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#you best believe I'm gonna search for every one of these and reblog
there-goes-thefighter · 9 months
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Whole Lotta Love - (b.b.)
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This is my fic. Please do not repost this (reblogs are good). Do not copy my writing. Do not steal my writing. All rights are reserved for my writing and my original character(s).
MCU Masterlist
(warnings: steve is stuck in the 40s and is a bit ooc, discussion of weight issues)
(pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader)
(gif credit: @/midnightswithdearkatytspb)
(word count: 506)
In the lounge area, Steve was voicing his concerns about (y/n) to Bucky. He thought there might’ve been something wrong since she’d been putting on weight. Bucky, however, was seeing it from a different perspective.
"Steve, come on. So what she's put on a little weight? That just means there's more to hold, more to grab onto."
"Buck, I'm just not into that kind of thing."
"Really? It's just a whole lotta love all wrapped up into one beautiful woman."
Steve shook his head, “You’re not seeing my point. Perfect women are supposed to be just one size.”
Bucky’s face dropped at his friend’s words, “You’re serious?” 
Steve only nodded. Bucky shook his head in disbelief and stood up to leave. “Fine. You know what? I’m gonna take that girl out on the best date she’s ever been on and I’m gonna show her how a real man should treat her. I’m gonna touch her and squeeze every little bit of her I can get my hands on. I’m not gonna let you walk all over a good woman.”
Steve sighed as Bucky walked away. 
When Bucky knocked on (y/n)’s door with a small bouquet of flowers an hour later, he was suddenly nervous. The small amount of time it took her to answer the door felt like forever. 
“Hey, Buck. What’s up?”
Bucky immediately ripped off the figurative band-aid, “Would you want to go on a date tonight?”
“You do know I’m with Steve, right?” she asked, playing off the fact she’d heard his whole conversation with Steve earlier. 
“Not anymore, doll. You’re welcome, I broke up with him for you,” he said proudly.
“Wait, really?”
“Yeah. He was making some insensitive comments about you, so I told him I was going to take you on a date.”
(y/n) sighed and admitted, “You don’t have to paraphrase Bucky. I heard everything.”
“Oh. Okay. So…do you still want to go on that date?”
“While you find a vase for those flowers, I’ll go get dressed.”
“Done.”
(y/n) went to her room to change while Bucky searched her kitchen for a vase. 
Bucky did as he promised. He took (y/n) out on the best date she’d been on in a long time. He held open doors like a gentleman, let his hand rest in appropriate places, and actively made her feel like she was the only woman in the room. 
(y/n) had never smiled so much. She loved that Bucky had stood up for her when he didn’t have to. She knew Steve was still stuck in the 40s, believing a woman should be a certain size. Being with Bucky made her forget all that. She could be herself around him and not feel insecure or small. 
Later that night, Bucky was clear about everything. He told her that he’d drop her off and give her a kiss goodnight if she wanted to. 
Things didn’t exactly go to plan since they woke up tangled in her sheets the next morning.
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ifellinlovewithpersona · 10 months
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Have you ever felt haunted by a fanart you saw but not in bad way but in the Good Way™? I mean you saw the fanart once and every now and then you remind yourself of it's existence and get a thousand of headcanons and AU ideas just by a memory of seeing it?
I just reminded myself of a fanart of SMT x Persona swap AU I reblogged once (idk if I'll be able to find it in this tumblr void with broken search bar but basically smt protags in persona outfits and vice versa) and now I got a thousands of ideas for a similar AU lol
Basically an AU where SMT III- V protags aren't actually a replacement of Persona protagonists like on that swap AU fanart I saw, but actually an addition to the team (while og persona protags are still there too)
Like gosh I have so many headcanons suddenly so here's a little headcanon dump :P (a.k.a the horrors of being both persona and smt fan :D)
Naoki Kashima
Member of SEES
Persona hc: My brain says Lucifer (or at least Satan if Lucifer is too OP for someone who wouldn't replace a protag) but my heart says Pixie cause they are still unseparable even in another game :P (jokes on y'all, he's actually a second Wild Card and has them both :P)
Best friend in the team hc: I feel like he would get along with Akihiko the most, but also he'd has this weird connection to Minato, like sort of "I get you man" connection lol. Also Koro-chan, everybody loves Koro-chan
School & year & club hc: Gekkoukan High (not much of a choice in P3 anyways), Track team, Second Year
Bonus headcanon: I think he was scouted by S.E.E.S because horrors in the hospital didn't left him even in this reality :P He was admitted to the hospital because of some health reasons (around the same time when Minato was in hospital) and became concoious during Dark Hour so that led S.E.E.S to find and scout him. Also I believe his "official" reason to move into Iwatodai Dorm would be stated as "family reasons"
Flynn (This is gonna be so wrong™ probably, because I never played SMT IV yet and I know nothing about him yet and all my hc's of him I based on the general Vibes™ he gives me, so I'm so sorry about that! i promise I'll play this game finally and then maybe update haha)
Member of Investigation Team
Persona hc: Actually like I said, never played his game yet so I'm not sure if he has some demon/deity actually especially associated to him, if you have idea let me know in the tags/comments
Best friend in the team hc: He gives me similar vibes to Yu tbh, I feel like he would be besties with Chad Narukami haha (Yosuke would see him as his rival trying to steal his Partner lol)
School & year & club hc: Yasogami High (again, not really a choice in P4), he gives me athletic guy vibe so maybe Volleyball Club would be right for him, Third Year
Bonus hc: (probably Very Wrong tho so sorry about that :/ ) I feel like his dungeon in TV World would be related to Samurais (or old Japan in general) in some way, perhaps a Shrine or something (?), since Yukiko already had medieval castle
V-kun:
Member of the Phantom Thieves
Persona hc: Susano-o
Codename hc: Deity (ok maybe this is very edgy but come on, we had codenames like Queen and Oracle too so why not :p and it's related to his SMT V story) - the explanation for this would be because he has almost godly-like looks haha (Ann would probably try to get him into modelling with her actually because of how good looking he is)
Best friend in the team hc: Yusuke for 100%, because I hc V-kun as either as an artist too or musician (pianist) but someone who is close with arts anyways so Yusuke would understand him like no one else. Also Haru because I feel like he'd relate with her experiences as well
School & year & club hc: Since Persona 5 is happening in Tokyo and we have some Phantom Thieves outside of Shujin anyways, I feel like he'd still stay in Jouin High. His club would be either Art Club or Music Club (or perhaps he would be a member of two clubs, therefore quite busy), Third year
Bonus hc: The thing his soul is rebelling from is actually abusive parents who would punish him severely for being into arts and wanting to become artist/musician in the future, instead doing some "good paid job" like lawyer or doctor (that's why I said he would relate to Haru actually since her backstory is quite similar with her dad also already have plans for her future that were different than how she felt)
So yeah that's my headcanon for this AU, just had to dump it here because it's 2 AM and I have megaten thoughts™
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cios-correct-opinions · 6 months
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post here
DISCLAIMER BEFORE ANYONE SAYS OR ASSUMES ANYTHING ABOUT ME: i am not a proshipper. i am not an anti. i do not use any shipping discourse labels because i've been actively traumatized by both communities and have no desire to put that label on myself. i am just a person capable of critical thinking who enjoys analyzing media sometimes. i do not condone harassment over fiction, and i also do not believe any form of media is free from critical analysis or criticism, especially if it includes harmful propaganda and/or portrayals of marginalized peoples/societies which serve to perpetuate or legitimatize a pre-existing societal bias. do not call me an anti. do not call me a proshipper. do not assume things about me in bad faith. ive got no time for that and ill block you if you do this.
i actually think i kinda have a grasp on what's being said here so lemme explain this bc this is kinda how i feel? i'm gonna explain as best i can since its nearing 3 am and im a lil tired. forgive me if i dont explore every angle of nuance here btw again im tired but the adderall is in my blood so.
ahem.
my main talking point is this: there is a difference between exploration of something, which can include varying depictions and portrayals of a subject, vs propaganda for something, which has the intent of swaying you towards one side or away from one side or blah blah blah you know what propaganda wants to do i'm sure
exploration of dark and taboo subjects such as CSA/SA/abuse in general, paraphilias, mental illness, incest, so on and so forth - especially when done by survivors of those things - are almost never propaganda, no matter how they're being portrayed. someone using fictional characters within a fictional context to cope with their own trauma is, 99.9% of the time, not trying to endorse that behavior in real life. they also often assume the people reading it will understand that they the creator are not trying to endorse that behavior in real life.
example: most people who create fiction based off the mafia do not actually want to be mobsters, nor do they think others should be, nor do they endorse the real life mob, even if their portrayals can sometimes be problematic in other ways and/or contribute to certain problematic societal ideas about gang violence esp when committed by white people, but that's an entirely different issue than the one at hand and has more factors in play.
a deeper example: while a work of fiction can definitely reveal certain creator biases and/or how the creator feels about certain topics, it doesn't mean that every detail in the fiction is weighted the same way. someone may have clear biases towards, for example, women, in their work based on how they write their female characters, but not condone murder in that same work just because murder is part of the plot and/or is framed as a net positive in the storyline. you can have a work which clearly shows a creator's true feelings or thoughts or philosophies or what-have-you on one topic, but not on another, within the same work. learning which of these is true and when is a learned skill. i can't tell ya to do it myself as i am not a teacher
despite it seeming like it should be easy, on the other hand, spotting propaganda can actually be really fucking hard. i am not here to talk about how to spot propaganda, and perhaps will reblog this at a later date with links on how to do that as i am too tired to both write this and look for reliable resources on doing that, so if you want that for now, sorry, you gotta search elsewhere. however, this difficulty often leads to the main conflict i see online:
people believe that an exploration or portrayal of a dark/taboo subject or a subject which contains something that is immoral or illegal in real life, which does not outright condemn that thing, and/or appears on a surface level to be a "positive" portrayal (air quotes bc what counts as positive changes depending on who you ask) even when made by real-life survivors of the thing being explored, is the exact same as propaganda meant to push the emulation of that thing or behavior in real life, by real people, to real people/others/whatever.
this is the issue i and others keep running into online, over and over and over again. people are unable to tell the difference, they are unable to tell the target audience of a work, they are unable to understand why someone would make something a certain way, and ultimately the material upsets/triggers/disgusts/bothers/etc them, and all of this leads to them treating the first group of media like the second. because of that, they assume those creating that content are encouraging its real-world application and that the creators think these actions are okay, or that they will/want to/have perpetrated those acts in real life as well. once they've decided this, it's essentially impossible to convince them otherwise
ignoring the fact that you cannot make these assumptions about a stranger online in good faith literally ever, this is a huge problem. a nazi creating propaganda indoctrination white supremacist fantasy fiction material is nowhere near the same as a CSA & SA survivor creating works of dark fiction/art to cope with their trauma, but a lot of people consider it one and the same because they literally are incapable of seeing the difference. they can't analyze either work by either creator, and are unable to see how the nazi's fiction is different from the survivor's. even if the subjects portrayed in the works are different, too
these people will also insist that any humanization of a villain they deem "bad" or "problematic" enough - which, again, is dependent on who's making those decisions and not any kind of clear standard - means that the creator condones/believes/enjoys those things the villain does, and people who enjoy that character also condone/believe/enjoy those things the villain does. the ultimate irony of it all, of course, is that these people are consuming the exact same media with the exact same characters and exact same story and exact same plotline as the people they are attacking, and many of those people also enjoyed that media. they just seem to think because they enjoy blorbo blingus The Good Guy(tm) instead of zorbo zingle The Bad Guy(tm), that makes them morally superior instead of, yknow, just someone with a different opinion who is reading/watching with a different lens than someone else
obsession with moral purity, moral superiority, and in general an abstract concept of morality, is what has ultimately led us here. in an attempt to be seen as "acceptable" by the masses of the world - regardless of whether they participate in fandom or not - for whatever reason one has, has led some of us to turn on each other within fandom spaces
fear of predatory abusers lurking in the shadows, as well as an inability to actually identify the signs of a predatory abuser caused by a society whose goal is largely to protect those same predatory abusers, as well as a sadly large and growing number of victims of abuse growing up online and sometimes being abused and/or preyed on online (as i myself was) who thus are hypervigilant for this sort of thing due to their own trauma, has all led to a willingness to attack and destroy anyone we think might possibly maybe sorta kinda be a little suspicious without a second thought to the actual probability of that person's guilt, as well as the inability to stop and ask ourselves what we're really doing when we attack people over fictional portrayals of things as well as whether or not these fictional hypothetical transgressions are truly worth destroying someone's livelihood and life over or whether they're something we can simply block and ignore and not worry about
simply liking or disliking something in media has become a source of literal panic attacks for a lot of people because they drive themselves mad looking for a "good, moral, logical reason" to like or dislike something rather than just accepting it for what it is
our lack of understanding combined with an unwillingness to be open to the possibility of alternative interpretations for anything has driven people to commit atrocities. someone is literally dying right now because of it. actively dying. will die soon. because of antis deciding their creations meant it was okay to lie about them being a pedophile (they weren't), get them fired from their job due to these false claims, resulting in them losing their health care, which has 4 years down the road, resulted in their eventual death.
we. must. do. better.
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Everything I’m obsessing about with Vi and Caitlyn’s scenes in the last 3 episodes of season 1:
(BIG SPOILERS AHEAD)
Episode 7:
The way Caitlyn is head over heals for Vi and how Vi teases her about it - “My hero.”
Vi pushing Ekko away from Caitlyn when they're arguing
Vi looking up from hugging Ekko to look at Caitlyn, knowing she has to say goodbye to her next (and hating it)
Caitlyn throwing herself at Vi's arms.
THE HUG. It was soo looong!! = Vi hugging Caitlyn tight and Caitlyn hugging back tighter.
“It's been real, cupcake.”
Vi touching Caitlyn's cheek and chin before parting ways
The way Vi turns when she hears a gunshot at the bridge and goes running back for Caitlyn.
Vi pushing Caitlyn away from the bridge to save her from the bullets
Episode 8:
Caitlyn and Vi getting caught sneaking into Caitlyn’s house (the look on both of them of utter gay panic)
Caitlyn caressing Vi’s face (SO SOFT IT KILLS ME)
Vi holding onto Caitlyn’s hand after the touch (EVEN SOFTER)
Vi's touch of Caitlyn's hand during the council conversation
Caitlyn chasing Vi in the rain
“What about us?” =Caitlyn recognizing that there is something between them and not wanting to throw it away (AAHHHHHH!!)
Vi not being able to look at Caitlyn in the face when she tells her they’re oil and water
“You’re just saying that” = Caitlyn calling bullshit
Caitlyn replaying the scene over and over in her head, regretting the goodbye and sulking about it in the shower, being angry at herself for not stopping it and angry at Vi for just leaving like that (the gayness of it all).
Episode 9:
The terror and panic on Vi's face when she thinks Jinx is serving Caitlyn's head up on a platter (she's basically hyperventilating ya'll)
The flash of Caitlyn's face of how Vi remembers her
The look on Vi's face when she actually sees Caitlyn tied up
Vi not even holding the gun when Jinx gives it to her and makes her choose between her and Caitlyn = "I can't".
Vi panicking again when Caitlyn's life is at risk (Jinx pointing a gun at Caitlyn's head) and offering to leave to run away to keep Caitlyn safe (and Powder too, I know, but this is a Vicait post!)
"No, please," = Vi begging Jinx not to hurt Caitlyn although Caitlyn's the one with the bigger gun. As if she knows Caitlyn might not hurt Jinx but Jinx might hurt her
Caitlyn stopping the shooting when Vi asks her to and not being able to shoot Jinx because of the same reason
Vi helping Caitlyn walk (TWICE this has happened)
BUT THE THING I'M OBSESSING OVER MOST IS THAT IT'S A SLOW BUUURNNNN!!!!!
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itssaturdaytoday · 3 years
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HAIKYUU DADS... pt.2 "Puberty"
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{Pt.1} just a part 2 to what haikyuu dads would do if their precious babies are going through puberty/adolescence stage♡ some are based on research.😔 barely proofread.
Warnings: Period, mentions of lashing out,talking back, mood swings, just teens being teens, mentions of their future jobs, tell me if I missed something ♡
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Period😠...
Is prepared ever since they found out they will be having a daughter. Has all her necessities like tampons✔️, pads✔️, menstrual cup✔️, chocolate✔️, ice cream✔️, heating pads✔️ and literally anything that can help her ease the pain and fasten her period. If she lashes out on them because of her mood swing they won't get mad at her since they know she doesn't mean it and it's the pain that's making her cranky, expert at dealing mood swings (I don't suffer much from my period because mine only comes like every 3 months. Yes im irregular 😔)
● Tendou~, Shirabae(my mans a doctor, what can you expect?) Semi, Akaashi, Kita, Aran, Daichi, Iwaizumi, Kuroo, Sakusa, Reon, Ennoshita, Tanaka, Hirugami, Terushima.
Kinda clueless about it and thought their babygirl was injured when they saw a red patch on her pants. Although they don't know much about it they try their best to comfort her by buying every food that she is craving and binge watching movies with her...spoils her a lot too 😋 I bet they are good at massaging your lower abdomen to make your cramp go away. God I can already hear the sound of their heart shattering when their angel lashes out on them. They'd give her space and approach her once she's feeling better and ask if she's okay ♡
● Bokuto(I can imagine him watching titanic with his daughter and him bawling his eyes out-) Oikawa, Nishinoya, Kageyama, Ushijima, Koganegawa, Goshiki, Atsumu, Asahi, Lev, Hinata.
Talking back😶
Is shocked and beyond heartbroken. They couldn't believe their happy-go-lucky, kind-hearted, angel-like baby has evolved into being cranky 24/7, would rather hang out with friends than them, slamming the door shut, not opening up to them anymore, is always embarassed for the tiniest reasons, thinks their dad is very uncool, and has rebelled multiple times . No matter how much you tell him this is normal and that they are going through a new stage in their life, they can't help but be scared thinking about their kids forgetting them and hating them in the future. But dw all is well in the end♡"Honey everything's gonna be ok trust me, we both know going through puberty isn't easy since we are changing, they are still figuring out how this works..." "But-but they just talked back at me when I told them to go do their work...Im just hurt..." "I know baby I know, I am too but we gotta go help them get throught this ok?" "ok..."
●Bokuto(Let.Your.Child.apologize.now. my mans so close to crying) Akaashi, Oikawa, Atsumu, Sugawara, Asahi, Kuroo, Tanaka, Yamaguchi, Komori, Hoshiumi, Goshiki, Semi.
Lmao your child is probably asking for a death wish if they dare talk back against them...the closest thing they could do is open their mouth until the dads shoots them a 'go ahead, I'd like to see you try' glare♡...
●Kita(ice cold) Suna(those eyes are enough to kill you) Iwaizumi, Ushijima, Tsukishima, shirabae, Matsukawa, kawanishi, Daichi, Yaku, Hirugami(bae is smiling too) Sakusa.
Relationships 👬♡👭♡👫
No absolutely not, no, not until they're legal, they want their kids to enjoy their teenage years and not worry about relationships at that age and focus on creating memories that will last a lifetime, they believe that being a teenager is about living your life without any worries and enjoying it as much as you can, cause at that age you are evolving. Relationships and heartbreaks can happen later, they're still helping their kiddies learn to love themselves, raise their own self-eestem and know their worth before that so yeah♡
●Kita, Akaashi, Iwaizumi, Kageyama, ushijima, Semi, Hirugami, Reon, Tendou, Sakusa, Terushima, Shirabae, Tsukishima, Tanaka, Nishinoya, Goshiki.
Yes of course they will allow their kids to enter in a relationship at a young age...I mean dating is about searching for the one or finding out if that certain someone is THE ONE, they want their kids to experience young love and heartbreak since they believe pain will make you stonger and heartbreak will be their lesson/guide throughout their life. But that doesn't mean if they got their heart broken they won't comfort their kids cause they will. And whoever breaks their kid's heart will receive a volleyball in their face♡
●Suna, Atsumu, Oikawa, Osamu, Aran, Ennoshita, Kageyama, Kuroo, Matsukawa, Hanamaki, Hoshiumi, Yaku.
♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡
Im 16 but I miss when I didn't care about what people would say or think about me because I'm still a kid who's enjoying her life...now I'm so insecure about everything and anything 😭
Also tomorrow is my graduation pictorial and I am NERVOUS! I'm gonna cry I swear😭
Inspired by me panicking on why my period is still not here, super nanny and my chats heheheh♡
Me to the people that like and reblog my posts:
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I posted 1,314 times in 2021
582 posts created (44%)
732 posts reblogged (56%)
For every post I created, I reblogged 1.3 posts.
I added 765 tags in 2021
#music - 369 posts
#touhou - 101 posts
#comiket - 89 posts
#m3 - 72 posts
#m3 48 - 28 posts
#reitaisai - 26 posts
#m3 47 - 23 posts
#caligula effect 2 - 19 posts
#vocaloid - 19 posts
#mili - 19 posts
Longest Tag: 105 characters
#i hate business owners with 0 knowing our iveta in learning how to fix their network equipment themselves
My Top Posts in 2021
#5
can’t imagine a world without spicy food
108 notes • Posted 2021-09-10 03:26:58 GMT
#4
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151 notes • Posted 2021-07-17 06:10:51 GMT
#3
245 notes • Posted 2021-02-11 04:15:23 GMT
#2
Talk to myself, There's no one else. Knows me the way I do when I feel overwhelmed. Made the wrong turn, And it got burned. Every decision weighing on me in my world. So I just try to breathe, And I will try to see, All of the reasons we are where we are meant to be. I know I lost the race, Backfired in my face, But I will find my way – eventually.
Oo-oh! The regret in my head got me taken over! Oo-oh! I'm alive and surprised, and it makes me wonder, Oo-oh! If you say everything that you learned this life, Makes you wise – I'm doing it, doing it right!
Made enemies. They don't scare me. Cause I got everyone I need here on my team. And we won't fight. We're meant to thrive, In any circumstances you throw us in tonight.
Inside of my mind, I'll be searching For the words that will cure all my hurting Tough love got me feeling deserving, Rip back the curtain, that's how I’m learning. Reflect on the mess I've created, Respect for the deaths I hated, Making all the winning decisions without precision – not that I'd listen.
Oo-oh! The regret in my head got me taken over! Oo-oh! I'm alive and surprised, and it makes me wonder, Oo-oh! If you say everything that you learned this life, Makes you wise – I'm doing it, doing it right!
Need the best, 'cause the stress I've been holding, I'm the one, only one – I've been chosen, Tell the sorrow there's always tomorrow, always tomorrow, for another go. Recognized that I'm built like a champion, Realized that I'm here, and I'm standing And my story is only starting, now that I'm parting, heading for stardom. Gonna give my all, If I ever fall, You better believe, I'm getting, getting back up! x2
Oo-oo-oo-oh! x2
Oo-oh! The regret in my head got me taken over! (Taken over!) Oo-oh! I'm alive and surprised, and it makes me wonder, (Makes me wonder!) Oo-oh! If you say everything that you learned this life, Makes you wise – I'm doing it, doing it right! (Doing it right!)
Oo-oh! The regret in my head got me taken over! Oo-oh! I'm alive and surprised, and it makes me wonder, Oo-oh! If you say everything that you learned this life, Makes you wise – I'm doing it, doing it right!
356 notes • Posted 2021-07-14 23:57:00 GMT
#1
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375 notes • Posted 2021-04-13 00:26:41 GMT
Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →
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sleepymccoy · 3 years
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Hello! I wanted to ask you this bc I really admire your work and blog, and I get the sense that you're a person who can tackle nuance well (and I believe this topic deserves it). I've tried wording this as best as I could, and I'm sorry that it's very long.
I've started getting the impression that some parts of the Good Omens fanbase have been sort of contained, if that makes sense. I feel like small creators have a hard time getting attention to their work anymore. As if people are only looking at the same handful of established creators nowadays (and that those creators are only looking at one another). And by extension, content really only gets attention if it's liked/shared by certain people. And then on top of that, it really constricts a lot of topics in fic and art that get appreciated.
I know that the hype for Good Omens has died down in the past year and that explains a major dip in interest, but I still feel there's an imbalance. I see genuinely good work overlooked time and time again, and I worry that my own work has been looked over bc it simply hasn't been deemed a fan favorite. For a while it looked like there was an effort to boost smaller creators, but it's seems like it phased out pretty quickly. I will be honest, it's been a little discouraging. It feels like the Good Omens fanbase is a club a lot of us have been almost excluded from.
I wanted to know if I'm just imagining this whole scenario or if it's a thing others have noticed? If others have noticed, what can we do to spread some love?
I'm sorry if this came off the wrong way or like I'm scolding people. Or like I'm whinging like a needy child not getting enough attention. I'm curious and was wondering if it was worth asking someone else about. Thank you for reading! And thank you for responding if you do!
Hey! Thanks for all the compliments lol, that’s lovely of ya
I doubt i’ll be as succinct as you managed.
Overall, I agree. I don’t think you’re imagining things at all and I’ve certainly also noticed a decline in interest in my stuff since the start
This is a total theory, but I’m gonna put it forward cos it makes sense to me. When Good Omens started up everyone followed a load of people to get at the content and were reblogging and engaging all over the place. Spiderwebs of followers were formed. I think there are blogs who end up being more influential than others, it depends on what youre looking for in the fandom who that is for you, but there are always big sort of blogs that just reblog content to share it. I think they’re the things that change.
Cos what happens is interest wanes. Fans move on and go somewhere else. If you’re following and relying on a blog to show you lots of new art and they’re just not doing it any more, then you’re sort of left just seeing the popular stuff that gets cyclically reblogged.
For example, i was following, with notifications on, a blog that reblogged every bit of poc good omens fan art they came across. total mixed bag of quality, but it was fantastic and picked up blogs that were completely unknown to me. The person running it got tired and moved on, so i don’t have access to that any more. It’s a lost thread in my little spiderweb of access that cuts me off from so much and it’s a real loss
Alternatively, and this is the trap i fall into, you follow creators. Like what you said! So, when I see a post i like very much i go straight to OP and (after checking they’re not a terf or aphobic) i follow. This means i get new content from the source rather than relying on someone elses taste to have a chance of seeing it myself. However, it also means i’m not following many blogs that focus on reblogging a range of content, so i miss newcomers. I’m not ignoring newcomers, i simply don’t see them
Both approaches to who you follow come with the curse of as the fandom gets older, you don’t have a clear way to find new content or creators. There’s an early bird gets the worm element to it all
There’s also tumblr weird bad habit of not reblogging things. People who run personal blogs rather than themed blogs will like something and consider their work done, but that does nothing to help new art or new artists, cos it’s not permeated yet. That kills new content and content creators pretty thoroughly
So yeah, i think there’s a lot going on there, but you’re certainly not making it up and a lack of engagement on your posts isnt an indication that people don’t like it, it just means people haven’t seen it or have fallen for their habit of not reblogging things they really ought to share.
In terms of fixing this? That’s a toughie.
I don’t have a fix, but i agree the lethargy is tiresome. It’s a constant effort to get something to take off, i have to reblog stuff four or five times before it starts moving beyond my immediate sphere of influence. But it makes sense, there are less fans and the fans there are aren’t out looking for new people to follow.
but i don’t like ending on a negative, so i’ll talk about some options or ideas! even though i don’t have the kind of influence someone would need to be heard
In my perfect world (and i repeat this is my day dream, i do not pretend it is well thought out or fair for all) i would remove the like function; either reblog it or you don’t get to keep an access. I would see more blogs that reblog content to a theme. I would see blogs that search out new creators. I would see newsletters that name new creator blogs that have engaged recently. I would see blogs that make it a challenge to themselves to reblog art and fic that has less than 100 notes. I would see more low stress fan events, more prompt lists and less organised zines.
But that’s all a lot of work for individual people to take on (except the likes vs reblogs thing, but that a real personal dislike of mine). I’ve tried to take part, I run @goodomensevents which is a blog where i reblog any general community event on tumblr that doesn’t cost money to take part in. But i don’t really think it has much impact, cos i thought of it too late in the game and no one wants to follow new good omens blogs anymore.
which i understand. i’m happy with my dash, i don’t feel like it’s lacking. I love who i follow. my mutuals talk to me and aren’t cunts. And i have no idea how to find new creators even though i may want to.
But hey, if anyone’s running a blog like what i’ve described, please send me a link! Maybe i’ll make a rec list on good omens events lol, see what happens. I’ll definitely follow you
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latetaektalk · 3 years
Note
hi there ^^' i'm... kinda new to this whole tumblr thing and have been wanting to write on here for a while but this huge place is kinda scary sometimes haha ;; do you have any writing tips or tricks that would be good to know for newcomers? (also your music taste is immaculate, i love it)
hey love 💕 first of all, welcome to tumblr!! its a fun place,, youre gonna love it, and learn to hate it lol second of all, thank you for complimenting my music taste 😳
now im not quite sure if you want only writing tips or writing blog tips, so ive included tips and tricks for both!
WRITING BLOG TIPS :
have a masterlist. this might seem stupid and obvious, but ive seen people with no masterlist. people are lazy, so if they cant access your writing easily, they will just click away.
have a clean theme. aesthetics are important. they are. people love clean and easy to navigate themes. again, people are lazy, so if you make it easy to click through your blog and get to your writing, youll increase the chance of people reading your stuff!
how to get your work show up in general. putting links in your fanfic might lead to your story not showing up in the search. ive also heard that a banner thats too big can cause that. even using too many tags can lead to your work not showing up. its complicated.
the first five tags. im sure youve heard abt this already but the first five tags are the tags that will actually show up! so if someone follows #bts fluff and you tag your fic with that, your fic can show up on people's dashes as a recommended post!
tag accordingly. speaking of tags, please tag accordingly! theres nothing more annoying than finding a jimin fanfic in the taehyung fanfic tag. i really discourage you from mistagging your stories. if im scrolling through the taehyung fanfic tag and find a jimin fanfic, it makes me want to not read it. just tag your fics accordingly.
reblog your fics. i mean it. seriously, reblog them as much as you want! people live in different time zones or sometimes forget abt wanting to read your stuff, so reblogging it consistently for a week or so to get it on people's dashes helps!
teasers and taglists. i recommend doing both! teasers help to get people excited for your story and taglists ensure that people will read it, or at least remember to!
dont stress abt notes. now, this is less of a tip but rather something i just really really really want to tell you! i know youve heard this before, but please do not stress about notes. tumblr fame does not exists! it doesnt matter if your writing gets 2 notes or 300 or 5k notes! i do understand how getting a lot of notes can be motivating (every fics deserve all the love in the world by the way!!) but in the end, it should not be your motiviation to write. focusing on notes will ruin writing for you. it will. the amount of notes your fic will reach has nothing to do with how good your writing is. dont let something as superficial as notes ruin the fun of writing for you. its seriously not worth it! write for you and no one else!
WRITING TIPS :
write self indulgent fics. i seriously think all fics should be self indulgent. writing fics should be fun, so please write whatever you want! also, theres no such thing as an overdone trope. if you want to write a fake dating enemies to lovers fic, please write it! you might think there are already a bunch out there and its not worth writing another one, but youre wrong! there isnt one out there thats been written by you yet. go write it!
make playlists. now this is a bit specific to me because im absolutely obsessed with music, but making playlists that fit the mood of the fic has always helped me while writing and gotten me out of writers block before!
take your time. writing is freaking hard and when writers block hits, theres rarely ever something that you can do. try not to stress too much abt it! it happens to the best of us!
balance dialogue and detail. its important to find a middle. if im reading a fic and theres paragraph after paragraph after paragraph of detail, the chance of me just skipping that part is really high. because even though i love detail, it does get boring. so use dialogue to spice it up!
reading. okay, this sounds weird because youre asking for writing tips, but reading seriously help your writing so much! if you wanna improve your writing skills, reading a lot is going to be key. now, im not saying reading is necessary, but i do think that it can help you to better! whats even more important though is that you try to analyse people’s writing while reading. when i say you should analyse people’s writing, i do not mean you should write an entire analysis of a book, but to take a second and think to yourself how the authors just did that. how did they convey oc’s sadness? why did they just describe the weather? whats the purpose of this scene?
switch up sentence/paragraph length. shorter sentences/paragraphs = emphasise something and pick up the pace. longer sentences/paragraphs = slow down the story and allow for more detail. its important that you do a mix of both. utilise the length to your advantage. a well placed short sentence/paragraph can pack a lot of punch and turn your sad story in a heartbreaking one.
outline your fics. look this is very personal again because some people dont like to outline their fics, but i recommend outlining your fics. and when i say outline your fics, you can do it as little or as much as you want! it can be a few notes, or a long list of every detail you want to include. i just want you to know where this story is headed. its so easy to write yourself in a corner and trust me, you dont wanna end up there.
allow yourself to be free. this connects to the previous point i just made. even though i do recommend outlining your fics, i am also a firm believer of taking the story somewhere else if you feel like it. ive scrapped complete outlines before. half of the scenes i write also arent in my outline at all. you dont have to stick to the outline. if you think that a specific scene would add something to your story, then please go ahead and write that scene. just always remember where youre headed and dont loose focus.
have fun. i just really wanna reiterate this point again. its just so important to me that you have fun while writing! seriously. its just fanfiction. it should be fun. go crazy. i support you!
okay bub i hope this was helpful 💕 if you have any other questions/want more tips/want me to elaborate on something, please just hit me up! my ask box is always open!
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raayllum · 3 years
Note
I'm honestly amazed how people can stay strong to their opinions despite all the negative people, antis and critics(not that bad, but still) going around the fandom.
It’s honestly not that bad (from my perspective, anyway) - nor is it that hard, honestly. I can’t speak for any social media site fandom wise except for tumblr, but TDP fandom on tumblr is overall beyond fantastic and one of the nicest fan communities I’ve ever seen. There were definitely antis on tumblr in the early days of the fandom (especially pre show) to the degree it was something I  worried mildly about - I’d experienced harassment before as a teenager and seen it almost ruin other fandoms - but that quickly faded post-s1. I was scrolling through the early pages of this blog the other day out of curiosity and I couldn’t believe how many people from the first three months ish in the fandom just left even before season two came out, but who knows why, honestly. Sometimes people’s interests do just change!
Now, I do generally have pretty thick skin. I was somewhat in the ATLA fandom for 5+ years where every opinion I had was exceedingly unpopular (something the recent surge in 2020 has changed, thankfully) to the degree it would frustrate me. I had to be very picky about who I followed to try and find anyone like minded, or at least not super off the rails with how they were viewing canon and tagged appropriately. I was also in the Voltron fandom and had to very much sequester myself away with my mutuals in order to remotely have a good time, and even then I saw a lot of bullshit (a lot of particularly nasty ableist shit that was then unfortunately replicated in canon).
I’ve received whack ass fandom hate, such as “you hypocrite you hate [insert ship here].” Me, confused, looking at post I made talking about why said ship is fine or interesting only three days prior. 
I have also been in classes of 40-60 people and been the only one presenting an opinion and have had people crap on it (the professor then gave a ten minute spiel on why my view was the theme of the course and the work we were studying, but I digress) because I don’t mind standing alone. That’s just kinda a part of life. People are not gonna agree with me all the time. It can be frustrating (or sometimes, a learning experience), but we all gotta deal with it.
So here are the tips for making it work:
1) Get used to blocking people. The block button is your absolute best friend. If someone posts a fandom opinion you’re really tired of seeing everywhere, even if it’s not bad per se, but just one you disagree with? You can block ‘em. Do it. There’s no shame in it - and I definitely have, like, all the time, for TDP, and for other fandoms. You can always change your mind later and unblock later, but there’s nothing like being preventive!
2) Unfollow religiously. Mutuals are fun, but tumblr romanticizes that sort of ‘relationship’ way too often, tbh. You should never feel pressure to follow people for any sort of reason. For example, there’s a lot of people on tumblr I really like, and I generally like their content a lot, that I don’t follow, cause they reblog a lot of something else I’m not interested in or don’t want to see (and don’t feel like / can’t blacklist for whatever reason). So I unfollow very easily and I go onto their blog or the main tags, search up whatever I’m interested in, and reblog from there. 
3)  You don’t have to engage with or listen to every opinion. This relates back to the other two, but you can just say “no thank you” and dip. For example in TDP, I see some people take a really critical stance with how the show treats dark magic. I think a lot of those takes are disingenuous (the show’s portrayal of dark magic, to me, gets more complicated as we go along, not less) but people are fully entitled to their opinion. I just don’t have to see it or engage with it. Cue block or unfollow button, boop! 
4) You can’t care about what other people think. Not of you, not of characters, not of ships. Easier said than done, I know, especially when people will sometimes make a huge judgement on a very tiny thing, but it is the key. You can never control someone else or their opinion. That’s not to say don’t be considerate, or not to approach people in good faith - I have successfully changed people’s minds on the internet before (I’m up to 10, thank you very much), it is very possible. But those were people I thought could be open to having those sorts of discussions and I was fully prepared for it to go badly / not go my way. But I had to be able to not care if it didn’t go my way, and sometimes it didn’t. 
And usually people who are extremely judgemental online all the time - repeatedly, constantly, about ships or story beats or anything and only seem to like one or two things from a source material - probably aren’t pretty happy. Cause they’re spending all their time either shaming people for things or trying to change other people’s minds. And if you spend all your time trying to convince other people of something and caring about how they do things, you’re not going to be happy. This is true for everyone.
This is not to say you can’t consider other people’s viewpoints (especially privately), either. For example, I read some of the critiques with dark magic, thought it over, tried to think about it more objectively / see where those interpretations were coming from, and still went, “Nah, not for me, I don’t agree” and blocked whoever I needed to. Cause consideration doesn’t equal engagement and that’s more than alright.
No one has power over you that you don’t give them, especially in an online space like this. Curate what content you see, block profusely, unfollow when you need to, and make sure that your fandom experience is first and foremost what you want and curate it for yourself. 
It will be much brighter that way, I promise.
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tw-anchor · 4 years
Text
27. Very Busy Night
Anchor
Stiles Stilinski x Original Character
Episode: 3x02; Chaos Rising + 3x03; Fireflies
Word Count: 10,425
Warning(s): Mature language, canon violence + gore, character death
Author’s Note: I fit in the rest of Chaos Rising in this chapter because I thought it would flow with Fireflies better. I hope you like this chapter! Tell me what you think! Make sure to reblog and like!
Tumblr media
Find the masterlink where’s it pinned to my blog!
Allison pulled her bolt cutters from where she was hiding them behind her back and snipped at the chain holding the front doors to Beacon Hills First National closed. Olivia quickly grabbed the chain before it could fall to the ground and make any nose, alerting the alpha pack that someone was breaking into the bank. The last thing they needed was to get caught right away; that wouldn't make a very successful mission.
Olivia and Allison nodded at each other before they opened one of the doors and slipped into the abandoned building. It was very dark inside, which made it hard to see, but at least the subtle glare of the full moon provided a little light to guide them around. The bank was just as Olivia saw in Isaac's memories, dusty and deserted. The lobby was full of mishappen furniture that was thrown about, including chairs, desks, and teller counters that would have been nice once upon a time. The whole feel of it gave Olivia the creeps—and it didn't help that the full moon was starting to affect the werewolves in her life.
She could feel five different struggles in her mind, each belonging to the werewolves she considered pack. It was a little distracting, having to feel a loss of control while having no side effects from the moon herself. She had to make sure that she wasn't focusing on her pack but on what she was involved in. If she didn't focus, she would lose control and act like she did in the classroom on the first day of school. She wouldn't be able to do anything and she wouldn't be able to have Allison's back or protect herself—not that she could do much fighting, anyway.
She clenched her fists as she and Allison walked through the lobby, dodging the old furniture, and made their way back to hallway that would lead to the offices. They passed a couple of file cabinets on the way, but they were only a quarter of the way through the hallway when someone attacked.
Allison was quick to defend them, drawing one of her ring daggers and blocking the woman who had pushed them. Unfortunately, Allison was too caught off guard and Olivia was practically useless in defending themselves; the woman pushed both of them up against the wall.
It was then that Olivia saw exactly who it was that attacked them.
"Ms. Morrell?" she breathed in confusion. She was the guidance counselor, for crying out loud. Lydia and Stiles literally had appointments with her every week. What the hell was she doing in the alpha pack's den?
"Keep your mouths shut and listen close," Ms. Morrell warned them. "You have no idea what you two just stepped into. Right now, you've got maybe twenty seconds to get your asses hidden."
"What are you doing?" Allison asked.
"Get in that storage closet over there and lock the door," Ms. Morrel nodded at the door behind Olivia and to the right. "When you hear the fighting start, that's when you come out."
"There isn't supposed to be fighting," Olivia stated; their plan was for her to calm down Boyd and the girl and get them out of there before the alpha pack even knew they were there.
"You're wrong," Ms. Morrel said. "You'll hear it. Now go!"
Ms. Morrell let go of Olivia and Allison and ran out of the hallway. They didn't waste any time as they rushed toward the storage closet and entered the room, quietly shutting the door behind them. It was pitch black in the room and as expected, the light switch didn't work. They were blind for the moment.
And then they heard the multiple sets of footsteps. Realizing what was happening at the same time, they both nudged each other away from the door and held their breath, hoping that the oncoming alphas wouldn't be able to hear them.
That didn't exactly take care of their scents, though.
As the footsteps started to pass by the closet, Allison knocked over a jug of cleaner. Olivia didn't know exactly what it was but it sure smell strong enough to hide their scents. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too suspicious that there was a strong chemical smell coming from the closet out of nowhere. It was a storage closet, though, so who knew.
Nothing happened, though. They weren't caught. When the footsteps faded away until they were sure no one would come back, Allison shredded her jacket and placed it on the puddle of cleaner, hoping to dilute the scent that burned their nostrils. Olivia quickly pulled her phone from her own jacket and turned on the flashlight; now there was enough light to at least get their bearings.
However, when Olivia spotted something out of the corner of her eye, she wished she wouldn't have turned the light on at all. When the beam of light hit Erica's body, her stomach heaved and her chest tightened. Her eyes stung as she looked at her former packmate; her body was already decomposing, her skin chalk white with spots of decay here and there.
"Oh, my God," she breathed shakily. She grabbed Allison's offered hand and squeezed it with all of her might, trying not to freak out and blow the whole operation.
Erica was only two months older than her. She spent most of her life without friends and riddled with seizures that brought her self-confidence down to the negatives. When she was given the bite, she was okay for less than a month before she was being hunted down by the Argents. She didn't get to live the life she deserved and it made Olivia sick to her stomach. Erica was good. She was good and she deserved better than what she got.
She hastily wiped her wet face with the back of the hand that held her phone. It was no use, more tears were already slipping down her cheeks. She felt like a piece of her was missing and she couldn't believe that she hadn't even known that Erica was killed because it was clear that it had been more than a couple of weeks that her body had been in the closet.
"I'm so sorry, Liv," Allison squeezed her hand in comfort. She hadn't been friends with Erica like Olivia had been but it was still upsetting to see her dead. They were classmates and had Erica been on the right side of things, maybe they would have been friends. They'd never know now.
-
-
Stiles stared out the huge window in Derek's loft, staring at the full moon in the sky. It had been maybe an hour since Olivia, Derek, and Scott left but he was already impatient for them to get back. He didn't like waiting, especially when his girlfriend and best friend were risking their lives at the moment.
"I can't take waiting around like this, you know?" he spoke aloud, hoping that Peter would understand his worry. "It's nerve-racking. My nerves are racked. They're severely racked. Racked."
Why would Peter care, though? It wasn't like his own daughter and nephew were in danger. "I could beat you unconscious and wake you when it's over."
Stiles rolled his eyes and turned away from the window, facing Peter where he was laying on the couch. "Do you think that Erica's really dead?"
"Do you think I really care?"
Stiles quickly moved on and changed the subject as he started pacing around the loft. "I just, I don't understand the bank, though, okay? What—like, why wouldn't they chain them up in some underground lair or something? They're an alpha pack, right, so shouldn't they have a lair?"
"They're werewolves, not Bond villains."
"Wait a sec, wait a sec," Stiles turned back to him. "Maybe they're living there, you know? Like, maybe the bank vault reminds them of their little wolf dens."
Peter opened his eyes and stared at him blankly. "Wolf dens?"
"Yeah, wolf dens," Stiles nodded. "Where do you live?"
Suffice to say, his girlfriend's father hadn't exactly invited him around for dinner.
"In an underground network of caves hidden deep in the woods."
Maybe that was why. "Woah, really?"
"No, you idiot," Peter rolled his eyes. "I have an apartment downtown."
Stiles almost felt a little disappointed. "Okay, fine, but still, that just proves that there's something up with the bank," he pointed out. "And why wait around for the full moon, huh? Why not just kill them whenever they want to?"
"Maybe they think it's poetic," Peter suggested casually.
He shook his head. "They've already had three full moons to be poetic."
"And here, you've only had one full hour to be so annoying..."
Stiles waited for him to go on complaining about him but he didn't. "No, go ahead and finish what you were saying. I'm—I'm annoying...What were you gonna say there?"
Peter didn't rise to his challenge. "What are the walls made of?"
"What?" Confused, Stiles looked around the loft. "Uh, I don't know, like, wood and brick, or—"
"No, the vault, the vault," Peter jumped up from the coach and headed over to the bank's blueprints that were still spread out on the table. "the walls, what are they made out of? Where would it say that?" he went through the various pages of plans. "This doesn't say anything. Where would it say the materials, the type of stone?"
"Oh! Okay, hang on," Stiles rushed over to the table and searched for the binder that held the details of the build; when he finally found it, he handed it over to the werewolf. "Here, it's gotta be in there."
He looked carefully as Peter swiped through the pages, looking for what kind of stone they used for the vault. When they finally came to the page that held the details for the vault, Stiles discovered the section of materials.
"There," Stiles pointed to the section. "That's it."
"Hecatolite," Peter read.
"Is that awful? That sounds awful."
"Get them on the phone," Peter demanded. "Call them, now."
"Okay," Stiles scrambled for his phone and quickly started dialing Scott. "why?"
"Because Boyd and that girl aren't gonna kill each other, they're gonna kill Derek and Scott."
Panic raising in his chest, Stiles pressed his phone to his ear and was relieved when Scott picked up.
"Stiles, now is not the best time."
"Scott, Scott!" he exclaimed frantically. "No, listen to me, okay? Look, you gotta get out of there. Look, the walls of the vault are made with a mineral called Hecatolite. It scatters the moonlight."
"What does that mean?"
"It keeps the moonlight out, okay? They haven't felt the full moon in months."
"Okay, think of it like the gladiators in the Roman colosseum," Peter took over explaining. "They used to starve the lions for three days, making them more vicious, more out of control. Deucalion has kept them from shifting for three full moons, diminishing their tolerance to it."
"Scott, they're gonna be stronger—"
"More savage, more bloodthirsty," Peter cut him off. "Scott, they're the lions. They're the starved lions and you and Derek just stepped into the colosseum."
"Derek, we have a problem," they heard Scott say. "A really big problem."
Then came Derek's surprised voice. "Cora?"
"Who?"
Stiles looked at Peter, wondering if he knew a Cora. The shocked look on his face made him think that he did.
"Cora?"
"Derek, get out," a female voice came from the other line. "Get out now!"
"Scott," Stiles spoke again, hoping to get Scott's attention. "Hey, Scott! Scott, are you hearing this?"
Vicious growling started out on the other line and they could hear the fighting start.
"Scott?!"
The dial tone started beeping.
-
-
The fighting started not long after Olivia and Allison discovered Erica's body. They waited only five minutes before they set out of the closet, afraid that they were run into any members of the alpha pack on their way to the vault.
From the loud growling, the vicious roars, and the painted grunting, Scott and Derek had to have been having a bad time in that vault. The crashing and bangs didn't bode well for them, either.
Olivia had to get in there, now.
She and Allison were quick getting to the vault. Olivia was quick to notice the circle of mountain ash on the floor and that was good and bad. It was bad because Derek and Scott couldn't get out of the vault but it was good because neither could the girl or Boyd. Believe it or not, it was safer for Beacon Hills if Boyd and the girl were contained in one place. It wasn't so good for Derek and Scott, though.
"Look out!" Allison yelled as Olivia jumped over the seal and into the vault. Derek and Scott jumped out of the way as the mystery girl and Boyd lunged for them.
Boyd hit his target with Scott, digging his claws into his stomach and rising him up into the air. Scott grunted and searched for the strength to get out of Boyd's hold but he was unable to fight back.
"Boyd!" Olivia rushed to a stop and held out her hands toward her large packmate. He was seething and out of control as he turned away from an injured Scott to glare at her. "Boyd, control yourself!"
He roared a her, furious. Honestly, it scared Olivia more than a little bit. For some reason, Boyd was more out of control than usual and she didn't know if she could do anything about it. Yeah, she had been practicing with her abilities and they've grown stronger but Boyd was only with her for a month. She didn't even know the girl, so it'd be hard to do anything to her.
Then Olivia was on the ground, a girl her age hovering over her. The breath was knocked out of her chest and she was pretty sure she was going to die but when she took a look at the girl's face, time seemed to stop.
She knew who the mystery girl was now and she couldn't believe it. Cora, her cousin who was born only a year before her, was supposed to have died in the fire. That's what they all assumed when she didn't show up after the disaster that ravished the Hale house and killed Olivia's aunt and mother, along with other members of the pack. They hadn't seen her for six and a half years and now, all of a sudden, here she was, trapped in a bank vault by the alpha pack.
How had she even survived?
"Cora?" she breathed in shock. "You're alive."
Cora's face only slight softened as she realized exactly who she had tackled. She didn't really get to think on it further when Derek plowed into her, knocking her off their cousin and onto the floor.
"Ollie, go!"
Olivia hurriedly got up and backed away from her cousins, heading toward Boyd and Scott. She said nothing, as to not give away her position, and slapped her hand onto Boyd's back. Her gaze was tinted purple as she concentrated all of her energy into calming Boyd down so he wouldn't end up killing Scott.
"Come on, Boyd."
He was fighting her and it was hard to get a hold of him. Just as she was only a second away from reaching him and getting him into control, Derek called out, "No, don't break the seal!"
Her concentration lost, she looked over at Allison just as the taller brunette crouched down to break the mountain ash barrier.
"Boyd!" Allison called, getting the beta's attention.
As Boyd let go of Scott, Olivia tried to wrap her hands around his huge arm. "BOYD!"
Boyd only faltered for a long second before Allison broke the barrier. He ripped away from her grasp and sped out of the vault, Cora on his tail. Olivia stared after them in belief; she was so close to getting to Boyd.
Derek angrily stormed out of the vault and grabbed Allison's arm.
"Don't touch her!" Scott pushed him away as he and Olivia approached.
"What were you thinking?" Derek growled at her.
"That I had to do something," Allison shot back."
Scott immediately jumped to Allison's defense. "She saved our lives."
But she could have put many more in danger, Olivia thought to herself. She didn't blame Allison for what she did; if she were in her shoes and was watching Stiles get beaten up by a raving werewolf, she'd break the seal too.
"Yeah and what do you think they're gonna do out there?" Derek brought up the point that Olivia made in her head. "Do you have any idea what you just set free?"
"You want to blame me?" Allison scoffed in disbelief, her eyes narrowed into daggers. "Well, I'm not the one turning teenagers into killers."
"No, that's just the rest of your family," Derek retorted.
It was totally not the time but Olivia was impressed by Derek's comeback. Until now, none of Derek's betas had been bloodthirsty or out of control. Allison couldn't say the same about herself or her family of hunters.
Allison slumped a little at his comment, seeming to know that Derek's words weren't exactly a lie. "I made mistakes," she admitted. "Gerard is not my fault."
"And what about your mother?"
"Derek!" Olivia hissed at her cousin. Did he really have to bring that up at a time like this? They needed to be out there looking for Boyd and Cora.
Allison, however, wanted to know what Derek meant. "What do you mean?"
Derek turned to Scott with a daring look. "Tell her, Scott."
"What does he mean, Scott?" Allison's voice trembled. "What does he mean?"
Scott looked hesitant to tell her and Olivia guessed that it was because she and Derek were with them. If it was her telling Allison about her mother's actions before she died, she wouldn't want Derek around to butt in with scathing and insensitive comments—even if Victoria Argent deserved them, Allison didn't.
"Derek," Olivia spoke up, catching her cousin's attention. "We found Erica. We should—we should go and get her."
Derek's face crumpled as he seemed to realize what Olivia meant. Her heart ached as she took his arm and clutched it tightly before leading him away from Scott and Allison. They slowly walked down from the second level and to the hallway that held the storage closet she and Allison hid from the alphas in.
"She's dead..."
"Yeah," Olivia confirmed quietly, her eyes starting to sting with tears. "From the...her body looks more than a couple of weeks old."
She wanted to prepare him; he would take the loss of Erica harder since she was his beta. Even for her, the loss of a packmate was hard. It was like losing a limb; it still felt like Erica was there but when she reached out to find her, the blonde wasn't there to meet her.
Derek tightened his grip on Olivia as they entered the storage closet. He completely shocked Olivia when he faltered after laying his eyes on Erica's body. Derek was literally the strongest person she knew so it was tough to see him in such grief. He wasn't quite as bad as when most of their family died but it was still hard.
"This is all my fault," he whispered, taking in the decay of her body.
"No, it's not," Olivia insisted. "It's not, Derek. The alpha pack did this, not you."
"I was the one who turned her."
"And you didn't know it would turn out like this," Olivia bit the inside of her cheek. "Derek, please...please believe me. This isn't on you and Erica...Erica wouldn't want you to think that way, either."
Derek shook his head and slowly let go of Olivia before taking the few steps toward Erica's body. In one swift movement, he picked Erica up and cradled her in his arms. It was so heartbreaking for Olivia to see the pure guilt and grief he felt on display. It almost hurt worse than the grief she felt for Erica.
"Come on," Derek's voice was hoarse.
They slowly walked back to the vault where Allison and Scott still stood together, discussing what really went on the night that Derek bit Victoria Argent. They arrived just as Scott was finishing, telling Allison that he couldn't have the memory of her mother trying to kill him be the last memory she ever had of her.
The both of them turned when they noticed that Olivia and Derek had arrived with Erica's body. Allison frowned sadly while Scott's face crumpled; Olivia could tell that he was very upset with Erica's fate and while it didn't make much sense because he and Erica weren't very close, it was Scott. He felt for people so deeply that his reaction didn't really surprise Olivia.
Derek cleared his throat. "We'll come back for her after we catch Cora and Boyd," he stepped into the vault and gently laid down her body before turning back to Scott. "Are you ready?"
Olivia swallowed down the lump in her throat and spoke up, "If I can concentrate, I think I'll be able to find Boyd."
Derek nodded at her and then looked back at Scott. "You go after Boyd and I'll try to find Cora. Olivia, you give Scott any information that you find. I'll Isaac and Peter and get them to help. We need to get to them before they hurt anyone."
Olivia and Scott nodded in unison at him. "Let's do this."
-
Olivia sat at a picnic table just outside of the campground part of the reserve, her hands clasped and her eyes closed. She was deep inside her head with her focus on Boyd, mentally following him around Beacon Hills. It took a lot of energy to keep on him but she didn't have a choice. It was either this so Scott could find him, or let innocent people die. Cora had already tried to terrorize the drive-in if Derek hadn't stepped in but unfortunately, she ran off before he could catch her.
Apparently, she was much faster than Derek when she went without feeling the full moon for three full months.
She sighed when she felt Boyd take off again; she had given Scott his last location but he must have lost him.
Sure enough, Scott was calling her. Her focus now gone, she answered the phone and looked up at Derek as he made his way over to her. She put the call on speakerphone—even though he could hear it fine—just in case he wanted to talk to Scott.
"Scott?"
"Hey," Scott greeted her breathlessly. "I lost Boyd."
"You lost him?" Derek asked, disappointed.
"Yeah, I kind of had to."
"That wasn't exactly the plan."
"I know, which is why I think that we should stick together," Scott stated. "Trust me, he's too strong, too fast, and way too angry for one person to handle. We've got to do this together."
"Scott, we're at the edge of the preserve campground," Olivia spoke up, exchanging a look with Derek. "Can you meet us here?"
"Yeah," Scott confirmed. "I just got to drop something off first."
Olivia furrowed her eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"
"I'll fill you in later. See ya soon."
Olivia ended the call and locked her phone, setting it on the table before looking up at Derek. "This is a nightmare."
"No kidding..."
Olivia winced as her hearing cut off and a loud scream took its place. This had happened only a half-hour earlier but this one was much more severe and terrifying. The first time she didn't even know where it came from but as the scream died down now, the whispers started.
Lydia's there, she heard. A picture of the community pool flashed through her mind, leaving a searing ache behind. Lydia, Lydia, Lydia. She found him. She found him. Lydia, Lydia, Lydia.
What the actual hell?
"Ollie, are you okay?" her hearing came back all at once. She grimaced at her sensitivity and opened her eyes, seeing Derek's worried face hovering over her. "Ollie, can you hear me?"
"I can hear you," she croaked; for some reason, her throat felt sore.
"You screamed," he told her, crossing his arms over his chest. "What happened?"
She hadn't known that she screamed. Why did she? Was that Lydia who screamed in her head? That's what the whispers seemed to imply. If Lydia was the one who screamed, how did she hear it and why did she scream too?
"I heard screaming and Lydia's name," she hurriedly picked up her phone and tried to call Lydia. As she pressed her ear to her phone, she added, "She found something but I don't know what. I don't know what's going on."
To her disappointment, Lydia didn't answer. The line beeped rapidly, informing Olivia that Lydia's phone was currently busy. She hung up the call and tried Stiles; she couldn't leave to go check on Lydia, so he would have to.
"Olivia, are you okay?" Stiles picked up almost immediately. "No one called me after and I was afraid someone got to you guys. Are you okay? Did Boyd kill you? Who is Cora, by the way? Tell me what happened. Is everyone all right?"
"Stiles," Olivia interrupted; as much as she thought his rambling was cute, now wasn't really the time to indulge him. "We're all okay. Boyd and Cora got out but Derek, Isaac, and Scott are out looking for them now."
"Okay, good," Stiles sighed in relief. "So, who's Cora?"
"She's my cousin, Derek's little sister—"
"Derek has a little sister?"
"Yes and we thought she died in the fire—"
"You thought she was dead? How the fuck is she here now?"
"We have no idea, Stiles. All we know is that she's alive and she's been with Boyd for months," Olivia answered. "but that's not why I called you."
"What's up?"
"I need you to check on Lydia. Something happened and I heard her scream—"
"How did you hear her scream? Is she with you?"
"No, she's not," if he didn't quit interrupting her... "Look, she's at the community pool. Can you please go check on her?"
"Of course I will. I'll go right now," Stiles confirmed. "I love you, be safe."
"Love you, too," Olivia stated. "Call me when you get to her."
"I will. Bye."
Olivia ended the call and turned to Derek once again. He was looking back at her with a half-irritated, half-amused look. Clearly, he had heard the whole call.
He shook his head. "I can't believe you're dating him."
-
-
The tires of the jeep squealed as it came to an abrupt stop next to Lydia's car. Stiles quickly ripped off his seatbelt and threw himself out of the vehicle in order to get to Lydia. From the way Olivia's voice trembled when she spoke about her cousin, and the fact that Lydia had called him in a panic over finding a dead body at the pool, he was quick to panic.
Not only did Stiles have to get through Olivia's occasional episodes but now Lydia was having them too. The Martin girls would be the death of him, surely. Actually, the whole supernatural thing would be. He didn't have a doubt about it.
"Lydia?" he called her name as he ran past the pool's gate and made his way toward the redhead. "Lydia, are you okay?"
Lydia had her arms around her, tightly holding herself. "I'm okay," she trembled. "That over there...not okay."
He followed her gaze to the dead body in the lifeguard stand. He could already see without moving that there was a lot of blood; it made him sick to his stomach. "Yeah, all right," he pulled his phone from his jeans. "I'm gonna call my dad."
"I already called 9-1-1."
Stiles paused and looked back at her while blinking rapidly. "You called the police before you called me or Olivia?"
"I'm supposed to call you guys first when I find a dead body?"
"Yes!" Stiles exclaimed loudly.
He changed gears, calling Olivia like she told him to. She quickly answered the call. "Hey, Livvy—"
"Is there really a dead body?"
"Yes, there is."
"Are you sure?"
Stiles rolled his eyes as he inched closer to the body so he could check it out for himself. "Yep, throat ripped out, blood everywhere. It's like the fucking Shining over here. If two little twin girls come out of the woods and start asking me to play with them forever and ever, I'm not gonna be surprised."
"Okay, okay," Olivia said quickly; she absolutely did not like the Shining when Stiles showed it to her. "Um, can you get a little closer to make sure it was them?"
"Make sure it was them?" he repeated in disbelief. "Olivia, who else is going around ripping throats out?"
She sighed. "Please just do it."
Stiles stepped closer to the dead body, stepping around the huge puddle of blood that had collected on the edge of the pool. Like he told Olivia, the guy's throat was ripped out. He bled a lot; his whole arm down to his purity ring wearing fingers.
"It was them," he confirmed for her. "Listen, Lydia called the cops so I'll call you when we're done with them."
"Okay," on the other side of town, Olivia pressed some fingers to her temple, trying to rid herself of the horrible pain her head was in. "Thank you, Stiles. Really."
"No problem. Love you, talk later."
"Love you," Olivia locked her phone and slipped it into her jacket before turning to Derek, Isaac, and Scott.
Derek shook his head in denial. "This doesn't make any sense," he declared. "The public pool is all the way on the other side of the woods. We haven't tracked them anywhere near there."
"Derek, they killed someone," Scott pointed out needlessly.
"How are they moving so fast?"
"Derek."
"But they can't be that fast on foot," Derek insisted.
"They killed someone," Scott said firmly. "Some totally innocent kid is dead...and it's our fault."
Derek was quiet for a moment, blinking slowly. "It's my fault."
"We need help," Olivia interjected. The four of them weren't getting anything done when it came to Cora and Boyd. They had no experience hunting werewolves and why should they? They didn't hunt their own kind. That was a whole new kind of barbaric. They weren't the Argents, for crying out loud.
The Argents...
"We have Isaac now."
"No, more help," she clarified, a plan forming in her head. "Look, they're too fast, too strong, and too rabid for you guys."
"We'll catch them."
"What happens if we do?" Isaac asked his alpha in response. "We're just gonna hold them down until the sun comes up."
Derek shook his head grimly. "Maybe it would be easier just to kill them."
Olivia immediately went to protest but Scott beat her to the punch. "Killing them isn't the right thing to do."
"What if it's the only thing to do?" Isaac replied. "If we can't even catch them, what else do we do?"
"We find someone who knows what they're doing."
They turned to Olivia, curious. "Who?"
"Someone who knows how to hunt werewolves," Olivia said decidedly. "Like Mr. Argent."
Derek scoffed. "You've got to be kidding me."
"I'm not. Mr. Argent isn't as bad as the others and we all know it," she defended Allison's father. It was true; Argent was probably the mildest of the Argent hunters, including Allison. "If he knows the trouble we're facing and about the innocent people getting hurt, I bet he'll help us."
"She's got a point," Scott backed her up. "Me and Olivia can talk to him."
"And if he says no?"
"Then we make him say yes."
-
With a call to Allison, they tracked down Mr. Argent to the grocery store. Derek and Isaac stayed in the former's car and let Olivia and Scott take the lead on him. Mr. Argent wasn't a big fan of Scott and he didn't adore Olivia, but he was more tolerant of them than the other werewolves.
Olivia and Scott waited for him to come out of the store behind the car next to Argent's SUV. When he came out, his arms full of grocery bags, they came out of hiding and watched as one of his bags fell to the ground.
Argent picked it up with a sigh. "It had to be the one with the eggs..."
Once the bag was safely in the back of his SUV, he shut the hatch and abruptly turned around. Olivia flinched away as he held a gun up to her and Scott, both of them immediately putting their hands in the air to show that they didn't mean any harm.
"Hi, Mr. Argent," she squeaked.
Mr. Argent pressed his lips together. "Olivia, Scott," he greeted them cautiously. "What are you doing here?"
"We need your help," Scott said before he started explaining all that had gone on that night so far, from the alpha pack, the bank, and the wild goose chase that Cora and Boyd were giving them.
Argent didn't look happy to be approached. "First of all, why would I care about anyone related to Derek?"
"Ouch," Olivia mumbled under his breath but Argent steamrolled on.
"And second, I don't know this kid, Boyd. I don't even know his last name."
"Boyd is his last name," Olivia informed him.
"What's his first name?"
"Vernon," she said simply. "and could you put the gun down, please? You're freaking me out."
Argent shifted the gun away from her and more toward Scott; Olivia sighed in relief.
"Yeah, just curious, is there a reason the gun is still pointed at me?" Scott was offended.
"Well, there's probably still some part of me that wants to shoot you," Argent answered honestly.
Scott raised his eyebrows and nodded. "I get that."
Argent sighed and lowered his gun, putting it back in its holster. "I watched my father brainwash my daughter and almost turn her into a killer," he shook his head. "That world—your world—decimated mine. My wife, sister, father, my entire family. Why would I ever step foot in it again?"
"Because people are going to die," Olivia said bluntly. "and because you know how to catch Cora and Boyd without killing them."
Argent hesitated for only a second before shaking his head. "I'm sorry. I can't help you."
He went to enter his SUV when Scott stopped him. "Uh, do you think you could do us, like, one tiny little favor?"
Argent lifted his chin. "What's that?"
"Can you give us a lift to the public pool? We're supposed to meet Stiles and Lydia there," Scott stretched the truth.
Olivia gave him an impressed look, immediately catching onto his plan. Argent would see the police and medical examiner at the pool to pick up the body and investigate the scene and hopefully it would sway him to help them catch Boyd and Cora. It was manipulative but necessary. Cora and Boyd could kill even more innocent people by the time the moon fell if they were able to go free.
"Get in."
Ten minutes later, they were pretty close to the community pool. The whole ride was silent and awkward and Olivia was nervous, hoping that Cora and Boyd weren't out terrorizing the town while they played carpool. If Argent would agree to help them, though, they'd have a significant advantage over them.
"Left or straight?" Argent asked.
"Left," Scott answered from the backseat. "Sorry, it's right about the corner."
Argent turned onto the street on their left and slowed down, looking for the pool. Olivia could already see the red and blue lights coming off the police cruisers.
"That parking lot there," Scott pointed to them. "Yeah, just a little further up, right here."
"Thanks again for the ride," Olivia said as Argent came to a stop and parked.
She and Scott watched Argent's face as he took in the scene. There was already an ambulance there, ready to take the body to the morgue, and it looked like the kid's parents were there, too, to identify their son for the record. It was a disturbing image, how heartbroken the parents were as they sobbed over their child.
It made Olivia's chest hurt a little. Erica's parents would soon find out that their child was dead, too.
Scott went to leave the vehicle first, but Argent stopped him. "They did this, Boyd and...?"
"Cora," Olivia supplied her cousin's name. "Yeah."
Argent lifted his gaze to look at her. "Where's the last place you saw them?"
Minutes later, they were meeting Derek and Isaac back at the campground, where they stopped Cora and Boyd from killing a girl their age.
Argent stood in front of the four of them, kneeling down over two sets of shoe tracks. "You're tracking them by print?"
It was Scott who answered him. "Trying to."
"Well, then, you've been wasting your time," Argent stated. "There's only one creature on earth that can visually track footprints and that's man. And if you're not trained like me, you have no idea that this print is Boyd's," he pointed at the large shoeprint in the mud and then the slightly smaller ones. "and these—"
"Are Cora's," Isaac assumed.
"Nope, they're yours," Argent corrected him casually. "You trampled Cora's as soon as you walked over here."
Olivia raised an eyebrow as she looked over at Isaac, who looked embarrassed.
"Listen, I know the three of you are focusing half your energy on resisting your own urges under the full moon but that puts you at a severe disadvantage to Boyd and Cora, who have fully given in," Argent addressed Derek, Scott, and Isaac. "They put the pedal to the floor where you three are barely hitting the speed limit."
"So, what do we do?" Derek looked annoyed that he had to listen to Argent's advice.
"Focus on your sense of smell," Argent told him. "Actual wolves are known to track their pretty by up to a hundred miles a day by scent. A trained hunter can use scent to track them. If the wind is with them, wolves can track a scent by a distance of two miles, which means we can draw them to us...or into a trap."
Argent reached into the duffle bag that he had brought with him and pulled out a net. "The full moon does give us one advantage," he threw it at Scott, who caught it easily. "They'll have a higher heat signature, which makes them easier to spot with infrared."
Argent threw two infrared binoculars at Scott and Isaac before tossing one to Derek.
"Thanks," Derek handed them to Olivia and flashed his alpha-red eyes. "but I've got my own."
Argent nodded. "Just remember, we're not hunting wild animals. Underneath those impulses are two intelligent human beings. Don't think they can't rely on that human side. It's suppressed but it's there, reminding them how to mask their scent, how to cover their tracks, and how to survive."
They moved from the campsite to the cliff that overlooked all of Beacon Hills.
"When was the last time you saw your sister?" Argent asked Derek.
"Six years," Derek told him. "We thought she died in the fire."
Argent didn't comment on the fire. "Do you feel like you have a lock on her scent?" Derek shook his head so he turned to Scott. "Scott, how confident are you in your skills?"
Scott scoffed lightly. "Honestly, most of the time I'm trying not to think about all the things I can smell."
Olivia wrinkled her nose in disgust. She certainly didn't envy him.
"All right," Argent turned back to the overlook. "The problem is when they breach the woods and hit the residential area. Once they're past the high school, they're right in the middle of Beacon Hills."
"They're not going to kill anyone they see, are they?" Olivia spoke up hesitantly.
"No but there is an important difference to recognize," Argent answered her. "Wolves hunt or food; at a certain point, they get full. Boyd and Cora are hunting for the pleasure of the kill, for some primal apex predatory satisfaction that comes from the ripping of warm bodies to bloody shreds. And who knows when that need gets satiated?"
"We can't kill them," Scott declared.
"What if we can't catch them?" Derek countered reluctantly.
"Then maybe we just need to contain them," Argent offered thoughtfully. "There's no one in the school at night, is there?"
Derek looked at him in surprise. "You want to trap them inside?"
"If there's somewhere with a strong enough door, no windows, or access to the outside."
"What about the boiler room?" Isaac spoke up. "It's just one big steel door."
Argent paused for a moment before asking, "You're sure the school's empty?"
"It has to be," Scott confirmed. "There can't be anyone there this late, right?"
"All right," Olivia mused. "So if we do this, how are we going to lead them into the school?"
"I have something."
Argent led them back to his SUV, where he opened the hatch and pulled out another duffle bag with hunting supplies. He took a large silver stake that had some kind of light and button on the top and stabbed it into the ground.
"These are ultrasonic emitters. It's one of the tools we use to corral werewolves, pushing them into a direction we want them to run," Argent pressed the button at the top; there was a light squealing noise as the light flickered on. "It gives off a high-pitched frequency that only they can hear."
There was a slightly uncomfortable feeling in Olivia's ear but she certainly wasn't reacting to the noise like Derek, Scott, and Isaac were. They were all bent forward, their hands smushed to their ears in attempt to block out the noise.
"God, no kidding!" Isaac grunted
Argent turned off the emitter and started grabbing more of them from the hatch. He gave two to each of the werewolves. To Olivia's surprise, he gave her two, too.
"These are gonna drive them to the school?" Derek asked skeptically.
"And then it's up to you to get them into the basement," Argent stated.
"Does anyone else want to rethink the plan where we just, uh, kill them?" Isaac wondered.
Olivia rolled her eyes at him. "All right, lazy bones."
"It's going to work," Scott said encouragingly. "It'll work."
-
-
"Uh, you didn't have to follow me home," Lydia told Stiles flatly as they walked into her bedroom.
Stiles shrugged awkwardly, looking around the room. Despite the many times he had come over to the house, he'd never been inside the redhead's bedroom. "I just wanted to make sure you got in okay."
"I had a police escort."
"I know the inner workings of that force, all right? They're not nearly as reliable as people think," Stiles defended himself. "And I wanted to wait for Olivia, okay?"
Lydia gave him a displeased look as she sat down at the end of her bed. "And you're in my room, why?"
"Because it's creepy for me to wait alone in Livvy's room," Stiles made up an excuse; the real reason he was in Lydia's room was because he wanted answers. Like, how she had ended up at the pool in the first place or the fact that she found a fucking dead body out of nowhere.
"You're lying," Lydia smacked her lips together and rolled her eyes. "Why don't you just ask me the question that you've been dying to ask?"
Stiles faltered. "Well, I'm not—I haven't been dying to ask anything. I—no questions here for Stiles. Nothing."
"I can see it on your face."
"Maybe my face just has, like, a naturally interrogatory expression."
"Well, your interrogatory expression is getting on my nerves," Lydia snapped. "The answer is that I have no clue how I ended up finding that body. I didn't even know where I was until I got out of the car."
"Yeah, but the last time something like this happened..."
"I know," Lydia nodded. "Liv's dad."
"Peter," Stiles sighed; his future father-in-law was a pain in his ass. Well, he was a pain in everyone's ass. He went to say something else when his phone started ringing. "Oh, hold on."
He quickly pulled his phone out of his sweatshirt, eager to see if it was Olivia, but it was Melissa instead. He answered the phone and listened carefully as Melissa explained that he needed to show him something peculiar with the body that Lydia found.
After Lydia insisted that she go with him, the two of them headed into the hospital. They made their way to the emergency room where Melissa had a night shift and stopped at the desk where Melissa was waiting for them with some paperwork.
"Hey," she greeted them, leaving her paperwork for another time. "Over here...and if you tell anyone that I showed you this, I swear to God, I will kill you painfully and slowly."
She led off down the hallway that led to the morgue, sneaking into the room before anyone saw them.
"Why do you want to show us a body we've already seen?" Stiles asked her.
"Because you haven't seen everything," Melissa replied as she gloved up and walked over to one of the bodies displayed on the tables. She uncovered the guy that Lydia found at the pool and pointed to his neck. "See this around his neck?" there was a dark bruise that encircled the entire front of his neck. "That's a ligature mark. That means that he was strangled with something, like a cord or rope—"
Stiles furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "Ah, okay, wait a second," he interrupted her. "What kind of werewolf strangles someone? You know, that's not very werewolf-y."
Melissa looked at him proudly. "My thoughts exactly," she confirmed before picking up the kid's head and turning it slightly. "And then there's this."
Stiles' stomach flipped nauseously at the sight of the kid's broken skull and exposed brain. "God, what the hell is that?" he gagged slightly. "Is that brain matter? Yeah, it's brain matter, of course."
Lydia gave him an annoyed look. "Seriously, Stiles?"
He honestly didn't know how she was so calm.
"See the indentation? He was hit in the back of the head, hard enough to kill him," Melissa stated as she carefully set down the head back on the table. "In fact, any one of these things could have killed him. I mean, someone seriously wanted this poor kid dead."
"So, this couldn't have been Boyd or Cora," Lydia assumed thoughtfully. "They wouldn't have tried three different ways to kill someone when they're that out of control."
"Maybe it's just one murder," Stiles suggested. "I mean, maybe it's a random coincidence."
Melissa shook her head. "I don't think it was just one murder."
"How come?"
"Because that boy over there, he's got the exact same injuries," Melissa answered Stiles, pointing to the table to their right.
The three of them shuffled over to the other body. When Melissa uncovered it, Stiles felt Lydia stiffen next to him.
"The M.E. said this one wasn't just strangled," Melissa started talking so Stiles didn't get to look over at the redhead. "Whoever did it used a garrote, which is a stick that you put through a rope and you just kind of keep twisting and—"
Lydia whimpered lightly, cutting Melissa off. Both she and Stiles turned to Lydia and were shocked to see that she was in tears, staring down at the body in horror.
"Lydia, are you okay?" Melissa asked her worriedly; Lydia shook her head. "Oh, my God, did you know him? I'm so sorry, I didn't even think."
She carefully pulled the sheet back over the body.
"I was...I practically grew up with him," Lydia whispered. "Liv and I were at his birthday party the other night. His name is Heath."
Stiles awkwardly patted her back, trying to instill some sort of comfort in her. His own eyes started to sting as he looked back down at the blonde boy on the table. Olivia had told him some of the conversation she and Heath had at his party after he kissed her. He really wished that things didn't turn out this way. He wished that Heath was alive and that he'd be able to drop his asshole friends and feel better. Who made fun of something because they were a virgin anyway? Dicks.
"Okay, we need to call the sheriff because you're a witness," Melissa smiled sadly at Lydia.
Wait, wait, wait...Stiles thought quickly, his mind racing. The guy at the pool was a virgin, he had a purity ring. And Heath was a virgin, too. That couldn't be a coincidence, it was just too major of a detail. And if there were two bodies already, that meant that there was probably another coming.
"Has anyone else been through here tonight?" he asked Melissa urgently. "Any—any other bodies or even anybody missing?"
Lydia and Melissa were understandably confused by his sudden behavior and question.
"Uh, no, no bodies but um..." Melissa hesitated.
"What?"
"Two girls," Melissa told him. "They brought the first one, Caitlin, in for a tox screen and then I overheard that her girlfriend, Emily, just disappeared. I mean, they were out in the woods and—"
"Nobody's found her yet?" Stiles cut her off.
"I don't know."
"Okay, the first one—"
"Caitlin," Lydia supplied for him.
"Right," Stiles nodded at her before addressing Melissa again. "Is she here? Is she here right now?"
Melissa nodded. "I think so."
"Okay, where?" Stiles went to leave the room but Melissa quickly stepped in front of him.
"Okay, okay, wait. Just wait a minute."
"I have to talk to her," Stiles insisted impatiently.
"Why?"
"Because I think I know what's happening."
-
"We weren't doing anything that bad," Caitlin, who was laying in a hospital bed with a sad expression on her face, told Stiles. "I mean, I've camped out there plenty of times."
"Right," Stiles acknowledged calmly. "but why tonight?"
"We wanted to be alone for one night. Emily lives with her mom and I have three roommates," Caitlin scoffed lightly. "Not exactly romantic settings, you know?"
Stiles smiled lightly; he did know. Olivia's aunt was a meteorologist at the local news station, so she was only gone in the morning and early afternoon and Lydia seemed like she was always home, especially during the summer when she was bringing guys home after her dates. It made getting intimate difficult there, so most of the time they hung out at his house since his dad was out at odd hours depending on what shift he took.
"I can relate," Stiles said. "How long have you two been together?"
"Three months."
Stiles nodded in realization. "And you wanted to make it romantic."
Again, Stiles could relate to Caitlin. He had been putting off having sex with Olivia because he wanted to make their first time romantic. Olivia was a virgin and he...was not. He took that swan dive the summer before. It wasn't anything special but he loved Olivia and he wanted her first time to be different than his.
"Yeah, you know, because..."
"Because it was her first time," Stiles finished for her.
Caitlin's face crumpled as tears welled up in her eyes. She turned to him with a pleading expression. "They're gonna find her, right? Aren't they?"
"I hope so," Stiles smiled sadly at her, his heart sinking.
-
-
Both Olivia and Argent met up with Scott and Isaac at the school once they were done setting up the ultrasonic emitters. After Scott and Isaac broke into the school to make sure Boyd and Cora would have a way in, Scott joined them.
"Do you see that?" Argent caught Olivia and Scott's attention, his eyes focused on a firefly only a foot or so in front of them.
Olivia furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. The fireflies in California weren't bio-luminescent, which meant that they didn't light up. It was weird that now, all of a sudden, there were some in Beacon Hills, of all places.
"Yeah," Scott gave him a strange look. "it's a firefly."
"No, no, I know that but..."
"What?"
"It's, uh, very unusual," Argent mused.
"California fireflies aren't bio-luminescent," Olivia informed Scott. "They don't glow."
Scott looked back at the firefly. "Does that mean something?"
Before Argent could answer, a loud howl broke out into the night. They immediately went into action with Argent getting into his SUV and Olivia and Scott settling themselves by the parked school buses.
"They're with Isaac now," Scott informed her quietly as they waited for Boyd and Cora. "and now they're coming this way."
Scott got ready as Boyd and Cora appeared, bending his knees so that he could lunge at them at a second's notice. However, Argent's SUV appeared and he blared his horn, causing Boyd and Cora to turn away from their direction.
"They're heading toward Derek," Scott said needlessly, as Olivia could still see them. To their shock, instead of plowing toward Derek, they jumped onto the roof. "They're not going through the school. They're going over it."
Olivia, Scott, Argent, Isaac, and Derek quickly grouped together.
"The red doors," Argent said urgently. "someone has to get them open."
Derek nodded, volunteering for the task, and started running back into the school.
"Someone has to drive them inside," Olivia pointed out.
"I'll go," Argent volunteered.
"No," Isaac shook his head. "I'm faster."
As he took off with a door blocker, Argent turned to Scott and Olivia. "You two need to get in there and lead them to the basement."
Olivia and Scott ran into the school side-by-side.
"Does this mean I'm your Robin now?" Olivia asked breathlessly as they turned into the English hallway.
"Nah," Scott shook his head. "Come on, Derek's in the math hallway."
They continued running through the school. The closer they got to the math hallway, the more they could hear the growls coming from Boyd and Cora. It sounded like Derek was already fighting with them while he tried to lead them into the basement.
They rounded the corner into the math hallway just in time. When Derek threw Cora to her feet, Scott and Olivia came to a stop next to him when Boyd looked like was going to fight. Trapped, Boyd and Cora would have no choice but to head for the basement.
That didn't mean that they were going to go willingly.
"Come and get us," Derek dared them.
At once, all three of them opened to the door to the basement and ran down the stairs. They went through the door that separated the rest of the basement from the stairs and ran in, heading over to the boiler room, which took up most of the basement and housed supply rooms.
Olivia couldn't see in the pitch-black boiler room but Derek and Scott could. Olivia made sure to stay out of the way as they did something to prepare for Boyd and Cora's appearance. The two out-of-control werewolves entered not long after and a second later, two fire extinguishers were going off.
While Boyd and Cora screeched and grunted from the ice-cold foam being sprayed over them. Olivia quickly went for the steel door. Soon enough, Derek and Scott were coming out after her, allowing the door to be slammed shut and locked into place.
They stood still, with Derek leaning against the door, as Boyd and Cora pounded on it to try to get out.
"Did that actually just work?" Scott asked, shocked.
Derek nodded at them with a relieved expression on his face. "It worked," as he answered, Scott slowly stepped up to the door, concentrating. "What are you hearing?"
"Heartbeats."
Olivia raised her eyebrows. "Two of them?"
"Actually, there's three of them," Scott's eyes widened.
"Who else could possibly in there?" Olivia hissed at him.
"Maybe a teacher," he shrugged.
Derek shook his head and grabbed the lock, preparing to open the door and run inside.
"What are you doing?" Scott asked him.
"Ollie, you need to come in with me. You and I can keep them calm until the sun comes up," Derek told his cousin, who nodded, and then turned to Scott. "Close the door behind us and keep it shut."
Scott gaped at him like he was nuts. "If you guys go in there alone, you're either gonna kill them or they're gonna kill you. And, if you haven't noticed, Olivia's not exactly like us."
"Okay, well, that's obvious," Olivia sighed.
"She'll be fine," Derek insisted, slowly unlocking the door. "Come on."
As soon as he opened the door and slipped into the boiler room, Olivia quickly followed him. Scott did as Derek told him, slamming the door shut and locking it behind them. Olivia followed Derek all the way to the teacher supply room, where Boyd and Cora were waiting for a teacher to come out.
Derek roared at them and they roared back. Olivia stumbled back as they attacked Derek. He fought back, dodging attacks and making blows of his own. Eventually, he had a hold of both of them at the same time, letting them claw at him.
Seeing Derek being ripped apart like that killed Olivia. It was time to get to work; her gaze went purple as she stormed toward the three werewolves as she sent as much calming waves over to Boyd and Cora. She was trying to anchor them and make them come down from their impulses to kill Derek, or anyone, for that matter.
"Boyd, Cora, stop," she carefully placed a hand on each of their backs. "Control yourselves."
Boyd growled viciously and then so did Cora. If it wasn't for the hold Derek had on both of them, they would have turned and possibly rip Olivia into shreds.
Control, control, control, Olivia repeated in her head like a mantra. You have control. Come on, come on, come on.
As if she wasn't already having a difficult time, the whispers started up, too.
Derek, Derek, Derek. Over and over again, her cousin's name was chanted. Derek, Derek, Derek.
She had to do something.
Gathering all of her strength, a scream came out of her mouth. "BOYD! CORA!"
She was shocked at the scream because she hadn't even been trying to do that but it seemed to work. As if a switch was flicked, Cora and Boyd fell unconscious and dropped to the floor. Derek almost went down with them is it wasn't for the fact that Olivia quickly grabbed him and let him lean his weight on her.
He was very beaten up, with horrendous scratches littered all over his whole body. His torn olive-green shirt was mostly brown from the blood he shed. Luckily, despite the fact that he was completely exhausted, the wounds on his face were starting to heal.
A ray of light coming from the window caught Olivia's attention. "The sun came up," she whispered to Derek. "It's over."
Unable to hold Derek's weight anymore, she allowed him to carefully drop to his knees. She still supported his upper body, letting him lean against her, but thankfully, most of his weight was gone.
Scott and Isaac came running into the boiler room only seconds later.
"There's a teacher. I'll take care of her," Derek breathed heavily, still trying to catch his breath. "Get them out of here."
While Scott and Isaac rushed toward Boyd and Cora, carefully picking them up and carrying them out of the boiler room, Olivia asked Derek, "Are you sure? You can go with them and I'll talk to the teacher."
"It's fine," Derek insisted as she helped him to his feet. "You go get some sleep. You have school in a couple of hours."
"Okay," Olivia was hesitant to leave but she was tired, especially after getting Boyd and Cora to control themselves. Derek seemed pretty insistent anyway, so she wasn't going to argue with him. "Be careful."
"I will," he promised her.
Olivia made sure that Derek was steady before pulling away from him. Just as she stepped out of the boiler room, her phone started ringing. It was Stiles.
"Hello?" Olivia knew how exhausted she sounded.
"Hey," Stiles croaked from the other line. "I need you to come to the hospital."
"Why?" she stiffened nervously. "Is it Lydia? Is she okay? Are you okay?"
"We're both fine, Livvy. We're okay," Stiles assured her; she relaxed, relieved that they were safe. "Just please meet me here and bring Scott."
"Okay, I will. I'll see you soon."
-
"So, Boyd and Cora might not have killed anyone?"
Olivia heard Scott but she didn't pay much attention as she sat by Heath's body, trying to control her tears. It was too much death in twenty-four hours and she felt like she was going to suffocate from the grief weighing down her chest.
She knew Heath since she was practically born. Now he was gone and Olivia had been so negative about seeing him again. She hadn't wanted to go to that party but she did and she was glad. She was grateful that she got to see him one last time but it also hurt. She didn't know who did this to him but he already had a hard life. He didn't deserve this—no one deserved this.
"You're gonna wish they did," Stiles said solemnly, letting Olivia grip his hand tightly.
"Why?"
"I'm not exactly sure yet, but...The other girl who was out in the woods, Emily? Eventually they're gonna find her," Stiles stated. "She's one of them. Emily, Heath, the guy that Lydia found at the pool. All three were virgins and they're all gonna have the same three injuries...strangled, throat slashed, head bashed in..."
Olivia sniffed and raised her head to look at him in disbelief. "The threefold death?"
Stiles nodded. "Yeah."
"So, if these aren't random killings, then what are they?" Scott wondered.
"Sacrifices," Stiles dropped the bomb. "Human sacrifices."
(Gif is not mine)
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ididntseeurbag · 4 years
Text
Love weather
You looked at the rain that poured outside your window in your small London apartment, just like it had been for the past few days. You tried to concentrate on the book you were reading, but your mind was elsewhere. Hours from that moment you would be at your favorite artist’s concert, where you would probably have the best time of your entire life. You only wished the rain would stop before you left so you could be there on time and not get slowed down by traffic.
Not being able to concentrate, you closed the book and started preparing, dressing up and packing some stuff in a small backpack. Even though you still had time, you couldn’t stand still, so you took your things and got out in the pouring rain, walking to the bus stop with your -not so big- umbrella covering you. You wanted to take your car, but then you thought that it wouldn’t be such a good idea, because you wouldn’t be able to find a spot to park it when you came back home, so you just decided to take the bus.
The concert was gonna take place in an outdoor venue, so if the rain didn’t stop you were gonna get drenched. You hoped for that to not be the case.
______
It was still raining.
When you got there, your umbrella couldn’t stay still because of the wind, but it stopped blowing after half an hour or so. Luckily, you didn’t have to wait in the street for long before the queue started moving, and since you were very close to the start, you got to stay inside for a while before going outside again to the main arena.
After some time, you went outside again, when the rain had almost stopped and it was softly pouring. It was a big place, but it didn’t surprise you. After all, he was widely known around the world, even more in London, the city where he was born and where he started his career.
You weren’t supposed to run inside the venue, so instead you "quickly walked" to a spot that was in front of the stage, where the only limit between you an the artist would be a metal fence and four or five security guards. Your stomach ached with excitement and nervousness, and the biggest smile spread across your face, showing how much you waited for this time to come.
As you looked around and waited for the place to fill up, you realised that many of the people that came were with their soulmate, noticing the small displays of affection between a lot of couples. You thought they were very lucky, for the time you had left to find your soulmate was running out, and you were starting to lose all hope.
"People find their soulmate by looking at each other’s eyes", you mentally reminded yourself, so you closed your umbrella, not caring about the subtle rain, and started looking at the people around you that came alone -or you believed they did- to see if any of them was the person you were going to spend the rest of your life with, but no one that looked back at you was the one.
Lost in your thoughts, you almost missed his entrance. You and everyone else at the venue started screaming when he came out, his guitar strapped to his back.
You couldn’t believe it, you were at Harrison Osterfield’s concert, something that you would’ve never thought would happen. But there he was, right in front of you, smiling and waving as his hair and clothes got wet by the small droplets of rain.
The music started playing and he started singing, his beautiful and angelic voice and the sound of the guitar coming out of the speakers. You were extremely euphoric, and jumped and sang along to every word of every song of the night.
______
It was very late and raining harder again by the time the concert ended, the only lights coming from the street being the street lamps and the headlights of the few cars passing by in the almost deserted road. Now you were in search of the bus stop where you could take a bus back home, your umbrella barely staying in shape, fighting against the hard rain.
You ran to the stop in hopes of getting there as soon as you could before the last bus came, almost falling thrice along the way, but you were still late, for the only bus you could’ve taken drove away when you were almost there. Groaning out in frustration, you turned around and tried to find another bus stop, but as you were searching for one, your umbrella got ripped out of your hands because of the rain, and you got drenched in a matter of seconds. You sighed as you sat down on the sidewalk, not caring about the rain anymore, since you were already soaked anyways.
Suddenly the rain stopped pouring, or so you thought. You looked up and found an umbrella held above you, only to see that the person holding it was Harrison Osterfield.
It felt like time had stopped as you looked at his ocean blue eyes and he looked back at yours. He gave you his hand so you could stand up, and as your fingers touched, you realised that it was truly happening, that it wasn’t your mind playing tricks on you. No, that was very real.
You had found your soulmate. And it was none other than Harrison Osterfield.
"Need a ride home?" he asked, smiling at you. You smiled back as you answered "I don't know if I can say yes to that, you're probably very tired and should get some rest" you told him. "I'll rest when I get home" he explained, "so, please, can I take you home?". Your smile widened "Well, if it isn’t much of a bother". He chuckled "Trust me, it isn’t a bother at all" he assured you.
Let’s just say that he didn’t leave your house that night when he took you home. Or the one after that.
A/N: aaaand that’s my first «x reader» imagine! It took me a bit to write but I’m pretty happy with it! I'm tagging @tommysparker and @the-panwitch because they both love Haz and the idea came from the gif below that V reblogged so yeah, thank her for this lmao.
______
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, and have a good day wherever you are!
- Maria
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shawnpetermuffins · 5 years
Text
Pictured with You (xi.)
A/n: I literally hate this chapter with everything I have but like okay. It had potential and then my depressed ass wrote this.
Summary: and suddenly Brian has become your middle man.
Warning: just trash writing and it's told in both POVs
Word count: 1.7k (it's really short I'm sorry!!!!)
***
"Dude, you literally suck at this game!" Brian exclaims as I throw the controller on the small table in front of us. "That's the fourth one in a row."
I roll my eyes, "Yeah, I know."
"Another round?" He asks, shrugging his shoulders.
I just shake my head, "I don't think I'm feeling it anymore, bud."
Brian nods and turns the TV off. "Well what are you in the mood for? You want to go to the gym? Or we could go around town and try to find different coffee shops."
I'm scrolling through my Twitter feed while he talks, not really interested in any of the suggestions that he's putting out there.
"Or we could ignore our best friend who is trying to get your mind off whatever's still going on. That's cool too." He claps my shoulder and I sigh, locking my phone.
"I'm sorry, Bri. I just can't stop thinking about that night."
"Dude, what happened there anyway? By the time I got to the dressing room, she was already yelling at you. Nobody's really talked about it after that. We're probably all just scared she'll snap at us the way she did at Andrew. So we don't ask."
I furrow my brows. She did what? "It's too long a story. I really don't want to get into all the details of it. It was bad and I fucked up immensely. It just wasn't at all what I planned."
"Well give me the gist of it. What was this thing about six months?"
I groan and hold my head in my hands, trying to figure out how much I can tell him, how much I can leave out. "Okay, so you already know that we had sex, what, two months ago now." I wait for confirmation even though I don't need to. "And I mean, things were weird for a few weeks after that. Even though they shouldn't have been. We could have been fine, but she left that morning and just stopped talking to me and I don't know - I mean, she told me why she did it, but I still don't understand. I don't understand what would be so wrong if we just started dating now. But she's adamant about not doing this on tour." I run my fingers through my hair. "But anyway, after the Boston show, I texted her and I just said that we should probably talk. So we did."
"Right, which is why you guys were finally able to sit at the same table again. Which, I'll be honest, made me happy. I missed hanging out with that girl."
"Yeah," I mumble. "Me too."
"But you guys were good for a few days. What happened?"
"Well, that night that we talked... she wasn't feeling well. So, we walked to the drugstore. Someone, somehow, caught us out and they took a picture. I don't know, I was kissing her forehead or something and it reached Andrew. He made it a big thing and told me how I can't have a girlfriend right now. Y/n tried to stand up for me, I realize that, by saying she wasn't my girlfriend. But I guess hearing her say it like that to someone other than me just flipped a switch. And I said something I shouldn't have."
"Which was?"
I grunt in frustration, throwing my head back in frustration. "She told Andrew she wasn't my girlfriend. I didn't mean for her to hear it, nor did I mean to say it. But I said something like 'yeah, you've really made sure of that, right?' And… well you caught it from there. She asked me to wait until tour was over and then we said we would try dating. But I've fucked up exceptionally. I wouldn't blame her if she never wanted to date me now."
"Shawn," he shakes his head and bites the inside of his cheek, no doubt searching for the right words. "You're right. What you did was messed up. But I don't think she's over you."
"She said she wouldn't be anything more than my photographer. She doesn't want me, Brian."
"Right now. She doesn't want the relationship right now. Give her time, man. Girls need that."
Yeah, because that's all she's asked of me and I didn't give it to her. "I hate not knowing how to fix this."
He sighs, "look, I know that these feelings have been brewing for a while, but are you sure it's not just a crush? I mean, you're a songwriter, man. You feel things intensely; this could just be a fling."
I shake my head vigorously. "No. No, it's not. I can't- Brian, I've never felt this before." I laugh despite myself. "I know it's gonna sound so crazy stupid, but she's the biggest paradox I've ever known. She's insecure about everything, but loves herself for everything she does. She's warm and comforting and there one minute, and the next acts like she doesn't care what I do. Some days we can spend hours talking about everything, and others I can't even get her to look my way. She confuses me in every goddamn possible way. But I do know this: no matter how fucked we both might be, I am incredibly, undeniably, incoherently, unfathomably in love with her. And… I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do about it now."
My best friend just sits there in silence, trying like hell to find something to say. But no words come out. Because there are no words left. Because there is nothing you can say to a person who is wholeheartedly in love with someone they can't have. You just have to let them be, and let their heart break when the time ultimately comes.
---
I've just finished putting all Shawn's photos onto a flash drive so I could clear my memory card when there's a knock at my door. I furrow my brows because Connor just left about twenty minutes ago, so it shouldn't be him. I just hope and pray that it isn't Shawn or Andrew while I walk to the door. The first thing I see when I look through the peep hole is red hair and I'm relieved.
"Brian, hi."
"Hey," he smiles sheepishly at me. "Can we talk for a second?"
I nod, "Sure. Come on in." I move to the side and he walks into the room, hands in his front pockets, making him appear much shorter than usual. "So, what's up?"
He clears his throat, "It's about you and Shawn."
I freeze. "Umm… o-okay."
I take a seat on the edge of the couch and Brian sits on the coffee table, hands clasped in front of him as he leans forward, elbows resting in his knees.
"I just, I want to know what's going on there. You two obviously have chemistry, it's almost laughable how good together you guys are together."
I feel my cheeks grow hot. "Thanks, I guess."
"What's keeping you away? Is it the fans? Because yeah, I know they're crazy, but you get used to it after a while. The shock of it all doesn't last that long."
"No," I shake my head, "it's not the fans. And its not Andrew, either." Even though it partially is.
"Well if it's not that then… Why aren't you with him?"
"I'd destroy him."
"He'd be into that."
I laugh, not believing that this is actually what Brian and I are talking about right now. "Brian, I'm not right for him. It doesn't matter how much I like him, We're too different."
"Are you?" He clears his throat, "Because I swear I have never seen any two people more perfect for each other. Your souls mesh together like nothing I've ever seen. You need to go for it, if it's what you want."
I shake my head, "It's too hard, Bri."
"Relationships are. But you're literally his photographer. You're always here to spend time with him. You're with him like twenty-four/seven, eight months out of the year."
"For now," I remind him.
It takes him a while, but I see it finally register on his face. "That's why you want to wait for tour to end."
I nod, crossing my arms over my chest. "Yeah."
"He's not going anywhere, you know."
"That's what he says," I look down at my feet. "But what does that matter? He can't stay in one place for long and… I can't ask him to do it, either. He'll eventually grow tired of doing the same old thing, being with the same person for so long. He needs excitement and movement, and I can't give that to him."
"Y/n, he's crazy about you. I've never in my life seen him so smitten with a girl. He would give up anything if it meant he could be with you."
"But I don't want him to give anything up. And I can't handle being in the spotlight. I take the pictures, Brian, I'm not in them. And if I start dating him, I'll see myself plastered everywhere. That's not what I want." I play with the hem of my shirt. "I want people to know my work. Not my relationship status."
"Okay, that's fair. But close your eyes, I want to try something."
I do as told and let out a deep breath through my nose.
"You and Shawn are walking down the street, you have your camera with you and he's got his arm around you. How do you feel?"
I smile at the image in my head, his large hand holding mine over my shoulder, lips against my forehead. My arm is draped around his torso and the sun is basking us in that golden hour light. It doesn't get better than that. "I'm… happy… I feel loved."
When he doesn't say anything for a while, I open my eyes to find him smiling at me. "And if you feel it from him in just your imagination, then how do you feel about him in real life?"
"God," I shake my head. "Do you really want to hear me say that I'm in love with him?"
"Yeah," he nods. "I did."
"Well, now you've heard it, but it doesn't change anything."
"It does," he starts walking toward the door.
"What?" I follow him. "How does it change -"
"Because he loves you too." And he disappears into the hallway, leaving me there staring blankly at the dark wood separating me and reality.
***
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A Slice Of My Love. Chapter 6. Wait, You Don't Think I'm Insane?
Sup children!! (No clementine my brother did not hack onto my Tumblr and write me a whole fucken chapter.) We be existing on the bean bag again. 
The farthest you will most likely see me venture is to my bed. Or a hotel. It depends how long this book goes for. I mean, we’re almost at 10 chapters. I said like 20-30 most likely. Holy shit. I’m almost ½ to ⅓ done with this book. Moving on before I go on more of a tangent than I already have!!
Pairings: Mentions of the glasses gays (it's toned down for this chapter and in chapter 7 it will be turned up to 11), Prinxiety but it’s best friend mode™ that has been preset to 11
Tw: Cursing, Fourth wall breaks (they be back, but not as bad this time), Virgil being insane, Virgil and Roman being both shippers and BFFs, the lack of sleep finally catching up to Virge, Vee thinking he has just proved a major point.
Virgil’s POV
----
Assuming that you’ve read this whole book, you already know that Pat has been overtaken by the powers of the boop™ and has gone upstairs with Logan. Logan never came back downstairs.
Roman was thinking about something. Well, I knew what that something was. You only have to be best friends with Princy for a year and a half to know what he wants to ask you.
“You wanna ask me about Alonso, don’t you?” Roman looked up at me. Then he went back to thinking.
“You know that as long as you don’t accuse me of being insane, you can ask me whatever the fuck you want.”
He looked at me again and then sat down at the table with a bowl of cereal. “Taking advantage of the fact that dad’s upstairs huh?”
The fuck? Dude, we’ve been best fucking friends for over a year now!! If you’re trying to ask me something just ask me!!
“No shit Sherlock.”
He gasped in fake surprise. “How DARE you!! I hate to inform you, but I am the prince, hence I am royalty. You do not speak to royalty in such a crude manner!!”
So the Roman stans are taking mild offense right now. I’m gonna tell you this once and once only. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BEST FRIEND MODE™ HAS BEEN TURNED UP TO ITS PRESET NUMBER OF 11!!
Anyways, Roman stans aside, I laughed hysterically at Roman’s mocked offense. He does a really good impression of what I’d like to imagine offended Roman stans to sound like.
Ok, we’re gonna chuck the Roman stans out a window so I can actually move on from them. I decided that I was going to help Princey away from the conversation that He was trying to move away from. (I was really tempted to say spared.) The extra bitch hasn’t left yet, has it Em? (We are NOT doing this now.) Fine.
“Seeing as you’re trying to change the subject, Pat and Lo earlier.”
His face lit up at the mention of the glasses gays, as we’ve dubbed them.
“Looks like someone needs to get more sleep.” Ro did a crappy impersonation of Lo. I laughed some more.
“And don’t forget the boop™”
Roman started snickering “How did I forget the boop™? Uhh… Well, I only have 2 weaknesses: self-deprecation and affection.”
Roman was crappily imitating Pat now. I knew where Roman was going. I jumped up from my chair and ran over. Then I slowly walked by him and booped his nose.
Roman snickers turned into a bit of giggling, then he continued with our inside joke. “Never mind. I have 3 weaknesses: self-deprecation, affection and whatever Logan just did.”
I laughed even more at Roman’s shitty impression job. “Ok, you’re purposely sucking. I have accepted this challenge of sucking at doing impersonations for this joke.” I cleared my throat for the shittiest Logan Sanders impression in the history of the universe. I heard Roman mumble “Oh god” underneath his breath.
Good. You better be bracing yourself for this shitshow Princey.
“Patton, I believe that Roman and Virgil would call that a” I searched through imaginary vocab cards “boop™.”
We looked at each other and then laughed hysterically. I somehow ended up falling over in our laughter. We stopped for a moment and looked at each other again. Then laughed again, only harder this time.
Through my laughter, I managed “Stop laughing and help me you, stupid bitch!!”
He looked at me in disbelief. “You’re sitting there, on the floor, laughing, but I can’t laugh with you?” He lectured me while still giggling.
“I’m laughing at my own stupidity. Only I can laugh at myself.”
“Whatever. I thought I was supposed to be the dramatic one!”
The laughter had died down quite quickly after that. Roman helped me up off the floor. We walked to the couch and sat down.
Well… more he sat down, I lay down, and he was my footrest. It’s an us thing.
“Do you always have to put your feet on me, Virge?”
I scoffed and looked at him in disbelief. “Do I have anywhere else to put my feet? No. Do I want you to sit on my feet? No. Do I want to sit up? No. Do I want to move to the other couch? No. Are you my prisoner now? Yes.”
He laughed a little more. I could tell that he was thinking that I stole his job of being the dramatic one.
We sat there in comfortable silence. The only thing keeping it from being awkward was the light and playful atmosphere. I have no clue about you guys, but with a best friend that you’re almost always loud with, silence is just weird and awkward. (This is a thing with me and my best friend. Normally we just randomly quote Charlie the Unicorn at that point.) 
I decided that I needed to bring up the inevitable.
“You gonna ask me about Alonso any time today? I already told you. You can ask me. I trust you.”
He thought for a moment. “Umm…. Well…. What does he look like?”
I snickered a little bit. “Wow. You’re THAT scared that you’re going to offend me?”
He didn’t share my laughter.
“Oh, umm…. Kinda like Remy, but without the stupid sign that says sleep. But like Remy mixed with someone else. I can’t put my finger on who though.” Roman hummed in response. Then he got a mischievous grin on his face.
OH SHIT!! ROMAN DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE.
He dared though.
“So is he hot?”
I looked at him with my most serious “Bitch what the fuck?” face and asked him a simple question: “Roman, you’re my best friend and I love you (platonically), but why are you like this?”
He looked back at me with a “Bitch what the fuck?” face as well. “Because I’m the literal embodiment of Thomas’ romance. And as your best friend, I want you to find love.”
“That wasn’t cheesy at all Ramen.” I snickered a little bit at the Ramen part. Roman absolutely HATES the nickname Ramen. But he’s still Ramen.
“Don’t think Ramen’s going to get a reaction out of me. It’s not. I’m totally fine with that nickname now.”
My mind went to Someone Gets Hurt Reprise from Mean Girls as soon as Ro Ramen said fine. “REALLY FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!! GO BE FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEN!!!”
Roman picked up on the reference and finished the song. “And I want my pink shirt.”
I joined him for the extra part that we add every time we sing/listen to that song.
“HE BROUGHT UP THE PINK SHIRT!! AND YOU KNOW THAT SHIT HAS HIT THE FAN ONCE YOU BRING UP THE PINK SHIRT!!!” We laughed hysterically once more.
Once our laughter had died down again, Roman got serious again. Ish.
“Are you gonna tell me if Alonso is cute or not?”
I couldn’t escape this conversation now. “I don’t know. I guess? You know that this isn’t really my department. It’s like 110% yours.”
He snickered a little bit. “So like, when did you notice him?”
I told him the story. “So Pat was lecturing me about how I should be sleeping and all that bs. I wasn’t really listening because of the hypocrite card. I was staring at the counter and he was just sort of chilling there. Existing.”
I looked at Ro to see his “Vee you’re insane” face but it never came, so I continued.
“Then after Pat went upstairs to get Logan. Alonso, at this point in time I didn’t know his name so I was just referring to him as ‘the counter guy’ in my head, started talking to me by quoting Heathers. I was quoting the scene that he started when Pat and Lo came downstairs. They told me that I was being crazy and that there was only a piece of bread. That’s why I thought that you’d think I’m crazy too.”
Roman looked at me. No discernible emotion could be seen on his face. It was kinda scary. He just told me “I don’t think you’re crazy.”
It took me a moment to comprehend that. “You don’t?”
“At least I think that.”
I didn’t fully think out what I was about to do before I did it. That’s very unusual for me. Might I remind you that I was running on two cups short of a full pot of coffee (Pat and Lo drank them) and like 2 hours of sleep?
I lept off the couch, grabbed Roman’s hand and dragged him up the stairs. Once I got to Pat’s room I kicked the door down. We were greeted with the sight of the glasses gays cuddling on Patton’s bed watching a movie.
After I kicked the door down they looked up at me in shock. Still cuddling though, so that’s a bonus.
Pat spoke first. “Virgil, please tell me why you just kicked down my door.”
I could hardly contain my excitement. I moved to the side a little bit and pulled Roman forward. “RoMaN sAyS i’M nOt CrAzY!!!”
Logan looked at Roman “Roman, please explain.”
Roman looked down at his feet. “Well, do I have a story for you guys.”
----
This chapter is the longest by far. The actual chapter part went over 3 pages. That’s a first.
Anywho. I really liked this chapter. It was quite fun to write. However, the next one will be even more fun to write. The glasses gays turned up to 11. God am I gonna have a ball with the next one.
Chapter 7 will most likely be next week. We’re going to Chicago and it’s a 3-hour drive there and back. I write on my laptop which will be left at home, and I don’t have a phone to write on soooo….. I get to listen to Heathers and Mean Girls mass amounts of times though.
                                            The existing internet writing human,
                                                              Em
----
Taglist (if you’d like to be added/removed please inform me): @winterswishing-reblogs @thetomorrowshow @just-some-gt-trash @iixclementine
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shawnpetermuffins · 5 years
Text
Wedding Day Jitters
Summary: This is all she's ever wanted, so why is she so scared?
A/n: I'll be honest, this is probably my favorite thing I've ever written, so let's not let it flop, yeah?
Warnings: fluff, mentions of anxiety. (Not a warning, but it does switch between POVs)
***
I'm in my dress, my hair and makeup is done, and I'm supposed to be walking down the aisle in twenty minutes. So the question is, how the hell am I not ready? My stomach is turning on itself, and the room feels far too hot for this September weather. My breathing is erratic and I have the unnerving feeling that I might pass out if I don't sit down, but the room is crowded with my bridesmaids, both mine and Shawn's mom's, my aunt, grandma, niece, and Aaliyah, and then there's me in this dress that is probably half of my weight, it's so heavy.
I search restlessly for my phone and excuse myself to the bathroom, that overwhelming rush of anxiety starting to consume me, and only one person on this earth can help me right now. "Come on. Pick up the phone, bubba." I whisper softly, feeling my eyes start to brim with tears. I quickly blink them away; I worked far too hard on my makeup to mess it up before the wedding even starts. My fingers press into the side of my ribcage to null the aching pain that's surfacing, which only pushes me further into this downward spiral. I was just about to give up all hope when he finally answers.
"Hello?"
I let out a relieved sigh. "I need you."
"Is this allowed?"
"No," I say, looking down at my dress that now felt tighter with every breath I took.
"Baby? What's wrong?"
"Can you come to my room? I can't-" I take in a shallow breath, "I can't," another breath.
"I'm on my way."
"Hurry?" I beg.
"I'm sprinting. Hey?"
"Yeah?" I press harder into my side.
"I love you."
"I love you," I mumble before I hang up. "Okay, deep breaths," I whisper to myself. Hurry, baby. It's happening too fast.
---
I barely hear my phone over the music the guys have blaring in the room, but the second I catch sight of her face on my screen, I scurry into the hallway. Her voice is low and breathy and I swear my heart starts besting a million times faster, hearing her so scared and anxious. Especially knowing that I'm not with her.
"Hurry?" She pleads.
"I'm sprinting," I say, already heading to her side of the venue. "Hey?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
"Where is she?" I rush out, looking around her crowded dressing room. No wonder she's anxious, if looks could kill I'd be dead.
"Shawn, you're not supposed to be here." Mum comes to my side, trying to push me back out the door.
"She called me," I said, in way of explanation. "She needs me. Where is she?"
"Bathroom," Aaliyah points to the sliding doors on the far side of the room, noticing the urgency and intensity in my face, no doubt. I hope my eyes translate just how thankful I am for her right now.
I cross the room, their eyes all on me as I reach the door. I face them. "Not that I don't love you all dearly, but I need just five minutes alone with her. So can you all just-" I tilt my head toward the door and they, thankfully get the hint. When the last girl finally leaves, I knock softly on the door. "Y/n? Pumpkin, can I come in?"
"Yes," she says through obvious struggles to breathe. I open and close the door behind me and stop in my tracks when I see her. "Wow," I murmur as she stands and wraps her arms around me. "You look... So pretty."
She sniffles, "thanks." Every breath she takes is jagged, so I do all that I know I can and rub soothing circles on her bare back.
"You wanna tell me what's wrong?"
"Are we making a mistake?" She blurts out.
"What?" I hold her at arms length, trying to meet her eyes. "Of course not. Why would you think that?"
"Because things are going so good. What if marriage ruins that?"
I chuckle at her outburst.
"Its not funny, Shawn. I'm serious. I'm scared that once we're married - legally bonded to each other - You won't want me the same."
"Y/n, as far as I'm concerned, marriage isn't any different than what we've been doing the past six years. It says 'Hey, I literally belong to this person forever.' I've been saying that since the moment I met you. Now we just have a paper to prove it." I take her face in my hands. "This won't change how I feel about you. If anything, it's only going to make me love you more. And I already love you so much."
She nods, taking in another deep breath. "I love you too."
"You a little better?"
"Yeah," she says lowly.
"Good," I smile brightly at the beautiful creature in front of me, then check my watch. "Now I have to be at that alter in two minutes. You gonna be good? I don't have to tell everyone we have a runaway bride, right?"
She laughed and it's music to my ears. "I'll see you in five minutes."
I place a gentle kiss to her temple and her eyes flutter shut. "It's you and me forever, baby." I reach behind me and start to slide the door open. "Oh, and one more thing."
"Hmm?" She looks up at me.
"You are the most beautiful bride, and I cannot wait to take that dress off you later tonight." I wink and slide out the door.
"Dude, where did you go?" Brian takes me by the shoulder and rushes me to the doors of the alter.
I shrug, "My girl needed me."
Matt smiles at my answer, "You are so whipped for her."
"You think we'd be standing here right now if I wasn't? Man, I would have married her in a courthouse the day she turned eighteen if I had had the chance. But this, god, when you see her, you'll believe the wait was well worth it too."
---
"And for the first time ever as husband and wife, I give you Mr. And Mrs. Shawn Mendes!"
Shawn walks me into the reception, holding tightly to my waist. Everyone's clapping and cheering; I'm a little overwhelmed, not gonna lie. But having my husband next to me was keeping my nerves at bay.
"If our couple would please make their way to the floor for their first dance."
"What song did you pick, bubs?" I hold my hand out for him to take, my other hand rests on his shoulder, his on my hip.
"You'll see." I listen to the beginning strums and smile despite myself.
She's a yellow pair of running shoes. A holey pair of jeans. She looks great in cheap sunglasses. She looks great in anything.
"Did I do good?" He asks, leaning closer to my ear.
I nod, "You did perfect. God, I could not love you more than I do in this moment."
He chuckles, "just wait until you see what I have planned for the honeymoon."
She a fighter when she's mad, and she's a lover when she's loving. And she's everything I've ever wanted. Everything I need.
"I love you, y/n."
I talk about her. I go on, and on, and on. 'Cause she's everything to me.
"I love you. His lips find mine for a brief second before I start grinning so much that he's only kissing my teeth.
---
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Shawnmendes I'll love you forever.💍
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