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gwndolnfrankln · 2 years

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your beauty never ever scared me - eddie munson x reader

part ii of i'm not in love

🎧.˳⁺⁎ summary: unfortunately, you and eddie haven't been talking for months since the incident, but lately fate has other plans when he went missing the morning after you saw him.

⋆ pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader

⋆ warning: 18+ mdni, exes to lovers, fluff, mutual pining, angst, slight swearing, slow burn, a lot of yearning, make-up sex, p in v, grinding, half-assed dialogue, miss author loves to describe her surroundings a little too much

⋆ wc: 7005

⋆ a/n: thank you sm for reading my first eddie fic! i truly appreciate the support from the previous one, and as promised, here's part 2 ♡ my writing may got a little rusty since i got busy, but i hope you'll enjoy it as much as i had fun writing it :> (taglist still a work in progress)

“We’re in the Forest Hills trailer park in east Roane County. We don’t have a lot of details as of now, but we can confirm that the body of a Hawkins High student was discovered early this morning. Police have not released the name although we are told they’re currently in the process of notifying the family.”

With a mustard-yellow envelope in hand, your local school’s name blared from the compact tv, which surprises you from the latest. The flickering lights of the old printing shop made the place seem like a sullen hospital hallway, other than the presence of sunlight creeping in through the screen entrance doors. The news was always on from the small television set, stationed far high up against the gray striped walls. You've become a frequent visitor to the shop—befriending other photographers and travelers who needed physical prints from their out-of-the-country expeditions. It’s a welcoming shop despite other unpleasant aspects, but once the news is on, everyone gathers to listen in.

“We also don’t know yet if foul play was involved. But whatever has occurred here is sure to touch a nerve across Hawkins.”

“Must’ve been Munson's kid for sure." You snap your head back at the owner, who's busy stamping piles of business papers behind the counter. You plop your coin purse down on the wooden surface, separating silver coins from the bronzes. “How much?” The disgruntled tone in your voice receives a snark, which slows him down from important paperwork to check the number of coins you brought out so far.

“Hey, aren’t you a senior from that school? Then you might've seen Eddie from Forest Hills. Y’know, the one on the news.” Your ears flare up in heat at the careless assumption. Warmth boils into the hearth of your stomach when you slam your camera bag on the counter, making other customers perk up at the sudden aggression. “How much of your bickering do I have to take before you let me pay for my photos, Mr. Owens? If you need my opinion about Munson’s kid, then so be it. I’ll tell you one thing.”

Oh, where to start? At the top of your head, you could only remember the little things. The small intricate details of his chaotic, yet wildly interesting canvas; all splashed in his favorable paints of red and black. Eddie used to draw on you under oak trees. Instead of carving his initials onto the barks of a tree, he would rather write his name messily on your forearm.

The tingling sensation was vividly unforgettable from the marker’s tips, to his gentle fingers guiding your skin to mark you his special spot. You have the keys to his sacred collection of metal-rock records, which he doesn't mind; sometimes, he'd stick pink post-it notes onto your favorite Ozzy albums to play the tunes extensively before you bother to knock on his bedroom door.

The same Munson kid who'd read you lore books in his bed, all cuddled up beside you with his curls tangled up around your shoulders. His showcased dimples, his hoarse morning voice, and the soft kisses between your laughs. You applied for the first four shifts on Scoops to secretly buy him a camera for his new club poster, which you've quit after you saved up enough money to purchase a standard model at Starcourt. You kept the package stashed inside your closet, waiting for the day to witness the gleeness on Eddie’s face when it’s finally his.

From the ground up, the soles of your feet weigh heavier on your legs as the shop’s customers wait for an outburst, yet guilt turns down the anguish too quickly.

Before Mr. Owens opens his mouth, you set down a random assortment of coins then storm out past the door’s angelic chimes, getting lighter on your feet as you lead yourself far away from the shop. As you unclasp the parking chains of your bike, the photographs fall out of the half-open envelope, letting most of the photos scatter clumsily on the rough gravel. You curse under your breath when you tie the stack around an elastic band, but paused when Eddie’s photograph faced you on top of the others; the monochromes perfectly forming a certain clarity to his Hellfire shirt and the curls on top of his hair. As much as you want to study his face, you instinctively press the picture down the side pockets of your jeans, then carefully place the envelope inside the bike basket before you take off on the long winding road.

The pedals of your metallic bike screech on the rocky pavements, the pitch hurting your ears as you set your foot down on the road to halt the tires. The quietness of the streets doesn’t feel right to you. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you want to stop by the movie store to listen to Steve bicker for hours rather than the news at home. Before Starcourt mall was destroyed out-of-the-blue, you used to work shifts with them at Scoops, fondly reminiscing the times when you ate left-over ice cream with Erica between breaks, witnessing Steve’s flirtatious customer services with Robin, and the ridiculous navy blue sailor uniforms you have to wear for work. You stop in your tracks when you catch sight of the familiar colored bikes parked in front of the family video store. You perk your head up towards the glass-paneled windows to see your previous co-workers, alongside Dustin and Max busily typing on a computer.

“I never said that!”

“Seriously, you guys, maybe on a Monday you can play around, but it’s Saturday. It’s our busiest day. Oh hey, Y/N.” The bells of the entrance door jingle behind you as you lean on the counter, helping Robin arrange a variety of sci-fi VHS tapes. “Robin, I empathize but this cannot wait.” Max nods towards you while Dustin mindlessly scribbles on his cork board. “Aren't you supposed to be at school right now?” A teasing smirk forms at the corners of your lips as Steve frowns disappointedly at the intrusion.

From the counter's bottom shelves, Robin places a laminated sign on the registrar beside you, muttering a small thank you when you finish setting up the tapes. “Calling Eddie’s friends is an emergency?”

Unease seeps into the air you breathe, taking whatever little strength you have from the printing shop into nothing. Every fragment of the case reminds you of the life you used to know—the shot of his trailer park on the tv, the association of the Munson name, and now what seems like an Eddie investigation case instigated by Dustin. Was it all just a coincidence? A really, really bad one?

“Can you fill them in while I do this?” Now it was Dustin’s turn to peak frustration, facing Max as she shifted her gaze to the three of you, waiting for a thorough explanation. “Fill us in on what?” Out of instinct, the knuckles of your fist pop with your clenches; your heart palpitates aggressively inside your chest. “Please, Max.” You whisper worryingly, completely frozen in your spot.

Keyboards clackle through the overbearing silence as Max recounted yellow police tapes, Chrissy Cunningham, and Eddie Munson himself, who fled from the scene this morning. Dustin asks the four of you to look into his close contacts and call every name on the list. A few minutes later, you manage to write their names on the back of crumpled receipt scraps, then dial their numbers on one of their work telephones—most of them unavailable.

Hesitancy hinders you from saying his name on the first phone call. Hearing yourself say it for the first time curls the tiny hairs on your skin. But one phone call after another, your internal fears creep away from your genuine words; the callers asked in some instances if you’re a close friend of his rather than a sick prank call, which is a definite plus. “Hey, guys, I might have a lead.” Everyone turns back on their seats, lending their ears to hear what Max has to say. “Apparently, Eddie gets drugs from some guy named Reefer Rick, and sometimes Eddie crashes there.”

After an interesting argument between the two friendly gentlemen, Robin was able to find Reefer's account when she checked the computer systems to track down the infamous drug dealer. “That’s out by Lover’s Lake.” The satisfaction on everyone’s faces was a feat in itself; a drizzle of hope. The tightness inside your chest eases momentously, yet bits of dread pinch you still as a board. “It’s a perfect place to hide.” Robin stood from her seat and went to look for her keys, while Dustin and Max walked around the counter to grab their bags. When the last customer exited the store, Steve and Robin made some last-minute shelving checks before each and every one of you took off to Reefer Rick’s house accompanied in Steve’s car.

The mast of darkness enveloped your line of sight except for their flashlights, slashing the dusty particles in the air. Frayed leaves crunch under the soles of your sneakers, while you tower behind Robin, who was busy checking behind the foggy windows of the house. You left them to examine the rustling sounds behind the bushes, until your eyes caught sight of the shack near the lake, seemingly abandoned in its rusty state.

“Hey, guys?” Max’s light blinded your eyes as you turned around, the other three walking towards you. The shy winds cradled your skin, seeping through the thin fabrics of your flannel when your figures neared the shack.

Everything about this place felt like it was pulled out of a camp horror movie, or maybe you were just too scared of the dark. “Hello? Is anyone home?” Her voice permeated the large empty space as she walked in, mostly filled with boat equipment and carpentry tools. You observed with great caution, careful not to touch anything in the oily containers. “What are you doing?” Dustin reprimanded when Steve stabbed a random tarp with his oar, the sound of scratched plastic almost caught you off-guard. “He might be in here.” Steve kept on jostling the rowing stick onto the blue tarp, and you swear you could've taken that thing from his hands right now.

“Don’t worry. Steve will get him with his oar.”

“I know you think you’re being funny, Henderson. But considering almost everyone has nearly died a hundred times, personally, I don’t find it funny in the slightest–” In a flash, metal chains clanged the ceiling’s grasp as you stood back, accidentally tripping on a bucket of half-lidded paints, staining your clothes in the process. Quick, heavy footsteps thumped loudly on the wood while Robin wrapped her arms around you, helping you get up from the red puddle beneath you.

You sway unsteadily in her arms; utter shock loomed over your bare features as familiar patches caught your line of sight. A terrible sound reverberated through the steels of the shack when Steve's back was slammed hard against the wall, his chin cornered with a shard. “Woah, woah, woah, Eddie! Eddie! Stop!” Dustin’s shouts hindered the attack. Steve was squirming under his hold, ready to defend himself at any given moment. “It’s me. It’s Dustin. This is Steve. He’s not gonna hurt you, right, Steve?” Eddie casted Steve a murderous look while he nodded. “Steve, why don’t you drop the oar?” Steve groaned when Eddie clenched his fists on the shirt material, the oar clattering loudly to the ground.

“What are you doing here?” The tremble on his final word heightened your drawing sadness, the firmness in his voice faltering slowly. “We’re here to help.” Robin spoke up beside you, which made Eddie turn around. Despite the growing panic that crossed the room, his brown eyes managed to find yours in a magnetic instant, his gaze troubled and confused. “Eddie, these are my friends. You know Robin from band.” Robin awkwardly imitated her trumpet-playing just to get the picture of what she does on the bench. “This is my friend Max. The one who never wants to play D&D.” Max quickly waved with her flashlight in hand; worrying looks streaked her face as she watched Steve struggle under Eddie’s grasp. The short introductions seemed to fly past him, his unreadable stares lingered on your skin like a cord. “And Y/N, our school’s photographer. She was with us the other night."

"Eddie, we’re on your side. I swear on my mother! Right, guys?” All heads nodded in unison, including Steve’s, who was still held at a critical point. The suspenseful seconds washed away when Eddie finally let go of Steve, then slowly walked towards the other side of the room to lean against the wall, shaken and terrified. The messy tangles of his hair, the unkemptness of his clothes, and traces of his fear weakened you to the bone. Such grief binded you to him, an unspoken mutuality that you cannot explain for the simplest of causes. The same laid-out causes you’re afraid to face; the same old half-spoken truths that wreaked havoc on your miserable fates. Unfortunately, the deepest cuts are still there, distantly shared in all its glory, bleeding for all the times you’ve spent apart.

“We just want to know what happened.”

“You won’t believe me.” Eddie’s sniffles broke down while everyone gathered around him, careful not to get inside his personal bubble. Your shoes screeched on the pattern of paints you left behind as you stood closely, sharing this newfound silence.

“Try us.”

The winds howled at the heavy curtains flinging past the white edges of the shack’s small windows. Everything you knew about the town, the world, changed at a shocking note. The horrors of the recounted scene paralyzed him; Chrissy’s death now a daunting reminder of his cowardice. All you could do was nod and listen, clinging onto every word.

You both shared a look while he described the grotesque encounter, hoping that he’d get the comforting message through the lenses of your eyes. “I…I didn’t know what to do, so I…I ran away. I left her there.” You shifted your gaze, not knowing what to make of this. There was a certain willingness in you, a plea to switch places with him, take his pain as your own. The sight of his aching guilt unfurled your inner clenches, fist deep into the ugly remainders of the past. You kept to yourself for the whole evening while Dustin explained the ultimatum of their situation, which surprisingly wasn’t the first time it has ever happened to them. You and Eddie were the only ones who didn’t know much of it, unaware of the interdimensional beings that roamed somewhere in their world.

“Someone should stay with Eddie. Guard the place till morning.” Robin groaned at the suggestion, who abruptly stopped before the exit way. Arms crossed and a few meters away, Steve sent you a knowing look, a signal you've familiarized yourself with since you knew him.

You and Steve have very similar childhoods: neglected, half-spoilt, parents on business trips and a home mostly occupied for rowdy parties and formal gatherings. That’s a look of a guy who wanted you to stay; a friend who used to be so jealous of your precious freedom, now taking it as his perfect advantage. “I have plans for tonight, Henderson. And Robin has curfew, which leaves…” This was not the first time you wanted to punch him. Steve is an achiever with his wrong timings. But they didn’t know. Still, it’s a bad idea. You couldn’t imagine yourself staying the night with Eddie in Reefer Rick’s house, after everything he’s been through. He loathes you, and he definitely should. You want him to hate you, so you could stop—

“Fine, I’ll stay. You guys better be careful, okay?” All your personal deflections sinked down miraculously, reminding yourself that not everything revolves around your own thoughts, and maybe, just maybe, this could be a decent step forward. To what, you don’t know yet. After a few pats on the back and a couple of goodnights’, you walked back to the quiet shack with your head hung low, so low that someone could mistake you for a Christmas candy cane. The door creaked scarily as you pushed it open, your careful eyes darting to Eddie’s figure, who was tucked under the uncomfortable tarp, lying down sideways on the boat. His eyes were puffy red, his cheeks clearly dried up from the tears. You cautiously placed your duffel bag on the nearest makeshift table, putting aside the crumpled-up cans and sneaker bars on its tethering edges.

“Did you forget something?” You turned around to see Eddie sitting on the edge of the boat, slurping his new can of beer. His fixated stare had a clutch on you, your guarded front crumbling to cements. “No. I’m staying over.” You swear you could hear him gulp loudly, then to make matters worse, choked and coughed on his drink. The colors of his face turned beet-red when he placed his can on another indescribable pile. He clapped his knees when he stood up from the edge, and slowly made his way towards you, eyeing the red stains on your shirt. “It gets really cold past windy hours. We should head back to the house.”

You’ve never been inside Reefer Rick’s home before, but it seems like Eddie knew the place so well as much as his own. As soon as you walked inside, the constriction of your arms mellowed with the homely warmth, despite the history of the house. A loud thumping sound from the other room pulled you out of your thoughts, making you run towards the source. “Shit, shit, shit.” Eddie hopped on one foot while he placed the right amount of pressure on the other one to numb the pain, whispering more curses under his breath once he felt your presence kneeling close to him.

"This is a nightmare." Eddie winced at the searing pain from his foot, closing his eyes as you untangled his shoelaces to loosen the tightness of their rubber straps. He's terribly overwhelmed—intoxicated from the number of beers he had drank; adding to that Dustin's greatest revelation ever known to mankind. Your fingers slightly brushed his freezing knuckles once you took his shoe off, wiggling it easily off to the side.

"Why are you helping me?" His voice sighed through his curtain of dark curls, the air from his direct lips punctuating all your senses at once. You glanced up at him with your mouth slightly apart, taking in his daring brown eyes, the faded rashes from his cheeks and every delicate crease lining his rough features.

"Because you're hurt." You bit your tongue before you could say any more. Eddie slouched in his position; his shoulders stooped smaller than an inch as he reached for his toes. “I’m fine now. Thanks.” It took him a few seconds to stand, struggling to bend his heel. “Wait, let me just.” Your hand managed to wrap itself around his leather sleeves to firmly guide his balance. With no other choice, he accepted your offer and was finally able to hold his ground. In a fleeting moment, you noticed Eddie glancing at your fingers for a bit longer than usual, until he willfully pulled it back to his side.

“I…you should…there are clothes upstairs. You better change.” Before you could answer him, he swiftly maneuvered to the other side of the house, leaving with multiple questions running through your mind all at once. You don’t know how to feel. In some parts, you feel angry for deceiving him with your cut-off reasons. Other times, his closeness has washed you anew, despite how miniscule or scarce it's been shown.

The stairs creaked under your feet as you stomped on the steps, tiptoeing around unlaundered socks clinging on the corners of the stairwell. You made sure to close the windows and shut the drapes before you change in one of the unsettled rooms. The chilly air tickled your skin, the coolness rubbing onto you like smooth fragrant soap.

You took off your shirt and noticed that the paint solidified itself onto the fabric; the dampness no longer felt. As you rubbed off the flakes with your thumb, your bare arms tingle and flush at a certain presence in the room, making you look.

Your bra tightly wrapped itself around your plumper regions, flustering on his watchful gaze. You never thought it possible that the swelling heat would graze itself with the coldness of your shoulders; an arson of confliction and raging want. Your body screams for his length, his space, his missing piece; an incomplete puzzle you gracefully memorized by heart.

He couldn’t move in his place, paralyzed in a Medusa-like trance, carefully taking in the laces of your bra straps, the wisps of hair tickling the nape of your neck, and the slow heaving motions of your chest. Your numb fingers accidentally dropped the shirt on the floor, which made you pick it up; the denims of your waist tightened around the archness of your back. Unbeknownst to you, Eddie can’t stop looking at the pads of your bra, perfectly cupping your breasts like a housewarming basket. You coughed once you finally retrieved the fallen fabric from the floor, then hurriedly put on the blue button down from the bed as Eddie returned normally.

The silver rims of his watch glistened as he placed a stack of folded blankets on the edge of the mattress, whiffing the strands of hair out of his face. The doe outlines of his eyes waited for you to finish buttoning up, before he could start hearing himself. “I’ll be sleeping in the room next to yours. If you need anything, just…” You felt the creases of your cuffs bend as his gaze traveled down the plumpness of your lips to the shining flecks in your eyes. “Knock."

His adam's apple bobbed through the skin of his throat while he played with one of his rings, then glanced at you for a slither of a moment, before he turned his back on you to leave. The door was slightly ajar when he left, spiking your fallible tendency to take it as a secret hint; a hidden letter on a scrabble. You sighed as you pulled the blankets over your head, concealing whatever door your delusions barged into.

Even when you’re covered in the most comforting of quilts that any man in the cold could have asked for, it can’t shield you from the fact that you don’t want him to be alone. Your sides longed for its match, an exerting piece, willing to complete you like a sacred locket. It pains you to see him that way, to see him try to be so strong for everyone and seamlessly make sure that you feel comfortable around the house.

As his walls are crumbling down, all you could do was just sit there and watch like a knight who can’t do anything to fight off his dragons. Since the moment you saw him, defeated and ashamed, you want to take him in his arms and hold him until the entanglements of his suffering looped off its clots. It’s not enough that you’re just here. You have to do something, anything to be there for him.

The worthless feeling tossed and turned inside you, churning your organs like whipped dough. Before you know it, your legs brushed the sides of the bed, then you paced out of the room with your blanket in hand. Every step gets heavier and heavier as you near the room, but your insistence didn’t stop you from trying. Your knuckles knocked on the door’s timbres while you tiptoed, your feet getting sweaty from the nerves.

In less than a second, Eddie opens the door, and you rush inside without a word. The moonlight cascaded the lines of your shadows as you stood there, your shoulders raised and your breaths quickened. The feelings you tried to conceal broke from its cages when you turned around to face him, his beautiful brown eyes widening at the tears streaming down your cheeks.

His brows furrowed in contemplation as he watched you curiously, checking the door’s metal knobs then onto you in passive strides.

"I can't sleep."

"What are you doing?"

No one hears the other with the simultaneous blurt-outs, which later proceed through the tunnels of silence. Your voices echoed the room even without the possibility of its reach to do so, with the walls not being high as it is. "I can sleep in the other room if you want."

"That's not what I want." The lump on your throat hinders you from speaking in a normal manner. Mentally, you're holding onto a steady rail with the height of your emotions, but unfortunately it's too difficult for you to even look at him; to be near his presence; to be seen by him. "I'll sleep downstairs, then."

"No, stay." Eddie stops twisting the door knob in his hand, frozen in his spot. His stare was still avoidant, yet the sides of his body were awaiting more of an answer. "You can sleep here. Pretend I'm not even in this room, or any place at all in the house." The flash of hurt in Eddie's eyes made you want to roll your words back at the tip of your tongue and swallow it in the depths of your throat. You hate to admit it—and you swear you'd rather go back in time to change it—but you've implied another thing to what you said.

"Well I'm not sleepy either, so." After a quick glance from his watch, he locks the door and waits for you to go to bed, but you don't. All you can hear is the ticking of the clock, the brushing trees surrounding the lake house, and the tiny cracks beneath your toes. Whatever strength you mustered outside inflated in an instant, melting like the icicles under the summer sun. You don't know how to act around him anymore, or imagine yourself in the same room as him. Eddie knows you so well—too well in fact—that you won't come here uninvited without an important reason. The fate of this unfinished business is up to you now, and how he's going to handle it will be etched into your dreams forever.

“I’m not here to ask for forgiveness. I don’t deserve it.” The lids of his eyes flutter down to his feet when you speak; your voice raspy yet firm in truth. “But I want you to listen to me. I need you to listen, before…you try to run away from me again.” Memories from last summer rolled into the screens of your mind like an old camera reel; every scene heart-wrenching and scarred like a broken mirrorball.

“Please, don’t start.” Eddie tears his eyes away from the floor to look at you, his hurtful expression displayed massively.

"When can you let me? Everyday, I visit your trailer and you're not there. I go to school, I see you and you brush me off like a stranger. Is this really how it's going to be from now on between us? Merely strangers?"

You can feel your crumpled heart curl to see him so stoic; unreachable and tall with his spiky walls of avoidance.

"Okay, fine. Now's your chance. Look, my day hasn't been going well for me lately. And I appreciate your sincerest participation to stay with me today, but please, please, please do not bring that up."

"You barely let me finish five sentences."

"Well I don't want to hear it, okay! I don't need to hear any more, because I know." Eddie clenches his fists, then lets it go shakily to calm himself. What could he have known? He's no mind reader, yet you're finding it hard to shake away the fraying nerves engulfing your entire body. "You don't know. It's not all that simple. No matter how hard I try, it still sounds so stupid." Stupid is just an above-the-surface term to the careless path of thought candy you left behind. You'd rather throw yourself to some pack of hungry wolves than be in the dumbest situation you unknowingly put yourself in.

"No, no, you're right. It's stupid. But you know what's even crazier? I used to believe that there's…more to this. I don't know about your intentions about the whole thing, but I bet it's never similar to mine." His staggering words struck you like arrows in a battlefield, and you can barely dodge every single one of them without a breather. The realization of his hidden insecurities flowed out of his tiny box and into the clutch of your hand; not having an ounce of an idea on whether or not to keep it in your palms or stash it somewhere else.

"Then tell me." You take a step forward as your curious gaze pinned itself onto the brown streaks of his irises. Your footsteps wake his tired features and his shoulders straighten in a jagged line when you stand a few feet away from him. Your shadows mingle with his as the dotted lights of the moonlit sky brighten in all its celestial beauty, wishing that the night will end in much better terms.

"I see the way everyone looks at me, and I know all my precious nicknames to heart. The freak who repeated high school twice, the Kirk Hammett wannabe, that one scary dude who heavily worships the devil. My friends would tease me about you, and it has always been 'poor you dating ugly old me'. And deep inside, I know you're ashamed to be with a guy like me. To be smothered with my ugliness, to be with a loner who plays guitar in the middle of the woods, to be with a guy who couldn't tie his shoelaces properly.” You kept your mouth shut, not knowing what to say. Your quiet reaction kept him going.

“Deep in my bones, I hoped for more than just a summer thing. We agreed for an expiration date, but I didn't…I don't want summer to end for us. Never at all." Time seemed to stop with every pouring word, coated with the ultimate belief that only says one thing: he wants this as much as you do.

“All this time, you've been avoiding me because of what the town thinks of us? Well, to hell with them.” His eyes flickered into yours, carefully releasing his tightened fist to center his attention on you. Focused yet bewildered, he examines the shine of your hair, your slightly quivering lips, and the folds of the blue button-down loosely hugging your waist. Breath against breath, you inhaled through the compacts of your chest, letting your anger flow down into a peaceful stream.

"Look, I was also scared. I'm just…used to being treated invisibly by people I know. I barely see my family for the holidays, my friends don't care about me, and my past relationships weren't entirely the best on the scales of 'healthy'. But with you, everything just tipped over for me." You exhale through your lungs when you finish, but the discontinuity urges you to speak more. Let it all out.

"You see me like no other. You spoil me with your special post-it notes, the small private concerts in your room and your sheets of handwritten lyrics that reminded you of me. The little things..you just..you're perfect. There was never a time when I felt scared of you. You never ever scared me, Eddie. You're too beautiful to even fit the category.”

You’ve never called him beautiful before; never through a spoken word nor from a small written paragraph. The sound ringed and reverberated in the most natural of notions; not from the voices in your head, nor from any intrusive thought, rather from the farthest extent of your feelings. The quiet distance pulled you into him, a vacuum of bodies questioning the unreadable space you immersefully share.

A small tear trickled from the wetness of your lids when you blinked in his touch. His calloused palms cup the wetness of your cheeks, occupying your vision with his blurry thumb. Your fingertips travel the construction of his shirt, caressing the warmth of his linen folds.

In a flicker of a moment, you tilt your head slightly as he gently grazes his fingers to the nape of your neck, his features softened. “You think I'm beautiful?” He whispers thoughtfully, completely enamored with the crinkle of your eyes when you conjure up a pleasing smile. The shadows of his hair envelop your line of sight as you examine his collarbones closely, tugging the fabrics of his shirt bashfully towards you. Your daring eyes locks into his, almost like a secret confirmation, drawing him near you in a ready invitation.

Nothing in the world could ever prepare you beforehand when you feel his lips crash into yours, his plumpness blending your chapness. His dark curls tickle your face when he sinks deeper into your ravenous kiss, gently nibbling on your bottom lip. The momentum was extraordinary, and you missed every rhythm with so much longing. You grin against his toothy smile when he steadily pushes you to the bed, covering your whole waist with his large palms.

“God, I miss this.” He mutters in between kisses as your hands sneak under the hems of his Hellfire shirt, making him shudder blissfully under his breath. He bites onto the side of your neck as a subtle punishment, then licks on the same spot to lessen the ting. Eddie pulls back to marvel at his handiwork designating the base of your neck, showcasing his wonderful set of cheek dimples you love so much. You gently press your thumb around the lobes of his ear, brushing the tangles away from the sides of his face. Your knees graze the hardened fabric between his pant legs, carefully playing with your movements while he grunts against your ups and downs.

He stares at you disappointedly when you stop, but as soon as you straddle on top of him, he grins widely like a child in Charlie's chocolate factory. Your fingers grasp his shoulders as he unzips your jeans in a flourish, then slowly slides his light fingers between the hip of your panties. His hungry lips left your jaw, leaving a trail of kisses down to your gasping collarbones and the line of buttons covering your eagerness. Your nipples tingle as he unbuttons your top then pecks the warm skin underneath your breasts, softly caressing the other with his rough palms.

His teases throw you in a whirlwind of pleasure and havoc, completely ruining your well-moderate facade for the whole evening. Careful not to break his legs, you pull your denims down to your ankles, which he tossed in the corner of the room. With a starving look in his eyes, his hands squeezes your bare thighs, then slowly sneaks his ringed fingers under your panties to clench your ass cheeks. You groan against his ear, thrilling you to bounce on top of him, his length throbbing under your wetness. “Give it to me, Eddie.” Your breath fan warmly against his upper lip while you unbuckle his belt, the coldness of the metal channeling your inner impatient wants. He leans his forehead against yours as he lays you down on the sheets, kissing you passionately on the lips before he hurriedly takes off his garments, the sight intensifying the indescribable heat going through your body.

A flock of butterflies dances inside you when you catch sight of the tattoos stationed on his chest, the light hairs on his forearm and the feel of his rough happy trails against your flabs. The warmth of his cock strokes your half-open folds, his pinkish tip slithering under your sensitive clit. Faded stars cascaded your vision once he finally slid his hardness inside of you, your nails pinning his upper back.

Your legs wrap itself around his waist as he slowly shoves his cock in your tightened grasp, your mind going hazy from the largeness. The pain of the surprise all went away when his fingers intertwined yours, leaving sloven kisses on the crook of your neck down to your shoulder. His head of hair nuzzles the pillow close to your ear as his delicious pattern of slams continues to rise above its peak.

It’s incredible how every push tears you apart in a good way. A shameful gasp left your lips as his thumb flicks your clit in circular motions, while his cock monstrously devours your insides. Beads of sweat trickle down your forehead when your inner thighs stretch at his extensive motions, getting bigger than the next. He raises his head to look at you, grinning from ear to ear, happily taking in the pleasurable strokes on your face.

“Cum with me, okay?” In between breaths, he gently places his calloused palm on your cheek, his hips quickening against the crinkled sheets. You stare back at him and nod, feeling the pressure of his cock harden stickily around your walls. His tangled curls tumble down the space between your fingertips while you reach out for him, setting in the downcast flutter in his eyes. He deeply groans at how his cock effortlessly glides and withdraws from your pussy; a slippery slope that’s impossible to contain himself with.

Like a force of lightning, he leans his chest forward, pouring himself on your lower abdomen and splaying his cum on your stomach. Quickly, he bounces out of bed and retrieves some tissues from the bathroom to clean you up. You sat up limply from the bed to take the tissues, but instead he wipes the fresh cum off your chest with great concentration. You’ve never seen him behave so nervously before. He was patting you dry like he spilled coffee all over your most favorite shirt.

“I don’t know what went over me.” He chuckles softly as he crumples the last tissue in his hand, throwing it in a bin closer to the door. You let your hip rest on his bended knee, calming the nerves coursing through his trembling figure. “You don’t have to know.” A small, reassuring smile creep the corners of your lips, resting your palm on top of his knee.

A gust of wind sweeps the flailing orange curtains, silkily brushing your skin like smooth ribbon. “All I know is,” He whispers softly in the small space between the two of you, your bent wrist kept in close contact with his fingertips.

“You find me beautiful.” The teasing hint in his voice liquifies your insides, his restlessness fading with your inability to look at him straight. His coffee brown eyes follow the direction of your fingers on his curly ends, then the plumpness of your thighs. “The prettiest.” He lunges forward with his arms wrapped around you, crushing you in a passionate kiss. Carefully, he pulls his arms away from the pressure of your back, then rests his elbows on the disorganized sheets, caging your vision with his heavy fixture.

Every little thing he does transfixes you to a thrilling paralysis. Nature fades at the sight of him, surpassing your high observant tolerances for your surroundings. He’s like a blinding light, the afternoon sun, and a white flashlight in a darkened room.

Most of your days started to revolve around him the moment he shone on that stage with his band in middle school—battling his heart out to the music and the good impression of the judges. The admiration has always been about him, and he doesn’t know that you did for a very long time. The gods of fate swept at your feet when you encountered him on the second week of freshman year, pinning Hellfire recruitment posters on the school’s cork board.

It used to be a silly little crush, ridiculous with no strings attached, but through the passage of time, you realized that it was more than what you believed it to be. You cradled into his chest, taking in his familiar scent and the steady, heaving motions of his stomach. All night, you’ve been thinking about what would've happened if you never joined Dustin and the others at the video store, or raise your tone at Mr. Owens for ridiculing Eddie at the printing shop.

What would happen if you declined Nancy’s request for the photos, and never went to the campaign at all? What would happen if you never encountered Eddie in the middle of the forest that day, or chased him outside the night you decided to end things with him?

These kinds of thoughts sink in like quick sand—with no capability to heap it into a bag and throw it away into the ocean of other nightmares.

For the first time in a while, you observe his state of rest—the shadowed lashes of his eyes pointing down to his hollow cheeks; his brows fixed in a calmer line and his pink swollen lips, exhaling peacefully. You wished—somewhere in the deeper crevices of your mind—that you get to spend many of your quiet evenings with him someday. Your imaginations start as you invite him to your empty house, where you both cuddle up on the couch and count the stars from the ceilings of your bedroom, until you pass out after the forty-sixth star.

You swear you'll never let him out of your sight again, no matter the cost of that promise, even after everything the town says about him. Or what they'll do to him. You don't care if you have to hide him in that damn tarp and ship him to California alongside yourself. There won't be any more expiration dates, no more judgement, and no more hiding.

No matter the cost. No matter the price.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie x y/n #eddie munson fanfiction #joseph quinn #eddie munson smut #eddie munson #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #stranger things smut #eddie fanfic #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fic #eddie munson imagine

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thisisthiago · 10 months

Text

WeHeartIt is dead.

It died in 2023, during a sunny June, though the process started taking place way before that date. It’s unclear, though, the reason why it started to happen. And, since I’m not a journalist, I might focus on why it meant so much to me for so long.

WeHeartIt, famous for embracing thousands of people around the idea of creating personal galleries and sharing them with friends, was born in 2008 from a Brazilian developer. He came up with the idea of creating a platform where people could save, share and, most importantly, heart images.

And didn't that work out? At its peak, the social network had 25 million monthly users and partnered with brands such as Teen Vogue to promote content and increase that reach. Of course, there was always Pinterest, but this wasn’t it. WeHeartIt was a hot mess of posting and hearting and expressing ourselves through the images we saved or the postcards we sent or even the collections we built. Of course, you could open Pinterest and organize your ideas, wishes, and... crochet templates, I guess? But at WeHeartIt, what looked like a mess would then become a gallery with layers of meanings and feelings, resembling the rings of trees. Our profiles, as rings of trees can tell us about a harsh winter or a particularly hot summer, would have layers composed of travel dreams, romantic ideas, or heartbreaking moments. It was safe and, as a 2018 article from Women’s Forum would point out, it was a mood booster.

Can you imagine such a lovely mess? "Dancing On My Own" was at the top of the parades (at least for hipsters worldwide), Tumblr was the next most favorite network, and Facebook wasn’t as cringe as it is now. In the middle of all that, WeHeartIt was thriving. Saving us from the boredom and helping us all to create a gallery where we could go back to see (and feel) all that was there to remember.

But then, things started to go somewhere out of the road, and we learned that good and new features don’t necessarily mean improvement. The app didn't have to try and be anything else. Of course, a design refreshment is always welcome, but some of the updates were simply needless or had no sense at all. All of that led to what we encounter today when we go into the platform website.

I won’t refer to all of the annoying-but-still-not-changing-the-core-of-the-app updates and features. I’m talking about ads, postcards, articles and yes, podcasts. Though all of these were meaningless and even annoying, they never interfered in my possibility of using the core functions of the app: managing my profile, visiting other people’s profiles, and hearting images.

Then, all of a sudden, WeHeartIt starts rolling out a message saying that the app will now focus on other features and so, they would do part with profiles and hearting. Yes, you read that correctly. The owners of the app decided that the main functions of the website should no longer be available, in order to redirect the main focus of the app to photo editing.

As I said in a rather harsh review of the latest version of the app in Apple’s App Store:

The so-called "photo editing" capabilities are laughable, barely a patch on dedicated apps in that domain. It's utterly disheartening that even a relic like the 1967 app surpasses WeHeartIt as a creative tool at this point. There appears to be an overwhelming lack of satisfaction with this so-called "upgrade."

Though scattered around the web, many of the platform users have shown their discomfort with the current state of the app. A quick search on Twitter, Reddit, App Store Reviews, and even Tumblr shows us. Even though some users still try to make some of the old features of the service work, it’s only a matter of time until the database is updated and we no longer have access to any image at all.

It’s sad that WeHeartIt is dying. The idea was great, and the execution worked for a while, but now it just looks as if the owners of the platform are looking for an excuse to shut it down permanently. We might as well just end up with a page like the former ffffound.

#weheartit #ffffound #we heart it #grief #hipster #vintage #aesthetic #tumblr #pinterest #love

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wutheringmights · 4 months

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Has anyone asked for the commentary for the latest Ctb chapter yet? 👀👀👀

Originally, everything from Link’s conversation with Impa to Link finally leaving for Kakariko was going to be at the end of the last chapter; but as you may recall, I ended up punting it over to this one in a waterfall effect from having to deal with a different delayed scene in the last section.

Good news is that on all fronts, the pacing is finally back on schedule. Mostly. There’s a scene in the present day that I’ve kicked off to a later chapter, but we’ll get to that when we get to that.

Something I wasn’t able to quite talk about last chapter was why exactly I wanted this incident to be Link’s wake-up call; I wanted Link’s turning point to evolve around him realizing that his way of being a hero is messed up, not only for failing to save Kat but by being told that, politically, he saved the wrong person

Which will then tie into HOW Link saved her. I wanted Link to undoubtedly do the right thing, but I wanted his solution to be so extreme that it’s horrifying. Yes, he saved Kat. But he also brutally murdered three men-- and wanted to make them suffer in the process. Link can’t solve anything without taking extremes. These men have nothing redeemable to them, but in the context of Link’s history, I just wanted readers to sit there and go “huh” for at least a minute. Maybe two.

As previously posted, the men’s names were based off of things that have given me brain worms as of late.

This chapter made me realize that I really haven’t done enough with Impa; I’ve been relying too heavily on just telling you how Warriors feels as opposed to having her do things. Incredible work on my part. I will rectify that however I can.

Speaking of which, Impa’s speech about becoming your role was originally going to include some extra information about her history with Lincoln before she became Impa, but I ended up cutting it because it was just an awkward time to go over that info; I hope there will be a time I can include it later, but it’s not super pressing or relevant so don’t get your hopes up.

As previously mentioned, Kat’s disability is Broca’s Aphasia

I remember when I was finalizing Kat and Icarius’s characters, I wondered if anyone was going to think there’s a thematic meaning to so many characters losing the ability to communicate; whatever is there is unintentional on my part, but whatever meaning you derive is still valid

Also, out of everyone, Kat is the character I feel the worst about hurting.

And for everyone wondering: Kat was knocked out when she was first bludgeoned. She was not awake when the men were killed. I am both touched and somewhat caught in disbelief that so many of you were worried about this.

When writing the introductory imagery for Kakariko-- describing the streets, people, etc--I was really worried that I was just retreading information that I already gave you all; but it’s also been, like, two years since the first Kakariko chapter came out, so I figured it was worth revisiting.

Hello, Jakucho! It’s been so long since she was in the story that I forgot how fun she is to write. She really brings an incredible energy to the mix.

I’m trying to remember where exactly I got the idea for Link having to build his own house, especially since this is probably among the first ideas I had for the story. I think I came up with the idea of the house first and my brain immediately said, “Fine, but he built it while going through withdrawals.” O.K. Sounds cool.

When I was writing the chapter, I didn’t like how I introduced Ayane. I got really hung up on the idea that she deserved something grander. Looking back at it now, I think it’s perfect. I’m glad I didn’t change it.

There’s this through line I’ve been trying to maintain this entire story about Link feeling stuck in his role as a soldier, how inadequate he feels for not knowing a tradeskill (or really any skill outside of war-waging), and how jealous he is that Spirit can build nearly anything-- and this is the chapter where I finally feel the payoff of all those ideas.

I hadn’t watched Vinland Saga when I finalized this idea, but now that I have watched it, do you know what this chapter is giving? Thorfinn emotionally healing via a farm arc. Go read Vinland Saga. It’s better than anything I can do.

However, I did mean for that ending to be a little bit more ominous than it turned out. Sure, Link is deciding to move on and be happier, but he is doing so by ignoring all the things he has done. Surely, this isn’t going to bite him in the butt.

Now that all of the war stuff is over, the story is now shifting towards a Link homesteading plotline, which will hopefully be as interesting, if not more. It’s definitely going to be harder to write, if only because now I have to take Link and show how he becomes Warriors.

Speaking of which.... onto the present day--

That opening scene where they’re escaping from the Sheikah by running across the rope bridge? That was a certified Pain In The Neck to write. I wrote about three different versions before finding one I thought was half-way decent. Why? I kept getting too elaborate with it and the scene kept running away from me.

A part of the reason why that scene was such a pain is that it originally wasn’t going to happen! The last chapter was supposed to have a little transition scene about having to sneak away from the Sheikah before ending with the scene where Spirit helps Warriors with his arm.

But with the canoodling scene kicked over to this chapter, I figured it was about time I began paying off the whole We’re Being Hunted Down By the Sheikah thing.

The hard march stuff then effectively ruined my original concept for the chapter: a series of scene where Spirit interacts one on one with each member of the Chain, to varying degrees of success. That got tossed out the window and never returned.

But I think it was worth it? I like the hard marching stuff, and it helps with the blend the deep dark atmospheric stuff with the reunited Chain being absolute bozos

And I have missed all of the shenanigans. The exchange at the beginning where Warriors gets sarcastic about being told not to let go is very silly, but I like it. It makes me laugh.

Speaking of which, I have decided that I am a big fan of Spirit’s whip. That’s all. Just wanted to put that into the world.

Okay, let’s hop back to the canoodling stuff.

So that scene was what was supposed to be at the end of the previous chapter, if only to give you all the two-punch Spirit What The Fuck moments. Pacing-wise, the scene also acts as set-up for the house drama. Putting it at the end of last chapter would have made it seem like that plot point was more established.

Also, another shout-out to Legend for being the character who is constantly surprising me with how fun he is to write. I’m not a big fan of him normally, so I always end up forgetting this until I get to write him again. Then again, I am also convinced that Legend is at his best when he’s a member of the supporting cast. He’s not main character material.

And you guys have finally bullied me enough to convince me to make DILF Hunter Hyrule canon. You can’t say I don’t do anything for you guys.

Four and Spirit not having a good relationship just feels correct. Even if Spirit was capable of not fumbling a social interaction for more than 10 minutes, I still think these two would not like each other very much. We might be able to get them to coworkers status, but that’s if we’re lucky.

I finally got to do this scene with Warriors and Lana! Thank god! I think Lana scenes are among the first to get cut any time I need to make space, and this one has been getting pushed back for a awhile now. It’s good to finally get them to talk, if only to wrap up that little subplot about Warriors’s shittiness towards her while scratching the surface of my Sad Girl Lana agenda.

Actually, this chapter did so well with the Lana and Linkle content that I feel bad that Midna got barely anything to do. Granted, her big moment where Twilight is seeking comfort from her is one of my favorites. So actually, Midna stays winning.

The scene where Spirit equates dead monsters to dead people is the spiritual successor to that scene way back in the past when he and Link had their big fight. I mean, that’s obvious.

A lot of readers seemed really surprised when Spirit was ruthless on the battlefield during Twilight’s rescue, and I want this scene to help remind everyone that Spirit kills people as easily as he kills monsters because, to him, they aren’t different. That’s still shocking, but it’s not because Spirit is uniquely cruel.

The song that Spirit plays is the Song of Birds from his game, which functionally just summons a flock of birds. You need it to solve, like, one puzzle. I have decided that it’s actually an essential part of Lokomo burial rites.

I regret giving Hyrule the line about understanding Spirit better. On one hand, I do think this would be a reason Hyrule would soften towards him. On the other, Hyrule was not on the battlefield when Spirit was being a ruthless soldier. What is there for him to understand better?

Legend’s game is a silly scene I have been trying to include in this story for so long, if only to give Spirit a moment to explain in-story how his senses work (and to have an allergic reaction towards Legend). I am trying so hard to drive home that Spirit’s abilities are only the senses. This guy does not have any other weird magic about him. He just knows extra information about people.

Also, Wind robbing Spirit is extra funny when you remember that Spirit probably sensed him nearby and still somehow did not realize he was being pickpocketed.

I think the things Spirit senses off of the boys are fairly obvious, except for Wild-- that water stuck in the nose feeling refers to Wild being submerged in the Shrine of Resurrection

I feel bad that I keep giving Wind more problems to deal with, but unfortunately, head trauma causes so many lasting conditions. I haven’t even really milked his newfound half-deafness yet.

Also, thank you once more for everyone who gave me additional information on how signing with one hand works! You’re all the bomb!

The most painful cut this chapter was a scene where Spirit met Kat again. It's still gonna happen somehow, but the logistics didn't quite work (they're supposed to be on the run... what are they doing with meemaw???) and I just needed to focus on other things. It's such a shame, though. We almost had a perfect cohesive past and present chapter combo.

Initially, I was going to leave Toto in the well until the end of the story. He would act as extra motivation for Warriors to basically fix Hyrule-- if he doesn’t, Toto doesn’t go free. Then at least one person asked that he be rescued, and I crumbled.

Also, if I did my job right, this is the first time in the present day that Anders’s name is said out loud!

So you can probably guess that if I was willing to take as much time as needed to write the rest of CTB, I would have given saving Toto and burning the house down its own chapter. I’m not great at pacing (see: the fact that I wrote a whole chapter about characters traveling instead of skimming over that shit), but I figured I would take the risk and see if I could get away with having both off screen.

Was it effective? In some ways, yes. I think the shock when Warriors finds out is effective.

What really makes my cutting corners work is that Warriors got to do something else that was really important instead, which is talking with Icarius.

(By the way, I know most of you are doing a bit about being hardcore Warriors/Icarius shippers. But the few of you who are genuine, I need you all to wait until I actually show what the relationship is like before committing, if only because this is something I of all people would be writing).

What isn’t effective is how Cia’s drawing was meant to foreshadow the house burning. I always thought of it as a minor detail akin to Cia’s warnings while she was in the bush, but a lot of you clung to it like it was going to hold the key to final climax of the narrative. That’s probably my fault. Oops.

But Warriors and Spirit fighting... perfect. Love that scene. Honestly, I missed their violence.

But my god. Getting to elaborate on the house and how it's filled with his mother's things at the start of the chapter before having it ripped away? Priceless. Perfect. I am patting myself on the back for that one.

I kinda hate that Warriors and Wind moment. It’s good and everything I like until after Wind offers up his earring. I didn’t know where else to take the scene, but I didn’t want to end it there. What I ended up writing is just really cliche, and I really wish I gave myself more time to redo it.

And finally, that ending scene. Oh boy. Your honor, something is going on. If you guys are this stressed by a little cuddling, I cannot wait to see how next chapter is going to mess you up (pending on whether I chicken out or not)

Once more, I have to point out how insane everyone’s takes are making me. No one, and I mean no one, is on the same page about whatever is going on between Warriors and Spirit. There is no consensus. It’s driving me to insanity. I am still pushing myself to embrace different interpretations and to not view personal takeaways as a failing of the story.

But the more space I give everyone to draw their own conclusions, the more I get worried about alienating a reader, or writing a story with an ending that one person likes and everyone else hates.

But, again, this is a practice in ambiguity. Part of this story’s draw is how so many people are reading the same scenes and characters, and walking away with different perspectives. As nervous as it makes me, I love it.

#today's bonus fact is that i almost had spirit accidentally reveal wolfie this chapter but didn't cause it would have taken up too much time #me rambling #lu ctb #ask #linked universe #fallenleafofmapple #director's commentary #ctb lore #ctb spoilers

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angstics · 1 year

Text

how to download (and mirror and transcribe) youtube videos

so the news that google is deleting inactive youtube channels was a miscommunication -- "Additionally, we do not have plans to delete accounts with YouTube videos at this time" (source, emphasis mine). but i hope this was a wake up call that archiving videos (and other content) you care about is really important. buy hard drives, save, reshare. videos dont stay up forever. youtube isnt forever.

i know how difficult it is to get into downloading videos, with how all youtube to mp4 websites seem to be broken. this post compiles general guides on how to manually download youtube videos (among other actions) through python programs. it's simple if you just follow the steps and constantly search the errors you encounter. i will also detail how i personally do it with my windows 10 pc, in case you use the same tools.

remember: your search engine, reddit, github, and help commands are your best friends.

* downloading youtube videos

reddit yt-dlp guide

original yt-dlp guide

how to download the best quality mp4

how to download videos from a search result

how to use command prompt

what is command prompt? this is a windows application where you navigate folders and run programs. you just type a command and hit enter. ctrl+c ends a command/program, ctrl+s pauses it (pressing any key unpauses)

how do i navigate folders? the basic commands are so: a) cd "[path]" to change directory (always put path and link names in double quotes so they are processed properly), b) cd .\.. takes you to the previous folder (ex: if you're in C:\folder A\folder B and run cd .\.. you go to C:\folder A), c) you can go to other drives by typing the letter and colon (ex: if you are in C:, typing D: then entering takes you to your D drive). this is important because where your python programs are stored is where you have to run them.

how to run python programs through cmd prompt? a) download the latest version of python. b) use pip to install programs. c) make sure you have also downloaded a program's dependencies (analogous to "pre-requisites"). d) type the program name then the command.

make sure to always update python and pip.

how to use yt-dlp to download youtube videos

how to get download yt-dlp? this guide worked perfectly for me. make sure to download all python programs in the same folder.

navigate to the folder you installed yt-dlp

the following are examples of commands you can use:

yt-dlp -h -- get a list of all commands

yt-dlp "[link]" -- download video as is (often in webm format)

yt-dlp "[link]" -f "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best" -- download the highest quality mp4 video (highest possible in mp4 is 1080p)

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 "[link]" -- download audio only as mp3

yt-dlp -i "[playlist link]" -- download a full playlist (you may also use the best quality command here)

yt-dlp -i "[playlist link]" --playlist-items [range] -- download range of playlist items

look at the guides at the top of this section for my ideas of what you can do with yt-dlp. you can even use yt-dlp to download from other websites

note: if you want to download instagram reels, you must include: --cookies-from-browser [firefox / chrome / etc] -- choose your browser

** mirroring youtube videos to archive.org

github tubeup guide: "tubeup uses yt-dlp to download a Youtube video (or any other provider supported by yt-dlp), and then uploads it with all metadata to the Internet Archive using the python module internetarchive."

this guide shows you how to install and use the program. this is an easy way to archive videos with the proper metadata -- do not archive videos en masse

the mirrortube archive.org community

*** transcribing videos

transcribing youtube videos w/o downloading: application

transcribing any downloaded video: openai guide

extra1: searching videos

ive seen confusion on how to naviagte youtube search these days. i know!!!! here are some tips:

changing search options to search by upload date shows *ACTUAL* results, rather than suggestions.

the same google tricks work on youtube: google tricks guide

using yt-dlp to search can be helpful to search youtube more precisely

extra2: downloading twitter videos online

i use this regularly, so i thought id also share.

#youtube #q.txt #yt-dlp

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blackjackkent · 1 month

Note

what do you think wouldve happened in an alternate universe where hector let karlach become a mind flayer?

(A/N after writing this whole answer: whoops, this got out of hand, hope you're okay with an Unexpected Fic. XD Also maybe a smidge weird/dark at the end, although not a ton I hope? Certainly no more than the whole game is weird/dark. XD Anyway I hope you enjoy. <3 )

Ohhhhhhhhh.

Anon, I love you for asking me this question. <3 A very intriguing one!

And it is because I love you for asking me this question that I have braved looking up a video of Karlach actually becoming a mind flayer, which I had put off doing because I am a softheart and I knew it would hurt and also make Hector yell in my head. XD And when Hector yells in my head it's a whole thing because he does double Flurry of Blows against the inside of my skull for 140damage and it's rough enough in there already.

However! I have now watched it and done some thinks. (Hot damn, Lae'zel is MAD too, at least in the version of the scene I watched. The whole thing is very upsetting.)

Fundamentally it would be a tragedy, and not just for Karlach. Watching the way the scenes play out - there is just enough of Karlach in her speech that Hector would not want to disconnect from her. I think perhaps it touches on the same hope that kept him expecting a miracle for her heart right up until the end of the game - somehow, somehow we can make this work, somehow we will find a way...

But there is no way. This is who she is now, a creature of the Astral Sea with his love's voice and an empty place where her soul should be. And unlike the engine situation he can't even kiss her to make himself feel better because she looks like a squid.

-----

The one saving grace is, I suppose, she does seem happy enough. In the epilogue, she states that she has found a way to get brains to eat by consuming from terminally ill patients at a clinic in Baldur's Gate, people who have volunteered for the process because they are about to die anyway. And she talks about helping all of them live on by absorbing their memories and carrying them with her.

It's... sweet, in a way, Hector supposes.

He tries to keep busy. There's no battle in Avernus to occupy him in this timeline, so he primarily works with Jaheira and her kids on rebuilding. It's hard, physical work; it keeps his mind occupied. At first he sleeps at the Elfsong; later, after some nudging from Rion, Jaheira offers him lodging at her home, where he takes a hand in raising the latest crop of orphan children she is protecting. He sees Baldur's Gate start to bandage its wounds and begins to believe there was some purpose to all his struggle.

But his own wounds do not heal so easily.

He visits the clinic often. He and Karlach talk. Her voice is a slow near-monotone in her accent, unlike anything he ever heard from her before. Sometimes he can hear a twinge of her humor or a turn or phrase, and his heart leaps... but other times she speaks of things like destiny and infinite time in a way that reminds him more of the Emperor than the woman he loves.

She never laughs. She doesn't curse. There is never even the slightest mention of sex; though she still fully understands a double entendre when he makes one experimentally, she seems to take no interest in it. She seems to exist slightly beyond him, with a view of the world that is no longer of the Material Plane.

And yet... she does know him. She remembers everything - stories he told her of his childhood in the monastery, details of Selunite rituals she learned from him, quiet moments in camp he half-forgot himself. She still calls him Soldier, and sometimes Hec. She remembers her own parents; she remembers the city. There is just enough of her still in there... just enough for it to squeeze his heart.

----

One day she walks (well, floats) with him to the Singing Lute; she sits with him while he eats. They talk about the rebuilding; he points out from the balcony some of the new homes he has worked on. She is quiet for a long time. "It is good to see the place begin to live again," she says, in that strange cool slow voice that has replaced the old jocular drawl. "It's what it was all for."

He nods. "Do you regret it? Any of it?" Do you remember what we had? What we've lost?

"How could I, Soldier? The city still lives. You still live." A long pause. The old Karlach might have laughed sardonically, but there is no humor. "Even I still live, and I have grown beyond myself. What is there to regret?"

It sits like a rock in his stomach. If she is content, what more can he ask for? And yet it hurts... it hurts...

-----

Jaheira notices that he begins to withdraw back into himself, that he is quieter and more serious. She mentions it to Gale, on one of his visits to the city from Waterdeep.

"You're not wrong there," Gale agrees. "You weren't around yet, when we knew him fresh off the nautiloid. He was much more careful, then. Very controlled. The very picture of monastic stoicism - in between the panicked realization that we were all undergoing a supreme nightmare that never ended, of course. He lightened up, over the months - certainly by the time you knew him."

Jaheira purses her lips. "And this... he is returning to his old ways, you believe?"

"I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume," Gale says, with a sort of bleak humor, "that Karlach is no longer providing the same amount of compensatory levity that she used to."

-----

In the end, almost two years later, Lae'zel is the only one who speaks to him of it directly, and she is brutal - but effective.

"You have been hollowed out, she'lak," she says bluntly, on one of her rare visits from the Astral Plane. "It is a lessening of you. Do you still trail after your ghaik as if bound to her by a lead?"

"I have done much in the city since you left," Hector says, somewhat defensively.

"Chk. I do not speak of your body's business, k'chakhi. I speak of your mind. Your heart. You have lost yourself. You live only for others."

"As I was raised to do. As I have always done."

"Hector." She rarely speaks his name directly, but she does now, and it makes him jump. "You know of what I speak, and I will not have you ignore it. Your work in the city is admirable. You have cause for pride and contentment. Yet you pine after Karlach as if you hope to find her in the shell wearing her voice."

"She's still in there, Lae'zel."

"You mislead yourself," she spits. "Was it not you who taught me the strength to look beyond mindless devotion?"

That stings, and unconsciously he stands up a little straighter. "This is not mindless. It has been earned," he objects.

"Tas'ki. She is ghaik," Lae'zel says flatly. "What remains of her will dwindle, day by day. You know this as well as I." A pause. Then her eyes soften, and her voice with it. "You do not honor her sacrifice by this emptiness, Hector. Nor do you honor yourself."

He says nothing. His lips draw into a tight line. He hears her, and he does not want to.

"Think on what I tell you," she says - for all the world, now, as if she is the wise mentor and he the student in need of guidance. "You are no fool. You know I speak truth. Do not discount it."

-----

It takes a long time, but he does eventually start to come back to himself. Ten years. Twenty years. He grows old, though he loses none of his strength, his training too ingrained to allow him to weaken with age. The city reforms, stronger than ever, and he slowly begins to learn what life is, outside of both monastery and war.

He teaches self-defense to the children Jaheira rescues and others in the Lower City. He learns to (very badly) play a lute at Alfira's school. He tries his hand as a woodworker after so much carpentry work in the rebuilding of the Gate; one day, with some pride, he gifts Halsin a raggedly carved owl in return for the duck. He travels with Shadowheart several times to the House of the Moon in Waterdeep, reaffirming his faith in the light that has guided him through so much darkness.

And he reads voraciously. Everything he can get his hands on, from every library in the city. There is far more knowledge in the world, he comes to learn, than the particular cache with which he grew up.

He visits Karlach less, over time. And Lae'zel was right - there is less and less left of her each time he sees her. She is drifting away from him. And slowly he comes to terms with that - that what they had was a wonderful thing and a fleeting thing that will never come back to him. He learns to live for them both, for the life she would have had with him, had there been time.

He does not love again, though. He lived his whole life devoid of romance before he knew her, and he has little interest in trying to find it again in the years that remain to him.

For the most part, he moves on, and eventually finds himself relatively happy. But there is one last concession to sentimentality and to everything he has lost.

-----

On one bright, cold afternoon in mid-autumn, many years after the Netherbrain has faded into a bleak memory, he goes to the clinic. She is there, much as she always is; she has not seemed to age much in all these years, though the tentacles are slightly longer, a bit more nuanced in their movement.

He, though, is old; the grey dappling in his hair and beard has faded to white. His body acts as strong as ever, but time is implacable; he knows, as she once did, that he has very little left. It is a strange thing - a weakness of spirit rather than flesh, old age's deeper destruction that even the most disciplined monk cannot stave off forever. He is not dying, but he would be dead soon, likely within a few tendays.

"Hector," she says, flat and cool and almost unrecognizable, and inclines her head at him slightly. "You have settled everything?"

"Everything," he says quietly.

"You are still certain it is time?"

"Yes."

"Then we will begin." She gestures him to a secluded corner of the clinic, with a comfortable chair set up for the purpose. He settles himself there and looks up at the clinic's cracked stone ceiling and waits.

"It has been a good life," he comments, as much to himself as to her, as he waits for her to approach. "Lae'zel was right, that I had to move on. I have done much, seen much. I am proud of what we achieved - all of us."

There's a long, expectant silence. Then he leans his head back, closes his eyes. "I never stopped loving you, you know," he adds softly.

"I know," she answers, and her jaws sink into his skull.

#hector carlisle #long post #drabble #au: illithid karlach #WELLP I MADE MYSELF SAD AND NEED TO GO REREAD MY POSTS ABOUT THEM SNUGGLING ABOUT 50 TIMES #this answer got very out of hand and rambly and self-indulgent :P #although maybe that's what you were hoping for idk XD #i've mentioned before that hector did not come out of the monastery well-equipped to handle tragedy in a productive way #so this is not a timeline that is ultimately a good one for him i think #even though it ends on a generally positive upturn #i hope the ending is not too out of left field XD but it wouldn't be an illithid ending without just a smidge of KindaFucked Up Shit i thin

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rambling-prince-thoughts · 10 months

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slight spoilers for the latest ts video (the sides need a nice day) below the cut!

sidenote if you haven’t watched this ep yet, you absolutely should. it’s adorable :)

there’s so much to talk about in this, but i wrote a little ficlet inspired by the events of the fic instead because when inspiration strikes, you’ve got to capitalise

For the first time in weeks, Roman found himself waking up to a feeling of warm contentment in his chest and bright vigour, all characteristic of getting a full night’s sleep. A luxury that he could barely afford anymore, given how much had been going on.

He had worked himself to the bone these last few weeks, trying desperately to make up for losing the glorious opportunity that was a callback from Alfred Hitchcoppalucas of all people and then worked even harder when Thomas met Nico, determined to make things work for at least one of them. He couldn’t remember the last time he woke up feeling this pleasant. Or the last time he wanted to wake up, at all.

But yesterday, thanks to Virgil’s odd yet comforting methods of relaxation, he finally felt as though he had a purpose aside from being Creativity.

He skipped into the bathroom to freshen up for the day, bidding a cheerful good morning to little Arachne (the name was courtesy of Virgil) who, despite his earlier inhibitions, was not as terrifying as he thought, and maybe even a little endearing in the way she scuttled over to the edge of her enclosure to greet him.

Perhaps everything wasn’t completely awful.

Only Logan was at the kitchen when he arrived to get breakfast, pouring out coffee into a worryingly large tumbler while somehow also intensely focused on reading a book. It would have been fascinating had it also not been alarming at how close he was to burning his hand on scalding coffee.

“Careful!” Roman shifted the tumbler of coffee just as it filled to the brim, the beverage narrowly avoiding contact with Logan’s hand in the process.

Logan blinked up at him incredulously. “Oh. When did you get here, Roman?”

The Creative Side rolled his eyes. “Good morning, Roman. Thank you for saving my life and my coffee, Roman,” he huffed, his voice imitating a much more childish version of Logan.

“I don’t sound like that,” Logan pointed out, taking his tumbler to the dining table. “And I doubt I would lose my life if I were to spill coffee on my hand. While it would be highly painful and I do appreciate that you helped in time, I believe this is an example of being overly dramatic.” A slight smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, betraying the otherwise dry tone.

Roman picked up a butter knife in place of his sword, using it to point in Logan’s direction. “Ah but you would be in pain! I saved your life, Microsoft Nerd. I’ll take the appreciation as your undying gratitude.”

Pleased, he turned back to the kitchen and popped two pieces of bread in the toaster. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when the toast had been properly buttered and Roman sat down opposing Logan at the table, that he remembered how he wasn’t the only one to receive a pleasant outing yesterday.

“So,” he began loudly, prompting Logan to put aside his book (albeit not without an exasperated sigh). “I heard Patton took you on a little date yesterday.” He grinned at his choice of words.

Success! Logan flushed a shade of pale pink. “It wasn’t a date, Roman,” he grumbled. “Patton simply noticed that I had been… Preoccupied, lately, so he tried to give me a nice day. It was very sweet of him. We went to the library, that’s where I got this from.” He gestured to the book on the table, smiling softly.

Roman gave him a smug look. “That sounds like a date to me, Calculator Watch. Only you and him got to spend time together, doing something you like? That’s essentially what Thomas and Nico do all the time. I would know, I’m the romantic one.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Oh, really? Because as I recall, Virgil did something similar with you. Am I to assume that you two went on a date as well?”

“What?” Heat rushed to Roman’s face. “N-no! That’s not the same thing at all! You two went out, Virgil and I were at home all day! And we just listened to songs, watched Disney related videos and then he read me a bedtime story. It’s completely different!” He protested, trying to ignore the blush spreading across his cheeks.

“I once remember you telling me that your ideal date included songs, Disney and enjoying with someone that you liked being around.” Logan raised an eyebrow, mirroring the smug look that had been on Roman’s face not two minutes ago. “Is that not what you did?”

“Oh shut up.” Roman stuffed the last piece of toast in his mouth, determinedly chewing so as not to answer Logan. He heard a light chuckle, and then silence. The nerd must have gone back to reading his book.

And it would have been calm after that, if not for the whirlwind of destruction that entered the kitchen, banging pots and pans with a sharp, shit eating grin.

Remus. It was Remus.

Without glancing up from his book, Logan greeted Remus and politely asked him to quiet down, which obviously did not work out. Remus simply increased the volume of his chaos, now also dancing around the area while singing at the top of his lungs.

They needed a distraction. “Hey Remus!” Roman yelled, trying to grab his attention. “How was your outing with Janus yesterday?”

At the mention of the snake themed Side, Remus stopped all sound and jumped onto the table, grinning widely. “It was awesome! I got to smash cars, dangle a phone off the bridge and made a new friend! Plus I finally figured out what that brown carpet stain is.” He lowered his voice. “It was chocolate. A little disappointing, but whatever! It was still fun!”

“A new friend?” Roman asked, and then immediately regretted asking.

That sent Remus into an explanation of how he met Bloody Mary, and how they became good friends and she’s just so lovely, and she’s got really high quality blood, even if she’s a bit secretive about where she gets it. No matter, he’ll find out eventually. By the end, Roman wasn’t sure if he should feel sick or terrified.

“So yeah!” Remus finished off, still grinning. “She and I are meeting up again soon. Jan’s the best.”

Logan scoffed at that, causing both twins to look at him. “Remus, while your day sounded… Interesting, I believe it was Patton who came up with the idea. If we’re deciding who ‘the best’ is, it should be the one who started the process in the first place.” He flipped a page, seeming to have made his point.

Oh boy. If he was going to get competitive…

“Patton may have come up with it, but Virgil went out of his way to get me a new animal companion!” Roman shot back. “Her name is Arachne and she may be a little scary looking, but she’s a cutie! And no you can’t have her! She’s mine.” The last part was directed towards Remus, who groaned in disappointment. “So it’s Virgil who’s the best!”

The three of them defiantly stood their ground, glaring at each other. None of them were going to go down without a fight.

Watching from the staircase, Patton nervously bit his lip. “Should we stop them?” He whispered to the other two, looking concerned at the growing dispute.

“Nah,” Virgil answered easily, a grin forming. “I kinda wanna see who wins.”

Janus smirked. “You know, for once I actually agree with you, Virgil. I’m putting my money on Remus.”

Patton shook his head, but couldn’t help but smile as he looked over at Virgil and Janus, and then back at the three Sides squabbling in the kitchen. Things may have been rough, but he was hopeful that they would be getting better, and it would take all of them to get there for Thomas’ sake. Besides, he was happy with things, at least for now.

It was looking to be a nice day.

#ts spoilers #sanders sides #rambling prince thoughts #a ficlet inspired by the latest video because i loved it sm #the three of them won’t fight for long dw #wondering if i should make a sequel to it :3 #romantic prinxiety #romantic dukeceit #platonic logince #romantic logicality #creativitwins

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laylajeffany · 5 months

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Hi! As you can probably guess, I completely love Chaos, and I have a few more questions. Thanks for the playlist by the way, it’s been all I’ve listened to since you linked it. Sorry for all the questions, I’m just curious.

1) In the Spotify playlist, the first song is “Sea, swallow me”. Is that song referenced somewhere in the fic, or does it just give off a general Chaos vibe? I’ve been trying to remember if it was mentioned somewhere but cant recall. As an additional Note, it is my new favourite song, so thanks!

2) You mentioned that all the OCs appearances are physically based on real people. Who are Dr Zypher, Emiliana and Holly-Jane based on? Is Emiliana based off of Eva Green, because thats how I imagine her. You’ve done an excellent job with the OCs, they’re just so perfect.

3) When you describe clothing, do you make them up in your mind or doe they actually exist? I get that some, like the custom ordered dresses in the latest chapter, must be made up, but are some of them real? Do you have some Pinterest board with all of their clothes just to keep track? 😂

4) How do you find time to write? I write 1000 words for my fic every day, and it takes me about an hour. 50K chapters in 2 weeks is a miracle. Do you sleep?

I’ve probably forgotten a question or two, so I hope you don’t mind if I ask more in the future😅

Thank you for all you do, I’ve never been so invested in a fic before. Just remember to relax and take breaks when you need it, don’t force yourself to write on 2 hours sleep!

I am happy to answer questions about Chaos for the Fly, the writing process, and other fic/writing related things. Thank you for your interest! 1. I think I referenced near the beginning somewhere that Wednesday had discovered some music on her own outside of classical when she accepted an algorithm to suggest songs for her. It had been 80s imports of some kind - and that was probably the one that I had in mind, even if it wasn’t mentioned specifically. There’s probably a few songs that weren’t actually mentioned by name but were alluded to in the fic - meaning I didn’t say the title in dialogue, but had something playing in the background for myself, and there you have it. 2. You have opened a VERY DANGEROUS can of worms with this question, lmfao.

You are a dead ringer for Emiliana! That’s Eva Green, 100%, the ONLY person who could play the role. It would be like a touch of Penny Dreadful for the out-of-her-damn-mind demon possession vibes, but mostly, just as herself (she’s cray and I love how socially awkward and accidentally funny she is in interviews) not so much Vanessa Ives. Eva Green has worked with Tim Burton a ton of times and wouldn’t even need a single line of direction in this role. Emi is SO easy to write because she is pure chaos both in physicality, mentally, her linguistics, her magic, and personality. I honestly think she’s one of the characters I’m saddest isn’t real because she’d fit in to drive Wednesday absolutely MAD as her big bird. I have a feeling we’re not going to explore Raven lore in S2 and the two of them trying to figure out their powers together, after Emiliana spent half her life suffering alone, has been some of my favorite parts of the fic to write. I always write scenes with Emiliana the fastest. Her love of Beanie Babies and bad influence is entirely, too much fun. Her voice is so easy and she will never truly understand American idioms.

Dr. Zypher is AMY ADAMS, because GAY-ME, for Amy Adams. She’d absolutely crush the role, the fact that she doesn’t have a closet full of Oscars is just despicable (6 time nominee bro). SHE HAS THE VOICE OF AN ANGEL and I don’t think anyone ever lets her sing enough in movies. Put this woman in some broadway revival of an old musical and you’ll catch me personally saving the economy from collapse by taking the train up to see her every weekend. She's so adaptable and different in any role, and I just feel like she’d volley SO WELL with JO’s Wednesday. She's a professional who understands character layers that sweet and angsty Josie requires.

Dr. Holly is Emily Blunt plucked right from the Jungle Cruise movie in terms of how she’s styled but a far cry from her character there with her boldness - even if they would likely have competing career ambitions. ALSO HAVE YOU SEEN EMILY BLUNT IN ALL THE SUITS IN THE NEW NETFLIX PAIN HUSTLER MOVIE? I’m deceased. This is a ghost writing. Holly is really in the story 1) because I needed a plot line for Larissa, post-transformation, that didn’t involve Wednesday and was TRAGIC but beautiful and could GO SOMEWHERE, and2) we REALLY do need something to stabilize the molecular structure of shifting-type Outcasts, and 3) it helped give some context as to how desperate Larissa was to hire Normie "Thornhill" and why she took that chance against her usually better judgement- so there she was! Emily Blunt is a CLASS. ACT. In everything she does and I imagine her in a scene with Gwendoline COULD NEVER exist because it would be too powerful, solve all the world’s problems, and capitalism would break, societies would collapse. It could never happen. It wouldn’t be safe. Here’s her glow up, from fresh-out-of-the jungle, to letting Larissa buy her some new clothes and maybe letting her hair down every now and then, to nerdy botanist bombshell, at the New Nevermore Network, helping her girl rebuild things to be a more fair society for Outcasts. GORGE.

ARE THESE ALL JUST WOMEN IN THEIR MID 40s THAT I HAVE A BIG LESBIAN CRUSH ON? YEAH, YEAH THEY ARE. There’s obviously more for staff at Nevermore and the Network but I have a solid 5k to get to writing still this evening. The rest of my OCs are pretty minor (well villain aside), and I don’t really care enough about any man to spend the time looking for pictures of /boys/. These are the 3 OCs that are featured the most, anyway. Some day I’ll find enough energy to do the rest. I have extreme face-blindness when I read, and the ONLY WAY I can thusly write an OC is if my beta makes a powerpoint presentation for me with an actor/ress in mind for me to visualize in the role. When I tell ya, she hit the nail on the head with those three above? Unbelievable. Another favorite not-OC, but someone I HARDCORE RECASTED FOR THIS would be Granny Frump. We went from Margaret Hamilton (OG Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz) in the 1960s Addams Family, which is EXCELLENT CASTING, but to fit the more modern-era Wednesday 2022 adaptation, and to give a flair of the drama as to perhaps where Morticia “gets it from,” I decided to cast someone only two years older than Catherine Zeta-Jones to give that “Frump Homespun Magic” storyline some weight of ‘the potions and beauty charms work’ and went with a non-actress, for the aesthetics (though she could KILL IT her appearances are small), and that is the one and only, What Not To Wear’s Stacy London.

Like IMAGINE that matching vibe with CZJ’s Morticia? Stacy has similar build/some features in common, and with the all black hair BUT WITH HER SIGNATURE gray stripe? Iconic. (And that was also Grandpa “Clint’s” backstory last chapter, as in Stacy and Clinton’s dramatic saga. HEY - IF YOU DONT HAVE INSIDE JOKES WITH YOUR BETA in your writing, what’s the point??) Stacy’s voice and CZJ’s Morticia voice together would be SO GRATING and Wednesday would just be so in-her-element between them, I LIVE. 3. I usually just visualize what I’d want the characters to wear! I don’t often have picture inspiration - though sometimes I am writing and it says in bold highlight DESCRIBE THE DRESS - TRACEY FIND ME A DRESS, and she sends me some pictures to go through so I can just describe a garment without having to make it up. I don’t have a Pinterest I’d be willing to share. It’s just a binder full of women in a way that would probably unsettle most.

4. I usually write about 2-2.5k an hour if that is all I’m focused on. I probably average 4-9k on a work day without a second job or social obligation after work, and the most I’ve ever written on a single day that I had no work, other ‘sponserbilities, or social plans was 21k. On an average weekend with like one thing to do during the day and some chores and relaxation time not writing, I probably go around 14-16k per day. At the same time I started this fic, I set a new year resolution to myself to only work my contracted hours, so with the exception of a few crazy times in the school year - like conferences - I work from 8:00-15:30 M-F, and I live a three minute walk from my school, so I don’t even lose time commuting. I also stopped working on weekday evenings on the side in August, and starting in 2024 will not be doing any extra side work at all. I don’t sleep great but I do try! :) Thanks for the questions! I've been meaning to give some faces to those 3 OCs. I strongly encourage you to print out pictures of them and post them on your fridge, you will be 100% happier if you do.

#chaos for the fly #layla answers fic questions

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moonflowers-and-sunrays · 1 year

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breaking and entering (idk if i even need to like tag that or whagever but yeah! just in case)

Ugh.

She hated work.

Every day, it was the same: beat some heroes, sneer at them. Sometimes she even added some flirtatious banter, but it never went anywhere. Not that she wanted it to.

It was so dull.

The villain grabbed the left side of her jaw, tilting her head the opposite way, forcing it to pop under the pressure.

She wasn’t a shallow person. Sure, the current batch of sprightly vigilantes weren’t the sweetest eye-candy, but their personalities were sour too. After winning fights, they wouldn’t rub it in her face. After losing, they wouldn’t crawl on the ground in shame. They would fight, and when it was over, they’d walk back to whatever hole they crawled out of.

It was so obnoxious.

The street was dark, besides the occasional streetlight leaving reflections on the ebony road below. ATM machines appeared in front of closed coffee shops and cookie cutter oak trees dotted the sidewalk. The air had a bit of a bite to it, and certainly Villains nose was bright red.

How embarrassing.

Luckily, there was no one around to see it.

She had started at her latest fight, which she had gotten out of with no injuries (save for a bloody nose), and ten minutes later she was at her apartment, nodding at the doorman and making her way to the elevator. The floor was lined with velvety green carpeting, which wouldn’t be tacky if the walls weren’t. They were covered in portraits of women from the 20s, all made of plastic.

How Villain ended up living there, she’ll never know.

She walked into the elevator, acknowledging the operator with a nod and a “4, please”. The button dinged and she heard a whirring noise as she was taken to the fourth floor.

The elevator dinged as the doors released and Villain walked out. She followed the trail of ugly fluorescent lights until she found the door labeled 204, turned her key until the lock clicked, and swung open the door.

That’s weird. I don’t remember leaving the lights on.

More than weird, actually. Nothing was a coincidence when you’re the most well known villain in the state.

She walked into the foyer, her hand quietly powering up at her side. Her feet were like mice, completely silent.

Just then, from behind her, her office chair spun around.

“Hey honeybun. Your wallpaper is ugly as fuck.”

Villain whipped around, firing a laser right next to Hero’s head.

“GAHH!!”

Her shocked expression calmed a bit when she saw it was hero.

“Hey, watch it! At least take me out to dinner first.”

Thoughts fired through Villains head so quickly, one could actually see the gears turning.

Suddenly, she jolted and ran to her bedroom. “MY PLANS!”

“For the freeze ray? Read ‘em. You’re missing a conductor in the second valve on the right.”

Villain stopped. “Oh. What about my-“

“Love potion? Add less rosemary and a little more cinnamon. Stir it clockwise.”

“Well-“

“I also read about the llama pants. I’m a little concerned about your thought process, but i would maybe say don’t use maple syrup.”

Villain stood like a deer in the headlights.

"So-"

"Why am I here-," Hero interrupted, "Good question. Basically-"

Villain sighed. "Save it, Hero. Go find another Villain to mess with. Granted, they wont tolerate you for as long as I have, but maybe that's a good thing."

Hero jokingly frowned. "Heyyy!! Not nice. And I'm here for an important reason, if you'll let me speak."

"Hero, I can promise you, I don't care. Now leave." Villain furrowed her brow, concentrating, as her irises turned purple.

Hero noticed. "Hey, wait, no! Stop, stop, stop, you'll really want to hear this I promise!"

A purple energy surrounded their body as they slowly floated above where they were sitting and towards the door.

"Sorry Hero. I've missed fighting you, I guess. Let's do this again sometime. Toodles!" Hero's body was halfway out the door when they started holding onto the frame, grimacing as they used all their strength to hold on.

"You're starting to really bug me." Villain stared at Hero's fingers, concentrating, moving each one off the doorframe, one by one, until they only had one hand holding on.

"Villain!! Its about Sidekick!"

Immediately, the purple color faded from Hero's body and they dropped to the floor with a groan. "My back..."

Villain, however, wasn't amused. Her face fell, and her eyes widened in shock.

"Sidekick...?"

#guess who didnt proofread 😍😍😍#this gal #hero x villain #villain x hero #heroxvillain #villainxhero #heroes and villains #villains and heroes #okay i think i’ve covered all the bases #i feel so embarrassed writing all those tags 😭#villain x hero villainxhero villains and heroes 😘 stfu #its only embarrassing when i do it tho #love yall #keep doing you tbh

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battyaboutbooksreviews · 23 days

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🦇 Goodnight, my beloved bookish bats! Some of you, like me, thrive at night. I hope your latest read is bringing you comfort (and helping you relax before it's time to sleep).

🌙 firebreathing.bookqueen posted a daylights savings day post featuring a few things that bring her sunshine. Personally, I'm all about that moonlight! I know learning how to take care of ourselves, so we have the battery power to take care of others, is an ongoing process. Remember: "don't let the hard days win."

🌙 Here are a few things that have brought me moonlight lately. What about you?

🦇 Going to a silent book club meeting with C 🌙 Reading amazing, diverse ARCs 🦇 Re-reading comfort books 🌙 Buying spring flowers and produce 🦇 Kitty cuddles with Luna and CleoCatra 🌙 Journaling 🦇 Cooking with my bae 🌙 Learning how to knit 🦇 Homemade oatmilk honey cinnamon lattes 🌙 Falling in love with new authors and their work 🦇 Buddy reading with my sister 🌙 Talking to all of you! 🦇 Kickboxing class 🌙 Learning new paleo recipes 🦇 Comments from some of my favorite authors 🌙 Meeting new Bookstagrammers

🦇 What's bringing you joy?

#books #tamsyn muir #the locked tomb #books and coffee #kindle books #kindle #book sleeve #book: gideon the ninth #book series: the locked tomb #author: tamsyn muir #self care #self love #batty about books #battyaboutbooks

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onigiri-dorkk · 1 year

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Top 10 Films!

(Thanks for the tag SO long ago @a-slut-for-smut! I actually had this entire post written in my drafts right after you had tagged me but never got around to post it for some reason LOL)

I don’t watch many films anymore these days (shows/series have taken place of it) so it took awhile to recall all of my favorites. It’s actually nice to remember though, because it means all of these really lasted with me over my life.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012): A perfect coming-of-age film and story, discovered in my junior year of highschool. First of all I was in love with Logan Lerman looool and Emma Watson. But there are lines of this book/movie that stuck with me through my life, and the movie executed it perfectly. A story of finding belonging, first love, overcoming trauma alongside loved ones, growing up. The soundtrack is phenomenal, even the music score album (I listen to that often while writing).

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004): The cinematography and shots in this are just so gorgeous and creative. It’s a quirky and angsty film circling around two imperfect lovers who choose to love, who deal with the heartbreak in a terrible way, and who fall in love again, saying yes to the struggle. And, come on! The idea of having your memories erased, then during the process realizing you want to keep the painful memories after all? And navigating through memories trying to hold onto the good and the bad? Just a beautiful concept. Lots of fantastic lines and scenes. I took a lot of inspo from one scene in particular of this movie into some of the latest chapters of my longfic.

The Fault in Our Stars (2013): First of all, TFIOS is one of my all time favorite books. John Green is my favorite author, and is the only (published) author I’ve EVER gone out of my way to read multiple works from. TFIOS was the first book that brought me to *literal* tears. It rocked my world, this ill-fated story of star crossed lovers. The movie did a fantastic job adapting it; as soon as the production was announced I followed it loyally and the execution of the film made it so worth the journey. Hazel and Augustus’ actors’ chemistry was just SO good. The film STILL makes me bawl like a baby. Pls watch.

Anastasia (1997): A favorite since childhood! Romanov Princess gone missing, forced to pretend she’s the princess but she doesn’t know she’s the princess, until she finds out the conman she’s working with was the child who saved her long ago in her lost past? And they fall in love? So the conman lets go of all his con ways??? BEAUTIFUL. Love the music, love the animation, loved the idea of finding the missing princess and the love story of an unrecognized reunion of two childhood friends. I’ve always wanted to write a Rivamika/Anastasia AU 🥰 Someday.

Tangled (2010): I think as a teen I just really resonated with the “lost princess, aching for more in her life, feeling stuck in a tower, fall in love with conman” trope 🤣 But also, this was one of the first movies that made me just feel overwhelmed with heart-squeezing emotion. (I freaking loved Rapunzel; related to her in many ways) The lantern scene took my breath away and I had never really felt that in a movie theater before. Love the soundtrack and movie scores (did a music analysis presentation on the score back in highschool), animation was and still is beautiful even if it was one of Disney’s pioneering 3D animation movies.

Les Miserables (2012): I’m a sucker for musicals but this is one that I hold special in my heart. Aside from the fact that I played violin for Les Mis productions for two years, so I am attached to the music deeply... the story! The cinematography! The acting! The live singing! The instrumentals! Just a perfect cinematic experience. Eponine’s friend-zone story still breaks my heart, and I watched this movie at a time when I was going through her situation. I fell in love w the storytelling; how it took the journeys of multiple protagonists and perfectly interweaved each arc into each other’s so seamlessly. Also another movie that makes me bawl. Now that I stop to think of it, Fantine reminds me of Kuchel ;-;

Titanic (1997): I just rewatched this recently, after many many many years since childhood where I wasn't allowed to watch the kiss scenes (lol!) and holy wow it is a fantastic movie from start to end. It also helps now that I totally see Jack/young Leo as Levi. Beautiful timeless love story set in history. You know everything that happens and yet you still get so immersed into it.

August Rush (2007): I haven’t watched this in YEARS but 100% this deserves to be on my faves. August, an orphan who is looking for his parents, is discovered for his musical talents on an inspiring journey. Beautiful story about how someone’s passion for music/art (anything, really) can change their life; his parent’s story even becomes a reunion love story. This def had moments that took my breath away, too. (When August Rush gets up on that stage with the orchestra, ahhhh)

The Pianist (2002): (And honorable mention: Schindler’s List) Painfully beautiful movies. Terrible history of our world, depicted with care and pointing to the glimmers of hope in a heart wrenching way that deeply affects you. I think of both of these movies often. In The Pianist, Brody’s character is discovered to be a pianist by a German officer who helps him hide. Schindler’s List is about how a German man risks it all to save many Jews. The directing in both is phenomenal; the music—agh, that violin in Schindler’s List—too. I tear up thinking of this.

The Prince of Egypt (1998): Lastly, The Prince of Egypt. This movie rocked my world to see an ancient story, which I grew up with and was important to me and my faith when I was young, illustrated and animated with such beautiful art, music, etc. Moses leading a slave nation out of Egypt despite the odds. The burning bush scene and this one will always be iconic cinema scenes in my heart. Phew. Pls watch to those scenes with the music!!!

Thanks for tagging me @a-slut-for-smut! This was so fun to put together. I’ve been wanting to rewatch old classics to case-study the story writing and learn from my faves, so a movie marathon after the busy season will be a fun learning experience 😍

I tag: @chaosisbeauty23 @nuri148 @rivaille-13 @bryhaven @levi4mikasa @lady-purpleblue @warbarbie @your-lavender-dreams @nina-bean @onwriting-hrarby @randomposterofstuff @guliplum1 and anyone else in the community that wants to participate!!!

#personal

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scruffyplayssonic · 16 days

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Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 64 - 65: Two Multi-part Finale (part 10: Sonic the Hedgehog #247)

Welcome back to my investigation of how Archie Comics’ Sonic the Hedgehog series was actually a syndicated cartoon from the 80’s and 90’s!

Last time I discussed Sonic Universe #50, where Shard made his heroic final stand, Metal Sonic went from being a repeatedly blown up chump to a very, very scary robot, and Eggman implied that he had something big in the works. This brings us to Sonic the Hedgehog #247, the final pre-boot issue of the series. Team Fighters had chased the Death Egg all the way to its fueling station in the Arctic, and joined forces with the Arctic Freedom Fighters (who thankfully were NOT characters that Ken Penders was claiming copyright for).

The heroes smashed their way into the base and were surprised to be joined by none other than Silver. At the end of the Secret Freedom Fighters’ arc in Sonic Universe, Harvey Who had told Silver that he’d figured out who Silver’s supposed traitor was, and offscreen he explained everything he’d found out. Then at the end of Endangered Species, Shard had contacted Silver to tip him off that Team Fighters were heading to the Arctic, hence him showing up here. Sonic really didn’t have the patience for any more of Silver’s shenanigans, which is fair when you remember that Silver tried to first kill him, then Rotor, and then blamed the comatose Antoine, all in the name of stopping his supposed traitor. But Tails put together that Silver was part of a team working with Elias (or “the true king,” as they were now forced to refer to him as), and convinced Sonic to give him one more chance.

If Silver was trying not to get Sonic angry again, he was failing abysmally.

Back in New Mobotropolis, Nicole and Team Freedom were officially presenting the newly rebuilt Castle Acorn when the latest in a series of accidents involving the city’s nanites occurred.

Fortunately , Cream and Cheese had finally managed to figure out what was causing all these problems around the city. And so Cream took her theory to Rotor.

Meanwhile back up North, Silver was explaining to everyone why Sally was his “traitor.”

When Sally saved the planet from the world roboticiser only to fall victim to it herself, she inadvertantly kicked off a series of events that would doom the planet anyway. Sonic still wasn’t thrilled to have Silver there, but since the time traveller had now dedicated himself to saving Sally like the rest of them, Sonic let him tag along. Their first task was to infiltrate the Death Egg from below via an underwater tunnel.

Whoops. Well that didn’t work - Eggman’s forces attacked and sounded the alarm. And Eggman, who was busy getting ready for his next big move, was not pleased with this new development.

“Albert,” you say? Well if there was any doubt left that Eggman had already met Dr Wily - and after hinting that Metal Sonic would be working with Bass, there really shouldn’t have been - it seemed pretty clear now.

Back in New Mobotropolis, Team Freedom had laid a trap for the Tails Doll, expecting it to try and destroy the city’s power plant when it was left unsupervised. Sure enough, the creepy little jerk took the bait. There was just one small problem. …well actually, it was a large problem.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again anyway - I don’t know what was going through Evan Stanley’s idea when she was drawing the Tails Doll’s kaiju form, but I guess I get the genital general idea of what she was going for. 😛

Back in the Arctic, things were looking pretty grim for Team Fighters and their friends. Mecha Sally had been authorised to shoot to kill, and she and her brain laser (called the “Boom Fant” by Ian Flynn) were on a rampage. Tails knocked Sonic out of the way of her point-blank shot, but both of them were hurt in the process.

Amy tried to protect Sonic and Tails as Mecha Sally moved in for the kill, and I feel like in the original timeline that Silver’s future was a result of, this is where all three of them died. However in this time an injured Silver swooped in at the last possible second and used his psychokinesis to disable Mecha Sally.

Unfortunately they only got a few seconds to enjoy their win before another Genesis Wave went off and the world faded to white.

And… that’s it. That’s how the preboot era of ArchieSonic ended. With the creative team facing the incredibly daunting task of having to take the story in an entirely new direction, the incredibly well-timed Sonic and Mega Man crossover gave them an extra few months to figure out where to go afterwards. So this latest Genesis Wave was set off by both Eggman and Wily, who used it to reshape both of their worlds.

Sonic’s world was changed to one more like the games, set after the latest game in the series, Sonic Generations - wow, that makes me feel old - while Mega Man’s world was catapulted forward in time to after Mega Man 10. Combining their technology and robots, Eggman and Wily captured all of Sonic’s friends, transformed them into “roboticised masters,” and tasked them with retrieving all seven Chaos Emeralds. This would allow them to set off one last Genesis Wave that would essentially make them gods. Just like last time, Sonic transformed into his super form - this time with Mega Man joining him - and attempted to restore their worlds to how they were. While Mega Man was successful, Eggman threw a hissy fit and got in the way of Super Sonic, which… well… broke reality.

The end result of this was a rebooted world for Sonic, absent of not just the characters that Ken Penders had claimed copyright over, but all the characters created by anyone who wasn’t part of the current creative team at the time. I guess that Archie wanted to play it safe and prevent any further copyright snafus from happening, and considering that Ken Penders wasn’t the only former employee who gave them trouble, I think this was probably the right decision. But it was nonetheless a decision that had a heavy impact on the pre-crossover storylines, most of which were either quickly resolved or just discarded entirely. The Secret Freedom Fighters no longer existed (except for Silver, who was doing his own thing), and neither did Geoffrey St. John. Naugus was still around and causing mayhem in Mobotropolis, safe from the purge due to him having originally been introduced as a character in the SatAM cartoon.

But he quickly ran away with his tail between his legs and didn’t return for quite awhile. Team Freedom and Team Fighters were dropped in favour of bringing back the Freedom Fighters, who had been scattered across the planet so that they could be reintroduced one by one.

Rotor had gotten buff and was busy building the team’s new mobile flying base, the Sky Patrol.

Antoine was no longer in a coma and had been assigned guard duty of “Uncle” Chuck, who was now no longer Sonic’s literal uncle but more of a “uncle to all.” I believe that was one of the dreaded SEGA “mandates,” as the Sonic cast were no longer allowed to have relatives (except for Cream, of course). I hated that, but at least Uncle Chuck survived the purge. As did Sonic's former pet dog Muttski, who had undergone what was probably the most dramatic change.

Same, Sonic and Tails. Same.

Bunnie was undercover among the Egg Army, and had gone back to being a cyborg.

And Sally was no longer a robot, and was infiltrating the Death Egg but had to leave in a hurry when Eggman sent Metal Sonic after her. Within a few issues the team were all reunited, along with Big and Cream, just as everything went to Hell. Remember how I said that Eggman broke reality?

Yeaaaaaaaah. This led into a massive adaptation of Sonic Unleashed, which went on for almost the entirety of the rest of the series. This was a pretty brilliant idea in my opinion, as a game that was so heavily focused on travelling the shattered planet was the perfect way to re-introduce Sonic’s new world. We got to visit a variety of different locations and meet friends and enemies both familiar and new. Mighty, Ray, Lupe and Dulcy all returned with new looks and backstories, as did the former Super Special Sonic Search and Smash Squad and most surprising of all, Breezie. And a bunch of new characters quickly became fan favourites, such as the pronghorn sisters Cassia and Clove, the underwater mobians Coral, Pearly and Razor, and Shadow's new dark nemesis, Eclipse.

The reboot era of ArchieSonic lasted for over three years, but eventually it came to an abrupt end when SEGA pulled the plug. This leaves the last two (completed) arcs in post-reboot ArchieSonic for me to talk about: Terror in the Skies, the end of the Sonic Unleashed adaptation in the main book, and The Case of the Pirate Princess, a Chaotix arc that ended Sonic Universe. Even though it came after the Unleashed adapation ended, I'm going to be talking about the Chaotix arc first. Terror in the Skies feels like the best way to end this series. However I will be taking a bit of a hiatus, as I’m currently preparing to move overseas. So please be patient and wish me luck, and I'll be back with these three goobers before you know it!

#archiesonic syndicated

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fatelesschild · 2 years

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Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology 9: The Senses

A worryingly comprehensive and extremely unofficial guide to Gallifreyan and Time Lord/Lady Anatomy and Physiology, constructed with love and sweat.

This is a project that attempts to draw together everything we know about gallifreyan anatomy from every source available to place it in a valid biological system, like some Grey’s Anatomy textbook you didn’t know you needed.

The author of this has no affiliation with the BBC, and owns nothing but this lovely chocolate bar and good intentions. Nothing in this guide should be taken as de facto and everything should be free to be challenged and changed. I welcome any comments, questions, points of interest, or corrections - just aim at my ask/inbox.

Absolutely nothing in this guide constitutes professional medical advice. Always seek your human advice from a healthcare provider, and always seek your gallifreyan advice from a hospitaller on Gallifrey.

This is version 1.10.x See the main document or Tumblr masterpost for the latest version.

x Tumblr masterpost

x Main document with sources (Google Docs, not optimised for mobiles)

x Tumblr tag page with Q+As etc.

x Glossary

The Senses

AKA You know it makes sense.

Contains:

Context & Anatomy

The Main Senses - Sight, Sound, Taste, Smell, Touch

Somato - Thermoception, Nociception, Equilibrioception and gravitoception, Mechanoreception and magnetoreception, Proprioception

Chronopsionic - Time, Psionic

Summary

Key: [External link] [Guide link] [Glossary link]

9.1 Context & Anatomy

Gallifreyans have the same senses as we do, they’re just much, much better.

They also have a few extra ones besides.

They use the same organs (ie. they don’t hear with their feet)

All of the senses can be consciously controlled by the gallifreyan, either enhancing/reducing sensitivity or shutting them off altogether.

9.2 The Main Senses

Gallifreyans senses can be broadly categorised into seven distinct areas:

To save my bloody stumpy fingers typing it out seven times, just remember that acuity of the senses will vary from body to body and gallifreyan to gallifreyan, for example, some rely on taste more heavily than others and some don’t wear glasses. All gallifreyans are individuals and no body is the same. You are all individuals!

9.2.1 Sight

The Importance of Being Eyeful

This guide is definitely not any sort of deep exploration of gallifreyan society, but when it comes to explaining the importance of eyes this suddenly becomes very relevant. Gallifreyan eyes are very important to their culture. On Gallifrey they are one of the primary methods of machine interaction. They use them to interact with with the Eye of Harmony as well as the deeper workings of the TARDIS, and use them with other varying gallifreyan technologies, right down to humble door locks. Without their eyes, they would be very limited on their homeworld.

Why is this? Because unlike fingerprints, gallifreyan eyes remain individually consistent throughout their incarnations. Basic retina patterns don’t change from body to body, meaning it’s a far more reliable way of identifying an individual on Gallifrey.

As with most things to do with gallifreyans, they may look pretty human on the outside, but gallifreyan eyes are significantly different from human eyes. The retinas perceive and process visual data on their own without the brain having to get involved. This is just one more thing their brain doesn’t have to bother with so it can get on with being clever.

The eyes are made out of three cell types, cones, rods, and octagons.

Cones

Cones are what we use on a day-to-day basis to see the world around us. There are around 4.5-7 million of them in three colour types - red, green, and blue. We see something, the cones are stimulated by their according colour, and the brain interprets the data to give you an image which may or may not always be reliable (remember that dress?).

Gallifreyan visuals are much more reliable, as they are pentachromatic. They have five cone types in their eyes, allowing them to see more reliable colour images. They also have more cone cells, making them more sensitive to light and giving them all round better vision.

Rods

Rods are for night vision - we have around 90-120 million of them and they require far less light stimulation to ‘activate’. However, humans can only receive black and white data through them.

Gallifreyans have more rods than we do in three types (red, green, blue), meaning they can see much better in the dark and in colour (although not as well as in daylight).

Octagons

In humans, rods and cones work together to build the best picture they can, but in gallifreyans the eyes will switch from cones to rods and vice versa depending on what the retina deems to be the better image. If desired, this image can then be supplemented by the octagons. There aren’t that many octagons (1-2 million) but they are very powerful, and they’re what allow gallifreyans to see tiny details of objects from very far away. If you think of normal gallifreyan vision as 4k definition, then octagons make it 8k.

Topographical sensitivities

So you’re probably now thinking ‘gosh, that eyesight is practically endgame-level’, and yes, you would be right. But that’s not all. Timegri are actually able to take this to an even higher level. Their extremely sensitive eyes allow them to see even minor distortions in their field of view, leading to logical deductions on the space they’re in. For example, they’ll be able to see if they’re in a holographic projection (they can probably see the glitches and dead pixels) or a dimensionally transcendental space (there is usually slight warping on the edge of the field of vision).

Problems, Diversity & Solutions

Genetic and regenerative disorders

Colour blindness: Despite this high level of sophistication, colour blindness is possible in gallifreyans, whether through genetics or injury/disease, but the presence of these issues will vary with each incarnation.

‘Polyheterochromia’: Beyond the regenerative ‘moulding’ period, eye colour may change during the course of an incarnation, sometimes as frequently as every few minutes. This is a curious condition that appears to come and go at random and may be linked to some sort of instability during the regenerative process or interference with their biodata, though could also be linked to changes in mood or perhaps something potent that they’ve digested or inhaled. It doesn't appear to cause any harm to the gallifreyan.

Age-related degeneration: As a body ages, visual acuity will decrease as everything becomes less new and shiny, just like many of us. Of course everything can be made shiny again by regenerating.

Other conditions: There are many other conditions we’re all familiar with, such as cataracts and glaucoma, and yes, gallifreyans can be affected too, but not nearly quite as frequently. Blindness in a fresh body is possible.

Traumatic experiences

Eye removal: Physical removal of the eyes is exceptionally traumatic and recovering from this is very difficult. Their eyes cannot simply grow back and a new manufactured pair of eyes will probably be rejected (the original eyes need to be surgically put back). In addition to this, if they regenerate with no eyes then they will not grow back in a new body. The affected gallifreyan will have to rely on their psionic and somatosenses to function, and they won’t be able to use much gallifreyan technology. Put bluntly, if someone removes the eyes of a gallifreyan and completely destroys them, that gallifreyan will probably never see again.

Critical damage: Their pupil response is very quick to changing light, reducing their risk of damage by brightness/intense photo-emissions. However, severely adverse events such as exposure to the vacuum of space, high levels of ultraviolet light, or other ‘catastrophic accidents’ can cause blindness, however, as long as the eyes are still in their sockets and the visual pathways aren't completely fried, any blindness caused is curable by regeneration. If the eyes are still where they should be but the visual pathways are completely destroyed, then only extremely advanced technology can restore sight.

Interventions

While glasses are good for minor corrections, more extreme vision loss can be supported by technological interventions such as specially designed glasses or lenses, or even the use of a telepathic bond with an animal. Nothing will completely restore their sight, but it allows a good degree of functionality.

Unlike the skin, implants put into gallifreyan eyes will remain in-situ until physically removed. This is obviously a good thing if it’s intentional, but if it’s without their knowledge then the gallifreyan cannot instinctively tell there is an implant in their eye.

Natural individual variation

Gallifreyans can be short-sighted or long-sighted in one or both eyes and require glasses, in some bodies and not in others.

Gallifreyan eye colour is more often than not what we would deem to be ‘natural colours’, however, similarly to skin and hair, some more wacky eye colours such as red or purple are not completely off-limits.

The differences between masculine and feminine eyes are negligible, but if you want to get picky then on average masculine eyes may be able to pick up movements better over long distances and feminine may see more vivid colours.

9.2.2 Sound

Sound stimuli are received by the ears and processed by the brain with the help of the nervous system to give living creatures a soundscape of their surroundings. We talk about sound in two ways - as frequency (measured in hertz) and as volume (measured in decibels).

Frequency

Every living creature has a range of frequencies it’s able to hear, with various species able to hear things others can’t perceive. This is called their audio frequency spectrum. To give you some perspective:

The gallifreyan spectrum is much wider than in humans, sitting around 12Hz to 30kHz (this varies). This means they can perceive some infrasonic sounds we can’t, such as avalanches and earthquakes, severe weather and turbulence, and also hear ultrasonic sounds like electronics/machinery. It’s also because of this wider range gallifreyans can listen happily to frequencies we’d find hard to tolerate for too long ie. nails down a chalkboard. So if you ever wondered why the Music of the Spheres sounds so terrible to us and great to the Doctor, it may be because he was hearing things that we can’t perceive (or he just has a terrible taste in music).

Timegri have an extra enhancement, where they are able to perceive the sounds of their symbiotically-linked TARDIS over great distances due to their attunement as the pilot.

Doctor Wholittle

Because they can hear higher frequencies, this enables gallifreyans to hear some forms of animal communication (specifically known, dolphins) without artificial support, and then by understanding how certain calls relate to certain moods and messages, they can replicate the sounds vocally and ‘talk’ to them using their excellent vocal cords.

Volume

Volume is measured in decibels, and our scale, rather selfishly, centres on humans. 0dB is silence, while 185-200dB will genuinely kill a human. Meanwhile dogs can hear between -5 and -15dB, making them able to hear things that are too quiet for us. Gallifreyans are similar to dogs in this way - they can hear sounds down to around -5dB and tolerate noise up to 190dB without ill effect.

Problems, Diversity & Solutions

Deafness is very rare on Gallifrey, so rare in fact, that it’s never been mentioned, but any issues with this sense either through disease or injury would be able to be cured by regeneration. These diseases and injuries would be very much the same ones we may contract and/or experience. Theoretically it would be possible to regenerate with deafness on Gallifrey but this sort of thing would be quickly corrected either with a mini-regeneration or by surgery.

Again, differences between the sexes is negligible, but in general females tend to be more sensitive to loud noises, and can process auditory data faster than men, making them quicker to respond to noises like being in a conversation.

9.2.3 Taste

Taste is experienced by humans through 2000-10,000 taste buds which live for around a week at a time, detecting salt, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami of food and drink.

Gallifreyans have a very sensitive palette, with a lot more taste buds than humans (around 10,000-20,000 renewing every 3 days), and their saliva has more enzymes. This combination allows them to get information about things and objects purely from taste, from telling blood types through the taste of differing antigens, types of minerals and substances, to making logical deductions about atmosphere, as well as being able to tell the age of certain objects through the taste of rot and other decaying factors. Yuck.

Problems, Diversity & Solutions

As with everything else, diseases and injuries will affect the function of this sense. A severed tongue won’t grow back until regeneration, hospitaller intervention, or surgical reattachment, and disorders like dysgeusia are possible. Anything affecting this sense will obviously make their taste a little bit off.

Those with feminine bodies tend to have a better ability to identify substance with a lick due to more sensitive taste buds.

One absolutely crucial note to mention is that their smell and taste aren’t linked like ours, so losing their sense of smell will have no effect on their sense of taste.

9.2.4 Smell

Smell (or olfaction) is perceived by humans and gallifreyans alike through the nose, and has connections to memory and emotion. Gallifreyans have far more receptors in their noses, making them more sensitive to odours.

Gallifreyan olfaction is similar to their taste sense in that it’s so sensitive they’re able to draw logical conclusions from the odours they can detect, right down to chemical level. This includes being able to work out where and when they could be in time just from odours they find familiar to a certain time period. And it’s not just environment, it’s also people - they can detect changes in people’s odours such as being able to smell a clone of someone they know. Using this impressive schnoz they can even identify species by smell.

In Timegri, they are also able to smell time itself, with paradoxes and artron energy having their own specific scents they’ll be familiar with. They can also use smell to track down other Timegri with a well-placed sniff.

Problems, Diversity & Solutions

They can be affected by conditions like anosmia, parosmia, and phantosmia, but these are usually secondary to some other cause such as a disease, medication, or injury. Again, these types of conditions are quite rare for them and usually clear up once the cause has been identified and solved.

With age, their abilities mentioned above deteriorate in their proficiency, but in a minor way.

Once again just for a reminder, their smell and taste aren’t linked like ours, so losing their sense of smell will have no effect on their sense of taste.

9.2.5 Touch

If you’ve read the integumentary system section then there’s not much to say here besides that gallifreyans are much more sensitive with more nerve receptors in their skin, so their touch sense is a lot more effective than ours. There’s no differences between the sexes. Check the integumentary section for more fun facts!

9.3 Somato

No, it’s not the ability to see dead people (sorry, disappointing, I know). Somatosensation (abbreviated here to ‘somato’) is an umbrella term for a lorry-load of sensory inputs that allow us to understand our body’s reaction to its environment. In gallifreyans somato can be largely defined as breaking down into:

Thermoception (temperature)

Nociception (pain)

Equilibrioception and gravitoception (balance/gravity)

Mechanoreception and magnetoreception (vibration/pressure/magnetism)

Proprioception (positioning and movement)

9.3.1 Thermoception

Thermoception is the ability to sense when you are hot or cold. As discussed across the nervous system and integumentary system sections, thermoregulation tends to take care of itself using the autonomic brain and a highly effective heat maintenance method. Despite this, gallifreyans can feel hot and cold and will consciously adjust their water intake and clothing choices appropriately, however, their temperature control is so adept that they need the more extreme temperatures to need to act. These extreme temperatures are only able to be handled in short bursts (-200°C for 3 minutes), with length of time depending on how extreme the temperature is. When these temperatures become too extreme or too prolonged, gallifreyans will go through the usual motions of things like burns and frostbite, and they’ll even get sunstroke, which can be identified by a loss of memory.

9.3.2 Nociception

Gallifreyans feel pain, however, they are far better at managing it through their conscious ability to prompt the manufacture of endorphins (the pain reliever hormone). This allows them to effectively manage severe pain and makes them good at handling torture and interrogation methods. However, this is not a magic solution, and they will still feel and be limited by pain - the manufacture of endorphins only serves to take the ‘edge’ off.

If the pain becomes too severe or the damage is too great, then a gallifreyan will sink into a healing coma, which is a trance-like state designed to promote rapid recovery of whatever is causing the pain.

9.3.3 Equilibrioception and gravitoception

Equilibrioception encompasses the feeling of acceleration and balance. As previously discussed in the Nervous System section, due to their enhanced cerebellum and multiple brain stems, gallifreyans have better equilibrioception, to the degree they don’t feel things like sea sickness, jet lag, or vertigo and can stay standing perfectly upright without aid in situations where we’d all fall over. For example, ever tried to walk down the aisle of a moving bus without holding onto something? They’re very good at that.

They are also able to feel gravity strength more acutely than humans. This gives them heightened awareness of gravity and gravity fields, for example, using their gravitoception in conjunction with their mechano and magneto receptors they are able to feel planetary rotation and the sensation of their body being “stuck” to a planet’s surface. It’s through this they can also instinctively tell when gravity could be artificial.

9.3.4 Mechanoreception and magnetoreception

Concerning magnetoreception, as described in detail in the nervous system section, gallifreyan brains have a strong electrical baseline, which makes them particularly sensitive to changes in magnetic fields, which force their brain to operate on a modified electrical level. Initial reaction to this includes goosebumps, but may result in things like headaches, confusion, and fainting if sticking around them for too long.

Timegri can be even more sensitive to changes when using machines with high levels of magnetic alterations, such as transmats. They can experience paresthesia in the fingers or spine, tachycardia, insomnia, amnesia, and general disorientation. These altered magnetic fields may also cause fluctuations of the amount of artron in their blood, which can invoke either mild blood clots or temporarily excessive bleeding.

9.3.5 Proprioception

Proprioception allows you to sense the location and movement of body parts. Put simply, it’s how you know where your body is. Close your eyes and try to touch the end of your nose with your fingertip. Did it? Grats! You have excellent proprioception, because you knew where your hand and nose were without being able to see.

As discussed in the nervous system section and above, gallifreyans have a more advanced cerebellum and multiple brain stems, which makes them incredibly dextrous. This heightened awareness of their position and movement through proprioception is what makes this work so flawlessly. The end result of this is that gallifreyans are able to learn and perform extremely precise calculated movements.

9.3.6 Sex, Age and Regeneration

This is sex, age and regeneration specific to the senses. For a wider explanation see the basics main section and the regenerative system main section (link to be added).

There are no notable differences between the sexes.

You've got the picture by now that somato will be affected with age-related decline. Older gallifreyans will feel the cold more easily, feel pain more, and have less balance and awareness of their bodies and environment. This means they have a little trouble orienting themselves in their environment and it can result in more chances of falls, but in gallifreyans falls will only occur in a really old body.

9.4 Chronopsionic

The chronopsionic sense is the seventh sense. It’s split into two main categories:

Time: The main ‘special feature’ of a gallifreyan, providing senses for use in time travel.

Psionic: Basically, telepathic and telekinetic abilities.

Both of these exist in all gallifreyans, but Timegri will have far more advanced time and psionic sensitives. Having these senses is absolutely essential to using a TARDIS.

But before we touch any of that, we just need to quickly go over how Timegri actually see the universe. And hang onto your tin foil hats, people, because this is where we get proper sci-fi.

Dimensional perception

In Doctor Who lore and actual quantum theory, there are 11 dimensions. Timegri are five dimensional beings. Let’s just clarify what that means - human perception of the universe comes in four dimensions. Humans can operate in three dimensions: length (1st), width (2nd), depth (3rd). As for time (4th), we can't operate in it (ie. We can't travel in time) - we can only perceive time moving. Existing in five dimensions means Timegri can travel in time, and see and operate in the multiverse, which in Doctor Who lore is the group of parallel worlds that all started from Event One (AKA the Big Bang).

Still with me?

So, as five dimensional beings, they subconsciously see the universe in five dimensions. What does that mean? Well, when the Doctor looks at a person, he is subconsciously seeing their entire lifespan from birth to death, as well as everything they could possibly become. When he looks at the world around him, he sees all potential pasts, presents, and futures, as well as what could be and what must not be, alongside what absolutely must happen (a “fixed point”), what could be changed (a “nudge point”), as well as remembering what didn’t happen and what would have happened if it did. Is it any wonder with all this information to sift through that he sometimes misses the obvious?

Dimensional perception continued … you can quit here if you want this is just for fun

So that’s five dimensions. What about 6th-11th, I hear you say? These are known in Doctor Who lore as the Six-Fold-Realm and it’s where all the transcendental beings usually hang out. For Timegri, a little part of their brain above the pineal gland known as the Superior Epiphysis Cerebri‎‎ can allow them to see these higher dimensions, but this requires intense training to use. Being able to access these higher dimensions would allow a gallifreyan to access the Omniverse - that’s every that ever was, is, could be, and will be, simultaneously across every single universe that could ever exist. In practical Doctor Who terms, that’s what an Eternal is, or Bad Wolf.

I'm not going to go any deeper into this, so if you'd like know more then I recommend you start with this page on the TARDIS wiki and get a basic understanding of dimensional theory.

9.4.1 Time

So now that’s cleared up, I’ll return to the rather easier to understand fact that gallifreyans are time sensitive, and the time sense is exactly what you think it is. It isn’t exclusive to Timegri, normal gallifreyans have it too, just to a far lower degree. It grants a wide range of abilities, received through the other sensory organs and processed by the time lobe in the brain. These senses are enhanced by artron energy, which builds with excessive time travel.

Heightened awareness of the passage of time: obviously, gallifreyans are able to sense the passage of time far more keenly than us, and Timegri even more accurately - they can sense when time is not passing normally (ie. time jumps or distortions) and can resist it. There is also an additional skill known as ‘internal chronometry’, which is a learned skill that can be used to tell the time to within a nanosecond of accuracy.

Ability to identify other time sensitive species: Gallifreyans can instinctively detect when another being is time sensitive like some sort of alternative time-driven gaydar.

Gut revulsion to time anomalies: When confronted with someone who is anti-time (sorry, Jack) Timegri get a repulsive feeling in their gut. It feels a little bit like biting into an apple and realising it’s full of maggots.

Detection of exotic time particles: Regular time travel causes the accumulation of exotic particles to build up in the systems of any time traveller, and Timegri are able to see them as a sort of ‘slithery mist’ around the person. These particles include bockatrons, harminums, artron oxidants, and chronitons and antechronitons.

Breaking of the Laws of Time: The Laws of Time are absolutely hardwired into Timegri as part of their biology, so they instinctively know when one has been broken, whether by themselves or others. This is usually accompanied by a feeling of a shiver running down their spine. In its severest form, those who aren’t used to breaking the Laws of Time will have acute physical symptoms before doing it, such as memory problems, and pain.

Detection of other time phenomena: There are of course numerous additional time-related phenomena that they can instinctively sense, some of which cause physical reactions. This includes parachronic time fields, paradoxes, time fissures, and more. If hanging around these for too long, they’ll start to physically react to them, with headaches, tingling sensations, and dizziness being the most common symptoms. None of this will kill them, but it ain’t half unpleasant, gov.

9.4.2 Psionic

As the psionic system has its own section, I’ll just cover the basic sensory inputs here.

Psionics in its most loose and frivolous definition is psychic powers. By using this system, this grants gallifreyans a host of special psychic senses using their epiphysis cerebri, including:

Recognition of a TARDIS: Timegri can recognise a TARDIS, its type, and its condition straight away, regardless of its shape and form. They can also physically react to fully energised TARDISes with a tingling sensation in their fingers and toes.

Ability to identify other gallifreyans: They have another gaydar, this time it’s for identifying and detect members of their own species irregardless of their appearance, which as you undoubtedly read in the nervous system section is made possible by the reflex link. This can be supplemented by using their sense of smell to detect and locate each other to a specific area.

Ability to identify other psionic species: The final gaydar, this time it’s being able to identify if someone they encounter is also psionic.

“Finding evil”: The Doctor appears to have quite a knack for sensing evil and claims that this is one of his senses. It does exactly what it says on the tin - he seems to be able to instinctively feel the presence of something bad. However, this sense appears to be exclusive to the Doctor and somewhat intermittent and there’s no evidence any other gallifreyans have it, so use it carefully.

9.4.3 Injury, Disease & Healing

This is injury, disease and healing specific to the senses. For a wider explanation see the immune system.

Damage to either of these senses is extremely disabling for a gallifreyan, especially a Timegri. Forcibly removing them would be nothing short of horrific for the individual and a form of torture.

Injury tends to come from traumatic damage to the brain that affects the time lobe or the epiphysis cerebri, such as severe head trauma or a psychic shock. Depending on the severity of the damage this may require regeneration, or alternatively could be fixed by assisted or natural healing.

There are some extremely unique diseases for creatures with time and psionic sensitivities which can cause the hampering or destruction of sensory inputs, which are known to be far worse than anything on Earth, only a few of which we know about (Regeneration (link to be added) and Immune System sections). If you ever invent anything, drop me a line and I’m totally there to read it!

9.4.4 Sex, Age & Regeneration

This is sex, age and regeneration specific to the senses. For a wider explanation see the basics main section and the regenerative system main section (link to be added).

There's no discernable difference in the time sense between masculine and feminine bodies. However, those with more feminine brains tend to have better psionic senses as their epiphysis cerebri is naturally larger.

Age, as ever, causes these senses to be a lot less refined. And apart from where I’ve noted, regeneration will cure most issues with these senses.

9.5 Summary

Remember - you are all individuals! No body and no gallifreyan are the same.

Gallifreyans are extremely sensitive to pretty much everything, they’re better at everything than us.

They’re also incredibly resistant to adversities to protect their sensory organs.

Eyes are really, really important …

… As are chronopsiotic senses, because without those they’d lose what it means to be a gallifreyan.

Magnetic fields are quite a challenge sometimes.

Time adversities cause physical symptoms.

They’re 5D creatures so don’t underestimate how differently they perceive the world.

Rejected Evidence:

I don't think this is anything more than poetic scripting, so I'm not gonna try and physiologically justify it, but please do enjoy:

‘Eyes could be used to tell [a gallifreyan’s] true age’

I cannot find at all where this came from (my best guess is Sleepy?) and the use of mRNA is so tenuous anyway I’ve decided to let this slide for now, may return later.

‘Some Gallifreyans can use their stomachs to interpret human memory RNA and producing the Gallifreyan equivalent.’

This is a cute thought but this seems defunct in the hierarchy considering how boy spends a lot of his time wandering around in full-on coats and jackets in high temperatures.

‘Gallifreyans tend to find a room temp of 20 C to be uncomfortably hot.’

I’ve covered the topographical sensitivities, but I don’t believe this is a sense of its own, this is just a case of good memory.

‘This Topographical Sense also allows them to remember any path they have taken (this might work by tracing their own biodata). To use their Topographical Sense they must however remember to store the path they took.’

I suspect this is probably in reference to The Christmas Invasion, but the recent regeneration mitigates this.

‘Through an act of will, a Gallifreyan can compartmentalize pain to the degree that they can block the pain from a severed limb.’

Curious about something? Need some creative gallifreyan biology-related advice? Wanna say hi? Ask away!

#fcgallifreyana&p #gallifreyan biology #gallifreyan anatomy #doctor who #time lords #gallifreyan #anatomy #dw #gallifreyan physiology #dw meta #this is so long omg #i'm sure there's more to add but can i just breathe right now #there's been some significant additions to nervous system in the interim so check that out too

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authurials · 2 years

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𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑 ... 1/2

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 . after a long night of patching up members of the franchetti crime family, all you want to do is wash off all the blood--until jackie interrupts your much needed bath

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒 . two

𝐑𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘 . @ladyestacado

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒 . 18+ situations, blood, slight mentions of gore, alluding to sexual situations, brief moment of second base (copping a feel), nudity

𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 . my first request! i absolutely love the darkness video games (i have not read any of the comics as of when i’m writing this), and jackie estacado is one of my favorite video game characters so i was excited when i got this request. it took me awhile to find the motivation and angle i wanted to take, but i like how this turned out, although i regret not having more interaction between jackie and the reader--it’s heavy on the internal dialogue. i might expand upon this concept and write a longer fic about this pair, starting during the events of the first game but i haven’t decided yet (let me know if you’d be interesting in reading that!)--remember to like, comment and reblog if you enjoy reading! do not repost/claim as your own please

𝐑𝐄𝐃. 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓'𝐒 𝐀𝐋𝐋 you could see as you looked in the mirror at your blood stained reflection; arms, chest and face covered in the stuff, clothes soaked with sanguine and alcohol–the mixture of which burned your nose. Your eyes were puffy with exhaustion, heavy with the effort of trying to keep them open all these hours–dry and irritated, they were also red.

You had known taking the job as the Franchetti family’s personal doctor would come with its many many downfalls, you weren’t naive enough to believe otherwise. The title came with the usual dangers of being on the payroll of a crime family, and despite remaining as anonymous as possible you’d been the target of the enemy’s scope more than a handful of times over the years. There were also the hours; with no definitive schedule, you were on call 24/7–no exceptions, no negotiations–which didn’t leave much room for a personal life or good night’s sleep for that matter. This was not to mention the mental duress the line of work often put you under. You were always on edge, anxious, tuned up like a livewire as you waited for the next page telling you to come. And then there was always in the moment, scalpel or suture in hand, staring down at a bone breaking through the skin, torn viscera��a gaping hole.

Taking a deep breath, you gripped the edge of the counter as you leaned forward, closing your eyes as a wave of nausea crashed over you. Images flashed behind your eyelids, snapshots of your latest bought of Franchetti underlings caught in the crossfire of another failed hit on the boss. Tonight’s hit had come with severe burns, broken bones, the usual bullet holes and of course the expected casualties; not everyone could be saved, you knew that when you started studying medicine, but in your present line of work it was almost a miracle if they did survive.

Sighing, you relaxed as the bile settled once more in your small intestine, flowing through your digestive tract along with the forgotten remnants of a dinner you had been unable to finish with a date you hadn’t even wanted to go on–silver lining you supposed. Pulling back from the sink, you began to tug off your scrubs and discard them on the floor; it was the nice, expensive marble kind, polar opposite to the cheap linoleum you had in the bathroom at your apartment. On nights when the workload was particularly heavy, you always received an invite to rest at the Estacado mansion from Aunt Sarah herself; you’d get cleaned up, put on one of the few outfits you kept there, and have a nice dinner prepared by Aunt Sarah. You weren’t always able to stomach the food, but you enjoyed the company of the older woman as you were both able to sit in silence with one another–her working on her knitting, and you just sitting there, processing that day’s work.

Currently, she was downstairs preparing one of your favorite dishes after the particularly hard time you’d had tonight. You didn’t even have to say anything once you had arrived at the mansion courtesy of one of the family’s drivers; Aunt Sarah had seen the look on your face, told you to go upstairs and run a hot bath, and she would get started on a late dinner–a really late dinner. After taking a glance at your watch, the face stained with dried blood, you realized that it was almost nearly two in the morning; what Aunt Sarah was doing up at this time of night you didn’t know, but you appreciated the company nonetheless.

Taking off your bra and underwear, you discarded them along with your scrubs as you walked over to the tub; it was giant and deep, with jacuzzi capable jets that on a better night you would have taken advantage of, but right now you just wanted to get all the red off. Leaning over, you turned the knob all the way over to get the hottest possible temperature, slowly decreasing after each test so you got the right amount of warmth. Closing the plug, you sat naked on the edge of the tub as you watched the water collect and fill. The dampness of the water on your arm had caused the congealed blood to loosen and stain, sliding down your wrist to your hand in diluted watercolor before dripping into the awaiting clear water. The sight caused a cramp in your stomach, and for a moment you feared you truly would throw up, but the tight fist was quick to loosen thankfully as you took a deep breath.

Once the bathtub was full, you stepped in carefully, letting your feet adjust for a moment before sliding your entire body in slowly. The water engulfed you, rocking rhythmically against the sides of the tub until you finally settled, head leaning against the back of the tub. You felt the tension leave your body, eyes once again heavy as exhaustion hit, but you kept them open as you watched the sticky tack of the dried blood loosen and chip off into the water. Shaking, you lifted your right hand and brought it to your left forearm, slowly rubbing the red off as it dyed the water pink.

You had really come to hate the color red….

There was a knock at the door, drawing you out of your thoughts; at first, you thought it might be Aunt Sarah, asking if you needed towels or anything else, but then you heard the voice on other side:

“It’s me–Jackie.”

Jackie Estacado. Your boss, the don of the Franchetti family, and your occasional lover.

For a moment, you hesitated to give him the okay to come in, not knowing if you really had it in you tonight to see him. You liked Jackie, hell you might even love him, but you also weren’t blinded by your feelings for him. You knew he had gone out to dinner with not one but two women tonight, hence why you’d said yes to your own ill fated date–to help get your mind off of it. You weren’t stupid, you knew he didn’t give two shits about the women he’d been set up with but you also weren’t naive to believe he harbored anything different for you. The both of you enjoyed going to bed together sometimes, whenever he needed something different than the guilt and pain of existence and whenever you let desire get the best of you. There was no reason to believe that your time with Jackie was anything deeper than itching a scratch, because you knew with great clarity that he was still very much in love with Jenny Romano.

There was no space for you there in his heart.

“Can I come in?” Jackie asked when you did not respond.

Giving a quiet sigh, you sat up, the sound of water sloshing against you as you hugged your knees to your chest. Resting your chin on top of them, you hummed: “I suppose.”

You kept your eyes locked on your feet, looking at them through the murky pink tinted water as you listened to the handle of the door turn and jiggle as it was pushed open. The sound of Jackie’s shoes scuffing against the marbled floor followed as he entered the bathroom, filled with the light mist of dissipating steam as your bath water cooled off. Out of the corner of your eye you could see him survey the scene, brushing over you in the bath as he moved further into the room, turning to stand in front of the sink where you had been minutes before. Both mirrors were covered in a melting layer of condensation, drops of water beading before slowly sliding down the reflective surface, leaving a clear trail in their wake.

Neither of you said anything for a moment, instead just letting the silence fall over you like a weighted blanket. Eyes sliding closed, you sighed, unsure of what to say or why he was here; you rarely saw Jackie if you were being honest. He came and went as he pleased, and you’d catch glimpses of him here and there, but there was no acknowledgement of these moments on his part–no brief hellos or how are yours or other small talking points. He only visited you when he needed something–patching up, a report on one of his guys, a romp in the sheets.

It hadn’t always been like this between you, once upon a time you had been able to talk and hangout and be friends; you had all been friends–you, Jackie, and Jenny. You met Jenny first at the place she worked, it had been a popular spot for you and your resident buddies to hang out after a long shift at the hospital. You had known of Jackie during the first months of yours and Jenny’s budding friendship, but didn’t truly meet until almost a year after you met Jenny. Once you had met though, Jenny made a point of including you in their non-couple activities–movie nights, bowling, pizza outings. It was nice to have something outside of your residency, to have friends that you didn’t see for hours at a time on shift, the only commonality being your proximity and sleep deprivation.

And then Jackie had showed up on the steps of your apartment one night–shot, bleeding out, and begging you not to tell Jenny. Your work had been intrinsically entangled in your friendship with Jackie ever since, and sometimes you couldn’t help but resent him for that. If he hadn’t told his buddy what you’d done for him, his Uncle Paulie would’ve never known, and you’d never have been recruited to work for the Franchetti family–it was hard to say no when the alternative was death.

“Busy night I heard,” Jackie finally hummed, back still turned to you. He was wearing dress pants and a white button up, probably having changed after the altercation at the restaurant. You made note that he seemed pretty much unscatched.

“Comes with the territory,” you replied, reaching for the rag you’d laid out prior to running your bath. You dunked it into the water, ringing it out before reaching for the body wash–it was a neutral almond butter scent. “Heard you and Vinnie barely made it out–though you don’t look too worse for wear.”

“Got lucky I guess,” Jackie chuckled, no humor in his voice as he turned to lean his back against the counter. “How many we lose tonight?”

“Can we not talk about work right now?” You found yourself saying, surprising yourself. Usually you could get through the work conversations with somewhat ease, but tonight you felt particularly drained by the ordeal and just wanted to soak in the tub. Pouring the soap on the rag, you rubbed the damp fabric together until it created a lather, not bothering to wait for Jackie to answer.

“Alright,” he eventually nodded, watching you as you began to wash off your arms and legs. After a pause he continued, “you want help with that?”

Pausing, you raised an eyebrow at him, confused by his behavior. Jackie wasn’t what you would call hot and cold when it came to whatever it was between you, he was pretty consistently distant across the bar. He let you get just close enough for the two of you to sleep together, but made it no secret that all this was to him was a way to forget Jenny–if even just for a moment; when in reality it just made both of you feel guilty, like you were betraying her memory. Jackie wasn’t what you’d call affectionate, and he sure as hell had never offered to help you bathe before; now that you were thinking about it, he had never seen you in this situation before–your trysts were reserved to the bed in your apartment, never here at the mansion and certainly not in Jackie’s bedroom where his shrine to Jenny could look upon his pseudo-infidelity.

But despite the out of the ordinary behavior, you found yourself holding up the rag, letting it hang limply between your fingers as you spoke, “be my guest.”

You didn’t take your eyes off him as he strode across the bathroom, only needing to take a couple of steps before he was able to kneel by the side of the tub. His eyes didn’t leave yours either as he worked on rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt, which fit over the taunt muscles of his arm. The buttons in the front were done up except for the top few, exposing the expanse of hair he had on his chest. Once he had finished, he took the rag from your hand, fingers brushing against the sensitive skin of your wrist and making you shiver slightly.

Taking your right arm, he turned it over so your inner forearm faced up, and began to gently wash your body. Resting your chin on your shoulder, you watched him with hooded eyes, still not fully understanding what his intentions were but nowhere near feeling the need to complain. He was quiet as he worked, first on your right arm and then your left, silently bidding you to lean back so you could lift your leg from the water when he finished with your arms.

“So what’s all this about?” You finally hummed, body feeling heavy and relaxed as you laid back in the tub.

“What do you mean?” Jackie responded, raising a dark brow at you, lip quirking in slight amusement. “I’m just helping a friend out.”

“Well, you’ve never offered to wash me before,” you rolled your eyes, kicking some water at him. It seeped through the sleeve of his sheet, making it slightly see through.

“First time for anything,” he answered plainly.

“Come on, Jackie,” you sighed as he set one leg down and tapped the knee of the other for you to lift. “Don’t jerk me around, I know something’s wrong-”

“Something’s always wrong,” he countered, interrupting you. “Tonight I don’t want to think about what’s wrong and just….just want to be with you-”

He paused before continuing, seeming to decide if what he was going to say was for the best, and it seemed he decided it was as he spoke, “if that’s okay?”

You took him in for a moment; a man so devilishly handsome, kneeling beside a bathtub you were in, and washing each of your limbs with a care that polarized his ability to wield a gun with such deadly precision. As his rag left your leg and found its home on your stomach, resting mere inches below your breasts which rose and fell with each breath, you found yourself measuring his words carefully before you responded. Did he want to be with you? Or were you just second place to the memory of a girl who was nothing more than a picture and a candle on his mantle? And even at the realization of that, did you really care? You desired him, in fact you probably loved him, and if all you were going to get from was the occasional crumb of recognition why not take it?

“Okay,” you found yourself speaking quietly, shifting so you were sitting up once more. It caused the rag in his hand to brush against the underside of your breasts, and a second later he was letting it drop so the feel of his fingers could replace it. Coming up to cup your breast in one hand, the other hand reached up to touch your cheek, brushing the damp hair stuck there with the pad of his thumb you watched as he leaned in to claim your lips in a kiss. Eyes slowly closing, you reciprocated, allowing him to set a gentle and slow pace as the hand on your chest stroked teasingly over your nipple.

Framing his face in your hands, you pressed closer, fingers committing the hard angular plains of his face to memory as you deepened the kiss but only for a moment. Sighing, you pulled back and pressed your foreheads together, eyes still closed as you each breathed each other in. Jackie’s hands slipped from your face and chest to rest on your shoulders and tops of your upper arm, thumbs stroking across the slightly damp skin.

“I still need to wash my hair,” you chuckled softly, “then I can come to bed–if that’s what you want.”

You weren’t implying you wanted to go to his bed, knowing his room was a very special and safe place for him. The bedroom you were given for overnight stays adjoined the bathroom, offering you privacy from the going ons in the house. You didn’t mind sharing the bed in there with Jackie for the night if that’s what he wanted.

“I can run some fresh water,” Jackie suggested, “and join you.”

His hand came up to push the thick curtain of wet hair away from where it was sticking to your neck, leaning in to press a kiss there as he waited for your answer. Of course you were going to say yes, it was evident in the way your hands came up to touch his hair, if only to hold him to your neck for a little longer. But soon he was pulling away and helping you out of the tub, grabbing the robe on the back of the door for you to wrap up in as he cleaned out the reddish residue that remained after the tub had drained. It no longer left your stomach feeling strange when you saw the shade of red melt off the sides of the tube and swirl down the drain, there was comfort in knowing Jackie was there with you–that the red could no longer consume you.

While the new bath water ran, you watched as Jackie stripped off his dress shirt and reached down to unbutton his pants. Once he had you stepped forward, hands replacing his own on the waistband of the pants pushing them down slowly as you both leaned in for another kiss. Pressing soft kisses to each other’s mouths, you let him finish pushing the pants down once they hit his knees, feeling him shift and kick them off as they pooled at his ankles. Fully naked now, he wrapped his arms around you, and for a moment you both just stood there–no longer kissing, just holding one another.

When the tub was full, Jackie slipped in first, sighing as the warmth engulfed him and he leaned all the way back. Once he was settled, he held out his hand to you, and you took it this time without hesitation as you stepped into the water. Sitting down, you leaned your back against his front, head settling just beneath his chin as the water came up just past the tops of your breasts. There was no kissing or fondling to be had, but in that moment there was no need as you just soaked up each other’s company.

After you had managed to dampen your hair, you allowed Jackie to lather the shampoo into it gently, fingers combing through the tangled tresses, careful to get every inch. Neither one of you spoke as you went through the process of washing your hair, and it was only after it had been rinsed thoroughly and was spread out once more across the expanse of Jackie’s chest that you finally said something.

“I really care about you Jackie,” you found yourself saying, a dull ache beginning to take root in the back of your throat. You didn’t like getting overly emotional or mushy, you had never been that type of person, but you had to make it clear to Jackie what was at stake for you if whatever this was didn’t pan out.

A pause.

“I know,” he said, his arms tightening around you as he rested his chin on the top of your head.

Your heart ached, same as your throat, as you waited for more but never got it, and you knew you never would. This is all you would ever have when it came to Jackie Estacado–he would never be yours because he was still hers, and always would be. Pushing that hurt down, you relaxed into his arms, determined to at least enjoy this moment even as something else loomed over your head.

“Jackie?” You found yourself unable to ignore that terrible feeling eating away at you–worse than when you saw the blood in the water.

“Hmmm?” You felt the vibration against the top of your head as he pressed his lips to your hairline.

“It’s back isn’t it?” You asked.

Another pause–longer this time.

“Yeah,” he spoke heavily, arms tightening around you as he pulled you closer, “it’s back.”

#˚ ₊˚ˑ༄ؘ 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐇 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐘𝐏𝐄𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑 :#the darkness #the darkness video game #jackie estacado #jackie estacado x reader #jackie estacado one shot

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