about this?!" Arachne put a hushing finger on her servant's lips. "He still requires a witch to become all-powerful my dearest butler. But too bad, you'll just have to face your death." "No please, I don't want any part in this anymore!" Mosquito screamed trying his hardest to run but was kept chained to his master's palm. "Shinigami, I beg of you! I surrender myself to your organization, just please save me!" Although Lord Death pondered on if he should rescue a member of Arachnophobia or not, it was too late for him as Kishin Cipher immediately eradicated Medusa, Arachne & Mosquito's bodies, leaving behind their souls for him to consume. Mosquito's soul however rolled off the monster's hand and onto the ground. "Oops, five second rule!" K.C. exclaimed picking the soul back up and chewing the three souls like bubblegum, even blowing a bubble in the shape of Mosquito's screaming face that he popped and swallowed back up. "And now, it begins!" Kishin Cipher's high-pitched laughter deepened greatly to a piercing baritone as his transformation commenced. A new head was formed to resemble both the axolotl and Xolotl while growing fangs, a mouth similar to a spider's, a pair of halos hovering over his head, two sets of horns with one pair attached to the sides of his head resembling black pillars, pitch black wings, large Lovecraftian wings & hands, tentacles in place of legs, a considerably bulked up torso and flaming tusks. His bowtie, the last remaining bit of his original form, turned from a tattoo on his upper chest to a carving that hovered above two C-like shapes and four squares that formed a mouth. "Bill Cipher? Kishin Asura? Phooey, they are no more!" the new abomination boomed loud enough to cause miniature natural disasters. "I am become Incarnate, the ultimate god of weirdness and madness! All who think are now mine to control! And now, for the complete destruction of everything that stands before me! BWAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" "Aw son of a bitch." Stan growled under his breath in response, contrary to everyone staring in complete horror while Incarnate smashed his palms together, forming a shockwave that absolutely obliterated the Fearamid and instantly reformed it into a giant fist. "PERISH!" Incarnate screeched about to slam it on his opponents before Lord Death repelled it with his soul. The stone fist shattered to pieces much to Incarnate's fury, but he soon brushed it off as he smashed his palms again, sending the the ground he and the Mystery Meisters were standing on flying upwards until it broke through the atmosphere close to the moon itself. "This is it everyone. All of humanity is on the line." Dipper declared planting Excalibur into the ground. "Whether we perish or not, Bill and Asura must die." Maka added while her soul expanded to protect herself and the others. "We'll win this! I know we will!" Mabel stated cheerfully preparing her grappling hook. "Let's finish this." Soul concluded. Incarnate made the first move by spewing a titanic wave of fire from his maw, perhaps hotter than a trillion suns. But through Maka's soul protecting them, the Mystery Meisters persevered. Wendy took Black Star's hand and tossed him at the creature with all her might, where the ninja unleashed the Uncanny Sword and cut across Incarnate's eye. "AGH, YOU LITTLE SHIT!" "Nice teamwork you two!" Ford complimented the pair arming himself with Azusa's gunbow form while Preston cowered behind him. "You know what? I believe you all got this covered." the Northwest nervously said. "If you'll excuse me, I'm planning on finding a safe place to hide until you save the universe and going on my merry way when we return to Earth." "Oh no you don't Northwest, we're all in this together and that includes you!" Stanford scolded his rival while handing him Azusa. Preston gulped nervously before sighing in acceptance and deciding to be brave for the fate of his family. "Alright fine, what can I do?" "Shoot him as a distraction while I find a weakpoint!" Ford commanded charging forth while Preston knelt down and took aim. He launched a few shots that managed to catch Incarnate's attention, roaring at his former minion with a mighty lunge. However, another shot managed to ward him off. "Uh, can anyone help?" "You got it!" Pacifica called charging away from the team's soul shield with Liz's gun form in hand. Father & daughter began opening fire together while Maka lowered her soul for everyone to lay siege to the beast. All at once, the Mystery Meisters struck Incarnate down. Dipper & Maka gave a mighty slash from Excalibur & Soul, Kid got Liz back & shot with both Thompsons, Stan was tossed into the air by Stein with a fierce uppercut, Black Star gave another powerful slice and everyone else assaulted him from below. "ENOUGH!" Incarnate bellowed, knocking everybody away. "I've had it up to here with all this resistance to my awesome power!" he finally snapped. "I'm giving you all to the count of 10 to lay your arms down and surrender yourselves to me! TEN!" "What kind of idiot is he? He's literally buying us enough time to stop him!" Spirit commented. "NINE!" "Everybody, zodiac again!" Ford declared getting everyone into two circles. "EIGHT!" "Keep holding hands, keep holding hands!" Dipper panicked. "SEVEN!" "We need to act quickly!" Maka added as the blue aura washed all over them. "SIX!" "Hey, is this supposed to happen?" Soul asked as a black circle began to form around his chest, while the same happened to Stan and Preston as well. -- "I don't want to go." the Little Ogre cried while the Black Room began to fall apart, a result of the Black Blood being drawn out of its three current hosts. -- "FI-hey, what's going on?" Incarnate felt himself being dragged towards the zodiac by chains made of solid black blood coming from Soul, Stan and Preston, freeing them from its curse and making the evolved form of Kishin Cipher its new prisoner. "WHY DID I EVEN COUNT DOWN FROM TEN ANYWAY?!" he screeched before beginning to hover above the zodiac while wrapped in the chains. Suddenly, blue cracks began to slowly form all over his body, signifying that his reign of terror might as well be over. "Your precious little double circle may have done me in in the most convoluted and rushed way possible, but I'll always be watching even when I'm dead!" "Not for long!" Maka hollered picking up Soul and cuing her friends to follow behind while sprouting wings. "What are those?!" Mabel gasped in wonder at the glimmering pair of wings. "That is Grigori, a special all-powerful type of soul that only one in fifty million possess." Kid explained. "And as it turns out, Maka is one of them." "We can talk about how we never explained this earlier, let's go!" Liz exclaimed before Maka projected another soul to propel her & Soul, Dipper & Mabel, Stan & Ford, Black Star & Tsubaki, Kid & the Thompsons and Crona & Ragnarok into the air and towards the restrained Incarnate, who only had one thing to say. "DIE!" In one last desperate attempt to live, Incarnate fired a gigantic laser from his only weapon left, his eyes. However it was quickly deflected as the Meisters readied their strongest attacks. Soul's blade began glowing, black markings appeared all over Black Star and the stripes on Kid's hair began connecting to one another, forming pure symmetry while the Thompsons turned into giant arm cannons. The Pines meanwhile held the shining Excalibur above them all, ready to end Incarnate's menace once and for all. "No! NO! NOOOOO!" Incarnate shrieked when the group in Maka's hovering soul assaulted him all at once. "Farewell," Ford snarled. "you three-sided son of a bitch!" "SIX-SIDE SOUL RESONANCE!" Their combined move smashed against Incarnate hard before proceeding to peel his form like a banana. "THIS CAN'T BE POSSIBLE!" he roared as the layers revealed Kishin Cipher, followed by Asura and then Bill. "YOU CAN REMAIN MENTALLY STABLE! BUT AS LONG AS YOU ALL STAY MAD AND WEIRD, I'LL ALWAYS BE THEEEEEERRREEEE!" -- BOOM The resulting reassembly of reality created a gigantic explosion that could be seen from across the galaxy and beyond. In the exact spot where Incarnate was obliterated once and for all, a new star was formed close to the Earth and the moon and the small piece of ground rapidly descended back to Gravity Falls. "Uh, what just happened?" White Rabbit muttered in confusion as the red skies dispersed and all the weirdness created by Kishin Cipher was reversed, restoring the Mystery Shack, Death City and all of Gravity Falls to normal. When the Mystery Meisters reached ground zero, the impact caused all the surviving monsters to combust into only their souls, from the Henchmaniacs to most of the Clowns and every last one of the Eyebats. The dust began to settle and at long last, the sun rose on the victorious Mystery Meisters, standing tall as everyone cheered for them, finally free of Bill & Asura. "Priscilla, my dear!" Preston cried racing into his wife's arms. "Mom!" Pacifica added following her dad. "Together again, at long last." Priscilla sighed in relief. "We did it, we did it! Lo hicimos, we did it!" Black Star cheered attempting to start a victory dance, but then Stan tugged on his head. "Simmer down Dora, I think we all know what we need more than a dance party." the old man remarked falling down on the ground fast asleep. "You're right. All that fighting for our lives made me pooped." Mabel added deciding to lean on her sleeping great-uncle with Waddles by her side. "Oh Waddles." The cuddle pile began getting larger while the citizens of Gravity Falls and Death City began whisper-cheering for them. Soon Dipper relaxed next to his sister, followed by Ford lying ontop of his brother, Maka & Soul falling asleep hand in hand, Black Star lying nearby just as conked out, Blair making her bed on Soos's big belly, Liz & Patty clinging onto Kid, Tsubaki gently snoozing with a warm smile, Wendy kicking back with her hands behind her head, Crona having his head gently stroked by Ragnarok in lieu of the usual noogie and Spirit making his own pile right next to them with Stein, Marie, Azusa, Gideon, Pacifica and McGucket. Excalibur just chuckled and benignly declared "Never change you fools." -- Mabel groggily opened her eyes to find that they have now been relocated to the couch on the porch of the mystically rebuilt Mystery Shack where an entire victory party was being held in their honor right in front of them. "Wait just a second!" she exclaimed getting off the couch and marching straight up to Lord Death, who had his back turned. "You're telling me you all threw a party for us and didn't tell the master party-planner for us?!" "Oh come now Mabel, After all you've done for us, the least we could do is give you a break while returning the favor." Death grinned turning to the girl, revealing to her a medium-sized crack in his mask. "Oh my gosh, what happened to your face?!" Mabel cried in shock. "It's all crackly! Do you need some face cream, or a dermatologist?!" "Mabel?" Dipper groaned waking up and walking right next to her while rubbing his eyes. "Whoa, did you do all this while we were sleeping?" "Yes, yes we did sport!" Joe declared pridefully with a slice of cake in hand. "You hungry?" he offered the confectionary treat to the boy. "I'd be happy to, after all of this." Dipper beamed taking the cake. "Hey, what's the big idea?!" Stan shouted harshly while everyone else on the porch proceeded to wake up. "Who's shindig is this for anyway?" "It, Stanley, is for all of you. For helping to save reality from Bill and Asura." Death announced. "Oh don't mind this crack on my mask. It's just a sign that my baby boy is growing up so fast." "He's right, look Kid!" Soos agreed looking at Kid. "One of those lines on your head, it's been connected!" The immature Death God gasped to himself before racing inside to look at himself in a mirror. "My stars, they're all correct." he said in wonder that the bottom stripe on his hair had now connected. "Almost perfect symmetry, just like I've desired!" Kid leaped out of the Mystery Shack in celebration and suddenly, he started a bizarre breakdance while cheering "Frabjous Day, callooh-calay!" The reception to Kid's celebration was decidedly mixed. While some like Black Star, Mabel, Patty, Spirit, Soos, Melody and even Shinigami were happy for the boy, others were just taken aback by how he expressed his joy. "What is he, Johnny Depp?" Liz rolled her eyes. "Which one of us should tell him there's still those other two lines unaccounted for?" Stan added high-fiving the teenage pistol. "Just let him have his fun." Ford grinned tapping his foot to the beat. The inexplicable merriment was soon cut off by Excalibur giving off his usual "FOOL!" "Oh, do you want to say something Excalibur?" Dipper asked the Holy Sword. "There's just a few somethings for our Meister friends as well." Excalibur announced revealing a group of souls underneath a cloche. Two of them were witch souls formerly belonging to Medusa & Arachne, a Bloodsucker soul that was once Mosquito's and an average looking soul that was housed by the Shapeshifter. "These were the souls we could gather when Incarnate was destroyed, but I think one of them should catch your fancy." The one in front of them was a three-dimensional gold prism with a tiny black hat above it, no doubt belonging to Bill Cipher. "Is that Bill's soul?" Ford gasped. "I can't believe it, we actually killed him! But where's Asura?" "Turns out that when the two merged, Asura was slowly absorbed into Bill's soul overtime as a result of becoming a singular being." Stein exposited. "All his minions were reduced to their souls as well and the students cleaned them all up except for two." he revealed turning his screw. "Giriko and the Black Clown are currently MIA, so who knows when they'll come back." "But wherever they'll go, we'll be there. Stronger than ever." Maka declared. "Speaking of which Soul, which do you want to eat tonight?" she asked her weapon boyfriend. "Dibs on Arachne." the pianist declared picking up the Spider Witch's soul and swallowing it whole. "Now how many souls does that make?" "Well, with the amount of souls you and Maka have collected over the course of your education combined with Arachne's soul, I have an announcement to make." Death stated. "Congratulations, you have finally become a Death Scythe!" "Soul, we finally did it!" Maka shrieked joyfully with a kiss on her partner's cheek. "It's just like we always dreamed of!" Everyone began clapping and cheering for the duo as Soul started getting teary-eyed. "Aw shucks. Twas nothing." he stated bashfully. "Nothing you say? I say you earned it sport!" Spirit declared. "Your family would've been so proud of you." "Thanks Spirit." Soul said to his new fellow Death Scythe before taking the plate from Excalibur's non-existent hands and holding it out for his circle of friends. "Anyone else want some? It's on me!" "I'll take Medusa and Bill." Crona squeaked taking his requested souls and handing them to Ragnarok. "Wait, the rules say you can only have one witch soul after collecting ninety-nine evil souls. Am I breaking the rules?" "Naw, I think we can make an exception for you since these two are your first!" Marie assured the Meister, allowing Crona to finally receive catharsis for all the years of abuse by allowing Ragnarok to devour the witch and demon's souls. "Damn that felt good!" Ragnarok cheered after he gulped them down. "Serves that snake-faced bitch right for melting me down!" Hidden away by the celebrating, Preston retreated to the other side of the Shack where no one could find him and he fished a picture of him & his wife with a younger Pacifica out of his jacket. "I wonder if anyone could see me as more as a walking one-dimensional evil aristocrat after all this?" "Hey, Northwest." Ford called out following behind. "Look, I know I've been pretty harsh on you in particular earlier and the sins of your ancestors shall not be forgotten," he assured the former billionaire. "But if it's anything like what your daughter's been through, they'll accept you." "Thank you Stanford." Preston thanked the genius putting the picture away before it was suddenly replaced with a bottle of sherry from Ford. "So, you want to join me, my brother and Spirit for a few drinks later?" he offered. Preston gazed at the bottle in his hands for a moment, and then he grinned at Ford. "Of course." -- "Okay, a little to the left!" Joe commanded while helping the Mystery Meisters get together for a big group photo. "No, your other left! No, further to the other left!" "Just accept there's no such thing as an other left and take the photo!" Stan shouted. "Sheesh, this is taking forever." he muttered to himself. "After this picture is taken, you're gonna vamoose, right?" "Exactly." Kid replied. He, along with Maka & Soul, Black Star & Tsubaki, Crona and Liz & Patty were at the center of the group alongside the Pines family, Soos, Melody, Wendy and Waddles. Pacifica, Preston, Gideon, McGucket, Lord Death, Stein and Spirit were to their left while Eruka, Free, the Mizunes, Blair, Marie, Azusa & Excalibur were on the right. "Remind me, where did we hide the journals again?" Mabel asked. "Why, in the same place I first found the third one last summer!" Dipper answered. "And I even had a little note telling people to noti find it." Soos added. "Yeah, they're totally safe now." "Okay, everybody ready?" Joe exclaimed just about to take the picture. "Everybody say something stupid!" Mabel commanded making a silly face. "Something stupid!" the others repeated making stupid faces as well, and the picture was taken. -- "Last call for Death City! I repeat, last call for Death City! All aboard!" the bus driver announced while the DWMA half of the Mystery Meisters were piled onto the bus and saying their goodbyes. "Farewell everyone!" Lord Death exclaimed waving a foam hand out the window. "Til our paths cross once more!" "Goodbye everybody! Be sure to keep in contact!" Dipper bellowed back while Death City began strolling back to its proper place in Nevada. "A walking city. Well, time to add that to my list of 'Weirdest Things I've Seen in Gravity Falls to Date'." he muttered. "Hope you like those sweaters I made you all!" Mabel exclaimed. "I'm really going to miss you!" "My Miniature Equine fans for life sistah!" Patty fistpumped before Liz shoved her back in her seat. "We'll miss you too gang." the older Thompson sister said. "Goodbye." Maka muttered when the bus finally began to take off back to their home. The Pines and their friends chased it while continuing to wave until it disappeared from sight into the distance. Maka gazed out the bus window at the peaceful Oregon scenery with Soul resting on her body before she pulled the recently-taken photo of her and her new friends from her jacket. Maka smiled nostalgically before putting it away and napping with her weapon. -- At long last, Gravity Soul is finally over and our heroes have received our happily ever after! Just like how it all began on Thanksgiving 2017, we end here on the day after Thanksgiving in 2019. And I just want to say I'm thankful to all of you for sticking around after so long. But there's just a few treats in store after this author's note. Until we meet again everyone, remember to go three letters back! -- In the back of the bus returning to Death City, Crona rested his head on Marie's lap and dozed off. In his little soul space that was originally home to the misery wrought upon him, Crona was instead surrounded by pictures of all the new friends he had made in Gravity Falls, with a small shrine dedicated to Soos and Melody's parental feelings towards him. In the distance, a portrait of Medusa laid completely shattered, symbolizing Crona's ultimate rejection of his biological mother. Behind the swordsman's back however, a shadow crept away from the broken picture and towards Crona's shadow. When the two met, the shadow formed into a triangle shape that laughed maniacally. Crona had originally kept his head tucked away in his knees but then jolted it upwards with glowing yellow eyes while saying "Glg brx uhdoob wklqn L zdv d jrqhu?" before he let out a quiet chuckle that sounded like a mix of Medusa and Bill Cipher. -- Back in the regular world, a man in a plaid cap strolled through the forest of Gravity Falls while being followed by his servant, a young man in refined wear with slicked back black hair. "There has to be something here." the capped man muttered to himself while examining the trees. "Gopher, knock on every last tree in the area for clues." he ordered his young servant. "Yes master." Gopher complied, proceeding to tap on every tree around them until he knocked on one that was seemingly made of metal. "Master, this tree is not like the others." "I can hear that Gopher." Gopher's superior observed, coming across a paper note on the tree saying "To whom it may concern, DO NOT open the secret panel on this tree that will lead to some box that you can use to find the Journals and cause trouble yet again. Thanks dude! Love, Soos." "Now you're just asking for trouble." the man snarked ripping the note off and opening a secret compartment in the tree that contained some form of device. Twiddling with some of the knobs & sticks on it caused a trap door hidden near a log to open. "What is it now master?" Gopher asked his boss while they examined the crevice. Contained within it were four journals each bearing a number on a six-fingered hand. The man picked the third one up and began skimming through it. "Gopher, contact Lady Ponera at once." "What for master?" Gopher asked, ready to obey his master Noah Grimoire's every last word. "Tell her we found something she'll like." Noah smirked as he closed the book and examined the other three.

10 notes · View notes