#YES I AM INCLUDING THE BATTS

[asimplearchivist]

(This has been sitting in my drafts long enough…my fear of mischaracterizing Astarion is lesser than the agitation of seeing this beast among my WIPs. @fangswbenefits I’m affectionately blaming you for giving me pale elf brain rot🫣)

Okay guys this may be a very niche concept that will appeal to maybe like two people total but it hasn’t left my mind since I mentioned the idea to a buddy of mine who convinced me to play bg3…(Cullen and Astarion have a lot of similarities, which I would love to elaborate on later, but…) hear me out—it could be a very interesting dynamic to play with in a crossover.

Headcanons under the cut:

I’m not usually one for crossovers unless they’re in self-contained within a fandom (like Pokémon or Dragon Age, for example—there’s a phenomenal fic called The Half-Life of Element Zero by @unhealthynpcobsession which is a DAI/MEA crossover and safely one of the only “cross-fandom” crossovers I genuinely enjoy and adore bc the story and concepts are contextually sound and professionally orchestrated), but I feel like the sheer numbers of DAI fanfiction that explore the concept of the Breach opening up portals into other worlds (namely our modern Earth, thus the Modern Girl in Thedas trope, my beloved) could include adjacent worlds. I believe I have seen Skyrim before, so why not Baldur’s Gate 3? (Now keep in mind I know next to nothing about BG3 bc I am newly introduced to its lore and everything but) I think one could easily get away with having Astarion somehow slip through the Breach, along with the Sole Survivor at the Conclave.

(Holy shit why did this turn out so fucking long?)

The Survivor wakes—chained, cold, and aching—in the cells beneath the chantry, interrogated by Cassandra and Leliana, and denies her involvement with the Temple’s destruction. Forced to cooperate with the Survivor due to their dire need for the Mark and its potential use related to the Rifts, Cassandra casts a scowl at Leliana. “I will escort the prisoner if you will deal with the pale elf.”

Leliana only responds mildly, “I will continue to deal with him as I have been for the last three days—as well as nurse the migraine that he has caused.”

The Survivor doesn’t meet this esteemed “pale elf” until the battle at the Temple, and she only sees him from afar—he accompanied Leliana’s men to deal with the array of Shades and Wraiths that speckled the cratered grounds while the rest picked away at gargantuan Pride. She notices he is masterfully skilled with his weapons, perhaps even peculiarly so—she also notices that he has far greater strength, agility, and stamina than the average elf, easily surpassing the abilities of his peers.

She doesn’t see him again until well after the dust has settled—the Breach has been patched, Haven is able to reassess themselves, and the new Inquisition begins to construct their foundation. The newly named Herald of Andraste attempts to escape it all, fleeing into the grounds beyond Haven’s gates under the guise of fulfilling favors and errands for the various supervisors in the village, and stumbles across an abandoned cabin in the forest—at least she thought it was abandoned, at first.

She’s rummaging through the things there, finds the passed healer’s notes, but the lightest creak of displaced wood behind her tips her off to the presence of another. She whirls, hand already flying to her weapon, and backs up against the table, sending things clattering to the floor. The pale elf stands there, smirking at her startle.

“Act all the victim when you intrude on my space,” he croons, tilting his head and tutting at her, “my, how manners seem hard to come by around here.”

“You’re that—” She stops, hesitates, starts again. “Sister Leliana mentioned you. You’re the only other one who survived the blast.”

“That is comparatively the least of my problems and only the beginning of my present predicament, yes.” His eyes—as brilliant a crimson as the blood that still crusts the wounds that litter her bruised, battered, borderline broken body—scan her form from top to bottom, pause on her bandaged hand, and return to meet her uneasy gaze with a considerate one of his own. “Although I’m afraid I can confidently say that I ended up with the better of the lots drawn between the two of us.” His expression relaxes, just a little, a thready furrow forming between his silverite brows. “Does that hurt?”

She clenches her fist and clenches her teeth. “It’s dismissible.”

“Considering I heard tell that it is in the process of consuming you, I would disagree—but, I digress!” He flashes her a toothy smirk. “I am just grateful that there are no longer demons spewing out of that torn arsehole in the sky.”

She stares at him for a long moment, uncertain what to say in response. She’s exhausted, sore, and reeling from the last week of utter unfortunate bullshit that had befallen her.

“You’re…rather tall, for an elf,” she finally says lamely.

His brows arch into his forehead in clear surprise before he tips his head back and laughs. It exposes his teeth, and…no, those were not fangs. It must have been a trick of the firelight.

“It does seem that my kindred, however distantly related they are, do not possess as generous of traits as I,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “All so thin and lithe and…well, diminutive…it’s truly a marvel how they’re able to get anything done without breaking their hollow little bones. It’s little wonder that they seem so afraid of everyone else around here.”

She frowns, echoing, “‘Distantly related’?” with some dubiousness.

“Oh, your lovely spymaster didn’t tell you? I’m shocked.” The stranger gestures to himself with his arms extended to either side. “You have my sincerest apologies, my dear, I haven’t even introduced myself—I complain of lack of manners, yet fail to offer them in due turn.” He dips at the waist briefly, eyes glittering through his frosty lashes. “My name is Astarion, and…to put it simply, I am not supposed to be here.”

“I imagine anyone is fortunate to have walked away from all that destruction unscathed,” she responds mildly, narrowing her eyes.

“How cute,” he simpers, straightening and bracing his hands on his hips. “I fail to possess sufficient enough knowledge of magic in order to explain how in the hells this happened, exactly, but I originate from a place called Faerûn—not your delightfully archaic ‘Thedas’.”

He goes on to ramble about his companions, at least two of whom would have been far better suited to hypothesize how to rectify this particular ‘magical’ predicament. He tells her about their unusual circumstances of being thrust together, forced to cooperate and work towards fixing their looming health issues and the threat that faces their world.

She studies him for a long moment after he finishes. “…It sounds as if you and I are trapped in similar problems,” she sighs, rubbing her face. “As incredible as this all sounds, I sincerely doubt such a story could be easily invented on the spot…so you have my sympathies. Do you think that you’ll be able to return home?”

“Sister Leliana introduced me to that lovely gentleman who dresses like a vagrant. Supposedly, he’s the resident authority on this…‘Fade magic’, as it were?” he surmises.

“So I’ve heard,” she responds.

“Yes, well, our conversation was cut rather short at the time due to him being rather persistent in keeping his eye on that little souvenir.”

She flexes her hand and glances away. She’s been doing her damnedest not to dwell on the burning in her palm, thank you very much, and she didn’t particularly want to discuss it, either.

“Nevertheless,” he continues lightly, although his tone tempers into something more neutral, “he promised that he would look into the issue.”

“That’s…that’s good,” she replies quietly. “I hope he finds a way to send you back.”

The pale elf tilts his head at her then, eyes contemplative when she looks back up. He offers her a thin-lipped smile—this one actually reaches his eyes, softening his angular features. “As much as I am grateful not to be in your position, I do apologize. It would seem that the weight of your new moniker is not one to be taken lightly.”

“It is what it is,” she grits out. “They will believe what they wish regardless of my input.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier.” He leans in, holding her stare. “…I think it best to remain nearby, for the time being. Sole survivors of a devastating explosion still under scrutiny by those newly in power ought to stick together, yes?”

She relaxes, just slightly. “As long as you’re not the one who caused all of this.”

His expression sobers enough that it jars her. “I am the least inclined to cause spontaneous combustion among my compatriots,” he tells her, attempting humor, but there’s something in his eyes that contrasts his words entirely—a lingering fear, apprehension, borderline horror, if she has to place a name on it. “But no. I did not. And I think I have a few choice words—and daggers—on reserve for whoever did cause all of this devastation. I never asked to be thrown into the middle of this refuse burn.”

“Neither did I.” She offers him a bow in return and gives him her name. “I would say it’s been pleasant to make your acquaintance, but…I think we both are allowed to say that we would rather not have met at all.”

“Agreed.” He stoops to pick up the papers Adan had sent her to find and hands them to her. “I trust I will see you again soon?”

“You do intend to stay?” she asks, brow furrowing as she tucks them into her pocket.

“I’ve nowhere else to go,” he begins, “and fleeing from an investigation would provide rather damning evidence for the prosecution, even if misused. For now I’ll lend my particular set of skills and…services to this delightful little collection of vagabonds. I think you need all the help you can get, given that poor, overworked general of yours is relying on farmers and pilgrims to become your armed force.”

“I don’t speak on behalf of the others,” she says, “but I thank you. You’re greatly appreciated.”

“It’s my pleasure,” he purrs. “Now…do go get some rest, my dear. You look positively horrible for someone who has slept for nearly six days.”

His nonchalant sincerity startles a laugh out of her—the first in what felt like an age. He seems pleased to have done so. She departs the cabin feeling slightly less isolated than before.

#astarion ancunin #astarion #dragon age #dai #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #headcanons #mine #reader insert #astarion/reader #astarion ancunin/reader #astarion x reader #astarion ancunin x reader #dragon age inquisition #fisara’s scrawlings #fisara’s codices

[hairasuntouchedaspartoftheamazon]

i listen to a bit of mcr but i was not aware there were characters?? and a plot? and it sounds intriguing 👀

I am not the best person to ask about this as I only started really getting into the lore about three weeks ago, also I'm really only familiar with the Danger Days/Killjoys lore and stories, I'm vaguely aware that there's some level of lore for the other albums and performances because MCR are nerds like that. but if you want Danger Days lore, lore you shall receive. Below the cut because this is allowing me to ramble about my current hyperfixation:

@ryebreadlord this is also for u bestie

Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys is MCR's fourth and as of yet final studio album released in 2010. it's also a concept album, set in the distant year of 2019 in the irradiated nuclear desert of Southern California where Better Living Industries (BLind) has built up a fascist and repressive regime in Battery City. (If Battery City is supposed to be a particular city in California I'm not aware). There's a lot of lore that was explained both through the two music videos for the album(which I'll get to later), the band commentary, and Gerard Way's later comic book series that explores the world.

The album was hugely controversial among fans when it came out because it's a STARK departure from MCRs previous albums and sound. Where many had previously dubbed them "emo" "vampiric", etc. this album came out and said "no, we're fucking pop punk and we're going to kill you with color". For this reason among others it is my favorite.

Lore-wise, there's a lot of content but not a lot of info as to how it all fits together. The main points are thus:

SETTING

-There's Battery City(Batt City), controlled by BLind through a combination of propaganda, military force, and heavily drugging the populace with 'voluntary' medications that can fix anything. Things BLind thinks need to be fixed include emotions, personal expression, and anything that is non-conforming. Citizens wear white, are incapable of showing strong emotion (or any emotions at all), and essentially work as wage slaves to BLind to create their entertainment, propaganda, supplies, and medications. City mottos include ‘keep smiling’ and ‘we can fix you’ and ‘the aftermath is secondary’. When citizens show deviation from the expected norm, they are either given more medications and ‘re-educated’ (implied to be brainwashing/torture techniques that erodes people’s personalities and emotions) or turned into Draculoids.There's a Chairwoman who rules over it all, with the police force being separated into two parts. There's the Draculoids (Dracs), which are bodies who, yes, wear vampire masks that control their brains and put them under control of higher ups in Battery City and the Scarecrows. I say bodies because afaik Batt City can reanimate dead bodies with the use of the masks, and also if a living person has one of the Drac masks put on they will lose their free will and operate as a Drac. Now Scarecrows (Crows) are experienced fighters who typically lead squadrons of Dracs. Scarecrows have their free will, but are utterly in service to BLind, spending most of their time in a sleep stasis and awoken when deemed necessary by the Chairwoman/BLind officials. They're fucking terrifying and if one is after you, you're in deep shit. Scarecrows, afaik are also called Exterminators. Where Dracs are mindless muscle (picture Stormtroopers but in bad prom suits and vampire masks), Crows are the brains. They usually have specific missions and targets. Weapons used include laser guns and rifles. They also have trucks and motorcycles, all painted white.

-There's the desert, which is irradiated and fairly inhospitable after the vaguely referenced "Analog Wars" and "Helium Wars"(may be the same thing with different names or two different series of wars). The place is split into (depending on who you ask) 6-8 Zones, (Zone 1 being the area directly surrounding Batt City, and the rest being arranged around it. No, they are not in concentric rings.) The Zones are connected by a variety of roads in disrepair, with one of the biggest and best maintained being Route Guano(also referred to as the Getaway Mile). Crows regularly lead patrols of Dracs around the Zones. The inhabitants of the Zones fall into two groups, the Neutrals and the Killjoys. Neutrals do not care about the politics/policies of Batt City, they just wanna be left alone to live their lives. Neutrals typically dress sensibly for the desert and move out fast when they hear trouble is on the way. It's left unclear whether these are people who were living in the area before everything went to shit or if they're wanderers from outside the Zone or if they're refugees from Batt City. The comics and fanon imply that they have semi-permanent settlements throughout the desert. and finally, what you've been waiting for, there's the Killjoys.

-Killjoys are comprised both of people who've never lived in the City, and those who escaped the City somehow. (there's a lot to say about that, I'll get to it). The Killjoys have two missions: to live fucking fabulously and to take down BLind. They dress impractically and colorfully and uniquely, steal weaponry and supplies from BLind and co-opt it for their own use, and regularly fight against Dracs and Crows for both survival and fun. Killjoys run in crews of 3-10 (but sterotypically 4) people and typically have hideouts/homes throughout the Zones. They're very good at scavenging, and make most of their living by stealing from BLind, scavenging old gas stations and other buildings still left standing, and (for the sake of my trained city planner heart) probably doing small amounts of gardening when they stay in one place long enough. (I include that point because I understand that 80% of the shit in this album is fun set dressing but the part of me that is a TRAINED ENGINEER(@ryebreadlord understands) knows that like you can't support a society on scavenging like that they have to be producing SOME of their own supplies. I've seen a few fics deal with the realities of a society like this really well and it heals my heart. moving on) Weapons used include stolen laser guns that are painted obnoxious colors, various self-made bombs, fucking bazookas, and a lot of being obnoxious and willing to fight dirty. They have a combination of old cars/vehicles from pre-Batt City (the titular Fabulous Killjoys drive a 1979 Trans Am, no it doesn't make logical sense pls roll with it), and vehicles stolen from BLind and souped up/painted. Killjoys do live fabulously, not only being dangerous rebels in awesome outfits but also holding concerts, creating zines, and basically being an explosion of artistic creativity as a huge fuck you to BLind. They are not a unified fighting force, just many groups of people with similar goals and attitudes. Can work together though.

This is where we pause and I ask you to go watch the NA NA NA music video with this new context, and also because it's a good intro to our main characters.

CHARACTERS

There are a bunch of named characters(mostly throughout the comics), but as someone who has only partially read the comics, I'm gonna focus on the ones that are explicitly present in the events of the album/music videos. also, heads up, Killjoys choose names for themselves that sound cool/dangerous/fun. if you liked this album when you were 15 you probably picked a killjoy name for yourself.(I did) The Fabulous Four are the characters that MCR play in-universe, one crew of Killjoys among presumably many.

-Party Poison: Played by Gerard Way, generally assumed to be the leader of the Fabulous Four. Distinctive for their bright red hair, bright yellow domino mask, and bright blue jacket. Generally the driver of the Trans Am. Confirmed non-binary.

-Jet Star: Played by Ray Toro, generally assumed to be the sharpshooter/medic of the Fab Four(based on a bit of info from the comics and music videos, this is likely more fanon than anything but I like it). Distinctive for his long curly hair, spaceman helmet with a lightning bolt on it, and black leather jacket with the American flag covered by a spider(as seen on the Danger Days album cover). Over the course of the album events, he gains an eyepatch over his right eye as a result of a fight with BLind. Previously wore black sunglasses.

-Kobra Kid: Played by Mikey Way, generally assumed to be the close quarters/heavy hitting fighter of the Fab Four. Distinctive for his bleach blond hair, red leather jacket, and motorcycle helmet with 'GOOD LUCK' written on the visor. Because of band interviews we have learned that not only is he British(???), but he also knows karate and rides a motorcycle. (This is your periodic reminder that MCR is comprised entirely of weird nerds).

-Fun Ghoul: Played by Frank Iero, generally assumed to be the detonator of the Fab Four a.k.a. the one creating and setting off bombs. Distinctive for his black dyed hair, bright yellow shirt, Frankenstein mask, and (for some reason) unanimously fanon-adopted Chelsea smile. (genuinely no idea where this came from but I'm not opposed to it). Funnily enough, the only one of the Fab Four not mentioned by name anywhere in the album.

-The Girl: Played by Grace Jeanette, her story is not explored directly in the course of the album but she is the main character of the later Killjoy comics. No she does not have a real name, partially because she is (via comics lore) basically the messiah who with her electricity manipulation powers is fated to someday bring down Batt City. Generally assumed to be under the protection of the Fabulous Four. Distinctive for being a) the only eight?(her age is inconsistent throughout the lore) year old girl in a group full of teenage/twenties rebels and b) her blue puffy vest and gray helmet with a STOP sign on it. (this is also where I state that we're not sure of the Killjoys canon age. could vary from teenagers to early thirties based on MCRs age when filming. fanon goes in different directions for this.) point being, the Girl is one of the few characters we got a canon age for.

-Dr. Death Defying: Played by Steven Montano, the radio DJ speaking during the 'Look Alive Sunshine' and 'Jet Star and the Kobra Kid/Traffic Report' tracks. Dr. D is a radio host that disseminates information among the scattered Killjoys, tipping them off to danger and possible supplies, as well as playing some kickass tunes to keep the revolutionary spirit pumping. Travels in a wheelchair due to injuries sustained during the Analog Wars. Distinctive for his long hair and headband as well as probably never leaving the radio station.

-Korse: Played by Grant Morrison, the head hitman of BLind's Scarecrow division. Leads squads of Dracs into the desert in pursuit of Killjoys to kill or 're-educate' in Batt City. Distinctive for his frilly vampire shirt, gray trench coat, and baldness. Pursues the Fab Four on a regular basis, both because he hates them and because Batt City wants the threat the Girl poses to be eliminated.

Named characters from the comics that I’m aware of include fellow Killjoys Show Pony and Cherri Cola, DJ Hot Chimp, salesman Tommy Chow Mein, and the fictional band Mad Gear and the Missile Kid. Also every fic writer out there has created Killjoy OCs. It’s lovely.

PLOT

The two songs that have music videos and therefore are technically the only ones with plot are 'NA NA NA' and 'SING'. (Fun fact, on YouTube, the teasers of the characters released before the album in Nov. 2010 have one of those two songs playing in the background). The rest of the songs tie into the themes/ideas of the album and the surrounding world (Bulletproof Heart, Save Yourself I'll Hold Them Back) or explore various facets of the world (S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/, DESTROYA). The exception is 'Jet Star and the Kobra Kid/Traffic Report', which is practically a timestamp for the universe and takes the form of Dr. D giving announcemnts over the radio. They're very much set in the Killjoys universe, and there's been a LOT of good meta written about this. I’m probably gonna make another entire post on that.

But to the point.

NA NA NA sets us up with the Fab Four living out of their base, which is an old diner/motel, hanging out with The Girl, and periodically getting into kickass firefights as they rebel against BLind in various ways. However, by the end of the video, a fight lead by Korse goes badly, resulting in all the Fab Four being incapacitated and The Girl being kidnapped by Korse. It’s in this fight that Jet Star loses/seriously damages his right eye and Fun Ghoul (probably) gets his Chelsea smile. The Girl is taken into Batt City, presumably to be studied/brainwashed. Remember, Batt City is aware of her abilities and obviously never wants her to take them down.

The SING music video opens up with the Fab Four storming BLind so they can get The Girl back. The entire video is a rescue mission and SPOILERS AHEAD the entirety of the Fab Four die by the end of it. Yes, you heard me right, the Killjoys die three songs into the album, protecting the Girl as other Killjoys (Dr. D, Show Pony, and probably Cherri Cola) get her out of Batt City. (This is where I take a brief pause to say that the song Save Yourself I’ll Hold Them Back actually fits the plot of this video so much better but that is probably part of the point, I am going to make a post about this later). The video is high key depressing, as you can see in the Fab Four’s faces that they know they aren’t going to make it out of this fight alive. And they don’t, but the Girl is saved from the control of the Chairwoman and makes it out of Batt City.

And then this is where shit gets weird.

‘Jet Star and the Kobra Kid/Traffic Report’ is a track about halfway through the album that takes the form of Dr. D updating Killjoys on the state of the Zones. In this update, he states that Jet Star and the Kobra Kid have gotten in a fight with an Exterminator and gotten killed. “But Seb!” you might be saying right about now, “How can Jet and Kobra die two songs after the entirety of the Fab Four have already died in SING?”

The answer is I don’t fucking know. What we do know is that Danger Days as an album is non-chronological, and does not form a complete story. Like folk songs, some events are immortalized, but the tracks do not form an entire narrative, mostly just giving us glimpses into the world, introducing our heroes, and detailing two or three events that would be important to the Killjoys in this world, i.e. The Girl being kidnapped and later rescued, as well as the deaths of the Fab Four. So it makes sense that contradictions exist. In the real world, when folk stories are being told (and yes Danger Days functions as a folk album in-universe, FIGHT ME ON IT) things get mixed up and only the really important bits are consistent.

My personal theory, one very similar to some popular fanon theories and that somewhat lines up with comics lore, is that after their deaths in SING, the Fab Four became the faces of a revolution/movement against BLind. For all the anarchist/punk spirit of the Fab Four, you’ll notice that none of their activities in the music videos are coordinated at all. Like, they don’t have grand plots to take down BLind, they’re just trying to survive and inconvenience the pigs where they can. The rescue mission for the Girl is laughably simplistic, they literally just blast their way in and out again. They weren’t rescuing her as a ‘fuck you’ to BLind, it’s a very personal rescue mission for someone they care about.

So they probably weren’t very important while alive, but after their deaths their actions became legendary and more stories got told about them, with events changing from telling to telling. Thus multiple deaths, weird inconsistencies, and non-chronological storytelling. So yeah, the lore breaks down a lot, but that’s the main plot points of the album. I’m not fully going to get into comics lore here, because again, I haven’t finished them!

ASSORTED LORE

This is where I link to my Killjoys bible, a.k.a. a very nice list of all the slang terms/assorted bits of lore from this universe. I've gone over some of it but if you want more, here it is. Some of this is fanon, other bits are straight from the comics or album.

also here's a link to the Killjoy comics, which I haven't finished yet. 

That’s all I got for right now, at least in terms of what is mostly canon. There’s a LOT of really good fanon and meta out there, which I definitely wanna expand on at a later date, but hopefully this is a good launching point into the world of the Killjoys.

Keep your boots on, keep your gun ready, and die with your mask on if you’ve gotta. This has been the traffic.

-Seb

#Sebastian speaks #Sebastian loves MCR #i may have gone overboard here #NO REGRETS #danger days the true lives of the Fabulous Killjoys #danger days #MCR #party poison #jet Star #Kobra Kid #fun ghoul

[mandareeboo]

Love how Luz has progressed from an only child to the middle child of like eight in two seasons.

#YES I AM INCLUDING THE BATTS #FITE ME #The Owl House #TOH Spoilers #Yesterday's Lie #Vee Noceda #Luz Noceda #King Clawthorne #Amber #Katya #Derwin #The Golden Guard #Falc talks

[isthisthingeven0n]

look, nothing happened, really : j.w

brief summary: during a work trip with your friend jeff, you somehow end up sleeping together and try to act as if it never happened. but that would be easier said than done.. 

word count:  2.1k requested: yes by the sweetest ass anon and this idea omg i love love LOvE it! warnings: nothing that i’m aware of?? 

* masterlistin’ / masterlistin’ 2.0

(everything on my blog is my own writing. if it is shared on another page or website know it hasn’t been approved me unless specified. all rights reserved. - i have to start doing this as I had some shit on my other blog with plagiarism)

DO NOT STEAL MY WORK - IT IS ALL MY OWN WRITING

It was your first trip away with a company, and the only other person you knew who was going happened to be Jeff. You didn’t mind the fact he’d be your buddy, your go-to guy on this trip because he’s Jeff, your friend.

“Come on, it’s a weekend, you’ll love it.” Jeff wraps his arm around your shoulders, tugging you against him as he squeezes you playfully. “Now where’s your bag?”

“I can carry it, Jeff.” You chuckle as you pick it up, only for Jeff to quickly intervene and carry it out to his car. “Such a gentleman.” You batt your eyes at him, watching as he covers his heart before you climb into the passenger seat, setting off to the airport to meet everyone else.

As Jeff drives, you can tell he’s glancing over, ensuring you’re still awake. “You know anyone on this trip?” Jeff speaks up, breaking you from your attempted slumber.

Resting your cheek against your hand, you shake your head. “Can’t say I do beside you.” You tell him with a small smile, watching as a proud look crosses his face. “It’s mostly small creators across various platforms, be a good chance to meet new people.” You shrug your shoulder lightly, noting Jeff nodding as he turns into the airport parking.

“Well, let’s meet the team I guess.” Jeff shrugs your bag over his shoulder despite your protests as you follow closely behind, camera in hand to start recording.

*

“Psst, Jeff?” You nudge him lightly as his head remains on your shoulder, still fast asleep as the plane begins to descend. “We’re close to landing, bud.” You mutter, glancing up to the elderly lady sat beside him with a smile on her face.

“Young love, huh?” She chuckles, and you simply smile instead of correcting her as Jeff begins to stir.

“You’re comfy, Y/n.” He mumbles before opening his eyes, suddenly remembering where he is as he clears his throat, sitting upright as his cheeks heat up momentarily. “So we’re almost there?” Jeff quickly changes the subject as he looks past you to see the view from your window.

Following his line of focus, you can see the beaches already. “I can’t wait to chill out on the beach.” You admit with a light sigh.

“Who knows what they’ve got planned for us.” Jeff adds as you turn to see him closer than you anticipated, not missing his brief glance to your lips before he relaxes back in his own seat.

Once you all made it to the hotel and checked into your suites, you immediately started filming. “Oh my god how cute! Look at these lil packs.” You pick up the gift package left by the brand, including a polaroid camera. “So cute!”

A knock on the door interrupts you filming. “Room service?” A familiar voice calls through the door and you roll your eyes, opening it to see Jeff stood with two iced coffees.

“You lifesaver.” You moan as you take a sip of the coffee, fighting back fatigue as Jeff wanders into your room, taking a seat on the edge of your bed.

“So, what’re you gonna do with your day? According to the plan outline, today is a free one.” Jeff explains, reaching into your box of goods and pulls out the plan for the next few days.

Reaching over, your eyes scan the plans and your smile widens. “We get to go scuba diving? No fucking way.” You giddily laugh and Jeff simply nods, trying to remain composed as you collapse on the bed beside him.

“Wanna go to the beach?” Jeff suggests, glancing over his shoulder to see you lying down with your eyes closed.

“Give me ten minutes.” You tell him as you force yourself back upright. “Let me get myself sorted. Meet you out front?” You pat his shoulder and Jeff departs, taking one longing look as you’re unable to wipe a smile from your lips.

Exiting from the elevator, you wander through the reception to see Jeff stood outside, patiently waiting.

“You waiting on someone, stranger?” You call out, watching as Jeff turns and rolls his eyes.

“Just some girl, not sure if she’s worth it yet.” He jokes, causing you to nudge him before wandering through the town, nearing the beach just a mile away. “We could’ve got a cab you know.” Jeff pitches in halfway, noting you drinking your water supply more frequently.

“Get better views this way, Jeff.” You comment, taking another swig at your water as you make it to the entrance of the beach. “Oh wow.” You breathe out, seeing the waves ripple as children play on the sand.

Once you and Jeff settle, you both relax in the silence of each others company. You didn’t feel the need to force conversation as you read your book, oblivious to Jeff wandering off and returning with two drinks.

“Technically, we aren’t working right now.” He reminds you as he passes you a rather strong cocktail, chuckling at how you squirm momentarily. “Might as well enjoy ourselves.”

You clink your glass against his, and before you know it you’re six drinks in and the sun is beginning to set.

“I think we should head back.” Your words slur as you try to stand up, feeling Jeff rest his hands on your waist to hold you up with ease. “Tomorrow is the banana boat.” You state and Jeff shakes his head.

“A few cocktails and you’re legless.” He chuckles before gathering your things, helping you back to the road where a cab is waiting. “Can you stay awake for just a few minutes?” He whispers as you sit beside him in the back of the cab, eyes closing as you begin to drift off beside him.

“No.” You mumble, missing his smile shared with the driver. “You’re cute, Jeff.” You yawn as you snuggle closer into him, unaware of Jeff tensing at your comment. “Like, in a hot way.” You laugh at your own sentence before tilting your head up to see Jeff looking down at you. “What? Did I say something bad?”

Before Jeff can respond, the cab pulls up outside of the hotel. “Come on, Y/n. Let's get you to bed.” Jeff mutters after paying the driver and helping you to the elevator.

“I said something bad, didn’t I?” You fight back tears as you hug your body, focusing on the floor.

“No, no you didn’t, Y/n.” Jeff reassures you, cupping your cheeks with his hands. “Just threw me off that’s all.” He smiles, seeing the way your eyes wander to his lips before shyly looking away. “But, you’re cute too, Y/n.” He adds quietly, unsure where this might lead to.

“You think so?” You mumble, your hands now resting on his waist, pulling him closer toward you.

“Course, I do, doll.” Jeff states as if it were obvious before leaning closer until his lips brush across yours.

*

The sound of your alarm causes you to stir and a quiet groan leaves your lips as you reach over, turning it off.

Forcing yourself up, you rub your eyes and head to the bathroom, oblivious to a sleeping figure in your bed.

As you return, fresh-faced and more alert, you scream at the sight of Jeff in your bed, lips ajar as a bit of drool hangs from his chin.

Upon hearing you scream, Jeff sits upright quickly, looking back at you with the same level of panic. “Why’re you in my room?” Jeff blurts out.

“Why’re you in my room?” You repeat back, motioning to the suitcase of yours still not fully unpacked.

You watch as Jeff pauses before his eyes widen as he points to you. “We slept together.” He states, and you quickly scoff, shaking your head in disbelief.

“Yeah, and I’m the CEO of YouTube.” You joke as you gather your things for the day ahead, ignoring his statement until you glance back to see him still sat in your bed, shirtless and frozen. “Jeff, you’re joking, right?” Your voice wavers slightly as Jeff focuses on you.

“I, I don’t think I am, Y/n.” He tells you with a guilty expression, causing you to groan loudly as you try to wrack your mind for any clear memory of last night. “How much of last night do you remember?” Jeff rises from your bed, luckily in boxers as he picks up his pants, slipping them on.

Rubbing your eyes, you focus on him as he perches on the edge of your bed. “Erm, I remember being in the elevator and,” You trail off as you can picture pieces of last night. Making out with Jeff in the elevator, his hands rising beneath your shirt whilst you fumbled with his belt. Dragging him back to your room, undressing each other and-

“Y/n?” Jeff cuts you off, and you clear your throat suddenly feeling the heat in the room rising.

“I remember it.” You state, scratching your arm lightly as Jeff nods. “We fucked up, right? Is this going to be awkward?” You question, but Jeff rises to his feet and walks toward you, kneeling down in front of you as his hands rest on your thighs.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Jeff shrugs his shoulder, smiling up to you. “do, do you regret it?” The question quietly leaves his lips, but to his surprise, you shake your head.

“Does that make things awkward?” You chuckle before looking away from Jeff’s intense gaze.

“Not at all, angel.” Jeff speaks up, catching you off guard as he tugs on your hands, pulling you back onto the bed.

*

“So, we both know the plan, right?” You double-check as Jeff drives back toward David’s house, snickering at your rising nerves.

Reaching out, Jeff takes a hold of your hand, running his thumb over your skin. “Baby, we discussed it enough,” Jeff reassures you, but you can’t help but sigh heavily. “no one will know, it was just a trip and nothing happened.” He repeats the agreement, glancing over to see you nod.

“I just don’t want anyone knowing, not yet.” You admit, not wanting to burst the bubble you’re currently enjoying with Jeff.

“They won’t know, I can assure you of that.” Jeff brings your hand close to his lips, kissing it softly as you roll your eyes, taking your hand back with a light laugh.

Arriving at David’s you both walk in, fresh from the airport and immediately you’re greeted with a hug from Todd. “Don’t take Jeff away again, Y/n. David’s been terrorising me without him.” He pleads and you look over to see David simply shrug his shoulders.

“Sure thing, Todd.” You nudge him as you move over to sit on the sofa with everyone else, Jeff soon following and sitting beside Todd on the other end of the sofa.

“So, how was it? You’re both glowing!” Erin comments and you nod along, looking over to Jeff who chuckles nervously.

“It was a lot of fun. We went scuba diving,” You start, but briefly pause. “Well, I did, Jeff was too chicken to.” You laugh and Jeff momentarily pouts before smiling back at you, a look that doesn’t go unnoticed by the others.

“I wasn’t, someone should stay on the boat, so I took that brave role.” He reminds you, ignoring the glance you share with Erin. “It was good to get away.” Jeff adds, trying to suppress his smile as he hears you laugh at something Erin said.

“So, nothing happened?” David speaks up, catching you off guard.

“What’d you mean?” You play it cool, leaning back on the sofa, ignoring the intense beating of your heart as you avoid focusing on Jeff.

David shrugs a shoulder, looking between you both. “I don’t know, Hawaii, drinks, just the two of you. Sounds romantic.” David laughs and you shake your head.

“It was far from romantic I can assure you. Someone was seasick most of the time.” You try to change the topic, but everyone focuses on Jeff.

“That so, Jeff?” David raises an eyebrow to Jeff, and you can see he’s trying not to crack as a nervous noise leaves his lips. “Nothing happened between you two, huh?”

Looking around at everyone, Jeff glances over to see you with wide eyes, pleading him to not say anything.

“Okay, so we slept together.” Jeff blurts out and you groan loudly, burying your face in your hands.

“Jeff! We agreed on this!” You yell back as everyone remains in a silent shock at the news.

“Sorry, Y/n.” Jeff mutters before walking over and sits beside you, taking your hand in his. “I’ll make it up to you.” He comments quietly whilst your friends try to process what they just heard and witnessed.

“No wonder you’re both glowing.” Carly breaks the ice, and you laugh, watching as Jeff simply nods.

#omg i loved writing this #feedback is always appreciated! #jeff wittek #jeff wittek imagine #jeff wittek imagines #jeff wittek oneshot #jeff wittek fluff #jeff wittek angst #jeff wittek x reader #jeff wittek au #jeff wittek writing #vlog squad #vlog squad imagine #vlog squad imagines #vlog squad oneshot #vlog squad fluff #vlog squad angst #vlog squad x reader #vlogsquad #vlogsquad imagine #vlogsquad fluff #vlogsquad imagines #vlogsquad oneshot #vlogsquad x reader #vlogsquad writing #vlogsquad angst

[phcking-detective]

FOUND

Find Familiar: ch 1

Rating: E

Summary: Nines cast the spell Find Familiar, but instead of an animal, they accidentally summoned a werewolf. Gavin is just happy to have finally found his mate and start pack bonding with the half-elf wizard. His best idea for a fun bonding activity? Touching his dick of course!

***

Gavin wakes up with a warm, breathing body pressed against his own, and it's all he ever wanted.

Then reality seeps in like cold rain and he realizes it's just the one person, not a dog pile, because he doesn't have a pack. Only a wizard who maybe sort of magically owns him now.

So that's a great start to the morning.

He gets a stew started like he promised, once he finds some potatoes and carrots, one lonely haunch of meat in an icebox, and no spices beyond salt. There aren't many places to look, since the whole room is five, maybe six hundred square feet.

Gods. Gavin's a lone wolf living half-feral without a tent or even a fire half the time, and he still thinks this is pathetic.

He knows better than to touch any of the books scattered around—fucking wizards—so he doesn't try to clean anything while he waits for his new … boss? Alpha?? person, to wake up.

(He does risk moving a stack of papers to sit in front of the black leather collar on the desk. Not hidden. Just. Out of sight.)

"No celery?" the wizard asks.

Gavin bites down on a flinch and a few choice swears. Sweet Selûne shift him. Who the fuck goes from asleep to awake completely silent like that?

"No," he growls.

Nines blinks themself more awake. "Is your negative an agreement to my question or simply a negative?"

"Baby, I have no idea what the fuck you mean, but there's not any celery."

"Oh. Thank you."

The conversation ends there when he dishes out a bowl of stew, that Nines eats at their desk, one agonizingly slow bite at a time, almost as an afterthought as they work on creating papers and papers of writing.

Since the wizard is so absorbed in their scribbles they can barely notice food, Gavin strips down and takes a bath. The water runs hot straight out of the faucet, even without any signs of pipes. Sinking into a whole tub of it feels goddamn luxurious.

He's half-shifted before he even realizes, but Nines probably wouldn't notice he got out and swung his dick around like a propeller, so he doesn't force himself back. His hybrid form always feels better anyway, the best of both animals, with human hands and wolf senses, still able to stand and walk upright but with stronger muscles and thicker protective body hair.

He's still sunk down and amusing himself by blowing bubbles in the water with his near-snout when Nines finally surfaces for air on their own side of the tower.

"Gav—oh."

They turn around and blink at him. Gavin hunkers down lower in the water and prepares to force himself back, but even without actively poking the bond, he can tell there isn't any fear or revulsion from the wizard. He still pulls his snout of out the water and scents the air just to check, but … nothing.

"Good. Yes. Feel free to utilize any of the …" Nines pauses, stuck on the words. "Accommodations. Can you read?"

It's probably a fair question—especially since the answer is barely—but Gavin still hauls himself out of the bathtub and onto the sand pit so Nines will have to look at him. All the scars, the body hair almost thick enough to be a pelt, the way his bone structure is clearly halfway between one form and the other right now.

But instead of making the wizard flinch away and stop asking questions, Nines just grabs a different notebook and begins sketching him.

"Why?" Gavin growls out.

He can still speak, but just like his amount of literacy, the amount is barely. With lots of effort.

"Hmm?"

Nines looks up. Sort of. They lift their head at least, but their eyes stay focused down on their notebook, reluctantly dragged up at the very last second.

"Mm? Oh. Yes, here is your contract," they say.

They place the small stack of papers they'd written onto the dining table in the center of the room, then the two of them meet in the middle, each awkwardly taking a seat across from each other at the table, then staring at each other even more awkwardly.

"That is my brother's seat," Nines says.

Gavin raises an eyebrow but doesn't move his ass out of it. At least he put pants on before sitting down.

"I have never had another visitor," the wizard continues. "So. That has always been …"

They trail off, then grab their notebook and begin reading from it.

"My name is Nines. I am a wizard. I am thirty-two year half-elf. I do not have a gender. I use they-them pronouns. Pause for—"

They stop abruptly and look back up at him.

"… Gavin," he says. "I'm a fighter, thirty-six, werewolf. Born, not turned, so we don't really keep track of any races. You're either a wolf or you're not. Probably human though. Uh, he-him."

If they don't bother with human binary genders, maybe they'd understand just … switching genders? He thinks about it while Nines writes down what he'd said, like anything he says is actually important enough to be recorded.

Maybe he should let them get a little more attached to him before he tells them about the other crazy, evil wizard with a claim on him—and all the transformations they'd done on his body.

"Does your entire pack consist of born lycanthropes?" they ask, drawing him back into the conversation.

"Can just say wolves," Gavin grumbles. "And yeah. Haven't taken in a stray for a while."

No one does. That's why he's still—ugh, stop it. Fucking feeling sorry for himself.

"Is there a significant cultural difference between born and turned … wolves?"

Gavin stares at the wizard. Significant cultural difference, Selûne shift and collar him.

"Turned wolves don't have a pack," he finally says. "No one to share the mental load—most of the poor fuckers don't even know what's happening until they're already shifted and scared and starving. They've got just enough instinct to go back home, and then the screaming and running starts …"

He assumes he doesn't have to finish it from there. A hungry wolf sees something run, and they think prey, not child.

"I apologize if I ask simple questions," Nines states while still writing. "But I have never had the opportunity to meet a wolf in person, and so my knowledge is likely biased and incorrect. Is a coastal environment a suitable habitat for you?"

Gavin shrugs. "Sure. You gonna let me run around outside at some point?"

"Yes, of course. You may come and go as you please," Nines says. "How much land will your pack need? I do own the surrounding—"

His pack? Gavin stares at Nines as they ramble on about this land they own and how it's too rocky to support farming but has access to a cove, and the ensuing treaty with the local pod of merfolk, and—

And his pack. He has no idea what game the wizard is playing, but he never imagined it would include letting him "come and go as you please" and providing land for his—

"I don't have a pack," he blurts out.

Nines stops and blinks at him.

"Got kicked out."

He doesn't explain. It's impossible to explain just one thing, because it's all tangled together, in his mind, the words stuck in his throat. Refusing his pack's Alpha, bargaining to have his body changed and transformed, his womb scooped out so he could never be bred, never ever—

And where exactly that got him. They sit together in silence for a long, horrible moment.

"No one has need of a ninth child," Nines finally says.

"You really call yourself that?" Gavin asks in return, for lack of anything less dick-ish to say.

"Yes." Nines looks at him without any self-pity and factually adds, "It states all that most need to know. They do not need me, and I do not need them."

Gavin nods. "Fuck 'em."

"Yes. Well. I—" Nines stops and abruptly pushes the small pile of paperwork closer to his side of the table. "Here is your contract. It details what I … do need. And, expectations. I suppose the fifth clause is no longer necessary, unless you intend to create your own."

"My own … pack?" Gavin asks slowly.

"Yes."

He snorts. "I'm not going to run around and start turning people."

"Yes, that is included in the clause," Nines says. "Subsection A. Not to offend, but I thought it best to lay out a certain number of precautions first. B notes that you will be beholden to all the same laws as any other citizen, and C states you will make adequate arrangements for the full moon with myself or Knight Commander Anderson."

Gavin pulls a face at the rank. That shit's almost definitely a paladin. No sense of humor, holier than thou, and allergic to critical thinking. Just because you pledged allegiance to a deity society deemed "Good" doesn't actually mean literally everything you do is always going to be right or kind or morally just.

"He is also a lycan—" Nines stops and corrects, "A turned wolf, you called it? If expecting the two of you to … have commonalities … is unreasonable, then the subsection can be adjusted accordingly. The point is merely that you arrange for a safe and secure location each month."

"Yeah, we're not going to sniff each other's butts and be best friends," Gavin tells him. "It's probably how you feel about sorcerers and warlocks. Magic just looks like magic to me, but—yeah."

He stops when he sees Nines's face collapse into itself in the purest form of affronted disgust he's ever seen. This time, he can't stop a chuckle before it slips out.

"I can just stay here though?" he asks.

Nines unfurls their face enough to nod. "Yes. My power may be my own, achieved through my own studies, but I was sent to the same monastery as my twin. I acknowledge you have been sent by my patron deity, and I will fulfill my responsibilities to you thusly."

Gavin's eyebrows shoot up. "You're religious?"

"I worship Selûne," Nines answers.

Gavin stares at the wizard.

"Children born under the full moon often have enhanced magical ability," they explain. "She is also the goddess of navigation, quests, and all who work by night. It was the battle with her own twin that caused the formation of Mystral, the goddess of all magic. Many arcane users still worship her as such."

"And werewolves," Gavin says as how this shit all happened clicks into place.

"Your duties outlined in the contract." Nines stops and clears their throat. "Every power has a price, and mine was enacted at my birth. I have always needed certain accommodations. I realize now a mere animal would not be enough to serve as my familiar, yet a person has never been summoned before. A familiar that is both animal and person, however …"

Gavin nods at the stack of papers. "So am I your familiar or your employee?"

"Well, both," Nines answers. "You are magically bound to me, but you obviously are not a simple animal. I have made adjustments due to these extenuating circumstances, but this is a standard contract for all minions, assistants, and others employed by wizards."

He snorts. "Do I have a union?"

"Yes, subsection E, although you will need to opt-in," Nines replies, very sincerely.

Gavin taps the top paper to make a point when he asks his next question, and the paper suddenly yells the word "HEREFORE" at him.

"Oh, my apologies." Nines takes the stack from him and scribbles a few marks in the top corner. "There, the volume should be properly adjusted."

Gavin cautiously slides the papers back over, being careful to only touch the sides of the stack. He takes the first page off the top and pokes his name, one of the few words he recognizes.

"Gavin," the paper announces.

"I have paperwork I must complete to officially register you as both my familiar and my new minion," Nines tells him. "I trust you can be left to your own devices to review our contract?"

"Yeah," Gavin says.

"Very good."

Nines gets up and returns to their desk. Still no collar, only … this contract. Gavin runs his finger along the first line.

"The entity known as Gavin, herefore referred to as THE FAMILIAR, will enter into a magically binding contract with Nines, herefore referred to as THE WIZARD, to serve in the capacities of both a FAMILIAR and a MINION, as outlined by the Wizard Coalition of …"

***

Gavin nuzzles into his bed and groans. Three days of barely stopping to hunt and sleep to get here, and now it's been another three days of slowly figuring each other out.

Which hasn't been bad or anything. He got to run around outside, do a few laps around the borders of Nines's land. Cold, wet, and rocky, but he has to admit, he's kind of digging the melodramatic sea-side vibe. The air smells like salt and storms all the time, crowding out all the memories of soft earth and dense forest.

And he's got a contract. A "boss." That's the word Nines wants to use, so Gavin says that, but they both know he means Alpha.

It's good to have a job, food, and a bed, blah blah blah, he's really grateful and all, it's just—

Maybe not everyone has them or wants to indulge in them, but Gavin does for both.

And it's been nearly a week.

"Nines," he finally says.

He pokes at their bond too for good measure. The wizard won't pay attention to him unless he does. They'll look up and point their face at his face, but somehow their hand will keep writing in the scroll and they won't hear a goddamn word he says.

Even with the mental prodding, Nines barely turns their head. "Hmm?"

"I need to jack off."

Nines keeps writing for half a second before they blink and actually look at him. "… now?"

Gavin half-shrugs, still laying down. "I mean, tonight, yeah."

He's a werewolf using testosterone cream—kept in a jar in his coin purse, which was much more important to enchant to shift with him than shoes—who just formed a mental pack bond again. Full moon already past or no, his hormones are screaming at him that he needs to fuck.

But that's probably not Nines's idea of a fun bonding activity.

"Do you have adequate lubrication?" Nines asks, then continues with narrowed eyes before he can even reply, "Do not use my spell components."

Gavin barks out a laugh. "What—I'm gonna jack it with oblex ooze? That'd melt my fucking dick off!"

"Yes, it would."

He pauses. "Do … you know that for sure?"

Nines sighs. Deeply. "I attended an academy meant to train paladins, clerics, and perhaps the odd druid."

"All the most repressed spellcasters, huh?"

Nines doesn't deny it. Gavin snorts, imagining all the magically-inclined tithe-children being told to keep themselves pure so they can be properly donated to the gods turning into magically-inclined teenagers hit with guilt and libido in equal measure—and all the idiot fuckery they probably got up to without any actual education about their bodies.

"Do you have adequate lubrication?" Nines asks again. "I do not keep supplies for that on hand."

"You don't keep supplies or you don't uh, keep anything on hand?" Gavin wiggles his eyebrows.

Nines flushes and glares like they're still a prefect at that academy. "I—that is not—"

Gavin raises his own hands to prove they're above the sheets. "If that's not any of my business, sure. Figured that, honestly. Which is why I'm telling you that I've got needs, but I can just go downstairs if you want."

"Downstairs?" Nines frowns less furiously.

"That little entranceway at the door is large enou—"

"I'm not going to send you out into the hall," Nines says, like that's what will make them clutch their pearls in shock. "You can stay in your own bed."

"Yeah?" Gavin gives the wizard a once over. "I'm good with that. So good. But what I'm willing to do with pack and what you think is appropriate for a roommate probably isn't the same thing."

Nines's frown turns more calculating, like they're correcting the runes in a spell. "We are discussing you staying in your bed to masturbate while I continue my studies, correct?"

"… yeah?"

"Are you going to call me names, attempt to touch me, or—"

"No, no," Gavin rushes to reassure them. "I can just …"

He moves his hand down and cups himself, just to demonstrate that he's only going to be touching his own body, before he remembers that's not socially acceptable around humans either. Nines only cocks their head to the side though, a mild curiosity leaking through their mental bond.

And fuck, just his hand feels good right now. It's been nearly a goddamn week.

"Do you have adequate lubrication?" Nines asks.

Gavin shivers under the sound of their voice. "Don't need it. Get wet enough myself."

He feels the bond pulse again with that academic sort of curiosity, like Nines is going to start taking notes on him again while he jacks off. He pushes his trousers down, moving slowly enough to give his boss plenty of time to look away. He isn't wearing smalls of course. They'd just be another piece he'd have to pay to get enchanted.

Nines eyes his cock like they might sketch it in exact anatomical detail.

Gavin doesn't mention how he got it—his bargain and the Collar, the collapsed tower, the vows of vengeance—he'll get around to confessing it all eventually. But in the meantime: a fun bonding activity.

Gavin grips his cock and gives it a few strokes. Nines blinks in a way that's more like shutting their eyes repeatedly. He exhales slowly and makes himself stop, although he does still keep his hand held loosely around the base.

"If you don't want echoes, you'll have to wall off your mind on your own end," he advises Nines. "I'm uh … a little too busy here to concentrate."

"Echoes," Nines repeats.

Shit, right. Human. Doesn't seem to specialize in any divination or enchantment magic—so they probably don't have any experience being inside someone else's head.

"Yeah, that's why I offered to," He jerks his chin at the door. "Distance helps, some."

Nines does that tiny little head tilt again. "May I observe?"

Gavin licks his lips. "Yeah."

"May I ignore you?" they ask next.

"Uh, sure?"

He doesn't have any human hangups about nudity, but he's not going to whip his dick out and waggle it at anyone who doesn't want to see it. Jacking off in the same room is probably already pushing it, but then again, the rules seem to be different in boarding schools and barracks and sometimes bars but sometimes not—humans have so many weird fucking rules.

"Then," Nines says. "You do as you please, and I will do the same."

"Works for me."

Gavin gives his cock another squeeze, and Nines turns back to their scroll. Yeah, he's a little disappointed about that, but it's enough just to have his pack in the same room and know he's not alone.

Since the wizard isn't watching anyway, Gavin rolls over and shoves a blanket down around his crotch. He has a whole nest of them, all piled up on top of a mattress Nines insisted he have. They'd tried to bring in an actual bed, but it's just weird, sleeping so high up and away from the ground for no reason.

He gets a soft little mound built up and grips himself again through the blanket. Even if Nines makes him wash it after, this will make his bed smell like him and home and—

Gavin buries his face into his pillow and inhales. It still has Nines's scent on it. All the blankets do too, so now they'll smell like the both of them, like pack.

He feels a fresh jab of interest spike back through their bond and guesses Nines is watching him again. Maybe jacking off right in front of them like that was a little too much, but with everything mostly out of view now, they're back to curious again.

It only takes him a minute to build up a steady rhythm, rutting into the blankets and his own hand. He groans into the pillow and hears Nines breathe in sharply.

Echoes. He grins and keeps going.

He doesn't know what kind of needs Nines has or wants to fulfill, but he likes the thought of making them feel good. Would like it even better if he could crawl over between the wizard's legs and find out what they're working with by licking it.

"Gavin …"

The wolf whines in response to his name in his Alpha's mouth. He squeezes his hand tighter at the base of his cock against the knot trying to plump up there, just in case Nines wants it.

"Yeah, baby?" Gavin manages to growl.

"Oh."

Nines breathes the word, and Gavin can feel a small simmer of arousal bounce back and forth between them—this time from the wizard's end, not his.

"Does it always feel like this?" they ask.

He groans in answer, the only response he has to the soft wonder in their voice. He knows humans' senses are weak and dull, that they don't get hit with lust and frenzy the same way wolves do.

But hearing the awe in his human's voice the first time they feel it too makes him want to show them how good it can really feel.

"Yeah," he bites out. "Better with … you."

His canines get in the way of the words, the partial shift rippling through his body. He's never had particularly good control of it, so there's no stopping the change now when his blood's up.

"Are you wet?"

The question stabs through him. Gavin loses his rhythm with a whimper, nearly overcome with the instinct to crawl over and show his Alpha, present his cock or his mouth or whatever hole they want to use.

And he is wet. He can feel it dripping down the length of his cock, more pooling at the head, smearing into the palm of his hand.

"Uh huh," he pants.

Gavin bites down into the blankets as he ruts harder, but a sharply clicked tongue brings him back to awareness. He turns his head to the side and blearily stares up at Nines as he continues fucking his own hand.

"I would like to hear you," Nines says.

"Baby," Gavin breathes in reply.

Nines closes their eyes and shivers. Well, if they like his voice …

"Wanna lick you," he says. "Suck on you and make you—ahhh, make you feel good."

"I—" Nines stares at him with wide eyes.

"Shh, shhh." Gavin keeps making the noise in a low mumble as he slows down his pace into a dirty grind. "Gotcha baby, get my mouth on your nipples an' your neck, your mouth, make you wet too."

"I don't usually like to be touched," Nines admits.

Gavin's brain snatches onto the word usually, but he doesn't want to push. There's some shit he knows for sure he won't ever do, but then there's a lot more he just doesn't know if he really doesn't want, or maybe only in the right situation, with the right pronouns and body parts, the right person, but then how is he supposed to know if he wants it enough to try it if he won't know if he actually wants it until he's already tried it?

So that's a whole big nest of wyverns, and neither of them need to try to sort it out right this moment.

"Can give you this though, yeah?" Gavin asks.

He twists his wrist on the upstroke against the head, but then stops and holds completely still. Nines tries to strangle a whine in their throat at the lost sensation.

"… yes."

That confession sounds much better. Gavin grins at the wizard and starts thrusting again, still looking at them. Their long eyelashes and shoulder-length hair almost soften their face into pretty, but then thin lips, a straight nose, and strong jaw sharpen the effect back up again. And the ice-blue eyes set against pale skin and black hair just sends it all careening past beautiful or handsome into big words about being scary-haunting-magical that the wolf can't think of right now.

He can feel his orgasm building up, drowning in those eyes staring right back at him, but he squeezes harshly at the base of his cock. The sensation strangles at the root, like the little moans Nines won't let escape their mouth.

He probably shouldn't tempt it, but he sinks into the feeling of tightening and loosening his grip around his knot and the waves of pleasure that sends rolling through them both.

"You," Nines says but can't seem to find anymore words.

"Mmgff." Gavin huffs into the pillow and tries to make his own words work. "Good, feels good. Sorry. Won't knot if—fffuck."

If that scares you. Disgusts you. Bores you, to be stuck listening to him come and come and come while the exasperated wizard is trying to focus on their studies.

He pries his eyes back open when he hears footsteps and stares up at Nines paused in an awkward-half crouch over him, like they're not sure if they're allowed to touch. His tail makes the decision for both of them by immediately wagging in anticipation of pets and attention.

"May I touch you?" Nines still asks.

Gavin nods past a desperate whine. A hand slides up the back of his neck first, while another soothes over his bare flank. Must've kicked off his trousers at some point. All that matters is the hand on the back of his neck, pinning him down, holding him place, exactly where he should be for his Alpha.

His tail wags harder.

"May I see?"

The hands urge him to roll over, and he does, without hesitation, like a dog showing his belly when his master comes home.

Laying on his back like this, he knows the partial shift is even more apparent. Just about everything humans think they know is bullshit, but his hybrid form really does look like those shitty illustrations of big scary wolf men.

And that's without the thick, hairy cock jutting out between his legs.

He's proud of it, wanted it, needed it, but that was for himself. He wasn't trying to impress anyone, and he's not expecting a human to like it.

"Does your phallus typically have this appearance, or is it increasingly engorged due to your partial transformation?" Nines asks.

Gavin stares up at them and tries to impress through their mental bond just how many fucking words that was.

Nines flushes and tries again. "Does it get bigger when you shift?"

"Yeah," he says. "Touch me?"

He holds his cock slightly out toward the wizard in offering. Nines hums in consideration but doesn't make any move toward it. That's fair.

"Do you knot without …" They struggle with the words again. "Sex?"

Gavin strokes himself, tugging upward and pause at the head. It leaves his knot free below, not quite there yet, but noticeably swollen under the attention.

"Can. Sometimes."

"Will you show me?"

Nines stares down at him and meeting their eyes is like looking at the moon. Humans want so badly to sort everything into Good or Bad, even the deities they worship. But some things aren't good or bad, only intense.

Gavin nods, mouth slack and panting. He wraps his left hand around his knot to work it while his right keeps stroking the rest. Nines's eyes sweep up and down him like a search light scanning for a rogue.

"Feel … good?" he asks between pants.

Maybe he's already asked, but it's hard to think right now. He tugs at the bond, trying to pull Nines's mind closer to him, get them to come down out of the sky and feel it with him. The wizard's hands clench into the robes draped over their kneeling legs.

Then they open their eyes again, and Gavin could swear their irises really have turned a silvery-blue.

"Behave."

The order thunders down their bond and into his chest. Gavin groans, the tightness coiled inside him easing another measure. He's not quite ready to unspool, but maybe—maybe just a little?

"I am asking about you."

Nines's voice changes from questioning and a little stilted to informing him of how it is, like casting a spell. Gavin doesn't have any ability himself, but as far as he knows, that's kind of how they do it. Spell casting is just telling reality what to do with enough conviction that reality up and does it.

"Do you want to be mine?"

Gavin thrusts into his hands in answer. It's sloppy and a little pathetic, because there's nothing for him to rut into. But he starts nodding again, just in case that wasn't enough.

"Like this?" Nines touches him for the second time, one hand gently curling around his throat. "To be mine."

He's coming undone. Falling apart. Food and shelter and an Alpha, their own little pack of two, someone touching him and promising to claim him.

"Suh … 'posed to be … yours."

He knows it's true, it's true, true. The call in his mind, their contract, both of them bound by Selûne.

"Yes," Nines confirms. "Show me."

Gavin comes almost before they finish speaking. He tries to hold eye contact as long as he can, but eventually his own squeeze shut as he curls in on himself with a shudder. The first wave passes deceptively quick, with just a few spurts from his cock.

But he's not done.

"Good boy."

Those hands are back again, just like before, this time encouraging him to roll back onto his belly. They stroke through his hair and scritch behind his ears when he obeys, and he thinks life couldn't possibly get any better until there's a warm body sliding onto the mattress behind him.

Then he's being spooned and everything inside him unravels without any warning.

When he's done coming for the second time, he's aware of a few things: the hand wrapped back around his throat, first. That the gangly half-human, half-elf is tall enough to almost envelope him completely. The soft murmur of praise in his ear, shifted halfway up his head now and nearly wolf-like.

Yours.

It's harder to send the thought out when he's only partially shifted. Even with other wolves, they all share best as animals, some basic concepts as hybrids, and only faint echoes when unshifted.

But being the wizard's familiar must be different, since he'd heard the summons in his head from damn near across the country, in all forms, while Nines can't shift at all.

You are mine. I will take care of you, if you allow me to keep you.

Oh yeah, that's definitely different. Wolves share senses and feelings, not full sentences.

Keep me, Gavin manages to think back.

"Yes," Nines murmurs aloud.

The third wave hits him, and he sobs as he comes for his Alpha. His body is just doing the best it can to please, still managing to pump out another two shots of cum. He can finally feel a tinge of mild revulsion from Nines, but it seems to be aimed more at the mess than himself. Bold feelings from a wizard who left a hunk of bread to mold so long they mistook it for a stoneshroom.

"Perhaps I should invest in a toy," they muse. "A sleeve somewhat akin to a bag of holding, so that it can contain all this mess."

Gavin groans in a not-sexy way. "Don't make me fuck a void."

"No, the pocket dimension would only be applied at the tip of the—"

He can't help but start laughing. Pocket dimension applied at the tip—and said completely straight. Goddamn wizards.

Nines expresses their irritation at being laughed at by nipping his ear, and yep, there's wave number four. To their credit, they do continue to hold him until he gets another brief reprieve.

"How many times does this occur?" they ask when he's done.

"Depends," Gavin scrapes together enough brain matter to say. "More with … partner."

"Hmm," Nines says, like the feral scientist they are.

Gavin flips off his pride and goes straight to begging. "Please."

He's not sure what exactly he's begging for though—not to be forced into multiple orgasms while Nines observes or takes notes, or that the wizard will get started on that right away.

"Please, please, baby."

Nines pulls him back to rest half on top of their body, which lets them switch their right hand for their left hand around his throat without him laying on top of their arm. And that in turn frees up their right hand to drop down to his cock.

"Yours, yours," he mumbles. "Alpha."

"What do you need?"

Their hand brushes his own, the one gripping his knot. He lets go for an agonizing second to press their hand against it instead. Nines lets him wrap his hand back around theirs, using both of their hands to squeeze and lightly tug the knot.

"Ah … ahhh …"

"Ask properly," Nines orders.

"Alphaaa!"

He practically wails the word, shaking apart in Nines's arms and beneath their hand, but he can't now, it's not enough on his own anymore, not without permission.

"Hmmm."

Gavin cries freely, but doesn't make Nines grip him tighter or stroke him off. His Alpha will give him what he needs, and he'll take what he's given, like a good boy.

But that doesn't mean he can't ask for more.

"Baby," he groans. "Need it, need it, I—phck, please!"

"Yes."

The final wave sweeps over him so hard he goes blind, or his eyes shut, or he's back on his belly again, face smushed into the pillow, Nines's hand still around him and the blankets beneath his cock to rut into and it's not the last because Nines tells him Again and Again, until he's coming dry, throat hoarse from crying.

And then once more after that.

When he regains consciousness again, his whole body feels sore in the best possible way. There's drool running down his chin, tacky and drying to the pillow. He has his knees tucked up beneath him, but that's OK, because this is how he's supposed to present anyway.

Except the hand reaching between his legs doesn't breach him. Something soft and wet swipes over him instead, and he can't even muster up the mental energy to be scared, to explain why that's still there, that he managed to bargain for a working cock and all his insides scooped out, but that's still—

"Hush." Nines soothes him with another hand rubbing his back. "You did very well. All you must do now is rest."

Gavin sinks back down into the delicious ache and doesn't move while Nines cleans the slick from between his thighs, then further up to his cock. The blankets he'd rutted into have already been removed at some point. He knows from experience not even the best wizard on the material plane could wash his scent out though and takes a moment to feel a little smug about it.

"Yes, you came a truly impressive amount," Nines says. "Excessive, actually."

Gavin smacks his mouth before he can speak. "Your fault."

"Hmmm."

Nines stands when he's done and moves away. Gavin manages to flop onto his side and curl up. His boss did say he could sleep now. He just needs a little nap.

He gets a flask of water shoved in his face instead. The hand petting him goes back awkward again, pat-pat-pat instead of real pets. Nines doesn't seem to know exactly what to do now that they're done, but clean up and water was still really nice of them.

Gavin finishes gulping down the flask and heaves in air.

"I have work I need to finish," Nines informs him. "Have your needs been sufficiently met?"

Sufficiently met? Fuck, he's had orgies that didn't wear him out this good.

"Yeah," Gavin answers. "Need to sleep now."

Nines smiles at him. "Excellent. Good boy."

Gavin grins lazily back at them. "And when I wake up, I'm gonna crawl over between your legs and make you feel good too."

Nines flushes and half opens their mouth to protest.

"When you need a break from your scroll-thingy, and only if you let me," he adds.

Nines closes their mouth. They don't say anything else, but that means they also don't say no. Their blush doesn't go away either. They simply stand back up and sit down at their desk, spending far too much concentration fussing over the exact alignment of all their inks and quills instead of looking at Gavin.

Who keeps grinning, even as he yawns and snuggles down in his bed. He just needs a little nap, and then after that … he has all sorts of ideas for fun bonding activities.

***

***

This fic was commissioned by one of my followers to continue the first drabble! Subscribers to my Patreon get early access to all my commissioned fics 2 weeks before they’re posted to AO3 and tumblr ^^

#reed900 #gavin reed #dbh #dbh fic #detroit: become human

[angelsfalling16]

Snow and The Flame

For the @coexchange, I gifted @carryonincorrectquotes a playlist with the promise of a fic outline, and I am finally delivering that!

Here is the playlist, and the outline is underneath the cut. I decided to preface this with an explanation about what I did, so bear with me for a moment.

The plan was to give them a playlist with a detailed fic outline, but it turns out that my outlines are incomprehensible unless you’re me (and sometimes even if you’re me) so this became more like a speed run through the fic where I half-rambled, half-narrated it along with explanations about which songs fit where.

There are a ton of songs on here because I thought it would be a good idea to pick songs and then figure out what the fic was going to be about, so each song inspired a different moment, and I had to figure out a way to work them all in. (I actually ended up limiting myself to 25 songs so that this wouldn’t end up being too long.)

I decided to break the outline into sections based off of the songs that each part goes with, and there are a few scenes that I went ahead and wrote, which are shared in italics to try to separate it from the rest. I also included some commentary on why some of the songs were chosen.

Basically, this post got really long but hopefully it isn’t too long or confusing, and I hope you all like it!!

(Also, I know that this isn’t technically a full fic, but since it’s over 6k words, I decided to go ahead and post it on ao3 to make it a little easier to peruse.)

Fic Summary: Simon is a superhero, a part of a group of heroes who protect the city. Baz’s family is a crime family, and they don’t care who they hurt. Baz wants a way out of this life, to get out from under his father’s thumb so that he can make his own choices

Some Background/backstory/world building: 

Some people are born with powers, but they don't come into those powers until they are around 11 years old. When they do get those powers, they receive a token of some sort that symbolizes their power and basically gives them their power. If that token is destroyed, they will lose their powers. Luckily, there are only a few ways to destroy them.

Baz was a child spy who fell in love with the boy he was meant to be targeting, but Simon never even had a clue that he was being watched. Baz was very good at what he did, and while he was growing up with Simon. Simon was all alone, an orphaned child with magickal powers who could make it snow on a dry, summer day and bring cold into places where it was meant to be warm. Baz saw him grow up an outcast, all alone, before becoming a hero as he got older, and he couldn’t help but fall deeply, hopelessly in love.

Murder Song

Alright, so the fic starts out with a scene that was inspired by the song Murder song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1) by AURORA. This is one of the scenes that I went ahead and wrote, and yes, it is very angsty, but the entire fic is not like this.

Baz

“You don’t have to do this. You can make a different choice. Killing me isn’t the only option.”

“No, but it is the fun one.” His grin is dark and menacing, and I want to turn and run. But run where? My whole world is right here, his hand to my heart, ready to fill it with ice.

Simon finally caught me, and I am so tired of fighting that I’m ready to just give up.

He removes his hand from my chest, and for a moment, I believe that he has changed his mind about killing me, but then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a gun, pointing it at my head.

This is it. This is the end.

5...

He’s holding a gun to my head, and he starts to count down. He’s giving me a literal countdown to the moment that he’s going to pull the trigger and end my life. I should be fighting. I should be doing everything in my power to stop him, but all of the fight has gone out of me. I can’t do this anymore. I’m done.

I have no reason to fight anyway.  This is what I deserve. I have hurt too many people during my time on this earth to be given a kinder death. This is already too kind of one.

I deserve to be tortured to within an inch of my life and then be tortured again. I do not deserve a seemingly painless death.

4...

Simon is doing me a service here actually. He could be using his powers to choke all of the life and heat and from my body, slowly draining me of everything that I am, but instead, he’s holding a gun to my head, tears streaming down his face as he stares down at me where I kneel on the ground.

He’s doing it for mercy. He is putting an end to everything that I have suffered for far too long now. He is doing exactly what I want him to.

Still, as I look up at the man that I have loved for so long, my heart shatters in my chest, piercing my body with a spiking pain.

3...

I know that he doesn’t want to hurt me. He’s doing this for me. He’s taking my pain away. He’s drawing it from my body to his with the simple press of a trigger.

Tears burn my eyes, but they aren’t tears of sadness. They’re tears of relief. My pain will be gone in a mere two seconds. It is finally my time to let go, to let the weight of everything wash away as the blanket of death covers me and soothes me into a deep sleep.

2…

The sound of this number brings a facsimile of a smile to my face. I am so close to letting go of all of my pain. I am almost free. Soon, I will feel no more pain. I won’t feel anything anymore, but nothing has got to be better than this vice grip around my chest, suffocating me daily but never taking enough of me to kill me.

I just want to be free. I just want to be able to breathe.

I don’t want to worry about disappointing my family or anyone else.

1...

I have to close my eyes as he gets to 1. I can’t look at him as he does this.

With the second that I have left, I imagine him holding my lifeless body in his arms and crying over my death. The one he delivered but didn’t cause. I imagine for just a moment him caring for me the way that I always hoped he would. I imagine him loving me and mourning the loss of a love he never got to have.

Then, the gun goes off, and I’m gone.

***

I jerk up in bed with a gasping breath, and it takes me a moment to understand what happened.

It was all just a dream, and I’m not sure whether I should be relieved or disappointed. I was so close.

But also in that last moment, as the gun went off, I wondered what would have happened if I had made a different choice. What if I had gone to Simon before it was too late?

I know that he would never help me, but I could turn myself in. At least if I’m locked away, my family can’t force me to hurt anyone anymore. I will be free from them, but I won’t be dead.

I laugh at myself.

Of course I won’t be free. I will never be free from them. They will always come for me. Break me out or kill me for betraying them.

There is no way out of this for me.

 Fight Song – Rachel Platten (cover by KHS and Benjamin Kheng) (If you have time, I highly recommend going and watching the youtube video where they recorded this; it’s pretty cool.)

When Baz wakes up and realizes that it was all a dream, he also realizes that he doesn’t want death to be the answer. If it has to be, it will be a last-ditch option, but he wants to try something else. He thinks Simon could help him. Instead of finding Simon and asking him to kill him, he could ask him for help.

He is deciding to take back his life, making a new life for himself and fighting for a better future, which is where Fight Song comes in. Baz has this whole, long moment where he questions whether any of this is a good idea before he decides that it has to be better than the alternative, which would be his family killing him.

He is going against his family in order to chase after a chance at a better future, one where he gets to live and doesn’t have to hurt people anymore. It won’t be an easy journey, but he is willing to try. He wants his life to be different, and this is where it begins.

 Worlds Collide – Louden Swain

Asking Simon for help might be the hardest thing that Baz has ever done, but he does it. It isn’t all that hard finding the gang of superheroes running around town trying to save the day (because they never take a day off, do they? Baz thinks with mild disgust, wondering what that must be like, trying to save everyone when there will always be evil in the world), and it’s even easier to get Simon alone. All he has to do is hide in the shadows and then yank him into an alleyway.

Of course, Simon thinks it’s some kind of trap at first. (What else is he supposed to think when someone pulls him into a dark alley? Especially when said person is his archnemesis.)

Why would Baz want to suddenly side with the heroes? That’s just it; he wouldn’t. So, this absolutely has to be a trap, and Simon is not going to fall into it. He is prepared for a fight, but that isn’t what Baz wants. That’s quite the opposite of what he is looking for here.

Baz realizes that he only has a short amount of time to convince Simon that he’s telling the truth before someone comes looking for him.

He gets an idea and slips the chain that he’s worn for as long as he can remember from around his neck. It’s the token/source of his power. Simon could easily destroy it, therefore taking away Baz’s power, but Baz trusts him. (Simon is the good guy after all.) He’s still worried, though, because the last person you should give your power token to is your rival, whose one goal in life is to stop you at any cost.

If you’re going to give your token to anyone, it should be the person you love, which Baz supposes Simon fits that bill, too. Baz hates himself for it, but he fell in love with the one person his family has been training him to kill for pretty much his entire life.

Baz has a sick feeling in his stomach as he watches Simon slip the chain around his neck. It clanks against Simon’s own power token, which has been woven into his suit and sits just over his chest. Baz thinks that that’s a rather foolish place to wear it, out in the open where any criminal could easily access it while battling him, because if someone had the right weapon (which Baz’s family does, coincidentally), they could easily hit Simon there and take his powers away from him.

Simon sees Baz eye the two tokens, and he worries for a moment that he might change his mind and make a grab for the both of them, but then his eyes find Simon’s face again.

They then agree to stop fighting each other, and they make an uneasy truce with Baz swearing that he won’t try to hurt Simon – or anyone else – so long as they are working together, and they decide to meet up at a diner in town the next day to talk.

Baz is antsy the entire time, constantly looking over his shoulder, afraid that he might have been followed. Meeting in such a public place probably wasn’t a good idea, but Simon didn’t really give him much of a choice on venues.

They start to talk, and it’s weird how easily they slip into the moment together, their two very different worlds colliding.

It’s almost like in another world, they might have gotten along.

They spend most of their time with Baz explaining to Simon why he wants to leave his family and promising half a dozen more times that he doesn’t plan to turn on him.

When they leave, Simon says that they should meet up again in a few days, so they do, and they continue meeting for a couple of weeks, but eventually, Baz says that they can’t keep meeting up in public like this. Someone from his family might spot them together, and he’ll be in trouble. Or Simon will. Or both. Either way, they cannot be spotted together.

He suggests that they meet up at Simon’s place since Baz is staying with his family, but of course, Simon says absolutely not. He still doesn’t fully trust Baz yet.

Fortunately, Simon knows a place they can go where no one in Baz’s posh family would ever deign to step foot in.

 A Place For Us – Fitz and the Tantrums & Dancing’s Not a Crime – P!ATD

So, there’s some seedy, underground club, and why Simon knows about it, I have no idea. They go there to talk, and for whatever reason, one of them (probably Baz) decides that they would be less likely to be overheard if they went out on the dancefloor and danced together.

Simon is hesitant at first, but Baz turns on that bit of wicked charm and holds his hand out to him, an obvious challenge.

“Come on. Dancing’s not a crime, and it’s not like I’m going to hurt you in front of all these people. Plus, I told you that I wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t realize that this truce included dancing.”

“It does when you don’t want to stand out. You won’t touch any kind of drink, and you won’t dance. You stick out like a sore thumb, and sooner or later someone is going to notice you – and not in a good way.”

Simon chews on his lips as he thinks about it. Finally, he sighs and carefully places his hand in Baz’s, whose expression turns even more wicked, edging towards a smirk, but Simon doesn’t have too much time to think about it before he’s being pulled towards the dancefloor.

Simon tries to keep up a conversation as they dance, but it doesn’t go all that well. The music is too loud, there are too many bodies pressing in around them, Baz doesn’t actually seem all that interested in talking. 

Finally, Simon gives in and just dances with Baz, giving into the music and enjoying himself without any worries for the first time since he can remember. It ends up being really nice to dance together.

 Quarter Past Midnight - Bastille & Criminal - Britney Spears & Accidentally In Love - Counting Crows & First Time He Kissed a Boy - Kadie Elder & Weak - AJR

The club closes at midnight. Neither of them wants to part (even though they don’t actually say that aloud) so they just walk around, weaving around abandoned buildings until they reach the empty streets of downtown. At some point they start running, and they’re laughing and having fun, just enjoying themselves.

After a while, they start to slow, and Baz pulls Simon into another alley, the way he did a couple of weeks ago.

The last time this happened, Simon wondered what he was supposed to expect when he gets pulled into a dark alley by his rival, but this time, he knows exactly what he wants to happen, and it is him who pushes Baz into the wall this time.

But he stops there, with a few mere inches between them, and Simon is silently frustrated.

They stare at each other for a long time before Simon finally kisses Baz.

Then, Simon has a realization about his feelings, which is what the next three songs are about. (and then Weak is a song thrown in to describe how Baz is probably feeling and an allusion to that line in the book when he says he’s weak.) Simon was absolutely not supposed to fall in love with a criminal. He wonders how long he’s felt this way and if he somehow fell deeply for him over the past couple of weeks.

There are a lot of songs for this short scene, but I feel like there is a lot going on with Simon internally. He’s in love and freaking out and kissing a boy for the first time (a very criminal-like boy) and there are so many thoughts circling through his mind that he can’t quite grab onto any particular one to think through it, so he ends up pushing all of the thoughts away and just enjoying kissing Baz.

And then here’s a little moment that I wrote:

Baz

It feels like we’re running, but running from what? Everything? Or nothing? Maybe we just feel free. I do, at least. This is the freest that I have felt in a long time. The most carefree, too.

I’m laughing as we run down street after street, under broken streetlamp after broken streetlamp. I don’t know where we’re going or why we’re running, and I’m too afraid to ask because I don’t want to break the moment.

I don’t want to give Simon a reminder of who I am or why he doesn’t like me, so I just run down the empty streets with him, watching his smile and bouncing curls, pretending for a moment like my life is different.

Like I wasn’t raised to be a villain and like my father isn’t one of the most wanted criminals around. For now, I get to pretend like I grew up normal, with no powers and no bizarre family expectations. I can pretend, just for a little while, that I’m just a guy, not a villain, not a monster.

 Human - Christina Perri

A day or two after the kiss with Simon, Baz decides that it’s time to tell his family about his choice to leave. He knows that his father will not take it well, so he’s relieved when it’s just Daphne at home.

He explains to her his plan to leave all of this criminal business behind, and he says that she should leave it behind as well. She seems open to the idea, but she also seems afraid. Baz is sure that she had no idea what she was marrying into when she met Malcolm and agreed to be his partner, and she probably feels just as trapped as he does.

Baz wants her to stand beside him, but she won’t – she has the kids to worry about and her own life. Baz gets it, but he wishes that there was another way.

He wants his half-siblings to know that there is a choice – they don’t have to be evil. It might be too late for Mordelia – they’re already turning her into a child soldier, the same way they did to him when he was younger – but he can at least try to help the other three kids. He doesn’t want them to end up the way he did, trapped with no way out.

He won’t force Daphne to do something that she is uncomfortable with, so he leaves for now, planning to figure out a way to get them out. He wants them all to have a choice.

Baz goes to talk to Fiona next, and he’s surprised to find his father there.

Apparently, the two of them have a task for him. They’re always giving Baz “tasks”. A bank to rob, a restaurant to terrorize, but the one they give him this time is the one that he has been dreading for years.

They tell him that it is time for him to find the Snow Prince and put an end to him. 

Baz wants to laugh, but he also wants to be sick. If only they knew that Baz had been with him just the other night, had the perfect opportunity to kill him, but he let himself be kissed and held and loved instead. Even though he knew that it might turn out to all be a mistake. Even if Simon probably woke up the next morning with a heart full of regret, wishing that he could take back everything that he said and everything he did that night.

Even if Simon does regret that night, Baz will never be able to kill him.

Still, he knows he won’t be able to change their minds, so he agrees, knowing full well that he won’t go through with it. 

At this point, he should just try running away. Maybe Simon will go with him. That way, Baz might be able to keep him away from his family. Just because Baz leaves, doesn’t mean that his family will suddenly stop going after Simon. They will be after the both of them, and if they’re together, maybe Baz will be able to protect Simon, or put himself between Simon and his family when it is time for them to battle.

At the end of all of this, Baz knows he won’t survive, but maybe, just maybe, he can keep Simon safe.

The song fits in with Baz’s internal thoughts/angst. He’s torn between that old desire to please his family and the new desire for a better life. He wishes he could somehow do both, but he’s only human and can only do so much.

 The Greatest - Sia

Baz leaves immediately to go warn Simon about what his family has planned and to ask him to run away with him, but what he doesn’t know is that it was a set-up. His father and aunt followed him there, and they’re prepared for a fight.

Baz

“So, your cousin was right,” my father says. “He said he saw you leaving some seedy club the other night with the Snow Prince, but I told him he must be mistaken.”

“Dev,” I hiss. Simon was wrong.

There is one person in my family who doesn’t care about their reputation, so of course he would know about that place. I bet he was going there to meet up with Niall. Did he tell our family that? Probably not, because he knows what they do to people who aren’t like us, who don’t have our kinds of power, who are powerless. They don’t want anyone marrying or dating or sleeping their way into our family. They would likely kill him, or at least make him “mysteriously disappear”.

 “I didn’t want to believe him, but here’s the proof. My own son, a betrayer of his family.”

Fiona sneers but stays silent.

I can’t believe that I led them here to Simon. I can’t believe that I put him in danger when all I wanted was to keep him safe.

I look around, trying to find a way out, a way to get Simon out of danger.

There aren’t a lot of ways out of here, and running won’t fix this, but it’s the only option right now.

“Run,” I shout, grabbing Simon’s hand and pulling him after me.

We run out of his apartment and disappear into the night, hand in hand.

This won’t be the end of my father and aunt coming after us. There will be a battle, very soon, and we have to be prepared.

 Crazy Youngsters - Ester Dean, Into the Storm - BANNERS, Someone to You - BANNERS

Simon and Baz join with Penny and the other superheroes and begin planning what they’re going to do. A battle is coming, and unless they all work together, there is no chance of them winning.

Baz tries to go the self-sacrificial route and offers to just turn himself in so that none of them will have to fight, but they aren’t having it. They are all too focused on saving others for their own good. Baz thinks that they would all benefit from finding some sense of self-preservation.

They don’t seem to need Baz’s help. They work like a well-oiled machine as they make a battle plan, and Baz is on the outside of that. He begins to feel like he’s getting in the way, so he starts to walk around, taking in their little home base.

Simon follows him not long after, and this is the first time that they have really gotten a chance to talk since the other night, since they kissed.

Baz once again offers him an out, telling him that he’ll be safer if he isn’t trying to fight Baz’s battles for him. Simon won’t hear any of it, though. He’s going to fight, and Baz can’t stop him.

Then, they have a soft moment. They are fighting for each other, to keep each other safe. Neither of them wants to see the other get hurt, and they would do anything to protect each other.

Simon and Baz get their own BANNERS songs to go with how they’re feeling in this section.

Into the Storm is for Simon because he’s telling Baz that he would do anything, weather any kind of storm, for him. He would do anything for him. If his world is falling apart (which it is) he will be there, and he will follow him into the storm. (Just listen to the words and it gives you what Simon is trying to say to him.)

And then, Someone to You is Baz’s song. He just wants to mean something to someone, especially if that someone is Simon. He wants to be more than a weapon, wants his life to mean more than that. He doesn’t want to die, and he doesn’t want his life to be meaningless. He believes that Simon could lead him to a better life, one where his life will mean something.

 Fight Song - Rachel Platten (a repeat because Baz is once again choosing to fight), I Want to Break Free - Queen, Whatever It Takes - Imagine Dragons, Believer - Imagine Dragons, Titanium - David Guetta ft. Sia (cover by Madilyn Bailey), Elastic Heart - Sia, Angel with a Shotgun - The Cab,

[a/n: my brain kept saying “fight scene, fight scene” even though I don’t think I have ever written a fight scene before, which is why this section is a bit lacking in content, and then all of these songs said that they wanted to be included, so that’s why there are so many for this small section. (If you want to skip over these songs, I won’t blame you, but I feel it’s important to at least listen to Angel with a Shotgun before moving on because it sort of sets up the feeling for the next part.)]

They all meet somewhere for the big fight, and at first, it seems like a pretty evenly matched fight, but bit by bit, Baz’s family starts to win. They’re stronger and better trained. They have been fighting their entire lives and don’t care about who gets hurt.

Baz can see that they’re losing, and he tries to figure out a way for them to win or to get everyone out of here safely.

And then we come to the turning point of the fight…

 How to Save a Life - The Fray (Okay, so, I put on a random Spotify playlist to try to get myself to focus on this outline, and when this song played, I knew that it was exactly what I needed for this scene. Otherwise, I was just going to leave this part song-less which would have been rather unfortunate because it really needed something.)

And I actually wrote this entire scene:

 Baz

We’re losing.

I know it was a long shot to think that a ragtag team of heroes would be able to fight my criminal family and win, but I wanted to believe that we could do it.

Simon is facing off against my aunt, and there is a serious burn on one of his arms. I want to run to him, to stand between him and my aunt - between him and any kind of harm - but I am just barely making it through this battle against my father.

You would think that the plants that he keeps growing to impede me would be useless against my flames, but there is a vine of thorns wrapped around my arm, constricting tighter and tighter, restricting any blood flow. It’s unrooted but still growing.

My arm is beginning to lose feeling, and between the pain from that and the pain from the poison one of his earlier plants hit me with, I can barely control the flames that I’m shooting out at him with my free hand.

The thorny vines reach my hand, sinking a particularly large one into the palm, and I have to grit my teeth to keep in an anguished cry. I will fight to the very last moment. I will not give up or give in.

My father will have to kill me if he wants to stop fighting me.

And it looks like he plans to do just that.

He calls up more vines from the ground to start wrapping around my legs and pulling them together so that I am unable to move. I reach down, calling a flame into my hand, and attempt to burn the vines away, but my power is waning and the small flame that I just manage to draw is not enough.

I’m too weak. I’m going to lose this.

“Give it up, son,” my father says, stepping closer to me.

“Never,” I hiss, and with one last burst of power, I shoot a stream of fire at him.

His sleeve catches fire, but he barely even winces before a heavy rain falls down upon him, just long enough to put out the fire. I can’t see my cousin, but I know that he must be nearby, fighting someone whilst also combating my other move for my father.

The vines have reached my hips now. I can’t move, and I don’t have enough energy to use my power.

With a wicked grin, my father steps forward and reaches out his hand, preparing to press it to my chest and send out his signature venomous plant to take hold and poison me, a slow, painful death. I bare my teeth at him, yanking at the vines that are creeping up my body and completely immobilizing me.

His hand has just about reached my chest when someone throws themself in front of me, obstructing his attack.

“Stop!” My step-mom shouts, and her voice rings out across the battlefield, cutting through the flames and wild wind. Through the snowfall and earth shakes that I had grown used to by this point.

Everyone stops where they are and turns to stare at her.

She wasn’t here before. Her powers are healing and protective in nature. I was sure that she was with the younger children, keeping them away from the battle to end all battles. But here she is now: standing between her husband and stepson.

“Stop fighting,” she says, her words directed at my father.

“Move out of the way. This does not concern you.”

“It absolutely does concern me. If you mean to kill my son, then it is my responsibility to stop you.”

Tears spring to my eyes, and I am uncertain whether it’s from the pain or from her words. She has never called me her son before. I always thought that she saw me as the child she had to put up with and never wanted. I thought she cared for her own children more than she ever would with me.

I was wrong, though, because she is right here, putting herself in harm’s way to protect me.

“If you plan to hurt him, you will have to go through me,” she says, taking up a protective stance in front of me, and I think she means it. She would sacrifice herself to protect me, the same way that I was ready to do for Simon a moment ago.

I feel something wet drip down my face, and I am unsure whether it is blood or tears. I’m starting to feel woozy now. It wouldn’t take much more at this point to end me. It would almost be a kindness.

And now, we have come full-circle. Would it be better to suffer through the pain of my family’s hatred and murderous attacks or to just die now and have it all be over?

I don’t care which one seems better, though.

I only care about what I want. And what I want is a future. A future with Simon and a future away from all of this violence. Which is why I came here to fight today. I came to fight for a future, and now Daphne is helping me fight for that future as well.

“Tell everyone to stand down,” she says. “We shouldn’t be fighting our own family. He is your son for merlin’s sake. That should mean something to you.”

“He stopped being my son the moment he decided to hang out with heroes.”

Even though I knew this would be the case, it hurts to hear him actually say it. In this moment, he is announcing to me and to everyone else that I no longer have a home, that I no longer have a family. I am completely alone.

I glance behind me and am reminded that I am not actually completely alone. Simon and the others may not be related to me by blood, and I may not have known them all for long, but in standing beside me in all of this, they have become my second family. They care more for my safety than my real family does at least.

I am several inches taller than Daphne, so I have a clear view of my father’s expression. He is obviously torn, unsure whether to continue trying to kill me, killing his wife in the process, or let me go, let the family traitor run free.

For a moment, I think that he might actually kill Daphne. There is murder in his eyes, and no one can stop him. But then his stance relaxes and he lowers his hand before signaling to the others to retreat.

The three of us continue to stand there, at the center of a burning battlefield until they have all disappeared back into the woods.

“Go,” Daphne commands, and Malcolm does, giving me one last look before turning away.

Daphne waits until he has disappeared into the trees and still a moment longer before she turns to me. 

She looks me up and down, watching as the vines slowly release me. I can’t tell if that helps or worsens the pain, but at least I’m safe for now.

It’s hard to meet Daphne’s eyes because when I do, I can see her pain written so clearly there. She is still torn, but she made a choice today, one that gives me hope.

“I’m sorry, but I think you have to leave,” she says quietly. “I bought you some time, but I don’t think he’s going to give up forever.”

I nod in understanding. I knew from the beginning that this is how it would end, me being shunned from my family. At least maybe I will have the chance at finally being free of them. 

I am just about to turn away from her and join the others, but I hesitate before stepping forward and wrapping my arms around her in a tight hug. She hugs me back, and I can feel her power washing over me like a warm blanket.

She’s healing all of my wounds. Wiping away the already-forming bruises and closing up the cuts and puncture wounds from the thorns. She wipes away all of the pain, all of it except the ache in my chest.

I whisper a hoarse thank you that isn’t possibly enough, but it’s all that I have. She risked her life to save me, and I will never be able to repay her.

When we pull away, her eyes are wet, but she wears a small smile.

“I’m happy that you’re safe. I love you.”

“I love you, too, mom.” 

I’ve never called her that before. I thought it might be crossing a line, but now I can see that she was there for me all along, even during those times when I thought I was alone. She mothered a child she didn’t have to, a child who was not her own, a child who should have been more grateful.

I feel a wetness stream down my face, and this time, I know for sure that it’s tears.

Today, I gained a future, but I lost my family.

I will miss them, but I know that this is the only choice I have if I want to get through this alive, so with tears in my eyes, I turn to join the others, crossing over to where Simon is and taking his hand.

I don’t turn to watch Daphne leave. It would be too much right now, and I’m not sure that I wouldn’t go running after her.

I will come back someday. I will get Daphne and my siblings out of here, but for now, I am running. I am running to a place where I will hopefully be able to grow stronger and be able to fight my family and win. I may never be able to change the minds of my father and aunt, but I can try to protect the rest of my family.

For now, though, it is time for me to go.

 Burn - Ellie Goulding, On Top Of The World - Imagine Dragons

That may be the end of the fighting, but it is not the end of the story yet, nor even the end of their trouble because just as the heroes join together, looking over each other’s injuries, there is the sound of an explosion.

Baz spins around just in time to watch the edge of the trees go up in flames, a fire burning that could threaten to take out the entire patch of woods.

[a/n: I have no idea why the fight takes place here, except that I wanted the fic to end with them standing on a cliff, looking out over the town, with a fire burning behind the, but then the fire gets put out immediately so…]

He has no doubt that it was his aunt’s doing. She warned him after she and Malcolm caught him with Simon that this is how things would end: in flames. (“One day everything will burn, and your friends will turn on you, thinking it was you. Where will you be then? All alone in a world that hunts you.”)

This is her parting gift, a glimpse at the future that she sees for him.

Baz grimaces at it. His aunt knew that he would not be able to put it out himself, and it was her last opportunity to show his new allies that he is of no use to them. It isn’t until this moment that Baz sees the absolute truth of it. Maybe he should just go now, leave them all before anyone can get hurt because of him.

But then Simon squeezes his hand and smiles at him as he says, “It’s alright. I’ve got this. We’re a team now, remember?”

Maybe this won’t be so bad after all. They may be opposites in some respects, but that just makes them stronger together, playing off of each other’s strengths to fight whatever is thrown their way.

As Simon puts out the fire, Baz allows himself to feel a bit of relief and even some hope. Maybe there’s a chance for them after all. Yes, they’ll have to start all over, but at least he won’t be constantly worried about being killed. 

Standing there triumphant and with Simon standing beside them, Baz can’t help but smile a bit.

He feels like he’s on top of the world. But also like he could reach over and hold the world in my arms.

He finally has everything that he has ever wanted when he never thought he could ever be this happy, never that he could have anything that he wanted.

Baz is so glad that he was wrong. He’s free now, and they can go anywhere. He wonders if Simon has ever traveled before…

***

A/N: And that’s the story. I hope you all enjoyed it, and I would love to hear your thoughts :)

#snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #carry on #wayward son #rainbow rowell #snowbaz fic #ish #fic outline #fic ideas #my writing #snow and the flame #coexchange

[synchlora]

what r ur thoughts on the killjoys Transness? like obvs they all trans but whats your takes on the specifics of it 0_0 how do you think being trans works out in the zones? is physical transition a thing out there?? also plz rant abt ghouls sibling omg....

OH MY GOD everyone in the zones is trans <33 i don't make the rules (yes i do)

i feel like w physically transitioning there's a lot of different options in the zones but it just depends. im sure BLi makes hrt medications w/o trans intentions so the killjoys absolutely get their hands on that as well. it can be a bit of a mess for any 'joy on hrt bc it can vary how much of a steady supply they would have, but they make do. surgeries are probably more out of the question just bc of skill needed and also the dangers of being a killjoy while recovering from a surgery, even if u can find a good surgeon. but i think it could happen feasibly, just super uncommon.

i think one of the biggest aspects of trans-ness in the zones is clothing!! it's a huge form of expression and killjoys will make their own unique clothing all the time!! it's commonplace for crewmates to make one another cool clothes and accessories including trans things.

anyway, here r my hcs for the fab four and being trans!!

Kobra Kid:

trans dude! (he/him, but neutral pronouns are alright w his crew and anyone who doesn't know his pronouns)

he's on t intermittently, and can grow a very patchy little mustache <3 (ghoul teases him for it but that's just cause xe's jealous)

mainly dresses pretty masc, but also adores rly short dresses. bonus points if he's got a cape/cloak to go w it

will steal the others' nail polish for Gender reasons and then blame ghoul for it (you'd think party and jet would learn, but you'd be surprised how quick they are to blame ghoul)

Fun Ghoul

absolutely gender fucked (xe/they/she/he. also uses it on occasion, depends)

will wear anything it Does Not Matter if it's masc, femme, or falling apart <3

uses both masc and femme terms. also inanimate/object terms

has a bunch of other names and will respond to just abt anything (you could call her brick and he'd respond)

Jet Star

genderfuild (they/he/she, though he isn't used as often w strangers. even called it/its but ONLY by ghoul)

LOVES long flow-y dresses and oh my god they look incredible in them (every allo person in the zones has got at least a little crush on jet star <3)

goth cowboy is her gender presentation, that is all

new hair color every week baby!! new hair color w every new gender asghsbsgsnsc

Party Poison

nonbinary (they/them, she/her w certain significant others)

will call the others transphobic if they even slightly irritate them (they say it as a joke but god sometimes they're so good at deadpanning it that their trans crew is like oh fuck am i??)

mainly use feminine terms reffering to them

will only wear dresses/skirts if they have tights or even jeans underneath (but also they rock this look somehow)

loves fucked up evil makeup and somehow almost always has some weird shade of eyeshadow perfect for any occassion

-------------

NOW. for ghouls sibling.......

ghouls sibling is called raven and they grew up together in the more run-down part of Batt City. they r literally the sweetest person alive oh my god they would die for ghoul (foreshadowing (but not rly))

they named themself after their mom, an ex-killjoy who got caught and re-introduced back into Batt City, told them abt the incredible flocks of ravens that would gather out in the zones. she told them all sorts of stories abt her times in the desert but they latched onto the ones abt the ravens. they were said to help carry souls of dead joys, gathering at joshua trees designated as memorials and carrying off the trinkets left behind in honor of the dead. it was believed that once the ravens took something held dearly by the person who had died, then their soul would pass on. (this is also how the tradition of having brightly colored masks and beads came into play. the ravens tended to favor the brighter items, so it became an interesting sort of way of both showing your soul's bright colors and also enticing those who would carry you off to the afterlife)

so raven chose their name based on those stories, sticking with it even after their mom was taken by BLi and replaced by a droid. ghoul was basically raised by raven and, up until ghouls capture when xe was 10, they were inseparable.

ghoul tried to erase all memory of raven while he worked in BLi, just abt everything short of actually getting her memory wiped. they burnt all raven's books, changed his name, and began to loathe the family she had before. but despite all the BLi lessons telling xem otherwise, she still held onto an old knife that raven and him had both engraved the sides of together. the one last remainder of raven and of ghoul, sitting underneath the matress where angel sleeps (angel is ghouls new name btw, ik that's not super clear).

but yeah :))) im gonna pretend nothing bad ever happens to raven and end this ramble here bc. spoilers and also sad.

#i just sgvxhcgbfh many feelings abt the kjs being trans and also abt raven :(( #i wrote a character that i want people to get attached to. and then i got attached to them ahhhhHHH :((( #its just. a lot man. #have to go through w their story oh no #tysm for the ask!!!! <33 this got. very long whoops #stg4-fag #killjoys tag #caps cw #asks

[saotome-michi]

I am so tired of seeing people use a politician’s vote for DADT and DOMA as the ultimate proof that they hate lgbtq people. 

Guys, DADT and DOMA were compromises. The alternative to DADT was "no gays in the military", meaning that any lgbtq people serving would be searched out and discharged dishonorably, closing them off from veteran benefits, as well as criminalized and imprisoned. The alternatives to DOMA was a US constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and democrats possibly losing the presidency that year. DOMA sucked, but it was still better than that. 

You all are forgetting that back then less than 30% of the country supported same-sex marriage. When the Clinton administration first tried to make it legal for gay people to serve in the military, public outrage and hysteria was so swift and vehement that afterwards Republicans won the House for the first time in 40 years and the senate for the first time in 8. Republicans mobilized people by banking on their homophobia and bigotry, and there was both public and political momentum for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. DOMA was a compromise, and that’s why Republicans hated it as much as Democrats did. 

Yes, Bill Clinton signed DADT and DOMA, but he also nominated the first openly gay federal judge in the nation’s history, Deborah Batts, and was the first president to invite gay and lesbian activists to the Oval Office. He established the Office of AIDS Research and convened the first White House Summit on AIDS, reversing years of the country ignoring the AIDS crisis. He signed Executive Order 13087, prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce, and changed U.S. policy to grant political asylum to gay people who were fleeing persecution in their home countries. And I say “he”, but it was really him AND Hillary, because the two always worked together and Hillary was meeting and working with Gay activists as early as 1991. Both Clintons made a public appearance visiting the AIDS quilt in 1996, which was a huge deal for people, and, to this day, Hillary Clinton is the only First Lady to have marched in an LGBT pride parade. 

Similarly, while Joe Biden voted for DADT and DOMA, he helped repeal DADT as Obama’s Vice President in 2010 and was also the one to push Obama to support same-sex marriage in 2012. He worked with Congress to pass the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009, extending the coverage of Federal hate crimes law to include attacks based on sexual orientation or gender identity. He supported Obama’s work extending same-sex domestic partner benefits and increasing healthcare for LGBTQ individuals, as well as many other initiatives focusing on LGBTQ rights. Yes, Obama was at the forefront, but Biden deserves credit as Vice President, because contrary to popular belief Vice Presidents do do a lot of work and a supportive VP makes a significant difference. 

You can continue hating them, but stop misrepresenting history. They’ve done more for LGBTQ rights than most of us have, and they certainly have a stronger track record of actually working with LGBTQ activists than Bernie Sanders does. 

#long post #anyway im tired and you all need to learn what historical context is #dadt #doma #us politics #lgbt #history #bill clinton #hillary clinton #joe biden #random blah of letters

[loyalty2waystreet]

Hey! Could I please request number 83) “It’s always been you.” For Malex, please. Thank you!😊

Sign Your Name Across My Heart

AO3 Link here

Michael goes that extra mile (fifty actually) on their anniversary.

It’s nearing thirteen years since their first kiss in the dusty old UFO Emporium, and although the path had been littered with meteor sized speed humps, they’re finally in a happy place.

For Alex, it had been a long journey to loving himself enough to let Michael love him publicly, and without conditions or boundaries.

For Michael, knowing that he loved Alex wasn’t the problem. The waiting, the second, third and tenth chances, were. Every time Alex walked away it was hard to take. Sometimes Michael wouldn’t see him for weeks, but he always let Alex back in, because somewhere deep in his heart he just knew that Alex was ‘the one’.

Michael had spent the last few weeks in his workshop, planning something special for their anniversary.  They’d agreed to include the time apart, as they both decided mutual pining and self-destructive behaviour counted.

On the night of their anniversary, Michael arrives to pick Alex up in his rusty old pickup truck, just as the sun is disappearing behind the mountains. Alex looks curiously at the tarp covering something large in the back, raises his eyebrows, and gives his boyfriend a peck on the cheek.

“Happy Anniversary, babe,” Alex greets, smile large and genuine.

Michael reaches across and grasps Alex’s chin, lovingly stroking his thumb against the stubble. “The big thirteen, hey?” He pecks Alex on the lips, reaches for the seatbelt and slowly pulls it across Alex’s body, without losing eye contact. Then clicks it in with a wink, precious cargo secured.

They drive for forty minutes. They’re now on a dirt road surrounded by desert grasslands, and the last house Alex has seen was twenty miles ago.

“That’s not the completed space pod in the back, is it? Not sure how I feel about being abducted and probed on our anniversary,” Alex jokes lightly.

Michael snorts and raises his eyebrows suggestively. Home is here now, and he’s long since given up on that project; the space ship that is, not the probing.

“Alex Manes, you love being probed by me, don’t try and deny it!”

“Guilty,” Alex replies, grinning.

Michael makes a left turn off the dirt road, slows his speed and to Alex’s alarm turns the headlights off, then rolls to a stop.

“I’m going to blindfold you now,” Michael purrs, as he un-clips his own seatbelt and climbs into Alex’s lap. Alex’s fingers search clumsily for Michael’s face as Michael plops a kiss on his nose, that was aimed at his forehead. Alex laughs, but it’s short lived as Michael finds his mouth and silences him.

Michael has never lacked passion. When he kisses Alex, it’s with everything he has. They feel fused together. Chests and groins pressed flush, fingers dancing over every erogenous zone, along with softly whispered nothings, make Alex feel like they are the only two people existing at that moment.

Car sex isn’t what Michael had planned (well, this early on), but if he doesn’t get off Alex that’s what’s about to happen. Pulling away slightly and giving Alex another little nip to the lower lip, he searches out his phone on the dash and flicks on the torch.

“There you are gorgeous,” he worships, pressing his forehead to Alex’s. “Now hold still, this won’t take long.”

Michael reaches an arm behind his seat where he’s hidden a homemade blindfold.

Alex watches him wide-eyed as an unwanted fear creeps up inside him. “Guerin, are you seriously going to blindfold me?”

“Sure am,” Michael replies enthusiastically, face softening when he sees how anxious Alex looks. “Hey,” he soothes, fingers sliding into the hair at Alex’s nape, “It’s not much further, and if it’s too much I can take it right off, okay?”

“Hmm,” Alex mumbles, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I trust you, just don’t speed, and talk to me the whole time.”

Michael beams at him, “I will.”

Michael gently ties the blindfold on, and Alex relaxes slightly when he realises it’s made from a flannelette shirt that still smells like Michael’s cologne.

It’s only a two-minute drive until they stop again, but true to his word, Michael natters on about Max, and the clay pigeon shooting they used to do using beer cans and his powers. Alex can feel how happy that memory makes Michael.

Michael gets out of the truck, then Alex hears his own door open.

“I’m going to help you out, are you okay?”  Michael asks, taking his hand and giving it a soft pull.

Alex nods, then realises its pitch black out here and stammers out a “Yep.”

Michael is so very gentle with him, slinging an arm around his waist and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek as they walk the few steps needed.

“Okay, stop here,” he directs, then takes Alex’s hand and squeezes lightly.  “I just have to grab something from the truck and then I’ll be right with you, okay?”

“Okay,” Alex answers, now thoroughly intrigued as to what’s going on.  I mean, they are in the middle of nowhere.  He hears Michael jostling what he thinks is the tarp, off the truck.

Michael hotfoots it to the covered power cord that he’s left there earlier and runs it back toward the pickup, throws the tarp off and plugs it into the generator he’d loaned from the police station.  He takes a moment as he holds his finger over the power button to breathe, and triple check his pocket.

He calls out, “Babe, slide your blindfold off,” then flicks the power button on.  Alex slides the blindfold off.  

About fifty feet away a green neon sign starts flickering to life, with the words, ‘I love you’, on it.  The sign illuminates the ground beneath; where hay bales, blankets, a fire pit, a guitar and even a fridge are all beautifully set up.

Alex couldn’t smile any harder if he tried.  He feels Michael arrive at his side, just as the second sign, in pink neon, lights up.

‘Marry Me?’

And as it hits him, what this night is about and the effort that Michael has gone to, he feels Michael; now down on one knee, tugging at his sleeve.

Michael, his everything, is looking up at him with so much love that Alex’s breath actually shudders in his chest. Tears form in the corner of his eyes as Michael opens the ring box.

“It’s always been you, Alex. I don’t ever want to be without you, you’re my family, my best friend, my lover, my whole world, and I-“

Alex yanks him up mid-sentence and kisses him so forcefully and fully that Michael has to push back slightly for breath.

“Yes,” Alex shouts, laughing as Michael tries to catch his breath, “I can’t believe you did all of this for me, the signs?  That must’ve taken you forever.  It’s so perfect, and I love you so much,” Alex babbles as Michael slides the ring onto this finger.

Michael pulls him into a hug and fake drawls in his ear, “You cut my speech off, man. I was going to say, I would be the luckiest cowboy alive if you were the horse, I always got to ride!”

Alex’s body ripples with laughter against him.

“You’re such a cowboy,” Alex laughs, leaning in for a kiss.  They stand together under the stars, slowly swaying and kissing, it’s perfect.

The cool night air eventually sends a shiver through Alex’s body.  “How about we go make use of that fire now?  And I have some ideas about how we can use those hay bales later, too,” Alex suggests, and batts his eyelashes innocently.

“Well Captain, good thing I bought my cowboy hat!” Michael replies, soft eyes smiling at Alex as he takes him by the hand.

#malex #malex fic #fluff #malex-love-letters

[khdiscussions]

Huge Breakdown: Sleeping Realms Theory

 Tl:dr, I still don’t like the theory, and my rebuttal had almost zero points proven otherwise and you can read the whole thing below of my liveblogging.

The fact that they call Riku’s act an “Act of true love” first of all makes me believe this is meant to sell canon SoRiku and I’m already unimpressed. It shows biased phrasing and takes away from any credibility this theory could ever have with anybody who isn’t a SoRiku shipper because it is ultimately pushing that Sora and Riku are going to be romantically involved and as somebody who really needs to edit her ship list and remove SoRiku...no.

...Okay so the Ultimania already proved this wrong I don’t even have to go through the rest.

Before I go into it, I can see how from just reading their summary, you can fall into the trap, however, the Realm of Sleep and Dreaming Worlds are ultimately the same thing. You cannot enter the Realm of Sleep without Dreaming Worlds unless you are coming to the brink between it and death. As such, it would still require every world Sora visits to be a Dreaming World, and thus have fallen into darkness. Since we know this isn’t the case, my “Alpha Timeline” and “Beta Timeline” labels are fully and 100% accurate. Even the way they describe it “World Line” implies and Alpha and Beta Timeline. If we ignore that KHUx is confirmed to be taking place in data still, the world lines cannot be in the same timeline, as they’d be two separate universes. Meaning the events of Alpha Timeline and Beta Timeline are two separate entities and cannot be condensed into the same Realm.

Meaning even if this is Beta Timeline, Alpha Timeline and anything that happened in it are factually irrelevant, because when Sora and co. slip into the alternate Worldline, because essentially the events of it don’t come to pass or matter. If this was real parallel worlds split, then even if Sora is now inhabiting the mind of his Beta Timeline counterpart (which for the record, he should have his memories if he’s the one who brought them all back) there still needs to be a Beta Riku, a Beta Kairi, etc, otherwise there wouldn’t be Xehanort attacking and even then.

If this is a separate worldline then that still wouldn’t be counted as the same timeline, however. Which the Ultimania directly argues against in its pages when things occur in a single timeline, but I digress.

Other things I find directly wrong as conflicting with power is Sora directly states in KH3 that it was Kairi’s faith in him and her light (her powers alone) that helped him hold his form. Not the PoH’s.

“Riku’s strength comes from his love for Sora”

Actually, in that scene they’re talking about how Riku wants to rescue Aqua, and that’s his desire to “protect what matters.” This is a line that has been paralleled in several games from Riku (most notably in which is Kingdom Hearts 3D) and given the line makes him flashback to Terra, it’s likely that his strength is actually being explained as coming from protecting the people he cared about. Aqua, who gave him the chance to escape the RoD (who he’s trying to protect), Terra, who gave him the Keyblade in the first place, and Sora and Kairi, his two best friends.

When facing the same way, there are also several difference in KH3D’s and KH3′s hair that stand out. They aren’t the same and they point that out in the theory. In this case I don’t think it’s similar enough to be of note.

Second, this does not explain how and why Riku dropped and since he is still dropping a) In the Realm of Darkness into a different realm and different World Line and b) Into a completely separate World Line when he should still be alive in the first. At this point, Riku is alive in the Alpha Timeline and would have no idea of his impending death. A drop should not be necessary. So my Riku point questioning why is still valid.

Xigbar cutting out is also a direct easter egg to us, the viewers to keep us from understanding what’s happening, and not what actually occurs in the game. 

...I want to quit at the logo having bad graphics gradient being used as evidence but I’ll keep going but this kind of shady business practice would likely cause such an amount in distrust that sales after KH3 would plummet and anybody who buys what is the biggest release of the series to be told it’s only that in technicality has no standards. I’m sorry. If this is actually technically KHII.9 my trust in Square and Disney (especially Disney is important, because you should know I am Disney stan 69 and see them as good) is gone. Just poof, gone. No more. And I wouldn’t want to invest in the next big entry because what if it’s just another lie.

(Nitpick: Nomura said an early world in KH3 would be Twilight Town, not that it would be the very first world. Even then, had 0.2 been packaged with KH3 like initially planned, it’s highly likely it and Olympus would’ve been 2.9 anyways.)

(More nitpicks, the TWEWY explanation does not account for the fact that Joshua actually has power to bring people back to life so long as a shred of their soul exists. It sounds like Shibuya got destroyed and Josh saved what little was left of his friends to take to somewhere they could be safe, not necessarily that the Sleeping Realm in specific called out to him. This is again Nitpicking.)

Ansem Reports foreshadow an old plot twist that’s not even valid. Aqua’s magic is now the source that rescued Kairi, not Xehanort’s experiments sending her away. Kairi being flung out the door is also representative of the events of the Island falling and them losing their safety and shelter. It’s not Kairi herself, but Ansem’s arrival on the islands that Xehanort is talking about.

Everything about this seems like it’s trying to invalidate SoKai with the Paopu fruit scene. She eats the fruit. Maybe if you hadn’t opened with “Riku loves Sora and this is Riku’s act of true love” I’d buy that this is real but as it stands the authors come off as salty that SoKai got a Paopu sharing scene.

Kairi’s death is the release of her heart as Nomura called it directly in the Ultimania. I know this was written before the Ultimania’s release but moving on it’s not a death sequence. Even then her death resembles Xion’s so it’d be more inline with the Replica theory floating around, so not a Dream Eater.

“Kairi is the Darkside in the Dive” No.

Even if Kairi did die, her heart has no darkness, all that would happen is she’d fade into darkness. She cannot physically form any dark entity, let alone one that has always been connected to the darkness in Sora’s heart. And yes I read how they point out that it’s made of water but that’s because it’s literally made from the Final World itself. As for where Kairi’s heart is, canon answers this. It’s waiting for Sora, because the Heartless cannot kill or steal her heart through the Lich. Remember back to KH1? Kairi had lost her heart, but rather than form a Heartless, all we got is a body. 

More Ultimania tidbits disproving this, but the Dive to the Heart is meant to take place after the entirety of KH3. This means it’s after Sora leaves to rescue Kairi and has beaten Xehanort.

Kairi being a Chirithy theory my points are still valid on because it doesn’t work. Kairi cannot be a Chirithy because we see her after the drop point in her KH2 outfit. Therefore meaning the cat ears have nothing to do with her after the drop point.

Point on the Dream Portals is accurate and inaccurate. It says they’re ways to travel to other worlds, but everytime they’re used it’s in exactly that way in game. The two pink locations bring Sora closer to the Realm of Light after the Final World, and the second portal takes him into Scala ad Caelum, another world. It ain’t that deep.

More points, Dream Eaters don’t just exist in the Realm of Sleep. Summoning Meow Wow and friends does not matter if they can exist outside of the Realm of Sleep. Scala ad Caelum is implied to be a special world to begin with and I’ll be honest, the Caribbean is probably for ease of gameplay. If anything, I would be more curious in how water in the Realm of Sleep (and memories re:CoM) allows people to walk.

“Gayblade” Your SoRiku bias is showing. (Also Nomura violated a lot of things for rule of cool. You think a gameplay mechanic showing up means something?)

Comparing what happened to Sora and Aqua is very different. Aqua had darkness shoved into her (Nort lite) while Sora actively fell into the deep darkness he was surrounded by. Aqua could’ve emerged from the water, but did not. Sora chased darkness, and fell right in. As for how they saved Aqua in the Alpha Timeline, this wouldn’t have changed? It was Sora using his light to reach Aqua as she fell in the darkness similar to Mickey doing so for her in 0.2, now that she was free of the extra darkness Ansem shoved in her for some fun. It had nothing to do with darkness or sleep.

So we’re talking Toy Story here and his “Not this time” doesn’t add up because if Alpha Timeline is dead and Beta Timeline are a second chance then Xehanort should not have any recollection of the initial timeline/worldline because you still don’t explain why he bothered with following Sora down instead of leaving him to just stay trapped in the Realm of Darkness. There’s no strategic reason to it and Xehanort is a chess master.

“Hey let’s explain shit” Okay first of all the Goofy reference was a way to include the new arc words but without that, the others are all ways to catch up new players so they’d have an idea of what’s going on. There is no in universe reason for it. All of this was excuses for filling in new players. (As for the Unversed: Just because we only see Donald and Goofy at Yen Sid’s Tower does not mean we see what happened to them before they arrived there, jsing. Mickey may have also shown them things. Just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.) Most of the other memory shenanigans are either just springboards for banter or, in Riku’s case, save your energy for the battle against Xehanort ahead.

The Station of Awakening line is pointless since Sora has visited his dive multiple times in the series. As Roxas and as himself in KH2 and KH1 respectively and a final time in 3D when his heart was taken in by Ven’s armor. The Station of Awakening after all, is essentially the stained glass hearts.

Heffalumps stopped only appearing in dreams when they showed up in Winnie the Pooh. Also the promotional material quotes Nomura admitted using because they sounded cool.

Yellow Kingdom Hearts is on KH1′s cover as well. It’s had more appearances. Stands to reason it’s the more official color. Could also be be based on who, what, and how it’s summoned. 

Keyholes: Both Scala Ad Caelum (born from Xehanort’s heart and Kingdom Hearts) and the final Keyhole are forged to deal with sleeping. It makes sense they’d be the same.

YMX’s warnings are referencing exactly what KH3D Sora did. No more complicated theory necessary.

Skipping the Disney world synopsis because I know these worlds far too well at this point for my own Disney sanity.

Pulling symbolism from KH1 when KH2 wasn’t even planned by this point is wrong and also Riku being true love and light reeks very much of that SoRiku bias I mentioned. Okay skipping all this it’s literally just SoRiku and I’m not here for that. I’m here for the theory, not “Why Riku is Sora’s true love.”

“Riku and Kairi both helped Sora hang around” Except Riku dies at this point in the timeline. You can’t make an argument he’s alive because his heart is guided over by the Lich. What’s helping Sora hold on has nothing to do with what it is, otherwise he would just be another shapeless star, like Namine, the Nameless Stars, or the rest. It’s Kairi’s life that gives him the form to come back to life. Saving his heart has nothing to do with it and it just reeks of that same ship bias that was why I skipped the whole section on sacrifice. These 70 pages are irrelevant because all they do is take importance away from Kairi completely in the story, meaning she’s fundamentally useless besides a dark force. Which means Kairi literally doesn’t matter and can be written out of the story.

Kairi’s heart being lost is a full stop. Her heart was released at the end of the game. Saying it’s lost in the Lich sequence makes no sense, especially when she’s the one who guides him back in what is, as noted by PhoenixDowner’s translations, one of the more romantically weighted scenes of the game.

Summary of the more recent pages “SoKai is noncanon and you’re just being mislead it’s actually SoRiku that’s canon” and I’m starting to see where that anon came from...you could’ve saved this theory a hundred pages if you ignored the shipper stuff.

Everything in this ending is literally saying “Kairi doesn’t matter” and “Sora doesn’t care about bringing Kairi back” what the actual fuck?

Okay so I see a lot of talk about Sora and Riku being in the Sleeping Realms (which for the record that secret ending does not tease that but okay) but it still doesn’t explain how the events actually happened. The events of the Sleeping Realms are not the true reality. They’re Beta Timeline but if they never leave the Beta Timeline then the Alpha Timeline is still lost and legitimately none of this matters because at some point they have to leave the Sleeping Worlds, because at the end of the day the Realm of Sleep is still a dream. It still doesn’t happen?

Rage Form is Sora harnessing his darkness.

Rikunort is KH1′s Riku’s heart after he fell to darkness traveling to the awaiting vessel in the future. He’s not Data Riku, and the scene cited from Re:coded is actually a Riku memory held within the Journal’s data, not something happening to Data Riku at all.

In conclusion: I don’t think it’s all a garbage SoRiku fanfiction.

But I think way too much effort went into proving SoRiku was canon.

And also most of the holes I poked in the theory are still pretty valid. 

And now I also know it’s contradicted by several Ultimania interviews whether the original writers acknowledge it or not.

But whatever, it’s not my cup of tea, you guys can still like it.

#Kingdom Hearts #KH3 #Kingdom Hearts III #KH3 Spoilers

[wings-of-indigo]

A Note on Relationships (that shouldn't be controversial but probably will be)

At work the other day, I got asked by one of my coworkers if I was single. On this particular occasion, that coworker was male. However, before everyone thinks this is another post about misogyny and the assumptions men make about women's availability in the workplace, let me note that I have been asked this question before by several female coworkers of various ages, but all near or over thirty.

And Everytime, when I reply that I am currently single and generally happy to be so(and go on to explain my reasons for this rare state of single happiness) I've gotten a combination of Looks.

There's the 'ooookaaaay' Look, the 'you're weird' Look, the 'You're wasting your youth' Look, and the 'You'll regret that later' Look. (Just to name a few). I've gotten used to it.

In the interests of full and unbragging disclosure, I know that I can be considered 'attractive' for a female (And wow that was hard to say outside my head. But the difficulties female assertiveness about appearance will be saved for another date). Dancing all the time keeps my relatively skinny by non dance world standards (I'm 5'3.5", usually within 5lbs of 130 lbs and I generally wear an upscale size 4), and while I'm definitely not the archetypal model thin ballerina, the fact that I fit a small size 4 (occasionally cursing and swearing) states my point quite neatly. I fit into conventional standards of female beauty.

Here's the thing though, about those Looks I mentioned earlier. I didn't date in high school, and I generally don't date now. Sure, if I get lonely or drunk enough I'll window shop OkCupid at one in the morning, but rarely do I have the inclination to follow through once recovered. And for a lot of people my age, that seems to be weird. In our society Single people arent supposed to be happy about it. Especially women.

And that's just stupid.

Most people agree that a single-by-choice man, even a confirmed I-dont-ever-want-romance man, batts no eyes in any context. A woman of the same, however, is immediately assumed to have something wrong with her. Either she is traumatized from some past experience, or she is simply defective and frigid. Even a woman who has previously proved her 'correctness' with marriage, even children, is not immune. If that woman does not want to enter another romantic relationship (and I'm including the full spectrum of queer identities as possible partners whenever I say marriage, partner, or romantic) after a time, then she is Wrong and Broken. Even if she has been abused by her partner and doesn't feel comfortable or capable of exposing herself like that again. Even if she has lost her long term 'soul mate' and does not want anything or anyone else after their loss. One of our media's favorite romantic tropes is The Woman who Learns to Overcome her Tragic Past and find Happiness in the (99% male) Protagonist's Romantic and Sexual Intrest. Little girls are brought up to dream and plan their future wedding from the time they know what a wedding IS (which, spoiler alert: is pretty damn young. I first remember playing 'wedding' when I was about five and got a box of dress up costumes for Christmas).

So, it makes sense that a woman or girl, especially young not engaging or desiring to engage in Romantic Ventures hits some socially ingrained trigger points. It's still stupid.

Here's some reasons why (for me, y'all night have your own valid reasons). While not at intensive like I am now, I am holding down a full time job while doing anywhere from 15-20 hours of dance classes in studio, not counting any supplemental physical training and gym time I put in outside of class, while finishing an unrelated Bachelors Degree online, trying to shop for and cook dance supporting meals on a strict budget, do laundry, get a healthy amount of sleep, go to acting and singing coaching, and find funding for an upcoming dance program should pass auditions. I really, really don't have the time or emotional availability for a relationship.

And that is key here. People seem to underestimate the importance of emotional labor on both sides in a healthy relationship- you can't just show up to date night or activities together and make small talk. There's a reason people talk about 'emotional avaliabilty', and in most traditional 1950s style relationships it's the woman's job to avaliable for whichever man she's involved with. Unfortunately, the vast majority of men still seem to carry an unconscious bias towards this kind of relationship.

And, I'm sorry (not), but Im really not interested in That. I'm reminded of a tumblr post about cat ladies, and why men seem to think that's an insult to woman rather than themselves- that they're so unappealing they can't get a man. Leaving aside the sexist assumption a womans ambition ahould be to 'get a man'- Dude, if I wanted a man, I could get one. Any girl off the street could get one easier than ordering takeout when she's too tired to cook.

The problem lies not in the getting, but with the shopping. While I identify as bisexual and happily enjoy fun times of the erotic bent, one of my personal quirks is that I Can't Do One Nights. This is not misplaced slut shaming- I am fully aware and bear no disapproval towards pursuing casual sexual attraction. Your body, your choice. I just know myself, and that any sexual interaction with a stranger would be exceedingly unpleasant for me in an emotional sense.

I tend to be extroverted, and I love people. But I also grew up in an alcoholic household with a very dysfunctional and fraught marriage. My mother never beat us, but she's still controlling and can still make me feel like shit, and my dad still tends to be an emotional leech with terrifyingly destructive rages. (Yes, those are mental health issues, and I still love them-distantly- but it's not my job as their child to fix them or get them help.)

As a result, It takes me a while to trust someone, especially emotionally. And, as a female, sex is a huge act of trust and emotional investment.

I would love to create the loving marriages and relationships I see my friends having. It's one of my future fantasies- creating a home with a life partner, sharing dinner and cuddles and movies and giving each other good sex.

But here's the thing. I can give myself satisfying sex. And I, quite frankly, have other dreams too, ones that are going to demand a superhuman level of work. Getting back to the 'shopping' anology- the sad fact is that it is going to be very difficult to find a man who doesn't expect his partner to place him and his dreams above her own, and just as difficult to train one out of that mindset. (And girlfriends for girls are about as common as rainbow unicorns).

Having grown up as I did, I might have ridiculously high standards for romance. But I made a vow to never be my parents, and frankly I see no point in taking time away from what I want more than anything in order to appease an archaic societal preference.

Love does not mean the surrendering of self, and I am not going to devote myself anything less than something extraordinary.

So that's why I'm single, and I'm fine with that. Suck it.

#why we need feminism #feninism #relationship #dreams #romantic relationships #misogony #misogny #societal norms #societal standards

[artinthusiast]

Finally had the energy to watch this trilogy. Well wala akong idea dun sa movie, it’s just that palagi kasi ‘tong included sa list pag sinabing romantic movies and damn, napakaexhausting pala nito, hence the emphasis sa word na energy hahaha.

Okay pa yung una, interesting pa, nasi-stir pa yung utak ko sa mga pinaguusapan nila pero yung kilig, wala akong nakuha anywhere sa movie lol, nablock yung utak ko dun sa thought na - really? sumama ka with a stanger? I mean di talaga ako fan ng ganung trope prolly because di ko sya kayang gawin.

Second one dun ako napagod, lalo na dun sa coffee shop! Ghad continuous talking!?! I’m not even exaggerating sa sinabi kong pagod ako, totoo talaga ung nakaramdam ako ng pagod like literal. Pagod both ways- nagsasalita and yung nakikinig, pero obviously mas dun ako nakarelate sa nakikinig. Naimagine ko at naalala ko yung mga times when I’m out with my friends, especially kung mall-type gala lang like pigging out, dumadating talaga ako sa point na nadedrain batt talaga ako, na parang biglang uminit ang atmosphere at umiikot ung paligid ko, ung singaw ng init sa katawan ko parang aakyat na sa utak ko na parang sasabog na ko na either magfefaint na ko or gusto ko na sumigaw at humingi ng katahimikan. At that point, mapapansin na din nila yan na di na ko umiimik, then minutes later maghahanap na ko ng CR nyan or magyayaya na ko umuwi, mostly yung una kasi, well I am that polite, lols. The whole time na pinapanood ko yung film, yung nasa isip ko lang is - damn this girl can’t shut up, like even for a second lang.

Third one is nice, not because of Julie Delpy’s tits na I am wondering bat parang overexposed ata, but because kasi sa tatlo, ito lang ata yung pwede kong maconsider na romantic for me lol. Siguro kasi nga mas naappreciate ko yung mga middle-aged romance na haha and this is closer to what a real life relationship is I think (because of the quarrels, yes xD) Plus, I realized here na tumatama din talaga yung sinsabi na, kung ano yung reason why you became attracted to somone first hand, yun din yung magiging problema nyo in the long run.

Over all- all as in yung trilogy- wala akong nakuhang kilig, nabaliwan lang ako kay Celene and made me wonder on my dates na bilang na bilang lang yung words na lumalabas sa bibig ko and thought na those boys probably got so effing bored hahaha.

~ The world is fucked by unemotional, rational men deciding shit.

PS. Gusto ko lang talaga ikwento how exhausted I am sa film na to because nga of the continuous talking ewan ko bat biglang parang naging review ata to haha.

#films #lists #movies

[inquiringquilter]

My Island Batik Boxes - What's Inside?

As an Island Batik Ambassador one of our biggest events is the opening of our semi-annual boxes of goodies from Island Batik.

To celebrate this early Christmas-like event, each Ambassador makes a box opening video. The videos reveal what’s inside of course—a preview of upcoming Island Batik collections and the latest tools from our program partners.

Don’t miss any of the excitement this year—new quilts, blog hops, free patterns and for sale ones, and giveaways! You’ll find ways to follow at the top of my sidebar.

As usual I received two huge boxes from Island Batik filled with the freshest batiks just now arriving in stores. Gorgeous! The boxes are also filled with great things from our program partners—awesome tools and accessories for quilting that you can’t do without.

To shoot my videos I enlist the help of my daughter. Together, we gather quilts and pin them to my design wall, set up the studio lights, and ready the camera. Then we gather the items in the boxes and prepare them to be presented one by one during the video.

We’ve also planned a surprise or two to liven things up.

After we shoot the video, Katerina edits it all together and adds little fun flourishes. The result is below. Go ahead and watch! I’ll wait. <grin>

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Now wasn’t that fun? The generosity and support I’ve received from Island Batik and the program sponsors is overwhelming. I’m humbled and so very grateful.

Let’s take a closer look at what I got!

Stash Busters

Island Batik included two Stash Builders in my box. Stash Builders are an easy way to build your stash is a wide selection of batiks. They are also an easy way for you to create a scrappy batik quilt. Each Stash Builder contains a mix of batiks in a particular color, such as green and violet.

A Stash Builder roll includes four 5” x WOF strips; there are 5 rolls in each pack giving you almost 3 yards of batiks! To see how I’ve used these strips in the past, take a look at my January challenge and my March challenge.

Want a chance to win a few Stash Builder rolls? Be sure to enter my giveaway at the end of this post.

Featured Spring Collection

My featured Spring collection is Midnight Dazzle. I’ll be designing a quilt for the August blog hop using this beautiful collection.

I was sent two fat-quarters of all the fabrics in the collection. In the background here you can also see the coordinating fabrics Island Batik sent from the Foundations (Solids, Basics, Blenders). I received half yards of each of those. In addition, I was sent 2 yards of two coordinates (one light, one dark) also from the Foundations to use as possible backgrounds for the quilt I design.

Neutral

Island Batik always sends along a lovely neutral batik that I can use as a background in my quilt designs. This time they sent Doughnut—a lovely creamy tan.

Solids

Island Batik has been making solid batiks for a few years now, and I simply love them! Lovely rich colors that are deep and solid—no show-through here! If you are a lover of solids for your quilts you really need to try these solids!

Island Batik included some lovely solids with the Spring and Summer Coordinates (scroll down to see) plus neutral solids in grey, black and white—the perfect background for a modern quilt.

Studio 180 Ruler

Studio 180 Design is a challenge partner. Our August challenge is to create a quilt using the Studio 180 Design ruler we were sent. I got the Rapid Fire Hunter’s Star ruler. They also sent the book Hunter’s Star Hidden Treasures to fill my head with ideas on how to use a Hunter’s Star. I’ve been wanting to make a Hunter’s Star quilt for quite some time so I can’t wait to get started!

Deb Tucker from Studio 180 Design creates clever rulers that help you make over-sized blocks fast, and to trim them to perfection for show stopping quilts. Check out her other rulers here.

Aurifil Threads

Aurifil is a program partner and they sent a box of coordinating threads for a thread challenge later this year. I love the quality of Aurifil—how little lint it produces, how strong a stitch it makes and how precise.

The box they sent is from their Color Builders program, a thread of the month that you subscribe to. They sent a 40 wt. collection called Red Panda, inspired by the fur of that endangered animal.

BYANNIE

ByAnnie is another challenge partner. Like last year, we’ll be challenged to make a ByAnnie bag or tote using Island Batiks from a Spring 2021 collection.

For the challenge, we selected a ByAnnie pattern and batiks from a specific collection we were assigned for this challenge. ByAnnie then selected zippers, mesh, hardware, batting, strapping, and fusible for the bag we chose.

THE SURPRISE BUNDLE

Also included in my box was a surprise bundle from a Summer 2021 collection. The bundle is wrapped so I can’t show you what’s in it just yet. The Summer 2021 collections will make their debut during our second blog hop in November.

Be sure to mark your calendar for November so you don’t miss the parade of Summer 2021 collections across the Ambassador’s websites and my quilt, made with my Summer 2021 collection. And yes, there are no purples this time so that’s a challenge for me I guess except not really because the collection they sent me is yummy! (even without purple <grin>)

Coordinates for Spring and Summer 2021 Collections

Island Batik typically sends a grouping of half-yard coordinates for each of the collections in our boxes. These coordinates are pulled from the Basics, Blenders, and Solids collections. Batiks in these collections are designed to be useful staples in your stash because they go with so many designer batik collections. Also, you should have no problem finding Basics, Blenders, and Solids at quilt stores that carry Island Batiks.

The bundle on the right with yellow, orange, browns and blues coordinate with the Surprise fabrics from the Summer 2021 collection I was sent and your only clue as to what might be inside. Twist my arm and I’ll tell you that the browns and blues go more closely with the collection than the pop of yellow and orange. I can also tell you that the collection is absolutely gorgeous and I’m super lucky to be tasked with the joy of designing a quilt with it.

The bundle on the left with the greens and blues coordinates with the featured Spring 2021 collection I was sent. Again, that collection (Midnight Dazzle) is simply stunning. Scroll back for another view.

Hobbs Batting

Hobbs is a program partner, and they always send a selection of their high quality battings. I truly love using Hobbs—lovely drape, easy and smooth to quilt, and washes like a dream!

Hobbs included one Queen-size Thermore batting, one Throw-size Tuscany Cotton Wool batting, one Queen-size Heirloom Premium 80/20 Fusible Cotton Poly Blend batting, one Queen-size Heirloom Premium 80/20 Cotton Poly Blend batting, and one set of 2-1/2” Fusible Batting Strips.

Each batting has it’s own particular use. The 80/20 batts are my go to since they blend cotton with polyester for a soft, drapable, easily quiltable quilt. The fusible type saves time with pin-basting.

Thermore is a polyester batting created through a patented process that results in a super thin light weight quilt. Originally developed for garment making, it’s the perfect batt to use when looking for something light weight and soft to the touch such as a wall hanging, garment, or baby quilt.

Tuscany Cotton Wool is my go-to when I want a light weight warm quilt. And oh the softness and lovely drape! By blending cotton with wool you reduce the shrinkage and problems associated with a pure wool batt. The result is perfection.

The 2-1/2” fusible strips are perfect for small projects requiring strips of batting, such as woven projects, strip rugs, and tote straps. Oh so easy to use and a real time-saver.

The Unboxing Schedule

The Island Batik Ambassador unboxing videos are scheduled so you won’t miss a thing! The fun begins today (July 21st) with the first three Ambassadors sharing their boxes (including me!) Here’s the rest of the schedule.

Every Ambassador receives a different collection of batiks in their box, so be sure to visit each Ambassador in turn to watch their videos. You won’t believe the beauties you’ll see!

Note: The videos each day are released throughout the day, so the link may not work at first. Each day a video is released at 8 AM PST, 12 PM PST and 3 PM PST. I’m in the Eastern time zone so my video will be released at 3 PM PST or 6 PM EST.

Also I’ve been told that there may be some last-minute changes to the schedule so I’ll be updating the links as needed each day.

Wednesday, July 21st

Megan Best @ Best Quilter Pamela Boatright @ Pamela Quilts Jennifer Fulton @ Inquiring Quilter (that’s me!)

Thursday, July 22nd

Preeti Harris @ Sew Preeti Quilts Jane Hauprich @ Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting Emily Leachman @ Darling Dogwood

friday, July 23rd

Denise Looney @ For the Love of Geese Leah Malasky @ Quilted Delights Sally Manke @ Sally Manke Fiber Artist

Monday, July 26th

Maryellen McAuliffe @ Mary Mack Made Mine Claudia Porter @ Create with Claudia Gail Renna @ Quilt Haven Threads

Tuesday, July 27th

Brianna Roberts @ Sew Cute and Quirky Andi Stanfield @ True Blue Quilts Jennifer Thomas @ Curlicue Creations

Wednesday, July 28th

Jennifer Eubank @ Archipelago Quilting Suzy Webster @ Webster Quilt Janet Yamamoto @ Whispers of Yore

Thursday, July 29th

Elizabeth DeCroos @ Epida Studio Connie Kauffman @ Kauffman Designs Gail Sheppard @ Quilting Gail

Friday, July 30th

Joanne Hart @ Unicorn Harts Mania Hatziioannidi @ Mania for Quilts Michelle Roberts @ Creative Blonde

Every month, the Island Batik Ambassadors are challenged to design and make a quilted project. The July challenge is to make holiday projects. Mine is underway and will appear here soon.

Don’t miss any of the other monthly challenges and the goings on here at Inquiring Quilter! You’ll find ways to follow me at the top of my sidebar.

Be Sure to Enter My Giveaway!

For a chance to win these 2 Stash Builder rolls, use the Rafflecopter below.

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Like batiks? Like to share your wips and finishes?

Each Ambassador answers the monthly challenges in unique ways—be sure to follow my fellow Ambassadors too! You’ll find them all listed on my Island Batik Ambassador page.

In the meantime, thank you so much for stopping by! Be sure to click over to my Wednesday Wait Loss linkup to share your current quilty projects!

Disclosure: The products featured here were provided to me free of charge by Island Batik, Aurifil, Hobbs, Studio 180 Designs, and ByAnnie.

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#Featured #Island Batik

[thenighttcat]

on those days when the temperature goes above 36 degrees,

weird stuff starts to happen.

I pretty much suspected today was going to be one of those days when I woke up and the room was hot and I was sticky with sweat. I checked my phone for the time but it was out of batt. Juice probably ran out from the alarm trying to wake me up but me not waking up.

Don’t mind my grammar, weird day is weirding up my language too.

So anyway I woke up not feeling good at all, the kind of in-between feeling you get when you overslept and wake up in the middle of morning that is not the afternoon, so you don’t really know how to start the day. When you get into such a situation, the best thing to do is to use the loo and freshen up, but my dad was in it, so I went to my parents’ bedroom toilet just to find out that my mum was using it, which is probably why my dad was using the living room toilet in the first place, which left me with no toilet to use. I later found out that they ate some weird lagsana last night which has been sending them to the bathroom every few minutes since 3am in the morning, you’d think they’d have released everything by the time I woke up but no they didn’t, which meant I was just waiting awkwardly around in the hallway not sure what to do with myself. You’d think why am I waiting in the hallway and not outside the toilet, and to that I will reply that from the hallway you have a good view of both toilets, so I can leap for either one of them the very moment it is available, plus the hallway has this echo effect that amplifies my voice whenever I call out “are you done yet?”, giving me the volume I need without my vocals having to assert much effort.

The diarhoea situation my parents were having turned out to be more serious than expected, and so I didn’t get to use any toilet in the end. What I got instead was an errand to run. My mum came out limp and pale from the toilet, and told me she needed my help to do something. I said, “What’s that?” to which she replied that she needed someone to collect the cake from a fancy bakery downtown that she ordered for the dinner party tonight. I said “We are having a dinner party?” and she said “Yes,” and then I said “Since when? For who?” but she was too weak and in a foul mood to bother to respond, she told me to stop asking questions and just go collect the cake, she’d message me the address in the family chat group. I wasn’t too happy to say the least about this random abrupt arrangement, not to mention that I wasn’t getting no word of thanks, but I knew better than to argue so I just did it anyway. 

The bakery was at Tanjong Pagar and I drove the family car to go fetch it. I thought: okay, at least there’s consolation in the fact that I get to blast my music on the car’s pretty fine speakers and get away from my house where a really nasty stench was starting to stink up the entire place. But then my sister said she was going to meet her boyfriend at some East Coast cafe and since it’s on the way I should give her a lift. I told her she wasn’t making no sense, that East Coast was completely out of the way and not at all on the way, and that I watched this funny video of this guy who I think might be our future pm talking about some East Coast plan and apparently it went all viral and people started making memes and t-shirts and mugs and crap but that anyway that is besides the point and I’m not making a detour and driving her to meet her boyfriend at some cafe at East Coast, but then my sister hopped into the car anyway and there was no way I could get rid of her and so I caved in and gave her a lift after all. That’s what happens when you’re a pushover, you get ordered by everyone including your bratty little sis. I wanted to play my music, which is like the folky kind, the classical kind and the instrumental kind, but then she says I’m some 50 year old man and she plugged out my phone and plugged in her phone and started blasting her damn korean pop and english pop and all that modern trash, which I couldn’t do anything about because I was driving and if I fought with her the car would crash and we’d both probably die and my parents who raised us all these years will be rendered childless.

While all this was going on, I want to point out that I saw the temperature indicator on the car’s dashboard inching up to around 34 or 35 degrees. Oh man, oh man, I thought, I knew it, temperature is going to burst through 36 for sure, no wonder it’s panning out to such a weird day.

Anyway back to the scene in the car. My sister was blasting her modern trash and I was grumbling and moaning and complaining but with the loud music, what with the crashing cymbals and screaming singers and all, she couldn’t hear me so I just shut up in the end. The air-con was turned all the way up and the fans were on the highest so that they were making the really loud whirring sound, but even so it was still damn hot with the sunlight penetrating through the windscreen and windows and on our faces and into our laps. To top it all off, the traffic was all jammed up and chaotic. At one point there was even this group of trishaw riders hogging the lanes, and if that wasn’t bad enough they were going in the freaking opposite direction I have no idea why, that sucked real bad. And then my sister was saying, “I think I’d have been better off taking the train” which would have pissed me off if I wasn’t already in this super dejected and depressed state and questioning my existence and the meaning of life.

When I finally got back home, the cake had melted and my parents were still in their respective toilets so I couldn’t even get to bathe or anything. I stuffed the cake into the fridge, hopefully it’ll unmelt by dinnertime, then my dog said “hey let’s go for a walk”, to which I replied “no thanks, I’m really tired,” but then she wouldn’t take no for an answer and began barking at the top of her lungs and prancing about all over the place which is her way of threatening to pee and poop all over the place, and obviously I’m going to be the one who has to clear it up and that would suck even more, so I had no choice but to leash her up and bring her to the nearby park. There were a few banglas sitting in the grass under a tree drinking booze. I was feeling really hot so I called out to them, ‘hey throw me some booze,’ and they looked at each other puzzled and confused. I went up to them and asked again with some vigorous gesturing on my part. They probably thought I was some sort of crazy-ass dude, but out of kindness, or maybe, now that I think of it, fear and terror and the desire for me to go away and leave them alone, they gave me some of their booze which tasted really bland and boring like plain water. Then it struck me, oh yeah, it ain’t booze it’s water, I just thought it was booze because I was stereotyping again. Feeling lousy because I was being reproached by my conscience, but more so because of the disappointment of not getting what I expected to be refreshing beer to quench my thirst on this awful 36 degrees hot day, I waved the dudes goodbye and went away with my pooch in tow. On the way back, my dog, hot and tired from the weather and the long walk, threw in the towel and dropped into a lying position refusing to budge. At first I thought it might be dead and tears were coming up to my eyes but then its eyes flickered and then all the sadness went away and instead was replaced with irritation because it was her idea to go for a walk in the first place and now that she’s tired she doesn’t want to move and I’ve got to carry her all the way back. Which I did, and it was damn bloody tiring, and uncomfortable too, what with a furry hot body pressed against your sweaty skin.

This all goes to show, that I’ll probably be migrating soon. With the way global warming is going, and the really weird kind of political leaders a certain country is electing to deal with the crisis, I’m pretty sure we’re going to get many more 36 degree days in the coming years, and in the coming decades, probably 37, 38, 39 maybe even 40 degree days. So yeah, time to start thinking where I should migrate to. I’m thinking Fiji, or maybe Christmas Island. Some far-flung place where global warming can’t reach if that even makes sense.

[josephkitchen0]

Drop Spindle Spinning: Making and Using Your First Spindle

By Angela Hammer – I’ve always liked making things with my hands. I learned how to crochet years ago, so spinning became the next logical step for me to take. Why buy yarn when you can make it yourself? I found a booklet for the Michigan Fiber Festival which described several classes. I paid my money, attended spinning for beginners class, and I was hooked. I knew I had to get my hands on a drop spindle.

The only problem was that I was a college student with no extra cash, and couldn’t afford a $300 – $400 spinning wheel. So I put my dreams away for about a year. The following summer I met a lady who ran a spinning shop. About $20 later, I owned a drop spindle and some fiber. Now I was able to spin to my heart’s content. Since that time I have become a member of the Michigan Fiber Festival and work with a group of younger volunteers that coordinates and leads the children’s activities at the Festival.

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By all means, I am not the final authority on spinning. I’m still learning new things every day, just like anyone who first approaches spinning for beginners. This article is an effort to teach the basics as a way of encouraging further study into the world of fiber arts.

Fiber

We need to take a brief look at fiber before we tackle the basics of spinning for beginners. Fiber comes from many different sources. For spinning, we often think of sheep’s wool. Other fiber sources include alpaca, llama, cotton, and even dog. For now, we will just look at sheep’s wool.

Wool can be purchased in two basic forms: unprocessed and processed. The fleece that is sheared from a sheep is unprocessed wool. Unprocessed basically means in its raw form. There are three types of processed wools: raving, batts, and top. Roving, sometimes called a sliver, is a long continuous strand of carded wool. Batts are thick rectangles made of layers of carded wool. Top is like roving but the short and broken fibers have been removed leaving the long fibers lying parallel to each other. When giving tips on spinning for beginners, I recommend starting with roving.

Now that we have talked about the forms of wool, we need to move onto the types of wool. Forget the common misconception that all wool is scratchy because it isn’t. Some breeds such as Lincoln, Cotswold, and Suffolk sheep do produce coarse fibers but the fleeces from Merino, Rambouillet, and Shetland are soft. A medium wool, such as Targhee, Jacob, Corriedale, and Dorset, is ideal for spinning for beginners. At the end of this spinning for beginners’ article are some resources that have wool for sale and some resources that will process your fiber into roving for you to use.

How to Make a Drop Spindle

The following directions are for two types of drop spindles: top whorl and bottom whorl. They are not beautiful, but they are practical. Here’s a tip: Don’t invest a lot of money until you are sure this is the thing for you. The one you make is up to you.

Drop Spindle Materials

1” wooden toy wheel

12” dowel

Sharpen one end of the dowel into a blunt point. Sand it smooth. Sand and slightly round the other end of the dowel.

Put the sharp end of the dowel through the hole in the wheel, leaving about two inches of dowel below the wheel. Glue into place and let dry.

This is a completed bottom whorl spindle. (Fig. 1)

The following instructions are for making a top whorl spindle:

Sharpen one end of the 12” dowel. Don’t sharpen to a point. Sand it for a smooth, rounded, blunt end. Sand and slightly round the edges to the flat end.

Put the flat end of the dowel through the hole in the wheel, leaving about one inch of dowel above the wheel. Glue into place and let dry.

After the glue has sufficiently dried, using a drill or nail, make a pilot hole in the middle of the flat end of the dowel. This is to prevent the wood from splitting when the cup hook is put in. Take the small cup hook and screw it into place.

If you want to, you can sand the part of the dowel above the whorl so it tapers to the edges of the cup hook.

This is a completed top whorl spindle. (Fig. 2)

Important Construction Tips

The most important things to consider when making or buying a drop spindle are balance and weight. Always check for these when buying or making spindles.

When checking for balance, ask yourself these questions: Does the spindle wobble a lot? Does it spin well or is it sluggish? Does it spin freely? Weight is the other important element to look for in a drop spindle. Heavy spindles (over four ounces) work best to create thick, bulky yarn while light weight spindles (less than one ounce) work best to create thin, fine yarns. A medium weight spindle (around two ounces) is a good all-purpose spindle, enabling you to create a full spectrum of yarn from fine, lace-weight to thick, bulky-weight.

Spinning for beginners tip: The most important thing to remember when choosing a drop spindle is – do you like it?

Spinning for Beginners: How to Spin

Before one actually begins putting twist into the fiber, drafting should be practiced. Drafting is the process of pulling the fibers of the fiber supply out to get them ready to be twisted. To learn this process, we will use the “inch-worm technique.” To do this, remember these three words: pinch, pull and release. These words, in a nutshell, are the basic drafting process.

The following directions are written specifying certain hands to be used. You can interchange the directions so the right hand means left and left hand means right if you find it easier to do it that way.

To get started, throw the roving over your shoulder so it lies on your shoulder with one end in your hand and the other behind your back.

Take the end of roving that is in your hands and “pinch” the end of it with your right hand. (Fig. 4)

After you have drafted, keep your left hand holding the fiber. Now with your right hand “release” the fibers. You have just completed the “inch-worm technique.” (Figure. 5)

To keep drafting, continue to “pinch” the fiber at the point of twist, “pull: back with the opposite hand, drafting the fibers to the thickness desired; and “release” the yarn with the first hand, allowing the twist to enter the drafted fibers.

Practice this technique a couple of times until you are comfortable with it. Now it’s time to put it into real practice.

To Spin With a Bottom Whorl Spindle

Take a two-foot piece of yarn and tie it around the shaft above the whorl. This is called your leader. Turn the spindle clockwise a couple of times to wind the leader around the base of the shaft.

Continue turning the spindle but barber pole the yarn up the shaft towards the top. Secure the yarn about one inch from the top of the shaft with a half hitch. (Fig. 6 & Fig. 7)

The easiest way to attach the leader and the fiber together is to knot them.

To begin the twist, hold on to the knot that was just made with your let hand. Grasp the shaft towards the top with the right hand and twist it clockwise. Be sure to give it a good twist.

Once there is a good amount of twist in the yarn, set the spindle down on a table or chair or the ground. This will stop the spindle from spinning the opposite direction.

Now begin to “pinch, pull, release.” Pinch the knot with your right hand, pull back on the fibers with your left hand, and release with the right hand. (Figure. 3, 4, & 5)

You should see the twist enter the drafted fibers. You have just made yarn. Congratulations!

Continue the “pinch, pull, release” process until you notice that the yarn isn’t twisting very well during the “release” part of the process.

Pinch the yarn at this point with the left hand and twist the spindle clockwise with the right hand.

Repeat steps 6 to 10 as often as needed.

You have probably noticed that your arms are only so long and they haven’t grown any longer. Now you need to wind the yarn you have made onto the spindle. Unhook the half hitch and unwind the barber pole effect. Turning the spindle clockwise, wind the yarn onto the shaft creating a cone (wide bottom, small top). Leave enough yarn to barber pole up the shaft and make a half hitch at the top with at least three inches to spare.

Continue with steps 6 through 12 until the spindle is full or you run out of fiber.

(I suggest the process of putting a lot of twist into the yarn and setting down the spindle for a good reason When you are just starting to spin it takes enough concentration to remember “pinch, pull release” without having to figure out how to add “twist” to the equation. When you feel that you are ready, go ahead and add “twist” and don’t worry about setting the spindle down unless it’s needed.)

Spinning With a Top Whorl Spindle

Many of the processes are similar with a top whorl as with a bottom whorl, while some others require a slightly different explanation. In the beginning, spinning with this type of spindle works better sitting down.

Tie a two-foot piece of yarn onto the shaft under the whorl. This is your leader.

Repeat step 2 in the Bottom Whorl instructions. (Hereafter referred to as BW)

Bring the leader yarn up over the edge of the whorl and up to the hook. Pull the yarn through the hook so that when the spindle is turned in a clockwise direction the yarn stays caught in the hook and doesn’t come undone.

Repeat step 4 in BW. To begin the twist hold the know in the left hand and roll the shaft of the spindle with the right hand rapidly up the right leg from knee to upper thigh and let it dangle in front of you until the spindle stops spinning.

Repeat step 6 in BW.

Repeat step 7 in BW.

Repeat step 8 in BW.

Repeat step 9 in BW.

Pinch the yarn at the point of twist with the let hand and roll the shaft of the spindle rapidly up the right leg from knee to upper thigh, letting it dangle until the spindle stops spinning.*

Repeat steps 6 through 10 as often as needed.

When you run out of arm length, it’s time to wind on the yarn. Unhook the yarn from the hook and rotate the spindle in a clockwise direction winding the yarn as the shaft rotates. Wind the yarn on the shaft in a cone form (wide at the top, small at the bottom). Leave enough length to wrap the yarn up over the whorl and through the hook.

Continue steps 6 through 12 until the spindle is full or you run out of fiber.

Joining More Fibers

If you have a break in the yarn or you need to add new fiber, the process is basically the same for both. It works best to set the spindle down so the spindle doesn’t untwist.

Be sure the fiber you are adding to doesn’t have any twist in it. If it does have twist, you need to tease the end of the fiber open for about two inches of length.

Take the new fiber that is being added and overlap the new and the old. (Fig. 8) Hold the end of the new fiber and the point of twist of the old fiber in the right hand. Pull back on the fibers with the left hand. This blends the fibers together.

Three Truths of Spinning for Beginners

After you have been spinning a little while, the “Three truths of spinning for beginners” should be very evident.

If you don’t twist the drafted fibers enough, your yarn will drift apart and break.

If you twist the drafted fibers too much, the twist will travel into the fiber supply, engulfing the whole mass and preventing further drafting.

The fewer number of fibers you draft, and thus the smaller the diameter of the yarn, the more twist you will need to hold it together.

Plying The Yarn

The first yarn that you have spun is called a single because it is a single ply. Most of the yarn you buy in the stores are three-ply or four-ply, meaning that these are three or four singles plied together into its present yarn form. You, too, can ply your singles into a plied yarn. Please note that you do not have to ply the yarn to use it. If you choose to ply, this section will help you do so.

Most hand spinners create two-ply yarns. To do this you need to spin two spindles full of yarn. When you get ready to take the cones of yarn off the spindles, you can do it at least tow different ways. One way is to slide the cones off onto knitting needles. Using a shoebox, poke holes in the sides and put the knitting needles through the holes with the cones of singles inside the shoebox. This is a simple form of a “Lazy Kate.” (Fig. 9) The other way is to wind each spindle of singles off into balls. When you get ready to ply, put each ball of yarn into a jar or bowl. The balls will roll all over the place and get tangled if you don’t try to confine them.

Now we are ready to ply. Prepare the drop spindle the same as before but instead of fiber you will have to strands of yarn to attach to the leader. Knot as before. The important thing to remember is that the spindle, when plying, will spin in the opposite direction. If you spun the singles clockwise, when plied they must be plied counterclockwise. With the bottom whorl spindle twist it counterclockwise with your fingers. Top whorl spindles are rolled down the outside of the right leg form upper thigh to knew to get a counterclockwise spin.” Give the spindle a good twist and begin pinching, pulling, and releasing. You will notice that you can pull back further when plying. Continue plying and winding onto the spindle until the spindle fills or you run out of yarn.

Finishing The Yarn

Whether you have created a single or a plied yarn, finishing the yarn is still necessary.

Winding off is when you take the yarn off the spindle to get it ready to set the twist. You can use your leg to wind the yarn off the spindle. Bend your leg and wrap the yarn from knee to foot and back to knee again. Do this until the spindle is empty. Then take four pieces of contrasting yarn and tie them loosely in four different places around the yarn. Tie them with a figure-8 tie like the figures shown. (Fig. 10)

To set the twist, take the skein of yarn and put it into warm water. You can do this in a five-gallon bucket, sink, or wash basin. Always run the water into the container first and then set the skein gently into the water. Running the water onto the skein can cause it to felt and if you want to use the yarn to knit or crochet, you don’t want it to do this.

Place the skein on top of the water and gently push it into the water. Let it soak for about 10 minutes. Take it out of the water and gently squeeze the water out. Do not wring the skein. Then put the skein inside a towel and squeeze some more water out. The skein will need to be hung up to air dry completely. Hang the skein over the doorknob, a drying rack, or a shady part of an outdoor clothesline.

When the yarn is completely dry, twist it into a skein for storage. Grab an end of this big hank of yarn with each hand and twist the skein until it is firm. (Fig. 11) Fold it in the middle and watch the skein twist back on itself. (Fig. 12) Take one end and tuck it through the loop on the other end. (Fig. 13) The skein is ready for storage. (Fig. 14)

To Use The Skein

To use the yarn in the skein, unhook the loops and let the twist out of the skein. Find the ends of the yarn and untie them. Using either end, wind the yarn into a ball, and you are ready to go.

A Few Parting Words

By learning the basics of spinning for beginners, you have embarked on a unique journey. It is a journey I hope you will enjoy. The first yarn you create will be bumpy with thick and thin spots. But it will be beautiful because you made it. Practice does make perfect and with time the yarn you create will be almost flawless. So take a deep breath and start the journey into the world of spinning. I’m so glad you can join in this exciting journey.

* A top whorl spindle can be rolled on either leg but in different directions. Use Figure 15 to help you figure out which direction to roll the spindle depending on which let you choose.

Originally published in Countryside May / June 2001 and regularly vetted for accuracy.

Drop Spindle Spinning: Making and Using Your First Spindle was originally posted by All About Chickens

[inquiringquilter]

My Day on the Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop

Welcome to my day on the Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop!

Four years ago (yes, that long!) I wrote a series of posts giving you a tour of my sewing studio. You’ll find links to those posts at the end of this post. I share my sewing room with my husband who is also self-employed. The room is over the garage and so it’s larger than a normal bedroom.

Here’s what my studio looked like back then…

When I got serious about quilting as a business four years ago, I came up with a plan for organizing my space. Although I’m pretty computer savvy, I used simple grid paper to design my sewing room. You could use grid paper too!

The photo on the left shows the original arrangement. Within a few months, I decided that I needed more organization so purchased a cabinet from Ikea and moved the sofa table from the living room up to my sewing room to use for a cutting table.

As you can see on the map, my computer desk and my sewing table (Kate’s desk) and two filing cabinets form an L shape in which I mostly work. The Ikea cabinet is close by and it has a small cutting mat on it and a small ironing board. This forms the heart of my sewing area.

On the other side of the filing cabinets, I placed my sofa table and on top of that, my large cutting mat. I have several bookcases in which I store my fabrics, batting, tools, and projects. (The tools and projects are stored in plastic containers marked with labels.)

Under the sofa table, I placed an Ikea set of sliding drawers. I organized my fabric scraps by size in these drawers—1/2 to 1”, 2-2-1/2”, and so on.

As wonderful as I thought I my setup was, over time I kept finding little things that I thought I could improve. I kept collecting these ideas and then one day, I knew it was time to implement my changes.

My Sewing Studio 2.0

Recently, my husband replaced his desk with a much smaller one so I decided it was finally time to redo my sewing studio.

Before I get into the details, here is a short video tour of what my studio looks now.

Switching my sewing table and my desk

One of the things I didn’t like about my old set up was how the sun would come in the windows and shine on my computer screen. Likewise, I didn’t like how little sun shone on my sewing machine table. So duh, I switched them, placing my sewing machine closer to the windows and my computer further away.

Now the sun shines brightly on my sewing area and doesn’t glare on my computer monitor.

Improving the cutting and pressing area

Next, I liked the idea of having a place for my large cutting mat, but the sofa table simply wasn’t wide enough. So I moved the sofa table close to the windows, and placed the Ikea drawer unit underneath (the one with my fabric scraps). My desk used to butt up against the window, so when I switched the desk and my sewing machine table, I left a space next to the window big enough to put the sofa table.

By putting my sofa table next to the Ikea cabinet, I created one long table against the window. Now I have room for my ironing station, cutting mat, and my Accuquilt GO! cutter in one place (a recent addition to my sewing studio.)

Notice how I can move the cutting mat to the sofa table to create a larger area for pressing and arranging pieces for sewing. I love the flexibility of this new area.

So what about my big cutting mat? Well, I replaced the sofa table with a folding table from Costco. The new table is wide enough for the big cutting mat with room to spare. I use this cutting area to trim quilts and to cut long borders.

I’ve placed the table on risers to make it the perfect height for cutting. As a plus, this also gives me plenty of space underneath to organize my other sewing machines, sewing machine totes, photo backgrounds, printed patterns and such.

Making space for photography

As a blogger and social media maven <grin> I’ve learned that photography is important. To get beautiful photos you need lots of light. Although I have a wall of windows in my studio, they don’t get a lot of light in them, especially later in the afternoon when I tend to take pictures. So for Christmas I got myself a photo cube. That’s the big black cube you see next to my big cutting table here. Inside it has lights and a vinyl background I can switch out when I want a different color.

As I was rearranging my studio, I kept in mind that I needed to have a place for the photo cube. In the end, I put it on top of one of my filing cabinets. That moves it out of the way of my sewing/computer area, yet keeps it convenient when I need to take studio shots.

A place for books…(and more importantly—fabric!)

During the big reorganization, I straightened my husband’s books on our built-in bookshelf and found room for my quilting books. That freed up some space on my short bookshelf for my black and white fabrics and current works in progress.

By moving my black and white fabrics from my two big bookshelves, I freed up space for fabric that’s been sitting around in bags on the floor waiting for some place for me to put it. (Oops! <wink>)

Keeping the batting from driving me batty

I had most of my batting stored above my bookshelves, with batting scraps in one of the fabric drawers of my Ikea cabinet. This kinda worked but I wanted my batting all together.

More importantly though, I wanted to organize my batting by size to make it easier to find batting that was big enough for my current project. So during my reorganization, I took all my new batts and wrote the size on one end with a marker so I could tell their size from the floor.

Then I took my batting scraps and pinned a small piece of paper with the size to each one. I placed those batting scraps in two boxes—10” or less wide (any length) and 30” or more. Guess I don’t have any batting in between? <grin>

A home for my printer

Big on my wish list during my reorganization was to find a convenient place for my printer and pattern papers. The printer used to be closer to my husband’s desk and to get to it I had to walk around my desk and large cutting table (and a bunch of bags on the floor) to the other side of the room. To say this was inconvenient was an understatement.

When I moved the quilt books and subsequently moved my black and white fabrics, that small bookshelf had just enough room for my current projects. Since they used to sit on a small black cabinet near the stairs (in a completely unorganized pile—not even in boxes!) that cabinet top suddenly became free! So I put the printer and paper on it. This little change has literally changed my life and made things so much easier! (The cabinet by the way holds tools I don’t use much, plus foundation papers and other specialty items.)

Organizing my thread

The final item on my wish list was to get my thread and my Island Batiks organized.

I’d bought a lot of Aurifil sets as several Markets and they needed to be organized into my existing thread collection, sorted by color. So I went to JoAnns and bought more thread organizers for all the new thread and solved that problem.

I just love looking at all this thread!

I kept two of the little thread collection cases—they now hold the basic colors I piece with. I keep them near my sewing machine so they are so handy! Previously I would haul down the right thread collection case and sort through it to find the perfect white, grey, beige or black that I needed. Another problem solved!

organizing my Island Batiks

My Island Batiks on the other hand, were always a bit disorganized. New collections were placed in the Ikea fabric drawers while older pieces were stored in several cardboard boxes, tucked in various places of my sewing room. Since I’m an Island Batik Ambassador, I like to share the name of the Island Batik collections I use in my quilts so my readers can find those same fabrics too if they want, and that takes a lot of organization on my part. So this was a must do.

First I gathered my batiks from their various hidey-holes, sorted the older pieces by color and placed them in the fabric drawers of my Ikea cabinet. I organized the new collections (including the collections I can’t share with you just yet) and placed them in one of the open sections of the Ikea cabinet. Having them out in the open reminds me to use them (as soon as I’m allowed) for my monthly Island Batik Ambassador challenges.

Having all my Island Batiks in one place organized by color has made a huge difference since I am constantly designing and quilting with batiks. My life is so easy now and all it took was this one little change!

While organizing my batiks into the drawers of the Ikea cabinet, I took the opportunity to organize other items I use often such as my postal supplies, fusibles, and giveaways. Now the Ikea cabinet contains the things I use most often instead of a bunch of miscellaneous supplies I thought might fit in the drawers.

My dream design wall…

The final change wasn’t really a change but a fix. Years ago, my husband installed a design wall for me. I made it in sections so it could be portable. That also allowed me to take it off the wall if I wanted.

Originally we attached it using Contact strips. But it kept pulling away from the wall in a few places. And I never did use it elsewhere so having it portable seemed silly. So I had him screw it into the wall. Now it’s nice and steady.

I love my big design wall!

Well that’s my studio! Here’s what I learned:

When organizing your studio, don’t sweat it. Sometimes it takes living and working in your sewing room to figure out what you really need and where.

Think about how you work. What do you use daily? What do you want to have nearby? (Hint: you probably will want your ironing and cutting areas near your sewing machine for convenience.)

Consider light. Another thing that was big on my list during the redo was light. I just can’t see things as well as I used to. So I upgraded my light bulbs to LED which are brighter and cooler (I hate getting hot!). I also added a bright light by my sewing machine. Love it! I still need to add more lights over by my design wall but that means a trip to Ikea so it’ll have to wait for now.

Little things mean a lot. Sometimes all you need is a little change. Labeling my batting with the sizes has saved me so much time! So has organizing my batiks. And my thread. I lived with the disorganization and made it work but taking the time to organize those three things has made my life so much easier! So don’t let the idea of organizing your studio overwhelm you. Start with the one thing that bugs you the most, and change that.

Thanks for stopping by!

Be sure to visit the other blogs on the hop!

The hop just started a few days ago so you haven’t missed much yet! To catch up, visit

April 1 - Sam Hunter - Hunter Design Studio

April 2 - Marian Pena - Seams to be Sew

Tomorrow is Martha’s turn.

April 4 - Martha Wolf - Pinwheel Productions

The hop continues through April 27th, one studio per day. For the rest of the blog hop schedule, click the on the QAL and Blog Hops tab above and choose Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop!

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TEll me…what would you most like to change about your sewing studio?

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