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#since my track record of 'saving stuff for later' is pretty all over the place
palialaina · 7 months
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My collection is growing
This one came from Hekla.
So, Jina finally heard back from the people who'd taken all the other things from Hekla's srotage vault save the Galdur herself, but it wasn't really good news. There were some missing health records for the human in question, and Jina asked me if I'd be willing to find them.
Since I had stuff to track in Bahari anyways (Still do. Damn bugs.) I went ahead and found them.
Couldn't read them, so I brought them to Einar, and oof. The information was not pretty. Apparently Sona didn't even get to be born. Poor thing.
I went to talk to Hekla about it, and I was trying to be... discreet? But like, Einar's a blabbermouth. But also, how interesting it must be to be a Galdur. Connected to all other Galdurs alive at the time?
Admittedly, I don't know if I'd be comfortable with that, but like... It does sound like something that could be nice if it's what you know.
Anyways, she gave me the plush, and said she'd go back to talking to Jina again. Which, good. Jina was getting sad and upset, and I don't like it when my friends are sad and upset.
Once I got it home, I had to take a break for a bit, so I flopped on my bed, and got a disgruntled mrrt for my pains.
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Jellybean thinks I take up too much room. I tried to scoot over, but when the bed is occupied by other palcats and plushies, it's kind of hard to make space...
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I did manage to finally find a place to hang Einar's adornments that he gave me forever ago, at least. Though I think I should maybe move them to the sulber party room's bathroom.... They're all so cute, but I don't think it's safe for me to wear any of them. Fishhooks are mean, and both my boys would get a bit Upset if I hurt myself.
Maybe Jel can help me figure out how to put them on something that won't hurt me...
Eh, I'll worry about that later. I told Dad I'd come hang out and help him clean the kitchen since Reth is still busy with the Maji Market. It'll be nice to chat, I think. I've been so busy running around and all that...
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goldicthehedgefox · 3 years
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here's my updated to-train list, including Nightmare, who I got earlier today (she's adorable, aaaaaaaaaaaa-)
#arknights#goldic's operations#I say; at like 4am so it's technically yesterday but bleh#I. do not have a lot of single-target casters; what you see here is all the rest of the single-target casters I have#what level they are doesn't mean anything I just chucked a bunch into the first 5 and then went 'fuck it only a few' for the rest#CC number 4 has been helping a lot with materials for Mountain and stuff#I just need more oriron clusters for the big gel towers and then I can focus on getting two more beeg guard chips for dualchips#I like making the dualchips all at once for one operator so I can promote the ones I want to promote more easily#since my track record of 'saving stuff for later' is pretty all over the place#keeps me from wasting stored materials on operators I might not even use#what's the point in E2ing an operator that's kinda hot garbage besides 'you like them a lot?' flexing. the point is flexing#but also half of these operators are here because I see them a lot in Kyo's guides and finally decided 'fuck it; get in'#'get in the fucking van; you're going to the training fields'#unrelated sidenote but I headcanon my dokutah to be a catboy; the feline species if you will#and he's hella gay but he keeps getting all these women from Headhunting and he's just like: 'I just want Jaye'#'I just want. ANY of the operators on this list' and he pulls out my operator wishlist of SA Thorns Jaye Phantom etc.#and Kalt'its's like 'Tough. Deal with it' as dokutah starts silently crying about it#Broca and Executor are the Comfort Operators that he goes to for cuddles and they're always confused as to why#Executor just kinda rolls with it but Broca's like: 'hold on who said you could suddenly start hugging me-'#and Amiya's like: 'don't worry Dokutah; we'll recruit them eventually' but it doesn't help at all as he just crys harder#and then my bro's dokutah walks in like: 'that's rough buddy. anyway-'#cuz like my bro has SA and Blaze; I forgot if he had Thorns or not but the point is he's usually chillin' compared to me#cuz he usually has the operators I need but don't have#speaking of my bro; he's saving literally all of his originum for Dust (whenever she comes to the ENG version) and wants nobody else#and I'm just like: bruh you could get- and he's like: no bait. only Dust#OH AND LET'S NOT FORGET MOSTIMA- my dokutah always glares at Mostima because 'her second token could've been Thorns'#and literally nobody but the other dokutahs understand what he means by that and he refuses to explain it#so everyone just assumes he's crazy and hates Mostima for no reason lmaooooo#I should stop typing now there's way too many tags on this post-#goldic rambles
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call-me-aesthetic · 3 years
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If Twisted Wonderland was an American Public School
WARNING: There are some slight sensitive topics that are featured in here! Reader discretion is advised!
Part 2 can be found here
Heartslabyul
Riddle Rosehearts:
- That one preppy girl who takes all honors and AP classes 😑
- Wants everyone to know that he’s becoming a doctor one day for his strict parents or he’ll dishonor the family
- Reminds the teacher about homework, knowing well that he’ll get slander for it
- Complains about how he got a 90 on his test or a B on his report card, a try hard much?
- Wears a cardigan with thicc but cute glasses since he’s one of those people with can’t see shit on the board so he has to move to the front of the class
Ace Trappola:
- The SoundCloud rapper, that’s it
- “Wanna listen to my mixtape? It’s pretty fire, my guy.” 😩🔥
- You will not miss him BLASTING out some song on his Bluetooth speaker, that shit be echoing through the hallways
- Tells you to stop what you’re doing only for him to either sing horribly or do a backflip, thinking that he’s so cool
- Wears a Supreme jacket with AirPods and waves on his head
Deuce Spade:
- Assuming that he’s still a delinquent, he’s that kid with the most fucked up school record
- Not much of a bully but will still talk shit to your face without caring, might even throw stuff at you during a lesson and you would be the one getting in trouble instead of him 🗿
- If he ever gets mad, it would be overdramatic like kicking the desks, punching the lockers, or walking out of the classroom unannounced and everyone would look at each other wondering wtf happened
- Covers the entire desks with drawings of skulls and those “s” if you know what I mean
- Wears Champion hoodies, wants you to know that he’s broke and rich at the same time
Trey Clover:
- The guy that’s not really popular but everyone knows him since he’s in all their classes
- Most people might have a crush on him because he’s REALLY nice 😳👉👈
- Gives off “older brother” vibes based on the way he looks and acts, like offering you a ride home if you beg ask nicely
- Secretly bakes creme brulee but doesn’t want to mess with the flow so he sticks to the status quo
- Wears the school’s hoodie just because he thinks it looks good on him, and the fact that he doesn’t know what else to wear
Cater Diamond:
- Hot Cheetos girl 🥵
- Has a whole buffet of food in his backpack and will not hesitate to eat them during a lesson, no sharing either sorry
- Excuses himself to the bathroom or full on skips class just to film a Tiktok
- Has about 100 followers on Instagram Magicam and brags about how he’s famous
- Wears a Thrasher hoodie with large hoop earrings and his hair in a bun
Savanaclaw
Leona Kingscholar:
- The kid who flunked their freshman year that also sort of vibes with new classmates
- Always gets mistaken as a teacher by people since he looks and sounds old
- Knows the lessons but still fails them anyways, didn’t really give a damn either 🙄
- Captain of every sports club you can think of, never actually plays but has a lot of knowledge on them
- Wears the school’s letterman from years ago since it used to be his brother’s and that he’s too lazy to buy a new one
Ruggie Bucchi:
- That one kid who NEVER has money for the book fair or any other school event
- Always has to ask his classmates for some cash
- If he somehow does, then he’s one of those kids who buys Diary of the Wimpy Kid or the World Record books
- If he’s feeling cheap, he’ll buy the “cool stuff” like the chocolate scented calculator or fruit snacks 😭
- Wears oversized hoodies and basketball shorts that are clearly hand-me-downs
Jack Howl:
- That one athletic kid who’s both scary good and competitive when it comes to school games like football or soccer
- Literally the best player on his team and without him, they’re trash as hell 💀
- Tries his absolute best to support his teammates without yelling at them for how dumb they are
- “KICK THE FUCKING BALL! DO YOUR LEGS EVEN WORK?!”
- Wears the school’s jersey just to show off his “school spirit”
Octavinelle
Azul Ashengrotto:
- The kid who sell snacks for “charity” but everyone knows he’s keeping the money to himself
- If you don’t have cash or try to negotiate with him, the only thing he’ll do is raise the price up
- “What do you mean you don’t have ten bucks? I can see it in your pocket.”
- Just bring nothing with you, he’ll doing anything to steal your stuff 🤭
- Wears a collar shirt with a tie and khakis that have pockets to keep his glasses and money in
Jade Leech:
- The kid who puts on a goody two shoes facade but is actually a stoner
- Only does “safe” drugs like vape but occasionally smokes weed, mostly in the bathroom or behind the school 🌬
- Can play it off and hide the scent when he’s high, teachers never suspect anything from him
- No one really cares to stop him unless he gets caught or something idk
- Wears clothing that either makes him look like a businessman or a junky, there’s nothing in between
Floyd Leech:
- The kid that’s plays basketball or volleyball just because he’s hella tall, and is actually good at the sports but doesn’t put much effort into them
- Always stays behind after gym, even though the teacher tries to make him leave for his next class 😬
- “I swear after this one shot, I’ll go to class.” *He never made that shot*
- Will jump you no matter who or where you are, and will get angry if you step on his new shoes
- Wears the jersey of any famous team with the latest pair of Jordan sneakers
Scarabia
Kalim Al Asim:
- VSCO girl at best, don’t lie to me now 🤡
- The only words he knows are “And I oop– sksksk.” and “Save the turtles.”
- Walks during a track meet while everyone else is running and sweating hard, the teacher doesn’t care either
- Doesn’t really do anything in gym but talks to his classmates and stands near the water fountain to refill his Hydro flask
- Wears tie dye shirts with cute scrunchies
Jamil Viper:
- That one quiet kid who everybody thinks is a serial killer but he’s actually not, I swear
- He just wants school to be over and spend the rest of his summer relaxing 😔
- Although he shouldn’t abuse his “power,” he‘ll move his hands in his pockets or backpack to make it look like he’s about to pull a weapon out.
- “Chill, I’m just grabbing a pencil.” *Everyone in the class started crying*
- Wears dark colored hoodies that intimidates people but are actually comfy
Pomefiore
Vil Schoenheit:
- The baddie popular girl 😌💅✨
- Arrives to school late with a Starbucks in hand from his local Target
- Fixes himself every 5 seconds like reapplying his lipgloss or spraying Bath and Body Works cherry blossom perfume
- Uses acrylic nails and long hair extensions as weapons during a cat fight
- Wears a crop top with ripped jeans and those clout sunglasses
Rook Hunt:
- That creepy guy in the hallways who tries to get your attention, even if you don’t know him
- Scares people when he says, “Ayo, where my hug at?” 🥶💯
- Uses at least 10 cans of Axe body spray a week after gym class, which stinks up the locker rooms
- Waves at you if he passes your class, even walking into the room just to say hi
- Wears literally anything but always include a hat
Epel Felmier:
- The artist girl who just wants to be alone 🧑‍🎨
- Purposely draws in front of you but pretends like you’re not looking
- If you complement him, he’ll just brush it off and proceeds to diss himself
- “Thanks but I’m not THAT good at drawing, teehee.” *Insert Radio Rebel face*
- Wears a hoodie or a cardigan with big pockets to put his art supplies in
Ignihyde
Idia Shroud:
- I don’t even need to tell you who he is, y’all already know ahaha 🥴
- Sneaks a whole PlayStation in his backpack so he can play with it during lunch
- Is on his phone 24/7 even in class to the point where teachers don’t care anymore
- Tries to get people into anime but only to little success
- Wears a shirt of any anime character or that damn ahegao hoodie, girl bye
Ortho Shroud:
- The nerdy kid who’s known for destroying others at many games
- Plays classics like D&D, Yugioh, Pokémon, the whole shabang
- Daily Beyblade battles during recess with everyone surrounding him, the menacing aura radiates off of him
- Will steal your things if you lose to him but gives it back a week later cuz he’s sweet 🥰
- Wears light up Sketchers shoes and those Minecraft shirts you find at Old Navy
Diasomnia
Malleus Draconia:
- The theatre kid who also goes to band practice, change my mind 👁👄👁
- Takes his role seriously when it comes to school plays and concerts, even if he gets casted as a damn tree or doesn’t go solo
- Remembers the songs and their lyrics to any musical you name, a really good singer at that too
- Plays almost every instrument, you definitely know this since you can hear him down the hallways during a test
- Wears a white button up shirt, black pants with fancy dress shoes, and top it all off with a fricking Rolex watch
Lilia Vanrouge:
- The weird guy who pranks people and vandalizes school property in every way possible
- If you ever get a textbook with a message that tells you to go to a certain page only for you to found a picture of a dick, yeah that was him 😒
- When using a Chromebook, he’ll leave a tab open on YouTube so when the next person uses it, pray that your ears will still work by tomorrow
- During lunch, he is a literal DEMON that mixes milk with chicken nuggets together and having the audacity to eat it too
- Wears an oversized raincoat or a windbreaker but idk wtf kind of things he has hiding underneath
Silver:
- That guy in class who consumes Monster energy drinks and falls asleep 99% of the time but somehow manages to pass the class 🤷
- Whenever he’s awake, he’ll talk to the teachers since he’s basically friends with them for some reason
- Writes his name out of boredom on any desk you sit on but in different places, sometimes around the corners or the sides
- Has a sixth sense because he’ll wake up if you try to draw on his face and if you did get something on him, it’s on sight
- Wears those colorful hoodies that zips all the way up to cover his face with a matching backpack, it’s pretty cool ngl
Sebek Zigvolt:
- That kid who literally knows everything about historical wars and will show it off during class
- Also has knowledge on weaponry, which has people questioning him but he’s just very dedicated on serving his country and people
- Knows how to fight and defend himself from a bitch since he spent his summer at a military boot camp, put respect on my man’s name 😤
- Honestly a great partner for a group project, actually does the given work but not the whole thing for you
- Wears anything that has camo pattern and chunky combat boots
I only made this because me and my friends were talking about our school memories so yeah. This is based from my experience so they might not be exactly accurate. Might even be a part two if you want.
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hello!! i've made a request before but this idea came in my brain and i heard your requests were open. So ive seen a lot of fics of the brothers saving mc, but what about mc kinda of saving the brothers, i mean like badass sword fighting style. Just like a stereotypical disney prince saves a princess mc kinda saves the brothers from getting killed by a lesser demon with a sword and just being badass (and sword) and the bros find it hot (weak humans? never heard of them)
*spongebob narrator voice* 400 years lat’er..... So sorry this took so long! I genuinely don’t know why I couldn’t get it done. When I actually tried, I got it done in like 2 days. My only excuse is that I’m a horrible trash munny >.<
Obey me Boys + Power Princess MC
Lucifer
It offends him that this creature, this being not fit to lick the soles of his boots, would raise their hand to him. The attack was not even what upset him, but just the gall. The utter stupidity of this decision to throw one’s life away. The fact that they had attacked with you around only made him wish to end that pathetic life that much sooner.
“Step back [Y/N]. I’ll deal with this quic—” Lucifer cut himself off when you rushed forward. A bright shining sword in your hand as you lunged. Slashing through the demon, who wailed and instantly turned to dust & ash. “What on Earth was that?”
“Oh. It’s my sword.” You reply nonchalantly. Turning around to show it to him. “It’s a holy arc sword, or something. I can summon it from my bracelet whenever I need it. Cool to know it actually works in a pinch.”
“And where did you get such a magical artifact?” Lucifer asked. Perplexed beyond reason, but trying not to show it.
“Lord Diavolo gave it to me when I first got here.” The demon arched a brow. Lord Diavolo? “It would be really irresponsible of him to just let a human wander around hell without some kind of weapon.”
He paused for a moment. Trying to piece all of what you had just said together. Then he just chuckled. “Yes, I suppose it would be.” And here he thought that he had been the only one protecting you. When all along you could do it yourself.
His hand reached out to pat your head fondly. His breast swelling with pride. “I’ll have to thank him for giving you such a thoughtful, practical gift. We’ll also have to add sword play to your lesson plans. I’d be more than happy to be your tutor.
Mammon
‘Shit!’ Mammon mentally cursed as he was hit again.
This wasn’t the first time he’d been rough up outside a club. Given his lifestyle, and his gambling track record, he’d been pummeled by a few bouncers in his life. With his immense power, he could easily take them; if he tried. But then he would be banned from the club, and ever other, and that was something he couldn’t handle over the humiliation of being beat up by these clowns. He needed this. It was all he had.
So, he took his beatings from lesser demons when they came around. He’d only wished they’d picked a different night to get their ‘payment’ back since you were supposed to be here soon.
“Come on guys. Don’t ya think you’ve had enough?”
“We’ll tell you when we’ve had enough!” One demon sneered at him, before kicking a man while he was down. Classy. “You owe us. And we’re gonna get back every cent you owe out of your hide!”
The demon reared his foot back to kick him again, and Mammon mentally sighed. Preparing himself for the kick and really being over this since it began. But….no kick came.
The demon let out a loud grunt over the sound of a metal ‘wack’ before the two, even lesser goons beside him suffer the same fate and they all slump to the ground. “Mammon! Are you ok?!”
The silver haired demon looked up at you in shock. The light from the street lamp causing a halo to form around you, highlighting your worried face as you brandished a rusty pipe like some great sword. “Yeah…I’m fine….”
“You don’t look fine! You’re all beat up!” He just sat there as you dropped the pipe and dropped down to him. Fretting over him as you looked him over. He couldn’t hear what you were saying over the beating sound of his heart in his ears.
No one had ever tried to help him before.
Mammon lifted his arms and wrapped them around you. “Mammon? What—“Let’s get out of here.” He interrupted as he hugged you. Standing up, and helping you to your feet, after a moment to walk out of the alley. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I wanna go somewhere with you.”
“But….I thought you wanted to go out tonight. Play cards. You said you were feeling lucky?”
He couldn’t tell if that was a jab or not, but replied, “well clearly I was wrong.” Though despite his bumps and bruises, he did still feel pretty lucky right not. “I just want to get out of here. I don’t need this anymore.” You both decide to head home to help Mammon nurse his wounds. He never went back to that club, or really any club, after that night.
Levi
“Levi….I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
“Nonsense!” Levi quipped in response to your perfectly reasonable, concerned feelings. “It’s just a little further. Besides, I want to see Henry 1! I’ve missed him a ton recently, and want to make sure he remembers me.” It had broken his heart to discover his poor, lost serpent had been down here, all alone, this whole time. So he made an effort to see him every now and then.
“Yeah but…isn’t this still like super-secret for Lord Diavolo’s family and stuff? What if there’s like booby traps and stuff?”
“Come on! There weren’t any booby traps or anything before. Why would he when he has Henry to keep it…..” Levi trailed off as both of you were ingulfed by a long, dark shadow. A low hissing sound growing louder as a gold, stripped serpent towered over you with a menacing glare. “That’s not Henry.”
The snake hissed loudly with bared fangs and an open mouth, and you both scream and run to get away from it.
The serpent of course chased you. Easily able to keep up, and only loosing you when the two of you duck into a narrow corridor. Levi turned around to say something to you, but you were gone. His immediate thought was that the stranger snake had gotten you, and it was all his fault, and he would never see you again!
When he came to the end of the corridor, walking out like a man on death row instead of running, he looked up to see the snake in front of him. Clearly angered by having to chase him. Levi didn’t care. He wanted to die if anything happened to you. He’d rather die than live one moment without you.
Prepared to accept his fate, the demon didn’t move when the snake unhinged his jaw to eat him in one gulp. Only for a sharp spike to thrust out from his mouth a moment later. A strange, hissing gasp escaping it before it slumped down in a lifeless heap on the floor. “[Y/N]!”
“Jesus! Not to put too fine a pin on it, but this place is literally a maze. One minute I’m next to you, and the next I’m in some armory on the other side of the hall 50 feet away. Are you alright Levi?”
The demon scrambled up the snake corpse to stand next to you and wrapped his arms tight around your being. “[Y/N]! I was so scared! I thought this Henry imposter got you, and you were dead, and I couldn’t think of anything!”
“I’m really ok Levi.” You assure him, as he wept into your shoulder. “Do you still want to see the real Henry? I think I spotted where he actually is when I was running back with the spear?” Levi nodded into your shoulder. Still not prepared to let you go.
Satan
Satan always tried to be a reasonable man.
He hated being referred to as ‘The Demon of Wrath’. It wasn’t his wrath that had caused him to be born. And he wasn’t any angrier than his brothers, so why did he have to be labeled the ‘bad seed’? So he always tried to be level headed. Calm. Patient. But there were somethings he just could not abide. Like the boorish behavior of someone talking loudly in the library.
“Excuse me,” the blonde said, attempting to remain calm, as he came over to the rude demon two tables over, “could you please keep it down? This is a library.”
“Yeah. I know what it is.” He quipped back rather snippily. “What are you? The librarian?”
“No. Just a fellow book lover.” Satan replied. Grinding his teeth now. “And one who can follow the rules and basic social decorum of keeping my conversations to myself in a place like this.”
“Are you calling me stupid?!”
“No. I’m calling you uncouth. A word meaning undignified, and without manners.”
“Why you!”
The demon rose to his feet, towering over Satan now that he was standing. Not that it mattered. Height was not an immediate representation of strength. Look at Belphie. His younger, shorter brother could level a whole city with a flick of his wrist. Satan could easily dispatch of his imbecile without even breaking a sweat.
He never got the chance though, as just after he stood the demon let out a grunt and slumped to the floor; with you standing behind him on his depleted chair with a book in your hand like you had just pulled it from The Stone. “Bet you’re glad I think Kindles are dumb now.”
Satan had to right himself on what he was seeing, and then frowned at you. “I never said that, and get down.” He insisted. Offering you his hand to get down. You hop down with ease and set your weapon book on the table. “Honestly, I could have handled him without resorting to violence or cheap theatrics.”
“Cheap?? This book was very expensive.” You insist, and Satan had to scoff.
“Be that as it may, please do not use books for more than their intended purpose. I appreciate the assist, but I can’t have you hurting yourself or fine literature in the future.”
“You’re such a buzz kill sometimes Satan…..”
Asmo
Asmo always loved going to the club. The dancing. The energy. The pulsing music. The people.
Well…usually the people. Some people, usually bro-dude demons, just couldn’t take a hint that ‘no’ meant ‘no’.
“Come on Asmo! Why are you being so stingy?!”
“I’m not being ‘stingy’,” Asmo replied with a frown marring his beautiful face. “I’m just not interested.”
“You were interested last time.” His pursuer replied. Like that somehow gave automatic permission that things would happen again.
“That was a long time ago.” The dusk haired blonde replied. Sipping his cocktail and looking thoughtful across the spacious VIP lounge over to you.
Yes, things had certainly changed. Once where it would take a whole room of people and attention to make him content, these days all he wanted was you. Just you sparing a moment to look at him made his heart feel incredibly full. He had come here to have a fun night out with you, but it seemed no matter where he went his beauty was always causing problems.
The lesser demon frowned, then looked towards the direction Asmo was looking to land on you. “Shoot, just bring them along with us.”
“Excuse me?” Asmo asked. Beautiful expression turning Ignatius as he sat down his drink.
“Bring them along. I’ve never had sex with a human. But there must be something to it if you’re willing to do them. Not that I suppose that takes much….”
At that, Asmo leapt from his chair and grabbing the brute by the collar. He wasn’t normally one for violence. He wasn’t like his dull brothers. But he couldn’t let a slight like that against you slide. “Take it back!”
The two demon’s scuffle. Clearing out the VIP lounge as everyone ran. Scared that they might transform at any moment and literally tear each other apart. Asmo somehow ended up on his back, a position that usually didn’t bother him, as the other reared back to punch him in the face.
Or, at least he would have if he didn’t start convulsing and fall on the ground a moment later.
“Asmo! Are you ok?!”
The Lust Demon looked at you for a moment. Then delicately covered his mouth with both hands. Returning to normal. “[Y/N]! You saved me!!”
“Yeah. This little thing packs a punch.” You replied. Holding out your little pink taser from She-Sword from your clutch. “I couldn’t let this jerk hurt your beautiful face.”
“No one is more beautiful than you my fierce warrior queen!” He praised. Basking in the moment for only a second before you both scamper off before security came.
You both might be beautiful, but you didn’t want to end up on the evening news.
Beel
“I want to take up kendo.” Beel announced to you one day. Out of the blue. “I’ve been looking for ways to add variety to my workout. I came across this video on kendo and thought it would be fun.”
Of course, Beel knew you had practiced kendo in the past at school. So he might have also been looking for fitness activities for you to do together. In any case, he really liked seeing you in your little workout outfit. It was super cute.
He also liked you showing him the basics of kendo; stance, footing, basic strike movement. When he felt he had gotten the hang of it, Beel jovially asked for a sparring match with you.
“I don’t know….”
“Come on [Y/N], sparring with someone is the best way to learn fighting.” He reasoned. “Besides, I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“I’m not worried about that….” He heard you mutter under your breath, but thought that he must have imagined it as you squared off.
Standing across from you in the arena, something changed. The hair on the back of Beel’s neck stood up. Not in the excited way that it normally did when he saw you. But something more….primal. His grip tightened a little more as he realized he might have to get a little serious with you.
It was all for nothing though as the match was over just as soon as it started.
The shinai went flying out of his hands, landing across the room just as Beel landed on his butt. His backside throbbing as his bell was rung clear as day. He rubbed his head as he looked up at you. “I may have forgotten to mention that I was three-time national kendo champ all through school.”
The demon looked up at you with a shiny, sparkly gaze only until now reserved for delicious food. “Teach me sensei!”
Belphie
He hated being out. He wanted to go home.
Being outside in the sun, with all these…..people was hell to him. Belphie would rather be home, in actual hell, with his blanket and pillow and quiet, rather than ‘top side’ with you for the whole afternoon. Not that it was you or anything. You were the only bright star on this miserable day. He’d be damned if he’d let one of his brothers spend the day with you when he could.
“Belphie, do you want an ice cream? Maybe that will help with the heat?”
He wanted to say that the only thing that would help him was getting the hell out of here. But, he bit his tongue. The demon knew how important this was to you to come ‘home’ now & then and he didn’t want to ruin it for you. So he just nodded and asked, “strawberry please.”
He sat in the shade as he watched you go over to the ice cream truck alone. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he was just a hopeless shut in. Like Levi, only worse. He just wanted humans so much that being around them was making him crankier than normal today.
“Geez, get a look at that side show over there.”
Belphie looked up from his daze at the human who was a few yards away from him. Snickering and staring with his friends in a voice that a regular human wouldn’t be able to hear. “If you have something to say, then say it, you chicken shit fuck.” Again, he was very cranky.
The human was obviously taken aback at being heard and then called out like that. “What did you say to me?!” He yelled, once he got his bearings on the situation, and took a ‘threatening’ step forward to see if he would repeat it.
“I said ‘If you have something to say, then say it, you chicken shit fuck’.” Of course he repeated it. “Don’t mutter something under your breath like a coward. Say it like a man, or keep your gross mouth shut.” This was why he hated humans. No spine.
Well, metaphorical spine. If he kept this up, Belphie was gonna prove that he had a spine when he ripped it out and made him wear it as a neck tie.
“You little fuck--!” Belphie, of course, didn’t move when he stomped closer. Not that he needed to, because he was stopped in his tracks rather abruptly when you stepped between then. Holding a knife from your pocket.
“I suggest you get out of here, before the only ‘side show’ around here is your knife swallowing act pal.” The man seemed to frozen for a moment as he tried to process if you were serious. Then his flight instincts kicked in and he took off running with his friends across the park. “Gosh, I think I’ve been spending to much time with you guys. I never would have done anything like this before.” You said after a sigh, then turned back to Belphie.
“My hero.” He cheered softly, in his typical tired voice but still with a soft smile. Seeming extremely proud of the bad influence he was on you.
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servingy-nneeds · 3 years
Text
PLEASE DON’T NOTICE ME
WHAT KIND OF YANDERE ARE THEY?: KEIGO TAKAMI (HAWKS) PART 2
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TRIGGER WARNING: MANIPULATIVE, Mentions of assault
COMBINATION:  MONOPOLY and REMOVAL TYPE
Monopoly type of Yandere tries to monopolize their lover in any way or form. Trying to get you to distrust people, in worse case scenarios wouldn’t let you socialize with other people. Their reasoning that ‘they may harm you’ and that you are far too naive for it to notice. Is extremely inquisitive on who you hang out with and where you are at a particular time.  
Removal type of Yandere go through great lengths in order to remove people whom they deemed isn’t worth your attention, everyone. This includes any forms of social interactions digital or physical. After all you have them in your life what more can you ask for.
You always considered yourself as a kind person, willing to always a lend a hand to others. But you never said you were oblivious.
You always took note his sudden shift in behavior whenever the situation involves you. The first time it happened was back when he saved you again for the second time when a drunk forced himself on you. Back when you first met you always thought he viewed you as an annoying person, the twitching polite smile he presented you gave himself away. And then the next thing you knew after politely caring for his non vital wound, he started sticking himself closer to you.
Initially he just wanted to get invited inside your home. After that he started walking you back home, he said “I just happened to be around this area”. And when he randomly showed up in your job one day claiming that your company sponsored one of his commercial, you knew something was up.
“Hey want to have a lunch together? I found this awesome place where they sell these mean ass bbq’d chicken ” an unknown number showed up on your phone one day. Ignoring the message you continued catching up on your report. That is until another message showed up “Sorry, this is Hawks got your number from one of your buddies, told em I know you and stuff, that good with you?”.
You would had simply ignored on how he got your number if not for the fact that you were new at your office, never had this so called “buddy” and worse you never told anyone your personal contact number you always used your company phone for communication.
The weeks after that he started invading your breaks pulling you away before your co-workers had a chance to invite you for lunch breaks. The result? they tend to shy away from you, finding it awkward being close to you when you obviously have a personal relationship with the no.2 pro Hero.
When you tried distancing yourself from him, finding a piss poor excuse on how you cannot accompany him for lunch or dinner, and even refusing to be accompanied on your way home, you openly voiced out your distaste at the idea of being flown back to your apartment. Not wanting your safety be fully in his hands.
“Hey y/n, darling I noticed you’re pretty distant this past days” he spoke to you when he caught you chilling at the company’s roof top one day, well you never thought he would be pretty upfront with your behavior.
“Yeah sorry ‘bout that, someone in my office said that I might be distracting you from hero work and all” you said lying, avoiding eye contact, you knew you were really scraping the bottom for excuse this time. Believing you easily, he never liked your co worker sticking close to you and now they instilled this idea on you now? Well he couldn’t have that. Deciding to prod again at your weakness, mainly that you were oozing with sympathy and easily guilt tripped.
“Well I am a pretty over bearing guy” he said softly looking down on his feet “I grew up pretty much alone in the commission and never really had someone to hang out with, so I just tend to be clingy, really wanted to try out this normalcy once in a while y’know? Sorry ‘bout all this” he said cracking his voice up a bit to further emphasize that he is showing his vulnerable side to cater to your empathetic side.
He really hope it works, otherwise he’d have to go plan B. Kidnapping you isn’t as much fun compared to the idea of you willingly submitting yourself to him.
“Maybe we can hang out at weekends” you said eyes full of sympathy.
Bingo.Next stop those nosy colleagues of yours.
“Hey y/n thank goodness are you ok?” one of your colleagues called out to you one day. Shocked by the sudden unusual approach from a total stranger you asked what the commotion is all about. “You know that guy that was interning for you? Well turns out he has numerous cases of assault, you can never trust anyone this days” she huffed before storming off.
The next was the same girl who approached you willingly trying to warn you. You found out a week later in a daily news that her body was found in the area where you usually commute and was burned to the point of unrecognizable. You voiced your concern to Hawks one day simply because there was no way he would be involved in any of these, after all he is a Hero and doesn’t quite have a quirk that allows him to burn others. He does know someone, but you don’t know that.
With a shaking hand you quickly dialing his phone number and meeting with him within a 10 minutes time frame. “I hate to be that kind of person, especially since I rejected your offer in the past but I really hope you can escort me back home, just this time I swear” you rambled as he hugged you tightly comforting you, giving you a shoulder to cry on for support. Shame you missed the way his eyes glint or the ever growing grin he sported
After courting you for couple of months, you noticed he wasn’t as clingy as before and was quite understanding when you set your boundaries. You thought he changed for you he didn’t.  It wasn’t a surprise when you accepted his proposal when he asked you out of blue one day presenting you a ruffled bouquet of flowers and a feather of his own, he claims it was to keep you safe. It’s a tracking device
Going out with him wasn’t as bad as you thought. He plays this boyfriend role perfectly. He had brought you two a matching phone when you accidentally dropped it at a lake during your date when an elderly bumped into you.Though sometimes you voiced out your concern for him that you weren’t accepting important messages at times.
After that he brought you a plush of a duck that looked strangely liked him which you thought was downright adorable and cuddly. Though sometimes when you sleep you feel as if the plush’s beady eye is steadily staring right back at you, but you chalked it up as being paranoid just like these past days whenever you go out without Hawks. 
Making you move in with him was next in his plan albeit he had some difficulty convincing you. He insisted it was for your safety. But really it was for his mental well being (1) his flat was considerably more secured, has a lot more advanced locks he’s got access to (2) He can now monitor you 24/7 even without that duck’s help (3) he’ll can finally record your voice whenever he wants, even without the bugged phone and best of all he’s got you all to himself, away from all those damn people that consumes your time.
So here you are now wearing one of his shirts, he pleas with puppy dog eyes that it looks adorable on you, spending another whole day in your shared living room, with nothing else to preoccupy your time. At this point you had no friends, only work buddies, your contact with your relatives even your parents and siblings were seldom to none, they insists it was you who cut them off saying you weren’t answering their calls or messages.
Hawks claimed that they were lying to you and that they didn’t wanted to come out as the bad guy for not talking to you.
Brushing your hands along his hair with a hum, while he lays his head on your lap, he insists it was relaxing therapeutic to him, while trying to watch some type of animated cartoon movie he insists was ‘safe for you to view’.
Moving around he grabbed your waist burying himself to your midsection then he said “You know hawks mate for life?” making you chuckle a bit thinking it was one of his bird jokes. “We’ll see about when you put a ring on this you simp” you said showing your ring finger.
He softly chuckled to himself thinking ‘Yeah you weren’t oblivious, you were dead blind’
Check out Part 1
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vintagedolan · 3 years
Text
mixtape | track fourteen
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| masterlist | faceclaims | playlist |
“Today’s lecture is on end of life. Death. Passing. However you want to refer to it, it’s about the process of a human being who was here, not being here anymore. And it’s particularly about your role in helping them go peacefully.”
Indy swallowed hard. 
The wound was still fresh. It didn’t matter that it was May. Bekah’s funeral could have been just yesterday. She could see the wood grain of the podium she’d delivered the eulogy at in front of her if she closed her eyes for a few seconds too long. 
Instead, she looked forward, found her professor in the front of the lecture hall. Dr. Ginn. A quirky woman, who seemed determined to live up to Indy’s first impression as she climbed onto her desk and sat with her clicker in her hand, legs criss-cross. 
“Now. Doctors and death, they don’t mix. If I had to guess, a doctor’s worst fear is death. They spend their whole lives fighting it. But nurses? We’re different.”
Indy liked the sound of we.
“For us, the priorities shift. As nurses, your job is just as much to push epi as it is to hold someone’s hand. And you are the one that makes that call. You are the last comfort that a lot of people have in their lives. You are the backbone for the family, for the friends who are there to say goodbye. And you are there to make sure your patient goes as peacefully as they can. That is the most important part of your job, hands down. And if that’s not something you can see yourself doing, then you need to rethink and probably change your career.”
The hall was silent apart from the clicking of laptop keys.
“Now. On that lovely note, let’s get started. A code blue, or as I call it, an ‘oh shit’...” 
A message notification appeared on the right corner of Indy’s screen as she opened her notes.
Coffee after class?
Indy smiled, and in lieu of listening for a moment, she let her mind wander back to February...
Grayson was really trying. But it was hard to break habits that he’d been so comfortable with since the first day that he met Indiana. It took so much mental effort to not hold her hand, to not brush her hair behind her ear - so much that Indy nudged him in the side as they walked.
“Where’d you go?”
“Sorry, just thinking.”
She had a good guess of what he was thinking about, or more specifically what he was waiting for.
An answer.
Indy could hear Nicole in her mind, telling her to be careful, to be careful with her heart. She thought of what her mother would say if she met Grayson as she walked beside him on the sidewalk. It kept her mind busy until they got to the familiar door that Grayson pulled open for her. If nothing else made sense, at least there was always Jet’s, with it’s comforting constant vanilla smell and that favorite blue chair that Indy beelined for while Gray went to the counter. 
Patrick looked ready to commit murder when he realized who was ordering, but Indy shot him a smile from across the store that softened him up just enough for Grayson to make it out with their coffees unscathed. 
“So he definitely hates my guts,” Gray mumbled as he sat down, making sure his back was to the bar. 
“He’s a protective one, you know this,” Indy teased as she sipped her coffee. 
“How soon did you start working here again after… after I left.”
“I gave myself a couple days. I definitely wasn’t at my peak on my first day if that’s what you’re asking.” She let out a dry chuckle. 
“Did you start here or the hospital first?”
“Same time. The tech job kinda fell in my lap, and I needed the money for rent. I only really came back here so I could afford therapy. They have a benefits package for all their employees.”
Grayson froze, but his cup quivered in his hand as he shook.
“I… because of…”
“No, no no, not because of you. I mean, I did talk about the stuff going on with her cause we’ve been having sessions but I was planning on going since graduation. I wanted to get a handle on the whole flying thing.”
The reason went unspoken, and Grayson’s hands didn’t stop shaking, though his breathing came a bit easier. 
“Is it going okay?”
“Yeah, I think so. I mean, haven’t really been on a plane to test anything out. But I did better than I thought I would when you were flying out, considering. So that’s a good sign. And my therapist is really nice, we’re a pretty good match.” 
“Good. That’s good.” It wasn’t lost on him what it meant that she still cared that he was on a plane. Hope riled in his belly and he beat it back down as best he could. 
There was a lull that was filled with the sounds of coffee beans grinding until Indy spoke up again.
“What have you been up to out in LA?”
Grayson swallowed. He looked at her quickly, her soft smile that made him feel like he could tell her anything, no matter how embarrassing it was.
“Honestly? I did fuck all. I mean, I did the basics I guess, with the companies and stuff. But I kinda let the misery have me. You did a hell of a lot better than me, that’s for damn sure.”
“I wasn’t doing great, believe me.”
“But at least you were trying,” he sighed, running a hand over his face. “And I caused all this, I didn’t really have an excuse.”
“It’s in the past now. Nothing we can do to change it.”
“For the record, I wish I could. More than anything.”
“I know.”
“I really am sorry Dee. I know it’s not enough, but I am.”
“I know that too.”
The next beat of silence was painful, and it took a moment for Grayson to realize that it was now or never. 
“Remember how bad our first date went? How I had that whole plan that just totally didn’t work?”
“The thunderstorm. I remember.” It made her smile, and she could picture every frame of it, from the ocean hallway to the remnants of apple juice on his lips.
“And I told you I was gonna save the real date for later.”
Indy nodded.
“Could we… can I do it now? Can I take you on a date?”
The thought brought butterflies to Indy’s stomach, but she blamed it on the coffee.
“Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice. What did you have in mind?”
“I’ll show you. Technically Jet’s was first on the list anyways, but the next part is a surprise.”
With that, she stood up and followed him out into the street.
They started their walk separate, but it only took a moment for Indy to grab onto Grayson’s hand. He told himself it was out of necessity so they didn’t get split up in a feeble attempt to keep his hopes from getting away from him. Still, his stomach fluttered high above the pavement as they enjoyed the setting sun and willfully ignored the chill of the wind whipping around the buildings of the city. Eventually, his plan unfolded when they reached the entrance of the Highline. It was one of Indy’s favorite places in the city, but she knew she’d never told Grayson that. He just knew her well enough it seemed. 
They walked in peaceful silence for a while, hands squeezed tight against one another’s despite the lull in the foot traffic.
Indy smiled at their luck when they finally found an empty bench with a nice view of the skyline. She tugged Grayson over to it and kept her eyes forward for a moment before she looked over at him. His eyes were on the sky, skin flushed pink from the pigment on the clouds or the chill of the wind, she couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. He was beautiful, and he was hers if she wanted him.
Across the walkway, a young girl walked with her mom, who had a baby carrier strapped to her chest with a head of fuzzy hair just visible within it. The mom was rushing it seemed, and Indy realized the baby was crying loudly, sharp wails that became more audible as they passed by. The girl was dragging a small lion stuffed animal behind her, and Grayson watched as it slipped out of her hands and onto the concrete. 
“Joey! Momma, momma I dropped Joey! Joey!” The girl cried out, but her mom continued to tug her along as she reached back for her lion. 
Grayson was on his feet before Indy could say a word, jogging by and scooping up the small stuffed animal. He politely tapped the mother on the shoulder to get her to stop, then squatted down to the girl.
“Is this Joey?”
She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears as she held her hand out for her toy. He passed it over slowly with a smile.
“Hold on tight to him okay?”
“Okay mister,” she said, voice high and quiet.
And right then, Indy saw everything she ever wanted. She saw her kids, with Grayson’s hair and Grayson’s eyes and Grayson’s laugh, she could see him carrying them up to bed, see him dancing with a little girl standing on his toes in their kitchen somewhere, see him passing her a little stuffed animal. She could see him in every facet of the future she hadn’t let herself imagine since he’d left, but her fantasies came rushing back so fast it felt like she was floating.
As if she could ever want anyone else.
She reached over for his hand as he walked back over, intertwining their fingers and letting him sit down before she finally spoke.
“I love this city. I love this city so much. It’s always been all I really needed.” 
Grayson felt lightheaded as he prepared himself for what she was going to say. 
“I know,” was all he could say.
Indy took a deep breath and turned towards Grayson with a soft smile. She could see the apprehension in his eyes as he waited for her to say something else.
“Did I tell you that Devin came to see me while you were gone?”
He shook his head. 
“He came to check on me, since I wasn’t answering anyone.”
Grayson’s throat was tight as he pictured it in his head, the guilt overwhelming him. He reached over and squeezed her knee - a silent apology. 
“He helped me figure out that I want to go into nursing, helped me get my head on straight.”
“He’s a smart guy,” Grayson said quietly. 
“He told me I need to go for what I want. ‘Ask yourself what you really want the rest of your life to look like, and then do whatever you have to to get there’. That’s what he said. And I thought that’s what I was doing. I was going after a PhD, and my life in New York, and all these things I always wanted. Things I thought were really important. But they aren’t.”
He frowned. “Dee, your dreams are important.” 
“I know, I know, and I’m not saying I’m giving up on that. I just mean my priorities I guess. I had them twisted, and I was missing the most important thing.” 
She smiled his favorite smile as he tried to swallow.
He couldn’t make himself ask, just in case he was wrong, but she put him out of his misery after a moment.
“You. You’re the most important thing.” 
She was suddenly blurry as his eyes filled with tears.
“I’ve never been good at change, but you’re worth it to me. If being with you means spending less time in New York, then it’s worth it. And I’m sorry if I ever made it seem like you weren’t.” She was crying too, and Grayson lifted his free hand to her cheek, wiping each tear with his thumb.
“Never. You never made me feel like that. I was the one that ran, because I never wanted you to feel like you ever had to give up anything for me.” 
“Because you don’t realize that you’re worth giving things up for. You don’t realize how worth loving you are.”
He was fully crying now, a broken laugh making it’s way past his lips.
“Does that mean you still love me?”
She smiled.
“Never stopped.”
And she kissed him, and all was right in the world again for a moment. It didn’t matter that there were people walking by, and that their cheeks were wet from their tears. They were kissing and that meant that everything would be okay.
Any stranger that walked by surely had to feel the relief in the air when they pulled back and realized they could lean right back in without a single care in the world. He let go of her hand only to move it to her other cheek, to hold her steady there cradled in his palms as she kissed him between smiles - his whole world in his hands.
In that moment, he wanted more than anything to love her loud. 
He pulled back just enough to bring her up to her feet and then his arms were wrapped around her waist, spinning her around until she was breathless and the city was a blur behind both their eyes. And for the first time that he could remember in too many years to count, he didn’t care who could hear him, and he didn’t care who was watching. 
“I love you,” he said. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too. I missed you.”
Being back in each other’s arms was as easy as breathing. She didn’t stray an inch from his side, soaking in the warmth of his body next to hers as they made their way down from the highline as the city started to light up. By the time they made it home her toes were numb from the cold but her cheeks were still warm, seeing that every time they had to wait for a crosswalk Grayson ducked down to kiss her again.
When they got to the lobby, Grayson squeezed her hand.
“I gotta get something out of the truck, I’ll be right back.”
“You want me to wait here or head on up?”
He pondered it for a minute.
“Wait for me.”
She nodded. She always waited for him, after all. 
He disappeared out of the glass doors at a jog and Indy heard a chuckle from the side of the lobby. She looked over to see the receptionist smiling down at her computer. Indy prided herself on being a very low maintenance tenant, but she still smiled and waved to the woman behind the counter whenever she passed by. Her name tag read Cara in neat white letters. 
“Sorry if we were loud,” Indy said sheepishly. Cara laughed. 
“Just happy to see you smiling that’s all. I’m glad he’s back.”
Indy blushed bright red before she answered. “Yeah. Me too.”
Grayson was slightly winded when he came back, and he was grateful for the long elevator ride as he held the small gift bag in his hand. Indy pretended she didn’t see it like her mom had always taught her to when she received a gift. Still, her eyes flickered to it each time she knew she could get away with it, her curiosity getting the better of her. 
When they finally got inside the apartment he led her over to the living room by the hand and passed her the bag.
“I didn’t know how today was going to go, but I wanted you to have this either way. Figured you could put it on your shelf. When you’re ready.”
Indy pulled the tissue paper out and saw the rose gold edge of a picture frame. She pulled it out and her breath caught in her throat.
“Oh.”
Bekah was smiling. 
It warmed the whole image in a way that had Indy’s eyes burning as she tried to place the day. She was curled up on the bed next to Beks, but she wasn’t looking at the camera. Instead, she was looking at the girl beside her. Her little sister in a way, who was tucked away under her halloween blanket. 
“That’s the night we had the word search tournament, and you both schooled me,” Grayson explained quietly, wrapping an arm around her waist and squeezing at her hip under her sweatshirt. She remembered then, noticed the activity book in the corner of the picture. 
“I didn’t even know you took this.”
“I know you like pictures, I meant to take more of you guys. But I like her smile in this one. Yours too.”
Indy sniffled and leaned her head back onto Grayson’s shoulder. “You’ve made me cry twice now you know.”
He kissed her temple and moved a hand to her forearm.
S-O-R-R-Y
He drew a heart afterwards, and even invisible on her skin she could tell it was lopsided. It made her smile, and she soaked in the feeling of him next to her for a moment before she spun around to kiss him. 
“Thank you,” she whispered against his lips before pulling him in for a tight hug that had her up on her tiptoes when he wrapped her up. They held each other for a moment before Indy got an idea.
“I have something for you too. Wait here.”
Grayson kept his hands on her waist, thumbs rubbing over her skin underneath her sweatshirt. 
“Stay,” he pouted.
“It’ll just take a second, I promise. Just wait here.”
She kissed him quickly just because she could and disappeared into the bedroom, pulling the door closed behind her. 
He lasted about 45 seconds before he was picking at his fingernails. Then he was taking a few steps towards the door, fighting the urge to stick his ear up to it to see if he could get a hint at what she was doing. 
Another minute passed, and he felt like he was going to lose it.
“Indyyyy,” he whined. “You’re killin’ me babe.”
“You’re so dramatic oh my god it’s been like a minute tops.”
“One minute too long,” he teased just in hopes of making her laugh. It warmed his heart to hear it, even muffled through the door. It still felt like an eternity before she finally reappeared with her hands behind her back. 
“You know, you didn’t need to get me anything. Having you back is more than I deserve already.”
Indy’s laugh was louder this time since she was right in front of him.
“Who knew a Jersey boy could be so damn sappy,” she teased. “I don’t have a frame or anything, but here.”
She pulled out a piece of paper and passed it to him quickly, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet while she waited for him to read it. It felt like an eternity while she watched his eyes scan over the letters, seemingly missing the UCLA logo in the top corner.
“Did you… are you reading? Did you see it?”
Grayson looked up with a smile and drew a circle in the air around his face.
“Dyslexic,” he reminded her gently.
She bit her lip and tried her hardest to be patient, waiting until his brows furrowed in confusion.
“Wait… wait. What is this? UCLA? Nursing?” He looked up at her cautiously, trying to keep his excitement in check in case he’d misread. “What is this?”
“Well. There’s a lot of good nursing programs out there. And LA has some top notch hospitals too. Especially pediatric ones. Figured it couldn’t hurt to apply, and they’ve got a pretty good tuition coverage package, it’s close to your house, and-”
Grayson’s lips were on hers, his excitement palpable.
She kissed him back with a smile, relieved to finally tell someone about the grand plan she’d made in her head now that all the pieces had come together. 
“You’re sure?”
Indiana smiled. “You’re worth it. You’re what I want, forever.”
He kissed her again, making up for lost time and telling her everything he couldn’t find the words for. They walked backwards until the back of his legs hit the couch and she ended up crawling onto his lap, beaming down at him when they finally broke apart.
“You’re actually coming to LA. We’re gonna live there.”
“Guess I gotta start apartment shopping,” she mused.
Grayson rolled his eyes. “Shut up and c’mere.” 
He bailed them to the side until Indy was fully on top of him.
“I’ll build you a shelf for our bedroom. Fuck, I’ll build you 50 shelves as soon as we get there. Wait when do classes start, when do you have to move?”
“You’re cute when you’re excited,” she hummed, leaning down to kiss him again. It was slow and purposeful, warm in that familiar way as they remembered each other fully. “We’ll figure it all out,” Indy said eventually, scooting down his torso until her head could rest comfortably on his chest. She listened to his heart beat, a bit fast from either her presence or the coffee, she couldn’t tell. Either way, it was still her favorite sound, and as his hand moved through her hair gently, she knew she’d made the right choice, no matter where it took her. 
3 months later, the place it took her was the passenger seat of Grayson’s brand new tesla, which was delightfully cool despite the warmth of the incoming summer making the LA air dry and warm. Grayson held out a hand for her to pass her backpack, tossing it into the backseat as if it wasn’t weighed down with three textbooks. She pulled the door closed behind her and let her head rest back against the seat for a moment before she turned to him.
“Hi.”
He beamed, leaning over the console to give her a quick kiss. “Hey. Good day?”
“Long day, but yeah, it was fine. Got a shit ton of assignments per usual.”
“Hey, three day weekend next week though, and we’re going to New York. What’d you learn?”
“Oh you know, the usual. Meds, codes, diseases, death. Truly uplifting stuff.”
He reached his hand over to her thigh, rubbing circles with his thumb as his other hand moved the wheel effortlessly, pulling back out onto the road.
“Still want coffee? You didn’t answer.”
“Do I ever say no to coffee?”
“Fair points. Text E squared and see if they want anything.”
“They weren’t home?”
“No, they ran to the store, but they should be back by the time we get there.”
“If Eden went to Target without me I’m gonna be pissed,” Indy mumbled halfheartedly, typing out the text in their group chat quickly. “You know she’s gonna say she wants Jet’s.”
“Believe me I know, just ask Ethan. You’ve created a monster. We’ve gotta start asking Patrick to send beans in bulk or something, we go through them so fast now that she drinks it too.”
Indy just laughed and turned up the radio, unsurprised to hear Cudi from Grayson’s playlist he’d made for their car rides. It was routine now for him to pick her up from class, save her from the hassle of trying to find parking on campus. And it gave them some more alone time considering they lived with Ethan and Eden at the house. So, it wasn’t abnormal for Grayson to happily add 20 minutes to the drive to pick up coffee on the way home. Purdy’s was right down the street after all, and though their lattes weren’t quite as perfect as Jet’s, they held their own. 
“We should buy Patrick some fancy beans somewhere and take them with us next weekend,” Grayson mused. 
“You’re such a suck up, it’s not like he’s giving us free coffee,” Indy laughed. “You’re just still scared of him.”
“Fuck yeah I am! Every time we’ve gone home he looks like he wants to straight up murder me.”
She reached over to hold his cheek for a moment as she bit back her laugh.
“Baby. Patrick can barely lift a 50 pound box of syrup. Believe it or not, I think you could take him.”
He rolled his eyes but the comment wasn’t lost on his ego, especially when his girl leaned over to wrap her arm around his bicep and rest her cheek on it, enjoying the feeling of his bare skin left behind by his tank top. They ordered through the drive thru, surprised when neither Eden or Ethan responded to them. The car was peaceful, even more so when Grayson put it on autopilot and gave Indy more of his attention, trying to ease the stress he could feel coming off of her like it always did when she got out of class. 
“Tell me about your lecture,” he said, hoping talking it through would help her.
She sipped on her coffee as she spoke, starting without many details but eventually going more in depth as she got more excited. It was one of Grayson’s favorite parts of listening to her talk about the things she cared about, and even though half of the information went right over his head he listened intently anyways, tried to take it all in as the car drove them home.
By the time they pulled into the driveway, Indy’s coffee was gone along with her stress, and Grayson knew all the steps to running a code blue. He hopped out first, grabbing her bag from the backseat and slinging it over his shoulder as they headed to the front door.
The first sign that something was different was the quiet of the house. Any other time that E squared was left alone, Grayson and Indy would come back to the speakers blaring, a scary movie on the living room TV, or the distant sound of a headboard knocking against the wall. 
But it was dead silent, and the pair looked at each other before they scanned the room. 
“They’re up to something,” Indy muttered, peaking around the wall to make sure Ethan wasn’t going to scare them. 
“For sure. Something is off with Ethan, just don’t know what it is.”
“Oh, you got a feeling huh?” Indy teased, bumping him with her elbow. He took her waist in his hands and pulled her back against him, making her laugh as he tickled her and buried his face in her neck. He never got tired of having her so close - it was just as intoxicating as the first time. 
“Sorry you don’t understand the twin connection.” 
“Well, use your psychic powers to figure out where the fuck they are then.”
He closed his eyes for dramatic effect, smiling when it got the laugh he wanted out of her. Just as he lifted his fingers to his temple, a bang sounded from the backdoor, making Indy squeal and cling onto Grayson. He went to move her behind him until he saw the culprit - a tennis ball bouncing away across the yard.
“You’re okay, it’s just E,” Grayson breathed, relaxing and moving towards the door to find where his brother was hiding. They walked into the backyard hand in hand, following the sound of music coming from the pool, which was finally finished in the back corner of the property. 
Ethan was at the entrance, his biggest smile on his face as he waited for them to get closer. Impatient as ever, he started walking towards them, meeting them halfway across the grass. 
“Took you guys long enough to get home. We bought new stuff for the pool, come look at it.”
“E, bro, I told you not to buy random shit on your own,” Grayson grumbled, obviously weary of his brother’s interior design skills.
“Eden was with him,” Indy reminded him at a whisper.
“Just come on,” Ethan said, grabbing onto his brother’s hand and starting to drag him towards the pool.
“Jesus bro, calm down.”
Ethan ignored him, looking to make sure Grayson was bringing Indy along too until they made it around the corner where the small pool was in view.
“Surprise!” Ethan beamed, holding his hand out towards the water. Beside it on the concrete were some new additions.
Four loungers, a beautiful teal color with rounded contour that looked perfect for tanning. In fact, Eden was on one of them sprawled out in her bathing suit, and she looked so comfortable that Indy barely noticed the miniature fifth chair next to her at the end of the line up. 
Brain fried from class, it took Indy a moment to piece it together.
5 chairs. 4 people. One smaller than the rest.
“No way,” she gasped, hand coming up to cover her mouth. “Eden no way!”
Indy was already moving towards her best friend before she could get to her feet, ignoring Grayson’s confused calls of “what? huh?” from behind her.
“Yes way,” Eden sniffled, a nervous laugh coming through as she put a hand over her stomach.
“How far along? When did you find out?”
“A couple days ago, we went to the doctor to find out for sure this morning. She said we’re about 7 weeks.”
Indy pulled her in for a hug. 
“Wait. Wait.” Grayson was yelling now, catching on with no doubt a few hints from Ethan. “Holy fuck. Holy fuck, you’re pregnant?! She’s PREGNANT?!” He grabbed his brother’s face with both hands and shook him just barely. 
“I’m gonna be a fucking dad,” Ethan said, and Indy melted when she realized he was about to cry.
“You’re gonna be a fucking dad,” Grayson repeated, shaking him twice more before he pulled him in for the tightest hug Indy had ever seen them share. The girls watched them for a moment before Indy turned her attention back to Eden.
“How are you feeling with all this?”
“Well I’ve just started having morning sickness, my appetite has been super weird, vegan cheese makes me want to straight up die…”
“Right right, but I mean like… mentally. You okay? This is a big change.”
Even just standing there, the boy's excitement was slightly overwhelming, especially with Grayson literally running around yelling about being an uncle. She was sure that Ethan had been excited from the moment of a positive test.
“A very big change that we weren’t really expecting,” Eden said quietly, looking down at her manicured toes. 
“How are you feeling about it?” Indy asked again, reaching out to hold her hand. Eden squeezed tightly.
“Honestly? I’m fucking terrified,” she admitted. “And Ethan’s been great, it’s not that, it’s just… there’s a human in me. Right now. Just chillin’ in there.”
“Yep, there do be a human in there,” Indy laughed at her bluntness. “What are you scared about?”
“Everything. I’m afraid I’m gonna do something that’s gonna hurt them. I don’t know shit about pregnancy, like real pregnancy, and don’t even get me started on trying to push this thing out of me.”
“We’ve got a while to figure all that out. And you aren’t going to do anything that’s going to hurt them. You’re a good mom.”
“Jesus, a mom. Ethan keeps saying that but it sounds different coming from a woman. A fucking mom. You’re gonna have to teach me all the medical stuff… wait actually no I don’t think I even want to know what’s going on in there. I’ll just focus on figuring out how the fuck I’m gonna be a mom.”
“You’ll be great. And you’ll have Ethan too. Those two were pretty much born to be dads,” Indy said. They turned and looked to see Grayson hauling Ethan up to sit on his shoulders before running what she assumed was a victory lap around the backyard.
“Yeah… remind me of that for the next nine months. Regularly.” 
They both started laughing and pulled in for another hug.
“I’m so happy for you,” Indy sighed with the warmest smile, images of baby showers and Eden’s bump and the office as a nursery already spinning through her mind. 
“Love you aunt… Indiana? Indy?”
Indy scrunched her nose. “We’ll have to work on that one,” she teased, taking her hand and leading her over to their boys, who were still somehow yelling.
They both came running, but Grayson was faster, scooping Eden up and spinning her around so fast that Ethan was immediately scolding him, urging him to be careful.
“She’s not that delicate bub, it’s okay,” Indy reassured him, getting up on her tiptoes to give Ethan a hug. He squeezed her tight and whispered in her ear.
“She okay? You guys are the first ones we’ve told.”
“Just a little scared, like all pregnant people are. Totally normal.”
“Good. I’m glad you know, she’s been dying to tell a girl. Only so much I can do.”
She leaned back with a smile. “You’re doing great already.” 
Those words meant more to Ethan than she would ever know, but all he could do was smile and head back over to Eden, a hand across her tummy when she leaned up against his side. 
“We’re gonna tell Li when we’re all home next weekend, but Eden’s parents are coming over for dinner in a little while and we’re gonna tell them now so we can do it in person,” Ethan explained, pressing a kiss to Eden’s hair. 
“We’ll make ourselves scarce for the evening,” Indy offered, sensing the nerves already rising for Eden. She’d have enough of an audience. 
“Okay but first we gotta get a picture of everybody, we’re gonna make an album of telling everybody.” Ethan was already moving as he spoke, setting his phone up on the patio table with the timer on. They all posed with Ethan pointing excitedly to Eden’s non-existent bump before they all headed back inside, still buzzing with excitement. 
Grayson stayed particularly close as they gathered around the island, his hand resting on Indy’s hip as they all settled after a few moments. They all helped to straighten up the house in preparation for Eden’s family’s arrival, and Grayson appeared behind Indiana with a smile as she placed a blanket over the back of the couch.
“Date night?”
Indy had lost count of how many dates they’d been on, but those words never failed to make her stomach swirl.
“What’d you have in mind?”
“Well, I know you said you have homework so… Monty’s, secret beach… with flashcards?”
“You truly know the way to my heart.” She kissed him softly and followed him to their room to change into beach clothes. As she sifted through the drawers, she couldn’t help but look at the shelf. It was bigger than the one she’d had in New York, more sturdy with thicker wood and longer, able to hold more frames. 
That was a good thing, because there had been some new additions. The picture of Nicole, the baby picture of her and Charlie, and the engagement picture with them and Devin all stood tall beside each other. Down the line came the picture of Indy and Grayson at her graduation, the one where he was dipping her back slightly and wearing her cap. Then was Bekah in her hospital bed - it still made Indy’s chest tight when she looked at it. There were two new ones since then - one of the four of them taken by Lisa in front of their tiny homes, and another of all of them at thanksgiving that they’d finally gotten printed.
“We need to get that picture we just took from Ethan, I wanna put it on the shelf.”
“I’m gonna have to build you another shelf,” he teased as he pulled his swim trunks up.
“Think you’ll probably be building stuff for the nursery first.”
“Shut up, do you really think they’ll let me?” His eyes lit up and Indy laughed as she pulled her New York sweatshirt down over her bikini top.
“I don’t see why not.”
“Fuck yeah, that’s gonna be so much fun! What all do you need in a nursery though? I mean a crib, obviously. A dresser? Do you need a dresser for baby clothes or can you just stack them up cause they’re so tiny?”
“We can talk about it while we drive,” Indy redirected him, taking his hand and leading him out of their room, down the hall and out to the car before he could bombard the other couple of the house with questions. 
The excitement was palpable for the whole drive, buzzing within the cab as they made their way to Monty’s, ordered their vegan burgers and raspberry lemonades and snuck away to their secret place on the beach. 
Considering it was a Wednesday evening, they didn’t expect it to be busy, but they were particularly excited to see that it was completely empty apart from a few stray crabs that went scurrying away at the sound of their footsteps. 
Grayson set out the blanket that was always in the back of the tesla for trips like this and Indy set down their bags and drinks, getting everything settled so they could simply sit down and enjoy their meal.
It was peaceful, calm as the ocean lapped up against the sand gently and they filled their tummies. Grayson was done before Indy, per usual, and he basked in the last remnants of the sun while she finished her fries.
“Wanna swim?” Indy asked.
“Thought we were supposed to wait 30 minutes.”
“That’s a myth,” she teased, standing up to her feet and helping him to his. They walked down to the water quickly, gasping a bit at the cold of the water. Still, there was nothing that compared to the feeling of being in the waves, and Indy braved it. Grayson had every muscle tensed against the cold, but he’d follow her anywhere. Soon enough they were up to shoulder height water, kicking gently to get over the waves when they needed to, arms wrapped around each other to keep warm.
“I can’t believe they’re gonna have a kid. Were gonna be Aunt Dee and Uncle Grayson. What the fuck,” Grayson murmured, half distracted by the way the orange of the sky was starting to reflect off of Indy’s eyes. 
“It’s gonna be so much fun to have a little one around. They’re gonna be such good parents.”
“You know who would be even better parents? Us,” he beamed. He looked so beautiful when he smiled, and Indy ran her thumb along his jaw.
“Let me finish school and find a job before you go putting a baby in me,” Indy laughed, but her heart warmed at the thought. She remembered the little girl on the highline, and she wanted it for the two of them.
“You’re done in like a year and a half.”
“Correct,” Indy confirmed it. 
“I always thought I’d be married before I had a kid,” Grayson said, trying to bite back his excitement. 
She wasn’t sure if it was the bliss of the water around them, or the steadiness of his arms, or the fact that she always felt like she was home when she was with him, but in that moment, she knew.
“Okay. Then let’s get married.”
“Are you serious? You aren’t fucking with me? You really wanna get married?”
“Did I ever give you the impression that I didn’t want to marry you someday?” She teased.
Grayson could only laugh, and look up towards the skies and thank whatever angels were listening and watching for all that he’d been given.
He was pretty sure he knew at least three that were there with him. 
“I love you. I love you so fucking much. Don’t know what I ever did to deserve you.”
Indy kissed him. The feeling was mutual in the most effortless way, and there was a sense of peace that she wasn’t used to in that moment, knowing that everything would somehow work itself out and she would have him with her for the rest of her life. 
And for once, the timeline of her life wasn’t her priority anymore. She didn’t care what date she’d finish school, or when she’d get her job. And she didn’t care when he would propose, or when they’d find out they were having a child of their own. Because in all those moments, whenever they happened, he would be there, and that was all that really mattered at the end of the day. 
They kissed slow, quiet for a while, and as the sun dipped below the horizon Grayson carried her back out onto the sand. They wrapped themselves up in the same towel and found each other’s lips again, warm and familiar and safe as they lost themselves within one another over and over again. 
Her lips were chapped by the time they pulled away, both giddy at the realizations that they’d always know finally being said out loud. 
“How much homework do you have?” 
“Just studying, I can do it in the morning. What’s the plan?” She knew he wouldn’t have asked if there wasn’t something he wanted to do.
“I’ll show you. Just trust me.”
“Okay,” she answered without a second thought. 
Twenty minutes later, with salty hair and big smiles, they pulled up to a tattoo parlor. 
“I thought you got all yours from Alexis now?” 
“Gotta get this one tonight. Special day.” 
Indy looked at the neon signs, and the artwork on the walls through the window. She pondered it for a minute, and something in her told her to go for it.
“I think I’m gonna get one too.”
Grayson perked up at that. “Really?” He knew every inch of her body, knew it would be her first one.
“Something small. Something for Beks.”
He smiled and kissed her temple before he got out to open her door.
Indy went first. A small lightning bolt, like the one on Bekah’s headscarf. And, the thunderstorm of their first date in the city. She got it tucked away behind her ear, in the same place of Grayson’s triple threes. His angel number, and her reminder of both of hers. It didn’t hurt as badly as she thought it would, but Grayson sat beside her anyways, rubbed soothing circles on the back of her hand while he held it.
D-O-I-N-G G-O-O-D he wrote. 
“Thanks,” she smiled softly. “Bet you won’t even flinch during yours.”
“That's the idea. You can study while I get mine, I want it to be a surprise.”
Hers only took a few minutes, and her lecture material was at the back of her mind once the artist cleaned her up and moved over the Grayson. He grabbed his wallet from her backpack where he’d stowed it and Indy took a seat in one of the chairs in the lobby, occasionally turning her head towards the mirror so she could see her new ink. 
Across the shop, Grayson took his shirt off. 
“You can pull the letters from these, and I want it right here.” He passed over the stack of flashcards he’d snagged, sure that they’d be able to find what they needed. 
“Bitch of a spot,” the artist said quietly as he prepped over his ribs, but he just laughed. From the view of Grayson’s covered legs, he wasn’t sure there was any spot too painful for him. 
“She’s worth it,” Grayson said, closing his eyes and waiting. The sting of the needle was familiar, and it did hurt as he moved over each bone. But when he looked in the mirror, it was all worth it. He didn’t even bother putting his shirt on as he paid the artist in cash, including a big tip, and headed out to the lobby. 
Indy was sifting through her bag. 
“Looking for these?” Grayson held up a small stack of flashcards with a devious grin. “Sorry, had to borrow them for my tat.”
Indy’s brows furrowed, and she stood up, moving closer as he lifted his arm and showed her his ribcage.
In small handwriting, her handwriting, was the word ‘forever’.
“Right where you always trace it.”
To her surprise, her eyes started to burn.
“Gray…” She knew how important his tattoos were to him, what each and every one of them meant. 
“Consider it a promise. I’m with you. Forever.”
He ducked down to kiss her, and she smiled against him, hand resting on his torso right below his promise.
She liked the sound of forever.
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lady-divine-writes · 3 years
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The Hitchhiker - Chapter 1/4
Picking up a hitchhiker isn't exactly the dumbest thing Kurt has ever done, but it's not exactly the smartest either. When he comes across Blaine Anderson caught in a sudden downpour, he can't just leave him on the corner to drown... can he? (1756 words)
Read on AO3.
“Excuse me? Sir? Do you need a ride?”
Kurt flashes as confident and honest a smile as he can to the man standing on the side of the road. But the second those words leave his mouth, he hears his father’s voice in his head yelling: “Kurt Hummel! What the hell are you doing? Picking up a hitchhiker? Are you out of your mind!?”
And Kurt has to admit, the voice is right. 
There is a fifty-fifty chance that this man, standing alone in the dark by the side of the road, is a violent serial killer. His outfit alone perpetuates the stereotype - indigo jeans, white t-shirt, leather jacket. He has an olive-green duffel slung over one shoulder and he's carrying a guitar case, for God’s sake! What are the odds that there’s actually a guitar in there!? If Kurt picks this man up, he has a greater chance of becoming a statistic than of that man being a musician! Kurt should drive away now without an inch of guilt, floor it without looking back.
And he probably would have deferred to his better judgment and stepped on the gas had it not been for a few things. 
It's pitch dark out for a start. Only a handful of street lights line the curb, installed twenty or so feet apart, which creates long expanses of shadow in between. The road they're on is in the middle of nowhere, with trees towering on both sides of them. This doesn’t help Kurt’s argument any since it seems like just the place a killer would lie in wait for a potential victim. But, in that same vein, someone or something could be stalking him, waiting for Kurt to drive away so they can pounce on him from the trees. Then it would be up to the reach of this man's legs and his athletic ability to save him.
This leads directly to reason two: the man is a klutz. In the five minutes Kurt has been stuck at this red light, he’s seen him smack himself in the face with his own bag, drop his sunglasses (pink rimmed Wayfarers, no less), catch them, then fumble them again, and step in the same puddle twice. If this man is a serial killer, he may not be the most competent one on the planet. 
Three, just as Kurt’s light turned green, it started raining. And not the light drizzle he has come to expect during his infrequent forays to San Diego, but an honest-to-God downpour. Kurt saw the man turn his face up to the sky, his shoulders slumped, wholly defeated by this new development. He put the butt of his guitar case on the toes of his shoes to keep it out of the mud, then attempted to wrap his jacket around it.
And Kurt’s heart melted. 
Kurt is a musician himself. Singer more than musician but he has friends who play the guitar. His stepbrother Finn owns a Fender that he sold plasma to afford. Puck's Gibson is the only thing he has never hawked when he needed money. And Sam, in this man's position, would take off every stitch of clothing to protect his Blueridge if it came down to it. Kurt can imagine this man’s whole life wrapped up in that case, which he is now convinced does hold a guitar.
Kurt isn't a gun enthusiast by any means, but he thinks a semi-automatic should be able to withstand some weather. He may want to Google that one later on… provided he’s still alive.
And about that guitar case: it isn’t a plain, generic, black guitar case. The thing is covered in travel stickers and bling. It has a personality all its own. An easily identifiable personality. If this man is a killer, Kurt is pretty certain every human on the West Coast would know about it. He’d be nicknamed the Kitsch Case Killer or something along those lines. That case sticks out like a sore thumb. There’s no way a man carrying a guitar case decorated like an old-school Lisa Frank binder is getting away with swiping a pack of gum, not to mention murder.
To a lesser degree (Kurt tells himself so he doesn't have to admit how idiotic this idea is), this is the most a-dork-able man Kurt has ever seen. He looks more like a puppy than a predator (weak reasoning, he knows). But Kurt has instincts about people that are usually on the money. He has to give himself credit for making it this far in life. Kurt is tougher than he looks. He has taken his fair share of licks, and he’s still ticking. 
Plus, he has bear repellent in the pocket of his jacket the size of a can of Aquanet. He feels he has his bases covered.
The man walks slowly towards Kurt's car, the curls piled atop his head hanging heavily down his cheeks the wetter he gets.
No, Kurt can’t leave him out here.
“Um. Thanks. Thanks a lot,” the man says, cautiously eyeing Kurt up and down as if he may be asking himself Kurt’s same string of questions in his head. “But I… ” The fact that he isn’t jumping at Kurt’s offer, that he’s glancing anxiously down the road, mulling his options even as rain pours down his back, puts Kurt at ease. The man looks like he’s trying to gauge if Kurt might have a weapon hiding somewhere on his person, contemplating if he’ll come out of this alive if he accepts this ride. 
Ironic, but that proves that there are two sides to every situation.
The man looks about to step away and decline until a fork of lightning turns night into day for five seconds, a boom so loud following it shakes Kurt’s rental car. 
“Sure. Okay. Why not?” He pulls open the rear door in a rush but still wary as he puts his belongings into the backseat and joins Kurt in the front. “Thank you so much. I didn’t expect it to rain this hard, or I might have stayed in my hotel room one more night.” He runs a hand through his hair, cringing at the water that sprays the headrest.
“Not a problem.” Kurt reaches behind the seat and grabs the towel he’d fished out of his luggage earlier when he’d done the same thing. But the rain was only a sprinkle then – angel spittle, his mom would have called it. “I couldn’t just drive by and leave you out here to drown.”
The man chuckles. It, much like the rest of him, is too cute for words. “My name’s Blaine.”
“Kurt.” Kurt extends a hand for Blaine to shake. Blaine looks at it, hesitates a second before taking it, still questioning Kurt and his intentions, Kurt assumes. Despite being stuck in the rain, Blaine’s hand is warm, comforting in a way Kurt speculates a serial killer’s hands would not. “Well, Blaine, where you headed?”
“Oh, uh… I’m trying to make my way to L.A. But you can drop me off anywhere between here and there.”
“Ooo. Actor? Producer?”
“Unemployed schlub, unfortunately. Currently riding my brother’s couch. He’s the actor. I’m the… the failure.”
Kurt pulls onto the road again and heads for the highway. “That’s a really unkind thing to say about yourself.”
“It’s what… well, it’s what my father would say.” He wrings his hands uncomfortably. “He’d also say I’m a disappointment, a waste of a Harvard education, a bum… ” He shivers. Kurt raises the temperature of the heater. Blaine glances at Kurt in embarrassment, and Kurt gets the hint that it’s not the cold that has him trembling.
“I know it’s not my place to say, but I’d stop listening to your father if I were you. It doesn’t seem like he has anything worthwhile to say.”
“How can you say that? You don’t even know me,” Blaine says under his breath, with an edge like a growl, the kind wild animals give when you stumble into their territory unaware. It sets the hairs on the back of Kurt’s neck on end, and he starts second-guessing this decision. 
Relax, Kurt. The man’s just beat down. Exhausted. You understand what that’s like.
Blaine sighs, sinking into the passenger seat and leaning his head against the window. "I'm sorry. I know you're trying to be nice. It's been a long day." 
“I understand. And I may not know you, but I know fathers," Kurt continues. "A father’s job is to be supportive of their children, no matter what they do in life. Succeed or fail, win or lose, they should always be in your corner. And if he’s not, screw him! Surround yourself with people who want to lift you up, not tear you down.”
Blaine winds his arms around his torso, hugging himself tight. “I---is that the way your father treats you?”
“Yup,” Kurt answers with a subconscious smile at the mention of his dad. “He supports me in everything, even the stuff he doesn’t entirely agree with. And when things don’t work out, he’s the first person there, helping me to my feet and encouraging me to try again.”
“Sounds like a great guy. You’re lucky.”
“He is," Kurt says proudly. "And I am.”
Blaine fixes his gaze to the road ahead as Kurt merges onto the highway. He chews the inside of his cheek, stares too hard at the rain-slick asphalt, not shifting focus. It's as if he can't bring himself to look at Kurt when he asks, “So, you think you’re a good judge of character?”
Kurt nods. “Yes, I do."
"How do you know?"
"Experience. I have a decent track record.”
"Surround yourself with a lot of questionable people, do you?"
"I guess you can say that," Kurt agrees with a laugh, thinking of the people who have come into his life that he has adopted as his own: Rachel, Dave, Santana, Puck, all of them rivals or bullies. Or both. But now, a cherished part of his found family.
People he hopes will miss him if SDPD finds him by the side of the road tomorrow with his throat cut.
Stop it, Kurt! Relax! You're in no danger! Everything is going to be fine!
Blaine shrugs, examining his wet hands as if he’s reading something etched on his skin. “Someday you’ll be wrong.”
“Probably." Kurt meets Blaine's eyes in the reflection of the windshield, flashes his confident smile again. "But I don’t think that day is today.”
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caitsyoi · 3 years
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I made a post about the Seraphites, so now I want to make one about the WLF. This post is mostly about the WLF's home base, aka the stadium and the area immediately around it. I've included some of my favorite pictures, and my thoughts and observations about where they live and their culture.
Under the cut again to keep things nice and clean.
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I gotta say, this blew my mind when I first saw this as Abby. The WLF really have their shit together. Multiple power sources, a bunch of the resources FEDRA left behind, and multiple food sources. The field has cattle, sheep, and chickens plus some farming. On the steps they have even more areas for farming. They have a way to collect water, and even people to design and string up their logo everywhere.
It makes sense, supposedly thousands of people live here (you can't see it unless except via glitch, but there is also baseball stadium immediately next to this that they might also occupy).
We only see where Abby and other soldiers (perhaps squad leaders?) live. They have a pretty cushy life, two per luxury box (the rooms NFL teams overcharge for that run along the upper level of stadiums). Mel also mentions a special area for young families, I wouldn't be surprised if these areas were further divided. Perhaps there is also housing for larger families and single people who aren't soldiers or squad leaders. I very much wonder if those who join the military get better housing than those that work as farmers (or dishwashers, teachers, laundry washers, cooks, etc.). As mentioned earlier, Abby and Manny live in a luxury box, and there are 112 of those in the stadium this is based on. That's housing for 224 people, if they all live like the people in Abby's hallway. That would mean there has to be more housing in other parts of the stadium.
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This stadium was once used by FEDRA, and you can see the concrete barriers they left behind along the edge of the field. They have to have more cattle than this, to feed all the people that supposedly live under the WLF. There is farmland around the stadium (more on that later), so maybe they mostly let them graze out there, then move some in when they plan on slaughtering them soon.
I love that they have wind turbines AND solar panels. You can see the influence that the Fireflies had on Issac and the WLF, they really focus on stability and restoring what was lost (at least when it comes to comfort). So they have electricity, sustainable food sources (and multiple kinds too), and a way to collect water (you can't see it in this shot, but they use a system similar to Jackson's, just on a much wider scale).
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They teach a curriculum similar to what was taught to kids before the outbreak. We only see two classrooms, but from what I can tell they try to give the gives the type of education they could have received in the old days (as best they can, at least). Both the teachers you see are pretty young, which makes me wonder who taught them.
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Most of the kinds you see in class are pretty young, like less than 10. These look a little order (they are outside the stadium in the market area, which I will talk about more a little later). I wonder how long WLF children are required to attend school (I think I saw a sign for 1st through 6th grade, so at least that?). I imagine they get a basic education with some broad looks into various topics, and maybe the ones most apt for study are selected to do specialized careers like teaching or meteorology. Other children are probably pushed into farming or the military portion of the WLF. Regardless of what they study, they probably also get a heavy dose of WLF propaganda. That aligns with how gung-ho many of them are to fight.
I wonder if military service is compulsory, like everyone has has to do at least so much time and then they can do other things if they want. Or maybe they make it so you don't have to fight if you don't want to, but those that do get better perks.
Most of the WLF you see appear to be in their 20's or 30's, or at least the fighters. That would mean they have spent most (if not all) of their lives under military rule, and they would have a special allegiance to the WLF since they manage things so much better than FEDRA did. Plus, you know, all that propaganda. I imagine they are told a lot about how the WLF is restoring society and how the WLF saved them from FEDRA/Scars/infected.
Sorta related, I thought of an WLF AU. Ellie grows up in Seattle under the WLF, perhaps with Riley and Dina and the other characters from canon. So many interesting things can be done with this, but that's for another post maybe.
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This is one the cafeteria's the WLF use. I believe this is one of a few, although this is the only one you see. There is also a butcher and small market for clothing and items here too. They prepare food here, but I think the majority of cooking is done in an area set up for it in the stands.
They have posted meal times for groups A-F, and separate meal times for children and the late night patrol. So maybe this is the only cafeteria? Each end is blocked off, so maybe they use some of the corridor that circles the stadium for more living quarters.
This is also community space where they can play games, chat, or read. There also seems to be a mix of soldiers and other workers eating together, as well as young families (there is at least 1 or 2 women with young babies in here).
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This little detail was super cute to me, but it also tells you a lot about WLF society. Everyone has a job to do, there is a role and place for everyone to contribute.
I'll talk more about this in another post (titled "It's Silly to Call a Post-apocalyptic Group 'Fascists', but Still the WLF Is Pretty Messed Up"), but an important thing to remember about the WLF is that everything comes down to Issac. He has the final say on everything, he makes all the major decisions, he picks squad leaders, he decides who needs to be punished, he's basically the Supreme Leader. Issac has been shown to be somewhat progressive with some things (you can follow whatever religion you want or none at all in the WLF, the WLF has no problem with LGBTQ people, you can get medical waivers for military duty, they provide support for pregnant women and parents, etc.), and in other ways he is very much the opposite (he punishes anyone who disagrees with him - this could be a relatively light punishment of a crappy assignment or it could be a beating, then there's the whole attempted genocide thing). Anyway, my point is that there are good things about the WLF, but also there is a serious darkside.
Anyway, when I saw this lady and her baby I immediately thought of Dina doing this with JJ while she gardens.
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I absolutely loveeeee this little detail. A mural for the fallen. This really reminds me of some stuff you could see today, just replace the wolf with an eagle and make the uniforms camo.
There are 46ish names on this wall, so I wonder if it is continuously updated or if there are multiple murals, because they definitely have lost more people than that over the years. Also, there are about 150 people at the FOB (the amount of bodies at the FOB, yes I counted) that will need to be added. Maybe the war with the Seraphites just really exploded in the last few weeks (or maybe longer) leading up to Ellie's arrival.
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I love that you can pause during the ride with Abby, Mel, and Manny to look around the outside of the stadium. Immediately outside there are train tracks and what appears to be a large market running along side of it. This is on the west side of the stadium, I believe. A major highway intersection is also nearby.
The market has all sorts of goods, food, gas, clothing, cleaning products, TVs and other electronics, records, and even more. I wonder if this is some sort of intake area for any goods they bring back to the base. But who runs these little shops? From some notes you can find we know their economy runs on trade, so how does this work?
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Once you get past the market area, you see a pretty vast section of farmland. I loved this shot because it also shows one of their rain water storage areas. They mark this water as to be used only for irrigation, so they must use something else for people to drink and bathe with. Or maybe they just filter some water for people to use, and the rest goes to the plants.
In the background you can see the wall and a guard tower. There is a larger wall (like much larger, I'm talking maybe 5 stories) around the QZ, and a smaller one that runs around the stadium.
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This is labeled "Checkpoint #4", so I'm not sure if that means there are other gates, but this is the only one we see in game.
The wall is pretty thick, and you can see these guard towers spaced out all alongside it (much like in Jackson). Once you leave the walls you are immediately surrounded by the wasteland that is post-apocalyptic Seattle.
48 notes · View notes
five-rivers · 4 years
Text
Reflection
Tucker passed in front of a mirror and stopped, did a double take. He'd been doing that a lot, lately, ever since what he and his friends referred to as the 'Egypt incident.' He raised one hand and traced a line under his eye, his lower eyelashes ruffling.
"You checking your eyeliner, Fol-ey?" asked Dash, bumping into him, rudely.
Tucker avoided stabbing himself in the eye and caught himself on the sink. He frowned at the reflection of the jocks in the mirror and scanned the locker room for Danny. Alas, his best friend must still be running punishment laps in the gym.
"Looking for Wimp-ton to save you? That's pretty pathetic," said Dash, jabbing Tucker again.
Tucker spun to face them and started to back away. He wondered if it would be okay to fight back under these circumstances, or if he would get in trouble. Because Tucker could fight. Maybe not as well as Sam and Danny, he was more the tech guy of their group, but all of them could throw a punch. Heck, Tucker could pull back a bow and put an arrow into the center of a target a hundred feet away. That took arm strength.
If he fought Dash, he'd probably win.
But fighting was generally frowned upon at school and with the other jocks as witnesses... Yeah, that wouldn't pan out well. His parents would take his side, but he didn't want to get a bad reputation with the teachers. One of the trio had to stay on their good side. Obviously it couldn't be Danny, and Sam was too argumentative, so it fell to him.
He sighed. Well, he could take a punch, too, if it came to that. He took off his glasses and put them on the back of the sink.
"What're you doing that for?" asked Dash.
"Good glasses are expensive, Dash," said Tucker, flatly, glaring up at the taller boy. "They're also made of glass. I don't want to be wearing them if you decide to hit me in the face."
Dash stared down at him, as though seeing him for the first time. He humphed. "You take all the fun out of it," he complained. "Come on, guys," he said to the other jocks, leading a parade out of the locker room. Tucker sighed and looked back at the mirror.
Eyeliner, huh? Dash probably would have been surprised to find out that Tucker had thought that he'd seen eye makeup on his face. Kohl. No. Not kohl. That was a recent word, and not completely accurate. Mesdemet for the black. Udju for the green. He blinked, unsure where the words had come from.
No, he knew where the words had come from. He just didn't want to think about it.
Danny stumbled into the room, banging the door behind him. "Hi," he said, waving at Tucker. He paused. "Are you okay? You look kind of..." Danny trailed off and shrugged.
"I'm fine," said Tucker. "Just talked my way out of getting beaten up by Dash."
"What, really?" asked Danny, his eyes flickering over Tucker. "Are you sure you're fine? He didn't hit you?"
"Nope. I'm really fine."
He hoped.
.
The archery club met right after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, regularly, contrasting with the computer club, which met 'whenever' and 'online.' Usually, meetings coincided with Danny getting detention and Sam's activist stuff. Tucker thought of these afternoons as their 'alone time.' Otherwise, they were, well, not quite joined at the hip, but...
It was a near thing.
Tucker wouldn't have minded if Sam and Danny did join the archery club (or the computer club, for that matter), but it could be nice to have some time away, so that he could sort through certain thoughts. Thoughts such as: What was happening to him?
Because he really had thought that he had thrown off the influence of Duulaman's ghost, or that weird staff, or Hotep-Ra, or whatever had been going on that week, and yet, here he was, over a week later, hallucinating himself wearing Egyptian makeup, of all things.
He squared himself on the edge of the archer range and checked that it was clear. The other members of the club were working with the closer targets. Tucker thought that he would challenge himself today. He pulled back.
The thing was, at the end, when Hotep-Ra was gone, and Tucker was back to himself, he had been able to use that staff, the Scarab Scepter, to return everything to normal. He wasn't sure he should have been. He had no idea how that staff worked. Yet, in that moment he had.
And he did look an awful lot like Duulaman.
"You're doing great today, Foley!" called the club advisor from across the range. "Are you sure you don't want to shoot competitively?"
Tucker rolled his eyes. "I'm sure!" Then he caught sight of his arrows. They were all clustered neatly in the bullseye.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Tucker was good. He wasn't, quite, that good. Not at this range. But, in the moment, as he was shooting, he hadn't registered anything as being unusual. He remembered looking at them as he was aiming, so he wasn't just spacing out.
Archery was practiced in Ancient Egypt, wasn't it? He remembered seeing murals. He remembered the sun shining down on his shoulders as his entourage...
... What?
Tucker frowned. This wasn't going to go away, was it?
.
The computer screen cast Tucker's dark bedroom in a blue light. The only sound was him typing away at the keyboard.
Tucker didn't want to worry Danny and Sam. Mostly Danny. He had enough to deal with without worrying that his best friends was going to go crazy and try to kill him. Again.
He cringed. He did not have the best track record when it came to that particular thing. Then again, neither did anyone else close to Danny.
Hence not wanting to worry Danny.
Maybe he should talk to Sam, though. Out of everyone he knew, she was the only one who'd been mind controlled in a similar way. She hadn't said anything about having hallucinations post-Undergrowth, but, then, she wouldn't, would she? Sam had the same reasons Tucker did for keeping quiet.
Tucker made a face at himself. It was probably a sign that their relationship wasn't as healthy as it looked, keeping secrets from each other like this. But... he knew Danny kept secrets. They all did, and they were fine with it. So, Tucker or Sam keeping secrets was fine, too.
As long as it didn't turn into murder attempts. That was not fine.
Tucker slipped his fingers under his glasses to rub his eyes and returned his attention to the screen. He was researching Duulaman, and had dived deep into the academic side of the internet. He'd come up against a dozen paywalls and dismissed them all with a few keystrokes.
Duulaman. Pharaoh of Kemet. A descendant of Hatshepsut and an ancestor of Tutankhamen. He had been a fairly progressive member of his family, restoring several of Hatshepsut's monuments after other of his ancestors had done their best to destroy them, making laws concerning the treatment of slaves and foreigners, and forging peace with neighboring countries. He had been well-liked, his popularity having been attested to even years after his death by inscriptions in other graves, praying that their inhabitants would find themselves under Duulaman's rule in the afterlife. He'd been famed for his athletic and magical abilities.
Sadly, academic publications were as skeptical about magic as they were about ghosts.
Tucker rubbed his eyes again.
Duulaman had been murdered. According to his brother, the pharaoh who had succeeded him, the deed had been done by an advisor whose name and image had been systematically removed from everything.
Probably Hotep-Ra. That fit with the ghost's whole thing, and the fact that Tucker couldn't find any information on him.
After another relatively fruitless hour, Tucker pried himself from the chair and went to bed.
.
He turned the fine silver mirror over in his hands, contemplating its polished surface. It had been a 'gift' from a Mitanni noble, and had carried a brutal curse into the heart of Kemet, but the curse was loose, now, wound around his very soul, and the mirror itself was merely a harmless, empty vessel.
One that Duulaman could learn from. He ran his fingers along the strange symbols scored on the outer edge of the mirror.
If his advisors would stop arguing for just a moment.
"We must attack at once!" said Hotep-Ra. "This insult against the person of god cannot be borne!"
"But it is harvest season," objected another. "We cannot afford to take the men from the fields. There would be famine!"
"Hotep-Ra," said Duulaman, softly, "brother of my heart, it was not even their king that sent this. Would you raze their whole kingdom and force a tragedy on their own for the sake of one man?"
"One who attacked you and our kingdom through dread magics?" asked Hotep-Ra. "Yes, my pharaoh."
"Then perhaps it is good that I am pharaoh. I know that you love me, but I have no desire for war. Even so," he said, raising his voice, "I have sent certain persons to correct the problem, and my brother has borne a letter to the Mitanni king, explaining the situation. It is true that this assault on our kingdom cannot be suffered quietly."
The advisors took that in. Duulaman turned to the Priestess of Mut and tried not to squint. She was just far enough away that he had trouble seeing her. Sadly, none of his magic had yet succeeded in giving him the eyes of a hawk, but he yet had hope.
"What say you about the curse?" he asked.
Duulaman was a powerful priest in his own right, favored by the gods and his ancestors, but he valued other opinions. Being the focus of the curse might have blinded him to certain aspects of its function.
The priestess bowed. "It is as we first feared," she said. "It binds your great soul, so that you may not pass into the green fields of the Duat when it is your time to do so. Instead, it decrees that, when you die, you must suffer to be born into a common line, far from your rightfully exalted place."
"And for Kemet? For my line?"
The priestess, an experienced woman who had served Duulaman's father, actually trembled. "That, whence your second life reaches the age of reason, you shall understand, and you shall see the last of the Pharaohs come to ruin, all our temples abandoned save for nonbelievers, your descendants crushed or cast into obscurity, your name stricken from history, and your tomb robbed by foreigners. She dooms you to watch the slow decay."
This was about what Duulaman had expected. He closed his eyes, pained. If only he had been more careful opening the box... but he had assumed it to be from Hotep-Ra, or his brother, or one of his sisters, for it had been among other, like gifts.
"I see. Fear not. I will take care of it. Kemet shall not fall within our lifetimes."
The relief in the room was palpable. They had faith in Duulaman's power.
Alas, that it might come to naught.
.
Tucker woke with a jolt, hand on his heart. He looked around wildly, relaxing when he saw the acid green numbers on his bedside clock. He was here. He was now. He was Tucker.
And it wasn't even time to wake up for school.
Wait. It was Saturday. He wouldn't have to wake up for school anyway.
Alright. So he might have, thousands of years ago, been Duulaman. Fine. He laid back down, breathing through his nose. He dealt with ghosts on a daily basis. He could deal with reincarnation. This was cool. This was fine.
He was definitely having a crisis.
Crap.
He fumbled for his phone, and hit the speed dial for Danny. Danny never slept anyway, it was fine. Besides, stuff like this was why Sam had bought him a phone (a Nokia brick, because ghost fights) in the first place. Dead people were Danny's specialty.
"What's wrong?" asked Danny, far too alert for the small hours of the morning.
"I think I might be Duulaman," said Tucker.
There was a beat of silence. "Yeah?" said Danny, confused.
"Like, I'm a reincarnation of him or something."
"Yeah?" repeated Danny. "I thought that was the whole reason you could use that staff and stuff?"
"Wait," said Tucker. "You mean, you knew all along, and you didn't say anything?"
"I thought you knew and didn't want to talk about it," said Danny. "I'm sorry. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm just having weird Kem- Egypt flashbacks. I'm fine."
"Do you want me to fly over?"
"No," said Tucker. "I just- Am I still me?"
"I mean, you're you to begin with. You are yourself. That's like, definitional."
"Yeah, but..." Tucker gestured at his ceiling with his hand, even though Danny couldn't see it.
Danny chuckled. "You're still you, Tucker. I know Sam and I aren't always super sensitive, but... We do pay attention, you know? We'd know if you were being taken over. Maybe not right away, but..."
"Thanks," said Tucker, with only a little bit of sarcasm.
"Hey, I like to think we've all come a long way since the thing with Poindexter."
"True," said Tucker. "Hey, thanks, man. I'm sorry about waking you up."
"Don't worry," said Danny. "You didn't. I'd just caught Boxy when you called."
"Oh. That's good. Get some sleep, Danny."
"You, too. Tell me what Egypt was like tomorrow, okay?"
"Kemet," corrected Tucker. "And, yeah. Bye."
.
"What are you doing?" demanded Hotep-Ra.
Duulaman turned away from his ritual tools and fixed an un-amused eye on Hotep-Ra. "I may have made it your place to question me," said Duulaman, "but I thought I had made my decision on this matter clear. The method your faction proposed is too uncertain, too risky."
"I have made a mirror," said Hotep-Ra, "one that will recognize your soul in whatever body it should take. With it, we could search all of Kemet for you when you are reborn and then lay you properly to rest, as you deserve, before the curse comes to fruition."
"And if I should be born in lands beyond?"
"Then we should look there, too!"
"Starting all sorts of wars on the way, no doubt. Tell me, brother of my heart, what is the difference between the young man who falls in war, whose body is left for the crows, and the old man who is buried peacefully, and who will find joy in the Duat?"
"The devotion of his family!" responded Hotep-Ra instantly.
Duulaman shook his head sadly and looked back to his tools, touching them softly. He had already completed the ritual that would force the curse to carry his soul thousands of years into the future. By the time his next life reached the age of reason, there would be no pharaohs for the curse to affect. And if there were? Well, it would have been a good long time, and the curse would have weakened significantly. Perhaps even to the point of unraveling.
"No, Hotep-Ra. The difference between a tragedy and a happy ending is time. All kingdoms fall. All civilizations fade."
"Not this one."
"Even this one. The only questions are when and how."
"No," said Hotep-Ra. "No. Never!"
Duulaman felt, rather than heard, the scrape of metal against oiled leather and reached for his staff, which lay across from him, on the other side of his ritual. He was too late. He had trusted Hotep-Ra too much, let him get too close, and he felt the bronze knife slide between his ribs. His eyelids fluttered as his hands groped up his chest.
He was dying.
"I will see you, in the next life," he whispered, blood bubbling in his throat.
And then he was gone.
.
It was bright when Tucker woke again.
He felt... oddly calm. It was nice to know that he had succeeded in out-waiting the fall of Pharaonic Egypt, even though the fact that it was gone made his heart shiver.
Well. He pulled his phone over, and texted Danny. I know what it feels like to die, now, he said. Maybe they'd be able to bond over it. Or Danny would give him some coping pointers, since Tucker was pretty sure he'd have at least one breakdown over this. Either one would be good.
He stood up and walked to the bathroom. His reflection stared back, completely normal. No weird eye shadow, no Egyptian clothes, just Tucker and his pajamas.
Behind it stretched miles and miles of sand.
414 notes · View notes
glapplebloom · 3 years
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BONUS ARTICLE AND SPOILER WARNING!
@RiseFallNickBck
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I make it no secret I am a fan of the Powerpuff Girls. I got every original episode on DVD, saw Dance Pantsed and even enjoyed most of the Reboot (yes it has problems but there are things I do enjoy about it). But when I heard about the Live Action Reboot even I think it was a terrible idea and reading the supposed leak proved I was right. If this leaked script was indeed true, it would explain the re-working they’re doing for the pilot. So this post said that it is unsalvagable. I’m willing to give it my best shot. To add to this challenge: I am keeping the cast the same. And I’m not going to just use my own version of the Future PPGs.
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First, for this, I would animate most of the opening to be cartoon representatives of the cast. This way, people will know this is a new take on the Powerpuff Girls off the bat. Inspired from the PPG movie, we see the Professor looking at Townsville and wanting to bring something positive in this town. The a recreation of the opening, you know, the Sugar, Spice and everything Nice bit. Then the Narrator talk about how they were successful, showing a montage of them fighting all sorts of villains. Also showing them slowly maturing and changing their costumes to reflect their personalities. Then puberty hits.
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Two things I am going to keep from the Pilot script is Blossom doing some serious studying and Buttercup being a cheating lesbian. Like my own future PPGs I do believe Blossom being the serious one and Buttercup being the wild one makes the most sense. But for Bubbles, they want her to be Hollywood yet making her more like Brittany Spheres at her worse. So I’m going to make her more focus on that. She was tired since she was doing numerous interviews with various magazines. So when they confront Mojo Jojo, who is human, they’re not at their best.
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Mojo does his thing, but because they were tired they messed up. Instead of tackling Mojo out of the giant machine like always, they tackled below it, With Mojo’s last words, he curses the Powerpuff Girls before dying, either by the machine being destroyed via explosion or the head falling down, crushing him (this will depend on the twist ending). Now with blood on all their hands and not because Mojo tried to be a hero by attacking the girls, they all take this differently. Blossom has PTSD since she feels she’s responsible for it. Buttercup, who you think would be excited about it, is horrified. And Bubbles being so focused on the spotlight ignores it by saying “that’s right villains! If you mess with Townsville ever again expect the same!”
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After that statement, there are no more villains in Townsville. They either quit or left Townsville. The Professor, who is not trying cash in on them, sends them to therapy to help them deal with it. Bubbles is in denial, Buttercup is getting better, but Blossom needs more of it. And when they turned 18, they felt it was best to move on. Buttercup is a traveling hero now, saving the day where she can and sleeping around when she can’t. Blossom graduated college, got the job at the Biotech Firm in Boston and has a boyfriend with Clive. She still goes to therapy and she is seemingly better. Bubbles went to Hollywood to cash in on her fame. No blonde drunk here. The Professor? Well, he is dating Sara Bellum after the Mayor lost and she was out of a job. She now works as an office secretary while the Professor is still doing his thing.
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Currently being the Mayor is one Jones (played by Jojo’s actor). He is up for re-election and seems to be losing his chance at a second term. So he comes up with an idea: bringing back the Powerpuff Girls to Townsville. Even after the girls left Townsville has been pretty safe (at least to the the public’s knowledge) so he figured them coming back would give his campaign a boost. Around the same time, the Professor began to notice that there is an unusual concentration of high frequency technology happening recently. He fears that Darkness is coming back to Townsville and decided to call the Powerpuff Girls. Buttercup is a little worried but is alright. She promise to call the girl later. Bubbles sees this as an opportunity to get a chance in the spotlight, so she informs the media about a PPG reunion and gets her camera crew and agent. Blossom panic attacks as Clive reminds her of her therapy. Blossom calms down and decides to go see. It can’t be too serious she thinks. 
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When Buttercup arrived at Townsville’s Airport, Bubbles is there with her cameraman and manager. They take an uber as they catch up. When they arrive at Townsville, the media is there since Bubbles informed them. Buttercup tries to get pass them but Bubbles embrace them. Especially a little girl who seems to be a fan. While Blossom is her favorite, she is excited to finally see them all in action. She asks for a hug, Bubbles goes in (thinking it’ll be a great camera shot), a caterpillar crawls up from around the girl to Bubbles, Buttercup flicks it, Henrietta said it was her pet and Buttercup rushes Bubbles inside. Blossom was already inside, sneaking in with Super Speed since she doesn’t want to have another panic attack. With the Professor there they he makes a claim. Blossom faints
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Meanwhile, we find out that Henrietta was an evil genius. She wanted that caterpillar to crawl into Bubbles’ head to control her. And with all three together, she continues to want that power to herself and makes a move. Sometime later, Blossom recovering from her panic attack. She does not want to return to the Super Hero life and the others are accepting yet still needs her help. They promise she won’t have to fight but they still got to investigate. Drake thinks that if they can find the source he can take care of the rest since technology is his thing. Though they decide to humor him since despite being a scientist he hasn’t have the best track record for detecting things. And it gives the three girls to catch up beyond bitmoji. 
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They decided to go to the Cano: the bar that’s located to the old inactive volcano that no one previously used. The owner is Butch who had a thing for Bubbles but she broke it off to presume her acting career, so he has a grudge. He’s cool with the other two. The girls catch up for a bit, Buttercup eyes Macy for a brief moment, they drink. Maybe too much as the three are different levels of dazed. Bubbles is making out with Butch while trying to find the source of an evil lab (at least she thinks she does), Buttercup is okay talking to Macy and Blossom is calling Clive while a little drunk. That’s when this guy who was Henrietta’s neighbor and being a little too aggressive. Buttercup does not take this well. 
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After being escorted out of the bar (with the exception of Bubbles because she is trying to milk it for the camera) Blossom was commenting on how the guy had yellow eyes which Buttercup dismisses. With the computer stuff, they wrongfully suspect a charging station to be the culprit. They return back home unbeknown that it was indeed Henrietta’s Evil Laboratory underneath it. She has an army of caterpillars and decided to send them after the girls. If they can’t get them themselves, they’ll get other people. Back at the home, they relay their discovery to the Professor. He could have sworn but eventually settled that “maybe technology is advancing faster than he thought”. He invites them to stay the night but Bubbles and Buttercup got arrangements. Blossom stays, hoping to get some more talking.
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With Bubbles, as the Cameraman gets some shots of the city for B-Roll, Bubbles and Ace (her manager) look over the footage. As he praises her, Bubbles notices there was a kid there. Before she can recognize who it was, their van got hit by another car. It was four people with yellow eyes. Bubbles goes in for the attack, taking it easy since she knows she can beat them easy. But as she knocks one out, she notices a small caterpillar coming out of their ear. As soon as it went back inside, that person gets back up. As she sees this, another tries to sneak up on her to place one near her ear. She’s too fast and makes the connection. So one by one she KOs a person and crush a caterpillar. With one remaining, they decided to take their own life by snapping their own neck. Bubbles breaks down. With Mojo, she told herself it was his own fault since he was a bad guy. But this is an innocent person who got killed to get to them. Ace comforts her telling her that it isn’t her fault. He even suggest to forget the filming and go see her sisters: because if this happened to her the others have to be in danger too.
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At Macy’s place, the two are making out, not noticing the caterpillar getting closer and closer to them. That’s when Bubbles comes in. Thanks to the Friend Locator she knew Buttercup would be here. Buttercup goes to see Bubbles as Macy gets infected. Bubbles is hysterical trying to tell Buttercup what is happening but Buttercup isn’t understanding. That’s when Macy hits her with a lamp. Bubbles punches Macy and finds the caterpillar and crushes it. Now getting it, the girls go to see Blossom. At the PPG House, Blossom is getting some one on one time asking for relationship advice from Sara Bellum. Unbeknownst to the two of them the Professor walks out the door. Sometime later, Buttercup, Bubbles and Macy arrive to inform them of what’s up. They went to see the Professor but finds out he’s gone. Not suspecting the worst (probably thinking he’s getting dinner), Blossom examines the remains of the caterpillar and realize its a mind control device. And after Bubbles show them the footage of the girl, Buttercup realizes something isn’t up. That’s when Sara calls them to the living room.
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The news are reporting that Townsville is having a rampage and the Professor is claiming to be the one behind it. They see the yellow eyes and Blossom makes the connection that he’s under mind control. Bubbles realizing the danger rushes out the door to try to stop it. Blossom is hyperventilating as she can’t get back out there. Buttercup tries to convince her but decides to leave her be since she can’t let Bubbles do it alone. That’s when Sara comes to talk to Blossom some more. Blossom discuss her therapy session and all the issues she had with it. Sara makes a comment that calms Blossom down and makes her realize that she needs to help (basically have Sara be the Young Blossom). Meanwhile, Bubbles figures that since the civilians are standing in water, they can give a small electric shock to stop the threat without killing them. Henrietta then shows up making the threat to kill the Professor if they don’t stop. Bubbles wants to save him but Buttercup can’t keep the telephone pole up without her. The Professor falls. Blossom saves him and knocks the Caterpillar out of him. With no where to turn, Henrietta calls all her Caterpillars to come together to create a giant armor for her and the Powerpuff Girls fight her.
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After a lengthy battle, the Citizens cheer for the Powerpuff Girls as Blossom admits that she did miss this. Sometime later, Clive hears Blossom plans and while he hopes she would change her mind he understands. The Mayor Jones arrives to thank the girls and hope they continue to stay. And the Professor thanks them for saving him. But Blossom feels that despite how evil Henrietta was, there was no way for her to have the funds to create such a laboratory and suggest they continue to stay to figure out the true mastermind behind everything. Bubbles and Buttercup accept as the Powerpuff Girls are back together once more.
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The episode ends with Jones revealing that his real name is Jojo and he is the one behind everything. This is because Jones is really the Son of Mojo and he wants revenge on the Powerpuff Girls. 
And that’s how I would rewrite that supposed leaked pilot. It may not be huge improvement since I kept certain things similar, but I do hope it shows that it could be better. My goal is to keep the humor parts separate for the serious parts and inject some more action. But if you have any thoughts, feel free to make your own version of the pilot, one that would most likely be better without the limitations made already.
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Ayesha Liveblogs Death Note
I’m watching this show specifically because of that text post that said, “Watch how quickly this one guy decides to be the worst person ever” and he has killed two people in the first ten minutes
Though 2 be fair he’s killing people to save people so it’s a trolley problem kind of thing for now
“In fact I’ve been waiting for you... Ryuk” ok weird flex Light but u do u
“You’re the first one to use to this extent in five days” WAIT DID HE MURDER ALL THOSE PEOPLE IN FIVE DAYS I THOUGHT HE WAS JUST LOOKING AT A LIST OH MY GOD??
“So there isn’t a price to using Death Note?” said Light, as if killing people is just a normal thing that we all do
Fhkjfhfkjb Ryuk really went ‘u used the book so we’re friends now’ 
I was wondering why the book was in English, and I guess that makes sense British and American imperialism really Did That
“I can write down the names of criminals, and slowly reduce the number of evil people” uhhhh doesn’t u being a Book Murderer also make you a criminal Light
“Human lives shouldn’t be taken so lightly�� bah dum tss
Also I guess that revelation lasted about thirty seconds for you huh
Update from 15 seconds later: Even less than that
“I would create a world of earnest, kind humans” really because I don’t think places that allow the death penalty are generally nicer societies 
It’s interesting that they use English in the classes and the notebook but the conversation at Interpol takes place in Japanese (despite the implied internationality and Ryuk’s aforementioned claim about English being most common) 
Huh I won’t lie I do think it’s confusing that the main characters are L and Light, which also starts with L
“I am justice” I mean if anything this show just proves that no one should be allowed to use the death penalty on apprehended suspects in criminal justice cases ever 
OH SHIT PLOT TWIST HIS DAD’S A COP (IT WAS IN THE TEXT POST I THINK BUT I FORGOT)
Wow this show is full of mind games already I guess I can see why like, crime show fans would dig it
“But I’m going to say this as your roommate” OH MY GOD THEY WERE ROOMMATES KJHRGKJHKJHG
Interesting that someone is following Light specifically already
I mean not to poke too many holes in your plan Light but wouldn’t it clash with your plan to become God if you die at like 35 or smth 
“You’re already much more of a shinigami than they are” Ryuk said my friends are BORING I want to hang out with this MURDER TEEN
“I may not look it, but I’m pretty popular” Light is exactly the kind of guy who ends up in a true crime special where a bunch of people say he seemed like a nice, charismatic young man
Man this poor girl that Light brought on this date is going to be straight traumatized after this
I mean isn’t it MORE suspicious if someone dies around someone with direct ties to the police even if it’s not a heart attack
“You were indeed a brilliant FBI agent once, but now you’re my fiancée” kjhfkjhg WHAT FBI AGENTS CAN’T BE MARRIED 
“Once we have a family, you’ll be so busy that you’ll forget that you were an agent” I’m not a fan of Raye Penber 
What’s the point in killing Raye at all???? He told you he was part of a special investigation so clearly he’s not that suspicious of you
Light sure is bold to announce his Killing People Experiments in the middle of a busy sidewalk 
Incredible that consistently no one notices Light’s increasingly threatening declarations????
Fjkfkfhk these five cops finding out their Hail Mary is this strange little goblin man,,,, wow
This woman has really pushed Light to the brink just by giving a fake name, I admire her tenacity
Cops wearing fake IDs really did not age well oh boy
SERIOUSLY HOW DOES NO ONE EVER HEAR LIGHT SAYING SUSPICIOUS THINGS IN PUBLIC THOROUGHFARES HE LITERALLY JUST SAID “I AM KIRA” AS A DETECTIVE WALKED BY, WHILE HE WAS TALKING TO SOMEONE HE KILLED IMMEDIATELY AFTER
Wow it really took only eight episodes for L to track Light as close as one of two families
“You have a wife and daughter, right?” “I know!” I mean..... not 2 be that guy but... cops
 “To me, apples are like... Well, like cigarettes and liquor to humans” Vcvhcjhj every once in a while Ryuk says something that really tickles me
I know the word sociopath is kind of outdated but man does Light have actual interests outside of school or does he just do stuff to fill the void of his lack of interests (outside of murder)
JKHGKJHGKJHKJHG I cannot believe that this has turned into a fake classmate situation first of all 1) are you going to become friends and 2) How old are you Ryuzaki/L?
“Where is that rich kid from? And he’s even at the top of his class? What a jerk” honestly a mood
I DESPERATELY want Light’s mother or sister to overhear his evil cackling will someone finally eavesdrop on this god complex
“If I sit normally, my reasoning skills drop by 40%” weird flex but same 
Sidenote: I can’t believe how many episodes of this show I already have watched
Ngl I was VERY shook that Mr. Yagami had a heart attack. Also does Light care if his family lives or dies or is he kind of neutral on the subject? 
“If Kira is an ordinary person who gained this power, then he is a very unlucky person” Dad and L said ‘if u ARE Kira could you please stop murdering thank you <3′ 
Light really underestimated how much cops hate anyone who has killed a cop oops
OH SO IT’S NOT LIGHT I WAS WONDERING WHY HE HAD NOT MADE AN APPEARANCE THIS WHOLE EPISODE U MEAN THERE ARE TWO GUYS WITH THIS EXACT SAME IDEOLOGY AND PLAN? INCREDIBLE
Update from ten seconds later: Two people, I guess
Well this explains the girl in the short dress which serves as the Netflix thumbnail of this show I was wondering when she would show up 
Also she sounds like she’s very young? Clearly Shinigami don’t have a minimum age of informed consent when it comes to their Murder Eyes Contract 
Hahah I bet Light didn’t imagine that his petty and fucked up apple joke would bite him so quickly in the ass
Dhkjdhdkjhd Misa is so bold dropping her Death God deets in a video for anyone to see 
“The way to kill a Shinigami, is to make them fall in love with a human” does this mean that Ryuk is going to fall in love with Light or Misa? Both would make me uncomfortable
Oh wild guess Misa became a Death Note Wielder through the Power of Unreciprocated Voyeuristic Love
“Yeah, I have a girlfriend now,” said Light, after a girl contacted him through a series of anonymous video tapes implicitly vowing to be his disciple 
“No one could tell who he’s attached to if I’m with this many people” [20 seconds pass] “Found him!” HAHAHA the funniest part of this show is consistently watch Light going “got ‘em” before it immediately is revealed that he doesn’t got ‘em 
Why is Light so incredibly searchable??? I think the only way people people could find my height online is if I happened to answer it for one of those Facebook note memes in 2007 lmaoooo
“There are many places that will go and sell your personal records” ah, data breaches; a problem that has not gotten any better in the last 15 years since this anime came out
HKJHFHKJFHF Light immediately jumping into fake-dating his weird disciple in front of his mom... what is this show
“Please make me your girlfriend” OH MY GOOOOOD
This is one of the weirdest romantic dynamics I’ve seen in recent memory but you know what? Whatever, at least it’s not Anxiety and Murder
“Does that mean I’ll have to deal with her until she dies?” Light is truly exuding some Ladybird Book of Dating Energy rn: 
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The fact that to kill L all Light had to do was get an obsessive girlfriend... astounding
Beautiful that it took Misa less than a week of knowing Light to ruin his whole 15 episode game plan and also life
“I think I may be Kira” Well this show keeps taking one escalation after another this is exhausting why can’t Light just be a normal person who found it, tried it out of interest in the occult, discovered he’d committed a horrible atrocity and then went to therapy for the rest of his life only to confess to Magical Murder on his deathbed while his family goes, ‘Wow, Grandpa’s crazy’
Does L not think that keeping three different people imprisoned for days on end will lead to some psychological repercussions for him
FOR WEEKS ON END????? OH MY GOD???? The fuck L, I know two of these people are murderers but there are some minimum conditions of correctional facilities and this seems a little Stanford PE
THE DRAMA OF THIS EPISODE I KNEW IT WAS GONNA BE A BLANK BUT HOW FUCKED UP TO PUT EVERYONE THROUGH THIS L I THINK YOU NEED THERAPY!!!!!!! I MEAN LIGHT AND MISA ARE MURDERERS BUT FORCING A MAN TO HOLD HIS SON AT GUNPOINT AFTER IMPRISONING THEM FOR OVER A MONTH IS REALLY A REFLECTION OF A COMPLETE LACK OF EMPATHY (especially when you think that this version of Misa and Light don’t know anything!!! Oh my god!! The fuck)
“I will make arrangements so you and I are together 24 hours a day” call me crazy but I would not want to spend 24/7 with the man who imprisoned me for over a month while playing cruel psychological games all the while
“I’m one of those people who’ll accept Kira, I’d think of ways I could help him” Misa said Bimbo Rights
“I could never toy with a woman’s emotions like that” Light’s dating life and personality has gotten a LOT funnier since he forgot he was a murderer I kind of wish THIS could be the whole show 
Also: Nice to know Light USED to have standards of how to treat women
Honestly fair play to both L and Light they both deserved to be punched and it’s funny to see eighteen episodes of mind games culminate in punching and kicking each other in the face
“Matsuda’s being an idiot again” “Well, Matsuda is a natural at that” wghkjhgkj what has Matsuda done to any of you
"He’s punishing criminals as a front, and killing people for the benefit of this company” is Light unknowingly going to solve the murder chain he himself started... inspiring
“I was testing you” this is why Light is your only friend, L, Aizawa has kids and it’s a dick move to ask him to put his convictions before them
Poor Matsuda realizing he’s got the least to offer to their team... me in high school science labs 
I understand Aizawa’s moral crisis but why do NONE of these cops care about their wives or daughters they’re just kind of like, ‘I will provide for you but I have no interest in or fulfillment from being part of your life’ (ACAB)
Matsuda is truly about to die for being dumb and eager to help 😔 Rest in Pieces
“We must not allow Yotsuba to figure out that we are investigating them,” said L, just after it cut from Matsuda being obvious about investigating them. Oh Matsuda 😔 you’re so bad at your job 😔
MATSUDAAAAAAAA oh thank goodness; Bimbo Rights save the day
“I can’t go along with your idea, it’s wrong!” said Light, despite the fact it took him 15 seconds to get over murder the first couple of times he did it 
Staaaaaaaaay Good Light, I don’t want ur Deathnotesona I want this young man with moral convictions!!
The level of hubris it takes to answer a phone call during your secret Murder Meeting while people continue to talk about their Murder Plans is just out of this world
“If I die, you could probably become the successor to the ‘L‘ name,” said L, to the person he has been trying to catch for twenty episodes 
“I won’t say anything under any kind of torture” “Yes that’s true” Which he knows because he tortured her for six weeks!! You see that that’s fucked up, L, right? RIGHT??? RIIIIIIIIGHT? (LIIIIIIIGHT???)
Seriously not to beat a dead Shinigami but Light is so much better like this. He doesn’t want to throw people’s lives away for the investigation! He wants to protect Misa! He thinks Kira is wrong! Why does he have to be a murderer!!! Why can’t this show be about a nice young man!!!!
“Hey Ryuzaki, that’s messed up!” THANK YOU LIGHT AGAIN I KNOW YOU BOTH HAVE KILLED PEOPLE BUT YOU DON’T KNOW THAT RIGHT NOW SO FOR ALL MISA KNOWS HE’S JUST A GUY WHO TORTURES HER AND TELLS HER CRUSH WILL DIE IF SHE DOESN’T HELP
Wow Rem is so ride or die for Misa protecting Misa from creepy Higuchi, giving her info and telling her to trust Light, that’s love bitch
Props to Misa for getting a confession out of Higuchi after one (1) car ride 
Why do I feel like L is going to be responsible for reawakening Bad Light is it because he psychologically tortured him for six weeks? Had his dad hold him at gunpoint? Forced Misa to investigate on his behalf? Constantly and unerringly presses him on what Kira would be thinking as he’s handcuffed to him 24 hours a day? Maybe!! This is like Build-a-Bear but he’s customizing his Teen Murder Friend 
“Only Mr. Matsuda can do [the mission to lure out Higuchi!Kira]” Death Note really said the Himbos, Herbos and Thembos shall inherit the Earth 
They keep saying they don’t know how he kills but it seems pretty obvious that he writes down their names to kill, they literally saw him do it
I really don’t want any of the investigation team to die but things are not looking hot :(
“Ryuzaki, I never knew you could fly a helicopter” “It’s just intuition” what does that MEAN
“Those aren’t allowed in Japan,” said Light, about a gun, as if he had not killed probably thousands of people without one 
In spite of this fact I really do want Good Light to stay 😔 Why! Can’t! This! Show! Be! About! A! Nice! Young! Man!
Also they really are playing into this father-and-son duo I will be very sad when the dad inevitably dies as I’m sure he will 
Family side note: I’ve been wondering this since the prison ep but where do Light’s mom and sister think he IS now that he’s dropped out of first year uni to be a teen criminal investigator handcuffed to a maladjusted homebody private eye
AIZAWAAA and also the other two guys I guess there was a plot relevant reason for him to rejoin the police huh
Well what a clean ending to this Kira arc. No one died and the killer was caught! Yikes that the next ep is called ‘Revival’ tho 😔 Rest in pieces Good Light
Also a new and very threatening intro???? What happened to the Twilight Apple Hands 
BOOOO I knew Light would get his memory back but I was hoping it would at least fuck him up for a while he sorted out his two personas but I guess all roads eventually lead to Bad Light 
Full disclosure I stopped watching for a few days just after Light got his memory back and let me tell u coming back later hasn’t made it any more tolerable I am truly not built for this EUGH
“Do you really want to halve your life a second time” “Well, that can’t be helped” REALLY???? CAN’T IT BE HELPED MISA??? WHY ARE YOU AND LIGHT SO CRAZY
Oh I guess we’re back to Light saying incredibly suspicious things right near the investigators lmao what if those cameras secretly had audio or you know, L simply knew how to read lips 
“Misa, let’s make a new world together” Remember a bunch of episodes ago when Good Light was all ‘I could never toy with a woman’s emotions’?? What was the reason!!!
“Have you ever told the truth at any point in your entire life” L cutting straight to the core lmao (also the answer is obviously ‘no’)
This show has taken a jarring tonal shift why are they having a post-rain-confrontation massage and towelling each other off this is a level of intimacy I was not prepared for I NEED PEOPLE TOOK LOOK AT THIS:
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OKAY OKAY OKAY I KNOW THAT IT WAS PROBABLY NOT THEIR INTENTION BUT THE ONLY WAY I CAN READ THIS SCENE IS AS “Don’t kill me Light~ 🥰 I’ll fuck you~ 🥰” 
I guess L knew he was forcing Rem’s hand to kill him if he disproved the rules written in the book?? But to what end omg how does this help anyone 
“In April 2012, Light Yagami, age 23, joins the National Police Agency” should’ve known we’d land here eventually (ACAB)
Ah, I see another person who doesn’t know how to sit, clearly they will inherit the L title next lmao
Update from the first few mins of the next ep: “Near should succeed L” told you
“There’s no way I’m letting Sayu marry a detective” ahjfkhkjf he’s a little old for her I think but it wouldn’t be the worst thing this show has done romantically lmao; maybe Sayu would get to investigate her brother
“I might’ve considered going out with you, if you were a little younger” HA GOOD FOR HER
“[...] the Japanese police are unreliable. In order to solve this case, we want you to hand over the notebook to our country.” Of all the Japanese-speaking Americans in this show, this is the most accurate jkhfkhf the US government really is Like That 
Ah, so that’s where Mello’s gone, oh how the turn tables 
Also way to sell your subordinates out immediately, NPA Director, will you give them the Kira task force’s home addresses too
The real question is if Light actually cares about his sister enough to prioritize her over the notebook
“Call me... N” Oh my good L... M(ello)... N(ear)... Oooooooooooooooo
It’s my saving grace that I only need to get through 9 more eps but as always I must wonder where this is going will Light just die and end up in Shinigami purgatory while the people who knew him after the fact go, ‘hey, that guy was fucked up’
“If things get bad, I’ll have to kill Sayu” well I guess that answers that question, my expectations of Light are so low and yet he continues to find new ways to be awful
Good for Mr. Yagami and Sayu for getting out of that alive I guess but hoo boy I think this is going to have some psychological repercussions for both of them 
Uh oh this episode is called ‘Father’ I’ve been dreading this one bc I think that means Mr. Yagami is about to die 😭😭😭
“It was an institution for brilliant children, to raise them to become L‘s successor” okay calm down Professor Xatari that’s not what children are for lmao 
Well I guess it’s a lot easier to track down info about these two guys than it was to figure out L lmao
HAHAHA Sidoh haunting Ryuk to ask for his stuff is a fun addition to this madness  
“He’s scary for a human” jkhhfjh how unhinged does Mello have to be to threaten a literal Shinigami 
I truly don’t understand the logistics of how they revealed Ryuk to the police force isn’t the second Kira notebook supposed to belong to Actual Kira, in the police force’s eyes????? I do not understand how Light can just turn up with another notebook and everyone’s like ‘sure cool’ did I miss something 
Mr. Yagami killed for being unable to take human life ugh this is the worst 
“You’re not Kira. I’m really glad.” WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS SO SAD MR. YAGAMI NOOOOOOOOOO THAT’S WHY HE RENOUNCED OWNERSHIP OF THE NOTEBOOK 
Neither Mello nor Near seem overly concerned with the lives of people around them does being a Super Genius Investigator also mean you have to be a dick (is this Benadryl Coddleswab Sherlock syndrome)
Lmaooo genuinely love how it’s constantly apparent that Light is the least smart of all of the smart people Light spent five years working on his reputation and it took Near one (1) phone call to destroy it 
Ghjkhgkhgkgjh Light outsmarted by Near yet again never think people will prioritize principles over money
Lol yeah Aizawa needn’t have given a name after he said the “Deputy Director Yagami would kill Kira and then himself” thing, you don’t do that just for anyone who was he fooling 
How does Light keep track of all the renunciations and notebooks bc I certainly can’t 
Ffhkfjhfj Mikami truly looks like the son of L and Light it’s like Light missed him and was like, “Miss u boo :( (even tho I kinda killed u) I’ll adopt An Evil 27-year-old in ur honour :)”
Is Mikami’s story really, ‘I got bullied in high school and have mommy issues so now I think people I don’t like should die’ ok Shonen Snape 
“I just want you to meet with me and hear me out” Light really proving to Aizawa that he can lie AND manipulate people’s feelings 
“The truth is, she’s not smart enough to be my partner” first of all Light I think this show has proven you’re not that smart, and Misa’s Herbo Energy is effervescent and will outlast you, and third of all go to jail
“He’ll look suspicious if he doesn’t say something soon” “Ide, have you ever been in love” Matsuda continues to be the only good part of this show
“You’re the only man I’ve ever respected and admired in my life” GET SOME THERAPY KIYOMI
“You’re going to be the goddess of the new world” so it’s not enough for Light to be a murderer he must also be a cheater
Lmao Near’s powers of perception do seem a little B/BC S/herlock because L tried for literally months to work out the possibilities and Near is just like ‘I KNOW IT NOW’
“The only thing I can deduce from this is that Light Yagami is popular with the ladies” HEAVEN KNOWS WHY (PUN NOT INTENDED)
Every moment Aizawa gets closer to proving Light is Kira is another step closer to death 😔
“This is definitely Mikami’s handwriting” Not to be a know-it-all, Near, but handwriting analysis has been proven faulty many times in multiple courts of law
This truly is a game of Cat and Cat. All these hidden plans give me a headache fkjhkfjh call me Misa-Misa and spin me sideways I don’t have the braincells to spare
Well this is definitely some kind of s*xual assault absolutely fucking hate it wow this show truly just drains the life out of you 
“Matt, I never thought you would be killed” why wouldn’t you think that at this point anyone who comes close to this investigation eventually dies (also wjkhkjhgk why is Matt special didn’t you kill all those thugs you had before -- Mello said ‘the lives of my allies are only important if they are drawn in handsome protag style’) 
As of yet I haven’t really talked about Near’s wild toymaking but hoo boy is that L finger puppet something to observe
“Everyone who knows about the existence of the notebook will die” I’m still pulling for their survival, particularly Matsuda (himbo rights!!!)
Imagine if they just shot Light Yagami on sight how ironic would that conclusion to all these mind games be 
“I’m waiting, for the one who will solve everything, to arrive” Lmao if it turns out L is alive I’ll pee laughing this show is so fucking stupid 
Take a shot every time there is a Humpty-Dumpty-in-Puss-in-Boots style explanation about how everything actually happened
“I’ve won, Near” I bet/hope what gets Light caught is his inability to hold in his hubris for one (1) minute
Although the last episode is called New World, in which case maybe he wins in a very weird ending to a very weird show
Sjkfhkjhfkhfkjhf well I guess what gets Light caught is that the person he invited to be his murderous disciple keeps calling him God
“A second ago, you said ‘I win.’ That’s as good a confession as any” HA hubris strikes again also bold of Aizawa to clap Light on the shoulder knowing he is a mass murderer
Ohhh Matsuda he’s so nice and believed the best of Light :((((((((((((
Watching Light become increasingly desperate and crazed is very uncomfortable give it up dude u’ve been beat (though I suppose there is time for everyone here to be murdered still lmao)
LMAO LIGHT SAID “IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, CONVERT ‘EM”
Yeah I figured if one of them was gonna shoot it would be Matsuda :( :( Good for him for not killing Light tho!!
Huh I guess that’s the end of the show I thought Light would die but I did think we’d at least get to see him in Shinigami Purgatory or smth... what a wild ride. This certainly was a show.
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radramblog · 3 years
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Radiohead Retrospective Part 5: I forgot what I was gonna call this one
The previous few entries in this retrospective have had a big old lead-in, about where the band was and how the next album came to be. This gets somewhat awkward now, as we discuss Radiohead’s fifth album, Amnesiac.
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The issue is, this tracks on this album were recorded in the same session as Kid A, and it was released just over half a year later, so there isn’t as much to talk about. Kid A was, obviously, huge, but its success wouldn’t affect Amnesiac that much. I guess it got a bunch of music videos? Like, Kid A didn’t have singles, so it didn’t have either those or B-sides.
Regardless, despite being recorded simultaneously, Amnesiac is not truly cut from the same cloth as Kid A. It’s a titch more traditional and less electronic, bringing in jazz influences and classical stuff in addition to the electronica the previous album debuted. It also apparently has krautrock influences, but I don’t really know what that means, so perhaps we should just dive into it and find out.
Much like Kid A and Everything In Its Right Place, Amnesiac opens on an electronic line, albeit one that is slightly less iconic. Packt Like Sardines In a Crushd Tin Box (the spelling errors are not mine) is a substantially more muted introduction, driven by a scattered electronic percussion and a very low melody. The lyrics are pretty simple, but “I’m a reasonable man, get off my case” is kind of just a great, memeable line I’m sure people have had fun with.
Packt Like Sardines does unfortunately introduce us to a problem surrounding Amnesiac, and the discussion surrounding it. It is extremely often considered an outtakes album, a smattering of disconnected tracks, and I consider that completely unfair to the album’s design. However, Packt does inevitably invite comparisons to Everything, and it doesn’t compare favourably. I still really like the song, it’s soft and somehow comfortable in its coldness, but Everything is, well, everything.
This theme may continue.
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It is exceptionally frustrating that a higher-quality copy of this video isn’t available, because it’s really good.
There was a solid period where I considered Pyramid Song my favourite Radiohead track. It is impossibly deep, and beautiful, and above all else evocative. I have no idea why it’s called the way it is, a name echoing either geometry or the ancient past, but the little piano loop Pyramid Song is built upon is just…so much. The lyrics aren’t especially complex, but they manage to capture a very specific emotion of loss and grief, but of absolution, and just hnnng.
If you didn’t watch the video, by the way, go fucking do that. It might have the graphics of an early 00s video game cutscene, but it is genuinely as evocative and tragic as the song itself. Although according to the comments, Pyramid Song was apparently in Cyberpunk 2077, which on the one hand is cool it exposed a bunch of new people to this baller song, on the other hand it deserves so much better than being in that of all games.
I’m just going to say this ahead of time, I don’t think Radiohead captures beauty so well again until two albums from now.
We go from the utterly iconic Pyramid Song to the significantly less so Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors. I…really don’t know what there is to say about this one. It’s kind of an electronic soundscape more than a piece of music. It technically has lyrics, but they’re so heavily affected that it’s hard to see them as separate from the tune itself. I’ve spoken before about songs that are driving towards a point, that have a clear sense of forward motion from a repeating instrumental that feels like the consistent rattle of a train car. This song sort of has that, but without as much of the energy as those songs often have- it’s like a ride you have no control over. It’s basically fine, but I have no idea when I’d ever go out of my way to listen to this.
Also, what the fuck is a Pulk? That’s actually a word, I’m not getting a red underline like with Crushd, but I’m not sure if it’s an intentional misspelling or not.
The next song, You and Whose Army?, is something I remember as being way less subtle than it is. I mean the lyrics are very clearly directed at a person, and spoilers, it’s UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, but if you don’t know the period, or the band’s politics in general, it’s probably going to go right over your head.
It’s a song with two clear halves. One of them is quiet, muted even, subtle instrumentation over muffled vocals, and the second is swelling, and triumphant, powerful instrumentation over muffled vocals. The second half is a lot of fun, but it wouldn’t feel as paid off were it not for the first, so fair enough. I think I used to like this song a lot more than I do now, unfortunately.
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I Might Be Wrong is probably the most traditional song we’ve seen from this band in a minute, huh. A bass-driven track that is unquestionably a rock song, even with more electronic percussion and effects on it. Try listening to this with headphones, by the way- it’s extremely heavily panned, something I picked up on in high school since every pair of earphones I’d get would break in one ear eventually.
Despite the previous track’s eventual energy, I Might Be Wrong conveys the general mood of the album- that is, it’s pretty mellow? Even as the bluesy groove keeps going, the track never gets as intense as even say No Surprises. It’s a bit of a vibe, isn’t it? I especially enjoy the little Afterword the song has, it’s not much but I feel like it really adds to the track as a whole.
Wait how the fuck is You And Whose Army? more popular than this? What 23 million people pop that song on the reg? I don’t understand.
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Considering the subject matter of this song, and that I’d never watched it before, I was somewhat apprehensive clicking this music video. And…..yeah………..it sure is like that…..
Anyway so Knives Out is about eating people. Probably? That’s the text of it, the subtext is probably a fair bit deeper than that. Like taking advantage of what people leave behind in their absence in a more general, non-cannibalistic sense. Maybe.
I think this song is the most acoustic/least electronic song on the album? Save for one we’ll get to later, maybe. Its lyrics are kind of gross, but that’s allowed.
I’m somewhat frustrated by the lack of things I can think of to say, because I really like this song. It’s a lot like I Might Be Wrong, in that it’s a more chill rockier song than most of the album, but with a different sort of vibe. Uhh…yeah? Shrug? 8/10, would listen to again.
Anyway, we now hit Morning Bell/Amnesiac as track number 7, and it’s the least subtle reference to Kid A I guess you can think of. I mean, it’s a different version of the same song, much louder and more discordant. Bits of it sound like they could be comforting, but juxtaposed with some of the more distressing elements it’s a bit of a whirlwind.
I can comfortably say that Morning Bell/Amnesiac is A Good Song. However, I can’t really appreciate it as such, for a very silly reason. Since I thought the pun would be good, I had this track as my morning alarm for a very long time, and as a result, I cannot stand listening to it. Let this be a warning, never use a song you like to try and get out of bed, if you want to keep liking it.
Dollars and Cents is another sparse, low rock track that eventually builds into a bigger deal as it goes on. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to make out the instruments, a low cymbal line and loose guitar folding in on each other in the background. It, regrettably, doesn’t quite land on the same stick as many of the other tracks on the album, being basically fine but not really notable? And I think that’s the biggest difference between Amnesiac and Kid A, Amnesiac actually misses. Like, I always forget about In Limbo, but it’s unquestionably a good song. Between many of Amnesiac’s more experimental tracks not living quite up to snuff, and Dollars and Cents being largely okay, it’s no wonder why the album is often seen as the inferior follow-up.
This is not particularly helped by the ninth track, Hunting Bears, a loose guitar instrumental that doesn’t work nearly as well as Treefingers. It doesn’t have the vibe, and it doesn’t fit as cleanly in the middle of the album like that one does. It’s just, kind of, there. I genuinely usually skip it when I listen to this album, but I figured it wouldn’t be fair to do that here. It’s just, kind of, a miss. Pretty short, though- I could believe this originally having been part of Dollars and Cents, like a longer version of the end bit from I Might Be Wrong.
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While I know this is a video for both Pulk/Pull and Like Spinning Plates, I associate it more with the latter. Not only is the version of Pulk/Pull very different from the album, well, you’ll see why I think the LSP bit is more memorable.
I think Like Spinning Plates is extremely cool. If nothing else, it’s super interesting how they got this to work. The vocal effect for the first verse was achieved by getting Thom to sing the lyrics, reversing that recording, having him memorise how that sounded and perform that, and then reversing that into the final results. How cool is that? I think it’s cool. Also at some points in the second verse, they’re playing a forwards and backwards vocal track simultaneously, which is a really neat effect.
The instrumental is…hard to describe. Apparently, it was a result of trying to make I Will (which would release one album later), which they reversed and played with to get this track. If you’re very familiar with that song, I suppose you could hear that, but I can’t. I just sit back and appreciate the music.
Amnesiac’s final track is Life in a Glasshouse, easily its most bombastic and jazzy. This sounds like a cabaret closer, a swaggering tragedy, an exploratory rehearsal of a final track. It also kind of sounds like a mental breakdown, which, mood.
There’s like, a whole band on this thing. Horns and woodwinds, a piano and probably more than one percussion element. The clarinet (?) noodling on the song is incredibly fun, giving it an almost playful edge, undercutting the downtempo mood of the song, and keeping it from being such a dirge. Especially as the track builds towards its finale, it’s clear that there was a bit more fun going on here. Of course, it can’t end on such a climax, as that little stitch of paranoia that ends up being the album’s closing word manages to sneak through.
And that ends Amnesiac. Now, obviously, it isn’t as good as Kid A. It’s less consistent, it doesn’t have Idioteque, et cetera. But I don’t actually think the comparison is as one to one as often it appears people do. The styles of the albums are completely different- Kid A incorporating so much ambient and electronic noise while Amnesiac has more of the acoustic and jazzy stuff going on. The two albums may have released closely, and recorded even moreso, but they are extremely different beasts at the end of the day.
It’s far from my favourite album of Radiohead’s, but I wouldn’t fault anyone for having it as theirs, you know.
We’ll get to my favourite album next week, where we will also see if I can either defend or maintain that opinion. Hail to the Thief beckons.
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pro-ship-self-ships · 4 years
Text
Transmasc HCs in Obey Me!
Is this self-indulgent? Yes, but I’m transmasc and there needs to be more trans and queer stuff in the fandom. I simply write partially from my own perspective.
General
If you were already out in some way in your school/workplace, your name was used on the application.
If you came out during the year and wanted to use your new name at RAD, the administration would immediately take action, informing all teachers of the new name.
Gender-neutral bathrooms are built with magic in case you’re uncomfortable with the gendered ones.
If you’re ever worried about whether you’re going to go to hell for being queer, your friends at RAD will remind that no, you’re not a bad person, and you won’t go to hell for being queer. Your queerness is a beautiful thing and you’ll be reminded of that.
Lucifer
He knew already, but appreciates that you came out to him.
If you come to him for name suggestions, he might be able to come up with something more classy than his brothers.
Your bullies mysteriously vanish if you talk about them with him.
He’s the one who helps the most with getting T and surgery (if you plan on going the human route).
Helps to get you emancipated if you have unaccepting family (he has jokingly suggested just murdering them, though it probably won’t happen).
He takes you and the others to Pride every June. He’ll typically ask which places you want to celebrate at (I’d personally choose NYC or LA)
The man to go to for voice training bless you Kazuya Yamashita (although he’d help with a professional later down the line)
Tries to give you lessons on being a “proper gentleman” but gives up if you don’t show interest.
Studies trans laws in different countries in the human world to make sure which ones are tran-accepting in case you travel with him.
Might help you keep track of which documents need to have your name and gender changed
Might start listening to music by trans artists and enjoy them  (he better listen to Cavetown sdhkvshdvdh)
He might make the occasional dad joke about your name or about being trans (you can’t tell he doesn’t enjoy dad jokes a little, especially after the credit card debacle)
Mammon
It takes him some time to understand when you come out, but my goodness is he a vocal supporter.
He’s the most likely to accompany you to public bathrooms if you feel uncomfortable. The others attempt to follow suit, but Mammon won’t let them near you.
Do not come to this man for name ideas, he’d probably come up with something like “Mammon 2: Electric Boogaloo.”
With your permission, he and Levi record your journey and post bits and pieces online
Confused if you choose human methods for transitioning, especially because of the price, but will still attempt to save money for any procedures you bring up.
Sends trans memes and might bring it up as an inside joke (if anyone knows the tiktok from jvckass that’s essentially “my chest is versace bro”, i mostly refer to that one)
If you get top surgery, he’ll remind you of some of the wack things you said while on anesthesia
Will comfort you if you bring up having an unaccepting family.
Will probably also start listening to music by trans artists (i will continuously preach the goodness of Cavetown)
Gets the money for it if you need a legal name change, gets surprised if you start crying
Jokingly teaches you about “being a man”
After top surgery, will try to keep the room to just the two of you (unsuccessfully). He’ll still bring up his money schemes as you lie there
Likes buying pride merch for you (flags, pins etc), will deny liking it though hfdigbdkh
Leviathan
If you came out to him and wanted to come up with a name for yourself, he’ll immediately suggest the name “Henry”. He gets a little upset if you don’t like it, but will subsequently throw names of anime characters as suggestions.
Also sends trans memes
Will help you experiment with your look through cosplay.
Records some of the wack things you said when you were still on anesthesia after top surgery
He also just wants to watch anime with you after the surgery. He also finds your chest scars to be pretty cool.
Will try to find anime and other things with trans characters and talk about them with you
He seems to act more like a Japanese otaku than a western weeb, but he would still have to probably unlearn queerphobic language
Satan
Would have probably read at least something on being trans
Would be the one to ask the most questions if they’re not too invasive
Likes to discuss multiple topics such as biology or sociology. Probably will name drop Judith Butler or Julia Serano and have a convo based on that.
Probably might want to watch some shows that have trans characters in them. Buys books with trans characters or by trans authors.
If you’re up for it, he’d give a pet your deadname to help distance yourself from it.
Would be the one to look up “(insert culture here) names for boys” to help pick a name. Gets pissed if teachers can’t pronounce it, regardless of when you came up w the name. Same goes for transphobes at RAD.
If you get surgery, he stays by your bed and reads to you.
Would attempt to make testosterone if you say something about expenses. Also might try to plan forms of surgery
Asmodeus
He’s the one to help with your wardrobe and look (you knew this was gonna be the case). He simply won’t allow you to walk around in that one hoodie. He knows about which shirts and tops makes your chest look flatter. If you want to continue wearing feminine clothes, he’ll help out with the best look. Would get you the rainbow binder as a surprise gift.
Regardless of whether you brought it up, he’d probably buy you a packer. He finds it hilarious.
He might buy a bunch of strap-ons and dildos for you if you don’t get bottom surgery
If you start testosterone in the Devildom, he doubles down on your skincare. Acne gets really difficult, so he’s always there to help.
If you decide to get top surgery, he is going to get you so many pillows. Same goes for bottom surgery.
He’s the one to get you pads if you need them.
On your trips to Pride parades and other queer places, he likes to create outfits for them.
Might try to get Solomon to cast a spell or make a potion to make you “more masculine”
He wants to be the one to cut your hair, but is okay with going to a salon with you
If you ask for names, he probably has a whole list already (it’s just a list of male exes)
Overall, he will remind you of how beautiful you are
Beelzebub
If you have have issues joining a sports team, he’s here to help convince any coaches necessary(although do demons have gendered sports teams is the question)
Encourages you to eat more than ever, especially if you’re on T. He understands when you get really hungry. Brings up foods that increases testosterone. Has you eat pineapples before you get top surgery.
Wants to give you a hug after surgery, but the others tell him about the stitches and fragility
Likes to cuddle you if you want to talk about your dysphoria (much to Mammon’s annoyance) and if you bring up height dysphoria, he likes carrying you around on his shoulders so you can feel taller.
Might try to come up with a food name if you ask
Will punch anyone who attempts to bully you over your queerness
Has you exercise with him more often, especially if you’ve talked about gaining muscle on T.
Belphegor
He doesn’t really mind, but he’s still supportive
Might suggest naps as a way of getting rid of dysphoria.
He gets the concept of transness a bit faster since he used to hang out with humans more.
Diavolo
He’s pretty accepting and finds human’s relationship with gender to be fascinating.
Orders the construction of gender-neutral bathrooms for your comfort
Makes dad jokes about being trans and your name (all in good fun, of course)
With your permission, he might plan a gender-reveal party or a debutante ball for you.
Assures you that you won’t go to hell for being yourself.
Barbatos
He was the first to figure out you are trans, as he was tasked with looking into your history for the exchange program.
He’s accepting as well. If you’re worried about your future, he might give you a couple of hints to show you’ll be ok.
Besides telling Diavolo and Lucifer beforehand, Barbatos is willing to help you stay stealth if that’s what you want.
Solomon
Depending on where’s he from, he might be a bit hesitant, but he’s still accepting (he has no reason to discriminate for religious reasons, he practices magic)
Might suggests magic to help transitioning, but will relent if you’re dead fast on human methods.
Also likes sending trans memes
Simeon
Finds it fascinating to find how far human technology has come for transitioning
If you’re really worried about getting into heaven, Simeon is the best one to reassure you that you will
A calming force for when you have dysphoria
Talks about transness to Luke so he’ll understand
If you can convince him, he might write a new series with a trans character as the protagonist (and other queer characters as well)
He and Asmodeus would team up to make a binder you could wear 24/7
Is a little uncomfortable with the hypersexuality of Pride parades, but understands their necessity.
Luke
The one that takes the most talking to about it, but Simeon accepts you, so Luke follows suit.
Likes to make trans flag cookies for you, especially after reaching certain milestones.
Gets jealous if you start growing taller from T.
Joins Levi on watching trans anime with you.
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ppunkisnotdead · 3 years
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The thrilling adventures of a PA- Chapter Six: Better late than never. (Adam Sackler x Reader)
[quick note here: i’ve been meaning to finish that one sooner but things got overly complicated for me and I couldn’t really write as much as I wanted. Got a bit frustrated because I had so many new ideas for prompts & stuff but no time to write but my dear friends @aloneandsleepless reminded me it’s not about how much you write that counts so I wanted to thank her for keeping me in check there ;) Here’s the nex chapter, still got a few in store for this one, just hope you’ll still like it ‘till then.] After your little trip downhill, you pulled yourself up again (thanks to a long conversation over the phine with your mom) & got back on your feet quickly, regaining your usually warmer demeanour at work. And this despite the fact that Adam grew more and more distant as you grew closer to Dominic. It was hard to get over him, you’re not gonna lie but you managed to at least accept your fate as being,a distraction for him. getting to know Dom helped too. As you guessed, you two have pretty similar backgrounds growing up. He’s a single child, raised in a loving household, his parents both working hard to raise him good & you liked the same things, both of you bookworms for most of your childhood (& still today to be fair). He’s fun to be around, has a good sense of humor and seems genuinelyto be a nice guy. All the more reasons for you to really give it a try, after all you deserve to be with someone who wants to be around you.
It’s been almost 2 months now since Adam kissed you so you finally agreed to go on a date with Dominic as you’re over that ordeal. Or at least you think you are. You’re a little giddy when yo arrive at the studios this morning, looking forward to it even if you wonder if everything will be ok because it might change your relation with him if all goes wrong. Which given your track record is a real possibility. You brought some clothes with you since you’re not going back home after work and put them in your locker until tonight. Then you set off to the canteen in order to get coffee for Adam & you. He starts early today so you know he’ll need it in order to wake up fully. A week ago that simple fact would’ve put you in shambles but now you simply get on with it. It’s just a job, you get things done and that’s it. No more fraternizing with actors, you’ve learned your lesson. or so you thought.When you knock on his door, you can hear his footsteps approaching & judging by the sound of it, as you expected, he’s not really awake & as usual, that look makes your heart skip a beat. - ”That should help you, careful it’s very hot”, you mention to him as you hand him the cup. - ”Doubt it but thanks”, he mutters, voice still hoarse, sending a little chill down your spine. Why must he have so much pull over you, damn him you think as you try your best to keep your composed face. - “You’re expected in the make up trailer in 40 minutes, do you think it’ll be enough ?”, you ask gently, as he steps back into his bedroom, cup in his hand? He mumbles something that sounds like an agreement and you let him change, standing by the table, going through your phone to avoid the temptation of looking over there while he’s undressed. A few moments later, he’s coming back, dressed appropriately & you both exit the trailer silently. You’re not sure if he’s still not fully awaked now to have a conversation or if he’s just not talking to you anymore outside of work related topics but to be honest, it doesn’t make a difference anymore. You’re used to it and it’s better that way, it saves you both the time & energy of pretending everything’s okay since there’s nobody around for the time being. Once you’re at the trailer, you let him get inside and announce you’ll pick him back when the make up team will be done. - “So you’re abandonning me ?”, he throws at you as you’re leaving. - “You’re a big boy, you’ll survive just fine”, you retort without looking back, knowing it’s just another trick to mess with you but you’re not having any of this anymore. He had his chance & he blew it, you should let him suffer the consequences. You make your way to the catering tent and grab another coffee but it’s for Shirley as you’re supposed to meet up with her in a few minutes when she’d have dropped off her actor to his location. It has become a sort of habbit between you PA’s to do that kind of stuff, to make time go a little faster when you have to wait up for your ‘‘bosses”“. You chat of your evening a bit but of course, rapidely she asks you how you feel for your date. Confessing that you’re nervous, you discuss for a good 20 minutes about what could happend or not, what you should avoid to say (you tend to overshare when you’re uncomfortable) and she encourages you to simply enjoy the night. A sound advice but will you be able to follow it once you’ll be there tonight ? That’s the question. You part when your break is over and get back to your daily routine, running errands & walk Adam from one place to another, without sharing more thant a few words here & there. So when you leave him at this trailer, your day is over as far as work is concerned and you head to the lockers, mind already focused on what’s to come. You hope that what you picked up for the occasion isn’t too simple or too plain as you don’t know where you’ll be going. It’s supposed to be a date after all, you need to dress up a little. Checking nobody’s in there in order to change, you open your locker and trade your shirt for a silky blouse. You’re dealing with the last button as well as getting your hair out of the collar when you hear the door behind you. But it’s not another Pa who shows up as you thought, no. It’s Adam and he looks out of breath. - “You’re not supposed to be here!”, you tell him as you turn back to your locker, reaching for your bag to get your make up. - “Don’t go”, he blurts out without any other form of introduction. - “I’m done for the day, if you need something you can order it”, you respond without looking at him. He shakes his head as he gets closer. - “I didn’t mea-..; Don’t go to your date”, he says almost pleading and you stop moving on the spot. There’s a few secondes of deafening silence before you finally look at him. - “You’re un-fucking-believable... Almost 2 months without saying a single word after you kissed me & now that I’m getting over it, you burst in and ask me to bail on him just because you ask me ?”, you huff, still stunned by his cockyness. “Why do you even care ? You’ve clearly showed it all this time that you don’t and you can have anyone you want, so why are you doing that ?”, you ask, starting to lose your temper. - “isn’t it obvious ?”, he dares say like it was, looking at you as if you were able to read his mind or something & it angers you even more. - “No! No, it’s fucking not!”, you roar, clsing your locker’s door in a sweep motion before you turn to face him (which is somewhat ironic since there’s a good 6 inches gap between the 2 of them, given your height difference).”Out of nowhere you kiss me and then you act like nothing happened and now that you realize I’m slipping away, suddenly you think you can do that ? Well I’ve got some bad news for you”, you spit out, blood boiling inside of you. “You had your chance and you blew it. So why are you doing this to me ? Is it funny for you ? Does it make you feel better to mess with me like that ? Answer me!”. But it’s not words he’s throwing your way as an answer, nope, it’s his lips as he takes your face in his hands. Your first thought is to step back. As you’ve said, he had his chance but your body’s not responding anymore and you give in. You can feel his breath on your skin, feel the warmth of his hands and the power of his grip on your neck as one of his hands lands there as you’re still kissing, your hands unconsciously grasping the hem of his shirt. You don’t know how long it’s been now but you’re brought back to reality when the door opens again and you finally part from him, short of breath and flustered. The person catches the scene and gets back out without saying anything, offering you the chance to regain your senses just enough to take a step back from Adam. - “Ok... that’s a good point but it still doesn’t answers my question”, you mumble as you’re still catching your breath, your hand running over your lips swiftly. - “Can we talk about that somewhere else ?”, he asks, his gaze focused on you & you can read the plea in his eyes. - “I’ll text you my address, meet me there in an hour”, you sigh heavily, knowing what you’ll have to do before you can have that conversation with him. “There’s something I need to do first”, you add  he nods, knowing all too well what you’re talking about. You both stay silent, unsure what to say or do but you tell him he can go and you leave the locker a few seconds behind him, heading to the studio’s entrance where you said you’d meet Dominic. When he sees you, he can sense something’s up and you hate yourself for what’s following. He didn’t deserve this and as you walk home after you both part ways, your guilt’s eating at your stomach for most of the journey. Once you’re in your appartment, you go straight to the bathroom and wash your face with some water & look at yourself in the mirror. What was wrong with you, you kept asking yourself, before you would never have done anything like that but there was just something about Adam that made you falter when he looked at you like he did in the locker room. A long sigh escapes your lips and you jump a little when your phone vibrates in your pocket. He’s in front of the building. You give him the code to pass the main door  you pace for a few seconds in your living room before his knocks resonates on the door. One last huff to collect yourself and you open the door. - “Come in”, you invite him as you step to the side to let him get inside. - “Thanks”, he says, hands in his vest and he scans your place for a few seconds before turning to face you. “How didi it go ?”, he asks and you just shrug. - “What do you think ? He was pissed & he had the right to be”, you simply answer, not really wanting to go into the details of that confrontation. “Do you want something ? I was about to make some coffee”, you mention as you walk towards your kitchen. - “No thanks, wouldn’t do me any good at this point”, he comments and you raise a brow but since you’ve got your back turned on him, he can’t see it. The only sound you can hear is your cofee machine for now and none of you say a single word. You grad your mug and turn around, to find him eyes fixed on you. - “So... I’m still waiting for you to answer my question...”, you point out calmly, bringing the mug to your lips, taking a sip in hopes this will help you go through that conversation more easily. - “I fucked up”, he says running a hand in his hair while sighing deeply. “I know I fucked up but I didn’t know what to do”, he adds, fidgeting on the spot. You give him a look that says he needs to elaborate because you don’t know what eaxctly he’s talking about; “i realized I was falling for you and it freaked me out because I didn’t want to screw what we had going on ‘cause the last two times I felt like this for someone, it blew in my face big time”. You can feel it’s hard for him to talk about that so you stay silent and try to encourage him with a nod. “They had problems on their own & I’m not exactly a pinnacle of stability myself so I freaked out because I didn’t want to hurt you with all that crap. Which I ended up doing anyway, acting like a 12 year old worked up by his hormones”, he lets out in a hurry & you can almost feel the weight coming off of his shoulders from saying it out loud. - “ And you couldn’t just- don’t take this the wrong way but... talk to me about that ? I wasn’t going to yell or anything if I had any inkling of all that from the start, instead of feeling I was being played with”, you explain to him, eyes locked with his. You put your mug aside and walk up to him. “It’s sweet that you wanted to protect me like this but if you really want whatever this is going to be to work out, you’ll have to talk to me, okay ?”, you say as your hand slowly reaches his cheek and he almost freezes at the touch at first, & it pains you to see that what happend with his exes must have been something else entirely if he’s so afraid of making a mistake with you. - “I’m sorry I fucked up”, he repeats, this time leaning in your hand a bit, guilt visible in his eyes & you smile softly to him. - “It’s okay now, stop thinking about it”, you reassure him and you stare at each other for a couple of seconds. You can see so much going on in those eyes... But yours close for now as he bends over slowly and captures your lips tenderly. This kiss is different, gentle & less needy but you can feel the message it’s supposed to convey. He’s not playing with you anymore, this is real. Which makes you step back after a few moments, even though you’d stay that way for quite some times. “Not that this wasn’t enjoyable but we still have some things to sort out first...”, you mention before your gaze rises up to meet his again & he nods in agreement. The both of you settle on your couch, sitting so that you somehow face each other and start talking. First you question him about what exactly happened with his ex-girlfriends and boy, no wonder he was so unsure of himself after what he wen through. Between Hannah’s selfish & childish behaviour & Jenna’s destructive habbits, it’s a miracle he even allows himself to love again so soon. You know he’s got issues on his own but you understand now why he acted the way he did. He keeps talking then, letting out what he kept inside for too long you guess & you just listen to him (probably another change for him). The more you learn and the more you’re relieved to see that your guts didn’t lie to you when you felt it fall for him in the early moments. You can almost see his mind getting lighter as time goes by, so much so that, in the end, you only stop talking around midnight as you both start to feel the length of the day. He asks if he can crash you couch for the night and you tell him he can join you in your bed. It’s big enough enough for the both of you after all and it wasn’t as if something was gonna happen tonight. You’re both too exhausted by now, physically & mentally for any other activity you usually can do in a bed with someone you fancy. You lend him some old clothes what could fit him and change while he’s doing the same in your bathroom. Alarm set for the next morning, you wish him good night & he leans in slowly, kissing you softly; making you smile against his lips as you let your hand rest on his cheek for a few seconds. Your eyes remain closed after that, sleep coming swiftly to snatch you, unaware that Adam spends a couple of minutes staring at you before he drifts off too, a small grin showing on his face...
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razanartuk · 3 years
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about me tag game thing
i was tagged by the wonderful @nothingunrealistic! thank you very much ily <3
under read more bc i was not capable of keeping my answers brief this time around
why did you choose your url?
this...was supposed to be a short explanation but it turned into quite a tale so strap in i guess because we are going on a ride. back in 2017 i was just getting into musical theatre rp and i was still feeling too shy to really talk to anyone ooc so i would just wait for people i wanted to interact with to post starter calls so i could just do things in character with them the easy way. So i did this with my friend cam, who posted a starter for me using a lyric from If I Could Tell Her. she linked the song so i could listen to it, so i did and i went ‘wait a minute, is that Ben Platt from Pitch Perfect?? (and other things too, but i only recognized his voice at the time bc of the acappella girl movies)’ and yes it certainly was.
i had zero idea what the plot of Dear Evan Hansen was about at that point, and for some reason based off Just That One Song and the poster art of who i assumed was Some Guy in a Polo Shirt i started to think it was about some jock guy who broke his arm and had an emo/goth friend who had either died or gone missing under mysterious circumstances. also i intuited that Evan had a crush on his friend’s sister but he couldn’t tell her that directly or his emo friend would kick his ass. so i was like mostly wrong, but a little bit right.
oh and i knew jared and alana were characters from the show bc cam said that they were i think?? but i had no idea what their role was. so after listening to if i could tell her, i listened to good for you and all i really got out of that was that evan the apparently not-jock guy had done...something... that really hurt jared and alana. and at that point i finally decided to go look up a plot synopsis and i found out i was waaay off base. but honestly this is why cast recordings should include scene dialogue in the songs bc otherwise you just get soundtracks like dear evan hansen where the songs have like. zero context. we really just go from waving through a window to for forever to sincerely me without like. any reason as to what is happening huh. It’s honestly not a surprise anymore that all those people on twitter had no idea the plot isn’t about gay teenagers.
anyways. cam was writing jared and she made a post at one point about wishing somebody would write alana and i was like ‘oh i could do that!’ (after i had actually Seen a bootleg and finally knew what the whole story was, of course) so i made a multimuse rp blog featuring alana beck, nabulungi hatimbi, chloe valentine and some other characters, and cam started sharing her headcanons with me that alana is trans, jared and alana were close friends when they were little kids but they sort of drifted apart as they got older and their priorities in life changed, jared was the first person alana came out to when she realized she’s trans, etc.
one night i started talking about wanting to pick a more theatre-relevant url for my blog and trans-[character name] urls were getting pretty popular, and at least 3 of the friends i made through rp had changed theirs to coordinating trans-[character name] and i think it was cam suggested i should make mine be trans-alana so i did. eventually i realized the unhyphenated version was available so i changed it to transalana with no hyphen and i have lived here ever since. sometimes i think about changing it but i feel like transalana has become a part of My Brand and i am not so great with coming up with cool names for things.
any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them
in theory, i have sideblogs... i don’t really use them, but of the ones i do have, there is:
emsbookblog - this was supposed to be where i would post excerpts of the book that i’m working on, but i think i did that maybe one time roughly 2 years ago and then promptly forgot about it/got nervous about my writing and was scared to share anything else. the rest of the stuff that is there is assorted writing tips. i don’t really know what to do with it now. i probably should post all my little thoughts about em and anita and caleb there instead of infodumping on my main from time to time, but if i do that then i have to promo a sideblog and direct people over to it which is always annoying to me when i could just do it on this blog which is much easier
dearnovelhansen - this is basically no longer used, but was a sideblog i made specifically to talk/complain about the novel adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen which was about 3 years ago?? maybe? i can’t be trusted to understand the passage of time. but to summarize: i thought it was an honor just to have the story be made more accessible since many of us couldn’t see the stage performance, but i hated a lot of the creative liberties that were taken. my main grumbles are that everyone who isn’t evan or connor is done so dirty in the novel. connor’s still kind of done dirty in the book, but not as much as like. heidi, alana, jared, and zoe are.
horseisle3 - this one was meant to be a place where i could just enthusiastically post screenshots from hi3, but instead it turned into a blog where i occasionally reblog other players’ hi3 content and bitch about how bad the game admins are bc hi3 is the tumblr famous (infamous?) homophobic horse game. the game where it was once okay to call your club store the gulag bc according to their head of hr, ‘it’s just a russian word for prison’ but you can’t say ‘im gay’ without somebody accusing you of corrupting young children who play the game. unfortunately there aren’t very many good interactive horse games out there, so this one is still about as good as it gets. it’s either that or star stable and i don’t care about star stable.
mlaenie - i’ve had this url saved for i don’t even know how long. way way way back in the day when i wanted to escape from the clutches of the onceler fandom i abandoned my first blog where i basically had an alter ego i guess?? and i decided to just be myself on the new blog. i don’t fully remember who came up with it, but one of my sister’s mutuals suggested that if you scrambled the letters in your name you could come up with aesthetic-looking urls. so lauren’s url became lrauen, and to match with her mine became mlaenie, which i abandoned on tumblr after about a year or so? but have continued to use as my main username on twitter, reddit, youtube, xbox, steam, and discord. i barely ever use any of these accounts aside from twitter, steam, and xbox, but yeah. so i’ve decided to try and turn this empty sideblog into a place for video game thoughts maybe. we’ll see how long it lasts this time around.
how long have you been on tumblr?
i made my first tumblr account in december of 2010, but i didn’t understand how to use it at all or how to customize my theme to look cool and unique so i quickly abandoned it. i made a new account in september of 2011 after some kids at school and my sister told me i should and i have been trapped here with varying degrees of activity/inactivity ever since. i have witnessed the rise and fall of the lorax/onceler fandom, hyperfocused on lord of the rings, star wars and back to the future all at the same time, and for the past 4 years i’ve mostly been a musical theatre blog with assorted other fandom stuff mixed in. i feel i have seen everything and nothing, but mostly i’m just tired and bored.
do you have a queue tag?
no bc i don’t use a queue. i’ve tried using it in the past but i irrationally feel pressured to sustain a coherent theme to queued posts and my brain simply does not vibe with that so i just don’t use it at all anymore. Instead i instantly reblog or post several unrelated thoughts in succession and then don’t post again at all for 3 days. the way god intended
why did you start your blog in the first place?
my very first blog was intended to be a place for me to post all of my petz 5 animals’ profile info, but i didn’t have any understanding of how coding worked at all and i don’t think i really wanted to learn, either. so it just sat there, unused. my second attempt at blogging was as a classic rock fandom person, so as you can probably imagine i was pretty pretentious about ‘modern pop’ vs the beatles, the rolling stones, the who, the monkees, and so on. and then i slowly devolved into a lorax fandom blog and everything went to shit so i made a new blog for lord of the rings/the hobbit which later evolved to include star wars and back to the future blogging. and then for the past 4 years i’ve been mainly a musical theatre blog with other random stuff i like thrown haphazardly into the pot. wonderful.
why did you choose your icon/pfp?
because my url is transalana and two of my most prominent lgbt headcanons are that alana beck is trans and a lesbian. i gotta be shouting out @kinqmike though bc she’s the one i adopted the trans alana beck headcanon from in the first place!
why did you choose your header?
in 2017 i was hyperfixating on Dear Evan Hansen (and Be More Chill, but there weren’t many gif-able videos then considering it ran for a month in New Jersey in 2015 and there was only one yet-to-resurface 35 minute bootleg) so i just grabbed a random gif off of google. i really should get to replacing it with a new header of my own though. i just don’t know what i should do for it.
what’s your post with the most notes?
i have lost track of how many notes it has (i think it’s somewhere around 200 now?) but when Will Roland and George Salazar performed Two Player Game on Good Morning America, i posted a screencap of their Jeremy and Michael along with that one quiz answer meme that says stuff like ‘i want to see it grow up healthy’. i didn’t tag it with any ship names or anything because i was anxious about having it show up in the tags, but somebody who reblogged it from me did tag it as boyf riends and i firmly believe it took off because of that. i don’t think i make posts that are relevant enough to amass thousands of notes, even by accident. which is probably a good thing bc if i did i would have to block so many of them.
how many followers do you have?
on this blog? 175 according to the counter. how many of those are still real people and how many are bots and abandoned accounts? i have no idea.
how many people do you follow?
i try to keep it somewhere around 200. i think i’m sitting at 180 right now but i kind of need to go through and clear out the really inactive blogs.
have you made a shitpost?
let’s think about this for a second. i’ve been on tumblr for nearly 10 years. you might even be able to say i’ve made more than one. they’re just not what you would call...popular shitposts.
how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ post?
that stuff makes me so incredibly anxious that i have to fight the urge to want to yeet my laptop or mobile device through the closest window whenever i read it, so i try very hard to avoid any sort of ‘if you don’t reblog this, i’m judging you’ posts. i find them very manipulative and not particularly helpful
do you like tag games?
yeah babey!! i just frequently forget to do them, but please know that if you have ever tagged me in a tag game i felt incredibly touched by the gesture and the @mention even if i completely forgot to do the thing afterward
do you like ask games?
i do! but also rip to literally anyone who has ever sent me an ask meme bc it takes me so long to answer them. i’m still working on a micro fic prompt from a few weeks ago. also, horrified to realized that it has in fact been a few weeks and not 3 days anymore.
which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?
i don’t know that any are tumblr famous as a whole. but probably @neverheardnothing
do you have a crush on a mutual?
in any sort of romantic connotation? no. not that i’m aware of. there are mutuals that i have friend crushes on where i want to be friends with them but i get so anxious when it comes to meeting new people that usually nothing ever comes of it. i’m really not good at small talk or other casual conversation either which, as you may or may not be able to imagine, sucks. i just wanna skip over all of the awkward introductions and ‘hey how are you, how is life, what are you doing with yourself?’ stuff. not because i don’t care about it. i do, but i think most of my friends/the people i want to be my friends are also depressed and anxious so asking these basic questions about life tends to uh. make us all nervous. and i don’t do much with my life so i always have the most boring answers anyways.
i’m not tagging anyone officially bc the @ thing has just completely given up on me at this point, but if you want to do it, go for it. and then say i tagged you so i can read it c:
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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years
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Wobbly Interview: Going for Happy
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BY JORDAN MAINZER
Thurston Moore Ensemble/Negativland band member Jon Leidecker has been releasing electronic music under the moniker Wobbly for over two decades now. In Chicago experimental label Hausu Mountain, he seems to have found kindred spirits, matching his far out idiosyncrasies. 2019′s Monitress and its follow-up, Popular Monitress, which came out earlier this month, are albums about and by machines, as Leidecker ran his music into pitch trackers and synth apps on his phones and tablets, embracing the errors and randomness that were produced along the way. While the source material on Monitress was mostly improvised, the songs on Popular Monitress are more structured and composed, resulting in songs like “Authenticated Krell”, which follows a comparatively clean synth arpeggio before being enveloped by texture, or “Lent Foot”, where the various instruments trail each other. It’s remarkable just how familiar certain sounds are even if not traditionally instrumental ones, like the typewriter clacks of “Illiac Ergodos 7!” or the zooming notes of the thumping title track. Blurring the lines between what’s instrument and what’s not, and even further, what’s composed music and what’s not, Popular Monitress is a defining statement for both Leidecker and Hausu.
I was able to ask Leidecker about various songs on the album and their inspirations. Read his answers below!
Since I Left You: You chose to write more structured songs this time around before running them through the pitch tracker. Do those nuggets of recognizable structures make the final product all the more disorienting?
Jon Leidecker: Hopefully! On both albums, the main thing is keeping the focus on just how live those pitch trackers are. It’s Monitress as long as you can hear how they’re listening. For years, it was strictly a piece for live performance--I needed to be improvising myself, and able to respond instantly, to really underline just how spontaneous the machine responses are. So the first record tried to keep more of that sense of flow. Large stretches of it are simply baked down from stereo recordings of concerts & radio performances of it. Overdubbing more layers of trackers seemed legal, as long all the voices were following that one original sound.
Of course, when you play a tune, something composed or even quantized, it definitely becomes easier to hear what they’re doing. The exact same code running on each phone will respond in very different ways to the same source audio, and you get a chorus of individual voices. They play a lot of wrong notes, but oddly, if you feed the trackers lots of consonant, major chords, it stops being dissonance, and you can tell they’re going for happy. You hear these weird things, trying to sing in unison, and..the result is just pure delight. Weirdly emotional! What’s a mistake? What’s music?
SILY: How did you come up with the song titles? For instance, is there anything particularly Appalachian about "Appalachian Gendy"?
JL: They’re mostly mashed up references to landmark works in the field of generative & algorithmic composition, from the 50’s up to the early 90’s. The recent push of stories on AI musical tools seems to be about automation and labor-saving, but the field of how to develop tools for more creative ends goes back all the way to Bebe and Louis Barron going to the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics and designing their first self-oscillating feedback circuit.
So while my tracks aren’t really in the musical style of the works they reference--something like  “Appalachian Gendy”, which sprung up a fantasy Spiegel/Xenakis tribute, got paired to that stompdown track, and once it did, I added a solo on iGendyn.
SILY: To what extent is your music here inspired by the inner workings of the brain?
JL: Once you get a grip on just how simply neurons and synapses interact, how reassuringly physical thinking is, the electronic music I’ve always found most inspiring often involve feedback systems, self-playing devices, generative music, things that learn rather than settle. Music that helps you model thought. The whole East Coast/West Coast 60’s divide in synth design boiled down to Moog reducing your options until you could easily dial in what you already know you want, and Buchla designing uncertainty machines to be networked together until they approach the complexity of an unknown brain.
SILY: "Synaptic Padberg" and "Every Piano" have moments of recognizable instruments as opposed to alien instruments (strings and piano, respectively). Was that just a product of the errors/randomness of the music-making, or purposeful?
JL: It's supposed to sound orchestral, so I hit my Mellotron and Chamberlin apps pretty hard with this piece. Not like anything remains plausibly real once they're getting hammered by the trackers. That is a real grand piano, however: me playing the tune at SnowGhost Music in Montana. Brett Allen deserves an engineering credit, but I also wanted the first listen to make you wonder.
SILY: There's almost a funky rhythm to "Motown Electronium". Do you envision folks dancing to this record?
JL: Would have been plain wrong to put that title on an unworthy beat. What would a room full of people dancing to this even be like? Maybe in Baltimore.
SILY: Do you think "Training Lullaby" is what a computer trying to write a lullaby would sound like?
JL: Not that relaxing, is it? That’s ten seconds pulled from a five minute live improvisation, just a little burst of fury in the middle. Which I’ve heard enough now that I can sing along to it; so now, for me, it is calming.
I finally had to admit to myself that I’m a fan of the OpenAI Jukebox stuff. It’s right at that stage where their results are still primitive enough to remain a little mysterious. All the context and relationships intrinsic to what humans call music is irrelevant to those GANs. They don’t need culture to make music, they just need waveforms. What does it tell us that simple pattern analysis and brute number crunching on a large enough data set can produce those sounds? They’re training us. I have twelve hours of their Soundcloud dump ripped to my phone, and I play it a lot, though I wouldn’t play it for anyone under four. Can definitely sing along to some of the weirder ones by now.
SILY: How did you approach the order of tracks on the record? I'm struck by, for instance, the chaos of "Grossi Polyphony" following the comparative lull of "Every Piano".
JL: Just trying to show the range, and keep the surprises coming. Perpetual variety becomes monotony so quickly, so there is a very careful balancing act to play between shorter and longer tracks. I like a record where on first listen, any new section that begins, you feel like there are no guarantees how long it’ll last, eight seconds or eight minutes. Even things that sound like they should be songs: no guarantees. I still remember the first time I heard The Faust Tapes as a teenager.
SILY: Did you actually use musical dice to write "Wurfelspiel"?
JL: “Wurfelspiel” is just name-dropping Mozart’s generative piece--again, a real piano, but no musical dice involved.
SILY: The beats towards the end of the album--the pseudo hip-hop of "Cope By Design", techno of "Dusthorn Sawpipe", krautrock of "Help Desk"--seem to me to be far more propulsive than anything else here. Do you see a connection between those tracks?
JL: The album hits you with all these miniatures in the middle to keep things moving, and those three are the last little barrage of them before the shift into the final stretch with the longer, more hypnotic pieces. Can be tough to sequence an album when you’ve got so many short tracks, but it’s also total freedom.
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SILY: How did you like getting the Hausu Mountain album art treatment?
JL: Totally family. All the Monitress packaging has always been iPhone panorama mode artifacts, visual glitches not entirely unlike what my phone’s trackers do to what they hear. I gave one of those images to [Hausu Mountain co-founder Max Allison] to work with the cover of the first Monitress, and he sent back this image, saying, “Here’s the initial stage: Your photo reduced to color blocks I’ll carefully render out later.” So when the second hyper-detailed one came back in a more proper Hausu style, they already seemed like a sequence, and this second one was already in place, so it all clicked. Any version of Monitress, the music is different, but it’s always the same piece. I’m really happy they asked me for something. [Label co-founder Doug Kaplan] and Max are just coming from the good place.
SILY: Are you doing any live streams or socially distant shows any time soon?
JL: Multi-location live streams are a blast. The time modulation inherent in all streaming is deeply psychedelic. The kind of listening you have to do when you know that the relationship of sounds together in time is different for each musician involved? I’m learning utterly new tricks, and it’s astonishing just how live the result is. I sat in on a live stream with Thurston Moore Group a few months ago, the four of them in London, and me hooked up to an amp not far from where I normally am when I play with them. And everyone agreed: It felt like I was there, right up until the instant I quit the app.
I’ve been pre-recording some home live sets for Hausu, Curious Music and High Zero Foundation. Negativland is putting together an hour long performance with Sue-C for the Ann Arbor Film Festival in late March. I finished an album mostly recorded outdoors with my old friend Cheryl E. Leonard for Gilgongo, and we’re going to try to a few outdoor concerts, too.
SILY: What else are you currently working on/what's next?
JL: The second album with Sagan, with Blevin Blectum & J Lesser, is coming out in late April. That one took 14 years to finish. There’s a trio record with Thomas Dimuzio and Anla Courtis coming out on Oscarson. Doing a revision of the last episode of my podcast on sampling music, Variations, to incorporate that OpenAI music. Some Negativland releases tying together the last two albums. There are about four of five other albums that might be done, though it takes time to be sure.
SILY: Anything you've been listening to, reading, or watching lately?
JL: This month has been Maryanne Amacher’s collected writings, Keeping Together in Time by William H. McNeill, Ministry For The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, important even with happy ending. Interview with Karl Friston - Of Woodlice And Men.  Listening to a lot of “Blue” Gene Tyranny, Xenakis & Lang Elliott, and last week every Ghédalia Tazartès album in reverse chronological order. I don’t care what anybody says: That guy’s immortal.
SILY: Anything I didn't ask about you want to say?
JL: Thank you for your questions!
Popular Monitress by Wobbly
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