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lululawrence · 1 year

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Lulu's December 2022 Fic List

Previous Fic Lists / Lulu’s List Podcast Masterpost

Happy last 28th of the year! Here are the fantastic and festive fics I was able to read this month. As always, be sure to show your love and appreciation for all of the hard work our fandom authors have put into their fics with kudos, nice comments, and (when applicable) reblogging their fic posts!

Peculiar Ugly Duckling by @londonfoginacup / LadyLondonderry (4k, G, Harry/Louis, Isle of Eroda fest fic, Magic, Harry is the Boy from the Adore You video, Louis is a fish named Louwee, crack fic, POV of Louwee the FOUS aka fish of unusual size, this fic is silly but still so emotional and wonderful, i was giggling and crying and just so endeared by this entire thing, basically a usual emmu fic hehe)

until springtime, we sleep (i'll wait for you) by istgeve (5k, NR, Harry/Louis, Christmas fic, Harry is an elf, Louis is on the naughty list, there is a PUNISHMENT if you're on the naughty list, this fic had me hiccuping from laughing so hard but trying to hold it in, it's so silly and ridiculous, and just really great overall, the banter omg the banter, I genuinely am tearing up from trying to stay quiet even now just thinking about it, please read this)

Truebonds by @jacaranda-bloom / jacaranda_bloom (40k, E, Harry/Louis, 1D A/B/O fest, alpha Harry, omega Louis, heat/rut, suppressants, nesting, heat services, accidental bonding, triggered heat/rut, soulmates, there is just SO much in this fic that I cannot simply sum up in a few sentences, the worldbuilding is incredible, the entire concept of how the nesting period goes, how finding their truebond is so unusual, just all of it was fascinating and then seeing it all play out was so natural and real and just so cool, loved this one so much)

Blind Faith by @2tiedships2 / 2tiedships2 (18k, M, Harry/Louis, Blind Harry, Alpha Harry, Omega Louis, Liam is Harry's roommate, meet cute, scenting, strangers to lovers, soulmates, this fic was one of those fics that stays with you for a while, i just keep thinking about it, the way louis was so considerate of harry and doing the research to best know how to help him, but also not take away his choice, like how to show him respect, it was just so incredible and a cool way to learn more)

and i don't care it's obvious by @alwaysxlarrie / alwaysxlarrie (21k, T, Harry/Louis, 1000 Feelings fic, childhood friends to lovers, Louis is Gemma's bff, pining, friends to lovers, flirting, getting together, I preread pieces of this fic and already knew it would be so cute, and it really was, it was filled with so much of that sweet and innocent longing, that i remember so well from when i was younger, and it was just so fun to read that particular storyline here)

Change of Plans by @haztobegood / haztobegood (3k, G, Harry/Louis, Christmas fest fic, queer platonic relationship, ace Harry, nesting, heat, non-traditional a/b/o dynamics, beta Louis, omega Harry, Christmas plans are thrown off by an unexpected heat, but it is so sweet reading about these two omg, I loved them so much, always love me some excellent asexual and queer platonic relationship material, it was WONDERFUL)

Let Them Eat Cock by @uhoh-but-yeah-alright / yeah_alright (2k, E, Louis/Liam, Louis/Zayn, Louis/Harry, Louis/Niall, Glory Hole series, Bastille Day, Glory Hole worker Louis, that's all it is and if you're familiar with the series, this addition doesn't disappoint, I had had an incredibly shitty day and needed a laugh, and knew this would deliver, and it really fucking did haha, giggles and excellent smut, what more could you want in a 2k fic?)

One for the Books by @neondiamond / Neondiamond (25k, M, Harry/Louis, Zayn/Liam, Advent fic, Christmas fic, bookshop owner Harry, teacher Louis, strangers to lovers, friends to lovers, misunderstandings, new beginnings, fluff, flirting, new relationship, this had all the best things you want around Christmas, and it was so much fun to read, the way it all came together and developed was a joy to read, and it was so great keeping up with it through December)

Storm Warning by @restless-rebels / restless_rebels (4k, T, Harry/Louis, WCC Secret Santa fic, doggie daycare owner Harry, meet ugly, but it turns into a meet cute so it's okay hehe, puppy owner Louis, winter storm, this fic was actually a gift for me, and i loved reading it so much, it was so fun and cute and sweet)

Advent Drabbles by @berzerkshires / berzerkshires (E, 3k, Harry/Louis, Advent fic, Christmas fic, drabbles, canon compliant, established relationship, every day a 100 word drabble posted, and it was incredible how drawn in I was with so few words, when I realized the final word count was that small, yet so much was gone over, it was amazing, such a fun read and little morsels of goodness every day was a joy)

California stars by @justanothershadeofblue / justanothershadeofblue (zjofierose) (28k, M, Harry/Louis, Advent fic, Christmas fic, historical (1800s), strangers to lovers, farmer Harry, epistolary fic, written entirely in journal entries, strangers to lovers, hurt/comfort, melancholy, friendship, listen this fic, it like changed me, and that feels like a stupidly huge thing to say about a story but for real this one dug a little place for itself inside of me, and has lodged itself well there, i adore this fic, it deserves so much love and attention, it's beautifully written and crafted, the entire fucking thing, it's incredible and one of my absolute favorite fics)

Set the Sky Alight, Oh Holy Night by @londonfoginacup / LadyLondonderry (34k, T, Harry/Louis, Zayn/Liam, Niall/Lewis, Advent fic, Christmas fic, crack fic, yet also inspired by a true story, wild lollll, roommates, strangers to lovers, coworkers, unsafe living conditions, truly i have no idea how oli let them continue living there lmao, this fic is a classic emmu advent fic, and it DELIVERS on the humor and ridiculous situations, as well as the tenderness and incredibly sweet affection, always a journey and a joy to read her advent fics)

make you mine this season by @disgruntledkittenface / disgruntledkittenface (29k, M, Nick Grimshaw/Louis, Harry/Zayn, Advent fic, Christmas fic, girl direction, the Holiday AU basically haha, miscommunication, flirting, everyone's American, a plethora of lesbian jokes that are jokes because they're real for these disastrous girls haha, Nick and Harry are besties who mix up their Christmas holiday surprises for each other, by planning the same thing for each other on the same day, leaving them stuck in each other's cities without the other, and it is FANTASTIC OMG, I'm not joking when I told Maggie that if I hadn't already had my big bi revelation, this fic would have pushed me to it, LOVED IT SO MUCH)

#28th appreciation #fic rec #my fic rec #fic writer appreciation #fic list #december 2022 fic list

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erodaficfest · 1 year

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A final wrap up and tremendous thank you...

To all the wonderful authors and everyone else along the way that made this first go of the Eroda Fic Fest a huge success--thank you, thank you, thank you! Congrats on a job well done. These are some truly wonderful and peculiar fics. Below you'll find the collected works from our authors for this year's fest. Readers, don't forget to show our authors some love for all their hard work by leaving comments and kudos on their fics. 🐟💙

🐟 have a heart, look into a heart (44K) by adoremelikeasunflower // @adoremelikeasunflower19 Harry is a lighthouse keeper on Eroda and Louis is his assistant, and they're in love. Living on a small, secluded Island does not make anything easy. The story of their everyday struggles, finding self-acceptance, and one's own place in the world. 🐟 crystal clear (9K) by finelinegynandromorph // @finelinegynandromorph Moss, rock, and algae blend together as Bilal paws forward, grasping at slick wet earth, skinning their knees on slices of shells hidden in treacherous cracks. The rain is whirling their poncho up around their hips, letting icy wind in to bite angry welts into their hips. The stranger moves swiftly over the hill, with far more grace than Bilal can believe possible, and they trip in their haste to keep up with her, still unsure where she’s taking them.

Lightning and thunder split the sky together, and Bilal shivers violently, hurrying forward as fast as they can.

Or, a fisher searching for lobsters and an exile hoping to protect them are thrown together in a storm. Tangled thoughts on crustaceans, immigration, and indignity.

🐟 stole my heart (with just one hook) (4K) by sitandadmire // @louistomlionson Five times Louis gets jealous of Harry and his new friend, and the one time he finally faces the truth. About who he is, what his heart wants, and what the future holds.

Or: An Eroda AU.

🐟 peculiar ugly duckling (4K) by LadyLondonderry // @londonfoginacupinacup Loowee is a fish. Loowee is a fish born to a family of FOUS fish. You’ve heard of FOUS fish, haven’t you, reader? Yes, of course you have. Fish Of Unusual Size Fish, of course. (There’s no need to tack the word fish onto the end of FOUS like that, but they simply do. It’s like having an ATM machine). FOUS fish are all quite big fish, unusually large in size compared to the average fish of the ocean. Loowee the FOUS fish hates being big.

🐟 put your love in a bottle (and send it my way) (3K) by tommokat // @tommokat Today was going to be a good day. Harry just knew it. He knew it was going to be a good day because today was the 28th day of the month. And the 28th days of the month were bottle days. And bottle days were Louis days.

🐟 only thing i'll ever do (4K) by KatnissPotter1 // @othercinemastantan The lighthouse keeper of Eroda retired, handing the responsibility to Louis. He’s on storm watch when the peculiar boy asks him for help to find the fish. Will Louis help, or is the boy’s reputation too daunting?

🐟 driftwood (51K) by justanothershadeofblue (zjofierose) // @justanothershadeofblue Eroda was all Harry knew. He lived there all his life, but he always knew he was peculiar. He had dreams that go beyond this small, cold, and lonely island. He wanted to leave; he HAD to leave. But that meant leaving Louis... Harry is a lonely and depressed pop star who sailed out of his hometown on Eroda years ago to chase his dreams. He comes back to the island only to find his shining childhood best friend Louis just as cold and dreary as the island they grew up on.

🐟 I gave up hope and found you instead (14K) by Cyantific // @cyantific The entire village warned him not to go. Still, the peculiar boy from Eroda set sail on an odd-numbered day and, without knowing it, headed straight into the OFMD universe. While being held captive aboard the pirate ship Revenge, the boy meets a fisherman named Louis. Tasked by the captain to teach the reluctant boy to fish, Louis struggles to hide his frustration and hold his tongue. As difficult as it was to deal with this clumsy stranger, the skilled fisherman had worse assignments and more unpleasant partners, but none of them with a smile as bright as this peculiar boy had. A moment of unexpected distress catches them off guard, and both soon find out it’s much easier to catch feelings than fish.

OR: Where the Adore You music video ends and the Our Flag Means Death story begins.

🐟 the marmonton hotel (15K) by jaerie // @jaerie For several months, The Marmonton Hotel had been dark. Harry walked past it on his way home and knew they had closed their doors pending some major structural repairs that needed to be made to continue to operate commercially. The last Harry heard, the owners were thinking of tearing it down, which Harry thought was a shame. Each night he looked at the building and thought about everything it had witnessed over the long history of the town. It stood over and watched generations of celebrations and tragedies.

One night, in the light of the moon, he looked up to see a figure standing in the vacant hotel. The emotion in the eyes of the stranger was too tangible for his brain to conjure it up, a mix of fear and shock that Harry couldn’t place. He looked conflicted about being seen, hovering in the space just out of full view, but not so much that Harry thought the man had broken in. It wasn’t that type of feeling.

The next night he returned, and this time, he was pulled to walk in. He finds more than he was expecting, and an unexpected history lost to time.

Or the story of the ghost at The Marmonton Hotel.

🐟 a sea of paper stars (14K) by creamcoffeelou // @creamcoffeelou The Isle of Eroda holds her secrets close and her magic closer.

#trackinghome #trackinghappily #tracksintheam #hlficlibrary #1dficfests #1dficvillage #fymhm #hltracks #hlcreators #hljournal #thelarriefics #ficsfor4am #1d fics #1d fic fest #eroda fic fest #eroda fic fest fic posts #eroda fic fest masterpost

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yanderefairyangel · 9 months

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Veyle : identity struggles and self-affirmation

And here again, duality in Engage part 4. Centered around Veyvey.

Spoilers about Veyvey under the cut.

Short introduction, Veyle is Sombron's daughter and Alear's only surviving sibling. She is a Mage dragon/Fell dragon Hybrid. When she was young, the only sibling she could have meet was Alear who offered her their dragonstone as a proof they were alive before departing. When Sombron was put to sleep, she stayed with her mother before this one got killed by humans upon discovering she was Sombron's mate. She got persecuted by humans when they noticed she didn't aged and got hidden by followers of Sombron, who put her in a temple in which she slept for a century before waking up and being found by devout of Sombron. Zephia puts a spell on her creating a new personality for Veyle in order for her to help with Sombron's release, and gathering rings leading her to kill Lumera and to commit other atrocities. She is recruited after chapter 22, after she discovers Alear was her long lost half sibling.

So here we go, deep dive into Veyvey

1-analysis of Veyle's design.

Veyle's dress is white and made of feather, she has a feather accessory and her outfit is remniscent of white swan

Her design also involves her walking barefeet, with her feets wearing chains and a leash like choker.

Now, interestingly, Veyle is being called a defect by Sombron due to her kind hearted nature, implying that she is imperfect. However, swans are considered to be a symbol of perfection due to their beauty and grace, and the whiteness of their feather. They are also considered to be a symbol of purity, especially linked to feminity and therefore, Veyle's design is likely inspired by the swan in order ro reflect her gentle, kind hearted nature. Her barefeet are likely to represent her as being a wandering child. However, foot are a symbol of freedom,( which is probably why I like walking barefoot at home) and her feet are wearing chains .

Those chains are here to represent that despite her wandering around, Veyle is actually not free. She is chained. Restrained.

Now there is a peculiarity I'd like to bring up. Have you ever heard about the Black swan effect ? Well, this is based on a true event, that is that swans are usually white, yet one day people realized that black swan existed too. This anecdote gave a name to a theory about imprevisible events.

Black swan are a symbol of imperfection due to their black feather, and dangerous personality. That duality of the swan is used in the movie Black Swan about a ballerina suffering from DID. It's also exploited in many retelling of Swan Lakes exploiting the fact that Odette, the white swan and Odile, her doppelganger, are often played by the same dancer, hence representing both swan. Now, there is a reversal here since Veyle, in her habitual state is treated as defective despite her white swan outft however, her other personality is considered as perfect by Sombron and Zephia despite her black swan dress.

Moreover, while Veyle's white dress gives her an angelic vibes, her dark outfit makes her look more devilish due to the helmet with it's horns, the gloves with the claws, and the scales, as well as her entire dress ressembling dragonic wings.

This reversal does highlight that Veyle is not fitting in Sombron's family, as her reguard any proves of purity as weakness and defectivness.

Veyle's hair color is also white dominant with black bangs, making her ressembles a white swan with black collar.

The symbolic of the swans is reminding me of 2 tales using swan symbolism : Swan Lake, and The Ugly little duckling.

2-Veyle's identity conflict.

It's obvious that Veyle is intended to represent the white swan/Odette and Lucy the black swan/Odile. If you recall, in order to break her curse, Odette needs to find true love. Veyvey also seeks for true love, but her quest is a familal one from Sombron, and then her quest for Alear. According to Mauvier, Veyle was very lonely and her mistreatement at the hands of Sombron and Zephia made her even more lonelier, yet she still consider her salvation to be within the love of her family. However, like in the play, there is someone to compete with her in her quest for love : the personality Zephia created for her. But this personality wishes for more then Sombron's love, she wants to BE Veyle.

Now one thing about Veyle is that apparently some people though she has DID. Disclaimmer here, as I am not a psychologist nor do I have DID, however, it seems that Veyle's condition only ressembles DID but it isn't. The only common point you can make between DID and Veyle's situation is the 2 personality and the fact that the 2 personality don't share memories. But the difference is that people with DID have a personality split into several and that is the result of a trauma or a natural process due to their mind/brain developping several personality as a natural response wheter as a symptom or to protect themselves. Those other personality are part of themselves however. However, this isn't Veyle's case at all. First off, Veyvey's personality isn't split, it's complete, the second personality is a total separated entity. Secondly, this personality isn't a natural product of Veyle's mind, she isn't part of her, if anything, she is a parasite. Sure, Zephia explained that this personality is the result of her casting a spell to enhance her dragonic pulse, however, this means that Veyle is born with naturally low dragonic pulse, more then the average. We don't know how much Zephia has to intensify those dragonic pulse to make Lucy but it's pretty clear that she is the result of Zephia's magic. Sure, unlike Hortensia, it's a different spell since Zephia created this being and obeys her rather then control her directly even if it's an indirect form of control. But it's obvious that this personality isn't part of Veyle's nature, because her body can't take it. Mauvier has been clear on the fact that Veyle's body is fighting back against this spell (much like Rafal regaining control from time to time despite his chest hurting) makes her tired and put her life at risk, hence why Mauvier ask her to cut it off. Even Lucy mentions how her body doesn't allow her to "stay awake" for long, but if you recall, it's only when she is around Zephia that Lucy is "awake" since Zephia needs to be here to activate the spell waking her up, whereas when Veyvey regains control, it happens naturally. That's also why Sombron needs to make a helmet for Zephia to make this spell stronger. So while you might think it looks like DID, it's just brainwashing or if you prefer something alike hypnothesis. There is moreover many instance of character clearly explaning that they are separate people rather then two distinct personality being a whole. That's why Mauvier doesn't call her Veyle, refusing her the name as she isn't his lady, or why Ivy says that Veyle isn't exactly talking to herself when they saw her fighting against her other self.

A character with DID would be Lucy from Elfen lied who inspired me to nickname Evil Veyle that way but for no other reason then their sadistic nature. Or Echo/Noise/Zwei from Pandora Hearts. As to whether or not she is a good representation, I will politely leave that to people having DID.

That was for it. Veyle's identity conflict doesn't come from her struggling with DID, but from her being forced into being someone that she isn't and doesn't want to be anyway.

Veyle is like the ugly duckling in her family, she is treated as such.

(ugly my ** they are so cute) This story is about a baby bird being hated because of it's appearance, in short for being different from the rest of his family due to his different nature. However, when at the end of the tale, the bird find his truth family, he became a beautiful swan proving that his nature was actually beautiful from the very start. This is a story about discovering yourself, accepting yourself as you are and developping into the person you are and wanted to be. Now, baby swan are looking the same whether they are black ones or whites one. Veyle's state as a baby swan shows that she is offered the possiblity of choosing two nature, whether she is a white swan/good person whethere she is a black one/bad person. When Veyle meets Alear in the... afterlife ? (i still don't understand what was this place) she mentions how much she struggled, in order to get Sombron to like her. However, Veyle never tried to put a mask, unlike Alear did in the past in order to survive, because Veyle wanted Sombron to love her for who she is : a kind dragon. That is also echoed in her dialogue with Zephia where she complained that she never saw Veyle as her self but always as someone she isn't. Likewise, when you fight her in chapter 21, Lucy asks whether you saw her now or the her from before. Now interestingly enough, just as Veyle seeking to be acknowledged by Sombron, Lucy also wants to be acknowledge as being Veyle even though she is an artificial personality, pretty much because she wants to have her own existence and to become Veyle. She doesn't consider herself to be part of her, but to BE the real Veyle, or rather what she was told by Zephia is fitting of Sombron's daughter, hence she consider herself to be more worthy of being Veyle and has no other identity since she was created for the purpose of being the "ideal" Veyle. Whereas our Veyle is reduced to be forced to be someone she isn't, she doesn't want to be and who was created in her but isn't her. The chain and leash on her design represent that state where she is always prisonner of wanting to please Sombron and her love for him. In her A support with Alear, Veyle explain she still can't help but see Sombron as family. This is echoed in her support with Nel showing how desesperate she is for a family in general, as she consider Nel a family despite her being a child of a different Sombron who is actually a different person sharing a name and an appearance with Sombron (but they are sister in Nel's world as well so...). Veyle is prisonner of her need for Sombron's approval , but also of her condition of being manipulated by Zephia and her father, subjected to that spells. Like Zephia speaking about how the Hounds had nowehere to go but to come back at her side, Veyle has nowhere else to go but to return to Sombron's side hence why she always return to Elusia, she has nowehere else to go, therfore she is still a prisonner, hence why her feets aren't free. Veyle is prisonner of an identity that isn't hers... wait, why do I have a sense of deja vu--

NO WAY WHY DID THEY WROTE THEM TO BE SO SIMILAR ?!!!!

Yeah, so Veyle is stuck into being prisonner of an identity that isn't hers because she isn't that kind of person, she is a kind dragon. Hence, Veyle's arc and storyline is about overcoming this abuse and pressure put on her to be someone she isn't in order to affirm her real identity and assert herself as who she truly is, at the cost of Sombron's love.

Hence the cutscene of her fighting back is showing that she is rejecting that identity her father and her surrogate mother (I hesistate to call Zephia that but heh).

This scene and the dialogue are about Veyle believing in herself and fighting for the right to regain her identity. It's when she finally realize that Sombron doesn't care for both of her "two selves" and on those last words she breaks her horns and that her dress returns to her white swan dress unlike for the time Marni damaged her helmet allowing her to regain control, showing thus she is finally free.

Moreover, see Alear's sword name ? It's called Libération, in french it means "Freeing" and it's not only showing how Lulu was themselves freed, but they end up being the one freeing Veyle from Sombron and Zephia's influence, helping her to find her real family. Basically, Sombron was the equivalent of the duck that found the baby swan whereas Alear is the swan that Veyle ends up following once she freed herself. In the same way that Alear was able to fully bloom as a bright light as Lumera's child, by following Alear's path, Veyle was able to fufill herself and become the person she wanted to be, to become a pure white swan maiden dressed in white like how Alear wished to be reborn, a dragon claded in white ready to save the world. However, no matter how you look at it, it was Veyle that freed herself. Alear gave her the inspiration to not give up when Veyle was ready to stop due to being tired of being treated like a defect, but Alear's words and will to not give up even after death (thrice) that inspired Veyle to return and fight against the personality that was forced on her. She is the one fighting against her personality. She is the one that destroyed the helmet (even if Marni did helped a little) empowering her into affirming the identity she wants to fully embrace.

Finding Alear allowed her to find someone who finally accepts her as who she is and wants to help her fufill herself, helps her find about her dreams, the live she wants to have.

3-Veyle's support showing her vision of family

Veyle's vision of family is quite peculiar. She was always separated from any of her family member, her mother dying when she was young but instructing her into trying to help Sombron as his family and ... only family which must have motivated her even more. Her only remaining family being Alear, the two have the possibilty to bound through her support conversation. It's here that she shares that despite all he did, she can't help but see Sombron as family, even if she will later admit to have changed her mind in the main story. However, her S support with Alear is a genuine masterpiece. In this support Veyle offers a blue stone to Alear looking like their dragonstone but whereas their dragonstone was red, this stone is blue as to represent their now holy state and it's a bright color. And when Alear offers the pact ring as a substitute, Veyle initially refuse since she is the one that killed Lumimi, but she accepts it and her lines made me cry :" From now on, and a 1 000 of years, I'll stay by your side, I swear it upon this ring, as a dragon ready to save the world". Get it ? 1 000 years as to echo to the number of year the two of them have been separated and because now Veyvey is allowed to be what she wants to be ? Get it now

I love them soo much their relationship is everything.

I like when you give her the ring, the diary mentions how Alear and Veyle share a peculiar connection as if they shared each other thoughs when in the main story and in the PR support, it was shown they are similar in thinking. Also, the annecdote about them chatting and sharing spicy food is referenced in Veyle and Nel's A support, when she tells her that sisters can spend time chatting and eating spicy food. Guess what else ? .... It's what Lumera said she wanted to do with Alear, chatting and eating meals together.... (i am not crying you are.)

In her post wake up events, other then mentionning how happy she is that you are together as family as saying that her new talisman won't break, she mentions how her stone might help Alear become a "snow white dragon" like Lumera, and she mentions how she also wishes to become a dragon like that because her heart/soul changed although her blood didn't, way of saying that she did manage to become the person she wanted to be. She thanks for Alear for teaching her that it's not her blood that determined her fate, but her decision.

Intercrossing between Alear storyline is Veyle's tale of discovering herself and affirming herself as who she wants to be. However, she need Alear as her family to guide her and be the positive influence to guide her from the dark to the light. This is made obvious as the bad ending is Sombron imprisonning defintely Veyle into her evil self and chaining Alear too, deprived of their Liberation sword and stuck into their "impure state" (oh no Lulu and Rafal S support, I won't forget about you !!). Both siblings are now Sombron's prisonner once again, as he is about to head to the other world.

#fire emblem engage #fe engage #fire emblem #veyle fire emblem #fe veyle #fire emblem emotional damage #meta analysis #meta #swan

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londonfoginacup · 2 years

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Peculiar Ugly Duckling | LadyLondonderry

Harry/Louis | 3k

Loowee is a fish.

Loowee is a fish born to a family of FOUS fish. You’ve heard of FOUS fish, haven’t you, reader? Yes, of course you have. Fish Of Unusual Size Fish, of course.

(There’s no need to tack the word fish onto the end of FOUS like that, but they simply do. It’s like having an ATM machine).

FOUS fish are all quite big fish, unusually large in size compared to the average fish of the ocean.

Loowee the FOUS fish hates being big.

Written for @erodaficfest

#foggy fic

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camping-with-monsters · 3 months

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One day, a wooden doll was left in a mushroom forest. The next day, Pinocchio sprouted to life!

Though his origin of how he could have ever ended up in that mushroom-infested biome as a lifeless and seemingly simple dolly remains a mystery, make no mistake that nowadays, the wooden boy is bustling with life— oops! That’s not really supposed to be shared willy-nilly just like that! See, Pinocchio’s persona seems to take some inspiration from avian-like. Or more specifically, swans, for their elegance and beauty! But elegance and beauty are… well, far from what Pinocchio’s little getup may radiate at first glance. But hey, when you have no fingers, you gotta make do. It’s impressive he’s got that little outfit in one piece at all! But why hide? Is he self conscious of his own appearance? Perhaps he just likes swans more? Answers may be up in the air. Pinocchio can’t really come up with a clear and cut answer himself… or at least, that’s what he’d say if his nose wasn’t going to elongate from his own attempt at fibbing.

But what about all those fungus-y formations underneath that artificial pelt? Well, that mushroom forest seems to have some… peculiar occurrences. Those who stay long enough don’t usually leave, at least, not without some permanent damage. But lifeless little Pinocchio didn’t have a soul to work with, so the mushrooms seemed to… make do with what they inhabited. Though zombie-like at first, the specimen in the process of becoming corporeal made observations of children playing in the closest town. And if he is small like the children, then he must be a child, too! His personality was very much adopted based on what he saw around him, giving him his speech and eccentric mannerisms— and let’s not forget naive curiosity! But sometimes that can lead to… less than fortunate encounters. One in particular that hindered his ability to trust further than it already had been shattered when the once bustling civilization he liked to call home suddenly became a ghost town. And much like this town, he felt his identity falter, hoping to one day draw people back in with his “swan-like grace”… well, you have to give him credit for trying.

But out of nowhere, it looks like a guest has been dropped off at his empty streets…! He hasn’t had visitors in a while, and she seems decent! He’ll keep the mask up for now, not truly certain she won’t “trick” him like the rest, but he hopes that in terms of getting to know her, she’ll eventually see that within that ugly duckling— oops, swan dress up, he’s just a fun guy!

——

Oh FINALLY there’s Pinocchio’s bio :) He’s a little strange but he’s got the spirit!

I hope y’all like that one Pokémon Parasect cause he’s. Actually kinda like that guy. Oops!

#he’s a HORRIBLE fursuiter he’s AMAZING /JJJJ #my crazy little guy. he would have a high Victorian boy voice #it’s a voice that’s both annoying and kinda cute at the same time #there are probably spelling mistakes in the bio I’ll look for them later rrgrhhrghrhrh #Pinocchio #Duck Duck Goose #Ocs #original characters #original stories #art #digital art #character refs #character references #The Kiwi Draws

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vickyvicarious · 2 years

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Friend John, to you with so much of experience already—and you, too, dear Madam Mina, that are young—here is a lesson: do not fear ever to think. A half-thought has been buzzing often in my brain, but I fear to let him loose his wings. Here now, with more knowledge, I go back to where that half-thought come from and I find that he be no half-thought at all; that be a whole thought, though so young that he is not yet strong to use his little wings. Nay, like the "Ugly Duck" of my friend Hans Andersen, he be no duck-thought at all, but a big swan-thought that sail nobly on big wings, when the time come for him to try them.

There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary idea in my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh, unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to your conscious brother.

The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoöphagous (life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way.

Van Helsing and Seward both describe their gradually-realized theories in much the same way, although Seward uses fancy words (unconscious cerebretion) and Van Helsing uses dramatic metaphor (the Ugly Duckling).

But they both describe the thought buzzing around in their minds and growing when left unattended. I think it's kinda cute. Maybe Seward picked up on this sort of phrasing from Van Helsing himself back in the day.

#dracula daily #van helsing #jack seward

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vukovich · 1 year

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I feel like I haven't terrorized you in a while, so...

Writing process ask:

Do you ever write a trope or a pairing that just doesn't speak to you, whether it's for a fest/prompt or just because you want to stretch yourself?

How do you go about researching or immersing yourself so that you can write something that is compelling despite a lack of interest? Or, do you just never go there?

Do you ever write a trope or a pairing that just doesn't speak to you, whether it's for a fest/prompt or just because you want to stretch yourself?

All the time. Pairings I didn't particularly have a thing for but wrote for a fest: The Ugly Duckling and the Peacock (Draco/Neville) Tidewracked, Sidetracked (Luna/Theo) How to Drain Your Dragon (Luna/Charlie)

And tropes? Lord. I let people just stab me with them on a regular basis via Peculiar Prompts.

How do you go about researching or immersing yourself so that you can write something that is compelling despite a lack of interest? Or, do you just never go there?

I just make it fucked up to keep myself interested, which is why there's so much cracky shit in all my fics.

But I do have one deep, dark failing as a smut writer. My secret shame.

A total lack of f/f.

Look through my works. Not a single one.

And you wanna know why? It's not for lack of subject knowledge or interest.

The truth is... HOW THE FUCK DO I WRITE THAT MANY ORGASMS?

My smut writing is basically dependent on the male refractory period. I'm not proud of it, but there you go.

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trident-dragion · 2 years

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Over the Nexus Deck Profile: Cyberdark Dragunity

Cyberdark Impact is a peculiar set, and probably the best example of an ugly duckling as far as main sets go. Upon release it was considered one of, if not the, worst core sets of all time, with Snipe Hunter being the only card worth considering by several duelists. However, as time went on, cards like Chain Strike, the Barrier Statues, and Vanity's Fiend would go on to be very relevant in the game's history! Even the weird column mechanic, which most people thought was a dumb one-off gimmick that failed, would become relevant eventually with the advent of Link Monsters. In short, Cyberdark Impact was so far ahead of its time, it was BAD when it was first released because none of the things that made it good were relevant yet. The Cyberdarks themselves also had brief stints of playability in the GX metagame, as while they were never top tier, they were still a consideration for competitive players and had a few tops. Now that the history lesson is out of the way, the Cyberdark and Dragunity archetypes mesh very well; Cyberdarks want to equip themselves with level 3 or lower dragons from your graveyard, and Dragunities include several level 3 or lower dragons that add extra bonuses to monsters they're equipped to. It's a match made in the underworld! The one downside is they don't have the best attack stats, so it's difficult for the Cyberdarks to get very big, but fortunately the Dragon Mastery spell solves the issue by giving 500 attack to every monster equipped with a Dragunity. It also lets you equip Dragunities in your hand to any monster you control, which is good for the effects, but notably doesn't add their attack to the Cyberdark monster, because the Cyberdarks only gain attack from monsters equipped to them with their own effect. Dragunity Corsesca is an interesting one, as it allows you to search any level 4 or lower monster with the same type and attribute as the equipped monster whenever the equipped monster destroys an opponent's monster by battle, which makes accessing our Cyberdarks easier. The obvious thing to do is to equip it to our Cyberdarks, but with Dragon Mastery we can also equip it to our two Ally of Justice Synchros, Catastor and Decisive Armor, which also happen to be DARK Machines! With Corsesca equipped to a monster, we can build field presence and set up for the mighty Cyberdark Dragon, which when equipped with Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon or Dragunity Arma Leyvaten can reach exceptionally high levels of attack. Another great monster to use with Cyberdark Dragon is Black Rose Dragon, which we can summon, blow up the field, then use Cyberdark Impact! with a clear field to make Cyberdark Dragon while the opponent has nothing to defend with! Once you have a big monster like that, using Dragon Mastery to equip the given monster with Dragunity Brandistock allows that monster to attack twice per turn, really flexing that attack stat! This is a battle focused deck first and foremost, so embrace the darkness of the Underworld Deck and claim ultimate victory! MONSTERS (21): Cyberdark Edge x2 Cyberdark Horn x2 Cyberdark Keel x2 Dark Armed Dragon x1 Dragunity Aklys x2 Dragunity Arma Leyvaten x2 Dragunity Brandistock x1 Dragunity Corsesca x2 Dragunity Partisan x1 Dragunity Phalanx x2 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon x3 Sangan x1 SPELLS (18): Cards of Consonance x3 Cyberdark Impact! x2 Dragon Mastery x2 Dragon Ravine x3 Future Fusion x1 Giant Trunade x1 Monster Reborn x1 Mystical Space Typhoon x2 Terraforming x3 TRAPS (1): Treacherous Trap Hole x1 EXTRA DECK: Cyberdark Dragon x2 Five-Headed Dragon x1 Ally of Justice Catastor x1 Ally of Justice Decisive Armor x1 Black Rose Dragon x1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier x1 Dark End Dragon x1 Goyo Guardian x1 Iron Chain Dragon x1 Red Dragon Archfiend x1 Scrap Dragon x1 Stardust Dragon x1 Trident Dragion x1 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier x1

#yu-gi-oh!#world championship 2011: over the nexus #deck profile #cyberdark #dragunity #cyberdark dragon #dragunity arma leyvaten #dark armed dragon #if you've been paying attention to the card choices for a while you may wonder why there's no dark simorgh #simply put i tested with it and decided that it doesn't really help the deck's core strategy all that much #plus arma leyvaten fits better and serves the role of big main deck bungus #so for once i'm playing a deck that could support dark simorgh and am opting not to use it #at least for now

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clawingbackthepast · 3 years

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Silly Symphonies and Other Disney Shorts

Yes, I know these are very much pre-80s. However, they were on TV a fair bit and a lot of them were around on VHS. Still a part of my childhood and probably yours.

Ferdinand the Bull

The Goddess of Spring

Music Land

Old King Cole

Peculiar Penguins

Susie the Little Blue Coupe

Ugly Duckling

#80s childhood #80s nostalgia #cartoons #Disney #silly symphonies #80s kid #nostalgia

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spamzineglasgow · 4 years

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(REVIEW) Lost Horizon by Nathaniel Farrell

In this review, Jack Parlett ventures through the avenues, grooves and colliding landscapes, fantasies and libidinal economies of Nathaniel Farrell’s Lost Horizon (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2019).

> Nathaniel Farrell’s long poem Lost Horizon (2019), which takes as its subject the space of the retail utopia, makes me think of a lot of things. Which is to say that its sense of breadth and abundance – packed full of things and images, traversing vast distances across different landscapes – had me grasping for other reference points, for affinities that might suggest ways of reading it. The pile-up of the opening lines, scattered across the page, offers a glimpse into the ways this poem can get you lost:

The fountain full of coins the smell of pretzels, print, perfume

formaldehyde in fabrics

brass rails down stairwells rebar in the pillars

the underground parking structure – Roman alphabet

Arabic numerals –

(Farrell 2019: 1)

> The mall, scented with the churn of Auntie Anne’s pretzels (say) and the potent fragrances of a nearby department store, is rendered throughout the poem as an archaeological surface, as though the poet’s task were one of excavation. Lost Horizon reminds me, in this sense, of an Anselm Kiefer painting; a maximalist collage blending the industrial and the pastoral, foregrounding the dimensionality of objects that appear ‘found’ within the landscape of the work, like the unsettling use of spindly wires and sticks the painter is known for. Farrell, too, is interested in exteriorising the subterranean, the things that glimmer and protrude, like the ‘coins’ emanating from beneath the water of the fountain, like the chemical compounds found in our clothes. His is a multi-storeyed work, finding ancient linguistic systems in car parks, conferring the quotidian spaces of late capitalism with the dignity of the palimpsest.

> But Farrell’s poem does not settle upon one groove. It unfolds in strange and wrong-footing ways. Although this opening passage would seem to suggest a logic of succession, a list of things you might expect to find in a shopping mall, with an associative momentum driven forward by alliteration, the poem’s larger scheme is one of randomness, a yoking together of any number of images and textures. (My personal favourite: ‘Avocado. TV as diorama or diocese catfish farm trout hatchery.’) (27). This fragmented structure speaks back to the form of the Surrealist catalogue, or to experiments in automatic writing, and renders them in a distinctly American vernacular, like the New York melee of Frank O’Hara’s long 1953 poem Second Avenue or, more recently, Geoffrey G. O’Brien’s 2011 work Metropole (minus the strict iambic rules.)

> Yet where Second Avenue seems to stage a representational gag – in what sense is this poem, characterised by lines like ‘Butter. Lotions. Cries. A glass of ice’ (O’Hara 1995: 149) ‘about’ Second Avenue itself? – the abstraction of Farrell’s purview is already made explicit in his title. Lost Horizon is a work in search of a potentiality that has already been lost, and it goes looking for it in all kinds of places: shopping malls, forests, multiplexes, highways, locales suspended in the poem’s veering between the vitality of the artificial and the natural realm to which it shall one day return. Where a ‘rebarbative’ work like Second Avenue, in Andrea Brady’s words, recoils ‘from sentimentality but also from the reader’ (Brady 2010: 60), Farrell’s poem does the opposite. It homes in upon the way that sentiment might inhere in the spaces and materials of consumption and the faded spectacles of capital. Perhaps this is why, beyond any of the more high-minded comparisons it invites, Lost Horizon makes me think most of all of the town I grew up in.

> It feels a little parochial to compare the scale of Farrell’s Americana with a single town in Buckinghamshire. (He writes in the Acknowledgments that the project ‘emerged from road travel’ and draws upon the imagery of places including ‘St. Louis and Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Fort Wayne’.) Yet shopping malls trade, the poem suggests, in incongruity; they flatten space and time, incorporate the urban, the pastoral and the global, as if the whole world might be incorporated under their ceilings. I realised in navigating this poem that so much of my sense of America, and Americanness as a kind of distant and glamorous imaginary, was mediated through my childhood in Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes was, after all, developed with reference to the layout of American cities.

> The area known as Central Milton Keynes (or ‘CMK’) was conceived in the mid-seventies as part of the recently created ‘new town’ in Buckinghamshire, and was officially opened by Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Although ‘CMK’ is a municipal designation – a name for the central zone of the larger Milton Keynes area – it is predominantly a business and retail district. Laid out on a grid, CMK sits somewhere between the ‘downtown’ area of an American city and the out-of-town shopping mall; an assemblage of shopping centres, office buildings and industrial parks, characterised by its distinctive glass-and-steel buildings and an infamous number of roundabouts. Like many British ‘new towns’, Milton Keynes was created with both pragmatic and idealistic aims in mind. On the one hand, it was an overspill project providing an outlet for London’s rising and congested population. On the other, it was to be a new frontier both socially and architecturally; an automobile haven merging green space with the imposing surfaces of the modern city. Today, it looks both futuristic and dated. Or rather, it looks like what the future was once supposed to look like.

> When I tell people I grew up in and around Milton Keynes, it usually prompts one of two responses. The first, most frequent and predictable, is a kind of apologetic nod, a nod to MK’s associations in the national imaginary as a uniquely naff, soulless place. The other (more generous) reaction is a kind of keen and outsize enthusiasm, prompting a conversation about the town’s architectural significance or its peculiar place in British local history as an experiment of urban planning. (There’s also, sometimes, outright judgment, as when on my first day of university a private schoolboy told me that ‘when I think of Milton Keynes I think of scum.’). My feelings about the place fall somewhere in the middle – I’m defensive of it in the face of snobbery, but I also think that the people who find it an area of intellectual interest probably didn’t grow up there. Until the opening of the recently re-developed Milton Keynes Gallery, which was reported widely in the national press, CMK lacked a culture of its own, and it still remains best known as a cornucopia of brand names and chain restaurants.

> And yet I can’t pretend that some part of me doesn’t kind of love it. Farrell’s work pays attention to the embarrassment one might feel about being from a place like Milton Keynes, or rather the embarrassment in our attachments to such a place. I still desire to rediscover the uniquely artificial pleasures of the shopping mall. Against my better judgments, I find myself beguiled again by CMK’s performance of grandeur, its strange radiance. Or perhaps its that my memories of childhood and adolescence are shot through, like an off-brand Lorde song, with its suburban framework, its constellation of uniquely named places like The Point, a red steel pyramid housing the UK’s first multiplex cinema when it opened in 1985, or the pastoral-sounding Midsummer Place, an extension of the shopping centre built around an oak tree, which people still refer to today as the ‘new bit.’ (It was opened at the start of the millennium and has been bought out by the Intu franchise. The tree is no more.)

> The speaker of Lost Horizon similarly figures the retail landscape as a site of affective and libidinal attachments, less a utopic horizon than a space where experience is packaged and backlit, where material capitalism might dupe us into utopic thinking, where you can hear ‘the beat of an unmoored heart in the duty-free shop’ (Farrell: 70). (The term retail therapy is particularly apt.) This speaker has a mobile erotic attention; reflects on the bulge of a male model, spots ‘a sign for Hooter’s at the Colonial Williamsburg exit / the owl’s eyes made to look like nipples’ (24) and appears to cruise, ‘wait[ing] at the bathrooms; / they smell of feces and orange cleanser / Yankee Candle’ (23). Nature, after all, will make its return, and the most pristine spaces must co-mingle with muck, human and otherwise. An ominous refrain towards the beginning of the poem - ‘A cellphone glows in a back pocket’ (9) - signals the mall’s impending obsolescence, its succumbing to the space of the virtual, and this in turn informs the poem’s ecological fixation, its avalanche of natural elements and catastrophic tableaux. Because this is what happens to shopping malls, eventually, as shown in the work of photojournalist Seph Lawless. Lawless’s portraits of abandoned shopping malls in economically precarious parts of America, malls now overgrown with vegetation, look post-apocalyptic, like a contemporary sci-fi iteration of the way Walter Benjamin conceptualised the Parisian arcades of the nineteenth century; as repositories, in part, for the lost dreams of prosperity.

> The shopping area of Central Milton Keynes is now Grade II-listed by Historic England, and it is renowned for its extensive greenery, its line of trees that populate the grid. (The area as a whole boasts 22 million trees and shrubs.) The integration of the green and sub(urban) landscape is something that makes the centre of Milton Keynes more desirable and sustainable, a nod to the land’s past. But you could look at it another way; not as a symbol of origin, but of man-made transience. Whatever shiny promises the retail utopia makes, it is built, Farrell’s dizzying poem suggests, to one day succumb to an unknowable horizon, where the trees will be ‘all that remain of home’ (3).

References:

Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press)

Brady, Andrea. 2011. ‘Distraction and Absorption on Second Avenue.’ Frank O’Hara Now: New Essays on the New York Poet (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press). 59-70

Farrell, Nathaniel. 2019. Lost Horizon (Ugly Duckling Presse)

O’Brien, Geoffrey G. 2011. Metropole (Berkeley: University of California Press)

O’Hara, Frank. 1995. Collected Poems (Berkeley: University of California Press)

Lost Horizon is now available via Ugly Duckling Presse.

Text and Image: Jack Parlett

Published: 19/6/20

#review #reviews #Jack Parlett #Ugly Duckling Presse #Lost Horizon

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doodles-arts · 5 years

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Leo 2003 prompt

pairing; Leonardo x Artistic!Reader

Description; Your a tiny and skittish high school girl, who struggles to pick up on social instances. Your only friend was a boy in the sewers you barely remember. However this boy turns out to be Leo, and after a little reunion, you and Leo are the best of buds. Though the artist in you can’t help but draw what it finds beautiful. a new muse is in order...

prompt; “your like a knight”

warning; graphic instances. mention of alcohol and rape. no worries!!

rating; pg-13

He had been your friend since you were little, and how did you meet?

To be completely honest, you didn’t really remember. You sorta just met him on your way back home from school, and from then on you spoke to him through the sewer drains on the side of the streets. But once your parents caught you, you were walked to school from than on. You hadn’t seen him since high school, as your parents kept you under lock and key. The memory of a green turtle/human thing, with a blue banana that covered his head, had begun to fade away. He might have been the only friend you had at that age, because you were a peculiar child and most kids stayed away from you. But as you droned on through the years of high school, you wished that the distant memory of a child happily chatting with her turtle friend were true, were real.

High School was a bore and sucked the life out of you, you were terrible at math, social skills and, of course, boys. So throughout freshman year you were bullied, you were used to it though. The whispering and pointing were normal to you, children were cruel and you learned that the hard way. However, through junior year, you changed, you grew up. Your drastic changed through the summer was surprising, even for yourself but your mother helped you with everything. The kids at school were intrigued by your beautiful transition. You were like an ugly duckling, growing up to be a beautiful swan. The positive attention was new, not unwelcome but unsettling. You were still awkward and kept mostly to yourself and your art. just the way you liked it. Though you were well aware that the attention was biased and petty, the students only spoke to you because you were prettier and more confident with yourself. This did sting, having never gotten positive attention because no one wanted to get to know you for you, was easy to accept, but to learn that you never got any attention because people believed you were ugly? Hurt. It was hard to accept. But looking back at your pictures as a child, you noticed how wrong the kids at school really were. You weren’t ugly, you were unkempt, wild and free. Like every child should be. So, you finally grew up and worked on the assists you had, which was fine! But you were never ugly.

After a football game, you were keeping the time of the game, you were exhausted and began packing your things to go home. Strangely the boys of the team had come back from the locker room after you helped put the time and points equipment away. You paid the rowdy- probably drunk- boys no mind. Taking your things and walking out of the field and going home. After awhile you noticed a car strangely following you, as you stopped to look into your bag the car also stopped. you were being followed, no doubt about it. In a state of panic in the strangely quiet streets of New York, you turned and walked the other direction like you had read about before when a car follows you. Your heart fell from your chest and down into your stomach, and hammered a beat from there when you heard the tires of the car brake harshly and switch gears.

You ran, knowing that the only way to lose a car would be to head into an alley. If they were smart, the perpetrator would leave you in the alleys and search for other prey. But perhaps tonight just wasn’t your lucky night. You were shaken to the core when the car stopped at the alley entrance you entered and the doors opened. All of them except for the driver spilled out of the truck. The Football team, obviously drunk and hungry for something you were afraid you’d be able to provide. Running down another alley way, your flight or fight instincts taking place perfectly, when you came up to a dead end, the tears began showing. Dread ran through your spine, the adrenaline you felt as you ran away, giving way for your fear. “No, no, no, no”, you whispered. You refused to live like a wimp, you didn’t want this to happen. You were going to raped and possibly killed, thrown in a hole in the ground and forgotten forever. You clutched at your bag beside you, going through all the pastel drawings you ever made in your mind. Remembering all the emotions you ever had while making them, all the drawings and paintings you had hung up in your room. God, they would be the only thing with your legacy on them, the only thing left that you held pride in. Your artwork, your mother, your father, and the only friend you ever had who genuinely cared about you. A long lost memory you were sure was just a dream.

The drunk boys crept closer to the end of the alley, calling out your name like a tune and you couldn’t help the tears that were rolling down your cheeks. This was it…

As they turned the corner after you, Leonardo heard the name, the familiar name. From that friend all those years ago. The one who drew for him and his brothers. The one who brought things from the outside world for them to see as kids. The brothers all looked at the frozen leader curiously, perhaps they did not remember the name or the (y/h/t) (y/h/c). But it did not matter, whoever you were, you were in trouble and you needed help. Leo turned to look at his brothers, they all gave a stiff nod, they agreed to help.

As the human boys spotted you, the brothers dropped from below and wrestled with them. Knocking them out safely, ensuring that they would not be able to follow you home again, an easy defeat, the football players were clumsy and drunk. But as Leo turned to see expected you, running in fear, you stood still, watching intently.

“I wasn’t imagining it, then…” The other boys turned to look at you, as you mumbled.

“Y-Your real!” Your tears were long gone. Your wet eyelashes a huge contrast to your huge grin. The boys took a step back as you reached in to your bag.

Pulling out a big sketch book and flipping through the pages. Finally finding the wispy and green pastel portrait of Leo that you could remember from the almost forgotten memory of him as a child. Turning the sketchbook around, showing the picture of free lance painting of Leo in an attempt to gain there trust. The picture had a strange point of vision, where the green human creature had a big darker green back, small and innocent with a bright blue bandanna covering the creatures bald head. It was Leo alright, but nobody had the courage to say so.

“I-it’s me (y/n), are you Leo? I remembered you as a child, I always knew you were real, not just some child fantasy!” You were ecstatic and Leo was still frozen, thankfully his brothers took over for him. Trying themselves to remember you, and even though you hardly remember their names you do remember their distinctive colors. Almost like their own brands, or merchandise. The other boys smiled at your work and quickly warmed up to you, clearly remembering your name all of the sudden.

Leo watched from a distance, he had always remembered you, his first human friend. The first person who wanted to be his friend other than his brothers. He had felt a connection to you as a child, growing close to you before his brothers found out about you and hogged you. Excited to meet the human child. He never realized that you’d remember all of them, that you’d remember him.

How could this be? You remembered them after all this time, after the many years. You were still in elementary school, and Leo hadn’t even begun his training when he met you. How did you manage to remember? Did he and his brothers actually mean something to you, that you had remembered the memories as a highlight in your life. If this was the case, something just might have jumped in Leo's chest.

After some time hanging out with you and the other brothers getting to know you, you were practically family. Raph’s loud voice scared you sometimes, some more than others. Mikey’s energy also made you skittish at first. However the boys learned to coax you in and you learned to expect the booming voices and unexpected touches. Though Donnie was very soft spoken, he tended to have his outburst from time to time. Which were a lot harder to become accustomed too. Most of the time you were with Leo, and most of the time you were drawing so you never bothered him. He enjoyed being your favorite.

You both had gotten as close as you were when you were kids and you were ecstatic to be with your old friend again. No longer floating around a group of snobby girls who tried to gain your trust just to stab you in the back, you had real friends now.

You were an artist, and in artist always drew what they loved and what they found beautiful. Their art was to be transparent and honest. Every artist needed a muse. And who else would be the unfortunate victim to your sketching? Thankfully, realistic still-art was your obsession at the moment and Leo was the only person you knew who could stay still for more than thirty minutes. He was your muse, and after hours of staring and watching, you were never satisfied. Time and time again you were mesmerized by the strong muscles of his shoulders, the stern look in his eyebrows and the beautiful blue his irises held.

It wasn’t long until your sketch book was filled with him in every page and your feelings of loyalty for your friend turned into love.

One night as you shaded in a forgotten drawing you had made of Leo from memory-a beautiful sketch that had the leader in blue sweating and panting in pleasure. You had seen his exhausted face after an intense training. But all you could see at the moment was his pleasure ridden face on the page. You finished it and were very proud of your masterpiece. But once you remembered that this was no stranger on the page, this was your friend. You were being invasive, daydreaming of such scenarios. It was wrong. Quickly hiding it away as you picked up another unfinished piece that was less heated to patch up. Perching on your fire escape for the late night breeze in the hot summer night, you had started the sketch a day you had watched Leo meditate as he waited for you to come up to the rooftop, you felt bad making him wait to draw, but you didn’t regret it right now. You shaded and finished the last bits of his eyes, which you had memorized by heart. Coloring the blue of his eyes, unsatisfied with the exact shade of blue, which would never live up to the real thing. The blue was never light enough, but the neon light blue never held the life of his eyes either. You huffed out in pain at another failure to recreate his eyes.

“I think it’s spot on,'' a voice whispered into your ear. You yelped and jumped in fear, almost splitting your head on your windowsill, but a three fingered green hand blocked your forehead from hitting the edge.

You looked up in horror, he knows. He knows you’ve been stalking him to draw him now, he must think your creep now- “I didn’t know you were this good, you’ve got talent!” Leo already knew you drew him from time to time, though sometimes he didn’t notice. He knew you weren’t actually in the bathroom that long! You had been drawing him! You gaped at him, in complete horror, he’s lying. “I don’t know how you manage to make them seem so real,” he took a seat next to you. Your cheeks flushed and you had no idea how to respond.

“Your a really good muse, you don’t move much, and you have a knack to pose when your resting.” You whispered it to him, he barely heard it. He turned to smile at you. “Well it’s an honor to be your ‘muse’”. He thinks your a creep. You pushed your insecurities away, your friend wouldn’t lie. His calm demeanor and reassurance helped you to smile back, to find some backbone and talk. You both spent the night talking about the other boys and the sketches you never got done of them. You really did try to draw them, but each time was a failure.

“Man, your really something (y/n), out all of us you pick to draw big ol’ me. A mutant and a horrible monster. I’m flattered!” you chuckled and put a hand on his, “you aren’t a monster Leo, you’re more like a knight”

He blushed as he looked away and you looked to your dangling feet bashfully, you might have taken that a little too far. Panic rising slowly growing in your chest threaten to spill, until you felt a three fingered hand grab your own. “Than i guess that makes you the princess..” you blushed as he smiled bashfully. Maybe your fantasies of Leo weren’t so far fetched at all.

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erodaficfest · 2 years

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Peculiar Ugly Duckling by @londonfoginacup

Written for @erodaficfest

GA || 4K || Fluff & Crack || Fish POV || Harry/Louis

Loowee is a fish.

Loowee is a fish born to a family of FOUS fish. You’ve heard of FOUS fish, haven’t you, reader? Yes, of course you have. Fish Of Unusual Size Fish, of course.

(There’s no need to tack the word fish onto the end of FOUS like that, but they simply do. It’s like having an ATM machine).

FOUS fish are all quite big fish, unusually large in size compared to the average fish of the ocean.

Loowee the FOUS fish hates being big.

#trackinghappily #1dficvillage #tracksintheam #hlficlibrary #hlcreators #trackinghome #hltracks #hlsource #1dficfests #1d fic fest #eroda fic fest #eroda fic fest fic posts

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xmagicxshopx · 5 years

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☕ Night Shift 🍰

Genre: Slice of Life, Romance, Comedy, Fluff Rating: PG-13 Warnings: mentions of blood, Taehyung surprising the snot out of you Pairing: Taehyung x reader Notes: vampire!taehyung AU. Single quote marks ‘ ‘ are for thoughts and double “ “ are for talking. Additional Notes: Requested by the lovely @temptaestions hope you enjoy it, dear! ^u^

Summary: Life with a vampire boyfriend was interesting. But you wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Life with a vampire was interesting. Still is.

Not all of the cheesy myths are true, though. The only way they sparkle is if you dump a jar full of glitter on them. They can eat normal foods that mortals eat but it tastes quite bland to them; often even tasteless. Vampires can walk in the sunlight but it makes them incredibly tired. In fact, if a night crawler were to be exposed out in the direct sunlight for too long, they could risk passing out or going on a hunger killing spree.

How do you know all of this? Well........funny story......

Your boyfriend is a vampire. Has been for several years, even before you met him. You’ll never forget how you found out. It was actually quite early on when you two first met. It was a Sunday morning and you had to be up super early for an event you were catering for. Your boyfriend, who at the time was just a friend, offered to help you. He claimed to be great with desserts.

Well......That was fine and all.......till you answered your apartment door only to discover that you friend.......had red eyes.

Now----Most people would say ‘Oh those are just the cool colored contacts that the kids are into these days.’ But there was something awfully.......authentic about these contacts. When you had made a comment about his cool looking lenses, you watched his face freeze up and his eyes go wide. That right there was enough to tell you they weren’t contacts. So if they weren’t fake red eyes......then that could mean only one thing.

So the two of you sat down and he explained that he had been in such a hurry to come over and help you, that he had forgotten to put in his brown colored lenses. That’s when you found out he was a vampire. That’s when everything changed. Finally, all the odd quirks he had made total and complete sense. His peculiar habits were no longer considered strange.

The two of you started to hang out more and as you did so, you began to learn things about him that the rest of the world was not to know. Due to your day job, you could really only spend the evenings with him which worked out great.....till you’d come home exhausted and end up falling asleep on him while he was wide awake. Even on your days off, it was rough because the sunlight made him sleepy. It was like the universe was trying to keep the two of you apart. Till one day, Taehyung made a suggestion.

“What if we worked the night shift somewhere?”

You looked up from your phone as the two of you sat there on the couch in your apartment. Actually.....he had been staying the night an awful lot. Not that you minded. He was a good friend and never tried to pull anything while you were sleeping or resting. In fact, he was quite doting of you. Always pampering you once you got home from your intensive catering job; claiming that they didn’t pay you enough for all the bull crap you endured.

In fact, while you were out working during the day, he’d stay in your apartment and do house chores. Since he wasn’t in direct sunlight, the daytime hours didn’t effect him nearly as bad. He’d have to take naps in between chores but honestly you were just touched he even wanted to make the effort. It was extremely sweet of him.

“Night shift?”

Taehyung lit up with a bright boxy smile, fangs and all, as he nodded his shaggy head eagerly and explained,

“Yeah! We could work together and that way we can rest together during the day. We’d get to see more of each other even though we’re working. It’s better than nothing.”

On one hand, he had a point. It would be nice to spend more time with him rather than him watching you sleep off a hard day’s work just to wake up the next morning and do it all over again. But then you wondered how would your life look if you worked night time hours? Would this pan out? Could you make it happen? Your pale friend spoke up once more as he said,

“There’s a 24 hour food place in town that’s looking for night workers. I could work in the kitchens and you could bus tables. It’d be great!”

You sat there and thought about it. In fact, there was quite a bit to think about. Being an adult was tough sometimes. You had to look at everything from all angles, evaluate all the pros and cons of the situation. You couldn’t just dive into something for fear of the consequences.

Pay. The pay had to be at least what you were making now. You had always heard that waiters and waitresses made most of their money from tips. So perhaps you’d end up making more than what you were being paid now. And since you catered, you already had the experience of waiting on people. Perhaps this could work...... And so with a warm smile, you set your phone down and said,

“Yeah. Let’s do it. Let’s go apply.”

“Sweet! Let’s go! Before someone else snags them instead.”

“Yah, Tae! Don’t forget your contact lenses!”

It was a bit of a mess at first, but the two of you finally got ready and looked presentable and headed out in search of this dream team job of yours. The man who had become your best friend was dressed nicely and kept his true nature hidden very well. You wondered if he’d be able to handle all the heart beats in such a small area for so long. But he had made an excellent point when you brought it up.

“It’s the night shift, cutie. There won’t be hardly anyone there. Especially when there are so many other food places to choose from. It’ll be fine. This will work out. You’ll see.”

“We have to actually get the jobs first, TaeTae. How can you be so certain they’ll even pick us?”

But all you got in response was a sly smile. Your best guess was that your friend had something up his sleeve. Perhaps he was going to use his good looks and charming smile to get you guys in? Then again.....Taehyung really did have a nice smile and he really was good looking. You blushed and felt your heart do a small flip at the thought. If Tae had heard, he never commented. Which you were grateful for.

The place he was talking about was not quite walking distance but it wasn’t far of a drive either. In fact, you’d already be saving money in gas expense with how long it took the two of you to drive there. Thankfully the sun was setting and Taehyung didn’t have to wear a hat or anything. But you did catch him rubbing at one of his eyes. He had mentioned that the contacts sometimes made his eyes itch. You felt really bad about that. Poor guy. He did so much for you.

Upon arriving after finding a decent parking spot on the street, you immediately liked the outside of the place. It screamed cozy and smelled of comfort food; even from outside. Smiling brighter than you realized and suddenly feeling a lot more confident about this whole thing, you found yourself naturally taking Taehyung’s hand in yours and walking through the doors.

If Taehyung wasn’t a vampire, he would have blushed.

Gosh the place was even cozy on the inside too! You could already see yourself working here and being happy. After all, you wanted the simple life. A nice job that paid your bills while still being able to live within your means. That’s all you wanted. The catering job you had right now......well......Life was anything but simple when you had to work for that company.

“Good evening. Just two?”

So engrossed in your thoughts of your current crappy job, you almost didn’t catch what the young woman in front of you had said. She was petite and really pretty. Perfectly sculpted eyebrows and a perfect set of lips. Granted, you weren’t the most prettiest girl out there but man this one made you feel like the ugly duckling. But she seemed really nice.

“Uhh......”

“Actually, we’d like to apply for the two night shift openings you have here.”

Thank god for Kim Taehyung. Seriously. There you were standing there like a bump on a log and he yet again came to your rescue. As the young woman smiled and excused herself to go get the applications for employment, you immediately ducked your head and felt the heat radiating off your cheeks. Feeling incredibly embarrassed, you mumbled,

“Thanks, Tae. You’re always saving my butt. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Before the moment could get too deep, the young woman came back and politely explained a few things while handing the both of you an application. She explained that they had a few other applicants already but that there was still plenty of time to put your hats into the ring. It was then that your vampire friend spoke up and said sweetly,

“We’ll be right back. We’re just going to step outside to fill these out real quick.”

“Oh you don’t have to do that. You guys can sit right over there and fill them out if you’d like. It’s pretty slow right now so there’s plenty of tables. Please. Have a seat and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to give me a shout.”

Despite being really pretty, you could tell this girl was genuinely nice. Perhaps even humble and down to earth. Smiling and feeling much better now that your blush had died down, you both took a pen and sat at the table. This was really happening. You were taking your first big step into living a better life. But that was of course under the impression you got picked. What if you didn’t even get an interview???

“Cutie. Relax. Your heart sounds like it’s going to pound right out of your chest.”

“Aish. Sorry, Tae. I’m just really nervous. What if we don’t get picked? Or what if you get picked but I don’t?”

Your pout faced off with his sly smile as he gently shook his head and said in a soft whisper,

“I told you, don’t worry about that. I’ve got this. We’ve got this. We’re a package deal, okay?”

Gosh this man was going to be the end of you. How could one person be so incredibly sweet? Furthermore, how did you wind up so lucky to have him in your life? It was beyond you but the gratefulness was still there.

With renewed confidence, the both of you sat there and filled out your applications. You stated in yours that you were applying for the waiter/waitress position while Taehyung noted down that he was applying for the kitchen. It felt great to put down that you had experience seeing as how you worked for a catering company. Taehyung, having lived for so many years, was great in the culinary arts.

“Here they are, miss. If you could, could you just take a look over them to make sure we filled everything out correctly? We’d really appreciate it.”

The moment the vampire’s skin touched the female’s it was like things got....weird. You watched the young woman look over the applications as if she were in a trance of some kind. Your eyebrows furrowed and you itched to look over at your pale friend but resisted. Something was up. After taking a few extra minutes to look over the paperwork, the young woman cleared her throat and said lightly,

“Wow. You guys are definitely qualified. I’ll make sure you both get an interview.”

Wait what???

“Thank you, miss. That means a lot to us. We’ll be eagerly awaiting your phone call.”

Just like that, you were half way there. Your mind was blown as you faintly felt Taehyung helping escort you out of the restaurant and across the street to where your car was parked. Numbly, you unlocked the vehicle and the two of you climbed inside to buckle up. Sitting there still staring off into space, you mumbled,

“What just happened?”

“We’re one step closer to getting you a better job and spending more time with each other. That’s what just happened.”

You looked over to see the pale man smiling his signature boxy smile while wiggling his eyebrows in a cheesy, greasy fashion. It was enough to snap you out of your stunned stupor and you instantly started to giggle. Blushing lightly and playfully swatting at him, you said in amusement,

“You’re terrible. What did you do? Bewitch her or something?”

“Maybe? Does it really matter?”

Silence filled the car as the two of you had a small stare down. It was odd seeing him with the brown contacts in. In all actuality, you preferred his red eyes. His natural ruby red orbs. Just as you were about to start the car, he said suddenly but softly,

“I’d do anything for you.”

Within two days, you both got the call giving you a date and time for your interviews. Even though the young woman had claimed she’d make sure you guys got that far, you never actually believed her. You’d never forget squealing and jumping all around your apartment while Tae just laughed and watched you from the couch. Seeing you happy was all he really wanted. If he could have just one wish, it was to see you happy.

But that happiness......was short lived.

It was three days later and you came home bawling your eyes out. Taehyung had just went to bed after seeing you off for work that morning. He had a few chores around the apartment that he’d do for you later when the sun would start to go down but first he’d nap since the sun was pretty intense today. However, he had only just gotten comfortable in the spare bedroom that was practically his now, when he heard the door slam open.

With his vampire traits kicking into high gear, he was down the hallway and back out into the living room in the blink of an eye. The sight broke his heart despite it having not functioned for hundreds of years. Frowning deeply, he helped you out of your shoes and gently walked you to the couch where he sat you down. A gentle hand rubbed at your back as he waited for you to tell him what happened.

“Fired???”

“Yes, Tae. They fired me. They had this planned all along. I walked in and they handed me this paycheck and told me I was free to go.”

On one hand, the vampire was overjoyed to see you get out of that hell hole of a catering company. For as long as he had known you, which was going on two years now, they had never once treated you the way you deserved. You worked so hard and was so underappreciated. However, seeing you this upset killed him. It felt like a knife was twisting his insides all to hell and back.

Needless to say, the two of you spent the day in bed. Taehyung had convinced you that this waitress job was as good as yours and so now would be the perfect opportunity to start getting your sleeping schedule in order. Sleep and rest during the day so that you could be awake and functioning at night. It was hard to fall asleep at first, the whole reality of being unemployed still shaking you to the core, but with Taehyung’s help you were able to sleep like a baby.

It was the night before the interviews and the two of you were just sitting and chilling watching some cheesy kdrama. You were munching on popcorn while Tae was sipping on a tumbler full of blood. At first, you thought living with a vampire would be tough. In all actuality, it wasn’t that different from having any other kind of roommate. Taehyung was super clean, respectful, and he was your best friend. You couldn’t have asked for a better roommate.

But sometimes.......your curious nature got the better of you.

“TaeTae......Have you ever wanted to taste my blood?”

When all you heard was a muffled noise, you looked over to see the male in the middle of a sip from his cup to which he was scrambling not to spit out. You certainly caught him by surprise and while the thought of having blood spat all over your living room should have grossed you out, it actually amused you more than anything. The look on his face was quite comical.

“Well I um......Well.....I mean....Um.....I mean yeah of course I have.”

But he quickly added after safely setting the tumbler down on the coffee table and turning to face you, his expression completely sincere despite speaking a bit frantically,

“But I would never do that. You’re my best friend, not a walking blood bag. I see you as a person and not as food. I would never use you like that. That’s why I’ve never brought up the topic of blood donors.”

The nanosecond the term ‘blood donor’ left his mouth, Taehyung could have cursed himself ten times over. Way to go, blockhead. Mentally cursing himself, he watched your face as it twisted and turned into an expression of further curiosity. With raised eyebrows, you naturally asked in all innocence,

“What’s a blood donor?”

“It’s noting, cutie. Forget I said anything.”

“But Taaaaaeeee. We tell each other everything! Please! Please please please please please please please please please please pl----”

“Aish! Okay! Okay!”

Your giggles were muffled as he had slapped a hand over your mouth to silence your persistent pleading. He could never deny you no matter how strong of a night crawler he was. You were his number one weakness. He could take on armies of thugs and murder a whole city over night. But when it came to you, he was weak and at your mercy.

That was how you learned what a blood donor was. It was a contractual agreement between the vampire and a willing party. The contract was completely consensual and honestly made perfect sense. While the donor would offer their blood, the vampire would take care of his or her donor almost like a pet. Providing them with shelter, food, water, all of those basic needs. The two would live in perfect harmony.

“Tae.......Why haven’t you ever said anything? I can totally be your donor.”

“No. Absolutely not. This is why I never told you about it in the first place. You deserve to live a normal life. Not a life where you keep a blood sucker like me alive.”

“But Taehyung----”

“No buts. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Despite the pout you were sporting, you respected his wishes and dropped the matter. But it was hard not to think about. Your mind lost focus on the TV and instead you were daydreaming about what it’d be like to be your best friend’s blood donor. What would it feel like when he sunk his fangs into your neck? Would it hurt? Would he have to numb the area first? Would it leave scars on your skin?

When morning came, you decided to take a nap since your interviews would be during the mid afternoon. As you laid there in bed watching the sun rise behind your curtains, you couldn’t help but fall asleep to the image of your super hot best friend sinking his teeth into your neck. Needless to say, you woke up a couple hours later with wet panties and feeling the need to clean yourself twice as thoroughly as you normally would.

The interviews had went smoothly and it looked promising. Although you couldn’t help but wonder if Taehyung had worked his vampire magic because the managers seemed to be awfully impressed with the two of you. After being told you both would get a call if you were chosen, you were once again playing the waiting game. You hated that game.

A couple days went by where you spent the daytime hours sleeping and spent the night hours doing things like paying bills online and getting your affairs in order. Just on the miraculous chance that the two of you get this night shift job.

“Relax, cutie pie. I told you, we got this in the bag.......Uh oh.....”

You had been tidying up around the living room when you heard his nervousness from his spot in the kitchen. Turning to face him, since the apartment was a very open floor plan, you watched him stare tensely into the refrigerator. His body was stiff as a board and you wondered what was wrong. But then it hit you too........There was no blood left in the house.

Save for yours.

“Tae----”

“Nope. Don’t say it.”

“But T----”

“No. We discussed this and it’s out of the question.”

“Kim Taehyung!”

He was shocked when you walked up to him only to punch him in the arm. Of course, he hardly felt it and you probably knew that too, but still. Your actions surprised him all the same. He stared at you with ruby eyes that held a mixture of emotions. Anxiety, sadness, frustration. This was hard for him and you weren’t helping. The temptation had been there forever and he had fought so hard to resist his natural urges as a vampire.

“Taehyung, you do so much for me. You’re my best friend. And best friends are always there for each other. Please.......Please let me do this for you. Let me be your blood donor.”

You had him right where you wanted him. The poor boy was already weakened from the lack of blood so his resolve was already crumbling. With a heavy sigh of defeat, he flicked his wrist and out of thin air, a piece of parchment paper with elegant calligraphy scrawled all over it appeared right in front of you. A couple seconds later, a quill and bottle of ink appeared as well.

You didn’t even have to read over the contract to know you wanted to sign it. So there you stood, in your modest kitchen signing a blood contract with your vampire best friend. Your life may not be that exciting, but Taehyung certainly kept things interesting for you. Something that you were completely okay with.

Life with a vampire was interesting. Still is.

It was then decided that he would go ahead and move in with you. It only made sense and he practically lived here anyway. So you two spent the next two nights and early mornings moving his stuff from his apartment and into yours. As part of the contract, he insisted on paying the rent in full himself but you convinced him to at least go half and half with you. It would be easier once you both got jobs.

“TaeTae.......what if we don’t get the call? What if they’ve already picked someone else?”

“Don’t think like that, babe. The jobs are as good as ours. I’m sure of it.”

The pet names. They had changed quite a bit since your best friend had moved in permanently. As much as it shouldn’t, babe had become your favorite and it never failed to make you blush like a schoolgirl in love. It was hard to control your heart beat as well around him. But fortunately he never commented on it.

Being Tae’s blood donor had went from something intriguing and fascinating, to something of a second nature. It was so natural for you to crane your neck so that he could easily access his favorite spot. Of course, as stated in the contract, he steered clear of major arteries and always kept the ‘transaction’ clean. At first, it hurt. Quite a bit, actually. The first couple times left your neck feeling sore and stiff the next night. But now you were used to it.

Just as your unemployment checks were starting to run out, you were starting to lose hope in the night shift jobs. Taehyung could tell too. Your mood was horrible and you looked like you could be an advertisement for antidepressants. Pouting, he walked over to you and crouched down at your feet with his hands on your knees.

“Let’s go to the restaurant and see if they’ve filled the positions. Maybe they’re just slow in processing?”

Sniffling and rubbing your red rimmed eyes, you nodded and got off the couch. If anything, this trip would at least give you closure so that you could start looking for another job. The trip of course was short since the restaurant wasn’t very far away. Getting a great spot on the street right across from it, you parked the car and headed for the entrance.

Walking in, you saw one of the managers that had interviewed you was standing at the pedestal; ready to seat any customers that would come in. You were nervous; heart pounding in your chest and palms sweaty. What if they had already filled the position? Finally standing in front of her, you offered a shy smile while Taehyung was the one who spoke up in his polite and charming tone.

“Hello there, we were just wondering if the two night shift openings had been filled yet. We haven’t gotten a phone call but we wanted to check in anyway as we’re still very interested in the positions.”

“Oh yes! Actually we were just......”

But then the manager locked eyes with your best friend and again.....something weird was going on as you looked back and forth between the two. Just like the young female employee from weeks ago, the manager appeared as if she were in some kind of trance. Smiling, she suddenly beamed and said happily,

“We were just about to call you both! What a happy coincidence!”

Happy coincidence your butt. Taehyung had done it again. Somehow, someway, he managed to get you two the jobs and it was like everything changed. The following days were full of uniform fittings and lots of human resource paperwork. You had forgotten what all went into getting a job. None the less, you were beyond happy. And that’s all Taehyung ever wanted for you. Was to see you happy.

He would do anything for you.

It was a rough start but you were a quick learner. Mostly getting used to sleeping during the daylight hours and working through the night hours. It was a full time position but thank the good lord you both got weekends off. How you managed that, you weren’t sure. It made things like doctors’ appointments interesting but you managed.

Most importantly of all, you got to spend so much more time with Taehyung. The two of you had quickly formed a little habit of him winking at you whenever he’d ring the bell telling you that an order was ready. It always made you blush and you had to try and cool yourself down before you could reach a customer’s table.

Your best friend had quickly built a name for himself as the months went by. His food was amazing and he always asked the managers if he could put his own little spin on certain dishes because he felt the customers would enjoy it better. And sure enough, the customers were rolling in. Dinner time became the busiest time of the day for the place and the managers noticed.

You weren’t doing too bad yourself. The tips really did make a difference. After your first three months working, you ran the numbers and concluded that you were actually making way more money doing this job than you were when you were still under the thumb of that stupid catering company. It blew your mind. And it was all because of Taehyung. Your best friend. He truly was amazing.

Life with a vampire was interesting. Still is.

You donated your blood and he helped make all your dreams come true. You were more than living within your means. The two of you actually went on small trips together on your days off. Watching the stars where they couldn’t be covered by city lights. You’d spend the daytime hours resting or if you were feeling restless, he’d watch movies with you till you could sleep again. It all felt so......domestic. And you honestly loved it. You thrived in it.

And then one day, while you were just collecting a table’s drink order, your best friend blew everyone out of the water. Including you. You watched him suddenly walk up to you and your face flushed red since he had never done this before. He was to always stay in the back where the kitchen was. But now he stood there in front of you with everyone able to watch.

“Everyone---- I’m sorry. But if I could just have your attention for a moment, please.”

Dear god your face was so hot that you felt like you were going to pass out. What the hell did he think he was doing??? Trying not to scold him right then and there, you watched with a tomato red face as he smiled at you and started to speak.

“I was supposed to wait till our shift was over, but my 15 minute break is coming up and I can’t wait any longer......”

Your heart was pounding in your chest and you could see out of the corner of your eye that your managers were watching too. Dear god. This was it. They were going to fire you both for making such a scene. But your vampire’s voice brought you back to the moment at hand.

“Everyone......this lovely young lady right here is amazing. She’s worked hard to get here. And I think I can speak for everyone when I say she’s great at what she does. Am I right?”

You were shocked to see the collective nods of heads in agreement and some even spoke up with yeah’s and yes’s. It certainly didn’t help your blush any and you ended up shamelessly fanning your face to try and not pass out. Chuckling, he continued as he smiled down warmly at you.

“Today is her birthday and so of course I made her a little something. It’s not much but I am an expert with desserts.”

You along with the rest of the restaurant laughed softly. Taehyung was right, today was your birthday and you had spent it sleeping and getting all the rest you could. But you didn’t care to work on your birthday because it was just another day in your book. Nothing special. But it would seem your best friend was bound and determined to make it special.

“But before I give you your dessert.....which is of course what I’m holding behind my back......I just......want to say a little something.....”

You felt your throat closing up as you wondered what it could possibly be that he had to say to you. Trying to swallow, you watched him nervously bite his bottom lip but was careful not to show his fangs.

“Cutie......Babe........We’ve been by each other’s side for quite a few years now. We live together and life is great with you. Being your best friend is one of the greatest gifts. But.....I’m greedy. I want more. I thought before all I wanted was your happiness. But I quickly realized I want more.”

Dear god what was happening???? Your heart was surly going to explode if he didn’t shut up.

“I want your happiness, but I want to share that happiness.......as your boyfriend. So would you......do me the amazing honor.......of being my girlfriend?”

There was a soft collection of gasps including yours as you stood there nearly dropping everything in your hands; your managers long forgotten about as you stared up at him. Your best friend. He felt......He felt that way about you? It wasn’t your imagination??? You stood there with your mouth agape before one of the customers who you were currently waiting on had gently nudged you and it helped snap you out of your stunned state.

“I----Well I mean of course. I----- We’ve practically been together our whole lives. We might as well be some domestic married couple, honestly.”

And without missing a beat, Taehyung sported his signature boxy smile while strategically hiding his fangs before finally showing you the slice of cake he had prepared just for you.

“Great. Because I was really hoping you’d be my wife too.”

And there it sat perched on top of a pile of whipped cream. A beautiful engagement ring that sparkled under the light of the restaurant. Your eyes turned into dinner plates as you stood there feeling lightheaded. This was really happening. You were staring at a piece of cake with a freaking rock for decoration.

“Well.......what do you say? Will you marry me?”

“Yes! Yes, she’ll marry you!”

You both along with everyone else in the restaurant looked over to see the two managers. It was then that you made the connection. The managers were husband and wife as well. They weren’t going to throw you out. In fact, they were part of the plan all along. They knew what Taehyung had planned for tonight. Your jobs were never in any danger. Of course you wouldn’t learn this till after your shift was over later that next morning.

Speaking of.......

The sun was starting to rise but you could care less as you laid there in your bed. The room darkening curtains were long pulled in for the morning to help block the annoying light. You laid there smiling like an idiot as you stared at your newly husband-to-be. Of course he was sporting one of the most smug smiles you had ever seen him wear.

“You’re a pabo. You could have waited till we didn’t have such a large audience. I was so embarrassed from all the crying I did. Everyone kept asking me questions and I was supposed to be waiting on other tables.”

All he did was laugh softly as you tried to act all grumpy with him. But your vampire knew better. You could never be grumpy with him for long. Grinning, he reeled you in and held you in his strong arms. This was the best. This was your dream. Living the simple life while being perfectly content. You just had no idea that it would require a vampire.

Life with a vampire was interesting. Still is.

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