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phantoms-lair · 2 years

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I posted 1,635 times in 2021

424 posts created (26%)

1211 posts reblogged (74%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 2.9 posts.

I added 2,318 tags in 2021

#right on queue - 1132 posts

#funny - 254 posts

#danny phantom - 254 posts

#msa - 146 posts

#bnha - 146 posts

#anonymous - 94 posts

#hero's spirit - 87 posts

#ghost writing - 73 posts

#batman - 67 posts

#detective conan - 65 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i was bullied myself and much like in this story the bullies never faced reprecussions while i'm still dealing with the psychological fallo

My Top Posts in 2021

Batfam AU Snippet

"A snack, Master Tim, Master Danny, while you work on your homework."

Danny scrunched up his face, but Tim gladly thanked Alfred, snagging up a cookie before turning back to his English assignment.

"Doesn't that bother you?"

English was immediately forgotten. Danny was initiating a conversation. More to the point he was doing so about his feelings on something. Tim had theorized he'd be the easiest one for Danny to open up to, being a 'normal' kid before his adoption, and it looked like he was right. And now all he had to do was not waste the opportunity. "Does what bother me?"

"Being called 'Master'." The discomfort was plain on Danny's face. "I mean, I have my own discomfort with the word-"

Oh Tim was definitely filing that juicy clue away.

"-but even beyond that. Doesn't another person calling you Master feel wrong?"

Tim gave Danny a co-conspiratorial grin. "Do you want to know a secret I don't think anyone in Gotham outside Wayne Manor know?"

Danny pursed his lips, but didn't comment, so Tim continued. "In proper British butler parlance 'Master' refers pretty exclusively to children. It's basically Alfred-speak for 'Kiddo'."

Danny lost his sour expression and now just looked confused. "But he calls-"

"Bruce that. It's a little joke of his, basically that he's as much a kid as you or I. And yes, Bruce is very aware of this." Tim pointed out before Danny could think it was a private jab of Alfred's.

"And he's okay with this?" Danny asked, disbelievingly.

"Very. It's...you ever notice how in all the old movies and stuff butlers are always referred to by their last name? Jeeves, Wadsworths, Higgins. But Alfred is Alfred, not Pennyworth. He and Bruce are a lot closer than they let on, unless you know how to look."

Danny looked thoughtful. Tim wasn't sure what his thoughts were, at least not yet. But hopefully he helped alter the mental image Danny had about Bruce. Now to figure out Danny's history with the term 'Master'.

468 notes • Posted 2021-04-25 16:13:19 GMT

BatFam Snippet

"Danny, we need to talk."

Danny was already stressed with having to deal with Vlad having been there earlier. Wayne having to talk to him in that tone sent his anxiety through the roof. "What about?"

"Your past. As Danny Fenton and Phantom."

"No-you can't-you can't know-" But obviously he did. Danny had messed up and he was known and it was over, it was all over.

"Danny breath," Bruce commanded. "I want to help you."

"That's what he said." Danny was hyperventilating. "I can help you with your powers. I can help you. Well, the last time a millionaire we a secret identity and underground lair expressed a desire to help me and adopt me, I ended up in a power nullification box while he tried to kill my Dad, so no thank you!"

Bruce didn't have time to unpack all that, even if some things suddenly made a horrible kind of sense. Staying in Wayne Manor must have been traumatic for him. He hadn't expected Danny to know he was Batman, or that it would actually make it harder for the kid to trust him.

"Danny, I've read your parents' thesis on ghosts." Danny flinched. "And they read like a hate crime. One that it sadly looks like the government has bought into." That was a new description. "What do you mean a hate crime?"

"These beings, though capable of rational thought, are other. They don't have real emotions, can't feel pain, and only exist to cause suffering to humans, therefore it's not only perfectly fine to do horrible things to them but morally justifiable to kill them," Bruce summarized. "It's exactly the kind of rational people use to commit atrocities on each other. And while I certainly don't wish your parents dead." Facing professional censure, yes. But not dead. "Given your abilities I don't think you're be safe in that environment, much as I wouldn't trust people who champion conversion therapy with the well being of a queer teenager. And I don't think you feel safe there either, or you wouldn't be trying to hide on the streets of Gotham."

"They love me," Danny protested weakly.

"But they don't love all of you."

Danny wilted.

"Danny, right now there are two factions trying to claim you, your parents and Vlad." He assumed from what Danny had said earlier. "And neither would be safe places for you. And you can't tell child services why without putting a bigger target on your back for a certain government agency."

"I'm sure you can handle yourself in a fight, but a legal battle is something else. I have the double bonus of being a very public figure who'd be hard to make disappear and a good legal department. I can keep you safe until you're no longer in danger, then help you find a new home."

That caught Danny's attention. "A new home?"

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "You've made it very clear you're not happy here. Once your physical well being is assured, the priority is your emotional well being. And if here isn't a good place for you, I want to find somewhere that it." That was...Vlad would never give him up. Never. "Ideally, where would you place me?" "With Superman's parents." Bruce answered without hesitation. "Superman's parents?" Danny asked in disbelief. Bruce shrugged. "They have experience taking care of metahuman children. They're very humble and down to Earth. Their farm has plenty of space for you to fly. And one only has to see the son they already raised to know it's a good loving home. But that said, they are getting on in years and I don't know that they'd be up for raising another teenager. But you asked for the ideal and that would be it."

Okay, this was a lot he needed to go over. But...later. "Okay, but before we tackle anything else, there's something I need to tell you about Vlad..."

487 notes • Posted 2021-05-08 20:54:18 GMT

Danny was a puzzle.

In his defense, Danny had put a lot of effort in making sure no one in this house got to know him, so Tim didn't feel bad about thinking that. Honestly he was half surprised his new foster brother hadn't already fled from Wayne Manor, given how much he actively seemed to dislike Bruce.

Maybe he was afraid of something bad happening if he ran? Bruce's resources gave him an extremely long reach and while Tim knew he would never do anything to harm Danny, or any child, Danny obviously wasn't sure sure of that.

He'd wondered for a while why Bruce hadn't tried to find Danny a new home where he'd be happy. given how much he'd hated being there and refused to get to know Bruce. But Tim had realized the answer when Danny's eyes had flashed green once in frustration.

There are all sorts of things that could cause a kid to be running scared on the streets, but for the most part child services could hadn't them. A metahuman kid running scared? That could be the same, or things far more dangerous. And Bruce wasn't going to let the kid out of his metaphorical sight unless he knew Danny would be safe.

The trouble is Danny wouldn't talk to them, not about himself in any way. So it was hard to gauge what he was running from. So Tim had been working on solving the puzzle. Speech patterns and terminology put him as a New Englander, though not one from a place with very thick accents. He had a strong distrust for the rich, and it was clearly personal. So either he'd suffered at the hands of someone with money and power, or his family had been the ones with money and power and he'd witnessed it's affects first hand. He also had an aversion to labs and scientists, which lent credence to the idea that he was running from more than an unpleasant domestic situation. Aside from the glowing green eyes, Tim is almost sure at least one of Danny's powers is stealth related, because being able to sneak around anyone in this house is a god dammed superpower and Danny seems to do it effortlessly.

It wasn't enough, not nearly. But every day was another chance to grab new pieces of the puzzle. And hopefully when they had enough pieces, Danny could be safe

654 notes • Posted 2021-04-24 17:50:16 GMT

A continuation of the snippet I did based off @redrobin-detective's post

"Do you sleep?" Danny suppressed a groan. He really wasn't feeling up to Youngblood right now. "Yes. I'm part human. I need sleep."

"When do you get it?" "Not often enough." Danny grumbled, getting ready for a fight. But to his surprise Youngblood was gone.

"He does need to sleep and he doesn't get enough of it." Youngblood supplied.

"How'd you find that out?" Sydney wondered. "I asked." Youngblood said simply.

"That matched what I, Technus- Master of All Things Electronic and Beeeping, have discovered from the records the machines held at his place of schooling." "And what did you discover?" Skulker prodded.

"Before he became the Ghost Child, his school records were positive. Solid Bs, good attendance, no behavioral issues. For the next month afterwards he became clumsy, after that, when we started poking at Amity, he starting missing classes, falling asleep in classes, and all his grades fell. Also something about multiple altercations with some human child named Baxter?"

"Dash Baxter." Johnny supplied. "Football star. Guy's been bullying Danny since forever."

Sydney's head swung around. "What?"

Johnny looked uncomfortable. "Look, Jazz really needed someone to talk to, okay, and I was being a good boyfriend."

Kitty crossed her arms. "You were trying to steal her body."

"I was trying to be a good boyfriend to you," he specified. "And that meant being who she wanted me to be, which was someone she could open up to. And she's really worried about her brother, so she talked about him a lot. So yeah, Baxter came up, since he's been target Danny since at least Middle School."

"I have to go." Sydney said, abruptly leaving.

They let him. They all knew bullying was a sore spot and he would need some time.

"So what we have is he's a guardian who's territory has been violated repeatedly, his human survival needs are only barely being met, his home is extremely unsafe for him, and literally the only three people who care about him are all human teenagers with little to no power because no one with power or authority can be trusted to help him." Ember summed up.

"He's going to break," Kitty whispered. "I don't know how he hasn't already."

"He's tough." Johnny reassured her. "And we're going to fix things."

"I can set traps to keep the vermin from getting through." Skulker offered. "We should probably still make forays into Amity to keep him from getting suspicious as to our intents. We'll just keep it to well after school or on weekends."

"But not too late, so he gets some sleep." Lunch Lady recommended. "I should check his fridge while you're at it. He's so skinny, he must not be eating right." "His parents will have sensors and traps," Technus advised. "Let me disable the first." "That's an excellent idea. I may be able to assist." Skulker offered. "I wonder if Sydney would want to help with the Baxter Guy?" Youngblood wondered. ~ Dash stepped out of the shower. He must have had the water on hotter than he thought, it was so foggy everything looked gray. He wiped the condensation off the mirror and a pair of glowing red eyes glared back at him. "BUUUUUULLLLLLYYYYY..."

713 notes • Posted 2021-02-27 22:37:54 GMT

Danny Phantom AU

Starts with reveal going wrong. Oh they still love him. That's why they have to cure him. He'll feel so much better one they've removed that nasty ghost essence corrupting him. Sure he says that will kill him, but that's just Phantom talking, trying to trick him into not getting help.

Danny escapes and flees Amity, feeling very bitter. Thankfully Sam made sure he had a back up plan if things went wrong (because she inherently doesn't trust parents). A Bug Out Bag was waiting and his destination set.

He sent out two messages before ditching his phone. One was to Valerie, promising her she'd never have to deal with Phantom again, but asking her to keep the town safe from ghosts. The other was to Vlad. "You know that advantage I always said I had over you? I don't. Let go or die. Those are the only two options she gives."

Danny had two criteria for his destination. It had to be a big city (people are less nosy) and it had to have it's own hero or heroes (so he wouldn't be tempted to reveal himself as Phantom). He picked Gotham, because it seemed the easiest to fall through the cracks.

Danny does not fall through the cracks.

To be fair, he's a dark haired blue eyes kid with a troubled past and strong moral compass. The adoption papers are like, half filled out.

But here's the thing. Danny is highly against the idea of being adopted by Bruce Wayne. Millionaire who puts on an affable front, but is secretly extremely dangerous and has a secret alternate identity where he can be threatening and also wants to adopt him is, well, it sets off some very specific alarm bells.

(He finds out about Bruce's secret identity day one. He phases through the floor of the mansion to see if there's a secret lair like Vlad's hidden lair and what do you know.)

So Danny does not trust Bruce one inch. But then Vlad shows up, talking about a joint project between Dalv and Waynetech and Danny (VERY Hidden) realizes that Vlad is planning something against Bruce.

And like, for all he distrusts Bruce, he knows how evil Vlad is. So he's going to have to save him, somehow without revealing himself to Vlad.

Bonus: Danny couches his mistrust of Bruce as believing Millionaire only get there money through criminal means (cause he's not letting on he knows about the secret lair) so Alfred tries to go over financial records with him to prove that false. In the process it's discovered Danny's 'bad at math' is a learning disability (dyscalculia) and he starts learning how to cope with it,

1031 notes • Posted 2021-04-24 12:34:50 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #So what I'm getting form this is people like BatFam AU :P

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shepherds-of-haven · 3 years

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New: Bug Report Ticket System

Hi everyone, Zuko here, just stopping in to tell you that I've taken my next step as an indie game developer, which means creating a bug reporting system that makes a lick of damn sense!

Through 100% my own fault, bug reporting for Shepherds of Haven's alpha build and public demos has become something of an absolute chaos pit, for both me and users! I never implemented a proper, dedicated system for bug reporting, partly out of my own arrogance and the apparent lack of necessity: at the game's launch, there were relatively few bugs, everyone's gameplay experience was fairly tight and uniform, and it was easier for me to keep track of and squash bugs on the spot!

But as the game gets bigger (625,000 words, now! More than all three LOTR books combined), of course more bugs and glitches are going to crop up, and in peskier, harder to find places! Add that to the growing community with multiple platforms and me having less time to spend online to actually answer, track, or address bugs immediately, and you get a recipe for one overwhelmed author!

I'll talk a bit more about the issues I've been facing and what necessitated this new system down below (for anyone who's interested), but the long and short of it is, I've created a brand new bug report ticketing system!

Report Bugs Here 🐛

Track Submitted Bugs Here 🔍

How it works:

Use the "report bug" form to submit any bugs or errors that you've noticed while playing ShoH! (Please submit one bug per ticket.)

An automated workflow will immediately plop your ticket into the Trello board (the tracking link above), where you can view all submitted tickets by users, their statuses in my queue, how I've prioritized them, and my responses and explanations about them - all in one place!

This solves basically every issue I was having with bug reports, including having to explain across multiple platforms the same solutions to the same bugs (but in such a fragmented way that users wouldn't see my answers or the progress reports on said bugs)!

Important: From now on, I will only be accepting bug reports through this method. I know this might be a pain in comparison to submitting via any platform, but it will really help me keep everything in one place in an organized, non-overwhelming fashion, and it will definitely improve both the user and author experience in a very vital way!

That said, I know not everyone will see this post at first, so if you submit a bug report through another method, I will be copy-pasting a gentle redirect to this form! Sorry if you get sick of seeing it, and please don't take offense if this happens to you - I truly appreciate the time you all take to help improve the game and submit your feedback! I just need to make it a uniform experience across all platforms for my own sanity, so I'll be minimizing exceptions to this rule as much as I can! 😃

You can, of course, discuss bugs and whatnot elsewhere and with other users (such as on the forums, Discord, etc.), especially if you want to check with others and see if what you're experiencing is actually a bug or brainstorm/roundtable it. Just operate under the strict assumption that I will not see any of it until you actually submit a ticket through the form! I wish I could keep track of every conversation about the game, but at this point, so much flies under my radar that this is actually probably true...

That's all for now: you can read on to see a little bit of my struggles below and how this solution will help, but other than that, I hope you're having a fantastic start to your week! 💖 Remember to eat well, get some sleep, and stay hydrated!

Essentially, the old bug report "system" consisted of me actively encouraging everyone to send me bug reports through any and all platforms they had access to. This meant I was getting bug reports through:

Patreon comments on public posts

Patreon PMs

Tumblr PMs

Tumblr asks

Tumblr comments on public posts

COG forum posts

COG forum PMs

Discord PMs

Discord conversations in channels

Other

What on earth was I thinking lol?

This created numerous problems...

The obvious difficulty in keeping track of all of these bug reports across disparate platforms, leading to things slipping under the radar or stacking up in an overwhelming, confusing way, and duplicates cluttering the queue

Less time online means less time to find and address the bug immediately, leading to more duplicates and growing user confusion the longer it went unaddressed or unacknowledged

No ability to uniformly address the bug across all platforms with context, explanations, or solutions. A user reporting a bug on Tumblr might lead to me replying on Tumblr that it could be fixed by doing XYZ, or was caused by ABC and was not actually a bug at all. However, another user on Patreon or on the forum would not see said explanation/solution, would report the same bug on Patreon or the forum, and would unfairly suffer through me saying "I already answered this!" (but not to them).

Most platforms are not conducive to the back-and-forth required to truly and effectively hunt bugs. If a user sends in an ask on Tumblr about a bug, but I need more context (such as "what choice did you make in Chapter 2?) to find it, I just have to publish their ask with my response and pray they see it and send in another ask! It's just clunky and inefficient!

This new system hopefully addresses all of those problems! By having one method to submit bugs and one repository to see where they all go (including everyone else's tickets and reports), everything is just going to be better! 😊

One of the most important things for me is that the new repository lets everyone see my comments, explanations, and solutions regarding the current bug reports. Please check to see if your bug has already been submitted to the queue if you can, and check out my comments by clicking on any tickets with a speech bubble, such as on the right below!

Last thing: there are already some tickets in the system that I put there in order to test it, but which are essentially bug reports that I've received in the last week or so, and which I just copy-pasted into the form to have them all in one place! So if you see your bug report under "Anonymous," just know that it was me who put it there and that I appreciate your time and effort in making the report! Thank you!

Your patience and encouragement is much appreciated, and thank you for tolerating my chaos prior to me getting this nice new automated system up and running! Thanks for reading, and I look forward to receiving your tickets! ✨

#Shepherds of Haven #bug #bug report #update #master post #pinned

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buckybabybaby · 3 years

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café d'amour

A/n: my entry to @firefly-in-darkness 's challenge. Thank you for letting me enter! I left it to the last minute once again, but! This time it's not late so... fingers crossed next time I'm early xxx

Proof read with a text-speech device.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/reader (gender neutral)

Word count: 3537

Warnings: none! :]

Plot: Maybe covering a friends shift in a city park coffee kiosk won't be too bad if it means running into a certain super soldier.

coffee-shop sort of au, fluff and more fluff.

Masterlist

*****

The machine humming quietly in the corner of the tiny hut seems to be mocking you, a constant reminder of just how out of your depth you are. People who think working in a coffee shop, or in your case, a take-out kiosk, is easy, should try it for a day and see if their opinion changes. This is so far away from your usual job, safe and warm re-shelving books in the colleges library, but a promise is a promise, so you've just got to suck it up for the next few weeks and hope you don't mess anyone’s orders up too badly.

Peter is going to owe you big time after this.

When he'd asked you to cover for him in his small business, you had agreed without properly thinking about what time of year it is, and how cold the wind can be when you're stood still in it for hours on end. Two days in and your hands have aged about ten years from the combination of frequent washing and the icy air, and the layers of thermals you've got on under your uniform fleece and matching joggers are making you look a little rounder than you actually are, you couldn't care less though as long as you are warm. The water heater provides a little warmth, leaking through to your skin if you press up against it, but you've found the best way to escape the freezing gusts is to crouch down below the counter when the queues have diminished.

That's where you are now, half heartedly straightening the packets of treats, getting distracted by the many different types of cookies and brownies, and not keeping an eye out for potential customers.

“Hello? Is this self-serve or what?”

The voice startles you, so close without warning, almost like they crept up on you. Hopping up quickly, you hover your hands under the sanitiser and rub them together as you collect yourself and prepare your speech.

“Hello! Sorry! Hello,” You start again, marginally calmer, “Welcome to-”

That's as far as you get, not even able to ask what they 'fancy today?' before the customer interrupts.

“Just a coffee. Black. No fancy milks or syrups or anything, no cakes or anything extra. Just coffee, okay?”

Finally looking up from your now dry hands, you take in the man who has placed such a blunt order. He's attractive enough, the little you can see underneath his hat, something about him familiar to you, his tone definitely one you've got used to over the past day or so, though he's not anywhere close to the rudest person you've served.

You smile pleasantly, in the disarming way you've learnt. “Okay, just coffee, got it. And a name for the cup?”

He looks around at the lack of other customers. “Is that necessary?”

Laughing self-consciously, you say, “Probably. If it gets busy I'd hate for it to get mixed up. I'm new.”

“Ah.” He tuts. “James.”

“James, cool. That'll be a few minutes.”

As you grab a pen to write his name on the sleeve of a cup, he shuffles off to the side, adjusting his hat as he does, and when his coat slips a bit down his left arm your mind goes blank. He's not paying attention to you so your staring goes unnoticed as you realise why you thought he was familiar earlier, wondering how it didn't click when he said his name, but then again wrapped up in his scarf and gloves it's not surprising. You're guessing he doesn't want to be recognised right now, hence the use of his real, less known name, so before he can catch your mild freak-out you look away and messily scribble on the side of his cup.

Even a simple order can be a struggle for you, and now, slightly flustered from serving the Winter Soldier, you make sure to double check the measurements before you start, concentrating hard to make the greatest cup of coffee he's ever had. There's a reason this kiosk has a reputation for the best hot drinks in the park and you aren't about to ruin it by messing up the order of Captain America's best friend.

Breathing a sigh of relief as you place the lid on top of the perfectly brewed coffee, you tap it against the table to get his attention. “Here you go. The machines ready.”

Pulling his hands out of his pockets, he swipes his card to pay then grabs the cup off the counter, murmurs something that could have been a 'thanks' and takes off along the dim path leading him deeper into the park.

“Well.” Huffing as you lean against the glass front of the booth, you watch his retreating form with a small frown. He wasn't anything like you thought he might. The media has built him up to be some sort of tragic figure, one to be feared and pitied in equal measure, but all you saw was yet another city dweller on a quest for caffeine.

At least now you have a story to tell from your time working in the coffee kiosk, aside from the ones about frozen fingers and half-spilt drinks.

*****

The next day he's back, around the same time in the afternoon, as the daylight is dying and the street lights are flickering into life, about an hour before closing. You're finishing up a complicated order for a group of friends when you notice him standing away from the small crowd, waiting for them to leave before he approaches.

“I want a coffee like yesterday,” He says, adding as though an after thought, “Please.”

“One black coffee?” You confirm.

He nods, watching closely as you locate the pen to write on his cup. Before you can even open the cap, he's butting in. “Why don't you have a name tag?”

You freeze, confused. Meeting his eye, you flush under the intense way he's staring you down. “Why don't I-?”

“You see, I have a very good memory, despite my age. I distinctly remember telling you my name is James, so imagine my surprise seeing my nickname written on my cup when I looked properly.”

His expression is not giving away any clues on how he feels about this invasion of privacy. Heart racing, you search for the right words to apologise, and convince him you're not some crazy stalker.

There's no chance to speak as he's continuing. “So I thought I'd come back today and find out your name, then we'd be even. But you don't have a badge on. Why not?”

“I'm so sorry,” You breathe, unsure what more you can say. “I swear I'm not a weirdo, I just recognised you yesterday and I must have written the wrong name by accident.” A beat of silence, then you propose a way to make it right, “How about free coffee for life?”

He laughs, a glorious sound in the crisp air, and your shoulders relax at the genuinely happy noise. “Aren't you new? Are you allowed to make promises like that?”

Wincing, you admit, “Probably not. But when I explain it to Peter I'm sure he'll understand.”

“Peter?”

You start working on his drink as you talk. “He owns this place. And normally works this shift, I'm only covering whilst he's away.”

“Oh.” The hissing of steam drowns out his next sentence, you only catch the last half, “-here how long?”

“Couple of weeks, maybe? Not too long hopefully. You'll have a professional barista back soon, don't worry.”

“I think you're doing fine.”

The words are spoken so softly, such a contrast from how you thought this conversation would end, and the shock has you fumbling with the finished cup of coffee, nearly spilling the scolding liquid all over your fingers.

“Careful.”

Taking the cup from you, his hand lingers against yours for a moment too long and you force yourself to stand up straighter and away from his touch. The last thing you want is to become a horrible cliché, falling for a customer after a few sweet lines.

He grabs a few napkins to wipe the cup dry, then looks expectantly at the card machine.

“I meant it, free for life,” You say, determined.

Shaking his head, he roots around in his pockets, pulling out a couple of notes and sliding them across the counter towards you. “Old fashioned money it is then. I didn't mean to come across as angry earlier, or yesterday, thinking about it. Sorry about the whole,” He waves his hand around vaguely, “Murderous vibe I give off, or whatever Sam calls it.”

He rolls his eyes fondly when talking about his team mate, and you giggle as you reassure him. “You didn't look murderous, just a bit like you might sue me.”

“Ugh.” He wrinkles his nose. “Not really my style.”

Your bank balance is thankful. “And to answer your question, I'm Y/N.”

Blowing on to the top of his drink, he takes several steps back, all whilst keeping eye contact. “Well then Y/N, I guess I'll see you tomorrow.”

“I'll be here.”

With that, Bucky waves goodbye with a wide smile, disappearing into the dusk as you wonder just how much trouble he's going to be.

*****

The kind of trouble you don't mind, you find out when you run in to him again the next day, a lot earlier than you imagined. In an attempt to keep yourself warm for the long hours stood in the open, with only a waist high counter between you and the frozen air, you've taken to walking around the park before you are due to start, so the heat generated by the exercise keeps you warm for at least a proportion of your shift.

The sunshine is deceptive this afternoon, doing nothing to raise the temperature as you wander around the edge of the lake. Lost in thought, a sudden shout from behind makes you jump.

“Hey, Y/N! Wait up.”

Turning around, you struggle to place the voice as you scan the few people also on this side of the park. None of them are even looking in your direction, let alone trying to draw your attention, and you're about to continue on your way thinking you must have misheard when a body nearly crashes into yours. This is not an image you ever thought you would see; the Winter Soldier panting to catch his breath after jogging up to you, all because you're on first name terms and not because you've suddenly turned to a life of crime.

“Bucky?”

At your bemused tone, his face drops. “Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. If you want to be alone, I can go, I just thought-”

“No! No, it's okay. I don't mind a bit of company.”

You share a smile, and he lets you take the lead back along the small track, winding its way between the trees and the water.

He breaks the silence a few meters along. “So, what do you normally do?”

“Me? Err,” You pause, trying to think of how to make yourself sound interesting to someone who spends his life side by side with superheroes and literal gods. Sighing in defeat as you conclude you're always going to be boring in comparison, you mumble, “I work in the library where I'm also a student.”

Bucky doesn't appear to think you're dull. “That's cool!” He says, like he means it. “I miss being in school.”

“So did I, so when I got the chance I went back. I'm a bit older than most of the students-”

He snorts. “I know how that feels.”

“But I'm determined to get my degree this time.”

“I'm sure you will.” He grins at you and you're inexplicably filled with hope that he's right. “And after? Do you know what you want to do once you've graduated?”

You shake your head. “Right now all I'm focused on is passing exams and submitting essays on time. I'll think about the future when it's closer.”

“That's fair. Nothing wrong with waiting to figure things out.” More reassurance from this relative stranger. You didn't know how much you needed it until just now.

“Most people say I need a ten year plan or something.”

“Most people are wrong. But,” He pauses, and you hold your breath as you anticipate his words. “Can I suggest if you go into business, maybe don't start off by offering life time free supplies at the drop of a hat?”

Two minutes in to this 'friendship' and he's already teasing you? What is going on? Turning your face away so he can't see your stupid grin at this turn of events, you really would believe this is some sort of perfect daydream if it wasn't for the all too real frozen mist clinging to your coat and the ends of your hair.

“I'll try to remember that, thanks.”

Dodging a puddle in the middle of the path, you're trying to come up with a witty retort to impress him when your phone buzzes in your pocket.

“If you need to get that-”

“Oh, no. It's only my alarm to remind me not to wander too far from work before I need to start.”

“Soon?”

“Yeah.”

“I'll walk you back, then.”

Not wanting to leave his side quite yet, you let him accompany you back through the trees, but you refuse his offer to carry you across a muddy part of the path where the stream has burst it's banks. Flushing as he laughs at your careful steps, you manage to get across without completely ruining your shoes, informing him you've learnt the hard way that these trails aren't exactly 'white trainer friendly' as the kiosk looms into view.

Relieving the worker from the morning shift, you rearrange the counter back to the way you like it before any customers turn up, watching Bucky hovering nearby until you give him a questioning look.

He clears his throat. “If I came this way the same time tomorrow, would I bump into you then?”

The hopeful look he gives you would be enough for you that, even if this walk wasn't part of your daily routine already, you would have made it so in order to see his again.

“Uh huh. Are you planning too?”

“Whenever I come with Sam, we always end up getting recognised with the way he can't keep his voice down. It's nice not having that sort of attention. So if you don't mind?”

“I don't mind.” A patron approaches and reluctantly you turn away, sending a quiet promise to your new friend. “See you tomorrow, Bucky.”

*****

The days past so fast now they're full of work, both at the kiosk and in the library, trying to study, and, most importantly, walking with Bucky every afternoon. Some days the two of you talk the whole way, conversation flowing so easily you're amazed at how honest you are, like you've never been with anyone before, and other days you walk together in relative quiet, completely comfortable in each others presence.

Falling for him is the quickest and easiest thing you've ever done. Dealing with your feelings, however, might be somewhat harder.

With the lighter evenings comes the message that Peter is finally on his way home and soon you'll be free of your second job. It feels like a bolt from the blue, to be reminded that this is only temporary and in not too long you will no longer have an excuse to see Bucky.

You mention it to him a week before your last shift.

“Isn't that good?”

“I guess.” Your reply is short and unenthusiastic, changing the subject quickly to hide how heartbroken you are.

Time moves too fast, and before you know it you're greeting him on that last day, taken aback as he presents you with a small cardboard box, which when you take it, is much heavier than it looks. “Natasha gave it to me for you. Apparently it's really good for your hands. I thought you could try it? Now you won't have to wash them constantly?”

Scanning the sides reveals that it contains a moisturiser, from some luxury brand you've never even thought to try, too far out of your price range. “Oh, this is too much, I can't take-”

“Yes you can.”

“Let me give you something-”

Gently tugging your hand back out of your bag, he stops you from grabbing your purse by enclosing his gloved fingers around yours. When he doesn't let go, instead pulling you along and down towards your now usual route, you let him, gaping at the back of his head before coming to your senses and squeezing his hand in a kind of thanks.

“This is a very kind present.”

He shrugs it off. “It's nothing. When it's your birthday or something, then I'll get you a proper present. Presents, plural,” He emphasises as your eyes widen at the thought. “Nah, this is just one of the hundreds of products Natasha gets sent in the vain hope she'll provide the companies with some free advertising. Better you have it than it go to waste.”

It still feels like a gift to you. “Well then, thank you for thinking of me.”

“Always.” The implication of that one word would have been entirely missed if it wasn't for the panicked look on Bucky's face as he corrects himself. “I... I mean, of course.”

Stopping in the middle of the path, your joined hands cause him to halt too and the atmosphere grows tense as you stare at each other, unsure where to start. The minutes haven't stopped ticking down until you're due on your last shift, and with the implication that comes with hanging over you like a dark cloud, now seems just as good a time as any to bring it up.

You hesitantly begin. “Bucky, can I say something?”

Mutely, he gestures for you to proceed.

“Right, so you know today's my last day at the kiosk, at least until Peter goes away again, so, that means I won't have a reason to walk around here any more. Or I won't, unless...”

“Unless?”

“Unless I do. Unless you still want to come around the park with me, even if it's for no more reason than simply going for a walk?”

“I'd love that.”

The relief that flows though you as he agrees is almost physical, gripping onto his hand in yours just a little tighter.

Feeling brave, you dare to push your luck. “And if it was more than just a walk?”

It takes a moment, but then you see the realisation dawning on his face, a slow smirk appearing as he takes a step into your space. “More?”

You know he knows what you mean, that he's playing with you. That doesn't soothe your doubts though, hoping beyond hope that you're not misinterpreting his teasing.

“Yeah. More.”

Letting go of your hand in order to bring one arm around your waist and pull you closer, your own come to rest against his lapels as he dips his head down.

“I think I'd like more,” He whispers.

You swallow as his gaze slips to your mouth, sinking in his embrace as his lips brush against yours, so soft and brief it barely registers,

Moving back to put a bit of room between the two of you, his thumb brushes over the corner of your mouth as you pout sadly.

“You can have another one once you've finished tonight. Maybe. Or maybe you'll have to wait until after our date tomorrow.”

You frown. “Tomorrow?”

“Yep. If you're free?”

“Always.” Repeating his earlier phrase with a sly smile, you turn around to continue along the track, leaving him speechless for a second before he rushes to fall into step.

His arm slides through yours. “So, is it okay to wait for you tonight?”

“You've just kissed me and you're still asking that?”

“I'm just checking.” When you don't answer he presses, “Is it? I don't want to impose.”

'Too late for my heart', you think but don't say, not wanting to scare him off, instead nodding in reply and leaning into his side as you wind your way through the woodland path. The fear you had felt this morning at potentially having to say goodbye to Bucky feels like a distant memory, and as you watch the sunlight dance across his hair you realise you could never have let today be the last. You started this job reluctantly and now, instead of Peter owing you for the favour, it seems you owe him.

Peter doesn't needs to know just yet, you decide.

That usually particularly muddy part of the path has become even muddier after the overnight rain, and this time you allow him to pick you up in his arms and carry you across, feeling its finally appropriate now your relationship has changed. Setting you down on the other side, he presses a kiss to your forehead almost absent-mindedly, and your tummy does a flip as you take a second or two to admire his profile.

You sigh happily. So much for not becoming a cliché.

*****

Thank you for reading!! Masterlist

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky imagine #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fanfiction #buckybabybaby

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emojiturtledaily · 3 years

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Day 100 Blog Post

Hi guys! Wow it's day 100 already? I am honestly surprised that I was able make it this far. It is really thanks to all of you and your enthusiasm that has encouraged me to maintain this space.

Under the cut is a bit of a Q&A and other general notes I wanted to put out there

So what is the secret, hidden agenda to Emojiturtledaily?

I made this blog about three months ago after discovering the Google Emoji Kitchen on my phone. I was entranced with how many combinations existed and how silly some could be. As I worked my way through the emoji keyboard, I was absolutely smitten by the emoji turtle. I decided I wanted to share him with everyone, and started this blog.

I was delighted by how other people reacted and their cute comments in the tags. This encouraged me continue filling out the queue for posting. It also gave a me a goal: combine the turtle with every emoji, regardless of whether or not there's a pre-made one already. To ensure I separate the turtles I personally made from the others, I gave them the tag #handcrafted.

So how are things moving along?

As of a couple weeks ago, I have all of the pre-made emojis in the queue. It currently stretches for about another three months. As you may have noticed, I try to post handcrafted turtles at least once every five days, sometimes with bonuses thrown in. I hope to soon start posting handcrafted turtles around every-other day, and eventually they will likely be the daily post.

What will happen when you run out?

I am not completely sure yet. If there is still an active interest in this blog by then, I have a couple ideas. I might start going through posts and reblogging them with a small commentary added. I may also start making combinations using the designs of other emoji keyboards. I also could start focusing on triple combinations, which would make the possibilities almost limitless.

Submissions and requests

As you probably noticed by now, I accept requests and submissions. I post submissions from the week on Saturdays, usually at 4:00pm CST. If I actually get multiple in a week, they will be spaced 30-60 minutes apart. I also edit the description and tags to match the blog's format, but work with the creator to make sure their intent is accomplished.

I generally accept all requests, but I really just use them as inspiration more than a must-do. If I like someone's request, and immediately have an idea on how to execute it, I tend to post it same-day or schedule it for the next handcrafted day. If I'm unsure on how to proceed with something, I screenshot the message and mull it over. If someone requests a pre-made turtle, I generally show them what it looks like and ask if they want an alternate version. As a side note, if you want to request a turtle monthly and ensure I make it, a section further down may interest you.

Charities

In the past, if someone asked if I took donations, I would decline since the majority of the blog was just a curation of pre-made turtles, and link a few charities/foundations they could donate to instead. Here those are below, I am sure they would appreciate your support:

https://seaturtles.org/

Through personal experience and/or research, these appear to be trustworthy organizations focused on doing good. If I misjudged any of them, please let me know.

Support

Since this blog is trending towards containing at least half of my own creations, and my financial situation recently changed, I have created a Ko-Fi and Patreon. These sites are not only for turtle emojis, they are to also encompass all of my creative pursuits. My Patreon does have a Turtle Blog specific tier, if you are interested.

Art Blog

If you would like to see the other things I have made, my art blog is @caelscrafts. In the past I hadn't been consistent with posting things I work on, and hopefully starting fresh with that blog will help. I currently have projects I finished over the last few years queued on it.

Thank you all for your support, and I look forward to the next 100 days of turtles!

#blog post #not a turtle #patreon #ko fi link #about

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supportivespaceforsurvivors · 3 years

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An explanation of recent events

Hi all. I am posting a timeline of the recent events that have ended up with me inviting some of the mods I trust from @advicetotraumasurvivors to this blog. It is incomplete; as of this posting (4pm CST, August 23, 2021), nobody has admitted any wrongdoing, but I know a lot of you aren't really sure what happened at all. I apologize in advance for the verb tense shift midway through. I unfortunately don't have the spoons to edit it.

Hayden does not plan to stay with the blog. Olive plans to stay at least for now. I will likely stay. I'm not sure about Henrie or Berry at the moment. Those are the only mods that currently have access to this blog. (Edit from Mod Henrie: I’ll be staying.)

The timeline will be under the cut as it is fairly long. All times are in Central Standard Time.

Around 5:30pm CST last night, April messaged the Discord telling us she was leaving the blog. She left both the Discord and the blog shortly thereafter. We got some anons asking about why she'd left and I directed those towards her @traumasurvivors blog because I didn't feel comfortable trying to speak for her, One of them felt my answers was dismissive. That anon ended up being a mod in the Discord who was triggered by my tone. We received more asks from them, one passive-aggressive and one outright guilt-trippy.

At 7:30pm CST Henrie made an announcement that everyone who participates in the blog is a volunteer. Several mods offered in the Discord to mediate since the mod who was upset didn't feel comfortable addressing the issue with me directly.

Around 9:00pm CST we started getting some positive messages to the blog. I started to think maybe the situation had blown over. I tried to answer one of the positive anons. Tumblr gave me an error code.

We discovered the upset mod had deleted all of our inbox messages.

At 9:30pm CST Berry noticed posts were disappearing from our blog. I had noticed some weren't showing up for me, but because Tumblr is a Hellsite I figured they were there and it was just a glitch. Even the pinned post got deleted.

I panicked and asked what if the Carrd got deleted. Unfortunately, whoever the mod was, saw that and changed the email and password to the Carrd.

At 9:36pm I started adding Henrie, Hayden, Berry, and Olive to this side blog. This ended up taking several hours because we were all disoriented and triggered pretty badly by then.

At 9:45 pm I noticed they deleted my mod tag. We kept trying to encourage them to stop. Henrie reblogged all the asks that were still there to their personal in case they got deleted.

At 9:55pm I left the server and asked Berry to invite me to the new one they said they'd make so the handful of us could discuss the situation while feeling a bit more safe. There's a gap of about 20 minutes in the timeline here but I'm not sure anything super important happened during it.

Olive rescues most of the info from the Carrd by 10:21pm. April offers to transcribe the pinned post that I managed to screenshot on my phone.

Hayden makes a post around this time saying we've moved URLs. The upset mod deletes it.

I ask April if she will write down the URLs of all of our followers on advicetotraumasurvivors and send asks to them one by one to let them know what's going on. An extremely inefficient method, but at this point I'm at a loss. Henrie starts sending the asks to our followers. April finishes transcribing the pinned post at about 10:30.

At this point I have taken my sleep med and am losing reading comprehension rapidly. I say I'm going to bed but end up not sleeping until something like 4am.

At 10:31 Olive discovers that the upset mod has password-protected the blog. Henrie copy pastes the only ask in the inbox. It came in after the others were deleted.

At 11pm Olive announces she has a download/export of the blog in progress to hopefully preserve some of the posts and information on it. I ask April to boost the new URL. Henrie asks Tumblr's customer service system about uploading the file to the new blog.

At 11:10 Berry notices the queue is being messed with. Several mods go back and forth with the saboteur mod changing how often the queue posts. I suggest that we reblog ask games to the new blog so people can get to know us better once this all dies down.

At 11:21 Hayden announces the blog title has been changed to DON'T TALK TO US. A few minutes later Olive says some extremely tasteless tags are being added to queued posts, including the r slur and the n word. We won't go to any more detail about any of the other things that were said because they were extremely triggering, but we are deeply sorry to any followers (and mods) that may have seen those tags.

11: 38pm: Henrie makes posts on both blogs saying it's not us typing these awful things and to block advicetotraumasurvivors.

11:40pm: We decide to delete all the posts on the blog and the whole queue. April starts mass deleting.

11:53pm: I screenshot all the asks in the drafts. We delete all the drafts. The upset mod continues to change the blog title to triggering and inflammatory things.

1am today (Monday): Henrie asks if it's okay to announce to the original server that we moved discords and blogs. I ask if we can avoid adding people to the new discord until we know who the mod is that's upset. We eventually agree to hold off on adding people into the new discord.

2:44am: April gets an anon apologizing for their poor/inflammatory actions on her traumasurvivors blog and posts a response separate from the ask. We wait, hoping that the anon will message April.

3am: We get a similar apology on the new blog. It gets screenshotted and sent the new Discord so everyone can see it. I delete the ask from the inbox with everyone's permission because it feels very guilt trippy to me.

3:23 April gets more anons blaming her for the situation spiraling out of control, presumably from the upset mod.

12:22pm: April has more anons when we all wake up. All of us in the new server agree that we're tired and just want the situation resolved. No one comes forward.

Edit from mod Henrie: This is a timeline of all of the “major events”, but it doesn’t convey how frantic we all were. We were all feverishly working on deleting triggering tags/deleting posts/trying to find out who was doing this/etc. in between each of these times. It was chaotic and messy and incredibly exhausting for everyone involved.

#ssfs.txt

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sylvie-writes · 3 years

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Jersey #18

pairing: Steve Rogers x reader (ft. Bucky, Sam, Nat, and Wanda)

request: I know your requests are closed but I had an idea for a Steve Rogers au where he is in high school and his best friends bucky and Sam are trying to set him up with their girlfriends friend? It would be post serum Steve but like he never had the serum (like puberty was just very kind to him, not that he isn’t everything and more without the serum, just wouldn’t make sense for him to be a football star as pre serum Steve ya know?) and reader is a cheerleader but is also shy. Anywho the day of the homecoming game cheerleaders have to wear a football boys jersey and Nat wears Buckys because they’re obvi in love, Wanda wears Sams, and reader wears Steve’s and when they win the game she runs onto the field and hugs Steve and tells him she’s proud of him and they go to the dance together and they end up dancing to the song Rumor by Lee Brice? And end up admitting they have feeling for each other? ❤️❤️😭 if you could make this happen I would be ECSTATIC

a/n: Thank you for being patient with me. It took me longer to write this because I wanted it to be good. I’m trying to get my shit together at the moment lol. Hopefully you enjoy this because I loved the idea!

*I chose the number eighteen because Steve was born 1918 and I didn’t know of any other numbers that corresponded with him haha!

A weight had been lifted off your shoulders once the bell rang, freeing you and your classmates from your last bell class. All week long you had tried to rush the hours, longingly waiting for Friday to arrive as that was the day of the homecoming game. The minute the school bell rang, you threw your backpack on one shoulder, practically running out with your textbooks in hand.

As you lightly jogged down the hallway, you could spot Natasha’s cerise locks of hair vividly flying around as she animatedly spoke with Wanda, the two of them most likely awaiting your presence.

The walk from your last class to the lockers was like trekking from Timbuktu and back. Eventually, the familiar tone of Wanda sassing Natasha filled your ears and you giggled, hearing her tell the redhead as it is.

“Now now, ladies.”

You slowly twisted your dial lock, putting in the combination and then opening the creaky metal door to set down your textbooks. Nat leaned up against the locked to your right, Wanda to your left.

“For once, we weren’t actually arguing, (y/n/n)! We were talking about the homecoming game.”

Turning from your locker to face the woman, you raised an eyebrow at her, “Oh really?”

“Yeah, we were thinking about wearing the boys’ jerseys for tonight’s game.”

You smiled, happy for them both, not fully understanding their words. Continuing to listen, you faced your locker once more, going to round up the things for this weekend. In your hand, you held your planner, looking over all of the upcoming assignments and strategically picking which ones to accomplish this weekend.

A sound of feet shuffling sounded louder and louder in the hallway, getting closer to you and the girls. You heard the sounds stop, and a voice replaced the noise.

“Hey babydoll, we got the things you asked for.”

Curious, you turned to your right to see Bucky with his arms wrapped around Natasha’s waist as his lips were glued to behind her ear. Your friend tried to function somewhat normally as her boyfriend continued to shower her in affection.

“This is for you.”

Turning once more, you now saw Sam handing Wanda a jersey as she sheepishly smiled, listening to the man drop some cheesy pick up lines. You looked to your left and right, smiling at your friends' happiness. Suddenly you felt a hand caressing your shoulder, causing you to turn towards the one direction you hadn’t. Behind.

The tall and sweet blonde man you had dreamed about since middle school kindly smiled at you, a jersey in his large hands. Your eyes went wide as you realized the girls had managed to rope you into this too.

“Hi to you too, (y/n).”

Steve chuckled and you then registered that he must’ve seen your startled expression. Feeling a bit awkward, you laughed with the man, shaking off the embarrassment.

“Hi Steve, is that for me I assume?”

The tables had now turned and Steve had been staring at you for a few seconds so far, a bright smile on his face, words struggling to leave his mouth. You giggled at his sweet little mistake.

“Oh! Uh yes!”

His face shuffled through three shades of vermilion, his cheeks most likely toasty as his blushed ears said so. Steve’s lips contorted into that million dollar smile, pearly whites twinkling at you. Unfolding the jersey, Steve brought the shoulders of the jersey to your own, letting the shirt drape over your chest. “Looks great, babe!”

You bit your bottom lip at his playfulness, lightly slapping his chest.

“Oh hush, Rogers.”

The two of you were in your own little world, as your friends watched upon your interaction, unbeknownst to you both.

“I hate to break this up, but we have to get to practice, punk. Gotta be in tip top shape, ya know?”

Bucky quickly kissed Nat goodbye, Sam doing the same with Wanda, leaving you and Steve to awkwardly wave at each other. Once the boys had left, your two best friends hounded you like detectives, not allowing you to leave until you answered each and every question. It was no secret that you harbored feelings for Steve, and vice versa, yet both of you were too petrified to make the first move. Honestly, you felt somewhat insecure, as the girls who wanted to date Steve made up a queue line longer than the Great Wall of China. There were so many options, and he chose you? Apparently it made sense to everyone else except for yourself.

‘Lovey-dovey’ feelings aside, Steve was a great guy, who you considered one of your close friends. Since middle school, you had known Nat, Wanda, Bucky, Sam, and Steve. You six had always been close, and sports brought you all even closer. First, Bucky and Nat got together, then Sam and Wanda, now the four have spent the past year trying to set you and Steve up, which you do kind of enjoy, but of course you don’t let them know that.

When you had finally satiated Wanda and Nat’s dying need to know every detail of your five minute interaction with Steve, you three went to go find the rest of the team and work on some cheers. Time ticked on and soon four hours became three...two...one.

With an hour until the game began, Natasha, who was cheer captain, frantically ran around, checking up on the team members as you all added finishing touches to your makeup and hair. You sat in front of the vanity, carefully watching Nat getting chastised by Wanda. Her hands hastily flew as she talked, probably scolding Natasha for worrying about everyone else and not even being ready herself. Time was ticking away, so you and Wanda helped the woman get ready. When finished the three of you looked into the mirror to see your reflections smiling back, large jerseys half-tucked into your cheer skorts.

Needless to say, the first three quarters of the game were intense leaving not only you, but the audience on edge. A few offenses left you grimacing, but the boys picked themselves up and kept going. For a majority of the game, you and the girls stayed on the sidelines, expertly performing cheers that were prepared by Natasha. At halftime, you all came onto the field and executed more advanced tricks and such.

Now here you all were, last quarter of the game. So far, your school only needed one more winning play to win the game and keep the team’s winning streak. You gripped your pom poms tightly as you watched Steve briskly run down the field, football tucked in his arm, making your heart race increase a bit. It was then that you realized that you have really cared for Steve as you were constantly worrying about him out on the field.

Too busy daydreaming, you hadn’t even noticed that the game had ended until the crowd started cheering. Immediately, you saw the guys standing in the field waving at the sea of screaming people who excitedly waved their foam fingers and signs. Football was a huge thing in your town, especially with your high school having been the reigning champs.

You looked to your side to notice Natasha and Wanda missing and now running towards the guys. With confidence, you dropped your pom poms and ran towards them all. Steve caught sight of you and with a bright smile, held out his arms. Catching your figure, he laughed and spun you around.

Steve set you down, but not letting go and still in fact holding you close to him. He continued to smile down on you while you gazed up at him.

“Congratulations, Cap.”

You teasingly called the man by his nickname, gently running your fingers through his sweaty helmet hair as a few strands had fallen forward.

Cheeky grin, the man replied, “Well thank you. Couldn’t have done it without you and your girls.”

You gave the man a tight hug and he chuckled.

“Hey, I was thinking that maybe if you were free, would you like to go with me to homecoming dance tomorrow?”

He looked ready to apologize for what he thought was being forward when you happily smiled at him.

“I’d be honored. See you at seven, Steve Rogers.” Giving the man a quick kiss on the cheek, you ran back across the field with the girls who were leaving.

Exactly seven o’clock on the dot you heard a loud knock on the front door. Running down the stairs, sparkly stiletto heels in hand. Last night when you had told Nat and Wanda that Steve asked you to homecoming, they practically threw you into the car and drove to the mall as if all of the dresses might disappear overnight. The three of you decided on a red high low dress, one of Steve’s favorite colors which you had learned from Bucky. Next, Wanda picked out said stilettos and you were ready for homecoming dance. That night you were so excited that you could barely sleep, and now the time had finally come.

Containing your excited squeals, you threw open the door to see Steve with his jaw dropped as he shamelessly eyed you over.

“(y/n), you look absolutely stunning. Not that you don’t always but-”

Before the man could stumble over his words anymore, you placed a soft finger against his lips, shushing him. Steve hurriedly nodded and mumbled out a “yes ma'am,” then holding out an arm for you to link onto.

Time passed quicker than before as you and Steve talked a mile a minute in the car. Before you knew it, you and Steve had arrived at the venue and you could already see Nat and Bucky along with Wanda and Sam as they all looked absolutely picture perfect.

Once Steve helped you out of the car, he again offered an arm that you gladly took. Snuggling into his side a bit, you felt so comfortable with Steve and it was honestly the best feeling in the world.

The six of you spent some time tasting the fancy horderves and of course used the photo props provided. It was something that would make an amazing memory for the future.

Eventually, the lights started to go dim and some soft notes came through the speakers. Nat and Bucky had already left for the dance floor with Sam and Wanda trailing behind.

Steve jokingly wiggled his raised eyebrow, holding a hand out for you. “Madam?”

Placing your much smaller hand in his, the man pulled you close and onto the dance floor.

There's a rumor going 'round, ha, about me and you Stirring up our little town the last week or two Oh, tell me why we even trying to deny this feeling I feel it and you feel it too

Steve’s hand supported your lower back as you wrapped your arms around his neck, relishing in this first dance with the man. You laid your head on his shoulder, and with a smile and closed eyes, followed his slow swaying.

The song continued to echo in the room and it neared to an end quicker than you had imagined.

There's a rumor going 'round, and 'round, and 'round What d'you say we make it Make it true What d'you say we make it true, yeah?

Just as the song came to the final verse, you lifted your head from Steve’s chest. He placed a delicate kiss on the top of your head prompting you to look up at him. With your eyes, the two of you silently asked for permission from the other. Slowly, you leaned into Steve’s lips as he pushed back gently. Both you and Steve were in your own little blissful world, ignoring your friends’ whistling and clapping. You heard a bit of their commotion and giggled against Steve’s lips. His lips turned into a smile and the two of you kissed once more, this time smiling like lovesick idiots.

10 years later

You were sitting on the arm of the sofa, Steve’s broad arm safely wrapped around your waist. Looking across, you smiled while listening to Sam and Wanda tell their own rendition of homecoming night. As they finished, you looked down to the floor where Nat and Bucky were sitting, then disputing your other friends’ version and telling their own. Steve chuckled and waved a hand, “You guys did not set (y/n) and I up,” your husband rolled his eyes in faux annoyance.

Steve then looked up to you and tenderly squeezed your side, “We did that all on our own. Right, honey?”

You nodded and placed a peck on his lips. Suddenly a high pitched squeal sounded and you looked back down to the floor seeing your daughter pointing to the picture of you and Steve kissing on the dance floor.

Tonight was the anniversary of your homecoming and you and Steve thought it would be fun to have your friends over to remember the night. Over the years, Nat and Bucky, and Wanda and Sam have stayed in touch, and quite frankly, they have become your family. Your daughter was currently flipping through the album from your homecoming night. Peering over her shoulder were two kids, Wanda and Sam’s son, and Bucky and Nat’s daughter. The three of them giggled and babbled amongst themselves. Bucky scooted closer to the kids, telling them about each picture they pointed to. You blissfully sighed, a small smile on your lips as you looked over your family. Steve noticed your loving gaze and ran his thumb along your side.

“We did it, babe.”

Taking his face in your hand, you kissed his forehead.

“We really did.”

a/n: I apologize for any mistakes, I may have been too lazy to proofread heh heh...

taglist: @memissbee @tricereads @buckybarnesthehotshot @bval-1 @tonystankschild @just-one-ordinary-fangirl @turtoix @kelbabyblue @jakiki94 @calirindo @aubreeskailynn @lady-elena-adeline

If I’ve messed up the taglist somehow, let me know!

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers high school au #steve rogers x y/n #Bucky Barnes #sam wilson #natasha romanoff #wanda maximoff

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emilia3546 · 3 years

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Shadowsinger Part 6 - Gwynriel

ACOSF Spoilers! Do Not read this unless you have finished ACOSF and the Azriel bonus chapter

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

*****

Azriel was still asleep when she opened her eyes, his hair falling over his eyes as his head dropped onto the back of the chair, had he slept there all night? She couldn't think how he actually managed to fall asleep in a chair of all places. He opened his eyes as she sat up,

"Morning, sleepyhead," she laughed, and he yawned,

"Morni-" and yawned again, setting Gwyn laughing again,

"C'mere, you're hair's all messy." She leaned towards him, quickly tiding it up, brushing it backwards through her fingers, not quite registering how still he had gone until she had finished and sat back, "There we go, that's better,"

"Thank you," he said, his voice much lower than usual, still with notes of sleep in it, she had never noticed it before, and she had to force herself to get up normally, and wash her face, without thinking about that voice. She stared into the mirror for a few moments, mentally preparing herself to face him again, "Gwyn, I'm gonna go and get dressed, I'll see you at breakfast."

"Okay," she shouted back, shit. How was the sound of his voice slowly shredding her self-control? It was just the change in his voice, nothing else, it couldn't be anything else she told herself. She was foolish to even consider it.

Apparently, Cassian and Nesta hadn't emerged yet, so it was just Gwyn and Azriel at the dining table that morning, forcing Gwyn to try to control her thoughts, to push any thoughts of him aside and focus on her food. She hated the silence, it felt wrong, unnatural, and she sighed, anything to break the stillness around them. Even that small sound seemed to wake Azriel,

"Gwyn," she looked up, startled, and smiled, "I just wanted to talk to you about what's going on in Illyria." Oh, she'd forgotten to ask Nesta,

"Okay,"

"I don't know how much Nesta's already told you,"

"I haven't had a chance to ask her yet, so very little."

"Okay, well, the bottom line is that there are those among the Illyrians who hate the changes Rhys has been implementing. Banning wing-clipping, and enforcing it, forcing them to train females, and putting systems in place for those who want help, so they can contact us easily, without their families knowing." Gwyn nodded, good, she'd heard about wing-clipping, seen what had happened to Emerie, it was about time it was finally gotten rid of, completely.

"Okay, so, some of them don't like it, then,"

"No, there are some who have been attempting to ignore the laws, and have failed," he added, seeing her worry, "And then there are those who are restless, hating that they fall under Rhys' jurisdiction. They want an independent Illyria, and freedom to treat their females how they wish." Gwyn gasped,

"They wouldn't survive on their own, right? They don't have a unified leader, anyone who wanted would be able to invade easily, and their army is paid by Rhysand, they couldn't afford it otherwise."

"Exactly, that's why the wannabe rebels are a minority, but they are there. I promised you no secrets, it's no good trying to protect you from this. There's nothing that could happen in Velaris though, any potential fighting will be in Illyria."

"You're going to fight?" He'd only come back from another war a year ago, and she couldn't face the thought of him, of any of them, on a battlefield.

"Maybe. Hopefully it won't come to that. Hopefully, the loyal Illyrians will be able to stop a full rebellion before it starts. Most of them do support Rhys' new laws, but the minority are very vocal."

"You need to know who is stirring up violence then. And where, and how many, and how strong they are."

"Y-yeah, exactly, have you been reading about this?"

"No, why?"

"Never mind, it's just, you seem to know exactly what to look for, and at dinner last night, you were paying attention to everyone."

"I was just trying to work out what to talk about, I doubt I'd remember it."

"Oh, really, who was complaining, quietly I might add, about the wine running out?"

"Mor."

"Yeah, and what did Rhys say?"

"That it served her right for drinking all his best wine." Azriel raised an eyebrow,

"And Feyre?"

"Laughed at both of them, and called Rhysand a pretentious prick."

"So you don't remember anything?" Gwyn laughed,

"I don't know."

"You instincts are spot-on. It takes months of training for some of my spies to learn to listen to a room like that," he mused,

"Then train me."

"What?"

"Train me. To be a spy, maybe I can help with Illyria."

"Absolutely not, you've not even trained to fight for that long, I'm not letting you anywhere near rebellious Illyrians."

"That's stupid, Az. Train me to help, or at least to listen, I visit Emerie at Windhaven quite often, so I can at least help you get a picture of what it's like there, if nowhere else. Please, I want to be helpful, I'm done being useless."

"You've never been useless, Gwyn, and I will train you, but only so that you have an extra skill set to defend yourself, not so you can go and spy in Illyria." Gwyn huffed,

"Az. You're being stupid, stop trying to keep me safe, train me, and then let me use those skills."

*****

Gwyn was glaring at him, annoyance glimmering in her eyes, he was being stupid, but some part of him couldn't bear the thought of her in danger. She kept her gaze on him as she finished eating, giving him a chance to think,

"I won't say yes," Gwyn shot him another exasperated look, "But," he continued, "You can be a last resort, only if my usual spies can't get in, or can't find anything, then you can go." She narrowed her eyes, considering, and nodded,

"Perhaps Em has heard something, we should ask her today." Azriel nodded, and quickly tidied up their plates,

"You wanna help set up for training?" He grinned, "Should be fun today," Gwyn sat bolt upright,

"Oh no, no, I know that look, you're going to be mean, is there an obstacle course of something?"

"You'll have to come if you want to find out," he slipped out of the room, chuckling as she swore and scrambled out of her chair to follow him. Gwyn's eyes widened at the sight of the course he and Cassian had secretly set up last night before dinner,

"What is it?" She breathed, pretending to be nervous of it, but Azriel noticed how she was shifting her weight from foot to foot, how her voice raised in pitch slightly, she wasn't scared. She was excited,

"It's sort of an obstacle course, but this one simulates enemies, so Cass and I can both watch you fight, without one of us having to be the opponent. And, as a bonus, the second half is brilliant for silent movement training, which is what we'll work up to if you want lessons from me." Gwyn nodded gleefully, and Azriel chuckled at her excitement, "There's only a few things I need to get set up now, the moving parts and stuff. If you like, you can get the weapons racks out and ready while I do that."

As expected, Gwyn was right at the front of the queue to tackle the course, with Nesta and Emerie right behind her, she was bouncing on her toes, waiting, waiting,

"Go!" Cassian's shout spurred her into action, and she leaped over the wall obscuring the course from her view, immediately ducking the padded bar swinging towards her head. She kept light on her feet as she ducked and weaved between moving obstacles, one wrong step and she'd be sent flying. Gwyn kept her focus on one obstacle at a time, facing one, and moving to the next, she rolled sideways, and leaped onto a wall to avoid the final bar, and it slammed into the wood next to her. She gasped, and glared at Azriel, but he chuckled, it wouldn't have really hurt her if she hadn't moved, just left a bruise perhaps, but the near-miss spurred her on, and she sprinted for the next obstacle, but her undivided focus left her exposed for the first 'enemy' to knock her feet out from underneath her. Gwyn gasped and rolled, and Nesta craned her neck to try to see at the sound, glaring at Cassian, and mouthed something at him,

"She says that if Gwyn's hurt, she'll kill us both," Cassian whispered, and Azriel snorted,

"She can try," Gwyn had rolled forwards, her hands automatically raising into her guard, and she easily blocked the next blow from the padded gloves,

"Wait! Az, how do I win?" She shouted when she ducked past and landed a blow, but barely ducked the backhanded counter-strike,

"You run, Gwyn. Run!" He shouted, "You have to beat the obstacles whilst avoiding your enemies, try not to activate the rest of them," Gwyn shot him a look before taking off, and made it past the next obstacle, before another 'enemy' activated, and she was trapped between the two of them. Azriel deactivated them with a quick command to his shadows before they could hurt her, but she was still stuck,

"Azriel!" She shouted, "Make them move, you idiot!" He didn't respond, and just chuckled at her annoyance, "Azriel!" She snapped again, and he reset the course, offering her a hand over the fence to the training ring, and chuckled when she slapped it aside, climbing over herself,

"Not bad for a first try. But, you've got to be aware of your surroundings a bit more, focus on the obstacle, but be aware of the rest of them, both of those enemies were avoidable, in fact, all of them are. When I tested this yesterday, I didn't set any off, Cass set off a few, but you should be able to avoid all of them. You're smaller than us, more agile, use that to your advantage." Gwyn nodded, and grinned when he marked her place, "Beat that next time."

Nesta came within spitting distance of Gwyn's record, a sprained ankle as she underestimated the distance of a jump sending her sprawling to the floor. She was still leaning against Cassian as he fussed whilst Emerie ran the course, only losing when a wing clipped an obstacle, knocking her off balance. She swore, but scrambled over the fence to join her sisters to watch the other females.

"Make sure you cool off, ladies," Azriel called, "Gwyn, you're with me," he stepped aside to a quiet corner of the ring. "First off, I want you to learn to move silently, it should be easy here, there's no stones to move, or creaky floorboards. Go and stand by the wall, and try to reach me without my hearing you."

"Your shadows-"

"They won't betray you, I honestly think they'd rather betray me than you," Gwyn snorted, "Make sure you place your feet carefully, and move slower than you think you need to." Gwyn nodded and Azriel turned his back, waiting for her footsteps to halt as she reached the wall. Ten meters. That was all she needed to cross. She took a deep breath, and fell silent, but after what must have been only a few steps, she rushed, placing a foot too quickly, and Azriel whirled, "Start again, you rushed, move slowly," Gwyn alerted him quickly three more times, groaning in exasperation each time he sent her back to the start, but gradually she started getting closer, only her excitement getting the better of her. She was one step away from him when she scuffed the ground,

"No!" she hissed when Azriel turned to face her, "I can do it, I can."

"I know you can, don't celebrate too early, that's the only issue." Gwyn sighed, and started again, this time remaining silent until she poked him in the shoulder and let out a whoop of delight, grinning at him, and he laughed. She was shining, and his heart leapt with her, his shadows too, her joy becoming his own, and she practically bounced up to him and beamed up at him. There was just something about her, her mere presence lifted his worries, and let his shadows roam, not constrained, but freed. She didn't chase them off as Elain had, or even Mor, she made them sing. He blinked, and realized he'd been staring, so coughed, and forced himself to look away, "Grab a sword, practice your basic movements silently."

Gwyn picked everything up remarkably quickly, it had only taken her half an hour to reach him, and now she was already adapting that technique to the swordplay, even moving the sword silently through the air. Azriel had begun coaching her through it, but now he too fell silent, just watching her, only occasionally offering pointers, and stopped her when he noticed her swings slowing down, her breathing speeding up,

"Go jog a lap, then stretch off, that's enough for today." Azriel stayed to watch, making sure she cooled off completely before leaving her to bathe and change, he should have reports to read from all his spies by now anyway, and Rhys would want an overview this evening.

*****

Gwyn toweled her hair off, and for the first time since she could remember, she had no work to do, Merrill hadn't sent her any messages, any demands more like, and she didn't feel like just sitting and reading on her own. She grabbed her book off her nightstand, and went to find Nesta, but made a face when she heard suspect noises from her friend's room, turning on her heel and heading back the way she had come. She still didn't want to be alone, so she knocked on Azriel's door, and pushed it open at the grunt from inside,

"Can I sit with you, Nesta is, uh, y'know, and I don't want to be on my own. I won't disturb you," she added, noticing the paperwork on his desk, and he smiled,

"Of course, it's just reports to go through,"

"Anything interesting?"

"No. Not yet, but I've only read through a couple, hopefully someone will have something." Gwyn nodded, and settled into an armchair to read. They fell into a comfortable silence, each reading their own material, at ease in each other's company.

As time wore on, Azriel's brows scrunched together, and he narrowed his eyes, even his shadows seemed agitated as they flitted between the two of them. Gwyn set her book aside, and crossed to his side, gently resting a hand on his shoulder,

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing important," he offered her a small smile, "Don't worry," Gwyn squeezed his shoulder softly,

"Az, what is it? Even if I can't help, let me take some of the burden. I won't pretend to know what your job's like, but please, let me help however I can."

"You are helping, by being here, by being safe, you're helping. I have so many people to worry about," he raised the papers, "I can't easily protect them, but you, and the rest of you here, I can keep you safe here. That burden lessens when you're all here." Gwyn softly cleared a spot on the desk, tiding the unusually messy papers, and sat in front of him,

"Did something go wrong?"

"No, I'm just worried it might, honestly, Gwyn, I'm fine." Gwyn narrowed her eyes disbelievingly but before she had a chance to respond, Azriel pushed his chair backwards, and made for the door, "I need to clear my head a bit, I'll be back in a bit."

"Oh, okay," of course he didn't want her help, she was probably just a nuisance, she couldn't possibly understand the stresses he faced on a daily basis. If he needed help he'd ask Cassian, she should leave him alone. But, even as she allowed him time, something made her feet move, made her climb the stairs to the roof.

The stars were beautiful, shining together, and she relaxed at the familiar sight, counting the stars as she had since she was a little girl. She stopped moving at the sight of another figure sitting on the edge of the roof, hunched over, his knees drawn up to his chest, with his great,beautiful wings drooping behind him. Gwyn made her presence known as she crossed the roof and sat beside him,

"Az," she whispered, and put an arm around his shoulders, "Please. Talk to me." he shook his head, staring into the distance still, even as a wing shifted closer to her, "What's wrong?" He just turned to face her, his beautiful face filled with despair, his eyes, usually so full of life were dimmed, empty. Gwyn moved before she knew what she was doing, cupping his face in her hand, and he leaned into the touch, "What happened?" She breathed,

"Nothing. That's the problem. Nothing. I can't even do my job." He broke off and turned away, but Gwyn turned him back,

"Talk to me."

"Rhys has a meeting with all the Camp Lords tomorrow, it could be the make or break moment for the rebellion. I was supposed to get information, who tries to fight his new laws, who wants to fight back, you know. I have nothing. He's going in blind. It's my fault, I failed him. Again." Tears pricked Gwyn's eyes at the despair in his voice, the self-loathing.

"You didn't fail anyone. You did everything you could."

"I could have gone in myself."

"To Illyria? They'd have clammed up completely at the slightest whiff that you were there. You have to trust your spies, and sometimes they won't find anything, and it isn't your fault."

"I couldn't even get them in to some camps."

"Again, they couldn't get in, not you. They work for you, but something that goes wrong on their end does not mean that you let anyone down. Sometimes things go wrong, and no-one is to blame."

"I can't keep letting him down."

"You don't keep letting him down. You could never let him down."

"I did. I wasn't with him when he went to that meeting. I could have stopped it." Gwyn knew the meeting he was talking about, "There was no-one to sniff his drink, if I had been there, she would never have been able to sink her claws into him." Gwyn just nestled into his side, letting him talk, "Fifty years, Gwyn. I failed to find a way to save him for fifty years! And then when he got back, I got injured at Hybern, I forced Feyre to go back to Spring. I am the reason that he almost lost his mate as soon as he found her. I should have known that the queens were after Feyre's sisters in the first place, but I failed them, too." Gwyn rubbed his shoulder, holding his gaze as he spoke, "I was too slow in the battle, he died because I couldn't help."

"No." Gwyn breathed, “He died to heal the Cauldron, you couldn't have done anything.”

"Yes, I could. I was with Helion, his specialty is spellwork. If I'd gotten him there faster, they could have worked together."

"You got him there fast enough to revive him."

"But without Feyre, we never would have had the chance. I can't risk something happening again, for all I know, they might all attack him at the meeting. He'd be fine, but still, I should know if there's a plan like that." Azriel finally stopped for a breath, his gaze returning a little, actually looking at her, not just seeing.

"Az, you have done everything and more that anyone could possibly expect. Plan for what might happen, with what you have, but we can't use what we don't have, so don't beat yourself up about it. Please." It broke her, seeing him like this, miserable, thinking he didn't deserve everything he had built for himself. She couldn't bear the thought of him suffering, alone, thinking that he'd failed those he loved most. Before she could reconsider, she was singing, singing the only song she knew would help him, his mother's lullaby,

Arrorró mi niño

Arrorró mi sol

Duérmase pedazo

De mi corazón

Cierre los ojitos

Ya se va a dormir

Que el pícaro sueño

No quiere venir.

Azriel's gaze remained on her as she sang, his breathing becoming more regular, until his shadows began to dance. She was still leaning against his side when the song finished, and she started again, tears pricking her eyes when he joined in, no hint of the misery left in his voice, just hope.

"Let's get to bed, it's late," she whispered, and Azriel didn't complain as she led him back to his room, but when she turned to leave, she couldn't. He needed her now. She perched on the bed beside him, setting a pillow against the wall, and sang again, stroking his hair as he drifted off to sleep, his head in her lap.

*****

Azriel actually felt rested for the first time in far too long, his mind clear, focused, and he carefully lifted Gwyn into his arms. She snuggled into him as he carried her back to her own room, leaving her sleeping, safe in her own bed. He left her a note,

Gone with Rhys to the meeting, I'll be back this evening. Thank you.

He stole one last look at Gwyn's sleeping form before slipping away.

#fanfiction #fanfic #acotar #acosf #a court of thorns and roses #a court of silver flames #Azriel #azriel x gwyn #gwyn #gwyn acosf #gwynriel #gwyneth berdara

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years

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Taking a Break.

(Aug 24 to Sept 14/20)

So.

You may have guessed this was coming with my hinted responses to recent posts. I talked with a few Lovelies behind the scenes to help ease my fears about this decision. I’ve done a lot of reflective thinking for the past few weeks, and I’ve decided that when I have a three week break from work, I am also going to take advantage of that and take a three week break from here as well.

This is not something any of y’all did. Please do not think this. This is a “Steph hasn’t had time for herself since last summer” thing, a “Steph puts too much on her own shoulders because she doesn’t feel she deserves her own time” thing, a “Steph just needs a break” thing. And it’s been made even worse with C-19 because I’m NEVER off of the same computer nor couch. Before, I’d go to and from work, and blogging in the evenings was fun, because I didn’t do it during the day. Then on weekends, I’d answer asks and leave for the gym, spend a bit of my day running around, and come home, play again on Tumblr, and repeat.

Now, on work days, I literally wake up, spend 16 hours on my laptop, and then go to bed. Weekends, I FEEL obligated to be on Tumblr to help curate the community I love treasure so dearly, so ANOTHER day or so of my weekend is dedicated to making sure I have content for the following week to come, because HEY I can’t leave home anyway, MAY AS WELL.

My blog is nearly a full time job, one I volunteer my free time for (I have a Ko.fi, shameless segue). I spend about 30 hours a week answering asks, filing my posts, searching for stuff for people, collecting reblog threads and chains, and generally trying to keep a positive attitude because I know so many of y’all come here for safety, love, happiness, and escapism. And I do it ALL because I LOVE doing it. I love being a curator of fandom. I love having a blog that people know they can come and generally have a good time. I love all of my friends and lurkers and the people who help me make this blog an interactive one.

The problem is that with never leaving home, I am becoming emotionally drained, very depressed, and am slowly not enjoying doing this anymore. I DON’T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN. So after a lot of discussions with a few people and self reflection, I’ve decided I need Steph-Time™, and I need to FEEL like I’m not obligated to be here all the time, just like I needed time away from work. As I explained to my boss, I just need that time to not feel obligated to answer calls and Slack messages without feeling guilty about it. It’s different when I have a Work Computer and a Home Computer. My home computer is supposed to be Fun Stuff. Now it’s not, because work bothers me on my fun computer. He agreed, as did the Lovelies who I talked to behind the scenes.

I love you guys SO MUCH, and I love receiving the asks I get, but some days, a dozen asks daily becomes overwhelming and new fic lists and song recs become intimidating. I need a break. It’s taken me a lot to say that, because I am crying writing this because I feel so many people need me, and I genuinely don’t feel like I deserve a break ever, because there are people who come to me for comfort and need it more than I need a break.

But the ironic thing is that I can’t help anyone if I’m not taking care of myself. How fitting that my own advice to others comes back to slap me in the face, eh?

So, here’s what’s happening then, because I KNOW I can’t 100% stay away from here...

I am taking 3 weeks off from work starting August 24 until September 14. My “obligation break” from Tumblr will be during that time as well. I say “obligation” because Tumblr feels like I HAVE to do it. I don’t want that. I want to see what it’s like being you guys again, just taking in content, and coming on occasionally, post up shit photos of myself, LOL.

During said break, ALL ASKS AND SUBMISSIONS WILL BE TURNED OFF. I want to, IF I FEEL LIKE IT, take the time to answer some old asks. Essentially, I just want to do my blog because I feel like it, not because I NEED NEW CONTENT. Yeah, I think that’s what stresses me out, is because I’m TERRIFIED that y’all will leave me if I don’t keep producing new stuff, so I just.... never stop, and it’s draining me.

As an exception to the off-inbox rule, ASKS WILL BE TURNED ON ON AUGUST 27 ONLY. That is my birthday, and I know some people will want to send me well wishes. If you send me an un-related ask on that day, I probably won’t answer it unless it’s one of those ones I can answer quickly. But yeah, my birthday is on the 27, if anyone is interested in that sort of thing.

WEDNESDAY FIC LISTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED DURING THESE THREE WEEKS. Namely because I have exactly 4 lists ready to go, and I plan on using them for the this and the three subsequent Sundays.

Five Fics Friday is still on, as is Fic Rec Sunday. 5FF will probably be fave fics instead of new MFLs, so I’m sorry about that. The Sunday lists are already done and therefore not going to stress me out.

I’m not leaving completely. I’m still here, I just, like I said, need that obligation element removed from my brain. You guys have NO CLUE how guilty I feel every day when I have to choose one or another ask because of the quickness of one ask over another, or the fact that This Day was a Bad Day™ and I can’t answer advice asks in a bad headspace. I need that element removed to just the asks I’ve already got, and let myself answer them on my own time. Draft a slew of them to post when I return (I mean, y’all have been waiting months/years on some of my asks, what’s another three weeks, LOL), and head back with a clear head to better help you guys.

So LITERALLY, the only difference you guys will notice is the lack of NEW posts. My queue is full for the next MONTH, so literally you would not even know I was gone unless you tried to send me an ask or a DM.

Let’s be real here, guys, I’m not going to completely disconnect for 3 weeks. Y’all will be yelling at me to get off and go outside, LOL.

So what am I doing with my 3 weeks then? Updating my resumé, learn some new art skills, go for my Big Walks™ I haven’t been doing, play some video games, get my hair cut, maybe get my cat. Do and post up some of my art I’ve been meaning to finish. You know, stuff that not-losers do, LOL.

Anyway, unlike Mofftiss, please don’t give up on me after three (weeks) :D I just need a mental health check, is really all this is. I’m having a hard time disconnecting work from leisure and I need to do that again. <3

I will be back, I promise!! And hopefully better. <3

This is a very difficult decision for me, because I’ve been running this blog at full steam for about FIVE YEARS NON-STOP. All because I’m scared of hurting people. I hope you all understand.

I love you guys so much. <3

~Steph

#my blog #about me #steph takes a vacay #i'm just really drained you guys #i hope you understand #steph says 'obligated' a lot #long post

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lifeofkaze · 3 years

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When Stars Ignite - Chapter 8

HPHM Rockstar AU

A/N: Welcome back to Part 2 of the HPHM Rockstar AU! New location, new songs, new drama. Buckle up, we're going for a ride!

General Warning: This whole fic has a general warning of being NSFW / 18+. We will give specific warnings for every chapter in itself, but several adult themes will be more or less present in every chapter, may it be explicitly or in mention. These include sexual topics, drug abuse, (ab)use of alcohol, smoking and a whole lot of cursing.

Specific Warning: Language

~~~

Find the masterpost here, the previous chapter here and the next one here. The songs featured before every chapter can be found on this pretty badass playlist here.

~~~

This work is a collaboration with @the-al-chemist

Taglist: @slytherindisaster @night-rhea @carewyncromwell

You keep on saying you'll be mine for a while

You're looking fancy, and I like your style

You drive us wild, we'll drive you crazy

You keep on shouting, you keep on shouting

I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day

~ Kiss - Rock And Roll All Nite ~

Despite it being her third tour with Equinox now, Lizzie would probably never stop being amazed at the incredible machinery that stood behind every single one of their shows.

Now, two weeks after they had started out in London, their route had seen them through Bristol and on to Birmingham. All the familiar routines had established themselves again as if they hadn’t spent a whole month apart at all. Like cogs in a well tuned machine, everyone was working together in well established patterns to make each show unforgettable for those who came to see them play.

It didn’t matter whether one was part of the tech crew, the management, security or the band themselves; they were all like a big, chaotic but loveable family. Of course, Lizzie couldn’t deny that this time around there was considerably more tension to be felt backstage than she was used to, but fights were something happening even in the best of families; at least, that’s what she was telling herself.

Their soundcheck being over, Lizzie had just left the stage with Skye, waiting for the others to catch up. Even though the roof of the arena they were playing in tonight was still closed, Lizzie could feel a bead of sweat running down her spine.

It had been uncharacteristically hot for weeks now, very unusual for a British summer. Not that she was complaining, Lizzie typically loved everything about the hot weather; but the dampness that it brought with it made it almost unbearable to move, setting everyone’s nerves on edge. Hopefully it would just rain soon and be done with it; there was nothing better to clear the air than a good summer storm.

At least for them, however, the heat of the sun would soon be replaced by the spotlights burning down on them. Even after so many years of playing on stages of every size and format, Lizzie had trouble fighting the nervous feeling spreading from her stomach through her body. She was always the first one to enter the stage, the beat of her drums building up the mood until one after the other of her friends would enter and add their own instruments to the sound. As soon as she started playing she was in her element, every flare of nerves forgotten; but until then, she was stuck feeling like in free fall.

Lizzie reached into the pocket of her shorts, her fingers finding the familiar shape of the red plectrum she was always carrying with her. It had belonged to Orion before it had found its way into her possession; it was one of the plectrums he had used on the first tour they had ever played. Without thinking about it, she drew it out and let it wander through her fingers, a fun little trick Orion had taught her to help channel her focus when her stage fright was setting in.

“What’s that you got there, little rockstar?”

Charlie had finished his work on Merula’s keyboard and joined them at the stage entrance. Lizzie hadn’t noticed him approaching and jumped when he spoke, dropping the plectrum to the ground. Before she could pick it up again, Skye had gotten hold of it, turning it around between her fingers with a confused look.

“That looks familiar,” she mused, examining the colourful piece of plastic. “Is that one of our old plectrums?”

Lizzie tried snatching it from her hands but Skye quickly moved it out of her reach.

“No, it’s not, it’s just a lucky charm.”

She could tell Skye didn’t buy her explanation. “Why would you have one of these?”

Lizzie scowled at her friend as she tried in vain to reach Skye’s hand. “None of your business, Parkin. Give it back.”

Skye made an indignant sound as Charlie jumped to Lizzie’s aid; playing out his advantage in height, he unceremoniously plucked the plectrum from Skye’s fingers and handed it back to Lizzie with a wink. Giving him a grateful look, she let it disappear in the depths of her pockets.

“You’re a real spoilsport, Weasley,” Skye snorted.

“And you’re a nuisance,” Lizzie said in Charlie’s stead.

Charlie shook his head. “Hearing you two talk, I might just believe the rumours about your relationship.”

“I do have standards, you know,” Lizzie rolled her eyes, chuckling at Skye’s sound of protest.

Lizzie’s attention was drawn away from their bickering when she saw Orion and Everett were still standing on stage, engaged in a heated discussion. She stifled a sigh; Everett was still at odds with Orion’s decision to perform the new songs himself. There wasn’t one day he would spare them his complaints. Although Everett had always been a person with a temper, Lizzie couldn’t remember him ever being angry at one of them for so long.

Orion, however, wasn’t responding to Everett’s aggressive demeanour. Ever the calm and collected person, it took a lot more for him to lose his centre; Lizzie wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him anything but level-headed at all. And sure enough, even when Everett left him standing with a dismissive gesture, he only looked after him with a tired expression.

In contrast, Everett’s face was clearly showing his annoyance. He tried to hide it behind his usual sneer when he saw them looking, but the way his shoulders were tensed was speaking volumes. His posture only changed when he walked past where Artemis was still working on her explosives. She was bent deeply over the igniter she was wiring, so concentrated on her task she didn’t even notice Everett coming up behind her.

“A little lower, sweetheart. If you have to mess with our pyros, you might as well give us a proper show.”

Artemis straightened up with a face like thunder. “Go fuck yourself.”

Everett shrugged. “I don’t need to, I have plenty of people willing to do that for me. I can bump you up the queue if you like?”

Rolling her eyes, Artemis gathered up her things and moved to the other side of the stage, as far away from all of them as possible.

“Why can’t he just shut up for a second,” Charlie growled as they watched Everett strut off with a self-satisfied smirk. “I’m making no progress with her whatsoever. I’m still trying to convince her that we’re not all dickheads. Ev’s attitude is definitely not helping.

“Is it still so bad with her?” Lizzie wanted to know.

“Yeah,” Charlie admitted, “I don’t know how to get through to her. She’s a tough nut, that one.”

“Tell me about it,” Lizzie said. “I’ve never met anyone so determined to not be nice to anyone.”

“Surprised there’s people out there not wanting to be your friend?” Merula scoffed as she joined them.

“Actually, I am,” Lizzie said. “I even managed to convince you to be my friend, after all.”

“If you want to call us friends,” Merula snorted, but Lizzie knew she was teasing her.

She chuckled and turned to Charlie. “Do you have any idea why she’s so frosty?”

Charlie shrugged, looking as clueless as they came. “If only I knew. She’s giving me no chance to find out either, as soon as the work’s done, she’s off.”

“Sounds like she needs to get a few drinks in to loosen up,” Skye said. “Probably much easier to handle her then.”

Charlie looked at her incredulously. “You do realise how creepy that sounds, right?”

“Don’t be stupid, you know what I mean,” Skye rolled her eyes, “but seriously, who says no to a free drink and some good company?”

Charlie watched Artemis work her way through the remaining igniters. He didn’t seem convinced by Skye’s suggestion but shrugged anyway. “Might as well give it a shot at this point, but if she bites me, I’ll hold you accountable.”

***

Just like the weather forecast had promised, the temperatures hadn’t dropped one bit until it was time to enter the stage. And even if a cooling breeze would be blowing outside, it would stand no chance of reaching the fired up masses filling up the arena.

Lizzie wasn’t sure where it was warmer, down between the thousands of people singing along to their music, or up with them on stage where the heat of the spotlights made her wish for a cold shower.

They were already halfway through the setlist and as always, time seemed to be racing by.

Their fans were fantastic tonight as well; the arena was sold out up to the last seat and the crowd was incredibly enthusiastic. They were reacting to every prompt they were given, whether it was a challenge to cheer louder, sing along or clap to the beat. It was shows like these that reminded Lizzie time and time again that she had the best job in the world.

Everett was giving a stellar performance tonight; he had the whole stadium wrapped around his little finger like only he could, and the fans were cheering him on as he stepped back from the microphone to join the sound of his guitar with the rest of them.

Lizzie turned her head to Orion, who was already waiting for her to give him his cue. She counted down the remaining beats in her head before she gave him a nod. When he turned his attention from her and began playing his solo part, Lizzie couldn’t help but grin. The people were screaming themselves into a frenzy as Orion worked his magic on his guitar.

He never planned what he was going to do beforehand, not one solo the same as the day before. His brow was furrowed in concentration and his lips ever so slightly parted as his fingers flew up and down the neck of the guitar. In moments like these, everything else faded into the background for him; there was nothing left but him and his music.

As Lizzie watched his fingers dance with dizzying speed, her flushed skin burned at the memory of what other magic they were able to do. The thought almost made her miss a beat.

Almost.

She caught herself at the last moment before anyone could notice. She was glad everyone else was too busy to see the blush spreading on her face. But even if they had, they would never have suspected that it didn’t come from the incredibly high temperatures, but something else entirely.

The song ended with a bang, Lizzie hitting two cymbals and the bass drum at the same as KC let all the spotlights flare up. Almost blinded by the brightness flooding the stage, Lizzie closed her eyes and dipped her head back, breathing heavily. For a fraction of a second, the fading sound of the music was still hanging in the air, everyone holding their breaths, before it gave way to the cheers erupting from the crowd.

Lizzie smiled to herself, waiting for her racing heart to slow, before setting her mind onto the rhythm of the next song. The crowd was still cheering and she waited a moment longer until everyone was ready and Orion had stepped behind his own microphone. The next song was one of the unpublished ones and even two weeks after striking their deal with the label, Orion hadn’t let Everett sing one single verse of them.

Lizzie took a deep breath and set the rhythm by hitting her drumsticks against each other a few times. Luckily, it was one of the slower songs so they all had the chance to calm down a little. Orion’s melodic voice carried into the vast space of the stadium over the hushed crowd and Lizzie felt a shiver run down her spine; she had loved this song from the first time Orion had let her hear it.

The crowd seemed to share her opinion; many had taken out their phones and lit the screens, waving them through the darkness in what was looking like a sea of stars. It wasn’t quite the same sight as it had been when lighters had still been allowed in the auditoriums, but Lizzie was loving the sight nonetheless.

All of the new songs they had played so far had been very well received. They made sure to switch them every night so no one got too overexposed, but whatever ones Orion chose, they were always met with great enthusiasm.

The only unrecorded song they were playing night after night was, much to everyone’s surprise, not one of Orion’s creations. Even after Orion had given his consent, Everett hadn’t stopped pestering Ethan until he had agreed to give a few of Everett’s songs a shot. Most of them weren’t nearly as well liked as the ones Orion hadn’t even finished yet, but there was one song that had instantly become so popular with their fans that Ethan had decided to make it a permanent addition to the set list for the rest of the tour.

Everett had revelled in his triumph over Orion; at least that’s how he saw it. And Lizzie had to admit that it really was a catchy melody. But much to Everett’s dismay, whenever Orion picked up his guitar and did what he did best, all eyes were on him, and him alone. He was pouring his heart and soul into the music he played, and people could tell. Like the Pied Piper, he commanded everyone’s attention without even trying to.

That was probably what angered Everett most; the fact that Orion wasn’t even trying.

Even now, Everett was scowling darkly at Orion as he was singing the song in Everett’s stead. Lizzie tried to concentrate on keeping a steady beat, but her eyes were drawn back to their frontman’s menacing expression.

She couldn’t help the feeling that a storm was coming.

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #orion amari #skye parkin #merula snyde #charlie weasley #artemis hexley #lizzie jameson #rockstar au #when stars ignite #wsi #besties collaborate

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youaremysamshine · 3 years

Text

So I wrote a thing! A whole thing! If you want to read some mostly-angst about Sam’s feelings directly post-Gadreel, then maybe think about reading this? I’ve posted it below and on AO3.

-----

Sam is reeling after he has kicked Gadreel out. He never wants to lose time again - unfortunately, his body needs sleep.

Post 9.10 "Road Trip"

----- The first night is easy. Tired as Sam is, the fear and pain and disorientation far outweigh any exhaustion, and despite promising Cas he’ll try to get some rest, he never considers actually going to sleep. The idea is absurd. So yes, on the first night it’s almost effortless to avoid sleep.

The next day isn’t extremely hard, either - in terms of staying awake, that is. It’s plenty hard in other ways, of course, but a staple of Sam’s life has been the sleep deprivation, and he is well practiced in functioning on precious little. He can act awake well, and any slips are easily chalked up to his recovery from the events of the past… however long.

But Cas has now spent time being human, and so notices - where previously he might not have - that Sam needs sleep. And after his prompts have been shrugged off several times by Sam - “It’s only 10, it’s not that late...”, “Yes, Cas, after I finish this chapter…”, “Yeah, I’ll just have a bite to eat first…” - Cas all but leads Sam to his bedroom and tells him to sleep. Now.

Sam acquiesces to this command, knowing Cas won’t let it rest if he does not, but again, he still has no intention of falling into unconsciousness. The idea of sleep is terrifying. He can’t. He’s well aware his body wants to - his eyes are sore and he has been frequently yawning for the past hour - but he will not give in. Not today.

He picks up another book from his own shelves - the one he had been reading in the library had been left behind when Cas had shepherded him to his room - and settles down in his chair to read. Okay, he might be needing to reread each sentence to take in the meaning, and yes, he did just spend several minutes wondering if queue was really a word, but no, he won’t yield, this is still far better than-

He startles, jerking forward, bashing his abdomen against the desk. The book has fallen out of his hands, the noise waking him up from his split-second nap.

Alright, he concedes. I’ll just take a short break.

He sets his phone timer for fifteen minutes. Then ten. Then five. Then ten again. He lies down and shuts his eyes, but immediately gets up again, pacing the room. He cannot do this. He sits down at the desk again, not bothering to pick up the book this time, tapping his fingers anxiously against the wood. He can barely think, he’s so tired.

Go back to bed, set your timer. Lie down, just stay there. Wait. It’s only ten minutes. It’s fine, Sam. Just ten minutes. The timer goes off, quicker than he had expected, and he resets it. This will work, this might actually work. He had changed into his pyjamas earlier to placate Cas, and is pleased with the comfort that they afford him now. His eyes close, his body relaxes, finally getting the rest it deserves.

BEEP. A brief moment of panic checking where he is, that the time is right, but relief soon follows. He resets the timer. He falls back to sleep.

BEEP. Frustration at being woken up. Relief that he has woken up. Resetting the alarm.

Sleep. BEEP. Repeat. Sleep. BEEP. Repeat. Unconventional, but effective. Sam sleeps. He sleeps well.

And then suddenly Kevin is there, looking at him trustingly until his eyes burn out and he no longer can and Sam is painfully wrenched back into wakefulness, the name of the boy falling from his lips as his eyes fly open. He scrambles for his phone.

4:32

It’s 4:32. It should be 2:15. He is certain he’d last restarted his alarm at 2:05. He had been checking each time, paying close attention because he needs to know.

Oh God, 4:32. That’s two whole hours. Fuck. Anything could have happened in two hours. He can’t -- He needs --

Cas. Shit.

In a blind panic he races for the door, turning into the corridor at high speed, his hunter reflexes being the only thing that stops him from hurtling straight into the man he wanted to find.

“Sam?” Cas’ voice is laced with concern, his eyebrows furrowed as he looks at Sam. But, importantly, he’s still here, still alive, nothing has happened to him.

“I just…” Sam trails off. Now that he knows Cas is alright, the need to see him has completely changed into a desire to get away, be anywhere else. Cas’s penetrating gaze and worry is not what Sam wants right now. “Toilet,” he finishes lamely, and sidesteps Cas to head to the bunker’s restrooms.

“Sam, I know you aren’t okay.” Castiel’s deep voice follows Sam down the corridor as surely as the angel does himself. Sam ducks into a cubicle and locks the door, hoping Cas will get the hint.

“Sam?”

A deep breath. Closed eyes. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I’m fine.”

He can almost feel Cas’s skepticism about that statement. “I highly doubt that, Sam. Let me help.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Sam, I sensed you distress from-” “I don’t WANT you here, Cas!” Even as he says it, he hates himself a little bit more. Cas is just being kind, far more of a good friend than Sam deserves, but right now Sam just can’t stand it. “Let me shit in peace, please,” he adds for good measure.

Footsteps, and Cas’s presence disappears. When Sam makes his way back to his room, he does not see Cas. He’ll apologize tomorrow.

4:44. Three fours. Huh, Good job it isn’t three sixes right? But you can’t get three sixes on a clock, Sam. Unless you count in military.. miltry.. mil-i-ta-ry time? No, don’t be stupid. That only goes up to twenty-two - no, wait, twenty-four? But does it ever reach twenty-four… Oh, crap, I really, really need to sleep.

4:45. Only one more hour until. Until what? He was going to say until he can get up, or at least, pretend to get up, and go about yet another normal day, no longer needing to feign sleep. But it hits him now that he’s still going to be bone-tired.

He wonders at how he has missed this great, big, obvious fact. He’s been so caught up in avoiding sleep right here, right now, every single minute, that he’s lost the bigger picture. How long can he carry this on for? The rest of tomorrow? Until Wednesday? But he’ll have to stop at some point.

This is too big, too awful, for him to contemplate right now. No, right now he does not need to sleep. And he can continue doing that. Saying no. He’s good at saying no. He just needs to keep on, just keep on, Sam.

The next hour goes as slowly as the last two had gone quickly. Eventually he judges it a suitable time to leave for the kitchen to get coffee. He’s thought of how to apologize to Cas, reworded it several times, a good distraction from anything else in his head.

The kitchen is empty. He still stops every yawn, stifles every urge to rub his eyes. Cas will not get a chance to send him back to bed. The coffee helps, a little, and the second one even more. Cas walks in as he is sipping his third. Sam can’t read his expression. He instinctively lowers his eyes, looks away from Cas, then realises this could be seen as rude, and looks up again. He doesn’t want to hurt Cas more.

“Hey, Cas.”

“Good morning Sam. Did you sleep?”

Sam notices that Cas missed off the “well” that usually accompanies the end of that question. Cas really knows him.

“Yeah, thanks.” It isn’t exactly a lie. Sam is fairly certain he had fallen asleep for those two hours, and that has to count for something, right? He quickly plunges on, needing to put the apology out there as soon as possible, and ends up stumbling over his words in his haste.

“Look, Cas, erm- I’m really sorry about pushing you off last night. I’m not really sure why I acted like that but yeah, it was- I shouldn’t have.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Cas replies simply. “I was worried - and I was wondering if this morning you might be wanting me to leave properly, to give you your space.”

“What? No!” Sam stands up, needing to ensure Cas does not think that necessary. “No, that’s not at all what I… Well, I mean,” he bites his tongue and thinks about his words. “If you want to go, of course, I don’t want to be the thing that stops you, but no. I was just tired and, well, like you said, not okay last night. I want you to stay here, of course I do - that is, if you want to stay here?” He’s looking at Cas cautiously, hopefully, but is suddenly convinced that of course Cas will leave, everybody leaves.

“My wish is to stay here with you,” Cas says. Sam lets out an involuntary sigh of relief.

“You look surprised,” Cas comments. Sam is taken aback at how easily Cas can read him.

“Yeah, no - I… You don’t need to, like, look after me, or anything. And I was horrible to you last night.”

Cas frowns. “But I want to look after you, Sam Winchester. You’ve suffered a great deal and that needs to be put to rights. I am your friend. As for last night - I understand that you were tired; you have now apologised, and it is forgotten.”

Sam stares and nods his head, a little unsure how to react to Cas’s words. “Thank you,” he manages to say, quietly, and Cas’s gentle smile suggests that he might be aware of everything else Sam means beyond the two words.

Cas walks slowly towards Sam, raising his arms somewhat awkwardly. “If you would like,” he says, “the hug we shared yesterday was rather comforting, and I would like to give you that again.”

Unbidden, Sam’s mind snaps back to their first meeting. “The boy with the demon blood,” Cas had called him, then. He marvels at how far Cas has fallen, to be here, now, with him, but selfishly he closes the gap, and allows himself to be hugged. It’s the best he’s felt in a long while.

-------

A second part may happen but probably not. Subscribe over on AO3 if you’re feeling lucky :P

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twiceblackvelvet · 4 years

Text

One Night Stand

A/N; someone requested this but for some reason i can’t find the ask in my drafts among all of the other requests but hopefully they find it anyway. enjoy me writing way more than i expected and ending things on an open note in case people become interested and i get to write a second part.

Nights like these very rarely happen. In fact, they never do. Usually, you’d be sat at home with a glass of wine, binge-watching yet another drama, and stuffing your face with whichever snacks you could find in the cupboards. An unhealthy combination, sure. But it’s what comforts you the most after spending way too long dealing with people during the day.

But tonight, your friends have practically dragged you out of the pit you’ve created in the middle of your sofa that you tried endlessly to convince them had not in fact molded to the shape of your body, it just looks like that naturally. Apparently, a new bar opening offering free entry is enough reason for you to break your usual habits and let your hair down instead.

It’s been so long since the last time you went out to a nightclub that you’d forgotten how much work goes into just getting there and looking somewhat acceptable. Spending hours on end searching through your closet for a dress that you had been told must cling to your skin and not look like something a librarian would wear.

Maybe, it’s just time to get some new friends who won’t rip your everyday style to shreds for a quick laugh.

You’re not even sure why you agreed, really. The thought of drunken slobs throwing themselves all over anyone within proximity in the hopes of getting lucky at the end of the night is not something you’ve ever found appealing, thus, you’re yet to gain your one-night stand card. Not that such a thing exists, but according to numerous sources, or rather just all of your friends it’s an important step in the life of an adult. You’d rather keep both feet firmly outside of that circle and never dip your toes into the daunting pool of regret and possible after-effects of bedding a complete stranger.

Despite the lingering feeling deep down that this night would not end well, after a few pre-drinks to get you in the mood, excitement soon washes away any worries. Even the one’s telling you that you’d likely spend half the night pulling your friends away from anyone they find attractive only because they’re wearing beer goggles.

Stepping out of the cab and into the cold night air makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and brings about your first regret. The short black dress you decided upon makes it impossible for your body to find any warmth as you walk toward the queue hovering outside waiting to get inside. It’s shorter than you expected, which you’re all grateful for but there’s still a good amount of people there.

After a few minutes of pacing on the spot, your teeth have begun to chatter and the alcohol that had previously warmed you up has started to lose its effect.

“How long until we’re in?” You decide to ask, aimed at no one in particular, just hoping for a positive answer from anyone that the cold suffering will end soon.

“It’ll be about ten more minutes babe, don’t worry.” One of your friends shouts from behind you. The loud music from inside blaring out into the street makes it impossible for you to know which, you’re just grateful it’s not going to be too long before you can get inside and feel warmth once again.

Bodies begin to shuffle closer towards the door and soon two burly men dressed head to toe in black come into sight, the words security plastered across one side of their chest. One of them, more muscular than the other and with a far more intimidating face places his meaty hand upright in front of you to pause the steady flow of patrons being allowed inside.

“Do you have any identification?” The smaller of the two men who now that you’re closer is in fact still huge in comparison to you croaks out, his voice not matching his appearance. You notice he has a cut above his eye, likely from someone drunkenly thinking it’s a good idea to fight the hulk’s cousin after one too many.

Your hands roam around inside the small clutch bag you’d decided upon pairing with your outfit and pull out your driver's license and point it towards both of them. They eye it suspiciously, but you can see the cogs in their heads quickly trying to decipher whether your year of birth makes you legal to enter or not.

“Great, thanks. Go right ahead.” The larger man speaks and ushers you toward the door.

Before stepping inside, you turn in place to face your friends who are also being inspected head to toe. A strong breeze gusts past all of you and without thinking too much about upsetting them, you walk in alone and leave your friends to the freezing weather. You quickly holler that you’ll meet them inside, but it’s unlikely that they heard it.

Walking through an extra set of doors, you’re greeted by a dark interior with painted black walls, a bar placed dead in the center of the room with low lighting hung above it. Red seats line the counter and one half of the room and your feet move without you thinking about it towards one of them. The other half is an open dance floor full of people moving along to the music, some less on the beat than others but they’re trying.

A small woman, no taller than 5’2 with brown short hair appears out of nowhere in front of you, a sharp smile placed on her face which you easily recognize as the fake customer service greeting she’s likely learned from years of experience handling people in an intoxicated state.

“Hey! What can I get you?” Her voice is soft, too soft to be working in this kind of environment.

You decide to look further down the bar at some of the other people seated next to you and spot a woman holding a glass filled with a light blue liquid. Truthfully, it looks like something you’d clean your kitchen floor with, but it’s calling out to you for some reason.

“I’ll have whatever that is.” You point toward the girl and the bartender gives a quick nod before heading off to pour the potentially poisonous concoction you’ve just ordered on a whim.

As you watch a couple of people throw down some moves that would be acceptable if they were from a five-year-old child, not a grown adult, small hands wrap around your waist that startles you for a second until you come face to face with your friends who’ve finally made it past the two roadblocks patrolling the doors.

“Here you are, this place is nice, right? Have you gotten a drink yet?”

“Yeah, I just ord-”

Before you can finish your sentence, the bartender returns and places the drink down in front of you.

“The first one is on the house, have a good night!” Her words are far more excited than previously, probably more than they should be for someone offering out drinks for free during opening night. Part of you wonders if this is her way of flirting or maybe just hoping for some extra tips.

“Thanks for the offer, really but I’ll pay, I’m not looking to date anyone right now and you’re not my type, sorry.”

Her eyes widen the more you speak and you realize that perhaps you’re the one who is in fact sat in the very wrong tree and barking like an idiot.

“I’m one of the owners here, the flyer outside says the first drink is free for everyone. Sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart, but I don’t swing your way.”

She’s already turned around on the heel of her foot before you can force out an apology. However, her swift exit doesn’t stop your cheeks from heating up and a mild headache from forming out of embarrassment. Your friends’ laughter all around you isn’t helping the situation either.

“Next time, maybe save that for someone who bats for your own team.” A husky voice from beside where you’re seated speaks lowly into your ear.

As you swing your chair quickly to face where the words came from, all you find is flowing brown hair trailing off toward the dance floor. You watch the body strut away, and by watching, you definitely saw something far more appealing than a kind yet uninterested bar owner. Her hips sway casually as she floats in between several bodies moving to the music and enters the bathroom without waiting in the line formed outside of the door.

A few angry customers shout after the girl, but she doesn’t bother to listen to their calls informing her of the queue. Whoever she is, her attitude is one of not caring about anything other than herself. Usually, this would be a major red flag under any other circumstances, but something is drawing you towards her even though you have no idea who she is or what she looks like other than her back profile.

Your friends order their drinks one after the other, all of which is a cocktail of sorts that will definitely cause the world’s worst hangover for each of them individually, however, that’s their problem. The lights near the dance floor quickly change colors to strobe blindingly through the crowd that’s formed, drinks have been spilled already causing some already inebriated bodies to crash land on the ground only to rise up once more to sway from one side to another.

You can’t help yourself from watching the bathroom door every few moments, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mystery woman and confirm whether she’s everything you’ve managed to imagine in the few moments since she decided to teasingly whisper into your ear. But, the line outside quickly moves and disappears meaning she has already left and you’ve missed it.

Before you know it, several hours have passed, numerous drinks have infiltrated your liver and your sight has become less and less able to make out whether the person in front of you is that close or if they’re actually halfway across the room. Your body has been dragged to the center of the dancefloor and whilst you are trying to keep up with the rhythm of the music, your loose limbs have a mind of their own and sure enough, you too end up looking like an inflatable tube blowing in the wind in any direction you decide to throw it.

At least two of your friends have decided that ramming their tongues down someone’s throat is a far better way to spend their time. You’re strangely quite envious of them.

Just as you’re about to stagger off back to the bar to relieve your throat of the dryness that has formed and maybe rid yourself of some of the sweat you’re unsure of which belongs to you or someone else, a hand slides it’s way around your waist and pulls you backward. Your body now pressed against another in a tight embrace that had you been sober you’d struggle to get out of, however, in this state, it’s even more difficult to break free.

“Why didn’t you follow me?”

When the words hit your ears, you recognize the voice from earlier and a cold shudder settles itself throughout your spine. The mystery woman has somehow managed to find you amongst the full capacity crowd whilst you couldn’t even keep up with her in the midst of a small bathroom queue. The teasing tone still there but her husky voice now replaced with a more hoarse yet sultry one.

Without even thinking about it, you force your body further into her own and spin around all at the same time. Turns out, that was a mistake as it sends both of you flying toward the ground at a pace that makes it impossible for either of you to break your fall. You may not have gotten to see her face previously but in your current position of laying on top of her, you’re now offered a close up to what your drunken mind can only describe as perfection.

Her wide eyes bore into your own, they’re a dark shade of brown and intensely eye you the same way in which you’re doing to her before quickly flitting toward your lips for a split second. Your own eyes can’t help but do the exact same to her in return. Pink plump lips that are daring you to take them in with your own, but you manage to resist, or rather, she pushes you upward and stands before helping you off the ground too.

She’s taller than you first thought. A loosely fitted blazer covers a black crop top that lies just above an abdomen that threatens to bring tears to your eyes from how toned it is. Dark pants tightly hug her long legs that you’re sure would look better without the material hiding them. You’re having difficulty removing your eyes from her magnetic form when she cups your chin and raises it so she can meet your eyes once more.

“You didn’t answer me.” She says sternly this time.

“I didn’t know you wanted me to follow you.” No thought goes into your response, you’re simply on auto-pilot mode and hoping she doesn’t vanish once more.

“Well, I did. But, your loss.”

She begins to stride away, once again. However, your arm flies out and grasps hold of her wrist before she can escape. Despite having way too much to drink, your strength still exists for a split second as her body ends up bumping into your own, hips clashing with one another.

“What are you doing?” She asks.

“Who are you?”

The airy way in which the question leaves your mouth makes it sound like you’re asking something far more prophetic, or as if you’re expecting her to give you her life story in the middle of a packed nightclub. Truthfully, you’re just after a name.

“Come with me.” Her words should be a question, instead, they sound like a command and you’re helpless to it as you trail behind her without worrying about the consequences or thinking about what it is you’re going through with. Placing in your trust in someone like this is not something you’d ever dare to do previously, but this feels right, somehow.

The two of you step outside of the club, her strides are way too quick for you to keep up with as she wanders down the street away from the loud music and your friends who you’re quickly trying to type out a text message to tell them not to send out a search party for you, though, you still don’t even know this girl’s name so perhaps that isn’t the smartest idea. You send it anyway and hope your blind faith in this godly woman who keeps checking you’re still behind her every few seconds is correct.

Her arm raises at the end of the street and a car pulls up. Everything about this feels wrong, yet, you get inside the vehicle with her anyway.

“Sooyoung.” She bluntly states. The confusion your face makes it obvious that you have no idea why she’s saying this suddenly. “My name… is Sooyoung.”

It could just be the alcohol talking, but you’re sure that it is the prettiest name to exist.

“Do you have one? Or am I supposed to guess?” She follows up after watching you mouth her own, something you hadn’t even realized you’d been doing. You quickly slur out your name that makes it only barely comprehensible and Sooyoung just chuckles in response.

You can’t help but let out a small laugh yourself when you consider your thoughts earlier in the night about your entire crisis of still clutching tightly onto your one-night-stand card and how this complete stranger in front of you is about to snatch it away, no doubt.

“What’s so funny?” The teasing tone is back in place as one of Sooyoung’s hands rests carefully atop your thigh. Her hand is cold yet despite only just finding out her name, you feel safe with her placing it there. It feels like she’s trying to steady you with it.

“Nothing, I’ve just never done this before.”

“You’ve never used Uber?” She cocks one of her eyebrows as she looks at you with an amused smirk.

“Very funny.”

Her face straightens out and turns serious for the first time since you’ve been graced with looking at it. You can tell she’s thinking about something but unsure of whether or not to speak it into existence. The ability to read people so far hasn’t disappeared no matter how much tequila you’ve consumed.

“I guess you meant it when you said that Haseul wasn’t your type.” She quietly lets out after a few moments. She spots the confusion once more and continues. “The bartender, her name is Haseul. You told her she wasn’t your type.”

“Oh, no. She definitely is my type. I just… wait, what exactly do you think I meant by saying I’ve never done this before?”

Now it’s Sooyoung’s turn to feel lost by the conversation as she tries to decipher where things have gotten lost in translation between you both.

“Well, girls. You didn’t pick up on me wanting you to follow me and now you’re telling me on my way back to my place you’ve never done this before. I’m assuming that your usual type is the two meatheads working the door stopping people from smashing the bar up.”

Loud laughter fills the small space of the car. The driver even looks into his rearview mirror to see what is so funny that you’re doubled over in pain from Sooyoung’s assumption.

“Oh that’s good. You know, trying to take a straight girl’s home is a massive stereotype.” You’re not sure if the look you’re receiving from Sooyoung is of her being offended or still lost. “I didn’t mean I’ve never slept with a girl before. I meant I’ve never gone home with someone that I just met hours before.”

Everything suddenly clicks into place for both of you and Sooyoung bites her lower lip, likely feeling that same embarrassment that you did earlier with the woman you now know is named Haseul.

“I didn’t think you were straight, by the way. That’s not why you’re here with me. I just assumed from what you said.”

The two of you continue to laugh at just how crossed you’ve managed to get the wires in the few minutes you’ve been traveling towards her home which was longer than you thought as soon enough, the driver is pulling up and asking you both to leave a good review. Sooyoung politely tells him that she will before helping you out of the car.

Had you known that going back to Sooyoung’s apartment meant that you had to conquer stairs, you may have turned her down. Well, you wouldn’t have because she’s the personification of flawless. But you’d have prepared your legs to feel less like jelly and more capable of completing the trek up to her front door.

She slides a set of keys out of her blazer and opens the front door inviting you to step in first. You do and are greeted by a space with hardly any furniture. Sparse is the only word that fits her home. Anyone with a knack for home design would have a field day if they were to be welcomed in too.

“I know, it’s not much. I just moved here from the city and I haven’t had time to finish decorating.”

All thoughts about how Sooyoung could still be a serial killer who has lured you away from your friends to her apartment that is lacking any form of personal touch evaporates with her explanation. You set yourself a mental reminder to never drink whatever that blue liquid was again, it makes you feel way too trusting.

You move further into the apartment and see that it’s spacious and open planned. The kitchen is well lit with brand new appliances that look like they’ve yet to be used. A television far bigger than the one you own sits on the wall of the living room. Sooyoung sits casually on one of the two white leather sofas as she plays with the remote and turns it on to a music channel. A door blocks off both the left and right side of the apartment, likely leading to a bedroom and bathroom.

“You can sit, you know. I don’t bite.” Sooyoung pats the space beside her as she speaks. “Well, unless you’re into that.”

There’s a confidence to everything that Sooyoung says, it makes you feel envious that she’s able to pull it off without being cocky. If you tried, it would likely come out sounding pretentious. You sit beside her, though, there’s probably more space between your bodies than she was hoping for as she shuffles closer toward you.

“So, what now?” Once again, words are leaving your mouth without you thinking about it. But, you can’t help in feeling awkward that she’s seemingly not made a move beyond putting her hand on your thigh since you agreed to leave the nightclub with her.

“What do you want to happen now?”

Truthfully, your lack of experience with the whole one night stand thing had led you to believe that people didn’t even get the chance to scan the person’s apartment that they’d decided to sleep with. Part of you expected Sooyoung to just tear your clothes off the second you walked through her door. Part of you wanted her to do that, then you wouldn’t find yourself in this semi-uncomfortable situation.

The logical side of your brain that is screaming for you to listen to it is instead and telling you that Sooyoung is not a threat. She’s teasing, flirty, and probably thinking about all of the former things your mind has listed, but she has been respectful thus far and it doesn’t look as if that is going to change anytime soon.

“I’m not sure, I told you… I’ve never done this before. I thought I’d be back inside another Uber on my way home by now.” You finally reply.

“Are you accusing me of being a five minute hit it and quit it kind of girl?” Once more, that look of being offended without actually being offended overtakes all of her features. Features you can’t help but admire in the clear lighting now rather than the darkness of the club.

Her face is lacking any blemishes whatsoever, and despite being ready to enter her bedroom, you also wouldn’t like seeing her bathroom just to know what kind of skincare routine she has going on. The same plump lips you wanted to touch with your own are still inviting, but you restrain yourself once more.

“No… But why would you want me to stay once we both get what we’re here for.”

This time, it does offend her as your words hit her like a slap to the face and she huffs out a deep breath.

“Maybe, and bear with me here because it could be a concept you’re unfamiliar with, but just maybe, I like you beyond tonight.”

She stands abruptly and shuffles towards the kitchen area, her footsteps heavier than previously and shoulders slumped. You consider following her to apologize and ask if she wants you to just leave now, but she returns with a glass of water in one hand and a box in the other.

“Here, take this.” She opens the box to reveal a strip of tablets and pops two out of the metallic packaging placing them down on the table in front of you both. “Painkillers for when you wake up, your head is going to feel like hell no doubt.”

She moves away once more toward one of the closed doors but again returns quickly, this time with a pillow and blanket in tow. She lays the pillow down gently and offers you the blanket to hold onto.

“As much as I’d love to spend the night with you, and I would have by the way, had you followed me earlier in the night when you still had some sobriety about you. I’m not much into sleeping with drunk girls.” Despite not having a clue who Sooyoung was prior to tonight, you can’t help but feel both happy and hurt by her words. Happy she isn’t willing to take advantage of people in your state. But hurt because by god you’d love nothing more than to wake up next to her after a night of being beneath her.

She turns on her heels to leave you once more but stops herself upon reaching the bedroom door.

“But hey, I’ve always had a thing about morning sex, so, who knows? Maybe you’ll still get lucky.” She offers you a quick wink before closing the door.

This time, she doesn’t return and you’re left to wonder about just what the morning with Sooyoung might have in store for you.

pt.ii

#loona #kpop #kpop scenarios #loona scenarios #girl group scenarios #ha sooyoung #loona yves #yves #loona reactions #loona imagines #yves x reader #girl group imagines #girl group reactions #kpop imagines #kpop reactions #haseul sweetie i am so sorry i made you straight #i promise i will repent for my sins

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tripstaysnoided · 4 years

Text

Flow Just Like Water

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Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

#state of the uwunion #long post

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professorspork · 4 years

Note

fic prompt + daily queenly duties

Well, this one definitely got away from me a little bit…

—-

The day starts at dawn. Not with an alarm, but nevertheless, like clockwork–

“Ouch! Ah, jeez–”

Kristoff opens an eye to watch Anna hop around on one foot, holding her stubbed toe in both hands as she inhales sharply and tries to keep from crying out any further.

“Did you kick the chair again?”

Realizing she has an audience, Anna puts her foot down and attempts to look regal and put-together. It’s a losing battle; her hair is all over the place and there’s still a bit of drool on her chin. It’s adorable.

“…No? Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I keep telling you to move it.”

She shakes her head. He watches as she brushes out her tangles and ties her hair in a bun–as his wife fades to the background and the queen emerges in her stead. “If I move it Olaf can’t climb up to read us a bedtime story, and you know how much he loves that. It’s too heavy for him to move by himself.”

“We could always move it after he’s done.”

“Well then I’m comfy and I don’t want to leave bed.”

“I could move it.”

She smiles at him, winsome. “The bed’s comfy because you’re in it.”

He sees his chance and gives it his best shot–lifts up the covers to show his bare chest; the inviting spot on her side of the bed she’s just vacated. “I’m still in it now, y'know.”

Her nose scrunches as her face can’t decide whether to be playfully disapproving or to flirt right back. “You’re a terrible influence, Kristoff Bjorgman.”

“Yes, but I’m your terrible influence.”

Unable to suppress her grin at him any longer, she leans over the aforementioned chair just long enough to peck him on the lips, then disappears behind her privacy screen to change.

“What’s on the docket today?” he asks. On the other side of the divider, the vague outline of her silhouette disappears under layers of fabric.

“Oh, um. Open petitions this morning, and then a sit-down with the Stonecutter’s Guild. I guess some of the young apprentices are freaked out ever since meeting the Earth Giants because they’re worried all rocks have feelings? Which: they might, honestly. I’m going to have to ask Elsa–remind me to send her a note before breakfast, okay? Oh, and then tonight is the solstice pageant.”

“Can’t forget that.”

“Don’t be mean!”

“I’m not,” he laughs. “I’m genuinely looking forward to it.”

Queen Anna emerges from the other side of the wardrobe. “Well, good. Alright, I’ve got to check in with the castle staff and get my day going. I’ll see you downstairs?”

“Of course.”

Only she doesn’t, because by the time he actually makes it to the dining room he learns she’s long gone–she’s skipped breakfast to go deal with some issue at the fjord, two ships double-booked for the same dock and each refusing to yield to the other.

Sounds about par for the course.

Shaking his head, he wanders down to the kitchens for a sandwich or two, scribbles out a note for Elsa, and heads out to the dell where Gale likes to gambol and play most mornings. Anna’s better at finding Gale than Kristoff is; more than once he’s caught her laughing at him for talking to a stiff breeze that was simply that, and nothing more. It takes up more of his morning than he’d like, but eventually he feels the telltale tickle under his chin that he’s in the presence of the wind spirit.

“Hey. I know Elsa’s coming down tonight, but Anna’s got a question that can’t wait until then. Do you mind?”

Gale blows his hat right off his head, which he takes to mean don’t be silly. Or possibly how dare you, I’m very insulted, but hopefully not. Like he said: he’s not as good at this as Anna.

“Thanks,” he says, and he opens his palm to let the gusts carry his note away. He watches until it’s disappeared past the treeline, just in case.

He heads back to the castle, arriving just as the sun hits its zenith. Anna hates these short winter days, he knows–doesn’t like the idea of the dark outweighing the light. The solstice will be good for her; every day from here on out a little brighter than the last.

Open petitions are in full swing in the front hall–he lingers in the back for a bit to watch Anna work. Long gone is the single throne and long queue of Agnarr’s day. Elsa rethought the space about three times during her reign, and Anna’s made further changes, since. Now the dais contains a few overstuffed armchairs, and a side table for tea. Anyone who comes to speak to Queen Anna does so in comfort, and on her level. They… chat. Like friends; like equals.

When she wraps up the inquiry she was working on–some sort of misunderstanding about a dowry, and a young couple pretty desperate to give back what sounds like the world’s most ornery goat to the bride’s father–Kristoff strides to the front of the room.

“Sorry folks, just gonna call a quick recess, okay? Ice Master privilege, sorry, I’ll give the Queen back in just a minute.”

Before Anna has a chance to protest, he escorts her out the room and into a side hall.

“What are you doing?” she asks, unable to quite keep the laughter at his antics out of her voice. “I still have like a half-dozen people to see.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Which is why I figured you could probably use a pick-me-up.” With that, he takes the wrapped sandwiches from this morning from his satchel.

Her shoulders drop in relief at the smell of the fresh-baked bread; she immediately snatches one from his hands and starts scarfing it down. “Oh my gosh, I’m starving. How did you know?”

He knows because it’s his job to know. Anna takes care of Arendelle. Kristoff takes care of Anna. It’s as simple as that.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have skipped breakfast, feistypants.”

“Duty called,” she shrugs, unapologetically talking with her mouth full. “And hey, that’s ‘Queen Feistypants’ to you.”

“Apologies, your Majesty,” he teases, dropping into a low, ostentatious bow. His hat falls off with the movement, but when he goes to pick it up, it dances away from his hand.

“Wait, what? Oh, for–Gale!” he groans, and snatches at the air as the wind plays keep-away with him. “C'mon, give it back.”

Anna slaps her forehead. “Oh no, I was supposed to ask–oh,” she blinks as Kristoff’s parchment falls daintily into her hand, Elsa’s reply scribbled on the back. “Thanks.” She scans the note quickly. “Well, apparently there’s some sort of knocking test you can do to see if a rock has the spirit or not; Ryder can come down and teach it to the guild members. That’s easy enough.”

Kristoff raises an eyebrow. “Ryder has to tell these kids 'only dead rocks don’t knock back?’”

“They’re not dead rocks, they’re never-been-alive rocks. Totally different.” She polishes off the last of her sandwich and–when she gives him a plaintive, puppydog look–the last few bites of his, as well. “Okay, I’d better get back to work. Catch up with you tonight; thanks again, love you!”

And then there’s a quick kiss and she’s gone, like the whirling dervish she is. Or maybe that’s just Gale, chasing along behind her.

He’s at loose ends for the rest of his day–an ice harvester doesn’t tend to have as much to do, in the winter–and decides to ride out and meet Elsa halfway. Sven brays happily at the opportunity to go full speed, and before long they’re racing through fresh powdery snow. Just for the thrill, just for the fun of it. It is in these moments–bitter wind stinging at his face, the world whooshing past him in a rush–that Kristoff thinks he best understands the two women who make up his family. The freedom of speed and cold air and ground under your feet. The joy of going as fast as you can, because you trust your own legs to carry you. Or, y'know. Sven’s legs, as the case may be.

Anna’s the one who’s good at metaphors. He’s just along for the ride.

He hears them approach before he sees them–Ryder shouting out a Northuldra call-and-response song, a children’s rhyme about reindeer. Elsa’s voice chimes in on the refrains–hesitant, tremulous, happy. Like she’s still not quite certain she remembers all the words, but she’s so pleased to be included she can’t help but try anyway. It brings a full-toothed grin to Kristoff’s face, unbidden; he dismounts as they crest the ridge ahead and come into view.

“Kristoff!” the two shout in messy union, then immediately engage in a race to get to him first. The Nokk leaves Ryder in the dust; in moments, Kristoff’s got an armful of ex-Queen as Elsa jumps down into his arms.

“Hey,” he laughs, “I missed you, too.”

“What about my Kristoff hugs?” Ryder pouts as he catches up. Elsa squeezes Kristoff just a little bit tighter.

“Get your own. This one’s a family heirloom.”

“Imagine if I played that card every time you hugged Honeymaren,” Ryder teases slyly, and Kristoff bites back a laugh at the way Elsa turns bright, bright red. She lets him go and draws herself up to her full height, clearing her throat and squaring her shoulders. All he sees is Anna pulling the same maneuver that morning, and he can’t help it–the giggles escape, despite his best efforts.

“That’s quite enough of that,” she grumbles, re-mounting her horse. “We should get going or we’ll be late.”

Ryder settles for a fist-bump, in the meantime, and the three of them turn and make their way back towards Arendelle.

It seems like the whole town has turned out for the solstice pageant, the amphitheater down by the fjord filled with the buzz of proud families waiting for the kids to begin. Anna’s saved a whole passel of seats toward the front–piled high with cloaks to stop other people from sitting there. As though people might edge in on the Queen’s saved seats.

Kristoff feels his heart melt for her that much more.

Elsa and Anna do their usual song and dance at being reunited, prompting good-natured eye-rolls from everyone around them, and then the lights go down and the curtains come up. They hurriedly fall into their chairs as the schoolmaster comes out on stage.

“Hello parents, friends, and families! As you know, the children have been working hard on our little revue these past few weeks, and they’re very eager to share it with all of you. Enjoy!”

All the students shuffle out, holding hands. And there, standing among them, is Olaf–clearly scanning the crowd for their friendly faces. Anna lets out a whoop, and he positively beams at them.

Kristoff crosses his fingers. “Here we go,” he murmurs under his breath.

Olaf had been begging for the chance to go to school for ages now–but after he learned to read, they kind of ran out of excuses not to let him. The other children are more than used to his presence, and he loves coming home every day with new facts to share with all of them. Honestly, he’s thriving–though he had been heartbroken not to get the part of the Spirit of Summer to Come in the solstice pageant, cast instead as, perhaps predictably enough, a snowman.

Olaf nails every single one of his lines; at one point, Anna elbows Kristoff in the ribs, eyes mirthful, and he realizes he’s been mouthing along with them the whole time. After the final song, they all jump to their feet and cheer. Elsa puts her fingers to her lips and whistles loud, just the way Kristoff taught her.

The rest of the evening is a blur–Olaf dangling between Anna and Kristoff’s hands as they all walk home; Elsa and Ryder talking over each other at dinner in their eagerness to share all they’re learning about Ahtohallan; a lively game of Twister that Anna wins easily (Olaf being disqualified after detaching his arm to reach left hand blue). Ryder and Anna make plans to meet back up with the stonecutters first thing the next day, as Anna will be swamped the whole of the afternoon with trade delegation meetings. Kristoff has to all but drag her away before she can promise away what little free time she has left to making final adjustments on plans for the New Year’s ball in the coming days–“that’s tomorrow-you’s problem,” he reminds her, and she lets herself be led away by the hand.

And then finally, at long last, it’s just the two of them.

This, perhaps, is Kristoff’s favorite moment of the day: when Anna takes off her crown, lets down her hair, and curls up against him. Just Anna, no more, no less.

“I’m e-e-exhausted,” she yawns, burying her face in his shoulder, and he drops a kiss onto her forehead.

“Just one more queenly duty for the day,” he chuckles, before calling out “Okay buddy, we’re ready!” towards the door.

The quiet sound that had served as background noise throughout their nightly routine, of Olaf counting to one thousand on the other side of the door, goes quiet. “Are you sure?” he asks. “I’m only at eight hundred and thirty four.”

“Come on in, Olaf,” Anna laughs, and he does–dragging the book they’ve been reading behind him. On little snowball feet, he makes his way to the bed and, as Anna knows he likes to, clambers up onto the bedside chair before perching on the armrest.

“Are you ready?” Olaf asks, his eager smile pulling a little to one side, just like Elsa’s does. At their nods he begins: “Chapter Eight: The Enigma Becomes Doubly Mysterious. The child had laid her head on a stone and fallen asleep…” They gasp in all the right places as Jean Valjean realizes Cosette’s gone icy cold in the snow and cannot be roused; when the chapter ends on a cliffhanger, they even let him read on, until they know Cosette is safe. “One more?” he asks hopefully when he reaches the end of chapter nine, but he takes it with grace when Anna shakes her head–finishing their ritual by giving each of them a hug and lugging off his book, closing the door soundly behind him.

“I still feel like giving him that book was probably a mistake,” Kristoff chuckles.

“The schoolmaster says his vocabulary is improving too fast for us to hold him back.”

“Yeah, but Les Miserables?”

“He’s tough; he can handle it,” she says with certainty, and, well: the Queen has spoken. Who is Kristoff to argue?

Out of habit, his hand drifts up; he traces a delicate line with his pinky from the top of Anna’s forehead to the tip of her nose, once, and then again. Her gaze goes dreamy and disoriented, her blinks growing longer–and then her eyes narrow and she frowns, shaking him off. “Hey, quit it.”

“Quit what?” he teases, but she’s sitting up now, climbing into his lap to straddle him, and–oh.

“One more thing to check off my to-do list before bed,” she murmurs into his mouth, and oh, that’s awful, but–

Somehow, he just doesn’t have it in him to complain.

#this is so much longer than i thought it would be #i hope you enjoy!#they are MARRIED i am INTO THEM BEING MARRIED #fic what i wrote #frozen #frozen 2 #kristanna #Anonymous

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system76 · 3 years

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Behind the Scenes of System76: Customer Happiness Team

In this installment of our Behind the Scenes series, we spoke with head happiness guru Emma Marshall, an enthusiastic Linux, pink, and T-Swift enthusiast who helms the Support Team. Read on for an inside look at the methods—and the madness—of System76’s tech support crew.

First off, let’s talk a little bit about the Customer Happiness Team’s role at System76.

We handle the customer experience after the sale. We want our customers to know that we care about them, and we make sure that they’re feeling like they’re getting the attention they deserve when they do have a problem. We also make sure that they’re happy at the end of their solution.

If a customer has a specific complaint, or if we see something that hasn’t been communicated correctly that gave them a wrong impression, then I communicate with the other departments in a productive and positive way so we can get to a better solution as a company. So I report things to QA, we get bugs filed and handled, and we ask questions to engineering when we don’t know how to fix something. We try to collaborate as efficiently as possible.

As the head of all things Happiness, what is your approach to the process of providing support?

We have this little acronym, it’s the H.A.P.P.Y. approach to tech support. The H stands for Human. Instead of using scripts and sending out links every time, we’ll put the actual solution in the ticket and we’ll greet them with empathy and their name. We don’t have any automated things happening in there. Nothing is robotic in tech support. Everything is handled by a human.

The A is for Active, meaning we keep the tickets active until they’re resolved. So if a customer has gone quiet, or if a repair tech has gone quiet, we make sure to ping them constantly until the problem is 100% taken care of.

The first P is for Positivity, which helps keep our customers and our team happy, and the second P is for Productive - we want to keep our queue moving as quickly as possible. We don’t want to ask questions that aren’t relevant to the case. We want to keep customers on the track of being productive as well, so if they’re focused on voicing negativity, we try to steer the conversation in a more productive direction to keep everyone focused on reaching a solution.

And then the Y is for You. We encourage everyone on the team to be their nerdy selves, so if a customer mentions something they love, they can chime in and nerd out with the customer for a few minutes and have that little touch of their personality to the call or to the ticket. So that’s our H.A.P.P.Y. approach to tech support.

This year was the System76 Care Team’s “happiest” year on record. What do you think made it so successful?

It’s a combination of the work of everyone in the company. I think we have a mix of really good products, incredible engineering, a QA team that caught potential issues before shipping products, and a sales team that provided the right information so the customer purchased the best product for them. And then a support team that made sure things were solved quickly and happily at the end. That’s what we strive for every year! I also have an epic team right now.

How would you describe you and your team’s backgrounds in Linux?

They’re all Linux fans. Two of them are customers, and one of those customers is a SuperFan! I used to have another Superfan on the team, so that seems to be a trend for us. Two guys on our team did tech support for colleges, so they have server and sysadmin backgrounds, and then we have two team members with customer service backgrounds as well.

I actually met Thomas at a Linux conference when he was still a customer service rep for an office supply company. He was clearly like all of us: a complete nerd. He just naturally fit. We all have our nerdy quirks and come from very different backgrounds, but combining our knowledge and collaborating helps us solve the tickets with the same quality. The individuality on the team is what makes it so fun!

I went to school for journalism and worked for a couple newspapers. Then, I had a customer service job for a couple of years. After that I came to System76. Actually I just reached 9 years of working at System76 today! I’ve done every single role at System76 basically, besides being an engineer. My last positions were a combination of customer service and communication. Communication is by far the hardest part of my job, so that experience has really helped me gain better communication with everyone across the company.

How do you ensure your team stays close amid the chaos?

We all do game nights together. We have a really tight bond as a team, which I think really contributes to our success.

Are there any new “features” planned for the Care Team in the near future?

A major focus for this year is one-and-done tickets, as well as cutting down on response times. We want to get everything we can in the initial message to the customer to hopefully get a solution accomplished within one message. The team has been doing a contest the past couple months, and it is amazing how many tickets they can get one-and-done. So I know we can do that sort of motivation work a lot more often to get tickets solved quicker, and have less in the queue for longer periods of time. It’ll be awesome.

Any advice for people looking to start their tech career in a support role?

I think it’s important to have a customer service background. And I mean any customer service, even working at a retail store. Being a human and putting yourself in other people’s shoes is such an integral part of being a tech support technician. Anything where you have to communicate with other people for a year. At least get some of that under your belt.

And if you’re a hobbyist, just keep learning. Learn everything you can all the time. You can’t know enough as a tech support rep, and you have to always be curious. Be curious about the problem and be curious about the solution. You have to have a desire to always want to find answers and find new ways to fix things.

You’re one of System76’s longest-running staff members. What’s it been like to watch the company grow?

It’s been unreal. Amazing. It actually makes me tear up a little because I couldn’t be more proud of a project that I’ve been a part of, you know? It’s been very cool watching Carl as an owner and as an innovator. To have someone that inspires you so much, and to be able to be part of their project as well makes me not want to go away. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next. That’s the best part.

Do you have a favorite moment?

I have two. Wait… I have a lot. But I’ll try to keep it to two. The Pop!_OS release in 2017, when we released the operating system and were flashing USBs, like hundreds of USBs in this side room. We were in an office building, but we were actually starting to try to manufacture things with a laser in this side room that had black curtains so no one could see what we were doing in there. So all of us bunched into this really small room and we popped champagne bottles and they were flashing the USBs. They were all over the table. It was so cool. I think we all got a little tipsy that day. Maybe a lot tipsy, actually.

Then we had our first million dollar month. That was when our office was downtown. It was a day of celebration for everyone. It was the realization of how big we’d become. There was so much laughing and excitement, and we were a small, tight-knit team at the time. I remember that day feeling like, wow, we’re really doing well. That was a really cool feeling.

Do you miss being at the office?

Oh yeah. I think it gets to me some days. I miss everyone, and I just want to be around people. I want to go bug Bjorn, or make people smoothies, or flip some hamburgers or bring lunches. I want to do all that fun stuff that I used to, but now I’m having to try to manage that remotely. But the video calls, those help.

The game nights help as well. We used to do those in person, but we can’t really do them in person right now so I’m having to settle with remote things. It’s been rough, but it’s something we’ve got to deal with, just like everything else. So deal with it with a smile and we’ll get through it.

What’s your favorite cat gif?

I have a lot. Fixing time clocks is an annoying little task. Sometimes the time clock we use just poops and doesn’t work right, so my rule is any time I have to fix the time clock for a team member, they have to send me cat gifs. That’s their payment. So I get quite a few cat gifs every week. In our team chat, any time I’m upset about something, the cat gifs come in a waterfall.

The one that really sticks with me is the cat with the pink wig on, and a headset, typing on a computer. I saved that one myself.

I can’t help but notice I’m in a couple of these photos.

You’re one of us, Alex. Just accept it.

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