#even though the nine lives is supposed to be like a cat cheating death with dexterity n stuff

[moeblob]

Marin is just the town's cat. She can be found lounging about in the sun and knocking stuff off of roofs (it's not her fault if you put stuff that high up). She arrived in the town on her second life and then just. Opted to never leave. She gives a lot of people nicknames (such as Ren is Renke to everyone else and he will throw a punch if anyone else tries calling him Ren)... and despite her willingness to help people, she is very respectful of secrets. If she sees things she shouldn't "know" then that's fine, she won't tell anyone. So everyone in town lets her do whatever and wherever she wants.

#my characters #even though the nine lives is supposed to be like a cat cheating death with dexterity n stuff #thats not the case with marin shes just straight up allowed to live nine lives #her first life ended pretty early but her second life was lived to its fullest #she quote died end quote of old age her second life and then her third was shorter at about 30 years #so being on her fourth life and having lived in the same town for an immensely long time she really does just know people #shes happy to be around people if they dont get in her way of relaxing so... people just let her hang around #and since everyone knows that she knows everyone they consider her hanging around as good fortune #since no one will want to attempt anything bad around the cat who watches everything #her favorite color is yellow btw shes just a good lil cat girl

[sg-marshall]

sims 4 trait legacy challenge

Overview:

This is a ten generation legacy challenge based on some characteristics people can possess. Each generation will be based upon a new trait. The style and gender of the generation is completely up to you (I usually play as women but gender does not matter in this challenge)! Complete all goals before focusing on the next generation. Some may play onto each other, so be sure to look ahead before moving forward! I created an adapted version for people who do not have the packs I used listed below the challenge. I wanted to make sure everyone could play and not feel left out!

Rules:

No cheats or mods!

Start off with $20,000 and a build a house wherever you want one.

Complete all six goals for every generation before moving onto the next one.

Complete the full aspiration and reach level 10 in the set career.

There is no rules when it comes to aging up but I suggest waiting until it is their set birthday.

Play on normal life span.

Packs Used: Base Game, Discovery University, Seasons, City Living, Get to Work, Cats and Dogs, Parenthood, Spa Day, and Knifty Knitting

Generation One: Responsibility

You are a very old fashioned person who believes things have a certain way of being done. Every object in your house has a set place, the person you marry you are supposed to stay with forever, and the world should be a clean place to live in. Never once have you strayed away from your beliefs and you’ve always lived your life by the book. Even once your partner dies and you are left with a child who cannot handle their passing, you stay true to your morals. (EDIT: I have been playing this challenge myself and found that the final level of the aspiration said “have a child master a career”. I do not know if you have to be in the household for that, but if you do, just add this generation to the household of the next one before they master it. It is also okay if you want to ignore/cheat this part.)

Traits: Neat, Good, Green Fiend

Aspiration: Successful Lineage

Career: Education (Administrator Branch)

Goals:

Max charisma skill.

Max research and debate skill.

Be married as a young adult, but have your partner die (do not tell your child how) once they reach adult hood. Never remarry.

Have only one child with your partner.

Complete the snowglobes collection and have them set up in a specific room in your house.

Make your neighborhood green and keep it that way.

Generation Two: Determined

You’ve always struggled to cope with the death of your father/mother ever. Maybe that's because you never really knew why they died in the first place. Left with too many questions to handle, you destroy your relationship with your friends and family and run away to find some answers. This entails a trip to Sixam, where you can finally wrap ahead around the passing of you mom/dad. You decide to come home just in time to see your mom/dad just before they too pass away. After a heart-breaking conversation, you realize that all the secrecy was for the best.

Traits: Gloomy, Ambitious, Loner

Aspiration: Nerd Brain

Career: Astronaut (Interstellar Smuggler Branch)

Goals:

Max rocket science skill.

Max mischief skill.

Build a rocket ship and fly to Sixam.

Run away and live on your own as a teenager. 

Have a horrible relationship with your mom/dad as a young adult, but become best friends with them before they pass away.

Complete the microscope prints collection.

Generation Three: Loving

Your mother/father was extremely distant growing up, which caused you to rely on friends as your family. Your childhood best friend has been with you every step of the way, and you ended up fell in love with them. All you wanted to do was be a mother/father, but found out you could never have children. You adopt a child as a baby and raise them as your own, teaching them everything you wish your parents did for you.

Traits: Romantic, Family - Oriented, Foodie

Aspiration: Soulmate

Career: Babysitter (Teenager), None (Young Adult and older)

Goals:

Max parenting skill.

Max wellness skill.

Marry your childhood best friend.

Adopt a baby after you get married.

Teach your toddler to max all skills.

Have a side passion of knitting.

Generation Four: Intelligence

You grew up incredibly smart with no knowledge of who your real parents were. However, that never mattered to you. Your adoptive parents have made it their life goal to advance your gifts in every way they know how. Late nights of helping you with homework, early mornings of finishing projects, and spending their fortunes to enroll you into the college of your dreams. All you wanted to do was repay them by becoming a world renowned journalist. You dedicate your best-sellers to them because, after all, they’ll always be your biggest fan.

Traits: Genius, Bookworm, Unflirty

Aspiration: Academic

Career: Writer (Journalist Branch)

Goals:

Max logic skill.

Max writing skill. 

Reach level eight in five other skills of your choice.

Go to the University of  Britechester and study Language and Literature (distinguished).

Join the Debate Guild and reach the highest rank.

Write five novels.

Generation Five: Hard - Working

Fashion has been your passion since you were a little girl/boy. You even asked your parents to stop dressing you as a toddler because the clothes they picked were “not stylish enough.” As a self-proclaimed style icon, you knew you had to make your biggest dream come true: to create your own fashion line. So, as soon as you graduated high school, you packed your bags and moved to the big city - San-Myshuno. There you created your social media platform and blew up! A normal life was never your style, and you made sure to put in as many hours as it would take to achieve all you ever wanted.

Traits: Perfectionist, Self - Assured, Materialistic

Aspiration: City Native

Career: Style Influencer (Stylist Branch)

Goals:

Max photography skill.

Max painting skill.

Must live in San-Myshuno.

Complete the crystals collection.

Hire a nanny for your child and do not spend much time with them.

Gain 10,000 followers on Simstagram.

Generation Six: Resilience

After being known as “the child of the most famous fashion designer” all your life, the city became a toxic place for you. You hated the loud noises, constant stream of people, and just wanted to live a quiet life. You loved visiting your grandmother/father’s house and hearing one of her/his famous stories. You decided to pull inspiration from one of their novels and live off by the coast in the adorable Brindleton Bay. Your passion for crafting and living off the land inspired you to start a small business selling your candles and juice - all locally grown of course. 

Traits: Loves Outdoors, Maker, Creative

Aspiration: Master Maker

Career: Freelancer (Simply Crafted)

Goals:

Max fabrication skill.

Reach level eight in both candle making and juice fizzing.

Move to Brindleton Bay as a young adult.

Have four or more kids.

Complete the frog collection.

Never go to an event in the city or visit the city once you are a young adult.

Generation Seven: Carefree

Being in a big family is can be hectic at times. So, you decided to be the happy jokester in the middle just trying to get people to crack a smile. And you got really good at it. As a major people person, you made sure to get to know everyone you meet. You even started a tradition of taking a picture with them so you could never forget that moment. Your friends will always invite you to go out because you are known for being the life of the party. However, the parties you host, are even better. You decide to live life as if it was one big stage, and you’re the star performer.

Traits: Goofball, Clumsy, Outgoing

Aspiration: Party Animal

Career: Entertainer (Comedian Branch)

Goals:

Max comedy skill.

Max singing skill.

Host a party every week.

Take a photo of every person who visits you.

Marry someone you met just two days before.

Attend every festival or event you are asked to attend.

Generation Eight: Kind

Expected to be just like your mother/father, no one ever assumed you would be the quiet kid who preferred reading over partied. However, that is exactly who you were. When it was that time of the week for a new social event, you either left for the library or locked yourself in your room, praying it ended soon. Your parents noticed you struggled talking to people, so they allowed you to adopt a puppy once you became a teenager. You and your dog instantly became best friends and you took them everywhere. Even though you may not be great with people, being compassionate was a skill you ranked high in. You always looked out for the less fortunate and wanted to provide in anyway you could.

Traits: Vegetarian, Loner, Good

Aspiration: Friend of the Animals

Career: Gardner (Floral Designer Branch)

Goals:

Max gardening skill.

Max flower arranging skill.

Keep up a garden of just flowers.

Adopt strays: one dog, and two cats.

Marry an ambitious sim.

Donate $100 to charity weekly.

Generation Nine: Impulsive

You grew up hearing stories of your grandmother/father’s so called “wild days” and fell in love with the energy it brought. However, your mom/dad raised you better than to go out spending life as if there was no consequences. Finding a balance started off to be very challenging for you. You could never hold down relationships and even got pregnant/got someone pregnant twice. It wasn't until you became a secret agent and learned how to live two lifestyles: one full of fun and adventure; the other more stable and structured.

Traits: Active, Non-Committal, Bro

Aspiration: Bodybuilder

Career: Secret Agent (Diamond Agent Branch)

Goals:

Max fitness skill.

Max handiness skill.

Go to either college for Psychology and play soccer.

Have four failed relationships and never get married.

Have two children from two different relationships.

Move three times once you become a young adult.

Generation 10: Passionate

Because your mother/father’s job required you to move around so much, making real life friends was a lot harder than it seemed. So, you built your relationships within the online community. Every day, you and your closest friends would hop online and compete in tournaments or even play for fun. As the years went on, you became really good at coding and even started working on your own apps. You looked up to the players from ESports Gaming - only the best gamers in the world - and longed to be sitting in one of their spots. And sure enough, after years of perfecting your strategies and game plays, your dreams came true!

Traits: Geek, Hot-Headed, Outgoing

Aspiration: Computer Whiz

Career: Tech Guru (ESport Gamer Branch)

Goals:

Max programming skill.

Max video gaming skill.

Complete the MySims Trophies collection.

Attend and compete in every Geek Con convention.

Make five video games or apps.

Mentor your child/ren for five hours each.

Adaptations:

Gen 1:

If you do not have Discover University, go into the Business career (Management Branch).

Max cooking skill if you do not have Discover University.

If you do not have City Living, complete the postcards collection.

Gen 2:

Unlock the secret world in Oasis Springs if you do not have Get to Work.

Gen 3:

If you do not have Parenthood but do have Get to Work, max the baking skill.

If you do not have both Parenthood and Get to Work, max the gourmet cooking skill.

If you do not have Spa Day but do have Knifty Knitting, max the knitting skill.

If you do not have both Spa Day or Knifty Knitting, max the photography skill.

If you do not have Knifty Knitting, have a side passion of photography.

Gen 4:

If you do not have Discover University, read a new skill book every week instead of attending university.

Gen 5:

If you do not have City Living, have the  Fabulously Wealthy aspiration.

If you do not have City Living, live in Oasis Springs.

Gen 6:

Do not have a career if you do not have Eco-Lifestyle. Instead, craft item on the woodworking for money.

If you do not have Eco-Lifestyle, max the fishing skill instead of reaching level eight in candle making and juice fizzing.

If you do not have Cats and Dogs, move to Evergreen Harbor.

If you do not have both Cats and Dogs or Eco-Lifestyle, live in Willow Creek

If you do not have Eco-Lifestyle, have the self-assured trait instead.

If you do not have Eco-Lifestyle, have the Angling Ace aspiration.

Gen 7:

If you do not have City Living but do have Get Together, max the dancing skill.

If you do not have both City Living or Get Together, max the mixology skill.

Gen 8:

If you do not have Dogs and Cats, have the Freelance Botanist aspiration.

Do not have a career if you do not have Seasons. Instead, sell your plants for money.

If you do not have Seasons but have Get to Work, max the baking skill.

If you do not have both Seasons or Get to Work, max the violin skill.

If you do not have Dogs and Cats, but have Seasons, own three bees nests and two insect nests instead of owning pets.

If you do not have both Dogs and Cats or Seasons, have three children instead of having three pets.

If you do not have City Living, have the cheerful trait.

Gen 9:

If you do have Strangerville, go into the Military Career (I do not have it, so I played as a Secret Agent)

If you do have Snowy Escape, have the adventurous trait instead of the active trait (I do not have it but believe they would be adventurous).

If you do not have Discover University, read five skill books over different topics, instead of going to college.

Gen 10:

If you do not have City Living, compete in an online tournament weekly instead of going to Geek Con.

#sims #sims 4 gameplay #sims 4 legacy #small creator #newchallenge #lilsimsie #clairesiobhan #maxismatch #maxismatchccworld #legacy #sims4 #basegame #traits

[telesthisia]

MEET THE MUSE

► Name ➔   “Greetings, my name is Zelda, it is a pleasure to meet you...!” 

► Are you single ➔ “Goodness me, quite the question to start off with, hm? Though courting is nothing unusual for those aiming for the crown, I’ve not sought out any relationships...” 

► Are you happy ➔  “Ahah, am I? Though it is easier to just say yes and move on...”

► Are you angry? ➔   “Eh? Not to my knowledge, as I do not have any reason to be angry...”

► Are your parents still married ➔ “Though they are no longer within this realm, I would like to believe their love for each other remained even within the Spirit Realm...”

NINE FACTS

► Birth Place ➔ “I believe it was somewhere within the Lanayru Province, though I could not tell you where, unfortunately... quite funny how it wasn’t within Central Hyrule...” 

► Hair Color ➔ “Ah, it is blonde... though it is pretty light...”

► Eye Color ➔ “Blue, quite the common color here...”

► Birthday ➔ “... Fall Equinox is finally here...! My birthday is quite a bore, let us discuss more about the wonders of Fall instead...!” (September 19th for those wondering sadhbjkadsgh) 

► Mood ➔ *Radio static sounds* “Hmm? My apologies, do you mind repeating the question once more I did not quite catch it...”

► Gender ➔ “Female...”

► Summer or winter ➔ “Neither of those seasons, I am afraid... though if I had to choose I suppose summer, the winters can be quite harsh here at times. It is the test of the gods... or so my ancestors among others from the Spirit Realm would say...”

► Morning or afternoon ➔ “Ahah, though very un-princess like of me to admit, I do like sleeping in more, waking up in the early hours of the day has made mornings quite unappealing to me, so I prefer the afternoon. It is hard for me to sleep in given my duties, I envy those who spend the whole day asleep ahahah...”

EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE

► Are you in love ➔ “I do not believe so, though I love my people, family, and friends I have yet to experience love in that form. Perhaps someday I will but I am in no rush... romance novels and plays more than make up for my lack of romance ahah...!”

► Do you believe in love at first sight ➔ “No. Surprising, is it not? But as romantic as that may sound within the confines of books, I do not believe love works like that. Love is... to me, love is a bond that takes time for it to develop and flourish. The more you wish to spend time with them the more you realize your feelings for them. When you look at it that way, I believe it is far more beautiful than believing you are in love when you first spot the person, looks are superficial...”

► Who ended your last relationship ➔ “I was never in one, ahaha...!”

► Have you ever broken someone’s heart ➔ “As in rejection? I do not believe so, as nobles aiming for my hand in marriage in general do not harbor any feelings towards me, at least I can only assume such is the case, with that assumption in mind it certainly makes rejecting their offers less guilt inducing...”

► Are you afraid of commitments ➔ “It would be a scary day in Hyrule if a ruler were to show fear towards such sentiments, no...? I am not afraid, no. Though, truthfully there’s little I fear...”

► Have you hugged someone within the last week? ➔ “Ahaha, I am positive that the maidens, the oracles, and Link can all vouch for me when I say that I can be quite affectionate towards my friends! I always give them hugs whenever I greet them... not too long ago I hugged one of them when they came over for a short audience...”

► Have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ “Well, it is no longer a secret to anyone when you accidentally found their poem dedicated to you... for their sake I shall not reveal their identity... that being said, aside from them I do not believe I have had any...”

► Have you ever broken your own heart? ➔ “What an interesting question...”

SIX CHOICES

► Love or lust ➔ “Love of course...”

► Lemonade or iced tea ➔ “Apple cider! Oh? Is that considered cheating? My apologies... I suppose iced tea sounds wonderfully refreshing to have during a hot summer’s day, I can imagine myself with a glass after wondering through the graveyard...”

► Cats or Dogs ➔ “Oh I just adore both but cats mostly, they are quite adorable and each have such fun personalities...!”

► A few best friends or many regular friends ➔ “Few best friends, I do not mind meeting with new people but bonds are important to me, I would rather have meaningful bonds with someone rather than friviolous friendships...”

► Wild night out or romantic night in ➔ “A romantic night in... beneath the moonlight... with a wonderful dinner...” 

► Day or night ➔ “Night time, it is easier to contact the dead during this time believe it or not...! At least, within my dreams...”

FIVE HAVE YOU EVERS

► Been caught sneaking out ➔ “By the goddesses I cannot begin to tell you the amount of times the guards or Impa have caught me, it is rather embarrassing whenever they would catch me. Just thinking about all those times... goodness, I am sure my face is red now...”

► Fallen down/up the stairs ➔ “Perhaps when I was younger but now...?”

► Wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? ➔ "It is a universal feeling I believe we can all relate to...”

► Wanted to disappear ➔ “No...”

FOUR PREFERENCES

► Smile or eyes ➔ “Ah, it is the eyes I tend to focus! As the saying goes they are the windows to the soul, though I believe that both these things can overlap as a smile can only make their eyes shine with more beauty...”

► Shorter or Taller ➔ “It matters not what their height is...” 

► Intelligence or Attraction ➔ “I-intelligence? Hm, yes, that sounds about right...” HOW DOES ONE ANSWER THIS WHEN SHE LIKES WHOLESOME HARDWORKING IDIOTS???

► Hook-up or Relationship ➔ “Hook-up...? My apologies, I do not understand the meaning of this word is it something from a more modern era? But considering the other choice, I believe I can guess what it means... if my guess is correct then I would prefer relationship...”

FAMILY

► Do you and your family get along ➔ “Of course, although... no, nevermind that. It is in the past now. But believe it or not, I have not made contact with either my mother or father since their deaths. But if I could, then I would tell them that... ah, excuse me, it would seem sentimentality has taken over. P-please, do not mind me go on with the next question...!” 

► Would you say you have a “messed up life” ➔ “Ahaha,” *MONOTONE LAUGHTER* 

► Have you ever ran away from home ➔ “Goodness no.”

► Have you ever gotten kicked out ➔ “... that... I do not believe that is possible now considering my status as sole ruler... unless I were to kick myself out...”

FRIENDS

► Do you secretly hate one of your friends ➔ “Eh? No, I could never! To suggest such a thing... how awful...”

► Do you consider all of your friend’s good friends ➔ “Yes, naturally, I love them all with my heart...” They’re all she has now ;v; 

► Who is your best friend ➔ “Ah, I do feel bad for choosing but... Link... he has been through it all... despite our distance our friendship will never wane away, that is what I believe...”

► Who knows everything about you ➔ “That would be... hm... troublesome if someone were to know everything about me.” *sweats while looking at Impa* “I do not even think Link knows too many things about me and vice versa, it is best to keep certain things concealed within the darkness when you live a life like ours...”

ᴛᴀɢɢᴇᴅ ʙʏ: no one i stole it from @cadcnce​ when he demanded for others to steal and i was like *smirk emoji*

ᴛᴀɢɢɪɴɢ: BE A PIRATE!!! 

#dash games. #i actually only have one draft to do and then i'm all caught up *Stares at hands* #BUT THIS IS FUNNY BECAUSE THIS IS JUST ZELDA #going 'welp' and then shutting her mouth shut with duct tape before she can become emotionally vulnerable #hate this hate her hate how she closes up like a calm

[varvesivy]

Idk if you’re taking prompts, but if you are, could you do Natasha Romanoff/Maria Hill after infinity war? Like how Natasha deals with all the stuff that happens? - from anon

(ok so anon prompted me and then tumblr ate it but fear not! i have it saved in my google docs. anyways let’s continue.)

oh yeah i’m always taking prompts! just might take me awhile to fill them sorry.

anyways since i’ve seen this prompt get done a couple of times/to avoid being repetitive, why not throw a soulmate AU into it?

——

This is new.

Out of all the things she’s done since she’s defected to S.H.I.E.L.D.- fighting Steve’s war friend, holding a staff with an infinity stone, whatever the hell Budapest was- she’s never experienced this before.

Being buried alive is something she never wants to do again.

And it’s not that she’s ever really feared it either; she’s never thought of herself as immortal, per se, but Maria’s said Natasha has cheated death one too many times to be considered natural and that Natasha’s almost like Liho the cat, with her nine lives.

Natasha agrees. Not only because she and Maria have been bonded for past a decade, but also because Maria’s right.

The smell of forest soil overwhelms her senses slightly as Natasha claws her way out of the helltrap Thanos has put her in; she needs to get out and get back to Steve and Bucky and Wanda and everyone else so that they can send Thanos’ purple ass back to space.

Instinctively, she checks the mark on her left wrist, letting out a sigh of relief when she sees the swirl is still a bright red.

Maria’s still alive, wherever she is.

(she prays she’ll never have to see the mark turn black, because if it’s black then-

well, she doesn’t want to think about it.)

She sees lighting strike down from the sky, presumably due to Thor and that gigantic axe he’s somehow summoned from probably outer space. It’s still a little mind-boggling to think of- stones that, when combined, could probably annihilate the entire universe.

But, the Avengers will win. The Avengers have to-

And the world stops.

The mark turns black.

—-

Natasha stares up at her bedroom ceiling at the Avengers Compound - not the ceiling she’s used to seeing, the one in an apartment a couple of blocks away that they had shared - and counts to ten.

Thirty seconds later, she drags herself out of bed.

Her blonde hair is tousled and she yanks it into a ponytail, changing into workout clothes and climbing out of her window, landing on the ground with a slight thud.

Daylight’s barely started to peek through the trees, and it’s slightly chilly- perfect conditions for running herself to exhaustion.

She checks her mark, a habit she can’t seem to kick.

It’s a dark orange.

(the same color as yesterday, the day before, the week before, the month, it’s been so long since she’s seen Maria’s face, felt her touch.)

As she starts her run, her mind wanders with the steady thumping of her feet against the ground-

(“Steve, what happened?” Natasha asks, her voice laced with panic and she has to ask again when he doesn’t answer, “What happened?”

“They’re gone.”

That’s all he says.)

-she navigates through the forest surrounding the compound, being careful not to step on any of the bugs-

(Days pass and her mark steadily lightens, just like Steve’s- he takes it as a good sign, clinging to a shred of hope that Bucky is okay, somewhere, anywhere - but Natasha can’t help but think that they’re both being idiots and they’re gone.

She takes it into herself to do some research, trying to find out more about dark orange soulmarks, if they’re any different than black ones or if she’s just in denial.

News articles tell her the soulmates of those who died in the Decimation (she thinks it’s a dumbass name) also have dark orange marks as opposed to the normal black, and apparently there are academics working around the clock to see if there’s any significance to it.

She still doesn’t have answers.)

-dodging through the trees somewhat numbs her as she focuses on breathing in and out, feeling her calves burn slightly from the uneven terrain.

She just wants Maria back.

(Is that so much to ask?)

—-

“What do we do, now that they’re gone?” She hears someone ask.

Steve has dragged her to something resembling an AA meeting, almost like group therapy, after he’d noticed Natasha hadn’t slept in two days.

“We need to move towards acceptance,” the group therapist says, like he knows something they don’t. “Accept that our loved ones are gone.”

Steve gets up, his chair scraping against the floor, leaving the room.

Natasha follows.

Outside, she finds Steve leaning against a wall, his hands in fists and she can see he’s desperately trying not to punch the wall.

“For what it’s worth, I thought what he was saying was complete bullshit,” Natasha says.

Steve clenches his jaw. “Bucky isn’t dead. The soulmark says so.”

He rolls up his sleeve, looking at the dark orange star etched on his skin.

“They haven’t confirmed anything yet. You know that,” Natasha replies, subconsciously rubbing her hand over the swirl on her left wrist.

“Are you saying you’re ready to let Maria go?”

Natasha looks at him, narrows her eyes, and leaves.

—-

For all of her training, she still doesn’t know how to handle this.

Academic papers come out debating the significance of the dark orange soulmarks - she had no idea academic discourse was even a thing - but not one of them can give a definitive answer.

And she doesn’t dare step foot in the apartment she used to call home.

Liho jumps up nimbly onto the couch where she’s sitting, the black cat crawling into her arms as she stares off into the distance. He purrs softly, rubbing his tail under her nose.

Natasha scrunches her face, bringing a hand up to stroke the cat.

(“Natasha, I swear that cat is the devil incarnate,” Maria says, swatting Liho away from her food. “He steals more food from me than you do.”

“He’s a cat, Maria. I’m sure there are more evil entities out there,” Natasha replies, patting her lap while they’re outstretched on the couch. “Liho, c'mere. You can have some of my sushi.”

Maria glares at him as he struts towards Natasha. “I swear you love that cat more than me sometimes.”

“Not physically possible,” Natasha murmurs, worming her hand out of Liho’s warm body and grasping onto Maria’s hand.

They watch TV for a couple of moments before Natasha turns her head sideways, leaning in and catching Maria’s lips.

“I don’t do that to Liho,” Natasha murmurs when she leans back.

Maria chuckles; finds Natasha’s other hand and holds onto it. She leans in, her mouth just ghosting Natasha’s ear.

“Good.”)

—-

Maybe she doesn’t ever move on.

(She’s not supposed to.)

The soulmark isn’t black, after all.

——

gosh this was rushed... even though this prompt has been sitting in my inbox for a good month or three anyways sorry for the sucky prose and whatnot.

if you want to you can prompt me? i still have some other asks to get through but i’ve got some time this week :D

#natasha romanoff #maria hill #blackhill #martasha #liho the cat #infinty war #marvel #character death tw

[godhanjisung]

49 Days - Han Jisung

Summary: What if when you died, it wasn’t the end? 

Genre: Fluff/Tragic

Rating: 13+ [SFW]

Words: 4880

It had been like any other day. Your walk to school had begun with the passing of green meadows and old ladies brooming dust off sidewalks. Like any other day people had been hustlin’ and bustlin’ in the local fish market which always opened at seven in the morning, never a moment earlier nor later. Like any other morning you had begun your day with an early rise and had expected an early finish. But you had soon quickly realised that today wasn’t like any other day.

You had expected to go home from school, only stopping to feed the stray cats by the large stone steps. Watching as the newly blossomed spring flowers showered the floor in their petals, creating a rainbow of dancing colours as the wind blew them up into the air. You had expected to be scratched maybe once or twice, a small physical scar of the day’s journey – just a small physical scar. And you had gotten one, just one scar that day, but it had not been physical nor had it been small.

The body had just been laying there already covered in petals and you had just watched as more small cherry blossoms began fluttering down, beginning to cover more of his face and torso. At first you hadn’t noticed, you thought maybe he had been sleeping or day dreaming. He was known for it after all, always doing it in class, the classic joker that took some things a little bit too far.

But it wasn’t until you heard the cold beat of a silent heart, felt a slight tingle in your spine and seen the silhouette above the body that you realised. You stopped walking as the mist became clearer and you could see his face, all colour gone but features apparent and defined. A sharp nose and jawline, round doe eyes and hair styled slightly more to the right than appropriate. His eyes turned to look at you, his gaze speaking volumes and you held yourself back from saying ‘yes, I already know.’

“I have forty-nine days.” He voices, the words riding with the wind towards you.

You watch as he moves, lifting himself of the ground by a few inches – floating. The pole behind him visible through his torso.

You nod your head, “Yeah, forty-nine days.”

The funeral was held a few days later. All of his friends from school had come to attend, all wearing black and offering their deepest condolences. Funerals were usually the one moment in which family and friends would take the time to say goodbye to their loved ones. But for this town it was only the first goodbye, not the last one.

A sigh removes you from your thoughts, “He’s really gone, isn’t he?”

“He is,” someone voiced in return.

Another voice interrupts, “He was an awfully cool person thought wasn’t he? It’s such a waste to see him go! I mean he was tall and handsome and…” the voice is cut off by a loud cough and you smile a little despite the circumstances.

You turn around, the smile still on your face, and look over at the young boy floating in the air. The young boy whose funeral you were attending right now.

“Jisung could you please not make stupid remarks at your own funeral?” his sister sighs, her hand against her forehead.

Jisung hums in response, a smile on his face, “Maybe, if you can convince me too.”

A bunch of students who had been attempting to hold in their laughter, began chuckling and soon the entire room was roaring in laughter. You didn’t even miss the light smile on his sister’s face and the spark in her eyes at the commotion.

“Leave Jisung, some of us have to mourn.” She replied back sternly.

Jisung only lets out some laughter before turning away and floating towards his casket. In front somebody is already praying, giving him their best wishes, whilst completely and successfully ignoring his antics.

“Aunt May, you don’t have to give me your best wishes yet. I’m still here, got another good forty-four days in me.”

The lady only brings a finger to her lips and shushes him, before continuing her prayers in silence. You can hear her mumbling words underneath her breath but you can’t make them out properly. Her eyebrows are crossed in concentration and her lips are moving fast. She suddenly takes in a large breath and stops. She then lifts her hand up and you watch as Jisung floats closer to her instinctively.

She opens her mouth and her next words hang heavy in your heart, “May you have a good forty-four days left son, but from this day forward you’re dead to me.”

Jisung’s eyes relax suddenly. No longer is there a smile on his face only a slight turn of the lips, as though he knows what she is implying. You watch as she nods, her eyes still closed before turning away and finally opening them. She takes a look around the room and bows before leaving.

You turn to look a Jisung curious to see the full impact of her words and to your surprise he is already looking at you. When your eyes meet you don’t know how to react. His eyes swirl with an emotion you cannot pinpoint and his gaze makes your mouth run dry. You quickly avert your gaze, rising to your feet and leave – quickly.

You hadn’t seen Jisung since that day, not face to face anyway but you had seen him, from the corner of your eye. Observing him as he interacted with those he knew well, as though he wasn’t gone at all. Jisung had always been social and kind, which had naturally drawn people towards him and led to him becoming a very well-known and well liked student. Maybe that was the reason he had decided to spend a majority of his days at school, with his friends rather than family.

With his presence implemented firmly there, it almost didn’t seem like he was gone, not when you could still hear his laughter in the halls. Probably laughing at a new memory he had just made, despite being dead. A new memory that he wouldn’t have gained had he been anywhere else. Anywhere else, death was death – it was the end. You died and then you were gone, but that didn’t seem to be the case here, not in this town.

The town you now lived in had always been like this – for as long as you could remember. You weren’t born here but apparently being born in the town didn’t seem to be a requirement. You weren’t sure what it was that allowed people to see and become, but you realised, whatever it was, you must have had it. After all, this was a strange place. A place where those who had died had the ability to live on the earth longer - for another forty-nine days.

When you had first arrived in town you hadn’t noticed them immediately. You had seen quaint people here and there, some whose actions were a little questionable but never anything that stood out. Still, even now it was the same. If you ever noticed anything it was only because you had grown used to seeing the deceased. The unique way their voices travelled in the wind or the manner in which they walked. Although they could, not many of them floated. To them it was just more time on earth before they left – so they usually chose to experience it normally.

Not to your surprise, Jisung was seeming to become an outlier to the norm. He floated around everywhere and always disturbed the day to day lives of the living.

A shiver run down your spine that removes you from your thoughts, as a cold wind brushes past your shoulder. You ignore the quiver, adamant on completely your quiz. But continued hushed whispers pull you out of your trance and you succumb to Jisung’s presence next to you.

He is hovering, a meter of the ground right by your desk, but he isn’t looking at you. Rather his friend next to you and although you know he sees your angry gaze, he ignores it - successfully.

“That’s not the answer!” he exclaims, throwing his hands into the air, “That’s the wrong equation!”

“Shut up Jisung!” his friend murmurs back in response, “This is a quiz, we aren’t supposed to be talking!”

Jisung huffs, “I’m just helping you out mate and they can’t exactly put me on detention.”

Jisung moves closer to his friends desk and you watch as he rests his hand on the table or tries too. His hand falls through the table coming out the other side. A smile forms on his face and you realise he had proved his point, “I’ll just walk out through the locked door.”

His friend groans and Jisung lets out a hefty laugh which catches the attention of your homeroom teacher. His attention had finally been taken away from whatever fascinating thing he had been observing on his laptop.

Mr Hanson gets up from his swivel chair, waving one of his arms in the air menacingly, “Jisung! Get out of here, stop helping your friends cheat!”

As soon as you make eye contact with Mr Hanson, you place all your attention back on your quiz. Ignoring the commotion Jisung had once again created in class. This was not the first time and you had every reason to believe that this wouldn’t be the last time that Jisung caused a commotion. And you weren’t wrong.

Two days later and the school was in an uproar – broken eggs littered the floor and many students walked the halls drenched from head to toe. What surprised you the most was that neither they nor the teachers seemed to mind. Rather their laughter, along with Jisungs, filled the hall as everyone continued to disrupt the normal school schedule, all because Jisung had felt the need to pull a prank. It had been a simple and easy prank that had been the catalyst to the chaos that the school was now in but apparently only you seemed to think so.

You observed as more students threw water balloons at each other in the classroom, one of them hitting Mr Hanson, who only responded by releasing some laughter of his own.

So when you walked out of the classroom after the last class of the day and you saw Jisung by the door but you weren’t fazed, not until he called your name. You turned around surprised but not as astonished as when you heard his next words.

“I really like you, would you go out with me?” an innocent smile on his face.

You weren’t sure what the normal reaction was to being asked out by someone who wasn’t alive but you were pretty sure your reaction would be considered the norm. The norm which would entail - walking away, avoiding him like the plague and pretending it never happened. And it had worked well and it would have continued to work well had the man himself not decided to invade your personal space.

So there you were at home, the one place you thought was safe until had you entered your room and seen him on your bed – just there.

He smiled a mischievous glint in his eyes, “Hey.”

You stood still not moving, a hesitant and quiet, “Hi” leaving your lips.

“So,” he begins floating away from your bed towards your dresser, “I never really got a reply, not that I don’t want you to take your time and stuff…”

He pauses again lowering himself to inspect the photo frames of you and your family, “but I haven’t really got time myself.”

You watch as he straightens himself up again his signature smile on his face, one that even despite its current transparency still held a certain charm that made your cheeks warm. You quickly turn away from his gaze moving to your dresser and placing your photos frames face down obscuring them from sight.

“Jisung,” you begin still not facing him, “You’re taking this joke a little too far.”

Jisung raises an eyebrow, “What joke?”

“Really funny.”

Jisung hums, “But I’m not joking?”

That was all it took for the last few strands of sanity in you to snap, “You’re dead Jisung, dead. Forty-nine days or no forty-nine days, you’re dead. At least gain some maturity and realise the situation that you’re in. You do realise that-“you were about to continue until a loud squeak tore your gaze away from him, as your aunt entered your room.

“Oh?” she questions, “I thought you had someone over so I brought some food.”

The colourful plate of food in your aunts hands drew your attention for a second and you just smiled at her, “I was just practicing I have a speech tomorrow.”

Your Aunt begins chattering away her comments about food and speeches washing over you in waves. You take a bite out of one of the strawberries she gave you it was sweet, ironically. But not once did you turn around, there was no need, you knew he was gone.

Despite the occasional looks from classmates and schoolmates, you hadn’t heard much from or about Jisung since. You weren’t able to tell if this thought made you happy or sad but you were sure it was better than anything had he been around. As the silent days had continued to pass you had pondered on the thought that maybe he hadn’t been joking around. But you couldn’t comprehend that thought, it just didn’t make sense. After all Jisung was known to be a prankster and well he was dead – a spirit, a ghost. A mere apparition of what he was and could have been.

Your heart panged at the thought, of what he could have been, what he could have done, all things that would never happen and never could happen. A loud thud vibrated through the hallways as you clutched your shoulder in pain.

“I’m sorry are you all right?” a voice asked you.

You looked up realisation hitting you, “Yes, yes I’m fine. Sorry that was my fault I wasn’t paying attention.”

“No it was mine as well, I wasn’t either.”

The woman bends down to pick up the items that had fallen out of the box she had been holding. You bent down to help as well glancing at her quickly before continuing. Yes, she was Jisung’s sister. You both worked quietly as you picked up the items slowly and placing them back into the large rectangular box. You watched as sometimes his sister would pick up an item and stare at it fondly as though all the memories were coming back to her, playing in her mind like a movie reel.

“Did you know him?” she asks staring at small stuffed toy in her hands.

You shake your head, “Not very well. We were in the same class but not really friends.”

She hums in response turning to look at you, “Rowdy wasn’t he? A bit of a pain in the ass?”

You stare at her blankly unsure of how to response, you can’t really say yes to a question like that to the deceased relatives can you?

She continues to stare at you, her eyes completely serious before she bursts out laughing, “No need to take me so seriously darling.” She chuckles, “I’m his sister I know he was.”

You smile a little in response before placing the last of the items back in the box and lifting yourself up right. You were about to walk away when you noticed a piece of paper on the ground you bend to pick it up and suddenly a rush of sadness washes over you.

“Ah – Miss Han?” you call out, your voice unsure.

She turns around to look at you, her eyebrows furrowed.

You jog to her, hand outstretched, “You dropped this as well.”

“Oh thank you,” she takes the paper from you and realisation hits her as well.

You had already begun to walk away your head hung low before you heard her voice “A singer huh?”

You don’t turn or respond unsure if she was talking to you or not.

“Did you know…” her voice carries through the hallway and you stop walking, your heart heavy, “He had always wanted to be a singer, he would sing to the old ladies on the street. Mind you he sounded horrible, the kid didn’t know a thing about singing but he’d still do it every day. He said he did it to give happiness to people, make them smile.”

You don’t have to turn around to see that she was crying, you can hear it in her tone, “When he came back home after he died he had sung there too. I couldn’t stand it though. I don’t know what it was but whenever I heard his voice I felt such anger. Told him not to come there at all during his forty-nine days and he hasn’t. Been at school hasn’t he?”

You don’t respond only nodding you head, your back still to her, she sniffles and you continue to remain quiet. “This must’ve been it you know, why I felt angry. His singing reminded me that it was all really over for him. He isn’t going to sing anymore and make people smile. It’s over, he’s dead.”

The walk home that day had felt longer than usual. Most days you would love it, the breeze and views calming you and making you smile. But now every noticeable spot reminded that you were closer, closer to the place he died and then you were there. At the cherry blossom trees near the large stone steps.

You stand still looking at them, these same steps that you had walked up and down most of your life – that had been a great part of your life, had taken away someone else’s just as quickly. One minute he must have been walking down these steps a smile on his face probably thinking about dinner or some stupid thing like that and the next minute – gone.

You begin walking up the steps, the greenery surrounding you growing thicker and thicker, making it almost seem like you had entered a different world. The town was usually quiet, an aspect that you had always enjoyed but walking up these stairs at this very moment was strange. It was quiet but a unique quiet, not one that made your skin crawl but rather made you question whether the silence you had known before had really been silence at all.

You reach the top of the stairs before you know it and sigh deeply. You had become so deeply engaged in the view and catching your breath that you didn’t notice the young girl about to go down the stairs behind you not until she smacks into you and you nearly fall all the way down the stairs.

“Lizzie you idiot I told you to stop running!”

You turn around your hands still gripping onto the railing for dear life. There are a group of three children behind you - two boys and a girl.

The boy who had just spoken turns to you, “Sorry, she never pays attention to where she goes.”

You release your grip on the railing and quickly regain your composure, “It’s alright, just tell her to be a little more careful in the future.”

You look at the little girl, tears are running down her face. A muffled thank you leaves her lips as the boy continues to reprimand her, “Can you imagine if it had happened again?”

“Again?” your voice tears through the conversation and you see the girl visibly stiffen.

You quickly remove yourself and all three children away from the stairs and kneel down to their level, “What do you mean again?”

The girl continue to sniffle and the second young boy comes to stand in front of her, his chest pushed forward, “It was an accident, that’s all it was.”

You smile and nod your head that was all you had needed to hear. It had all just been an accident.

You sit at the bottom of the steps waiting, your head in your hands as they rest upon your knees. You knew he would come here soon, you knew he would.

“What’re you doing?”

You turn to look up at him – Jisung is standing there, his transparency all the more prevalent as streams of sunlight fall through his torso onto the floor.

You shake your head, “Waiting.”

A smile creeps onto Jisung’s face, “For me? I’m honoured.”

You don’t move only observe as he moves to sit next to you – moves, he doesn’t float, “So?” he questions.

“You already know.”

Jisung continues to smile at you, “It was an accident.”

You shift, straightening your back, “It seems you aren’t as clumsy as people believed you were.”

“Oh no,” Jisung chuckles, “I am and I was then too.” He pats the step upon which you two were seated almost as though he could touch it.

“She told me, the little girl, that you had been pushed down the steps,” you pick up the small jar of flowers that she had given you tears streaming down her face, “for that little girl you even told a lie as stupid as ‘daydreaming and slipping down the stone steps.’”

Jisung doesn’t respond, “Hey why don’t you help me with something?”

You continue to look at Jisung, his eyes are shinning and the smile on his face has yet to falter. He floats away from you as he moves to the right of the steps into the foliage. Just before he disappears from sight you quickly pick yourself up to your feet and decide to follow him. As the trees grower thicker and your surroundings darker it become harder to see him. You almost call out to him to stop but soon he already has, right near a large tree, “It should have fallen around here.”

You automatically kneel rummaging through the grass, “What?”

“If you find it you’ll find out.” He chuckles.

You continue to look through the grass your hands becoming muddier and muddier, “and you’re sure it fell around here?”

Jisung hums twirling around in the air, “probably.”

Great, you thought, probably. A few moments pass and your uniform and hands are soon dyed the colour of the ground and mud but you hadn’t stopped searching. You had nearly stopped once in frustration but then you had recalled Jisungs sister. Maybe whatever Jisung had dropped here was important and it might just provide him and his family closure. It is during this thought that you see it, a small pink package. The rain from the previous nights had battered it and tore through some of the packaging but it remained mostly intact.

“I found it,” you exclaim, jumping to your feet “its battered thought.”

“Oh?!” Jisung exclaims, “Good, good. Open it and have a look then.”

You open the packaging carefully removing the small seal and pouring the content of the small pink package into your hand – it was a CD. Jisung observes you from over your shoulder, “That’s great it isn’t broken.”

He floats again to stand in front of you, “Now then lets continue the conversation from before. What happened had really been due to my own carelessness. I didn’t notice those kids at all. After I finished this, it was the only thing on my mind.”

He moves his gaze from the CD straight to your eyes, “Because it was the first time I was giving a birthday present to a girl.”

Your heart starts to beat at a rapid pace and your hands begin to sweat and become clammy.

“When I found out she was at the same high school as me, I decided to give this to her and let her know my feelings but I was already dead so I said it half-jokingly….as I thought it didn’t work.”

“Jisung…” you begin, “I-“

“Since seventh grade in middle school I’ve liked you. I’ve always liked you.” Jisung floats closer to the ground almost as though he was really there standing in front of you, “It’s a little late but Happy Birthday.”

You lower your head, you hadn’t been able to continue staring him in the eyes. Your vocal cords constrict when you reply, the words almost don’t come out “I’m sorry, I can’t accept it.”

“Of course,” Jisung responds, “I understand but you have to take care of it okay?”

Jisung tries to bend down to see your face but you move your head away. He stops trying, his face passive. You continue to stare at the ground your mind reeling with thoughts. This CD was much more than just an object. It represented so much more – it was the life that someone would never be able to experience, to have, to cherish. For all those before Jisung and all those after him, their regrets would never go away, no matter what.

Jisung doesn’t move from his spot in front of you, “Please don’t throw that CD away.”

He smiles, but you’re not looking at him, you don’t see the pain in his smile. You don’t see the way his hands are shaking, the way he has to bite his lips a few times to hold himself back.

“Since-“your voice is hoarse and you crinkle the packaging of the CD within your hands, “Since you’re not here anymore, don’t leave things behind that’ll just make people miss you more.”

Jisung raises his hands, and looks at the manner in which the sunlight stream through them, “You know,” Jisung he begins, moving his hand to your cheek, you feel a cold wind pass by your cheek when he does so, but you don’t feel his touch. “With or without extra time the reality for those who have died cannot be changed. But if I can do something that I had not been able to do when I was alive. Maybe just maybe I’d be able to die without any regrets.”

“So you know what,” Jisung moves his hand away, his eyes staring at the top of your head, “I’m still going to leave it.”

The moment you lift your head to reply, Jisung moves in and a cold wind is touching you face, it’s everywhere, your cheeks, your nose, your lips.

After that until the end of Jisungs forty-nine days there were no big changes. Jisung had spent his remaining days with his friends and family, his sister had finally let him home. He hadn’t sung once though, but you never got the chance to ask him why. Because on the morning of the forty-ninth day he disappeared in front of everyone.

And so the unchanging days passed by. You used to think that because everyone had the same amount of time to prepare for parting, that they would be content. You thought it would help, people let go of their attachments, help them move on. When you had moved to this town you had realised that wasn’t the case at all. Somehow it had made it worse, granted you had never experienced it but you had spent every day wondering that if you did, what you would say and do.

But then Jisung had passed and you had begun to think maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe it was a chance for people to let go of their regrets and move on, maybe they would somehow create more but at the end of the day it was a chance. Another chance at life that many never got.

Since Jisung’s passing people had begun to talk to you more, you had made friends you never realised you could make. A small part of you that you had held onto since your moving had been let free from the cage that you had created and now you felt so much lighter.

You had realised a long time ago that Jisung’s actions were all a result of his clumsy kindness and that you owed everything to that clumsy kindness. You weren’t afraid of losing anymore, no longer would you run away.

“What’s that?”

You look in your bag to see what your friend Mina had pointed out, it as a small pink package.

You remove it from your bag, “It’s a birthday present.”

Mina smiles, “Well what is it?”

You don’t move from your position, “A CD.”

“Well we should play it!”

You watch as Mina takes the CD from your hands and moves to the front of the class, already removing the packaging. You watch as she places the CD inside and hits play. A sob leaves your lips.

Mina is visibly shaken by your response as tears continue to run down your face, “What’s wrong?”

A wrenching sob of Jisung’s name leaves your lips, and soon only your sobs can be heard in the quiet classroom and then Mina’s. As Jisung’s voice grows louder on the speakers - soon the entire class was sobbing.

To live without regrets is almost the same as not living at all.

#stray kids scenarios #han jisung scenario #han jisung #han scenario #t:scenario #han fluff #han angst #this was supposed to be posted on his brithday but I suck

[multsicorn]

a very very long list of maybe wip’s

Since I'm working on setting up a binder of WIPs for myself - here are all fifty-nine of them.  All are Check Please: mostly Jack/Parse, most of the rest Parse-centric, most of the rest Jack-centric, but a few random other fics too.  Quite a few of these are only ideas, but most (~75-80%, at least) have anywhere between a few hundred and a few thousand words written, and some have considerably more.

Votes or encouragement as to which particular fics I should work on are very much welcome!  And in fact a large part of the point of posting this.  Pleaseee tell meeee what you want to seeeee.

JACK/PARSE IN THE Q

golden haze -  Kent was Jack's first real friend, ever.

crash into me - Jack likes crashing into things.  Kent likes being crashed into.  Checking practice, kind of, Jack/Parse style.

one warm line - Parse wakes Jack up one night in the middle of their Q years, throwing pebbles at his window.  They're going for a ride.

i'm so high - Jack and Kent hook up for the first time at a party when they're smoking weed, when the smallest touches feel like so much.

the beat of the tambourine - Parse picks up a girl for Zimms.  For a threesome.  Before they're together, back in the Q.

closing the guest room door - Alicia walks in on Kent blowing Jack.  It's the first time it's happened, too.  The Zimmermanns hadn't known anything about any of this, but now they do.

beneath the waves - There are two attractions in Rimouski: the Juniors ice hockey team, and a maritime museum.  Jack kind of wants to live on a submarine.

edge of glory - Kent kisses Jack high on adrenaline and the win, feeling unstoppable.  They only have thirty-four days together, but they start out pretty great.

ace kent fucks jack - Kent doesn't care that much about fucking, but he cares too much about Jack.

don't make promises - Kent visits the Zimmermanns after Jack's out of rehab, and Jack scares him even more.

JACK/PARSE CANON DIVERGENCE

find your lips in the streetlights - Kent and Jack run away from the mounting and dangerous pressure of the Q.  And Jack almost dies from benzo withdrawal; nice move?

what's the multiplier for i love you - Parse has a career-ending injury at seventeen.  He ends up going to Samwell, and starts managing the hockey team there before Jack even shows up.

one skate in front of the other - In which Jack wakes up from his overdose to find out he's still been drafted in absentia.  To the Las Vegas Aces, third round.

different verse same as the first - Jack manages to get through Draft Day successfully.  He ODs about a year later, at his first NHL awards; Parse still finds him in the bathroom.

JACK/PARSE POST CANON ISH

jackparse goat fic - Kent is outed during Jack's last semester at Samwell.  It's a spark that makes Jack talk to him again: and again, and again, with starts and stops along the way.

bitty's bad bakery - Turning a profit doing something you love is really freaking hard.  Just cause Bitty's good at baking doesn't mean he'll be good at running a bakery; and Jack can only finance it for so long, no longer.  Cue Kent the accountant showing up to help.

max assholes au - In which Jack marries Bitty with Kent's spunk still in his mouth.

we're pining friends - In which Jack and Parse become friends again, and Jack's so not thrilled with Parse's boyfriend.

jackparse valentines - Jack and Parse on Valentine's Day, at eighteen and again at twenty-eight.  Sweet but not too sweet.  Just right.

developing - Jack likes taking pictures of Kent.  Kent is curious about why.

may the bridges i have burned light my way back home - Jack's nearing thirty.  His performance is flagging, his boyfriend broke up with him, and now he's at Kent Parson's thirtieth birthday party, wondering how else his life could've gone.

JACK/PARSE AFFAIR REVEAL VERSE

conference room fuck - You can't put Parson and Zimmerman in a room together.  But if you do, you can't keep them from fucking.

you wouldn't cheat at cards (i would if i could) - Jack continues to cheat on Bitty with Parse throughout the summer after Jack and Bitty come out to the whole wide world.  At the NHL awards, at Parse's summer place in New York, at Jack's birthday.

under the rainbows - After coming out to the whole wide world on live TV in June, Parse comes back to the Aces in September.

tinfoil crowns - A look at the meltdowns of Hockey RPF fandom, as Jack Zimmerman comes out, followed by Kent Parson, followed by Parse and Zimms getting back together, after all!?  How crazy it must be when the tinhatters are right.

letting them see your hands - In which Shitty works through his feelings about Jack cheating on Bitty, and Shitty and Lardo discuss their relationship, too.

waking up to shape the land - When Jack comes to Vegas to play the Aces - and, by the way, see his boyfriend - he's woken up by Kent's nightmare.

functional exes - After Jack cheated on Bitty with Kent, and it all blew up spectacularly; after some damanged friendships were restored.  Jack and Bitty are both there for Shitty's wedding.  Bitty's a pro at keeping things civil; Jack… wants to apologize?

JACK/PARSE IN TOTAL AU'S

the hockey prince - Jack is a Prince; Kent was his best friend, and his right hand man.  Till Jack disappeared in mysterious circumstances, and Kent may or may not be to blame.

ai romance - Jack is an AI that was always meant to drive a robot.  Parse is, well, a parser.  The part of a computer program that takes in and processes input, before it passes it on to the real heart of the program.  A part which, it turns out, can't work right without its parser after all.

cult au - SMH is a cult house!  That's why everyone there has to always be happy.  Pies make people like you; flip cup is a good fill-in for a hippie ritual; and no wonder Jack cut off everyone he used to know when he joined.

cut the legs off the whales - Jack and Parse were soulmates.  Jack died for three seconds, and now they're both stuck with half a broken bond, with all the luck at hockey - or at life.

JACK/PARSE NON-ENDGAME

you're still my patron saint - Jack's OD is fatal.  Kent's got the biggest chip in the world on his shoulder.  Hockey killed his boyfriend, and he wins the Stanley Cup, and then he comes out, furious.

progress report (i am missing you to death) - AKA 'five times Kent tells Jack "I miss you," and one time he doesn't.'

P(B)J

can you say menange a trois - Zimbits porn featuring dirty talk about the absent Kent Parson, because Bitty's 'Kent parson. Wow.' face reads easily as 'dead from too much hot.'

married in vegas - Jack and Parse get accidentally married after a Falcs/Aces game, cause you've just gotta have the trope when in Vegas.  Starts with Jack still in love with Bitty, not sure where it was supposed to end up.

scalene - Jack and Parse aren't fighting over Bitty.  They're fucking over Bitty.  I mean.

awful threesome - Parse guilts Jack into letting him visit Providence after Jack and Bitty come out, and Parse gets hit with redoubled specuation.  Then he hits on Jack and Bitty, cause why not, and they, surprisingly, take him up on it.  This isn't a good idea for anyone.

PARSE CENTRIC GEN

butterflies fly away - Kent moves into Vegas.  His sister flies out for a few days to help.

the one that saves me - When he first comes to Vegas, Kent's shit at taking care of himself.  Maybe he can take care of a cat instead.

PARSWOOPS 2K18

parswoops in providence - Swoops is standing between Parse and the door to the worst life choices.

two aces in the hole - Parswoops in which Parse and Swoops are both ace (and get together, romantically), cause thinking about a dumb pun accidentally gave me feelings.

parswoops post year three - How can Swoops tell his best friend he likes guys, when said best friend is the only reason he figured it out?  Also, still isn't over his last best friend yet.

PARSE/RANDOM DUDE IS THE AO3 TAG FOR PARSE/HAPPINESS

parse slash scraps - There's something nice, Parse thinks, about having a friend like Scraps, a friend who thinks you're the smartest, coolest, handsomest guy in every room.

by the scruff - Kent really wants to pick a fight.  Alexei Mashkov won't give it to him.  But… that kind of is a fight, right?

makes no difference who you are - Parse wishes on a star: to talk to Jack again.  Chowder wishes on a start, that same night: to know what it's like to be on an NHL team.  They wake up in each others' bodies, and have to find a way to get back.

a pretty good genie - Shitty is the best genie, okay.  How'd Parse get one of those anyway.

players gonna play - In which Kent Parson bonds with Gus Kenworthy over adorable pet pictues at the Olympics, and then they hook up.

the aces' flyboy - In which Kent tweets a request for a date to the NHL awards, and picks up a local dude who responds.

MORE JACK CENTRIC FIC

quiet kid - Who the fuck prescribes benzos to a thirteen-year-old kid, anyway.

what if i ruined your life - Visiting Uncle Mario, in the late 00s, Jack hates Sidney Crosby.  (I can't resist the fourth wall.)

jacklardo - Lardo hooks up with some dork named Jack at her very first college party.  They're better off as friends; he was hot, though.

jackshit - Jack and Shitty hooked up as freshmen.  What else do you want me to say.

tie down the jesses - The newest Falconer needs to learn a lesson.  Needs to learn his place.

dirty boys - You're not supposed to look in the locker room.  Don't bring it onto the team.  Oh, and stay faithful to your boyfriend.  But Jack's always wanted what he can't have.

ZIMBITS

i like when boys stop by  - A rough fill-in of the conversation that decides Bitty's staying with Jack for the summer that surely must've happened.

how do you make it for real - the zimbits coffeeshop au for fandomtrumpshate that i've been struggling with for over a year now.

HOLSOM & RANSKOV

and go seek - When Ransom's crush on Alexei Mashkov turns out not to be unrequited, Ransom and Holster are pushed to reevaluate their relationship, too.

BITTY???

bitty in the echl - Being captain of a pretty decent NCAA team gets Bitty a surprise job offer post-graduation from the Worcester Railers.  His relationship with Jack bends and breaks under the stresses of their dual hockey careers, but there's a familiar face in Bitty's new life.  He never thought that he'd see John Johnson again.

#mults liveblogs writing #kent parson #jackparse #omgcheckplease stuff / #if i'm lucky i'll finish like... five or ten of these maybe #there's literally no way i'll ever write all or most #a handful! but which handful? we don't know! #*

[kulaykape]

Chap. 2 of CONTRACT KILLER: OC x Natasha Romanoff

Chap. 2 of this mess. Ofc I didn’t proof read. 

Word Count: 2852

Summary: One week after Jean returns home from assassinating James Wagner. Nothing particularly important happens in this chapter, only serving to slowly build the dynamic of her household. 

---Holiday Household---

INDIGO STRIKES AGAIN. JAMES WAGNER ASSASSINATED. 

"Quite the headline, anak," Grandma Harper said as she watched the reporter on the national news detail the events. 

"Eh," I called from the kitchen, more concerned with how the hell I was supposed to tell if the spam was cooked well enough or not, "Nothing special." 

"If it was nothing special, you wouldn't have come back with so many bruises," Grandma replied as she walked into the kitchen and tapped the stitches on my brow. "Black Widow?" 

I nodded and pursed my lips. "Black Widow." Somehow, the SHIELD Agent had become a household name in a household of people who worked against her. 

Grandma clicked her tongue, shaking her head. "When you're not using deadly force, you're far too less efficient. You need to figure that out," she said. 

I scoffed. "I was about to use deadly force," I replied. 

"Why?" 

"She almost had me," I said as I checked the underside of one of the spam slices. "Is that cooked, mama?" I asked dumbly, doing a double take between grandma and the food. 

Grandma Harper rolled her eyes. "World's Greatest Mercenary can't tell when spam is cooked," she echoed. 

"World's Greatest Mercenary is the reason you're living large, grandma," I said with a grin. Grandma Harper threw her head back and laughed. She'd been a horse breeder (among other things) back in her day. It might've been a lucrative business in 1910, but I don't know how well she'd fare now. 

Of course, she’d had other means of attracting income. Not too unlike my own. 

"It's only a matter of time before they send their big guns after you, Jean."

"Yeahhh…" I drawled, "Nothing that I can't handle. I'm surprised they haven't gotten the message by now, though. I don't kill good people." 

Wagner had been a rapist. My target preceding Wagner was a genocidal terrorist. And the man before that had been one of my worst targets yet. A popular singer and actor. I'd found child pornography in his living room, and a ten year-old boy in his bed. 

And somehow, the deaths of all those monsters had turned me into public enemy number one. 

Grandma Harper sighed as she took a seat at the dinner table. She looked more tired than usual, her eyes looking 123 years old even if the rest of her only looked about forty. 

"My day was simpler. The law was more lenient, more understanding," she said, "But at the same time, ruthless. I think you would've done better in my time, anak." 

I laughed mirthlessly as I stacked the spam up on a plate next to the eggs. Grandma Harper was actually my great grandma, a woman who was born and thrived as an outlaw near the turn of the century. I hadn't seen her in a real fight during my insignificant life span, but the look in her eye hadn't seemed to dull. 

"Kids! AJ! Isiah! Food's ready!" I called, picking up the pan and hitting a metal spoon against its underside. Grandma Harper sent me a sour look, and I put it down. 

Like the stampede from Lion King, AJ and Isiah’s three kids came crashing into the kitchen. They came in with so much heat that they would've slid to their doom and hit their heads on the corner of the table if Grandma didn't stop them. 

"Careful, you three," she said sternly. 

Reggie, the oldest at seven years, apologized sheepishly. "Sorry, grandma," he said, and with a kiss on her cheek was back in her good graces. His little siblings followed his lead to sit at the table, where I had to help four year-old Jenny sit down properly, and quickly stopped five year-old Katie from stabbing herself with a butter knife. 

AJ and Ian streamed in after them, talking quietly and critically. 

"You guys alright?" I asked, turning one of the table seats backwards and settling into it. 

AJ looked at me with a tired smile, not even bothering to hide her conflictions. "Yeah. It’s just been a rough week, what with all that,” she replied, gesturing to the tv screen. Katie extended her stubby hands towards the tv remote. I pointed towards the window to distract her, and then hid the remote.

“Auntie J, that’s you!” Reggie exclaimed, pointing at the screen as the name of my dual identity and my masked figure crossed over the screen. 

I shot Reggie a crooked smile. “Dang right it is.”

“Language,” Grandma shook a fork at me.

“I said dang!” 

“Language.”

I conceded, raising my hands in defeat and then looked at the couple still standing in the doorway. “Would you two sit down?” I said with slight exasperation, “I didn’t cook for you to just look at the food.”

“I wouldn’t call frying spam cooking, J,” Isiah said as he took a seat and started piling up his plate. AJ rolled her eyes as she followed suit. To her, this little bickering feud between Isiah and me was about ten years too old. 

“But you’re eating it, aren’t you, you walnut?” I retorted. Isiah shot me the “touche” nod, and went about chowing down. 

“You just cashed in a million dollar check, and we’re eating spam,” AJ said with a grin. 

“Broke people act rich, rich people act broke,” I said waving my own fork at her, “I swear, you two are just gonna eat the grease off the pan next time.” A ripple of laughter sounded through the table. Jenny and Katie laughed along for the hell of it. 

“A million dollars, auntie?” Reggie said wistfully, looking at me with his mouth wide open and showing off his munched up spam and rice. Isiah shook his head, and pushed up the boy’s chin with the end of his fork. 

“Yeah,” I replied. Grandma Harper sent me a look, and I nodded. “Uh... You know how much doctors make, though?”

“How much?” Reggie asked. 

Way less, I thought. “Three million,” I said. AJ hit her head against the table as she watched me resort to lying to cover my ass. Isiah looked at me, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk with his food, and just stared at me blankly. Grandma Harper sighed, and got up to find her pills.

Reggie shrugged. “But your job’s cooler. And you’re still making, like, a million dollars!” He exclaimed. 

I sputtered for a moment, and would’ve been done for because of it if Reggie was a little older. “Yeah, but don’t you wanna save lives like a doctor?” 

“You save lives,” he fired back. 

“Eh…” I cringed a bit at that, “I don’t exactly-”

“And you get to have guns!”

“Hold on-”

“And you didn’t have to go to college.”

“Kid-”

“But daddy told me you ‘officially started when you were twelve’. Is that true?”

I kicked Reggie’s mother in the shins, jolting her from her stupor as her son's questions evolved horribly. Help, I mouthed. 

AJ cleared her throat, and put her best mom’s voice on. “Junior, finish your food, okay?” She said, “Then you and dad can play Street Fighter until nine.” 

Reggie gawked, forgetting all about his blossoming ambitions to be a mercenary. “Until nine?”

“Finish your food first.” “Yes ma’am.” I don’t know why he emphasized “ma’am” like that, but I thought it was funny as hell and guffawed loudly, while simultaneously slumping over at dodging a (metaphorical) bullet. 

---

“I can’t believe you told the kid about how I first killed somebody,” I growled in a hushed tone at Isiah, just barely kept from ripping his head off by the grace of god and AJ’s occasional tentative hand on my shoulder. 

“It flew right over his head, don’t worry,” Isiah said flippantly, more focused on trying to get Ken to do a Hadouken without it being on accident. 

“That’s not the point, you perpetual loser,” I said quietly. The kids were still gathered around on the carpet, which I laid haphazardly on as I stared up at Isiah with vengeance in my eyes. I would save the more colorful insults for when they all went to bed. 

“Dad, stop cheating!” Reggie yelled as Isiah moved to casually stand in front of Reggie and obscure his view of the screen as they played against each other.

“Your children will grow up to hate you, Isiah Bradley,” I called from the carpet. Isiah raised his foot up, threatening to step on me. I scoffed. “I wish you would, Isiah. I wish you would.”

“So,” AJ said, sitting down next to me on the carpet as she attempted to avert my murderous gaze from her husband, “You went toe-to-toe with Agent Romanoff again?” I heard Grandma let out a faraway snort from the kitchen.

I sat up and subconsciously put a hand to the stitches on my brow. “Yeah. It dragged on a little longer than I originally planned,” I said. Then again, it was hard to plan ahead when faced with the Black Widow. 

“You need to get control over all your powers,” AJ advised, and I nodded, “You’d be Iron Man-level with them.” I scoffed. “What, am I not Iron Man-level without all the pyromania?” I asked. Sure, Black Widow might’ve nearly executed me by way of thigh, but I’d still won. 

“Don’t know. I mean, are you completely confident you can take a guy like that down when it comes to it?” She replied, “Because it will. Once SHIELD gets tired of this game of cat and mouse.”

And I was honestly surprised they hadn’t played one of their enigmatic little trump cards yet, seeing as we were three years into this little “game”. They could call upon Iron Man, War Machine, Black Widow, and even throw in Hawkeye, just for shits, if they wanted to. And I’d be a long since resolved problem. 

I gazed down at my own hands. They were slender and heavily scarred, but I’d covered up the flaws with tattoos. And within them was a power kept locked away in slumber, a power that, to be blunt, would turn me from a pesky mercenary to a worldwide threat. But it’d been sleeping in my family’s blood since Grandma Harper, so it was something even she couldn’t explain to me. 

“I mean, you remember that time you activated your powers on accident though, right?” AJ asked, recalling that one spar almost five years ago. 

Isiah had said something that pissed me off- big surprise there- during a spar, and I’d gone in for perhaps the angriest and most uncoordinated punch of my life. Flames had been born from my knuckles, licking at the back of my hand and then shooting forward at Isiah like something out of Avatar. The flames looked as if they were truly alive, and as angry as me at Isiah as they tried to consume him. But they died the moment I panicked at their birth, fearing what permanent damage they’d do to Isiah. And, unfortunately, he lived on.

“I doubt it’ll ever happen again,” I said. Since then, I hadn’t felt that dangerous heat rising in my palms. And I’d never tell any of my friends or even Grandma Harper, but it was the greatest feeling in the world. That power was beautiful. So beautiful, so enticing, in fact, that I couldn’t help but fear it. Just a little. 

Isiah chuckled. “Can’t wait to watch your kids figure it out, then,” he quipped, as Ryu- controlled by Reggie- Ultra Hadkouken’d his Ken into oblivion. 

“I thought we already went over this,” I replied with a chuckle, “I’m not popping any babies out.”

“Good. Imagine the power of those little devils,” he said with a snicker. 

AJ gave him a warning look. “Isiah.”

“Honey, you don’t understand,” Isiah insisted, shaking his head, “The power that was radiating off of this kid for that split second?” He shivered dramatically, “If I’m being honest, it might be that kind of thing that’s better left never discovered.”

“Even though I would’ve done us all a huge favor if I’d just made you a crispy chicken nugget,” I muttered under my breath. Isiah rolled his eyes, while AJ shook her head with a smile. 

“...” 

“...Back to the popping babies thing, though,” AJ said.

“Oh, heck no.” I started to stand up. 

“You’re young! A young bachelor! With money!” AJ made sure to emphasize the money factor heavily, making an emphatic ‘make it rain’ gesture. 

“No,” I said, marching up the stairs to the guest room that I stayed in whenever I was here, while Isiah yelled something about me having to play against him. To my chagrin, AJ followed me. “Go to your family, heathen,” I spat over my shoulder. 

“But you are family, kid,” she replied, throwing an arm over my shoulder as she rapidly switched into her Isiah-like persona, which only came out when we started to talk about relationships. Her reply would’ve warmed my heart if the conversation topic itself wasn’t revolting. 

“No.” I rushed into the guest room and tried to close it behind me before AJ could slip in, but slip in she did. 

“But yes,” she replied as she sat down at my desk, “C’mon Jean, you’re twenty-two! At least try and have a little fun more often.” I cringed, as I knew exactly what AJ’s idea of ‘fun’ was. Clubbing, house parties, and (before Isiah) plenty of unadulterated sex. She’d settled down from all of that since marrying that walnut, but she’d take some time to herself every now and then, and her ventures usually involved dragging me with her. 

“I have plenty of fun,” I replied sourly as I collapsed on my bed, ruining the perfect lines of Grandma Harper’s work to keep it tidy. 

“You haven’t changed one bit since you were a kid, you know that?” She said, “You still find pianos and books more attractive than actual people.”

“I find people attractive, Aliyah Jackman,” I retorted, sitting up, “I just don’t act on it. Leave me alone.”

There was a beat of silence. And I knew it was coming. 

“...I know for a fact that you were hitting on Black Widow while you guys fought.” I tried to keep a smirk down. “So what if I was?”

AJ let out a howl of laughter. “Be careful with that one, Jean Holiday.”

“Nothing about our lives involves the word ‘careful’,” I replied.

“True. But I gotta tell you, if I liked women, I’d like Black Widow too,” she quipped. 

“...You know, I can’t help but be a little jealous of her.”

“How so?”

I let out a sigh, rubbing my forehead. I was too young to constantly be feeling this old. “Remember those corrupted SHIELD files you and Isiah found?” I asked. 

“Yeah… You found some dirt on her, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. She wasn’t much better than us at one point. If not worse,” I replied, “How come she gets a second chance? And we continue to be prey?”

“It’s not like any of us are seeking redemption.” And I couldn’t disagree with that. 

I let out a sigh. “From what that file said, it seemed like Clint Barton took a chance on her. Likely that she wasn’t looking for redemption either. It just fell in her lap.”

“Look, you’ve got no reason to be jealous of her, kid,” AJ said. I looked up at her, furrowing my brow curiously. “It’s not like you don’t have your own chance. If you want to leave this behind, nobody’s gonna stop you.”

That weight settled back in my stomach. That weight that should’ve been carried by someone much older, much sadder. “It’s not that simple,” I muttered.

AJ scoffed, and I heard the chair creak as she stood up. “Look, you don’t need me to tell you that we’re not exactly good people. The only one making it ‘not that simple’ is you, Jean,” she said, “You have a choice. Don’t act like you don’t.” And with that, she left. I flopped down on my bed. 

It was an odd relationship I had with AJ, Isiah, and Grandma Harper. They willingly conditioned me to take on this life, and yet it seemed like they always wanted me to follow the other path at the crossroad. 

But Grandma Harper had been an outlaw, an idea I’d never romanticized. I knew she did nasty things, probably killed good people (although I’d never ask). Then after her, Grandpa Josiah had gone on an angry tirade for reasons I still didn’t know, rebelling against the law until it killed him. And after him, my mom… Emery Holiday. I think she might’ve tried to be good. She joined the military, flew in the name of the US. But somewhere along the way, I guess the curse of our family’s selfishness and corruption caught up to her. Again, I didn’t really know, too cowardly to ask. 

If that was all they ever were, how could I be any different? What right did I have to be any different?

And if we put that all aside, what hope did I have to be any different?

#natasha romanoff x oc #natasha romanoff #black widow #marvel #fanfic #marvel x oc

[holmesoverture]

In Sherlock’s Room, Part One

Here’s the first half of my Camp NaNo project! :) Part Two will be up on Tuesday, so you won’t have a long wait.

Title: In Sherlock’s Room Rating (for this half): Mostly PG, but there’s a graphic description of a murder at the end that’s at least PG-13 Total Word Count: 6431 Pairing: bi Watson/ace trans Holmes Universe: Modern AU of the original canon Summary: Holmes solves a case in his jammies.  Watson does laundry and makes ravioli.

TW for this half: flashback to a random lady being a jerk to Watson about his PTSD

Part Two Be Here

I suppose that by now I have given most people the impression that my life with Mr Sherlock Holmes is one of nonstop excitement and adventure, that our days are a blur of boat chases and midnight stake-outs and near-death experiences. These, however, are extraordinary anomalies, over-represented among my published works because I presume they are what the public most wishes to read.  In some instances, I confess I even twisted the facts to allow for a more suspenseful and satisfying conclusion.  A greater number, though I would hesitate to say most, of our days share more in common with the unusually warm Thursday in September when the postman handed me a package from a Mrs Evelyn Mulvehill, Kendal, Cumbria.

It was a children’s shoebox, though it had been appropriated for another purpose, given the way the contents shifted as I carried it upstairs to Holmes’ bedroom. After nearly ten years of sharing quarters with the most chaotic man in London, I knew to tread carefully when I entered his small room.  I managed to avoid tripping over the eclectic detritus scattered about the carpet and arrived at his bedside where he lay sprawled on his stomach, face turned to the wall, as though preemptively rejecting my attempts to rouse him.

“Package for you.”

Holmes did not awaken easily, not even at nine-thirty on a morning when the late summer sun threatened to burn holes in the curtains.  Only after I knocked on his head with the package for a full minute did he deign to rise.

“Stop shaking it,” he said.  “You’ll damage the samples.”

“Samples of what?”

“Of whatever my latest client found in her wife’s car.  Did I not tell you we have a case?”

“No. What is it about?”

“Mrs Evelyn Mulvehill is an accountant in Kendal.  Her wife Polly, to whom she has been married these last twelve years, works as a university history professor during the week and at a local museum on weekends.  They were quite happy together until a little over two months ago, when Evelyn began to suspect that her wife was driving to London every weekend to cheat on her, again. She’s hired me to find out whether or not that is true.”

“You don’t usually accept cheating spouse cases.”

“Well, I was bored, and the only other option was to accept the case from that bizarre Norwegian couple.”

“They were a perfectly nice couple.”

“In a bizarre sort of way, I suppose.”

The contents of the package were now strewn across his blanket.  They consisted of a green USB drive, several plastic bags containing various sorts of dirt, and a folded piece of paper, meticulously torn from a notebook so that none of the frills remained attached. Holmes saw me staring at it and held up the paper, tapping the clean edge.

“This is yet another manifestation of Evelyn Mulvehill’s exacting and meticulous nature.  Rather than contacting me with blind suspicions, she first checked the mileometer* before and after one of her wife’s weekend holidays and found that the number corresponded with a round trip from Kendal to London.  This is how I knew I could trust her to search Polly Mulvehill’s car without my supervision.”

“You had her conduct the investigation herself?”

“It was either that or we’d have to go all the way up to bloody Cumbria.”

“I think Cumbria sounds lovely.”

“It really does not.”  He wrinkled his nose to reinforce his disgust, then offered a gallant shrug.  “But perhaps I could tolerate it for a few days after I finish Mrs Mulvehill’s case.”

He retrieved his laptop from under his bed and straightened his pyjama top, a white T-shirt emblazoned with the bold, black words TRANS MEN ARE MEN.  It had been a gift from Mrs Hudson the Christmas after he, and we, came out to her.  I hadn’t expected him ever to wear it but, along with a fraying pair of flannel trousers and a mouse-grey robe, it quickly became his preferred sleepwear.

“I told Mrs Mulvehill that, as soon as her wife returned from her next weekend excursion, she was to photograph every inch of the car, both inside and outside, and send me samples of any dirt or debris she found on the car floor, in the boot or elsewhere.”

He unfolded the paper with a precise flick of the wrist, and then handed it to me to read aloud.

Dear Mr Holmes,

Here are the items you asked for.  I hope they are of help to you.  In addition, here are some other details I noticed but could not send you for obvious reasons:

- After at least two weekends, I thought I smelled cumin from the inside of the car.

- After this past weekend, Polly came home with some sort of rash or blister on her hand.  She said she went for a walk in a park and must have gotten it from a poisonous plant.

- I don’t remember when it was, but I once asked Polly about her weekend.  All she would say was that her hotel was close to an airport and kept her up at night.

 If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to ask.

Sincerely yours,

Evelyn Mulvehill

Holmes had plugged in the USB by the time I finished reading the letter.  On the screen were dozens of thumbnails of a leaf green car.  The number in the corner indicated there were well over two hundred photographs.  It would take Holmes some time to work his way through them all, a task for which he hardly required the assistance of a former soldier or a former doctor.  I would stay close, on the off chance he wished to ask my opinion on something, but it was clear I would need to find something else to fill my morning.

It did not take me long to hit upon an idea.  Shirts and ties and socks lay strewn about the floor.  With a final glance at Holmes, confirming that he did not need me at present, I set about tidying the place, insofar as Holmes’ room could ever be tidied without knocking the man unconscious and hiring a professional cleaning service.  I may not have been able to deduce from those clothes how long each piece had lain on the floor or the marital status of the wearer or whether or not he had a tailor, but as I folded each article and neatly stacked them by type, I was met by insights of a more personal nature.

Here was the shirt he wore at the conclusion of the adventure of the erstwhile client, which culminated in Holmes dipping and kissing me in front of our self-hating client.  The kiss lasted only a few moments, but the merest thought of that encounter still brought a tingling sensation to the lips he had caressed and the skin he had embraced through the fabric of my shirt.  In the moment I was too shocked to scold him for his impropriety.  I never did get around to it.

 There was the waistcoat I cried into after one of my patients found out I had PTSD and spent the rest of the appointment shying away, afraid I’d suddenly turn violent, and advised me to remain single so I wouldn’t hurt my partner. I was a wreck from the moment I stepped through our front door, which made Holmes a wreck as well, though his distress manifested itself in loss of speech and hand-wringing rather than tears and snot.  Despite his protests that it was unnecessary, I made him promise to walk out and never look back if ever I dared raise a hand against him.

And there was the binder I had to help wrestle him out of after an after-dinner fernet became an after-dinner half-bottle of fernet.  It took twenty minutes of wrenching and wriggling to separate man from clothing, by which point we both were nearly useless with laughter.  Not long after, I took off my own shirt for reasons that probably made sense in my alcoholic haze, and, for the first and only time, we fell asleep in the same bed. I wasn’t sure why he still kept the old binder.  It never quite recovered from its traumatic experience.

 Not every article of clothing held such vivid and meaningful memories.  That should have been too trite even for my bathetic sensibilities.  Still, I found myself smiling or frowning from time to time as I went about my work, folding shirts and socks and trousers and the occasional dress and stocking, until the floor was cluttered with every sort of object except clothing.  I placed the folded laundry into his chest of drawers as Holmes gave a bark of laughter.

“What a marvellous turn of the wheel!” he cried.  “Yes, this is far superior to the case brought forth by the Norwegian couple.”

“You found something?”

He crooked a finger in my direction.  I bent over for a better view of the picture on his screen.  He had zoomed in so much that I could not discern which part of the car I was looking at, but I had a reasonably clear view of an insect, dark in colour, with wings that reminded me of clear stained glass.

“Brachyptera putata,” he announced.  “They used to be found throughout Great Britain but their population is now restricted to rivers in northern Scotland and Ukraine.”

“So either that insect has managed to stage a comeback under the nose of every entomologist in the country, or Polly Mulvehill was not in London after all.”

He sprang from the bed, toppling the laptop in his haste, and pounded into the living room loudly enough that Mrs Hudson was compelled to bang on her ceiling/our floor with a broom handle.  Holmes responded by stamping in a rhythmic pattern that very much sounded like the word SORRY in Morse code before returning, on feet as light as a cat’s, to the bedroom with an atlas, fat and worn, beneath his arm.  He jerked to a halt just inside the door, eyebrows rising at the sight of his floor.

“My clothes are missing,” he said.

“They’re not missing.  They’re in the chest where they belong.”

“But that is not where they belong.  I had them where they belong, and now you have made a mess of everything.  If you are so desperate for entertainment, you may rearrange my collection of dirt samples from the East End.  They’re meant to be organised in descending order according to the number of murders committed in each neighbourhood in the past five years, but I left my door unlocked a few days ago and Mrs Hudson got in here and alphabetised them.”

I could only shake my head as he pulled open and emptied every one of his drawers.  Before too long his room devolved to its former slovenliness.  With a sigh of satisfaction he returned to his atlas, opening it upon the paper-strewn desk crammed into the corner by the window.  Soon enough he was so lost in his private world of delicate minutiae that I may as well have been alone in the flat.

There never is any middle ground for Holmes.  Either he is entranced by a subject, consuming it all and being very nearly consumed, or he ignores it entirely.  I am fortunate enough to fall into the former category, at least on the days when no cases are forthcoming.  He is never a jealous or a possessive sort, but he spends every moment he can in my presence, listening to whatever stories I care to tell and stealing small gestures of affection when I reach a stopping point in whatever I am doing.  It is a heady thing to be so loved by so fiercely loving a man, though I know I would tire of such intense devotion were his attention not regularly diverted to his work.  As it is, I cherish all of our days together, no matter if I am its focal point or a helpful satellite.

I certainly was not of special interest to anyone on this day.  Holmes had his atlas, and I figured I might as well take a shot at his dirt collection.  It seemed perfectly sorted and logically organised to me, but it would give Holmes fits if I did not fix it according to his liking.  Where was that article on East End crime rates that gave him the idea for this ridiculous filing system?  Ah, it was taped to the lid of the box.  I was so grateful that I didn’t care to question why Holmes had placed something in so convenient a location for once.

I suppose that was unfair of me.  Holmes’ organisational methods are certainly comprehensible enough to him, and it is only his things he uses them for (even if his things do have a habit ending up in every room of both our flat and Mrs Hudson’s).  He doesn’t complain about how I arrange my things, after all.

Sorting dirt was orders of magnitude less interesting than sorting clothing, and sorting clothing is hardly an activity that people engage in for the fun of it.  Holmes may have been able to write monograph after monograph detailing the differences in each sample, but they all looked very much the same to me.  I had to depend exclusively on the elaborately inscribed labels to ensure I put each one in its proper place, and even then I had my doubts.  The fact that my thoughts kept drifting as I worked didn’t help.  We paid the rent this month, didn’t we?  Yes, I gave the money to Mrs Hudson the day before yesterday, along with the money to replace her pan and spatula, with which Holmes sautéed poisonous mushrooms for reasons he never satisfactorily explained.  Speaking of food (after a fashion), what might he want for lunch?  Well, I wanted ravioli.  He should be fine with that, so long as I didn’t put tomato sauce on it.  Did we have olive oil, or did Holmes use it all for his mushrooms?

Holmes clapped to himself, the noise accompanied by his strange bleating laugh. No happier combination of sounds existed in his world, or in mine.  He had found a solution.

“Come here, come here!” he cried, waving me over with movements fast enough to blur his hand.  He could not even wait the time it took me to cross the room to regale me with news of his discovery.

“You remember that Polly Mulvehill once complained to her wife about staying too close to an airport?  There are thirty-eight airports currently in operation throughout Scotland, but only one of them is both sufficiently close to the known habitat of the brachyptera putata and roughly the same distance from Kendal as is London.”

He pointed to a page in the atlas with a flourish.  Just above his long, limber finger was the word Aberdeen in pale, strict letters.

“That’s where Polly Mulvehill has been spending her weekends?” I asked.

“That it is.  The city of Aberdeen is home to both Aberdeen International Airport and the mouths of the River Dee and the River Don.”

“You said this bug is also found in Ukraine.  How do you know she isn’t going there?”

I spoke half in jest, but Holmes addressed the issue with as much sincerity as he would the discovery of a corpse.

“I suppose it would be possible for her to ship her car to and from Ukraine, were it not for the fact that, aside from the brachyptera putata, the bugs I examined on Mrs Mulvehill’s car are consistent with those found in the United Kingdom, not Eastern Europe.  No, Watson, she is most definitely spending her weekends in or around Aberdeen.”

“Perhaps she has a girlfriend in Aberdeen rather than London.”

“Ah, ah!”  Holmes wagged a scolding finger.  “Never theorise before the facts.  Nothing in these photographs so far hints at the existence of a girlfriend.  Making assumptions can only lead to haphazard conclusions.”

How many times had I heard a variation of that admonishment?  I like to believe I am not quite as thick as I appear in my stories, but some days I make myself wonder.

As Holmes settled back onto his bed, cross-legged with his computer in his lap, I left the room long enough to start the ravioli.  It was simple enough to make, nothing that would challenge my limited culinary skills.  Unfortunately, this meant preparing our meal didn’t take very long, and soon enough I was back in Holmes’ room, glancing about for a diversion, at loose ends yet again. As much as I usually tried to ignore the pictures that hung on his bedroom walls, they now seemed my best chance at staving off boredom a while longer.

When we first visited Baker Street prior to moving in, the walls in what became Holmes’ bedroom were a pleasing if bland shade of off-white.  I assume they are still this same colour today, but it is nearly impossible to tell, for they are almost entirely obscured by sketches and photographs of crime scenes, victims, evidence and who knows what other stomach-turning subjects.  The wall closest to his bed was the worst offender.  The entire visible surface was a patchwork of black-and-white, colour and sepia photographs of hundreds of prominent criminals from throughout world history.  Holmes had described to me the exploits of some of them.  Adam Worth and Joseph Grizzard were enduring favourites, but the great majority of the faces displayed there remained detached from any context.  On this day, one face in particular stood out to me, that of a bespectacled, bug-eyed man with a thin face and a mustache to be envied.

“Who’s this?” I asked.

Holmes’ eyes flicked up for the briefest moment.  He looked back down with a trace of a smile.  “Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American snake oil salesman trapped in what was by all accounts an unhappy and abusive marriage.  In 1910 he poisoned his wife, then strangled her, skinned her, cut off her head and extremities, removed all of her organs in one long strand, carved every ounce of flesh from her bones, and buried the meaty bits in his coal cellar while disposing of the bones, head and extremities by means investigators were never able to identify.  I have a photograph of the ovariectomy scar used to identify the remains as Mrs Crippen’s on the wall behind you, if you’re interested.  Is lunch ready?  I smell ravioli.”

He ate far more enthusiastically than I, all the while searching through the remainder of the photographs sent to him by Mrs Mulvehill.  A scarlet ribbon dangled from the rearview mirror. The upholstery, while not new, was black and shiny and well cared for.  The floors were black and speckled with dirt.  To me it seemed a perfectly ordinary vehicle.  I wondered what Holmes saw.  Whatever it was, it must have been far more captivating than what little my poor senses could pick up, and after lunch I left, ensconcing myself in my own room to begin implementing the changes to my latest manuscript suggested by my editor. Holmes did not notice my departure, nor would he until either he found a new lead or I came to remind him to take his meds in an hour.

* I really hope mileometer is Brit speak for odometer.  Please list my cause of death as trying to convert auto parts from American to British English.

#sherlock holmes #my writing #camp nano 2017 #tw ableism #tw gore #asexual holmes #trans holmes #bisexual watson #the queue carbuncle

[asfeedin]

Interview with Louise Clark, Author of Cat Among The Fishes

What can you tell us about your new release, Cat Among The Fishes?

Cat Among The Fishes is a camping story wrapped around a murder mystery. It takes place on Vancouver Island off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, a beautiful location where I used to camp when my kids were little. All of the recurring characters in 9 Lives series are at the campground, including Detective Patterson who is also on vacation there with her family, and Stormy the Cat of course! The mystery turns around the death of an executive trying to spearhead the installation of a new fish farm in the area, and there are plenty of people who don’t want him to succeed—including Detective Patterson’s brother-in-law who is a marine biologist with a long history of being against off-shore aquaculture. When Patterson’s brother-in-law becomes the main suspect, Christy and the others can’t help but get involved—even if they are supposed to be on vacation.

What or who inspired you to become an author?

My best friend’s mother. One of the things my friend and I loved to do together was talk about our favorite authors. The summer we graduated from high school, we came up with a story we thought would be perfect for the author we were currently reading. When we ran the idea past my friend’s mom, she said, “Why don’t you write it yourselves?” As we were going to post secondary schools in different towns in the fall, this seemed like a great way to keep in touch. Through the month of September we each sent the other a chapter, then coursework got in the way and the project petered out. It stayed in my mind, though, and every now and then I’d pull out the manuscript and write a few lines. It wasn’t until after I graduated that I took a serious look at the story and started to work on it in a consistent way. That manuscript never sold, but I learned how to write and how to market a book because of it.

What’s on your top 5 list for the best books you’ve ever read?

I read always and a lot, so rather than picking five books, I’ll do five authors.

Agatha Christie – her mysteries are complex and her plots pull you in from the beginning. Moreover, she doesn’t cheat and withhold critical information that will lead to solving of the mystery.

Ellis Peters (Edith Pargetar), the Brother Cadfael series – I love this series for the way she immerses you in Cadfael’s twelfth century world, but through characterization that pulls out the essential humanity of the characters and the situation, makes the stories relevant to our modern life. Another author who sets his mysteries in the medieval world is Peter Tremayne (Peter Berresford Ellis) who writes the Sister Fidelma series, set in Ireland during the early spread of Christianity there.

Elizabeth Peters (Barbara Mertz), the Amelia Peabody series. This long running series began as a mystery romance matching the feisty late Victorian feminist Amelia Peabody with the crusty, but gorgeous, archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson. The series follows them through their tumultuous relationship as they excavate Egyptian tombs, become parents to the fearless Ramses, adopt the beautiful Nefret, and become involved in historical events. There’s a lot of humor in the books and I love the way the characters grow and change without becoming other than themselves through the series.

Janet Evanovich, the Stephanie Plum series – The characters and action in this series are so firmly anchored in the world Evanovich has built that every crazy thing that happens seems to be normal. The action is fast paced and there are always scenes that make me laugh out loud.

J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts), the In Death series – Robb mixes a step-by-step police procedural with deep dives into the thought processes of her characters. We know what they care about, what they’re looking forward to. We see the world through their eyes and it just pulls me in. As well, there is a recurring cast of characters whose lives grow and change through the series.

Say you’re the host of a literary talk show. Who would be your first guest? What would you want to ask?

I’d start with J. K. Rowling. I read somewhere that she had the Harry Potter series planned before she even finished the first book. I’d like to ask her how she kept to that plan (or how much of the plan she actually kept to) and how she felt when she ended the series. My original plan for the 9 Lives series was to have nine books, each with story points designed to build to a big conclusion in book 9. I’ve kept some of those story points, but jettisoned others and now here I am with book 5, Cat Among the Fishes, out and available and the rough draft of book 6, Cat in the Limelight, completed. That means there are three books remaining in the series and I’m having so much fun working with the 9 Lives characters I don’t want to let them go. Should I end the series at book 9 as originally planned? Or scrap the series outline and let the Jamieson-Armstrongs continue on? I’d love input from my readers, if they’d like to weigh in on the question.

What’s your favorite thing about writing?

Helping my characters come to life. Planning and research are necessary, and I do enjoy doing them—especially the research—but I can get lost in the details, which makes me impatient. I guess it’s the extrovert in me, but actually working with the characters is like going to a party or socializing with friends. I’m there, in their lives, cheering them on.

What is a typical day like for you?

When I’m having my morning coffee I work on a puzzle—jigsaw or sudoku—to unfog my brain (I am not a morning person), then I review what needs to be done during the day. I check my e-mail and do marketing or other non-writing related things in the morning. Then I break for lunch and exercise. I write new scenes, or work on revisions in the afternoon.

What scene in Cat Among The Fishes was your favorite to write?

I always enjoy writing the big scenes. By that I mean the ones that start off quietly, then someone does something off-the-wall and chaos ensues. In Cat Among the Fishes there are a few of those, but I think my favorite is early on in the book. The Jamieson-Armstrongs are at a demonstration fish farm where a talk about the benefits of fish farming for the local community is being given. There is already a potential for problems, because there is a large presence of anti-fish farming eco warriors at the event. However, things really get going when Stormy the Cat decides to take a dive into a pool filled with salmon smolts that is part of the demonstration site. As his people rush to rescue him, the fish farm executive takes offense, the local mayor gets involved along with other members of the audience, and there’s almost a scuffle. In the end it’s Aunt Ellen who takes charge of the situation, expertly reining in the red faced, bellowing executive. The scene started with me wondering what would happen if you took a cat to place with a swimming pool sized tank filled with fish and the rest unfolded from there.

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?

Butt in Chair. The only way a writer writes is to be at the computer with fingers to the keyboard. Yes, there has to be time to think and plan, but for me inspiration comes with the doing. I begin with an idea of what I want the reader to learn in a particular scene, then I start typing. The scene grows organically from there.

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[sanctimoniousscrawlings]

Journal Entry #2

Or Cognitive Dissonance in Perception of Personality: An essay of negativity

    I see myself in an extremely negative light. I know it’s unfair to myself but I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I’m basically scum. I see myself as a selfish failure of a manchild with extreme anger issues and a severe lack of motivation. The thing is, all of those things are correct, but so is the opposite viewpoint.     I went to (one of) my best friend’s (we’ll call her S) birthday party about a month ago and there were nine of us. After a while of sitting in a circle and playing some tabletop games, my friend’s boyfriend (A) made the observation that we were sitting in a pattern where the most similar personalities were sitting in triangular formations. My triangle was my friend, another girl (R), and myself- which according to A was the triangle of kindness. I, being entirely too self-absorbed and fairly high on the spectrum, responded with, “Me, kind? Where?” because I genuinely don’t perceive myself as being very kind (and definitely not nice like S and R are). He was quick to remind me that they’d been borrowing my car for a month-and-a-half and that when I found out they had no vehicles (one was stolen, the other completely broke down and was basically totaled) I immediately offered to lend them mine. (Ironically this screwed me and my grandparents over because it was our only vehicle with four-wheel drive and we ended up snowed in for a week.)     So maybe I’m not always selfish- but I do selfish things so often that I feel it’s a core trait of mine. I’m constantly “borrowing” money from my grandparents- that I still live with at nearly 27 years old. Borrowing is in quotes because it’s always with the pretense that I’ll pay them back when I can (and sometimes I do) but also with the shared knowledge that I probably won’t be able to any time soon. My grandmother waves me off when I’m upset that she offers to take care of something for me because she “knows I’m good for it/knows where I live” and because I help her do things she wouldn’t be able to handle on her own like taking care of my grandfather who has been acting like he’s completely incapable of doing anything (ex: we have to serve him everything he eats if we’re home bc he’s ‘too weak’ to get up and do it himself, but if we leave him alone or turn our backs for a second his diabetic ass will race to the kitchen and eat stuff he’s not supposed to have. This man makes and scarfs down triple decker sandwiches faster than 625/Reuben.) which he is not, for the most part. He’s disabled, but he isn’t anywhere near as disabled as he acts.     I see myself as a failure for the same reason I see myself as selfish. On top of that, I have little to no impulse control. If something I should be doing is in the way of something I want to be doing I will 9/10 times completely pass what I should be doing over. I don’t have a strong will when it comes to taking care of myself/my life/etc., but I’m extremely willful when I see something I want. I will do the impossible to make it happen especially if someone tells me not to or that I can’t. For fuck’s sake, My grandmother’s suv got stuck in the snow when she was trying to back into place and I got out and lifted the front end/pushed the car back so it wasn’t stuck- which brings me to my next point: anger.     I am fueled by an immense rage at all times. I jokingly say that everything I do, I do out of spite but it’s not exactly distant from the truth. The angrier I am, the more driven I become and I get mad easily. My grandmother worries for me because I am extremely similar in personality to her- the second someone tells her she can’t do something she goes out and does it because fuck you, that’s why. I told her she shouldn’t go outside with all this snow because she’d likely get very sick and might get pneumonia. Unbeknownst to me, she immediately walks the trash down to the bins at the end of the driveway- at the other end of our 5-acre property- because she thought I was saying that as a joke at her expense. The next day she’s coughing and sneezing and miserable and admits she went out. I had to explain that not only is she too elderly to be doing things like that (the phrase she originally found offensive when I warned her the first time) but she’s grieving and depressed because her sister had literally just died a couple days before and that grief/depression weakens your immune system. Like, no, lady. You’re seventy and dealing with not only the death of your sister but the fairly recent death of your aunt. Your immune system isn’t gonna exist for a minute and you will die if you go within 500 feet of a preschool, let alone trudge through a quarter mile of snow. You don’t even own snow boots or a heavy jacket.     I’m getting way off topic there. Anyways. I got pissed because I signaled my grandmother that I was ready to start pushing her SUV, which was stuck in the snow and she a) spent a minute adjusting stuff while I was pushing after giving the signal instead of immediately hitting the gas and b)let off the gas when she saw how red I was turning because she thought it was from the strain (the only strain was on patience). I got madder when I started putting groceries away because there is ALWAYS shit (by which I mean the laundry basket) blocking the freezer door from opening all the way and stuff also fell out of the freezer when I opened it, and the door to the laundry room had stuff blocking it from opening all the way and I started throwing stuff because WHY DOES NOTHING EVER COOPERATE? Honestly, I’m still salty about it but more of a vaguely jaded salty than an “I need to break stuff because I’m irate and all cognitive function flies out the window when I’m this mad” kind of salty. I’m basically the hulk but I turn red and stay the same size.     I ended up guilting myself for hours after mistreating my cat because I was in a particularly venomous mood from being in so much pain. Her only crime was being in my way and almost tripping me several times when I was trying to feed her so I started flicking water at her whenever she would come near me. It was cruel and I still feel really bad about it- especially since it’s basically how my mother treated me when I was a child (ironically when she was going through the same tooth pain I am now) and it was one of my mother’s traits that made me always say I’d never be like her.      It’s also only little things that ever do that to me, though. When something happens that should by all logic tip me over the edge, I become cold and calculating. This is with all forms of stress, too. Grandfather fell on a vase because he didn’t drink his juice before getting out of bed and his blood sugar was low? There’s blood everywhere and my grandmother is running around like a chicken with its head lopped off? I got this. Abusive and controlling (to my little primo) aunt calls to tell my grandparents they aren’t allowed to see my cousin anymore? I was so irritatingly calm and matter-of-fact about telling her exactly what I thought of her my grandmother could hear her shrieking through the phone on the other side of the house and had to stop herself from cracking up when she saw how pleased with myself for making a grown woman (I was 15) throw such a tantrum. Girl my boyfriend cheated on me with tells me so- and that they’re dating now? She was more frightened at how quickly the rage visible in my face evaporated than anything, which was a mistake on her part.     But why can’t I do that with the little things? Why can’t I reason with myself? Is it because I can’t plot any more satisfying revenge for the inanimate objects that get in my way than to yeet them into another dimension? Because there’s no vengeance to be had on something that should prove to only be a minor irritation? It’s the same with pain. If someone purposely causes me pain, I’ll crush them without emotion, but something like a toothache I can’t do anything about (because I was snowed in) turns me into a monster (in fairness I wanted to take a sledgehammer to my face the entire time). Is it because I’ve trained myself not to be helpless- but when things are too minor for me to go into eye-of-the-storm mode (for lack of better description) I panic and feel helpless and lash out? I hear jokes like “hell hath no fury like a minorly inconvenienced gay man” and I also hear that people with severe trauma/mental illnesses/etc handle huge problems immensely well compared to others, but can’t deal with the little things- but like, why? I get that I’m a manic depressive gay guy and had an exceptionally shitty childhood but why can’t I handle the little things. I know, logically, that they don’t matter, but what do I do when that logic goes out the window? How do I drag myself back to reality when I’m throwing a block of frozen shredded cheese at the ground because it won’t. Stay. Put.     And how do I motivate myself to actively make the changes to make myself better? Because right now I am a lazy fuck slumming it in a pile of dirty clothing and half-empty water bottles, between mountains of books and other unknown items like a hoarder because I still haven’t fucking cleaned my room. At all. To my credit, I have done some cleaning in my grandmother’s office. Not much, but some.

    A different best friend of mine has always liked to joke that I am a creature of contradictions because I have always had opposing personality traits- always shifting from one extreme to another and never in the middle. Is it normal to have such divergent personality traits? Is it because I am bipolar?

#journal #mine #tw: a bunch of awful stuff #personal