#i freaking needed to find an art outlet

[dammitkat1e]

Getting back into pixel art by making a quick monochome study of a Powerdoll mech.

I used to quite enjoy making pixel animations at uni and its an art i can do on my phone when im out and about so i might be able to actually have an outlet for my art cravings

#pixel art #artists on tumblr #art #monochrome #robodolls #mine #my art #robot #mecha #robogirl #i freaking needed to find an art outlet

[crushedsweets]

Maybe some creeps stick around because slender wants to give demons reasonsss to stay. Like for example, more creeps means more people to keep ghosts entertained, means more friends, means no need to leave?

Helen could stay cos yk food, roof over his head, judgement free murder zone- and slender could keep him around because the demons like when he paints them.

Maybe Ann likes to experiment with medical stuff with Cody or something? Which then keeps her happy AND gives them more things like poison to kill normies off which big boss man likes. Idk cos like I don't know the relationships between all your versions ykyk😜

But what I'm SAYING is maybe the normie murderers can contribute by keeping the demons content and not wanting to explore or whatevsss. And slender is grand w it cos yk his sheep stay in their pen

I lobe lore(the sequel)🫶

MMM TRUE.. honestly for helen i might just make him some weirdo who sources blood on the dark web and he meets ben/jeff thru there. maybe he's not really a killer, but he has a fucked up interest in gore and has no issue with creating art thru unethical means regardless ? that way he's not really a killer and it gets to stay underground and not on a ton of news outlets, but he still keeps the core part of his character (bloody.. painting . .). and he gets to still be in the story. and maybe the proxies like using him and jack to get rid of the occasional human remains, since they dont really wanna keep it around ?? .. maybe cody is also a dark web freak... maybe he runs experiments on corpses and meets jack since jack works as a human remains disposer...??? and then they find out hes really good with chemicals and has access to cholorform, etc. TBH might just make cody a pharmacist LOL.

ok im realizing i might have to make the dark web just a central part of the lore because ive mentioned it a million times now, and its not like theyre gonna be chatting abt murder on facebook.

so the main 'hubs' for everyone .. the forest, the the town, the city, and the dark web . city would have people like liu, jane, helen, cody, tim/brian, nina. the town(suburbs and rural) has people like toby, natalie, jeff, liu. the forest (rural and trees) has toby, kate(the proxies in general), jack, all the supernatural ppl. then the dark web has all of them because theyre all . ummm... hmmmm....

also loved the sheep staying in the pen comment its so true actually.

lobe lore anon u r doing me wonders here

#long post #creeped #hcs #asks #hmmmmmmmm...much to think about..

[jilyarchive]

OCTOBER AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: MISSGRYFFIN

Q: Where can we find you and your stories?

A: @missgryffin​, AO3

Q: How would you describe your writing style?

A: Intense, sexy, snappy, and fast-paced. I have a rampant imagination and love a good sexual tension build-up, so my fics usually include a lot of plot, drama, and (of course) smut.

Q: How do you come up with ideas for your writing?

A: It’s such a grab-bag. A pretty substantial number of my fics have originated from prompts, actually! I also draw a lot on TV shows/movies I’ve seen, novels I’ve read, tropes I see that I’m inspired to try, etc. Also, I find that a lot of my ideas actually form while I’m writing. I’ll go in with a sense of direction, but it’s not until I’m writing and really in the thick of it that the details take shape, and then new ideas begin to spout off from there, based on what I learn about what the characters and story need.

Q: When and why did you begin writing fanfiction?

A: Technically, during the two-year wait between the releases of books 5 and 6, because I was utterly HP obsessed, my imagination was in overdrive thinking about what could happen in the final two books, and I had discovered MuggleNet fanfiction / FFN by that point, so I’d been devouring all of that early era of HP fanfic. I actually have a giant binder of my own fanfic writing from that period; I would type up stories in Word, format them with fun fonts and fan art covers I found online, and print them out for myself. (Which, I still do this!) Fun fact: there’s even a Marauders story in there that I had completely forgotten about that has a striking resemblance to the bones of Eternal Summer. It genuinely freaked me out a little when I found it, ha! 

 But even though I wrote creatively through most of my childhood/school phases of life, I had taken a pretty substantial break in early adulthood and didn’t “return” to writing until the pandemic in 2020. Life was bizarre, Netflix had gotten boring, and I was craving a creative outlet or hobby that could make lockdown bearable. I randomly stumbled my way back to fanfic / fandom, and here we are!

Q: What’s one thing you’d tell someone who is considering reading one of your fics?

A: Buckle up! 🎢 Also, I hope you are either i) at home, or ii) have a really great NSFW poker face 😅 But to give a more serious answer, I’d say that I write a wide range of tones, and I really lean in to what that tone is. If a fic is tagged for fluff and crack, it will be so adorably sweet and cringe-funny that your face will hurt from smiling. If a fic is tagged for angst and darker themes, it will feel like a knife to the gut. (If it’s tagged for all of the above—cough Eternal Summer cough—you’re at the front of a line for a wild rollercoaster, my friend!) Since I write both extremes, I’m never offended when readers skip fics or prefer one “genre” to another. But please know that Jily is always endgame in all of my stories—that’s the whole reason why we’re here 💗

Q: What are some of your favorite Jily tropes?

A: Enemies to lovers is my #1, even if it’s more of that “enemies-ish” rivalry at the beginning. There’s just nothing more quintessentially Jily to me than the process of them discovering more layers to the other person and slowly realizing that the other person is so much more than the antagonist they’d built up in their head. (And that they -gasp- actually…like them! Worse, they like them like them! A lot!) Gets me every time. 

Other favorites include There Was Only One Bed, Hurt/Comfort, and Forced Proximity/Stuck/Trapped. 

Q: What do you like most about the Jily fandom?

A: That we celebrate how much of a power couple Jily is. I’m going to quote @jilyss’ answer for this because it’s so true: we understand James has an arrogant streak but grew up, we celebrate Lily for the intelligent, strong, cool, bamf woman she is, and we appreciate how they’re true, complementary equals finding real, raw love with one another. (And also all the wonderful reader and fellow-writer friends I’ve made! 😘)

Q: Pick a favourite Marauders era character.

A: My man JP. From only the few hints we get about him in the books, we know he’s such a dynamic person, and I really love bringing him to life. Also, his growth/redemption story deserved more air-time, so I’m glad fanfic is here to fill that gap.

Q: Self-promo time! List the fics that you are most proud of writing.

A:

Eternal Summer – My first born! Even though it’s far from being finished and needs a lot of work, I’m really proud of the world-building I’ve done thus far. 

Vindicated – This was thrilling for me to write because it’s a total departure from what I’d previously written: second chances, canon-divergent AU, American settings, original characters, more adult relationship, etc. I have more planned for this universe and I’m really excited for it. 

for the hope of it all – My latest completed fic. I challenged myself to write a softer, friends-to-lovers, mutually pining kind of summer fic, and this came together in a flood. But what makes me proud is that with this fic, I could really see how much my writing has evolved and improved from those early ES days. 

Q: Fic rec time! Could you recommend a few of your favourite Jily fics?

A:

Of Chrysalism by @maraudersftw​ – It’s only a short one-shot, but the way this fic haunts me!! Exquisite. 

The Wedding Ring by @mppmaraudergirl​ – Lauren is the Nancy Meyers of Jily, and this fic is the epitome of that. A total comfort fic for me; I want it to be a movie that I can play in my living room over and over again until I know it by heart. 

Eighteen Again by @scriibble-fics​ – If I didn’t know scriibble was getting her PhD in History, I’d think she was a screenwriter. The world-building in this fic is like no other—I’m in a constant state of chills when I read it. The emotional depth, the heartbreak, the romance, the political intrigue…it’s one of those fics that never leaves you.

Thank you @missgryffin​ for letting us ‘interview’ you and for sharing your fics with us! ❤️

#october author spotlight #author spotlight #thank you!! #its requested author month #next will be another random selection :)

[speedofsoundsketches]

When I do my daily art, I often draw on the emotion I'm feeling at that moment, particularly if I'm overwhelmed or stressed. In some cases though, like the latest Amy piece, I wanted to draw something that I wanted to feel contrary to what I was actually feeling at the time.

I think it's safe to assume it's been a tough few years for us all and I'm not excluded from this fact. I preferred keeping my personal life off this blog because to me, this is supposed to be a place to escape the troubles of the world and have fun or feel at ease. If I vented, it'd be through my art versus my words, which I feel conveys my thoughts more effectively than I could ever write out.

In light of everything going on and how unstable it all seems, it gives me an outlet to channel those negative fears and concerns into something I hope is beautiful and light-hearted even if it's tinged with a little of those negative thoughts. The pensive pieces I've drawn before were some way of finding something good in the midst of the chaos I've been facing day to day.

So with my latest post, I wanted to embody a sense of hope after enduring another day of feeling mediocre and not too optimistic for whatever the future will bring. We live in interesting times to say the least and if you're like me, you're eagerly awaiting when we can finally breath more easily. Getting hard hitting news or encountering a massive obstacle tests one's patience and endurance quite a bit. It's shocking how things fluctuated over these past years and despite it all, I felt that keeping up this blog was important.

Based on some of the reception I've gotten on even my more morose art pieces, it's very cathartic to see others feel lifted by this art and actually find it calming to see. I'd imagine a number of you are feeling very stressed, scared and antsy in your own lives.

I may never know to what extent you all are struggling. But we're tied together by a mutual love for a video game series that most were introduced to as children and I'm sure indulging in it provides some level of nostalgic comfort in the wake of the next big thing happening. At least for me it does!

It's important that we have outlets and that we have places to just vent or express ourselves in a way that keeps us going and gives us energy to rejuvenate or some peace of mind, even for just a little while. It's better than freaking out and feeling wound up all the time.

Wherever you all are in your current state, I hope you'll remember to take a deep breath and remind yourselves of what you're most looking forward to in life. Everyone has something we're eager to accomplish or see. Make sure you're allowing yourself some rest. We need as much of it as we can afford it.

I hope you're all in a good spot. If you aren't yet, pray for it and you'll get there eventually. Keep the faith everyone and keep running towards your goals. God be with you and peace be unto you. ✨🙏✨

#text #rambles #thinking thoughts #was moved to speak out a bit there

[echodoesstuff62333]

Choi info dump

@tmnt-oc-comp

👀is this an info dump for Choi made to get a tiny bit of hype for Choi in the TOC??? Absolutely. I hope y'all enjoy this! Forgive me for any typos.

Choi Dianzar is a peculiar subject. Being a yokai at first, before a strange mishap caused an oozquito to mutate them. After, they were left battered and bruised in a abandoned house. Most of what happened in that time period is blocked out from them, and they don't really care.

While wandering the alleys of New York City, they accidentally stumbled into the streets. The humans figured out it wasn't a cosplay, and freaked out. This is how they found out they could shapeshift. They managed to get away, but not without injuries.

They focused on learning how to shapeshift on demand, and eventually managed to do it. Though Choi also found out their limitations with it.

They used a human form to get an apartment, and eventually found out about Run of The Mill Pizza! They worked there for a bit, which is how they met the turtles. They were the turtle's waiter, and loved Leo's puns. His brothers and him were a bit surprised, but Leo loved it.

Leo became way more of a regular, and sometimes forced Choi to take breaks to talk with him. The two formed a bond, but due to all the hanging out with Leo, Choi got fired.

Leo felt bad about this, especially since Choi wasn't able to find a new job quick enough to pay their rent. They got evicted, and were forced to live on the streets. When Leo found out, he invited them to the lair.

The other turtles were a bit hesitant with Choi, but eventually warmed up to them. They were interested in Donnie's inventions, and actually learnt a lot from him. They bonded with Mikey due to their love of art, and helping Mikey out with his 'Hug it Out' seminars. Choi got along with Raph due to letting him let out his emotions without 'burdening' his brothers.

Choi also managed to arrange family meetings, of course they never participated. But they used their ability of analyzing to get the whole family to talk their problems out. Leo eventually begged them to join one, and they agreed. They helped explain everybody's problems to eachother.

Choi and Leo continued to grow close, and Choi eventually managed to get a new job and a new apartment. They still often visited, but the contact with the turtles slowly turned to dead silence.

Leo quickly got nervous, and went to Choi's apartment to check on them. Everything was a mess, and he grew more worried. When he found Choi, they looked absolutely wrecked.

Leo asked what was wrong, and Choi's walls finally crumbled. They had suddenly remembered everything that had happened before and during their mutation. It scared them, and has left them a disaster.

Leo and his brothers helped Choi get their life back together, Mikey giving advice, Raph letting them get their emotions out, and Donnie letting them using inventing as an outlet. Leo often took walks with Choi, relaxing and being a distraction from everything.

During these walks, Choi and Leo realised just how strong their bond is. And how much they relate to eachother, when Choi got their life as back together as it could be. Leo confessed his feelings for them. They left him, not answering.

This caused Leo to stress about ruining their friendship. But Choi came to the lair and told him they just needed to process it, and that they absolutely would love to get together! The two eventually got matching hoodies and bracelets.

Choi became a part of the family. And everything was okay.

I imagine all of this happens in season one, right before Shredder comes. So.. if this gets.. hm.. let's say fifteen likes I'll make a part two for season two and the movie!!

#tmnt #rottmnt #tmnt au #tmnt oc #alternate universe #leonardo #donatello #raphael #michelangelo

[akpaleyreblogs]

Hi. I'm that one anon. So I don't need to fear from AI art genereters? Is it still posible for me to build an audience, when there is AI art genereters? How can I surviv as an artist, because that's one of the few things that I can do, because of born with learning dificulty, that can be posably categorasd as a disabelity, but I'm not to shour. Sorry if I sound stupid, or if I'm over reaction.

I'm not saying you have nothing to fear from AI art generators if you're trying to make money as an artist. I think that would be a ludicrous thing for me to say. AI art generators will give outlets to people who never would have spent the money to commission you, but they will also take up some amount of attention and energy that might have been constructive for you. You are competing with them if you're trying to be a professional, no question.

You are also, to be clear, competing with photographers. People stopped commissioning as many portraits when photography became an accessible technology. You're just used to that one. What you will note, however, is that photography did not eliminate demand for portrait artists. It reduced it and it changed it. What I expect us to see from AI is a reduction of unknown size and change in unknown shape of demand for independent artists. It will get harder. Thinking that something is a legitimate art and a useful technology doesn't mean I'm not unhappy for all of the people who are going to be displaced by it.

What I will say is that photographs have not eliminated the audience for photorealistic artwork, any more than mass produced belts have eliminated the audience for interesting handmade leather work. People look for different things in these different places. If I'm just buying a belt from the store off the rack, I want something functional. But if I want something beautiful and interesting I'll go look for an independent craftsman who I'm willing to pay real money for something special, or custom, or just done in a style that doesn't get mass produced. I suspect the freelance art market will be similar. You may still be able to build a following of people who find your style and your work compelling. There will always be a group of consumers who are interested in buying something bespoke, custom, in your specific style, etc if you can figure out how to reach them. Marketing yourself is going to be important, but to be fair, you were already competing with every artist and photographer and television show and everything else to do that, so marketing is already important. There are a lot of talented people out there, you are competing with all of them for eyes and clients. Art is already a very difficult field to make it in for that reason. It will get harder. I do not want to pretend it won't. But it's not going to disappear.

There will likely be an emerging market for AI artists who are good at it. That market will exist alongside the market for digital or traditional artists, the same way that digital art and photography emerged alongside traditional art markets. I remember when I was a kid and getting into digital art there was a lot of discourse from traditional artists about how digital art wasn't a real art form and freaking out because it was going to compete with painters. And it did. And it does. But it didn't get rid of the market for paintings. Things will change. People who were doing okay in the status quo are going to have to figure out what their lives look like in the changed world. But that's how it's always been.

Ultimately, my stance comes down to this: I do not think AI art is going away. Automation rarely does. I think attempts to restrict it will affect independent people who want to use models, but won't ultimately affect industry giants with resources very much and so are likely to consolidate money and capital with a few very wealthy capitalists while those tools become unavailable to the everyday people who would have gotten use from them. So I want a response to that problem to be healthy and constructive as a community.

Specifically I want our response to that problem to be to push our governments really hard for arts funding, a strong social safety net, and a UBI. You're afraid of not being able to make it as an artist because you're disabled and that makes surviving difficult in our current system. I want to push for a social safety net that would allow you to survive even if you couldn't work. A lot of artists are afraid of being pushed out of professional art because art is the thing that makes them happy and what they want to be spending their time doing. If they get pushed out of professional art under the current system, they have to go find some other job to devote very large numbers of hours to and they don't get to make very much art. I want a UBI or a 30-hour work week so that these people can afford not to work full-time so that they can continue devoting large amounts of time to what they love. Both of those reforms would affect a lot more than artists, they would be significant steps towards a more livable society for everyone. But to work, they would also do something that's really important to me, which is to capture the value that is being generated by machines and distribute it to people.

You are not stupid. You are not overreacting. You have good reason to be afraid of AI art if you are a professional artist or seeking to be one. But I think the rational reaction to that is to demand socialized public policy, not to ineffectively push back against a new tool. If you live in the United States, vote and call your senators and representatives. If you live in other countries, same deal but for your system. The solution to automation is socialism and the distribution of the value that automation creates to the populations affected by it.

#ai art

[dausy]

This is my weekend post I was too lazy to post about until today. Ill start it with a quick drawing I did in procreate. I can't draw while out of the house. Its just not my safespace but heres a drawing just to keep my blog somewhat art themed.

So I lived in Savannah all during my entirety of my social media hiatus. Quit doing art at that time. Now I kinda regret it. But since I've been away for 3ish years..omg I'm so jealous everything has grown sooo muuuch. So I get adverts all the time for the brand Vuori and last year maybe? we drove to Montgomery Al to explore since we live vaguely close and I had no idea that Vuori sold in real life locations and there they were at this one shop in Montgomery! I thought that was just some sort of internet brand (very expensive too btw) but I love the few items I got from there and I had been thinking about buying some of the same items but in different colors. Since I knew I was going to visit Savannah I had small hopes that maybe it was a bougie enough town to maybe have a boutique that also sold Vuori...sounded like that was too specific too happen. Thought maybe I'd drag by husband around river street while he complained I was taking too long looking for a specific brand that I'd never find..I also kinda wanted to try the OnCloud brand shoes too..I thought Onclouds would be more readily available for shopping purposes..anywho, we go to see a movie and afterwards since we were in the area my hubby was like "oh I wanna show you this store at the tanger outlets I saw the last time I was here" and lobehold!!! it was a store that sold both Vuori and Onclouds..in one store..I just about died..I don't want to tell you how much money I spent on 2 pairs of shorts, pants and a pair of shoes. Then we ran over to hottopic so I can buy another lougefly I dont need.

movie we saw btw was the Buzz Lightyear movie and I absolutely loved it. It was a great movie.

Then the next day we went and had brunch at the cutest little french inspired place called The Emporium. I'd never been before but I loved it.

Then we went to the art stores. Also hit up a super kroger which I miss tremendously and wish I had one nearby. I bought so much junk food to bring back with me. I am a bloated sugar bomb right now.

I did go check out the Sailor Moon Vans but didn't actually buy any.

Then we visited St Augustine Florida. We've gone on many trips where we were like "oh we should have brought the dog" and this time I was adamant we brought the dog. This was probably the time I really shouldn't have brought the dog. I was asking for parking tips on facebook because I get anxious about trying to find parking in new places and the local facebook let me have it about being a bad pet owner and taking my dog to walk on the beach when its hot outside. I ignored the haters because my dog has booties and a backpack! but it did shake me up 8( ngl. I did feel horrible for her. It was really hot outside but it wasn't the heat that got to her it was the fact that we went to the pirate museum and they had pretend canon fire and just within the past 2 years my dogs decided loud noises were going to scare her. The fake canon fire absolutely freaked her out. She didn't do anything, she just looked petrified the rest of the day. So we cut our day short. We did get to go on a tour which she looked like she had fun and we walked around the fort. But as soon as we did that one museum, any noise had her shaking and glued unable to move. Wasn't anticipating that. So anyway..it was overall a fairly good weekend.

#lifeblog #artistblog #mufasa #sarabi #tlk #thelionking #disneyfanart #tlkfaa #tlkfanart #mufasasarabi #procreate #fanart #savannahga #staugustine

[whentherewerebicycles]

I’m sleeeepy today. got a lot done this morning and early afternoon but then made the fatal mistake of crawling into bed and now it’s unclear if I’ll ever manage to get out again. mm okay let’s do a little house check-in.

LIBRARY: I am so happy with the library that I make a little audible sound of delight every time I walk past it… I love it so freaking much omg. I am having a lot of trouble deciding if I want to put a cozy oversized chair or beanbag in there or if I want to leave the floor area open. cozy chair is obviously tempting but I’m not sure I would actually hang out in there to read when I have lots of other comfy spaces to be and I kind of like the clean open look. I do want to get a rug in there to complete the room but I find online rug shopping to be the most maddening experience imaginable so I might put that off for a bit. I’m kinda thinking no chair and just a rug + maybe a small end table with a plant or a candle or a lamp on it to cover up that oddly placed electrical outlet a little bit. then I’ll maybe do a few more prints on the other walls but tbd. I started successfully cleaning paint off the ceiling today but want to let the walls dry/cure just a little longer before I mess with that.

LIVING ROOM: I need to just bite the bullet and splurge on a nice TV console—it’s the one thing that room is missing and then it will be perfect. oh I guess I also need to figure out the plant corner sitch like what do I want to have going on over there once I replace the temporary makeshift plant stands. and I do probably want to paint the walls a slightly calmer green at some point (there’s too much yellow in the one I picked I think) but I can’t face it now. very happy with everything else though!! could not love my giant sectional more it’s sooooo cozy.

KITCHEN: I made some small additions and improvements last week that really pulled that room together. the actual kitchen prep area is the only part I’m not crazy about—the cheap laminate counters just show absolutely everything and I’m still hurting a bit for storage space. considering getting a small island but can’t decide if it’ll make the space feel too cluttered. tbd but it’s not urgent.

HALF BATH: I want to paint you, half bath!!! and do something about your horrible ugly tile. but I’m not sure what color scheme I want yet. I think this will be a “spend months collecting Pinterest inspo” winter project. the half bath and utility closet (now library) were the most blah and featureless rooms in the house and now the library is my favorite, so I feel confident that I can effect a similar transformation in the hall bath given time.

HALLWAYS: looking good. very pleased with the planter wall and small art. downstairs hall could eventually have a bit more going for it but idk that’s not urgent.

DAYROOM: something about this room is not right and I don’t know what it is. the wall color is stunning and I love the colorful cabinet in there but the room lacks personality other than that and I don’t spend any time in there except when I’m working at my desk. which is a shame because it’s such a lovely big open room and it gets the best natural light in the house. I guess I just feel like I haven’t figured out its character yet you know? I wanted it to feel like a cozy writing space too but it feels like it’s wholly defined by my workstation (and by my blah feelings about work by extension). I wonder if a solution might be dividing up the space more intentionally—like figuring out how to use the couch or other furniture to create the feeling of two rooms within that one space, one for writing and one for work. hmmm. I must apply my mind to it.

BEDROOM: I’ve done very little here! I think I want a friends and family photos wall or one of those strings of photos clipped on. but I might also want a hockey/fandom corner lol so I can gaze upon My Guys and feel happy. like the dayroom it’s a bit of a “lots of space but not sure what the room’s personality is yet” situation. fine for now but definitely a winter project. paint will be the thing that transforms and defines it I think. very much considering painting it (or an accent wall) that dusty terracotta pink to warm up the space but that feels daring haha. we will see!

[rippeanuts1950-2000]

Diary of a teenage ghost Hunter

Friday June 25th 4:00 pm My bedroom)

What does a 16 year old ghost hunter do when her parents force her to move to some weird ass town in the middle of nowhere? Find the nearest book shop of course! Joking, joking. Though that is exactly what I did as soon as my parents said I could go out. Hey, don’t judge me. The bookshop was the one thing I was looking forward to about this place and let me tell you, it was worth the wait.

The place shouldn’t even be called a shop! It should be called a book armory? No, wait, that sounds weird. A book outlet? Nope, it still doesn’t work. Whatever, I’ll figure it out later. So I went to the huge bookshop that I think used to be a Barnes & Nobles that got turned into a regular bookshop. It’s nice to know I’m supporting a small business. Small meaning it’s owned by a family and not some corporate place. Like I said, the place was huge. Anyway, I went in and spent twenty minutes just gaping at everything. It was beautiful. Filled to the brim with books and really cool knick knacks at some great prices. No joke, I bought a sketch book, some pens and pencils, a journal, some decorations for my room, and some books I’ve been wanting for a while, for under $200! I’m living the dream life honestly.

While I was there, I ran into what I could only describe as a stereotypical mean girl. I did not get her name because I ran away before she could scream at me. That happens to me way more than it should. Trouble is, I don’t know if she was a ghost or not. No one else seemed to notice her and I got a few weird looks when I screamed an apology at her. Maybe I was just too loud? Well if she wasn’t a ghost at least I don’t have to deal with her at school since mom and dad finally agreed to homeschool me. I think it was a way to get me to shut up about not wanting to hide my sexuality from people even if I get bullied. I’m a proud lesbian, I’m not hiding that part of me.

No matter how hard it is.

NOPE! DON’T GO THAT ROUTE BRAIN!

But I also won’t deal with it cause it’s summertime thank goddess.

Anyway, I love my new journal! It’s so pretty and it has cute little chibi ghosts on the cover! I cannot not wait to use it for more interesting things I find at the bookshop. Oh and write stuff about my ghost hunting. That’s also why I got it.

Obviously. 

Also my new room is really cool. Mom and Dad found this huge house for surprisingly less than a million dollars and I got the top floor all to myself. Granted, there’s only three rooms up here but Mom says I can turn the second room into an art room! Isn’t that great! Now I won’t have to go outside to make something because my parents are neat freaks and they hate messes. The room I'm in currently is my bedroom and it has all my stuff in it since Dad came up here first to set everything up while Mom and I drove down here yesterday. I still need to unpack so I should probably get started. 

Saturday June 26th 1:30 am My Closet)

Holy shit.

That’s all I have to say after what has been transpiring for the past hour and half.

I knew there was a reason why my parents got the house so cheap!

Twelve people died here.

Correction, twelve people were killed here.

TWELVE PEOPLE WERE KILLED HERE!

WHAT THE FUCK!

Look, I get that my parents want me to help in the family business and hunt ghosts so that we help them go to the other side and blah blah. Especially since I’m the only one in my family since my great great grandma who can see ghosts. But moving me into a house where the souls are still haunting it and need to go to the otherside, is taking it too far!

Okay let me start from the beginning.

It all started after I woke up at midnight. I was thirsty so I went downstairs to get a glass of water. I get my glass of water and go back to my room, knowing that I probably wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. So I’m thinking about what book I’m gonna read or if I should watch tv on my phone again, when I see a very pretty girl with silky black hair and pale skin digging through my closet and muttering that I have too much flannel. Being the mature person that I am, I threw my water at her and screamed, “Begone intruder!” The girl just looked at me and smirked.

“I’m dead and I live here, so I’m not an intruder.” She said and that’s when I realized that the girl had gashes all over her body and her very cute outfit was covered in blood. “Why are you in my room?” I asked, not thinking what else to say. The girl snorted and floated over to me. “Because you, Cassandra Mendez, are going to help me and my cousins with our problem.” She said, placing her hands on my shoulders. Instead of feeling cold and uncomfortable like it usually does when a ghost touches me, it felt pleasantly icy and comforting. “Whoa, whoa. You know my name and I don’t know yours! That’s not fair.” I said, because all my brain cells left me when the pretty ghost girl touched me.

The girl giggled. “You’re right, that isn’t fair Cassandra. Let’s fix that, shall we? I’m Butterfly Thompson, nice to meet you.” Butterfly said and now that I could properly see her eyes, I noticed they were light green. “Butterfly, that’s an interesting name.” I said. “My parents were hippies, Cassandra.” She said as she let go of my shoulders. She went back to digging in my closet. “Cassie.” I said dumbly. Butterfly looked up, confused. “What?” She asked. “I go by Cassie, not Cassandra. Now can you tell me why you're here?” I asked, really hoping this whole thing was some dream.

“Cassie. I like that. Less of a mouthful. Anyway, I’m here to save you from the flannel nightmare that is your closet.” Butterfly said and I tried to ignore the way my stomach fluttered when she said my name. “You and I both know that’s not true.” I said exasperated. She hummed in response. “Oh but it could be. But unfortunately it’s not. At least not right now. I’m here because I need your help to prove that my family and I were murdered.” Butterfly said. I blinked at her. First of all, why me? Second of all, she was murdered? “How many people died and how did they die?” I asked, not sure what else to say.

Butterfly started counting on her fingers. “Twelve. They took out Blake and Bloom and their parents first. Stabbed Aunt Bria and Uncle Braxton I think, I was hiding in the closet with Burst so I don’t know. They pushed Blake and Bloom out the window, their deaths were immediate. Then they went after Blaze and Briar but Aunt Britnay and Uncle Ben fought back. Unfortunately, their battle was for naught as the killer somehow managed to strangle them before throwing Briar and Blaze out the window as well. They took a little longer than the other two to die. You know this guy had a thing for throwing kids out the window. Then they came to closet me and my brother were in. Mom and Dad fought as hard as they could but in the end they didn’t make it either. I don’t know how they were killed. The killer pulled me out of the closet first but unlike my cousins I fought back. They managed to get a couple gashes and hits on me before I was thrown out the window. My death was immediate. Burst’s wasn't. They died in the rose bushes, bleeding out because the killer stabbed him before throwing them out the window like everyone else.” Butterfly said, her voice monotone.

“Then why was the killer not caught?” I asked, because it sounded like a bunch of innocent people were brutally murdered here, no questions asked. Butterfly sighed and sat on my bed. “They were smart. They made it look like the adults committed suicide and that us kids fell off the roof. Even down to the fact that they made it look like Burst was impaled. But we know the truth.” She said, a bitter smile on face. “Where do I come in?” I asked and she grinned. “You’re gonna be homeschooled, it's summer, you can talk to all of us, and you can talk to our friends who are alive and help us! Together you can find a way to figure out who the killer is and why they did it so we can put their ass in jail.” Butterfly said excitedly.

“Wait us?” I asked, because I thought she was the only ghost here. She nodded vigorously. “Yes us, I was sent to talk to you before we bombroad you with everything.” She explained. “Let me think about this before I do anything.” I said. Butterfly nodded. “Okay, get back to me in the morning! Sleep well Cassie.” She said, giving me a hug before floating down somewhere. 

Well after writing this down, I know what to do. I have to help her. She didn’t deserve what happened to her and her family at all. Now I’m actually gonna go to bed because, damn, I'm tired.

#original writing #original character #original story #tw blood #tw death

[acefaun]

hey, you're allowed to take as much time as you need. Don't feel stressed or pressured to put out drawings/etc. Sometimes creativity comes and goes but know that your work is amazing regardless bcuz it comes from you <3. You're valid my guy struggles and all. Sending lots of love and wishes

😩 I wuv you. ����💖

Honestly, it’s not that I feel pressured to make any art or fics, but that being creative was an outlet for me.

There were so many good things! I’d feel sad or upset or I’d just need a distraction from the overwhelming thoughts, so then I’d write or draw. Next thing you know, I’d feel better AND I’d have a product at the end of my moping. And having created something with my own two hands feels good.

But right now it feels daunting. If I had to put it into words it’s a feeling like “Wow, how are you going to draw/write something better than that? That was freaking amazing; That was my prime, my masterpiece.” Or “All these guys in the fandom are so talented, I should just let them take it from here. I like looking at their stuff anyway.”

So instead of facing the scary tower of self-doubt I’ve made, I settled with playing Genshin as my distraction. except… I still get sad at the end of the day because unlike when I was being creative, there’s no end product that I’m used to. I mean, I build and power up my guys, but I can’t take them with me or show people “Look what I made!” Well… I do, but it’s not as gratifying!

But I got a big commission for my family business, we’re doing a 50 year anniversary, and I have to design everything. I have 4 months to work on everything; shirts, cups, banners, flags… whatever else they might want. I’m just. 😵‍💫 not present yet.

Maybe I should try getting off of the computer. Take a natural approach with sketchbooks and papers and pens and my trusty binder.

I'll figure something out somewhere. Just gotta crawl out of bed first. Put on some music and start my day. 🎃 Maybe putting on a Halloween playlist would raise my spirits.

In the meantime, I found a Baguette:

From far away I thought it was a mini-centaur. 🥺 Imagine how sad I was to find out it was a dog with a really tall hat.

#my asks

[whokenobi]

Man, as soon as I saw the word bullied, it just did me in. I can relate so badly. Highschool was brutal for me. Even walking to class in the morning, having to walk past the other kids. I was the shy kid so I got picked on, never had any comeback. And treated badly by "friends". I got to senior year and said f-it. I even managed to skip gym to stay and work on my art projects. Got to have lunch in the art studio also. I realized I could feel completely alone whether I was in a group or not. Both at school and with family. There's a big age gap between myself and my siblings, so we didn't always get to hang out. That was the saddest thing ever to me. By college I didn't know how to speak to people let alone guys. I had 0 experience at all. My girls freaking saved me. I would be lost without them. I understand that feeling of awkwardness about dating because we don't even know ourselves. My friends helped me see that. And I hope everyone else sees that too. Putting yourself first is everything. I remember another kid getting it worse than me and he and I stayed in touch over the years. He's joined the armed forces and is doing very well. The kids that bullied us, not so much. But I believe in karma and the energy I put out will come back to me. So I hope their situations are better. I don't even know where this is going now, but I just needed to purge for a bit. Thank you Nati and everyone else for making this a safe and encouraging environment.

I am so glad you were able to find a supportive community and that you and the other boy are doing well! I fully believe in karma, what goes around comes around eventually. People tend to bully who are scared of their own insecurities so they lash out at others to make themselves feel better. The fact that you were able to instead turn to things that comforted you as a healthy outlet says so much more about you as a person. 💛

#ask

[astrolology]

The Love-Hate Relationship with Stelliums (Pt. 1) ✨

Guysss pls remember that astrology is holistic and this should be read taking into account your overall chart placements, as well as the planets in your stellium and what sign rules your stellium. TAKE NOTE lol

1st house

❤️: You may be a person who is very driven towards a particular goal, single-minded in behavior and with a sense of determination that is hard to beat. The focus is on self-improvement and is rather internally driven - there can be large amounts of time focused on figuring one’s identity out. You’re not afraid to say things as they are - you’re able to dish out criticism hard but you give credit when its due. You extend the courtesy you receive to others. You may have an innate sense of wisdom that you keep deep within that you don’t let slip unless to extremely close ones but in times of hardship you are a good source of motivation. You always seek to improve yourself and it’s hard (if not impossible) to drag you down because of your strong personality and how you tend to always move on no matter what. I think 1st house stelliums are the embodiment of “don’t look back” and y’all always try to make the best out of every best situation, sort of like seeing the silver lining in everything. And also when crises emerge you’re able to keep a calm head on your shoulders and are good at making snap decisions, which makes you good on your feet!

👹: I don’t think y’all are as self-absorbed as ppl make you out to be but there’s definitely an element of self-centredness such that when you do something, you often consider what is most convenient or productive for you. You might get upset when your plans are disrupted but sometimes do the same to others even though you might be aware of what you’re doing - in that aspect, 1st house stelliums can be hypocritical. For you, there is never enough - you’re never satisfied with anything, be it yourself or for other things so you can seem really unappreciative. Keep in mind that you also tend to force others to agree with you and don’t be so quick to dismiss the other party’s POV no matter how dumb it seems. Remember that there’s always something to learn from other people, no matter their status. You need to work on expressing your appreciation to others in a more genuine manner (altho I know y’all do it in gruff, slightly awkward ways when sincere - kinda cute ngl).

2nd house

❤️: You may be a person who has a strong moral code and has a staunch value system that you won’t deviate from no matter what. Sense of loyalty is usually unbreakable and it can take a lot to truly anger you. You can have a good financial sense and good instincts/foresight that allow you to plan ahead for stability’s sake. More often than not in certain areas you are a master of categorising and structuring things which means that your mind is analytical, critical and (usually) organised. You hate it when people think they know you because you (understandably) know yourself the best - there are many privatised layers of yourself that you prefer to keep... private so yeah it just annoys you when that happens. Y’all are a leader in certain aspects of your life and even though 2nd house stelliums tend to prefer being the right-hand man, your control freak tendencies come out and you end up leading anyway. You become really productive because of the fear of failure - you have crazy high expectations for yourself and expect the same of your closed ones (although ultimately you’ll support them in whatever they do). There is an appreciation for the finer things in life and when it comes to your loved ones you’re not afraid to spoil them hard. 

👹: Be careful not to let this driving need for stability restrict you from spontaneity and following your heart’s desire. There is an inherent inflexibility in your nature; stubbornness can really be your kryptonite. You don’t really take any opportunities that you think might threaten your security which, while giving you a stable fort, can hold you back in your own happiness + prosperity. You might realise that there is a limit to your perspective but really struggle in seeing outside of that perspective mainly because you spend so much time thinking about what matters to you that you’ve become accustomed to your train of thought (altho when you do break it it’s lowkey groundbreaking). The focus on this house is on stability, not only on material wealth, so while you may be reaping in one aspect you might tend to lack on the spiritual or emotional elements of life. You can be very, very controlling and demanding so you might want to tone it down a little if not people might get the wrong impression. People might think of you as judgemental (and you are tbh) but I believe it’s just 2nd house stellium’s way of assessing a person’s character/abilities. 

3rd house

❤️: You may be a person who puts in a lot of effort into various forms of self-expression (not limited to verbal communication but also finding a specific niche such as music, art, writing etc.) Your brain is naturally sharp and inquisitive and you may be able to pick things up very quickly. You might be rather adaptable but are surprisingly stubborn when it comes to your opinion or intellectual capabilities. You might have a dark/dirty sense of humor and because of that you also have a keen ability to see past the societal nuances of propriety and get to the heart/root of whatever a person is saying. You can spend your entire life trying to understand people and why things work the way they work - your brain needs to be stimulated in order for you to feel alive. Passion for you has to be applied in a productive manner - you probably aren’t a person to just take a passion for something as a mere hobby. Rather, you would either apply that passion to one of your existing projects, create a new one or use it as a motivating factor. Your interests are wide and varied, which makes you really well-rounded in certain aspects! 

👹: Many people say y’all are flighty beings and I can certainly see why they would think so. Because of your perceptiveness, you tend to change your narrative whenever you’re speaking to different people, so as to make yourself sound more convincing. In that aspect, you can be quite manipulative. Your ego probably isn’t the smallest either haha - you can tolerate being slighted at some things but if it’s a challenge to one of your passion projects you’ll probably become very upset. You need to stop giving people the hot and cold shoulder all the time and even though you’re quite sociable you tend to flaunt but hide your true thoughts. You have to be more open and honest in your self-expression, and not that idealised, constructed version of yourself you think people will find interesting. I’ve noticed that 3rd house stellium ppl have an obsessive need to “stand out” and make themselves feel unique which, despite all your charms and popularity, might be the reason why you find yourself sometimes so isolated. You’re a perfectionist (although you would deny it) and secretly quite controlling but unlike other stelliums you can manage it better I feel. 

4th house

❤️: There is a pressing insistence regarding relationships in your inner circle - be it your family, closest friends, or your future family. Extended focus on your cultural heritage can also be possible. Deep down, compassion is at your core and you are very protective of your friends in a silent but aggressive way. Having a stable family life is very important to you but I’ve noticed that more often than not, 4th house stelliums have turbulent family relationships. The beauty of 4th house stelliums is their ability to break through whatever toxic relationships they’ve been in and to create families of their own - be it unconventional or not. They are the epitome of “we choose our own families”. Y’all can be very empathetic and rather selfless to the point where you allow yourself to be manipulated (even though you’re aware of it) - but it’s usually for a justifiable reason. You find it easier than most to balance the emotional landscape but there are moments where you need an outlet to express yourself. There can be an obsession/possessiveness over your own culture - you take pride in your roots and become lowkey insulted when people disrespect it (and if you don’t, you somehow nearly always manage to find some other culture to assimilate yourself in). 

👹: Y’all probably get very upset when things don’t go your way but the problem with this stellium is that there is a want to speak out but you choose to bury everything inside instead - giving you a very passive-aggressive and even aloof image. Internally, you guys might think that you are giving off a very soft/giving aura but some people are wary precisely because you are hard to read. You are very, intensely private (rivalling 2nd/7th house tbh) and you have to learn how to share your true thoughts, no bullshit, no suger-coated thoughts with your family and dearest friends even though you are capable of handling yourself. You are independent, ambitious, and people often underestimate you, but you have to let people in first in order for them to know what you’re capable of! Also, idealisation of certain things (eg. a future family life/partner) can be prevalent and you overthink things to the point where sometimes you make yourself miserable. Again, please talk to someone hahaha you don’t have to deal with everything yourself. 

5th house

❤️:  Insecurity runs rampant in any 5th house stellium BUT y’all are quite paradoxical in a sense that you also have a very strong aura of confidence. Sometimes, in crucial moments, you manage to convince yourself and others that you are the most important person in the room haha - literally the epitome of “fake it till you make it”. Still, a deeply rooted kindness is found in 5th house stelliums such that you’re always looking out for the underdog in the room. If you are developed you probably have a strong sense of righteousness which prompts you to look out for people who might be struggling. Y’all are very concerned about your physical appearance and most of the time you like to keep your body in good shape, which draws the attention of people in the room. You likely have an infectious smile (this is just a hunch but I don’t believe 5th house stelliums smile a lot - y’all quirk your lips or smirk but a true smile is rare so when you do... it melts the hearts of people). Everything that you do will have a youthful flavor and you have a healthy appreciation for downtime/self-care so while you might not (contrary to popular belief) be that fond of kids, kids are attracted to you. Oh and actually I think the stronger this stellium is in a person, the shyer the person seems at first impression but inwardly and as time goes by, they become more humorous and dramatic. 

👹: You aren’t exactly manipulative, but you know how to use the power of suggestion (and your charms) to get what you want. If unchecked, it’ll become a habit because to you, it’s an instinctive thing to do and you might not realise you’re hurting other people because of it. You are stubborn and prideful (which isn’t a bad thing sometimes but) you take criticism quite badly such that if a person tries to offer their opinion or goes against your beliefs, you might take it as a personal attack. You have a fear of being restrained/constricted (like 9th house) so you’re actually quite aggressive to those who you perceive to be a threat to your authority. You can also experience extreme mood swings (from crazy happy/hyper to melancholic in a snap) and when you do you expect people to give you attention. But you are hypocritical in this aspect because you yourself can be quite insensitive to other people’s feelings, or you brush them off if you’re not “in the mood”. 

6th house

❤️: You are most probably quite an organised person, not in a tidy way (although you could be) but in matters of life there’s an insistence on order and structure. The way you think can be very logical - you are able to think concisely and connect the dots in a quick manner and logic is probably prevalent in everything you do. However, in contrast to this pragmatic behavior, you are deeply caring and you won’t think twice to give up something if a loved one needs it. You are very disciplined in certain aspects of life and you are able to maintain a consistent effort in everything that you do. You’re probably someone who finds joy in small things and although you have high standards, it doesn’t take much to make you happy, as long as it’s genuine. You can be a perfectionist and really quite meticulous in your work which makes you someone who is detail-orientated. You give a lot of yourself to other people and most of the time you don’t expect anything in return, which is one of the great things about 6th house stelliums. You take effort into maintaining your physical health and you mighttt be a fitness freak or someone who keeps track of their diet really carefully. It’s likely that you encourage other people to follow your lifestyle and generally, you exert a sort of mellow influence around other people that makes them want to be better. 

👹: There’s a tendency for 6th house stelliums to fall into pessimism, precisely because of your pragmatic nature. Y’all may say that you’re being “realistic” but in actuality it does dampen the spirits of some people. You can also become really unreasonable and inflexible once you’ve made up your mind on something and that makes you a bit narrow minded because you simply refuse to listen to other people’s POV. This can also cause tunnel vision which can really limit your full potential and I think it’s something worth spending your time working on. When pushed into a corner or feeling insecure, y’all might try to cover it up by being condescending or giving the cold shoulder. There’s also a risk of being overly reliant on a schedule/structure and hence, cautiousness when it comes to being spontaneous or embracing something foreign. Because of your affinity towards maintaining health, your hypochondriac tendencies may be exacerbated and you need to try to lessen your over-worrying behaviour haha. Although you never dish out something you can’t receive (eg. high expectations - you’re truly your worst critic), your demanding tone can really make others cautious of you.

OVERALL, I strongly believe that the way to embrace your stelliums isn’t to reject or force yourself to change the values they represent, but rather taking those eccentricities and moulding it into something more precious and beneficial to yourself. It has to be done with a thorough understanding of yourself; with patience. 

-C

#astrology #astro notes #astro observations #1st house stellium #2nd house stellium #3rd house stellium #4th house stellium #5th house stellium #6th house stellium

[mothersfrogs]

You are a life saver btw, may I request the slender brothers with an artist s/o? Doing traditional and digital art?

AAAA WHY AM I SO SLOW

Slender

So pleased he has someone he can draw with

Traditional or digital, the two of you will have 2 hour long drawing sessions together

Slender has been drawing for a very, very long time, so if you need help drawing anything he’ll be right there

He has a few tricks up his sleeves

But if it’s digital art, he cannot for the life of him learn how to do it

And not because he’s incapable, he affects any kind of technology and makes stuff like phones and tablets glitch out

He’s learned how to control it over the years, but it’s still pretty bad

So try to stick to pencil and pen while he’s around

And if you want to, print out any digital art and show it to him, he’ll love it

Offender

Offender admires your artwork, he thinks it looks amazing

Though he can’t draw himself, he really likes to paint, especially with paint by numbers

They’re so captivating!! And reaaally time consuming

But it’s much more enjoyable when you’re doing it with him

And if painting isn’t your strongest suite, it will be soon!

But really, it’s great bonding time, and I cannot describe how much Offender loves spending every moment he has with you

You matter a lot to him

Your art does too, he finds it beautiful how you just draw with ease sometimes ((don’t tell him about art block))

It’s truly a talent to have

Splendor

Oh. my. God.

Another reason to love you!!

Your artistic abilities are like magic, he’s jealous

Nothing inspires Splendor more than creating art, and now he has an S/O who wields the magic graphite wand too?

yIPEE!!!

You’re truly a gift from the heavens, nothing makes this man happier than when he finds you making art that took as long as five hours, and is a highly detailed portrait, or a five minute doodle of a dog wielding a giant stick

You make Splendor so happy, he could just scream!

You’re so freaking talented at it makes him so proud

He’ll hang any art you give him on the wall in golden framing, where any and all guests can see as you hide your face in embarrassment because Splendor won’t stop rambling on about you

Trender

What a lovely couple you both are!

Trender excels in digital design, he’s been practicing since you could draw on a computer

He really enjoys it too, it’s a great outlet for stress and relaxation

Not to mention he designs a lot of clothing AND puts everything together

You will be required to draw him a little outfit he can put to together for you to model in

Honestly you’ll be helping him design a shit ton of clothing

And don’t think he won’t be paying you, he absolutely will

AND he’ll spoil you with brand new paints and fancy sketchbooks

Trender could sit and watch you draw for hours, it’s very fascinating to him how differently you sketch things out than he does

The whole process just mesmerizes him, your art style so unique, and sometimes you catch him looming over your shoulder while you create an art piece

It’s kinda funny, but there’s moments where you’re intensely focused in what you’re doing and then you turn around and jump like a rabbit

Just remember in those moments when you’re shooing your boyfriend out of the room that he loves you and your art very much

#creepypasta #creepypasta headcannons #slender brother #slender brother headcannons #slender #offender #trender #splendor #hoo boy sorry this took way too long #It didn't even take that long to write it too #stupid adhd brain #ask

[vickyvicarious]

Parker: "Teach me to like stuff."

.

Okay, so. I have some thoughts about The French Connection Job's Parker+Eliot subplot. And I think I wanna approach it separately, scene by scene from each of their perspectives, because we have a couple different things going on here. It's still a little more of a Parker meta than an Eliot meta, but I have enough to talk about on both sides, and they're connected enough not to be in separate metas, that I am going to do it this way.

Also going to put this under a cut because it gets long.

Parker

This whole subplot comes on the heels of the last episode, in which there was a lot of banter throughout about Hardison and Parker's dates, and him wanting to branch out into other things than just bungee jumping or whatever. We have seen hints of this throughout S5 so far, even though we're only a few episodes in at this point. They went on a world tour that was pretty much just jumping off of stuff, Hardison said something about them figuring things out. We saw a cute domestic scene of the aftermath of them watching a movie together, except Parker 'fell asleep again' and missed most of it, and Hardison eventually went off to work on his laptop. Parker tried to comfort him last episode about dust mites and ended up freaking him out instead. She talked about how she liked fire and Hardison complained she was missing the point of his offer for a candlelit picnic. They did end on a very romantic note with her still making the effort to make it happen but getting rained out, and him recognizing her effort and listening to him, and projecting the stars around the dark room then having the picnic inside. They are clearly very happy together and both making the effort to meet in the middle, but there are still some disconnects. Which makes sense this early on anyway, but it's not out of place for Parker to start getting worried about her limited interests here given the context of them contrasting Hardison's more widespread interests.

Starting right off the bat - there's a picture limit so I can't show these early moments, but throughout the first part of the episode we see Parker looking visibly upset/pensive. Hardison notices and asks her what's wrong, but is immediately distracted by his package arriving, and then the team gets into the briefing and he doesn't get to talk to her again. (Sidenote that this is pretty OOC for Hardison, and I have to assume he would at the very least come back to her later, but they were clearly trying to get Parker talking with someone else this episode and apparently couldn't come up with a better way to do it. His writing outside of the kitchen stuff was kinda off this whole episode anyway, what with the whole tip thing.) She was about to open up to him, however, which is important. There's also a scene shortly afterwards where she confides in Nate, again after he notices her being upset and asks what's bothering her. She claims everyone but her has 'a thing', and names a few of them. He asks her what she thinks when she sees Michelangelo's David, and when her answer is an immediate assessment of how it's guarded and what she'd have to do to steal it, he kind of hesitates and then goes right back to running the con. He basically gives up on helping her with this once it becomes clear that a quick sentence or two isn't gonna cut it.

So after those brief, unhelpful conversations, that's when she makes a move. She was responding to others before, but this time she comes up to Eliot, clearly nervous. And she asks him to help her feel something.

(I find it very interesting that she doesn't ask Sophie. Sophie is the person who she would usually go to for something like this, after all. But, aside from this being an Eliot-centric episode and just like them sidelining Hardison's possible assistance earlier the writers want Parker to talk with Eliot not Sophie, I think there are maybe a couple reasons why she might go to him here. First, just distance. Eliot is right downstairs, meanwhile at the moment Sophie is however far across town at her theater. Certainly not saying she wouldn't go to Sophie eventually, but maybe that's why not first. Second, she and Eliot have an understanding, one that's been explicitly acknowledged since the start of S4. They are similar in a way entirely unlike the rest of the crew. So while Sophie may understand emotions best, Eliot is the one most likely to know what Parker is talking about when she says she just isn't feeling anything. Which by the way I'm gonna get more into later on. Thirdly they're in love but that's not actually relevant here since all of the team love one another.)

Eliot

On Eliot's side, she approaches him when he's busy in the kitchen. This whole job is stirring up a lot of old feelings in him right from the start. Toby was someone who 'kept him from falling all the way down', and Eliot is deeply concerned for him. At the same time, the way they are running this con is allowing Eliot to take on the role of teacher. Even though his students aren't anything like the eager students Toby has just had taken away from him, Eliot wants so badly to take advantage of this opportunity to teach them - maybe even all the more because they're resistant. He's being given a very rare opportunity to indulge his belief that food is life and to share it on a larger scale. To use the knife to create, not just destroy. Leverage often walks a line between doing both (taking down the bad guys and helping people) but Eliot doesn't often just straight up get to just do the 'creating' part. (I mean, he loves the destruction too, he genuinely loves beating people up and taking down bad guys, but this is a rarer pleasure.) So he's pretty preoccupied with that at first, and initially dismisses Parker just like the other two guys did.

But when she just looks quietly disappointed at his response, he goes still and watches her. We cut away from them here so we don't see his actual response, but it's immediately clear that he's realizing this is actually something deeply important to Parker, and well worth his time.

On to the next part of this scene below.

.

[Eliot sets a dish down in front of Parker]

Parker: "...It's just food."

Eliot: "It's not just food! Alright, some people could look at it and just see food, but not me. I see art. When I'm in the kitchen I'm, I'm creating something outta nothing, you know what I mean? And sometimes I crush it, sometimes it's crap, but either way - it makes me feel something."

Parker: "Feel what?"

Eliot: "Just... feel."

Parker: [murmuring] "Feel... okay." [looks down at the food and hesitates]

Eliot: "You know, I didn't feel anything for a long time. Then Toby taught me how to cook, and after he did, I started to feel stuff again. That's why I share it through my food - this is my art. This is my art, Parker." [Parker nods, looking worried] "It's like lettin' a stranger in your head, just for a second. And you allow them to feel what you're feeling." [pause] "Look again." [he pushes the plate a little closer to her. Parker takes a deep breath and slowly sets her elbows down on the counter as she stares down at the plate. Eliot watches her closely.]

Parker

At this point I want to talk a little about what Parker means when she says "feel something" and talks about "having a thing." Because we've seen her have interests outside of straightforward thievery before. Sure, most of her hobbies revolves around stealing - casing local banks for fun, for example. But she clearly has a deep love for Christmas and for chocolate. So why doesn't she count those kinds of things as 'feeling something'?

I think it comes down to what Eliot's talking about here. It's a sense of art. Not even necessarily making it yourself, although that certainly applies. Parker likes sweet things like chocolate and donuts, but although she really really likes them they don't make her feel any truly deep emotion. It's more tactile than anything else, just a pleasant flavor. Her love of Christmas isn't the same either in her eyes because it's not uniquely hers. It's something she loves to celebrate but she can't do so all year round, and plenty of other people like Christmas too. This one comes a lot closer, because it definitely seems to be tied up more in community and family for her than something like enjoying chocolate and piñatas, but it still doesn't belong to her in the same way that cooking does to Eliot or theater does to Sophie. And while theoretically her love of base jumping and so on could maybe count, it is still so tied up in her thieving that it doesn't feel separate. She's really good at drawing but only thinks of it as a useful skill, not a creative outlet - this is similar to that.

She has been branching out into a lot of new experiences and emotions lately, and while she's struck out deep into uncharted waters with her relationship with Hardison, once there she's only seeing more and more things that she just... doesn't get. She loves spending time with him, and enjoys what they do together, but she doesn't understand all of those things. Not on a deeper level. She wants to feel that sense of connection to something, wants to feel deeply emotionally moved by something.

And honestly? I think she's way up in her head about it. I'm not trying to dismiss her struggle here at all, but I do think she is stressing herself out about having something uniquely her own. About having a huge interest that speaks so strongly to her personally. And those are amazing to have, but it's really not necessary. She doesn't need a strong secondary passion so much as she needs to let go of trying so hard to force herself into something.

And what's happening in this scene in particular is that Parker is trying so so hard to force herself to feel something. It's evident in her face throughout the whole scene, in her body language. And she is so terrified that it's not going to work that honestly, I'm not surprised at all that it doesn't.

Eliot

On Eliot's side of this scene, he feels like he recognizes where Parker is. This entire job has him remembering how it was to feel nothing. Her phrasing got to him deeply. He wants to reach out and teach her to see something more, just like Toby taught him.

He knew a bit about how to cook before Toby. But it was only seeing Toby's passion that struck something in him, that awoke a part of himself he might've never known before. For Eliot specifically, cooking being an art isn't just something he likes. It's something that brings him hope.

Eliot doesn't believe in redemption. But he believes in actions. And what Toby did, by teaching him to cook, was to teach him that his actions can be good. That he can create, not just destroy. That all is not lost - not 'for' him necessarily, so much as 'in' him. There is a deep empty place inside himself that he can enter so so easily. The difficulty is crawling back out again. Cooking was his rope out of there. He still finds it difficult to express his emotions very often, particularly verbally, but when he makes someone a meal he puts a part of himself into it. And yet doing so doesn't take anything from him, it just adds more.

This is all very vague and figurative and may make no sense, but the takeaway I want to have is that Eliot is opening up to Parker on a very deep level here. He feels like he recognizes what she's talking about, and it was a very bad place for him. (Again, I don't think she is quite that badly off at this point in canon, but I digress.) And while making food allows him to feel that he is demonstrating his love for someone, that he is sharing a part of himself with them, he recognizes that she isn't receiving that. What she's getting, is just a plate of food. Tasty food maybe, but nothing more than that. And so Eliot verbalizes everything to her in a way he rarely does.

And then he keeps trying. This scene obviously doesn't end up making her feel something, and we don't get to see the immediate aftermath of that, but we can glean a little about how they feel based on their reactions. And Eliot is deeply determined to help Parker feel something from his food. He insists that she play the food critic; even speaks directly to her and reminds her to consider what they talked about.

.

In the restaurant, we start out with Parker dutifully playing her role but feeling nothing much beyond just the role. Eliot checks in with Parker, she acknowledges that the food is good but doesn't make her feel anything, and he makes improvements based on her feedback. Then something abruptly changes.

Parker: "I can taste garlic, and mushrooms... and something else that makes me feel different."

Hardison: "Wait, was that for me, cause I-I don't get it."

Parker: "No, it's the food. I get it." [smiles] "I feel something."

+

Parker: "Mmm! These black noodles are amazing!

Eliot: "Parker, it's tagliolini nero con gamberi."

Parker: "Mmm." [eats a huge forkful] "Mmm. Mmmm. These are really good."

Parker

What just happened here? Last we saw from Parker, she'd failed to feel something from the meal Eliot made especially for her in the brewpub, and she was clearly disheartened. She felt it as a failure, very much in the sense of a disappointment. She didn't want to try again, didn't think it would work, and tried to protest when Eliot said she would be the food critic. Even once she got to the restaurant, nothing was happening for her.

The difference wasn't in the flavor of the food. The moment Parker started to feel something was right after she said she felt nothing and Eliot, instead of being disappointed or giving up, took it as a challenge. He changed his recipe, he improved it specifically to better reach out to her. He kept trying.

And yeah, maybe the bone broth helped it taste better. But that wasn't the point, not really. The point is that Parker had gotten herself stuck in a hole, trapped herself in this cycle of not understanding how things make you feel and then believing that she just couldn't. She wanted something of her own and she didn't have it and she didn't immediately get anyone else's thing either, and that was it. She just wasn't capable. She was other. This is an old old fear of Parkers, dating back to Archie or even before. Something in her just isn't capable of being like other people. She wasn't worthy of being in Archie's real family, and she's not able to feel passion for anything outside of stealing. (Setting aside the fact that she loves her team, that all she needed was the right family. That you don't have to be a creator to feel passion, and you don't need to be passionate about any particular thing in order to feel deeply and find beauty in the world.) Parker has empathized deeply with people, has felt so intensely before and is constantly trying to learn more and new ways to be. But because she is noticing her teams' passions now, she has this ideal that she wants to reach, and none of that is good enough for her. She doesn't even know exactly what her ideal involves, but she can't get to it.

But when Eliot doesn't give up, that gets to her. If he views his food as sharing himself with others, Parker finally gets what he's been trying to give all along. It's all about him trying again and again, changing his approach to match her better. That's what she feels, that's what she enjoys.

And once she starts, the floodgates open. She loves the black noodles. She is so happy, she is relieved. There was this huge resistance that she couldn't get past before, but Eliot persisting helped her to break past that and now that she is out of her head about it she can enjoy the food in a way she never has before. Because she feels his love for her in it.

Eliot

Eliot is trying so hard to connect to Parker. It's not really different from what I said in the last Eliot section, and basically the same as what I just said in that Parker section, but I want to emphasize a little more just how much this is about love on his end.

Eliot loves Parker. He loves her, and he wants so much to help her. It doesn't honestly matter that he does this with food, except for the fact that food is what matters so deeply to Eliot himself. He can't reach out to her in the same way through any other medium. And we don't get to see his reaction to Parker's moment of realization. But I think it would be such a deep sense of joy. This is as fulfilling for Eliot as it is for Parker. It's exactly what Eliot has been hoping for this whole episode, to teach someone else to see food in the same way he does. It doesn't matter if it only lasts for a moment or a single meal. That's enough. He has been the support Parker needed through this time of self-doubt. And it is all the more meaningful to him because this isn't just a random student, this is Parker.

He told her he loves her through his food, again and again, and she eventually felt it. She understood. That must mean so much to him.

.

I wanna end with one more brief note on Parker. Does she get her own "thing" this episode? No. No she does not, and this scene shows us that. Parker is not suddenly interested in food or cooking. The importance of that meal was purely derived from Eliot on the other end of it, focused on her and trying his best to reach out to her.

And I don't think this is something only Eliot could have done for her either, not really. The difference between him and the others this episode is mostly in persistence. However, it's also about her mentality. Hardison has built/done things for Parker before and she felt them just as deeply - but the context was different. She wasn't looking for a sense of beauty or art in the world at large then, and so even though she felt the love in the gift just as much, it didn't make her feel like she could find that kind of emotion in other things. She just wasn't looking for it. Also, it was made easier for Eliot to reach out because there's that connection Parker has with him, that understanding that they are on the same level somehow. She doesn't feel that with Hardison - and she loves him all the more for him being different from her, but he also I think can intimidate her with how good and open he is, with how much he can feel in so many different directions. It's part of why she got so worried about herself not being able to do so this episode.

Like, the team has scolded Nate for not having a life or interests of his own outside the job not too terribly long ago! And Parker has had her own joys before! But she isn't seeing that this episode, too caught up in this fear about not having her own 'thing', not feeling anything that way. So while anyone could have helped her through this, it was easiest for her to let Eliot do so + for him to understand what she needed from him. (Hardison in particular was rudely robbed the opportunity, but they all love and support her and could have reached her. Not to detract from Eliot doing so, but also I don't wanna sound like no other method of reaching out would've worked.)

But as soon as she feels something once with Eliot's help, that relaxes those fears. And then Parker is free to look in other places. She remembers Nate's comment about art, and maybe even tells him what she plans based on him knowing where she is at the end of the episode. And then she goes to visit this statue. In her own way which means breaking in, but without any goal of taking it. She just goes to look at the art. And she feels something again.

Parker doesn't gain some big passion at the end of this episode. She doesn't need to. She never did. She just learns how to let herself relax from that restrictive frame of mind. To simply be in the moment and enjoy things for the sake of what they are. To feel - not really in any way she was incapable of before, but intentionally now. It's a quiet victory, in the end. It doesn't mean she's going to get a new hobby or change her lifestyle at all really. But she's let go of a fear and is now intentionally seeking out new connections with the world beyond her once-limited parameters.

#leverage #leverage meta #parker #eliot spencer #my meta #ugggggh why did this get so long?! i just wanted to jot down a few thoughts! #hopefully it's coherent #i'm like half-asleep at this point which probably accounts for the length since i ramble on when i'm tired. and also hopefully for anything #that doesn't make sense

[sprnklersplashes]

songwriter!janis fic (unrequited crush, no-very-happy-ending) 

also on ao3

It all started because she loved Taylor Swift when she was in middle school. Who is she kidding, she still loves Taylor Swift, but that’s where all this began. A middle school girl’s obsession with Taylor Swift. A confused, sad girl with a broken heart and smudged black eyeliner, finding refuge in lyrics about loneliness and anger and revenge. They became anthems for her, mantras to mutter when the warzone of middle school became too much for her.

“Someday, I’ll be living in a big old city, and all you’re ever gonna be is mean.”

“Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in.”

“I can still see you, this ain’t the best view.”

It amazes her. It’s honestly as if Taylor Swift has managed to look into her life and given her a bundle of songs for whatever she needs. For when Regina has thrown her one too many snide looks, for when she’s standing at the door of North Shore High on her first day, for when she eats lunch alone, for when her mom is the best mom she could have asked for, for when she and Damian are lying on the grass in her backyard, staring up at the sky, laughing at absolutely nothing. The songs become the soundtrack to her life, the chords and those raw, honest lyrics an emotional outlet she so desperately craves. Taylor, and her songs, become a confidant, almost a close friend who always knows what to say.

With all that in mind, perhaps it was only a matter of time before she asks for a guitar for Christmas. She’s fourteen, braces and a slight lisp, and jumps up and down like a mad woman when she sees it under the tree.

She practices for three days straight, until her fingers bleed, but Should’ve Said No is the first song she learns off by heart. She yells the lyrics with maybe a little too much passion, but her parents applaud her nonetheless.

Like she said, that’s how it all started.

Because that same Christmas, she realises that screaming her feelings while playing guitar actually feels pretty cathartic. And that if it worked for Taylor Swift, it could work for her. So she writes stuff down, plays around with chords and strumming until the beat on the guitar matches the one in her head. She grabs a page and a pencil and writes and re-writes her innermost thoughts and feelings on the page until they sound the way she wants them to. She plays around with rhyme schemes and structure and everything she’s been taught about in English class, and a thrill runs through her as she does so. It’s the same breathless high she feels when she paints or draws, the rush that comes from creating something.

Her parents sit on the other side of her bedroom door, no doubt exchanging worried glances as she repeats the same verse, same chorus, with only a word changed. She watches them when they think she can’t see, peering through the crack in her door. The conclusion they seem to come to is ‘well, as coping mechanisms go, it’s pretty good, and she’s happy, so who are we to stop it?’.

It takes her four days to finish her first song. And it sucks. But she keeps it, writes down the lyrics and chords in one of the few empty notebooks she has, and there’s no going back from it now. She writes, and she writes, and she writes, near enough every day. She likes to think she gets better with each one. She learns more chords, buys a cheap ukulele the summer after freshman year, tries her hand at piano during a particularly difficult few weeks. She doesn’t plan on doing anything with them. They’re just her little pieces to hold on to. Her therapy sessions outside the carpeted office.

No-one knows about it. She has a reputation to keep up, after all. The loner-by-choice, too-cool-for-school, aloof art freak. Everyone has their roles to play in the ecosystem that is high school and, much as she hates the entire system, that is hers to play. And she plays it well, if she may say so. The fact that hardly anyone knows her past that facade suits her just fine. After all, if people think she doesn’t care, she can’t get hurt. No-one needs to know that Janis Sarkisian actually has feelings.

Even less need to know that she writes songs about said feelings.

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

By the time she reaches her junior year, she’s onto her third notebook. She keeps them tucked away in her sock drawer, expertly hidden so only she can find them. Damian teases her about it, calling her “the protagonist of a Disney Channel Original Movie”. She just rolls her eyes and reminds him that “if either of us is gonna be Disney’s first openly gay character, it’ll be you”. He can’t argue with that.

It should be noted that when Janis said that no-one knows about her songwriting, Damian was the obvious exception. He found out just weeks after she started. There’s no keeping secrets from him.

Between all her notebooks, she’s written around forty songs.

Then she meets Cady Heron one day. The human embodiment of a labrador puppy, complete with wide, lost eyes. She likes her instantly, decides to take her under her wing because Lord knows the girl needs it. Cady’s smile is infectious, her laugh like a summer breeze. She has dimples and caramel-coloured hair and really likes maths.

She meets Cady on a Monday.

By that Saturday, song number 41-titled “Dimples and Curls” is more or less complete.

She plays it for Damian, hands only slightly shaking as she changes chords, the strumming short and upbeat, the melody strangely happy for such a bittersweet song.

He applauds her, but the subject of the song hangs in the air even after she’s played the last chord and the music fades. Unsaid, but not unknown. Just like her songwriting, Janis couldn’t keep a crush from Damian if she tried.

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“Hey, check it out.”

Cady drops onto the seat across from Janis, the whole table shaking as she does so. Like a small meteor just hit Earth. Janis looks up from her lunch, pretending like she had been doing her own thing and not watching the door until Cady came in. Pretending like her stomach doesn’t do little flips at the sight of her crossing the cafeteria. She pulls the flyer towards her and hums in amusement.

“The winter talent show,” she reads before chomping off a carrot stick. “Oh, is it that time of year already?”

“Seems like only yesterday we was welcoming the young’uns into this brave new world during the harvest season,” Damian sighs, putting on a delightfully over the top Southern Belle accent, no doubt influenced by their reading of Streetcar Named Desire in English class. Janis cackles, and nearly chokes on her lunch as she does.

“And now the cold winds of winter are descending upon us,” she replies, her accent equally heavy. She bats her eyes for good measure, because she can and because it makes Cady laugh. “Oh but I pray the children will survive this season, it is often rough for them.”

“I am never showing you two anything winter related ever again,” Cady says.

Janis just shrugs and runs her hand through her hair before her eyes go back to the flyer. Clearly, whatever sophomore they got to design it this year did their best; found the prettiest looking snowflakes on Google Images to put on the cartoon stage, decided to write in some swirling, slanted font rather than the start-studded block lettering they usually went for. It’s still the same as it is every year, meaning just as mockable, but she’ll give them points for tying.

“Well, anyone here going for it?” she asks. She looks from Damian to Cady and back again, a teasing smirk on her lips. “Last year and all that.”

“Not sure I can,” Damian sighs. “I mean, I’m booked up with Spelling Bee rehearsals and spring cabaret auditions happening next semester.” He drums his fingers against his throat. “Gotta give the little vocal chords some rest, you know?”

Janis’ response is to sing the lowest note she possibly can before turning to Cady and giving her a pointed look, the corner of her mouth quirked up.

“Who? Me?” Cady’s cheeks turned crimson and she shakes her head so much that the caramel curls bounced around her shoulders. “No way. Damian can take the stage, I’m fine with my calculators and textbooks.”

“You could always solve equations in front of everyone,” Janis says. “I could call out college-level questions from the audience and you solve them in under 30 seconds.”

“I think I’ll pass,” she giggles. She leans forward slightly, eyes glittering, and Janis does her best not to squirm. The effect Cady Heron’s eyes have on her should be studied by scientists. “What about you, Janis?”

“I don’t know.” She thinks back to when she helped on stage crew last year, as well as helping out (or taking over) with the set design. It had been fun, the kind of challenge she needed to keep her mind off the slowly-going-off-the-rails plan. And she was told it looked good on her college applications, because all people can think about apparently is college, college, college. “Maybe. They might need another genius stage manager.”

“And you’ll step in if they can’t find one?” She digs Damian in the ribs for that comment.

“But not performing?” Cady asks, and Janis freezes. Performing had never even crossed her mind before. She’s used to backstage, hell, she likes backstage. It’s not that she has stage fright or anything, and if she had, her stunt at Ms Norbury’s little healing session would have squished it. She had just never thought about it.

But Cady had, apparently.

“I-No, I-I don’t think so,” she stammers out. “Um, I might do backstage again, but not actually doing something, you know, talent related.” She bites her tongue and clamps her lips shut before anything else can come out.

“Okay then,” Cady replies slowly. She gets up from the table, her little empty water bottle in her hands. “I’m going to go for a refill, save my seat.”

“No problem,” Janis says, but Cady’s already jogging away.

She doesn’t know if it’s good or bad that Cady’s known her too long to think of her as cool, and so this kind of awkward babbling isn’t really surprising to her. Instead of thinking about it, she just sets her head on the table and lets Damian rub her back.

“You were nowhere near as bad as you think you were,” he assures her.

“Title of your sex tape,” comes her murmured reply. Damian chuckles and runs his fingers through her hair, like she’s his pet cat. It helps.

“So you’re definitely not going for the talent show then?” he asks.

Her first instinct is to say no, because of course she isn’t, because she never has before and she sees no point in breaking a three-year streak, but the answer catches in her throat. At the same time, something begins forming in her brain, pieces of a melody she’s already known, words filling in blank spots in her brain, and her fingers twitch involuntarily, playing the chords on an invisible guitar. Without a word, she grabs a notepad and pen from her bag and scribbles the words down before she forgets them, quickly becoming breathless just by sitting there. She forgets, for a moment, everything else, the talent show, Cady, even Damian next to her, and just revels in the task and the quick buzz she gets just from writing. Just like that she has one eye on the clock, itching to get home and put her notes into the rest of the song.

But with those notes came an idea, an idea so completely out of left field she almost laughs at it.

“Janis?” Damian asks, just slightly unnerved by her. If anyone else were at this table, even Cady (especially Cady), she would have had to excuse herself and run to the bathroom, or just hope the words stayed in her head long enough for her to get a quiet moment. “Did the Goddess of Music just possess you again?”

“Maybe,” is her response. He doesn’t know it, but she answered both the questions he asked in the past minute.

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She sits on her bed that night, her homework half-done and strewn across the desk, abandoned in favour of the guitar sitting in her lap and notebook open on her bed. She’s been working on his song for the better part of a week, inspiration and motivation seemingly striking and then fading whenever she gets a free moment. Abandoning it has crossed her mind-she’s no stranger to abandoning things that aren’t working-but for some reason she hasn’t quite been able to shake this particular song off.

Maybe it is Euterpe, the Goddess of Music, descending upon her because this song has to be finished, it has to be, Olympus willing it so.

Or maybe it’s because this song is one of the most personal things she’s ever written, a love letter she’ll never send, and the idea of it sitting unfinished drives her crazy.

She plays another chord and sings the line again, changing the ending slightly, and makes the adjustment in her notes.

She’s crazy. This is already crazy, her secret double life as a wannabe T-Swift, but now she’s gone beyond that. Thinking of actually playing it. On a stage. In front of people. She doesn’t care what people think of her, she stopped caring about that a long, long time ago, but holy shit what will people think of her after she does this? Life isn’t like the movies, she knows that much. It won’t be some pretty, softly-lit moment where the crowd sits with teary eyes, Cady runs onstage and kisses her and she’s offered a deal by some big shot producer, and they all live happily ever after the end. What could happen is people think she’s even more of a weirdo than they do now.

Or she gets tomatoes thrown at her head and she’s booed off the stage. That’s a possibility.

She calls Damian, because that’s the only way she sees out of her little thought cul-de-sac. She puts the phone on speaker and props it up against a pillow, keeping her hands free for her guitar and her pen. He picks up on the third ring, just as she’s strumming out a G chord.

“Oh, is someone prepping for her Grammy?” he asks. “You’re still taking me as your date, right?”

“Only if my dog can’t go,” she replies. She taps her nails against the wood, the rhythm too fast and frantic to just be a habit. Yes, she can tell Damian anything, and being nervous in front of him is laughable, but sometimes her body forgets that. “So, I was thinking about the talent show.”

“Oh? You’re going for stage crew again? Cool.”

“No-not exactly.” She knows he can’t see the smile creeping across her face, but she’d wager he can hear it through the phone. A small swarm of butterflies flutters in her chest, leaving her just slightly out of breath. “I… I. think I’m going to try performing in it.”

A burst of laughter comes through the phone, slightly tinged with static, and Janis wishes he were here so she could slap him. Even if it’s not malicious in intent at all, and she’s laughing right along with him. Slapping is kind of a love language for them.

“Okay, okay cool. What’re you going to do?”

“I’ll give you a hint,” she says, and then she plays the opening chords to her latest experiment. She doesn’t add in the lyrics, not yet. Still, she sits back and basks in his applause when she finishes, cackling into her hand. He might be one person, but he’s got enough enthusiasm to match a packed auditorium. “What do you think?”

“I’m into it,” he tells her. “So… that’s the one you’re doing?”

“Think so.” She tosses the pick between her fingers. Like he could feel her smile, she can feel his raised eyebrow through the phone, the elephant in the room poking her with its trunk. “Yes, I know.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it,” she tells him, and he doesn’t deny it. She looks back over the lyrics she’s written and re-written. Despite some adjustments, it’s still in essence the same. Still about a girl with pretty hair who smells like vanilla and cinnamon, who has a boyfriend and is unknowingly breaking the heart of a girl with black eyeliner and paint stained fingers. Because her boyfriend is pretty and clean and smells like soap and can do math, and how is the poor art girl even meant to compare to that?

“Yes,” she says after a while. “It is about Cady.”

“Aw, my poor lovestruck songstress,” he sighs. He shifts then, and the air shifts with him. “You sure that’s the one you want to sing? I mean you have dozens of other non-Cady related songs. I’m sure Mr Duvall would love to hear Angry Teenage Lesbian Anthem.”

“First off, I gave that one a title, it’s called Shattered,” she reminds him. “And-” She freezes, the rest of her sentence catching in her throat. He’s right. She could perform one of her other songs, that are already finished and therefore removing the pressure to have this one finished, polished and stage-ready. And of course, it would mean she wouldn’t be standing in front of her entire grade and telling them all how badly she’s in love with her best friend. Showing her deepest secret to the people who have already driven her out of school once. It’s a far safer, potentially less traumatic option for her.

But…

“No,” she says. “I know it sounds crazy but I feel like… I feel like I need to do this.” She swallows thickly and picks softly at the guitar strings. “It’s like… like this way at least I’m telling her, you know? Even if she doesn’t know it.”

Of course, Damian gets it.

“That’s beautiful, babe,” he tells her. “So you’re actually doing this?”

“I’m actually doing this,” she replies firmly. “And tomorrow, I need you to make sure I don’t chicken out before I sign up.”

“Got it. I’ll just order you to do it as Senior Co-Chair of the Student Activities Committee.”

“That’s an abuse of power.”

“Then consider yourself abused baby.” He laughs and she laughs with him, and then she hears something on Damian’s end. “I have to go. A certain little sister of mine has a princess costume that needs attending to. See you later.”

“See you later,” she replies before he clicks off the call. She looks down at her paper, then at her guitar, and thinks about what she just committed to. “I’ve got some work to do.”

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The song goes through four rewrites in the weeks leading up to the talent show. The whole first verse is changed, the chorus scrapped and replaced with a new one, then that one is scrapped and she goes back to the old one. She sits hunched on her floor with a pencil in her mouth, wondering if what she’s written is too personal or not personal enough. If it’s too obvious that Cady, smart cookie that she is, will work it out and that’ll lead them down a new, scary path. She cuts some lyrics that give the game away, opting to replace one about love for numbers with love for learning, because that opens up the pool to half their grade. She writes about Cady’s blue eyes rather than specifically those double dimples that make her melt. Maybe she’s compromising her artistic vision, but it might be worth it if it’ll keep her crush a secret. She keeps the old lyrics tucked in the back of her notebook, just to have them.

Meanwhile, she’s also dealing with the fact that people know she has signed up for the talent show. That Miss Too Cool For School Loner Art Freak Janis is actually performing at a school event. And she doesn’t even get extra credit for it. They’re surprised, and curious, and none more so than Cady. The other girl appears at her side almost instantly after first period, skinny little arms wrapped around her bicep and blue eyes alight.

Oh, the things those eyes do to her.

“Janis!” she squeaks. “I saw-on the sign up sheet-your name! Oh my God, is this a joke? Did Damian put you up to it?”

“No, no, I signed up of my own accord,” Janis tells her. That only makes Cady bounce more, ponytail bobbing up and down.

“Oh wow, that’s amazing!” she says. She stops then, her mouth freezing in its place and her cheeks turning pink. Slowly, she comes down to Earth, like a balloon that had the air let out of it. Janis can almost hear the wheeze. “I mean um, it’s pretty cool, I guess.”

“It’s pretty grool,” Janis replies, and just like that Cady bounces back up again.

“Oh my gosh, what are you going to do?” she asks. “Or do you want it to be a surprise?”

“You think I have some secret knife-throwing talent?” she grins. She hesitates for a moment, looking down at Cady’s excited face, because even if this isn’t telling her… it’s telling her. “I’m… I’m going to sing.” She pulls on the strap of her backpack and avoids Cady’s eyes. “Something I wrote.”

“Okay,” Cady says. “Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

“Hey!” she laughs. “I can write stuff. I can be deep.”

“Oh, I have no doubt about it,” Cady says, bumping her arm against Janis’. “But for real, Janis, I can’t wait to see it. I know you’ll be amazing.”

Warmth spreads across her pale cheeks, a pink blush no doubt colouring her face, and she somehow manages to choke out a “thanks” as her brain turns to static. Her only thought is ‘Cady thinks I’m going to be good’, and it’s written in glitter pen across her brain.

“This is going to be great,” she goes on. “Oh, wait until I tell Aaron. He’s got a break in his schedule that week so he’s coming up to see the talent show! Isn’t that great?”

And just like that, Janis’ good mood falls. Her face stays the same, because she’s trained to do it, but everything behind it crumbles.

“Yeah, that’s great,” she replies. Cady squeezes her hand, oblivious, and drags her along the hallway, chatting away about some lion documentary she had watched last night.

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She finishes the song that night. She arrives home with a heavy chest, so full of complicated, messy feelings, and her conversation with Cady still so fresh in her mind, her ears still ringing from the emotional whiplash. Her parents barely get a ‘hello’ as she enters and bolts up to her room, her hands shaking, the thoughts swirling around her brain desperate to be let out.

And let them out she does. She writes so quickly they look more like smudges than words, her fingers flying over rapidly changing chords, her voice broken and panting as she sings. The words almost write themselves, like the song has taken on a life of its own and she’s just along for the ride. She barely remembers to pause, to breathe, so wrapped up in the storm she’s created with just her guitar and pen.

It’s only when she finishes and falls back on her bed that she notices the tears in her eyes. She blinks them away and pulls herself up, her notebook in her hand. It’s done. The perfect blend of her own honest feelings and just enough smokescreen to keep people from knowing who it’s really about.

There’s no backing out now, she thinks. Her stomach drops, like she’s on the top of a roller coaster about to go down. A laugh bubbles up in her throat and leaves her breathless, her head spinning while she’s still laying there.

If holy shit were am adjective, she'd use it to describe how she feels. Because holy shit.

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Being backstage when she’s not on crew is a strange experience. She stands with her guitar slung around her body, in the middle of a current of students moving around her, half with the clunky microphones and walkie-talkies she’s used so many times before. She asks five of them if she can do anything to help-because they’re her people and she needs to do something to occupy her time-until she finally takes the hint and leaves them to it. Stagehands are the most efficient parts of any production, as she told Damian once. They’re a well-oiled machine at this point.

“Yo!” For a second, Janis thinks she imagined the whisper, just one in a jumble of backstage noises, until Damian appears at her side. A tiny ‘shit’ escapes her mouth, her body jerking. Barely anyone bats an eye at her, except him. “Sorry, didn’t mean to spook you.”

“Don’t worry. I think at this point a small breeze could knock into me and I’d crumble.”

“The great Janis Sarkisian gets nervous?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

“Only when she’s doing something incredibly personal and scary in front of her entire grade,” she whispers back. She swallows past the lump in her throat. “Aside from that I’m a beacon of confidence and unshakable will.”

“Hey.” He taps his knuckles against hers. “Remember how scared you were at Norbury’s assembly?”

“You mean after I had my picture all over the school with the d-slur written underneath it?” she mutters. “Yeah, I was shitting myself.”

“And yet, look what you did there,” he reminds her. “You were amazing. And you’re going to be amazing here too. Once you get on that stage, all those butterflies are going to make you fly, kid.”

She smiles, her heart warm, and pressed her face into the crook of Damian’s neck.

She doesn’t know how she got so lucky to have him, but she knows better than to tempt fate.

“Janis Sarkisian?” She lifts her head to find a freshman girl with a headset around her neck looking at her. “You’re up next.”

“Okay.” It’s only now she becomes aware that the last minute of Fairytale Of New York is playing, the notes will soon fade out, and that’s her cue. She turns to Damian and lets him straighten her black cardigan and fiddle with the collar of her shirt. “Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need it.” He drops a whisper of a kiss to her nose. “But good luck.”

She holds her half-heart necklace as he goes, the twin to the one around his neck. It’s as close as she can get to having him with her. Her chest tightens as she makes her way to the stage and she tries to breathe through it, because the next thign she knows, Mr Duvall is announcing her name, and she’s being greeted by a blinding spotlight that thankfully obscures most of her peers’ faces.

“Uh, hi,” she says into the microphone placed out for her. It’s just people , she reminds herself. Somewhere in that crowd, second row, seat 14, is Damian, and she breathes easier. And next to him is Cady, the girl this song is about, and for some reason that straightens her spine and irons out the shaking in her voice. She takes the pick out of its holder and tosses her hair back. “This is a song I wrote about being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back.” She blinks and hopes no-one sees the tears in her eyes. “So sing along if you get into it, because we all know it’s a shitty ass feeling.”

She plays the first chord, and then any and all doubts she had about this flee her. As cliche as it sounds, the song takes over her, and she blows through the nerves in the first verse. The experience becomes cathartic instead, like releasing a pressure valve on her soul. Even with the little diversions she threw in, she hasn’t felt this open and god damn free since last year, paraded on her peers’ shoulders with both middle fingers up. Except now she’s not flipping anyone off, or proving a point, she’s just finally telling someone how she feels, and holy shit, it’s amazing. Whatever the aftermath of this is, she won’t care, it’s worth it just for this feeling.

As she sings the last word, and that final note rings in the auditorium, her hands are shaking, her cheeks wet with tears and her hair sticky with sweat. She touches beneath her eye and her fingers come away stained black.  She hasn’t cried in front of people since middle school. She doesn’t care.

The cheers of her classmates ring in her ears, Damian’s whooping the loudest of all, and as she takes her bow, she hopes she’ll remember this moment for a long time.

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“Oh my God!” she’s barely into the auditorium when Cady launches herself at her, arms wrapped around her neck and legs circling her waist. Janis nearly topples over, digging her back leg into the ground just in time, and hugs Cady with the same ferocity. “You were amazing!” she yells into her shoulder, the sound muffled by Janis’ hair.

“Really?”

“Absolutely.” She sets Cady down, but the other girl keeps a tight grip on both her arms. Janis wonders if it’s to keep herself from flying away, given the amount of bouncing up and down she’s doing. “I can’t believe you wrote that! It was so good! You need to record it, Jan. Do you have any other songs?”

“Just a few,” she says. “And I don’t know if I’m in the business of making an album any time soon.” She swings her guitar case a little. “This might have been a one-time thing.”

“Well, even if it was, it was awesome,” she says.

“Thank you, Caddy,” Janis replies. “That means a lot.”

Her mouth runs dry as Cady smiles, all baby pink lipgloss and sparkling eyes and full cheeks. If this were a movie, she thinks, this would be the part where they kiss. No need for talking, or an explanation. Because Cady would have just known. The music would turn soft and twinkly, and the lighting would match it and it would look like they’re in a dream and they’d just kiss, and it will fix all of Janis’ problems. Maybe a single tear will run down her cheek. And then they’ll run off into their new lives as the end credits roll.

How sweet that would be.

But her life isn’t a movie. If she wants anything, she has to go for it herself.

And that includes-

“Caddy.” Her name is delicate on her lips, handled with care. Cady looks at her, giving a simple ‘mm-hm’ in response, and Janis’ heart beats out of control. “That song I just sang, it-”

“Hey, guys.”

Also if this was a movie, Cady’s sweet, lovely, nice boyfriend would not be barging in right now. He’d either be a douchebag who she doesn’t feel bad about hurting, or he’d be nonexistent.

Unfortunately, this is not a movie, and Aaron Samuels exists and is the human equivalent of a squishmallow.

“Hey Aaron.” He slings his arm around Cady’s shoulders, and she leans into his touch almost instinctively. “Janis, you were great up there. I didn’t know you wrote songs.”

“It’s a bit of a new hobby,” she says, her voice hoarse. She clears her throat, and finds a bottle of water being handed to-thrown at-her.

“Hydrate those chords,” is Damian’s greeting.

“This is what I get for being friends with a theatre kid,” she sighs before she takes a drink. She hadn’t realised how dry her throat was until now.

“Okay, so we’re all going for pancakes,” Aaron says. “I take it you two are coming?”

“How can I say no to pancakes?” Janis asks. “Uh, you guys go ahead, I have to get my stuff from the green room.”

“Okay, we’ll wait for you,” Cady says. “Aaron brought his car so he can drive us.”

“Grool.” Cady and Aaron turn around together, Aaron spinning his eyes around his finger and Cady lacing her fingers through his, talking about something she can’t hear. It’s like watching them through a sheet of glass.

Not a movie. Not unless it’s one of those really, really sad movies. Sad homophobic movies.

“You okay?” Damian asks. She snorts at the question. Nothing has changed, so of course she’s okay. But then, nothing has changed, so she’s not really okay.

“I did it,” she sighs. “It’s out there. I told her, unofficially. Whether or not she works it out…” She runs her hand through her tangled hair. “That’s something else entirely.” Damian hums in agreement, a sympathetic look on his face that soon morphs into a grin.

“Hey,” he says. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks Mom.” They snort, Janis caught between a laugh and a sob, and squeezes Damian’s hand. She’s not optimistic about any romance in her future, at least where Cady is concerned. She and Aaron are still rock-solid and she’s happy for them, whenever she isn’t angsting about it. It’s a weird combination to have.

And at least she’s done this now. Despite a future for her and Cady not being in the cards for now, she’s glad she did it. The secret isn’t out, not entirely. Just written on the walls in invisible ink.

“Come on,” she tells Damian. “I actually do have to get my bag, and you can use this as an opportunity to double check the ghost light is on.”

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

Cady and Aaron keep their promise and wait for them, waving off their apologies as they jog across the parking lot. Cady lets Damian take the front seat with Aaron and slides into the back with Janis instead. Janis frowns, confused as to why she isn’t taking her normal seat up front, and Cady rolls her eyes.

“There was a draw on the way here, and we lost,” she explains. “And now Damian has control of the aux chord,” She gestures with her head to the passenger seat, and Janis turns just in time to see him open his Spotify and scroll through his playlists. As the opening notes to Waving Through A Window fill the car, it’s met with three loud groans. Damian only turns it up louder, and adds in his own backing vocals.

“So, that song you sang,” Cady asks, leaning back in the seat. “Was it about anyone in particular?”

Janis looks down, her hands pressed together in her lap. If this is the moment the universe decided to give her, it’s a really terrible moment. Not only is Cady’s whole boyfriend sitting an arm’s length away from her, but she left her nerve back in the auditorium. Clearly, her and fate aren’t on each other’s wavelength.

“You wouldn’t know her,” she says. “She doesn't even go here.”

“Oh,” Cady replies. Her face falls, but she’s not too put out by it. Why would she be? She nudges Janis’ shoulder, a proud smile on her face, and squeezes Janis’ hand. “Well, if she has someone like you into her and she hasn’t taken the chance yet, then she doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

Janis only thanks her, and quickly changes the subject.

Someday she might tell her for real, but for now she'll stick to the songs.

#mean girls broadway #mean girls fanfic #cadnis #janis sarkisian #cady heron #cadnis ff #cady x janis #space safari #mean girls musical

[kneamet]

James Nicholls wants to have a baby with a reader. She wants to get away from him. James caresses her gently and kisses her. He tells her that they will try for a baby tomorrow. The reader is terrified and tries to get out of bed, but James holds her wrists and says she must be in bed with him.

Trigger Warning: obsession, yandere, forced.

Word Count: 1862

Character: James Nicholls/reader

Summary: James wants a baby, but you're against it.

POV James

He liked to see you in bed. In his bed, which he had bought himself, distributing his pitiful soldier's pay for the arrangement of furniture and home comfort. He did not want to admit to himself that at least the pay of a soldier in those difficult war years for people was very good. The pay was excellent and one month would have been enough for two more, while sharing the household budget with his wife. But now he was being paid, as a former soldier, a fairly small salary, which meant that he had to earn extra money and save money.

But surprisingly, the police paid enough. The salary for his main job as a police officer in his small village covered everything, so there was a lot of money left for other small expenses and food. As well as the paper he used too often.

James swallowed, smiling slightly and wiping his pencil with his thumb, making a smudge for the shadows on the man's body. The love of drawing, which had been instilled in him since childhood, always gave him pleasure. It was nice to sit in silence, enjoying only the small crowing of the chickens in his parents ' backyard, and leaning against the wall of the room, drawing, remembering, and memorizing all sorts of images.

James has always had a great passion for drawing and for art in general. He wanted to achieve something great. Make it so that it is remembered. And they remembered him not as just an unlucky person in the family circle, as everyone thought, but as a famous artist who would dedicate his works to his beautiful wife and share his art all over the world. And, of course, he also wanted respect.

A man rarely got respect in the family circle. Being a rather soft and insecure person, little James was teased, as he himself remembers, from the beginning of the school to which his father sent him, paying off the last money for his son's education, even without counting the fact that he himself had a lot of debts.

James didn't really remember him. Only in fragments. A tough man, whose nra still try to subdue. And everyone always wondered how such a man could have such a son that even a woman could not command?

James shook his head, running the hard lead over the soft paper of his sketchbook, which he had barely found in the town. He considered drawing his outlet. Something that he can only share on paper and only to himself. Basically, in his paintings, he liked to draw people, animals and feelings. Unattainable feelings that all the people in the world deny. Weakness, pain, and poverty. A disturbing topic, but very important. The one that all people are afraid to reveal.

As he made a few more touches, James pushed it slightly away from him, carefully assessing the result. His beloved wife, his beloved rose. You. You were so good at this image. An innocent but fatal beauty was visible in you in his drawing. The only thing he didn't particularly like about the painting was the shadows. It is quite difficult to find the right slates, since all the artists wrote at once with paints, even without wanting to outline.

James chuckled as he set his leather-bound sketchbook down on the low round table beside the bed. His gaze immediately shifted to you and he tried to stifle a small moan. No, he definitely didn't think you were a sexual object. Of course, he had such feelings for you, but basically they were all tender and as sensual as possible.

He saw how your beautiful eyes, which reflected and understood absolutely everything, tensely jumped from line to line. He was curious about what you were reading, so James quickly reached for your hands, snatched the book out of them, closed it, and wrote the title of the cover.

"Little women," he muttered, frowning, one hand clutching a book with a soft and battered cover. Without turning, he frowned. "I haven't read this yet. Interesting?" Looking up, he smiled a soft smile as he placed the book on the table where he had previously placed his sketchbook with an unfinished drawing.

He saw your startled and slightly frightened look. Did he scare you?" Or disgusted? No, no, no! He definitely didn't want to do it. His eyes widened slightly as goose bumps covered his back.

But no, of course he imposes it all on himself. You love him, and he loves you. You had a pure and tender love, which can not be compared with anything, even with book novels.

The man reflected your smile and stretched out his hand, touching your stomach covered with a sheet and looking from him to you, looking at the features of your face with such a penetrating look, as if he wanted to remember forever.

Your velvety, bottomless eyes looked straight into his soul, searching for every bit of his unforgiving sins and punishing him. And he would definitely repent of them.

"My rose, I've wanted everything for a long time, but I didn't dare..." James muttered, stroking your stomach and feeling it sink slightly down, as if moving away from his touch. "What do you think about it?.." he was nervous. I was nervous. It was such an awkward yet interesting feeling that he couldn't describe it. "What do you think about having a baby?" he finally managed to say, feeling his hands start to shake from the strain.

He was burdened with the happiness of becoming a father with the one girl he loved, cherished, and was literally dependent on. He always wanted to feel her gentle touch, her soft words, her lovely appearance, her beautiful voice and, of course, her witty mind. So wonderful and so lovely. And all of it.

Suddenly, he felt your body tense under the weight of his hand, and you jerked. James frowned. He didn't like it. Are you trying to leave him?" Run away? From him? Or from responsibility? No, he doesn't want that.

"What are you doing, my rose?" he couldn't remember when the nickname had first appeared. Perhaps when they had first met and crossed eyes in the flower shop where James himself had bought flowers for his mother.

***

"Yes, finish this bouquet, please," he said, smiling sweetly at the saleswoman, who nodded and could not help but reflect his smile and catch his flattering state. James grinned, looking around. He's never been here before. Buy flowers. Who's going to do it anyway?

He turned his head to the right after the saleswoman, and his eyes widened in incredible and flattering surprise. Right in front of him, in the farthest corner of the hall, stood the most beautiful and beautiful girl he had ever met.

Her hair was tied up in a small bun that pulled her hair up; he couldn't see her eyes, but he was sure they were incredible. Lowering his eyes a little lower, he noticed what she was wearing, smiling slightly. Such innocence.

***

Touching your hand with a light touch, the man pulled his whole body up to you, touching your soft lips with yours, barely holding back a moan at how soft and pliable they were. Stepping back slightly, he touched his forehead to yours, feeling the little saliva that ran from your lips to his.

"We'll try to have a baby tomorrow, my rose."

***

POV Your

You wanted to leave. Make a scene and leave without even saying goodbye. Slam the door loudly, saying you don't want to hear his voice. But you knew that was impossible. That it was too risky and putting the trust that James had in you was risky. Once again, you didn't want to get into his confidence by talking about it, praising his ears with flattering comments in his direction.

It's better to leave it as it is. What does it say? Is the old evil better than the new? Yes, I think so. So it's better not to make James angry, but just continue to pretend to be his wife, that she loves him. At least he wouldn't notice.

You never thought that this nice gentleman. Your sweet boy and friend James, who was so sweet and charming, will eventually turn out to be a man who is obsessed with you and believes that his love is pure and does not even realize that he is hurting you.

But now it seemed to you that he had overstepped his bounds.

Have a baby? You absolutely did not want to do this because you thought it was too much. Yes, you have been living together for more than a year, but it is still scary to go to such a step. And you definitely didn't want a child with a man who literally kidnapped you and forced you to be his wife.

And yet, despite all the flaws, you didn't think he was crazy. And no, you didn't love him. There was no love between you, and there can't be any, because you hate him, and he's just obsessed with you. It's not love.

"Wh-what?" you tried to force yourself to say, feeling your hands tremble under James ' touch, and coda's skin prickle with goose bumps. Your breathing became ragged and erratic.

"Yes, my rose, why don't we have a baby? I think we're ready for this, " he muttered under his breath, moving away from you and wiping away the saliva with his finger, smiling slightly at you. Smiling the smile you've come to love, not knowing what lies behind her mask.

You hated the way he called you. A rose. With my rose. You didn't belong to him, and it sounded disgusting. Too disgusting. It's like he only thought of you in a sexual way. Because you only associated rose with sexuality.

You looked up at him, feeling very confused. James was definitely a freak at heart, but his appearance was not lacking in nature. He was handsome: his blond hair was cut short; his blue eyes, like a distance in which you could disappear, looked at you with a needful look; his lips were thin. His face was so aristocratic that you couldn't believe he was an ordinary soldier.

But no, you're not buying his innocent face. Although you were still tormented by doubts. James has never physically touched you before. It is possible only morally, and this is rare. So you didn't know how to describe him as a person. He was a rather ambiguous person. The face of an angel, which in the end turned out to be a devil, but a devil in which an angel is half seen.

You shook your head, wanting to leave the room and get the hell out of there. Just away from James and his ideas. Sitting up, you were about to get up, until you felt James's big hand on your emaciated wrist, and he was glowering at you from under his brows. He was scary.

"You will stay in bed with me, my rose."