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#so yeah. ask for more details if u want bc damn. out of tags
soft-serve-soymilk · 2 years
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For Archus
16 - how good would they be at having to make up a fake name/backstory on the spot? would it be believable?
40 - a sound that can make them instantly freeze?
And from the soft oc asks: 6 - What calms they down most when they're anxious?
I feel like banging one of these out for once!!! So here we go I wanna detail my head child in full rather than snippets <3 @hungrydolphin91 i’m tagging you too bc i’m dragging you into this as well :>. You know you want to read it~
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I have an obsession with making my children in picrews,, can you tell xD
This is Archie! Otherwise known as Archus Dandelion, he is on the older side of these head children at 19-years-old. He’s the older brother of Dism, and that is probably single-handedly the most important plot point in this entire goddamn canon please internalise that into ur little head <3. He is also a living, breathing cinnamon roll dressed with a thick layer of trauma and mental illness :>. In other words I adore him and would do anything for him. The series of unfortunate events goes as follows:
-His mom dies in childbirth -He contracts an autoimmune disease (myositis, my most beloved disease to study of all time) -His brother is kidnapped and he’s made to watch -Due to the aforementioned familial events,, any semblance of family stability and love has all but disappeared in his father’s depression (and hence alcoholism) -His life actually becomes better for a time as he runs away from it all. Except, no medical healthcare for said autoimmune disease and the fact he practically comes close to starving to death basically means he tempted fate -As a scapegoat, he gets whisked to Another World where he gets fused with these special lil creatures known as the spiriters in a bid to maybe Not Die -Following that, he is semi-unwittingly part of many science experiments until he becomes a full-grown adult with his own means of rebellion~! For all that, he is surprisingly put together on the surface. And yes, all of this was completely necessary to have the kind of character + development the story *ahem* needed :>.  To elaborate on what his fusion actually entails, let me first explain what a spiriter is :3. Spiriters are creatures older than the first people of Oskopnir, born of the mana sea as it was touched by Ferelith’s and Joseph’s presence (remember that super long mega-dm I sent u Shadow? Yeah that one. read it again if u forget). Their purpose was originally to signal that a person needed “help”, like someone to talk to, or a shoulder to cry on. However, as the wars went on and bitter malaise seemed to become more a common thing in Oskopnir, they became tainted with that emotion. And they begun to hunger for it. Lust for it, even. Modern-day incarnations of spiriters will damn well force their victims into uncomfortable outfits, or even turn them into eldtrich abominations to drive people into emotional disarray and generate that sweet sweet food. However, it is not always a parasitic symbiotic relationship with these guys-- quite often their mana is seen as a source of strength and pacts are quite common as the dark mage mercenary population grows in recent times. Factor in these two concepts and you kind of get the idea what being fused with these kind of thing is like. Archie has a mask he cannot take off for one, with a black hole that covers his eye like an empty mire,, like the number zero. Quite a sensitive spot to hit if u ask me, for a person with non-existent self-esteem. If you push his emotions off-kilter his form only becomes more monstrous to reflect this; all sorts of fangs and horns and bony shins will jut out, and parts of his skin will blacken. But he also has so much more magic potential than he could have normally,, at least until the spiriters decide they can poison his mind by downplaying it significantly :3 In terms of disposition, Archie is a sweet boi first and foremost. Easily on the list of Top 3 Most Compassionate ocs. Selfless most likely to a fault. He has no self-esteem to speak of. But he’s playful, whimsical even, and enjoys storytelling to the 3 kids he keeps as wards (to protect them from Mr Evil Scientist Man Erk).This, however, is also muddled with the fact he is so so so so stuck in the past, and in denial with where a lot of his life has ended up actually. And this, in turn, feeds into his deep-rooted envy problem he kiiiiiiiiiiiind of has with present-day Dism (which is also terribly misguided). However! He is also very proactive,, and a great political lobbyist with a healthy sense of justice, which is important as he spends a lot of his time advocating for the rights of the Lucid Dreamers :). And he is very street smart!! As well as creative :3 Really, he’s an inverse of his brother in thematics. Dism fears being alone (because he is “““““nothing”““““) and Archie fears being nothing (because he is ““““alone”““““) Also, both the Dandelions are the most Romantic Saps ever. Seriously, ask Inigo and you’ll hear quite some sentimental sighing about the fact :) Ok time for questions i can’t choose!! 16 - how good would they be at having to make up a fake name/backstory on the spot? would it be believable? This is his speciality, actually. He is the number 1 master at bullshitting people, and this is one of the few areas he takes pride in :>. He finds it fun to flex his creative muscles, and it does a fair bit to light him up from his dysthymia :). Also he loves swishing around his long bishounen hair, and he actually grew it out for the very reason of using it to spin more believable yarns ^^. And he is so sincere during all of this too and you really can’t help but fall for the charms and find it the most convincing narrative you’ve ever heard :) 40 - a sound that can make them instantly freeze? *belts on top of lungs* ARCHIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE :0 PTSD-induced flashbacks from watching his brother be torn away from him will absolutely do well to fuck him over,, and you can probably tell who takes advantage of this at some point :)))))))) Pro tip: When u are in distress, refer to him by his proper name. Both of you will be thankful for it later (it helps him keep more calm under pressure, and Archie is a very panicky individual under duress) Soft oc asks: 6 - What calms they down most when they're anxious? Hearing someone’s voice :D. Keeps him from being trapped in his own mind so much, something he seems to have a nasty habit of. And it doesn’t feel as deliberate (and hence counterproductive) like drinking tea or breathing exercises do!  If he has some time to prepare before an important event, a nice warm bath or hot spring trip will do well to flush his mind of worries, since heat is one of the few sensations he can still feel as he loses his grip on his humanity. So yeahhhh, 5673482328329329320 million years later and here’s an overview on my son!! I still feel I can’t do him justice in words :/ (this is really left better to Inigo). But!! I hope you enjoyed reading ^^
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summary: tendou has a little crush on a certain someone, their straight faced manager that never reacts to his weird shenanigans. his best friend advises that they should get closer. 
-or, you get stuck in a locker with the guess monster.
a/n: this was based off an asmr i listened to a couple nights ago (you were hiding in a locker with a teacher of yours) it was kinda funny bc the one who  voiced it was oikawa’s official va. anyways, take whatever this is lol.
pairing/s: tendou satori x reader
wc: 2 147 (whoops)
tags: crack, comedy(?), humor, ur literally just in a funny situation lol, nsfw implication if u squint
-ꦼ———▸  crossposted on ao3
⋅. ♪ .⋅  Loving Tendou Playlist
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“You need to stop staring at our manager and actually talk to her Satori.”  Ushijima’s deep voice broke him out of his trance, catching his attention.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Wakatoshi-kun.” He deflected. Okay, maybe he did tend to stare at you. But he swears he didn’t do it that much.
Ushijima rolled his eyes at that, “I may not be the brightest when it comes people-”
“You got that right.” He snickered while putting his gym clothes away.
“As I was saying, I at least know she isn’t the least bothered by you,” he shut his locker door with a firm bang, interrupting his musing for a moment, “we can all see how she isn’t fazed by whatever antics you flung at her.”
“But that’s just because she’s just like you!” His best friend raised his brows at him. “Not completely, but she’s uhh, I don’t know-stoic. Straight faced and doesn’t say anything much unless necessary.”
“I’m not stoic.” 
“Sure you aren’t.” Has he really not noticed?
“So you’re implying that you can be close to her?” He knew his best friend can be quite obtuse sometimes, but where did that come from?
“That’s not what I’m saying at all, where did even get that idea?” He turned his attention to his duffel bag, already done with the conversation.
But it seems Ushijima wasn’t, “You said she was just like me, even if it was just a bit. And since we’re close, that means you could be with her as well.”
“You’re grasping at short straws here Ushiwaka,” he teased. “Why do you seem so persistent to get me to talk to her?”
“Because I think she might be one of the few people that would actually tolerate your weird personality, rather than shun you for it like most people would.” Oh, that was actually helpful. He knew Ushijima rarely spoke, but whenever he did, it was always something meaningful and helpful.
Ushijima scratched at his neck, looking around the locker room looking for something.
“Uhh, watcha looking for there buddy?”
“I’m missing my pair of socks.” Ushijima groaned. Suddenly, all his previous thoughts of him being meaningful was diminished within a second. 
“That’s the fourth time this week ‘Toshi.”
“I know, but for some reason they don’t end up where they’re supposed to be.” He was pouting, the redhead could tell. You wouldn’t actually see it until you looked closely.
He had to reassure their captain before he drones about ads he read in today’s newspaper. He was not interested in discounts held for sock stores. “We’ll ask the janitors tomorrow, okay? Don’t fret about it.”
Satisfied with his answer, Ushijima nodded. They both grabbed their bags then turned to leave, until they heard a knock at the door.
“Uhm, excuse me. Is Tendou-kun here by any chance?” Speak of the devil...
He stilled, clearly not expecting for you to look for him. He wondered how long you’ve been there, hoping you haven’t heard a single word from their conversation that just happened to be about you.
Ushijima looked at him, a faint smirk curved at the corners of his lips. He gave him a look as if to say, this is your chance.
Without consulting him if he even wanted to answer, he strode towards the door and opened it without warning, causing you to jump back in surprise. The basket of jerseys nearly fell from your hands in shock. 
He mentally slapped himself in the face. Way to go Wakatoshi, scare off our manager.
“Satori’s right here,” He waved to him, standing still like a deer in the headlights. “I must go.” He walked past you, leaving no space for you to even start a conversation with him.
“Oh, uhm alright. Thank you Ushijima-san.” You waved to Ushijima before to turning to him, looking at him with a blank expression.
“I’m sorry, it seems I interrupted you on your way home. But I promise this will be quick.” You said with a flat tone. You reached down on the freshly laundered basket of jerseys, fumbling with the different colored fabrics as you looked for something. 
With a victorious ‘ah’, you held up a familiar pair of socks. 
“I kept seeing these somewhere in your locker rooms whenever I clean after practice. I usually just place them on the benches but this time it was on basket with the rest of the jerseys so I took the liberty to wash them.” He took them from your hands, fingers lightly brushing when he grab ahold of the very socks his best friend was pouting about. He jolted, feeling a sensation from the minimal contact.
Either you ignored him or didn’t notice, which was probably the latter, you moved on to place the basket on a corner. 
‘You need to stop staring at our manager and actually talk to her Satori.’
“So, how are you managing so far manager-chan?” He hoped his voice didn’t reveal how nervous he was to be alone with you. 
In truth, he liked being with you at any chance he could get. It was fun flinging non-nonsensical shit at you, just to get a reaction. It was like a challenge for him really, wanting nothing more than to see you flustered or even better, laugh at his jokes just for once.
You never looked irked or disgusted by his whole demeanor, which was something he appreciated a lot. He hoped you never would, fearing that it might be the inevitable truth he wasn’t willing to accept.
That he was a monster no one could truly understand.
“I’m still afraid of getting hit by a ball every time Ushijima-san serves, but other than that I’m doing fine.” You wiped your forehead with the back of your hand, exhaustion evident on your face. “You’re not going home, Tendou-san? It’s already late, I suggest you hurry now so you can rest easy for tomorrow’s practice.”
He smirks, suddenly feeling a mood for a good teasing. “Dawww, is our dear little manager concerned for the resident Guess Monster?” He quirked a brow as he leered at you with a teasing grin. 
Unperturbed, you tilted your head, looking a bit puzzled. “Of course I am. I am your manager after all, isn’t it my job to look after the team?”
“Don’t be shy, you can just say you like me, manager-chaaan~” He thought really shouldn’t tease you like that but he really can’t help himself.
What happened next surprised him the most.
He figured you’d wave off his teasing like always, roll your eyes then move on with your day. But instead, he spots the blushing of your cheeks. Something he didn’t expect from you at all.
He opens his mouth to say something but stops at the sounds of footsteps nearing the locker room.
Shit. If the team saw you alone with him in the locker rooms at this hour it’ll be the death of him. You wouldn’t have cared, but he knows they’ll hold it over his head and tease him relentlessly, insinuating that there’s something going on between the two of you.
With a hushed ‘Quick!’ he grabs your arm then pulls you into a vacant locker. He shuts the door in haste, making a loud bang that makes him wince. 
“Tendou what’re you-” he shuts you up with a hand covering your mouth. He looks at you pleadingly as he zips up his lips, urging you to stay quiet. You nod with his hand still covering your lips. 
“Hurry up Semi! We’re gonna be late!” Reon’s voice booms loudly as they enter the room, causing the both of you to jump in surprise.
“Wait a damn minute will you? I just forgot my wallet.” The sound of a locker opening fills in the sudden silence. He waits with a bated breath hoping they’ll leave soon.
But it seems that wasn’t the case. 
“Say... Isn’t that Tendou’s duffel bag?” You both hear Shirabu’s voice ask with uncertainty. Tendou freezes, unsure what to do.
There’s a muffled noise of shuffling. “Yeah, it’s his alright. It’s his jacket draped over it.”
“Then why is it still here? Shouldn’t he have left by now?”
“Didn’t we pass by Ushijima just earlier?” Shit. Shit. Shit.
The locker you were both hiding in was getting hotter by the minute. He feels a sweat trickle down his neck as he tries not to breathe loudly as to not grab attention. 
When Ushijima told him to get closer to you, he surely didn’t mean this!
Your soft hands reach to take his off your mouth. He mouths a soft ‘sorry’ but you shake your head softly, not minding his mistake in the slightest. With the ongoing conversation about his whereabouts outside he distracts himself with little details he begins to notice.
Like how you smelled of baby powder and faint deodorant, or how there are strands of your hair sticking to your exposed neck from your ponytail. He tries hard not to think about how close you were. Your shoulders pressed against his chest, head just below his chin, and your hips just right where his-
“Tendou-kun,” he hears you whisper. He cranes his just a bit, trying to get a look at your face. “Your phone is bumping my hip, I know there’s not much space but can you please move it a bit?” 
Phone? What phone? He was pretty sure he left it in his bag━
“Sorry.” He apologizes meekly, wiggling his hips away from you as he desperately wills his sudden hard on to calm down. This locker was gonna be the death of him soon if he stays here any longer. 
He thanks whatever deity is at work above for your obliviousness. A blessing in disguise he’s really thankful at the moment.
“Eh, why’re we wasting time here? He probably just went to the bathroom.” Semi cuts off as he grabs his wallet. Tendou thanks the ashen blond silently, promising not to tease him just for a day.
He hears the door shut. He waits until the footsteps are completely gone, then sighs in relief when no one comes back.
“Phew, that was a close call. Who knows what might’ve happened if they found us here.” He lets out a laugh, “we can leave now, [y/n]-chan.”
Then he’s looking at you, head ducked so he couldn’t see much of your face. But he peers between the strands of your hair and finally notices how flustered you look.
He smirks. “[y/n]-chan?” 
For once in your life, you try to avoid his eyes.“O-oh! Tendou-kun, are they gone yet?” 
“If I knew better manager-chan~ Judging by your flustered face, I would assume you actually wanted to stay here with me.”
Your eyes widen like saucers. “No! It’s just that it’s cramped in here, it got hot so I am blushing for different reasons!” Your composure was breaking by the minute, hands flailing in exaggeration as you try to explain in defense. 
He barks out a laugh. “Manager-chan, I was just kidding! Calm down for me, hm?” You don’t reply.
“Alright, I’m sorry for teasing you.” He says as he reaches for the knob, “let’s just get out of here-”
You shoot your hand on his wrist, surprising the both of you. “Uh... about what you just said.”
He waits for you to continue. With a deep breath you try to finish your sentence. “I don’t mind, being here with Tendou-kun.... that’s all.”
The message clicks in his brain. I like you Tendou-kun.
“Oh.” He replied numbly. He was sure he must’ve looked stupid with the face he was making, still awestruck at what you just admitted.
You giggle, a sound he finds himself emitting to his memory.
“You’re weird as ever Tendou-kun,” the look of adoration you gave him nearly made him choke. “But that’s fine, I like that about you.” 
Two confessions all at once? Was this a dream? Boy, he surely was gonna panic about this to Ushijima later, not that he’d be any of help.
Waving away the butterflies in his stomach, he ruffles your hair. “You’re too full of surprises today [y/n]-chan. Someday you’re gonna give me a heart attack if you just suddenly give me these cute faces without warning.”
He feels himself smile wide at another bashful look you give him.
“Now let’s get out of here.” He twists the knob inside but it doesn’t budge. Confused, he tries to twist it another way but it still doesn’t move. He struggles with it for a minute until he gives up. 
It wouldn’t open.
“Uhh... Tendou-kun, I think we might have to call the others.” He hears you say tentatively. 
“Sure, do you have your phone with you?”
You pat your pockets for a second. “Oh, I must’ve left it in my bag. How about we use your phone instead?” 
“...” 
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mallowstep · 3 years
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(I came up with this au while in debate class so I'm calling it the Debate AU if you don't mind)
Tigerstar absolutely misread everything about Riverclan and fucked up so bad by keeping Stonefur, Mistyfoot Featherpaw, and Stormpaw alive and well and healthy but basically doing everything to Leopardstar that he does to Mistyfoot and Feathertail and Leopardstar in the Misty and Leopard AUs that Stone pulls a Scourge in front of all the clans and everyone looks at Stonefur in terror but Stonefur only has eyes for Leopardstar, who is leaning heavily on Mistyfoot. (Like Leopard is beat down, she's loosing hair, and she has deeply infected scratches on her shoulders.Stone and Misty fucking Hate Tigerstar for what he's done to this cat they've known all their lives.) Stonefur kicks Shadowclan the fuck out of Riverclan territory, Mistyfoot doesn't let Mudfur near Leopardstar (neither does Featherpaw, for that matter. She wasn't abused and she's healthy, but she was traumatized in-Tigerstar had her watch Mudfur abuse Leopardstar and Tigerstar himself told Featherpaw Greystripe thought the same things about her.) Featherpaw won't let any warriors in Leopardstar's den unless she's in there with Leopardstar ---so Featherpaw can protect Leopardstar. The silver furred apprentice curls around her leader, "I'm right here, Leopardstar. Stonefur and Mistyfoot are talking to the other clans and then they'll be back. Stonefur said he'd bring back your favorite." Featherpaw added, purring as she groomed Leopardstar's head. "Stormpaw said he went and got the best trinket for your new den though, and he thinks it's going to be your choice over uncle Stonefur's."
damn anon. thank you. hold on i'm going to engage.
also fair like. i'm. i'm out of the haze and not good at keeping track of au tags so. the only ones i'm really tagging for are the ones i'm like. still thinking about. stone au atm. just didn't want like. u to be. think it was a thing. i'm just tired 100% of the time. anyway.
cw: sexual assault, physical abuse, a few more detailed cws immediately under the cut
cws: parent being involved in sexual assault of child, child sexual abuse (via exposure)
cool. sometimes it's like. i dunno. anyway. sorry i said i'm tired but also very into this.
anyway /nm but also reminder to everyone that i have adhd and would prefer if you included paragraph breaks. obviously i just copy it into a document and add my own but. i appreciate when you save me the step. like i get it y'all've seen me ramble at Length in one paragraph before i just. appreciate it.
okay back on topic.
i'm going to sidestep riverclan related concerns for the sake of "angst good," lmao. riverclan related concerns being if i wasn't tired i could easily come up with a justification i'm just tired and lazy.
but like yeah like. uh. dammit i'm already opening up tpb books left and right. let me just.
"But common sense says there’ll be a battle, Firestar. I don’t need an omen from StarClan to tell me that."
oh my god can cinderpelt like. go and talk to all of the modern medicine cats so that they stop flipping out because starclan isn't answering their texts or whatever.
Remembering the wounded and devastated cats in the WindClan camp the day before, he had expected only a small group to come to Fourtrees. Instead practically every warrior must have been there.
i mean windclan has like five warriors but-
Firestar waved his tail to signal to the two united Clans—LionClan, he thought with a rush of pride. This was his destiny.
this is mostly for jace (assuming u see this) bc it's the whole "importance of lionclan existing" thing i was referring to. didn't bother to pull quotes on my dotc rant, but here u go.
so. point of canon divergence* is:
“Greetings, Tigerstar,” he meowed coolly. “You came, then. Not still looking for those prisoners you lost from RiverClan territory?” Tigerstar let out a snarl. “You’ll regret that day’s work, Firestar.” “Try and make me,” Firestar retorted.
* from firestar's pov
bc obviously that didn't happen.
no, what happens is firestar sees -- blackfoot and darkstripe and.
leopardstar.
firestar harbours no affection for riverclan's leader. but. even from a distance, he can see her ribs. he'd be surprised she was standing on her own, if he wasn't processing everything else going on.
he doesn't see this part.
Mistyfoot's tail flicks to Stonefur's shoulder, and he nods. They've only exchanged a few words, only had a brief moment, but they're ready.
Stonefur glances back. Featherpaw and Stormpaw are out of the way. He hopes, if this goes wrong, they have the sense to run. If they had the chance, he would have told them to skirt the edge of TigerClan and try to make it as deep into ThunderClan's territory as they could.
He hopes they have the sense to figure that out for themselves.
Firestar is exposing Tigerstar's plans. RiverClan doesn't react. There's not much they'd be surprised by, Stonefur muses. If Firestar told them Tigerstar killed his own kit, he doesn't think he'd be shocked.
Mistyfoot slips towards the front of the crowd. Leopardstar doesn't know, of course. Stonefur has barely had the chance to say two words to her in the past moon. He slinks around to the space between the Clans.
Firestar finishes his speech. No one says anything. Firestar looks takenaback. He glances towards Leopardstar; Stonefur does too. Mistyfoot is watching him, but she's looking at the ground.
A part of Stonefur wants to say, "That's not all." Because, as he starts to run, preparing to leap at Tigerstar, he wants them to know why. He wants them to know what Tigerstar has done. He wants them to revel in Tigerstar's death.
But he doesn't.
Tigerstar sees him, of course. Stonefur isn't trying to be subtle.
"You," Tigerstar growls.
Say it, Stonefur thinks. Tell them what you've done.
But Tigerstar doesn't.
The actual fight is a blur. He doesn't think he is himself again, until Tigerstar's corpse twitches and stills, and he looks towards Leopardstar. Mistyfoot has inserted herself between Leopardstar and Blackfoot, and Stonefur nods minutely.
It's over now.
the clans, of course, are...shocked. riverclan has no complaints, and while...everyone (more or less) is happy tigerstar is dead, but...for thunderclan and windclan, stonefur just murdered him without direct provocation. and the fact that he killed him nine times? direct violation of a warrior doesn't need to kill.
like. if they Knew, they would think stonefur just. but they don't know.
and riverclan doesn't want to explain and shadowclan doesn't want to explain and no i'm not at this moment figuring out what happens wrt bloodclan and so forth. i just wanted to set that scene.
yeah. no idea what happens next in a lot of places here. but.
everyone goes home.
("Your territory," Stonefur growls.
"Obviously," Blackfoot says.)
mistyfoot takes leopardstar to her den. stonefur tells stormpaw to run to thunderclan and ask for their medicine cat. tells him to say it's urgent and he can't explain here. tells him that if they want to send her with a warrior or two, don't argue. just get her here.
featherpaw stations herself outside leopardstar's den.
stonefur feels like he should say something. he's still covered in tigerstar's blood.
"we're taking this down," he says, "now."
they dismantle the bonehill.
once the process has been started, stonefur lets the rest of the warriors finish, and grooms himself and washes in the river until he's satisfied every trace of blood has been taken care of.
he's about to see her when stormpaw arrives with cinderpelt and...hm. sandstorm.
(cinderpelt was there. she saw leopardstar. she can start to put pieces together.)
stonefur greets them, and featherpaw goes to tell mistyfoot and leopardstar, and the adrenaline is fading, his limbs starting to tremble. when's the last time he got any real sleep?
"Stormpaw said you needed a medicine cat," Cinderpelt says.
"We do."
"Did something happen to Mudfur?"
"He can't do this." Stonefur's tail flicks. "We need someone to look at Leopardstar -- you can use our herbs, of course, whatever you need."
Cinderpelt blinks. She's a young cat, Stonefur thinks, too young to be looking at him like she understands. Maybe it's part of being a medicine cat.
"Right then. Does Leopardstar know I'm coming?"
"Featherpaw is telling her."
and stonefur isn't going to follow cinderpelt into leopardstar's den.
for one, it's crowded enough, and he'd probably just get kicked out. for another, he doesn't know what leopardstar and cinderpelt will talk about, but -- he doesn't want to force himself into it.
cinderpelt stays for a while. sandstorm runs proxy, taking some herbs to her, but then she stays with cinderpelt. stonefur has probably been up for over a day when cinderpelt and sandstorm nod.
"take some prey before you leave," he says. "riverclan won't forget this."
"i went over some things with mistyfoot," cinderpelt says. "always good to have some basic herb knowledge."
cats don't have a direct analogue for kissing, but stonefur could kiss cinderpelt for having the grace to say that without letting on why. it's not like riverclan doesn't know. everyone knows.
but.
it's still appreciated.
As the sun rises, Stonefur stands, facing into Leopardstar's den.
"Can I come in?"
Her eyes are watching him. Even they have been changed: no longer the brilliant gold he remembers, but something brassy and dull.
"Of course."
Featherpaw slips past him, taking his place as sentry. She needs to sleep, Stonefur thinks, but it might be best to wait until she's too exhausted to keep her eyes open. He's not above carrying her back to her den like a kit.
Leopardstar starts to stand.
"Don't," Stonefur says. "It's alright."
He hates that seeing her like this is not foreign to him.
Mistyfoot curls up, her eyes closed, a compromise. Stonefur sinks to the ground. "Can I -- do anything?"
Leopardstar looks at the empty space in her nest. "Would you stay with me?"
"Of course." (Anything.)
yeah. uh. i think like. i dunno. it's not like tigerstar ever showed leopardstar a single ounce of kindness. so. uh. am i using that as an excuse to sidestep angst? no. no i am not. well. not entirely. but Damn leopardstar needs a hug.
that she can initiate and control.
but still. she's desperately deprived of positive human contact and as someone who cried once because someone put their hand on my shoulder and i hadn't touched another human being in like six months. i think she needs it.
ohh boy yeah. i think y'all know me well enough to know where i'd go with that angle.
so let me turn my attention to featherpaw. i started answering this ask like an hour ago. anon i love you.
featherpaw has. uh. she's got a Lot of problems. as you can probably understand.
i'd say let's start at the top, but i'm not sure where that is, so let's start with her relationship to stormpaw, because i think that should get fucked up. i think...you know how stormpaw says, "i won't let him kill us"? and. yeah.
but there's never One Moment here and stormpaw realizes way too late and featherpaw feels like...you know like. everyone who is supposed to help her is failing her. she can't really blame leopardstar, and mistyfoot clearly feels bad, and stonefur like. idk what he was doing but she's solidly neutral on him.
could tigerstar try to fuck all of that up? of course he could. do i want to write featherpaw and stonefur arguing about leopardstar? i've already written a lot of something blindingly similar, so not at the moment.
anyway. the relationship i will freely fuck with is stormpaw. i think not because of anything specific, i think tigerstar just gets in her head and she looks like her mother (something tigerstar brings up) and stormpaw takes after their father and he keeps acting like everything is normal and.
at the end of the day, there's this gulf between them that he keeps stepping into.
so yeah. not to mention greystripe. like. fuck.
"Featherpaw!" Greystripe waves his tail at his daughter, and she flinches.
oh hey i hit the grammar cut off again. let me. i learned how to do this okay i'm going to insert some kind of dummy image or something to reset the counter.
there it's a link to my tumblr but i've got grammar checking again xd
moving on.
featherpaw doesn't want to talk to greystripe. it's not Strictly that she thinks what tigerstar said was true (although she's not sure it isn't), but that. just looking at him sets off a loop in her head.
uh. does anyone explain this to greystripe? no. because the cats who could are:
leopardstar (doesn't want to talk about it)
mudfur (doesn't want to talk about it)
mistyfoot (but only by inference, and doesn't consider explaining things to greystripe a priority)
featherpaw (doesn't want to talk about it and doesn't want to talk to greystripe)
so yeah. no. he's in the Dark.
one of the first priorities is building leopardstar a new den. and decorating it. that's part of building a den i just wanted to clarify and.
featherpaw takes it seriously. because. you know. beauty begets beauty.
she doesn't want...stormpaw is ready to jump straight into sharing a den with old apprentice friend dawnpaw. maybe they never stopped.
but featherpaw? doesn't feel safe there. (doesn't feel safe anywhere.)
especially as she's getting older and tigerstar certainly implied and-
she's not sleeping very well.
mistyfoot and stonefur are trying to help her but they're not therapists! they don't know what to do! featherpaw clearly is dealing with shit but how do they help her??? they have no idea!!! how would they?
in a very strange inverse of canon, leopardstar and featherpaw develop a close relationship. leopardstar feels like she failed to protect featherpaw. featherpaw just. doesn't know. she doesn't know what she feels or thinks or knows and like: leopardstar doesn't. she doesn't need to explain herself to leopardstar.
she's in a big sister role to the kits, i think.
uh. yeah. featherpaw. she is not taking any of this well.
sooner or later greystripe corners her (because he doesn't know) and she's having a panic attack and leopardstar is like "you are never allowed to talk to her ever again" and greystripe is like "what the fuck did i do" and someone (mistyfoot?) finally explains.
uh. what else.
stonefur + leopardstar + featherpaw cuddle pile? leopardstar is in the centre. she feels kind of weird about that because she can tell featherpaw is like. going through this whole. uh. whats the. fuck.
like. featherpaw feels like she needs to protect her and leopardstar doesn't really want to encourage that but on the otherhand it's kind of nice that featherpaw is right here because tigerstar 100% used to threaten her to leopardstar and-
yeah.
uh.
i started writing two hours ago so i'm just going to post.
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wetalkinboutbooks · 5 years
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Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
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Summary: Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville—derailing the War Between the States and changing America forever. In this new nation, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Reeducation Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.
But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems. (Taken from Goodreads)
Our Ratings:  
 → Geena:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
 → Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Overall: This is one of the first suggestions we got and HOO BOY IT WAS A GOOD ONE. The perfect mix of action, comedy, murder, and beating up racists.... exactly what we need in a book. 
~Spoiler-full discussion below~ 
The Good:
→ Jane
Geena: I don’t think I’ve read a book where the protagonist just has so much raw power like… at the risk of sounding like I’m from 2012.. But like… my mind was totally blown. We meet Jane during a training exercise at Miss Preston’s zombie slaughtering school where we learn about all the nasty details that lead to the school’s creation. SO ESSENTIALLY, following the civil war (which ended prematurely bc u kno…. zombies) slavery is “abolished” and instead the whites decided it’d be better to set up schools to train black and native people to kill zombies for them 🙄 AND that’s where we meet Jane, in the middle of a training exercise. We also learn that she’s the daughter of one of the more wealthy white women in the area which was very scandalous given the u kno.. R a c i s m… and that even her mother’s status couldn’t keep her from being sent to the school. Jane also recounts moments from her childhood such as almost being killed when she was born… and she does it so nonchalantly that I fucking died dude. 
Kae: Nobody: …..
Jane: Yeah my momma tried to drown me. She doesn’t think I remember but I do… ANYWAY. 
Geena: LMAOOOOOOO YEA I FUCKING LOST IT LIKE DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN LIKE SHE IS SO RAW… BUT YEA, also Justina Ireland does this cool thing where she has excerpts from the letters Jane sends her mother which outline events that are VERY different from what actually happens in the chapter, and fuck I loved that sm. Jane is I think one of the girls that can read at the school and she’s got a liking for the science behind the biology of zombies but she gets in trouble cONSTANTLY because she’s too cool for Miss Preston’s school… ok jk no she gets into trouble because she always manages to piss off that one racist ass bitch, Miss Anderson. In the first few chapters we learn that Jane is smart, strong, and a total babe even though she doesn’t think so :(. 
I loved how Jane was written to be slightly hot-headed but not like bullheaded, like she would get angry real quick but she’d know when to act on her urges to beat the shit out of people. And I guess this stems from her childhood like…. SHE MURDERS HER DAD IN COLD BLOOD BC HE TRIED TO CHOKE THE LIFE OUTTA HER and also to preserve her mom’s secret which was that she was a white-passing black woman. And bc her dad was a racist white man Jane knew that wouldn’t bode well for anyone…. She did all this when she was like eight so like…. WILD (It’s what he deserved tho) but yea ever since then Jane’s been playing the game like a pro. She’s a pro zombie slayer that doesn’t take shit from ANYONE even when it lands her in trouble, and she cares a lot for the people around her even though she might pretend that she’s only out to get back to her mom. AND I LOVE HER for everything she does, but FUCK SHE WENT THROUGH SO MUCH SHIT IN THIS BOOK THAT IT HURT TO READ. ALSO WE FIND OUT THAT SHE’S BI…. WE STAN A BISEXUAL BADASS
→ Katherine
Kae:  Geena summed up, Jane very well! Jane is smart (and could read so her teachers were pissed), strong, and just an all around badass. I really love her. She deserves the world. 
Well, moving on to Katherine. Katherine is another student at Miss. Prestons school and she and Jane don’t get along well. Kate, as Jane calls her, which Katherine HATES, because she likes to be called by her full name. She is white passing with very light skin and blue eyes. She has blonde, loose curly hair and is described as absolutely gorgeous. Jane is a little jealous of her and hates admitting it. But she’s like “She’s gorgeous, it is what it is… But she’s from Virgina so ugh.” Katherine is right up to par with Jane’s zombie slaying skills and is the top of her class. Katherine is dainty, bougie, and a total rule follower. She’s into fashion and trying to find a good job protecting white folks from zombies when she graduates Miss. Prestons. She thinks of Jane as a little unruly and wild. But she tries her damndest to be respectful to Jane, even if they can’t stand each other.  
So, moving forward a bit. Kate is kind of nosey so she’s always catching Jane doing some shit she isn’t supposed to be doing… like having books smuggled to her by a boy named Red Jack. She also overhears Jane and Jack discussing how his sister went missing and he needs help to find her. So, she self invites and tags along later that night. In the mean time,  Jane and Kate have a lecture they need to attend to. When they get there, they realize that there is going to be a demonstration of proof that a “Shambler Cure” actually works. Shamblers are zombies. So this professor has a cage of three zombies and has some poor, black man risk himself and get bit. He has supposedly already been injected with the cure. Jane was like “this shit fake… He boutta die.” And Jane tries to interrupt, but she is quickly hushed. The antidote or cure or whatever DOESN’T work and the dude turns into a zombie. Jane shoots him down, then the other zombies get loose and now everyone is in a panic. Jane and Katherine take them down and save the day. A few weeks later, that are invited to the mayors house to “protect” it. (They really were only asked just so they could show up and be seen…) Someone turns into a Shambler, Jane takes them down, then that’s settled. So now they’ve saved the day TWICE. 
Red Jack has somehow SNUCK IN to the damn mayors house, so him and Jane do some snooping. They get caught. Then by default, Katherine gets in trouble. Well, Katherine gets in trouble because she is too pretty and none of the white women want her around because they think their husbands or whoever will start to be like👀  and the women get jealous. Katherine was out of a job before it even started because she’s just too damn gorgeous. So Kate, Jane, and Red Jack get sent off to the WILD WILD WEST BAYBEEE. But it actually sucks.  Let’s talk about Red Jack before we get into that though.
Geena: NGL KATE’S THE TYPE OF GIRL I WOULD’VE ABSOLUTELY HATED TOO IF I WAS JANE BUT!!!!! I love how we get to see the friendship develop between the two as they both learn about each other’s past and that maybe they CAN be friends. Also, Kate is ace and wants to travel the world which I RESPECT… but oh yea I was gonna say Jane and Kate are the true enemies to best friends trope. ALSO HER BACKSTORY IS SAD BRUH LIKE everyone looking down on her bc she’s from virginia smh……… okay but seriously the fact that Kate was constantly trying so hard to compensate for the fact that she came from a brothel that she became Miss Perfect (OR AT LEAST that’s what we learn from Jane’s perspective and as @zemenipearls pointed out Jane isn’t a reliable narrator so Kate’s backstory is kinda shady at this point but that’s what we think it is) 
→ Red Jack 
Kae: Let’s talk about Red Jack! Jackson Keats, aka Red Jack is Jane's ex boyfriend. He got the name “Red Jack” because he’s a redbone. He’s described with light brown skin and blue eyes. He also has a gold tooth and short curly hair with hints of auburn. He’s smart and can scheme his ass off and is known for taking big risks.  He also smuggles Jane books when she ask and send letters out to her mother for her. It’s also noted that he cannot read. He deals in dirty business, mostly scamming people out of money. But the kid has to make a living! I like him. Jack has a little sister named Lilly who is white passing. So he sent her with a nice white family who would let her blend in with them so she could avoid being sent off to a school like Miss. Prestons. Jack and Jane, despite them being exes, are decent friends I think. Jane hates to admit it, but she still likes Jack (even though he gets on her nerves). 
At a certain point, Jack’s little sister, along with the family she is staying with, completely disappear. Their house in still in tact, but they aren’t there. He’s worried because his sister would’ve sent word if she knew they were leaving. But he hadn’t heard a thing from her, and went to Jane. So Jane, Jack, and Kate end up at the Spencers’ house to look for clues. They can’t find anything, but they DO overhear Miss. Anderson and two other men say that they needed to clean the house out and remove all of their belongings. 
Later, when we get to the mayor’s dinner party that was previously mentioned, Jack and Jane run into each other and go snooping around the governor's office. There, Miss. Anderson is waiting for them and they are CAUGHT. She drags them to the Mayor’s basement where he is ready to send them off to a town called, Summerland, that is way out west. It’s a town where he is trying to uphold white supremecy and slavery.There, he will make sure that anyone who is black, is treated as if they are still slaves.  A man named Mr. Redfern, a Native man, escorts them out West. They are given dulled down weapons to protect the town from Shamblers, and well, this is just no good. When Jack and the crew arrive in Summerland, he punches the shit out of Redfern and tries to make a run for it. He is then tackled, jailed, and that’s the last we see of him… for a while. 
Geena: holy shit Kae litcherally outlined everything about Red Jack PERFECTLY. He’s how you would say a rascal… a cute rascal (Jane would agree). 
Kae: Lmao Jane’s got taste. I gotta give her that. BAD BOYZ are my thing lowkey
Geena: oKAY but SEE RED JACK IS A BAD BOI WITH A GOOD HEART. I mean yeh he and Jane had a “messy breakup” but they were still friends and he smuggled out letters for her mom and brought her books, and she helped him around with his ~business~ however shady it was. But I also liked how he was an idiot, I mean in the sense that UNLIKE JANE who knows how to control her anger and use it in the future, Jack just pops off like how Kae mentioned him decking Mr. Redfern. Jane thought about it but also thought ahead and realized she wouldn’t get far doing that. Red Jack tho… Boy thought he could outrun like 3 grown men 😭 AND WHEN THE READER AND JANE WERE LED TO BELIEVE THAT HE’D DIED?? BRO??? I WAS LIKE…. HOW U GONNA MAKE THIS CHARACTER A CHARMING LIL SHIT AND THEN KILL HIM ALMOST RIGHT AWAY…. BUT then when he came back I WAS THROWN.
Time to project BUT I love characters like Red Jack you know they’re shady and like to play everything off as a joke but when they get serious… they get serious. And I wonder what role he’s going to play in the second book, because all he cares about in his life is his family aka Lily right… Would he accompany Kate and Jane to save her momma when it would mean leaving Lily with people he probably can’t fully trust? Also, how did Jane and Red Jack even meet? I think it’d be cool to see where he came from, and what happened to the rest of his family and that’s another reason why I can’t wait till book 2!  
The Bad:
→ Miss. Preston and Miss Anderson
Geena: Man, we don’t even meet Miss Preston that long in the book like she has a few scenes here and there but god she is the fucking worst! Who runs a school and houses young black women and gives them a refined education with training with specialized weapons.. Only to ship them to a town where slavery is making a comeback??  And pretending like you care about them?? Disgusting… We all assume that Miss Preston is innocent and is busy running her school until the dinner that Kae has mentioned above where we find out that she’s in cahoots with the Mayor and has been supplying him girls from her school for as long as he has needed them… how “white allies” be sometimes… I really hope… from the bottom of my heart that she was devoured by a shambler bc it’s the only fate that she deserves you know… And then we have the hoe ass Miss Anderson who didn’t even try to hide her contempt of Jane and doted on Katherine → This we realize later into the book is solely because of how white-passing Katherine was and because Miss Anderson is a big ol’ racist who uses slurs like it’s nobody's business. 
Now, I realize that Ireland was trying to outline the different types of racists you come across in life. There’s those that pretend to be your friend and support you up front but behind your back they won’t hesitate to fuck you over (aka Miss Preston), like Miss Preston does help out Jane initially when she’s unfairly tested by Miss Anderson, but Preston also is the one to support sending Jane to Summerland so like….. and also we have your standard brand of racist aka Miss Anderson that doesn’t even try to hide how antiblack and dehumanizing she is because she straight up doesn’t care and knows that Jane or anybody else can do shit about it. 
→ Mr. Redfern
Kae: Okay, so now we’ve got Mr. Redfern. Mr. Redfern is a tall,  handsome, Native American man who is always scowling at Jane. He doesn’t like her and she isn’t sure why… That is, until our girl asks him. He thinks she is wasting her talents when she sneaks out and kills shamblers in the night. 
Geena: OKAY WAIT WAIT WAIT THIS BRINGS UP THE QUESTION.. HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN SPYING ON HER
Kae: OHHHH SHIT YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHAT THE FUCK. YOOO. HE HAD TO HAVE BEEN WATCHING HER FOR MONTHS. 
Geena: I FEEL LIKE…. THERE’S SOMETHING WE’RE MISSING BUT IDK WHAT
Kae: THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR BEING A SPEED READER. I BE MISSIN’ SHIT. Whew. Okay, so as you can see, we’ve just come to a sudden realization! Mr. Redfern is a sneaky son of a gun. 
But uhh, he mentions that he was taken from his tribe and sent off to one of the “Indian Shambler Schools” where he was given a new identity, etc. This is also basically what happened to Native Children back in those days, in order to erase their heritage and their entire selves. This was how they forced people to assimilate. They were sent to Indian Industrial Schools. 
Mr. Redfern is in cahoots with the Mayor (by force) and is the one to basically help kidnap Jackson, Jane, and Katherine. He stuffs them on a train for a week and at the end of their trip, they are out west. We don’t see him again after this. But later, we find out that he made Jackson a deal and sent him to a town not too far from Summerland to do “business”. Thus, when Jack returns to Summerland to steal ammunition for said town, he runs into Jane and Katherine and tells them Red Jack helped him out. 
ALTHOUGHHHH, REDFERN HELPED JACKSON, I DON’T LIKE HIM. HE WAS UNNECESSARILY MEAN TO JANE AND KIDNAPPED THE CREW AND THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. 
Geena: Yess Mr. Redfern, the man we thought would be an ally but turned out to be the opposite. Once again this mimics history I suppose because there were instances of indigenous people aiding the whites when it came to slavery and I suppose Ireland was trying to write that but she also makes it writes that while he is helping them he doesn’t seem too proud of it. But the matter of the fact is, he’s still helping enforce the white man’s rules. Though I do hope with the turn of the second book Mr. Redfern leaves that shit behind and decides to fully switch sides, aka let the whites to their own dirty work and help the people with a real cause.
ALSO, I keep talking about the second book but I really hope we meet more indigenous characters that aren’t Mr. Redfern you know, but those that aren’t under the thumb of a white person :( ALTHOUGH, I love how Ireland has the excerpt at the end where it mentions the residential schools in-depth and she encourages readers to research more of it which leads me to believe that we’ll be hearing more of them coming the next book as well. 
Kae: Just one more small part. I was like, completely convinced that those looks Redfern were shooting at Jane was because he thought she was cute. That is until Jane was like “alright, he CLEARLY doesn’t like me” and I was like oh… I totally misread those signals and I’m an idiot. BUT WHATEVER IT’s FINE. I do, however, think he will turn around. I don’t think he’s like, inherently bad. He’s just forced to do bad shit. Everyone is trying to survive in this world and I’m NOT giving him an excuse, but like, I get it. Ya feel me?
Geena: oKAY BUT KAE I TOO THOUGHT HE WAS INTO HER SO THAT MAKES US BOTH BOOBOO THE FOOL. AND YEA, it comes down to survival in a world where you’re not even considered human BUT that doesn’t excuse any actions. 
Kae: .jpg “we irritating” meme 
Geena: Is it even our review if we don’t have at least one (1) meme reference
The Ugly:  
→ Every single white person (minus Mr. Gideon) 
Geena: So I really enjoyed this book but Justina Ireland didn’t pull any punches when it came down to the true and dark details of the time period she was writing. She captures the essence of white folks, even during an apocalypse they find the time to push their white supremacy and tread on the backs of the black and indigenous people. I was grinding my teeth for a majority of the book, the way people would talk down to all the black characters and simply refer to them as though they weren’t human.
Mayor Carr, the Sheriff, and the Priest are the faces of white supremacy that think it’s in their destiny to put down bipoc and use them as slaves (though they won’t call it that) and fuck dude… Mayor Carr is like Miss Preston, pretends to be an ally and is using the people he pretends to support as fodder for his white supremacist wasteland. Even Jane mentions that he’s no better than other white men but people pretend he’s the best politician they have.
The Sheriff doesn’t even disguise his racism, he’s your typical ‘slavery wasn’t that bad’ assfuck and the way he treats Katherine bc he has an ugly crush on her thinking she’s white is disgusting bc you know if he knew that she’s simply white-passing he’d probably murder her in cold blood… and when he finds out, the exact thing Jane was afraid would happen to her mother almost happens to Katherine (she almost dies at the hand of the Sheriff’s fugly ass)....and fuck Katherine handled it so well even though she was very much uncomfortable the whole time. And the way Jane murdered him?? With no remorse… I fucking loved that, IDK if Justina Ireland was trying to go for a Jane is unhinged vibe (bc that’s how Katherine reacted to it) but I was like fuck yea girl shoot him a few times more for good measure.
The Priest is the biggest shit of them all like I cannot even begin to…… Every time I think of his wrinkly ass my blood pressure rises three levels because holy fuck. He preaches that he’s a holy man and that he’s only carrying out the orders of God and so on, and it’s DIGOSTENG the way he uses the bible as a weapon to put down the black and indigenous folk around Summerland. He blames them for how they look and says it’s their duty to “serve their white superiors” as redemption so that they may get a place in heaven 🙄🙄🙄🙄 This reminds me of what Kae had mentioned before about the story of Nate Turner who knew how to read so the plantation owners would make him read a fucked-up version of the bible to the others and like….. White people really took a faith founded by a brown man and turned it into a weapon for their white supremacy it’s disgusting. But what was really sad was that there are still people to this day like the Priest that have pretty hefty roles in churches and so on… spewing their racist rhetoric and god I can’t even fucking deal, every time he and Jane interacted I just wanted her to snap his neck in half and call it a day…. Like what was his old ass gonna do? Fart? 
Kae: Sweet! So Geena pretty much covered everything. The Sheriff is a whole ass bitch and he has a bunch of lackeys doing his dirty work while he parades around Summerland and berates anyone who is of colour. Basically, he has black people shipped out to the West so they can sacrifice themselves to defend Summerlands inhabitants with faulty weaponry and experiments. When Jane brings up that she needs better weapons so she can do her job, she’s slapped for it and told to deal with it. The black people and everyone else who is considered of low status, are treated horribly. They’re all shoved in a hot attic with thin, dirty blankets to sleep on the floor. They are locked in their rooms at night and forbidden to leave until it is time for them to work again. They all also barely have enough to eat, so essentially, they are starving. Jane and her new companions are overworked, underfed, and are only able to bathe once a week. It’s truly barbaric. The Sheriff wants to make sure they know they are “below” white people and were only created to serve them. It’s disgusting and I wanted to kill the man myself. It was infuriating reading how horrible they were treated and all of the slurs they were called. Slurs I forgot even existed. 
The Sheriff catches Jane one night after she had snuck out, and beats her in front of the whole town. He ties her to a pole, strips her shirt off, and whips her. I actually had to skip that part because I couldn’t bare to read it. It was too much and I just couldn’t do it. I’ve seen enough of it. Jane, even though she is inches away from death, is saved by Katherine speaking out against it. Since the Sheriff has a crush on her, he stops, and allows Jane to join her in the safe part of Summerland to be her servant. I usually don’t like reading books about my people being so poorly treated, but Jane shot his ass point blank when she had the opportunity and I reveled in that. I love to see us fight back! 
As for the Priest, he is the Sheriff’s father so he helps influence the bullshit that goes on in town. It is also heavily implied that underestimating the Priest is not the best decision. He apparently beat someone to death so that’s fuckin wild, considering how much of an old racist fuck he is. ANYWAY, he gives sermons every night on how “the Negro” was meant to serve and how they are to “stay in their place” and I cringed through the whole thing. It was horrible. Almost no one in the town likes the Sheriff or the Priest. The whore’s, the “slaves”, and Mr. Gideon (the Mayor's son), were all forced to be in Summerland and they hate it and the two bastards in charge. This drives them to conduct a plan to kill them both so they can escape. The plan was to have Katherine pretend to be white, have the Sherif fall in love with her, then Jane takes him out of the picture. But things didn’t go as planned so it took a few extra steps of danger BUT they made it and scarcely avoided a big zombie horde, and made it out. 
Geena: OH YEA MR. GIDEON….. He’s supposed to be this scientist guy with a limp which we find out he does on purpose, and he KNOWS that Katherine is white-passing but he doesn’t say shit bc unlike the rest of the white men there he isn’t racist and he’s trying to figure out a way out of the town… Also, this man-made an electricity grid run off of zombies and that was so fucking funny to me for no reason other than it reminded me of a scene from a sitcom when Jane walked in on the contraption. ALSO, JANE MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE A THING FOR MR. GIDEON AND IT MAY OR MAY NOT BE RECIPROCATED? LIKE It’s funny reading Jane’s attraction to him like “he’s nerdy lookin… but in a cute way” but am I here for it?? Undecided...
Conclusion
Kae: So in conclusion, this book was really good. I enjoyed reading this AU of a zombfied civil war. It was interesting to see how things played out. I thought the world-building was pretty cool and I like how the South was called “The lost states” because they’d been lost to zombies. They also LOST THE WAR LMAOOO BITCHASSES. Anywaaaaay, I think Jane is such a strong, beautifully written character. She’s hotheaded, but she isn’t impulsive. She’s brave and she knows when to strike. She is smart, cunning, and a joy to be around. If she were real, I’d absolutely be her friend. She’s my kind of person. She keeps it real and I like that. Katherine is kind of complex and I can’t wait to find out more about her. She hides behind this proper, boujie demeanor, but I think a lot of it is a facade. I like how though Katherine is white-passing, she NEVER forgets or dismisses that she is black. She knows who she is and she hated pretending to be white. As for Jackson! He's impulsive, suave motherfucker and I hope we see more of him too! I think he’s going to have a bigger role to play in the next book and I’m ready to see what it’ll be. I can’t wait to find out what is in store for these characters because they are all beautifully written and their friendships are puuuure baybeeee.
Geena: GIRL YOU SUMMED UP ALL THE CHARACTERS REALLY WELL!!! You got everything that I loved about Jane, she’d be my idol irl… and Katherine is a really complex character and I’m excited to see how her story unfolds in the next book. SPEAKING OF WHICH…. THE COVER FOR THAT DROPPED AND O MY GOD…….. KATE AND JANE LOOK LIKE ABSOLUTE BABES and I cAN’T WAIT TO SEE THEM FUCK SHIT UP!
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fearsbellsarchived · 4 years
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[me? Thinking about a gf fairytales au instead of being productive? More likely than u think!!! think ou.at buT BETTER and w/o the real world dimension hopping part. under the cut bc i just copy/pasted my tags from forever ago to put them in one place
mabel and dipper are hansel and gretal
paz is sleeping beauty 
bill is maleficient 
if we’re gonna get disney about it wendy as merida 
i LOVE the idea of tambry as rapunzel??? 
mabel can also be like...eric from the little mermaid 
so mermando can be ariel 
gIDEON AS URSULA/VANESSA IN THAT VEIN THO 
bill is also rumplestilskin 
stan can be the huntsman (idk from which story cause theres a fEW BUT)
ford is the sorcerer from fanstasia 
ford is teaching dipper magic....and instead of a true love’s kiss that’s how he wakes paz (maybe?)
the northwests made a deal w bill like in the most famous version of rumplestilskin but instead of wanting paz for himself he just wanted to steal her body at 16
so when they lose the deal they ask for help from ford and ford’s like “yo i can maybe change the deal??? a little bit???” so instead of bill taking her over when he goes to she falls asleep ​
so dipper wasnt supposed to wake her up but he found her and fords notes and he and mabel went on an adventure
bill is all the villains 
billains 
so stan has to leave mabel and dipper in the woods (idk y it wasnt for long the twins are just impatient) so stan disappears and the twins are like “lETS EXPLORE THE WOODS”
they come across some creepy old house w a lot of spiderwebs (can u guess the villain yet?)
an older woman comes out and is like “why are you guys lost in the forest?”
mabel points to the glitter trail “we’re not lost”
dipper looks behind them ‘mabel!!! where’s all the glitter?!”
(ACTUALLY MAYBE ITS YARN???) 
so they lose the trail 
meanwhile stan is losing his fucking mind
he follows the stray glitter but it’s blown all over
he feels “LOST IN THE WOOOOODDDS!!!”
so the old lady offers for them to stay the night bc its getting late
dipper is SUPER sus but he plays it cool surprisingly
mabel is So In!
long short...stan eventually saves them from darlene’s trap
usually shes just a maneater but look
when u live in the woods u do what u can
so stan hauls them back to their cottage
dipper knew there was weird shit out there but he wants MORE
he starts going through his great-uncle’s journals (*cue the dipper squee*)
he reads about bill and his deal w paz’s parents
he’s like....’maybe we should rescue her?’
ford wont tell him why they cant
so dipper and mabel sneak out
they steal the grunkles’ boat
mabel falls over board???
dipper tries like HELL to save her
but then he sees mermando save her
SO MABEL IS SAVED BY MERMANDO!!! 
gideon (who had long-loved mabel from afar) finds out
he visits the merman to trick him
all mabel remembers is his voice
so YES mermando trades his voice for legs just like the movie
sue me okay w his distinct accent it makes sense!!!
so the twins get sidetracked bc mermando shows up out of nowhere
they dock on a small island for a pit stop and thats when ‘kiss the girl’ happens
they dont kiss so they move on
they dock on another stretch of land the next day
AND GIDEON APPEARS
the twins have only heard about him from their grunkles so mabel hears his voice and goes *heart eyes*
mermando is Distressed
dipper is Focused on getting to this sleeping princess
mabel makes fun of him for liking her
SO GIDEON HAS MERMANDOS VOICE!
at one point dipper catches him w/o the amulet that makes him sound like mermando
and he tells mabel and its kinda like “the hand that rocks the mabel” or whatever the ep was called
it takes dipper and mermando being threatened (and gideons voice slipping) for her to catch on and she breaks up w him
dipper wants to throw him overboard
they just leave him on the next inhabited island they find
mermando got his kiss but decides to go back to the ocean anyway
he promises to write
mabel is Sad
SO BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED ADVENTURE!
the twins come across a land near the one paz is on and decide to stop for food and to stretch their legs and other hygiene things
they find out there’s some archery thing going on and mabel is like ’ooooh can we try?!’
turns out its for neighboring kingdoms’ princes to win a princess
mabel and dipper think this is RIDICULOUS so they crash it
mabel steps up to shoot and everyone’s like ‘wHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?’
then dipper steps up beside her. neither of them have shot a bow before
they shoot at the same time. mabel’s like thisclose to the bullseye. dippers too far right
THEN!!! PRINCESS WENDY COMES OUT OF NOWHERE
DIPPER AND MABEL ARE IN AWE OF THIS VALKYRIE. THEYRE BOTH READY FOR HER TO KILL THEM BC THEY THINK ITLL BE AWESOME
but wendy is like ‘ACTUALLY ILL SHOOT FOR MYSELF THANKS’ and splits like three arrows down the middle w her accuracy
she looks at mabel and dipper and is like ‘u dudes look fun! ive never seen u before who are u???’
and they’re like ‘WELL!’ and launch into detail about their adventure w overlapping voices and sound affects and VAST description
anyways. i cant decide how old people are rn okay 
so wendy is like “hey dad??? im going on an adventure w these guys!” and her dad is like “unusual but u DID just win ur own hand. so ill allow it”
“YES! can i take soos too?!” 
“sure!”
sO THEYRE OFF AGAIN!!! lemme tell u the ship is filling faST!!!
they get to paz’s land. and the first thing they find is a girl in a tower with long purple hair.
everyone is pretty much just making ‘wtf’ faces for like....ten minutes.
finally wendy calls up the tower like “YO! WHATS W ALL THE HAIR?!”
tambry leans out the window w a bored expression and goes “its mine. im tambry. who r u?”
they introduce themselves and are like “u wanna come on our adventure?”
then....ROBBIE APPEARS!
and he knows where the princess is!!!
”oh yeah. her. shes also in a tower. its got a door but its guarded by gnomes.”
then robbie climbs tambrys hair pecks her cheek and ducks in the tower
they decide to head for the tower robbie directed them to. but they have to pass the castle. Northwest Castle
robbie warned them about the northwests. said that the princess was one and before she disappeared she was the snottiest brat hed ever met
so they became friends despite the fact that he plays music for a living (and not very well either)
her parents told her of the spell when she was twelve
so robbie’s like “they are not nice people and neither was she??? most of the townsfolk are glad shes asleep tbh”
but dammit! dipper came here for an adventure!!! he wasnt going to stop just bc the princess wasnt what he expected!
so they continue on!
mabel is like “maybe she doesnt KNOW how to be nice!”
and soos is just excited to be there!
and wendy is just...u kno...chill
they start to get close to the castle and they feel like they’re being watched
and then soos notices the PEACOCKS!
they assume theyre spies for the king and queen. which is half true?
they can also warn bill if someone is near pacifica
oh damn imagine that
being stuck asleep w a DREAM DEMON in ur head
sorry for the accidental psychological torture paz
WHICH IS THE ONLY TORTURE SHES HAD!
i think to make up for risking her life as a baby ther parents were like “we’re just gonna spoil u rotten and PRETEND u do no wrong eVERYTHING IS FINE”
so dipper is reading the journal and he FINALLY gets to the true loves kiss part of the deal
and he looks around at the party like “oh shit true love what do we do???”
mabel suggests he at least try and everyone agrees that yeah okay thats the back up plan
but dipper wants to use a SPELL!!!
so the king and queen see him w the journal and remember ford having the same one
so everyone is brought to the king and queen
theyre like “pRINCESS GWENDOLYN?!”
bc this is MY STORY and if i wanna give wendy a more princess-y name thEN I WILL
i say as i continue to refer to mason as DIPPER!!!
SO THEYRE MEETING THE NORTHWESTS!!!
wendys like “yes that is me the princess” and then everyone else introduces themselves...w dipper introducing himself as mason bc it just sounds more fairytale-y
soos is jesus (hey zeus! not jee sus)
soos is like....wendys bff/personal servant but mostly bff
so they explain their adventure to the northwests as quickly as possible
preston is no patient man and he’s is like “tbh its probably important she be here for her 18th bday soooo??? as long as she wakes up by next year why not???”
but only bc dipper was like “i wANNA USE MAGIC I DONT WANNA KISS HER THATS PLAN B!!!”
plus u kno...even if he DOES whats the guarantee itll work???
the guarantee is me being a filthy shipper tHATS WHAT!!!
so they continue to the tower!
there is probably a sidequest thingy with giffany bc i liked that episode
also soos needs more screentime im sorry
SO THEN!!! FINALLY!!!! THEY MAKE IT TO THE TOWER!!!
WHICH IS!!!
IN FACT!!!
GUARDED
BY
GNOMES!]
also theres a manotaur/multi-bear sidequest i just thought of bc i like THAT episode!!!
is this gf, a fairytale, sk.yrim, or a d.n.d campaign now??? WHO KNOWS!!! ITS NOT ME!!!
SO THEY GOTTA GET PAST THE GNOMES!
first they offer safe passage in exchange for mabel as their queen
after thats declined theyre like “or the redhead. well take her!”
this is also declined
finally jeff tells them to attack
at first the party tries to fight them off and they do okay
uNTIL SOME GNOME WEAPONIZED SCHMEBULOCKS RAINBOW PUKE!!! (i think it’s toxic tbh but i dONT REMEMBER)
finally mabel just pulls out her trusty crosSbow (aka “GRAPPLING HOOK!”) and they just make a tightrope to the window above the door
wendy goes first and NAILS it
then everyone else follows
soos almost falls and gets left to the gnomes but everyone helps him balance and they all make it through the window
coincidentally. the window leads to the princess’s room
OH MAN WHY DIDNT I USE THE PTERODACTYL?!
oh well. anyways.
everyone is looking around the room and like...taking it all in
dipper takes a moment...then walks over to the princess
he isnt sure if waking her will also wake the demon
crossover even more w my old paciphera au??? idk probably not
so dipper tries the spells he narrowed it down to
none of them work
all his friends have returned to the princess’s room and mabel is like “u gotta kiss her brobro!”
so dipper...poor poor dipper...just leans forward and kisses her
paz pretty much snaps her eyes open when dipper is a half inch from her face while he’s pulling back 
and even tho she was forewarned she wasnt expecting DIPPER so she SCREAMS
dippers ears are ringing
she shuts her eyes and stills her breathing and sits up.
AND SEES EVERYONE ELSE AND SCREAMS AGAIN
“i dIDNT EXPECT U TO BRING *FRIENDS*!”
so once shes a little more calm they explain the whole adventure to her
paz feels a little honored they came all this way just for her
also since True Love beats everything bill is like.....back in his home dimension. also paz has been fighting him for like....over a year.
so paz is like....ready to Go. u kno. just wants to go HOME.
they get pazs shit together and exit the tower through the door
she says goodbye to the gnomes. all by name.
“oh yeah mom and dad made them my personal guard when i was like...eight. theyve been prepping for this my whole life. they’ll meet me back at the castle.” so then she starts telling them about herself and her last like 
two years of being asleep w a DREAM DEMON
“sometimes i got the weirdest nightmares??? and they never ended. but when i woke up i couldnt remember anything specific.”
she and dipper talk away from the group. he tells her about how hes her true love and everything “okay well. we’ll have to lie to my parents and say it was a spell. bc they will NOT approve of us being true loves and if they hurt you...”
“then they hurt *you* too!” dipper finishes (idk maybe a combo w a soulmate au thing?)
meanwhile mabel is like...whining about boy problems??? and wendy is like “this is y boys r dumb.”
soos is like...wandering off. I WANNA INCORPORATE MELODY BUT WHO SHOULD SHE BE?!
paz and dipper start like....arguing about how to deal w her parents
apparently they actually ARENT that nice. if she doesnt marry a prince they’ll give her over to bill completely...or something idk
SO theyre nearing the castle!!!
theyve written theyre grunkles okay no worries. also mermando.
thats y mabels complaing about boys.
mermando and that manatee wife of his!!!
paz is not exactly ready to face her parents so she convinces the party (roll for charisma) to go the long way
which is actually just circles
anyways
we run back in to melody and soos and the party is like ‘wHOOPS WE DIDNT EVEN NOTICE GLAD U DIDNT GET EATEN BY A SPIDER LADY!
maybe melody is like....a fairy???
something light and ‘childish’ bc thatd fit her personality
soos is like “ive BEEN here. u dudes have been going in circles.” and everyone glares at paz.
“im sorry!!! i just dont want to go back!!!”
“ur dad made us promise to have u back for ur 18th bday.” says dipper while he tries to stay mad at his future wife
paz is like “YEAH SO HE CAN MARRY ME OFF TO A PRINCE!!!”
idk why paz and dips are being better at being soulmates here okay i was like....sleep-drunk when i first wrote this
so the party has a choice to make.
take paz back home where she wont be able to be w her TL (which in some cases has probably led to death) OR!!!
sneak her out and take her home w them?!
wendys probably gotta go back to her own kingdom tho.
and soos wants to stay w melody
U KNOW WHAT I JUST REALIZED?!
sTAN NEVER GOT TO BE SOOS’S DAD!!!!
SORRY SOOS!!!
so anyways
mabel and dipper decide to help her sneak out
luckily she knows all the blindspots
it takes longer but they finally make it back to their ship
they say theyre goodbyes to soos and melody and paz wishes them well in her kingdom. she promises to return when shes ready to rule
they load the ship and sail to wendys kingdom next
they stay a few days to recuperate
paz has trouble sleeping bc when she does the nightmares come back.
cue a kat.niss/pee.ta thing where paz sleeps next to dips bc it keeps the nightmares away
wendy has to explain why soos isnt w them to her dad who kinda shrugs it off?
“u proved u can protect urself.” or something.
after like.....a whole fucking year the twins are heading home.
paz and dipper sleep together on the ship too bc its just fucking easier
paz is nervous to meet the grunks
she and dipper arent exactly....dating??? its def more like soulmate au
where theyre AWARE theyre supposed to be together but they dont even rly know if they WANT to be together.
paz is p much “i dont rly wanna be w anyone else. ill let u kno if that changes.” and dips is like “tbh same.”
mabel is already planning a big royal wedding.
iDK Y BUT I WANT THEM TO FIND OUT THEYVE BEEN ROYALTY ALL THIS TIME??? probably just bc i LOVE that trope!!! but theyre not so its whateves.
so they FINALLY get home. mabel has been writing letters this whole time. to mermanso. to soos and melody. to wendy.
shes the captain of the dip.ifica ship and shes gotta keep her crewmembers in the know!!!
the twins also wrote to the grunks the whole time so!!!! no worries!!!
paz tries writing to her parents...but she can never find the right words.
meeting the grunks isnt as bad as she thought???
stan loves her off the bat. partially bc shes rich and bc she doesnt take shit
ford is pleased to meet the girl he saved and shes v v thankful to him for saving her life as best he could.
it takes her like a YEAR to write the letter.
she promises her parents she’ll return. AFTER shes married.
at this point she and dipper ARE together. they figured all theyre confusion out and are just living the good life!
mabel and wendy are doing the long distance thing. shes still friends w mermando.
robbie and tambry found paz and they write back and forth.
u CAN TAKE ROBBIE AND PAZ SIBLINGS FROM MY DECOMPOSING HANDS!!!
everything is as happily ever after as it can get.
and then dipper proposes despite knowing what it means.
BUT THATS A WHOLE OTHER ADVENTURE!!!!
*end credits roll. an epic theme song starts playing*
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loxxxlay · 5 years
Note
Do you have any fic rec for hurt/comfort thorki / thorloki? and another I’ve been looking for quite a while now lol I wanted to know if you’d have any rec for Frostmaster fic where Loki lost his virginity to the Grandmaster (bc I’m that kind of person oops) Sorry I asked a lot 😂 but you’re my favorite blog and you seem to have all the good stuff so yeah :) have a nice day friend
Sorry omg I’m such a procrastinator omfg. But at last, I have linked up all the fics. Also assuming the other anon was you, I’m so grateful you like my blog and think my taste in fic is good al;skdhgl;ksahg. that means a lot more than I can say *_* -is melting on the floor-
(note: I will not be capitalizing the letter t in this answer because my t key is broken yaddayaddayadda, don’t take it personally, it’s either lowercase t’s in titles, or no fic recs lol)
H/C thor&loki or thorki fics!
With threshing Oar by @thunderingraven​ (thorki)
the author writes a ton of thorki in general ahh, so I figured this was a good place to start. this fic is a post-ragnarok fix-IW-fic au, in which thor and loki start to settle their differences while on the Statesman ship. there is a lot of angst on both ends, and a lot of comforting and healing between them. one of the tags is “this is a healing fic” and that is not a lie. i feel so good reading this fic. Just the right balance between hurt and comfort every chapter, and extremely well written (like this author’s style is incredible)
my body’s made of shell by @veliseraptor​ (thor&loki)
this author writes a shit ton of h/c, esp of the thor&loki variety, but this one is by far my favorite of hers so far, as far as h/c goes. it’s a post-IW fix-it-fic au, which basically revolves around loki being in a state that is almost death and thor comforting and aiding him through it. the way loki narrates is so visceral and raw and i’m pretty sure i cried several times upon reading this. super powerful stuff.
drown my woes in a lake of fire by @veliseraptor​ (thor&loki + past-dark!frostmaster)
another one by lise lol. this one has some past frostmaster trauma for loki to recover from, and since u mentioned ur interest in frostmaster, i figured now was a good opportunity to give some thor&loki h/c specifically in regards to trauma (an opportunity that does not come up often). Basically Loki’s whole deal is… just really fucked up and unstable and submissive - which makes it very difficult for thor to offer comfort, despite his numerous attempts at trying. It’s a really satisfying fic that I 100% recommend.
Gave You Every Piece of Me by @iamanartichoke​ (thor&loki + past-dark!grandthorki)
this was one of the grandthorki fics for my birthday! However, I’m putting it on this list, because again, you seem interested in frostmaster, and secondly, it was one of the grandthorki fics that was very much POSt-trauma, which means a LOt of recovery, which means a lot of h/c. the whole point of this fic is the brothers re-learning how to comfort each other, specifically without making the other uncomfortable. there’s a lot of thor angst here as well, which is appreciated. hurt/comfort coming from both sides is always a huge plus. 
Stars, Hide Your Fires by @iamanartichoke​ (thor&loki)
back to a non frost-master fic haha, also by the same author (who writes a lot of thor and loki h/c in general btw, check out Sanctuary too.) this fic is a post-thor (2011) au in which loki has attempted suicide and continues to have suicidal and self harm urges. thor, being young and, dare i say, naive, doesn’t really understand at first. thus, there is a lot of aggressive comfort, which isn’t helpful to Loki, and a lot of… development and increasing understanding between the characters, which leads to the wonderful h/c that we all love. very satisfying. this author’s fics are always a balm to those who enjoy reading mental illness
troubled spirits on my chest by moonmagicked (thor&loki + valkyrie)
this is another post-IW fic in which Loki was brought back to life, and has serious trauma around his neck being touched… which causes problems between him and thor, who clearly likes to touch his neck affectionately lol. the story was super sweet, basically thor (and valkyrie) calming loki down from a panic attack, and i really enjoyed it. 5 starsss. def read. 
Whumptober Ficlets: Insomnia by @foundlingmother​ (thorki)
this oneshot was ahhhh really good. It’s a human au, in which Loki is transgender and suffers from dysphoria around his period. thor comforts him through it. It’s still one of my favorite human aus dealing with this theme, because of how detailed and believable it seems. Just a very sweet h/c fic that sticks with me even to this day. It’s also a thorki, which this author writes a lot of, so worth checking out the others in the collection.
but seas between us have roared by @thelightofthingshopedfor​ (thor&loki + bruce)
I gave you a shit ton of angsty h/c so I figured I’d give you one that’s a lot more fluffyyy. this is another post-Ragnarok thor&Loki au on the Statesman ship, in which thor and loki have a long overdue conversation while celebrating a midgardian christmass. Loki in general has a lot of insecurities, and I feel like this fic did a good job of showing thor address them in a more positive way which can lay the groundwork for their future relationship. It was also very cute.
Frostmaster Fics Where Loki Is A Virgin
sadlyyyy, a lot of authors tend to write Loki as a very sexual creature lol (meaning he has had a lot of past relationships before), and being someone who does not read very often, i can’t think of anyone who went for this trope specifically (which is a damn shame because i love a good noncon of a fictional virgin lol). the only one I can think of where loki’s Frostmaster!virginity is taken off the top of my head is
Doing What It takes by @aliceinthinkland​ (dark!frostmaster)
this fic is really good and one of the first frostmaster fics i’ve read. author does a great job of showing Loki’s arrogance, which slowly devolves into fear, as the Grandmaster takes him for the first time. It’s devastating in the best of ways that only noncon can be and I highly recommend *_*
Anyway, thank you so much again, anon! I hope you enjoy these!
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ilynong · 6 years
Text
talk to you
You and Xiao Gui are best friends, and you have a pretty big crush on his fellow groupmate and senior, Xingjie.
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so you and xiao gui were bffs
the biggest class clowns ever omg
u know when a teacher sits two kids together and instantly regrets it
yeah that’s yall lmao
you talk constantly
and so the teacher moves xiao gui
and then one day she looks up and xiao gui is fucking hOLDING UP SIGNS FOR U TO READ N SHIT
(so she moves him back bc its more distracting to have him doing that shit lolol)
anyways yeah so we’ve established that you two are good friends
so ofc ur v supportive of him and his creativity
like u have the creativity of a teaspoon 
but xiao gui is hella talented !!!
so u stay hyping him up
and obviously u go to his showcases n stuff
and you do your best to focus on xiao gui
but one of his friends, zhu xingjie, is literally the hottest guy you’ve ever seen
he has the cutest undercut and can sing AND rap AND dance 
like damn boy what can’t you do
but since he’s older than you, you kind of view it as a lost cause
plus,,, ur too shy to talk to him !!!!
xiao gui introduces you to the other guys that he’s formed a ‘group’ with
of course, you blush a ton when you’re introduced to xingjie, who looks almost cold when he meets you??
zhou yanchen is an absolute angel, smiling widely as he greets you
zhang yankai snickers when he meets you, and you’re not really sure why but you brush it off
you think you’re slick abt ur newfound crush, but xiao gui instantly notices that you’re staring at xingjie for a little longer than usual...
“you totally like him,” xiao gui nearly screams, jumping up and down
you feel your cheeks turn bright red as his entire group turns to face you
the next day during class, xiao gui brings it up again
“you know, xingjie ge is single,” he said (not very casually, because when is xiao gui ever casual)
“i’m not gonna do anything,” you mumbled, focusing on the math work in front of you
“ey, that attitude isn’t gonna get you a date with xingjie,” xiao gui groaned, leaning on his side dramatically
you rolled your eyes at your best friend, leaning over to flick his forehead
“let’s just do our work.”
one night, after one of xiao gui’s showcases, he tells you that there’s gonna be an afterparty at one of the boys’ houses
and at first you really don’t want to go, but xiao gui insists that he can find a quiet room for you to study in
so after the afterparty starts, yankai shows you one of the bedrooms upstairs
it’s really neat, but you’re surprised to see a little shelf with what looked like magic trick supplies?
“have fun,” yankai said mysteriously as he closed the door, snickering again
(apparently yankai snickers a lot????)
so you’re in the bedroom doing homework when the door opens
you jump, startled, and almost scream when you see xingjie, a little red-faced and sweaty
as soon as the rapper sees you sprawled out on the bed, books spread out in front of you, his eyes widen
and you think he gets a little redder but you couldn’t really tell for sure
“o-oh, (y/n),” he said awkwardly, shifting his weight
then you realize what had probably happen and scramble to your feet, feeling your own cheeks heat up
“oh my god, is this your room?” you begin gathering your books, “i’m so, so sorry, oh my god!”
“no wait,” xingjie rushed forward, “it’s fine, you can stay here, really.” he offered you a shy smile, “i don’t mind, i just needed to grab a different shirt, your idiot of a best friend spilled three shots of vodka on this one.”
you wrinkled your nose, “i can smell it from here.”
xingjie smiled at that, shaking his head as he walked over to his closet, selecting a new shirt
(his ears were also pink?)
you couldn’t concentrate at all as you opened your textbook back up, reading over the same line at least ten times
“sorry if we’re kinda loud”
you looked up quickly, blushing again as you made eye contact with xingjie
“oh, it’s not a big deal!” you waved your hands around awkwardly, “i’m ok!”
“well, uh, it was nice seeing you?” xingjie wavered tentatively at the door, smiling over at you awkwardly
you felt yourself cringing at just how awkward the whole situation was
then suddenly, the door slammed shut, and you heard the distinct sound of yankai’s snickering
“have fun!” xiao gui’s incredibly obnoxious voice said loudly, making you get to your feet as his stupid plan dawned on you
you scrambled to your feet and pounded on xingjie’s door, wiggling the doorknob to check if it was locked
“xiao gui!” you shouted loudly, pounding on the door, “if you don’t open this door this instant, i’ll post that picture of you drooling in a suit!”
xiao gui made a noise of anguish
“i’ll let my image be ruined if it’s for your own good,” he yelled back, “but please don’t post it?”
“i’ll tag you in it, fucker!”
“you’re actually doing it?” xingjie asked in amusement as he watched you pull your phone out from your pocket, tapping away angrily
xiao gui shrieked as you put it away again triumphantly
“i’m never unlocking this door now, (y/n)!” xiao gui shouted followed by the sound of footsteps retreating
xingjie sighed, taking a seat at the chair by his desk
“well, i guess we’re stuck in here,” he shrugged, “sorry that you got dragged into this mess.”
“yeah,” you laughed awkwardly, “well, i guess i should get back to studying.”
“oh, what subject?” xingjie raised an eyebrow, peering down at your textbook
you almost squealed at how cute he looked
“maths,” you sighed, picking your pencil back up
“ah, well, good luck,” xingjie grinned at you, “if you need help, let me know!”
you thanked him and then turned back to your work, carefully working through the equations that the teacher had assigned
about halfway through the equations, you glanced up momentarily and nearly screamed???
because xingjie was standing in front of his closet
shirtless
looking for a shirt
shirtless
in front of you
shirtless
“oh, shit,” xingjie turned around, eyes wide as his cheeks turned pink, “fuck, sorry, i totally thought you had fallen asleep.”
the older boy grabbed the first shirt he saw and tugged it on over his head
“no, i’m sorry,” you were blushing so much????
“i just had a quick question, i was wondering if you could help?” you asked a bit awkwardly
“oh yeah, of course,” xingjie pulled the chair over next to his bed, peering over at your work
and you could barely focus the entire time that he was working because wow xingjie concentrating was seriously adorable????
just as xingjie was explaining how he found the derivative, your phone buzzed with a notification, and the screen lit up
xingjie was closer to your phone than you were, so naturally, he glanced down
and as soon as he read the text, his back straightened as he looked straight at you, eyes wide
blood cold, you read the notification
from: xiao gui
SO HAVE YOU TOLD HIM YOU LIKE HIM YET?????
PLS??????
f u c k
“you like me?”
you looked up, embarrassed as you glanced at xingjie
“um,” you said intelligently, “yeah?”
xingjie broke out into a smile, the blush returning to his cheeks
“would you, um,” xingjie’s voice trailed off as he scratched the back of his neck, “would you be interested in maybe going on a date with me?”
were you dying????
was this heaven?????
“to be honest, i’ve liked you for a while, i just didn’t know how to approach you,” xingjie laughed awkwardly, raising his eyebrows expectantly
you shook your head, still in shock, “oh my god, yes, of course,” you felt your cheeks heating up, “sorry, i’m just... processing.”
xingjie grinned at that, digging his phone out of his pocket
“here, punch in your number so that i can text you and we can figure out the details,” xingjie handed you his phone
as you entered his number, a thought occurred to you that made you laugh
“i guess xiao gui isn’t completely useless after all.”
“hey! i heard that!”
448 notes · View notes
mirrorballparkers · 7 years
Text
museum dates — peter parker
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requested: nah. idea popped up into my head randomly.
tagged: @ttholland @t-oodles @cmonspiderling
- yo so i fucking am a god damn art geek myself, so why not write this? also, i am SO SORRY that it’s been so long since i’ve posted any fics. i’ve just had a lot going on personally, and also had a lot of job interviews (I GOT A JOB !!). not to mention i’m taking a college placement test this week so i’m just a mess. but, i digress. ENJOY THIS FIC! thanks for being patient, lovely humans. 
warnings: a shit ton of fluff and a reader who legit has NO CHILL and peter is such a soft, sweet human bean. 
summary: cute art headcanons with peter parker
- you grew up on art. always going to the local art galleries to discover new artists and collect some of their paintings and sculptures
- you’d always gush to peter about a new art piece you bought or a new artist you discovered
- “babe! oh, my god, look at this new Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun piece i got !!  isn’t it absolutely alluring?”
- you’d sometimes feel bad that you geeked out so much, but peter thought it was so adorable. you had so much passion in your eyes, voice, and physicality it made his heart go fucking wild.
- “keep going, pumpkin. tell me more please.”
-when he told you that he got the two of you ticket to the museum of modern art
- your heart busted a nut
- you literally smothered peter with a bunch of kisses, so happy and thankful  that he would do something like this for you. it wasn’t very cheap to visit museums these days.
- peter thought you geeking out was so cute
- he researched for hours and hours to find the best museum just for you
- when you got to the front entrance, you couldn’t wipe the smile off of your face and you were jumping up and down like a little kid because, actual nerd
- “HOLY SHIT. peter, this place is so beautiful. the detail, the atmosphere, my heart is bursting right now you don’t even know how excited i am right now. this is the best day ever. ”
- peter would just be looking at you with heart !! eyes !! because you were so cute and this genuinely made you happy and excited.
- he was very proud of himself for researching until 4 am on a school night for the best museum in new york
- you were more excited to be with peter though just sayin’
- when you saw him looking, you got a little embarrassed
- “sorry..didn’t know i was acting so childish”
- you calmed down
- for 0.5 seconds until you two entered inside then ya heart went ‘SKRRRAAA PAP PAP PAP PAP PAP’
- you held onto peter’s arm and you were like: !!!! looking around at everything
- it was so mesmerizing !!! like you had never seen a place filled with such unbelievably beautiful pieces your heart busted a nut !!!
- peter would sling his arm around you and kiss your head like a soft cutie
- he was usually too shy for that shit, he prepped himself in his head
- ‘don’t be a pussy, she’s your girlfriend just do it. YOU’RE SPIDERMAN.’ he’d tell himself in his head
- walking around the museum and honestly your heart was busting a nUT everything was so mesmerizing and PERFECT.
- you’d jump up and down like an actual child holding on to peter’s arm as you’d hand the lady in the front your tickets.
- bragging that peter bought you these tickets TO RANDOM ASS STRANGERS THAT CLEARLY DIDN’T GIVE A FUCK BUT YOU WERE SO BLESSED
- “hi, yes my cute ass sweet ass boyfriend bought me these.” you’d say while doing finger guns.
- “YO, LADY WITH THE CHURRO: MY CUTE ASS PRETTY BOYFRIEND BROUGHT ME HERE AND BOUGHT THE TICKETS, ISN’T HE GREAT? yeah, you don’t have to tell me i know bitch.”
- taking those typical pics where you’re standing in front of some art piece !!
“should i put a hand on my hip..?”
“maybe like idk uh just stand still. pretend you’re just posing for a picture.”
“but how will i know you already took it? i don’t wanna be standing here forever, pete. there’s a whole bruce nauman exhibit with my name on it.”
- peter would make a clicking noise for you to know when he took it so you wouldn’t be standing and hurting your feet. he was a considerate boy.
- he thought you were so cute !!! screw the painting, you were the actual art
“ ew my hair looks weird here let’s take another”
“shut up you look cute af babe”
- peter was whipped so he did as u asked n took more for u cuz the more photos of ya cute ass he would be able to have in his phone and show aunt may how pretty u looked after the date
- “no,no, delete that it makes my butt look bad.”
- peter would blush n shyly say
- “but u have a cute butt…….” bRO
- he wasn’t lying homie thought ur butt was cute
- Even though u would get a lil embarrassed you’d start to get a little more confident and feel ya selffff
- “okay out all the 60 that i’ve taken of u doing cute lil poses i think we have a winner. ALL OF THEM, YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL.”
- you’d gasp every single time u saw a sculpture or a painting, anything
- “babe look at this one !!”
“ooh look at this one lOOK AT THAT DETAIL AND TEXTURE”
- peter giving you all kinds of sweet kisses to assure his feelings for you
- cheek kisses
- nose kisses
- temple kisses
- FOREHEAD KISSES
- he’d even pull you to a corner to low key make out with you
- SO !! MUCH !! KISSES !! AND !! HUGS !! 
- peter would hold your hand to his heart and just smile, feeling so warm and happy he was with you
- getting yelled at for touching things
- sassing the workers for getting yelled at for touching things under your breath
- “ the fuck? you don’t tell me what to do fuck you.”
- peter would calm you down but inside he’s like “that’s my baby girl !!”
- linking pinkies as you walk through all the exhibits
- peter wouldn’t even be paying attention to the art
- he dead ass would be just looking at you the entire time, so !! in love !!
- “why’re you not looking at this Ian Chung piece babe?”
“why go to an art museum when i can just look at you for art.” he just !! said that !!
- you’d get all shy and shit
- “aww, my pretty girl.”
- he’d always check to make sure you were hydrated
- “babe you want some water? i haven’t seen you have water all day and i just wanna make sure.”
- “wanna stop and have some water?”
- “do your feet hurt? it looked like you were limping just now.”
- he felt like he was bothering you, but really you were really tired and sore, possibly dehydrated from the hours and hours of walking.
- “i think we should sit down, sweets.”
- you’d finally agree after he told you that you looked kind of pale, so the two of you sat down on a bench and you rested your head on his lap as he played with strands of your hair
- before aunt may picked you guys up, you two went to the gift shop
- you bought so !! much !! amazing !! things !!
-  peter lost you at least 3 times
-  he kind of lowkey panicked every single time because you were his precious daffodil and he’d freak out if he lost you
- “hey, where’d you go?”
- “daffodil, you need to stop wandering.”
- “bABE, IF YOU WALK AWAY ONE MORE TIME"
- you picked out cute matching rings, even though it was incredibly cliche.
-  you had at least 5 items in your hand: a coffee traveling mug, a shirt, magnet, and two hats. you didn’t need two hats bitch what the fuck.
- peter wouldn’t dare to let you spend all that money on you
- “peterrrrr, it’s fine i have money. you’re already buying the rings!”
- this soft boi was too stubborn and bought them for you anyway
- “your total is 32.50.”
- “pETER WHAT THE FU-”
- you’d already put the hat on the second you walk out the gift shop and peter thought it was so cute, so he snapped a picture without you seeing it and captioned it as: ‘she’s so extra, but i like her a lot so it’s fine.’
- putting the matching couple rings on for each other as if ya’ll were about to fucking get married.
- taking snaps of each others hands with the rings and putting dorky captions
- your whole body was aching from all the walking so peter would be all cute and give you a piggy back ride to his aunts car
- when you got in the car, you rested your head on his shoulder completely worn out.
- peter was VERY excited to show aunt may all the pictures he took
- “hon, these are all of her, not the art.”
- “what’re you talking about, may? SHE IS ART.”
- you fell asleep on his shoulder bc it was going to be a very long drive home.
- he’d be very sweet and take off your shoes for you so your feet wouldn’t hurt anymore
- peter eventually fell asleep too, hands intertwined with yours and his heart very full
- it really was a perfect date.
335 notes · View notes
transbcyfriend · 4 years
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—  TAGGED BY: @transtokitou !
— RULES: answer 21 questions and tag 21people.
1. nickname: vince, vinny, vin, and vee! anything that sounds remotely similar to my whole name jfhfjdjdh
2. zodiac: aries sun, aries moon, pisces rising!
3. height: 5'0" and i hate it
4. hogwarts house: hufflepuff iirc? i'm not rlly into harry potter the last time i did the quiz i was in high school so kfbfbdjdb
5. last thing I googled: “do you have any in the back no can you check yeah sure hold on comic" (i didn't find what i was looking for)
6. favorite musicians: the front bottoms are a Big Favorite (to the point i know almost every song off their entire discography by heart), but hozier and queen are also big faves! grandson is quickly becoming a favorite too tho
7. song stuck in my head: rhode island - the front bottoms
8. following: 254!
9. followers: 193!
10. do you get asks: not really! i wish i got more asks but if ppl are shy then i won't force anyone to jdbdjdjd
11. amount of sleep: anywhere from 4 - 9 hrs. today i got 10 but that was only bc i worked a 9 hr shift yesterday until 2a fhdjdjdhdb
12. what are you wearing: a skeleton kigu ngl
13. dream job: idk, something artsy -- i was going for an art degree before, but i don't want the life sucked out of my work from doing it as a job, so i think maybe interior design (cause i can go fuckin hog for 8 hours in the sims and do nitty gritty details all damn day to the point it looks lived in), but idk. who fuckin knows, maybe botany with how much i already know abt plants
14. dream trip: i rlly wanna go to wales, or like. ireland or scotland or smthn. my deepest roots are in wales tho so that's why i list that one First but. idk, it's green, it seems like it'd b fun, why not
15. instruments: piano but i haven't played it in a while bc there's no room for it in the house jfhfjfjfhd
16. languages: english, lil bit of french, and idk if this counts but a lil bit of asl
17. 10 favorite songs as of now: aw shit. uhhh...in no particular order, checkmate by conan grey / die young by grandson / flashlight by the front bottoms / i wanna get better by bleachers / like real people do by hozier / nina cried power by hozier / sing to me by missio / talk by hozier / west virginia by the front bottoms / wolfman by the front bottoms
18. if you were an animal: a dog, hands down. definitely a bigger breed, prolly with stuck-up ears, but no particular name in mind. jus Big Dog
19. favorite food: ok so the name of the sandwich is called the governor, but bc the place that sells it is all the way in arkansas, i make my own rendition of it. basically jus take rlly juicy chicken breast, lettuce, tomato, cheese, avocado spread (mixed w/ red pepper flakes, garlic, onion, salt, and pepper), and just a little tiny bit of strawberry preserves on both sides of toasted bread, and that's it. it might sound gross but it's SO fucking good
20. random fact: i'm afraid of roller coasters (the big ones at least). on god. i think it's bc of a fear of falling mixed w/ the sensation of falling makes my brain wig the fuck out but yeah lmao you can't pay me to get on one of those damn things
21. my aesthetic: cottagecore, but also punk! fresh picked flowers and handmade strawberry jam, wooden frame furniture, cooking utensils sticking out of a vintage pitcher, blankets piled up on top of each other worn n frayed at the edges from use.....that's rlly good, however, i Also like the punk aesthetic of spikes in jackets, combat boots, masks, leather gloves, a denim jacket covered in hand-sewn patches, that's also rlly good.
—  TAGGING: idk who to tag so if u wanna do this go hog! steal it from me if u wanna these are fun
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flcwerstudies · 6 years
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cute tag!
pretty long post coming up!! Thanks to @cafedetude for tagging me!! im tagging: @hermiionegrcnger​ @studying-frenzy​ @belledoe​ @tiny-notes​ @theteadesk​ !! You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to ofc and if u want to do it and i haven’t tagged you go ahead!! 
1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? there must always be more milk than cereal, but that amount must not exceed a certain amount do you get me? when i scoop my cereal there has to be proportionate amounts of milk in each scoop, consistently, until i have finished my bowl. my mind is a strange and lonely place. 
2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? yes! its so refreshing and i feel like all your lethargy just evaporates... i love taking walks in the winter around my neighborhood in the evenings.
3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? spoons, lipsticks, i once used another book to bookmark a book, hair elastic, my contact lenses case, compact mirror....im a mess, i know 
4: how do you take your coffee/tea? tea: scalding hot with lots of sugar and some milk. coffee: lots of milk, so much sugar 
5: are you self-conscious of your smile? no? i just want my braces off!!
6: do you keep plants? yess
7: do you name your plants? yes! i am currently growing two wild roses and I’ve named them Calliope and Polymnia. 
8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? journaling, writing, reenacting musicals and dramatic renditions of songs? 
9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? yeah ofccc it keeps me sane 
10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? back and side 
11: what’s an inner joke you have with your friends? CAROL THE LESBIAN LIBRARIAN // mary walks by // too many to list here tbh 
12: what’s your favorite planet? mars! and also venus 
13: what’s something that made you smile today? my friends 
14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? a hurricane flew thru the entire place, empty wine bottles on the ground, beanbag chairs, stacks of books and movies, maybe a cat and a dog lazing around on the couch 
15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! there’s a gigantic cloud of alcohol wayyyyy out in outer space that could produce over 450 trillion pints of beer 
16: what’s your favorite pasta dish? give me all the pasta. i love all pastas. 
17: what color do you really want to dye your hair? im ok with my hair color now 
18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. GETTING A CAPUCHIN MONKEY AS MY PATRONUS ON POTTERMORE
19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? yes! i rant a lot and i sort of write down reflections? on my day and things. its really emo and angsty lmao im 16 pls 
20: what’s your favorite eye color? brown eyes. so gentle. so sharp. so kind but so cruel. so ambiguous! 
21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. my tote bag from myanmar! the straps are falling off but i love it so much 
22: are you a morning person? depends on if i slept early enough 
23: what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? sleep, watch a movie, watch youtube, read 
24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? absolutely not. it always pisses me off when people are like ohhh you can tell me anything??? no i can’t???? 
25: what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? my friend’s house lmao 
26: what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? my peach converse! they’re so pastel and they seem weird but converse generally go well with a lot of things 
27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? i don’t like gum tbh 
28: sunrise or sunset? both 
29: what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? sticks his tongue out when he’s concentrating and its so cute i die everytime 
30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared? yes but i will never ever go into detail with anyone about this lmao 
31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. i love socks, i like wearing weird socks except for toe socks, people who sleep with socks on are Immune to Heat and Not Afraid Of Dying?? no white socks get nasty real quick and they’re so bland, i love socks i have this grey pair with french bulldog faces allllll over it and i wear them all the time and even though people can’t see them i still get happy and tell people about my dog socks. 
32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. HA LMAO we had just watched a scary movie so obviously we turned on my little pony and watched that for two hours 
33: what’s your fave pastry? cupcakes! anything tbh i have an enormous sweet tooth 
34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? my dad used to go on a lot of business trips and he came back once with a huge stuffed bear from switzerland and its so fuzzy its still on my bed. it’s name is Fred and it wears overalls and it has brown fur! 
35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? yes to all!!
36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? paul anka lmao he’s not a band but ya know 
37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean? clean
38: tell us about your pet peeves! wHEN UR JAMMING OUT TO MUSIC AND THEN SPOTIFY JUST STOPS WORKING?? people asking me if im mad when im just being quiet and then making me mad by continually questionning me, people who will ask dumb questions (yes, there are always dumb questions. google is free and im not going to tell u the homework, it’s written on the board quite clearly u moron), racist/homophobic/ableist/ generally offensive and disrespectful people 
39: what color do you wear the most? grey and navy 
40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? I have mismatching earrings that my grandmother got me for my birthday! 
41: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis! 
42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! the starbucks on center street it’s very Starbucks, exactly what you would expect, but I always sit in the corner spot near the windows 
43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? My family! 
44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? sitting in the sand in shell key, florida. my feet are in the water and i am watching my family swimming. I am very sunburnt but my mind is completely blank in a good way 
45: do you trust your instincts a lot? absolutely 
46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. ofc they used a baby lion as their mascot. it’s simba-lic. 
47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe? there’s this food in korea that’s just stir fried rice with soybean sprouts and the sprouts..... aw god....they refuse to be bitten in half and it’s so gross i hate it sm 
48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? darkness! and no it is different today!
49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? there are scarce places to buy CD’s now but the last one I bought was Micheal Jackson’s Bad 
50: what’s an odd thing you collect? bottle caps and paperclips and also pens i pick off the ground 
51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? my dad. any aretha franklin song 
52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? the spongebob one and the gif of the white man who blinks a lot....u know the one 
53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? i loved all of them and i want to be able to quote them in all of my speech but i dont think people have watched all of them 
54: who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face?  i was working on homework last night and when i was turning on my laptop to work on my project i met my reflection in the screen 
55: what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? been incredibly bitchy like damn.....i surprise myself and i really hate it 
56: what are some things you find endearing in people? when people use weird shit as bookmarks, when they laugh with their eyes shut, laugh lines near their eyes, dimples, kindness, when they aren’t afraid of making eye contact with me bc i have weirdly intense eyes  
57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? it did not fit the mood of my day but yes i did reenact the lyrics 
58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? my friend diana is the wine mom but i am the vodka aunt. why?? she is infinitely more caring and kind and sophisticated and also wine gets u lowkey, calm drunk, while i, the vodka aunt, am caring, but i have a bit of a laissez faire attitude and go with the flow and ‘damn what the hell fuck it’ kinda vibe and vodka gets u sloppy shitfaced drunk with none of the sophistication that comes with wine. 
59: what’s your favorite myth? icarus
60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? i dont LOVE poetry but i like haikus they’re like clever one liners ha 
61: what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received? I gave my friend a notebook that i’d hastily made the night before and I have received a box of pads which in retrospect is not even a stupid present bc pads are expensive 
62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? i drink oj when i can 
63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? i organize them every month bc i am ridiculous and i can’t function if my bookshelf is weirdly organized 
64: what color is the sky where you are right now? pale grey almost white.
65: is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? my oldest group of friends (TNT lmaoooo) OR YOU KNOW callixtus from volunteering holyyy. you know those people who u meet and u immediately click with?? he’s on of them magical people and he was hella funny too i miss that guy to all hell 
66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? small roses! peach blossoms and cherry blossoms too. one huge ass hibiscus or lotus flower as a statement piece 
67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? cozy and sheltered. valid excuse for not going out 
68: what’s winter like where you live? terrible but i love it kinda 
69: what are your favorite board games? monopoly 
70: have you ever used a ouija board? NO WHAT 
71: what’s your favorite kind of tea? barley, green or reallllyyyy black tea with loootss of sugar so that it makes your teeth ache 
72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it? yeah how’d you know 
73: what are some of your worst habits? expecting everyone to be on the same page 
74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. dedicated and brash, loud and hilarious, soft, amazing, i love them a lot 
75: tell us about your pets! i dont have pets!! T-T  
76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? studying BUT DONT CALL ME OUT LIKE THIS OK
77: pink or yellow lemonade? pink 
78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? hateclub sorry 
79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? done my makeup for me while gossiping with me
80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? pale green and yeah i did. i chose it bc i love green! and the old color was boring and i didn’t like it  
81: describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. no edges at all, soft bovine eyes , shaking leaves, crocodile tears 
82: are/were you good in school? yes! it’s a source of a lot of pride for me! 
83: what’s some of your favorite album art? amsterdam by nothing but thieves omg 
84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? oohh nahh im not planning on getting tattoos im scared of needles 
85: do you read comics? what are your faves? through the woods? i used to read a lot of them but you know i grew out of them 
86: do you like concept albums? which ones? not especially no 
87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? the drop, double indemnity, back to the future, idk there’s a lot 
88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? the rennaissance! it was so extra and i loved it a lot 
89: are you close to your parents? yeah
90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. TORONTO-soaring skyline from the highways at night near the lakeshore, the lights from the condos are like stars and its ridiculous but i also loooooveee dubrovnik in croatia and hanoi in vietnam and kaunas in lithuania and kyoto in japan.....in dubrovnik the wind blows in from the shore and at night when the lights are on in the walled city the stone glows amber. In Hanoi in the old quarter, motorbikes flash by and there’s yelling and the smell of pork skewers and there’s old buildings and new ones, huge stalks of bamboo leaning up against the walls. In Kaunas the wind is so cold and sharp and the buildings are so clean and there’s that old fortress and the tower! it’s so beautiful. and Kyoto is old and archaic but so modern it hurts and the streets are too uniform and the houses creep me out a bit bc they’re so quiet. 
91: where do you plan on traveling this year? i dont think so 
92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? i will bury my pasta in cheese just you watch 
93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most? my hair is one style fits all bc its short 
94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? my friend!
95: what are your plans for this weekend? study and work on projects and homework and stress and nap and have dinner with a guest 
96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? no updates. we die like men. 
97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? isfj-t, aries, ravenclaw 
98: when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? sometime in september? it was nice! 
99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. put your head on my shoulder by paul anka....there’s a lot and im really lazy sorry 
100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? 5 years in the future, just to see where I end up 
2 notes · View notes
fitzykreiner · 7 years
Note
hello, do you mind me asking what happened with sleepy hollow? I only watched the first season lol
not at all! okay so first off, congratulations on escaping the train wreck early. second, there was a shitload of bs happening behind the scenes, 99% of which we are still in the dark about. the rest is under a cut bc damn.
BUT ANYWAY, the biggest point is that they killed abbie off. like full stop, not joking, they legit killed. her. off. which was a good/bad thing. good, bc nicole was being treated like shit bts & wanted off the show so she could get herself out of the situation. bad, for obvious reasons. also bc they actually thought the show could continue w/o her. 
the first big problem they had was gradually shifting the focus of the show from abbie + her relationships w/ jenny, ichabod, & irving (+ the various other characters in her life that they either killed off or conveniently forgot abt lmao.) to ichabod’s crusty-ass boring-ass family and past. as u saw in the s1 finale, abbie stayed behind in purgatory so ichabod & katrina could leave. katrina stayed, continued to be a fucking nuisance at best, & they introduced a cool new mysterious character played by john goddamned noble and ruined it by making him ichy & floptrina’s nasty-ass son, also the horseman of war. oh and also death is actually ichabod’s old bro w/ a hot bod who was all set to marry katrina b4 ichy waltzed his homewrecking ass in. anywho, boring boring boring bullshit that had way too many storylines happening at once, none of which were interesting in the least. i genuinely forget if we already knew the henry/jeremy and abraham stuff in s1? so if i’m repeating things u already kno, forgive me. i feel like maybe by time s1 was over we already knew henry was actually jeremy who was actually war, bc wasn’t he in 1x06?? whatever, don’t care, he’s a piece of shit
the second big problem is that they sidelined and/or got rid of all of the poc/good characters: luke, irving, cynthia, macey, andy, ABBIE, JENNY, all while introducing cardboard cut-out white people/BAD characters no one gave a rat’s ass abt. oh and also corbin was like completely forgotten abt, until his son came into the picture and they mentioned him like…….twice. but yeah lmfao, it was a miracle if jenny showed up for longer than 3 min & abbie was continually given the b plot and less screen time. 
the third big problem was that they FORGOT ABT THE MAIN FUCKING PLOT POINT. that abbie and ichabod were the WITNESSES who were supposed to be WITNESSING THE APOCALYPSE. like i’m not even shitting you, the apocalypse ceased to be A Thing. (btw what the fuck happened to moloch???? i don’t even remember,) death/headless horseman/abraham was given humanity & a storyline no one asked for & they were really trying to push a weird romance angle between him and katrina since they were together when he was still ~alive. war/henry/jeremy was the next horseman to be introduced, simultaneously w announcing he was the demon spawn of ichy/floptrina. so that was something we had to suffer thru. Crane Family Drama was a BIG tag in this fandom during that time. no one cared. everyone hated it. even the fucking ichatrina stans started getting tired of it, if that tells u anything. so anyway, once death and jeremy were dealt with, idk?? they just forgot abt the apocalypse being a thing???? fuck knows, man. i’ve almost successfully blocked most of the bs in my mind.
during this time, ~s2, orlando got fired. or he was “asked to leave”, so, you know. my man hadn’t given a fuck before, getting fired just let him release the last of the fucks he had. also during this time, the writing was just getting worse and worse. i mean, BAD. like it was on a steady decline since b4 mid s1, but s2 was the relatively small cliff of bad writing before the exponentially cavernous shit hole that s3 became. they started treating abbie like SHIT during s2 and ichabod continually resembled more and more of a flaming bag of dog feces.
but yeah, s2 finale, katrina has revealed herself to be the evil-ass snake we all knew she was, tho the writers copped out by saying she was good the whole time until she started to feel bad for her shitty son & decided to side with him. whatever. bitch was evil from the start. in the finale she starts up this spell to send herself back into the past to kill ichabod to nip the whole resistance to the apocalypse thing in the bud. in the middle of doing that, abbie jumps after her, so they both get sent into the past. there was some admittedly very cool parallels to the pilot w abbie waking up in the forest and stumbling around & bending down to touch the road she comes across, etc. long story short, abbie meets up w past!crane, they go to franklin first, he dies, then they go to grace dixon, & she’s able to send abbie back to the future and reverse the spell. so abbie and katrina are sent back to present day and kathy is pissed as hell that abs disrupted her plans and goes to kill her, but crane stabs her ass b4 she kills abbie. everyone rejoiced at that, let me fucking tell you. that shit was therapeutic. 
s3 starts, they’ve already lost a lot of viewers throughout s2, but the stragglers are still clinging onto the show bc the s2 finale gave us hope that they might be able to dig themselves out of the hole they wrote themselves into. boy were we wrong. it started out alright, we all had high hopes. abbie had left to go to quantico & had become an fbi agent. crane was……..fuck knows. i think he took a sabbatical or some shit bc of the ~grief. it’s been like a year or whatever and all the sudden abbie is bailing his ass out of prison. he got a boy band haircut. they introduced a new guy, daniel, also fbi, played by lance gross, and teased a relationship between him and abbie. they also introduced a new villain pandora, fine, and breasty ross, who added absolutely fuck all to the story and just complicated their poorly thought-out storylines even further. also there was an angel???????? idk, i think he liked abbie and ichabod got jealous. that may have even been in s2, i don’t fucking remember, i wasn’t religiously watching at this point bc i had some sense of self-preservation. daniel was promising, and black, and a love interest for abbie, so of course his ass got the axe. there was a weird and uncomfortable bones cross-over. like, a cross-over with the show bones, on fox. in a desperate attempt to rake in viewers. it failed, to say the least. 
i don’t remember the details tbh, but s3 finale abbie essentially sacrifices herself, again, for ichabod. only this time it was permanent and it was somehow even WORSE bc they had her do it just to further ichabod’s man-pain and journey. they literally had her say that her job as a person and as a witness was to further him, the white guy. she told him and jenny to take care of each other and fucked off to the afterlife. after which, neither of them really mourn this?? whatsoever?? and we find out abbie’s soul was actually placed into a little girl? fuck i have no idea, i didn’t watch it. so anyway, abbie’s dead, ichabod moves to washington, dc, and the show is somehow still crawling along while disemboweled, dragging itself along the dirty ground w bloody hands, begging for the sweet release of death. the writers refuse, and beat the dead horse even deader. bring in a new batch of characters, jenny & joe (corbin’s son) are somehow still relevant, ichabod is a shadow of the man he used to be (mostly due to t-mis’s hilariously lacking acting job, praise be). i can’t tell u anything that happened in s4 bc i at least loved myself enough to not watch that horseshit. 
all in all, it was a cocktail of good ol’ racism, bad writing, and arrogance that was shitty hollow’s downfall. 
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kate-writes-fluff · 7 years
Note
If you're still doing dialogue prompts? 160? For whatever you want?
160.  [text] Who says no to sex and donuts?!
When I saw this, I thought of Jean, so @tiggeryumyumm I decided to work in your Valentine’s day themed jeanmarco in the same prompt.
Sorry for the wait!  I’ve been fighting some real writer’s block.
Jean: Who says no to sex and donuts?!
Eren: just bc i work at a bakery doesn’t mean u can take advantage of it
Jean: I just thought it would sweeten the deal ;)
Eren: obviously it didn’t work
Jean: T-T
Eren: considering how thin the walls are in our apartment, i’m grateful for ur lackluster flirting skills
Jean: …. Rude
Jean locks his phone and sighs as lets himself into their apartment.  It’s only 5 a.m., about a half hour after the Wings of Freedom closes for the night and therefore way too early in the morning to deal with Eren’s teasing.  Jean drags his feet as he makes his way to his cluttered bedroom, exhausted from both his most recent rejection and a long night of wiping down tables at the bar.  He simply throws his uniform–which chronically reeks of alcohol–into a corner of the room as he strips, not even bothering to throw on pajamas before he flops into bed and promptly falls asleep.
Hours later he’s ripped away from a pleasant dream about a handsome stranger with plump kissable lips and warm, welcoming arms by an annoying buzzing noise uncomfortably close to his ear.  Jean groans as he fumbles, finally finding his phone underneath his pillow with the display lit up with a new message.  Part of him wants to ignore it, but he knows that if Eren pities him enough he might offer to bring him food–but only if he replies before he changes his mind.
Turns out, the text is from Eren, but it’s a picture of a flyer with no words attached.  He can’t help but groan as he taps the image to enlarge it and squint at the tiny, pixelated words his brain isn’t awake enough to comprehend yet.
“Valentine’s Meet Up,” it says in a curly romantic font.  “Hang out with other singles and donate your time to brighten someone’s day.  Make friends and meet someone new.”
Before Jean can think of a coherent response, though “what the fuck” would probably be a decent enough answer, Eren texts him again.
Eren:  i signed u up
Jean: whyyyyy?
Eren: bc ur single +whiney + u have a day off on 2/14
         also ur a romantic loser so i know ur gonna be extra whiney on V day
Jean: ….
Eren:  u kno im right. Accept it
Jean:  i only read this text b/c i thought you were offering me food
Eren:  if i bring u a donut will u stop complaining
Jean: its a start
Eren: i hate u
Jean puts his phone on his dresser and sighs happily as he relaxes back into his pillow, looking forward to the treat his roommate will inevitably bring him.
Jean makes good on his promise and doesn’t complain about the singles anonymous meeting Eren has signed him up for.  Though he makes sure to give his roommate the stink eye when he finds out that he has holiday plans of his own.
“If you’re hanging out with Mikasa and Armin, then why couldn’t you just let me tag along?”  Jean whines, turning to give his roommate the most pitiful expression he can muster from beside him on their lumpy clearance-sale couch.
Eren doesn’t bother to look up from his phone as he promptly answers, “Because you would spend the whole day complaining and flirting with my sister.”
“Not true!  I might flirt with Armin too,” Jean flutters his eyelashes as Eren groans, turning away from him to finish texting his sister about their plans.
“Yeah, like I want to make my sister and my best friend uncomfortable all day.”
“But you’ll let your sister crash your date with your crush.”
“It’s not a date!”  Eren exclaims despite his bright pink cheeks.
“But Armin is your crush?”  Jean laughs as he reaches out to playfully ruffle his roommate’s hair, an attempt that costs him an elbow in the side.
“I hate you,” Eren groans.
“Then get your own Netflix,” Jean suggests, switching windows on his computer away from the website in question to check his email.  He makes a point to delete his junk mail as slowly as possible, just to rile up his roommate even more.  After about ten excruciatingly long minutes he’s about to give in and start the episode of Stranger Things when a new email pops up in his inbox.
“It’s for that Valentine’s thing,” Jean remarks, catching Eren’s attention.  He crowds over Jean’s shoulder to watch as he opens the message.
Dear Mr. Kirstein,
Thank you for expressing interest in helping to set up and organize the Valentines Meet Up event.  Would you mind meeting me at the bakery to discuss planning details?
Thanks,
Marco Bodt
There’s a moment of silence as they stare blankly at the polite message before Jean pointedly glares over his shoulder.  “Eren!  I thought you signed me up for the event, not the planning committee!!”
“Whoops,” Eren shrugs and leans back into his own spot on the couch, giving his roommate the space he needs to properly fume.
“You did this on purpose, didn’t you?” Jean accuses, narrowing his eyes into an even harsher glare.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Eren turns his attention back to his phone, pointedly avoiding further eye-contact as he resumes texting.  Jean puffs his cheeks angrily, unsure whether the avoidance is a sign of guilt or exactly how little Eren cares about the situation.
“… That’s it, we’re watching Hart of Dixie.”
“No!” Eren exclaims, dropping his phone in his lap as he finally returns eye contact.
“If you signed me up to be a romantic sap for the full week until Valentine’s day, well then I’m going to start now.”
Eren groans but shifts in his seat to see the screen better.  “It’s not even romantic, they’re just idiots for the sake of drama.”
Though Jean agrees with him there, he can’t help but roll his eyes at the remark.  “You can complain when you have an actual love-life, Mr. I’m-in-love-with-my-bff-but-I’m-too-scared-to-say-anything.”
“Says the chronic single,” Eren bites back, digging his elbow into a ticklish spot in Jean’s side, making the other man squirm.  “I hope you meet someone at the stupid event so you’re too busy being stupid and in love to bother me anymore.”
“You and me both.  Watching you guys flirt is more excruciating than watching Zoe and Wade go back and forth.”
Eren grumbles profanities under his breath for several minutes before he angrily remarks, “Are you going to start the show or not?”
Jean sighs as his alarm goes off at 11 a.m. the next day.  Working nights means that on a normal day, he tends to sleep through the afternoon.  But thanks to Eren, he has plans to meet the event guy at the bakery that cut his much-needed sleep short.
The night before had been a long, tiring day and even as he wakes up he still feels tired and listless, barely able to keep his eyes open.  Maybe if he was more awake, he would have put the effort into dressing for a first impression.  But the fact is, he’s simply too tired to care.  So he slips into a pair of sweatpants and a flannel shirt, not even bothering to comb his hair before he shoves his shoes onto his feet and stumbles out the door.
Eren’s wiping down the counter when he arrives at the Braus’ bakery.  As Jean slumps against the customer side of the counter, Eren shoots him a distasteful look.  “Really, not even an effort?”  
Jean finds enough effort to roll his eyes.  “Give me the sugar I need to get through this.”
Eren grunts an affirmative as he reaches into the display case to pull out a raspberry filled donut.  As Jean pulls out his wallet to begrudgingly pay–though this is all his roommate’s fault, he knows better than asking him to pay too often–Eren nods toward one of the front tables.  “Marco’s here already.”
As Jean turns to find the person he’s meeting, he suddenly wishes he had bothered to look in a mirror before he left the apartment.  Dressed in a spotless lilac button-down and steam-pressed gray slacks, the man looks as put together as Jean isn’t.  But by this point, Jean is just too tired to even think about running back to his apartment to scrounge up an outfit that looks half decent.  Though he does quickly finger-comb his hair before he slides into the chair opposite the man.
“Hi!  Are you Jean?”  The man smiles brightly at his approach, making Jean regret his clothing choices all over again.  Because that dimpled smile single-handedly makes his heart clench and his hands start to sweat.  Though the freckles across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose certainly make the expression far more endearing than anything larger than a baby animal should ever be.  In contrast, Jean can almost feel the bags under his eyes and wonders what the stranger thinks about the hot mess he regrettably is.
“Yeah.” Jean does his best to smile politely, though it falls short.  His cheeks feel stiff and his flirting muscles are not quite awake enough to throw out his usual charms.  “Are we waiting for anyone else?”  He takes a moment to look around the shop and though there are few people getting breakfast to go, there aren’t many people milling around.
“No… you’re the only volunteer.”  Marco threads his fingers around his coffee cup and looks crestfallen for a moment before he smiles again.  “Let’s start brainstorming, shall we?” he suggests as he pulls out a small spiral notebook and a pen.
“Um, sure.  What do you have in mind?”
Marco eagerly flips the page in his notebook, revealing rows upon rows of neat handwriting and messy doodles and diagrams.  “I’m so glad you asked.”
The following week is the busiest Jean’s had in years.  Whenever he turns around, he’s making bright colored paper chains or folding squares of paper and cutting out paper shapes, filling his and Eren’s apartment with boxes upon boxes of decorations.  Whenever Jean gets ready for work, he can hear Eren stumbling and cursing over the new boxes that appear while he’s out of the apartment.  It would be funnier if Jean didn’t trip over the damn things himself, too.
The highlight of all the paper toil is that Marco is loathe to make him work alone.  During the week, they meet up at the bakery at noon, where Marco spends his lunch break away from the library decorating the place with him.  (Jean makes a mental note to pay the local library a visit someday soon.)
Even after spending so much time together, Jean doesn’t find himself tiring of Marco.  In fact, with each day he looks forward to every time he leaves to return to work, Jean finds himself actually looking forward to the next day even more.  Marco is just as charming as he was the first day they met, cheerful, creative, and fun.  
Unwilling to repeat the embarrassment of their first meeting, Jean’s careful to pick the best outfits in his closet for their afternoon meetings.  He can’t help but blush the day Marco compliments a shirt ornamented with an iron-on transfer of one of his own art prints.
Jean has always been one to preen over compliments, but the sheer sincerity in Marco’s voice and smile as he gives them is enough to fluster him every time.  Halfway through the week, Jean realizes that his attraction for Marco is slowly growing more than skin-deep.  That day, Marco laughs cheerfully at even the shittiest of his puns–a quip about Eren being the real breadwinner in their roommate relationship because bussing tables doesn’t exactly set the bar high–and Jean softens.
By the weekend, Jean finally finds the guts to invite Marco over, so they can watch movies while they create card supplies.  Marco brings takeout and they eat together on his lumpy couch.  When Jean watches tv with Eren, they have no qualms about personal space, throwing arms and legs into the lap of the other at a whim because they’ve learned not to care about boundaries after years of living together.  Here, with Marco, Jean is fully aware of just how small the sofa is and just the barest brushing of skin against skin is enough to make him jittery.  
Marco doesn’t seem to mind his nervousness, too busy laughing at the antics of the characters of The Grand Budapest Hotel and flashing smiles Jean’s way when a particularly funny line is spoken.  Jean confides that he’s an aspiring artist working at the bar only to make money in the meantime, so Marco makes an effort to point out the parts he finds visually inspiring.  He enjoys the pastel color palettes–strikingly similar to the colors of his dress shirts– and cheerfully taps Jean’s knee to point out the most brightly colorful scenes.  (He likes the pinks of the Mendl’s boxes the most.)
At nine o’ clock, Marco needs to leave and Jean has to get dressed for another night working the bar.  As Jean locks the door behind them, Marco hesitates for a moment, twisting his fingers together.  “I’ve heard that In the Mood for Love is a really visually interesting movie too.  And I’ve been dying to see it,” he remarks off-handedly, looking down the hall at the flickering lights instead of at Jean.
“Sounds cool,” he says, words that seem like the understatement of the century.  
For the first time ever, he smiles through his whole shift at work.
“Do you guys have to come flirt at my workplace every day?”  Eren asks on February 13th.  “It’s sorta gross.”
Jean’s ears warm but he scoffs at the question, “We are not flirting.  He just happens to actually appreciate my jokes.  Unlike some people.”  
Eren snorts.  “The only way he’d find you funny is if he has a crush.”  He leans against the oven door casually, enjoying watching Jean squirm with embarrassment for once.
Jean huffs in retaliation, “Less talking, more baking.  If we’re doing to decorate cookies tomorrow, we need cookies.”
Finally it’s the night of Valentine’s day and Jean’s nervous.  All their hard work is on display, hung up around the bakery, decorating it with reds and pinks from head to toe.  Trays of fresh cookies are ready to decorate and paper pieces are prepared for cards.
The cheerfully colored donation boxes are set up in the front of the room, listing the names of local hospitals and orphanages that are accepting cards.  The slogan “Give a card, give a smile,” hangs on a banner directly behind the boxes.
Sugary sweet pop music starts playing as Marco returns from the sound system, setting up a themed playlist from his phone.  Jean tries not to stare at the pink tie the man has on–the same color as the Mendl’s boxes in the movie they had seen together.
“It’s almost time,” Marco smiles, threading his fingers together restlessly.  “People should start arriving anytime now.”  The air between them seems charged with anxious restlessness.  Suddenly, in their last moments alone together it hits Jean that once the day is over, once they clean up the bakery, they’ll lose their excuses to see each other.
It doesn’t really matter that over the course of the week, Jean has learned that Marco’s favorite color is teal and that Persuasion is his favorite Jane Austen novel.  That Marco didn’t tease him when Jean confided that his favorite childhood movie was The Princess Bride.  It doesn’t matter that Jean showed Marco his art portfolio and the other man enthusiastically admired it, saying that if he ever finished writing his book he’d love to commission him to design the cover.
Once the event is done, they no longer have a reason to spend so much time together.
The shop bell rings and people start arriving, forcing the two men to separate and socialize, doing their best to keep the mingling running as smoothly as possible.  (Honestly, Jean hates this sort of thing, but after all the work they had done, he can’t weasel his way out of chaperoning a bunch of adults for a night.)
Regardless of how busy Jean finds himself throughout the night, his eyes always wander to the other side of the room where Marco is cheerfully chatting with other cute single people.  
He’s busy staring instead of paying attention to the card making tables when a young woman with wavy auburn hair whistles at him.  “Yo loverboy.  This is the wrong place to stand around being lovesick,” she chides, carelessly wiping cookie crumbs off her fingers.  “Sit down, make a card.  You’ll fit in with all the unhappy singles that way.”  She grabs a sheet of cardstock out of the pile and quickly scribbles something on it before handing it over.
It messily reads “Ur hot freckleface” above a hand-drawn heart that looks remarkably like a butt.
“See, it’s half done now.”
Jean sighs but sits down to work on fix the card she started.  He grabs a pink paper heart that’s just barely large enough to cover her unromantic words.  As he glues it down, he can’t help but notice that it’s the same shade as Marco’s tie and that thought convinces him to hazard a glance over at him.  The tall man is busy chatting and working on decorating his own cookies, even as he oversees others.
It wouldn’t hurt to make my own, I guess, he muses, searching through the box of children’s markers to find a color he likes.  It’s been years since he’s made anyone a hand-made valentine.  The only friend that might appreciate one would be Armin–the most sentimental out of the group–, though Eren would definitely change the wifi passwords for that sort of “personal offence.”
After an hour, Jean and Marco switch stations; Jean overseeing the decorations of the last batch of cookies while Marco helps with the cards.  Jean slides his own card into the back pocket of his jeans, unwilling to let his newfound friend even guess toward his intentions yet.
Finally, two hours after it started, people begin to leave, many of them in small groups as they chat and exchange phone numbers.  Even the woman who “helped” Jean with his card is cheekily hanging off the arm of a stern-faced young man.  She whispers something in his ear and his cheeks flare red before she turns back to wink at Jean as they leave the building.
The floor is covered in cookie crumbs, sprinkles, and paper scraps that will be a pain to clean-up, but even so Marco still smiles.  “Looks like a success.  People walked in alone, but they’re leaving with friends.”
Jean’s card feels like a weight in his pocket and he has to concede that yeah, it really seems like a success.  
They take their time cleaning, taking away all the little sugary clues that they’d been there, that they’d prepared for a whole week over it.  Jean’s smile falls as he returns to his earlier train in thought:  that their reason for spending time together is quickly falling away as they sweep up the mess.
“Cheer up, Jean.  The night’s still young,” Marco laughs, taking a moment to turn up the speakers.  Cascada’s “Everytime We Touch” blares, bringing back memories of youtube videos Jean forgot watching.
“Where’d you find this?  What year do you think it is?  2007?”  
The music becomes a palpable presence in the room, especially as Marco begins singing along, dancing with his broom as he sweeps.  Jean cracks a smile as he laughs, leaning into the table he was in the midst of cleaning for support.  He’s laughing so hard that he doesn’t notice Marco’s approach until he leans the broom against his table.
“Mind dancing with me?  That broom is just too stiff and wooden.”  Marco holds his palm upwards, like a prince asking for a dance in the ball of a fairytale, not in an empty bakery that looks like it was ransacked by preschoolers on a sugar-high.
“I can’t dance.”  Jean waves his hands in refusal, but Marco’s grin only widens.
“Neither can I.”
Finally, Jean gives in and reaches out to hold onto Marco’s shoulders as the other man leads him around the room.  They trip and stumble on chairs they hadn’t put away yet, but they only laugh in the face of their own clumsiness, each mistake bringing their bodies even closer together.
The song ends and something slower and mellower replaces it.  Jean can feel his pulse pounding but it’s hard to be embarrassed about it when he can feel the beat of Marco’s own heart from where their chests are touching.  
“I’m not looking for somebody with some superhuman gifts.  Some superhero, some fairytale bliss.
Just something I can turn to, somebody I can kiss.”
Marco smiles breathlessly, his lips barely inches from Jean’s, and suddenly it feels a little too close and intimate, so Jean takes a step back to pull the card out of his pocket.  It’s more than a little crumpled around the edges from their romp around the shop, but Jean finds himself passing it over anyway.  It just seems… fitting.
The card is brightly colored and framed with paper hearts, but on the front it simply reads “Thanks” in Jean’s best penmanship.  Marco’s face falls a little as he looks at it, so Jean hurries to explain himself as he opens it.  “I wanted to thank you for setting this all up, because it really turned out to be a lot of fun.  And mostly because I got to meet you.  And I hope you don’t mind if I ask, but I’d really like to keep hanging out, even though Valentine’s day is over….”
Marco cuts him off with a gentle hand on his own.  “I’d really like that…  But you know, Valentine’s day isn’t over quite yet….  And there’s no one I’d rather spend it with than you.”
Jean’s cheeks burn brightly as Marco retrieves a small plastic bag from where it’s lying forgotten on the counter:  a cookie decorated with a heart and Jean spelled in pretty cursive.
They have a whole lot of cleanup left to do, but Jean really can’t bring himself to mind.  Even if he had to stay there all night, picking up each and every crumb individually with his bare fingers, he’d willingly do it if Marco would keep looking at him the way he is now, like he’s been the highlight of the night.
But the night’s still young, of course.  And if they want to watch In the Mood for Love and kiss on Jean’s couch, then they need to finish cleaning.
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latenightbotanist · 7 years
Text
I have feelings about the ode to joy and im going to dump them on you
At the time i am writing this part i have suffered through twenty two (22) hours of “ode to joy” repeated in my brains so you are gonna suffer with me now. Srsly, ask @madgronkish i kinda lost it around noon.. Anyways. First thought when i heard it was literally" theyre not going to fucking reunite them to THAT SONG??!?!“ Whilst i was wrong about sherlock driving the car…they still did that. Thanks mofftiss.
Ok now down to business. First off, DISCLAIMER, i am in no way qualified to do this? I dont know much about music and have like half an experience at writing meta? so..sorry in advance, maybe just look at this as inspiration and well..gay feelings bc i have enough of those to go around rn.
I will also tag some lovely people who actually know how to do this whole meta thing, and who knows, maybe one of you actually reads this mess and makes somethin out of it? Possibly? Idk, i dont blame you if you dont, really. @quietlyprim @loudest-subtext-in-tv @joolabee @hudders-and-hiddles @love-in-mind-palace @teapotsubtext @beejohnlocked @kinklock @marcelock @gaytectives @ormondsacker @culverton
So.. for all of you who dont know, ode to joy (originally “freude, schöner götterfunken”) is part of beethoven’s 9th symphony, it is the first ever symphony to incorporate voices, the lyrics mostly come from schillers “Ode an die Freude” and the melody itself has been the european anthem since 1972 (1985 if you insist on EU).
Ok so lets have a quick look at the lyrics(and i really mean quick, these are my notes from this morning, not exactly coherent but enough to get a general idea of my feelings about this, we’ll get into more detail later) i also put both the english and german version bc i felt at some points things got lost in translation, but honestly i dont know what to do about that so yeah, if you speak german, good for you, if not and by the end if this youre not bored to death and still have questions dont hesitate to ask i will awkwardly but gladly try to elaborate (this applies not only to lyrics btw)
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!

Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,

und freudenvollere.
/
Oh friends, not these sounds!

Let us instead strike up more pleasing

and more joyful ones!
(Literally lets have happier stories, also the score.. yes lets get the johnlock theme back,please)
Freude!
Freude! / Joy!
Joy!
Freude, schöner Götterfunken

Tochter aus Elysium,

Wir betreten feuertrunken,

Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!

Deine Zauber binden wieder

Was die Mode streng geteilt;

Alle Menschen werden Brüder,

Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
/ Joy, beautiful spark of divinity,

Daughter from Elysium, 
 
We enter, burning with fervour,             (Cant set the heart on fire if its
 
heavenly being, your sanctuary!              already burning w/ love, yall)

Your magic brings together 

what custom has sternly divided.               (Gayyyy!!!!!)

All men shall become brothers,           (Secret brothers,reunion…)

wherever your gentle wings hover.      
(Idk, mrs hudson is an angel?)
/
Wem der große Wurf gelungen,

Eines Freundes Freund zu sein;
 
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,

Mische seinen Jubel ein!

Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele

Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund
!
Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehle

Weinend sich aus diesem Bund!
/
Whoever has been lucky enough.         (Luckiest man in the world,

to become a friend to a friend,                 my only friend, … ) 
 Whoever has found a beloved wife,

let him join our songs of praise!               (Uh….how bout no?)

Yes, and anyone who can call one soul

his own on this earth!                                       (My john…..)

Any who cannot,
let them slink away
from this gathering in tears!   (Mary crying,then disappearing)
/
Freude trinken alle Wesen

An den Brüsten der Natur;

Alle Guten, alle Bösen

Folgen ihrer Rosenspur
.
Küsse gab sie uns und Reben,

Einen Freund, geprüft im Tod;*
(Like.. sherlock died and
 came back for john what more proof??)
 Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
 
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott. 
Every creature drinks in joy

at nature’s breast;

Good and Bad alike

follow her trail of roses.                  (Good and bad, rosie, hmmmm)

She gives us kisses and wine,

a true friend, even in death;              (Or only in death?hey mary)

Even the worm was given desire,     (Mycroft? Nah,probs moriarty)

and the cherub stands before God.    (Sherlock, my lil cherub)
/
Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen
Durch des Himmels prächt'gen Plan,
 (Plans…ominous)

Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,
 
Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen.
Gladly, just as His suns hurtle

through the glorious universe,

So you, brothers, should run your course,             (the way it was always

joyfully, like a conquering hero.                                  meant to be…..) 
/
Seid umschlungen, Millionen!

Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!

Brüder, über’m Sternenzelt

Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen.

Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?

Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?

Such’ ihn über’m Sternenzelt!

Über Sternen muß er wohnen.
/
Be embraced, you millions!

This kiss is for the whole world!             (,!!???? Like???????Yes pls)

Brothers, above the canopy of stars

must dwell a loving father.                                (Or two? Hey dads)

Do you bow down before Him, you millions?

Do you sense your Creator, o world?

Seek Him above the canopy of stars!

He must dwell beyond the stars.
Well that was……….. kinda gay. Yeah yeah i know its just a queer reading no i dont believe it was intended to be gay by either beethoven or schiller (or was it?? Irdk) but. in the context of the show. which is rather what were looking at. Pretty damn gay, right?
Ok lets have a look at my absolute favourite lines first:
Your magic brings together/what custom has sternly divided.
Well… i think we can all agree that society has, quite sternly indeed, divided holmes and watson, romantically. Homosexuality just simply wasnt a custom, or at least very frowned upon, mildly speaking. It is rather magical to watch this wrong being righted though, i should think. More specifically in bbc sherlock, the divide has come through a custom of not speaking to each other, and guess what?? Yeah hudders is friggin done with that bs these two are talking now!
And then…
Be embraced, you millions!/This kiss is for the whole world!
*shrieking* do i? Do i really need to talk about this? I think not. This just…. yeah. I mean really….. I would like to add at this point that, at least to my ears, embraced sounds like a rather tame option of translation. “Umschlungen”, to me personally conveys a certain vigour, almost as if the embrace might… idk.. come as a surprise to some extend? Take the air from some peoples lungs? Yeah dunno what that could be about……
If you still need more i guess i could just blubber some more about it all but tbh what is structure? so yeah, here we go, feel free to leave anytime i mean its already pretty gay and hurts my heart i wont blame you if you think 
•WE ARE NOW ENTERING THE REALM OF JOY… yep thats happening things are getting happy, please, god, let them actually. And this joy that we will feel when John and Sherlock ( finally) get together will mend all the wrong thats been done to those two, and us Holmes fans, during all these years of being kept apart by society and norms and customs, homophobia and heteronormativity. Were entering a sanctuary, we are literally save here!
•General message of schiller’s ode to joy is literally that HUMAN CONNECTIONS ARE THE CROWN OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE like wow yes thank you it is as if human connections were the stuff that…completes you as a human being. Say what? 
•Not only is this true for johnlock but also for our entire community, were bound together by the joy of this show, our joy will mend what heteronormativty destroyed, the joy of their kiss will unite us, we will embrace it and the joyfull gayness will embrace us! 
 •The fact that its literally such a groundbreaking piece of music. There have been symphonies over and over but this is new, this is different, he incorporated voices. Groundbreaking,earthshattering… u get it. Seriously if anyone who has even a slither of a clue about music wants to educate me on what the inclusion of voices could stand for please im begging enlighten me my brains too fried im already struggling to get this done(as you might be able to tell. I am so sorry)
 And now, onto some more shit i stumbled upon in the original poem that, sadly, didnt make it into the song but: 
•Have patience for a better world to come, god(mofftiss) is good and will give you what you deserve
•Forget hatred and revenge, forgive your (arch)enemy who shall not have to cry or be rueful (ahem mary. Also possibly mycroft to some extent who knows whats gonna happen) 
•Bravery even in agony,help where innocence is weeping (hi john) 
•Something about oaths and telling the truth to your friends as well as enemies and how lies will bring everything down…… 
•Narrowing the circle, making oaths with wine and staying faithful(keep believing!!) 
•Salvation from tyranns, hope to the dying, mercy in council, forgiving of sins and ENDING HELL well ok then yes to all! 
 No honestly theres a lot and im horrifically underqualified and have a headache so i’ll stop now. If you actually read this whole mess of a thing.. thank you. Bless your soul. I’ll make you an origami elephant or something
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