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#i mean i wrote a good chunk of this before finals but like
colleendoran · 2 months
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Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update
AKA A Visit From Bildad the Shuhite.
The past year or so has been one long visit from this guy, whereupon he smiteth my goats and burneth my crops, woe unto the woeful cartoonist.
Gaze upon the horror of Bildad the Shuhite.
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You kind of have to be a Good Omens fan to get this joke, but trust me, it's hilarious.
Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.
 Go me!  
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This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.
Not complainin', just sayin'.
Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because  right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt. 
And COVID brain fog? That's a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.
Not complainin' just sayin'.
This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back. 
But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!
Then my computer crawled toward the grave.
My trusty MAC Pro Tower was nearly 15 years old when its sturdy heart ground to a near-halt with daily crashes. I finally got around to doing some diagnostics; some of its little brain actions were at 5% functionality. I had no reliable backups.
There are so many issues with getting a new computer when you haven't had a new computer or peripherals in nearly fifteen years and all of your software, including your Photoshop program is fifteen years old.
At the time, I was still on rural internet...which means dial-up speed.
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Whatever you have for internet in the city, roll that clock back to about 2001.
That's what I had. I not only had to replace almost all of my hardware but I had to load and update all programs at dial-up speed.
Welcome to my gigabyte hell.
The entire process of replacing the equipment and programs took weeks and then I had to relearn all the software.
All of this was super expensive in terms of money and time cost.
But I was not daunted! Nosirree!
I still had a huge lead time! I can do anything! I have an iron will!
And boy, howdy, I was going to need it.
At about the same time, a big fatcat quadrillionaire client who had hired me years ago to develop a big, major transmedia project for which I was paid almost entirely in stock, went bankrupt leaving everyone holding the bag, and taking a huge chunk of my future retirement fund with it.
I wrote a very snarky almost hilarious Patreon post about it, but am not entirely in a position to speak freely because I don't want to get sued. Even though I had to go to court over it, (and I had to do that over Zoom at dial-up speed,) I'm pretty sure I'll never get anything out of this drama, and neither will anyone else involved, except millionaire dude and his buddies who all walked away with huge multi-million dollar bonuses weeks before they declared bankruptcy, all the while claiming they would not declare bankruptcy.
Even the accountant got $250,000 a month to shut down the business, while creators got nothing.
That in itself was enough drama for the year, but we were only at February by that point, and with all those months left, 2023 had a lot more to throw at me.
Fresh from my return from my Society of Illustrators show, and a lovely time at MOCCA, it was time to face practical medical issues, health updates, screening, and the like. I did my adult duty and then went back to work hoping for no news, but still had a weird feeling there would be news.
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I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I had a bad feeling.
Then there was news.
I was called back for tests and more tests. This took weeks. The ubiquitous biopsy looked, even to me staring at the screen in real time, like bad news. 
It also hurt like a mofo after the anesthesia wore off. I wasn't expecting that.
Then I got the official bad news.
Cancer which runs in my family finally got me. Frankly, I was surprised I didn't get it sooner.
Stage 0, and treatment would likely be fast and complication-free. Face the peril, get it over with, and get back to work. 
I requested surgery months in the future so I could finish Good Omens first, but my doc convinced me the risk of waiting was too great. Get it done now.
"You're really healthy," my doc said. Despite an auto-immune issue which plagues me, I am way healthier than the average schmoe of late middle age. She informed me I would not even need any chemo or radiation if I took care of this now.
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So I canceled my appearance at San Diego Comic Con. I did not inform the Good Omens team of my issues right away, thinking this would not interfere with my work schedule, but I did contact my agent to inform her of the issue. I also contacted a lawyer to rewrite my will and make sure the team had access to my digital files in case there were complications.
Then I got back to work, and hoped for the best.
Eff this guy.
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Before I could even plant my carcass on the surgery table, I got a massive case of ocular shingles.
I didn't even know there was such a thing. 
There I was, minding my own business. I go to bed one night with a scratchy eye, and by 4 PM the next day, I was in the emergency room being told if I didn't get immediate specialist treatment, I was in big trouble.
I got transferred to another hospital and got all the scary details, with the extra horrid news that I could not possibly have cancer surgery until I was free of shingles, and if I did not follow a rather brutal treatment procedure - which meant super-painful  eye drops every half hour, twenty-four hours a day and daily hospital treatment - I could lose the eye entirely, or be blinded, or best case scenario, get permanent eye damage.
What was even funnier (yeah, hilarity) is the drops are so toxic if you don't use the medication just right, you can go blind anyway.
Hi Ho.
Ulcer is on the right. That big green blob.
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I had just finished telling my cancer surgeon I did not even really care about getting cancer, was happy it was just stage zero, had no issues with scarring, wanted no reconstruction, all I cared about was my work. 
Just cut it out and get me back to work.
And now I wondered if I was going to lose my ability to work anyway.
Shingles often accompanies cancer because of the stress on the immune system, and yeah, it's not pretty. This is me looking like all heck after I started to get better.
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The first couple of weeks were pretty demoralizing as I expected a straight trajectory to wellness. But it was up and down all the way. 
Some days I could not see out of either eye at all. The swelling was so bad that I had to reach around to my good eye to prop the lid open. Light sensitivity made seeing out of either eye almost impossible. Outdoors, even with sunglasses, I had to be led around by the hand.
I had an amazing doctor. I meticulously followed his instructions, and I think he was surprised I did. The treatment is really difficult, and if you don't do it just right no matter how painful it gets, you will be sorry. 
To my amazement, after about a month, my doctor informed me I had no vision loss in the eye at all. "This never happens," he said.
I'd spent a couple of weeks there trying to learn to draw in the near-dark with one eye, and in the end, I got all my sight back.
I could no longer wear contact lenses (I don't really wear them anyway, unless I'm going to the movies,) would need hard core sun protection for awhile, and the neuralgia and sun sensitivity were likely to linger. But I could get back to work.
I have never been more grateful in my life.
Neuralgia sucks, by the way, I'm still dealing with it months later.
Anyway, I decided to finally go ahead and tell the Good Omens team what was going on, especially since this was all happening around the time the Kickstarter was gearing up.
Now that I was sure I'd passed the eye peril, and my surgery for Stage 0 was going to be no big deal, I figured all was a go. I was still pretty uncomfortable and weak, and my ideal deadline was blown, but with the book not coming out for more than a year, all would be OK. I quit a bunch of jobs I had lined up to start after Good Omens, since the project was going to run far longer than I'd planned.
Everybody on the team was super-nice, and I was pretty optimistic at this time. But work was going pretty slow during, as you may imagine.
But again...lots of lead time still left, go me.
Then I finally got my surgery.
Which was not as happy an experience as I had been hoping for.
My family said the doc came out of the operating room looking like she'd been pulled backwards through a pipe, She informed them the tumor which looked tiny on the scan was "...huge and her insides are a mess."
Which was super not fun news.
Eff this guy.
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The tumor was hiding behind some dense tissue and cysts. After more tests, it was determined I'd need another surgery and was going to have to get further treatments after all.
The biopsy had been really painful, but the discomfort was gone after about a week, so no biggee. The second surgery was, weirdly, not as painful as the biopsy, but the fatigue was big time.
By then, the Good Omens Kickstarter had about run its course, and the record-breaker was both gratifying and a source of immense social pressure.
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I'd already turned most of my social media over to an assistant, and I'm glad I did.
But the next surgery was what really kicked me on my keister.
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All in all, they took out an area the size of a baseball. It was  hard to move and wiped me out for weeks and weeks. I could not take care of myself. I'd begun losing hair by this time anyway, and finally just lopped it off since it was too heavy for me to care for myself. The cut hides the bald spots pretty well.
After about a month, I got the go-ahead to travel to my show at the San Diego Comic Con Museum (which is running until the first week of April, BTW). I was very happy I had enough energy to do it. But as soon as I got back, I had to return to treatment.
Since I live way out in the country, going into the city to various hospitals and pharmacies was a real challenge. I made more than 100 trips last year, and a drive to the compounding pharmacy which produced the specialist eye medicine I could not get anywhere else was six hours alone.
Naturally, I wasn't getting anything done during this time.
But at least my main hospital is super swank.
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The oncology treatment went smoothly, until it didn't. The feels don't hit you until the end. By then I was flattened.
So flattened that I was too weak to control myself, fell over, and smashed my face into some equipment.
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Nearly tore off my damn nostril.
Eff this guy.
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Anyway, it was a bad year.
Here's what went right.
I have a good health insurance policy. The final tally on my health care costs ended up being about $150,000. I paid about 18% of that, including insurance. I had a high deductible and some experimental medicine insurance didn't cover. I had savings,  enough to cover the months I wasn't working, and my Patreon is also very supportive. So you didn't see me running a Gofundme or anything.
Thanks to everyone who ever bought one of my books.
No, none of that money was Good Omens Kickstarter money. I won't get most of my pay on that for months, which is just as well because it kept my taxes lower last year when I needed a break.
So, yay.
My nose is nearly healed. I opted out of plastic surgery, and it just sealed up by itself. I'll never be ready for my closeup, but who the hell cares.
I got to ring the bell.
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I had a very, VERY hard time getting back to work, especially with regard to focus and concentration. My work hours dropped by over 2/3. I was so fractured and weak, time kept slipping away while I sat in the studio like a zombie. Most of the last six months were a wash.
I assumed focus issues were due (in part) to stress, so sought counseling. This seemed like a good idea at first, but when the counselor asked me to detail my issues with anxiety, I spent two weeks doing just that and getting way more anxious, which was not helpful.
After that I went EFF THIS NOISE, I want practical tools, not touchy feelies (no judgment on people who need touchy-feelies, I need a pragmatic solution and I need it now,) so tried using the body doubling focus group technique for concentration and deep work.
Within two weeks, I returned to normal work hours.
I got rural broadband, jumping me from dial up speed to 1 GB per second.
It's a miracle.
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Massive doses of Vitamin D3 and K2. Yay.
The new computer works great.
The Kickstarter did so well, we got to expand the graphic novel to 200 pages. Double yay.
I'm running late, but everyone on the Good Omens team is super supportive. I don't know if I am going to make the book late or not, but if I do, well, it surely wasn't on purpose, and it won't be super late anyway. I still have months of lead time left.
I used to be something of a social media addict, but now I hardly ever even look at it, haven't been directly on some sites in over a year, and no longer miss it. It used to seem important and now doesn't.
More time for real life.
While I think the last year aged me about twenty years, I actually like me better with short hair. I'm keeping it.
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OK. Rough year. 
Not complainin', just sayin'.
Back to work on The Book.
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And only a day left to vote for Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Sandman in the Comicscene Awards. Thanks. 
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empresskylo · 8 months
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beneath the mask ✩ chapter 1
➠ 𝐌𝐃𝐍𝐈; 𝟏𝟖+ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓; 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 ➠ SIMON "GHOST" RILEY X AFAB!READER ➠ CHAPTER TAGS | afab!reader. kinda mean!ghost. wc 2.5k. ➠ AUTHOR'S NOTE | ayyoo, so i had an idea for a series with ghost with lots of angst and i finally wrote the first chapter. so let me know if you like it and if i should continue. it looks like it will be around 10 or so chapters. its a slow burn and will be a lil dark. okay, enjoy! feedback appreciated!
𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ✩ 𝐜𝐨𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ✩ 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
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you adjusted the strap to your med bag, shuffling as quickly as you could down the hallway, dodging tipped over medical trays and beds shoved haphazardly in the aisle. the lights above you flickered as you scurried in the direction of the hollering voices, the rumble of gunfire shooting off in the distance like fireworks.
you burst into what you suspected was once the hospital's lobby, debris and paper scattered everywhere, jumping over chunks of stone from the wall.
“sergeant,” a deep voice called to you. you looked over at captain price and darted in his direction. before him sat a large body, a man who intimidated the fuck out of you. you were lucky you were strung out on adrenaline or you might have been too nervous to do your job properly.
“it’s ghost,” price said, his hand firmly placed on the man’s abdomen, a blood soaked cloth beneath it.
you slid down to your knees and chucked your med bag beside you and started digging around. “what happened?”
“got fuckin’ shot, the hells it look like,” the grumpy asshole, who should be a lot nicer to the woman saving his life, said.
you rolled your eyes and dug out a clean linen, replacing the one price was using. “hold,” you instructed him. normally you were a bit shy around the men, especially your superiors, but in moments of panic, you functioned at your best.
it didn’t take you long to disinfect and pry the bullet out of ghosts abdomen, taping the wound shut with medical glue and wrapping it in gauze. it took you all of 4 minutes. and you only thought about the fact that your hand was on ghost’s exposed skin a few times.
“and that’s why you’re the best,” price chuckled, slapping a hand on your shoulder.
you gave him a weak smile, wiping away the sweat that was forming on your forehead. the adrenaline was starting to subside, your nerves creeping up on you.
a loud shout and the sounds of rifles going off sounded in the distance. ghost and price glanced at each other. “go,” ghost urged.
price nodded before leaving you alone with ghost, who seemed more than upset over the fact that he was now dead weight. you wanted to tell him he was an asset to the team and they wanted him whole instead of trying to fight at half efficiency. but you figured he already knew as much.
you rubbed your hands on your pants before pointing at ghost. “you—uhm—got blood all over your mask.”
ghost grunted, trying to stand up.
“wait, let me help you.”
he ignored you, using the wall behind him to push up. stubborn bastard.
“ghost! if you rip out the perfectly good work i just did, i swear to god!”
he looked at you surprised, as if hearing you shout was the most startling thing in the world, and halted all movement until you slid beneath him and helped him stand. his arm rested across your shoulder as you stood in sync with him. you tried to ignore the burning sensation you got from the contact.
“didn’t know you could get that loud,” he mocked.
you squeezed your lips together; your mask that sat slouched around your neck suddenly felt suffocating.
as ghost leaned back against the wall, catching his breath, you put your hands nervously on your hips. “you should let me check…” you hesitated, pointing at your own face to let him know you wanted to see if he was bleeding under his mask.
“no,” he said sternly.
“ghost, i—“
“it’s not my blood. nothin’ to check, then.”
“nothin’ to check, then,” you repeated quietly, slightly irritated. you knew good and well that he was lying. he had no idea if it was his blood or someone else’s that soaked the white skull on his mask.
“what?” he asked, causing you to snap your eyes away. shit, you were staring.
“you ever let anyone see what’s under there?” you asked timidly, making it sound like he had something wildly inappropriate hidden beneath his mask.
“price,” he said chastely, clearly thinking there was a time and place for everything, and the battlefield was not said place.
“oh.” after a beat. “why?”
before ghost could retort, soap came storming in. “we gotta go.” he must have talked to price because he came rushing to ghost’s side to help him walk, already aware of the extent of ghost’s injuries.
you followed as the three of you hustled out of the decrepit hospital. another beautiful building lost to the brutality of warfare, you thought sullenly.
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when you were safe on the humvee, you shifted your bag awkwardly on top of your lap, ghost’s large presence taking up almost all of your personal space. you tried not to think about the way your thighs touched his.
it made sense, ghost was hurt, so of course he’d sit next to the medic, but still, your heart raced rapidly in your chest as if he purposely chose to sit next to you for other reasons. you tried to shut your brain up by closing your eyes.
the vehicle went over a bump, sending you sliding against ghost’s side. “s-sorry,” you muttered, your eyes springing open, and you hurriedly pushed away from him.
he didn’t even look down at you, his eyes glued to whatever it was he was staring at straight ahead.
he was infuriatingly difficult to read. his eyes might have been expressive, but they only ever looked some various level of pissed off. but you knew there was more to him than that. you had seen the way he spoke to soap. there was a human beneath the artificial exterior that was ghost.
the road was seemingly filled with dips and crags because the back end of the vehicle kept bumping and shifting. you opened your legs slightly so you could hold on to the seat between them to prevent you from slamming into ghost and the soldier on the other side of you. 
ghost must have been annoyed at the way you continuously jostled around with every shift of the humvee because when the car rattled through a particularly big pothole, his muscled arm outstretched across your chest, stopping you from flying forward. 
you felt your face heat, utterly embarrassed. all these men around you were so much taller and properly built. you, on the other hand, stood a good foot below ghost, it was no wonder you were easy to slide around the vehicle. ghost was weighted in place by muscle. seat belts would have been a smart addition, you thought. 
it was in your nature to want to thank ghost, but when you spared a glance up at him, his head was shifted in the complete opposite direction. as the road transformed to smoother terrain, his arm fell back to his side as if nothing had happened. 
you wouldn’t lie, the fact that you were supposed to be the one caring for ghost, the bullet wound in his side and all, made you feel small and inferior when he had to hold you down. it probably hurt him to life his arm like that too, though he would never admit it. 
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when you got back to base, you changed and showered before anyone could find you and drag you into doing something you didn’t want to do, stealing you away from your time to rest. and as if you willed it just from that thought, one of your teammates grabbed your shoulder as you walked passed the infirmary. 
“hey! can you cover for me? smith is out and i was supposed to have my dinner break an hour ago.”
your fellow medic looked at you with puppy dog eyes, playfully steepling their hands to beg. 
“fine,” you said with mock irritation. 
“ah, thanks! you’re a lifesaver.” you followed him into the dimly lit infirmary. “i was just about to rebandage the lieutenant up,” he said.
you froze. “wait, we got back an hour ago, why hasn’t he been rebandaged yet?”
your teammate glanced at you as he grabbed his things. “l.t. was busy debriefing with price. said that was more important.” he shrugged then hurried out of the room before you could say more. 
shit shit shit. 
no, this is fine. stop overreacting, you told yourself. you can handle facing ghost again. granted, the first time you were doped up on adrenaline. now, you weren’t so sure you’d be able to keep a steady hand. 
you never had any real issues with authority before. and you didn’t get this way around the captain. but something about ghost unsettled you. he was a cold-blooded killer after all. 
you knew that lots of the men here were technically killers, but there was a mythical aura around ghost. even the enemies knew to beware the man in the skull mask. once you see him, it’s too late, you’re already dead. 
and it didn’t help that ghost seemed to despise you. you’ve seen him get irritated at the others before–especially soap. but you’ve also seen him joke and act friendly too. just never with you. if you knew why, you’d change that thing about yourself. anything for peace. but you couldn’t wrap your mind around why he hated you. maybe he just hated medics? but he didn’t seem to mind any of the other medics on base; at least not that you saw. 
maybe he just didn’t like women. especially ones that thought they were macho enough to fight in the military. but that didn’t seem quite right either. 
god, you needed to stop overthinking everything.
regardless of ghost’s reasoning, you squeezed your hands as you grabbed a medical tray and rolled it over to ghost’s bed. 
you tried to disguise the gulp when you saw him, outstretched in bed, his tactical gear shed and scattered on the ground. boots on, but untied. his long sleeve shirt now tossed on the end of the bed, stained with blood–a t-shirt his only covering. his pants low on his hips as his shirt rode up from how he laid propped on the bed. his neck exposed from where his mask and shirt collar didn’t meet. 
oh my god, you were acting like a victorian man with the way your heart was suddenly racing at every little bit of exposed skin. 
you pried your eyes away and slid on a pair of latex gloves. 
you grabbed a disinfectant and turned to him, trying to conjure a polite smile. 
“look like you’re gonna be sick,” he grumbled. 
“i’m smiling. this is me happy,” you said back, the forced grin slipping away now that ghost called you out on it. 
you swore you almost heard him chuckle.
you tentatively reached out to the hem of his shirt and pushed it up to where the bloody bandage you put on earlier sat. 
you felt his eyes on you as you began working, removing the old bandage and cleaning his wound properly. you shifted back and forth between ghost and the tray table beside you, dabbing up the blood and gingerly washing the wound. 
after it was cleaned and you were struggling to keep your mind clear, you needed to do a small strip of stitches to keep the gash from widening. 
“i’m just going to go ahead and give you a few stitches,” you said quietly, avoiding the dark gaze of his eyes. you applied a numbing agent that you knew wouldn’t affect his skin deep enough to mask all the pain. you had to save the proper sedation and anesthetics for more serious injuries, always cautious to not run out of supplies while only getting provisions delivered on occasion. 
you got the suture kit out before you. eyeless needle ready in hand, you began to quickly slide the needle through his skin to close it up. ghost didn’t so much as flinch as you went to work. 
ghost had shifted his position slightly, his shirt riding up in the process and exposing the way his sweatpants hung low on his hips, the V of his lower abdomen coming into view. 
your cheeks felt hot as you tried to pretend you hadn’t noticed. 
“shit. take it easy, love,” ghost grunted. you hadn’t realized you were putting pressure on his wound as you stared at the hair that trailed up towards his navel, completely losing all train of thought.
“oh my god. i’m sorry,” you stuttered, wanting to hurry up and finish so you could get out of here. 
did he just call you love? your chest exploded with unwanted feelings. god damnit, you cursed to your-easily-seduced-self. stop being irrational, he’s british, they call everyone ‘love’.
you could feel ghost’s eyes burning holes through you, tempting you to lose the steadfast nature of your hands.
“nervous?” he asked in such a nonchalant way. 
you refrained from gulping as you secured the end of the suture. “n-no.”
“you’re a bloody soldier. there's no place for nerves.”
you felt your heart sink deep within your chest at his harsh words. ghost had noticed your nervous ticks, the way you were distracted around him. he might not have known that he was the source of your jitters, but he noticed nonetheless. and he clearly thought you were weak for acting like that. how had someone like you secured a job in the military? you wanted to tell him that you weren’t usually like this. that you were always good under pressure–it’s where you thrived. that you were quick on your feet and ready to risk it all to save your teammates. 
it wasn’t you being afraid. it was you being intimidated by his looming presence. wanting to please your lieutenant. wanting to get on his good side. but you didn’t know how. and it made it far more difficult when you began to notice your attraction to him. how were you supposed to act cool and collected in front of ghost when his piercing gaze sent goosebumps up your spine. or how his words made you lose all thought–stealing yours right from your mouth. 
and it didn’t help that he was a grumpy, negative, and an all around contentious bastard. you tried so hard to tell yourself that you weren’t attracted to him. he was just another soldier (a rude one at that). you didn’t even know what he looked like under his mask for fucks sake. 
when you finished up, placing a fresh bandage over your work, you threw your gloves in the bin and turned to him. “i’m sorry.” the words escaped you before you could stop them. you were seriously apologizing for being nervous? how was that going to make things any better? he was certainly going to think you were too soft for this line of work now. an anxious surgeon wasn’t the best attribute for your lieutenant to think you possessed. 
shocked by your own words, you turned to leave, stopping when you heard ghost mumble under his breath. “how the fuck did you manage to make it through combat training?” 
you tried your damndest to reign in your tears before you made it to your room.
chapter 2 ➡
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intrulogical · 6 months
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remus isn't dumb; a sanders sides essay
i've been struggling to make a cohesive post about this because i feel like most of what i want to say boils down to the same underlying message which is: remus isn't dumb.
i feel like a good chunk of this fandom understands what i mean, at least to a surface level point. but even then, i think too much of the fandom still misinterprets remus' character in a way that, they seem to understand different traits of his, but the way they execute it is still way off from what we see in canon.
(rest of the essay under the cut!)
for example, the biggest thing i see people get wrong would be the way they write remus "lol random" personality. it's true that remus tends to say whatever he wants at any given moment. but, the problem here is that people tend to think remus as random in function. i have no better way to describe this succinctly, so to expound: while remus tends to make left-field jokes a lot, he is shown to be incredibly deliberate, cunning, committed, and intelligent in very subtle ways.
truth is, remus is very goal-oriented, and when he has a goal, oh he strives for that goal. so far, i'm writing this with the last 5 years episode being the most recent substantial episode, so i can't really 100% say all my assumptions of remus are true. actually, i think the upcoming season finale will be the missing link when it comes to providing us with the whole picture of who remus is.
as for now, i just have to stick with my theory of; remus, as a side of thomas' heavily connected to insecurities and mental health issues, intends to shed light on the "darker" sides of thomas because he believes them to be beneficial. throughout dwit, we see remus continuously bolster the idea that his contributions are useful for thomas. this continues in wtit, but with the extra layer of remus wanting logan as well to be in touch with the darker parts of himself to get thomas in line.
it is also heavily implied that remus is well in on whatever janus' plan is to get thomas to be a.) more aware of his mental health issues, and b.) to get thomas to break out of his catholic black and white thinking. in forbidden fruit, it's janus who’s seen permitting remus to present himself to thomas. bigger evidence though, as i've mentioned in the previous paragraph, is the way remus seems to deliberately want logan to manifest his anger against thomas.
of course, we can always say that remus taunted logan "just for fun", but i feel like too much of what happened in wtit seem to point to remus having deeper reasons. for example, wtit exhibits how bad thomas' mental health is to the point that he gets irrationally angry at nico for not replying to his texts. this proves how thomas has been neglecting his mental health, and with the way patton, virgil, and roman held onto toxic selfless ideologies for the longest time, thomas would still, naturally, be lost on what to do. he would even seem to deny how bad things have gotten, especially with the way he acts like nothing bad is happening when he goes to his date with nico.
why am i emphasizing this? well, it's because something i find interesting about remus' character is how deeply cognizant he is of thomas' problems. what i mean by this is, no other side can call out thomas' issues more than remus can. i wrote an essay about this before if you want to check this out, but tldr: remus, as intrusive thoughts, is the most perceptive out of all the sides when it comes to calling out insecurities or problems. we see this come to fruition in wtit when all of the traps he laid out for thomas involved nico in some capacity.
while you can interpret his character as evil for preying on others’ insecurities, i think it's important to acknowledge that, in a sea of people who tend to refuse to talk about their issues, remus is the main guy who constantly brings them to the table. whether remus' intentions are good or not, there's no denying that remus' importance as a side lies in the fact that he serves as a mental health alarm clock for thomas. with the way none of the sides want to communicate with each other, we need someone like remus to cut the bullshit and say things as it is. 
again, we don't really know if he wants to help thomas. but i would like to emphasize that, yes, remus is not dumb. he does not merely make lewd jokes and calls it a day. he has the long-term goal of making everyone talk about more "taboo" topics with each other, and this includes talking about personal grievances the sides tend to suppress or refuse to talk about. lewd jokes are just part of the process.
i think this goal of his is also incredibly visible with the way remus treated logan in wtit. wtit is my favorite sanders sides episode because there's just so much to analyze between remus and logan, but you can check my other essays in regards to that. the main thing i wanted to point out is that what remus says to logan in the end, "woowee logan, now you're speaking my language. but who do you really want to scream that at?", proves he is more deliberate and cunning than he seems.
a lovely bit of analysis my friend orb (@orbmanson7) provided is that remus didn't just pop up in wtit to intervene with thomas' plans. he was there to intervene with logan's. if you've seen my other essays, i've talked about how logan as a side has been dwindling in terms of self-confidence and assertion. this has left a big problem of thomas being more reliant on his emotions, making him ignore the suggestions given by logan that may help with thomas' mental health in the long run. this is not to villainize thomas' mental health crisis, btw. all i want to say is that, remus recognizes how logan's self-restriction is doing no good and deliberately wants to push logan to become more assertive and angry.
that is why he says logan is speaking his language. he wants logan to recognize the merit in the way remus grabs thomas' attention. he wants logan to be like him and cause more havoc. again, we never know how much remus genuinely wants to help thomas, but we know that remus wants everyone to be more exposed to "taboo" things, and this includes logan being more in touch with his angrier side.
besides that, i'd like to mention how, in general, remus tends to be very committed to his goals more than how the fandom typically portrays him? in dwit, remus' main goal was to disturb thomas and the other sides. it's kind of just an introduction to his character. we're not sure if it's part of a bigger plan he and janus devised to get thomas to take care of himself better, but it is a possibility. the only time he gets too random is when logan begins picking apart his arguments. there we see remus only results to super left-field, continuous off-tangent jokes when he's desperate or placed in a lose-lose situation.
another, in wtit, we see how remus understands how to make very long, complicated traps. i think it's a perfect encapsulation of his personality, actually! throughout the episode, we see him make these multilayered traps with a ton of props and preparation just so he can bother thomas with it. it shows that remus is actually less impulsive-oriented as he seems. he even created a schedule he showed to logan detailing everything he wanted to do that day. again, deliberate! he is deliberate and very smart!
other thing i'd like to harken back to is the idea that he's in cahoots with the other dark sides to execute some Big Plan to break thomas out of his black and white thinking. while we don't know how orange acts like yet, we're Very familiar with janus by this point and we can see how long-drawn janus' plan of acceptance is. he's, again, sorry to use the word so many times, very deliberate. i don't even think his plan ends with svs.r, because it does seem like remus is well in on this plan too. in the 5 years video, he also seems to know more than thomas on what else is to come for the future of sanders sides, which implies he has some plans up his sleeve that no one else knows about. like i said, janus has the goal to break thomas out of his black and white thinking. and so far from what we've seen from remus, he also wants the same!
an important factor of remus' character besides his deliberateness is his general need to subvert what "goodness" means. "good and bad are all made up nonsense," he sings in forbidden fruit. throughout dwit he continuously criticizes everything thomas thinks is good or acceptable. in the 5 years video, he argues about how there's no "correct way of sitting". i think this also proves how remus is important as a side because, while not every single one of his beliefs are morally acceptable, he is still able to pick morality apart in a way the other sides are unable to. also, i just think this proves his character as just. generally smart? he's able to pick apart the status quo and moral philosophies, of course he's smart.
just to pick up on a previous point, remus is scarily perceptive. i mentioned this earlier with how remus is able to pick logan apart, but i'd like to add onto it more since i think a lot of people underestimate how crazily perceptive he is. for one, despite not being too close with a bunch of the other sides, he seems to be able to read their insecurities and play them against them really well. we see it in the way he uses virgil's insecurities of being an ex-dark side against him. we see it in the way he picks on patton and thomas' morality crisis against them. we see it in the way roman describes remus as someone being able to show him things he doesn't like about himself. and most importantly, we see it in the way remus constantly reaps the fact that logan isn't listened to to the point that logan snaps. as intrusive thoughts, remus' job is to see what deepest darkest secrets thomas and the sides suppress and use it against them.
at the moment, we don't really know if remus has any weaknesses, although wtit sort of implies that he himself is also quite irritated by the fact that thomas doesn't listen to him. he does a good way of hiding, though, how much of that problem is genuinely affecting him. it makes me think he's also smart in the way he's able to hide his vulnerabilities and true intentions from the other side. he's silly and goofy and lewd and because of that, everyone thinks he's harmless. the sides think he's unserious, and so does the fandom. but deep down, remus really isn't that stupid. 
and LASTLY, when beta reading this essay, orb also mentioned to me about how remus possesses cognitive flexibility in a way roman doesn’t. this isn’t meant to discredit roman of course, but i think it’s important to mention that remus is the side with the least amount of restrictions when it comes to creative liberties. orb mentioned to me how remus is able to connect concepts easily in a way roman doesn’t because remus doesn’t operate under the same self-restrictive mindset. while this obviously would help thomas become more innovative as a creative, i think it’s also important to recognize how much thomas kind of needs it in general. much of the latter half of the series shows thomas dealing with restrictions, especially when it comes to doing good. it would be great benefit for thomas to be able to listen to a side who generally wants to Have a Good Time, and doesn’t abide by rules imposed onto them.
and yes that is my essay on remus 100/10 best character and is not dumb at all. very excited to see him in the finale and i hope y’all’s get your characterizations straight because i need me some good fics 
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pensat-i-fet · 9 months
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Not a crush (Pedri x Reader)
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**I got this request and thought it could be cute and fun. It’s true that the Spanish press has been talking about this arms situation a lot, so it’s a good blend of fiction and reality. But then it turned into one of those writing projects that changed 7 times before its final form. For a second I even thought about turning this into a series. My brain! Anyways, enjoy reading! ❤️**
ETA: I ended up writing a series based on this imagine that you can read here!
Word count: 2685
Masterlist
Wattpad
“All those years in uni to end up doing this”, you muttered. “I’m never going to be taken seriously”.
“What are you talking about?”
“This article I have to do”.
Your colleague Jordi moved his chair closer to yours to peek at your computer screen.
“You know that we can’t use the computers for personal stuff, right?”
You put your head on the table. Really, no one was going to take you seriously.
“Huh?”
“Why are you looking at photos of shirtless Pedri? Got a crush?”
“Shut up! I have to do an article about the evolution of his body in the last couple of years”.
“That’s cool”.
“It’s stupid!”
“I’ve done worse when I was an intern. Don’t be so negative”.
You guessed he was right. It could be a lot worse. And you didn’t have a crush but…there were worse ways to spend a Tuesday afternoon than looking at photos of a cute player. And being given an excuse to stare at his body, which had definitely changed in the last couple of years. You didn’t visit the gym much but liked it when others did. Especially if that was the result of their gym sessions.
Writing the article actually took a good chunk of your day. Between getting the right photos and videos for it and asking for permission to use them, the actual writing and your colleagues' stupid comments about it, it wasn't as easy as you thought it would be at first. But it was a good article. And once the editor saw it and was happy with it, it was posted on the newspaper's website.
The following day you posted a link to it on your social media accounts and a little later you started to go through the comments. So many of them talked about how you were only picked to do that article because it was about a man's body and you were a woman. Right…nothing new on Twitter.
“Stop replying to hate comments”.
“It’s therapeutical”.
"It's pointless".
Just one more…
                                      **
It wasn't just the press or people on social media talking about Pedri's muscles. His teammates loved to tease him joking about that too.
"Here comes the Spanish Lewandowski", laughed Eric.
"So funny".
"Please don't be mad at me. I'm afraid you'll use those big strong muscles to punish me".
Pedri did use his muscles to push his friend and get him out of the way. He knew it was just banter but it all got boring after a few days.
"There needs to be a big signing or something so your arms stop being the topic of the week", told him Ferrán, who was looking at his phone.
“Yeah, I saw Barça posting about it on social media too. People are so overdramatic”.
“Totally, but I didn't mean that. I meant the new article”.
"What new article?"
Ferrán showed him your article and Pedri sat down to read it properly. It was a great article. You took the time to analyze the way his game could be influenced by this body change and picked different photos than the ones used by everyone else. He guessed there were still proper journalists out there. What a plot twist.
"It's a good article", he said, giving the phone back to his friend.
"The internet seems to disagree".
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't know if they disagree but the girl who wrote it was getting a lot of shit on social media".
"Why?", Pedri couldn't hide his frown.
"I didn't look much into it but I saw people saying nasty things to her and then they found some old tweets and …seems like she used to have a crush on you and now she writes about your muscles or whatever and people on Twitter are the way they always are".
"Right", he murmured. He had listened to everything his friend said but also got stuck on how you used to have a crush on him. And he didn't even know who you were but footballers…they just loved being loved.
                                     **
"No point in deleting them now", said Jordi.
"I wasn't going to…".
People had too much time on their hands. That was the conclusion of the day. Somehow, just because of your article, someone decided to check your entire Twitter history to see if there was anything they could accuse you of. They probably were mad to find no offensive tweets but they found two where you retweeted a Barça fan page and wrote about liking Pedri.
The funniest thing was you barely remembered those tweets. You saw him, thought he was cute and posted that. Then you moved on. There were many players you found cute but had no time for crushes. Pedri got a mention purely for the fact that he signed for your team.
But now this was being used against you. So childish.
"Are you busy next week?"
You looked up to see your boss talking to you. He never talked to you.
"I guess. I mean, I'll be here working. So…".
"Do you have a passport?"
"Yes".
"Your English was good, right?"
"Pretty good, yeah".
He only had to look at your CV to see all the qualifications you had, including all the diplomas that proved your English was more than good but…no one cared that much about an intern.
"You're going on the US tour", he said and left. How could he drop that bomb and leave?
Your jaw was on the floor and Jordi was staring at you with a similar expression.
"Wait!", you said, finally able to get up and follow your boss. "What do you mean I'm going on the US tour? There is a group of people chosen for that already. It was decided months ago".
"I know", he said casually. "But one of them can't go and you'll take his spot".
"But I'm just an intern".
"Do you not want to go?"
"I do! Of course I do!", you said quickly. "But it doesn't make sense".
"Look. You're doing really well here. And you've gotten people to visit our website more than ever with just one article so…you earned it".
You had heard about all the visits to the website after the Pedri article was posted. But the way your boss was avoiding holding eye contact told you everything you needed to know.
"Am I just going because people think I have a crush on one of the players that'll be there?"
"If you weren't a good journalist, that wouldn't be enough for me to send you with that team. But it doesn't hurt".
"Ok, I'll start packing".
This was a great opportunity and you weren't going to reject it just because of some of the reasons surrounding it. But the excitement you felt when you first heard about the trip completely vanished.
And when you checked your Instagram and saw a certain player was looking at your stories…it was even worse.
No one took you seriously but you'd prove them wrong.
                                     **
The pre-season was both loved and hated by players. Pedri didn't really have strong feelings about it. It was just part of the job and they got to visit some different places so there were positives to take from these couple of weeks.
Another positive was having you around. After finding out about your article and your past crush on him, he checked your social media accounts. There wasn't much on any of them, since they were professional accounts. But there were a couple of photos of you and your dog.
Stories were something you also used to mostly promote your work and it was while checking those he found out you were going to the US too. He was hoping you'd meet at some point but didn't expect you'd be the one to interview him.
"Hi, nice to meet you", you said, extending your hand for him to shake. So professional.
"Nice meeting you too. I really liked your article about me".
Something changed in your expression and he couldn't understand what it was but you quickly got back to professional mode.
"Thank you. Let's get this done quickly. I was told we only have 15 minutes".
The interview was pretty uneventful. You asked good questions and Pedri gave you good answers in return. But you were so serious. He didn't know you personally, so maybe that was how you always were. But Pedri had a feeling there was more to it.
"Was that good?"
"The interview? Yes, thank you for your answers. They were really good".
"Easy when the questions are good too".
You nodded, quickly looking away.
"Are you ok?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because it seems like you would want to be anywhere but here".
You closed your eyes and sighed.
"Is it because of what people said about you?"
His words made you open your eyes and you finally looked at him. Instead of answering, you simply nodded.
"Don't pay attention to them".
"Easier said than done. Especially when they are the reason I'm here".
"The reason…".
"I'm not here because I'm good at my job. But because people thinking I have a crush on you got us a lot of attention. And now this interview will get more attention. So I'm basically just a pawn and I guess so are you".
"I'm sorry".
"It's not your fault".
Picking up your things, you got ready to leave but Pedri stopped you.
"I don't read what people write about me but my parents do. They like to keep the articles and print the photos and all that. Things parents do, I guess", he shrugged. "I read your article because Ferrán showed it to me and thought it was great. And then my parents told me about it, praising your writing multiple times. Your newspaper might be using you but you're good. You showed it to me in this interview too so don't feel sad".
"I don't have a crush on you".
"What?", but then he realised what you meant. "I didn't praise you because of that. God, you really need to get out of that mindset".
When Pedri started to laugh, you were more confused than ever.
"It's not you against the world. And people will praise you just because they genuinely want to…but now I'll be the one who's sad".
"Why?"
"I liked thinking you had a crush on me".
Now you were laughing too. Finally, he got to see the smile he had seen in those photos.
"Thank you for your words. I needed them. And you must go to train. I'll see you around".
"Yes".
The interview was posted just a couple of hours later. And even if Pedri's words helped, the comments you got still hurt.
Got what she wanted. To meet him.
"Yes, that's all I wanted in life. I can retire now".
"Why are you looking at your phone like it offended you?", asked one of your colleagues.
"It's the people inside it that offend me".
"Are there people living inside your phone?"
You half laughed at his bad joke.
"I know what you need to cheer up".
"Really?"
"Yes. Thoughts on karaoke?"
That made you laugh. You were such a terrible singer. "I like it. People don't like hearing me sing, though".
"I want to hear you sing so you're coming with us tonight".
                                   **
One of the easiest ways to get in trouble during pre-season was to go out and wake up to paparazzi photos of the party. But when it was the coach that took you out…then it was fine?
Pedri wasn't really into parties anyways but he thought karaoke night could be fun. He wasn't planning on signing but knew which teammates would. His phone was going to record all of it to tease them in the future.
"It started already", said Xavi, who was the first one to get inside the bar.
And he was right. There was someone leaving the stage while they found their tables. And someone else took the previous person's place immediately. Pedri wasn't interested in the random people who were going to sign but still looked up to see who was talking to the guy that controlled the machine.
And it was you who was on the stage.
"Well, that's a surprise", he said, almost to himself.
"What is?", Ferrán was now looking at the stage too. "Who is she? She's hot".
"The journalist who wrote about my muscles".
"The one that doesn't have a crush on you?", he laughed. "That's funnier now that I know she's pretty".
Pedri rolled his eyes and continued staring at you. He could see you were giggling and it was such a change from the super serious woman he met for the interview.
You picked a Franz Ferdinand song. They were one of your favourite bands when you were a teen and after seeing them live at the FIB, you were back to listening to all their songs on repeat.
Oh, when I woke up tonight, I said I’m
Going to make somebody love me
I’m going to make somebody love me
And now I know, now I know, now I know
I know that it’s you
You’re lucky, lucky, you’re so lucky
Your voice wasn’t great but who cared about that on karaoke night? Pedri didn’t. He just stared at you. You looked so relaxed. Just having fun instead of the worried version of you he got for his interview.
“Whoever she chooses would be lucky. She isn’t lying”.
Ferrán’s words took Pedri out of his daydreams. “What do you mean?”
“The song”.
“I’m not really paying attention to the lyrics. What do they mean?”
His teammate explained the meaning of the lyrics quickly and Pedri had to agree. Whoever you chose would be very lucky.
“I wouldn’t mind being the chosen one but you saw her first. Shame she doesn’t have a crush on you anymore, Pedrito”.
Yeah, it was a shame.
When you finished your song, you felt so much better. This had been the right plan to improve your mood. None of your colleagues wanted a drink, so you went to the bar to get one. It was needed after all that singing.
“I didn’t know you were a singer too?”
You turned to face Pedri and snorted. “Yes, it was my plan b if journalism didn’t work out”.
“There is always autotune to help”.
Pedri was pleased to see you laughing at his words. It was the second time in just one day he had achieved that.
“Do you want a drink too?”, you asked him when the bartender was taking your order.
“Just water, please”.
Once you got your drinks, none of you moved from the bar to go back to your friends. You just kept chatting.
“I mean, who knew writing about someone’s arms could lead to so much drama”.
Pedri followed your eyes which were now staring at his biceps. “Want to touch them?”
Yes. “No”.
“After reading the article I wondered if you knew more about my body than I do, you know? So it’s ok, you can touch”.
You bit your lip, trying not to blush. "I know you hear every day about how good you are at everything and that makes you overly confident but you aren’t as great at flirting as you might think".
"I heard about how great I am from you too. So you're at fault".
"I've barely written about you apart from that article".
"Yeah, but the old tweets…".
"I told you I don’t have a crush on you”.
“And the way you’re blushing says something different”.
When he leaned closer, you noticed how your knees were touching beneath the bar. They had been touching for a couple of minutes and you hadn’t even noticed. Nor did you feel the need to move.
“Not here”, you said.
“What?”
“Not where people can see us”.
“I thought you didn’t…”.
“I just want to test a theory”.
“What theory?”, he asked, smirking at you.
“If the crush I had on you two years ago is still there”.
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rosiemoo · 1 year
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Out of Touch Gameboy Code
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This is my programming equivalent to sheet music which plays Hall and Oate's Out of Touch. A little devblog of how this chunk of code came to be for this year's final Thursday ❤️
For @b0tster's birthday Gameboy cart, I wanted to get the Gameboy to play Out of Touch. My hands were also in rough shape with an RSI so I was programming using a combination of voice dictation and the onscreen keyboard. Because of this, rather than figure out something better, I had to rework my old music code which was an already reworked version of the sound.c example code that comes with GBDK.
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A list of notes and their frequencies, graciously provided by the sound.c example.
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This code takes one of the notes, and uses the frequency to set the registers correctly for playing that note on the first sound channel. The frequency is a bit more than 8 bits of info so it gets split between the bits in register 13 and 14. The other registers affect the kind of note played in ways I couldn't hope to fathom. Those were figured out with trial and error.
To get the timing better, I also had to add FF and SD which raised and lowered the tempo (by doing the opposite to the tempo variable). I also added HOLD which if put before a note, doubled the length of the note. This was just enough to get the tune working and not sounding terribly off.
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The code for playing the song isn't terribly interesting, this function is called once every frame with a delay of "tempo" ticks between them. FF, SD, and HOLD all call the function again to avoid this delay while still playing the actual next note. Also the note value is subtracted by 12 because I wanted to lower the tune by an octave but didn't want to use the hand energy change all the numbers.
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And the rest of the playing code is terribly simple! Play a note, wait a bit, repeat. Which brings us back to this:
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This is an array of the note enumerators from before The song goes through this and plays each note in sequence. I wrote this by looking at some sheet music for the melody of the chorus and just feeling it out from there. I eventually added little comments above the notes to help me keep track of it!
No human writes music like this
but, it worked, which means it was good enough which means it was perfect!
The resulting video:
[spritework by the lovely @abbytorade]
This was a weekend project that ended up taking me a bit under a month due to life but it was a very fun little coding puzzle to work on when my hands would allow me. Lilith is a great friend and I am so glad to have been able to make this made for her!
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1d1195 · 9 months
Text
Screens II
Read the first part here: Screens
Another thank you to my 🪁-anon. Without you and your kind request, this story would not exist. I hope you enjoy this part as much as possible. Thank you to the following anon's for their support, I don't have names or emoji's for you but here are the kind messages I've received patiently waiting for a part 2: one and only Screens fan, #1 Screens fan, and this one that sobbed while trying to finish reading it. I did not mean to exclude anyone, I typed Screens into my blog's search bar to gather this information.
Finally, this anon provided a good chunk of the inspiration.
I hope you all enjoy it. I wrote it in a sense in a series of flashbacks and you will see this ◊ to indicate the difference in flashback scenes vs. my standard * to indicate a bit of time has passed.
"Okay on with it, lady. You talk to much." --Everyone reading this (probably).
Harry wasn’t so distracted by how pretty she looked with hair and paint falling across her pretty skin and over her beautiful face that he missed her saying the word ‘if.’ A hopeful sign that she believed in a miracle even if she was too scared to say so herself on any given day. Part of him also noted and hated the idea of her finding an apartment without him; even after a mere nine months of being in absolute love with her. He wished he had asked her to move in right then.
December | Holiday Break | 8:30 AM
Harry was extremely mindful of announcing his presence around her because he hated how jumpy she got when anyone else spooked her because she didn’t always see them coming around the corner or something. He especially did so in the quiet of the morning or the stillness of the evening. “Angel?” He called into his apartment. It was chilly on their first day of holiday break from work. Harry wanted her to stay the whole week with him. She couldn’t deny she didn’t want the same thing. He ventured into the winter air and returned with hot coffee, foam on top just as she liked.
They’d been together, officially, for a little over a year. But having known her a bit for the better part of a decade, it was easier than he ever thought to be in a relationship with her and he wished that he had thought of it long before last November. “Mm,” she hummed barely loud enough for him to hear as he approached his bedroom. “M’sleeping,” she mumbled against the pillow as he made his way across the room.
He chuckled quietly and set the coffees on his nightstand before slipping back under the covers with her. She rolled herself on top of him, legs on either side of his hips and her face pressed against the front of his shoulder. She was scrunched against him like a little ball. “Don’t move.”
He wouldn’t have if someone tried to force him to move. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the side of her head. “Coffee’ll get cold,” he mumbled, rubbing his fingers against the back of her head. She sighed but said nothing. “C’mon, kitten. Y’told me t’not let y’sleep late,” he cooed and kissed her again.
“I lied,” she murmured. He chuckled. “M’too heavy, that’s it, isn’t it? Want me off you?” He rolled his eyes and squeezed her tight against him.
“No, y’silly thing.” She lifted her head up and hovered above him for a moment. She didn’t speak but she lightly drew her finger over his features. He watched as her eyes squinted, sliding over the trail of her finger in silence. She did this at least once a week. Usually when they saw one another on the weekends because they had more time than their Thursday night ritual. “What are y’doing?” He asked her.
Her cheeks reddened and she shook her head. She didn’t say and Harry let it drop. He always let it drop when he asked. Part of him thought nothing of it, surely it was for a portrait—a painting or a drawing she was working on. She had seen her do it with a rose, tracing the thorns carefully; or the arm of a park bench, admiring how it looked in the afternoon light.
Nonetheless, he enjoyed the way her fingers felt on his skin. It was one of the many things she taught him: using his sense of touch so much more.
Carefully he tightened his grip on her as he rolled the pair of them onto their sides to face one another. He brought his hand to her face and gently brushed his thumb across her lips and then traced his finger over her brow line, over the bridge of her nose, before settling his hand firmly against her cheek. “When’s your appointment?” He asked.
She sighed and shook her head. “Noon,” she mumbled. He gave her body a gentle squeeze as he held her.
“It’ll be alright, kitten.”
“I can’t teach if I can’t see,” she reminded him. “I’m sitting right in front of you, and I can hardly see you,” she whispered quietly.
He frowned and reached behind her for her glasses on the other little table beside his bed. He slid them into place, mindful to not catch her ear or pull too hard against her hair. He smiled at her. It made her stomach flip because Harry was by far the most beautiful person she had ever met. “I love your glasses,” he whispered. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“I look like a librarian.”
“The sexiest librarian ’ve ever laid eyes on,” he promised and ignored her snort. “Not only do they help y’see, but they help me see. S’like they magnify your eyes. Swear I can see everything you’re hiding in that beautiful brain of yours,” he murmured and pressed a kiss to her forehead, right between the rim of the glasses hovering over her eyes.
“They look like coke bottles.”
He shook his head. “I think you’re gorgeous,” he promised and pulled them down slightly and pressed a kiss to each of her eyelids. Silently he hoped and prayed to whatever god was out there that her appointment would give her good news and make the ache in her mind and heart lessen just a bit. He didn’t care if she needed glasses by any means or if her eyesight got worse. None of that mattered to him at all. He just wanted her to be a little happier than she was before.
*
Over the past year, he had seen so many stages of her grief. He saw the anger she felt when she missed a step and dropped her food outside the restaurant causing a mess all over her shoes and the entry way. It made her eyes water as she asked the hostess if she could have some towels to clean it up so no one would slip on their way out. Harry helped her clean it up and even placed the quickest to go order ever made so she could have extra for lunch the following day and promised her it was no big deal that she spilled.
 He watched her sadness as she couldn’t see things in plain sight—like the ever-hiding remote always evading her vision. Or when she accidentally put cinnamon in her pasta dish because she swore it was paprika.
The pain that puckered her eyebrows together all because her glasses and the screens at work bothered her so much.
Harry begged her so plainly to ask him for help. He had the phone pressed to his ear as he laid his head back against the sofa. Her voice made his stomach knot in the best way—she made him weak in the knees and the only thing he regretted about dating her was not doing it sooner. “I’ll bother you,” she whispered into the phone.
“Kitten, of course not.”
“If you’re hanging out with friends, and you need to come get me because it’s raining at night...and I can’t drive myself home?”
“Then I’ll say, ‘sorry lads, m’princess needs me.’ If they have a problem with that, s’on them,” he said simply with a shrug.
She released a quiet giggle despite how much she didn’t want to. “You’re much nicer to me than anyone I’ve ever known.”
But she wasn’t always so down about it. Sometimes she had a really good sense of humor about it. Harry didn’t love it all that much though. It hurt him to hear her joke about something he knew in his heart hurt her quite a bit. But he was glad she could be in good spirits about it.
“Listen,” she said almost a month after their first kiss. “You’d be surprised how often someone says, ‘what are you blind?’ You’re just going to have to roll with it. It’s okay. I’ve heard it a lot and I say it to myself sometimes. I’ve been working on new comebacks but so far ‘legally, no; spiritually yes,’ is my favorite.”
Harry felt a wave of awkwardness wash over him, but she just continued to smile this gorgeous, bright smile that he had no choice but to let her make her joke.
And if he did say ‘What are you, blind?’ a few days later, well... at least she had warned him.
Harry read to her sometimes. It made her feel like a little kid, but he didn’t dwell on it. He acted as if it was completely normal for a boyfriend to read out loud like a kindergarten teacher to his girlfriend. She snuggled up to him in his lap and glanced at the pages every so often as he held the book in front of them. She had to be careful though because Harry’s voice was so soothing and even though she loved to hear him talk, there had been many chapters she missed because he accidentally put her to sleep with his melodic voice.
Sleeping together in the quiet parts of the night were some of his favorite times. Whether something more intimate happened between them or not. Night was when he felt most attuned to her. Harry couldn’t see any more than she could. Touching her, feeling the goosebumps he left in the wake of his fingertips against her skin made him much more aware of how touch could bring him to his knees for her. He also paid close attention to her near silent, soft whines of pleasure or how her laugh seemed so much brighter in the dark.
But listening to her speak at night might have been one of his most favorite things. “Why did y’leave me after that party?” He whispered. It bothered him a bit when they first started dating.
Her face was pressed to his chest, her finger moving over his face as it always did, this time focusing on the shape of his jaw, outlining the scruffy remnants of hair growth since he last shaved. “Why would you want to be with the near-blind girl?” She shrugged.
It took him no time at all to answer. “Cause she’s perfect.” She smiled and pressed a kiss almost touching the cross necklace that dangled between the sparrows on his chest.
She never asked him again if it mattered to him if she’d go totally blind. Not since she asked after their first kiss last November. He said it all right then at that moment. She believed him so easily because no, she hadn’t ever thought about it. There wasn’t a time when she thought that maybe she wouldn’t go blind. So, for Harry to believe it was possible was more than enough.
Harry worried about her a lot more than most people did a lot of the time. More than her family who were so used to her poor sight it didn’t even phase them when she handed them the wrong cups or passed along the wrong items because they weren’t clear enough about where they were. More than strangers who would roll their eyes at her when she bumped into them on public transport.
But mostly herself because while she had been living with bad eyes for so long, it took Harry some getting used to the ins and outs of the harder things she had to do. One day they painted two canvases together, spinning them back and forth between them for five minutes creating fun little landscapes that didn’t make any sense. “Would y’ever want a seeing eye dog?” He asked. Harry was a terrible painter, but he’d do anything to spend time with her doing her favorite things. “Bet we could get you a really cute pup,” he smiled.
She smirked so cutely, and she wiped her hand across her forehead to get a piece of hair out of her eyes. In doing so, she painted a stripe of pink paint across her forehead, making his heart feel so jumpy with love for her. “Maybe if I went totally blind,” she shrugged. “Would need to find an apartment that allows a cute dog too,” she reminded him. As if a seeing-eye dog wasn’t an exception to most places.
Harry wasn’t so distracted by how pretty she looked with hair and paint falling across her pretty skin and over her beautiful face that he missed her saying the word ‘if.’ A hopeful sign that she believed in a miracle even if she was too scared to say so herself on any given day. Part of him also noted and hated the idea of her finding an apartment without him; even after a mere nine months of being in absolute love with her. He wished he had asked her to move in right then.
Loving one another didn’t come without some hardships either.
Once more she found herself bumping into someone. Harry had gone ahead to the car to get to her door and naturally the moment he left her side she was nearly falling flat on her bum. However, the person bumping into her was quick, caught her around the waist before she hit the ground. “Oh, easy love. You alright?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said quickly.
“Hardly your fault, love. Don’t be sorry,” he smirked. “S’easy to fall for me,” he winked at her.
She gaped in surprise. Harry wasn’t surprised in the slightest because she was by far the most adorable person on the planet let alone that street. “Excuse me,” Harry said flatly. Harry eyed the arm around her waist that didn’t belong to her or himself, and the man turned his attention to Harry.
“Oh, of course you’re taken...Someone as beautiful as you would have to be,” he released his grip from her. “Sorry, mate,” he said to Harry and then winked at the beautiful girl.
Harry grabbed her hand and marched quickly toward his car without so much as another glance in his direction. “Harry,” she whined as he tugged her. He wasn’t rough, exactly. She didn’t think it was possible for him to be rough with her even when he was grumpy. Her mind flashed to that very first day when he looked at her with so much annoyance for getting food all over his clothes and then separating him from his friends.
Harry often got so protective of her that it came across as overbearing and every so often, he couldn’t help but feel jealous when someone else helped her. She had done so much on her own for so long the idea that she didn’t need him or worse, needed someone else made him so utterly sad that he had a hard time expressing how upset it made him. “M’sorry,” he whispered.
“Sorry? Why?”
“Jus’...I get so sad when other people help you,” he frowned. She turned toward him in her seat. “Not because I don’t want them t’help you. But because...I jus’ like helping you. Makes me think y’don’t really need me,” he mumbled. “I know I wasn’t always...so outwardly nice t’you. Think I was a bit of a dick,” he said quietly. “Think it would make a lot of sense if y’found...someone that swept y’off your feet right away.”
She reached out and cupped the side of his face and leaned forward to kiss him on the lips briefly. “I need you, always. More than that...I want you,” she said softly. Harry felt like a lovesick teenager at her words. Wanting him really was so much better than needing him. Because she didn’t. She was wonderfully independent and had done so much on her own for so long, she really didn’t need him. But wanting him around? Harry loved her so much he wondered how he ever could have been without her. “So much it feels like I need you.”
He leaned forward to steal another kiss and she smiled, her glasses bumping his forehead a bit. “I love you,” he promised.
She smiled. “Would you like to know when I fell in love with you?” She asked.
He blinked at her response. “Well, sure,” he nodded.
“When you held my hand at the party and walked me to your room...it was like...I don’t know, I felt like a princess,” she told him. “You totally saved me. I had no plan. No escape. I just didn’t want to bother anyone.”
He smiled at the memory. “I loved sleeping with you,” he winked. She pushed him gently and shook her head. “No really, y’looked so cute in m’clothes. Wanted you t’stay in my bed forever.”
“I bet you did,” she mumbled.
“Ha-ha,” he rolled his eyes. “Never would have thought your cute mind would constantly sit in a gutter, kitten. Yes, of course I wanted that,” he grumbled making her laugh. “Really I jus’ wanted you.”
“You want me too?” She wrinkled her nose making her eyes crinkle at the corners and Harry turned fully to hold her face between his hands. He leaned in to brush his lips over hers like he did the first time he kissed her. She gave the same little whine she did. It went right through his heart.
“What gave it away?” He mumbled against her lips.
“What if it’s hereditary?” She whispered in the dark.
Harry turned to face her even though he couldn’t see anything in the darkened room. He could feel her breath and the anxiety in her voice was so palpable he could feel her voice. “Then...who better to help them than you?”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t wish this on the people that made fun of me,” she mumbled. “I can’t imagine a child like me,” she admitted quietly. “It was so hard.”
Harry frowned and inched closer to her. His nose bumped into hers, he brought his hand up to her cheek. What he said next, he meant whether he was part of the future or not. With everything in him, it was one of the truest things he ever told her. “I can’t think of a luckier child than one like you, m’love.”
It wasn’t always about her eyes. There were pictures they took and vacations they enjoyed. He loved her family and how they made him feel like he was part of her holiday traditions. Gemma and his mum adored her and asked about her more than they asked about Harry.
She had the best jokes from books she read. Her art was beautiful and taking walks through the park with her were some of his favorite dates he’d ever been on.
It was five months in when he told her he loved her for the first time. “You are the most beautiful woman I know,” he said. She smiled at him with the lightest touch of pink painting her cheeks. She made him stop and proceeded to lie in the middle of the sidewalk to capture a picture of the sky between the branches of a tree on the unseasonably warm April day. Harry took his own picture of her doing just that. “See?” He asked, showing her the picture he took.
She looked at the picture momentarily and then back at him. “You think I’m beautiful?”
“Of course, kitten,” he rolled his eyes. “Inside and out; the kindness and warmth you have inside you is probably jus’ a fraction of the beauty y’display outwardly for someone like me that falls in love with you every time y’smile,” he grabbed her hand continued walking down the street enjoying the spring air. She was quiet for the length of the road and when they stopped to wait for the light to change at the crosswalk, she looked up at him at her side.
“You’re in love with me?” She asked.
He blinked in surprise, feeling a bit tongue tied. He chuckled awkwardly as he glanced at her. “Uh...sorry... I should have waited...said that in the privacy of your apartment...or mine, or something. Not in the middle of a busy street.”
She smiled and shook her head at him. “I love you, too.”
The light changed and back again, but neither of them noticed because he was too busy kissing her while the crowd moved around them.
Sometimes she got so angry and frustrated with herself that she would accidentally take it out on Harry. Like the time she didn’t see how close her fingers were to the knife and nicked herself good. Not enough to need stitches or even a trip to the minute clinic, but enough to make Harry ooh and ahh over her. “Angel,” he murmured after she ripped her hand away from him.
“Stop,” she sniffed. She wasn’t in pain—at least not from her little wound she inflicted upon herself. “Just stop.”
He frowned and pressed his lips together trying not to overwhelm her with his worry. In those moments, he stood waiting patiently. Eventually she would say sorry, and he would shake his head. “You don’t have t’apologize t’me ever, m’love...not ‘bout this.”
He knew this was hard for her. Every time she hurt herself or dropped something, it was a reminder that her eyes weren’t working the way they were supposed to. The last thing he wanted was her spiraling and worrying about what would come next.
But he wanted her to know that whatever it was, he would be right beside her. Seeing for her even if she couldn’t.
*
December | Holiday Break | Lunch time
She never let Harry go into her appointments with her. However, he made sure he was the first one to meet her at the door right outside the office because her eyes were almost always dilated. It amplified how difficult it was for her to see where she was going. After nearly bumping into someone as she exited, she apologized awkwardly. Almost instantly, Harry was there looping her arm through his elbow. “Hey beautiful,” he said kissing the top of her head. He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t ask about the appointment. He knew better. She would say something if needed.
He opened her car door, helping her into the seat and placed sunglasses over her eyes to protect her widened pupils. He kissed the space where her forehead met her hairline and closed her safely in the car. Once inside the car himself, he drove off, planning to get her more coffee because she hated these appointments and Harry wanted to treat her for being brave even when she didn’t want to be. She leaned against the window and didn’t speak. Harry placed a hand on her leg, and she wrapped her fingers around his. He gave her a squeeze and continued driving silently.
“They have a new... cutting edge surgery they want me to try,” she whispered to the window.
He squeezed her hand again, glanced long enough to see her contemplative reflection in the glass. “How d’you feel about that?” He asked.
“Nervous.”
He smiled weakly. He wished he could look at her, but he knew talking about it was easier when he wasn’t looking at her—even if she couldn’t fully see him. Harry ordered at the drive through and then continued driving to a little spot by a lake. It was still so chilly outside—even at the warmest part of the day. There was steam coming off the water from the warmth of the sun beating off it. She took a picture of it on her phone and Harry knew the look of concentration on her face was trying to figure out how to recreate the steam in a painting.
They were sitting on the hood of his car. It was still warm from the engine and Harry had a blanket laid over their laps. She leaned back against the windshield holding the coffee cup upright to keep her hands warm. Harry turned to his side to look at her. He brought his hand to push her hair away from her forehead and he traced along her hairline. “Do y’want surgery?”
She sighed. “I wanna be able to see.”
He smiled gently and gave her cheek a kiss. “Will it...get worse? If y’try it?”
She shook her head. “No more than the risk of a regular surgery. It won’t be perfect. I’d still need glasses. I’ll still have trouble seeing. But...I won’t go blind. It’ll either stop it from getting worse or it won’t work,” she shrugged.
“Sounds like you have nothing t’lose then, angel,” he murmured.
She was quiet for a second. “I trace your face so much because I worry, I’ll never see it again,” she whispered. Harry was speechless...all those times he asked her what she was doing... He never thought that was her reason. “I want it to be muscle memory,” she explained. “So... if my eyes...if I can’t see anymore...I hope I can sculpt it from memory,” she whispered.
That beautiful word ‘if’ made his heart so full of love for her.
But, by far that was the most...genuine thing anyone had ever said to him. “God, I wish I dated you so much earlier,” he mumbled and leaned down to kiss her as deeply as he could manage while the cold December air cooled her coffee down once more while he gently traced his tongue along her lower lip.
Her cheeks turned this beautiful shade of red that Harry loved so much. The sunglasses over her eyes hid so much from him. He meant every word earlier. He loved her glasses so much, if only allowing him to see deeper into her soul. “If...it works though...” she whispered after a minute of kissing. He didn’t say anything because he sensed there was more, and she swallowed hard. “I’m scared I won’t be me...I feel like my whole life has been put on hold because of my eyes. I don’t know if I know how to live without... thinking about them.”
“Then we’ll learn t’live without thinking ‘bout them,” he shrugged reaching for a piece of her hair and stroking it like a paint brush across her face. “You’re more than your eyes, kitten.”
Her heart felt so warm at his words. Harry always made the well-being of her eyes an effort for the two of them. It wasn’t a battle she faced alone. Harry was there the whole time encouraging her, helping her, keeping a literal eye on things for her when she couldn’t. It didn’t bother him when she cried about not seeing something. When she bumped into walls or doors, he never said anything other than to make sure she was alright. If she dropped something and made a mess, he simply helped her clean it up. Harry was her personal chauffeur, and he didn’t care at all.
“To be fair m’love, I would be driving y’around anyway because you’re a lady and I adore you and m’mum taught me t’hold car doors open for the women I adore. And I’d rather drive and keep y’safe... plus you’re a terrible driver even when y’can see. S’a danger to you, me, and everyone else on the road.”
“We wouldn’t...” she whispered quietly and shook her head, looking away from him.
“Wouldn’t what, m’love?” He murmured looking at her with a frown on his lips. Worry etched between his eyes.
“We wouldn’t...be in love...if it weren’t for the fact I can’t see,” she reminded him and turned to look back at his expectant face waiting for her to complete her thought. “I wouldn’t have spilled food on you. You wouldn’t have sat up front and asked if I couldn’t see. There wouldn’t have been writing notes for me or making sure I was okay at that party or at the pub...”
“Kitten, I learned t’read Braille for you. I don’t care if y’can see or not. I would do anything for you. I may have fallen for you because you couldn’t see but I don’t stay because of it. I stay because I adore you.”
“What?” She whispered breathlessly. She sat up fully while Harry stayed lying flat against the windshield. “You learned...you did what?”
He shrugged. “M’probably not very good at it. But I don’t know...thought if it came down to it, if it got worse and you were sad...I’d want t’help.”
Harry saw the tear slip down her cheek past her sunglasses. “Harry Styles,” she practically sighed. “You are...I don’t know...”
“The love of your life, maybe?” He smiled cutely and reached up to rub the tear from her cheek.
For the second time in her life, she had so much hope swelling in her heart. Harry, the cause of it once more. “And hopefully every life I’ve ever have and ever will live.”
--
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time travel + I didn’t mean to turn you on
hello my love thank you for your request I wrote a bunch solely because I'm in love with you
--
Life is nothing if not consistent for Lena Luthor. She wakes at the same hour every single day, does an hour of stretches and exercise, eats the same egg white omelet. She’s the first to the office and the last to leave. Every moment is structured and accounted for, allowing Lena maximum control and regulation. Just the way she likes it.
And then, one day as she was stretching deep into a downward dog, her new life path came crashing down through her crystal glass coffee table. 
One moment she’s thinking about the meeting she has in an hour and the next she’s flinching away from a spray of glass raining down overhead. She curls in on herself with a yelp, terrified and frozen at the sudden explosion beside her. After the clattering of glass had stopped, she’s left in dead silence. With a deep breath for confidence, she finally works up the nerve to look.
Collapsed over the metal frame of what had been her table lay some woman she had never seen before in her life, knocked out and bleeding all over her Persian rug. 
Lena feels herself clicking into survival mode at the sight of her. She’s always been good at that – surviving. No one can keep a clearer head in a crisis than Lena. The initial fear now replaced with adrenaline and clarity, Lena jumps into action. Years of Pilates and daily weight-lifting aides her as she pulls the bloody woman off the twisted frame, dragging her over to her yoga mat. The woman is out cold.
She’s got glass stuck in all kinds of places, the worst of which seems to be a long, jagged piece stuck in her thigh. Lena knows better than to try and pull that one out, so she instead focuses on tying her sweatshirt around the woman’s thigh to try and stave the bleeding. It looks like it might be in a dangerous spot, possibly close to an artery, and the last thing Lena needs is some home invader dying on her living room floor. The press would have a field day with that.
While working to stabilize the rush of bleeding from her thigh, Lena shouted out, “HOPE, call emergency services.” HOPE, her omnipresent homemade helper, replied back from the speaker located just above. “Yes, Miss Luthor. Police, fire, or EMT?” 
“EMT and pol-” she’s cut off by two hands on her at once: one covering her mouth forcefully and the other pressing a large glass chunk to her throat right at the jugular vein. She freezes. 
Apparently, the unconscious intruder was more conscious than she thought. “Tell her to cancel it,” the woman says with a hoarse, pained voice. Lena watches her with a calculating eye, weighing her option. If she didn’t respond to HOPE in the next few moments, she knew her virtual assistant would call the police automatically. “It’ll take them, what, 5 minutes to get here? Maybe 10 with traffic. You’ll bleed out in seconds and I’ll be long gone before they even get close,” the woman says, “Nobody has to die today, okay? Cancel it.”
Her mind reels for alternatives, but the woman presses the glass harder against her throat, hard enough to cut, and her mind is made up. She nods, and hesitantly the other woman removes her hand from her mouth.  “Cancel request, HOPE,” Lena says, voice surprisingly steady for someone in such a situation. “Request successfully cancelled,” HOPE chirped happily before shutting off.
The other woman sighs, the glass held to Lena’s neck slacking just a bit as she leans backwards. Lena can feel the way it pulls at her skin, how blood starts to trickle. She keeps her hands where they’ve been this entire time – pressing hard around the glass in the woman’s thigh. She’s bleeding a lot, even with the pressure Lena’s applying.  “That was foolish,” Lena says, pulling away from the woman. “The EMT was for you. You’re bleeding too much too quickly, I think you nicked your femoral artery.” The woman laughs, laid back eyes closed like she’s not invading her house and threatening her life. “That’s right, you had medical training. I forgot about that,” the other woman says, pulling herself up into a half-sit and looking down at her injuries with a curious eye. “In my defense, they barely mention that in the history books.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The woman just shakes her head. 
“What day is it?” she asks. Lena is tired of this already. She’s supposed to be showering right now and preparing to leave for work, not negotiating with a half-dead possible hostage-taker. “Tuesday. March 13th.”
“What year?” “Is that a joke?” “Yeah,” the woman smiled, a hint of blood on her teeth. “Humor me.” “2018.”
The smile fades fast, replaced with a sudden alarm. As if the year were somehow worse than the giant piece of glass sticking from her thigh. “That’s way too early,” she says, hints of panic in her voice. “They dropped me way too far back. Crap.”
Her face looks pale and grows paler by the minute. Lena looks down to see the cloth she’d tied around her thigh fully saturated, the puddle beneath her growing. She’s losing too much blood. “Put the glass down and give me your hands,” Lena says, but the woman doesn’t move. Frustrated, Lena grabs her hands with her bloody ones and presses them just above the glass.  “Hold here,” she says, and then gets up to leave. 
Lena races to her bathroom, ignoring the woman’s shout of “Wait! Come back here!” and rifles around until she finds what she’s looking for. She comes back with a field medic kit and lays it on the ground. The other woman watches her wearily, hands still pressed to the wound. “You’re bleeding too fast,” Lena says, “and at this point you’ll be dead before the ambulance can arrive. We have to stop the bleeding.”
The woman doesn’t resist. At this point she might not have the strength to. Lena uses shears to cut up the seam of the the the woman’s pants, up and past the deep gash of the glass shard.  “This is bad,” she says, and the woman doesn’t even look. “It’s too early,” the woman is saying, sounding weak, and Lena pulls supplies from her kit. She ties a tight tourniquet, earning a shocked groan of pain. “This is temporary, it can only be temporary. It should buy you a little time but it’s going to hurt like hell and if it’s on too long you could lose the leg.” “Fine, it’s fine,” the other woman says, almost delirious, and she grabs Lena’s shirt to pull her attention. “Listen to me,” she says, eyes wide and bloodshot, “Your brother is going to destroy the world, and you’re going to help him. But you don’t have to. You don’t have to help him, okay?” She’s practically incoherent. The blood has stopped but it’s still everywhere and Lena is covered in it. “They’re calling me,” the woman continues, shaking her head, “I’ll come back, or they’ll send someone else, but you have to stop him, Lena Luthor. Non Nocere-”
And then she vanishes.
One minute, Lena is wrapped around a delirious, halfway bled-out home invader, and the next she’s alone in her living room surrounded by glass and blood.
- She’s much more prepared the next time the stranger comes. To her credit, she’s had a few years by then to obsess and analyze and research. She’s watched the security footage of that day so many times and in such excruciating detail that she could tell you how many pieces of glass were shattered, how many gasps the intruder let out in pain. She could recite the entire five-minute experience from start to finish with perfect accuracy. Yet she could never explain it.
She can infer the basic gist of it, of course: at some point, time travel becomes a possibility, and the best possible use of that unbelievable advancement is to come back and stop her, because something she does – or rather, something she helps Lex do – is so catastrophically horrible it’s world ending.
She’s tried to find this woman, though of course if she’s a time traveler she may not even exist yet. There’s no way to know. Lena’s spent months studying the footage she has of her, noting the militaristic jumpsuit she wore, the strange patches for organizations that don’t seem to exist adorning the sleeve. She’s made note of the scars she can see – the long one that dances down her face, the smaller ones made visible when her pant leg was cut. The woman had clearly endured hell in life, and that hell had led her to Lena’s penthouse. She felt a sick nervousness just thinking about how they might link.
All of that to say, Lena is much more prepared when the woman returned, at least on an intellectual level. She’s not so prepared for the woman to show up as she’s sitting post-shower on her bed in nothing but a silk robe.
One minute she’s sitting alone, the next a woman is crashing on top of her. Their heads bonk together hard at the force of it, Lena reeling back against her pillow with a groan. At least she’s a softer landing than glass and metal.
“Ah crap,” the woman says, and there’s an instant spark of excitement in Lena at just the sound of her voice. She’d listened to that tape so many times it’s burned into her psyche but hearing it now in person after so long – absolutely thrilling. 
“Thank you for not breaking any furniture this time,” Lena says, and her voice is a bit breathy from the rush of it. The other woman pulls up from where she’d collapsed against her and seems to finally realize where she is and just how little Lena actually has on. She practically flings herself off of her and on to the floor with a shout.
“Oh wow,” the woman says, mouth agape and face beet red. “I- I’m so sorry, there’s no way to know what you’ll be doing when I get here and I just, I didn’t realize you weren’t done getting dressed or… that wasn’t… I’ll just-”
“Wait in the hallway?” Lena asks, amused. This version of the stranger is such a funny leap from the way she was all those years before, yet exactly the same. It’s like she hadn’t aged much at all. “I was finishing my bedtime routine and I sleep naked. This is as dressed as I’ll be the rest of the night.”
Somehow, the woman’s face gets even redder. It reminds Lena of the blood from that day, how dark and covering it had been on her. That takes a bit of wind out of her sails.
“How’s the leg?” she asks, sitting back. She can feel her robe fall open slightly but left it be. It's amusing to see how nervously the other woman’s eyes dart around looking everywhere but her.
“Still sore,” the woman finally says, pulling herself up to sit on the end of Lena’s bed. She glances at her and then looks away. “It’s only been a few weeks for me, so it’s not close to healed yet, but I didn’t lose the leg or my life, thanks to you.” “Glad to hear it.” “Are you?”
“Mmhm. If you’d died that day, I wouldn’t have this chance now to ask you what the hell is going on.” The woman is watching her in a strange sort of way, and it seems to take her a moment to clear her throat and mind.
“Right, yes, that makes sense. I just-” she rubs her eyes, laughing in an embarrassed sort of way. “I’m sorry, you’re just a little distracting.” Her eyes stray along the line of Lena’s robe before jerking away. She stands up and moves away, hands ringing nervously. Lena notices the slight limp to her walk. “Crap, I’m sorry. Okay, focus, Kara, focus,” she coaches herself, and Lena latches on to that morsel of information with a fierce excitement. “Yes, Kara,” she drawls, and the woman’s eyes cut sharply to her. “Focus. Tell me who you are and what I can do to help.” Kara gulps noticeably at her tone, shifting on her legs, before saying, “I’m from the future. 40 years in the future, to be exact, and I was sent back in time to stop you and your brother from destroying the world.” Lena nods along. It’s not so unbelievable, the idea that Lex could destroy the world. That he could use her desperate yearning for connection to make her a willing accomplish. “Non Nocere,” she says, and the woman jolts in surprise. “What? That’s – have you already invented it?” “No, but you said that last time we met.”
Kara visibly deflates, sinking into a sigh as she leaned back against the wall.
“Thank Rao, okay. Yes. It shouldn’t exist yet, not for another year.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the tool your brother uses to destroy the world. You build it for him.”
Kara looks heartbroken as she says it, and Lena feels just the same hearing it. All she’s ever wanted to do is be a force for good despite her family, despite the life they’d set up for her, but here is this scarred, scared stranger come back to tell her how horribly she fails. How she destroys everything.
“Okay,” Lena says. “So how do we stop it?”
And that, at least, earns her a smile.
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darubyprincx · 3 months
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i have found myself thinking a lot lately about how the s1 crew landed in a completely different world that was just similar enough to where everyone seemed to do a double take at their names and faces
It was a quiet March afternoon, the type that people wrote poems and drew paintings about. While it was still mostly winter, there were patches of tentative spring that shone through here and there. The sun still shone cold, though, and almost all who were out under it were wearing some kind of jacket to buff themselves against the chill.
Everyone except for Jordan, it seemed.
Windbreaker tied around his waist, he walked from the little half-burnt hut he performed his witchcraft in to the cauldron beneath to the forest around it, apparently in the sort of hurry that deep concentration brought when you were working on something.
Ianite sat nearby on the grass, crosslegged, quietly humming while she worked on adjusting her bow string. Occasionally, she would turn to aim an arrow at a nearby tree, always neatly hitting the mark but frowning to herself to return to her work. Every so often, she'd pause to watch Jordan work, simply observing, a strange expression on her face. Every so often, he'd glance over at her as if reminding himself that she was there.
It wasn't an uncomfortable silence that they shared, by any means, but after three or so hours Jordan finally sat down next to his goddess with a wordless sigh.
"Hello," said Ianite. "What are you working on?"
"Testing stuff in the Spirit Realm," said Jordan, mouth full of apple. "Turns out that things get real mad if I try to get things over there, but I think I've found a workaround. What about you?"
"Oh, I'm just tuning my bow," said Ianite, nocking an arrow for demonstration. When she released it, it flew straight across the clearing and knocked one of the skulls off of the witchery altar. Jordan winced, but didn't say anything.
"Is something wrong?" asked Ianite after a little bit.
"Oh," said Jordan, shaking himself out of his thoughts. "No. I mean, uh, the skulls are kind of important for upgrading the power the altar can consume but I think you just knocked one off, I can always place it back later. It's not a big deal."
"I didn't even realize that," said Ianite, surprised and a little bit guilty. "I wasn't talking about that. Sorry, though."
"You're good," said Jordan. "Apart from that, though, no, nothing's going on. Unless you had something to say?"
Ianite looked over at him, expression unreadable but oddly piercing nonetheless. "While you were working, you kept looking over at me like you were surprised to see me there."
"Oh, that," said Jordan, leaning back against a tree trunk with a small sigh. "Not surprised to see you. It's more like... I don't know. I guess I'm just not very used to this."
"This?"
"As in, you being actually, like, here and stuff." He swallowed his chunk of apple and continued, waving a hand around awkwardly. "All casually and stuff."
Ianite nodded. "That's not a bad thing, right?" she asked, somewhat anxiously. "It's been a while since I've actually been around people. I hope I'm not messing it up."
"No, no," said Jordan, surprised. "You're doing great. I'm sure it's just a me thing. I don't think either of us are really used to each other yet."
Ianite nodded thoughtfully. "That would be it. In my dreams, I was always seeing through the eyes of my other selves, and they were all different from me in temperament and the like. Was I- was your Ianite different?"
Jordan paused for a moment in thought before nodding. "Yeah. She was more... distant, I guess. No offense, by the way," he added quickly. "I haven't talked with this world's Mianite or Dianite, but they were detached too. Less like people and more like how you'd think gods would act."
Ianite nodded, momentarily focused on whittling at her bow. It was quiet for a little longer. Small clouds chased each other across the sun, the earth below constantly dappled with ever-shifting shadow.
"It's strange to hear that coming from you," she said eventually, carefully setting her bow and knife in front of her. "But it does make sense."
Jordan paused for a minute, confused. "Me as in Spark?"
Ianite sighed. "Yes. I have to keep reminding myself that you're not him."
Jordan nodded. "I'm definitely not. I'd never wear green sunglasses. With this outfit?" he asked, jokingly scandalized. "I'd make everybody's eyes hurt just by looking at me."
Ianite squinted at him. "I vaguely remember you wearing basketball shorts in the other world."
"We do not talk about the basketball shorts."
Ianite laughed, a clear laugh, one that sounded like mission bells and high notes sung by church choirs to Jordan. "You have the same sense of humor too," she said. "And the same messy hair."
"Is it alright if I ask you a question, my lady?"
"Of course."
"What's Spark like? Or what was he like, I guess? Is that an okay thing for me to ask you?"
Ianite nodded. "Yes. It's just a bit of a difficult question for me to answer for... a couple of reasons." She sighed. "He was older, for one, by maybe half a decade. And quieter. Far quieter. He used to go off for hours on these tangents about the things he'd read and what he thought of them." She smiled softly in remembrance. "Spark was a brilliant tactician." Ianite glanced over at Jordan. "He also did most of the wiring in the castle. I guess that's one thing that hasn't changed."
Jordan nodded, and she continued. "You're both very stubborn when it comes to the ones close to you, though. And gentle. I remember once he came home sopping wet in the middle of the night holding a stray kitten he'd found and announced that he'd named it Biggs."
"Aw."
"Mhm. It was a sweet little thing."
Jordan tossed the apple core aside on the grass. "He sounds like someone I'd get along with, if it's not weird to get along with yourself," he said. "I can tell you loved him a lot."
Ianite nodded. "I did. I still do, in fact."
"Tucker keeps pressuring me to try and go out with you, m'lady," said Jordan with a sigh. "Especially ever since he figured out that this universe's version of me ended up getting with you. It feels wrong to me, though. I can't really explain it."
Ianite tilted her head to one side in slight contemplation. "I think I understand," she said after a moment. "And I think that I agree with you. I don't know if Spark is dead, after all. I'd like to at least wait until then to do anything."
Jordan nodded. "That makes sense," he said. "I think I'm good for now, though. No offense."
"None taken."
The two sat there for a few more minutes, simply drinking in the weak spring sunshine. Jordan stood, stretched, and pulled his windbreaker back on.
Ianite's communicator beeped, and she glanced over at it. "Oh!" she said happily. "Sonja's invited me over to bake with her."
"Ooh," said Jordan. "When?"
"Now," said Ianite, picking up her bow and knife and putting the knife into its sheath at her waist.
"Ah," said Jordan. "Until next time, then, my lady. Safe travels."
"Thank you," said Ianite with a smile. "You too."
And with that, she was gone.
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milkistay · 1 year
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STRAY KIDS as best friends
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pairing. bff!skz x gn!reader
format. headcanons
a/n. truly sorry there’s no “read more” on this post but chunks of my post kept getting deleted and messed up every time i tried putting it in :/
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chan
- therapy best friends - listening to each other vent all the time - you’re the first person he goes to when he’s struggling and vice versa - you’ve developed such an immense amount of trust between the two of you like it’s crazy - if one of you shares a secret, that secret is not leaving the pair of you EVER - he cares about the people close to him so much and you’re no exception - remembers everything about you - favorite ice cream flavor, go-to drink order, every story you’ve told him—everything - in turn, he’s the BEST gift giver - you’ll mention wanting something in passing six months before your birthday and he’ll remember and get it for you - definitely one to write you long birthday cards about how much you mean to him - “what would i do without you?” - chan, all the time - he always texts you about whatever cool thing he saw - of course, he’s clingy - hugging you 24/7  - you two have definitely taken multiple naps together just cuddling - heals the soul - also asks you about your opinion on every song he produces because he wants to know what you think, even if you know nothing about music production - platonic soulmates 100%
minho
- people who see you guys for the first time think you hate each other - but that’s just your friendship - lighthearted insults and poking fun at each other  - but you have so much love between you two - he thinks you’re the best person in the world - you share every thought with him and vice versa - you know the other better then they know themselves - he’s not one for verbal affection but once he wrote you a letter about how much he appreciated you and you cried - he has a list of all the cool places he wants to take you - you’re also the kind of best friends who could go months without talking and when you finally see each other, it’s like nothing has changed - not that minho would leave you alone for months - no, he’s texting you “hey look at this cat” all the time - he loves you too much to not be in contact with you every second that he can
changbin
- you do EVERYTHING together - changbin loves having company and you will be the company - whether you’re going to a fun amusement park or literally just to the grocery store, changbin will come with you - you’re a package deal - spending almost every waking minute together does bring two people closer  - if you’re the kind of person that hates ordering or talking to strangers, changbin will do all of that for you with no issue - he’s very considerate when it comes to you - will be one to be like “did you sleep well?” and “have you eaten yet?” and if you say no he calls you stupid - he looks after you a lot, sometimes without realizing - just wants to make sure his best friend is healthy and happy - he definitely feels like your younger brother, you guys have a sibling relationship - poking fun at each other every now and then but having lots of love - comes to you 24/7 with “hey hey listen to these lyrics i just wrote”
hyunjin 
- you two are in you’re own little world sometimes - going to art museums and sharing earbuds while talking in low voices to each other—fully just living life in one another’s company - it’s a good time - he loves telling you about his interests and you love listening and watching his eyes light up - he also just has so much??? love????? for you?????? - like he adores you and will hype you up all the time - brings you up in every conversation - you guys take so much photos of each other everywhere you go like you could make a giant photo album - he likes cherishing memories with you - and when you’re not together, he’s texting you every second about what just happened in his life and sending photos from wherever he is - you’re the first person he comes to when something's on his mind - cherishes your opinion
jisung
- certified idiots - you guys are just loud whenever you get in range of each other - everyone’s rolling their eyes at you when you two get going - world’s best comedy duo - but you know how to be serious and talk about some really deep emotional things - you’d trust each other with the biggest secret you have - you’re just so so close - honestly he feels like an extension of you and you of him - you two feel more complete when you’re together - everything is better when you’re with your best friend - sharing plates at dinners, trying new ice cream shops, walking in the park at night, spending early mornings at the studio listening to jisung mumble new lyrics for a song - enjoyment increases by 1000000% - no two people seem more made for each other than you two do - sorry if you get a partner one day, they might have to fight jisung to be your #1 priority
felix
- are you really best friends if the whole world doesn’t think you’re dating? - your relatives ask you if he’s your boyfriend every year - it’s only because you seem to spend every waking minute together doing everything and you’re attached at the hip and felix can’t keep his arm off your shoulders and you know everything about each other and you’d die for each other - the best best friends - you’ve developed some kind of secret language - when you two really get going, absolutely no one else can understand you - like you’re just making references and giving each other looks and you’re having a whole conversation that only makes sense to you two - he’s the kind to pick up something for you wherever he goes - your favorite candy at a convenience store, a souvenir when he travels, a small accessory when shopping - you’re on his mind all the time
seungmin
- such a comfy friendship - countless late nights spent watching whatever show and sharing snacks - the type of best friends to sit in the same room in silence for HOURS just doing your separate things - then he just goes “you wanna get food?” - and you go get food - quality time is the love language of your friendship - you’ll spend the whole weekend glued together going anywhere and doing anything - you’re too familiar with the quirks and eccentrics of seungmin - you’ll bring him up to other people and they’ll go “seungmin seems so quiet and calm” - and you’re just like ??????? - not your seungmin - he can be a little shit at times (a lot of the time) and you’ll be THIS close to throttling him and then he smiles and you’re like FINE i love u again
jeongin
- he uses his charms for evil - “y/n will you do me a favor...?” with the most heart-warming smile ever - of course you’re saying yes - king of acts of service - washing your dishes, doing your busy work, paying for you - and when you notice and thank him he denies it - you’ll mention that you really like this one sweater of his and the next day it’s on your bed in a gift bag - always ready and willing to give you fashion advice, even if you didn’t ask for it - “don’t wear that it doesn’t go with your shoes” - “i literally didn’t ask” - but you listen anyways - you trust that he’ll be honest with you no matter what so you come to him all the time for an opinion on something - when he’s upset or frustrated, you’re the one he confides in - you just get each other so well
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lokisasylum · 9 months
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Its the way they dragged and harassed Jimin during 'FACE' era for having 2 versions of "Like Crazy" (that were split and still remain split so the streams never get combined) and 3 remixes that were added near the end of spotify tracking week, all the r*pe and SA jokes and #s trending weekly....
Only for PAYOLA7 to have nearly 10 versions AND they added BTS' name to it after disgracing their legacy. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Karma, poetic even.
and the fad-dom will say nothing cause they're all hypocritical sheep and nobody likes to get told "I told u so".
And before someone says "Oh but its good they added BTS cause now they all benefit from it--"
Noooooo, mi cielas. It means that Bongo gets revenue FIRST (cause he still owns the group & trademarketed everything), then 🛴, then Latto 'cause she wrote and composed the song (and she obviously was promised a big chunk of the cake by 🛴), and finally JK & maybe the members.
Scummy business? You bet!
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artsyunderstudy · 6 months
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20 questions for fic writers!
Thank you @bazzybelle and @aroace-genderfluid-sheep for tagging me in this game!
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
Currently 29, but there's a chunk of them where I'm just the artist and not the author, so 23 actual stories written by me.
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
522,789 words. That's honestly surprising since I've only really written a handful of longer fics! Tho also some of that word count isn't actually me.
3. What fandoms do you write for?
All Carry On these days. I wrote for SPN in the past, like seriously a decade ago. It's been a minute.
4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
These are all my SPN fics, even tho I do genuinely think my writing has improved drastically since those days, it was just a bigger fandom.
Blackbird Fly (163,191 words) Kudos: 3,368 
In Our Nature (62,200 words) Kudos: 2,086
To be Alone with You (6,248 words) Kudos: 1,664 
We Are What You Say (8,868 words) Kudos: 1,361
He Woke Me Up Again (7,642 words) Kudos: 1,121
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I do! I really appreciate comments and I feel like it's one of my favorite things about writing, getting that active feedback and engagement, and so I want to engage in conversation about it and also make sure the commenter knows how much I appreciate it. And maybe provide additional context! Sometimes people's response to my writing is profound and unexpected and meaningful in ways I can't anticipate, and I love it, and I want to talk to them about it.
6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
I don't really write angsty endings (just beginnings and middles and climaxes and maybe a bit of angsty denouement). I write a lot of imperfect endings tho, because I'm also allergic to tying things up in a neat little bow. What We Crave specifically doesn't have a happy ending but it does have a clearly hopeful one. I just stopped writing before everything was resolved basically, but you know those crazy kids figured it all out in the end. I could make the argument that there are angsty elements in a lot of my endings. Other Penny from The Mirrors that Hold Us comes to mind.
7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
The fic with the most unambiguously happy ending is probably ... oh god this is tough. Because actually like I said I write imperfect endings, and I can think of how every one of mine might not be perfect. Sixty Seconds has a very happy ending. But also eighth year hasn't happened yet so who knows what's in store. But WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE FIC, its definitely happy I think ... I think. Or maybe it's Touch Starved, because they are in a happy committed relationship and Baz finally (finally) (finally) gets to *censored* Simon's rock hard *censored* until he can't *so fucking censored*
8. Do you get hate on fics?
Not these days, I think this fandom is particularly kind. Or maybe I've just been lucky. I did get hate on fics back in my SPN days, not so much on AO3 but definitely in anon asks. Pretty much "you don't deserve all the attention you get" which okay, fair.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
Yes. Emotional as fuck. We're not getting off to this smut, we're crying about it. I occasionally do write kinky stuff but its harder for me. Not because I don't want to, but I have to be in a particular mood and willing to let Jesus take the wheel for a bit and not overthink. (Yes you can thank Jesus specifically for my kinkiest of smuts.)
10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?
Nope and I kinda doubt I ever will.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I'm aware of! Had art stolen before, tho.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
I don't think so.
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Not really, I've kinda dipped my toe into this pool but I'm a very independent creator in general and so I kinda veer away from it. I'm not good at group projects.
14. What’s your all time favorite ship?
I mean, it's obviously Snowbaz.
15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
I have tried really hard to finish everything I start but I do have a few outstanding WIPS. Actually, one per fandom. In Our Nature will never be finished because its been a decade and I don't care for Destiel anymore, but A Mild Case of Madness still has hope. I'm just struggling to write anything right now. But I do still have a ton of momentum left on AMCOM. It just might take a really long time.
16. What are your writing strengths?
I think I write emotions and intimacy really well. I'm good making people feel those emotions. I also think I shine writing people navigating relationships and trauma.
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
I think I'm pretty meh at dialogue, I tend to enjoy writing people's emotions and actions more than their words and if I don't check myself I will sometimes put very minimal speaking into scenes. I also narrow in my focus when writing to interpersonal drama and trauma and therefore really struggle with big plotty stories, and im not good at setting up antagonists so the conflict tends to be smaller scale. Like I love stories with quests and some evil to defeat and complex politics and action and adventure but I've realized thats probably never going to be the kind of thing I'm good at.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?
I love it, but I do appreciate a translation unless the point is that the POV character also has no idea what's going on. If it's important to the context of the story PLEASE give me translations.
19. First fandom you wrote for?
Homestuck, actually. My fic still exists on Fanfic.net and I'm too terrified to read it.
20. Favorite fic you’ve written?
It's gotta be Someone Wicked - I think this was the fic that convinced me of what I really cared about when writing a story. Before that I thought I needed something maybe more compelling than just exploration of character and relationships and trauma and intimacy, but then I wrote this very like, simple story where I just got to hyperfocus on those things and it was just exactly what I wanted to write. And apparently people liked to read it, too, which is neat.
tagging @cutestkilla @facewithoutheart @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @fatalfangirl @bookish-bogwitch @aristocratic-otter @captain-aralias @whatevertheweather @nightimedreamersworld @orange-peony @larkral @shrekgogurt
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mermaidsirennikita · 2 months
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No but for real can we TALK about how there is some genuinely offensive shit re: the Romani in Kleypas's book that gets a pass, but the in-character stupid line stuff gets cut bc it's the 21st century or whatever. Like I generally like her books, but if there's something to update that should be it!
Yeeeeah dude it really bugs me, ESPECIALLY because I feel like there's really zero excuse. Beyond just "educate yourself Lisa" ... she's aware that her books have "race issues". Because the incident that I'm pretty sure helped kick this off was Hello Stranger getting called out for a racist passage. Her oldest books (which she's essentially let go out of print) have been critiqued re: race. While there are some complex intersections re: race and ethnicity at play with Cam and Kev, I still feel like the fact that she's aware that her books aren't perfect re: race means she has to know those aspects are problematic.
I knew Seduce Me at Sunrise had edits to the moment when Kev kidnaps Win.... and though that's honestly one of my favorite moments in the book, I though maybe the edits were meant to be downplay the kidnapping as Kev's Mystical Rom Dude Ritual moment. Which I don't remember being HUGE in the act itself, but in dialogue, etc. But no! I was just basically taking away the aspects of "ravishing". Which is fucking stupid, lmao. Because in no way could you read the line about "she was going to be ravished" and interpret it as "Kev is going to rape Win". Why? Because we are in Win's head when that happens, and she is literally like "FUCKING FINALLY".
(Personally, I think Lisa unintentionally wrote Win as having a bit of a rape fantasy/CNC fetish vibe, and like... that's fine. People don't like to talk about it, but rape fantasies are among the most common fantasies for women to have, and it is fine, and it is one reason why a lot of people like old school romances, dark romance etc.)
But all the weird shit wherein, for example, Cam will be all "YOU ENGLISH DON'T UNDERSTAND, WE ROM DO NOT VIEW A HOUSE AS HOME" when like, the a good chunk of series revolves around the Hathaways basically doing a massive home reno in which Cam and Kev are both quite invested lmao, stays. The weird asides about Kev's hot-blooded Rom nature stay. (And might I add, lol... Kev seemed a lot more disconnected from that stuff, and one thing I dislike a good bit is that him shedding his inhibitions with Win and letting loose is like, aligned with him letting this Rom aspect of his personality that he'd been denying... free. The shedding of Kev's sexual inhibitions are aligned with his heritage, because in these books Lisa basically uses Roma to suggest "wild, untamed sexuality". And after his own book, Kev is significantly more involved in Cam's "let us help these unknowing English people with our mystical ways" stuff than he was before. Because now that he's fucking Win nasty the way he always wanted, he's like... more... Rom....? I love Kev and Win, but I hate that.)
Lisa is by no means the only historical romance writer who's done this. I think there's a grand tradition in historical writers working around the aughts especially where you get the vibe that they're like "well, I want to acknowledge that poc existed back then, and I want to portray them positively" but they also don't want to invest in deep characterization or push their (let us be real, often racist) readership too far... So it'll be like "here's the hero's best friend, a former slave!" "here's the hero's half-brother, also a former slave because their dad owned a plantation!" (Read a Tessa Dare book that did this, and I can absolutely see what she was going for, but it didn't come off well.) I love Jennifer Ashley's Mackenzie books. I LOATHE The Seduction of Elliot McBride because she tried to incorporate India into the narrative by having the hero like, live there in the past as a colonizer, and be all "India is amazing, here are my friends because I like Indian people more than white people now" (which, woof, but very common at this time) but lmao his buddies were his employees? And also his illegitimate daughter whose Indian mother was DEAD? Like, come on dude.
(Still not quite as bad as the Kerrigan Byrne book wherein the hero is a literal former war criminal whose big kindness was taking the lone survivor of a village he massacred home and making him his valet. But still.)
And I mean, this does continue, which in some ways I view more harshly because there has been years for feedback and critique to accumulate so more recently working authors should know better. Like the Evie Dunmore "hero has a Plot Important Dancing Shiva tattoo except that isn't actually Shiva in any way, shape, or form and also let's throw in a predatory villainous gay man for good measure" book.
And I'm not saying that Lisa's work is as egregious as those examples. I'm not. But none of the above examples are going back and revising their work in minute detail, while missing the most problematic aspects of the work lol.
I'll also be real and add that another huge reason why these edits suck is that... Nobody is saying you can't edit your work. Authors can and should be able to do that. But... It sucks when people don't know that they're buying what is essentially an abridged version of your book, especially when the edits are heavy, as they are with certain books. Someone could've read your book 10 years ago and when they buy it on Kindle now because they finally have an e-reader, they should be able to know outright that they're buying a different version.
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rainydaywhump · 1 month
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Reed - Lost Passage
...and by 'lost,' I mean 'I wrote this and lost it somewhere in my files, so I just skipped ahead in the story and left out a ton of whumpy things that I've only just now found again.'
So, yeah. Takes place after this passage. For the TL;DR context, Reed has been rescued by Cervine, but he doesn't quite trust her yet. He tried to turn the knife she gave him on himself, paranoid about being interrogated again, and she tackled/restrained him so that she could re-treat the wounds he reopened in the process. This passage takes place shortly after Reed wakes up, still restrained but thinking a little more clearly.
Enjoy!
Themes and CWs: male whumpee, female caretaker, medieval-ish setting, references to past torture/interrogation, exhausted whumpee, restrained whumpee for their own good at first, both of these badasses need a hug and some goddamn coffee
“Are you in pain? Are you having breathing difficulties? Can you hear me?”
If his chest wasn't tight and his lungs weren't constricted from waking up for a second time in an enclosed space, Cervine's rapid-fire words would've been the thing to wind him. All of the above, Reed thought, but he didn’t have the motivation nor energy to explain himself on each point.
“Closed spaces. C--Cave,” he said tightly. “Can’t – can’t breathe.”
Cervine paused for a moment, and the familiar sensation of shame washed over the injured agent. He didn’t like to let people know that he was claustrophobic, he was a goddamn spy, after all – wasn’t he supposed to be tougher than this? The irony that he questioned himself after surviving two weeks of interrogation was not lost on him.
But instead of ridiculing him, Cervine said, “Okay. I was going to take off those restraints after we had a talk, but –”
Reed’s muscles went stiff.
“Not that kind of talk. I'm not the enemy, remember? Stay with me, Reed, stay with me.”
He blinked, and suddenly her hand was enveloped around his bound one, and she was saying words that he couldn’t understand through the haze that suddenly fogged his senses, but he knew enough not to protest. Reed worked to get all of his frozen muscles under control and made a sound that hopefully sounded like agreement.
“— you understand? I’m going to take your restraints off now, but they’ll go back on if you try to hurt yourself.” The other agent's voice cut back into his hearing.
Cervine waited for him to nod – it was all he could do now; he didn’t feel fully capable of speech now – before she continued, freeing him from the soft cuffs around his ankles first, then from the restraints around his thighs – rope, but cushioned with spare cloth, he realized; finally, she undid his wrist cuffs. She checked each spot thoroughly for signs of blood constriction. Reed stayed silent.
She helped him sit up, methodically and patiently having him acclimate to the elevation before giving him some water and moving on to the next step: standing. Reed’s bruised, scarred legs could barely hold him, but he had to try –
“Easy there."
She had caught him mid-fall, smoothly slipping his arm over her shoulder and supporting half his weight while they shuffled forward, the light from the outside a beacon that Reed doggedly focused on. The exit was sizable; he and Cervine passed through it with little effort. The cave was more like two massive chunks of granite slanted together than an actual water-carved route, he thought distantly. Most of him was still focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
Cervine could have just carried him; it would have been easier for her, he thought. But he liked the feeling of autonomy, as little as it was.
She sat him on the grass and went back in the cave to fetch two blankets – one for him to rest on and the other to cover him – as well as an oilskin bag from her larger pack. For his part, Reed kept himself quiet and docile and malleable.
The fresh air and mostly-open sky calmed his breathing and almost made him feel safe.
He wondered if the other agent would let him see the sky at night, too. He wanted to see the stars again. The last time he’d seen them, he had wondered if they would be one of his last.
Don’t discount that, he told himself. You don’t know if you can trust her, remember?
“I’m sorry I don’t have any clothes for you yet,” Cervine said, breaking him out of his thoughts. While he was consumed by his thoughts, she had taken out several bundles from the bag and was busily arranging them on a bare patch of ground nearby. “I have one extra change of a tunic and trousers, but I had to wash them in the stream yesterday.” A stream, Reed noted distractedly. So that was where she was getting her fresh water from. “They got a little bloody from…ah, never mind. They’re drying now.” She gestured to the side of one of the moss-covered boulders. Reed only saw them after a few moments of searching. They were mottled green, brown, and gray, and they blended in perfectly.
Reed found himself listing to the side. He tried to fight it, but he quickly relented and forced himself to lie down properly so that he wouldn’t just crumple to the ground later.
He was acutely aware of how helpless he really was, yes, but he was fairly used to that at this point. He had to be; it had been a waste of effort to struggle against his captors before, to act as if he really stood a chance. But what bothered him here was just how unclear his new captor’s – rescuer’s? – intentions were. She hadn’t given him any reason to distrust her, really, but Reed, after two weeks of merciless torture and humiliation and manipulation, couldn’t bring himself to trust.
Two objectives. That’s it. Gods, he was exhausted. Warmth from the sun and the blanket permeated his starved and broken body. His eyes closed on their own accord, though he was determined to stay alert.
“Reed, are you awake?” he heard Cervine mutter somewhere far, far away, and so it almost jolted him awake when he felt her hand test the temperature of his forehead. After that it brushed his hair back from his forehead. “This is unprofessional of me,” her voice came, floaty, but her cool hand remained clear and present on his skin for another few seconds before she drew it away. “He’ll be alright. He will.”
Her words sounded nothing like the calm, logical tone they’d held since he had first heard them. She sounded almost desperate, and there was a level of care there that almost convinced Reed that she really just wanted to help him, that she wasn’t just lulling him into a false sense of security for the enemy.
He drifted among hazy nothings for what could have been seconds or an hour; Reed couldn’t tell. As usual, time was lost on him.
And that was when the nightmares started.
...
Taglist: @i-eat-worlds @pigeonwhumps @den-of-whump @generic-whumperz @turn-the-tables-on-them Thanks for reading, everyone!
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phinix53 · 10 days
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Okay. Here I go!
During the intro, it said,
'1485 Days Since The Blast'
I converted the info into years and got 4 years, 3 weeks, and 4 days.
Is that correct?
Now, in the story, Goth exists. Judging from the timeline and length; with Goth being a child in the fic, that adds up pretty well.
So!
Who birthed Goth?
Assuming that Goth is 4 years old, that would mean Geno (or Reaper) was pregnant when the Blast happened.
Question 2.
What type of Blast are we talking about here? Could you please provide specifics?
And what course of events led to the Blast in the first place? Prejudice? An experiment gone wrong? A natural cataclysmic force?
I NEED TO KNOW.
Following the current events of the story; Blue, Killer, ???, and Dream are part of the Snow Fox Crew.
They were set to Base Delta (?), but when they got there, the place was deserted.
Killer said, "They're dead…”
He didn't know for sure if the residents of Base Delta are DEAD, just that the place was abandoned, and with the current detrimental conditions, he would be right to assume otherwise.
And so! Are we dealing with the Effects of the Blast?
Maybe people who got transformed through radiation or something?
Additionally, I'd like to ask what Nightmare's crew is called. Since Dream's crew is referred to as "Snow Fox Crew".
Following the end of Chapter 1 and the start of Chapter 2, The gang went out to grab supplies (correct me if I am wrong) and following the end, got Blue and Killer back into their custody.
My question is, Who keeps resupplying the Supply Areas?
I'm assuming there's someone higher up in the coming chapters that handles everything, but for now, I'm stuck with theorizing.
And finally, Who THE FUCK is Z?
Never once in my life have I ever encountered the guy, or maybe you renamed a renowned skelebabe? Or perhaps an OC of sorts?
And thank you.
Word of warning, I'll keep bombarding you with a long ass asks filled with nothing but theories and incessant questions, and then yeet myself out without warning.
I ask question after question regarding the lore of the story and then go ghost.
No seriously, I learned my mistake with
Little Skeleton on the Prairie by Blue_Leading_Pencil.
(you should check it out. It's GREAT.)
I still feel guilty about going ghost, but I can't bring myself to talk to them.
So I just want to warn you first and foremost.
Alrighty!
Yes! That’s correct, it’s been just over 4 years since they’ve all been stuck Base BETA. I’m using stuck lightly, they would send out teams to search for other bases and get supplies, but usually with various success.
Lust was the one to carry Goth,they were a surrogate to Geno and Reaper (Lust has no biological connection to Goth). Goth is just shy of six years old, so he was born far before the blast. His birth (and conception for that matter) were a part of an experiment that could not successfully continue after the blast (basically the experiment was to see if monster children were born in the environment, would they adapt to fit it in extreme conditions). Geno and Reaper were not initially attached to Goth, see him as the experiment he was. But they adjusted eventually, they’re decent parents, not the best. A good chunk of BETA does enjoy having the kid around. Good for morale.
Question 2 ✨
The blast in question was multiple Tsar Bombs among other nuclear warheads detonating simultaneously. Geno wrote in a journal that the whole sky lit up he had never seen before, he would call it beautiful if not for the devastation that would follow.
Leading up to the blast, a war had broken out among several of the governing bodies, human and monster alike. The culminated in multiple bombing raid, wars and generally a bad time for everyone. So basically the hubris of man plunged the world into a nuclear winter. I will say that magic was heavily present in the world before the war and some people blamed monster kind for starting the war.
—~—
Blue, Killer, Ross and Zein (oc cannon fodder ✨) were members of Snow Fox. They are all from Base BETA. Killer and Blue didn’t get along before this mission, wonder what changed.
Dream was a resident of DELTA.
Kinda. Being isolated and losing communication with the outside world can be harmful to one’s mental state. The whole of DELTA was deserted, but Snow Fox found that there were still plenty of supplies and specialized vehicles were still were the bay. Blue would describe it as if the residents of the base simply got up and walked out into the snow never to be found again.
DELTA was made up of a mix of humans and monsters. Dream was one of those monsters. Dream had been living in the Arctic Circle long before war ever began, working on an extremely confidential project, Project SEED. Blue and Killer could not locate Dream’s personal items when the went to DELTA, meaning Dream must have moved base or something worse. Can confirm that almost everyone from DELTA is dead.
Nightmare’s crew is called North Wind. Nightmare and his crew were heading out to a signal tower to see if there was anyone still alive and if they could repair the tower if it was damaged.
Them finding Blue and Killer was quite lucky.
Color and his crew used to do the resupplies for the stations. These supply stations are super packed with stuff. Color and the gang aren’t around anymore but they did a good job making sure there were stashes in many places before his accident. Of course there may be other major stashes that have people *wink wink*
XD
Z is @celestialvix personal oc. Quirky little guy
And that’s perfectly fine with me. I love getting ask like these were I can really sink my teeth into the lore and share stuff. So feel free to ask away.
And imma ad that to my list of things to read, thank you ✨
I understand that completely, but I’m sure they would love to see you in their ask box again.
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jackwolfes · 5 months
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thank you for tagging me @sixofsol !! 🥰💖
1. How many works do you have on AO3? 
144 on my public pseud, 85 in my lil anon collection, 3 floating around secretly in another anon collection, and about 10-15 super super old ones that i orphaned from various asunder fandoms over the years. so at least 232, probably closer to 250 (dear god)
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
1,688,252 words of non-orphaned works (dear GOD)
3. What fandoms do you write for?
primarily six of crows/SAB netflix, but recent fandoms that i might write more for soon include: red white and royal blue, percy jackson, winter’s orbit, bbc merlin, the last binding series, & the pulleyverse 
4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
hours (whumpy firstprince fic)
you owe me for blowing up my bed (sab verse missing scene)
like putting on a costume (wesper PWP)
gorgeous (wesper PWP)
a choice of two locked doors (wesper arranged marriage)
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
i always try to!! but i’m not the best at it all the time 😅 i make more of an effort to reply to comments that are longer or that draw out particular parts of the fic that the reader liked!
6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
i’m a big slut for a bittersweet but hopeful ending rather than angsty ones!! like possibly my ghost jesper fic because the final scene is Quite Literally wylan dying but like, that’s kinda happy given context???
7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
i am still personally enamoured with the vibes in the final scene of ACOTLD 🥰 and it makes me very happy! so! that one! 
8. Do you get hate on fics?
uhhh most regularly i just get snarky gobshites trying to be like, clever and smug about shit, which never really works because i generally don’t care? but then also i sometimes get transphobic hate speech so idk 😅
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
i can't answer this non-sarcastically but like YEAH I'm a VERY HORNY WRITER and I feel like it says more about you than me if you haven't been able to guage that 😅 idk I have gotten a lot tamer though by including porn in longer fics compared to the very explicit collection of PWPs I used to write?? 
10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?
the closest i’ve gotten to crossover is sneaking shadow and bone characters into SOC fics! or like, the most subtle of references and cameos when I need random OCs like Easter eggs 
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
a few times but i’ve always been vindicated by the fact they’ve never been well done? like it's always been word for word plagiraism (and also the ao3 abuse team is very good at taking things down)
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
not that i’m actually aware of! just podfics sometimes which has been nice 😊
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
never finished one but i’ve got 2-3 wips being co-written with my girlfriend atm 😊
14. What’s your all time favourite ship?
i feel like it’s a cop out to say wesper but like,,,, 😅 idk! i like my lil stupid guys!! i like their vibe! 
15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
I think my problem is that I'm delusional enough to think that I will finish literally all of the WIPs I have started and want to finish even though that's like, 100 fics or something idiotic 😅
16. What are your writing strengths?
Themes and foreshadowing I think!! Like running themes for sure but I've had definitive compliments on my plotting before! I also think I'm pretty good at dialogue, especially arguments, and narrative tension/feelings! 👀
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
i am not very good at cutting my darlings which means things get a bit meandering and diluted sometimes 😅
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?
i can get behind it in certain circumstances! personal preference is to translate large chunks of text ie "'[English words],' he said in [language]" but I do write individual words like pet names in other languages 
19. First fandom you wrote for?
fucking hetalia when i was like, 12 🫥 but i have also in past written for: homestuck, haikyuu, yuri on ice, the adventure zone (balance & graduation) and (CONSTANTLY forget this) miraculous ladybug! some of which are better than others ngl 😅
20. Favorite fic you’ve written?
well this is like asking me to pick children & is also cruel when i have 230 of them klajdsfsadjfk  UHHH? i mean this is wicked cheating but im really attached to the bridgerton au i haven’t actually finished yet! it’s fully written, but needs editing, and one that i really really like!! in terms of fics i’ve POSTED, i really like “not just girls” (trans egg wylan), “you yearn to feel no hunger” (SAB-verse coda/character study) and a real deep cut, “only imaginary people disappear to peru for ten years” (missing scene from the lost future of pepperharrow)! idk i like a lot of the fics i’ve posted which is a nice position to be in 😅
most folks i know have done this i think but tagging: @kelliealtogether @apricior @doorsclosingslowly & anyone else that sees this & fancies it 😇
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choicesmc · 1 month
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Really quick drabble I wrote insprired by @jerzwriter [this post] It's not exactly a Valentine's fic but 😭 it was so fitting that I had to!! Will edit later for formatting stuff 👍 (im tired rn)
Title: Happy Valentine's, Hater Book: The Junior (i think) MC: Rin (you haven't properly met her yet!!) Words: 749
Rin chewed the butt of her cigarette. She sat in the corner of the cafe, wrapped in leather from head to toe. The lingering winter chill bit through the freezing leather, but even that was a welcome sensation. A sharp grin spread across her face as Rin flexed her fingers in front. She’d never thought she’d be able to tie up her loosest ends so neatly.  
Somehow, her mother had found her. Against every odd and prayer, Starla Bishop was going to saunter back into Rin’s life like she’d never left. Like she hadn’t abandoned Rin in an empty lot at thirteen while police swarmed the place where all the people Rin knew were being handcuffed one-by-one. 
The older parts of her remembered everything: the blue-red of police cars blaring through the windows, the shattered glass, the pain as she struggled to run alongside her mother. The setting anger as her mother’s back went farther and farther without her. 
And yet, the six year old in her only recalled her mother’s warm smile. Only remembered the occasional chunks of chocolate they’d share on special days. Only remembered the scant good things they were to remember about that wreck of a woman. 
The rest of her kept count of the colder ones, like unsettled debts. Her back remembered the sharp sting of cold, ragged sticks on dark nights. Her ears still stung remembering all the different curses Starla would hurl at her during the day. Her eyes still remembered the pure vitriol leveled at her with every action. Her heart still remembered each disparaging comment. 
So when Starla, voiced pleading –almost repentant– had begged to see Rin, even if just one day… Rin knew it was finally time to settle the score.
The cafe door chimed. 
Rin saw a cloud of grayed hair. 
She heard the clack of shoes against the wood floor. 
Before she knew it, there was her mother. The same height as her. The same smile as her. The same eyes as her. 
Unbidden comments from her childhood spilled into memory. There was a time Rin would sit up prouder after noticing another similarity between her and her mom. Now? The very idea made her itch for a lighter. 
Looking away, Rin gestured to the seat across from her. Tears tethered on the verge of falling, constricting her voice, “Don’t just stand there like a dumbass.” 
Starla’s hands reached out, showing off expensively decorated nails. Her voice was comforting, it was the tone of the mother who’d adored her baby. A voice that Rin could sparsely recall, “Oh sweetie…” 
Yanking away, Rin swatted at Starla’s hands. “Let’s get somethin’ straight,” she said, cold and hard, “you ain’t gotta right to touch me like that or call me like that, clear?” 
Starla nodded, the sort that was too practiced to be genuine, “I understand, Renee.” 
“The name’s Rin now.” 
“A shame, Renee was such a pretty name…” She trailed off, cautiously asking, “is it a nickname for Renee?” 
“No, ain’t want nothing with that name,” Rin responded, flippantly flicking her cigarette towards Starla, admiring when she flinched away, “and that includes you.” 
 Enough hurt painted Starla’s face that Rin felt bad. 
“Renee, sorry, Rin,” Starla said, only looking a little apologetic. Shifting forward, her voice grew thick, tight with tears, looking at her own splitting image glaring at her. “Know that I didn’t mean to hurt you.” 
“So? You did.” 
“I was young–” 
“You were thirty.” 
“I was dumb.” 
“I agree.” 
“I want to make things right with you.” 
“I know.” 
Starla perked up, “Rinny? You changed your mind.” 
“Rinny?” Rin repeated, “Who the hell’s that? My name’s Rin.” 
Starla flushed, “I thought it was a cute nickname.” 
“We ain’t close enough for that.” 
“I’m trying to fix that.” 
“I don’t think it’s broken.” Rin suppressed a snort, placing her cigarette back between her lips. She licked over the groove her teeth had made, standing up before she lost her nerve. Callously, she handed Starla a small gift bag. Barely bothering with a glance, she continued, “I wanna a clean break from you. I got you a little something for Valentine’s, in case you ever feel like talkin’ ta me again.” 
Pulling out the gift, she placed the small teddy in front of her mother. Each of its fur-covered paws held half of a broken heart. It wore a black shirt reading: Bye Bye! 
Rin didn’t stick around long enough to know what Starla said. If she said anything at all. 
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