i read acotar after avoiding it for 8 years because i assumed (and was correct) that the main characters would be dull. only to find out book 2 is STILL about feyre and tamlin !?! if i’d known multiple books were in feyre’s pov i wouldn’t have bought it

Like Caramel For Chocolate- An Omega Bakugou x Alpha f!Reader fic. Part 7

Part 1 Here

Content Warning: Negative headspace, omegaverse, self deprecation, depressive thoughts, pushy parental figures, ambiguous omegaverse reproduction, unhealthy relationships, relationship that could be easily fixed if idiots would use their words and communicate, Shinso/Denki side relationship, Bakugou is a dumbass but so is y/n

Where we left off-

You couldn’t do this anymore.

No more.

The fireworks illuminated you as your grip on the railing tightened until your knuckles turned white.

“Katsuki?”

“”What?” He asked roughly, barely glancing your way.

“Let’s break up.”

What?

What had you just said?

Bakugou looked up, wide eyed, to stare at his alpha. His beautiful Y/N. The hand in his pocket gripped a small jewelry box tightly. He hadn’t been paying full attention, instead he had been in his own head, practicing over and over what he was going to say. But then you had said… He couldn’t have heard right.

“What’d you say?” He whispers gruffly.

Bakugou watched intently. You were staring up at the sky, though it didn’t feel like you were actually seeing the fireworks as they boomed and flashed.

“I… It’s time for us to break up, Katsu. You know it, I know it. This…” You gestured vaguely between the two of you, still not looking at him. “This hasn’t worked in a while. A long while. Years, if we’re honest.”

That… That wasn’t true! Why were you saying that? Bakugou stared at you, shocked. His eyes raked over you, and for the first time that evening, he actually paid attention. You… You didn’t look good. Your outfit was beautiful, and your hair was perfect. But now he noticed the slump to your posture, and the way your shoulders were tense and hunched. How long had those dark circles been under your eyes? Bakugou startled as he realized that whatever was bugging you clearly wasn’t just a today problem. Something had been going on for a very long time and he hadn’t noticed. How had he not noticed? He moved to inch closer to touch you, to hold and comfort his alpha. You held up your hand, stopping him in his tracks.

“It’s alright. I know. I’m sorry I’m saying this today, that wasn’t what I had planned. But there wasn’t a good time before, and you were clearly so miserable tonight…” You blew a heavy breath out, glancing at the omega before looking away. “It’s time. Probably long overdue.”

Bakugou made a strangled little sound in the back of his throat as he stared, wide eyed. What was happening? This couldn’t be real. You were his alpha. His Y/N. Maybe… Maybe if he was honest with himself, things hadn’t been great when he had started out at being a pro hero, but that was over now. It was okay now. Things had calmed down. You were meant to be together! Katsuki took a step, reaching for you again. “Y/N, what are you saying?”

You took a step back, away from him. “It’s over, Katsuki. It’s over and that’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay. It would never be okay!

“I know things might be awkward around the apartment,” you continued, “but it’s only for a little while. I’ve been offered a job, and I’ve taken it. I’ll be moving in a month. I’ll try to stay out of your hair until then.”

Bakugou’s mind screamed. He was frozen, his mind refusing to process what was going on. You were leaving? Leaving him in every single way? Where were you going and leaving him behind? When had you planned all this? What had happened for him not to notice his alpha was slipping away from him? Katsuki whined quietly. You winced and looked away.

“I’m sorry for saying this all tonight, but it needed to be said. I’m sorry.” You glanced his way, giving him a watery smile. “Goodbye, Katsu. I hope you find someone who makes you happy.”

With that you turned and walked away, your pace increasing until you had broken out into a run. Katsuki remained where he was, sinking down until he was kneeling on the peer. He stared after you until he couldn’t see you any more. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t… He pulled the small velvet box from his pocket and opened it with shaking hands. There was the ring he had picked out, just for you. From the light of fireworks that still flashed overhead he could just barely make out the inscription that he had asked for. “Forever.” Bakugou bit into his fist to muffle his howls of anguish.

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

It was strange, packing up. So many artifacts of your life that you have walked by and lived with every day without paying attention to you were forced to hold and consider. Take, toss, or give away. Some stuff was easy choices. You had packed your books up, and sorted through your clothing to figure out what you were going to take with you. But some things were harder than they should be. Like this. You held the unopened toothbrush package in your hands, turning it over and over. You had bought it years ago, when you had just moved it. It was for Katsuki if he ever stayed the night. And here it was, still unopened. It would be a waste to throw it away, unused. But you couldn’t stand to take it with you. You threw it into the give away box with an aggravated sigh. You had known this was going to be difficult, but it was even worse than you had anticipated. So many things in your living space reminded you of the blond that you were leaving behind. The little orange knick knacks you bought because they reminded you of him. The first edition runs of his very first hero merch. The dusty omega nesting kit that was hidden in the back of your closet. There were so many artifacts of your former plans and dreams, and each one hurt in a new way. The smell didn’t help.

You were certain you were imagining it, but lately it seemed like your apartment always smelled faintly of burnt caramel. It was a major reason you stayed away whenever you weren’t packing. It made you feel guilty, even though you were certain you were doing the right thing. He didn’t need you clinging on to him. He didn’t want you hanging on, and he had made that clear time and time again. And now? Now you had to figure out how to live in a world where Katsuki Bakugou wasn’t your sun and moon. You’d figure it out. Somehow. If you could just get that damned smell of caramel out of your nose.

You threw half empty containers of food and spices into the trash with more force than necessary. Maybe if you got rid of the food you had laying around the food smells would go away. You still had three weeks until you’d be moving, but there was enough savings in your account that you could eat out and live on the basics until you were settled in your new place. Or you supposed you could cook at Denki’s. You had offered to help him pack since his schedule was busier than yours. He was going to put in his transfer notice any day now.

You stilled and stared out the window without really looking at anything as you became lost in thought. It was something you hadn’t really processed before. The first time you were going to be moving in with someone, and it was going to be Denki. And it was going to stay Denki for the rest of your lives, or that was the plan at least. It was strange to think about. You could picture it though. Picture Denki and his grin. Imagine chaotic nights with Mario Kart and junk food. A slight blush tinted your cheeks at how easy it was to imagine what your future kids could look like. It wouldn’t be a bad life. It would take time. But you think the two of you could make it good. The friendship was there, and strong. Maybe, with each other's help, you could both let go. Heal. Maybe even come to truly love each other with time.

You glanced at the clock. It was almost time for you to go to work. You planned on giving them a couple more weeks. There honestly wasn’t much to do this time of year, but it got you out of the apartment, and that was something you really needed right now. You glanced around, deciding to leave your sorting as it was for now. In just a couple minutes, you were out of the apartment and on your way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ten minutes after noon. You should be gone by now. Bakugou had listened, pressing his ear to his door. He cursed the building’s soundproofing when he couldn’t hear anything. He was desperate for any sign of you. But he didn’t quite dare confront you. How could he face you? In the span of an evening you had turned his entire world on its head. He had thought you were good. That the two of you had been as solid in your relationship as you had been when it had all started. But then you had said…

You had…

You were…

A whine creeped out of his throat.

The past week hadn’t felt like reality. He’d gone to work on autopilot, focusing on the job in a way that didn’t allow him to think of anything else. His friends hadn’t started asking questions yet, thanks to how busy work had been. Bakugou never thought he’d be grateful for an increase in villain activity, yet here he was. But when his shift was over and he had to go home, that was when your words replayed for him over and over again. He spent hours curled in his nest, barely leaving. He still ate, drank, shuffled to the bathroom. He cared for himself enough that he could still go to work without anybody questioning too much. The only other thing he spent any time doing, he wasn’t exactly proud of, but he couldn’t stop himself. Here he was, going to do so again for the fourth day in a row.

Bakugou crept out of his own apartment. He knew you were long gone from the building, but his guilty conscience kept him moving quickly and quietly until he reached his goal.

Unlocking your apartment was easy. He wondered if you had forgotten you had given him a key when you had first moved in. Maybe you thought he had forgotten or hadn’t cared. Bakugou used to think he understood you pretty well. He wasn’t so sure anymore. He crept in, glancing around. More of your things were gone.

Bakugou whined quietly as he walked further into your apartment. The air stank of burnt and bitter chocolate. If you were so upset you smelled like this, how had he not noticed? He began carefully sifting through the piles that appeared to be for donating. He grabbed a couple old shirts that smelled strongly of you. He tried not to let it hurt when he noticed one of the shirts was an old tshirt you had stolen from him years ago. He knelt on the floor just staring for some time. This was real. You had broken up with him. And now you were getting rid of your memories together and were going to leave. He might never get to see you again. Might never smell your scent again. Or worse, see you with someone else. Smell someone else’s scent on your skin.

Katsuki didn’t fight his tears as he grabbed as many things as he thought he could get away with without it being noticed. In minutes he was back in his apartment, desperately tucking everything into his nest. The smell might last him a while, but not forever. He curled up tightly, pressing his nose into a place where your scent was strong. He couldn’t do this forever. He didn’t know what he could do. As much as he hated to admit it, it was time to ask for help.

And that is all for this time, my darlings! More is in the works and hopefully will get to you much sooner than this part did. Katsuki is starting to pull his head out of his ass, hopefully it's a trend that will continue. TAGLIST- @yzviea, @not-a-pushover, @thelilypieforever, @kumihayu, @aomi04, @ladybakugouu, @luajosephdun-blog, @hakunamatatayqueen, @my-thoughts-are-weird, @left-alone-yuki, @officialtrashbusiness, @lonelyheart-clubband, @katsuki-cait, @moonwritters26, @animexholic, @kyrah-williams, @emilymikado, @wolvesblaxe360, @ficklemcselfish, @helena-way07, @fandomsaremylifesposts, @baby-bakuhoe, @sukeraa, l@ucypevensie11, @idk-sam, @katsuki-cait, @weirdestlove, @sasa-slayer, @anime-for-live, @kaidousimp, @bluesdustyflames, @vitheria, @milktea0208, @maristaymulti, @whatdidshesayyy, @memesbyeloise , @fandomsgotmefucked, @killmehe, @shy-panda02 , @skylan666, @missmolliemoo, @misssugarless, @arcticsakura, @queenondeezmatatas, @lordmypantsaresocool, @bluesdustyflames, @am-198, @hornelittleweeblet2, @joonie-centric

Just a reminder, if you want tagged make sure you have the ability to be tagged turned on; and I’d have to be informed if your blog name changes! Cheers, Darlings!

WIP Wednesday

Title: Extraordinary

Pairings: HotchReid (more to come)

Summary: League of Extraordinary Gentleman/Vampire AU;

Within the FBI there is a specialized team full of an elite selection of people. Unique individuals with very particular skill sets. And their job is to take the unusual cases: the ones that need to not only be solved, but are undetermined if the unsub is human, or something else entirely.

In a world filled with Vampires, non-human creatures, and subspecies unknown, there is only enough information to have them vaguely regulated. Rules that are so easily, and violently broken, all while hidden in plain sight among the unsuspecting public. Unrivaled for eons.

That’s where the BAU comes in.

Official Posting Date: October 2021

Links: (Masterpost) (Snippet 01) (Snippet 02) (Snippet 03) (Snippet 04)

(TW/CW: dead body/crime scene, blood and bite wounds talked about in detail, hypnosis/compelling someone to do something against their will, overall discussion of murder (basically what we see in every episode of the show))

(the story so far/what you need to know for this clip at least: Absolutely nothing you don’t already know, this is legit from the first chapter. Hotch is a Vampire (although the LEOs don’t really know that), Rossi is a priest, Morgan is so empathetically telepathic he can touch the auras in the air, and Reid is Reid. I know I’ve been giving you the juicy HotchReid stuff but here have some case stuff too, to see what you’re in for with the plot and everything. This is FIRST DRAFT so it’s terribly unpolished, first part is generalized POV (hence the more professional titles) and the second is within the team dynamics so they get more familiar. idk my first drafts are messy and indecisive, enjoy anyway. 💕)

–

They approach the body and Rainer shoos away his pestering, hovering officers and --- winces once again at the sight of the bloodied woman. “This is the third body in two days; a jogger found her about 6 am. Coroner says she thinks she’s been dead for about 6 hours; killed in the middle of the night, just like the others.” 

“Closer to five hours, I think,” Dr. Reid says, crouching down to look closer. All long legs and his gun looking too big on his belt next to his FBI badge. “Could still be within the Witching Hour, though.”

“Do you have accurate time of death estimates for the other two bodies?” Agent Morgan adds on, already picking up the train of thought Dr. Reid has started on. The detective pulls out an old-school flip notebook book and looks through it before answering.

“3:15am the first night, 9:30pm last night and now this.”

“Well that rules out hex, sacrifice, and spell gone wrong,” he concludes, as the other agents surround the body to inspect it from all angles. “So what are we thinking?”

“It’s a frenzied bite,” Agent Hotchner points out, looking from where he stands and not having to get as close as Dr. Reid to inspect it accurately. His eyesight is better than any microscope. “Shows multiple entries, it couldn’t get a good enough hold to rip her throat. Or she struggled, so it wasn’t strong enough to keep her pinned down.”

“The boys think it’s a Vamp,” Detective Rainer points out. “Maybe a baby one, still learning the ropes?”

“Vampire changes are regulated and no sire would allow whoever they turned to do this,” Agent Hotchner says, a colder flint to his voice that matches the way his dark stare cuts up to the detective. “No one has been turned in the United States in the past twelve years.”

“It’s not a Vampire bite,” Dr. Reid agrees, putting on latex gloves to further inspect the body and test the bite radius. “And it’s not a werewolf bite, either.”

“...Werewolf?” the detective says with a winded sound, eyes wide and looking to the three agents who didn’t even blink at the word. “There’s -- there’s such thing as werewolves?” 

“Detective, I think you should let my team and I work, we will come to you with our findings and then help you track down your killer.” Agent Hotchner doesn’t leave room for argument, his dark brown eyes looking pitch black in the early morning light, and Detective Rainer… suddenly feels the overwhelming urge to walk away. Like he can’t breathe if he doesn’t comply; he fights it, tries to fight it, and feels his will crumble beneath him like a sand bank giving way under his feet. He turns, even that small gesture lessening the pressure crushing his chest, and takes a step away from the group, air swept into his lungs like a riptide. He makes a hasty retreat after that, winded as if he just ran up a flight of stairs and the sweet taste of oxygen being his only reprieve. He doesn’t know what happened, and wouldn’t upon further inspection until much, much later.

-

“That wasn’t very nice, Hotch,” Rossi points out with a look of glib reprimand towards their team leader. “I thought compelling feeble minded beat cops was for those who have no skills to avoid it.”

“My patience was running thin, and we need to move faster on this case before our unsub kills again. He’s escalating.” That much is obvious, by the timeline alone, but Father Rossi still gives him a side-ways glance that says he finds far too much amusement in the undead’s antics. “Reid, are you sure it’s not a werewolf bite? It would explain the lack of control and precision.”

“I’m sure,” Reid says with finality, and no one makes a mention on why. He had done more research than any human possibly could in the past few months on werewolf transformation and the after effects of attacks. With what happened to one of their former agents mere months ago, no one doubted his newly learned expertise. “It’s also not a shifter, or a ghoul. We can rule out ghost and poltergeist as well, no residue or temperature shifts.” 

“Demon possession?” Morgan asks, looking to Rossi just as he does his customary Sign of the Cross at the mere mention. Can’t help the gesture, after his own past experiences. Giving anything the power of a name, even arbitrary, can be a dangerous thing. 

“We can’t rule it out,” he admits. “The teeth marks are human, someone possessed would still have a hard time biting that deep and doing that much damage. Cannibalism is only reserved for the amusements of level three demons, however they aren’t usually powerful enough to reach the mortal plane or take possession of someone’s body. They would need help.” 

“You really think someone would weaponize a demon like that?” 

“We’ve seen people do worse things, as has history, but I’d like to hope it wouldn’t happen in my lifetime.” 

“We need more information,” Hotch concludes, arms crossed and watching as Reid stands up and removes the blood stained gloves. “Morgan,” his gaze cuts to the tall man in his deep blue suit. “Can you walk the scene, tell us what you see?”

“Not with this many people around,” Morgan shakes his head, eyes glancing to every person within a twenty foot radius. “Too many readings, the aura field here looks like an oil spill. The only thing I can latch onto is…” his gaze is back on the ground, hovering over the dead woman, who would have no aura to speak of at all and therefore a blank canvas. He replaces Reid’s space, crouching down to touch the air over the bite wound. Fingers spread wide, less than a foot from her but not touching, palm suddenly curving as if over an invisible shoulder, the place where someone had once been not so long ago. It could have been the coroner, or the crime scene photographer, but with it being so close to the body -- chances were it was the unsub.

“They were crouched down, half on the ground, no… human thoughts that I can hear,” he says, closing his eyes and letting his hand glide through the air a little more, following the curve of someone’s spine and up their neck, resting where the head would be. “They have a fever burning them up, hot as a furnace--” he keeps his hand there too long, suddenly jerks it back as if it had physically burned him, then stands up again. Shaking off the aura reading still sticking to his fingers and the forefront of his mind. “Sound like anything you’ve heard of, pretty boy?” 

Reid shakes his head, sharing a glance with Father Rossi. “We might have to go through some of your demonology books.” The older man grins wide.

“You just want to get your hands on them, at this rate you’ll have them memorized by next week.” 

“Dave --” Hotch says slow, a reprimand of his own.

“Fine, fine, I’ll have Garcia send us some scans. If the Vatican knew I was putting a book like that in his hands they’d strip me of all my titles.”

“Didn’t they already do that?” Morgan teases with a grin.

“Ex-communicated. I got to keep the dog collar, the honorifics, bless the holy water, you know -- the party tricks.” 

–

((if you want to be apart of the taglist just hit me up via comment, reblog tag, DMs or asks 💕))

Okay, this bit is going to appear to start in a really weird place, but that is because I wrote this entire AU stream of consciousness style in my notes and just broke it into sections to post here cause it was like thirty pages. So part two!

Vanya wastes no time driving to Diego's. She can't get Five out of the car by herself, so she goes into the gym and manages to find Al who looks like he could be in charge and asks if he know where Diego is. Al is immediately defensive, wondering if this is some weird ex. Not Diego's usual type, but hey who is he to judge. When Al asks why she is looking for Diego, Vanya explains that she is his sister and she has their missing brother and needs Diego's help. Sister instantly set off red flags because as far as Al knew, Diego was pissed and fighting with both of them. Al wasn't even sure how many brothers Diego had, having only seen one around (the only sibling around actually), and only heard of the others as a group in passing. But a missing one? No wonder the kid is messed up. He agrees to help Vanya get Five into Diego's room as Diego is out right now and holy shit, that is a legit kid. Too old to be a kid of Diego's, but he almost looks too young to be their sibling. And Vanya is grabbing a couple duffle bags and abandons the keys. Something weird is going on. Al gets the kid inside for Vanya, but decides he is staying out of this mess.

Vanya waits inside. Five isn't waking and Diego takes a few hours to get back from his vigilante stuff. Al manages to catch him and says his brother and sister are waiting inside so don't throw those damn knives at them. Diego is confused, but Al keeps going, saying that his sister showed up with a kid claiming it was their missing brother and the kid looked horrible and, Diego runs into the room and stops short when he sees Five of all people sleeping on his bed with Vanya reading beside him. He is understandably not happy about Vanya just showing up and wants answers about why she and Five of all people are here. Vanya tries to explain the best she can with her limitied knowledge: Five showed up at some point, Dad was keeping him at the house cause he is sick or something due to time travel, Luther tried to contact the siblings, but could only get ahold of Vanya, Luther got Five out of the house before taking off to some important mission to the moon. Luther never saw Five awake and neither has Vanya yet. Diego needs a moment before he asks why Luther even bothered getting Five out. Vanya says that all he told her was Mom mentioned it, that Five needed family. Diego still feels like there are so many missing pieces, but you know what, he'll take what he has and since Mom wanted Five to get out like everyone else, then he is staying out.

Five chooses this moment to come back to consciousness. The two just hear a slight whimper behind them at first and turn to see Five sleepily blinking his eyes open. They stare at him for a long moment before he just screeches. Vanya practically jumps on the bed grabbing Five and holding him which promptly shuts him up. He looks absolutely bewildered. Diego steps forward, cautiously asking if Five knew who they were and where he was at. Five reaches up one hand to touch Vanya's arm and just whispers in a far too raspy voice, "Ghosts can't touch me." And then passes right back out.

Okay, their brother has obviously been through some things and is traumatized af. Diego helps Vanya navigate their brother out of the coat, startling when something falls out of one of the pockets. It's Vanya's book. Clearly it is Five's copy as a quick flip through the pages shows a bunch of equations scribbled through the margins. What stops Diego though is that this is a library copy. And the last date it was turned in was in 2019. Nearly four years from now. Vanya sees Diego holding the book and starts to say something, but is cut off by him just saying that Five definitely time traveled before showing her the stamps showing when the book was last checked in. He then says that Veggie will be looking for them, or at least Five, and they need to go. So he stuffs some things into his own duffle bag, hands all the bags to Vanya, scoops up Five, and leads the way.

This is where I stopped writing for two months because I was working on another AU and had finals and holidays, but I think I remember where I was going with this, so here we go.

Diego, Vanya, and Five take off with only a call to Eudora from Diego (who they are newly broken-up, so it takes awhile, but Diego finally just tells her he has to leave for awhile and if she can keep an eye out for Klaus, he would appreciate it) and Diego telling Al to just box his stuff up or sell it. They leave in Diego's car, although they trade it out at a sketchy car lot the next town over. Why did they take off like this? Diego knows what the evil there father figure is and Vanya quickly figured out they would have to leave to avoid him taking back Five, which is her focus. It doesn't take long for Diego to deduce that is her intentions and for his big brother instincts to take over and decide to run with them and take care of the two.

Through the initial 24 hours after they take off, Five is mostly asleep. They bring him back to consciousness a couple of times to drink something or eat something soft, but he appears to also have some kind of fever.

They end up in a mediumish-sized town in the midwest just big enough that they can disappear into. They pull the siblings trying to get away from abusive situation card with a nice old lady who manages an apartment building and lets them stay and even hires Diego as part of her maintenence crew for the buildings she runs till he can find a proper job. The old lady seems to be under the impression that Five is one of their kids, not little brother, but they can't figure out whose kid she thinks he is, because she clearly knows that Diego and Vanya are siblings and it is a whole thing. They also give fake names when signing their lease, but I'll figure those out later.

Five finally wakes up more coherent then he has been a couple days later under Vanya's careful care. He seems very confused about where he is, understandably, but especially by Diego and Vanya being there. He appears to vaguely remember being locked up by the trauma-meister, but seems hesitant to explain what happened before that. Vanya explains that Luther got him out before taking off on some important mission to the moon on Grace's prodding and Vanya and Diego took off with him as they didn't want Veggie taking him back to his torture chamber.

After a little bit of prodding, they finally get out of Five that he traveled to the end of the world, set to happen in 2019 and they need to stop it and that he was trapped there for two years. Diego and Vanya are doubtful, but they agree to help under the condition that they do it under the radar considering they need to stay hidden from Vegetable until at least 2018 when Five will be, biologically 18.

And that is the premise. There is no permanent orchestra in the town they moved to, but Vanya lands a job teaching music theory and such at the community college and giving private lessons to local kids on the side. After a month of working for Ms. Roberts (I've decided that is their landlord's name), Diego gets a much better job, working first in janitorial at the local gym and a temp trainer, before being hired on permanently. Five is a bit more trouble. People seem to freak him out in large quantities, but he is also a kid, even though he is a very smart kid. And with Ms. Roberts knowing he is a minor, they really don't want the CPS breathing down their necks and taking their technically kidnapped, but very traumatized brother away. So, Vanya finds a local homeschool coalition. It requires that Five shows up for an in-person class once a week, but he can do the rest of his classes online and that gives him plenty of time to work on the end of the world stuff. He picks the music theory class that Vanya volunteers to teach to give Five free tuition.

And the three slowly build a life in this town. Diego and Vanya seem to have silently agreed to just pretend the Book never happened so they can take care of Five. Five clearly has nightmares and freaks out at both people and being without his siblings, so he goes with them everywhere (he ends up auditing all the classes Vanya teaches at the university when he enrolls at 17 to start on a math degree, mainly because he already sat through the classes a couple of times at this point).

They don't contact Vanya's orchestra, they were miffed when she called to say she wasn't showing up anymore the day she got Five. Diego calls Eudora after about six months to check in. She picked up Diego's only box of stuff from Al that he left behind and is holding it for him and agrees since Vanya's year lease is almost up to clear out Vanya's old apartment soon. (She is just being really great, but they aren't telling her the brother they are watching is a kidnapped minor for a reason). She also tells them that she had to put Klaus back in rehap a month ago and he had seemed really confused by her doing it instead of Diego like usual. Diego won't tell her where he is though. She does agree to look into the eye Five finally admitted he has from the apocalypse and will gather all info she can find for when Diego calls back. (When he does a few months later, she tells them the eye doesn't exist, the company it is from hasn't even started making prosthetic eyes yet).

And then, Vanya's pills. Well, she realizes she is running low and since they are laying low, she can't exactly call her old therapist or psychiatrist and get a refill. So, she goes to a new one who flips at the level she is taking (how is that allowed!!!) and starts a plan to wean her off those and onto a new set of anxiety meds that would be better for her. Vanya starts to feel happier and better overall. There is complaining about the bad lightbulbs Diego always buys because one seems to shatter every two months and she always seems to know what either boys are muttering even across the room, but none of them really notice Vanya's powers. Maybe because Five seems genuinely terrified of his own at the moment and they all know they can't draw attention to themselves as former members of the Umbrella Academy, but powers are the furthest thing from everyone's minds. Diego even goes to a sort of seedy tattoo artist and gets his covered up, playing up the umbrella as a stupid drunk mistake he wants to forget and Five takes to wearing long sleeves and bracelets so people can't see his. Five also goes and sees this therapist and gets classic GAD and PTSD and goes on anxiety meds too eventually. Vanya just has SAD and over the time they are in this town, she eventually gets weaned down to an as needed pill, which she only is to take for an attack which ends up being once every couple weeks or so. Five is on daily meds. Dunno yet if this will be relevant, but to give you an idea of the starting point I have for each of them. Five also has asthma from all the ash.

Hey - Riku x Reader

Aha, Xeha-non! I tricked you! I wasn’t writing Roxas, I was writing Riku! It’s about time I gave this boy some love. 

~~~~~

               “Hey handsome.” I slide the book from the desk and take its place, grinning down at the boy. A snowy brow arches in response, before those teal orbs peer up at me. “Slackin’ on your homework?”

               “Maybe,” he grumbles. I display the text and he continues scribbling down his answers.

               “Ooo, even I got the homework done. You’re not tellin’ me I’m about to slip ahead on our grades are you?” I tease.

               He doesn’t even bother to look up. “Not even close.”

               I laugh. Of course it’s not. This kid could miss an entire month of school and still manage to beat me in almost every class. Not that I’m dumb or anything, he’s just that smart—now if only I could get him to realize that I’ve been hardcore flirting with him for over a year now.

               Riku and I have been neighbors since we were little. We were never really friends and that was fine by me; we only occasionally passed by each other on our way to school or in the halls. It wasn’t until we turned fourteen and actually had a class together that I lost my mind. He probably just views me as a mild nuisance at this point, but I can’t help myself around him anymore. He doesn’t acknowledge any of it though.

               The end-of-day bell rings and I stand up with a stretch. “Wha’chu think, Riku? Shall we do the project together?”

               “Hm?” Like a needle pricking at my heart, he wasn’t paying attention. “Oh, I mean we can. But it just sounds like you’re trying to keep that gap between us from getting bigger.” Gods, if I could turn that smirk into something sincere, I’d probably die happy.

               “Please. You may have me in maths and science, but you suck at English.”

               “I’m one grade below you. Also, what does telling a story have do with any career?”

               I count on my fingers. “Journalism, news, authors, basic communication skills.”

               “We’re communicating aren’t we?”

               “Barely.” Oh honey, there’s so much more than what we say…

               His eyes roll but we agree to meet tonight at six to work on this story we’re supposed to write. I waste the day away mulling over this nonsense between us. Clearly this boy isn’t going to get the hint; I could probably kiss him and he would just blow it off as an accident. Yet I still can’t tell if it’s because he’s not interested or just strangely oblivious to flirting. Eventually, I admit defeat—I’m going to have to just flat out tell him. I decide it’d be best to do it tonight, when there’s time for us to talk it out; though that does put me at risk for making this project insanely awkward. I suck it up and plan my words out for the end of the night until six rolls around.

               I pull open the door to find my classmate there, staring out at the horizon. “Hey handsome.” There’s still time to drop plenty of hints before the night ends, but he doesn’t respond. “You okay?” There are some gloomy looking clouds in the distance.

               “Uh, yeah,” he replies, shaking it off. “Let’s get this dumb project done.”

               “And here I thought you just enjoyed my company,” I say, letting him in.

               We start to flesh out a basic a plot for this adventure short, all the while he keeps glancing out the window at the approaching storm. I, on the other hand, am starting to feel the nerves gnaw at my gut.

               “Are you sure you’re alright?” I ask, pulling his attention from the window for the umpteenth time since we started.

               Looking away from his distraction, Riku scribbles on his paper. “Yeah.”

               He’s not going to tell me what’s bothering him. Perhaps it’s time to tell him what’s bothering me instead.

               “Hey Riku?” He hums that that he’s listening before meeting my gaze. This could be it: the end of my endeavors, the end of my shenanigans, possibly the end of a friendship. Here goes nothing.

               Taking a deep breath, I open my mouth to start again, but the storm lets us know that it’s here.

               When the lightning flashes, Riku abruptly stands. “I gotta go.”

               “What?” I stand with him but he heads for the door.

               “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” All those worries he’s been holding back all night have finally broken through. He hurriedly shoves his feet into his shoes.

               “But-” The boy rips the door open and takes off down the street, not even in the direction of his home. I stand in the doorway, stunned, confused, and a little heart-broken. “…Be safe.”

               The storm that night was terrible.

~~~~~

A year later…

               This last year or so has been kind of dreary. Since that storm hit, three kids disappeared from our islands. Days were spent searching, but only the ocean could’ve kept them hidden from us for so long. Then we came across a miracle; some weeks after their disappearance, Kairi had been found on the beach of the smaller island. From what I heard, she had been groggy and confused for a while, but remembered nothing of what happened. As for Sora and Riku, we never found them.

               I was upset for a long time but time heals all wounds supposedly. In reality, I’d just learned to think about it less and went about life. There wasn’t anything else I could’ve done. Even if my heart is still hung up on him, it’s not like I can bring him back. So, on the surface, I take my dreary days the same as my normal ones: one step at a time, no matter how hard the next step is.

               Nope. Don’t think about it.

               Clearing my head of memories I don’t have time to dwell on, I brush the hair from my eyes and readjust the bag of groceries in my arms. It’s Friday, school’s out, I’ve just done my shopping for the week, and now it’s time to go home and relax.

               “Hey.”

               My body freezes before I turn to person I just passed. He’s a tall, young man, his muscular arms bare. The first instinct is to put some space between us, but that mop of white hair is unmistakable; sure it’s longer than it was but it’s his.

               “Riku?” I breathe, afraid to believe it is. Have I finally lost it?

               His aqua eyes are just visible beneath that mess. “It’s been a while,” he tells me.

               That voice; it’s the same and it still makes my heart flutter. The bag in my arm is hastily set aside before I barrel into the boy, arms around his waist as tightly as I can hold. I could melt when he returns the gesture but I’m too busy trying to keep from crying.

               I step back, wiping at my eyes. “Sorry. I just…Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

               He’s taking the fact pretty lightly. “I can imagine so.”

               “What happened?” I murmur.

               “Uh, I can’t exactly explain it,” he answers, dodging my question. Something about him seems softer than before. “The storm took me someplace far away and a lot of stuff happened. But I’m here now.”

               Taking in his words, I want to question him. There was a whole year where I thought he was at the bottom of the ocean; of course I want to know everything. However, above all of that, I’m relieved he’s back.

               I smile. “Well hey, welcome back handsome.”

               Riku’s responding chuckle dies out to something hesitant. “Are you busy tonight?”

               Reaching down, I scoop my groceries back up. “No. Just making dinner and being lazy tonight.”

               “Do you want to hang out?”

               It takes everything I have to not scream ‘Yes!’ at him. “Didn’t you just get back?”

               “Yeah,” he says with a sheepish grin. “But Kairi spent a few long hours nagging me about being so oblivious.”

               “What?”

               His shoulders bounce but I don’t miss that old spark of mischief. “That whole year before I left, you were flirting with me.”

               It’s suddenly a bit too hot for me and my brain threatens to malfunction. Instead, I take my turn to answer sheepishly, “I mean, yeah. But I think you settling in again is probably more important.”

               “It can wait. I’ve got a lot of stupidity to make up for.”

               I may never stop smiling again. “Only two years worth.”

               “Then I’d better get started.” I could just squeal. “I’ll pick you up tonight.”

               “I’ll see you then.”

               I bid the boy goodbye and it takes everything I have not to explode before I’m sure he’s well out of sight. And that’s it; my brain is shot for the rest of the day. I’m not doing homework, none of my chores get done, and dinner is nothing that I had planned. I just lie around, giddy as a teenager should be.

               I force myself not to bolt for the door when I hear a knock; I cannot, however, help the swelling happiness in my chest when I see him waiting for me.

               “Hey handsome,” I greet. That’s an adorable blush trying to spread across his face.

               “Hey. Are you ready?”

               I tilt my head. “We’re going out? Isn’t it kinda late?”

               “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you from the monsters.” There’s a bit of the old self-confidence I remember him having.

               “Oh my knight in shining armor.” I follow Riku to the docks and I should’ve known he’d be taking me to the smaller island; it was his favorite place to hang out. But I’ve never been there at night so this will be a new experience for me.

               After he’s tied up the little boat, he offers a hand to me. “Careful.”

               “You’ve become quite the gentleman,” I tease, taking his hand.

               My joking goes right out the window when he pulls me up with absolutely no effort. “I think not wanting my date to hurt themself is just common courtesy.”

               “Fair enough.” I pray he doesn’t catch the mild quaver in the two words. “So what exactly are we doing out here?”

               “Whatever you want; just hanging out,” he says, walking out onto the moonlit beach. With a grunt, he plops down into the soft, white sand. With a bit more grace, I sit beside him.

               The ocean before us is dazzling. The water is calm, gently lapping at the land and reflecting the light from above. An endless sky is filled with millions of twinkling stars painting shades of blue and purple around the shining moon. There are no birds or strangers to interrupt the white-noise of the water; just us. And we’re not exactly quiet. We talk and laugh and joke about all sorts of things. I get vague hints that Riku’s time away had been quite an ordeal but we skirt around those topics. Still, I feel like I’m finally connecting to him; I’m not hiding anything or hinting at hidden feelings. I’m able to fully express myself. And though he may not be as snarky as he had been, I’m still enamored all the same.

               “It’s funny.” Riku says, looking up to the stars. “I wanted nothing more than to get off this island, but when I found out about you, I couldn’t wait to get back.

               Thank goodness it’s dark. “That’s kind of a silly reason to suddenly change your dreams.”

               “Not after the adventure I’ve had.” I don’t get a chance to dwell on the darkness in his words. Instead, my heart jumps into my throat when his hand sits on top of mind with a gentle squeeze. “Besides, I think you’re discounting yourself way too much. You’re worth changing dreams for.”

               What the hell do I say to that?! I sigh. “I know I was flirting with you but that doesn’t mean you have to do this. You don’t owe me anything. If you want, we can just-”

               My words are effectively silenced. It’s not smooth or gentle but Riku jams our lips together. I never would use the word awkward to describe him but this is terribly so. I still don’t hate it.

               I don’t know if it’s my own blush or the heat rolling off him, but the air between us is hot. When he breaks away, there’s that smile—I can die happy now.

               “If you end that sentence with ‘be friends,’ I’m going to throw you in the ocean,” he warns, a note of longing there.

               The astonishment in me takes a dive, succeeded by desire. Pulling myself up by his jacket, I swing a leg over Riku’s. My hands weave into his hair, pushing the locks from his face, revealing those beautiful teal eyes. Without another moment’s hesitation, I take a second kiss.

               First kisses are overrated. They’re awkward and never certain of both people’s feelings. But second kisses; with the confidence, understanding, and trust; those are the moments of passion that melt hearts. I am no exception. My insides are filled with thousands of butterflies but I can’t get enough—I will never get enough. I could live in this moment forever: just the two of us in this beautiful scene with our new-found love. I would’ve been gone only a moment too soon had I died earlier.

               Lips part, gasping for air. My eyes rapidly scan his face, trying to commit this moment to memory. Then the wave of euphoria washes over me and I let out a breathy laugh.

               “Fine. We’re not friends.”

~~~~~

Months Later…

               I trail through the sand, water lapping at my feet, birds cawing overhead, sun raining warmth on this quiet, little, lonely island.

               It’s been several months and it sucks. I got warning this time that he was going, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about his absence. The way he talked about it was like I may never see him again and he wouldn’t even give me any details. It was just ‘I gotta go’ and ‘I don’t know if I’ll come back,’ then he kissed me and disappeared; left me crying on the beach by myself. Even Sora and eventually Kairi disappeared too, but no, I get left behind. I’ve been flipping between anger and depression so much sometimes I just cry while I break things. Maybe it was ridiculous for me to think we’d always be together, maybe it would’ve been easier if he just said he was sick of me, but the fact that we were still so infatuated when he left makes this all the more miserable. I had less than a year to fall head-over-heels in love with him and, boy, did he leave his mark.

               Today’s one of those low days, where I miss him so much it almost hurts. So I’m on the little island, hoping for distractions; I’d even take memories of our little moments here—anything to dull the pain.

               Another round of sorrow creeps up on me and I take a moment to attempt clearing my vision.

               “Hey gorgeous.”

               My heart shudders so forcefully everything goes black and my ears ring. It clears quickly enough that I whirl around. He’s there, gasping like he ran a marathon to get here. I can’t believe it; also, I can’t take it. I take a running leap at Riku who falls on his ass to catch me.

               Sobbing into his shoulder, I manage to get out, “You’re not allowed to leave me again. I swear to the gods that I will tie you down if I have to.”

               Hugging me with his entire body, Riku answers, “I have so much to tell you.”

I don’t do droids

Pairing: translator!reader x Din Djarin

WC: 1,185

Summary: First part in a fic with Din and this fun translator. I see this being kind of long term, I want to give them some time to grow together before we even get to introducing the child. There will be pining.

Warnings: Literally none, woohoo!

A/N: I’ve been listening to this playlist on spotify by metalcorecore and I 10/10 recommend

(Gif not mine, credits to the maker)

_______________________________________________________________________Galactic basic is simple. Spoken in nearly every system across the galaxy, understood by almost every species. It was easy. It didn’t have the guttural sounds of Huttese, or the tradition of Mando’a, but it was easy to use.

It also had the privilege of being one of the few languages Din Djarin spoke, and understood fluently. Sure, he could butcher his way through a conversation in Bocce, and he knew enough Aqualish to get by, but not nearly enough to be there for more than a quick job. He meant to learn, really, but figured eventually he couldn’t be bothered to learn more.

After all, there were bounties to collect and weapons to clean.

Now, however, Din was starting to realize the error of his ways. Greef Karga sat across from him, sliding a bounty puck across the table. “This is it, the highest bounty I‘ve got.”

“Whose the target?”

“Politician’s kid, also a bail jumper. Should be a quick pick up.” Din turned the puck over in his hand and flicked the switch, “He should be hiding out in Devaron. Plenty of places to stop and refuel out there.” With this, he flipped the puck off and placed it down, “I don’t speak Devaronese.” He mumbled, leaning back into the booth across from the older man. Greef sighed and pushed the puck towards him, “Look, Mando, that last bounty should be more than enough to buy you a nice refuel, some supplies, and a translator.”

“I don’t do droids, Greef.”

“I didn’t say it had to be a droid.” He said, sliding him a flimsi with a few words and names scrawled across it, “might be worth it to check this out, lower levels of Coruscant.” Din eyed the small piece in his hand before grabbing his puck and turning out on his heel. “I knew you’d settle for a crew eventually!” Greef called out behind him, laughing and settling back along the bench.

*  *  *

He found himself now elbow to elbow with people of all species, bumping against him leaving the tiniest of marks along his already dirtied beskar. He hated it here, dark and damp smelling vaguely of musk and sweat. The visor in his helmet blurred the neon signs around him, beggars and merchants calling out to him shining faded lights near his face. He could see the criminals around him picking their teeth as he walked by. A Mandalorian could be valuable these days, he knew that better than anyone else. He hated Coruscant. The upper levels weren’t much better, all bright incandescent lights and people who thought they were better than everyone else. Like the worst parts of Canto Bight just slightly less flashy.

He let his feet carry him along cracked duracrete road until he found a rundown apartment complex. He followed the words on the flimsi and shuffled up to the lift, selecting the buttons to take him up to the apartment he was looking for. Beneath his helmet, he couldn’t help but small down at the older Rodian woman beside him, how she was hunched over from years of crouching and shuffling. He knew when she looked up, she’d never see a smiling face, just the cold, unforgiving glare of beskar.

Stepping out of the lift, he counted numbers outside doors until he found what he was looking for; 0382, 0383, 0384, 0385. Rapping lightly on the door, he kept his hand at his side until the door swung open.

Din was sure, at that moment, he’d never seen someone more beautiful. You were maybe a head shorter than him, hair fluttering around your shoulders as you stared at him with large, inquisitive eyes. You were humanoid, he was sure of it, but the side of your face was speckled with tiny tattoos, like starry freckles sprayed across your cheek. “I don’t know any Mandalorians.” You’d said, shutting the door quickly, until he kicked his foot out to stop it from shutting. “Greef Karga sent me. I’m looking for Y/N L/N.”

“Hmph,” you’d mumbled, opening the door for him to step inside. “Did he now. Hurry in, you’re letting all my incense out.”

*  *  *

Your quarters were small, a medium sized room with a small kitchen and living space, with a bed tucked in the back surrounded by sheer curtains. You had books stacked up along your walls from systems he hadn’t even heard of, and maps tacked up along your walls. You smelled faintly of florals and smoke, he suspected from the aforementioned incense you had burning near the door, and dressed unlike a woman he expected to be living here. Clad in flowy pants of many colors and a short, tight black long sleeve top, you pulled your hair up out of your face as you talked to him. He watched your nose scrunch as he started talking. “Greef told you to buy me? Did he mention I’m not for sale?” You spoke, sarcasm dripping from your words. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I expected when he said it wasn’t a droid, I wasn’t expecting-”

“A living, breathing, sentient being? With rights?”

“No, but I wasn’t expecting an android either.” This elicited a chuckle from you, and he watched as you pulled the cup up to your lips and took a sip. “You’re a Mandalorian, right?”

“What gave it away?”

“Your dashing personality, but I see there's a sense of humour in this one. I was going to offer you food in private, I can step out. But okay, I’ll hear you out. What do you want?”

“I need a translator. I don’t do languages.”

“You’d be better off with a droid, cheaper and more reliable.”

“I also don’t do droids.”

“I suppose you don’t,” you took another sip from your cup and looked back at him, “Alright, what’s your deal? Looking for a crewmate?”

“Possibly. Greef said you spoke some languages.” You scoffed and leaned back, “I speak nearly all the main forms of communication spoken in the main systems of the galaxy, plus the sneaky stuff I know you bounty hunters need, and twenty nonverbal languages. I dabble in the ancients too.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m good for what you need, and I can use some mean Huttese too for bargaining. Where are we going?”

“Devaron. We leave as soon as you can pack some things. I can pay handsomely.”

“Say less, I’m all yours. How long should I pack for? You gonna keep me around alor’ad?” You’d laughed as you hopped off the stool and made your way over to your trunk in the corner. You smiled as you watched his body respond to the sound of his native tongue, he smirked back and responded, “We’ll see how long I can put up with you mir’sheb.” You laughed back at him as you finished throwing a few small things in a pack and headed towards your door. “C’mon, I’ve already prepaid this place out with all that was left of my credits. I’ve got nothing keeping me here.”

You we’re going to be the death of him, that he was sure of.

The Miys, Ch. 86

Hey everyone! Hope you’re all keeping safe and healthy, as much as you can.

This week, I decided to let everyone see how exactly Sophia and Arthur interact.  You know, since they are theoretically friends from Before and all that (they really, really are friends, I swear).  Thank you to @baelpenrose for helping me with this chapter, which you did immensely.

After a decadently scathing review of an ancient fairy tale and some quick thinking to keep Nixe from lighting the book on fire out of principle, I found myself actually regretting that I needed to return to work. This time escorted by Alistair, who was ostensibly returning anyway from a meeting with the current Head Archivist, we set a brisk pace while quietly discussing my schedule for the next week.  By the time we arrived back at our shared office, my head was spinning with the thought of all the Council meetings I had in my future.

Having worked up an appetite and refusing to make important decisions on an empty stomach, I queued up two bowls of etouffee, along with a heaping plate of cornbread and butter. While my assistant provided more and more details around each of my peers’ agendas in regards to testing various ecological building methods - how could there be agendas behind something like that - the door hissed open and a familiar brunette man strolled to my rescue.

Before I could even greet him, Arthur sat down and snagged my yet-untouched meal. "I gave Charly a treat. No reason. But she seemed very enamored of the glittery pens." Unfazed by my attempts to recover my food, he took a bite before giving the bowl a critical look. “This is really good, Sophie. You should try some.”

Scowling, I stepped back over to the food console. “Why did you give her a treat?”

He paused to swallow another mouthful of my lunch. "Phenomenal self control in the face of rage"

"You heard?" I winced before returning to the table with my second attempt to eat.

"Who didn’t? And I'm not saying I condone violence, but her aim was superb, I must say."

"Arthur, she bit him." 

"Very clever use of weapons at hand, I agree." Still nonchalant, he slathered butter on a slice of cornbread.

“That’s real butter - “ I tried to warn.

He just waved me off with a spoon. “No whey, I already tested it. Besides, Miys was able to do something about that, just to make my life easier.”

Shaking my head, I finally got to try some of my food. "You gave her caffeine, didn't you?" I asked hesitantly, returning to the topic of Charly.

"I will neither confirm nor deny" 

"That's a yes." 

"You can't prove that."

"Is it... is it on the pens? Is that a thing?" 

"Pffft,” he scoffed. “How lazy.”  I stared at him intently until he rolled his eyes and groaned. “The ink in the pens disappears after an hour, glitter and all. She'll love them."

I couldn’t really argue with that, so instead I shifted topics slightly. “So. The guys mentioned asking you to be part of my escort detail?”

He nodded. “I couldn’t make it today, but I moved some stuff around.  Should be good to go.”

Something fell into place in my mind. “Wait. Did you send Nixe?”

“Is that her name? The mermaid?” I nodded, so he continued. “I mean, yeah.”

I sputtered, fortunate I didn’t have food in my mouth. “You don’t even know her name and you sent her to fill in?”

“Well, I know it now.” When I didn’t let the glare stop, he set his ill-gotten spoon down firmly. “Sophia. Sophie. That woman is almost as tall as one of your boyfriends, taller than the other, and has endurance enough to probably win a fight while holding her breath.  She has an enormous soft-spot for kind people - which you are - and every inch of her screams don’t fuck with me.”

“Because people think she’s crazy,” I scowled in accusation.  “She’s actually really sweet.”

“Well, that too. She’s also strong as fuck, and truly believes she is an exiled queen of a race of warriors to boot.  I’m willing to bet, if she punched that wannabe warlord? She’d put her fist through him.” He picked up his spoon and smiled. “So, yeah.  I asked her to walk you to the archive. She wanted to head down anyway, so….” He shrugged before finishing off the etouffee. “Besides, she was also the person I figured was least likely to need to resort to violence.”

That got a smirk out of me. "Since when don't you condone violence, oh peaceful reformed warlord?"

"Stop putting your words in my mouth, Sophie. I absolutely condone justified violence."

"Excuse me? Weren't you just praising Charly for -"

"I also said justified violence, to be fair."

Before I could have an aneurysm, Alistair stepped in. "Mr. Farro, sir, Councillor Kalloe asked me to pass on this declination of access to your personal sword?"

“You asked for your sword back? Arthur…”

He scowled at my assistant, shaking his head before muttering. “You absolutely did that on purpose, you traitorous, limey dick.”

“Arthur!”

“You should not have been such a cad to have stolen Miss Sophia’s lunch,” Alistair sniffed, unimpressed.

All I could do was rub my temples and focus on deep breaths. They don’t actually hate each other, I reminded myself firmly. “Arthur. Sword. Why?”

“I’m sure I don’t have to explain the anatomy behind why it’s a lot harder to intimidate someone when you’re… oh, about a head shorter?”

“Arthur….” I was feeling like a broken record, especially when he smirked at me and I realized he was probably counting how many different inflections I could use on that.

“Besides, it’s time someone showed that Game of Thrones, Mad Max reject what a real warlord can do,” he added airily, staring at the ceiling.

I choked on my last bite of cornbread, pounding the table and gasping for air before I could respond. “Wait, you mean to tell me your professionalism is offended? Are you serious!?”

“Yeah, I’m serious.” He didn’t even bother looking down at me. “I earned the title, protecting my students, and he’s just some bullying, conspiracy-peddling amateur who wouldn’t even rate a decent Fallout villain.” Finally, he glanced back at me. “Besides, if he’s the guy he thinks he is, he’ll understand that threatening another leader’s people is met with violence.”

“Oh, another leader now?” I asked skeptically.

“Oh hell no. Not me.” He shook his head violently before gesturing with his spoon again. “You. Xiomara. Grey. Your people.”

“You know I don’t believe violence is the answer,” I said softly.

“I know. But right now, it’s the question. The answer may end up being yes, no matter how much you don’t want it to be.” He gave me a meaningful look before his expression hardened. “If it comes to that, and I think you, or Charly, or anyone else I care about is in danger? That Viking-wannabe is going to find himself on the wrong side of the airlock.  You won’t have to make the hard decision, fight all that empathy you have floating around in there.” He tapped his temple. “I’ll make the call, me and Xiomara.” Like a switch flipping, his features relaxed again. “I just need her to give me back my damned sword.”

Alistair cleared his throat politely, arching an eyebrow at the man across from me. “Dare I even ask why you have a sword?”

Arthur pointed at himself and enunciated slowly. “War. Lord.”

Nonplussed, my assistant waved the response away. “Yes, yes, I understand all that. You’ve certainly said it frequently enough. How did you come by it, I mean? You are both from the Colonies, after all.”

I snickered at the back-handed insult, waiting for Arthur to clarify.  To be honest, I was mildly curious about it, myself, but was certain enough that I didn’t want to know the answer that I had never asked.

Arthur straightened himself, and in the worst faux-Italian accent, explained “My sword has been serving the warrior sons of the Farro family since the days of the Medici.” Dropping the accent, he clarified. “I was a history teacher, Before. I used to show the sword to some of my classes, and even took a few lessons in the style the sword was used in.  Then, when the End happened… it saw battle again.” He paused for a moment before scowling. “Which is why it better not be rusted when I get it back. It’s a five-hundred year old weapon.”

“Is that how the two of you know each other?” Alistair continued, pretending to be entirely unimpressed by the provenance of an antique sword - I wasn’t fooled, he was an archivist.

Arthur, however, looked completely baffled. “The sword? No? What in the -”

“Teaching….” Alistair clarified wearily.

I snorted hard enough that my sinuses burned. “Oh gods no. I don’t think we ever even lived in the same state. And I only taught for…. Two years? A year and a half? Not counting the whole - “ I waved a hand around my head vaguely “-Interpersonal communication fiasco. And he was still in high school at the time, I think.” I glanced over, but Arthur just shrugged.  “Anyway, we actually met in an online group, almost a decade after I quit teaching, one dedicated to writing.” Pausing, I glanced around at my office. “I don’t think we ever imagined anything like this, though.”

“When did you first meet in person?” Alistair asked, still curious.

I felt my face flush scarlet, while Arthur just tipped his head back and roared with laughter. After several minutes, he managed to get himself under control enough to point an accusing finger at me. “We met, face to face, the day she marched her self-righteous ass into my office and railed at me over Charly Harper’s grades.  I’ve been chewed out by every form of indignant parent ever, but that was a new one on me. She was about to pick a fight with me on behalf of every student ever taught by anyone.  And Xiomara was standing there, just letting her!”

“I’m not sure she knew who she was supposed to restrain,” I clarified.  “Even once we calmed down, it probably took a good fifteen minutes to realize who we were looking at.”

“Wait, so you met in person on the Ark?” Alistair sputtered in disbelief. “Mr. Farro, I have heard you, on more than one occasion, refer to Miss Sophia as being like a sister to you, yet you only met less than a year ago?”

It was my turn to scoff. “In person, maybe. But we met over twenty years ago, and two lifetimes away.”

Arthur nodded. “Italian families work differently than British ones. Even those who moved to ‘the colonies’,” he deadpanned. “And I’m sure everyone on the Ark and probably on Earth is aware of her annoying ass tendency to adopt strays.”

“Yeah, hokay, stray number one,” I mocked gently.

He just made a ticking gesture at me. “Thus, our initial clash. There was a miscommunication that affected a member of her ‘family’, and she was shooting to verbally kill at a hundred paces.” Clucking at me, he admonished, “Tyche was much more threatening, just for reference.”

“Carrying seven knives will do that.”

“Ten, actually, six for throwing.”

I shrugged nonchalantly as Alistair’s eyes tried valiantly to escape his head. “She’s not going to give up a ranged advantage.”

“Tell me the truth, is she actually any good with those?” Arthur asked, leaning in.

“They were actually for me.”

“They’re kind of an impractical weapon, but I wouldn’t put it past the Reid sisters to get good with them.”

Alistair, on the other hand, was still sputtering. “Miss Reid,” he scolded. “You mean to tell me you can throw knives?!”

“I can also kill a squirrel at thirty feet with a sling and a stone,” I shrugged. “Girl’s gotta eat.”

My assistant looked queasy, Arthur just looked mildly impressed. “Why was Tyche carrying them, if they were for you?”

“Because I was angry enough to do something stupid,” I admitted. “It was more so I wouldn’t use them.”

“So… on the off chance I need to know what your phenomenal sister will use in the event she is the angry one, what should I be watching for?” He leaned forward on his folded hands like an eager student.

All I could do was scrunch my face in confusion. “Pain? Blood? Think what Charly did to Jokull, plus rabies, no sense of self preservation, and absolutely no concept of ‘fair’. I mean, she can throw, for sure, but she isn’t above just becoming full-on possessed if she feels the need to attack.”

“Did she really almost beat herself unconscious on a bulkhead?”

“Yep.” I popped the ‘p’. “Although, that person almost killed me, so it’s probably better they got the sentence they did than ten minutes with my sister.”

Arthur nodded in understanding. “Probably more merciful, yeah.”

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I would like to state that I am ONLY making this account to address this issue and I will not discuss it after this. I will not engage with the online community regarding this, and I will not post anything else on here. However, I need to set the record straight because you’ve involved me in a personal way when you do not know me. Hello! My name is Em. I’m the current partner of @strawberryswisherrpt3 - otherwise known as Joey Hart. There are accusations firing at my partner, and him attempting to defend himself. In the original message, I was spoken to as though I was somehow a victim of my partner, or that I wasn’t fully aware of what was going on so I’m sitting here to address everything that has been said. This will not continue and I will not engage with people I don’t know, and that don’t know me, my life with Joey, nor him at this point in time. To Kai:

1. I have never harassed you. You attempting to paint the image of me bothering you in any way is ridiculous. I have made 2 posts to you in the 4 years I have been involved with Joey. The first (that I will attach to this post) was in direct response to you posting shitty things about my relationship with Joey of which you knew nothing about. I have EVERY RIGHT to defend myself or to inform someone of the truth. Sure, I was a little harsh in it with my word choices but I was incredibly angry that you inserted yourself in a relationship you were not apart of.

2. I AM NOT A VICTIM OF JOEY HART. I REPEAT, I AM NOT A VICTIM OF JOEY HART. I will not EVER reach out to you so I can “confide” in you about some horrific fact of a person that simply no longer exists. He has never and would never harm me.

3. You make the statement that I will never understand and you hope I don’t have to, so let me paint a picture for you. I’m 21, I start dating someone that I went to high school with that I trust with my life. He takes care of me while I’m sick, he knows all of my medical and personal information. I move across the country with him so I wouldn’t be a burden on my family. We get married so I have health insurance, and can have the procedures I need without paying an arm and a leg for them. I change my last name on my social security card with him promising to pay for me to have my license changed over too so I can eventually go back to work. He proceeds to slowly remove all food from the house, the keys from my pockets so I can no longer leave and if I do, I won’t be able to get back in. He started to speak to my mother, my daughter’s family, and my friends behind my back. He let them all know I was losing my mind, that I wasn’t making any sense and he was doing everything he could to make me happy but it never seemed like it was enough. In reality, he backed me into a corner. He was drunk. He had the windows open so our neighbors could hear him humiliate me. He yelled in my face that I was a whore. I was his wife and he could fuck me whenever he pleased. I didn’t have to tell  him yes or no. I didn’t have to consent. He owned me because I was his wife. I try my BEST to fight back. I yell, I beg him to close the window so the neighbors won’t hear. I cry and tell him I love him and i’m so sorry. Do you know what his response was, Kai? Do you want to know? His response was to rip open my dress, drag me by my hair, push me over onto our bed, rip my underwear off, shove himself into me, ripping me on his way in to where i was bloody with his hand shoving my face into the mattress so he could muffle my cries.That happened over and over again. He beat the shit out of me. He starved me. He held me hostage. If I tried to book a flight home to Texas, he’d find out. He’d cancel it because he worked at the airline. My family wouldn’t speak to me. I couldn’t get a job because my IDs didn’t match. When I finally decided I was going to leave him, he ripped the cushions out of the futon I was sleeping on so I had to sleep on raw springs. He would bring home a triple cheeseburger and 10 nuggets every single night and force feed me them but if I declined, I did not eat. He took my phone and controlled everyone I spoke to and everything I did. He used my personal information against me in an attempt to have me committed. After I finally found a way out, he ACTUALLY stalked me. He followed me home on the train and to my workplace. He called DCFS on me (the time you’re referring to that Joey told you) because I took my child and fled to a dude’s house because I was terrified for my life. I almost had my child taken away from me because of him. He kidnapped my child and took her to Denver CO without my consent or knowledge. He caused my daughter to hate me because he filled her head with lies about me. To this day, my daughter is his picture on Facebook.  I know what abuse is like. I know what it’s like to question your own sanity, to be so stained by what you considered love that you don’t know if you’re ever going to be able to feel safe again. I can no longer be touched without almost throwing up. I can’t answer phone calls I don’t know and I am always living in fear that he will finally find a way to kill me.  You do not have a right to tell me that I do not understand what you have endured in your life because I do. You do not know me. Do not belittle my intelligence and capability of rational thinking.

3. I’m not insecure of you and I never have been. I have never been under the impression Joey was trying to date you again because he never was. 4. The final thing I have to say to you is this: Joey has never hidden anything from me. He has never tried to justify his actions. I have always been honest with him whenever he has messed up, and he is well aware of the things he has done. He has taken accountability for the wrongdoings of his past and the people he has hurt. He told me every single thing before we started dating so I knew what his past was. He never hid it. He never tried to twist it to paint himself as a victim. He point blank said “I did this” without any attempt of swaying my opinion one way or the other. I CHOSE to acknowledge the fact that this is someone with a very stained past that goes far beyond what he has done to others, and what has also been done to him. I chose to pursue a relationship with him because I respected his honesty, and truly believed he wanted to move forward and work on being a better person. He can’t UNDO the things he has done. We all fucking know this, including him. But I’m TRULY confused on what you want him to do. What you expect of him. Like, do you want him to just disappear off the face of the earth? Because that isn’t going to happen. He’s got a life, he’s allowed to be on the internet and interacting with people that he knows or is involved with. The ONLY thing he can do is apologize, take accountability, and try to be better. That’s it. That’s all he can do. And I know he has apologized to you. I’ve heard it, and he did it again in the recent message to you. You absolutely do not have to accept his apology but you cannot say that he hasn’t attempted to take responsibility verbally to you directly. Same with Sarah. He messaged her on OkCupid to apologize well after they broke up and she essentially told him to fuck off (which is totally fine, and understandable) and he didn’t push the issue. He understood why she was angry and had every right to be. He left her alone and hasn’t once bothered her since. You know this happened because you were with him when it happened. Like literally WITH him physically and found out later and were angry. So I don’t understand. You don’t owe me an answer but i’m not stupid. I’m not naïve like you portray me to be, Kai. I’m not justifying or defending his past. I’m telling you the truth, which is that the person he is today is not the person he was then and you truly CANNOT say otherwise because you wouldn’t know. No one would know.  He reached out to you again on December 22nd because he reaches out to people from his past. Like you, I never really understood this, but I don’t make his decisions for him. It was probably a mistake and I’m sure he’s realizing this now, but either way, he left you alone. He didn’t message you again and he didn’t bother you. He didn’t vague post at you or say anything offensive to you/about you. He posted a photo of me with a ferret where YOU then said something shitty and he finally asked you to stop. He told you he wasn’t going to stop posting his personal stuff out of fear of what you may say.  Yes, it’s your blog and you can say whatever you want. No one is stopping you or trying to. However, you clearly know he’s looking just like you’re looking at his. His message to you was not reflective of the way he once was. That doesn’t suddenly mean he’s unchanged or not a better person from his mistakes (which for the final time, what else do you want dude). It means he got upset because he posted a photo of a ferret and you copied something shitty he said to you like 5 years ago in an email as a response to something that never required a response??? it was a photo of a ferret! Whatever. In general: As I said already, I won’t be addressing any of this again. I don’t know any of you and I’m not going to pretend to. I do know my partner though and I do know the things he has done because he has been honest. He’s told me when he was having doubts about our relationship, He’s told me virtually every single thing that he’s done or experienced. He has worked very, very, very hard to work on his toxic patterns and address his past in a way that is meaningful for his future as a person, all while understanding that the past cannot be undone and taking full accountability where it is due.  He is disabled, he is schizophrenic, he is neurodivergent and he has been since he was a child. Some of the behavior you comment on is clear schizophrenia. He is NOT RESPONSIBLE for his family. He does not have contact with his family. He has not been in contact with them for nearly a year. We endured the exact same thing as all of you did from his family while we resided there which isn’t okay and I don’t blame any of you for feeling uncomfortable or unsafe there. However, he can only do so much. He can only yell at his family so much. He can only demand they stop doing something so much. It’s not feasible for someone who brings in $863 a month to simply move out and quite frankly, it’s incredibly ableist to push that narrative. His family abused him his entire life. His dad was absolutely horrific to his mom, and grandmother. He harassed Susie literally to fucking death. And to be clear: none of this excuses his actions. These are not excuses, these are facts. Someone can state that they were severely mentally ill and had undergone a lifetime of abuse and trauma that caused them to act out a certain way or have a distorted sense of reality to some degree (schizophrenia), or even harm those they cared for or were near because of those things. That does not make someone a bad person. That means they have done bad things. For the final time: he cannot undo what he did. To anyone. He cannot take it back even though he DOES wish he could. ALL HE CAN DO is try to move forward and better himself while acknowledge who he was to prevent himself from being that person again. He is not perfect, I’m not perfect. But he is different now than he has ever been. He has continued to grow over the time I have known him and whether you believe that or not is not something I can control but it’s not something I’m going to continue to let spew from people that no longer know who he is. I have chosen to remain silent until now, and I will go back to being silent of my own accord because I’m not going to engage with anyone who is insistent and honestly, hell-bent on destroying a person who has done exactly what you SAY you want done and why you SAY you’re doing this “again:” so he’s accountable.  I truly do not understand the purpose of this and I truly do not appreciate you saying things about our relationship that are not true. You do not know anything about our relationship, about me as a parent, about my life at all. You’ve made derogatory comments about me in the past because I lived in the house with his family since I was laid off from my job and lost my housing. You compared babysitting your siblings to me having a child alone in a hospital room at 15 and raising her by myself. You felt the need to comment on how my child would be hurt by the fact that I left relationships which I had to do because I was being raped or glass was thrown at my head. You do not know me. You will never know me, and I don’t want to know you. You don’t know him either, as I’ve said a million times over in this entire post. This won’t change anything if you’re not willing to listen to the person who DOES know him best now. This is all I have to say. I’m done now.

“i have a lot of thoughts about this too especially with the whole watermelon sugar/nameless thing” pls miss britt share ur thoughts id love to hear them

This got so long. I’m really sorry. My thoughts about HS2/In Watermelon Sugar/a bunch of other random stuff under the cut.

These are all thoughts that are only vaguely connected, and stuff that I’m sure has been said a hundred times before mixed with a ton of my own personal conjecture, so please bear that in mind… This is just like total rambling from me. 

But I have been fascinated with Harry’s connections to In Watermelon Sugar since we first heard the stupid rumors about the song. Especially the quote from the book about the narrator’s name. That quote got me thinking about how when it comes to Harry, tons of people only see what they want to see based on whatever ‘version’ of Harry is most appealing to them.

Read these quotes from the book with that in mind:

My Name

“I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.

If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.

That is my name.

Perhaps it was raining very hard.

That is my name.

Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong—“Sorry for the mistake,”—and you had to do something else.

That is my name.

Perhaps it was a game you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.

That is my name.

Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.

That is my name.

Perhaps you stared into a river. There was something near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.

That is my name.”

and:

“My Name. I do not have a regular name. I am a mystery to you. I wished Margaret would leave me alone…”

— Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar

The narrator of In Watermelon Sugar isn’t just a nameless figure, he actually invites the reader to give him whatever name they find most fitting for him. A positive connotation, a negative one, a nonsensical one… whatever you, the reader, decides. And that feels like a very apt description of Harry and the various ways fans have perceived him from the very beginning… by now, so many people have projected so many different images onto Harry that over time it has completely blurred all lines as to who Harry actually is. 

Here’s a review I found of the book that summarizes the world within In Watermelon Sugar better than I can (as well as somehow still aligning perfectly with the concept of struggling with fame and identity, etc): “Much of the sense of disparity in [in Watermelon Sugar] results from the incongruity inherent in the person of the narrator, who insists that everything in iDEATH is exactly as it should be—the people gentle, pleasant, and tolerant. Despite the narrator’s insistence that iDEATH is a stable Utopia, however, many of the things that happen are fraught with pain and violence. Balancing the easygoing and vegetarian people with their light chores and flower-filled parades are the man-eating tigers, the burning of the mutilated corpses of inBOIL and his gang, Margaret’s suicide, and the emptiness felt by the narrator but never named.” 

So essentially within In Watermelon Sugar, we’re shown that in the surrealist, post-apocalyptic setting of iDeath, things are only perfect on a surface level. Everyone in this world appears to be happy (or at least, they should be), but a closer look reveals the true nature of iDeath: it’s beyond grim. And so despite the happy, shiny surface, being a part of that happy, peaceful commune is unable to cure the narrator of the inexplicable emptiness he feels inside of him. (‘All the lights couldn’t put out the dark running through my heart.’ ‘Having sex and being sad.’)

The sadness that Harry has already admitted is very prevalent in HS2 has already been implied to be about a ‘breakup,’ but it’s clear to me that Lights Up is anything but a breakup song… (“[Lights Up is about] freedom, self-reflection, self-discovery, things that I had thought about and wrestled with…” + “For me, it’s a very uplifting song. In some places, it’s kind of dark, but to me, it’s like, very liberating. I think, you know, over the past couple of years… It’s about self-reflection, and freedom. It feels very free to me, which is I guess things that I’ve been trying to process… I guess, kinda wrestled with a little over the last couple of years. It’s kinda like, about accepting all of those things.”)

His sadness/whatever emotions and problems he’s been wrestling with have seemingly spanned the course of a few years, and are very personal to him… which is why I feel that releasing Lights Up as the first single sets the tone for the rest of his album centering around his own identity. The line “Lights up and they know who you are, know who you are… Do you know who you are?” poses the question - who is Harry? - and then, “Shine! Step into the light… Shine! So bright sometimes. Shine! I’m not ever going back.” shows us Harry having the strength and bravery to overcome his fears (stepping into the light, although it’s ‘so bright sometimes’ - overwhelming) and reclaim/express his own misunderstood identity.

A lot of people have been trying to tie the In Watermelon Sugar thing back to someone else, but at this point I completely disagree. Not only have we seen him make literary references in the past (the Charles Bukowski reference in Woman), but… given everything that he’s said about Lights Up so far – which was surprisingly a lot – I think that Harry genuinely just took a lot of inspiration from the book because it seemed to hit close to home with his own feelings about self-acceptance and living an authentic life within the public eye. 

I think a lot about the scene we’ve yet to see from the directors cut - a room full of many different iterations of Harry.

“My name depends on you… Just call me whatever is in your mind.” 

Which leads me back to more total conjecture on my end, but I think that when Harry initially set out on tour / kicked off his solo career, he seemed determined to continue performing within the safety of the walls that had been built around him, so to speak. In one of the interviews he did earlier, he talked about tackling his first album from the perspective of ‘bowling with the bumpers up’ - he wanted to play it safe. He didn’t want to veer too far out of his own comfort zone and fuck it all up… and in doing so, he seemed to hold himself back quite a lot. “I wanted to see if people would enjoy an album without knowing everything about me.” 

I think that heading into writing with that mindset explains songs like ‘Complicated Freak’ and ‘Medicine’ being scrapped and excluded from being released on HS1. In retrospect, all of his tour - and especially Medicine - seem a lot like Harry dipping his toes in the water. Being totally presumptuous again, but I find it likely that Harry has had it ingrained in his mind for a long time that he needs to fit certain molds and keep certain narratives alive in order to continue to be successful. And I imagine that this idea is not his own, but instead something that has been hammered into his head over and over from a young age. And I would guess that a lot of anxiety and doubt has stemmed from that - go back and watch that shaky first performance of Medicine and tell me what you think he was likely feeling in that moment. But again, it circles right back to the strength and bravery of doing what he knows needs to be done to expel all of the darkness inside of him - stepping into the light. (“Never going back now / Be so sweet if things just stayed the same.” It’d be so sweet if he could live in that fantasyland forever.)

Anyway. I really don’t think Harry was at all prepared for just how many people would show up to support him in that sense… but his own community just rolled up in droves, bringing a total outpouring of love for him every single night. He had entire arenas lit up in rainbows, people bringing hilarious and heartfelt signs, flags after flags after flags after flags… all in celebration of him and the feelings of safety, strength, and bravery that he has continuously imparted back onto his fans. It was such a queer lovefest that even other artists likened his tour to “pride parades every night.” That’s so unbelievably powerful? I can’t think of any other artist who’s crowds do that for them… not even gay icons like Elton John? I still maintain that one of the most incredible things to have come out of HSLOT was the safe spaces he + his fans created for one another. It meant a lot to us, and it clearly meant a lot to him:

“The tour, that affected me deeply. It really changed me emotionally. Having people come to sing the songs… For me, the tour was the biggest thing in terms of being more accepting of myself, I think. I kept thinking, “Oh, wow. They really want me to be myself. And be out and do it.” That’s the thing I’m most thankful for, of touring. I feel like the fans in the room — it’s this environment where people come to feel like they can be themselves. There’s nothing that makes me feel more myself than to be in this whole room of people. It made me realize people want to see me experiment and have fun. Nobody wants to see you fake it.” 

I think that going on tour, and seeing the reaction and the acceptance of his audience, definitely made him want to take the bumpers down… to ‘be out and do it’ because ‘nobody wants to see him fake it.’ It seemed to help him massively in terms of his own ‘self acceptance and the things he’s been wrestling with’ and to make an incredibly, incredibly long winded answer short, it’s why I STILL do not think that releasing Lights Up on National Coming Out Day was in any way incidental. I think that was a big part of what Harry meant when he said that no one wanted to see him ‘faking’ things.

And… that’s basically it, I think, for now. I’ve just been sitting here nodding along at everything he’s been showing us the last few weeks… Impressed by the direction that he seems to be heading. And taking notes. I’ll go ahead and shut up now because I KNOW it’s still too early to draw definite conclusions on his intent for this new ‘era’ (and this new song could be about choking on literal fucking watermelon seeds for all I know, nothing Harry does ever makes any kind of sense does it), but I can’t help but come to my own conclusions based on what I feel he is sharing with us.

[ JORDAN FISHER , CIS MALE , HE/HIM ] hey, isn’t that MATT DONOVAN ? you know, that 21 / 21 year old HUMAN. i’ve heard they are a WHITMORE STUDENT, which means they must know what’s going on in this town, right ? anyways, i’ve heard they’re looking to MAKE A BETTER LIFE FOR HIMSELF in beacon falls. don’t tell anyone, but they’re UNAWARE of the supernatural. you can’t miss them — they’ll remind you of DENIM JACKETS AND OLD, BEAT-UP BOOTS; SAYING A PRAYER EVERY TIME YOU START UP YOUR OLD TRUCK; DARK CIRCLES UNDER YOUR EYES FROM SLEEPLESS NIGHTS; ALWAYS SMELLING A LITTLE BIT LIKE COFFEE; ATLAS, WEARING A PROUD SMILE IN SPITE OF HIS TREMBLING ARMS.

i have no idea how this is gonna turn out, i’m just letting you know ahead of time.  thank you in advance. xo.

you can check out his stats page here and his pinterest here.  let’s get into it!

BACKSTORY.

matthew donovan:  son of the mess of mystic falls, kelly donovan, and an absentee deadbeat father later revealed to be peter maxwell.  younger brother to resident wild child vicki donovan. 

the tl;dr:  kelly provided for her kids where she could, although as the years went on, she acted less like a mother and more like a friend, when her children still needed a mother in their lives.  her wild streak led to matt learning how to be self-sufficient at an early age. 

despite being younger, matt often had to play big brother to vicki, reprimanding her about going to school and doing her homework.  he made them both dinner and took care of her when she was hungover after a night of partying

kelly’s irresponsibility meant money was never a sure thing, so as soon as he was old enough he got a job at the grill, despite the owner laughing in his face when she realized he was “kelly’s kid.”  by this point, matt knew the stigma the donovan name carried, and — just like when his teachers recalled having vicki in class and he had to assure them he was not the same student she was — he assured her that he wasn’t his mother. 

so matt worked twice as hard just to prove that he was different from the rest.  he could be trusted, he could handle responsibility, he wouldn’t show up late or hungover or both.  he saved up enough money to buy a run-down, beaten-up old junker of a truck, brought home food from work some nights to make sure there was dinner on the table.  when the tips were good he’d give some to kelly to make sure bills got paid. 

it wasn’t a glamorous life but it was all matt knew.  he managed good grades all through high school, a successful run on the football team, and even nabbed the oh-so-important sash and crown of prom king.  

his fears of having to play football in college in order to afford it were assuaged after one of his teachers helped him score some clutch scholarships, and off to whitmore college he went.  his major?  social work. 😌

fast forward to the present.  entering his junior year of college, not too much has changed.  he still lives at home, does what he can to help out vicki, and kelly when she decides she wants to live with them and not with whatever boyfriend she’s seeing.  it’s tense, but matt keeps shoving it down instead of dealing with the emotional toll it’s taking.  joined a frat out of boredom and curiosity, although he’s largely remained the same golden boy everyone knows and loves and takes advantage of!

remember when i said tl;dr?  lol

SEASON ONE.

jesus christ, here we are.  i don’t know what to tell you.  in canon, matt doesn’t do much when it’s not directly related to a girl he’s dating, or tyler.  so this is gonna be pretty vague until i’ve plotted stuff out.  woo!

blood bag, punching bag.  ruin his life, but in a fun and sexy way.  help him make bad choices after his breakup with elena.  bi awakening!  

idk in the season the only thing that happens to him is vicki dying and him kicking his mom out.  he starts dating caroline but i’m not married to any ship.  the boy is an open book!  fuck him up!

SEASON TWO.

once again . . . not a lot going on!  in the show this is when he finds out about the supernatural via caroline and tyler but honestly it could unfold however it unfolds!  continuing to be a punching bag and a blood bag for the supernaturals in the process.

literally someone please just give this boy something to be happy about.

SEASON THREE.

y’all know the drill at this point.   do i even need to bother listing big canon points?  no but i’m going to

drowns himself and bonnie brings him back so he can communicate with ghosts via bonnie........ wack but his and jer’s medium plots were kinda fun so catch me keeping this somehow

otherwise just takes on a bigger role in helping the gang now that he knows about the supernatural.  starts to kinda be interested in rebekah?  idk

this was an entire mess but.  it is what it is.  i tried to include as little about other characters as possible to leave it open for plotting, which is why this is kind of an open-ended disaster.  oh well!  we tried.

i didn’t even ATTEMPT to include the teen wolf gang into this now but just know that matt’s always gonna be there for his friends and help them figure shit out, even when he doesn’t know what’s going on.  will he probably resent the supernatural later in life?  maybe but i’m not julie plec so i’m not gonna have him like turn against his friends, fuck that.

and finally, matt’s not gonna be a cop, he says acab and he means it 😌  that’s why he’s gonna be a social worker baby!!!!

Now I’m afraid my name might be brought up though. I did some shitty things with her when we were friends. It’s been five to almost seven years (five since the last time I spoke to her and almost seven since I met her). I was 17-18 in the time I knew her and I’m very easily influenced by the people around me, but I’m ultimately responsible for my actions. I saw another ex-friend of hers brought up (not by name) and now I’m kind of scared.

I’m gonna be a little vague and my memory isn’t the best (I try to block things out as a defense mechanism), but I’m going to try to recount it, just for my own benefit. I’m not even going to name her, but will refer to her as LR. I don’t think anyone cares tbh lmao

I met her in 2014. It was probably February or March, so I was 17. We were both cosplaying Attack on Titan, very big at the time. Someone posted in a con Facebook group that they made a cosplay group for the area/con for Attack on Titan. I only had my jeans, shirt, jacket (that I made), wig, and glasses for Hanji at that time and I posted a picture, “I’m not too confident in how I look, but here’s my cosplay.” and she commented that it was a good cosplay. We went from there, started chatting, and made plans to meet at the con. She was 19 at the time, of it really matters, but we were still age appropriate friends.

The con comes by. I didn’t wear Attack on Titan the first day, felt kind of left out when we started meeting other people from the group. She’s always been a social butterfly (I think it’s an attention thing more than she actually enjoys it tbh, but I might be biased??) and I’ve been really shy about approaching people after being bullied in middle school. The next two days I wore my unfinished SNK cosplay, didn’t have the belts, but had a fun time.

She ran a panel and promised that I could be Hanji in it and let someone else be Hanji as well, and this person got more attention because she was more outgoing, which kind of bummed me out, but at 17, I was a very jealous cosplayer and would get jealous about people cosplaying the same thing as me. Not a healthy mindset, but it is what it is and you grow from it.

She had told me she was in pre-med (I’m going to remind you she’s 19 at this point, not unusual but it’s what she tells me next which is the questionable part) and that she’s going to start on the medical stuff the next year. I’m 17 and naive and don’t question it. I know now pre-med takes four years. This is an example of her lying to me/holding things in.

We continued being friends with the SNK group, had meetups at a local park, and whatever. She lamented to me about not being able to go to Colossalcon because she couldn’t afford it or something and my parents pay for cons, so I talked them into letting her stay with us. I had started cosplaying Ymir to her Christa and I did have a cry privately to LR when another girl cosplayed Ymir to another girl’s Christa because the other Christa felt left out by me being LR’s Ymir. I felt jealous they got more attention, again, not a healthy mindset, but I was 17 and convinced I was going to be a professional cosplayer. I know now it’s a bad mindset. LR took my meltdown the wrong way, which I’ll get to later.

It wasn’t long after, maybe a couple months. She had stopped hanging out with the friend I had met her with at the con, which I realize now is kind of sus, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But anyway, a couple months later at most, she makes a post in the Facebook group that she’s been feeling left out of the SNK group. A few people from it got together to talk about it, she finds out, and I get pissed. I make a big post in the group about how they’re purposely leaving her out. I’m loyal to a fault, and sometimes it blinds me. It splits the group, they still keep together, but LR and I separate from them.

We move on to different series and start doing cosplay photos. It’s something I wanted to do for a while. She’s a little hesitant, but I hype it up and she eventually gets into it. At Otakon, she asks mentions if I’d be okay with her cosplaying Juvia (a big comfort character of mine, and one I’d failed to finish a cosplay of that con, but I’d gotten Levy done, which still worked with her Lucy) and I’m thrown off guard. I tell her no lmao. I mean really though, what would I do? But it’s important later.

I have big plans. I don’t always finish my big plans. I want to do a ton of different cosplays and she feeds into me. She finishes things while I normally don’t. I realize I shouldn’t have agreed to do so many, but also, the one’s she made aren’t unwearable? She can cosplay without me matching? But it’s something she internalizes.

We book lots of shoots. It’s fun! We don’t get the most expensive photographers (we’re 18 and 20 at the time) but it’s fun. There’s a particular photographer I wanted to work with and she books her since she’s dealing with it at this point since I have a lot of anxiety talking to people. By the time the con rolls around, my costume didn’t work out the way I wanted and my skirt is held up with safety pins. It shows in the photos, so does her back acne. She goes on a tangent on her Facebook cosplay page about how unprofessional the photographer is, how she doesn’t edit photos for anyone but her friends. I, unfortunately, share it. At that time, neither of us have a big following (I still don’t, she doesn’t really either, only 3,700 after she remade, but did have almost 10k at one point), so it doesn’t go far. The photographer and friends stick up for the photographer and it doesn’t go anywhere luckily.

I’m falling deeper into depression at this point. I’m not finishing projects I’m supposed to do with her, messages are spotty on my end. We still do a couple of cons together. The next con of the first we met at comes around, I don’t have anything done, I’m mortified. I skip a whole day. It’s in driving distance so it’s not like I was wasting a whole hotel day. She gets photos solo. It seems fine.

She messages me one day that her parents kicked her out. Something about a fight over her mom saying minimum wage workers don’t work as hard and LR snapping back. Her parents were really nice the couple of times I met them, which isn’t always indicative of how someone really is, but now I feel in my gut that there had to be something more. It feels like petty reason. She moves into her grandparents (and further selfies match that, so it seems like it had to be bad if she never went back). She messages me this and I’m thrown so off guard. Yeah, we called each other best friends. We didn’t talk to many other people as far as I knew at that point, but I had no idea what to say. It’s bad on my part, but I didn’t answer her for a week.

She didn’t message me or anything, didn’t delete me off Facebook, but vague posted me there about being there for people when they won’t be there for you, and people were hyping her up. I realized it might’ve been about me. I called her crying, terrified. Sent her messages. I don’t exactly remember what transpired, but did make up.

There was a point she told me she was dropping pre-med to become an accountant because it took a year and she wanted to focus on cosplay. Again, stupid 18yo me believed that that made sense and was like, “Oh okay!”

We went to a couple more cons, I’m pretty sure she was using me. We make plans for Youmacon, but I don’t message her for like a week in September of 2015. She asks if I’m okay (the only time) I tell her I’m doing really bad. We don’t talk until close to the con. I admit to her that I was thinking of admitting myself to the psych ward it was that bad, but though I didn’t tell her that, it’s ultimately a very hard, very personal choice. (I made it in May and it’s not an easy choice.) She tears me a new one, saying I should’ve went, that I was using her for companionship. She said she had plans to go to another con?? So the way I see it, she cared more about going to a con than anything else. She never checked in on me after I told her I was doing bad, just to take my time.

She has a new bff at this point. This is going to be so cruel, but her new friend isn’t as put together, which is fine! Cosplay is for fun! But I mention this because they get photos together. After my obsession with becoming a professional cosplayer, LR got into that mindset too. I’m so fucking sure that she used this other girl in photos to look better next to. The difference is so obvious in photos.

I make a cosplay that LR cosplayed when we were friends. I’m so proud. I haven’t finished anything in months. I cosplay a couple of things she did, but we were friends at one point, we like the same series, and there are a lot of big series. It’s bound to happen.

She vagues me on Instagram. She continues to stalk me on there (and I did her, not proud of it, but I’ll admit it). She posts things about how an ex friend had a breakdown over her having other friends (when I confided in her my jealousy over the Ymir/Christa duo), how I wouldn’t let her cosplay Juvia lmao (this still gets me. What would I do? Break your arm? You asked me on the spot and I was uncomfortable.). There was one Juvia cosplay post that I mentioned I had lost weight because while my uncle was dying, I wasn’t eating. I was helping with cleaning his house and I just wasn’t fucking eating. She took that as a jab about her because she has self image issues. There was also a big post she made how she KNEW I was cosplaying all the same things as her to make her jealous and to make her insecure, mentioning me by name even. I reported it and it got taken down.

I’d heard things through the grapevine. How she started shit in the Fate community and she was afraid of being beat up at Katsucon’s public photoshoot. How she tried to make a Love Live group, but when two girls couldn’t afford it and they would no longer have all nine, she threw a fit and cancelled the whole group. I’d also heard about her making a fuss over photos she got back when a cosplayer’s grandparent was dying. I stayed away after like a year, but a couple of people who knew me that knew I was friends with her would tell me things.

I wasn’t the best person, either. I’ll take responsibility for that. I wish I could apologize to the people I hurt while friends with her, but I no longer remember their names. I was a dumb teenager. I still get swept up in the people around me and get carried away when the people I are about are hurt. Maybe it’s something I need to work on. But, I ultimately don’t think she’s grown. I don’t think she’s gotten better. I think she’s only gotten worse over the year.

I’m not proofreading. There might be more, but it was a lot to go through, but I wanted to get it out. I hope the read more works, but I’m gonna throw on a long post warning too. If you read this, thank you, by the way. I just felt like I had to get it out.

Werewolf boyfriend and girlfriend (part 3/??)

Hello again! Sorry for the delay, Halloween is my busy time, hopefully I can actually sit down and write more!

As I woke up the next morning I looked at the clock and realized I slept for almost ten hours, and was now running late. I pulled myself out of bed and went into the powder room. Since it was supposedly a meeting I did my makeup like I would normally do for a meeting, primer foundation, concealer, contour, highlight. The whole nine yards. As I finished my makeup I pulled out a button down shirt and vest I normally wear over it. Finished off with some decent jeans and boots over that and I was done.

I grabbed my purse, walked to the door. Remembered that I put my wallet in my laptop bag. Went back to my laptop bag by the window and pulled out my wallet. Then I walked out of the bedroom. I made my down the hall to the stairs and heard the clinking of silverware. I got down the stairs and turned to the kitchen.  Kara had a guest over and was talking quietly. The woman was beautiful in a girl next door way. She was tall and had bright red hair. As I stepped into the kitchen they stopped talking.

“You must be Abigail. You are gorgeous, no wonder why both Anita and Nathan are so taken with you. You’re looking at the Ketterlog house right? The large one.” I blinked a few times trying to think about what house I was seeing, and shook my head.

“I - wait the house has an actual name? Kara I’m running a bit late do you have something to throw some tea or something?” Kara gasped and went to the cupboard.

“I have some coffee made up if that alright?” I nodded I went through my purse for my car fob. I pulled out the plastic fob in the shape of my car out front. Kara handed me a cup with coffee in it and I waved. “Abigail please don’t forget to actually eat something as well.” 

“Yes ma’am, sorry I would talk more but I’ve got to go.” As I head out to the porch I head the other woman tell Kara 

“Holy smokes is she good looking no wonder those two are after her.” Kara Made a disgruntled noise and said something back but I was already out the door. I walked out to my Roadster and unlocked the car. I stepped in threw my fob next to me in the cup holder and press the ignition button. It was a stupidly flashy car and I knew it, but goddamn did I feel powerful when I drove it.  It’s beautiful metallic silver sparkling in the sun. 

I pulled out and drove back towards the downtown area. As I drove past the park I got a shiver down my spine. I noticed more people in the area and more stares. I knew I should have picked out a less flashy car when I bought it but damn if I wasn’t going to have at least a little bit of luxury in my life. 

I pulled up outside of the coffee shop where I was supposed to meet the realtor. I grabbed my fob locked my car and walked into the coffee shop. The same girl from yesterday was working again, but this time it was pretty busy. The bell jingled behind me and I watched as a few people turned their heads to look who was coming in. I stood in the back looking around for someone who maybe the realtor I spoke to on the phone.

Looking around I saw a few people that could be him, but the only one that may have been him was a tiefling sitting next to the window in jeans and a button down flannel. I really hoped it wasn’t him, because if it was I was a bit overdressed. I made my way to the table and cleared my throat.

“Are you Kyros Pamri?” The guy looked up at me and smile with ridiculously white and straight teeth. He stood up and extended his hand. 

“I am, you must be Abigail Pichard right?” I nodded and shook his hand. “Sorry about the mess, give me a few moments and we can be on our way. Would prefer I drive or would you like too?”

“I can.” I wasn’t feeling the best still being slightly tired after only waking up maybe 45 minutes ago. Howard straightened up his paperwork and put them in different colored folders. As he stuffed them in his bag I looked around and noticed the orc girl from yesterday waving at me. I noticed that the line had died down so I made my way over to her.

“How’s your hand? It looked like it hurt yesterday.” The girl took a look at her hand and waved it around a little bit.

“Oh it’s fine, I heal quickly anyway. Do you want anything? I’m Emily by the way.” I looked back at Howard who seemed to be slowly making his way towards me. Remembering what Kara said about eating I thought for a moment.

“How about that muffin over there, is it apple cinnamon?” Emily nodded and went to grab one for me. Howard finally came up next to and laid his hand lightly on my shoulder. 

“Hey you ready to go.” Emily came back over as the bell above the door rang out.

“I just need to pay, no Emily it doesn’t need to be heated up thanks though.” I heard two sets of feet as Emily took my card and finished the transaction. Emily handed me my card and looked at me and then back to whoever had just come in. I let Kyros move to the side as Anita and Nathan came forward their eyes locked on Kyros’s hand which had moved down towards my wrist. Feeling like I was doing something wrong I pulled my hand from Kyros’s to give them a small wave. Anita’s scowl softened and Nathan looked away from Kyros to smile back at me.

“Nice seeing you again Abigail.” Anita murmured as I moved past them, I smiled back at her and walked out of the shop. Howard following behind me. I pulled out my fob and unlocked my car. 

“Holy smokes, I didn’t think these existed outside of  Silicon Valley.” I pulled short outside of my car. I looked at Kyros and back to my car. Shrugging I got inside. Kyros getting on the other side.

“I needed something nice for myself after everything that happened to me.” And that was the end of that. I told Kyros to bring up the address up on the gps screen on the center console. As he did I backed out of the parking spot. I looked in the window of the coffee shop and saw Emily talking animatedly to Anita and Nathan. I shook my head and just pulled away. As I got out onto the road my gps pinged at me. 

“I’ve got to ask, what brings you out to a town like this? I mean it can’t be the night life.” He laughed at his own joke as my gps told me to turn onto a smaller road. I had a vague memory of what the house looked like, so I only had my gps and Howard to direct me. 

“I need a quieter area in general. I write books and do some YouTube stuff, and I’d just like a more quiet area.” Kyros wrote something down on a notepad. He nodded his head. “Is there anything else you’d like to know. Maybe any deep dark secrets that may come back to haunt me?”

“Ah no nothing of the sort, I was just curious.” Kyros kept writing away and he made a vague turn right motion just as my gps chimed in with a turn right. The road I turned on was paved, but it seemed like it hadn’t kept up in a while. There were elegant private property signs on stone pillars on either side of the road and I kept driving down the road. The road was lined in some type of tree. I thought they were maple but the leaves didn’t seem right.

As I pulled up to a house I stepped out and looked at the house confused. Everything was done in the Victorian style with a large front porch and a round turret in the front. Kyros got out of my car as well and smiled at me.”

“Well what do think?”

“I thought it was smaller.”

~~

As an upstanding member of the community and someone people looked up I restrained myself from going after Kyros to punch his face. I looked over to Nathan who was clutching his paper cup of coffee like his life depended on it.

“So that wasn’t something I liked to see.” Sitting in an empty fire hall gave us some leeway to tell openly about what happened. Normally our more wolffish tendencies were more quiet than but after seeingKyros hold onto Abigail like she was some prized possessions made my wolf come very near the surface.

“He knows by now right? Dude I’m pret certain everyone knows she’s ours right? He can’t be touching her like that.” Nathan's face was a mix of jealousy and anger. I went up and started rubbing his shoulders I knew it had bothered him to finally find her only for her to be afraid of us.

We’d been friends for years, our wolf side knowing that one day we’d finally be together with someone else, but as the years went on we started just not caring. Jokingly telling people that if that person just for us didn’t show up we’d just marry each other. The pack knew we would never shut out the person just for us, but we joked about it. 

Then she showed up at Kara’s, and we knew as soon as she cracked that stupid joke the she was it. We just knew. We didn’t think anything of it when we offered to drive her to the coffee shop. We also didn’t think when we said we may join her at the coffee shop. We just wanted to be close to her.

Which led to us following her as she walked back to Kara’s Bed and Breakfast. We hadn’t meant to terrify her but somehow we had. We stayed in the trees at the park as she practically ran away from us. 

When Fred practically yelled at us to get to Kara’s over text we knew what it was about. When we got there we hadn’t cared that Fred was ready to pull rank on the two of us. We could smell how terrified and sad she had been. We understood that something had happened. Kara explained to us what had happened and that sometimes people had to wait longer than what we wanted too. It chafed to just have to be patient when we knew that she was ours. When we waited our entire lives.

“You know maybe we shouldn’t have been so hasty. I mean for all we know she could not like it here and she could just decide to leave and never come back.” Nathan stopped moving and looked at me. His eyes were hurt, and I knew I had overstepped. He stood up, and turned fully to look at me. 

“We’ve waited so long, how can you just say something like that? She has to know how much she means to us. She has too.” Hearing his voice break on that last part broke me and I looked away. I heard his footsteps.

“Where are you going?” He stopped.

“I just want to see her, just for a little bit.” I looked up to see Nathan change and go sprinting away. Cursing, I chased after him.

The Silent Man’s Tale: Chapter 1

Brighton, England 1908. 

"The history of carving of the rutabaga was a common tradition for All Hallow's Eve..." The teacher dryly recited from her text book as she passed the silent rows of young children at their desks. Old newspapers covered the floor, put there to catch the chunks of turnip, if the child could manage to hack at the rather sturdy vegetable that is. "The use of....this tradition was to ward off evil spirits, ...pumpkins were the...." She paused to peer closely at one of the students chiseling away, the girl looked up nervously and turned the turnip around, it had small flat eyes and a round open mouth. The teacher nodded vaguely and walked on, the child let go of the breath she had been holding and got back to work. 

 The teacher flipped through the pages, trying to grasp at anything more interesting than harvests and Swedish turnips.  "In Celtic lore...Samhain was a pagan festival for....." She started to begin when the blissful sound of the last bell was being rung down the hall. "Please bring your projects home, I don't want a repeat of last year with Miss Carple's class leaving their turnips in their desks and attracting rats...again." The students stifled their giggling and began to shuffle out into the great hall. The teacher rubbed the bridge of her nose and turned to face the black board and started to wipe it down. "Every year....I despise the stench of turnips...”ward off evil spirits”...bloody pagan hokum...." She groused. 

  "Oh, Boo!" A boisterous voice rang out from the back. The teacher turned around, pressed against the board and gasped, her glasses gone askew. "What? Who..?!" She gasped.  "A’ow...eye's all crooked now. Miss Teacher can I...say....where'd everybody go?" The voice came from the back of the class, belonging to a boy, Jameson, he was small and pale, with large dark blue eyes that blinked as he turned his head looking at the empty desks around him. The teacher sighed and fixed her glasses.

  "Home, Mr Jackson, as you should be!" She said shaking a finger at the child. 

"Oh, but ‘m almost done, Miss...!" The boy said pleadingly, the teacher’s mouth twitched. "Very well then, you get to help me clean up." She said curtly.

"Aw but Miss, me father’s got-!" He said standing up. "My. Not me, Mr. Jackson, and he will have to wait...you must've been daydreaming again I suppose.."

“I wasn’t daydreaming this time! I 'ad...I mean- had my hand up the whole time, I did..!” He said. 

The teacher didn’t reply, she already knew that, she saw his hand waving around throughout most of the lesson, but she felt his raucous voice and endless tangents tended to disrupt any sort of peace she tried to instill in the class. The child blushed, shaking the icy feeling he felt coming from her. He crouched down and began quickly balling up the newspaper below the desks in his hands, in moments he gathered them all up in his arms tossed them into the nearby tin. With the floor cleared he started to make his way towards the door. 

The teacher cleared her throat, and he slowly turned back around. She was holding the broom and gesturing to the now scattered pieces of turnip still on the floor. Nerts, Jameson thought as he took the broom and began sweeping. He glanced up at her gathering papers, not more than a moment of silence went by when the burning urge to speak overcame him. He felt like he was gonna burst at any moment.

 "I was finkin' Miss, bout what you was saying about Sam'ain.....? Sam'ain, nice name innit? Dad says that when I was born I was almost named Sa-"

"Mr. Jackson...” She said tiredly, raising a hand to stop him. “I fink-......I think the rest of the work would be best done in silence..."  She wondered how a respected, reserved man of the community could have his son who talked on so much. “Yes m-...” Jameson closed his mouth and finished the rest of the chore, in reality the task took only minutes but it felt like ages to the young boy. 

Finally he finished and with a dismissive wave of the teacher’s hand, he gathered his stuff and bounded out the door. He got outside and took a deep breath; it was a cloudy but warm afternoon, amber and gold leaves floated gently down the cobbled road. Across the street, a shop had put out fresh bales of hay in the nearby corner for decoration, unfortunately it had attracted a horse and buggy, the old horse thought it was snack-time and began to munch at the straw. The sight of the small driver timidly talking to it and pulling at the animal fruitlessly as the burly shopkeeper came lumbering out with a broom drew in a small crowd, Jameson watched and giggled along with the few standing nearby.

 The scene ended with the shopkeeper smacking the horse on the rear and the blur of the unfortunate rider sitting the carriage yelling out curses. The crowd dispersed and Jameson wandered away, bringing his attention back to his turnip; it had small oval eyes a wide happy smile, above the mouth was a crooked swirl on either side, resembling a mustache. JJ picked at the edges with with thumbnail to smooth them out, what should I call this one? He wondered, something a bit fancy. George? Albert? He held it up and closed one eye, he looked like a bit of both.  "Hullo Jamie! What have you got there?" Called Mr. Cobb, the father of one of his classmates, he was short and round, hair the color of bronze with eyes to match.

 Mr. Cobb sat on his stoop with his smoking pipe in hand. "It's me-...my project from school..his name is...erm..Gelbert..!"  Jameson said proudly and held it up higher. "Well it's a pleasure to meet you Gelbert, and a Happy Birthday to you Jamie.." He said with a smile.

"Ah, g’on, it's not for another two days but thanks very much!” The child said with a bright smile. “Could Lionel and I go guising this year?" Jamie asked as he peered over the thin metal gate. Lionel was about Jameson’s age, he was sure this would be the year he could go out if he had a friend with him.

"You'll have to ask your father first, give him my best when you see him.." Mr. Cobb said with a small cough.  "Right-o, be seeing you Mr. Cobb!"  Jamie said with a nod as he broke into a sprint towards home. Mr Cobb gave him a wave and stepped back inside his house. His face was etched in puzzlement as he knocked the remains of his pipe in a tray by the door.

"Was that the Jackson boy I heard, Nigel?" A light voice called from the next room. "Yes, love, you could hear that boy's voice from here to Buckingham Palace." He murmured as he joined her in the parlor. "I’ve always thought he's was a nice, sweet lad...good playmate for Lionel.." His wife said, she was sitting at her desk with a typewriter. Mr. Cobb kissed her cheek. "Yes, a livley can't imagine what it's like for John... always cooped up in that house, that one. A shame really..." He said looking out the window, the sun was peeking out for its last few hours, shimmering gold streaks on the misty cobble road. 

"I don't believe that poor boy knows what his father does for a living…" 

He muttered quietly as he took a seat with his book. Mrs. Cobb looked at her husband worriedly, and pushed the margin carriage back to the left.

So Now I’m Back, From Outer Space

(Kidding, but I did go to The Kennedy Space Centre and I’m obsessed.)

I stopped writing this blog over a year ago. The last two posts here weren’t even originally written for this page, but were op-eds for the school paper that I’d written, once I’d returned to university to finish my undergrad. You see, I’d left school for two years -- largely as a result of being able to reckon with what it meant to study at an institution that cared so little for my future, and that of my fellow students. 

(For a backstory you can control+F “Divestment” and skim any number of pieces I’d vomited forth whilst desperate/angry/disillusioned with the lack of action said institution was taking on climate change.)

There are a myriad of reasons (is this the correct way to use “myriad”?) why I stopped writing as “The Lazy Environmentalist”. Not least among them was that, for a while, I wasn’t sure if I should be speaking up at all -- even if it was just to an audience of a casual dozen. As douchey and self-righteous as it sounds (is) I refer to myself as a climate justice activist or organizer, and a couple years back, I realized I was showing up to climate justice spaces in a pretty shitty way. I figured because I wanted to be there that I should be there. I thought that because I wanted to speak up that I should speak up-- somehow not realizing that my being there meant that I was taking the place of someone else, or that in speaking up I was speaking over other voices. I needed to learn to be quiet. Not silent necessarily, not absent by any means, but simply more aware of my surroundings-- who was missing because I was taking their space, who wasn’t being heard, because I’m so fucking noisy. 

In this way, it was good that I took a break from writing for a little while, because it helped me to see that sometimes (most of the time) my voice isn’t the one that needs to be heard-- especially when it comes to discussions regarding climate change and climate justice. 

I also need to acknowledge that because this whole exercise is largely self-indulgent, when I stopped writing I was really just letting myself off the hook. This blog, like it says in that gross yellow font at the top of the page, exists so I can hold myself to account, and that still rings true. Did I pull out my laptop in a frenzy tonight because I’ve decided that I once again need to stuff my trash in a mason jar and make my mom feel bad for taking me to restaurants that send home leftovers in styrofoam? No-- behaving like that was pointless at best, and harmful otherwise. Me toting around my trash in an instagrammable jar does nothing to reduce the amount of plastic choking a baby Laysan Albatross, and my saint of a mother doesn’t need to carry the guilt of the lack of plastic materials regulation around on her shoulders simply because I don’t feel like finishing my zimarika at our favourite Greek restaurant. 

No. When I say this blog exists to hold me to account I mean that the act of writing is one of the best things I can do when it comes to working against the forces driving climate change. Not because anyone reads this-- we’ve already established no one save my big sister (hey, Kayla) does-- but because its through writing that I force myself to sit with my thoughts and digest the literal constant deluge of terrible news about human-inflicted damage on the planet and all of its inhabitants. When I stopped writing I gave myself permission to be intellectually lazy (not cute, contrary to my chosen moniker). When I say I’ve been in a cognitive fog the last few years I’m not even being that obnoxiously hyperbolic-- I honestly feel like I’ve retreated into a world of podcasts and quickly skimmed news articles-- I’ve eschewed my own ideas and feelings because when things are as desperately, existentially terrifying as they are in the year of our lord (lol, there is no God) 2019, its easier to let someone else, someone smarter, tell you what to feel, what to worry about, and how to think. I think when I opened my laptop 21 minutes ago it was on a whim that maybe thats not what’s best for me anymore. I think if I want to devote my time, my brain, my heart to saving what I can of my home that I need to push myself to dig a little deeper into the recesses of the ole’ lobes (ew?) and try to figure out why I’m here, doing this fucking work in the first place, and also what I fucking mean when I say “this work”. “This work” sounds vague and self-aggrandizing and I’m in a time of my life where I think I need specifics and tangibilities. 

Finally, I stopped writing as “The Lazy Environmentalist” because I wasn’t sure . if that’s who I was anymore. I’m definitely a fucking lazy individual-- even at this moment I’m lying in bed at a somewhat cramped and awkward angle because I can’t be bothered to shift myself into a seated position (lol @ the misfortune of my neck). However, I don’t like the idea of letting myself take the easy way out because I’ve accepted that I am fundamentally a lazy person. Is my aversion to accepting my habitual sluggishness perhaps rooted in questionable puritanical christian societal values? Like, ya probably. Does that mean that it’s a good thing to watch 6 hours of Criminal Minds and tell myself that its okay to buy that dress from Zara because there’s no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, so fuck it? No. Obviously. Criminal Minds is gross (though Reid is still hella cute) and fast fashion is terrible for both people and planet (so props to me for actually putting that dress back on the rack last week even though I didn’t look terrible in it and honestly I could use another shapeless sack in my wardrobe).  

As for the “Environmentalist” part of “The Lazy Environmentalist”I also feel more than a little weird about that too. The term is fucking loaded, and carries a lot of terrible history with it. The environmental movement has and still does a really god-awful job of caring about people (despite people being animals - woah who’s really eschewing anthropocentrism now, Tim*?!) But for real, forgetting the fact that from the purely cold, calculating, strategic reality that we can’t save the planet unless we have more people on board with the concept, and that we can’t do that effectively if we don’t speak to those in marginalized communities (those always most at risk to climate catastrophe) environmentalism has been not only ineffective and alienating for a fuck-ton of people over the decades-- environmentalists have been intensely harmful to people -- there are still environmentalists who think the best use of our time is to devastate Northern Communities by rallying against the seal hunt, and pushing veganism in communities that it simply doesn’t make sense for from a cultural/historical/geographic standpoint. Old school preservationist environmentalism is based in super gross settler ideas of manifest destiny, and protecting an “untouched” wilderness, ignoring the fact that Inuit, Anishnaabe, Mi’kmaq, Tsleil-Waututh, Cree, and hundreds of other Indigenous Nations lived QUITE HARMONIOUSLY on this land for EONS (and still do) before we settlers got here, thought of ourselves as separate from the land, parcelled it up, sold it off, decided to ~protect~ a fraction because God said so or whatever, and generally started fucking shit up. 

So yeah, the term Environmentalist kind of makes me feel uneasy, as it should,  because it carries with it a history of violence-- a history that is still being perpetuated today. 

That being said, the term environmentalist also makes me think of my Grandma (cute, right?) I don’t necessarily think she would have considered herself an environmentalist, but she was the single most compassionate, loving person I’ve ever known, and yes I idolize her and hold her to a standard that no one else will ever meet but that’s okay, because she was my Grandma and I’m supposed to think she was perfect and magic. I mention my Grandma (her name was Lecetta) because she’s who made my into a little lazy environmentalist. She took me on trips to see Manatee rehab centres in Florida, walks through the Carolinian forest near her house, and swimming in Lake Huron. On the days we were inside we watched PBS nature documentaries and read books about wildlife in North America and on Saturday mornings she’d sit with me as I sobbed during WWF infomercials in what I realize now was a pretty weird weekly self-flagellation ritual. What I’m trying to say with this bizarre tangent is that the term “environmentalist” still holds some pretty earnest intention for me, and I’m remiss to entirely abandon the roots of what compels me to defend our home. 

So, circling back to what I’d initially tried to start saying with this post- I think I’m going to start writing here again. I think I’m going to see if this helps me be the sort of person I want to be: the still sometimes lazy, but still earnest environmentalist- trying to figure out what my place is- in the movement, in my community, on the planet, and simply within myself. 

*There’s no one named Tim

A Werewolf’s Guide to Lycanthropy

So I asked about nonbinary representation, so I’m going to go ahead and share a book I started (and nearly finished) for NaNoWriMo. It’s still first draft stage and will undergo massive rewrites, but all three of my main characters are trans (and otherwise queer as well), as are many other side characters, so I thought ya’ll might be interested in a snippet? Maybe?

This is a snippet maybe a quarter or so of the way into the book. It’s a book re-imagining werewolves based more off of wild wolf behavior than captured wolf behavior. In it, werewolves are basically know but not really acknowledged. People suspect but nobody says it out loud. Our main character is happily living in eir werewolf pack (which is far more of a family and community than it is a hierarchy), though secretly writing a guide on how to adjust to becoming a werewolf to help bring them into a more public eye (and the book is interspersed with snippets of this writing) until some kids from the pack start going missing. Then MC - Jamie - realizes that these kidnappings appear to be something larger than just a local targeting of their specific pack. When the pack council or committee (there to help organize schedules, figure out how to take in new kids, budget, etc.) acts ignorant and secretive, Jamie has to decide between dropping this and potentially losing more kids or defying the council, abandoning eir pack, and getting to the bottom of the disappearances. Where I bring you in on this snippet, Jamie has recently decided to leave the pack and investigate on eir own. In doing so, ey has just managed to run into another pack, where ey just might get some answers...

(For those on mobile, this moves into a read more, as it’s a long post. Anyone please feel free to leave me some feedback!)

Chapter 15

The irresistible smell of sausage woke Jamie up. Ophelia laughed gently. “I see I’ve picked the right breakfast for you. I thought I would save you the trip of having to eat with everyone else. I’m sure you know, everybody already knows who you are by now. I didn’t want you to be overwhelmed with questions.”

Grimacing in an effort to shake off the last vestiges of sleep, Jamie cracked eir back and neck and cleared eir throat. “Thanks.” Ey took the plate of offered food, a generous heap of sausage, eggs, hash browns and a biscuit buttered up nicely. “Really, thanks.”

“I saw the size of your bag. I’m guessing you haven’t had too many meals while not a wolf.” Then she went and sat at the other end of the trailer, looking over papers rather than Jamie. The papers could have been blank, and she could have been looking at them just to put Jamie at ease, but ey was grateful for the thought either way.

Jamie had just finished the food and was deciding what to do with the plate when Ophelia spoke again. “You can leave it outside the door. Boyd will collect it for us. Come, I’m interested to hear why you came.” Nervousness washed over Jamie as ey did as instructed. Even with all the walking in human form, Jamie hadn’t really taken the time to actually think what to do when ey found another pack. Ey honestly hadn’t expected to do so immediately.

“Now I don’t believe we had a proper introduction yesterday. I’m Ophelia, leader of this pack, although the committee helps me greatly. We’ve been here near four decades now. My mentor, Phoebe, began the pack. When she passed a couple years back, the pack became my responsibility. We’re about thirty strong. We get a lot of pack members who come and go, some looking to strike out and start their own packs back in their home towns. Tell me a bit about your own pack, please.”

Jamie nodded. “You know I’m Jamie. Celeste leads our pack, along with six others on the council: Comet, Luna, Terence and Alishya, as well as Lucy and Shannon. The pack’s about as old as me, so just around twenty years, far younger than your own. Since I was one of the first kids of the pack, I got kind of a different view of the pack history than some of the younger ones might, being there longer than some of our council members even. We’re somewhere around 45 - 50 pack members at the moment.”

Ophelia gave a low whistle. “That’s a big pack. A lot of responsibility. How many kids?”

“Around half are underage. We don’t get a lot of people who really leave, and we keep taking in kids and anyone else who wanders by and asks.”

Ophelia nodded. “I’ve never met Celeste, but I have heard of her. I’m not surprised her pack would be so large. I suppose a lot of the adults help out with outside jobs?”

“Yeah. Mostly minimum wage stuff, but we’ve got a couple people with good skills and some who came in with college degrees and good jobs that really help out.”

“But you all were also hit by these disappearances?”

Jamie looked down but nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“If you can, I’d like to hear some about the kids who went missing. Then I’ll answer any questions of yours.”

Jamie nodded again, glad that Ophelia was leading the conversation so far. As long as she was being honest about answering questions, Jamie wasn’t here to hide anything. “Jemele was kidnapped first. She’s 14 with a bad past. Her aunt was jealous that she had a better relationship with her mother and bit and turned Jemele to try and change that. Celeste probably knows, but all I know other than that is that Jemele’s mom showed up with her in tow one day and dropped her off. The aunt may not have succeeded in being closer with Jemele, but she sure helped destroy Jemele’s relationship with her mother. Jemele had some younger siblings that her mother won’t let her see anymore, even though she’s totally in control of the transformations now. Her mom comes for regularly scheduled visits, but Jemele really only sits through those because council makes her. She’s a good kid. Very quiet. She never asks to go out on extra runs, just participates in scheduled ones, so I suspect she’s still angry and accepts being a werewolf but hasn’t come to love or enjoy it yet.”

“Understandable.”

“Sometimes she needed some space and time to herself, so she’d disappear every now and then, but we’d always find her sleeping somewhere odd or she’d wander back into camp. The three girls she shared a trailer with developed a system with her so she could let them know when she was going, so they’d always know they didn’t need to go looking for her. But one night, she just wasn’t there and there was no note. It’s like she just disappeared. Evelyn went missing next. She’s only eight. She’s at that phase where she’s missing a lot of baby teeth and her new ones haven’t grown in yet, so she’s a little darling for most the adults. She’s very extraverted and outgoing. She came to us a pretty young, so she might have been born a wolf, but I’ve never really gotten her story. She’s very well adjusted, though, if a bit bossy. She went missing when one of the pack adults took a small group for a bathroom break. One minute she was there, the next Pam realized she was gone. We had to have known almost immediately, yet still couldn’t recover her.

“And Zoo…” Jamie closed eir eyes and took a deep breath, giving eirself a moment to hate eirself for leaving, even though it was unlikely Jamie would have stopped anything from happening. “Zoo’s 11. I don’t know much of her story either, but I do know it’s another traumatic one. She’s been through a lot - developed DID. The first two years she lived with us, she barely spoke and never played. A year and a half or so ago, she really blossomed and opened up. She’s friendly and loving and very funny. Some of the kids can get mean sometimes just because they’re defensive about their past, but Zoo just got nicer, I think.” Jamie could say a ton more about all three. Their favorite food, their favorite games, how to calm them when they had nightmares… But ey wasn’t sure it was important that Ophelia knew too much. Not to mention Jamie’s heart was clenched and tight.

“And what about you, Jamie? What’s your story?”

Jamie shrugged. “I don’t really have much of one beyond the pack. I was born a wolf. Mom died in childbirth and dad ran away when he found out what I was. I’m not sure how Celeste found me, but the pack’s the only life I’ve known.”

“So how did you come to be here?”

Maybe it was a little rude, but it was Jamie’s turn for answers. Ophelia had only asked for information on the kids; it wasn’t fair to drag more out of Jamie without offering something first. “I’d like to ask some questions first. Then maybe we can talk more about me.”

Ophelia stared at Jamie for a good minute before nodding. “Fair enough, you have given what I’ve asked for. Go ahead.”

“Are you in communication with any of the other packs who’ve had kids stolen away from them?”

“Yes, but not all of them. Is your pack?” Her answer confirmed two things at once: the disappearances were definitely something to do with werewolves and council was definitely not telling the pack everything they knew.

“What can you tell me about what they’ve said? What do they know that the papers haven’t reported?”

Ophelia’s mouth quirked up a bit. She seemed amused with Jamie, even though Jamie had specifically ignored her question. “Honestly, not much, unfortunately. They all scented something weird when searching for the kids. None I’ve talked to could really describe it. They said the scent was familiar, like a word on the tip of your tongue that your brain just can’t complete. Musky, probably a man - or, more likely, several. And very vague. No one could pick up a trail.”

Jamie deflated. “Yeah, council couldn’t pick up a trail either. Neither could I, although it would have been several days old by then.”

After a beat, Ophelia stood. “Here, I will show you something, but it requires going to my personal trailer, so we have to fend off some curious stragglers,” she winked. Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Jamie relaxed a bit. It was hard to stay stressed and upset with innocent kids being cheery around you.

“Okay.”

Ophelia successfully shooed three children away from them on their way to her trailer, but not before Jamie shook hands with each of them, introducing eirself and learning their names. Jason, Patty, and Jenn. Once inside Ophelia’s trailer, nobody bothered them, just like when they were in committee’s trailer.

The trailer was beautiful. Either Ophelia or someone else in the pack was an artist. The inside was dark with dozens of stars dotted in glow-in-the-dark paint, bringing several constellations to life. Jamie had always liked the basic astronomy classes in the pack, and it seemed the artist did, too. Ophelia paused to let Jamie soak up in the night sky, then with a simple “light’s”, flicked the lights on. The walls were as gorgeous in the light as they were the dark. Bright colors swirled in abstract patterns. After a moment, Jamie placed them as a rendering of the Northern lights.

“Here,” Ophelia announced, breaking Jamie’s reverie. She stood by a thin, wide cabinet. When Jamie looked over, she opened the doors, laying them flat, and revealing a large map of the States. Jamie came closer.

“These are the cities where packs have had multiple kidnappings,” she explained, pointing to the red pins on the map. “These,” she said, pointing to several blue pins,” represent cities where pack’s have only had one kid stolen away. And these,” she said, gesturing to some green pins, “are cities where kids that I believe were werewolves were kidnapped, but I haven’t confirmed yet.” Jamie studied the pins, downhearted by just how many there were. Ey hadn’t even thought about any single kidnappings. Those might not have even made anything but local news.

Gently grabbing eir shoulders, Ophelia forced Jamie to take a step back. “See anything?”

Jamie stopped studying the detail and looked at the larger picture. Immediately, ey thought ey saw a pattern. Taking a step forward, Jamie traced the outline of the pins in the map. “It’s… Is there a pattern? Circles - rings of circles. Oh…” Jamie stepped back again. “A bullseye? Multiple kidnappings in the larger rings and single kidnappings in the smaller rings.”

A solemn look was affixed to Ophelia’s face. “Yes, that’s what I see, too. Your council didn’t say anything about this to you?”

Finally giving in, Jamie admitted, “council’s been pretty secretive. Weeks before Jemele was kidnapped, I asked if the disappearances might be related to werewolf packs and was told to drop it. With the kidnappings, we’ve been on a strict schedule where no one is supposed to be anywhere without an escort or buddy, except work as long as other workers are around, but they still haven’t told us anything more. I’ve no idea what they do no.”

Ophelia’s face creased in a frown. “Nothing? Really. We’ve already been talking with the pack and set up a buddy system. Celeste waited until kids were kidnapped to do anything?”

A weird clash of emotions conflicted within Jamie. On one hand, it was nice to have eir frustrations and anger confirmed as valid. On the other, Jamie still trusted Celeste and all of council with eir life, and didn’t like this woman she didn’t even know passing judgement. “Maybe council was keeping a close eye. I don’t know. They didn’t have us doing anything, anyway.” When Ophelia didn’t reply, Jamie asked the question that was bothering eir. “If this is a bullseye, what’s at the center?”

Turning back to the map, Ophelia was silent and thoughtful. She ran her finger over the map where the center of the bullseye seemed to be. “That is an excellent question.” Turning to face Jamie again, Ophelia’s face seemed carefully blank. “Jamie, I’m not sure what your purpose is in being here, but I suspect this is not a trip your council approved.” Jamie shook eir head no. “I would not ask you to walk directly into danger; I do not usually ask strangers to just risk their lives, but it seems you  may already be intending to. Would you investigate the bullseye, Jamie? Something is happening, and I do not know what, but there is something larger at play here than a couple of kidnapping cases. I cannot go and still protect my pack. I must stay here. Will you go?”

Jamie wasn’t normally very touchy-feely, but ey reached out to grab Ophelia’s hand. “Council couldn’t stop me from leaving to find answers. You couldn’t stop me from trying to find them wherever that bullseye is or whatever else it takes.”

Ophelia reached out to cup Jamie’s face. “Spend another night here - or a few. Whatever you need to recover. I saw the stiffness in you when you came. Rest, and I will gather supplies for you.”

Jamie should have been scared, but ey was nearly ecstatic at finally receiving some answers - some help. This wasn’t all in eir head.

Chapter 16

In the four days (that Jamie only meant to be two) that Jamie stayed at Ophelia’s camp, ey made a lot of new friends, found a lot more younger siblings. Between meetings with Ophelia on the bullseye, Jamie hung out with the pack; besides getting to know them, ey was also probing to see if any of them perhaps knew anything more about the disappearances - perhaps something they didn’t realize they knew.

The bullseye was located in, as best Ophelia and ey could tell by the topo map, a surprisingly uninhabited area. There were no roads going in and out, at least not marked on the map. The area appeared to be fairly flat land with some outlying hills but nothing too big or seemingly populated close to the bullseye. There were always people living out in surprising areas, though, so Jamie couldn’t count on the area being completely abandoned of folk with nothing to do with this developing controversy. Finally, the last - and most obvious - concrete piece of information they could gather was that the bullseye was in Montana. The flatness seemed a bit of an odd coincidence for a state known for its mountains, but Montana was overall considerably flatter than Jamie may have guessed. Considering Jamie was currently in Indiana, ey had quite a ways to go, even traveling most the way via wolf. Ey was considering hitchhiking part of the way if at all possible.

Suzy, Eric, and Lala were the kids that Jamie got to know the best. Suzy and Eric were fraternal twins, 15 years old, and surprisingly peppy for their age. Lala was just a year younger and followed the twins everywhere. She called herself their triplet, which they happily agreed with. Even though they were unrelated, Lala did look surprisingly similar to the twins, and the three got along very well. They had latched onto Jamie because of their own interest (and fear) of the kidnappings. It had been Suzy that suggested to Ophelia that she actually plot the disappearances on a map, like she’d seen on TV. Eric was the conspiracy theorist and inundated Jamie with theories of what the disappearances were. He suggested everything ranging from aliens to anti-werewolf hunters but with no really solid ideas on why the kids were actually being kidnapped. And Lala made up stories of what all the kids were like. All three of them proposed some good questions. Was there a pattern to if kidnapped wolves were born or bitten? Why the specific age range so far observed? How did kidnapped kids between different packs disappear so quickly? All in all, they left Jamie with several more questions than ey’d started with.

On the night Jamie was setting out, ey had said good-bye, hugged some folk (including, most surreal of all, Ophelia), and only gone a few feet into the woods when ey was confronted.

“We’re coming with you.” Jamie turned and squinted, recognizing the two from eir few days in the pack. The speaker was Lucasia, an outspoken 20 year old that Jamie felt ey’d already learned the whole life story of. Lucasia had only been a wolf for a few years. It’d been a tough transition for her and ultimately what made her realize and accept that she was actually a girl. Sadly enough, her family had adapted to her lycanthropy just fine - if not a little interested in it - but being trans was too much from them. After they disowned her, she’d lived on the streets for a year before one of the committee members of the pack found her and brought her back. She’d lived there ever since, completely accepted by the pack for who she was.

Lucasia’s more silent partner was Ty, a shy bigender wolf that Jamie hadn’t learned much about. He was almost always reading, and Jamie didn’t know him well enough to know if he followed Lucasia because he really wanted to or simply because she dragged him along and he didn’t mind going. He seemed nice, though.

“I’m not really looking for company.”

“Wasn’t asking. Besides, Ophelia said she thought it was a good idea, so we’re going whether you like it or not. Good luck losing us. Ty’s the fastest runner in the pack.”

Jamie frowned. It looked like these tagalongs weren’t going to give up easy, and Jamie didn’t want to waste time arguing about it. Besides, it wasn’t like the company would hurt Jamie. It had been oddly lonely when ey had been by eirself. Decision made, Jamie shrugged, then stepped behind a large tree to get a bit of privacy (although that would likely disappear in a few days when the group became more comfortable with each other), shifted with a groan that turned into a growl, and shook eirself out. Grabbing the larger, heavier bag courtesy of Ophelia and her pack, ey padded out from behind the tree. A moment after ey did, two wolves appeared from the side of another tree, two large bags in their mouths as well. Together, on instinct, they took off towards Montana.

reputation tour wembley

hi! I don’t really do that many long posts and usually they get ignored, but I don’t mind. I want to share my experience seeing Taylor for my first and second time, and how amazing it was being such a long time fan. First of all: I’m Italian and I’ve been living in London for the last four years. For one reason or the other I’ve always missed the other tours: when Speak Now came to Milan, I was into Taylor’s music but not into her enough to know her every move and I literally found out like a week before; Red never came to my city, and going abroad has never been an option for me financially (let alone none of my friends liked her); I had access to the 1989 pre-sale, like the tickets were literally in my basket when I realised I wouldn’t have been able to pay rent... I mean, it’s been a long time coming. I spent all of my savings on night one sitting floor tickets and then I got a better job... a couple of months ago... so I did it again for night two. Best money I’ve ever spent.

I’m going to have to do this in bulletpoints as my memories mix up in a whole big mess of love for taylor.

WEMBLEY NIGHT ONE

- it’s my first TS concert and I can’t wait and I buy a tshirt and I’m ready as fuck. I’m so excited I take a 4 seconds video of my feet and literally all my photos from tonight are upside down (HOW?????). When she comes on to the stage I cry.

- not long after she’s on, I’m taking the shakiest video ever when my boyfriend asks me “is that Taylor’s mum?” and I turn around and she’s standing in the VIP booth literally one row behind me. I wave “hi!!!!” and she waves back. A while later she’s standing further away and I see her LOOKING AT ME and inside my mind I’m torn because I want to enjoy the concert but also I want to meet Taylor and is she really looking at me? I look back and SHE IS and I’m about to go do something about it when this group of girls with South Africa flags go up to her and next thing I know nobody’s there anymore.

- girls are flirting with security guards and groups of people are going over their rep room plans and this girl hands a letter to a security guard with Taylor’s name on it and then one to Andrea and she already has another few in her hands and I’m vaguely sad because I didn’t think to do the same and it would have been so easy to communicate with Taylor with a letter.

- these two guys in front of me got there really late with this huge Spain flag and I mean good on you but they waved it once and I almost cried.

- she was SO CLOSE when she went to the B stage and she was like “you all are so pretty” or something and I took it so fucking personally

- I ran to the B stage and I was so close (to her back... whatever) and it was amazing and shake it off came on and I SHOOK IT OFF and let me tell you something I’m just not a dancing person? I hate dancing and stuff because I’m so bad at it and it’s so embarrassing but after that I can’t stop moving to every fucking beat I hear IT WAS LIKE A BIG DANCING AWAKENING

- Camila and Charli were so close on the B stage when they went around the back to leave and they were so cute

- I could have stayed to the B stage but my boyfriend was eating at our seats with the bags and I didn’t want to leave him alone as much as it was my day. Earlier that day I said something like “wouldn’t it be cool if the surprise song was something she’s never done live?” AND SHE FUCKING SINGS SO IT GOES...???? LIKE! I’m God but does God cry that much

- I don’t care about Niall SORRY

- Should’ve Said No. Like I knew this was on the setlist because I got it spoiled by an article or whatever, but still. Please note this is the first Taylor Swift song I ever heard / get attached to... THE TEARS WERE EVERYWHERE

- oh my god that piano bit? Oh my god Long Live? Oh my god New Years Day? I just couldn’t stop crying, I don’t even remember the rest of it.

- my boyfriend took a video of Taylor when she was over our heads and her butt is magical.

WEMBLEY DAY TWO

- let me just say, at this point I wasn’t worried I’d miss something so I enjoyed it possibly more?

- during Blank Space I went to the toilet without stopping the singing and when I came back I was exactly at the right place in the song. Also I dropped my phone on a scratchy toilet floor and now I can forever look at my screen cracks and think of Blank Space. I was so into the moment that I only realised the following day.

- during either Camila or Charli I saw Scott and I RAN and made it there with a group of other people so I couldn’t make it to him so I literally just held my hand out and RECEIVED my guitar pick aka my most loved possession.

- also I saw Paul and took a photo with him and he signed my rep tour book... I said “I just want to say thank you so much for yesterday, it’s been awesome, can’t wait for today” and he said “ok” so I’m not sure he heard me... was very awkward.

- cried as much as Day 1

- Robbie Williams was awesome but I didn’t know the lyrics and I was so upset as I had been singing every single lyric and I had to stop. Luckily my boyfriend made up for me and seeing him as excited as me for the rest of the day was incredibly nice

- I could have run over to the C stage but I really just wanted to be with my boyfriend this time around and it was great

- once again Taylor was over my head, this time on return to the main stage, and she waved directly at me (but also more likely to someone that was a few rows in front of me and had some annoying sign that was blocking my view a little...)