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deja-you · 4 years

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times new roman | episode ten

t. jefferson x reader

summary: in this final episode, thomas wants more than just a date.

word count: 1.6k

a/n: this is the final installment of this series! this has been a joy to create, and all my love goes out to those of you who have stuck through it all <3

masterlist | previous

“You have to be anywhere today?”

Thomas tapped his fingers against Y/n’s bare skin to a melody he was making up in his head. He had spent the last few minutes minutes memorizing the tide of her breathing and internally debating whether or not to ask the question he had just asked. Thomas knew he would have to ask eventually, but he hated the thought that maybe Y/n did have somewhere to be.

She turned on her side to face him, admiring his features. “Not really. Is this you trying to kick me out of your apartment?”

He grinned. “The opposite. Wonderin’ if I can stay in bed with you all day.”

Y/n hummed softly. “I think that could be arranged. But we’re going to have to find something to do to occupy the time.”

“Oh?” Thomas raised an eyebrow, his lips pulling up into a suggestive smirk. “You plan on doing that all day? Angel, last night was amazing, but I don’t know how much stamina I have in me. Maybe if I got some Gatora--”

“Shut up!” She snorted and slapped his chest. “I meant an activity like reading. Good lord.”

“Well that sounds enjoyable, too. You want to pick something out from my personal library?” He asked.

“Thomas Jefferson, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. Thank you for finally asking.”

Y/n climbed out of bed wearing only the Thomas’s shirt she had stolen last night and walked over to the door. She paused in the doorframe and glanced back at him. “You coming?”

He looked her up and down, his arms folding behind his head as he leaned back against the headboard. “Don’t mind me. I’m just enjoying the view.”

She scoffed and moved out of his sight. Thomas sighed softly, eventually pulling himself out of the warm bed to follow her into his living room. She was standing at one bookcase, her back to him. Thomas wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and pressed gentle kisses to her shoulders.

“Are you religious?”

She was leafing through his Bible. It wasn’t much of a Bible. The way he had cut out passages of scripture.

He didn’t know how to answer her at first. Did she want him to say yes? Would she like it if he told her he read the Bible and prayed? He knew her too well for that. She wanted to hear the truth.

“I am religious,” Thomas responded. It wasn’t a lie. “Very, deeply religious.”

Y/n frowned and held up a page from the Old Testament that had been mostly cut out.

“You can’t just pick and choose the parts of the Bible that you like and cut out the sections you don’t like.”

“I know.”

“It’s all or nothing. You can’t have the best parts of religion without the worst parts. You understand that, right?” Y/n desperately needed for him to understand.

“Angel, this isn’t about the Bible, is it?” Thomas said it like a question to be polite, but they both knew the answer. “It’s all a metaphor for you and me.”

She shrugged. “Everything is a metaphor for you and me.”

They were both quiet for a moment. She slid the Bible back onto his bookshelf next to a series of Ralph Ellison works and Kurt Vonnegut novels. Y/n decided on A Farewell to Arms, removed it from the shelf, and turned back to Thomas.

“Just don’t cut out the parts of me you don’t like, okay?”

His large hands covered Y/n’s and he brought her hand up to his lips to kiss each finger carelessly. “There’s nothing about you I could cut out. I love each and every part of you.”

This seemed to reassure Y/n enough, a small smile appearing on her face.

“What? What is it?”

Y/n had been minding her business, reading through her burrowed book, when she felt Thomas’s eyes on her. He had clearly been staring at her with something on his mind.

Thomas just smiled and shook his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Well now you have to tell me,” Y/n insisted, setting down the book.

“Angel, please,” he shook his head and laughed lowly.

She narrowed her eyes and sat up to get a better look at him. “Thomas Jefferson, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“You really want to know?”

“That’s why I’m asking,” Y/n said in exasperation.

“Okay, okay,” he chuckled. Thomas pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked into her eyes. “I was just thinking about how much I like waking up to the sight of you reading in my bed. It feels so natural.”

A slow smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“Well I like waking up in your bed. You’ve got a nice mattress.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow but he was still grinning. “You tellin’ me you only stick around because I have a nice mattress?”

“I suppose there might be a few other reasons,” she teased. “But it’s mostly about the mattress.”

He scoffed and wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to his side. Thomas’s lips found her neck and he left little kisses along her collarbone. “That’s too bad. I’m practically obsessed with you.”

“Are you?” She hummed dismissively.

“Mmhmm,” he mumbled his words against her skin. “I’m in love with you.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “What?”

She shifted on the bed and placed two fingers under Thomas’s chin to bring his eyes up to meet her’s. “You love me?”

He froze, wondering if he should take the words back. But he meant them.

“I love you,” he said more firmly. “I do. And I want to wake up next to you every day. I want to see you wearing my t-shirts and reading my books in my bed. I want you. All of you. I want you to be my girlfriend.”

“Hmm,” she said noncommittally. “I don’t know.”

Y/n couldn’t resist teasing him a little more, and she almost felt bad when he tensed up beside her.

“Oh, well that’s ok--”

“I never did get that boyfriend application from you, did I?” She grinned. “I remember being promised MLA format.”

She searched his face to see his reaction, but he completely retracted his body from her’s. Her mouth fell open as he climbed out of bed, his warmth leaving her.

“Thomas? Where are you...?”

He exited the room, and then came back a few minutes later with his laptop in hand. Thomas hopped back on the bed and turned on his computer.

“What are you doing?” Y/n asked, suppressing a smile.

Thomas gave her the most serious look she had ever seen from him. “I’m working on my application.”

“You know I was joking, right?” She laughed, but he was already opening up a Word document. “You don’t need to write an application.”

Thomas changed the Calibri font to Times New Roman and began working on his heading. “I promised you an application in MLA, and that’s exactly what you’re going to get.”

“You’re absolutely ridiculous,” Y/n shook her head.

“Shh,” he hushed. “I need to come up with a good hook. Should I start with a question? A quote? No, that’s too basic.”

Y/n was about to try to tell Thomas he was being too extra, but she could tell he was already too invested in writing up his application. She shook her head again, and turned her attention back to the book in her hand when she came to terms with the fact that Thomas wasn’t going to stop until he was finished.

Maybe 30 minutes later, Thomas declared he was done. He slid the laptop over to Y/n, and she sighed dramatically as she began to read through the document.

“You count cooking as a skill?” Y/n asked skeptically. “You only cook macaroni and cheese.”

“Yeah, and it’s damn good. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, angel,” he shrugged.

“It’s not. Not good, that is,” Y/n muttered under her breath, continuing to scroll through his application. “‘Devilishly handsome’? Really? Really?”

“You know that part is true. Don’t even pretend.”

A few minutes later, Y/n had finished reading the application Thomas had spent way too much time writing. He appraised her with bright eyes, waiting to hear her verdict.

“Well?”

“Well,” she strung it out a little bit longer, amused by the slight nervousness that hid behind Thomas’s eyes. “After reviewing your application... I’m happy to inform you that you got the job as Y/n Washington’s boyfriend.”

“Yes!” He pumped his fist in the air and leaped out of the bed to take a victory lap. Thomas returned a few seconds later to pull Y/n into a tight hug and placed kisses to her cheeks, lips, neck, and arms.

“I nailed the conclusion, didn’t I? I felt really good about that.”

She laughed and pressed her lips to his again to get him to shut up. When they pulled apart, he gasped and grabbed his phone off the bed.

“I need to post about this.”

She rolled her eyes when she finally set down the phone and snuggled into Thomas’s side. Y/n breathed in the scent of his t-shirt and sighed in contentment.

“This is good, right?” Thomas said softly. “You and I? This is good?”

“It’s more than good. It’s us. I love us,” she replied.

Y/n listened to the beat of his heart and knew that hers was in sync with his. She threaded her fingers through his, and with the other hand, she held open the book she had borrowed from Thomas’s library. Y/n’s eyes were drawn to a line in the book Thomas had underlined who knows how long ago, and she smiled softly.

You’re my religion. You’re all I’ve got.

tag list:

@dovesgrangers @lovelymrvl @wiffle-snuffles @thisistrashperson @comingupwithacoolnameishard @wordvomit-foryourmind @newtonslawoffuck @isharemydeathdaywithfeanor @i-know-i-can @imperial-martian @fangirling-central @dannighost @ateliefloresdaprimavera @justahappylilblog @fanfic-addict-98 @a-hopeless-fan @and-claudia @nicolemelton @youtxbemusic @reidcult @eirenism @fantasy-of-fiction @iamsuperconfusedallthetime-dead @a-midwinter-night-dream-86 @rycbar-221b @bethanymccauley @fanworrior @gggamingz @nemesis729 @ibeaesthethicc @yodas-padawan @sabbrriiinnaa @micaiahmoonheart @beautifulfound @moondustmemories @ct-salad @teenwaywardasgardian @bj-is-a-graduateof-julliard @ruebx @katierpblogg @speedypartyducksuitcase @fangirling-central @idkkbaleighh @ballerinafairyprincess @spn-pogues @gryffin-claw @elegantbutedgy @1elysium @sierraisnotreal @ssanjuniperoo @collectivefandom @lilbabyhoneypot @lunariasilver @justcallmemama @atleastidontdotiktoks @mistrose23 @checkurwindow @fluffydmonkey @pettyjayy @rosesinmars @cubedtriangle @itsjube @zeelmol @ems-alexandra @yavin4andor @daveeds-whore @someinsanefangirl @theatrenerd86 @poetnstuff @ohsoverykeri-blog @im-sidney @omgyouburtmyeggos @astralaffairs @nyxie75 @mydearestlaurens @janessawonderwall @the-middle-oldest-child @emtinuviel @elizard-hamilton @the-lost-marauder

so this is the end loves! thanks for sticking with me through this. if you want to keep reading my works, i have a new series (angel wings + wedding rings) coming out. let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist :)

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redbelles · 4 years

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hello! i’ve been asked by a genuinely surprising number of people to walk through how i gif, so here i am with something that’s less a tutorial and more a collection of tips, tricks, and useful links. i hope it helps! ✨

08/23 UPDATE:

i see this post is making the rounds again, but i’ve actually got something better these days: here is the super in-depth gifmaking 101: a comprehensive guide tutorial i put together earlier this year! the new one is way more helpful ✨

GIFMAKING: BASIC TUTORIALS

i’ve been doing this for just over a year two years, guys! i know nothing some things, jon snow!

i learned to gif by following tay’s (@kylos) tutorials, so rather than look to me, go ahead and check out her incredibly thorough master list of tutorials for all your giffing needs

another great resource is rina’s (@hayaosmiyazaki) extremely detailed gifmaking for beginners guide, which is current as of july 2020

V. BASIC TIPS

always, always, always gif from 1080p or up. seriously.

sharpen your gifs! tay and rina both cover sharpening, and here’s another great tutorial by @justin-ripley

always make sure you brighten + color your gifs

@anyataylorjoy has a phenomenal action pack to help you streamline your giffing process

don’t be afraid to experiment! just, idk, fuck around and play with things and see what happens

BRIGHTENING & COLORING & PSDS (OH MY)

experiment. play with levels, selective color, curves, hue and saturation, etc. until you know how they work; that’s the easiest way to figure out what your own personal style + preferences are

or, if you’re looking for something to help you along as you color, go nuts with psds

@dailypsd is an awesome resource for psds

@chaoticresources, which also has tutorials, template, fonts, etc.

@itsphotoshop also has tutorials, templates, etc.

tutorials: tay and rina both cover brightening and coloring!

@bbbbbbbbbbbbbbb-8 also has an amazing guide on how to color correct the murderously blue exegol scenes from sw: tros that is super helpful if you’re struggling with an overabundance of a particular color

i can’t for the life of me remember where i first saw this, but a great trick for Instant Brightening™ is to create a brightness/contrast layer just above your video layer, do exactly nothing to the settings themselves, and just set the blending mode to screen. it preserves most of the colors while dramatically brightening the gif and giving you a great starting point for the rest of your coloring

and holy shit, here is a truly life-changing tutorial on channel mixer which can be super intimidating if you don’t know quite how to work it

practice really is your best friend here! just fiddle around with stuff and you’ll eventually get the hang of it, i promise

FONTS

fonts are the goddamn bane of my existence, but here are some resources to help you conquer them

@yourfonts is the holy grail of font blogs! go give them some love!

@ihaveresources also has one of my favorite font tags

you can always message a content creator to ask what font(s) they’ve used in a particular edit, but if you’re not comfortable doing that, both WhatFontIs and WhatTheFont are super helpful for tracking down fonts

pick a simple, legible font (arial, alte haas grotesk, myriad pro, calibri, etc. are all good options) for subtitles

speaking of subtitles: tay and rina talk about them!

drop shadow is your friend

gradient text can be super fun! if you’re working in photoshop just go to layer > layer style > gradient overlay, and go wild

gradient text in captions is a bit of a pain but also very cool

TAGGING & POSTING

rina has a very comprehensive guide to tagging!

general rules of thumb: tag what you’re editing, who you’re editing, source blogs, and then any user tracked tags

for example: i track #userbells

be mindful of content warnings: for example, i always try to tag anything that flashes as #flashing tw

post on an east coast-ish schedule if you can! 7-10 pm est seems to be the optimal time to post if you want to maximize engagement. here’s a whole union metrics thing about it

boost your own stuff by doing a timezone reblog or two to make sure people have a chance to see it. it’s damn impossible to get a reblog in this economy, so do what you gotta do!

FINALLY! MY PERSONAL NONSENSE: STEP BY STEP

✨ updated 12/2021 ✨

for files i can successfully acquire

acquire file(s)

open file(s) in mpv player + take screencaps

load files into stack in photoshop

crop + resize canvas

covert files into layers on video timeline

sharpen

color

add text and/or effects

convert back to frames + adjust timing

export

post to tumblr

for files i cannot acquire

screen record file(s) player using mac screen capture/quicktime player

import video frames to layers in photoshop

import every frame

crop + resize canvas

manually remove duplicate frames

convert to video timeline

select all layers + convert for smart filters

sharpen

color

add any text and/or effects

convert back to frames + adjust timing

export

post to tumblr

voilà! there you have it!

i’m working on a more comprehensive guide to how i do things, but in the meantime, please feel free to send an ask/shoot me a message if you have questions about something i didn’t address here!

#asked and answered #resources #updated

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33skeletons · 3 years

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This is a list of all the people currently available

If this blog gains any real traction, I’ll add more... but until then, I don’t want to get too carried away until I’m 100% sure that the effort is worth it. I hope y’all understand

Name: Deydra Age: 18 Likes: ice cream, yaoi, drawing, roleplay dislikes: rude people, coffee, people putting words in her mouth, XP, Punk Bio: She’s in an open relationship with Scruff. she’s mute, but doesn’t know sign language, so she communicates via charades. She’s a low key perv, but tends to feign innocence.

Name: Friday Age: 22 Likes: flirting, coffee, making people flustered Dislikes: tea.... that stuff’s too mild, spicy food..... are you fucking insane!?! Bio: This tall drink of water is not for the feint of heart. He knows all the right buttons to push to reduce you to a blushing puddle. He has a goofy sense of humor and will often make a complete fool of himself just to make people at least crack an amused smile.

Name: Manga Age: 24 Likes: being pampered, the finer things in life Dislikes: getting dirty, being treated like a commoner Bio: This Miss Priss is a purebred with a pedigree. She believes herself to be an aristocrat and deems those of lower standard to be “plebian filth” and below her. Quick witted with a sharp tongue to boot, she’s not the nicest person to be around unless you can meet her high standards.... or give her a bottle of fancy ketchup. She has a weakness for tough guys that can match her mental capacity and hold intricate conversation with her.

Name: Punk Age: 32 Likes: What’s it to ya? Dislikes: Like you’d like ta know! Bio: he’s quite stand-off-ish and likes to keep people at arms length as much as he possibly can. He gets along with very few people and likes to shroud himself in mystery, the less you know, the better for him. He’s a wild card that enjoys throwing people for a loop at every turn.

Name: Scruff Age: 19 Likes: protecting Deydra, spicy food, tea, cuddles Dislikes: sushi, bone broth Bio: he and Deydra are in an open relationship. He cares more about Deydra than his own life. He’s a tad stand-off-ish towards anyone he doesn’t know. He tends to act as a translator for Deydra when someone doesn’t understand what she’s trying to say. All the scars on his face and his gold fangs are all from fighting to keep Deydra out of harm’s way. Wherever Deydra goes, Scruff is never very far.

Name: XP Age:15 Likes: destruction, being an asshole, getting what he wants Dislikes: being told no, having to be nice, things he destroys being fixed Bio: This edgy teen just wants the world to burn. He strives to hurt people any way he can and often ends up getting beaten senseless by Scruff when he targets Deydra. Being an Error Nightmare, he can use both Error strings and Nightmare tentacles to bring about destruction and pain, though he normally keeps the tentacles hidden as not to instantly rouse suspicion from his targets seeing as most actively avoid Nightmares, but are okay with Errors, though he can’t hide the goop that covers his right eye, which gives away his other half if anyone’s attentive enough to put two and two together in time

Name: Hokori Age: 23 Likes: food, blood, peanuts Dislikes:..... meh Bio: With his hood up, he appears to be a Dust Sans, but with his hood down it reveals a large gash in his skull and allows him to pass as your average Horror Sans. He’s volatile and unpredictable, but the fastest way to this skeleton’s proverbial heart is lots of food. He’s a bottomless pit with an insatiable apatite. If he’s out on a killing spree and has decided to target you, your best bet at escaping is to toss a handful of some kind of small, easily scattered snack such as peanuts. He’ll stop and start picking up and eating whatever you threw like James Woods from Family Guy. He’s also a bit of a perv once he’s deemed you not worth the energy of killing.

Name: Calibri (left) Age: 21 Likes: shredding sick riffs on her guitar, rapping, beating the snot out of assholes that need a checkup with karma Dislikes: Assholes, people calling her fat... I’m a queen with more curves than you know how to handle!!! get it right, fuckers!!! Bio: This badass, bodacious babe is one of Gears’s twin daughters. She’s got a sailor’s mouth with an alcohol tolerance to match. She’s hot-headed, but also mediates when her sister Chiller is too angry to see straight and starts edging too close to the line when putting her foot down. Calibri is sexy and she knows it with a ride or die attitude. She don’t need no man to take care of her, no sir! She’s perfectly capable of paying her own tab and fighting off a group of thugs that don’t know how to take no for an answer! She, her sister, and her mom can play Through The Fire And Flames on their guitars. Name: Chiller (right) Age: 21 Likes: playing guitar with her sister Calibri and mother Gears, reading Dungeons and Dragons books Dislikes: movie adaptations of books, live action adaptations of animations, assholes, being angry Bio: Chiller’s a badass babe in her own right. She survived being hooked up to a car battery and has the scars to prove it. She’s a lesbian and proud, and prefers taking on the dominant role in a relationship. Her pain tolerance is incredibly high. She enjoys hip hop, interpretive and break dancing, and is one heck of an archer with nearly dead shot aim. She’s normally stoic and very blunt with her words, preferring to only speak when necessary. She’s a natural born pack alpha.

Name: Sparkle Age: 41 Likes: anything sweet, bright colors, J-pop, K-pop Dislikes: anything bitter, having to get violent, seeing others get hurt Bio: she may look all sunshine and rainbows, but she can punch like a freight train and sometimes forgets her own strength. She suffers from hypoglycemia and has to keep sweets and candy on her person if she leaves the house, though she will gladly share them if you ask. She enjoys baking, and can often times be found doing just that out of boredom, not that anyone has been complaining. She may appear frail, but she can tank hits like a champ so long as said hits don’t come from a sharp object or gunshot. Her twin sister is Shade. She has a problem with producing more magic than her body can handle, so her sister comes in handy for that issue.

Name: Shade Age: 41 Likes: star gazing, dark colors, bitter and robust flavors, Evanescence (she knows all of their songs by heart) Dislikes: sweets, bright light, satanists Bio: Miss Doom And Gloom here is a wiccan highly skilled in her practice. She has the ability to leech magic from other monsters because she has no magic of her own to use, so she uses the magic of others, though mostly the excess magic her sister overproduces. She doesn’t enjoy getting her hands dirty in a fight,.... good thing she wears gloves! She’s rather soft spoken, but make no mistake, she has an outside voice and will not hesitate to use it if someone’s getting on her nerves. She mostly uses defensive magic to protect others, though she knows attack spells purely for the defense of herself and others should it be absolutely necessary. She also knows basic healing magic, though she can only heal minor injuries.

Name: Aiden Age: 40 Likes: pain, meat, grunge and screamo Dislikes: pop music, allergy season, Bio: This sharp toothed masochist ADORES pain, both receiving and inflicting. She got so mad once, she ruined her voice, so now she sounds like she smokes a pack a day. She’s very fast, agile, and super flexible since she’s double jointed EVERYWHERE!!! She has three rows of those razor teeth and a tongue which is so long it can act as an extra limb, which she enjoys showing off to freak people out via picking up objects such as cups, keys, pencils, and even going so far as to balance on it. She has very bad allergies, so she smells by flicking her tongue out like a reptile. Her spit and other bodily fluids are highly acidic. She’s normally chill, but it’s still obvious she’s a bit unhinged.

Name: Gears Age: 40 Likes: hot sauce, children, playing his acoustic guitar, working on cars, blacksmithing, learning new things Dislikes: sitting still for too long, sweets, water, cold, rude people, being alone Bio: Gears is a country boy that enjoys staying in top physical shape and keeping his hands and mind busy at every chance he gets. He’s just as strong as Sparkle, but slower. He has fire magic that when not fighting to keep others safe, he uses to forge metal as a freelance blacksmith. He carries a ridiculously enormous wrench forged from the hardest metal known to man that he uses as a melee weapon. Fire doesn’t harm him, but water sure as heck does (but he can drink things like koolaid and soda and be perfectly fine... just no water on it’s own or saline solution)!!! He bleeds ferrofluid, which he can manipulate, harden, and liquify at will as a last resort in a fight or to keep his injuries from deterring him too badly. He’s a bit of a himbo, but not as dumb... he just has his moments where “me brain am no werk so gud” and it’s evident when he starts having Freudian Slips in whatever he’s trying to say or his response to a question is “uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhm...... wait one...... run that by me again?”. Gears was around during the great human monster war, which in his AU the humans sealed them in the mountain, but chased them till they were backed against the barrier, but the monsters hit a massive stroke of good luck and managed to take back the underground with the help of Frisk. Being a war veteran that has seen things no one should ever have to, he suffers from PTSD. Gears has a soft spot for children, and will often babysit for others if they ask.

Name: Sketch Age: 40 Likes: drawing, painting, coloring, blood, sketching,..... what? Dislikes: ......... what were we talkin bout? Bio: Sketch is an unhinged scatterbrained clutz of an aspiring artist.... with a dark side. She’s a low-key sadist that’s developed a taste for blood. Once you piss her off, stopping her is like trying to stop the Doom Guy.... just... stay out of her warpath and pray to whoever you pray to that you’re not the one she’s storming towards. She’s a MASSIVE perv and will openly stare at whatever she sees that she likes a little too much, even known to get handsy when the person doesn’t take the hint. She often loses track of important things like her phone, keys, ect and loses her train of though every now and then or feigns it to skillfully dodge questions and conversations she’d rather not be having.

Name: Rave Age: 42 Likes: singing, dancing, fashion and most importantly BOOOOOOOYYYYYS~ Dislikes: ..... depends on the situation, really~ Bio: A flamboyantly gay vigilante is also a medic with powerful healing magic. Rave is fleet of foot and deathly quiet when sneaking up on someone and with enough stamina to outrun most of his targets. His weapon of choice is a glowstick staff. Wanna hear what he sounds like? Go to youtube and look up any nightcore male version of any Ke$ha song and that’s what he sounds like. Rave likes looking hot AF and can frequently be found rocking women’s punk, pop and grunge style clothing and looking damn good in it and some eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara. He prides himself in keeping himself as healthy and fit as he possibly can at all times. He unironically likes pumpkin spice anything, peppermint bark lattes, and kale chips.

Name: Dante Age: 42 Likes: children, Italian food, guns, cigars, wine, bourbon, being a wise guy mobster, Helping others.... so long as they help someone else in return that is.... sorta like.... paying for the person behind you in a drive thru where it starts a chain reaction of people paying for the next person’s meal..... little acts of kindness make the world go round, y’know.... and I’m a charitable man. Dislikes: rude people, having to go “Melancholy”, Bio: This Mafiatale Ganz (GZTale Sans) is the don of his own mafia that deal in guns, alcohol, and providing protection to those who come to him on the day of his sister's daughter's son's niece's nephew's grandmother's sister's wedding-..... pffffft hahaha!!! Just kidding! He has no blood relatives besides his brother Leon, but this group of people (everyone in the two pictures above this) are like.... illegitimate family.... adoptive you could say. Dante’s great with kids. He and Gears are the best at babysitting and often work together to help lost children find their families again when they’re out and about. Dante enjoys giving back to the community as much as he possibly can, even spending his free time doing volunteer work and donating funds to the city. When Dante gets a custom order on a gun, he has Gears forge it for him and focuses on the fine details, dip dying, engraving and making custom bullets to match.

Name: Anomaly Age: immortal, frozen at age 23 Likes: helping others, traveling to other AUs, fruity alcohol, karaoke, JAPANESE FOOD!!! Dislikes: spicy food, beer, celery, mushrooms, country music Bio: Anomaly has ben around for god knows how long. They are bigender. They have wings and horns (cause They’re a fallen angel) but prefers to hide them away. 40 years ago, they decided to create their own AU as a safe haven for anyone trying to escape danger, though danger seems to find their little safe haven more than they’d like to admit. It was around this time they discovered forgotten AUs and ones being destroyed or deleted and decided to try to rescue as many people from them as they could, bringing them back to populate their AU Crossroads, aptly named due to it being a meltingpot of the multiverse and still growing in size and population to this day. The 9 skeletons listed above were the first 9 they ever rescued and they became like their own kids. They’re a goofball, but make Them mad and you’ll feel their wrath! Skilled in a multitude of weapons and fighting styles, they’re a formidable force of nature. They can shift between male and female at will, though they prefer their female form due to them being able to fit in smaller spaces, being lighter weight, and being able to doe eye and bat their eyelashes out of most situations.... plus free drinks at the local bar on Thursdays.

Name: Eros Age: 19 Likes: long walks on the beach, cuddles, his family, oreos Dislikes: rainy days, confrontation (cause it makes people afraid of him) Bio: This 10ft tall, frightening behemoth is actually Aiden’s son! Out of all the second generation, he’s the youngest of the adults, but the most responsible of the four boys, often being the voice of reason amongst them, especially when it comes to the well being of children around his idiotic cousins Etch and Scribble and often being the one to get little ZJ to listen to what he’s told by telling him going to bed on time and eating vegetables will make him grow up big and strong like him. He’s actually a little on the shy side and very humble, only hamming things up around ZJ and other small children present. He suffers from early onset arthritis and has to take medication for it to keep his joints from locking up and grinding together, but he doesn’t let it hold him down. He and his uncle Gears work out together because it helps his aching bones and because Gears turns it into fun little challenges for him to keep him going with it instead of giving up.

Name: Etch Age: 21 (but a few months younger than Chiller and Calibri) Likes: mEmEs!!!, weed, being annoying, prank wars Dislikes: being forgotten, being ignored, pain (has a very low pain tolerance) Bio: One of Sketch’s sons and Scribble’s twin brother. He’s just very lonely and wants people to pay attention to him to stave off being alone for as long as he can... whether said attention is positive or negative. When no one pays attention to him or there’s no one to keep his thoughts from wandering to dark places, he steals his brother’s weed stash and gets high... which his brother hates because Etch could easily go to a doctor and get his own prescribed to him, but Etch fears the doctor’s office more than death and adamantly refuses to go, even hiding or running away at the mere mention of it. Etch tried to get a tattoo once.... he went into it screaming like a badass Viking, but before they could even roll up his sleeve to start, he ran out blubbering like a baby. He’s the most irresponsible one in the entire family and is always the one to cause major problems because of a bad idea he thought was good at the time. He ends up in bad situations a lot and finds himself with the wrong crowd more often than not, but lucky for him he has a family full of badasses that come to bail him out of any situation before he ends up hurt too badly.

Name: Scribble Age: 21 (but a few months younger than Chiller and Calibri) Likes: memes, weed, hanging around Etch, Eros and ZJ, cuddles Dislikes: when Etch steals his weed, when Etch gets into trouble, pain (another with very low pain tolerance, looky there! But he has literally no tolerance for pain.... he screamed when he got those piercings) Bio: Scribble suffers from anxiety and clinical depression and was prescribed marijuana to treat it. He and his brother were home schooled after freshman year of high school due to Etch pissing off the entire football team and them all ambushing the brothers in the locker room after gym class and um... let’s just say Etch got over it and Scribble still fears .....backdoor intimacy after what the football team did to them. Scribble is unable to protect himself and is a firm believer in pacifism. In times of battle, Scribble acts as a messenger, able to write notes in magic ink that can only be seen by it’s intended recipients. He normally just rolls with whatever Etch is doing or does what he’s told to avoid a conflict.

Name: Spritle Age: 20 Likes: Cheesy romance, dark humor and morbid jokes, rainy days Dislikes: removing her death touch nullifying necklace, people sexualizing her right off the bat, people underestimating her because of her appearance Bio: This brightly colored reaper girl is one of Sparkle’s daughters. She prefers to blend into the background and not be the center of attention if she can help it. Yes, her freckles are rainbow colors. She’s more on the proper side like her aunt Shade and enjoys a relationship if it’s not centered around perversion. She’d rather spend the day cuddled up on the couch watching disney movies, eating pizza and sharing a drink with two straws. She really likes nostalgic and retro things like 50′s diners and drive in movies. If you’re with her and intend on asking her out, doing old school gestures like laying your jacket over a puddle so she won’t step in it is the quickest way to win her over.

Name: Pixie Age: 19 Likes: when any guy is interested in her, when soon to be reaped souls try to run from her sister (It gives her something to do), sushi Dislikes: When people think she’s a child because of her nearly flat chest and high pitches voice, How her big sister has a bigger bust than her (Sprilte: Hey, if I could switch with you, I would! These things hurt my back!) Bio: Sparkle’s youngest daughter. Her father was an ErrorFellSwap Papyrus. She works with her sister as a chaser. Her job is to chase after, disarm and detain souls that refuse to be reaped when their time comes via trying to fight death or outrun it and thus trying to fight/run away from Spritle. Pixie is the first ever chaser on record and was the one who proposed the idea to the reaper council to keep reapers from tearing their bodies up to do their job. Chasers can be identified by a little white cross on their clothing or accessories and are required to be fast runners and ferocious fighters. Pixie has the speed and ferocity of a FellSwap Papyrus and is able to use her error strings to easily take weapons from your hands and tie you up to await the cold bite of Spritle’s scythe or claw blades. Pixie enjoys puzzles, her favorite being rubix cubes.

Name: ZJ Age: 4 Likes: coloring, playing outside, hanging out with the older boys, spending time with uncle Gears and uncle Dante, when his momma reads to him, hide and seek, COOKIES, CAKE AND CANDY!!! Dislikes: When people are mean and hurt others, vegetables, bed time Bio: Shade’s adopted son. ZJ is shy, yet a hyperactive ball of energy that likes to hang around with Etch, Scribble, and Eros. He has wisdom beyond his years thanks to his mother reading college level literature as his bedtime stories, but he has trouble articulating his words from the first three years of his life being spent with everyone baby talking him. When he doesn’t know how to respond to something, he just reacts by screaming “I DUNNO WHAT’S GOIN ON!!!” the same happens when he gets overwhelmed, but it’s accompanied by him hiding behind the nearest trusted adult.

FEEL FREE TO START SENDING ASKS AND RP STARTERS!!!

#ask blog #undertale ocs #undertale original characters #undertale skeletons #my sona #character list #character lineup #ask box open #rp friendly

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altarwaiting · 4 years

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How to gif without photoshop (second method)

Hello! A couple months ago I made a tutorial on how to gif without photoshop using the website ezgif. I got a really great response for it and received some requests for the other giffing program I use when I don’t have access to photoshop. The program is called instagiffer; this is a software so it needs to be downloaded but I have never had any trouble with my version.

Warning that this is VERY text and image heavy because I know how frustrating it can be when a tutorial feels like it’s skipping steps and I want this to be as clear as possible. Also please read this on desktop, tumblr mobile kills the quality of gifs inside text posts.

Please reblog if you found this helpful!

This is the video I will be giffing and here is the gif I will be making!

What you need:

Instagiffer

This program has been around since 2013 and I have used it since 2016. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated since 2016 and the download link on the official website is broken. That being said, there are a few other websites that still have a working download, which is what I linked to above.

ezgif

Although we aren’t going to use this website to make the gif, we are going to use it to add more color and brightness to the gif.

A video downloader

This is the video downloader I use but basically any youtube/video download website works. There are two ways to gif on instagiffer; using a video and using the built in screen recorder. I will show you how to use both.

A video to gif

This program is a lot more forgiving about video quality than ezgif is, but for best results 720p or 1080p is still the standard. Scenes with good lighting and bright colors turn out the best, but you can still make good looking gifs from darker or unsaturated scenes if you know what you’re doing.

1. Making a gif with a downloaded video

Step One: Getting the frames

First, you download the video you want to gif. Then you open up instagiffer and click on “load video.” Scroll down until you find the video you want to gif and click on it.

The video will appear on the screen in the right hand side. Go ahead and put “smoothness” up as high as it can go. This increases the frames per second and makes the gif look smoother. It also makes the gif longer, so you may have to bring it down later so it doesn’t go over tumblr’s size limit, but I always start as high as possible then work down.

Next, find the moment in the video you want to gif. You can either use the sliding bar or just type in the start time (you can use hours, minutes, seconds, and millisecond). You also want to put how long the clip you want to gif is. 3 seconds is the default but I usually bump it up to at least 4 (unless I know it’s a really short clip) just because it’s a lot easier to delete frames than add them.

If you do this, you’ll quickly realize your gif has extra frames that appear slightly before and slightly after the moment you want to gif. It’s really easy to get rid of those frames; just click on them until you only see the frames you want in the gif. Use the scroll bar at the bottom of the gif to move around the frames, and use it to make sure the only thing on screen is the clip you want included in the gif.

Step Two: Resize the gif, brighten the gif, change the speed and add captions

Now, it’s time to size, brighten, and color your gif! First look at the “frame size” option. Using the correct gif size for tumblr is one of the easiest ways to make sure the gif looks good. For gifs that take up a whole row, the size should be 540p wide. For two gifs in one row, the size is 268p each. For three gifs in one row, the sizes are 177p, 178p, and 177p in that order. Here is a visual of it. You can see what the width/height of the gif is in the bottom right hand corner of the gif screen. I am making this gif 268p. Get the frame size as close to the width you want as possible; right now, it is 269x151. To get it down to 268 exactly, go up to the top of the program, click on “frame” > “manual crop”. This little box will pop up. Just set the width to 268 and make sure the size is listed as 268 under the gif as well. The height can stay the same.

Keep quality up to 100 obviously. I almost always brighten by 2. Unless you’re giffing something with a huge spot of light, 2 is basically standard. Going up any higher usually makes the gif just look grainy, but if the scene is REALLY badly lit, you can go up to 3. Playback rate is usually -1, just to make the gif look smoother. Unless it’s a super long gif or a super short gif, I don’t mess with it further.

Captions are obviously optional but if you want to add one, click on “click here to add a new caption.” A box will pop up with options of how you want the text to look. I only use this to “caption” gifs (aka add dialogue). The settings I use are 12pt font, calibri, white, bold italic, bottom of gif, outline up to 3. You can also chose what frame you want the caption to start/end on if you want. Since this gif doesn’t have talking, I’m not going to include the caption in the final gif, but I wanted to show how to use this function.

Step Three: Color the gif

There are two parts to this. The first place I color the gif is on instagiffer, and then I use ezgif to add more effects. The second part is totally optional but they have more choices for coloring there.

Click on the “open effects panel”. A window will open showing what the gif currently looks like, along with a variety of filters you can use. Ignore how grainy it looks, it won’t look that way when it’s finished.

First thing is keep “enhance” up to 100. This is basically a sharpening function and without it the gif will get super blurry. There are a ton of filters you can play around with, but the only two I focus on usually are “color fade” and “colorize.” For color fade, I click it on and set it at 10. Obviously, if you’re trying to make a desaturated gifset, you can raise it up for a faded color effect, but I use it more for color balance than desaturation. Next click on colorize, and then color picker.

I almost always pick a light shade of blue, purple or pink; it brings out the color in the gif and tends to keep skin tones from being washed out. This is usually my default:

Then, I bring the “colorize” option down to 90 to increase the effects of shadows.

Last thing to do is click create gif! It’ll take a few seconds, especially for longer gifs, so be patient. ALSO there is a good chance you’re going to get a message saying something to the effect of “this gif is too big for tumblr’s photo limit.” Feel free to ignore that; the software being old means it still has the photo limit as 2gb when now it is 5-6gb so almost any gif you make will be considered “too big.”

Your gif now shows up in a preview tab! It should also show up as a file labeled “insta” on your desktop.

Here is the gif so far.

You can end here if you want. But when using instagiffer, I always go to ezgif to brighten up the colors further.

This part is basically the same as how you would color a gif you made in ezgif (see this tutorial) but I’ll quickly walk through what I do.

Go to ezgif.com/effects. Click chose file and upload your gif. First, you’re going to want to up the saturation, brightness, and contrast. You have to play around with these functions a lot because every scene is different, but in general, I have my saturation up pretty high and my brightness and contrast at at least 8. For a scene as dark and desaturated as this, I put saturation at 200, brightness at 12, and contrast at 16.

Afterwards, you want to go down to “color presets” and select “tint.” In my other tutorial, I recommended tinting with a light red or light blue, but for gifs made on instagiffer, I tend to use a light yellow/gold. I already tinted the gif purple in instagiffer so adding yellow in ezgif tends to balance it out. The shade I used for this gif is #fffcf0.

If the gif ends up looking too yellow, either decrease saturation, or click the “effects” button under the gif and add a layer of light purple to balance the colors more.

Your final gif should look like this.

2. Making a gif with the “capture screen” feature

This only changes the method of how you get gif frames. Everything related to resizing, coloring/effects, and adding captions is the same as above.

What if you don’t have a download of the thing you want to gif? The great thing about instagiffer is it has a built in screen recorder so you can gif any video you want, even if you can’t download it (or if you’re like me and don’t want to deal with downloading a 45 minute episode of something just to gif one scene).

To use this tool, click on the “capture screen” button on the top right corner next to “load video.” Then this screen will pop up.

You’re going to want to take this blue screen over to the screen you want to capture. I’m going to put it over the youtube video I am giffing. Adjust it so the only thing it’s focused on is the video and set the length in seconds. I usually set it for longer than the clip is just because it’s easier to remove extra frames than rerecord a scene. There is also sometimes a lag so starting it right before the scene you want to gif helps with that. For example, if the clip I’m giffing is 3 seconds long, I set it to 3.5. Then start running the video and click “start” on the screen!

Your frames will now show up on instagiffer. Everything is the same, except you can’t change the frame rate or timing. Go ahead and delete frames that you don’t need by clicking on them. After that, just use the same resizing, and coloring method I outlined above.

Some notes:

When using the video download option, the effects you use will save, as will the size of the gif. So if you gif one part of a video, then move the time stamp to another part, it will stay in whatever size you put the gif as. However, when using screen capture, you have to resize the gif and go to the effects menu each time because they reset after each use of the screen recorder.

You can also just paste a youtube link into the white bar at the top of instagiffer to gif it, but I’ve found that the quality is much better if you download or use the capture screen.

To crop a gif, move the red box around (just make sure it stays the right width size!)

If you are using the screen recorder and only want to record part of the video (like just a characters outfit) size the gif recorder so it’s just surrounding the part of the video you want to see.

I hope this made sense lol, it took me a few days to write it all so please let me know if you have questions or need anything clarified! Support me on Ko-Fi if you’d like and are able 💕💕💕

#gif tutorial #giffing tutorial #giffing #gifmaking #mine #my gifs #blood //#long post #@ anon hope this helps!

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kaicodess · 4 years

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Name/Alias: kai Timezone: eastern Descriptors: textbook sag, slytherin, enfp, bi-saster, the physical embodiment of😏😉😂. How long you’ve been coding: i’ve been skinning badly off and on since like 2014, but i started making templates like a lifetime ago. back when proboards started using it’s own version of dohtml. y’all remember that sht?? Coding style: i like dark skins with accent detail, i like bright colorful skins, i love trends that are actually useful. minimalist/dark and less traditional are my favorites lately. Favourite design elements: playfair display, poppins, calibri, old standard tt, lora, monsterrat. sticky avs/postrow stuffs are my favorite gd thing. profile apps with optional elements. just learned responsive so i have to incorporate that into everything ever! What you’re aiming to get out of the Skinathon: i have a skin for a site i’d like to create and a skin for a site i NEED to finish, but also hopefully i can apply what i learn along the way to some other unfinished projects. meet some dope people along the way. Trying anything new for the Skinathon? certainly not used to showing people my work. it usually sits unless i’m perfectly happy with it so i’m a little nervous ngl. maybe get flex down a little more! i want to say learning mobile but lol that’s not gonna happen. Shout out a code/skin/design/coder you love: @alicecodes @aesopcodes @koncodes @shanicodes @messicodes @montycodes @ellieskins make me cry every time they post something. that whole aesthetic falls in line with what i wish i could/want to do. A gif/meme to top it off:

#jcink skinathon #type: intro

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ofinkandsuits · 5 years

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Of Ink and Suits: V Fashion Zine Q&A Event: Fivetail 💖

What kind of fashion do you think V is interested in? - by Eterna

Professionally, I think he would have an affinity for designers whose work he finds interesting. Fashion is just another form of art, after all, and he favours designers with stories to tell, regardless of their popularity or status within the industry. Casually, I could see him liking comfortable, form-fitting clothing--lots of soft fabrics and low collars in dark colours.

What is your work set-up like? (Ex. Programs, tools, frequently-used reference sources, etc….) - by Crown

All my writing is done digitally, with a very clacky keyboard on a desk that's never neat. I customize a ‘night-mode’ in Docs: dark grey pages, white text, 10pt Calibri. I also run a dual monitor setup so I can create twice the nonsense in half the time.

Was there any music that inspired/motivated you while you worked on your submission? - by Ducky

I have a difficult time writing along to music with lyrics in it, so I built a Spotify playlist called “when your ADD-ridden ass needs to sit the fuck down and focus,” and it’s become my go-to mix while I’m working. It’s public, so feel free to check it out!

What got you invested in V? - by LOST

Super Best Friends did a reaction video for a DMC5 trailer, and when I saw V’s character design and heard his voice for the first time, my heart did the Metal Gear Solid Alert noise. The hyperfixation didn’t really kick in until March of this year though, after the game was released and V’s incredibly talented fanbase was already in full swing.

Summarize the aesthetic of your work in one sentence. - by Five

Meticulously researched yet sporadically updated longform exercises in dialogue and character development.

Which is your favourite quote from V? - by Sarya

One must always have an insurance policy.

What made you join the V fashion zine? - by Aethenus

I was very graciously invited as a guest for the zine, and I couldn’t possibly turn down the opportunity to work alongside so much awesome talent. I’m excited and grateful to be a part of such a cool, ambitious project!

Is there anything that generally inspires you to draw/write a certain work? If so, what is it? - by Vita

Usually, it begins with a cool concept that comes up during brainstorming discussions with friends in the fandom. If it hasn’t been done before and I’m excited enough about it, I’ll try to write it myself, as the muse is easily distracted by shiny new ideas. I have more works-in-progress than I care to admit.

Do you have a favorite boss fight in DMC5? How about a favorite scene?

I adored the Artemis battle, the visuals for it are amazing! Also, the Bloody Palace V / Vergil fight. That final kill animation gets me every time.

Please stay tuned tomorrow for our next artist: LOST💖

@fandomzines @zinesubmissions @zine-scene @zineapps @zinefans @zineforall @zinefeed

#dmc v #devil may cry v #devil may cry 5 #dmc 5 #dmc5 fanzine #dmc 5 v #v dmc #devil may cry fanzine #v devil may cry #devil may cry #vitale #v #v x reader #v x you

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yellowmagicalgirl · 5 years

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Cast Away Your True Love's Kiss

5. “I didn’t want it to end, I just thought you’d be better off without me..” from the 40 Prompts List

@rebelliouswhirlpool this fic is finally done. It is finished. It is thirteenpages, Calibri, 11 point font, single spaced with a space after each paragraph. Tumblr won’t allow me to add a read more to an ask, and I’m not going to torture everyone on my dash with that monstrosity of a long post.

Also, this fic is going to contain blood-based body horror and a character who suffers from depression. Hard to believe that this was originally a Sleeping Beauty au, isn’t it? (If you wanted something less dark I have your original ask.)

AO3

FFN

“Are you okay?” shouldn’t have been the words that started the end. When they left Jim’s mouth, they didn’t sound like they were words intended to start the end of things.

No, she wasn’t okay. Okay was only five feet away from perfect and she was as far from perfect, as far from okay even, as far she was from Arcadia.

“I’m fine,” Claire said instead. Fine was a nice lie, a lie that she had perfected. It was one of the few things still perfect about her. And besides, if she wasn’t fine now it was a state she could get to if she worked hard enough. She had to be fine, and she had to handle it on her own.

“No, you’re not.” Of course, Jim could tell when something was off. “Are you sleeping okay? The ground probably isn’t good for your back.” Then again, he was also entirely off from the source of her problems.

Was she sleeping okay? Ha. She wasn’t levitating with blackened eyes or trying to take down wards when she was supposed to be sleeping, was she?

“I’m fine, Jim. Really.”

He ignored her. “Are you eating enough? I” Was he? “I can cook more for you. Would that help?”

No, she wouldn’t try to torture Jim. He loved cooking and he couldn’t eat his own food.

“Seriously, Jim, I’m fine.” She wouldn’t be fine if he kept trying to fix her. He couldn’t fix her.

“I wish you wouldn’t lie to me. You did that when you were sick, and, well…” Jim trailed off, possibly sensing her fury a moment before it was unleashed.

“This is nothing like that,” she seethed. Angry magic rose within her; she pushed it down. Jim shouldn’t bring it up like that, but she would not be a monster. And that was just another part of her problem.

“I’m really worried about you, and you keep brushing all of us off!”

“There’s nothing to worry about!” Because there’s nothing you can fix so drop it.

“Please, Claire,” Jim said, dropping his voice into a soft tone. “All of us – Blinky, Me, Nomura, Notenrique, Toby – we’re all worried about you. You’re jumpy, and it feels like each night you’re dragging behind more and more.”

And there it was. There was his chance.

Claire grabbed her backpack and began to walk out of the cave.

“Where are you going?” Jim asked.

“Home. Arcadia,” Claire said. She didn’t look at him. If she looked back at him she would crumple to the floor.

“How are you going to get back there? We’re hundreds of miles away.” Jim asked as Claire removed the crystal from the center of her chest. Her armor disappeared.

“Greyhound.” Short, simple, words kept her from crying. She almost dropped the crystal that triggered her armor but chose to put it in her pocket instead.

“I, okay,” Jim said. “Are you sure? I can try to make things better, we can still fix things.”

She wanted him to fight for her, for them. She wanted him to push her away.

“There’s nothing you can fix, Jim.” She put as much poison into the words as she could. That’s all that was left of her, wasn’t it? “I hope you can find someone better than me.”

Jim called out for her as she began to walk across the scorching sand. Claire didn’t cry because it was a mile-long walk to the nearest bus station and she didn’t really want to get dehydrated.

Jim stopped calling her name, and she realized that someone else was also calling out her name.

“Come on, Claire, wait up! Little legs!”

For the first time since leaving, Claire turned around. NotEnrique had retained his changeling ability to walk in the sun.

“NotEnrique, what are you doing here?” She walked towards him, slowly and steadily so she wouldn’t try and run back to Jim once she got to her brother.

“Didn’t think you could just leave me behind, did’ya?”

“But the Heartstone–”

“Most changelings don’t get a Heartstone. Heck, old Bossman stayed with the Trollhunter’s mother instead of traveling to New Jersey with us. No, I’m staying with you, kid. You can’t push me away that easy.”

Claire scooped him up into her arms and began walking to the bus stop again. “You’re getting shoved in my backpack and you’re not allowed to mess with anything once we get closer to civilization.”

After days on a bus, Claire was finally back in Arcadia. Did she regret it?

It was only another item on the list.

She knelt and let NotEnrique out of her backpack. He looked around.

“Really, sis? You couldn’t have waited one more stop to get us closer to yer house?”

“You’re the one who complained about being cooped up.”

It was sunny out, so there weren’t many trolls around.

“You gonna call him to tell him you got home okay?” NotEnrique asked. She didn’t have to ask to know he was talking about Jim. He’d tried to give her relationship advice, which oscillated between “maybe you should’ve left me behind, so I could’ve made his hands symmetrical and gotten rid of the extra teeth” and trying to get her to talk about her feelings and how there was obviously something wrong other than the fact that Jim had pushed a little too much in the wrong direction.

Claire pushed her shoulders and her feelings down and back. “Later.”

“What about your parents or Tubby for a ride with a car or a magic warhammer?”

“We’re walking,” Claire said a bit more forcefully. Besides, she didn’t want to have to talk to them right now. Her mom would try to act like she had been right all along, that living a normal life would do Claire better than a change of scenery. Her dad would manage to come up with more creative threats for her ex-boyfriend than NotEnrique had. Jim had probably cried to Toby about her walking out on him, so things would be at least as awkward as they had been when she had first joined the team.

As Claire crossed the bridge that went over the entrance to Trollmarket, she glanced at the canal. Once destroyed by the vortex that created the Eternal Night, building teams had managed to patch the hole in a surprisingly fast amount of time.

That patch allowed Claire and NotEnrique not to fall into an incredibly deep chasm whose fall they wouldn’t survive. They would have fallen down and down, and without the Shadow Staff then at least Claire would splatter among the dead Heartstone like a messier version of Vendel’s death.

Instead, they rolled, and the burst of energy caused by Claire summoning her armor took away from the freefall.

“Pity, what they’ve done to my handiwork.” Claire had never wanted to hear that voice again.

Morgana’s spirit floated in front of Claire just like it had so many times in the past.

“I sealed you away,” Claire said. She moved to grip her Shadow Staff and remembered that it had been destroyed.

“Yes, well, so did Merlin, and you still were my servant for a little while.” Morgana was being more courteous since the last time they had seen each other. She was acting like she had in the bathroom, after she had stopped pretending to be concerned that she had absolutely terrified Claire by taking on the form of her reflection.

“Get away from her!” NotEnrique ran towards Morgana. Claire wasn’t sure if he knew that he would probably pass through the witch, but neither of them got to find out. Morgana flicked her wrist, and NotEnrique went flying across the canal.

“They never learn,” Morgana sighed.

“Some of us do,” Claire said, magic bursting from her hands.

“Then what I’ll do to you might be a kindness.” Claire was baking in her armor and she still shivered at the word “kindness” coming out of Morgana’s mouth. “After all, you won’t have to live as Merlin’s newest apprentice.”

Claire brought up her hands to form semi-crystalline shields.

Morgana smirked. “A dangerous spell to use, when the combination of your raw power and desire to die are matched by your inexperience.”

Claire didn’t actually want to die, though. Just disappear for a while. No, the witch was just taunting her. She was referring to the fact that sometimes Claire did stupid things, like tackle people into the Shadow Realm or make a giant portal that she had been warned not to make.

It wasn’t that Claire didn’t suspect something was going terribly wrong when her veins began to crack and turn black again. It was just that it was a painful side effect of magic.

It was odd, though. This spell wasn’t normally so painful to cast.

“I’ve been wondering when you would return to this place,” Morgana said. “It took longer than I expected, but don’t worry. I’ve had other things to do while I waited.”

Claire wrinkled her nose. Then something warm began to drip out of it, and she pressed her lips together. This was not the time for her to develop allergies.

Morgana’s smile grew wider. “Well, now you’re back in your beloved Arcadia Oaks. You’re going to destroy it for me.”

“I won’t let you possess me again!” Claire shouted. Blood dripped from her nose into her mouth. “I’d rather–”

Well, maybe the witch had a little bit of a point.

“Oh, don’t worry, you burned that bridge. Such an ungracious host,” she scoffed. Claire felt like she was salivating blood.

“No,” Morgana continued. “You’re going to carry a plague to the rest of Arcadia Oaks, and after that, how about the world? It’ll be like in that play you like, oh, what was the line?” She tapped a translucent jade finger against her chin as if she was thinking. “Oh, right. You’ll be like a plague upon both the you tried to protect worlds.”

Had she been younger, Claire would have been frustrated by the way her favorite play was being used against her. Instead, she was more focused on the fact that she was starting to cough up blackened blood.

She wouldn’t be patient zero. She needed to do something to protect Arcadia.

She began to cry, and her vision began to go black. She didn’t faint, though, she just looked around wildly as she realized that blackened blood had blinded her.

“Oh, you poor thing,” the Mother of Monsters drawled. Blood disseminated down Claire’s throat as a ghostly hand managed to cup her cheek. It then grabbed her chin and presumably forced her to face Morgana. “Tell you what. Since we both had to suffer under that wizard, I’ll tell you two forms of a cure.”

Claire didn’t need to see Morgana to know that her grin must have been splitting her face open by now.

“The first is a fairy’s breath, and the second is true love’s kiss. Now, I wonder which of those will be harder for you to find?”

How did Morgana know about her breakup with Jim? She was probably referring to the fact that she had knocked him out in battle.

Claire hoped she blasted a hole in Morgana’s incorporeal form with the blast of presumably purple light that came out of her hand.

Claire felt herself get lifted into the air, and then get dropped for her insolence. She tried to form shields to slow her fall. She had to find a way to keep herself from infecting Arcadia and killing the rest of the world like Morgana had wanted, because the fairies had lost the war to the pixies and there would be no true love’s kiss.

The last thing Claire felt was her lungs filling up and her magic pulsing out of her like a shockwave.

“Hey, Tobes! I guess I caught you at a bad time, hope you’re keeping it crispy! Bye!”

“Hi, Mom. I’m guessing you’re at the clinic, so I’ll call you back later.”

“Toby, are you mad at me?”

“Hey, AAARRRGGHH!!! Blinky’s a little worried about you, and don’t tell him I said this, but I think me might be worried about Dictatious, too.”

“Mom? I didn’t want to leave you, you know that, right? You know that I wasn’t trying to be like Dad – bad-dad, not Blinky – when I left; are you mad at me? I love you. Bye.”

“Hi, Mr. Strickler. Can you please tell Mom I’m sorry for whatever I did?”

“NotEnrique? Hi, it’s Jim. Weird stuff is going on, and I was wondering if you and Claire are okay. Sorry for putting you in an awkward position.”

“Hi, Claire. I know you’re mad at me, but please. I need your help. No one from back home in Arcadia is answering my calls or texts, and I’m getting worried. I can’t find anything on the internet, and you should be back in Arcadia by now. Can you just talk to them? You don’t even have to talk to me if you don’t want to, though an indicator that you made it back safe would be nice. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“This is Jim. I don’t know why you won’t talk to me, but this is going to be my last call until you call me back. I can’t do this anymore.”

“I know I said that last time was my last call until you called me back, but I’m coming back to Arcadia. Do as you will. I’ll be ready.”

The gyre broke down before it got to the station. It was alright, Jim supposed. He had left Arcadia six months ago, and six months ago he would have been elated to be back home.

He didn’t really want to go back to Arcadia, now, but there was a baby Heartstone to bring back to the old one. They were here to figure out what cuttings would be needed to be able to safely place the new Heartstone into the old one. It would be easier than trying to establish a Trollmarket in New Jersey.

“Good thing we left at sunset,” Blinky said, “because it looks like we’ll have to walk.”

“I’ll see if I can find directions,” Jim said half-heartedly. “There’s nothing.”

It was like his hometown had disappeared off the map.

“We’ll just take the old routes.”

After a couple minutes of walking, Jim had to blink a couple times. “Hey, Blink? Do you feel like something’s trying to turn us away? Like, we shouldn’t keep going, like there’s something bad ahead?”

“Oh, Jim, I know this is hard for you,” Blinky said. “I don’t know why they stopped speaking to us, but we have a duty to the other trolls.”

“I know, but it’s not like that. It’s like…”

One moment, they were walking through the woods. The next, they were on the outskirts of Arcadia. A barrier of violet and gold light stood behind them. On the ground was a squirrel mid-run. Birds perched in the trees.

All of them looked like they had been hit by Creeper’s Sun.

“Great Gronka Morka, who would’ve done this?” Blinky asked.

Jim summoned his shield and gestured for Blinky to get behind him. “And why? Small animals wouldn’t pose a threat, and it’s not like anyone would rather eat them petrified.” He looked behind himself, to check to see if he was saying was true.

“Not like this, it’s unnatural,” Blinky said, ignoring the fact that so was whipped cream with preservatives. “Also, that barrier makes me uneasy.”

“After we crossed it, I stopped feeling like we were supposed to turn away.” Jim frowned. “Do you think that’s why we couldn’t find any information on Arcadia?”

“Perhaps, son.” Blinky pulled out his phone. “All the information is almost six months old.”

Jim summoned his dagger and cracked open the squirrel. Like a geode, it was filled with amethyst, though it had veins of iron pyrite. Between the amethyst and k-spar-esque covering, the squirrel was comprised of obsidian.

“Let’s go to Trollmarket; I can check my library. Oh, I do wish my brother didn’t complete the act of burning it.”

The road to Trollmarket’s entrance was littered with petrified bodies. To call Arcadia Oaks a ghost town wouldn’t have encapsulated the extent of the horror Jim felt. All these people were going about their everyday lives; none of them looked like they knew what would happen to them.

It was Blinky who saw it first.

Sprouted from the canal was a single amethyst. It was three meters high, and vaguely conical. As Blinky and Jim walked towards it, they found that a ring of iron pyrite kept it fused to the jagged circle of obsidian that surrounded it.

For all its supernatural beauty, it was the figure inside the amethyst that gave them the most pause. Claire was frozen in freefall, with black veins peeking out from her clawed armor. Despite the stains that obscured them, the knowledge that those same veins in her face would be blackened filled Jim with dread. Despite her eyes being unseeing voids of black, she looked so scared. Black spheroids streamed upwards from her eyes, nose, and mouth; she was eternally crying and drowning in amethyst.

“No,” Jim said. “She didn’t deserve this.” He turned to Blinky. “I’m going to cut down her body.”

Carving her out was emotionally arduous but faster than Jim would’ve expected. Feeling NotEnrique’s petrified gaze upon him didn’t make it any easier. One of his daggers cut a little too close to her hand, and he winced.

Could he have saved her? She had been dyspeptic when he had last seen her alive and “fine”, but maybe if he had tried harder to make her happy, or at least comfortable, maybe she wouldn’t have left and wouldn’t be like this.

Her hand began to glow like an eggplant dwärkstone.

“Get down!” Jim called, summoning his shield to defend himself from the chunks of amethyst that came flying off Claire’s body.

When the blast cleared, Claire’s chest rapidly rose and fell as gurgling noises came from her throat. Blinky ran to the pair of teenagers, hugged Claire from behind, and squeezed.

It was hard to tell whether she vomited black blood, coughed it up from her lungs, or some abhorrent combination of the two.

“It’s alright, Faire Claire,” Blinky said. “You’re safe now.”

The three of them sat in Blinky’s library, which hadn’t been trashed by Gumm-Gumms.

Claire didn’t look Blinky in the eyes, and she tried not to look at Jim. Her eyelids felt heavy; the bloody tears clung to her eyelashes like cheap expired mascara.

“I hadn’t been back in Arcadia for more than half an hour when she found me.”

“She?” Blinky pressed.

Claire flinched. Jim had only seen her so jumpy twice. Once had been in the woods upon learning that trolls existed; the second time was the hours after her possession. “Morgana.”

“She’s back?” Jim asked. “But you guys sealed her away.”

“Not physically.” Claire coughed into the crook of her arm. “Her spirit showed up and tossed NotEnrique and I around. She wants me to carry a plague.”

“If she wanted you to carry a plague, then why would she have petrified everyone and trapped you in crystal? Or made a barrier around town that makes every human forget that Arcadia exists and keeps them from wanting to enter town?”

Claire gasped, an ugly and wet sound. “I think I did that. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, I just wanted to shield myself from her magic.”

And of course, she wanted to disappear.

Blinky stood up. “If she cursed you, then if you’re cured it might cure everyone else, since they were affected by your magic.”

“Morgana decided to tell me a way to cure myself, since, her words, ‘we both had to suffer under that wizard.’ It was a taunt, though, since fairy’s breath would be difficult to find.”

But not as difficult as true love’s kiss, nor as manipulative.

Claire had tried to stay out of Jim and Blinky’s way. She didn’t deserve them trying to help her. Everyone else in Arcadia did, though.

Claire sniffled again and tilted her head back. The number of nosebleeds she had been getting was frustrating. Stupid curse. Stupid black blood. Stupid Queen of the Seventh Realm or whatever she called herself these days.

Her stomach growled because it was mercifully empty of her own forsaken blood.

“When was the last time you ate?” Blinky asked.

“About five months ago,” Claire admitted. She opened her backpack to find the bag of beef jerky that had served as meals. “I think I have a… no, NotEnrique ate them all. Of course, he did.”

“Hopefully food on the surface hasn’t spoiled… I wonder if they have whipped cream,” Blinky mused. “Unfortunately, the sun should be rising, soon. Jim!”

“Yeah!” came the call from a call from one of Vendel’s old records.

“Can you accompany Claire to the surface to obtain food?”

Claire grimaced. “Blinky, I’ll be fine; I can go on my own.”

She hadn’t expected Blinky to give her such a sad smile. “Normally I’d believe you when you say you’ll be fine.”

Of course, Jim would have told Blinky about her last conversation with him. Would have told him how she had angrily professed to be fine. She had then gotten herself cursed and frozen in time.

“But you’ve lost a lot of blood,” he continued. “I don’t want you fainting.”

Walking together was awkward. Claire kept her eyes on the ground, so she wouldn’t have to see the people she had turned to stone. If she had stayed with Jim and the trolls, this wouldn’t have happened. She would have made them miserable as they figured her out, but she wouldn’t have been responsible for this. At the very least, she probably could have learned more from Merlin, so she could have protected herself.

Or she could have gotten her hand cut off, but that would be better than what she had done to her town.

“I almost wish we could call Merlin,” Jim said. “There’s a chance he might actually be able to help, for once.”

“Something happen to him?” Claire asked. Merlin hadn’t exactly been entirely helpful upon getting his magic back, though he had occasionally given her magic lessons. They seemed like they happened because he was bored, though, not because he truly took an interest in her magical ability.

They were probably better than what Morgana had gotten, at least.

“He up and left back in October.” Jim was fishing for the apology, or at least the explanation, that she owed him.

Claire began to walk faster. It would be more comfortable for him, she told herself. He had a longer stride than her. It just seemed like she was walking away. Again.

“Do you have any plans for after we find the cure for you?”

Not particularly, beyond hugging Suzy Snooze and bawling in the safety of her own room. Her younger self would be horrified with what she had become.

“Do you?”

“The Heartstone in New Jersey’s pretty small, but Blinky thinks we can use the old Heartstone to amplify it. It’ll be easier than building new infrastructure.”

“So, you’ll be coming back to Arcadia.”

“Eventually, yeah.”

“That’ll be, I’m sure you’ll be happy to see Toby and your mom again.” She’d have to face him more often than she thought she would.

“Yeah, considering that no one willingly cut all contact, it’ll be good to see all, everyone again.”

He blamed her. Of course, he did. Why wouldn’t he blame her? Yeah, Morgana had wanted her to kill everyone, but she was still the one who turned everyone to stone. And besides, she wasn’t a pleasant person to be around. Not anymore.

“The grocery store should be this way.” Claire started to walk faster before doubling over. She couldn’t breathe, and this wasn’t like when she would have an anxiety attack. She began to cough.

A four-fingered hand pounded her back with restrained force. A five-fingered hand held her hair away from her face.

“Thanks,” Claire said hoarsely once she was done coughing.

“Any time.”

“Still answering every call?”

“I kind of have to; there’s no walking away from being the Trollhunter.”

Why didn’t he just stick Eclipse into her? It’d be more efficient than his continuous lack of subtlety at inserting knives into her and then twisting them.

“Do you know if there’s been any heavy rain lately? If not in Arcadia, then the greater LA area.”

“No, why?”

“Just wondering how strong the stone is. NotEnrique could’ve been swept away if we’ve gotten any large rainstorms. And smashed against the walls of the canals. It’s also good no one has gotten other forms of erosion.” She was rambling too much. All the words she hadn’t said because she was fine and then a crystal were threatening to spill out.

“That would have been pretty bad, since once a troll is shattered that’s it for them, or at least it is with Creeper’s Sun.” Jim coughed slightly, and the frowned. That was odd, he hadn’t coughed ever since he had taken Grave Sand.

The whipped cream was spoiled, as were all the perishables that would have perished in the time since Arcadia Oaks had been petrified. Claire grabbed multiple cans of fruit and other foods she wouldn’t feel absolutely miserable eating cold. That meant passing over a can of refried beans in favor of Spam. Not even the chorizo-flavored canned meat, but the original flavor that had been used since the second world war. Not that the refried beans would taste as good as homemade ones but cooking beans more time.

“We can probably stop at one of our houses to see if the microwaves will work,” Jim said.

“I’d rather not.”

“You really want to eat that cold?”

“Back when you were human, would you rather have eaten a can of cold Spam or have stumbled upon your mom’s petrified body?” She walked over to where the bottled water was kept.

“Cold spam. I’ve already seen Mom petrified once, and that was enough.”

“When?” Claire asked before she could stop herself. She didn’t deserve his vulnerability.

“That was my worst fear when the pixies came.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Claire handed the water to Jim and began walking to the register. She began to pull out cash and a pen. On a paper towel she wrote a note, stating what she had taken and how much, making sure to pay for it in full. She didn’t look the dead-eyed cashier in the face.

“Looking back, I think I might have rather faced petrified family members in the Deep,” Jim mused.

“What did you face down there?” Claire asked, voice soft. He hadn’t ever really spoken about it, at least, not to her.

“I’ll tell you if you tell me what’s going on with you,” Jim said.

Claire bristled, adjusting her grip on her heavy backpack. “I already told you, I’m cursed.”

“You weren’t cursed months ago, when you left us.”

Dammit.

“And months ago, I told you to drop it.”

“I would have if you had given me one reason not to worry about you! Just one reason, and I would have tried to make things better! Unless,” he said, a betrayed expression overtaking his face. “Is it because I’m a troll?”

No. That wasn’t it at all. She had meant what she had said back on the rooftop six months ago, and she hadn’t changed her mind.

“Not everything is about you, Jim,” she said instead. At least his look of betrayal was replaced by one of more generic anger.

“Right. It’s about you.”

“What?”

“We’re trying to help you, you know, but for the past couple what has been only days for you, you’ve been irritable and stuck-up.”

“Stuck-up? Irritable, sure, I’ll admit to that. But how have I been stuck up?”

“Does ‘I hope you can find someone better than me’ ring any bells?”

Blood and acid churned in her stomach. “Jim, no,” she said, suddenly very aware of the way their angered voices echoed against the too-quiet parking lot. “That was supposed to be a low bar. You were supposed to figure out that someone better than me is a low bar. Six feet under Blinky’s library low. By the way, he’s probably wondering where we are.”

Neither of them spoke on the way back to Trollmarket, but Jim kept on giving Claire concerned glances.

“All the whipped cream spoiled,” Claire said. “Sorry, Blinky.”

Jim watched the two of them interact; his heart filled with what must have been longing. It felt more liquid than usual.

He had been trying to ignore it, but she looked so fragile. At first it had just been the combination of his half-troll strength and the way the veins along her jaw, eyes, and fingers formed black cracks. But now, knowing just how she viewed herself, knowing that he had been right about her not being fine in the worst ways…

Hating his ex-girlfriend had been hard enough in the months that had passed. Trying to convince himself that he didn’t love her anymore was even harder.

Now it was impossible to do either.

“You want any help?” Jim asked.

He didn’t expect the “sure” that fell out of Claire’s lips with a little bit of blood. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist.

“What’cha researching?”

“The war between the fairies and the pixies, and the connections that a certain witch we know has to the fairies.”

“Let me guess: it’s more than her last name?”

“I’m not sure if ‘le Fay’ is actually a last name or more of a title, but yeah. Apparently, she’s the daughter of the queen of Avalon, which is supposedly surrounded by an uncrossable sea of chaos and shadows.”

Jim gasped in horror. “That means–”

“– we’ll have to find a way to get through the Shadow Realm,” Claire finished solemnly. “But she said it was a cure.” Not exactly. “That would mean there’s other possible cures.” Ones other than crossing through the Shadow Realm and the one that would be entirely impossible.

“And if there isn’t, we’re going to have to be careful. Morgana did this to you because she could use it to break out–”

“–and she has a personal grudge against me,” Claire interrupted.

“And she has a personal grudge against you,” Jim said. “But this isn’t going to be like the Darklands. We’re going to get the fairy’s breath, fix you and Arcadia, all without releasing anyone who wants to destroy the world.”

“You can’t fix me,” Claire whispered. Jim looked up from the book into her eyes. The resignation in them made her look more ancient than Vendel had been.

“No, we’re going to find a cure,” Jim said.

The smile that stretched across her face asked why he had drunk all and left no friendly drop to help her after.

“I know you can, Jim. We’re going to find a way to save Arcadia. But you can’t fix me. At this point, I’m not sure if anyone can.”

“That’s why you kept saying you were fine,” Jim said.

Then he turned away from her and the books and started coughing into his hand.

Claire screamed his name and rushed to face him. Jim pulled his hand away from his mouth. It was covered in blackened blood.

“Well, looks like we’re on more of a deadline than we thought,” he said.

Claire took a deep breath, and then another.

“Morgana actually gave me two cures,” she said, and put a hand up when Jim started to protest why she hadn’t mentioned it. “I didn’t tell you about the second one because that one won’t work for me, and I think she knew that. She probably got her reasoning wrong, but it doesn’t matter. It’ll work for you, though. I think.”

“What is it?”

“True love’s kiss,” Claire said, and every word felt like pulling out a serrated knife she had become numb to. “I hope it doesn’t have to be mutual, or if does have to be mutual it doesn’t have to be romantic, because then Blinky or I can just kiss you and you’ll be okay.”

“Wait, what?” Jim asked.

“Then again, the last Morgana-related magic we used was the antidote for the Creeper’s Sun, and the true love’s kiss for that had to be romantic, so it was only Toby’s tears that would have worked. Hopefully the magic behind changeling-created-potions works differently than the curse we’re both now under.”

“You still love me?”

Inky tears filled her eyes before Claire could stop them, and she lowered to the ground, so she wouldn’t have to stumble around blindly. She wrapped her arms around herself like she could shield herself from her own emotions with them.

“I didn’t want it to end,” she said between sobs. “I just thought you’d be better off without me...”

“Is it okay if I hold you?” Jim asked, and she nodded, trying to make her arms fall limp at her sides. Jim curled around her, and she was unable to restrain herself from wrapping her arms around his torso.

“I didn’t want you to know,” Claire sobbed, ignoring the way she was ruining his shirt. “I didn’t want you to feel bad when you figured out that you didn’t love me anymore because I wasn’t worth loving, and that’s half of why I left like that and have been trying to push you away when you’ve been trying to help me.” She took a shuddering breath.

“Claire, I never stopped loving you, not really,” Jim said. “I tried to convince myself that I didn’t, and I tried to convince myself that I hated you, but I couldn’t do either of those things.”

“But why? Why me?” Claire lifted her head, hoping she was making a good approximation of looking Jim in the eyes. “I’m not who I used to be.” I’m a million miles from the girl who tried to be perfect.

“Neither am I.”

“But that’s different, you don’t petrify an entire town and block out everyone’s memories because you just want to disappear.” The words were spilling out of her like the blood that had come out of her mouth when Blinky had performed a Heimlich maneuver on her. “You’re still you inside. I’m an empty shell that’s filled with nothing but self-loathing. And I guess cursed blood, too.”

“Claire, I…” Jim held her a little more tightly. “I can’t fix you because I don’t know how, but you’re so much more than that. And just because you don’t love yourself doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

Claire felt him brush the side of his face right next to hers, silently asking permission. She turned and softly kissed him on the lips.

The taste of blood faded from her mouth, and the scent of it faded from her nose. Her veins relaxed back into her skin.

Jim’s phone rang once, twice, a third time. They ignored it.

“Jimbo, you’re almost as bad as Eli because I somehow just got about a thousand texts and voicemails from you all at the same time!” Toby shouted through Jim’s voicemail.

#jlaire #claire nuñez #jim lake jr #notenrique #morgana #blinky #body horror #blood tw #tales of arcadia #trollhunters #my writing #rebelliouswhirlpool

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