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#go ahead if you want to do it!!
pankomako · 3 months
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if this post gets 2000 notes i'll finally call failboat. yes i have his phone number he gave it to me. pic unrelated
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xoxoemynn · 4 months
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For OFMD Tumblr friends who want a S3 and are scared of Twitter
First, no judgment from me. I very much get it. I resisted Twitter for a long time, and even though I'm now a bit more comfortable on it, it's still not my Fandom Home. There are a TON of valid reasons not to be on Twitter, but if you REALLY want to keep OFMD visible right now and help its chances of returning for a third season, Twitter is the best place to do it. Like it or not, Twitter is still the best social media platform for raising awareness and for instant news updates.
Tumblr posts don't make headlines. Topics that have been trending on Twitter do. And if we want this show to come back, we need to make OFMD impossible to ignore.
By now you've probably seen just how close we came to a S3, and if you're like me, you are RAGING and donning your battle jacket. But I get it can be intimidating to get on Twitter for the first time, so I thought I'd address some common anxieties I see. I'll put below a cut because this got a bit long, but I promise it's a quick read.
I don't know what to say! Where do I even start? That's okay! You don't have to create your own tweets (although it's great if you do). Amplifying other people's posts is also important. Go ahead and like/retweet/reply to other people's posts. This may also help you get an idea of what you may like to say in your own tweets.
Hashtags...yes? Yes! Although don't use too many or you may get flagged as a bot. The biggest one that seems to be emerging is #SaveOFMD. Other popular ones are #RenewAsACrew, #RenewOurFlagMeansDeath, and of course, #OFMD and #OurFlagMeansDeath.
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Should I just be tagging all the streaming services? Per @renewasacrew, no. It's counterproductive. You'll want to tag one streamer at a time and be specific. Below is an example of a tweet I made the other day -- use specific reasons why that that particular streamer may benefit from picking up OFMD.
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I'm scared. People are mean. Yeah, people are mean. But I will say the vibes over at OFMD Twitter are currently the best I've ever seen them. People seem to have united for the greater good and are being overwhelmingly positive and just trying to do whatever we can to save the show. (That said, again, I already had a pretty curated feed, and was very liberal with blocking users/terms I didn't want to see, but I've been able to spend so much more time in the For You tab than I ever have without being jump scared by something.)
But I don't know anyone there! Wouldn't I just be shouting into the void? Not if you use the hashtags! Fans are being really good about following those and engaging with the tweets. Plus, [Stede voice], I'm your friend. I'm xoxoemynn over there as well, I'll follow you back and engage with any of your posts that I see. Plus, what's been REALLY lovely to see is that SO many lurkers have come out of lurkerdom to support the efforts, and they are being welcomed with open arms, so you will not be alone. Again, I am telling you, vibes? Best I've ever seen them.
I can't get sucked into another social media platform, I don't have the time. The beauty here is you don't need to spend a lot of time. I've been on Twitter more in the past week than I have in the entire year I've had an account, and I'm still only on for maybe an hour total the entire day? I open the app, I check a couple accounts, I engage with a handful of posts, and I close the app. It takes all of five minutes. It's an extremely small lift that can have a very big impact.
My bet is on Zaslav expecting us to be upset, and that there may be a day or two of outrage, but then we'd move on. I'm sure right now he's trying to convince everyone that this is a fluke, and that it'll blow over soon. Don't let him win. Keep OFMD in the news. Be loud (but polite) and make Max and other streamers take note of what a passionate, loyal fan base this show has. Make their stocks continue to drop. Make it clear this is NOT just a fluke, it is NOT business as usual. It's a BIG fuck up with lasting consequences.
Twitter, for all its sins, is the best place to do this.
Now let's get our damned show back.
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pinkd3mon · 8 months
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Ado my beloved
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inkskinned · 1 year
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im gonna start a fight; and, at the same time, i need you to take this in the most good-faith way possible, but:
videos that involve body-checking and intentionally (and uncritically) show a mealplan of an unhealthy number of calories are just a revamped version of pro-ana food diaries.
and yeah, i know there's arguments. i address some of them under the cut. but at the end of the day, we're just coming back to romanticizing mental illness; we've just found a better platform for it.
this is already something we've done. we knew it was wrong and tried to stop it. and tbh. it just wasn't enough.
there are people who argue "well, what if you have an eating disorder, you can't help it if you don't eat!" except that as someone with an ED; we are not infants. we know what we're doing. part of having an ED is that you are like, maybe too self-aware. even if we can't help our own food choices, we don't need to fucking romanticize the disorder - something we've been warning you about since 2013. there are hours of setup, filming, and editing that go into these videos. they do not happen to fall into place randomly. there is a reason they are pieced together to be beautiful, bright, inspiring.
there's this woman who pretty much only posts daily plans under a normal amount of calories, and everyone defends her saying but it's better than nothing! and i'm like. except she opens those with images of her showing off her body and provides no context in the video or caption that suggests that she believes what she's doing is unhealthy. she has hundreds of thousands of followers on a platform designed for young kids and teens. i refuse to believe that by accident her content just happens to be cheery advice on "healthy" versions of starving.
for any other symptom of mental illness, we would be incredibly enraged by this kind of placid acceptance of a "tips and tricks" fast-start guide. imagine if people posted pink & pretty videos saying "best places to cut yourself" as if it was a fucking storytime. we, as a society, are so fucking fatphobic that we would rather accept blatantly harmful displays of self harm than admit that we are obsessed with a hyper-thin body type.
i am not suggesting someone never talks about their disorder. i talk about mine. actually, it's a plot point in my book.
here's the difference: i recognize it's a fucking mental illness. i am very careful to never mention a specific weight, eating pattern, or calorie plan. i always make sure to position it as something that ruined my fucking life. i do not put cheery music in the background and hearts and sparkles over my worst moments. i do not film it in bright light. i do not start each passage with an image of a thin body followed by "here's how to look like her."
eating disorders should not be framed as aspirational. and the problem is that society worships the "after" image, so long as you don't get too sick. there is a reason so many people who quit being "influencers" will later admit - i wasn't eating well that whole time; an obsession with food was completely destroying my life.
we let any uncredited, uncertified person write the most backwards, fucked up shit about how to get the body you desire! because the underlying, secret belief is: well, at least they're thin! and the real thing that fucking gets me each time - they make fucking money off of it. their irresponsibility and societal harm literally pays off for them.
"why do you care so much." "don't like it don't look." "so what if people experiment with new ways of thinking of food?"
thank you for asking. we're about to get extremely personal. it's because when i was 18 i discovered "thinspiration"/"thinspo." and it absolutely influenced, shaped, and codified my pre-existing eating disorder. i went from having some troubling habits and traits to being incredibly unwell within what felt like a matter of days. there were actual pages designed to train me on how to have an ED correctly. it was all so suddenly easy. i was sick; and the nature of the illness meant - i wanted to be sicker.
it takes an average of 7 years for a person to fully recover. i know this personally - even now, 10 years from the worst of it, i still fucking struggle. i am so much happier now and i eat what i want and i literally don't think about food at all (19 year old me would shudder) and yet - i still fucking know the calories of plain toast with butter.
an eating disorder is one of the deadliest types of mental illness. over 1 in 4 people with an ED will attempt suicide.
and i'm sorry. i just do not see the exchange rate of "high rate of engagement" versus "the value of a human life."
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fjordfolk · 10 months
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Unless: You want the action to repeat itself because it's super cute and there is nothing inherently wrong with rewarding contact-seeking behaviour, and shockingly it is actually possible to both teach and learn more nuanced ways to communicate with your dog than simply "no" and "when i say so"
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motelcafe · 1 month
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i know that some people don't like not knowing but i find winging it is so much fun. like, not knowing where your partner is going to take the thread is one of the best parts of roleplaying in my opinion. going so far off the original idea, throwing in an unexpected twist (maybe their character was the killer after all!), taking an open starter in a wild direction.. i love all of it!!
if you're ever worried about me not liking where you're taking a thread — as long as it doesn't go against what we've already plotted (if we've plotted; if we haven't, i really don't mind where the thread ends up), please don't be!! i will typically post open-ended starters because i want to see where the other's creativity will take it ♡
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mishapen-dear · 6 months
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rough art tips to learn and then break at your leisure.
the distance between your eyes is roughly one eye. the corners of your mouth dont extend past the middle of each eye. ears are roughly in the middle of the tip of the nose and the eyebrow. the eyes are in the very centre of the head. the neck is just a Little slimmer than the width of the head (varies with fat distribution, but fat tends to build up under the chin). hair is easier to draw when you plot out the hairline and then where it parts. leaving appropriate distance on the side of the face (cheekbone area and back to ear) contributes to making characters look more realistic/hot as hell. i dont know specific tips for that so use reference. an amazing reference/study site is lineofaction.com . if you think of the face in planes it makes it easier to construct (look up tutorials). if you draw a spiral like a tornado it can help you figure out awkward perspective for extended limbs (look up foreshortening coil technique). tangent lines are when two lines intersect and cause visual confusion (when it looks like a line that defines an arm is part of the line that defines a building, for example) and avoiding them makes your art way easier to comprehend. quick trick to good composition: choose a focal point (where you want your viewer to focus), detail that area the most, and make sure various elements of the piece are pointing to that focal point. you can use colours to contrast hue, saturation, and brightness and make certain elements of your drawing stand out. drawing in greyscale can help you figure out values. using black in a piece isn't illegal but you should know what you're doing when you do use it- it desaturates a piece and if used as a shading colour can desaturate and dull whatever youre shading too. if you use almost-black lineart and then add black to darken the very darkest areas it will do a lot to add some nice depth. the tip of your thumb ends just above the start of your index finger- your thumb also has two knuckles and all your other fingers have three. if you see an artist doing something you like (the way they draw noses or eyes or hair or anything else) you can try to copy that and see if you want to incorporate it in your style <- this is ENCOURAGED and how a lot of us learned and developed our styles. there are ways to add wrinkles to faces and bodies without making the character look a million years old, you just have to keep experimenting with it. The smile wrinkles around your muzzle dont connect to your mouth or to your nose; there should be a small space in between smile or nose and the wrinkle line. eyes when viewed in profile are like < aka a little triangle shape. think of the pupil like a disk and apply foreshortening to it (it looks like a line when seen from the side instead of a full round dot). subtle gradients can add a LOT to a piece. texture can also add a LOT. look up Tommy Arnold's work (his murderbot pieces are some of my FAVOURITE) and zoom in. find those random little circles he added and try to figure out why he added them there. light bounces. there's lots of way light bounces. sometimes it even spreads through the skin. i do not know these light tricks yet but i want you to know that they exist. draw a circle to indicate hand placement, draw a straight line between that circle and the shoulder, and then (normally at a right angle) draw a straight line on top of that line to find the placement of the elbow. elbows are normally placed Just above the hip when standing and your arm is at rest. there are no bad colour combos if you're brave enough about it, just fuck with the saturation and brightness until it works. keep playing. try new things. add your own tips to this post if you want or even expand on some ive mentioned here. good luck go ham etc
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kenobihater · 2 months
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of all the star wars movies, which of them do y'all 1) enjoy the most 2) consider the best quality and 3) think you've rewatched the most. add your answers in the reblogs or replies, i'm genuinely curious how much of an overlap there is within everyone's three answers. mine don't overlap at all! they're revenge of the sith, empire strikes back, and the force awakens :^)
#len speaks#star wars#revenge of the sith#empire strikes back#the force awakens#not tagging more films than that bc i cant b bothered. incoming tag ramble ahead bc i have sw brainrot rn and im making it everyones prob❤️#i rlly struggled 2 remember if id watched tfa or aotc more. i went w/ tfa bc it was formative to me as a teen and ive seen it probably 6ish#times? whereas aotc was the first sw movie i remember (specifically the scene of obiwan serving c*nt in the bar lmao) but i've only seen it#for sure 4.5 and maybe 5.5 times. the .5 is from when i got bored after obi-wan's scene ended and ran off to go play in the mud or smthn 😭#i'm sure tfa will eventually get surpassed in number of rewatches by aotc and rots bc i don't fw the direction of the ST but that's my#current ballpark estimate of my total number of rewatches#as an adult tho if i just wanna watch a star war i'll go with aotc bc it's fun and ends semihappily and i can turn my brain off for the#spinny lightsabers. it's great background noise or for if you're sick or whatever. rots on the other hand? i won't talk through that unless#i'm quoting it with my brother and i am LOCKED IN 100% entirely entranced by it all#i almost picked rogue one for the best quality answer but i think the character writing is weaker and the facial cgi is creepy. esb beats#it by a hair imho bc of that. the vader hallway scene goes hard tho!!!#also i'm not covering shows or games or books or anything else in this post - simply the films. might ask abt shows later but that might#also give me hives bc so many of the shows suck ass and i don't rlly want ppl extolling the virtues of t.bb in my notes 💀#and yes i do think one's enjoyment and one's opinion of quality are two things that often overlap. but sometimes you just like something#bad and that's awesome. like rots is the best of the prequels by a large margin and i adore the opening and characters and many of the#scenes but that doesn't mean it's the best star wars has to offer ykwim? it's my specialest most favoritest sw movie but that doesn't blind#me to the dialogue lmfaooo
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ghouljams · 10 months
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Hi!
Can I please request the aftermath of Leibling taking her iron jewellery off in the shower, I want to know sooo badly what happened next. I'm literally frothing in the mouth thinking about it. I wonder if she would take the first chance she gets to put her iron jewellery back on or use other protective charms.
I did some research about protective charms against Fae, apparently four leaf clovers can be used as a charm. I personally have two four leaf clovers i found one when I was 9 and another when I was 19 so they're 10 years apart. I keep them in a book.
I also wanted to ask what kind of Fae is Konig? Like what is he? I feel he has a much darker and sinister side to himself that he hides so that Liebling doesn't pull out all her stops to get away from him using the knowledge she has as Fae repellent lol.
Thanks again for blessing us with your wonderful writing 💗
Fic will be under the cut, y'all know the drill.
Congrats on your doubled warding! I've only ever found 1 four leaf clover, but I've held onto it for the last 15 years or so. I've always wondered what you're supposed to do with clovers as warding. I saw a joke once about eating them, but I will not be doing that.
König is a little bit complicated of a Fae. I keep meaning to draw his "fae form" because I can see it clearly in my mind, but I haven't gotten around to it. The best way I can describe him is as a highly specialized predator. He's definitely hiding that side of himself from Liebling because he doesn't want to scare her off, but like Ghost he's a very scary and deadly dude. I've described him before as being like a big cat, but I mean that in the way that lions and tigers are big cats, i.e. not something you'd ever want to run into.
As far as the "what is he" goes he's got a lot of different parts to him. I'm going to give a description on how I think of him, this doesn't mean you have to imagine this. He still looks human when he's walking around the city and around Liebling. His fae form is maybe 9ft tall, his hood looks more like long hair, his build is sort of like the Brøndmand of scandinavian folklore(thehmn has a very good drawing of them), spines along his back, claws, teeth, in my mind he's got fur and a very long fluffy tail(sort of like an oriental long hair cat lol). He's a pretty boy. Thank God Liebling is a monster fucker.
König's fingers slide past your clit and hook themselves into your cunt. You whimper, clenching against the intrusion as he shushes you. Punishment, he'd said. You can feel how hard he is against your back, the water from the shower head doing little to clean off the precum he smears against your skin. The heat of the shower stings against the fresh bite on your shoulder, and König holds your face so he can watch as your expression twists between pain and pleasure.
His fingers are so thick in you, dragging against your walls as he rubs at that soft spongy spot near your entrance, coaxing you to get wetter for him. He doesn't stretch you, only thrusts his fingers into you, letting you grind your clit against his palm as you get used to the full feeling. It's been over two weeks since you felt him against you like this, but it may as well have been months the way your body reacts to him. Heat clenching hard in your stomach, making your breath hitch as he stares down at you.
You hardly ever get to see his face, but now he's making sure it's the only thing you can see. His fingers squeeze your throat in warning every time you so much as blink, and the contact is pumping you so full of molten heat that you think he might not understand what a punishment is. Because this certainly doesn't feel like one. It feels like your sort-of-boyfriend working you up to cum on his fingers.
You clench around his fingers as they thrust up into you, deeper and thicker than yours will ever be. God, you missed this. You whine for him, rocking your hips against his hand, chasing the pleasure he'll give you. Trying to entice him to give you what you really want. His hand leaves your throat, and slides over your chest. His fingers curling to scratch up over your sternum, dragging his claws over delicate skin.
It feels good, that little sting of pain, the way his fingers curl just right, you feel the coil of heat in your stomach pull tight. You feel him pull the gathered tethers in his hand tight as well.
"No," You gasp, grinding harder against his hand, you're right there. You can feel it sparking heat and pleasure, can feel the sinful drag of his fingers as you nearly bounce on his hand for more. You're stuck just on the edge of orgasm, but every pleasure in the world can't tip you over unless König wants it to.
"Yes, Schatz," He purrs, dragging his tongue against your cheek, as he pulls his fingers from your desperate cunt, "didn't I say? Punishment."
You feel your chest clench tight, your legs shaking as he presses you against the shower wall. His fingers dig into your hip, pulling you up onto your toes so he can slide his thick hot cock between your legs. You drop your head to watch the head of it bump against your clit, sparking heat that you'd want any other time but now. Big, you always forget how big he is.
Your breath hitches as he thrusts against you, collecting your slick on his cock. It's a kindness you don't think will help much when the tip catches on your cunt and presses into you. He fills you slow and steady, veins dragging along your walls, girth stretching you so good it hurts, and doesn't stop until his hips are settled against your ass. Full. You try to control your breathing. You can see him pressing against your stomach, and you can't help the desperate sob when he starts to pull out. Your cunt clenching to try and keep him in where you want him. Where you need him.
"That's it," König murmurs against your ear, "be a good girl, and cry for me."
You choke when he thrusts into you hard, every nerve in your body lighting up at the snap of his hips. He's got you right on the edge, right where he knows he can make you beg, and he's letting you feel every inch of him. All that molten magic he poured into you makes you sensitive to his every touch, it's torture when his hand leaves your hip to rub your clit. As if he isn't the one keeping you on edge.
"Please," You whine, hardly able to think around his cock molding your poor cunt to its shape, "König, please." You want to cum, you can be good for him if he'll just let you cum.
"Did I say beg, Schatz?" You shake your head, "No, I said cry." You find that's not very hard to do, when he pinches your clit hard between his fingers, cock bruising your cervix. You feel tears burning your eyes, sobs collecting in your chest with each pleasant torture. König hums, "We have a long night ahead of us Liebling, you may want to start behaving."
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pa-pa-plasma · 9 months
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#polls#tumblr polls#fanfiction#fanfic#archive of our own#ao3#believe it or not this isn't actually for like. me needing to know about hiatuses#this is just a sneaky way of finding out. something else#Danny Phantom#;)#on an unrelated note how do you feel about waiting somewhere between 2-9 months for a fic to continue on its original course?#it's probably closer to 2 if i actually do it#i mean the fic would still be updating but it would be. uh. spoiler alert cant say it'd just be 2~ months til the main storyline continues#i've been given the go ahead from someone who knows about it all but i need to know how people feel about rereading#it wouldnt be rereading but there would be an element of things repeating. it would seem to be repeating at first but isnt#oh my.... wait no.... i think i just realized where i got this idea from & it's killing me how i failed to see this sooner#literally listening to the soundtrack & watching all versions of it bro. i'm an ADHD stereotype#anyway the reason i want to know this is that. this part of the fic can be skipped. you dont NEED to read it#but you would need to wait for the rest of the fic to continue if you choose not to read it#it IS kinda important. it's just. A Lot#okay saying it's skippable but also important seems weird but trust me it's all in the name of beating this kid to the ground#''character development'' no. character deterioration#how can i make him better if he isn't super fucked up#he can't have a mental breakdown if he's happy. & i need him to have a mental breakdown#yeah im going the psychological torture route#also this isnt about timeloops btw. it might sound like it but it's not
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alexjcrowley · 4 days
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Rip most frenemies from F1 you would have loved the Andrea-Emily relationship from The Devil wears Prada
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abyssal-rakuen · 3 months
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Nine people I'd like to get to know better
Got tagged in another meme by @micahfae, ty bestieee
Last song: Lagtrain by inabakumori 
Favorite colour: red but shoutout to pink real heavy hitter of a color 
Last movie/TV Show: scott pilgrim anime hahaha 
Sweet/Spicy/Savory: eat something sweet need something salty, eat something salty need something sweet. war. war never changes 
Relationship status: spare bitches maam? spare bitches? 
Last thing you googled: how long to bake chicken 200 degrees 
Current obsession: my life since september has been a kieran colored haze gamefreak fr fr made the perfect character
Nine others to tag: uhhh jeez i know im not particularly close with anyone on this site so im super sorry if im being annoying! go ahead and ignore this if you dont wanna answer ok? @hausmalasada @sachikoeveraftercharm @vyvynlovesyou @mintymintsyjelly @furretd0ll @pxruko @princessofdawn718 @draconia2004
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lambmotifz · 6 days
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thinking about how sam’s devotion to dean is inseparable from his masochism
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suddencolds · 3 months
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The Worst Timing | [4/?]
happy friday, everyone! here is part 4 (5.3k words) as a little pre-valentines-day installment :) [part 1] is here! this chapter was a pain to edit; i think i deleted + rewrote about a fifth of it in the revision process
anyways, i promised this chapter would be the wedding, so... please enjoy the wedding
this is an OC fic - here is a list of everything I've written w these two!
Summary: Yves invites Vincent to a wedding, in France, where the rest of his family will be in attendance. It's a very important wedding, so he's definitely not going to let anything—much less the flu—ruin it. (ft. fake dating, an international trip, downplaying illness, sharing a hotel room)
It’s a hectic morning.
Yves wakes up with the sinking realization that the medicine he took yesterday has worn off entirely. That is to say, he wakes up with the kind of unshakeable exhaustion he only feels when he’s coming down with something bad. His head is throbbing—sharp, cutting pain lances through his skull as soon as he finds it in himself to get out of bed.
All of that is inconsequential. He takes two pills from the cold/flu medicine blister pack with a generous few sips of water, brushes his teeth, washes his face in the sink with water cold enough to jolt him awake, and heads out.
He finds Aimee early, to ask her if she needs any help with anything. Then he makes himself available to the relatives that need him. There’s a last minute printing issue with the seating cards, so he goes through all of them again, finds the ones that are misprinted, talks extensively with the hotel’s front desk to explain what selection he needs to get reprinted and why, gets redirected towards the hotel’s business center, and finally gets them reprinted properly in one of the storerooms in the back. He lines the cards up and cuts them manually with a paper cutter he finds in one of the conference rooms on the first floor.
Then he takes a shuttle to the wedding venue to help set out all the seating cards according to a seating plan Genevieve texts him, but it’s windy enough outside that he has to find a way to weigh them all down. The venue has card holder stands, thankfully, but he doesn’t figure that out until he spends a good fifteen minutes asking around for them.
Then he waits twenty minutes in the cold for the shuttle back—the shuttles are thankfully in operation, but they’re running infrequently enough at this hour to be a slight inconvenience. By the time he gets on the shuttle, he’s shivering hard, even in his jacket, and his hands are almost numb from the cold.
The temperature certainly doesn’t help with the pressure in his sinuses, or with the sore throat that he’s had for a few days now. Perhaps it’s a blessing that the shuttle is near-empty save for him, because no one is there to question it when he ducks into his elbow with every loud, wrenching sneeze, or the coughing fit that almost inevitably follows.
When he gets back, he finds a sewing kit for Roy’s sister, Solaine—they don’t sell them at the convenience store downstairs, but he finds some in one of the tourist shops on the opposite end of the first floor of the hotel—for some last minute fixes to the way it’s hemmed. He delivers some safety pins from Victoire to one of his aunts, picks up breakfast pastries from the café across the street for his parents.
He takes a quick, hot shower, hot enough that the entire bathroom steams up because of it, and hopes that no one can hear the way every sneeze sounds so terribly, unnecessarily loud, even in the presence of his rapidly depleting voice. He rehearses his speech from memory and then rehearses it again, thinking through his notes on the pauses and the reflections. He irons his suit out, for good measure.
If he stops and lingers too long, it becomes quickly evident just how exhausted he is, just how unwell he feels when there’s nothing strictly keeping him on his feet. So instead, he makes himself useful where he can, busies himself with whatever he finds, if only because it’s the best distraction he can think of—if only because it’s the one distraction he has the luxury to take.
Lunch is a quick affair—he’s not especially hungry, and there will be more than enough food at the reception, so he grabs two pastries from downstairs, a coffee with two shots of espresso, and heads back up. Sitting down and eating them in the hotel room is somehow worse than running errands—like this, he can’t chalk his exhaustion up to his hectic morning, can’t attribute the heavy, shivery feeling that’s been following him all day the cold weather outside. 
Three more hours until the wedding. Anticipation always feels the worst, like this, when it’s nearly inseparable from worry—just a tangle of emotions in his chest.
He exhales.
Vincent is off—somewhere. Getting lunch, maybe, or getting ready for the wedding somewhere else. Yves has exchanged maybe all of twenty words with him this morning—do you know if our room has a sewing kit? Or, I’m going to stop by the café downstairs. Do you want me to get you anything?
Truthfully, Yves isn’t feeling much better today. His nose is running a little less now, thanks to the cold medicine, but the headache that he’s had all morning hasn’t gotten any less persistent. Even with his suit jacket on, he still can’t quite manage to get warm. He’s sneezing a little less, but each sneeze catches him off guard, harsh and sudden and embarrassingly loud.
But Vincent—who is, on average, unusually perceptive—hasn’t said anything about any of it. Yves tries not to think too hard about it. The less Vincent is worried about him, the better. Maybe he’s just preoccupied with other things.
He finishes his pastries at the small coffee table in the living room, downs half of his coffee, and then leans back in his chair and shuts his eyes.
His head hurts. He feels dizzy, even though he’s sitting perfectly still—as if the ground beneath him isn’t quite as steady as it should be—a strange feeling of vertigo. Surely if he sits here for just awhile longer, that feeling will go away.
He doesn’t fall asleep, exactly, but it’s a close thing. The discomfort doesn’t let up, either—no amount of massaging his temples seems to make the headache any better, and no amount of shuteye seems to do anything to lessen the exhaustion he feels. Maybe if he takes a nap he’ll wake up feeling passably fine. But he thinks it’s just as likely that he’ll get woken up early—by a phone call, or a text, or a knock on the door—to be told that he’s needed somewhere, and that alone is enough of a deterrent to keep him from properly falling asleep.
From somewhere at the edge of consciousness, he hears footsteps out in the hallway.
Someone’s here, then. He should let them in. But before he can bring himself to stand up and head over to the door, he hears the sound of the room card being inserted into its slot, hears the click of the door as it unlocks.
Someone—Vincent—shuts the door quietly behind him. When he spots Yves, he looks a little surprised.
“I didn’t think I’d find you here,” he says.
Yves blinks. His face feels unusually hot. “I got lunch,” he says, clearing his throat. “Well, I fidished it, but if I’d known you’d be getting back, I would’ve gotten somethidg for you.”
“I’m surprised you made it back,” Vincent says, leaving his shoes in a neat line at the door. “Are you done putting out all the fires now?” Yves laughs, though it turns into a cough. “For the foreseeable future, yes. Sorry i— hhH!” He twists over his shoulder, away from Vincent, to cover the sneeze in a manner that does not come at the expense of his suit jacket. “hHh-! iiDDzschh-IEW! snf-! Sorry I’ve barely been around this mornidg.”
Vincent is his own person—Yves has no doubt that he’s entirely self-sufficient when it comes to travel—but still, Yves is the only person Vincent really knows here. He’s not sure he can claim he’d be good company in his current state, but he feels like maybe he ought to be around more often—to translate, or to serve as the conversational buffer, or something else.
“It’s no problem,” Vincent says, frowning. “You were busy.”
“Still. If we were actually datidg, I think this would make me a slightly terrible boyfriend.”
“If we were actually dating, I would understand that you have important things in your life to attend to,” Vincent says.
Yves laughs. “Like cutting sixty sheets of paper into even rectangles?”
“Is that what you were out doing all morning?”
“Among other things.”
“Then yes,” Vincent says. He stops just short of the coffee table where Yves is sitting. “Are you finally off of paper-cutting duty?”
“God, I hope so. Weddings are always so hectic, even if you’re only peripherally idvolved. It’s like everyone’s worried about things going wrong beforehand, but then when you finally get to them, they always go fine.”
“Have you been to a lot of weddings in your life?”
Yves considers this. “Cobpared to the average person? Probably.”
“Then you should listen to your own advice,” Vincent tells him. 
“What?”
“It’s going to be fine.”
Yves blinks. If Vincent can tell that he is nervous after a three minute conversation with him, then Yves must really not be doing a good job at hiding it.
“That’s what I’m hoping for,” he says. He really is tired. Maybe another cup of coffee, or two, will help—he can hardly think of anything more mortifying than nodding off halfway through the vows. “I don’t think I’ll forgive mbyself if it doesn’t.”
It’s a near-perfect wedding.
The weather is as temperate as it gets at this time of year. It’s sunny out, and brisk enough that no one feels stuffy in their suit jackets and their summer dresses.
The wedding venue is like something out of a storybook—the white stone paths, arcing around a circular fountain, the water a clear, searing blue; the rows and rows of flowers that crowd around it. Flowers—roses, peonies, tulips, gardenias—line the walkways, strung up over arches in crisscrossing rows of sprawling green leaves.
When Aimee and Genevieve walk down the aisle, Leon grins; Victoire turns away to wipe at her eyes. When they say their vows, Yves feels a tightness in his chest, a fierce sort of pride. He knew, of course, that this moment would make him emotional.
But nothing compares to seeing them here, right here, smiling. Aimee’s hair is half up, half down, held in place with a half moon clip that winks white under the sunshine. Genevieve is wearing a long white dress—her hair is braided into a crown, threaded with flowers, a translucent lace veil settling over her shoulders. The afternoon sunlight trickles over them, gleaming. And Yves—
Yves has always believed in love.
Perhaps it’s overly idealistic—he’s certainly been told as much before—but he believes in it still. He believed in it even before he started dating Erika, and he believed in it after they broke up, too. It’s not so much the idea that people can be soulmates, more the idea that people can spend thirty or fifty or seventy years together and not tire of each other, the idea that the little mundanities of life might be made special in the presence of someone whose existence sublimates them endlessly into interest. The idea that two people who may not ever fully understand each other might try, ceaselessly, to get close. 
He remembers: hearing about Genevieve, over text and over call; at first peripherally, but then frequently. He regrets, sometimes, that he wasn’t there more for the both of them, that he could only help from an ocean away with celebrations and holidays and special events, that he still doesn’t know Genevieve as well as he’d like to.
But a part of him thinks, now, that maybe it was a privilege, too, watching from afar. Hearing about the dates secondhand, from Aimee, all of it filtered through her own excitement—hearing Aimee talk about everything that left an impression on her. It would have been different, of course, if he had really been there. But in a way, it is a little fitting that his first impression of Genevieve—his first mental portrait of her—was by someone who was already already half in love with her.
And he remembers: Aimee, unusually quiet one night over Facetime, sitting cross legged in the living room of their new apartment. The world, dark outside through the living room windows, even though for him it was only mid afternoon. The way she’d smiled, wistful, staring off into the distance at some point he couldn’t see. I think I might marry her, she had said.
She had said it like she was certain. He finds himself going back to that moment, to her certainty. He’s always wondered—how had she known? How had she been so sure of it, even then? 
But the way Genevieve takes Aimee’s hands, during the vow—the way her hands tremble slightly with it, the particular carefulness with which she handles the ring—all of it makes him think that he’s been right to believe in this, in them, in love. After all, what more convincing proof is there than this?
All in all, it is nearly perfect.
Nearly, save for how unwell he feels, how self conscious he is about not making it expressly known. Yves shivers through the entire ceremony, occasionally lifting the collar of his suit jacket to muffle a harsh, wrenching sneeze into the fabric. He’ll get it dry cleaned later. Beside him, Vincent looks to him, his head tilted in question—and, after Yves smiles apologetically at him—says nothing.
He makes it through, as a combination of everything—the adrenaline, the cold medicine, the four espressos he’d had this morning and the energy drink he’d downed right before the ceremony to keep himself awake. 
He doesn’t have a thermometer, doesn’t know what kind of temperature he’s running, but he has a hunch that it’s higher than it should be. It’s freezing outside—cold enough that he can’t keep himself from shivering, even when he tries—but no one else seems to be as cold as he is. He can only hope, now, that no one else notices him ducking into his jacket, periodically, to catch another sneeze, or wiping his nose on the back of his hand to keep it from openly running.
The world looks fever-bright, fuzzy around some edges but unusually sharp around others. He’s awake, but in the sort of uncomfortable, all-consuming way where it feels like he’s too nervous to get any sleep at all.
He feels only half-present during the cocktail hour, while Aimee and Genevieve take their pictures. He thinks he should make himself useful somehow—help with positioning props for photos or with setting up the proper lighting or whatever else—or, at the very least, converse with the relatives that he hasn’t had much of a chance to catch up with yet.
Instead, he sits, half hunched over at one of the side tables, and tries not to shiver too visibly. His head hurts with the sort of sharp, incessant pain that makes it near-impossible to focus on anything else. 
“Are you okay?” Vincent asks him. 
Yves looks over to him. Vincent looks concerned—his eyebrows are furrowed, his mouth set into a frown—and Yves—
Yves considers it, for a moment: telling Vincent the truth. That it’s taking everything in him to appear even remotely presentable. That a part of him is nervous that he’ll crash before he gives his speech. That he might have overestimated his own ability to get through four more hours of this, outside in the cold.
“Of course,” he says instead, with the best smile he can muster, because what else is there to say?
He doesn’t end up having any drinks, even though he’s usually a fan of cocktails. Leon offers him one, and when Yves shakes his head, shrugs and heads off to find someone else, which Yves thinks is probably the best. He’s a little too out of it to keep tabs on where all the others are—there are enough people that it’d be hard to spot everyone in the first place, but like this, it feels impossible.
And Vincent is… surprisingly, absent, for much of it. Yves considers texting him a couple times, just to see where he might be, but then decides against it. If Vincent has found something fun to do, then Yves definitely isn’t going to keep him from doing it.
Except, a small part of him says, he’d explicitly told Vincent not to worry about him. It doesn’t have to be your problem, he’d said, and Vincent had stared back at him, blankly, except was his expression really blank, then? Hadn’t he seemed a little hurt? After all of this is over, Yves really ought to apologize to him for all of the trouble—for making this whole wedding a lot more stressful than it should’ve been.
Vincent had known, after all, that he was nervous just this morning, even though Yves hadn’t wanted for it to show. And perhaps Vincent has always been perceptive, but Yves likes to think he isn’t always so obvious. Vincent is here to enjoy his vacation in France, first and foremost. Yves doesn’t want anything—not the fever he feels brewing, not the nervousness he feels regarding the wedding—to get in the way of that.
But right now, Vincent is nowhere to be found, so he tables the apology for later. For now, he just has to get through the entirety of the wedding. He spends a good part of the hour in the same seat, blowing his nose into cocktail napkins, wishing he had packed something warmer that would fit the dress code.
He makes polite conversation with whoever stops by, and tries—and fails—to ignore the fact that it feels like his head is going to split. Maybe he should’ve picked up some aspirin at the convenience store, too, though it’s not like he has the time to go back and get it now. And, anyways, as painful as it is, it’s really just a headache. How bad could it be?
At six, he finds his seat for dinner. A couple minutes later, Vincent takes a seat next to him. Yves turns to speak to him, only, he has to turn away to muffle a throat-scraping fit of coughs into his elbow.
The coughing fit lasts longer than he anticipates. When he looks up at last, Vincent is already in conversation with the person next to him, who Yves recognizes to be one of Genevieve’s friends—perhaps one of the ones he ate dinner with the night before, though Yves can’t be sure. Yves hunts down another cocktail napkin to blow his nose into—it’s starting to run worse now that the sun is starting to set.
When it comes time to give his toast, he’s afraid, for a moment, that he might forget what to say. That he might trip up mid-speech, despite all of the practice. That his current affliction might make itself clearly, embarrassingly apparent right when everyone’s attention is focused on him.
But the speech goes well. He gives his speech in French. His voice is noticeably off, but he hasn’t lost it entirely, and if he has to resort to clearing his throat as quietly as he can in between sentences, it’s a small sacrifice. Aimee giggles at the anecdote he tells about her in grad school, texting him about meeting Genevieve for the first time at a networking event. He throws in a couple inside jokes—references to things he’s heard his extended family laugh about during their yearly summer reunions, things that he can tie back into the wedding that he hopes might land well with this audience—and then he tells everyone about a surprise party he worked with Genevieve to plan, last summer, for Aimee’s birthday: how she’d stayed up late to make sure everything was carefully accounted for. How he’d known, then, from how seriously she was taking it, by how well she seemed to know Aimee already, that she would be the one. 
The jokes seem to land, for the way everyone—buoyed from the adrenaline of the wedding and in part thanks to the cocktails, he’s sure—laughs, and by the end, Genevieve is beaming, and Aimee breaks tradition to run up to him and give him a tight hug. After that, he asks everyone to raise their glasses in a toast—“To Aimee and Genevieve,” he says, “what a joy it is to see the team you’ve been rooting for win,” and the room erupts into clamor—into applause and cheer and the resounding clinking of glasses.
Then someone he recognizes as one of Genevieve’s closest friends stands to give her toast, and for the first time today, Yves lets himself relax in his seat. Only, it isn’t really relaxing—after all of the caffeine, he feels simultaneously exhausted and strangely, artificially alert, in a way that feels a little wrong.
The rest of the wedding should be smooth sailing, he thinks. The ceremony is over. His speech was fine. He just needs to stay through dinner and the cake cutting, and then he can ride the shuttle back with everyone else, and then—
—And then he’ll be back at his hotel room, where he can apologize to Vincent for perhaps being the very reason why this vacation hasn’t been as stress-free as it should’ve been, considering that it’s likely one of the few reprieves he and Vincent are supposed to get until busy season winds down.
He blinks, rubs a hand over his face, sniffling. He really does feel dizzy.
It’s usually like this. Yves thinks he should probably be wiser by now. If there’s anything he’s learned from past experiences—attending that end-of-semester crew meeting with the flu, or getting through the second half of finals week his senior year of university with a high fever—it’s that half a week of ignoring all of his symptoms is going to catch up to him eventually. 
Usually he’s better at defining what constitutes eventually.
He feels a familiar prickle in his nose—the kind that he knows once he gives in to will plague him for the rest of the hour. The cold medicine must be wearing off. Better to do this elsewhere—anywhere instead of here, on the courtyard, where everyone is eating dinner.
“I’ll be right back,” he says to Vincent. Then, without waiting for a response, he rises from his seat and heads off in the direction of the nearest restroom. There’s one in the main building, past the catering stations, the ballroom, the indoor bar.
“Hey, Yves,” someone—his sister—says, when he’s halfway to the building.
He stops walking. “What’s up?”
“You nailed that speech,” she says.
“In no small part thadks to you,” Yves says, forcing himself to turn and face her with a smile. “I’m glad we cut it down. And by we I mean, mostly you.”
“You were a hit,” Victoire says. “And it was funny. I liked the anecdotes you picked. I don’t think people would’ve minded if it were longer.” 
“Three mbidutes was the perfect length. Ady longer and people would’ve started losidg idterest— hHh-!” Yves thinks, a little frustratedly, that he always has the most inconvenient timing. “Excuse mbe, I— HHehh!” He lifts his arm to his face, twisting away. “hHhEH’iiDZSSchh’iiEW!”
When he turns back around to face her, Victoire is staring at him with the sort of calculating look that Yves is sure is not a good thing.
“You’re still sick?” she asks.
He blinks at her. “A little,” he says. “I’ll get some sleep todight.” 
She nods. “Does Vincent know?”
The question startles him into laughing, which he immediately regrets, for the way it makes him cough. “That I’mb sick?” he asks. “Yeah, I’d assume so. We share a room.”
“Assume? So you haven’t talked to him about it?”
“Whether or ndot I have a cold is not the mbost enthralling conversation topic,” Yves says.
“But you’re dating,” she says, as if that explains everything.
It explains nothing. “Yes, glad you ndoticed.”
“I just mean that — I mean, he got breakfast with us the other day, which you weren’t there for, and then we had the rehearsal dinner, which he wasn’t invited to. And during the cocktail hour, you were sitting alone.”
“I’mb not sure where you’re goidg with this,” Yves says, if only because he doesn’t want to be having this conversation right now. “But if you’re wondering whether—” He veers away again, pressing his arm to his face. “hh… Hehh-! hhHH’GKTT-SHHiiew!Ugh, sorry… Hh… HEHh’IIDZZSCHh-yyEEew! snf-! If you’re wondering whether we got into a fight, or sobething, then the answer is no.”
“It’s not that.” Victoire hesitates, for a moment, as if she’s still thinking about what to say. She probably is. She’s always been deliberate with her words. “It kind of seems like—well, like you’re doing that thing you always do.”
“What thidg I always do?” 
“You know.” She looks at him, her expression carefully, deceptively neutral. “Avoiding the people who care about you when something’s wrong.”
“I have ndo idea what you’re talking about.” Yves glances wistfully over to the bathroom. “I do really ndeed to pee, you know.”
He half expects her to press, but she just sighs. “Okay,” she says. “Don’t let me keep you.”
It’s a convenient out, and he takes it. The walk over is thankfully not too long—the bathroom turns out to be located just a couple hallways down from the entrance, but it’s hidden enough that it’s a little hard to find. For now, that’s a good thing.
He imagines the wedding party might move inside shortly after dinner, but as it stands, the building is mercifully empty. The restroom on the first floor is nicer than expected—warm lighting, floor to ceiling mirrors, polished white sinks on a black granite countertop. He braces himself against the countertop, suppressing another shiver. 
His nose is running slightly. He reaches over and grabs a couple paper towels from the dispenser, just to be safe.
It’s not a moment too early. It’s only moments after that he’s pitching forwards into the paper towels with a harsh—
 “HhH’iiDZSSCHh-IIEW!” 
The sound echoes off the tiled walls. Yves finds himself coughing, afterwards. The medicine must really be wearing off, then, for the way his nose is starting to run incessantly—for the way the discomfort prickles at his skin, suggesting a fever. It’s a good thing there’s no one here to see him like this.
“hHEHh’iIZssCHH-iiEW! snf-! hHEh… HDDt’TSSCHH-iEEW!” The sneezes are harsher than usual, too, and forceful enough to snap him forward at the waist. He stays hunched over for a moment, steadying himself with the side of the countertop, and tries, somewhat unsuccessfully, to catch his breath. 
The bathroom feels frigidly cold. He shivers, reaches up with trembling hands to try to button up his suit. His nose is starting to tickle again. It feels like he might be here forever, like one wrong breath might be enough to—
“hhH…. hHEH…. hhHEH’DJJJSHH’iiEEW!” The paper towels in his hand must be drenched now, but before he can get a chance to replace them, his breath catches again. “hhEH’GKTT-SHhhEw!” It’s immediately clear, from the subsequent twinge in his nose, that he’s not done. For a moment, he wonders if the sneezes will ever let up—if he’ll be stuck in the bathroom all evening, trying to keep his illness under wraps.
Before he can entertain the thought properly, he finds himself jerking forward again, his eyes snapping shut—
“Hehh… hEHh’IIZSCHH-YYEEW! hHihhH’-iiTsSHHH-YYEW!”
He blows his nose, as gently as he can, but the paper towel is rougher against his skin. When he looks up afterwards, blinking tears out of his vision, his nose looks noticeably red. 
It takes all the resolve in him to not just slump against the wall.
His next breath comes in wrong, and he finds himself coughing—harsh, grating coughs which seem to go on and on, leaving him feeling distinctly lightheaded.
He can’t stay here. He needs to make it back to dinner, where the others are waiting for him. He has to get back before Vincent starts wondering where he’s gone.
Yves squeezes his eyes shut. If he’s being honest with himself, he feels awful. Nothing he does seems to do anything to assuage the chill that’s settled persistently over him, the uncomfortable, shivery feeling that makes him want to curl up somewhere warm, sleep the next day and a half away.
Would it be so bad for him to stay here for just a little longer? To send a text to Vincent to let him know he’ll be back in twenty? It’s not the most comfortable of places, but it would be the easiest to explain if someone ends up finding him here. Anywhere else might suggest that he has a big enough problem to deliberately hide away instead of properly enjoying the festivities, like he should be doing, which is not the impression he wants to give off at all.
He tries to think of a convincing enough excuse, but nothing he can think of takes precedence over a wedding dinner, of all things. It should be fine if he goes back now, but any longer might be pushing things.
And, anyways, he feels guilty for even considering it. The others are waiting for him. He has to show up, and at the very least, be courteous where he has to, make pleasant conversation when he can. He has to make sure Aimee and Genevieve are having fun, and that Leon and Victoire are doing fine, and that nothing needs to get done logistically, and that Vincent is not there alone, surrounded by strangers speaking a language he’s just started to learn.
His head is pounding. He tosses the paper towels into the bin, leans his weight against the countertop, squeezes his eyes shut. The exhaustion from the past few days of on-and-off sleep must be catching up with him. His head is pounding.
He can do this. More aptly put, it’s not a question of whether he can. He has to do this.
He splashes his face with cold water, washes his hands in the sink, dries his face with another generous handful of paper towels, and heads towards the door. He feels almost too tired to stand, but that’s only a temporary concern. It won’t be a problem once he gets back to his seat.
Everyone is waiting for him, he tells himself. Soon, they might be asking where he’s gone. He needs to show them that he’s there—present and attentive and engaged, just like he promised everyone he’d be. No one expects any less of him, after all.
It’s with that in mind that he presses forward. He makes it down a couple hallways before he finds himself having to lean against the wall to catch his balance, shutting his eyes against the sudden wave of disorientation. He inhales, slowly. Exhales.
Fuck. Perhaps he’s dizzier than he’d expected.
“Yves?” He freezes. Vincent is not supposed to be here. Vincent can’t see him right now, not in this state. He forces himself to smile. “What’s up?”
“You disappeared,” Vincent says. “I wanted to make sure…”
His voice shutters, sounding distant and close by all at once. “...that everything was okay.”
“It is,” Yves says. “I was just about to head back.” “We can head back together,” Vincent says. It’s not that long of a walk—just a couple minutes, at most, to the exit Vincent presumably came in from, and then back down the stone path that leads to the courtyard.
“You didn’t have to come find me. I’m really fine.” Yves shifts his weight off from the wall. Takes a couple steps halting towards the exit, which is a mistake.
It all registers simultaneously: the darkness encroaching upon the edges of his vision, the surge of panic in his chest. The world, suddenly angled wrongly, tilts towards him. He thinks he is definitely going to owe Vincent an apology.
[ Part 5 ]
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shaylai · 1 month
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There was this trend in Facebook a while back in which you had to draw yourself as the Hazbin Character you got from a quiz, so I decided to be a little cringe but free and draw myself as Charlie! She's my favorite 🤲💛
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yourlocalcorviddad · 5 months
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References this post.
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"So what was it this time? Vlad again?"
"I wish! No, dad left his stupid Jack-o-ninetails at the top of the stairs and I tripped."
The response was met with laughter as the three teens sat at their desks.
The question was prompted by Danny's choice of attire for the day. The long, floor length, wavy black skirt was paired with a short but puffy sleeved green button up, and a darker green waist band around his waist covering where the shirt and skirt met. Not seen, mostly because he was floating but they didn't need to know that, were black boots gifted by Sam when he started to mess around with how to hide injuries and what clothing he we confident and comfortable with.
Well, one boot at least. He'd actually had to get a cast this time, as the break was pretty bad and his dad had seen, so even advanced healing meant he needed it.
"Only you could find a way to hide injuries while also giving people sexuality and gender crisis at the same time. Now sit still, you may be getting better with foundation but you need something or you'll look deader than normal." Sam made him turn around so she could start putting the eyeliner on him.
"Yeah, hands were shaking this morning, didn't quite want to look like a raccoon."
"Why not, you fight like one." Tucker teased from where he was finishing the homework for their senior history class next period.
"Rock the style not the look." Was Danny's only response, mostly cause Sam had a death (lol) grip on his jaw to keep his head in place tightened when he started to shift his head in response.
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