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thetypedwriter · 4 years

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Imaginary Friend Book Review

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky Book Review

This is undoubtedly the weirdest book I have ever read.

You might be thinking… but, thetypedwriter you read fanfiction! This can’t be the weirdest thing you’ve ever read! Things like ABO universes exist!

You would think that, wouldn’t you?

But no.

I shall endeavor to give you a spoiler free synopsis of the book first followed by my thoughts and criticism, but note that this is an endeavor for a reason. I have now explained this novel in depth to two different people, and both times I have found myself completely and irrevocably stuck on how to even begin, let alone end.

With that forewarning, here we go.

The novel surrounds a single mother and her young son moving to a small Pennsylvania town in order to escape the tragedies of their past that include the passing of her husband and her current abusive boyfriend.

However, while things in their new home start out well-they find solutions to unemployment, poverty, the son’s dyslexia, etc, things start to go awry when Christopher, the son, is lured into the Mission Street Woods at the edge of town by a voice only he seems to be able to hear.

As Christopher continues to listen to the voice in the form of a cloud, or a plastic bag, or even inside of his mind, he starts recruiting his friends to build a treehouse in the woods that will transport him to a different time and place. The voice, lovingly called the Nice Man, instructs him to finish the tree house by Christmas Day.

Or else everyone will die.

As Christopher struggles with newfound powers and responsibilities, coping with two different worlds, his mother struggles with her son’s sanity, the town struggles with anger, blame, and temptation, and what follows is the chaotic descent of a small town into the throes of good versus evil, love and loss, and most importantly, trying to differentiate what is real versus what is imaginary.

In the simplest terms possible (a facetious statement if there ever was one), I thought this was going to be a thriller mystery book about a single mother and her young seven-year-old son Christopher leaving their home and her abhorrent abusive boyfriend in order to start a new life with hope and potential.

And it….is?

But it doesn’t stop there. Chbosky crams so many genres, themes, motifs, and messages into this book that when you think about it, it’s unsurprising that it’s over 700 pages long with the tiniest, most miniscule font I have ever had to squint at.

However, make no mistakes like I did, this book is horror.

Yup. You read that right folks, horror.

To preface, and I might have mentioned this in another post for another book at some point, but I vehemently dislike horror of any kind. This extends to books, movies, shows, etc.

I understand that horror is a great joy and pleasure for a vast amount of people and that it contains its own literary merit, tropes, and rules, and I can appreciate that for what it is from afar, but I personally take very little enjoyment from consuming anything horror related (I apologize to all the Stephen King fans out there in the world).

I did not fully realize the extent to which this book was a true horror.

This is entirely my own fault. I was very much blinded by the rosy colored glasses from college when I first read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Chbosky’s first and only other novel.

Perks is wonderful. It is a tragic, yet fundamentally hopeful and loving bildungsroman that shows the beauty and the pain of growing up and accepting yourself. The movie with Emma Watson is what dreams are made of.

I committed author fraud when I picked up Imaginary Friend based on the pure speculation that I would most likely like it since he had written Perks, a book I adored as both a reader and a teacher.

I’ve warned readers against this in the past, but it seems like I should have taken my own advice: just because an author has written one good book or one book you like, does not automatically mean you will like their second book, or any of their other books for that matter.

This cannot possibly ring more true for Stephen Chbosky, as not only are his two books completely different in narrative and structure, but also vastly different in genre and purpose.

I should have stuck with my gut and realized that I probably wouldn’t like this book based off the synopsis, the genre, and yes, even the cover (it looks scary to me, okay?), but I said noooooo, it’s Chbosky, you have to read it!

And this is where we ended up.

First of all, I didn’t hate the book.

I can recognize that it is extremely well written, well crafted, and well developed. I can enjoy a slew of characters, and oh boy are there a multitude to pick from, and I can give credit where credit is due.

Chbosky is a talented writer. There is no doubt in my mind about this. The way he crafts words, the way he plays with texture and space, and with fonts and sizes, is nothing less of sheer brilliance.

He undoubtedly is also masterful at motifs, foreshadowing, and symbolism. Notably, there were so many recurring objects, colors, metaphors, and so on that were sprinkled out so consecutively and intentionally throughout the novel-some I didn’t even pick up until the end-that I was left reeling from how immensely talented and brilliant he is.

Things like his use of baby teeth, blue moon, and fogs/clouds/mist struck me in particular. I know this seems like gibberish, but Chbosky truly came across as understanding what he wanted to portray and how he wanted to deliver it.

However, the biggest compliment I can give to Chbosky is the sheer magnitude of his imagination and creativity. This book almost overwhelmed me through the use of ideas and concepts I had never really thought of before.

Alternate dimensions? Check.

Supernatural powers? Check.

Incredible use of diction and figurative language? Check and check.

Chbosky had so many wild and tantalizing beautiful turns of phrases, expressions, and descriptions that it left me with the same sort of gasping epiphany that Maggie Steifvater’s writing always leaves me with, the feelings that writing can be so utterly beautiful and compelling, that it can be all-consuming as well as never ending with its potential to stun, to create, and to warp to unique needs and purposes.

It definitely was a reading experience quite like any other I’ve had.

Be that because of the horror genre or because of Chbosky’s odd, yet addicting writing style and this has definitely become a book that left me more than a bit dumbfounded. Although I’ve sung its praises and admitted to my own faults at this point, this book isn’t without flaws.

To me the horror genre itself is just not my cup of tea like I’ve stated. Strike number one.

Second, the book was...abysmally long. Atrociously long. As I’ve also said before, I do not mind large books. In fact, big books when you’re reading something you love is a true blessing. Finding that fanfiction at 3am that hooks you immediately and you look up to see its 300k? Amazing.

Starting a new book series that you fall in love with body and soul and realize you have several installments left in the series to gorge and devour? Ecstasy.

Sloughing through a single book that starts to drag on and on repetitiously for what seems like forever? Borderline hell.

This book could have been 300 pages shorter and still contained everything Chbosky wanted to accomplish. It could have had the same brilliant writing, messages, and motifs, but without all of the never-ending back and forth between worlds and battles that just kept popping up time and time again. The abominable length considering its content is strike two.

Last, the ending was a bit of a cluster. At this point in the novel, so much is going on, you are being exposed to so many pov’s that it’s almost stress-inducing, and events taking place are cataclysmic and 10/10 on drama. Chbosky bit off more than he could chew here.

The book choked itself at the end, which, after reading for 700 pages is not the feeling you want to have. The ending left me befuddled, disappointed, and also bereft of a conclusive end and explanation for the shitstorm that had just rained down. It was not the ending I wanted, could understand, or could even really grasp. Strike three.

This book has a plethora of merits followed by three enormous criticisms. If you like horror, then you’ve already crossed hurdle number one. If you can accept it’s repellant length (let alone have days upon days of free time to actually ingest said behemoth) then that’s hurdle number two.

Hurdle three is up to you. Perhaps you would like the ending where as I found it lacking in structure, content, and answers. I like my endings tied up with neat little bows. I don’t like to be left thinking...hmmmm what does this mean?

If I am going to read your massive book, I deserve an ending that satisfies the journey. Authors telling readers that it’s up for interpretation makes me want to strangle something. It comes across as enormously pretentious to me and oftentimes lazy.

In the case of Chbosky, I think he had given himself so many loose threads that the neat little bow I desired was next to impossible.

So he didn’t even try.

Score: 6/10

Recommendation: If you love The Shining, are lacking bouts of creativity and imagination, have lots of free time during Quarantine, and don’t mind having an Inception-esque ending where you might not get all the answers you want, while being tasked with concocting it for yourself, Imaginary Friend might be your new best friend.

Bonus: Here’s a pic of my kitty photo bombing this book shoot. Hope she brightens your day!

#imaginary friend #stephen chbosky #perks of being a wallflower #horror #horror book #stephen king #the shining #literature #books #book blog #book review #book rec #Book Recommendations #book reflection #book analysis #popular fiction #top books #booklover #book

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heccapeach · 3 years

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Since it’s Valentines Day, I guess it’s time for me to share the fictional crushes I’ve had on characters throughout my life:

My Fictional Crushes Throughout History:

Shadow The Hedgehog

Shadow was the first fictional crush that I had as a kid and the one that I can mention at the top of my head with some bravery and expectation of confusion and humiliation from others. I guess after learning of his existence in Sonic Riders (my first Sonic game) and onwards into the Sonic series (and a bit of Smash), I started to develop a crush on Shadow thanks to his design and personality after learning more and more about him. I believe that his portrayal in Sonic X especially had an effect. I mean, I wasn’t the only one to have a fictional crush on Shadow, considering how many fan girls he’s had over the years.

Mephiles The Dark

And then after Shadow, I eventually developed a fictional crush on Mephiles from Sonic ‘06. I believe I was 12 or 13 at the time that I did. I’d say this one is even weirder than the Shadow crush. But if it wasn’t for my interest in Mephiles and well, Solaris as a whole, I probably wouldn’t have discover my interests in the sources that beings like Solaris is based off of, like biblical mythology and other forms of mythology, space-time itself, and the sun and the moon. Therefore, they have been an important and influential character to me as unique as that may be to others. Delving more into Solaris in ‘06, I started to believe that he wasn’t the true villain of Sonic ‘06 as he was an entity whose power was being misused in the wrong hands of a very desperate and selfish human. That being the Duke of Soleanna, who wanted to save his wife from whatever presumed death that she had by harnessing Solaris’ power over time itself and even find a way to give humanity the power of time-travel in order to correct their past mistakes which mind you, is a bullshit and an absolutely dangerous, selfish, and idiotic idea. Perhaps one of the worst ideas I have ever heard in my life. Humanity absolutely does not deserve to be in possession of such abilities at all, PERIOD. Imagine all the recklessness, greed, bickering, fights, and just flat-out stupidity. Ugh, you’re just giving humanity the ability to not only make more mistakes, but potentially worsen their past mistakes. LIKE, WHAT THE HELL WAS HE THINKING?!?! I mean, when you learn that, it’s absolutely no fucking wonder why Solaris got all pissed and went batshit crazy throughout space-time. I mean, I would’ve too if some fucking idiot tampered with my power and form like that. And it didn’t help that Eggman was obliviously trying to repeat the same stupid action that the Duke did. I swear mad scientists tend to be the true evil and the creator of evil in existence. They’re one of the archetypes that do a great job at pissing me off. Well, they’re not called “mad” for nothing.

Solaris is just a misunderstood entity who just needed better guidance and treatment in existence. It’s why I even imagined the possibility of Solaris being saved and given a better chance towards redemption and understanding. After their backstory, I felt so sympathetic towards them as a character. Sure, Mephiles plan could’ve made more sense in the script by being less convoluted and more simple in the script alongside the time-travel plot itself, but we can’t forget that ‘06 was indeed rushed in development so it’s no surprise that writing for the game’s story was also rushed and didn’t have enough time for some scenes and decisions to be reconsidered.

But regardless, Solaris holds a special place in my heart and the inspiration they have given me has been a gift. So even if they’re outside of the existence of the Sonic universe, I shall never forget about them.

Crazy Hand

There was a time where I got really interested in Master Hand and Crazy Hand from Super Smash Bros. After discovering Crazy Hand’s existence in Melee, I suddenly started watching more videos featuring him and Master Hand, even if it was the same few videos. Like I was deeply analyzing the two hands in action. I was so fascinated, yet pretty intimidated by them. I believe that Crazy Hand had fascinated me the most, given the way of how he parallels Master Hand and his personality. Then all of a sudden, I started crushing on him...How utterly weird of me to be crushing on a giant floating disembodied hand of chaos and destruction....

Daxter

Daxter was my top favorite character of the Jak and Daxter series. Not to mention how much the series is a childhood icon to me. I also loved the design of ottsels/precursors. It inspired me in terms of anthro designs. I know, I’m pretty much a furry at this point with these crushes. I guess that I can now relate to Tess, who eventually became an ottsel/precursor just to officially be Daxter’s girlfriend.

Joker (P5)

Back when he was announced to be included as a fighter for Smash Ultimate. It was my first exposure to Joker and Persona 5 itself. And back when his Smash fighter self was still in development, I felt interested enough to research Joker then eventually look into Persona 5. I started to adore his design and silent protagonist self. His fluffy looking hair, glasses, phantom thief design, and personality, and that smile made me develop a crush on him. He’s pretty much the only fictional human character that I had a crush on out of all the crushes here and that’s saying something.

A Fan-made Genderbend Waifu Nightmare From Kirby

Okay....how the hell do I explain this..? So back when I had a peak interest (and fear) in one of the most underrated Kirby characters and final bosses, Nightmare, I looked up fan art of him and discovered this sorta genderbend waifu interpretation of him on the Internet. I was interested in the design, enough to make an original character of mine have their design inspired off of it and that’s mainly where my crush was targeted on. Knowing that this had to do with Nightmare from Kirby of all characters, this is perhaps the weirdest and most embarrassing crush of them all. This would just be the beginning of me getting invested into oneiric (dream) characters.

NiGHTS

When I was starting to really invest into the NiGHTS universe and NiGHTS themselves, I started to appreciate their design and personality to the point where I found it attractive and relatable at times. This crush hasn’t been a constant nor lasting one though, so I see it as a small crush instead.

Wizeman and My Own Fan-made Gender Bend Waifu Parallel of Him, “Wize-Chan”

Ah jeez, here we go again. So, um, like Nightmare, I had a notable interest in Wizeman as a character and was also greatly intimidated by them at the same time. I eventually started thinking that he was a bit cute in the first game. Seriously, why I do I eventually develop crushes on the same characters that I get scared of? Am I a psychological masochist or have Stockholm Syndrome or something? In order to ease my fear, I made the jokes on this platform on Wizeman and the other NiGHTS characters. Sometimes, fear can be a great motivator and that already scares me alone. One of those jokes involved redesigning Wizeman as a Waifu named “Wize-Chan”:

When humanizing the design, I wanted to maintain the surrealism of Wizeman’s design, so I made sure not to humanize it too much. That’s why the shadowy legs are phantom-like and the robe acts more like a cloak than a robe with a presumed shadowy phantom body underneath. Probably think of it how Darkrai from Pokémon has these slim legs that it can make to stand on something. Idk. Jokes aside, I felt that this was an embarrassing thing to make. But recently, I’ve looked back on the design and I started to develop a fondness over it. She was just too adorable to ignore. It motivated me to draw more of her and establish a personality. She still maintains Wizeman’s personality and god complex, but with a tsundere touch to it. She also uses the insult “degenerate” occasionally since I imagined Wizeman in Journey of Dreams using it. (Example: “Eh? You want me to step on you? Ugh, DEGENERATE.”) She can get accused of being a furry, but she gets offended and denies it. There’s never a place for violence in a relationship, but Wize-Chan differs. I suppose Wize-Chan here can be compared to Bowsette, since it’s taking a villain and turning them into a Waifu character. You could look at it that way if you wanted to. Wize-Chan also likes to bully Owl whenever she gets the chance.

Speaking of Owl, I recently designed a Waifu form of him—

Arceus

Just a little bit. It was a minor crush. Afterwards I changed my mind and started seeing them as a mother figure instead. I like to refer to them as “mom”, “mommy”, “Mama Llama”, "o-ka'a-san" (Japanese for mom), and “Mother”. Arceus just naturally feels like a mother figure to me, as weird as that sounds. I mean, it makes sense, considering that they’re Pokémon God and God is always interpreted as referring to his creations as his children. That’s been interpreted the same for Arceus. I mean, it’s okay for your mother or father to be your valentine, right? That, and why am I so invested in creator entities/deities so much?

So over the years, I’ve had fictional crushes on 1 anthropomorphic artificial hedgehog with alien DNA, an anthropomorphic otter and weasel hybrid that also belongs to a race of ancient beings that run the universe as its god, a sun god of time, a giant floating disembodied hand that’s the destructive god of the Smash universe, Pokémon God itself until I started seeing it as my Pokémon mother, a Waifu form of a personification of nightmares, a disobedient nightmaren then eventually just their creator as well as a Waifu parallel of him, and 1 human..huh.

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bewitching-elizabeth-olsen · 3 years

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Press: How ‘WandaVision’s Elizabeth Olsen Brought Her MCU Role To The Small Screen: “It Was Like A Dream”

DEADLINE: When Elizabeth Olsen was first pitched the idea of taking her character Wanda Maximoff into the suburbs with her late android husband Vision, played by Paul Bettany, she wasn’t quite sure how to wrap her head around it, let alone understand the couple’s inexplicable reunion. The president of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, and creator Jac Schaeffer had told her their plans for WandaVision to kick off the MCU on the new Disney+ platform. They also explained the concept that each episode would be set against classic sitcom tropes from the ’50s to modern-day.

“I was really worried about launching a show like that,” admits Olsen. “The idea that Kevin had about trying to tell this story in a Twilight Zone-y way through sitcom is so twisted and bizarre to me that I could only be excited to see what they would come up with. Another issue was to bring these superhero characters that audiences are used to seeing on big screens onto a small television.”

“If you’re in a choir,” explains Olsen, “you’re adding a tone to the group. So, in the [Avengers] films, I always felt like I was adding a sincerity tone while everyone was being sarcastic. Wanda has a lot of heart and a lot of pain, but with this, all of that went out the window. The core of this woman is really her lack of having really understood her own grief and trauma, and she’s trying to move forward in the world. Then there’s this strong desire and need for creating a family nucleus allows for her to not be alone in the world. And then everything else, the sitcoms, even her knowledge of what’s happening is just circumstance.”

The big themes hidden within WandaVision’s deliberately forced sugary facade made it a hit among critics, too. Think pieces and fanatical breakdowns of each episode brought a level of kudos never before seen for a Marvel character. So much so, that when the Emmy nominations were announced, WandaVision scored 23 of them, including Lead Actor nods for Olsen and her onscreen partner Paul Bettany. It is the 3rd most-nominated show this year.

“Yeah, it’s odd,” muses Olsen. “After seven years of playing the same character, who would have predicted it? I got comfortable being in an ensemble, and I really liked trying to figure out what my point of view was to the story as a whole. But with this show, we just thought, ‘This is the weirdest thing we’re ever going to be able to participate in, so let’s just swing for the fences and either it will crash and burn or people will like it.’ We just had fun.”

Spearheading the fun was director Matt Shakman who brought his years of collaborating as the artistic director for the Geffen Playhouse onto the set; bringing a cohesive theater troupe feel to the cast.

“I’ve had some pretty great leaders on my films,” recalls Olsen, “but Matt is one of the greatest leaders I have ever had on a job. He had us come in for two weeks to do rehearsals and to all get the same visual vocabulary for every single episode. Everyone came out to Atlanta, even for a couple of nights, or even if they weren’t working until six months later. We literally felt like an acting troupe.”

“A lot of us, Teyonah (Parris), Katheryn (Hahn), Paul, were all trained from different acting conservatories,” says Olsen. “We are all students of acting. I mean it was so dorky, we would do vocal exercises in hair and makeup, trying to find this world together. I would look to everyone around me to figure out, ‘OK, are we really doing this cheese? Is this really what we’re doing?’ But we were all doing the same amount of cheese, and as an ensemble we were supporting and holding each other up. That’s why it felt like such a fun show to work on, because you really felt that camaraderie and necessity of all your scene partners, so it worked.”

Which made the different eras of comedy sitcoms, with its specific sets of rhythm, less of a challenge and more of a celebratory collaborative effort to work through.

“I mean it was like a dream,” smiles Olsen. “It already feels like such a gift as an actor to get to play a genre or tone or period piece or have a playful exploration of your voice. All those things are already just so much fun and then to constantly have to change and alter it, yet keep the same core of these characters. It was a joy.”

“I’m really grateful for this show,” continues Olsen, “I got to have a lot of fun showcasing in a way of being a ham. I haven’t gotten to do that in a lot of my work. You learn in life to become quiet and reserved and polite, and it’s really fun to have that opportunity to access the skills that you’ve learned throughout the years. It awoke my body up to what I love about work and I’m feeling residual effects in a positive way preparing for my next job.”

After traveling through multiple fictional settings, Olsen’s next job took her to the U.K. to continue playing the Avengers’ Scarlet Witch in the upcoming film Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Leaving behind her tight group of theater comrades and stepping back onto the big screen after two years of playing Wanda Maximoff, something felt different.

“It was great to stay in the same mindset,” says Olsen. “It was also frustrating because [WandaVision] hadn’t come out yet. I had just spent a year breaking down what family meant for Wanda. How our entire show is about family sitcoms, because it gave comfort though so many different time periods. And I knew that Dr. Strange was going to be different for this character, even though I was going into a film with a bunch of new people, to have this new huge group experience, I was completely alone again.”

Now back in the U.S., Olsen can finally give Wanda a break and take on characters outside the MCU, possibly even returning to the independent film scene where she got her break as an actress a decade ago.

“This has been a great gift from Marvel,” she says. “The longer you work for [them], the more included you are in every step of the process. And I really do appreciate that. I’m also grateful from a financial standpoint, because I’m now able to make decisions and take on opportunities not based on the potential of its commercial success.”

Now it seems that seven years later, playing Wanda has come to a perfect rewarding ending for Olsen. That is, unless the MCU needs her back for another round.

Press: How ‘WandaVision’s Elizabeth Olsen Brought Her MCU Role To The Small Screen: “It Was Like A Dream” was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #WandaVision #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Sorry For Your Loss #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla #Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness #Marvel #MCU #Candy Montgomery #Love and Death #Avengers Endgame

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pokeworldrevisited · 4 years

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Yes tell me about the brother bear au plz it’s sounds so good

Oh boi this… this is gonna be long… trust me, this is the upteenth time I wrote this AU down, it always ended up too long for my liking.

So what I should say first is that even though I said this is based of Brother Bear, it’s also based off other movies or game series that I liked. Brother Bear was just the main inspiration since I was listening to the OST while thinking this AU up. (And not I can’t UN-THINK this AU so thanks OST)

This AU is basically a whole rewrite of the game’s story, since it takes place literally at the start of the game. (Specifically the first time you go into the Slumbering Weald). This is why I keep writing so much for this, there’s a lot to know and add in.

In fact there’s so much about this AU that what would be the Post Game is basically a story all on it’s own.

Here’s a few things to note about this AU before I get into it:

I’m not gonna specify which trainer becomes which Legendary, that’s up to your interpretation

Seeing as Victor and Gloria would have two separate reactions and additions to this AU, I’ll be referring them as MC instead. If you want me to do some stuff with Victor or Gloria as the MC, just ask

For most of this AU, Hop and MC are in what I’ll call ‘Uncrowned Form’, it’s basically the Hero of Many Battles form but with no battle scars. Their Crowned form also lacks scars.

Brother Bear (Temporary name) AU

Bit of Lore:

You know how important the rusted sword and shield are in game? Well, up that importance by like 1000 here. We know that it’s the sword and shield that basically brought Zacian and Zamazenta from the dead (or at least a very long sleep), they are what give the wolves their mighty powers that cause them to go to their Crowned forms.

So here’s a random question, what would happen if someone were to break the sword and shield?

Oh, and before you ask, this doesn’t mean that the old kings of Galar were also turned into the wolves at one point. That part of history is still the same. Hop and MC just did a bad thing and have to pay for it in the weirdest way possible.

Beginning:

Hop and MC were destined to become the next heroes right from the start, however when they were supposed to first meet the spirits of the legendaries something goes wrong. As in the spirit of Zacian/Zamazenta never shows up to stop the unprepared heroes from going further. And so further they went.

They found themselves at the Shrine and Gravesite of the wolves, where they discover the sword and shield just lying on the ground. And when they find the old relics they make a grave mistake, they accidentally break the sword and shield. And by doing so they severed the sole items that tied the heroes of Galar to the region. (The way the sword and shield break depend on which trainer took which relic or if MC was Victor or Gloria; For example, if Gloria grabs the sword she’d suggest having a little sparring match to calm Hop’s nerves and then bad things happen)

As both a punishment as a way to ensure there’d still be hope for the region against the upcoming Darkest Day, the wolves decide to use what little power they had left to turn Hop and MC into the legendary wolves. Yet to Hop and MC, all they see is the broken relics glowing and the mist around them starting to thicken.

Then, an illusion is created, one that scared the trainers’ poor Pokemon to run deep into the Weald, not to be seen again for a long while. It’s a battlefield, to be specific the first battle against the Darkest Day. Neither of them knew it at the time, but the illusion was showing them what they needed to do to break the curse that was going to be placed upon them. Hop and MC are so focused on the false battle that they don’t realise that the relics were floating, nor did they realise that the wolves sent some kind of blast that got absorbed into their bodies until they felt an explosion of pain strong enough to knock them both out.

When they wake up, they find themselves in a place they don’t recognise (The Research Lab), being greeted by a Yamper which they could now… suddenly understand. Not too far from them was Leon who was talking to an unfamiliar woman (Sonia) about how he couldn’t stay because he NEEDED to find Hop and MC. But that’s weird, Hop and MC were right there, right? So why would Leon-

It was then that the two now former trainers looked at themselves and realised that they weren’t human anymore… let’s just say they reacted accordingly.

—————

The most important thing about this AU, and why it’s taken me so long to properly write it down, it’s because since this happens right at the start of the game, literally the entire game’s story changes from a kid travelling with their Pokemon to two Adults, two Kids who royally messed up in 100 different ways, and a pupper. (Though Leon doesn’t initially join in on this journey as he was looking for the kids, but a bit of convincing and a promise from Sonia’s part made him decide to help the wolves out)

Hop, Leon, MC and Sonia all go together on this journey for separate reasons:

Leon wants to find his brother and his best friend. Considering that they disappeared not long after he gave both Hop and MC their starters, he feels that what happened was in some way his fault. Of course he’d never let it show, but each new day where there’s no news on the kids’ whereabouts is starting to tire him out.

Sonia wants to find out what Pokemon Hop and MC are. Her goal isn’t too different from in game, but instead of just looking into the history, she’s finding out more about the Pokemon themselves… then it eventually evolves into researching the history of the wolves

Hop and MC want to both make the adults realise that their not actually Pokemon and they want to find a way to get back to normal. Though Hop leans more on trying to find a way to tell Leon and he’s there and that he’s okay, while MC’s learning of the history of the wolves alongside Sonia in hopes that something from there would tell them what caused the whole transformation to begin with.

As this AU is in my ‘Sibling based AU’ list, it’s obvious that families would be important. There’s actually two sibling/sibling-like relationships:

Hop and Leon being the brothers they always are despite Leon not knowing that the legendary wolf that’s he’s been helping is actually Hop. Meanwhile Hop is overjoyed that he finally gets to see his brother in action 24/7, it’s like a dream come true.

Then there’s the bond formed by MC, Sonia and Yamper. Yes, they were strangers at the start of this AU, but at the end when everything’s back to normal, these three become extremely close to one another. Sonia behaves like MC’s smart older sister while Yamper is like a excited little brother and the former trainer couldn’t ask for anything else.

Due to always travelling together, Hop, Leon, Sonia and Yamper get much more development (along with Hop getting a completely different character arc than in game for very obvious reasons), however this means that other characters such as 6/10 Gym leaders appearing less while characters such as Bede and Marnie get a different story for their arcs.

This part isn’t really finalised yet in my brain, but one of the main things is that seeing as Hop and MC are Pokemon (and the fact that Leon doesn’t know that Hop’s one of the two Pokemon in question), once they learn how to fight, their allowed to help against the wild dynamaxed Pokemon we just hear about in game. What’s most surprising especially for the former trainers is that their able to beat the giant Pokemon extremely easily.

Not only that but for Sonia’s side of the story, when she sees the statue of the two wolves, she assumes that Hop and MC are actually the legendary Pokemon of the past, or at least closely related to them. And so she starts suggesting more and more that they help against Dynamaxed Pokemon.

It’s not just Leon and Sonia that are important to this AU. But the Pokemon take more of a role than just being travel buddies. The two more important Pokemon for Hop and MC just so happen to be Charizard and Yamper, who have helped the former teachers learn to get around in their new bodies and helped them figure out how to properly fight.

Of course the Wild Pokemon is where it’s at. While wary at first, when Hop and MC got to truly travel the Wild Area, they found that the Pokemon there were surprisingly nice. A conversation here, a battle and a few berries there and new friends were made before nightfall. In fact the former trainers made it a habit of sneaking away from the adults in the dead of night to play with their new Poke-pals.

————–

There’s a lot more about this AU that I want to talk about but if I put it all in one post it’s gonna be WAY too long. This is just the gist of the AU, and I haven’t fully thought out the ending. But here’s what I got at the moment (Note that things might change):

When the Darkest Day comes, Hop and MC flee to the Weald where they find the spirits of the previous Zacian and Zamazenta, who in some way help the former trainers realise that they needed to save the region in the spirits’ steed. So that’s what they do, they fly over to Hammerlocke and fight against the Darkest Day, rescuing Leon from getting hurt from Eternatus’ attack and as a result turning into their crowned forms for the first time.

Once Eternatus is defeated (but flees before Leon has a chance to catch it), Hop and MC turn back to humans, the sword and shield separating from them. However now the relics looked new with little to no damage on either weapon.

They have to give out one very long explanation to an overjoyed Leon and a confused Sonia about how exactly they became Pokemon in the first place, but once that’s over it’s all happy times.

In fact the only drawbacks were;

The fact that Leon basically grounded the two for giving him the heart attack of the century (aka their not allowed to go on their gym challenge until the next year, they don’t even get new starter Pokemon until the champion decides so)

And the fact that for some reason Hop and MC can STILL talk to Pokemon even though their human again.

So yeah, happy end! …Until two weirdos with dumb hair come to ruin everything for their own selfish desires.

(Sorry is this wasn’t what ya wanted. I had so many ideas that this was the best I could do. But I do really REALLY like this AU, I’d love to do more with it if that’s okay with y’all… and rework on some aspects of this AU I’m not currently satisfied of)

#Pokemon #Pokemon Sword and Shield #Pokemon AU #Pokemon Sword and Shield AU #Pokemon Hop #Pokemon Sonia #Pokemon Leon #Rival Hop #Professor Sonia #Champion Leon #Pokemon SwSh AU

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yourlatitude · 4 years

Text

indemnify. (i)

Gaius got his second chance from his savior, yet he finds it hard to find justification on her behalf. While Gaius searching for his meaning, someone else is looking for him for another reason.

(18+ Trigger Warning. Explicit. Smut. Heavy one.)

The story is set long after the last war with Rheya and Gaius is confused with his purpose. This is based on my weirdest dream ever. Bloodbound is the perfect story for my dream. In this story, My MC (Adora Ramsey, now Raines) married Adrian and I spare Gaius to have his second chance. This is a two part story. Enjoy!

(Bloodbound: Gaius Augustine x Lily-Rose Raines (OC))

PART I. PART II.

London is wet and gloomy. Perfect place for him. 100 years living in England, he feels like finally, he found his perfect lair. After being spared to live, Gaius roamed around the world. Trying to find his reason to live, trying to find justifications why the Goddess decided to spare his life.

His Goddess.

His steps stopped in front of the Museum building he's been working for. For the last 50 years, he's been telling the story behind all paintings regarding vampires. It's been almost 300 years since his Goddess saved the world from his previous Goddess, fuck that's probably confusing right? But Gaius can't help it. Rheya was his Goddess once. Adora is the Goddess now and Gaius needs someone, fuck, even something to worship. If he isn't a worshipper, he is nothing. When Adora spared his life, she took half of his soul with her.

He decided to go to work earlier today. It's been raining so fucking hard in London since morning and the sun is nowhere to be found. That allows him to go out and blending out with humans. He finds it amusing that after 100 years, humans found vampires no longer interesting. After his Goddess decided to breach the wall between humans and vampires, they live together side-by-side just fine. Silly of him back then, thinking that vampires could rule humans like a little toy when the reality is, humans always evolving. And creatures like him always stuck in one reality, between life and death. But Gaius stopped complaining, if his Goddess decided that this is the kind of life that she thought the best for her kind, then it is the best.

"You are early,"

"No sun outside and I'm bored," he said as he smiles. His coworker just nods and usher him to get inside. Gaius proceeding to walk to his office before he stops in front of a painting he knows too well.

50 years.

50 years he's been looking at her face and his heart yearns for a glimpse of her more and more each day. Dark brown hair, almost black in some of its layer, brown eyes too deep, piercing to his soul every single time he stares at them. This painting serves no justice of her beauty, but this is the closest he could be with her.

"You know, her hair is actually not that wavy in real life,"

A soft voice startled him a little bit. Very unusual of him. But again, he got here too early and the museum still packed with humans. Too many voices to concentrate while his eyes are too focused on the painting.

"Yes, it's not. It's actually darker too in real life," he nods and turns around.

His heart stops.

She stands across the room, yet he can hear him perfectly well. Vampire? In the middle of the day? Maybe she finds rain as freedom too like him.

Long golden brown hair framing her face down until it reaches just below her chest. Gaius couldn't see her face clearly as his vision to her got blocked by people walking around repeatedly.

Yet those eyes. She is a vampire.

Pair of deep reddish eyes, staring into his soul. Much more to his dislikes.

Why her eyes are red? Did she just have her feast? Is she planned to feast here? That would be foolish of her.

He stares and just stares. Can’t bring himself to get a closer look or run to her like how his heart yearns for her, somehow. Why? The voices inside this museum suddenly gone, nothing to his ears as all he can hear is her breathing and the sound of his own heart.

Since when his heart beating this fast? He is a goddamn vampire. Ancient one. His heart isn’t supposed to pumping his blood this loudly.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Who are you?

That girl walks closer to him. The closer she gets, the stronger her scent filling his nose. The louder her heart sounds. The redder her eyes became. Vampire? Definitely. But she radiates warmth like a human. She smells like a human.

Red eyes. Blood red eyes.

Not until she stops two feet away from him then he realized.

"Adora."

His lips accidentally slipped that name.

“Adora? You know my mom?”

She looks so much like Adora. Unconsciously, he stretches out his hand at her, “Let me feel you.”

That girl looking at him in confusion, yet Gaius still takes his chance. She’s too much like Adora. He needs to make sure.

“Please,” He whispers, chocking his own breath.

Last time he checked, 100 years ago, Adora is still in New York with Adrian, settled down. Happy. Healthy. Why she’s here now in London? Alone? Is God, whichever that is, finally hearing his yearns? Is it his chance already, finally, to have her?

“Who are you?”

That girl takes a step closer him before placing her hand on his.

A rush of warmth and shock almost make Gaius dropped to his knees.

How? How is it possible?

The girl looking at him in more confusion.

How can he not recognize it? Two faces blended into one. Two faces that destroyed and building his soul, again and again, every time Gaius thinks of them. His sins.

“What’s your name, child?” his words came as a yearning whisper.

She stares at the painting once before he stares at him, “Lily-Rose. Lily-Rose Raines. And you are?”

“Gaius. Gaius Augustine.”

ii.

The second time they meet is in the museum again. But now, he caught her staring at Adora's painting instead of him staring at Adora's painting.

"You killed her once," she said.

Gaius stops right behind her, framing her smaller figure between his reality and his fantasy, "I did."

“Why?"

"I just did."

She turns around.

Red blood eyes. Why her eyes are always red? Is she always angry? What makes her always angry?

"Why?" She asked him again.

Gaius sighs and tears his eyes away from hers, "She stood in front of my purpose back then."

"How about now?"

"She is my purpose."

Lily-Rose just nods and they decided to just stay in the silent.

iii.

The third time is in Gaius' office. It was late in the rainy night. 2 weeks after their second meeting. Lily-Rose just sits on one of his office sofas and stares at him for three straight hours.

"Ask if you have something to ask," he said.

She moves so slowly to the armchair, letting her leg stretches out from the slit of her satin gown. Gaius knows she can smell him. Gaius knows she can hear his heartbeat.

And he is not playing this game with her.

"Aren't you curious about me?" She asks, sounding like a purr to his ears.

"You will tell me what you want to tell me." He gives her a glance before continuing to read the parchment on his desk.

"Aren't you curious about my mom?" She continues. Gaius drops the parchment and sigh.

She knows how to bait him. She is too much like Adora.

"Oh, you curious now? Don't worry, mommy is healthy in New York. Healthy and just as beautiful as your painting." She said with a smirk on her face.

"You look like her,"

She raises an eyebrow, "So you think I'm beautiful?"

"You are."

She roses from her seat and walks to his desk, placing both hands on his desk, proudly, alluringly, wickedly, offering the front view of herself to him.

Yet... it's her eyes, he couldn't stop staring at.

"Your eyes."

"I give you my breast to look at and you focus on my eyes. You miss out on the good stuff, Mr. Augustine." She chuckles. He didn’t.

"Is it always like that?"

They stare at each other before, to his surprise, she tears away from his gaze. Looking shy? Scared? Anxious?

"No. It was brown before." She pulls away from his desk. Gaius tilts his head in amusement and curiosity.

"It was as deep as my mom's. 10 years ago, I had a dream and when I wake up, It changed. Never come back to brown until now."

10 years ago?

"How old are you, Lily-Rose?"

"How old do I look?"

"Barely 20." He answers quickly. Lily-Rose smiles at his answer. "I'm legal enough to be in your bed, Mr. Augustine." She teases.

"Not answering my question."

She sighs, "Do I have to spread my legs in front of you and send you an official letter for you to fuck my vagina? You know what I want from you. You can smell me. I can smell you. Are you that old-fashioned?"

No. Gaius is not playing this game with her

"How old are you, Lily-Rose?"

"Turning 50 this July." 50?

"Are you turned by Adora or Adrian?"

"Both."

Both? A vampire could only have one master.

She slumps on his sofa and stares at him. For once there's no tease in her eyes. Just confusion, and a little hint of fear.

"I am not turned, Mr. Augustine. I was conceived. With my face, you could guess already who is my mom and my dad."

That confirmed his fear. Conceived? How come?

iv.

The fourth time they meet, they fucked. In Gaius' little house on the outskirt of London, 1 month after their last meeting. Lily-Rose in front of his door, in rainy midnight. Wet and crying. The next thing? Gaius couldn't remember.

All he remembers is she fucked him and so did he.

Lily-Rose under him. On top of him. Beside him. Crying. Moaning. Mewling. All Gaius could think is this is the first time Lily-Rose ever called him Gaius instead of Mr. Augustine.

She called him Gaius while his cock thrusting inside and out her young little cunt. She called him Gaius while his mouth latched to her wet pool. She called him Gaius while he took her from behind, claiming her everything.

Yet she surrenders at his mercy. Letting him using her body, biting her, marking her, and he didn't stop to his disgust.

How could he?

To add his sins, he forgot about his Goddess while his cock burying deep inside her so-called-daughter.

And he never forgets about Adora before. Never.

Lily-Rose lays beside him. Eyes closed as her breathing calmed down. He could stare at her for days and not complaining about it. She looks so much like Adora, with a hint of Adrian here and there.

“Do you love my mom?” She said, finally opening her eyes.

“I do.” He replies rather quickly. She doesn’t answer, just staring at him with an expression he can't understand.

“You turned my dad. You killed my mom. And now you fucked me. Isn’t it too much of a kink even for you?” She whispers.

“You tempted me. You let me.”

“Did my dad permits you to turn him? Or my mom to kill her?” She propped her head with her elbow, placing one hand on his chest.

“No. But you permitted me,”

She chuckles, “I did. I must be sick. I let you cum all over me.”

Gaius choose not to comment on that. His hands unconsciously caressing the younger vampire’s skin. She is so warm, too warm for a vampire.

“How- how did you happen?” He asked.

Lily-Rose gives him a ‘what the fuck’ look at his question, “Seriously? How did I happen? Sex of course. We just did it.”

“No, Lily-Rose. I know about intercourse. But how? Both of them are vampires. Vampires can’t bear children,”

“I am a miracle.”

You are.

“How?”

“I don’t know. Aren’t you supposed to have more knowledge than I do? I’m only 50 years old.”

A wife. A child. Adrian gets everything. Is this God showing him mercy? After all, Adrian did lose everything.

A pang of jealousy hit Gaius so hard, he had to flinch it away. Did he not suffering enough too? He loses everything too. When will God, if there's any, show him some mercy?

“I’m the product of your sins, Mr. Augustine.” She whispers. Is she? She looks more like an angel than a sin.

“Gaius. It’s Gaius. You called me Gaius earlier and I like it better.” he said. Lily-Rose shakes her head, “Gaius is only when your cock is deep inside me, Mr. Augustine. My endearment to you.”

Her hands already stroking him again. His heart clenched when her hand tightening around his shaft and her lips already down on the tip. He can feel he is tempted again.

Shame. Guilt.

“What are you doing to me?” He whispers and she licks him.

Lily-Rose managed to look so innocent as she looks up, “Me? I’m simply sucking your cock, Mr. Augustine.”

Both knows that it’s not what he asked and both knows it’s not the answer.

Every time they met, they fuck. In his office, in his house, in the museum, in the park, in front of Adora's painting.

Just let him die.

They fuck like their time is limited. When they fuck, his intention is to break her. To find reasons why she keeps doing this. Why she let him cum all over her? Inside her, on her face, on her back, on her chest, there's no more fucking spot he hasn't let his cum drip on her already.

She smells like him.

His heart is full of guilt and shame after they fuck. Looking at the much, much, younger one, laying down on the floor, spent, red skin between her legs and his smell all over her. Why?

He feels guilty for fucking her.

He feels ashamed.

But he couldn't stop. Not when she looks at him like he is her savior. Like she worships him. Solemnly, only him.

"Stop, fuck- Stop-" His breath hitched as he holds her hip, Lily-Rose rocking on top of him, bouncing eagerly as her world depends on it.

"No. I can feel your cock twitching inside me. Here, Gaius. Here." Her hand guides his hand to her navel while she sits on his cock. Red blood eyes staring at him, clouded with arousal and yearn. She yearns for him.

Does he look like that every time he stares at Adora's painting for 50 years?

"What are you doing to me?" he grunts as he can feel his cock on her navel every time she bounces.

"Make me come, please. Please. Hurt me." She cries as her movement turns clumsy. "What are you doing to me, Lily-Rose? What the f- fuck... are you doing to me?" Gaius moves his hips upwards to meet her movement.

"Tell me, what the fuck are you doing to me?!" He groans as he flips their situation. Frustrated. Having her crying under him, moaning as her life depends on his cock, his thrust, his decision.

"Please- please make me come. Spill your cum inside me like you usually did. Please. Mark me. Please, please, please."

He wraps his hand around her neck, fastening his pace. Break her. You must break her and you will no longer feel your guilt, Gaius.

Lily-Rose wraps his legs around his hips, claws his back like she's afraid he will stop.

"Tell me and I'll cum inside you, whore."

She opens her eyes as he said that, teary red blood eyes and.... solace?

"I let you taste your own sin, Gaius. I make you do what you love the most. Making sins."

And he comes. He comes so hard inside her, he cries.

She wanted to hurt him.

And she did.

#playchoices #bloodbound #gaius augustine #gaius #adrian raines #bb fanfic #pixelberry #gaius x mc #adrian #this #is #steamy #and #long

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skiasurveys · 4 years

Text

497

If you were to get a tattoo, what would it say or what would the graphic be?

- I’m not sure maybe a cute fox or something dedicated to my dad who died

If you could play any musical instrument, what would it be and why? If you already play an instrument(s), what do you play and why?

I wish I could play the piano

When trick-or-treating as a kid, was there any kind of candy that you didn’t like to get?

- tootsie rolls, or anytnjnf that would get stuck in my teeth

Why do you live in the Washington DC area?

Nope

What is your favorite memory of Christmases past?

- just going to bed on Christmas Eve excited and my sister texting me on our iPod touches that we got being all excited lol

If a movie was being made of your life and you could choose the actor/actress to play you, who would you choose and why?

Natalie Portman but idk

Paper or plastic?

Plastic isn’t good so I guess paper

What was the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten?

Tbh I’m basic as hell lmao so nothing

What do you keep in the trunk of your car?

Grocery bags, Manuel’s and some car junk

When you were in grade school, what did you want to be when you grew up? Why?

- artist bc it was fun and I enjoyed doing it

If you owned a CB radio what would your “handle” be?

Not sure

If you were given 24 hrs to live, what would you do?

Hang with those I love, write notes to everyone but I wouldn’t tell anyone

If you were in the “Miss America” talent competition, what would your talent be?

Hmmm prob being a dumb ass bitch

What do you think the most ultimate gift of the world is?

Idk

If you had one extra hour of free time a day, how would you use it?

More art or sleeping tbh

What CD is in your CD player right now?

I don’t have a CD player lol

Name the most famous person you’ve had a face to face encounter with.

No one

Name your favorite children’s story.

Idk tbh didn’t have any

If you could spend 15 minutes with any living person, who would it be and why?

Gabbie

What person in the Bible do you most closely identify with?

Lmao let’s b real Judas

What article of clothing most closely describes your personality?

Jeans bc I’m so basic LMAO

If you were to write a book what would it be about?

Maybe mental health or poetry.

How many rings before you answer the phone?

What is the first thing you think of when you wake in the morning?

Depends on the day. Sometimes it’s ugh and sometimes I’m excited

If you won a million dollars, what would you do with it?

Pay off my loans and pay back some people

If you had to, what part of your body would you get pierced?

Ears

Who was your favorite teacher and why?

My social studies teacher for grade 11&12. She made everything so fun

What makes you feel the most secure?

I really don’t know cus I never feel secure

Who do you admire the most?

There’s quite a bit

Have you ever had a reoccurring dream? What was it?

Not really

What was your nickname growing up?

Jean... or jenen so cringe so cringe

Peanut or plain?

Like on toast? Peanut ?

What is your favorite cartoon character & why?

Idk Simba or Bobby hill lmao idk why

How did you learn to ride a bicycle?

I got on the bike and my dad helped.. lmaoo

Based on something you’ve already done, how might you make it into the Guinness Book of World Records?

I have no talent so

What’s the closest you’ve come to becoming a pop star/winning an Oscar?

I admire you for thinking this 😂

When was the last time you did something for the first time? What was it?

A bout a month ago I one wheeled

What is your concept of a fruitful day?

What does this mean lmao

What was your favorite thing to play with as a child? Why?

Plastic wolves, animals or the game cube

If you could be any animal in the world for 24 hours, which animal would you be? Why?

A wolf

Have you ever jumped out of a plane?

I wish

If you could rid the world of one thing, what would it be?

World hate

What is your best personal characteristic?

I’m a good listener I think

What is your favorite quote?

Idk I like whatever happens, happens

If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?

Possibly steal 😳

What is your favorite weird food combination?

Ok hear me out but maple syrup on pierogies

If you had to be a flower, which one would you like to be and why?

Sunflower

If you were stranded on a desert island, what three books and three people would you take with you?

Books?! Prob a Manuel on how to live and jennifer, connor and Julie maybe

My biggest pet peeve is…

Men tbh

What is your favorite commercial? What commercial annoys you the most?

Don’t have one bc I don’t watch tv

What’s the most interesting “Ice Breaker” Question you have ever been asked?

I don’t know any lol

If you could be an ice cream flavor, what would it be? Why?

Cake batter or mint

Name a turning point in your life that makes you smile/cry.

When I realized my friend was toxic af or when my dad died. Happy? Idk

If there were a holiday in your honor what would it celebrate?

Idk

What clubs were you a member of in High School? Are you still interested in any of the same things?

None

If you were to be on a reality TV show which one would you be on and why?

None tbh

If you could be anything in the world, what would you be and why?

Artist

If someone rented a billboard for you, what would you put on it?

My ig

If you had to enter a competition for the “Most Uselessly Unique Talent,” what would your talent be?

Make mole hills into mountains

If you were a Smurf, what would your name be?

Idk

What is your worst personality characteristic?

Insecure af

If you had to be a teacher of something, what would you teach?

How to draw maybe

How would you like to be remembered?

I don’t even know. Maybe how kind I am or my art

What is one thing that you constantly think about (other than material things)?

Life I guess

What do you like best about your hometown?

Nice paths I guess

Something interesting you might not know about me is…

Idk I was hit by a car at age 8

#survey #surveys #questions

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blueishfood · 4 years

Text

A crown of petals and flowers (for a boy of flesh and bones)

-- -- -- -- <3

Pairing: Adrienette

Words: 1,9 K

Summary:

"Their eyes met, and he knew her answer. In that moment she seemed calm, almost at ease before him.

“Close your eyes, or I might still be tempted to steal them with me.”

Adrien wasn’t entirely sure if it was a joke."

A/N: This might be the weirdest story I've written yet. It is a story based on a folk tale/fairy-tale creature, so if you get confused, read the end notes for an explanation.

Also, if the story made you feel anything like the picture above, I did it right.

-- -- -- -- <3

Adrien was standing in the middle of a wildflower field when he first saw her. He had been on his way to bring down the cattle, when suddenly, only a few meters in front of him stood a beautiful girl. Her long dark hair swayed in the wind. It rippled and glinted like a dark river, and she had not braided it like tradition demanded.

He stood for a second in complete silence, and watched her happily dance between his cattle. She petted them like dogs and sang to them a beautiful song filled with words he could not make sense of. Her long white dress looked like something made for celebration, but for some reason, she had ventured further up in the mountains than anyone did on a workday.

He froze when she noticed him. Adrien was sure he looked pathetic. Like some kind of lovesick fool, open mouth and wide eyes.

She giggled. Her laughter dipped and bounced off the large stone walls on their sides, the echo seemingly having even more fun than her. Adrien was reminded of the tiny river in his back yard, chuckling happily as it wove past his feet. He gave her a small grin.

“What are you doing so far up in the mountain, fair maiden?” The girl blinked at him, her long lashes bouncing off her round cheeks. Then she beamed at him.

“Conversing with your darling Betty, of course.” She placed her hand on his best dairy cow. Adrien lifted an eyebrow, and snorted,

“My ‘darling’ Betty is a cow,” he said, waiting for her to tell him she was joking. The young woman simply nodded.

“She is indeed,” she tipped her head to the right, “and she thinks you’ve been feeding her far too little for the work she’s doing.”

Adrien laughed, and figured he had time to spare. He sat down on a large rock and watched as she started picking the wildflowers growing beside her bare feet.

“You could come with me and feed her yourself,” he smiled, almost instantly regretting his framing of words. That sounded a little-

“I’m afraid you’re being far too forward, Mister.” The woman blushed, bowing her head, she hid her cheeks behind her curtain of hair. She fiddled with the flowers in her hands, weaving them into a petite crown before putting it on Betty’s head.

“Apologies,” he said quickly, attempting to smooth it over with a little laugh, “I have yet to introduce myself. My name is Adrien.” He gave a little bow, and the woman beamed. She had two tiny dimples by the tip of her lips. “May I ask what you call yourself?”

She bowed down, once again picking flowers and weaving them together.

“Names hold power, Mister,” she said, and left it at that. Adrien assumed she was a private person. There were many of those hidden between the fjords.

He decided to be bold either way. Something was spurring him on this early morning, a longing, a yearning to get the hand of this woman he had just met. He would have found it peculiar, but Adrien had always known he carried strong emotions.

“Miss, there are going to be festivities later, in Mr Johannsson’s barn. Would you like to accompany me?” The woman let out a small delighted fit of laughter, before she turned to him, and placed yet another crown in his soft curls. Adrien felt the hair rise on the back of his neck as her slender fingers brushed against his forehead.

“I would love to,” she smiled, “but I cannot.”

“Are you too tired?” Adrien wondered if he was pushing his limits. She had been kind, open and inviting, but he needed to know more about her. “I haven’t seen you before, are you traveling from afar? *Bjørgvin perhaps?” The woman smiled, and Adrien wasn’t sure if he imagined the pity on her lips. “My aunt has a spare bed if you need one. She lives alone.”

She sighed; her smile had now fully disappeared. Adrien let a small frown tug at his eyebrows.

“Do you not see it?” she asked, a gentle hand cradling his jaw, “Do you not see what I am?”

Adrien leaned into her touch until he caught her words. He leaned back a little, looking up at her fully.

Her dress flowed in the wind, her hair wild and a stark contrast against the light colour. His gaze took in her face, her light blue eyes that could drown him if he let them, her perfect plump lips, her rosy cheeks, and the light dusting of freckles that decorated her nose.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, slightly out of breath, and she rolled her eyes.

Taking a small step forward, she leaned towards him, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear before she said; “I am the beautiful woman you found in the mountain.” She blinked her bluebell eyes slowly, as if willing him to understand. “Ring any bells?” Adrien took her in once more, feeling slightly dazed, until her words registered in his brain and he jerked away from her, almost breaking a bone or two.

His eyes shot down to her legs, or what was hiding behind her legs. Gently flowing with the folds of her dress, he caught a glimpse of a dark black tail.

Adrien shot to his feet. He stumbled backwards over the rock he had been sitting on, trying to get as much distance between him and a creature of the underworld as he possibly could. She laughed.

“What do you want from me, Hulder?”

The wight giggled, and Adrien couldn’t for the life of him understand how such a lovely creature could be the doom of so many men.

“It was you who asked me to a dance, was it not?” she dragged her fingers through her hair, and it reflected the sunlight in a way suddenly foreign and unknown to his eyes, “I like dancing.”

“I just want my cattle,” Adrien said, trying to keep the wavering fear from his voice, “we can part ways as friends.”

“Why should we do that?” She danced a few steps closer to him, and Adrien leaned back where he sat. “I get nothing out of the agreement, and you get your freedom.” The sneer in her voice was unmistakable. She thought he was trying to trick her.

Adrien let out a silent breath, trying another approach to make her more compliable.

“Why do you bring men into your mountain?” He asked, his hands scratching against the rough stone surface as he tried to keep his distance from her flowing form.

She stopped short, staring at him for a second like she had never thought of such a question before she answered, “It is my nature”, and continued closing in on him.

Adrien held up a hand, stopping her mere centimetres from his skin. “Let me leave, and I’ll make it up to you.”

She stopped reaching for his wrist, her body language faltering just slightly. “How?” She asked, and Adrien’s mind raced for an answer to the same question.

“You are curious, are you not?” he said, a little too quickly to be considered a thought-out sentence. “Of the world on the outside.”

“Not that curious.” She reached for him again, this time catching his wrist with her left hand while she used the other to brush away his bangs from his eyes. “You’re a gorgeous example of your species, I’m not sure I want to let you go.”

“Wait!” he gasped, even though he wasn’t entirely sure why he was fighting the most beautiful woman he had ever seen on living his entire life with her. “I have many things to offer, see,” he emptied his pockets, incredibly happy that he had forgotten to clear them of coins and rubbish before he started his day.

“I already own coins,” she gestured to a few wooden nails, “people lose these all the time, and those-“ -she pointed to his collection of small colorful rocks- “are worthless, I own thousands that are far more beautiful.”

Frantically Adrien continued emptying his pockets, looking inside every nook and cranny for something that would matter to her. The hulder simply snorted at his effort, before she finally crossed her arms, and leveled him with a cold stare.

“Just admit it. You have nothing of- oh”, she stopped short when she spotted it. Adrien froze in the middle of his actions, watching her. When she reached for it, the item was something simple. A thin needle, one of simple steel, rested in her palm like it was something precious. “Where did you…” She didn’t seem to need an answer as she admired the tiny tool. Only when Adrien tried to inch away from her did she look up.

Their eyes met, and he knew her answer. In that moment she seemed calm, almost at ease before him. “Close your eyes, or I might still be tempted to steal them with me.”

Adrien wasn’t entirely sure if it was a joke.

She blinked, much like an animal coming out of a daze, and the moment was gone. The look in her eyes once again became wild, and he watched as the nature inside her battled for dominance. She stared at him, then behind him, to his village, and took off.

Adrien didn’t comprehend it when she left, and later he couldn’t explain the disappearance. For though he was certain he watched her leave, he could not for the life of him remember in which direction or where to.

He knew, however, that she was no longer in his presence when the sweet aura around him was blown away with the wind. Like a spell had been lifted, he opened his eyes and the entire exchange seemed like a dream.

But he knew it wasn’t, for a needle had gone missing from his right breast pocket.

The second Adrien got home; he placed his cattle where they were supposed to be, and made his way through his too large house. He stopped before his late mother’s chambers.

It was a small room, one that had once upon a time been decorated with blossoms, branches, and rocks. None were left now. It had been converted into a guest room, the door unlocked only for the occasional missionary or priest that arrived in town. A few had stayed over since the death of his Mother, but ever since her funeral, Adrien had tried his best to stay out.

But privacy, he thought to himself as he opened the creaking door, was overrated.

He made a beeline for the chest in the far-right corner. In it, his mother’s belongings were placed. There were a few items which many could benefit from, yet Adrien couldn’t force himself to sell them. Luckily, there was only one thing he was after this evening.

When he later made his way through the thick forest in broad daylight, Adrien sent a quick prayer to God, asking him to pass on his apologies to Emelie Agreste. Her sowing kit would be given away for a good cause.

He put the flower crown by the small wooden box. A debt repaid, a bond severed and a moment of fear nowhere near forgotten.

A month had passed, when Adrien drunkenly stumbled through his door, rubbing his sore palms. The day had been long, and while the dancing didn't last for the same amount of time, it had been just as tiring.

More than once Adrien convinced himself that Nino had somehow made a deal with the devil for his musical abilities. But if his friend made a deal with the devil, Adrien had been cursed by him, to never be able to have a second to himself.

Rachel, his great aunt, had decided it was time for him to get married. That was the only explanation Adrien had for the girls that kept falling at his feet. That, and the weird 'knowing' looks she kept giving him.

His exhausted mind didn’t notice the glint of gold on his nightstand that evening. But the next morning, he would wake to see a needle of pure gold and a beautiful rock. Beside the two gifts rested a single note, folded and worn, the paper clearly outdated. The message was written in rough handwriting, and yet the words were indistinguishable.

"Power is overrated,

-Marinette"

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

End notes:

A <hulder> is a female creature from old Norwegian folktales.

The hulder looks like a young woman but she is what someone might call a wight. In the stories she usually has long blonde hair and is incredibly beautiful, but she has a cow tail and likes to trick unwed men into coming inside the mountain with her where she will marry them.

In some fairy tales the hulder is a dark and evil creature, who makes the life of men difficult. Sometimes she also steals children or switches them with her own. If a young child had a sickness or a disability, the people often believed them to be a child of the hulder.

However, in other stories, the hulder is a creature who lives in peace with the nature around her. She is good with cattle and animals and is known to help young women, and those who treat her with respect.

This story is based on a tale my great grandmother told grandpa who told me. Once she left her sowing needle outside for a night, and she forgot to bring it in. A few weeks later, she found it, but the tip had been turned into gold. She believed until she died that this was the hulder who had borrowed her needle and made it into gold as a thanks.

*Bjørgvin is the old name for Bergen, one of the biggest cities in Norway

#adrienette #mlb fanfic #mlb fandom #mlb au #fantasy #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #adrienette au #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #mlb fantasy au

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szopenhauer · 4 years

Text

Have you ever kissed the last person you texted? yes

Are you in a good mood right now? r u serious?...

Is there anyone who you think you deserve an apology from? I won’t get any

Are you talking to anyone right now? my gf online and my mom irl

Did you buy anything today? I didn’t

Were you happy when you woke up this morning? I wasn’t

When was the last time you cried really hard? today, it wasn’t the hardest tho

When did you last hug someone? Who was it? this day as well, parent

How’s life going for you? no comment

Has something someone said today annoyed you? that’s normal Can you hear the crickets chirping at night? sadly not Do you like listening to new music, or just sticking to your favorites? depends on the new song - if it’s good then I like it as much as my old favs

When was the last time you were bitten by a bug? this summer has the worst mosquitos ever Do you have a pair of sunglasses that are worth over $200? I'm not rich, mine aren’t more expensive than 25 PLN Are you brave when it comes to trying new foods? ... When was the last time you saw your significant other? weeks ago, not counting video chatting Are you ashamed of your singing voice? I’m aware I have no talent so... Have you ever had a dream where you could understand a foreign language? also animal languages and been talking to plants etc. Do you have anything important to do tomorrow? hospital Are you a fan of retro things? prefer vintage, antiques, shabby - retro is fake but at times there are some good enough pieces as well Would you be considered to be knowledgeable about World War 2? I mistake WWI for WWII and vice versa If you’re with someone right now, do you think it will last? don’t feed my paranoia Have you heard of the Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers? oooh that’s the one Do you have something to do, that you would rather not do? tomorrow Are you, in any way, feeling hopeless right now? absolutely Do you know who you’re planning to ask to your prom? I wanted to ask my current gf back in the day but my mom didn’t let me and I didn’t go because only me and K. didn’t have a date so we preffered to stay home When was the last time you went shopping? yesterday What’s the limit on how much you would pay for a shirt? 60 PLN but I cry when I pay 30 PLN, luckily I have like 3 shirts that are about 30 PLN Do you like making funny faces in pictures? better to be funny than ugly, right? Is there something you look back on and go “I can’t believe I did that”? regrets Are you good at offering advice? but not following them What was the last thing to confuse you? confused is my second name Are you a fan of Keira Knightley? she’s not that good Have you ever resorted to alcohol to make you feel better? it doesn’t make anything better Have you heard about Mel Gibson’s rant/freakout? he was such a good actor, such a shame he’s not a good person Do you wish your bedroom was bigger? I wish I had my own apartment Have you ever felt like a “new person”? I had my moments that were ruined right after Do you own any expensive jewelry? I sold the only necklace that was worth something Has there been someone in your life that just wouldn’t leave you alone? stalkers Do you hate to use public bathrooms? there are way worse things than public bathrooms, even when they’re covered in blood, poop, pee and vomit (but puke is least bearable from all four)

Are there any writing utensils close to you? I packed bunch of them

What was the last thing that shocked you? brain, remind me what was last... How many other rooms can you currently see into? hall Do you need to take the trash out? done Do you need to clean your room right now? soon Do you need to clean out a litter box right now? my cat’s gone Are these questions reminding you of things you put off to do this survey? there’s washing my head on my list for this evening - nothing more How many days have you been wearing those clothes? gimme a break!

Can you move your nose? yasss

Have you ever done a craft that you found on Pinterest? sew teddy and a cat from socks for example but I’m not fond of DIY in general Are you content with mystery, or do you wish you knew everything? knowledge is power

What’s one thing that makes your stomach hurt? what doesn’t?... Ever had a living nightmare? my life is a nightmare

Do you think successful people always come with a pack of haters? successful or not - haters are everywhere Do you wish you could be a world traveler? travelling ain’t my hobby Do you wish you could live in another city for a year? Ełk If you had kids, would you take them to Disney World? if I had money and they wanted to go and it wasn’t that far away from home and they were angels and they were old enough... Have you ever stood in line to get a Disney character’s autograph? wouldn’t bother, pics are better How long does it usually take your hair to dry? so short yet dry slowly Is your Pinterest page cluttered? it’s neat Did you used to name your Barbies? of course Is your life boring? ppl say it is but for me it’s not enough boring if you know what I mean Do you usually feel better around people or alone? alone Is there a broken relationship in your life that you want to fix? tried to fix friendships but it didn’t work out Do you ever think about Heaven? yup Are you ready for Heaven yet? I will go to hell but I don’t mind dying now if it’s a quick death as I prefer to be gone that an ill burden to myself and others Are you afraid of where you’re going to go? I don’t deserve heaven, I think it would be unfair for me to go wherever, I have love-hate relationship with God Do you feel better now than you did last night? noooo Does your body have any problems with it? my body is 99,99% a problem, it’s made of problems like jigsaw puzzle game Have you taken any huge risks lately? my life is 24/7 at risk - does that count?... Silence or songs? depends Do you ignore rude people or do you call them out? try to ignore them if possible What color socks do you have on? purple stripes, looks a bit like asexual flag - this realization :o Are you under a blanket right now? am not

How much was your prom dress? What’s the most you’d spend?: I wouldn’t buy anything expensive, dress from a second hand under 30 PLN Are most of your friends single or taken?: my friends were basically always single When you’re taking a survey that has a “Which of your friends is… the nicest? The prettiest? The smartest? Etc.” do you skip over it?: as I have no friends anymore to be honest What salon do you go to for getting your hair done?: I cut them on my own or ask mom for help Do you believe in luck?: I’m unlucky Would you marry someone of a different religion?: that would be hard Would you convert for them?: nope Worst part about your job?: I don’t have a job and the worst part about it is lack of money and regular UP visits Ever took something out of the lost and found that wasn’t yours?: they tempt me I took some lost/trashed stuff from the street tho Do you delete friends from Facebook if they never talk to you?: that’s me! Do you know anyone who smokes cigars?: my uncle did Ugliest fashion trend at the moment?: according to this - shorts suit, cut outs, sheer/transparent, raffia not a fan of most of vests blue isn’t my fav color but it’s a seasonal thing but shirts shouldn’t be such a huge part of summer in my opinion Do you like glittery nail polishes?: why not

Are you wearing a pink shirt? it’s white with black letters

If you had a baby, would you want to have it at home or in a hospital? hospital I believe

Have you ever had a bad experience with anti-depressants? If so, what? don’t even let me begin this subject...

What makes your room unique? trinkets

Does your past bother you? consequences of it

Do you take risks or play it safe? play it safe and yet...

Are you afraid of running into a certain person in public? more than one person, more than one reason

Do you live in the USA? Poland

Who do you want to meet in Heaven? from those who already died? my brother

Is it raining? slightly

Is your life stressful and exhausting? to me it is too stressful and exhausting

What is your favorite time of the day? when I sleep, if I sleep that is

Have you ever known anyone that’s gone missing? nope Do you put your foundation on with a sponge or your hand? I don’t use foundation, yuk Do you have to pee often? ppl told me that I pee often Do you live near a pet store? they closed pet store in my town

Who was the last person other than family to tell you that they love you? my gf How many people have you kissed in the last month? 1 Do you know anyone who writes really well? my gf writes well Does it bug you when people spell color “colour”? not spell but write, it sounds good in British accent but looks horrible on paper

What is the best fanfic you have ever read (lmao) only fanfic I remember reading was that one E.W. and K.K. sent me about Draco and Harry (yaoi)

If you could direct your own TV show/movie, what would it be like? it would be based on my book

One thing you’ve always wished you could do / be good at? be healthy

Post a picture of the weirdest/funniest text conversation you’ve ever had! can’t choose only one, also, sadly, I don’t have screenies of some of them

Is there a stranger you would like to meet again? for example - I’d like to see all those ppl that I thought have amazing fashion sense and ask them if I can take photos then I would make a blog about it

Does your school take sports too seriously? all schools do, that’s unfair What does the sound you currently hear remind you of? it’s quiet

Did you eat out anywhere today? nah Where is your purse? my purses are in various places around my room

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backoftheroomandnotbelonging · 4 years

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73 questions.

I was tagged by @enchantedamusedslightlyconfused

I tag @iamdorka @xwonderlandxinxhellx @mrs-machinegun-norris (you’re my top three recommended tags)

On a scale of 1-10, how excited are you about life right now?

Like, a 5? I’m at a point in my life that I can go in any direction so I have a lot of freedom and choice. But, I have no idea where I want to be going so I’m in limbo and that makes me anxious...

Describe yourself in a hashtag?

#backoftheroomandnotbelonging

I use it to tag any content I’m posting and Tumblr is typically where I’m the most honest.

If you could do a love scene with anyone, who would it be?

Oooo I don’t know

Colson? Yungblud, maybe Mod Sun as well...

Definitely Colson though - that man is a dream 👀

If your life was a musical, what would the marquee say?

I genuinely don’t have the foggiest...

What’s one thing people don’t know about you?

I’ve done pole fitness since I was 14.

What’s your wake up ritual?

Wake up, check the number of notifications I have on my phone, have a wash, get dressed, makeup, breakfast.

What’s your go to bed ritual?

PJs, have a wash, music, lights out, music, fanfiction, daydream, pass out.

What’s your favourite time of day?

Anytime between 2:00 and 4:30 in the morning. It’s when my house is guaranteed to be asleep so I’m finally able to just stop and be me.

Your go to for having a good laugh?

I don’t actually remember the last time I had a good laugh...

KellyVision makes me chuckle though.

Dream country to visit?

America. It’s kinda cliche but oh well. Definitely hitting up Cleveland for EST Fest and maybe NYC. Probably would wanna go to an amusement park as well - I just have this idea that they’re very different to British ones.

And NZ! My cousins are there and together? We’re hurricanes.

What’s the biggest surprise you’ve had?

This is one of those questions that I suddenly can’t think of an answer for.

Maybe @xwonderlandxinxhellx?

I don’t even remember how we started talking but I never thought (I dreamed but never thought) that I would actually make a friend on Tumblr.

So, thank you 🖤

Heels or flats/sneakers?

CONVERSE! I will die in my Chucks.

That being said, ya girl loves feeling herself in heels. I can’t do normal heels so I have these block heel brogues that I adore.

Vintage or new?

I adore the vintage style but sizing often isn’t on my size.

Also love some dark punk grunge clothing.

Who do you want to write your obituary?

I don’t want an obituary.

When I die I want that to be it. No funeral, no nothing.

Style icon?

Colson, Dom?

I’m very into aesthetics that I could never really pull off.

What are three things you can’t live without?

My glasses

My headphones

The Bloom album (quite literally in this case)

What’s one ingredient you put in everything?

Mixed herbs or sweetcorn.

Love Worcestershire Sauce as well.

What 3 people living or dead would you like to make dinner for?

Colson Baker (needs a heartwarming homecooked meal)

And there are probably others but none that really spring to mind.

My mum, to thank her?

What’s your biggest fear in life?

Fear of isolation

I’m not scared of being abandoned (if you do that to me then you’re doing me a favour)

But I am scared of closing myself off to people that could be there for me and letting things get bad and consume me again.

Window or aisle seat?

Aisle seat!

I like looking at what’s going on about me.

And it’s odd but I also don’t hate the inconvenience of getting up to let people pass.

What’s your current TV obsession?

Roadies.

And nothing else will ever match it. It’s a crime it was cancelled before a second season.

Favourite app?

Tumblr, followed closely by Pinterest.

I think it’s because they’re spaces that are specifically for your interests, dreams, all that mess in your head and I vibe with that.

Secret talent?

I’m not very talented, not gonna lie.

I can rap all of Breaking News which I feel is impressive?

Most adventurous thing you’ve done in your life?

I’ve not had many opportunities to be adventurous.

Skipping school always gave me such anxiety so my body definitely thought I was jumping off a cliff or something.

How would you define yourself in three words?

Witty, fangirl, brave?

Favourite piece of clothing you own?

I have a green and grey checkered suit jacket that I adore.

My Adder Technology jumper is my favourite oversized item.

Black ripped jeans.

Must have clothing item everyone should have?

Brown leather belt. I don’t know why but I’ll never go back.

Superpower you would want?

Power of time? Just to like slow it down. I feel like I don’t have enough time to do anything so to slow it down and get shit done would be great. Or just to give myself a minute to breathe. We don’t get enough ‘time out’s in life.

What’s inspiring you in life right now?

Colson has always been inspiring to me.

He came into my life when I was 15 and literally saved it. He’s always going to mean that to me.

Best piece of advice you’ve received?

Mod Sun: I’ve always been a little bit reluctant to say I’m gonna be the best at something because I didn’t wanna disrespect other people, like ‘Imma be the best at something, you can’t have it’. So I’d never really be like that. But if you don’t say you’re gonna be the best at what you’re doing, your insides, that power that you have, doesn’t know what the fuck to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JUdgoHnL4Q&list=LLF69NADeUPVjZWSlZpeiGWg&index=3&t=0s

Best advice you’d give your teenage self?

Just live, please. We were so close to not living and yet here we are. Please, please, just throw the rule book in the flames. Go to school hungover, pull allnighters to just feel music, smoke, don’t do your homework.

Promise me to be unapologetically yourself.

A book that everyone should read?

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - just stick with it...it’s an interesting story and raises some questions about life.

The Selection Series by Keira Cass - my favourite YA series.

Harry Potter by JK Rowling - pretty self explanatory?

What would you like to be remembered for?

I don’t wanna be remembered.

I’m gone, just move on. Find a new energy to bring into your life.

How do you define beauty?

(That is a purposeful blank space.)

What do you love most about your body?

That it’s never given up on me.

Best way to take a rest/decompress?

Music as loud as possible so you can just lose yourself.

Favourite place to view art?

Oh this has me stumped.

I like art that is significant but isn’t technically legally displayed.

If your life were a song, what would the title be?

It would 100% be a word or phrase that wouldn’t turn up in the lyrics at all.

But you listen to it and the title seems like the perfect title, nothing else could represent this song.

If you could master one instrument, what would it be?

Guitar, bass? No, drums. Vocals...

I just want some musical talent!

If you had a tattoo, where would it be?

Oooo, get ready.

Bee, on my collarbone.

Lace Up, on my wrist.

Tree, on my sternum.

Stars/an astronaut/a solar system, somewhere undecided.

Dolphins or koalas?

Don’t really have a preference...

But the dolphins in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were great so...

What’s your spirit animal?

I think maybe a seal?

Best gift you’ve ever received?

My headphones.

I have tiny ears so have always struggled to find earbuds that are comfortable for a long period of time.

I found some!

And then they were discontinued so it’s really difficult to buy them.

I was surprised with 3 pairs once and I practically cried.

Best gift you’ve ever given?

Ummm, I’m not very artsy creative but I once made my mum a birthday card using a teabag, I think she liked it?

I was a teenager so it was really rare that I ever did something artistic so I think she especially appreciated the effort and discomfort I felt.

What’s your favourite board game?

Chess.

Game of Life.

Cards against humanity.

What’s your favourite colour?

Grey.

Least favourite colour?

I used to have this severe hate for pink because it was forced on me as a child (I shared a room with my little sister and she loved pink so pink was what she got.)

I’ve grown out of it: pink is punk as fuck.

Diamonds or pearls?

I don’t really have a preference.

I much prefer simple things.

If we’re talking jewellery then I like plain silver.

Drugstore makeup or designer?

Ummm...I’m not sure how to differentiate.

I try and use Natural Collection for the base of my makeup but my eyeliner and eyebrows are Rimmel London and NYX.

Blow-dry or air-dry?

Air-dry

These curls only work one way and that’s their way.

Pilates or yoga?

Both.

Depends on what I need in the moment.

Coffee or tea?

Neither!

I’m not allowed so it’s hot chocolate all the wayyyy.

What’s the weirdest word in the English language?

The weirdest words are the ones that you learnt reading so pronounce one way when actually it’s said entirely differently.

Me, in Year 10, with the word ‘epitome’.

Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

Depends on my mood really...

Cadbury released this bar that mixed the two together and that seems kinda perfect.

Stairs or elevator?

Either

I like racing people in the lifts to see if I can get up the stairs quicker. Such a child, I know.

Summer or winter?

Winter, for sure.

Natural ginger so the summer is the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.

You are stuck on an island, you can pick one food to eat forever without getting tired of it, what would you eat?

Mash.

A desert you don’t like?

Apple pie (or any fruit pie)

And custard.

A skill you’re working on mastering?

Skateboarding.

No time like quarantine, eh?

Best thing to happen to you today?

Woke up naturally alert so felt ready to tackle the day productively for the first time since lockdown began.

Best compliment you’ve ever received?

That my writing has helped someone.

Someone told me that A Night of Many Firsts perfectly represented what they were feeling and helped them feel strong enough to get help.

Favourite smell?

My deodorant, baking, the local library.

Hugs or kisses?

Hugs. Simple as.

If you made a documentary, what would it be about?

Intense case study of teenage mental illness into adulthood.

Last piece of content you consumed that made you cry?

Pretty Toxic Revolver - Machine Gun Kelly

Probably every episode of Torchwood ever

Lipstick or lip gloss?

Lipstick

Sweet or savoury?

Savoury. Vegan corn chowder, garlic bread, potatoes.

Girl crush?

I don’t really have any?

I mean, I’m bi but no one really comes to mind.

How you know you’re in love?

I’ve never been in love but I hope it would be seeing them and feeling peace.

Knowing that they get every part of you, good and bad, and still choose to stay. And vice versa.

Song you can listen to on repeat?

Pretty much anything MGK

Currently feeling the Lace Up album.

If you could switch lives with someone for a day who would it be?

I wouldn’t want to be someone else.

I’d much rather be able to jump forward and experience a day in my future...for reassurance.

What are you most excited about at this time in your life?

Travelling.

I’m leaving and hopefully never coming back to this place, this mindset, again.

#73 questions #tag game #tagged #backoftheroomandnotbelonging

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juniper-and-lamplight · 5 years

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Recent Reads -- May 12, 2019

It turns out that I start to feel itchy if I don’t do a round-up of my various one-off recs every few months or so? Though there are some new recs on this list too (helloooo, Lix Storm). As usual, it’s a multifandom mix--DGHDA, Harry Potter, The Hour, and just a bit of Sherlock and The History Boys. Recs under the cut, so you don’t have to scroll unless you want to :) Enjoy!

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency I'm So Queer I Can't Even Think Straight (But To Be Fair, You're Not Helping) - @dont-offend-the-bees - 2.2k, T, Dirk/Todd "'His mind was buzzing, his heart pounding, his lips tingling, even now five, ten, however many minutes later. But if nothing else, he’d got past the phase of the whole holy shit Dirk just kissed me thing going round and round in his head, stuck in there like a bad song. But holy shit Dirk just kissed him.' In which Todd shows his hand, and Dirk takes a leap." So funny and charming that I’m almost mad about it? The Comic happened, we all lost our minds, and Bees was there with fic on the SAME DAY.

A Thousand Butterflies Can't Be Wrong, (But I Think I Might Be.) - electricteatime | @kieren-fucking-walker - 6.2k, G, Dirk/Todd "It’s a lot, he knows it’s a lot, and he almost wishes he’d stopped to think about his answer before just blurting his feelings all over the place. But then he supposes he’s always been a little like that, and it hardly makes sense to change that now. If Todd feels the same he already knows what he’s signing up for. If. For two small letters, it really is a big word." OF COURSE post-s2 Dirk thinks that Todd and Farah will be together and leave him, because historically, that's how things go for him...bless his heart and his inability to cope with Todd's eyebrows.

Leave What's Heavy Behind - electricteatime - 5k, G, Dirk/Todd "A semi-poetic semi-character study of one Todd Brotzman, the lies he tells himself, and the truths Dirk Gently knows." So beautifully, painfully REAL?!? I may never stop having feelings about this fic.

song for the heartsick (better days are near) - embraidery - WIP, T, Bart & Suzie Boreton "Suzie Boreton, rescued from death at the hands of the Mage's goons by the dirtiest woman she's ever seen in her life, faces a question: would she like to go on a road trip with her savior? No, Suzie thinks, but when she opens her mouth, Yes comes out. And so begins the weirdest road trip ever." This is such a fascinating premise, I can't wait to see where it goes.

To sleep, perchance to dream - @flightinflame - 2.4k, G, Mona & friends "Mona is sick, and loses control of her abilities. She tries to hide it, but it becomes too much to ignore." This is? So soft?! And also quirky, and playful, and just plain heartwarming.

the intricacies of triangulation - reptilianraven | @actualbird - WIP, T, Farah/Dirk/Todd "'Todd. Us. Us and Todd. We need a plan for this,' Farah says. Or the one where Dirk and Farah get together (they’re surprised about it as well) and try their best to get Todd to date the both of them in the most roundabout ways possible." In just one chapter this fic had me HOWLING with laughter.

or make a home - reptilianraven - 6.6k, T, Dirk/Todd "Or Todd’s adventures in dating Dirk Gently, the mundanities of which unsurprisingly turning out to not be very mundane at all (featuring, among other things: intergalactic wormholes, regular periods of lying down on the floor, and several annoying habits that concern toothpaste and toothbrushes.)" With a combination of absurd humor and honest emotion, this fic absolutely nails the joys (and annoyances) of loving/supporting/living with another person.

put that baby back where it came from, or so help me - reptilianraven - 7.6k, T, Dirk/Todd "A case drops a telekinetic baby into the agency’s care and Dirk feels...overwhelmed whenever he sees Todd competently, wonderfully, lovingly taking care of a child." Tropey and ridiculous, but in the BEST WAY. My favorite line in this fic is ALL of them.

Though Your Breath Racks Your Ribs and You Throb with Pain; There's a Juice on My Lips for Each Purple Stain - @sexycoinkidicks - 7.4k, E, Dirk/Todd "In which Dirk shows Todd where it hurts. Angsty emotional smut, based loosely on a scene from the play Kiss of the Spider Woman (VERY loosely- no prior knowledge needed!)" Claustrophobic sadness and Extreme Emotional Intensity, with a slight edge of hope.

An Interlude; or, Compulsory Heterosexuality Made Me Do It - @teacupsandcyanide & @gallantrejoinder, - 1.6k, G, Farah & Todd "Farah and Todd did, in fact, make out while on the run. They also both realised some very important things about themselves. But not the things you might expect." Todd and Farah are glorious disasters, and I love them <3 This fic made me giggle from start to finish.

The Situation - teacupsandcyanide - 8.5k, M, Dirk/Todd "Todd raises his eyebrows at him. 'You gotta admit. We would get into this … situation.' 'What, the situation where we flee from the weekly hired goons into a badly aging knock-off of the Ritz, get shut in an empty room with no escape, and find ourselves compelled to make loud, gratuitous sex noises in order to put the aforementioned lackeys off the scent?'" In which Dirk and Todd have wildly different interpretations of Dirk's "coming out," and the only thing preventing them from getting together was their inability to have an honest damn conversation. Sensual and full of Big Emotions, as is only fitting for these two.

The Butterfly Effect (Love Is Love Is Love Is Love) - teacupsandcyanide - 7.2k, T, Dirk/Todd "Dirk kisses his best friend on their balcony in front of the Pride Parade. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Things escalate wildly into identity issues, old hang-ups, anguished declarations of love, and inopportune sabotage of the situation by their tiny bastard cat." This fic left me an incoherent, keysmashing mess. I might have actually clutched at my own heart after reading it.

Harry Potter Midday, Midnight - @aryastark-valarmorghulis - 8.5k, T, Remus/Sirius "During the summer of 1976, between fifth and sixth year at Hogwarts (and after The Prank), Remus goes outside the Lupin's cottage and he finds a big, black dog in his garden..." The character voice in this fic is so authentically teenager-y; Remus is so deep in his own head. I also enjoyed all of the sensory details, which create such a vivid image of the Lupin home, and the feel of a summer's day (and night).

Aural Gratification - birdsofshore - 10.9k, E, Harry/Draco "Harry's not gay – he just likes listening to exciting stories about Aurors. It's not his fault that the narrator's voice is so smooth, so expressive... and really rather hot." I know I’m waaaaay late to the party on this one (as I often am with Drarry fics), but worth it. As a person who listens to audiobooks for both fun and profit, I could not resist it :)

Letting Go - LuminousGloom - 6.1k, E, Remus/Sirius, Remus/Kingsley, Remus/OMC "A number of lusty, intimate encounters. Although for Remus, it's really only ever been about one person. And it's never quite right, until it's right." I love that each of Remus’ encounters is not only distinct and sexy, but also that each highlights different facets of him: forthright, secretive, curious, ashamed, conflicted, joyful, soft, rough, broken, and (eventually) unbroken.

like tea and knitwear - @songofwizardry - 2.4k, G, Remus/Sirius "There are probably easier and faster ways of showing one's affection than learning how to knit so one can make the object of said affections a jumper. Fortunately, Sirius has never been fond of picking the easy route." As soft and warm as a hand-knit jumper, but with just enough snarky humor that it still feels Marauders-y.

Sky Full of Song - @writcraft, read by semperfiona - 2k, 13min, T, Harry/Draco "Draco turns up at Harry's birthday party unexpectedly and Harry takes a leap of faith." A wonderful blend of angst and humor and realistically messy emotions.

The History Boys Don't you know you're life itself? - Philipa_Moss - 5.5k, M, Scripps/Posner “Dakin thinks you’ll get bored of me,” Posner says, out of the blue, and Scripps says, automatic and habitual, “He doesn’t.” This fic feels so perfectly lived-in--all of the relationships (partnerships, friendships, whatever) are well-worn, complex, and shaped by choices in a way that rings true to life, and to the characters.

The Hour (Guess who watched all of The Hour this winter and was left wishing that there was another series entirely about Lix Storm?)

The Small Hours - deathorthetoypiano - 1k, T, Lix/Bel "Lix stayed at Freddie's funeral, despite her instincts - and old habits - telling her to leave. She stayed for Bel, because she might need rescuing or a shoulder to cry on, someone to make sure she was alright, or at least as alright as she could be, given the situation." A quiet, bittersweet coda.

My thought is not changeable - @lbmisscharlie - 1.5k, E, Lix/Bel "Freddie will return – sometime – he must – and Bel is never aimless when Freddie’s around, not like she is now, eyes intent on Lix’s mouth and one stockinged foot rubbing uncertainly against her calf and their smallest fingers just touching where their palms are braced on the floor." Sharp poignancy and tons of sensory--a perfect stolen moment.

Light gathered in you - lbmisscharlie - 1.4k, E, Lix/Bel "Bel looks at her, sidelong. Her lashes are long, mascaraed dark, and her mouth coral pink. “I did wonder,” she says. “If you were – a Sapphist.” She says the archaic word so delicately that Lix has to laugh, which makes Bel pink up and drop her gaze. “I’m – not fussy,” Lix says. She shifts her weight just so, her forearm brushing Bel’s elbow. Bel doesn’t look up, but takes a breath, lifts her glass to her mouth, and swallows her wine down." Everything about this--tone, dialogue, dynamics--feels spot-on.

The Most Marvellous Place to Get Lost - peninsulam - 8.5k, E, Lix/Bel "It is late spring in Tangier, and Bel feels as far from home as she has been in her life." Gorgeous, poignant, evocative. You know, just generally breathtaking.

Immoral Support - @thisbluespirit - 420 words, T, Lix/Bel "Bel winds up where she always does after a bad day; in the safest place she knows..." This is lovely, and manages to nail their dynamic in fewer than 500 words.

I'd like to explore you - rainbowsuomi - 604 words, unrated, Lix & Bel "Lix’s mind is already somewhere else when Bel tells her to think about it and exits the office, picturing herself in front of the camera, describing bars where girls had their hair cropped and styled with grease, smoking cigars and slipping their hands, elegant, long and white, under flowing, frilly skirts, caressing stockings and corrupting young ladies." A beautifully characterized slice of life (and Lix’s history).

Sherlock Roads, Not Shrouds - verdant_fire | @viridiandecisions - 3.4k, T, John/Sherlock "He's perfectly happy to live out the rest of his life in monastic devotion, feeding John and loving John and provoking John just enough to distract him from what Sherlock did to their kitchen table." Lovely and lyrical and heartfelt (without getting treacly).

Further fic recs | Fic bookmarks

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sir-teatei-moonlight · 5 years

Text

Xenoblade reference: Interesting NPC text (Colony 9/Tephra Cave)

So I managed to (somewhat accidentally) get a text dump of most if not all NPC comments in Colony 9 (and surrounding areas of the same map), and I also went and did Tephra Cave because it’s small (well, in NPC count) and close by. It doesn’t tell me who’s saying what for the most part, but for the purposes of this post that’s not necessary: I’m just looking for interesting worldbuilding material. The process should be repeatable for other locations, but it’ll be a bit slow going.

I trawled through as much text as I could find and plucked out the interesting stuff. From what I can tell, this includes generic comments as well as quest text. Spoilers obviously.

Colony 9

People

"You shouldn't go outside the colony on your own, Shulk. The monsters will eat you alive! At least keep that hulking lummox around to fight them off."

"Oh, if it isn't Shulk and Fiora! You two are pretty close. I see you together at all hours of the day! Just don't get too close and leave Reyn feeling left out. Poor guy!"

"Fiora's alive? That's wonderful news! And not just because the area will smell like her great cooking again!"

"Make sure the girl doesn't get hurt. And you there, the scrawny one. Get the big one to help you out! The three of you are the funniest lot I've seen round here in ages."

"Shulk, don't be keeping Fiora out all night! Dunban's sits at his window watching what you do. I'm kidding! Come on, Dunban wouldn't do something so creepy. ...Would he?"

"Did you know about Dunban and Mumkhar? They competed against each other to be the one to use the Monado. In the end, Dunban won." "Mumkhar was always so angry after that. I guess he'd be using it now if he was still alive. Dunban can't handle it anymore."

"Dickson is actually the commander of the soldiers and scientists. But he's often away so Vangarre is acting as colonel. I just wish they'd made Dunban colonel instead..."

"I've been training in Arts using claw weapons lately. It's my dream to master Mumkhar's Hell Dive Claw." "If only he was still alive to teach me. It's a shame he's gone."

Races

"A lot more girls have become soldiers since the war ended."

"No Nopon on Mechonis? Even Nopon Merchants not go there yet? That not sound like Nopon."

"The Mechon had complete superiority. It was as if they knew absolutely everything about this colony."

"It turns out that the Giants' fate was linked to the White Spiders. The Giant in the coffin was in fact the Giants' Soothsayer. The Soothsayer subjugated the White Spiders. But when the Soothsayer died, the White Spiders were freed. That's when they started to amass power. So the Giants offered sacrifices in order to avoid a war! But the Giants' numbers grew ever smaller. Soon the oppressors had clearly become the oppressed. They were unable to fight back against the White Spiders. They were forced to live a meagre existence behind closed doors."

Creatures

"Pack Armus are different to other monsters. They're perfectly tame. Most monsters will attack Homs. Don't let yourself get hurt!"

Defence Force

"This vehicle managed to survive the war a year ago. Feels like we're squeezing the last bit of life out of it. We have to be careful with it. But Colonel Vangarre's violent. I dunno if it can last much longer."

"The mobile artillery used to have five machines. They got destroyed one by one in the war. Now there's only one left."

"The mobile artillery really came in handy in the war. It was the second most important weapon after the Monado. It's easy to control and highly manoeuvrable. Not to mention the firepower. Although we've only got the one. It was brought in from outside the colony; we don't make them here. So we're just doing our best to keep this one in working order."

Bionis

"You don't know why the Bionis is shaped like a person? Didn't you ever listen at school? The Bionis isn't shaped like us. We're shaped like the Bionis!" "Scientists are saying the weirdest things nowadays though. Apparently the laws of physics say that the world should be round. But if the Bionis was round, then people would be round as well. I don't want to be round. I think the Bionis would agree with me!"

"As we are born of the Bionis, we should all be returned to its body. We place the dead in water, so it may carry them back to the Bionis. But a lot of people who died in the last attack left no bodies behind... What will happen to them?"

Ether

"You see the little bits of light in the sky? Those are bits of ether. They're little energy particles released from the Bionis' body. There's ether everywhere. Everything's made with ether."

"Did you know that our bodies are made from ether? Not just our bodies, actually. That chair over there, too! And erm...rocks, I guess...? Anyway, lots of things! Everything in the world is made from ether. It's like...the base element! Of everything!" "There's even research that proves the Bionis is made of ether! But the ether deposits kind of prove that anyway, don't they? They're just hard lumps of ether shot out from inside the Bionis."

"Has friend seen ether crystal deposits on surface? They formed by high pressure and heat inside body of Bionis."

"Ether deposits are like...the crystallised blood of the Bionis. That's why the crystals you harvest from them are so pure."

"World is full of ether crystals. Ether crystal is small clump of ether. Formed when particles of ether are put under pressure. Particles of same colour and shape naturally fuse together." "Look at ether crystal's colour to see its properties. Red is fire and blue is water. Like that! If friends want to make gems out of them, talk to guy over there!"

"Ether Cylinders from the furnace fuel everyone's light and heating. They're also what powers the Defence Force's machines. But they're not usually pure enough for the latest weapons. That's why we need the stockpile of cylinders at the ancient ruins. All the cylinders there are of a very high purity, you see."

"Did you know that ether particles can cause a chain reaction? It happens when the same type of ether gathers in a large quantity. The heat it generates is intense! The ether stream under Colony 6 is a prime example of all this." "Ether is a plentiful energy source provided for us by the Bionis. Just plain ether is enough to power almost all of our machines. But some machines need very pure ether. Like the Anti-Air Batteries."

"All our weapons contain a catalyst that reacts with ether. So you just need to use your Arts to gain the benefit of that power. But I suppose there are some people who don't need that stuff."

"I heard that there're ether gears inside the Mechonis. You can use ether crystals from the Bionis or ether gears. When you're gem crafting, it don't matter which ones you put in."

Gameplay

"What? There are weapons and armour with holes in them?! Maybe holes are to put gems in! That make them stronger!" "There is also equipment that comes with gems stuck in holes. In Nopon homeland we call them unique equipment."

"If you help someone who's been Dazed, your affinity will deepen. That's how me and my boyfriend got together!"

"I've heard there are monsters who can Daze your entire party! That's why I sometimes wear gems that protect against Daze." "But not all the time. Sometimes it's nice to be Dazed in battle. Otherwise you don't get the affinity boost from being rescued!"

"Certain monsters can Poison you. I've been looking for some kind of medicine that can cure it, but... It seems like there isn't one." "I did hear that the ether rifles the soldiers use can cure Poison. They use anti-Poison bullets. If only I had any friends in the Defence Force."

"The skills you can learn depend on your character traits. Like, Reyn can learn Skills that help him be a hard-headed idiot! Did I just say that?"

"Do you think people have hidden depths to them? Like, extra character traits we don't know about up front? If so, I bet there are Skills related to those as well!" "How can you find out what hidden character traits people have? Good question. Maybe they're revealed when you help people?"

LOL

"Why Mechon attack colony? Colony do nothing wrong!" "Oh no! Might be because I steal and eat neighbour's fruit. I never do again!"

"Oh, fiddlesticks. I was really hoping I could ask Shulk for a favour. Why is he never around?" "He must be avoiding me because I keep asking for favours..."

"I shouted, 'Curse you, foul creation!' Then I swung my hammer as hard as I possibly could. What? It's the only way I could get my fridge to start working again!"

"I wonder what Talent Art a hero like Dunban would have. I bet it'd be really manly, graceful, powerful... Yeah..."

Tephra Cave

"I see. It's the Path of Absolution... The path walked when offering a sacrifice to the White Spiders. It is lined by the memorial tablets of those offered up as sacrifices. It's all written in this book."

"The offering we need to make is a White Spider Heart. Now, as you already know, there are many spiders in Tephra Cave. When these ruins were built, the Giants and spiders were enemies. Among both groups, the heart of the White Spider was revered. That's why we need to use the heart as an offering."

#Xenoblade #Xenoblade spoilers #Xenoblade reference

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glenngaylord · 5 years

Text

HOW SWEDE IT IS - My Review of MIDSOMMAR (4 Stars)

[Excerpted from https://thequeerreview.com/]

Getting dumped sucks. Sometimes you feel it coming on like a slow moving train, unable to stop it, and when it hits you, you experience a long, drawn out kick to the gut. The world feels incomprehensible, nothing makes sense, and you feel like it never will again. You can’t avoid the pain, and you may not even want to anyhow. It’s like watching a horror movie where you don’t want the protagonist to go in that basement, but you have a stronger urge to see what’s down there. Ari Aster, who made his startling debut last year with Hereditary, understands that the best horror plays with real human fears, be it disease, abandonment, or loss of control. Reportedly based on a painful breakup of his own, his MIDSOMMAR uses folk horror as the spine on which to lay down his thoughts on a dying relationship, and it’s a delicious, morbidly funny, gore-filled, visually stunning, gorgeously designed, perfectly indulgent 2 hours and 20 minutes of sun-dappled, rainbow colored dread.

Dani (the captivating Florence Pugh) experiences a tragic loss at the outset of the film, and her paralyzing grief wears down her emotionally incapable boyfriend Christian (Jack Raynor, whose schlubby stoner look from Sing Street has morphed into an almost Chris Pratt level of matinee idol looks). Encouraged to cut ties with his needy girlfriend by his fellow grad students, Christian and his friends plan a summer getaway to Sweden to attend a once in a lifetime cultural festival. His friends include Mark, a quip machine played to deadpan perfection by Will Poulter (Detroit), Josh (William Jackson Harper of The Good Place), an anthropological scholar intent on writing his thesis about European folk culture, and the gentle, soft spoken Pele (Vilhelm Blomgren), who invites everyone to his village commune for their once-every-ninety-years activities. Unable to cut ties with Dani because of her trauma, he half-heartedly invites her along, and to his surprise, she says yes.

This first act perfectly captures a pair in their death throes, where questions seem like accusations, and pauses reveal underlying truths. Aster borrows heavily from Roman Polanski, as he did with his debut film, by allowing negative and offscreen space and holding onto shots longer than normal, to create elastic tensions. It’s so refreshing to watch a filmmaker, who creates strong, classic frames with his cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, take his time, avoiding the rushed cutting style of his contemporaries. He also really thinks through his transitions, creating an unforgettable one where Dani, in an overhead shot, rushes into an apartment bathroom, only to reveal that she’s now on an airplane headed for Scandinavia. I also savored the delightfully disorienting upside-down shots of the road as the group drives toward their destiny.

Now most filmmakers, at this point would want to get to the gore and bloodletting, but Aster wants us to live with that sinking feeling for as along as possible. So before our doomed Americans arrive at the proper camp, they stop just outside of it for an extended interlude where they imbibe hallucinogenic mushrooms. This allows Dani, a bundle of uptight, frayed nerves to perhaps chill out, but it has the opposite effect. She has scars, and Pugh takes us on a master class of expressions. Is she crazy or is she simply with a guy incapable of giving her what she needs? Ahh, relationships can suck, even in a seemingly perfect environment where the sun barely sets and the villagers offer up the perfect embodiment of an ABBA tune. Most horror films take place in the dark and freak us out with their jump scares. This film operates in bright sunlight and terrifies with very few shock tactics. Sometimes a misunderstanding can haunt your dreams more than someone shouting, “Boo!” Here we get a Swedish death cult that looks like a lot of ridiculous fun.

Obviously this experience has far more to offer than maypole dances and giant feasts. Henrik Svensson, making his feature debut as a Production Designer, has created the weirdest, most ominous storybook environment with an endless array of folk paintings lining the walls of his interiors. They look cute until you take a harder look at the terrifying and carnal tales they depict. Same goes for everything going on in the background of most shots. The pleasant folk dress in white, classically Swedish garb, almost sprinkling fairy dust wherever they go, but look off in the distance and you’ll spy couples doing inexplicable things. The genius of these scenes is that these people, called the Hårga, always appear to be kind and caring. From their point of view, they never do anything wrong. Bobby Krlic, who goes by the name The Haxan Clock, adds immeasurably to the tone of this film with his rich, evocative score.

Aster mines most of this folk horror from the fact that we have a clash of cultures who don’t understand each other and often nod their heads to pretend that they do. When something unexpected, something insanely disturbing and gory, happens, it had me questioning our American norms versus those in other parts of the world.

At this point, many may feel the film stretches credibility, that our protagonists would get the hell out of this place right away. But due to Pele’s sweet persuasiveness and maybe in small part to those drugs they keep imbibing in every cup of that mysterious tea, they stay. Besides, we get an audience surrogate of sorts with an English couple who go crazy when the pagan rituals start to have a body count. While many characters meet their doom, we’re on Dani’s journey, who travels from grief towards her own method of coping. Aster may have a great time staging the bizarre rites of this cult, but he’s more interested in finding a catharsis for his heroine. Where he ends up, in that perfect final second, proved thrilling and strangely real. The violence, the crazy shots of throbbing, undulating meats, the Hannibal level of murder dioramas, however, will also stick in your head.

While this film pings on the may themes found in Rosemary’s Baby, such as not really knowing your partner, suspecting an evil undercurrent lies beneath the people around you, and, yes, even drinking strange liquids, Aster reverses the roles at times and has a more avenging spirit. This film would make a great triple bill with that film along with the recent remake of Suspiria. The latter really felt similar when things go absolutely bonkers in the third act. With copious amounts of nudity, sex, and bloodshed, both films use giggle-inducing absurdity to create its own form of horror. You won’t soon forget what one character does to another’s butt, and I’ll just leave it at that.

Many will lose their patience with this film, or find it more silly than scary. I, however, loved every drawn-out minute of it It challenges how we view death. It allows for the possibility that it’s sometimes ok to be alone. It makes you wonder if our own customs make any sense, and it may make you think twice about judging the basket case who seems to suck all the energy out of a relationship. In the end, that person may be the only sane person in the room. And isn’t that terrifying?

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ravenvsfox · 6 years

Note

Prompt: When they get to earth, lance wants to stay.

You were the first in line, so you get prompt numero uno!!

Outside the cabin of the shuttle, pebble stars are tossed out into the dense, black lake of open space, so dark that Lance’s eyes start teasing out imaginary colours. It’s always so still out in the yawning nothingness. If he didn’t know how a bucking shuttle felt beneath him it might be hard to tell that they were moving at all.

Inside, the glow of tech is cool and purple, and if he squints at the light and not the Altean characters, its almost like the Garrison simulators, or the speedometer of the only car on the road at night.

Pidge is punching in coordinates next to him, and she twists her fingers over the frame of her glasses like she’s trying to make them zoom. For all he knows, she might have engineered binoculars into her glasses just like she tucks lifts into her shoes, making modifications to herself just like she does to everything else she can get her hands on.

He squirms, digging his toes down into the unyielding bottom of his boots, wanting to feel something real and movable, something not so claustrophobic. His hands shake on the controls, and he clenches his fists until they can’t.

They’d left the lions on the nearest neutral planet, defences up, Romelle and Krolia at a nearby base. Coran was on patrol duty, winding between their massive paws and craning his neck to speak earnestly up at them. It’s comforting to think of the lions as as they left them, a circle of statues and their sentinel.

It’s the weirdest thing, but sometimes Lance thinks that the way the lions talk to him is the way Gods talk to prophets, and everyone else in the cosmos just has to trust his blind, bruising faith.

He pushes a hand into his hair and just holds it there, steering left-handed and feeling his pulse push anxiously against his fingers.

“Uh oh, are we getting introspective?”

Lance’s hand jerks back to the controls. “Oh—uh. Sorry. We’re just,” he taps their trajectory on the luminous map between them. “So close.” He hadn’t realized how close until he’d checked, but his chest had been getting more and more crowded, like all of Earth’s radio waves and clutter was close enough to hear.

“Less than a light-year,” Pidge agrees quietly. The look in her eyes is so terribly far from home. The part of her that riffled through the desks of authorities and cut all her hair off is still with her brother in the guts of the resistance.

“Then why doesn’t it feel like we’re going home, huh?” Lance asks, smiling through the weirdness in his head. “Where’s the fanfare? Where’s the galaxy-wide fireworks display?” Pidge smiles tightly back at him.

“I didn’t think we’d get to go home until our mission was done, and, well, I don’t know. Maybe we don’t deserve all of that yet.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Lance corrects. The shaking’s only getting worse. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen when they touch down and it’s making his hair stand on end and his teeth chatter. “I’ve deserved it since day one.”

“Oh yeah?” she says, laughing. “All that winking at instructors and seeing how many peanut butter m&m’s you can fit in your mouth paying off for you?”

“Only in every way possible,” he says. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention but I’m a galactic superstar. Seriously.”

“Seriously,” Pidge echoes. They lapse into silence, and Lance’s body kicks up a fight when he sees the luminescent blue shape of the Earth drifting into view like a tossed frisbee.

“Jesus,” he breathes. He eases up on the speed, and they spend a suspended minute floating, watching, breathless. “Is she beautiful or what?”

“Usually I don’t trust your taste, but this time—“ she chokes up suddenly, surprising herself, and she tries to shield her face from view. Lance crows at her, his own vision blurring.

“Pidgey,” he says joyfully “We’re home.”

“Shut up.”

“Pidge,” he croons. She looks at him, eyes bright and wet, and neither of them can keep from grinning.

“We were born right down there,” Lance informs her. “The doctors wept with joy when they saw me.”

“They probably didn’t think your big head was gonna come out.”

Lance ignores her, feeling the jitters get brighter, harder to fight. “One moon, seven seas. It rains the kind of water that’s safe to drink. There’s barbecue pizza down there, Pidge.”

“I know,” she says.

“I can’t believe this. My mom’s right there.”

They’re still knee-deep in a revolution. They’ve been hurtling through space at warp speed in close quarters for weeks, and the only home they’ve ever known out in the black was blasted out of the sky, but the idea of setting foot on Earth without crawling into his mother’s arms is unthinkable.

The shuttle comms crackle, and Hunk’s voice comes through, “you guys seeing this?”

“Oh yeah,” Lance says. “You feelin’ as misty as we are, buddy?”

“He’s been crying since we passed pluto,” Keith says flatly.

“Oh yeah, that was an emotional gut-punch,” Hunk says.

“Paladins,” Allura interrupts smoothly, “I trust you’re happy to be home. I know it might be hard to believe considering my situation, but I’m happy for you as well. Pidge, can you set a course for where your father has taken those schematics? It’s of the utmost importance that we not waste any time.”

His heart sinks. “Funny, that feels like all we’ve been doing. A lot of autopilot and Altean uno and drinking whatever was in that funky bottle under the console.”

“Lance,” Allura says disapprovingly. The empty air hums and someone breathes out quickly.

“Princess, you’re not saying that we won’t be able to visit our homes, are you? Our families?” Hunk asks.

“I wish you could,” she says, sighing. “But we’re still fighting a war. I don’t think it’s practical—or safe—“

“No,” Lance says, aborted. “I mean—no.”

“Lance,” Keith says quietly.

“I’m not talking to you,” Lance seethes. “Pidge, put in the coordinates 23° 8′ 22″ N, 81° 17′ 10″ W, will you? I’ve got a couple of errands to run.”

“We’re not splitting up,” Allura says firmly. “I’m so sorry Lance, but the team is more important than—“

“Than my family?” he says, disbelieving. “Sorry, no, absolutely not, agree to disagree. I know that I’m supposed to save the universe or whatever, but I promised my mom—“ he chews his lip savagely, watching the whole world rush up to meet them and feeling helpless want thrash in his stomach. “I won’t be any help at the Holt’s. No one needs a guy with a rifle when you’re trying to put together a whole new teladuv, right? You don’t need me.”

“Yes we do,” Shiro says firmly, and Lance closes his eyes, fleeting. He’s having trouble focusing with his dearest wish and his nightmare both grabbing for a half of his brain.

“How about I go with Lance to Cuba and keep things on schedule,” Hunk offers. “I’d love to see his mom again. She always brings us empanadas.”

“We need your brain,” Shiro says regretfully. “We can’t do anything without your eyes on this.”

There’s a long silence, and Lance eases the thrusters to a more manageable intensity, muscle memory.

“I’ll go,” Keith says finally.

“What?” Lance asks at the same time that Allura says “pardon me?”

“I’ll go,” he repeats, stronger this time. “I’m also a fighter, not a scientist. I don’t have a home to go to, but I can take Lance.”

Lance flushes, not really understanding why. The way Keith said “also a fighter” like they’re cut from the same reversible cloth, red and blue. Sometimes the hot and cold of the two of them gives him whiplash.

“Is that… I mean, Lance,” Allura addresses him directly. He wishes he could see her expression, the wide eyes, the forehead that never really creases no matter how elastic her reactions are. “Is that what you want?”

He doesn’t even care that it’s Keith. He’s staring down the barrel of a mission where he’s fixed permanently in the background, tethered to the earth an eight-hour plane ride from the only place he’s ever felt consistently needed. “Definitely. Keith and I can stay in touch with you guys, and we basically have a super fast private jet if you need us.”

“Sorry, did you just say ‘Keith and I’ without bursting into flames?” Pidge asks, and Lance gives her a sidelong look.

“Right now, Keith is the only one of you who isn’t on my shit list. If Cubans are away from their families for too long, they drop dead. Do you want me to die?”

“Kind of a little at all times,” Pidge says, and he shoves her so hard that she would topple if it weren’t for the harness holding her to her seat.

“Alright,” Allura says definitively. “We’ll touch base at the Holt’s, but really… if I saw Altea again, no one could dream of keeping me from it.”

“Thank you princess,” Lance says gratefully, his chest aching, sweat cooling on his upper lip, hands finally still. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

______

Careening through the atmosphere is so surreal that Lance holds his breath all the way down. The clouds swarm the windows like eager fans, and it’s better than any welcoming procession he could have dreamt up. When they sink through the last of the low-slung wisps of water vapour, the burst of smoke-blue sky and human-made buildings stretched out below makes his steering stutter. Pidge laughs brightly at him.

They touch down on earth with the sunset crying out to be noticed, submerging everything in easygoing orange light.

The first step he takes on Earth in a year, and he falls to his knees.

His suit crunches against the dirt, and he takes his gloves off so that he can fist the grass and muck and smell the tang of it in the air. The oxygen is perfectly tuned for his lungs, and even though his body is off-kilter in the gravity, the ache matches the one inside of him. The breeze ruffles his hair, and he feels perfectly understood.

“You gonna kiss it, too?”

He looks up and sees Keith towering over him, looking imposing and amused at once. The rest of the team is staggered behind him, stretching their legs out and moving crates of supplies.

“That’s between me and her,” he sniffs.

Keith rolls his eyes. “Oh, because even the Earth is a girl to you, right?”

“Ge,” Lance says.

Keith blinks. “Uhh…”

“As in, the goddess?” Keith shakes his head. “Man, the amount of time we spend up between constellations and you don’t even know your mythology? She’s Earth? Mother of the Titans? Whatever dude, Ge is a hot goddess and I missed her sweet curves.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. Lance spreads his hand in the dirt and watches the way little buds of weeds and grass fold under his fingers.

“We haven’t even been here five full minutes and you’re already being gross,” Pidge calls.

“This is the prime time to be gross,” Lance calls. “Let me have my sloppy reunion, please and thank you.” His armour sighs as he eases himself down fully onto the Holt’s front lawn, heavy with gravity. He hears a rustle and looks up to find Keith sitting cross-legged a few feet away. He’s tearing out handfuls of grass with both hands, gaze tangled up in something Lance doesn’t think he’d be able to see even if he looked.

Lance watches him over one of his outstretched arms, but Keith catches him.

“What?” he asks.

“Two years,” Lance murmurs, and Keith’s face shifts dramatically. “That’s a long time away from home.”

“I haven’t been back to Earth in three years,” Keith corrects, annoyingly patient, completely obtuse.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Keith, Lance,” Allura calls. Her hair is pulled back tightly, and she’s still wearing her flight suit. “Stay for a briefing, and then choose whichever shuttle you wish. Pidge assures me that there are supplies inside, and an extra—what was it? cellular phone? If you don’t want to wear your helmets for continuous correspondence, you can instantly message us from this device.”

Lance grins. “Yeah, I’m familiar. Can’t say the same for Keithy boy here. Body of a buff twenty year old, mind of a confused old man.”

“I know what a cellphone is,” Keith says impatiently.

“Good,” Allura says quickly, before they can devolve into bickering. “Use it. Stay safe, stay smart. Do not forget why we’re here.”

“I think the background threat of annihilation should keep us on our toes,” Lance assures her, and Keith snorts. Lance smiles slyly at him.

The briefing is swift and painless.

Watching Pidge reunite with her parents is bittersweet, and he keeps imagining the way his own mother is going to swear and slap him and kiss him. He’ll apologize over and over to her for how he’s made her worry and how he’s going to make her worry.

He’ll call his abuelita, surprise Marco and Luis in their shared bedroom by doing the secret knock on the doorframe, and bring Veronica the shard of sea glass he found on a planet called Luvesh (the sea was literally made of glass, and when you walked out onto its glittering surface, it spidered like ice. He bent down and picked a piece like a flower).

After the initial business, they change into street clothes and eat homemade lasagna, and Lance almost cries when the tang of tomato and basil hits his tongue. He winds the perfect stretch of real cheese around his fork and raises it in toast: to the only planet that does pasta right.

He and Keith carry fresh supplies between them in a cleaned out cooler, and they climb up into the cockpit of the smallest, fastest shuttle. They squabble briefly about who’s going to pilot until he reminds Keith that he’s the only one who knows where they’re going.

They wave goodbye to their team, and cruise somewhere between commercial jet speed and the full thrust of an alien vessel, watching the clusters of cities below slither away, like a sheet being continuously pulled out from under them.

_______

The sun is nearly below the horizon in Varadero, but Lance knows every gnarl in every road and every stupid resort, and he knows the way everything intersects at his family home, the beating heart of it all.

Gliding low over the jewel-blue stretch of the ocean is so overwhelming that he’s worked himself up halfway to tears before he remembers that Keith’s with him, that Keith’s seeing the best place in the world for the first time while it’s drooping to sleep for the night.

He starts pointing things out, identifying distant shapes with even more distant memories attached to them.

That’s the street market where I tried to haggle a boombox down to three dollars. Those are the beaches that the tourists swarm during the day. Most of them are too scared to swim in the ocean at night, so that’s when we always used to go. Somewhere in that block is the gelato place where I broke my tooth on a waffle cone.

That’s the little theatre where Veronica used to dance. I used to go to all her practices, and I said it was to look at the pretty girls, but it was also to watch my sister out-dance everyone else on stage. We had chickens when I was nine, and we bought them at that farm down there, the one with the hook-shaped driveway? I was obsessed with Celia Cruz and Britney Spears so we called one of the chickens Miss Celia and one of them Brit.

It’s starting to hurt to talk about it. Everything out of his dreams is tangible again, and even though it’s hugged by darkness and silky quiet — not raucous and sunny like it always is in his memories — it’s so close that voltron seems like the dream.

“I didn’t know you could be this genuine for this long,” Keith says honestly, and Lance doesn’t look at him.

“You haven’t really met me until you’ve met me here,” Lance says slowly.

“Well…” Keith starts awkwardly. “Nice to meet you?”

He does look at him this time, incredulous, and when he smiles, so does Keith.

______

As soon as they step foot on his property, he starts crying for real. He’s been tightrope walking over an absence so large that he wouldn’t even look at it. Every time he overcompensated for his grief and did something stupid like fell in love with a complete stranger, he felt like he was lurching over that chasm, trying to find his balance.

It’s impossible to describe the feeling of reaching down to graze your knuckles against the sand outside your favourite place in the world, and feeling the heat from the day baked into it, spotting little footprints tracked up to the rickety staircase.

Keith walks a stride and a half behind him, quiet, pretending he can’t hear the sounds that Lance is making out of the deepest place in his chest.

“Keith, you can’t look at me right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because vulnerability is ugly.” He brushes his fingers over where his own name is written on the mailbox. His bike is propped up against the deck. Luis is probably using it, the bastard.

“I don’t think it’s ugly,” Keith whispers.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he pretends he didn’t hear. He can hear the waves unrolling on the shore like messy, misshapen carpets, the hiss of them wrapping themselves back into the surf. The air has that salt and citrus smell that lived in all his clothes before they were sterilized by months in the gasping, impersonal corners of space.

He walks up the front stoop, and he had really imagined this in the daytime, with the sun at his back, instead of the moonlight and Keith, both of them lonely but constant.

The door is unlocked, and he lets himself in, not breathing.

“Should I wait outside?” Keith asks, and it’s uncharacteristic of him to be so delicate about something.

“I need this,” Lance says quickly, grabbing Keith’s wrist impulsively. “I want— I need someone to back me up if… if they don’t believe me.”

Keith’s brow is an entire storm, thunderclouds and twisters of confusion and fear and discomfort, but his fingers curl to touch the hand Lance has around his wrist, and he nods.

The little clock on their front table ticks merrily, and there are lanyards strewn over the side of the little ceramic meant for keys, messy like his mom hates. His own face is ghostly in the Garrison cadet portraits lining the hallway, and he can see Keith peering at them out of the corner of his eye.

He reaches the place where the hall opens up into the living room, and stops. His mom is curled up in the recliner, asleep, and the home phone is clutched in her hand. He holds his own face in his hands, shoulders shaking, and all the gravity on his head feels like way too much. His knees give out, and Keith steadies him at the last second.

“I really don’t know if I should be here,” he hisses. His arm is around Lance’s waist, and there’s a weird dissonance to it, like he never left home or the castle of lions, or he’s not sure that they’re really that different.

He feels weirdly like Keith belongs here, that he’s still an arm and Lance is still a leg on one cohesive person, and they could move giants together.

“Then who would’ve caught me just now?” Lance counters. His gaze finds his mom again, another kind of gravity, and he creeps closer, seeing the oven clock and the drawn blinds and feeling familiarity so acute that it’s like deja vu.

He stands over his mother, hand to his lips, ribcage quaking, and reaches down to shake her awake.

“Mamá,” he says hoarsely.

She doesn’t wake up immediately, and the longer he looks down into her lovely, worried face, the more his own face crumples. He can’t help the wounded sound that leaves the back of his throat, and she wakes at the noise, her face dazed and concerned.

“Mijo, what’s wrong?” she asks, her hand halfway up to his face before it hitches and drops.

There’s a beat of disbelieving silence, and then she surges upright, pulling the string on the lamp and squinting hopefully through the flood of light. When her eyes find Lance again, she gives this wavering gasp, her lower lip sucking inwards like it does right before you start sobbing.

“Lance?” She holds him by both his arms, shaking him, and he sinks through her grip to his knees. “Oh darling. My baby,” she says in Spanish. “How could you?”

“I’m sorry mamá,” Lance says, head bowed. “I’m so sorry.” She pulls his face up and smooths both thumbs across his brow.

“Don’t be sorry, mijo, just tell me where you’ve been. We’ve been looking for you. Searching the whole desert. All the stupid Garrison would tell us is that you were missing, presumed—“ she cuts herself off and shakes her head, jaw tight.

“I mean, you’re not going to believe this, mom.”

“My ghost son is sitting before me,” she says, hands in his hair, “more beautiful than ever. I dare you to shock me.”

Lance nods quickly, looking down at his own hands, trying to find a loose thread that will unravel a year’s worth of stories. “There’s… there’s a war.”

“There are many wars,” she replies gently. “Always.”

“No, there’s—do you remember the Kerberos mission, the crew that went missing?”

“It was in the news,” she says distractedly, combing fingers through his choppy bangs. “The boy you like, right? Takashi?”

“Yes,” Lance says, swallowing, hyper-aware of Keith in the doorway. “They didn’t die, they got caught up in a—in a war.”

“I don’t understand.” She’s looking at him with such open concern, and he wishes desperately that he could make thing simpler.

“Your son and I are soldiers,” Keith says from the doorway, and she startles hard, holding a hand to her chest and cursing in Spanish.

“Who—“

“Keith Kogane, former Garrison pilot, current paladin of Voltron.” He frowns. “I think.”

“He’s a friend,” Lance says simply.

“And?”

“And,” he takes a deep breath. “We’ve been fighting pretty much an evil empire in space, and we each pilot these sort of ancient, um, sentient cats, with the help of this princess we found in cryogenic stasis—“

“Ay, lance. Slow down, start again.”

“Mamá,” he says, exasperated.

“You should probably explain again,” Keith says helpfully.

“Thanks Keith,” he says hotly. “So we’ve been fighting in an intergalactic war, right? I’m sort of the unofficial red pilot, and my bayard is a rifle but one time it was kind of a sword which was—“

“Lance,” she interrupts, flicking the back of his head.

“Okay, okay, lo siento, I’ll go slow.”

It takes a long time to lay everything out properly, but his mom is never apprehensive or lost, she just wants to hear the facts, concisely, from different angles, until she finds some sort of solution. She’s always been good at peeling fact from fiction and plucking compromise out of thin air.

At some point, Keith gravitates over to the loveseat and makes himself comfortable, knife glinting from the holster around his thigh so noticeably that his mother purses her lips.

Sometime after midnight, Luis drifts down the stairs wearing boxers and a bathrobe, and when he sees Lance he trips down to the main floor and picks him up off the floor into a crushing hug. They stumble in an awkward square, shaking with euphoric laughter that might as well be crying, until Lance pokes him hard in the side, and they collapse apart, grinning.

Marco must hear the ruckus because he comes skittering down the stairs a minute later, already crying, and he tucks his head in Lance’s shoulder when he hugs him. By the time Veronica comes upstairs, her hair in a long loose braid and her face nearly unrecognizably gaunt, Lance can’t even speak. He nods jerkily and opens his arms, but she shoves him in the chest.

“Nothing to say, little brother?”

“Veronica,” their mother warns.

“They said you were dead,” she hisses.

“They also said I had an attitude problem, which we both know can’t be true,” he jokes. She shakes her head until a tear runs down her cheek and she has to rub it away.

“You are a problem child. I told mamá to stop having children after me, and if she’d listened we could’ve avoided so much mess.”

“But who would’ve gone to see you dance?” and he means it as a joke, but the idea of no one seeing her twisting like a rose towards the sun makes his throat close up.

She holds him by the neck, and then by the back of the head. “Bobo,” she scolds. “Don’t do that again.” She hugs him so carefully, and he screws his eyes shut, thinking about picking up to leave again, sailing back up into the stars and never coming back.

He’d forgotten what it felt like to be warm and safe and missed.

“I should probably leave you to it,” Keith says, rising abruptly, looking so uncomfortable that Lance feels a surge of fondness like flash rain, quick, heavy, and gone.

“No,” his mother informs him, getting to her feet and squeezing Lance’s face tenderly on her way by. “You brought my son home. I’m making you something to eat.”

_______

No one every warned him how intimate it would be to show someone your childhood bedroom. It’s the same feeling you get when you dig up a time capsule, uncomfortable awareness of what you thought was crucial when you were a whole different version of yourself.

Everything that he mentioned in passing in the trenches of the war is suddenly up close, scrutable, and Keith is taking it in like a museum patron, skirting the edge of the old messes, leaning politely in to look at portraits of friends and family.

“You have a picture of me in your room,” Keith points out, and Lance’s shoulders tense until he sees what he’s gesturing towards.

“A class photo, Keith. It’s not exactly a shrine.” He spreads out on the blue plaid bedspread and holds his hands to the pills of the fabric, worn exactly how he remembers.

Keith looks guilty. “No, I know, I just. I don’t know. It’s kind of… nice. To think that I’m this tiny part of your room. It’s stupid.” Lance looks at him blankly. “Forget it,” Keith says forcefully, crossing his arms and scowling.

Lance shrugs, uncomfortable. There are polaroids of him slung between Hunk and Pidge, lopsided from the extreme difference in the heights of their shoulders. He has peace thrown up around their shoulders, and he’s laughing.

He has a cutout about the Kerberos mission on his desk, and the Shiro with dark hair and young eyes stares up at the ceiling. He has the X-Files “I want to Believe’ poster above his bead, which covers Allura and Coran, so the only person who doesn’t really have a spot is Keith. Except one tiny pointed chin and bad haircut in a sea of young, pouty faces.

“Hey,” he says softly. He scoops his polaroid camera off of the desk and fiddles with the buttons, ears burning, heart turning over with the aching slowness of the wounded. “Come here.”

______

He gets up when the first fingers of sun peel back the horizon, red and orange like fire. He leaves Keith in his bed, his chest bare and his face young and pink in the sunrise. He still doesn’t understand anything.

He meets his mother in the kitchen, and she hold him an arm’s length away from her body to trace his features with her fingers. She passes him the perfect café cubano, and he makes a big show of getting on his knees to thank her.

Orange, filtered light comes in through the half-drawn shutters in distorted stripes. His mother recounts her phone conversation with Lance’s father using sound effects and tripping Spanish slang, and something vital inside of him detaches and spills blood-hot feeling everywhere.

He leaves his mother to wander down to the beach. His skin responds to the sun, hair standing on end. His whole body has been like a limb that’s been trapped in a cast, shrunken and pale, and the air and light against it is a terrible relief.

He lets his fingers brush the tall, feathery grass on either side of the path as he walks.

The feeling in his chest is the same one he got when he walked up to the stocky outline of the Galaxy Garrison, or when he settled into Blue’s cockpit for the first time, a sense of rightness so acute that he doesn’t have a name for it.

He scuffs off his flip-flops and sprints down to meet the surf, laughing when the spray gets his shorts wet and spritzes up to his neck. The chunky shells underfoot and the chill on his sleep-sensitive skin is background noise. He wades thigh deep and watches the red of the sky echoed by the churning mosh pit of the waves. He closes his eyes and lets the breeze paw at his hair and clothes, holding his arms out so that his loose buttoned shirt billows out behind him.

He’s out there for a long time, dawn turning into early morning, pale, with spectacular clouds. Red skies always promise wicked storms.

He settles down into the sand, enjoying the little discomforts, the sand tucked just under the hem of his shorts where his skin is clammy wet, the breeze getting a little too forceful with his hair and forcing it in the wrong direction. His house just a little too far away at his back, everything he cares about a few minutes out of reach.

He’s been to so many galaxies and he’s never seen anything like a sunrise over the ocean.

He thinks, I am the best version of myself, right here.

He knows he’s been a liability for the team. He shows up and makes noise and tries to look cool so that it won’t feel so much like the losing battle he’s fighting is coming to a sad, inevitable end.

He’s the extra pilot that they cycle through the roster and try to find a place for, but he’s not the red paladin. And he’s never going to belong to Blue like Allura does, like her family always will.

Being at home like this makes it really clear that he hasn’t fit anywhere in a very long time. There are so many ugly things twisting and shooting out in space, and he’s seen so many people suffer. He shoots galra sentries dead and he follows his gut instincts to the wrong places and he dreams about home.

It’s so stupid that he thought he could be some sort of soldier. Like he would ever be the guy that saved something instead of ruining it.

He puts his hand out in front of him and watches sun creep between his fingers. Nothing feels real in space. It’s easier to lie to yourself, somehow.

“Hey,” says a voice behind him. When he glances back, Keith is staring at him with the saddest expression he’s ever seen on his face, and only then does Lance realize that he’s crying.

“What are you doing here?”

Keith ignores him. “You’re crying again.” He really sounds like it’s bothering him.

“No I’m not.”

“Your face is wet,” he says matter-of-factly, sitting down close to him in the sand, blotting out the sun.

“I was in the sea, Keith.”

He pauses, then breathes out all at once. “I hate seeing you like this.”

“Well I’m not so fond of looking at you either,” Lance snaps.

“I think we should go back tonight. I texted Allura and she said has a mission for us while the rest of the team is working. Some recon, I think.”

“The rest of the team,” Lance repeats hollowly.

“Yeah,” Keith says. “I mean. We can still be useful. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like sitting still for too long.”

“I do, actually,” he lies. “Harder to break things if you’re not moving around so much.”“What?” Keith looks confused, his eyes darting all over Lance’s face.

“I’m not going back with you.”

He jerks back like he’s been slapped. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I quit,” Lance announces. “I quit voltron, I quit galaxy-saving and jumping in front of laser fire and putting on a fucking— show all the time, I quit killing people because they’re wearing the galra uniform.” Keith flinches. “I quit you. Okay?”

Keith sits, stunned, across from him, and when his head dips, the sun gets into Lance’s eyes, sharp. He looks away.

“Not okay,” Keith says firmly. “Really not— really not okay, Lance, what the fuck? How did you think I was just going to, what, hop on a shuttle without you?”

Lance shakes his head at the ground. “I thought you’d be psyched. You won’t have to deal with me anymore. The red lion is yours. She always has been, actually, she was basically trying to eject me like a disease the whole time.” He looks up at Keith and finds him looking down furiously at him.

“We already talked about this,” Keith says impatiently. “I don’t care how many lions there are, we’ll figure it out. You’re part of the team.”“Only technically though, right?” he says bitterly. “I’ve always been more of a sidekick. Look, you don’t have to pretend to want me here just so you can tell them you tried when you show up empty handed, alright?”

Keith is looking more agitated by the minute, and Lance isn’t used to seeing him in natural light, without his gloves or his jacket or tense, self-assured energy. “I do want you,” he starts, and then he kind of bares his teeth and snaps his head away, fighting through something that Lance can’t see or understand. “You’re a paladin of voltron,” he struggles to say, like it explains everything.

“I tried to be a paladin,” Lance says. “I’m no good at it, okay? Can we stop rubbing it in. I’m being very real with you and you’re being very weird.”

“But you’re our sharpshooter,” Keith says, defiant like a kid. “No one fights like you.” That pulls Lance up short, and he’s shaking again, hands and chattering teeth, and the patches of water on his clothes are suddenly much too cold. Keith’s face is wide open in the plain light, and Lance realizes that he’s not lying, that he’s never been very good at that at all.

All the drawers in his chest shake out over everything, and he’s losing all his reasoning in the mess. He keeps looking back at the horizon and thinking about waking up in his room every day to the smell of coffee, but the image keeps getting confused with the image of Keith, roseate, rolled in his blue comforter.

“I can’t go back,” he whispers. “I won’t survive, and then my family will fall apart.”

“Lance, If anyone’s going to survive, it’s you, do you understand me?”

“No,” Lance says, frustrated. “I don’t know what’s happening right now, at all, actually.”

“You’re smart, and you’re selfless. Do you know how deadly those qualities are in a war? Your plans are low casualty, fast and brilliant, and they save lives. There are entire colonies, entire species that would have died without you.” Lance shakes his head, trying to keep from crying again and embarrassing himself. “None of us would’ve made it this far without you, idiot.”

“My family needs me,” he argues. “You saw them, you know, you know—“ He thinks of his mother trying to memorize him with both hands, his little brother crying softly against his neck.

“Anyone would feel that way if they knew you and lost you, Lance. You can’t honestly think that we wouldn’t be just as messed up without you,” he says incredulously.

“Keith,” Lance says lowly. There’s an epiphany tottering in his chest, and he can’t quite get a grip on it before it slips and bobs away.

“You can’t stay here,” Keith says, and he’s on his knees, reaching for both of Lance’s wrists, eyes wide, almost purple in the sun. “Who’s gonna keep me in line?”

“You—you need to keep yourself in line, dude, you can’t just expect—“

“I know you can’t stay here when the action’s out there. People like us can never sit out on fights.”

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” Keith asks, bewildered, hands tight on Lance’s forearms.

“Acting like we’re the same!”

“How are we different?” Keith demands. The wind ruffles his hair so that a piece gets caught in his mouth, and Lance looks distractedly at it.

“We’re opposites,” he says. “That’s like our whole thing.”

“I’m tired of pretending like we don’t like each other,” Keith sighs.

“I don’t understand,” Lance says quietly, except that he does, all at once, looking at Keith’s hands still squeezing his wrists, his blocky knuckles and uneven fingernails. “Why did you volunteer to take me home, Keith.”

“Honestly?”

“Yes please.”

“I love you,” Keith tells him miserably.

Lance turns his face towards the tree line meandering off to the edge of the coast, feeling every system in his body light up simultaneously. “Keith.”

He lifts his wrists and Keith’s hands follow them up. He shuffles closer on his knees, brow furrowed, mouth turned down, desperate.

“So you can’t expect me to leave you here,” Keith says, “I know that I’m asking you to walk away from your home. But you’re asking me to walk away from mine.”

“Keith,” Lance repeats, choked up. “I don’t know—“

“You don’t have to know, god, you don’t have to know anything, you just have to get on that shuttle with me tonight.”

He looks up at Keith, wild hair, broad shoulders, eyes like swatches of deep space. He remembers seeing him sitting alone at the Garrison and wondering what it would be like to be made for piloting like that, to have that sort of magic in your hands.

Those hands are still steadying him, gripping the tender insides of his arms like he’s trying to steer him in the right direction.

After his first mission with Red, he sat in the hangar, breathing hard, picturing Keith’s battle-flushed face and missing him badly.

“Don’t do it for me,” Keith says hastily. “I know you like to make people happy, and this isn’t like that. I think staying here would be a mistake. I think you’ll see us leaving the atmosphere and you’ll regret everything. You won’t be able to sit still when you know we’re out there fighting. You’ll be here with your family but you won’t really be here.”

“You’ve really got me figured out, hey,” Lance says ruefully.

“I try to pay attention,” Keith says. “When it matters.”

“I’m trying to do this for you,” Lance tells him, shaking his head, annoyed at his full head and watery voice, the way the force of the ocean has infected him. “You belong with Red, doing your blade gymnastics routines, holding a knife in your mouth or whatever, winning obnoxiously all the time.”

“Then you belong next to me,” Keith counters viciously. “It doesn’t have to be either or. We’re a team.”

The sun punches out from behind a low-hanging cloud. Lance’s vision clears.

“I think we’re probably more than that,” he says.

Keith falters, and his grip slides down an inch, so he’s holding the bottom of Lance’s hands. “You don’t have to—“

“Do you know what I thought when I saw you in my bed this morning?” he asks. Keith’s hands are clammy but fixed, and he has this sweet little mole on the side of his nose, and Lance can’t believe he’s been so stupid. “I thought — it’s not fair that he looks like that when I’m trying to leave. Like, how rude is that.”

Keith’s face does something hopeful and twitchy, a lifting chin and anxious brow. “You’re one to talk.”

“You had all this sunrise in your hair, like, all the places where the light hits you were red. It was so you. I mean, I must’ve been sleep-deprived, because I really thought I was attracted to a mullet for a sec.”

Keith smiles slowly.

“And I was already feeling all mushy from the way you held onto my mom so tightly when she hugged you. It really didn’t look like you were hugging someone’s mom who you’d never met, Keith. You weren’t even uncomfortable in a stranger’s house, do you know how rare that is? It was like you just belonged in my breakfast nook eating pastelitos. God, and the taking me home and listening to my stories. Do you know— in that stupid picture we took? I’m not even looking at the camera. I’m looking at you.”

“Come back with me,” Keith says, pulling Lance’s hands around his neck, hoisting him into his space. “I’m never going to leave you behind now.”

“Kiss me, and I’ll go,” Lance says, bold from the way Keith is all over him like he’s never been touched before.

He cups Lance’s face in both hands. He hasn’t had this much focus on just him for months, and his face goes hot as he reaches up for Keith’s wrists.

When he kisses him, his rushing blood matches the tossing ocean, and nothing else has any sound at all. It’s fatal, the way Keith kisses him like he’s trying to pin the two of them together for good.

They’re both on their knees, and Keith’s hands slide down to grab him closer around the waist, gathering the loose fabric into his fists. His tongue is searing, and his breath is sweet like over-sugared coffee.

All of his suppressed feeling flies up to meet him, double-sided anger and want, rivalry and respect. He finds himself bobbing towards the glow of Keith’s body, chest full and light as a balloon.

He breaks away gasping. “Why have we been fighting?”

“I don’t know,” Keith whines, and Lance can feel the spread of his fingers flexing against his waist. “You started it.”

“I think I wanted you to notice me,” he says, like he can’t believe it.

“I did,” Keith grumbles.

Lance kisses his lax mouth, enjoying the instinctive flicker of his tongue, the scorch of embarrassed desire in his cheeks. “Oh man, If I die in space, you’re going to feel so bad.”

“You’re not gonna die,” Keith says. He pushes their foreheads together with the insistence of a labrador, and lance sighs.

“It’s a war, dude,” he points out.

“I’m not letting you die,” Keith insists. “I’m going to bring you home again, after we’ve destroyed the galra empire and freed everyone. I’m going to bring you back to this beach.”

“Well I’m not letting you die either,” Lance says defensively. He puts a hand against Keith’s chest and feels his heartbeat buck, almost too fast to be human. “Two-way street, buddy. We continue the mission. We’re a little less reckless. I hang that picture of us in my lion. We fight back to back and make out with explosions behind us, I don’t know, I’ve still gotta iron out the details. You keep loving me, I keep loving you.” His voice wobbles. “Everyone wins.”

Keith lowers him all the way back into the sand to kiss him, and the warmth on all sides is almost as disorienting as the weight of Keith’s body, the give of his mouth. Keith breaks away to say, “I can do that.” He swipes a thumb over Lance’s cheekbone and smiles.

A raindrop flattens a piece of Keith’s hair on its way down to Lance’s face, and then another two find his cheeks and parted lips. Keith rears back, propped up on both hands above him like a shield, and rain winds up and starts pouring down, whole torrential sheets of it. Lance lets his head loll back when he laughs, giddy. He twists his hands in the hair at Keith’s neck.

“Isn’t this a bad omen?” Keith asks, voice raised through the chaos of the downpour.

“No,” Lance says, thinking of red mornings and storms blowing in off the coast. “I love the rain.”

#this is the first voltron I've written I'm still learning the ropes hello it's 7.5k #klance #vld fanfic #voltron #prompt #mine #I'm sorry this isn't aftg or trc I swear to GOD that's coming #Anonymous #ask #voltron fanfic

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surveys-at-your-service · 5 years

Text

Survey #203

I’m not dead, World of Warcraft just devoured my life again.

Have you ever been inside of an abandoned building? Yes; a shack first, but we picked up the courage to just barely set foot into this small building absolutely littered with newspapers and such. Almost went into the main house, but my sister, friend, and I were too intimidated by the idea. I didn't want to imagine what could be in there; already anxious by that age, I worried about feral animals or homeless being in there. Have you ever actually believed in monsters? (Like as a kid) Yes, I think. Do you have any fascination with the macabre? Examples? Oh boy, do you know me? I find most gore cool, I love bone art/vulture culture sort of stuff, I find death and decay fascinating, then there's the roadkill photography I do (done in only great respect/to show the horror of what we can cause), dark and especially gory artwork... I could go on for a while. Do you actually think skeletons are scary? I LOVE skeletons, add that to the above list. I was always excited in school if our science class had a replica in it. What monster movie is your favorite? This is broad... You mean like, actual monsters? Not like Freddy Krueger, per se, and focused on them? Hell I dunno, maybe Monsters Inc., lol. Is Hocus Pocus really a good movie, or a bit overrated? We cannot associate if you so much as dislike Hocus Pocus. What witch-themed movie/show is your favorite, anyhow? See above. Do you like The Nightmare Before Christmas? Hell yeah. Ha, pretty funny though: I'm not obsessed with the movie or anything, yet people give me sooooooo much Jack Skellington stuff for my birthday and/or Christmas. I do love Jack, totally, but you'd assume I was more in love with the character than I actually am. Do you count it as a Halloween movie and a Christmas movie? Halloween, for me. Do you like Jack or Sally better? Jack. What other Tim Burton works do you enjoy, if any? Corpse Bride and Alice in Wonderland are my absolute favorites, then there's Frankenweenie, Beetlejuice, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach (literally my lil sis's and my childhoods), and probably more. I just love him. Are there any ‘dark’ or ‘spooky’ films you recommend? Absolutely the original Blair Witch Project. Spoiler, you never see the "witch," and that just made it so much spookier, particularly when there's a scene that seems to have a high chance of her showing up on the camera. It's very convincing in selling it as "based on a true story;" the characters act realistic in the situations they're in and are very dedicated to acting well. It's my personal definition of a "good" horror movie. If anything, shit, watch it for the ending. Creepiest goddamn thing. Just for fun – what would your personal hell look like? Yeesh, let's not visualize that... On Supernatural, do you like the angels or demons better? I am way, WAY behind, but from very faint memories, I believe the demons. Have you ever purchased anything from an occult or New Age shop? What? No. Do you know any Pagans/Wiccans? I believe one of my old friends is Wiccan? Do you know any Satanists? I don't believe so. Would you ever keep a tarantula as a pet? Nah. Are there any urban legends in your area? What are they? Looked it up and apparently NC does have some, but idk about *my* area. Do you find dead trees beautiful? Some, like really big ones. Who was the last person you sat next to? Mom. Are you embarrassed to let others see you without makeup? No. Have you ever had a nickname at your church? If so, what? Don't believe so, when I grew up going to church. What was the last stuffed animal you bought? Not sure. Maple trees, fir trees, or palm trees? Maple. Which biblical name do you prefer: Naomi, Esther, Rachel, or Joanna? Naomi, easily. I used to want to name my hypothetical daughter that. Which biblical guys name do you prefer: Seth, Jedidiah, Ezra, or Buz? Seth. Who is the hardest working person you know? MY. MOTHER. She works her fucking ASS off; I'd like to see most people handle even a single day in her life. Can you name any songs by Godsmack? A few: "No Rest For The Wicked," "Whatever," "Mama," "Voodoo," "Voodoo Too," "Hollow," "Time Bomb," "The Enemy," and... that may be it? What has been the most exciting moment of your life thus far? Meeting Sara. How deeply do you care for your education? Is it something you take seriously? I don't really know how to answer this. Like... I care, but I don't care enough to be competitive about it or obsess over it. I target for just being "enough." Would you prefer to go to a beach or to a park for a day, and why? What would you do? Park. The beach is too hot, windy, and I hate the feel of sand. Idk what I'd do at the park considering there are various kinds... What are five things you own in your favorite color? Tank top, iPod, uh... I'm blanking. Is your favorite clothing store close to your house or do you have to travel far? The nearest one is like an hour away. In real life do you laugh like ‘haha,’ ‘hehe’ or something else? The former. Do you have any unusual skills? No. Do you have any bug bites right now? No. Do you like to look at other peoples’ houses? Sure, when riding by them. What’s the weirdest compliment you’ve ever received? Good question. Maybe my toes are cute? (They're fucking tiny.) Would you say you’re more witty or childish about jokes? Witty, I guess. What do you think about video games? One of the greatest technological achievements. Video games brought forth a new form of entertainment to enjoy, one that can hold someone's focus for hours and stay fun. They can also tell fantastic stories, just like reading a book or watching TV, and the more and more realistic in vision games are becoming, it just becomes easier with every game to feel more immersed in the universe. What would you, or do you, study at college? I'm going for zoology. Have you ever had, or wanted, a pet ferret? Oh my god in Heaven, yes. They are so damn cute; when Sara was here and we were in PetSmart for something, I actually started tearing up and squealing because of how GODDAMN PRECIOUS THEY WERE, like they all came up to the glass pawing at us, and watching them play was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. The only thing holding me back from getting one is the fact I know they are veeery messy and require a lot of care. Is there anything you find undeserving of the hype it received? Eh, don't feel like thinking about this. In other words, idk and idc. Do you think it’s better to label yourself than be labelled? Who cares, honestly. Don't restrain yourself with a label, and what others see in you and you following along with it solely because of that is naive. What’s something you do a lot? Over-evaluate anything and everything, because my OCD has been an absolute beast for the longest time. Are you currently on any other websites? Twitch and deviantART are open. Have you ever been told you naturally tilt your head a certain way? YES. I have done this since like... late middle school or earlier when the hair to the right of my part covered my eye. My mom points it out all the time, and no matter how many times I've tried to unlearn it, I can't do it. My head physically feels weird if I straighten it. When was the last time you laughed at someone? Some time earlier when I was watching Mark play GTA. Do you have any projects on the go right now? I started a massive YouTubers video with "High Hopes" over a month ago, and now I haven't touched it since the day I started lmao. Do you, or did you, really look forward to when you can finally move away? Eh... yes and no. I really question my ability to be that independent. What’s the worst tattoo you’ve ever seen? Who knows. What’s your favorite name ever? Alessandra. Are you a hat person? No. Have you ever forgotten how to do something simple? Ha, yeah. Have you ever been hit on by somebody way too old for you? Possibly an old family friend; he had this thing for being REALLY flirtatious with my older sister, and then me sometimes as I got older. We were never alone with him or anything, I mean he did it right in front of our mother and dad (he fucking loathed him because of it, probably still does), so we think he was joking? Have you ever climbed a chain-link fence? Yes. Have you ever had to run from the cops? No. Do you know anyone who is constantly humming? No? Are you afraid of any specific animals? I mean the usual insects and spiders, then there's the few more unusual ones such as SLUGS, MAGGOTS, larvae in general really, whale sharks, worms... probably others that aren't coming to me. Did anything comical happen to you today? No. Are you any good at fussball? Not especially. Who do you usually dream about? Jason is most often in the ones I actually remember. Yay. It made sense when I wasn't even beginning to heal, but now that I am and I STILL have them despite having fully and entirely moved on, I finally just asked my mother if it was normal, which apparently it is extremely common with even "recovered" PTSD victims. Shoulda asked/looked it up way sooner... Do you visit your dentist as often as you should? Yeah, thanks to Mom. She always ensures I stay updated with medical exams/appointments. I'm lucky as hell to have her here to keep my life straight. Do you still have a teddy bear? Maybe in the bags in the attic? Did you get any Girl Scout cookies this year? No. They don't come here. What’s your favorite fairytale? Bitch Shrek don't even @ me it's a fucking fairytale. Do you apologize when you know you should? Usually. In most cases, I feel overwhelming guilt otherwise. Do apologies really make anything better? Sometimes, to a degree. Can other people tell when you’re high? I've never been high. Do you own a birdcage? No. Have you ever planted anything? Yeah. Have you ever been blackmailed into doing anything? No. What eyeshadow color looks best on you? I only ever wear black. Can you tolerate small children? jfc no. In almost any situation. Even my niece and nephew, I can't be around them but for so long without getting burnt out or aggravated. What’s the stupidest behavior humans partake in? Holy sweet mother of The Lord God Almighty- Have you ever seriously considered suicide? Yeah. Did you ever hit anything while learning to drive? I like... immediately hit a curb lmao, and I STILL can't turn past them without the risk of running over it. It's one of the things that's holding me back from getting my license yet. Which movie’s musical score is truly memorable? UM, The Lion King??????? Hurry the FUCK up July. Which TV show theme music do you remember most? That '70s Show. Have you ever bounced any checks? I've never even used a check... How many speeding tickets have you been given? None. Not that I drive a lot. First kiss: quick, sloppy, and forgettable or passionate and memorable? It was fucking adorable and definitely memorable. I don't care how I feel about him now, that's a little event I'll always remember and cherish. Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Ron White, or Larry the Cable Guy? OH GOD what was that stand-up show with just them? I LOVED that back as a teen. I don't know who I liked most, but probably Jeff or Bill. I do know Ron was my least favorite, but he wasn't bad. How many bills do you pay online? I'm a 23-year-old "adult" who doesn't have bills. What’s the highest score you ever bowled? Hell if I remember. Nothing impressive. What’s your definition of a good, full breakfast? The "perfect" picture is like pancakes, scrambled cheesy eggs, and bacon. Whats your favorite flavor of jam? Of what I've tried, I only like grape. Are you a fast runner? I can't even TELL you the last time this bitch ran. At school was is/was the main reason you get/got in trouble? It was never severe trouble, just a quick word, but Jason because we'd always hug and usually just exchange a peck in-between going to classes; both were no-nos in our shit school, and the hall monitors or whatever would tell us not to if they saw, buuut we didn't listen. Hell, I think maybe hand-holding was against the rules too, which I know we didn't abide by if that was present. Do you make your views heard or do you hide in the background? It depends. I'd say heard more often, maybe? Do you have many friends from foreign countries? No. Can you open your mouth very wide? No. You know those things at the dentist where you have to bite down straight onto them for an impression of your molars? If the dentist was considerate enough, I'd use the one for older children instead of adult because I canNOT fully bite down on the normal ones without it being incredibly painful and I gag like mad to the point I inevitably tear up. What was the reason for your last x-ray? My knees were being checked with all the horrible pain I'd been dealing with from them. Did you have a rebellious phase growing up? Not for the sake of being rebellious, no. I only had such streaks (and still do) when I saw/see them appropriate to the situation. What religion were you brought up with? Roman Catholic. What is the most common name where you live? I dunno. Elizabeth, maybe? Actually just looked it up for the hell of it and what I found first says William (which I can absolutely believe) and Ava (which I question?). When something really scares you, what’s your immediate reaction? Jump, gasp, and either dash or stare at whatever the source is like a deer in headlights. Does it bother you to be around people who are smoking? Yes. How much time do you spend on the phone a day? Not long at all. I check Instagram usually at least once, and I don't follow a lot at all. Sometimes I check Facebook on my phone, but I usually do on my laptop now. That doesn't take very long, either. Your favorite song lyrics right now: "What I do know is come Judgment Day, I followed love; can you say the same?" from "Natural Born Sinner" by In This Moment. Do you think it’s possible for a rap song to make you cry? Ever heard "Runaway Love" by Ludacris & Mary J. Blige? Bitch you bet it makes me wanna cry. Name three books that have actually made you cry [really cry not a few tears]: I don't think I've ever gone beyond just a few tears, really. The Notebook probably was the hardest on me, though. Or Old Yeller. Idr. Is it easy to annoy you? Maybe. Do you watch musicals? If so, which is your favorite? If not, why not? No, because they make me cringe into a new dimension. Do you wear short shorts & tanktops in the summer? You will never see me in shorts, and I wear tank tops like... always. Always to bed, at least. Does the idea of having a baby at your age scare you? Having a baby period does. No fucking thanks. Do you remember who your best friend was in fourth grade? Quiata. Maybe still Brianna, idr. What band has the power to make you cry by splitting up? None. Is there anywhere in your house that you’re scared to be alone in? No. Any embarrassing/childish shows you secretly still enjoy watching? No. I don't watch TV period, but what I do like, BELIEVE THIS SHIT OR NOT, I'm not embarrassed. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital for a long period of time? I think the longest I was ever supposed to stay somewhere was three months, but that didn't actually happen. The longest I've actually been in a hospital was two weeks, give or take. Would you feel funny if you kissed somebody of the same sex? I'm not straight so obviously not. Name three things in your room that others probably don’t have in theirs: An iguana, a snake, and a rat. In the same general area lmao. What’s something you can cook or bake like a pro? Nothing. If you could pull off any hairstyle, what would it look like? A pixie cut. The kind with the shaved sides. Besides furniture, what’s the biggest thing in your bedroom? Uhhh my snake's cage? Do you diet and exercise regularly? I do a 16-hour fast daily. What’s something that you think is really cute? Even though I don't want kids, I can't see men being really vibrant and cute with babies or toddlers without just alksdfjioawer Would you rather donate time, blood, or money? Hm. I feel like ultimately, money would be most beneficial in the majority of cases? Can grills be sexy on a guy? They are incredibly unattractive on anyone. Are braces cute? Not particularly, but they're not like, unattractive. Unlike grills, they serve an actual purpose and aren't as obnoxious. Which of your friends makes you laugh the hardest? Girt. What brings out the worst in you? Being extremely stressed. I'm seriously snappy and irritable. Would you rather go to Canada or Mexico on vacation? Canada, probably. If you have glasses, do you get days when you don’t feel like wearing them? I don't think about it because I don't have a choice if I want to see. Do you ever wear hats indoors? I don't wear them period. Have you ever played bingo at an actual bingo hall? No. Have you ever pledged money to a Kickstarter and it reached its goal? If so, did you get any fun extra stuff because you pledged a higher amount? No. What’s your favorite comic book/graphic novel? I don't have one. What’s something you can do without looking/with your eyes closed? Type. Is there a color combination that holds a significance to you? If so, what is the combination and what does it mean? No. What was the last thing you swore at? I don't know. If you use Facebook, do you ever look at the Memories page? Ugh no. Let's not remind myself of dark times or more specifically cringy ones. Do you have a drawer where you just throw some random stuff? No. What’s the funniest shirt that you own? I don't find any really funny. What is something you absolutely refuse to pay for? Ummm "fancy" clothing brands, to name one of the top contenders. Has a stray/runaway cat or a dog ever followed you home? If so, what did you do with it? Maybe a cat? I don't think so, though. Is there a stranger you expect to see every day? No. What is something you take pride in? My recovery. What is something you have a lot of experience in? I guess photography? What’s the biggest magnet on your fridge? I don't feel like going to check. Do you prefer things (movies, books, etc) that scare you or make you laugh? Entertainment media rarely actually scares me, but I prefer "scary" stuff. Were you born with naturally straight teeth? Well, I had to get braces, so I would assume not? Do you try not to take a lot of medicine or do you take it whenever? I avoid OTCs when I can; I'm on enough prescribed stuff. Do you prefer original or sour Skittles? Sour. Do you check to make sure your ear phones are going in the right ear? No. Are fireworks illegal to buy where you live? The big ones, yes. People still go to Myrtle Beach on the SC side to buy them tho. Can you talk and work at the same time? No. Do you care more about yourself or more about others? This really depends on what the situation is... and my state of mind at the time. But I think usually myself? It used to be others, but I learned how unhealthy that can be. Do you find it easy to pass the time or do you get really bored? I get bored excruciatingly easily. How often do you re-watch/re-read things or are you more ‘once only’? I'm typically an "only once" person. What color ink do you prefer writing in? Black? Have you inherited any garments from your parents or grandparents? I don't think so. When was the last time you visited the doctor? Why did you go? Around a week ago to get my vitamin D re-checked. Have you ever been in a Catholic confessional? Yes. Who was the last non-relative you rode in a vehicle with? My VR coach. What movie are you looking forward to coming out? I will be seeing the live action TLK as fast as physically possible. What was the title of the last song you listened to? "God Hates Your Outfit" lmao. ^Who performs it? Jeffree Star. Can you do a backflip? No. Is your car newer than a 2004? I don't have my own car. Who is the lead singer of your favorite band? Ozzy Osbourne. How would you feel if you knew you were adopted? If I grew up knowing, I wouldn't feel much of anything new besides the fact I'd be grateful as hell someone chose me. If I just suddenly found out, I'd be inexplicably shocked and furious I was never told. Do you have freckles? No. Do you have dimples? Very clearly on my left cheek, and I have a super shallow one on the right that used to be more apparent. And I have back dimples. When was the last time you went fishing? When Sara was here in June last year. Do you know anyone with a pet that has your name? No. Do you expect to be married in the next 2 years? Most likely not. What was the last injury you received? Probably something from Roman playing. Have you ever liked someone and never told them? Yeah. Do you regret it? No. Do you ever get in weird moods and listen to music you normally hate? Very rarely I listen to pop from when I was a kid. How old is the oldest person you’ve dated? Well, we "dated" for less than a day, but idk. I'd guess he's 27-ish now? Have you ever tried a colorful macaroon? No. What’s the last thing you made out of clay? An anatomical heart, I think? Did you learn to type through a computer program for kids? Not really for kids? We took them in middle school, and they weren't like, super kiddy. How many years were you homeschooled? I never was. What color is the tree outside your window? Uhhh probably green? I don't wanna get up and look. What do you take for pain? Advil/Ibuprofen. Which pharmacy do you use? Harris Teeter. What is this month’s calendar picture? Don't have a calendar. Is there a coffee shop in your town that’s better than Starbucks? N/A Who has the best personality on YouTube? Shane Dawson's is probably the most universally likable, I think. Have you ridden your bike yet this year? I don't have one anymore. What does your bike look like? N/A Who are your favorite kids that you’ve babysat? I babysat only once and hated it. Not the kid, just the duty. Who is your favorite cousin? I don't have a favorite. Does one side of your family live in another state? Both sides do. What states did your parents grow up in? New York and Ohio. What, if anything, are you severely allergic to? Severely, nothing. Have you ever had an allergic reaction to an insect? No, thankfully. Do you spill food on yourself while you eat? Not often. What is a topic you like to answer questions on the most? Meerkats or Mark. Have you ever seen a queen bee outside its hive? I have no clue. Which Clue (or Cluedo) character is your favorite? I was always Miss Scarlet because even as a kid I knew she was hot stuff. Do you watch any old films? If so, name a few of your favorites. I don't really watch movies period. But a few I like are The Outsiders, Old Yeller, Johnny Got His Gun, A Raisin In The Sun, Steel Magnolias... lots of others, really. Just not many are coming to mind immediately. Who are some of your classic era film actors and actresses, if any? Idk. Do you have any novelty ice cube trays? No. Your ex taps you on the shoulder and says, “I still love you.” You say? The only ex who I'm aware even loved me in the first place is Jason, and I probably wouldn't say anything. Got a very strong feeling my PTSD would literally erupt like goddamn Saint Helen and I'd leave the situation in the blink of an eye. I don't love him anymore, and I don't even know if I'd believe him telling me that now, but I know damn well it would fuck with me. Would you ever work at a movie theater? It sure as hell wouldn't be my first pick. At least here, they're grossly underpaid and overworked. Do you have a phone charger in your car? If you have a specific type of cord. Do you live far from your parents? I live with my mom. Dad's like... 20-ish minutes away, if that? Can you go see a doctor alone or do you like to take someone with you? Mom is always with me. Do you like pineapple on pizza? Never tried, never want to. I can just about guarantee I would positively loathe it. Sweet and savory don't mix with me. Do you like to hold hands? With my s/o and I'm comfortable with them, yeah. What’s a show that you absolutely refuse to watch? 13 Reasons Why. How many times have you been in love? Twice. Do you remember how old you were when you started swearing? However old I was in the 7th grade. Last thing you cooked? Toaster strudels in the toaster oven. Movie you want to see? I wanna see the newest HTTYD soooo badly, but I doubt I'll get the chance while it's in theaters. Ever spent the night in a tent? Yeah. What do you call your grandparents? Grammy. The others are dead. Can you snap your fingers? Poorly with my right hand. Can you wink? Only with my right eye. How many keys do you carry with you? One. How well do you know the people you live with? Well, she's my mom and we're very close. Do you own any jerseys? No. Who knows your biggest secrets? Sara. Have you ever ran from your own parents? No. Are you afraid of clowns? No. Do you crack your knuckles? I physically can't, and besides, the sound is disgusting to me. Who IMed you on Facebook last? Girt. Could you see yourself dropping out of high school? I'm long out of high school, and I didn't. Do you have any personal fashion rules that revolve around your own preferences/body type (e.g., you never/always wear a certain color, sleeve type, or length of dress)? I don't wear shorts, tight shirts, dresses, skirts, crop tops, I wouldn't dare touch a romper, I highly doubt I'd wear yellow... just to name the ones that came to me immediately. Do you remember any celebrity whose style you admired when you were a teen? What do you think of that style now? YO Avril Lavigne was my emo model okay. She's still a queen. The last time you had a conflict with someone else, did you confront them about it or keep it to yourself? Do you think it would have been better or worse to do the opposite? Uhhh... I don't remember who this was. When you finally make a decision to do something you have been contemplating for a while, do you become highly anxious and motivated to do it right away? Yup. When you were a kid did you make up lies about your life to make yourself seem more interesting? Alternatively, did you know kids who told these stories and did you believe them? Bitch I made up that a talking wolf came to me and gave me animal powers and the rule was I could only tell three people. I was a fucking weird kid. I know others who have made things up, too. Can you think of a moment from your childhood that was totally “on brand” for you, or consistent with your adult personality? I'm sure there's something, but nothing's coming to me rn. Have you ever warned someone else about something, whether it was about a person in their life or an oncoming weather event? Yup, in numerous scenarios. So, is it "gif" with a hard G or soft G? I say both, but "jiff" more frequently. Is there a book or movie that you thought was about something completely different from what it actually ended up being about? What did you think it would be? Maybe... Is there an item that you bought on a whim, but now consider it a crucial part of your life and you would or have purchased it again? I have no clue.

#survey #quiz #questions #random

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eldritchsurveys · 5 years

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201.

What's your name? >> Mordred.

What time is it right now? >> 2.08p EST.

When were you born? >> 6.30p EST.

Who are you closest to in your family? >> No one. As far as I’m concerned, I was hatched and grown in a lab.

What is the closest green item to you? >> An Andes candy. (The wrapper, specifically.)

Would you rather text people or talk to them on the phone? >> I’d much rather text.

What program on your computer do you use the most? >> Google Chrome.

Do you have a cat? >> I don’t, but Sparrow does, and unfortunately that means I have to live with him too.

What is your middle name backwards? >> Yerf.

How often do you visit this website? >> tumblr? Just about daily.

Are you a good speller? >> I am.

Are you good at baking cupcakes? >> I am not.

Do you currently have a job? >> No.

What year did you/will you graduate in? >> I graduated in 2004.

Do you have your drivers liscence? >> Nope.

Does it take you long to fall asleep at night? >> Sometimes, but usually I fall asleep within an hour of laying down.

Do you think other people consider you a flirt? >> I can’t imagine where they’d even get such an impression.

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? >> Ready for what? To sit on the couch? Pfft.

Would you ever consider getting plastic surgery? >> I don’t think plastic surgery could give me what I want.

Do you smoke pot? >> Not anymore.

Who is your hero in life? >> I don’t have one of those.

What is your favorite breed of dog? >> Pitbulls.

Where is your favorite place to go out to eat? >> I don’t have one.

How long have you known your best friend? >> ---

What are your thoughts on abortion? >> I don’t really have thoughts on it. Like, I don’t care about the moral debate. I think it’s good that it’s legal and I hope it stays that way, and that’s all.

When do you think the world is going to end? >> I don’t believe in that concept.

Do you think there are aliens out there? >> I mean, my definition of “life” is pretty broad, so sure.

Do you believe in God? >> No.

Are you still a virgin? >> No.

Are you comfortable with our current goverment? >> No.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? >> Hm.

Are you a fan of anime? >> I never really got into it the way a lot of people did, but there are some anime I enjoy.

What kind of cell phone do you have? >> Moto g5 or something.

What color do you want your next car to be? >> ---

Can you type without looking at the keys? >> Yes.

How much money do you have on you right now? >> I don’t carry cash.

Do you smoke? >> No.

How tall are you? >> 5′5″ or so.

What is your favorite Christmas movie? >> It’s a Wonderful Life.

Do you celebrate your pet's birthdays? >> ---

Would you consider yourself selfish? >> Well, sure.

What kind of mood are you in right now? >> I’m not really in a mood.

Name your favorite song from the 80's. >> I... can’t possibly do that.

Are you a fan of Spongebob Squarepants? >> No, I never really liked it.

Do you like fruits or vegetables more? >> Vegetables, generally.

How much time a week do you spend watching TV? >> Maybe 6 hours altogether? Sometimes a couple more.

Do you play any sports? >> No.

Who was your last text message from? >> Nurx.

Do you like Taylor Swift? >> Not particularly.

Do you enjoy going grocery shopping? >> Not particularly.

Do you like skim milk? >> No.

Name two people in your life that mean the most to you. >> Can Calah means the most to me and that’s that.

Do you like short surveys or long ones better? >> I like them on the longer side, but there is a limit.

Are you a Facebook addict? >> No. I deleted facebook.

Have you ever appeared on television? >> Yeah, as a child.

Do you like to read? >> Yes.

What is your favorite kind of cookie? >> Pecan shortbread and thin mints.

Do you have any kids of your own? >> No.

What was your first job? >> Restaurant.

Do material things matter to you? >> Sure. I like stuff, I just don’t like an excess of it.

Where is your favorite city? >> New Orleans.

What was your last dream about? >> I don’t remember now.

Are you currently going to college? >> No.

What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? >> V.

Do you shop at Wal-Mart? >> Sometimes.

Do you usually have good luck? >> I don’t know, I don’t really pay attention to whether my luck seems good or not.

Do you get bored easily? >> I’m prone to restlessness, which I guess is a kind of boredom.

What annoys you the most about other people? >> Hm.

Are you currently in a relationship? >> I am in relationships of varying types.

Have you ever been drunk before? >> Yes.

Are you afraid of flying? >> Not at all, I love it.

Have you ever been bitten by an animal (not an insect)? >> No.

Have you ever been in a physical fight? >> Yeah.

Are you good at drawing? >> Not to my standard.

How many text messages do you think you send in one month? >> Like... five or ten.

Have you ever had a stalker? >> No. Unless they were a really good stalker and I was never aware of them.

What grosses you out the most? >> Oh, I don’t know.

How much sleep do you get every night? >> Anywhere from 4 to 9 hours.

When's the last time you threw up? >> Last year sometime.

What is your idea of the perfect date? >> ---

Are you more of a morning or night person? >> I think I’m more into mornings than nights these days.

Can you speak more than one language? >> No.

Do you own anything from Hollister? >> No.

Do you stereotype people? >> I’m sure I do. I just try not to base my whole opinion of a stranger based on flawed pattern-recognition metrics.

Are you immature for your age? >> I don’t bloody know, man. It’s not a concern of mine.

Are you afraid of spiders? >> Not at all.

Are you tired right now? >> I was more tired before, but I’m all right now.

What was the last thing you ate? >> A few cookies.

What is your favorite flavor of milkshake? >> Cookies and cream.

Have you ever seen the movie Rent? >> Yeah, a while ago.

Who is your favorite celebrity? >> I don’t know.

What's the highest number you've counted to out loud? >> I... don’t know?

What is your favorite video game? >> ---

Do you wear contacts or glasses? >> No.

Are you looking forward to summer this year? >> Yes, for the weather if nothing else.

Do you have trouble letting go of the past? >> Maybe? Some aspects of it. Things that never got resolved.

Do you like your hair better straight or curly? >> ---

Do you wish you would grow taller? >> No.

Do your parents make you do chores? >> ---

Have you ever been to the circus? >> No.

What's the longest word you know? >> I have no idea.

Do you use teeth whitener? >> No.

Do you keep your room neat and clean? >> I try.

Can you count to ten in French? >> I remember some of the numbers but not all.

Do you think war is an acceptable way of solving problems? >> I think it’s certainly one strategy. Whether it’s the right one or not is best figured out by people that aren’t me.

Have you ever kissed anyone named Bob? >> No.

Do you have a little sister? >> No.

Do you speak with an accent? >> Everyone does, to someone. So, yes.

We're you a bad child when you were younger? >> No.

Do you get grumpy often for no reason? >> I’m prone to irritability because of mental illness, yeah.

Do you want to have kids/more kids in the future? >> No.

What is your dream career? >> No.

Do you iron your clothes? >> Nope.

Do you like to go tanning? >> I don’t need to go tanning.

Are you the type of person who likes to party a lot? >> No.

Would you consider your family "rich"? >> ---

Are you addicted to sugar? >> No. I was raised in a sugar-free household so I never really developed a sweet tooth.

Have you ever tried using a dating website? >> Yeah, often.

What's the weirdest food you've ever eaten? >> I don’t know.

What is/was your favorite class in school? >> ---

What is your favorite type of exercise? >> DDR.

Do you believe in getting revenge on someone who's hurt you? >> Do I believe in it...? I mean, if that’s what someone wants to do, far be it for me to stop them. I’m just not interested in revenge, myself. I don’t have the patience or the motivation.

Do you live near any volcanoes? >> No.

Name one word that you always have trouble pronouncing. >> I can’t think of one, but whatever it is, it’s probably in Irish.

Have you ever ridden in a taxi? >> Yes.

What's your favorite color? >> Gold.

Would you rather use crayons or colored pencils? >> Coloured pencils. I never liked crayons.

Have you ever had a migraine? >> Nope.

Tell me something about yourself that you don't normally tell people. >> If I don’t normally share it, it’s for a good reason.

Have you ever served in the military? >> No. I’d literally rather die.

What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? >> Veggie burger and chips.

Do you go to the gym? >> No.

Do you know how to write HTML? >> More or less. I know a lot of it has changed since I last wrote code, but I have enough of a background in it to figure it out.

What is your favorite book? >> Right.

Do you have any songs that seem to fit your life perfectly? >> Yeah, but not because of lyrics or anything. They just sound right.

How many concerts have you been to? >> So many.

Have you ever tried "planking"? >> Not that kind. I’ve done planks as exercise though.

Do you shop at Hot Topic? >> Yep.

Are you confident with your appearance? >> I just don’t think about my appearance a whole lot. I’m not trying to be sexually appealing and I don’t work in an industry where my appearance matters, so I really don’t have much reason to care what I look like outside of just being clean and presentable.

Do you have trouble sitting still for long periods of time? >> Now I do. I was great at it as a child, but I get restless too easily now.

Do you use the alarm clock on your phone or do you have an actual alarm? >> If I ever need an alarm I just use my phone.

Is your internet connection fast? >> It’s passable.

Do you enjoy snow? >> Not much anymore.

What are your initials? >> MD.

Are you paranoid of other people talking about you behind your back? >> Not usually.

Are you germaphobic? >> No.

Do you get along with your parents? >> ---

Have you ever had food poisoning? >> Yeah, twice.

Are you impatient? >> Sometimes.

What is your favorite thing to put on a sandwhich? >> It depends on what I’m in the mood for.

Do you trust yourself with big responsibilities? >> I guess? I mean, who else am I gonna trust?

Do you like long car rides? >> Not really. I like the travelling aspect, but I don’t like the “being folded up in a vehicle for long periods of time without being able to move” aspect.

How often do you shower? >> Twice a week.

Do you consider yourself a bully? >> No.

Who were you last mad at and why? >> I don’t remember.

Are your parents currently togther? >> They never were.

Do you find the rain calming? >> Sometimes.

What's your favorite flavor of ice cream? >> Vanilla bean, I guess.

Do you follow football? >> No.

Have you ever had an emotional breakdown? >> Yes. It still amazes me that there are people walking around that have never had one, ever. Wild.

Do you think tomorrow will be a good day for you? >> I can’t predict the future.

Are you in a good mood? >> I’m not in a mood at all, which is good enough for me.

#surveys #survey #random survey

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