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#how i actually wear my handmade stuff

fastwiemagie · 1 year

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A lovely spring afternoon

Point of fashion: my newly thrifted pastel green jacket (that just screams spring)

Full outfit rundow :

Thrifted pastel green jacket

Second hand black dress with floral print (worn over black long sleeve)

Handmade mint green maxi skirt

Beloved pastel turquoise scarf with flowers and butterflies

Cute bag with gingerbread houses on it

Black booties

I went to a local Korean supermarket for some snacks, met up with a friend and went to this cute little Japanese store with her where I finally found a little water bottle!! I've been looking for one for ages but didn't find any that met my criteria (practical but cute). Plus my friend gave me a little hello kitty figurine she brought me as a souvenir from her recent holiday in Japan!! I'm so happy she thought of me!

Then we met up with another friend and went for pastries and later one cocktail each (with some potato & vegetable chips aswell). It was a lovely time with my friends!! And I'm so happy with my new spring jacket. Perfect addition to my wardrobe!

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miguelhugger2099 · 1 month

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Teenager Miguel AU but it’s just TASM universe and you’re his gwen stacy

With one earbud in place, you gnaw on your pencil in thought as you try to understand your homework for the night. You had wanted to get a head start on your hectic pile of studies before dinner. For a split second, you wondered if Miguel would actually come after you invited him.

Your prayers had been answered, a dull thud sounding out on your left side. You turn over to see what had happened and notice Miguel kneeling on your fire escape.

You smile and put your pencil down, shoving yourself away from your desk and walking towards your window. You glance down at him and he looks up at you. Miguel gives you a cheesy wide smile, his sharp canines adding to his endearing presence.

You open the hatch and lift up the window, allowing him inside. “Hi.” You feel the heat rising to your cheeks. You stick your head out slightly and look back down at him to see he still hasn’t dropped his soft smile. “How did you…get up here?”

Miguel doesn’t take his eyes off you. “The, uh, fire escape.” He shrugs. “Your doorman is intimidating.”

“I live on the 20th floor….” You trail off, wondering if Miguel actually did climb 20 stories up just to avoid a simple doorman.

Miguel blinks and ducks his head as he enters your room. “It’s fine.” He shrugs again, wanting to move on from the topic.

He turns his head around as he takes in everything about your room. Pictures of friends and families, a small bookshelf filled with your favorite tropes, shoes casted off to the side. It’s all so…you.

“So…your room.” He nods in approval. He stands awkwardly like he doesn’t want to invade more of your space so he grips onto his book bag strap.

“My room,” You nod and stick out your arms in a vague direction. “Welcome.” You laugh awkwardly, your heart thudding and spreading warmth to your body.

“It’s—it’s nice.” He coughs and you nod again. He seems to remember something, crimson eyes going wide. “Oh! I, uh, got something for your mom.” Miguel slips his bag off his shoulder and zips it open, pulling out a flimsy and crumpled up handmade bouquet of flowers. They weren’t big roses, in fact they were average flowers you could pick at the park. Some stems were bent, petals half torn off and the ends littered with dirt.

“Oh!” You gasp and then giggle. “They’re—lovely.” You say sarcastically. Miguel laughs with you.

“They’re gorgeous right?” He plays along with you. While you stare at the bouquet, Miguel can’t keep his eyes off of the curl of your lips and the smile lines that deepened from his silly behavior.

“Beautiful.” You confirm but Miguel hides his embarrassment with the flowers, bringing it up to his face.

“No, no, no, no. It’s actually—really— amazing it held up like that.” You snort. Miguel stuffs the flowers in his bag.

“Y’know what I’ll just—I’ll keep ‘em.”

You rock on both feet while he wipes the remaining dirt off his hands. “Do you have your suit in there?” You ask.

Miguel freezes and snaps his head up to you. “My…my…huh?” He seems afraid or panicked? You couldn’t tell but it worried you.

“Your suit? For dinner? Are you gonna wear that?” You point to his battered clothes, dirt on his jeans and blue t-shirt with a black hoodie. “Not that it’s bad! Just to be sure—“

“Hey, sweetheart.” You hear your bedroom door open and your father walks in the room.

Both you and Miguel suck in a sharp breath. While Miguel steps back, you step in front like you’re attempting to hide him.

But your father has already seen the boy in your room. His eyes narrow at Miguel staring him up and down. Tongue poking the inside of his cheek in a poor job at hiding his annoyance of a boy in his daughter’s room.

“Must be Miguel.”

“Dad, this is Miguel.” You squeak out, fists clenched at your side. Your smile is tight and you give Miguel a subtle warning look that screams hurry up and make a good impression, we aren’t looking good!

Miguel catches it and takes a step forward with his hand outstretched. “It’s good to meet you, sir.” Your father shakes his hand firmly, pleasantly surprised at Miguel’s grip but his guard is still up.

“Nice to meet you. Dinner’s ready.”

A/N: this scene and the confession scene will ALWAYS get me.

#miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel x reader #atsv miguel #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x you #miguel spiderman #miguel spiderverse #miguel ohara #spiderman 2099 #miguel o'hara imagine #miguel x y/n #miguel x you #spiderman 2099 x you #spiderman 2099 x reader

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yawntutsyip · 1 year

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Ao’nung x Fem!Metkayina Reader

warnings: angst(?), panic attack, blood, lmk if I need to put anything else.

context: Ao’nung finally completed his Iknimaya and was ready to confess to you! It was all going so great until it wasn’t. News had been announced that (y/n)’s village was attacked and many of their people were injured and needed help and (y/n) was one of them.

AN: …I hope this meets up to your guys expectations and that you like it! I did my best as this was the first time writing something sad 😭 IMSOSCAREDOFYOUGUYSREADINGTHISAHHHMYANXIETY.

Part One

Young love : Part Two

It had been a couple of years since Ao’nung and (Y/N) had seen each other. They had been so busy with their training, (Y/N) becoming the Tsahìk and Ao’nung the Olo’eyktan, that they never could find the right time to see one another. It’s always one of them was doing something on the day the other one wasn’t.

Even though they never saw each other in person that didn’t stop them from still keeping contact in other ways. They had been writing letters and sending gifts back and forth keeping each other updated on their lives.

At the time since they were so young they didn’t realize, that actually counted as courting each other. And that’s when their parents knew you guys had already chosen each other since day one and they had been secretly talking about merging the villages together one day.

Ao’nung once in a while would send (Y/N) handmade jewelry and headpieces that he learned to make from his mother and sister. He was very proud of it too. And in return (Y/N) would send him jewelry and armbands that she had beaded and woven herself.

He remembered the first time he received a necklace she had made, it had a reef bird talon. He was shocked when he unwrapped it and immediately put it on. To this day he still wears it around his neck along with other stuff you had made him like his armband, or the bracelet that had been made with familiar beads, they were the same beads you had in your hair when you guys first met and he wore them with pride.

Even though the letters and gifts made him happy and he was glad they were able to keep in touch with each other. He finds himself longing to be in person with you, when they first met it was an instant connection as if Eywa herself had sent you to him.

He prayed to Eywa every day thanking her for bringing you into his life and that he wishes to see you again. He remembered holding your hand for the first time, how soft and tiny it was compared to his, and when he stared into your eyes it was like time stopped and it was just you and him in the world without a worry.

At that young age, Ao’nung had already made up his mind that it was you who he wished to spend the rest of his days with. It was you who he wanted to be his Tsahìk for his people, It was you who he wished to wake up next to every day, It was you who he saw carrying his future children. It was always you, and forever will be, and be prayed that you felt the same.

Today was a special day for Ao’nung, he had finally finished his Iknimaya and tamed his Skimwing, all that was left was choosing a mate.

But he already had, it was you.

At that moment Ao’nung sat along with the whole village as they all celebrated for him, although he was supposed to be happy he had a bad feeling about today, that something bad was going to happen. But he only pushed it to the back of his head. Today was going to be good no matter what. He won’t let some silly feeling ruin it.

The atmosphere was lively and joyful, with children playing with each other, elders making jokes, and teens playing traditional Metkayina games.

How could he not be happy right now?

He began to eat the fish that sat on the plate in front of him and made conversation with Rotxo and the friends that were nearby.

All of a sudden a warrior from Ta’unui’s clan rushed in and headed toward his father and mother with a worried look on his face.

As Ao’nung watches his parent's expressions of whatever the warrior had said to them, he knew it was nothing good.

The bad feeling started to come back again and it made him feel sick to his stomach. Something happened. Something really bad.

His father stands up and clears his throat loudly and it gets everyone’s attention.

“I need everyone’s attention! We have just gotten news that the Ta’unui’s village had been attacked and many of the people were injured including the Olo’eyktan’s family.” Tonowari announced as his eyes immediately land on his son.

“I need all hands on deck. Clear your Marui’s as we need all the space we can get to give our brothers and sisters sanctuary. If you see someone in need of help please help them with all that you can. I need everyone’s help with this”

As Tonowari said his final words the happy joyful atmosphere turned serious and everyone rushed back to their marui’s getting prepared to help them in need.

Ronal and Tonowari look at their son, He still stood in the same place he was. Tsireya shook his shoulder calling out his name but getting no response. She looked over to her parents with a worried expression.

Ao’nung began running as fast as he could, pushing past his parents, towards the water where the people had been rushing in from on ilus and skimwings screaming in horror and in pain while carrying their loved ones, some lifeless, and some who were just merely hanging on to the little conscious they had left.

When he said he wanted to be with you in person this what not what he meant, this had to be some cruel joke. Why did this happen? Did he make the great-mother upset? Why?

His eyes traveled from person to person as they ran past him. His thoughts were scattered everywhere right now he could barely think straight.

A piercing ringing echoed in his ears cutting out all the sounds, all he could hear was himself breathing and the thumps of his heart.

He felt his hands begin to shake with anxiety, and he finds himself barely taking in full breathes as he was hyperventilating it made him feel sick and dizzy as if the world was spinning fast while his heart thumped erratically as if it were to jump out his chest and land into the sand.

Where were you? We’re you okay? Were you hurt? Are you even alive? How was he even supposed to find you? He hasn’t even seen you since you were 7 years old. His thoughts overwhelm him and started to make him even more dizzy. He hunched over with his hands on his knees as he tries to slow down his breathing.

Finally getting ahold of himself closes his eyes and forces himself to slow down his breathing, as he did the ringing began to stop and the cries from the people began to fill his ears again.

He opens his eyes and starts to run into the water, he looks around looking for possibly your father, maybe if he found your father you were with him, but he was out of luck as he couldn’t find him.

Continuing to look around he spots a woman on her skimwing desperately screaming for help while holding a girl in her arms that were covered in blood.

He sighs as prays to Eywa that you were okay before quickly calling for his newly tamed Skimwing and heading towards the mother and assuming it was her daughter.

As he gets closer he looks at the girl laying in the mother's arms and looks at the girl's neck which had a necklace with a familiar shell on it.

No, it can’t be.

He tells his Skimwing to go faster.

‘No no no no this can’t be, please don’t let it be (Y/N)’

Once he reached them the mother instantly cries for help, telling him her daughter is deeply wounded.

His eyes began to cloud forming tears as your mother shoved you in his embrace, pleading for him to rush you to the Tsahìk as she had to go back for more people.

He nodded his head without a word and began to hold you close as he rode back to shore, he could feel your blood seep out and onto his hands and legs but he didn’t care about that, what he cared about was whether you were even alive or not.

“(Y/N) hey it’s going to be okay! We are almost there okay?! Just hold on a little bit longer” he whispers to you while he was actually trying to convince himself.

Finally, after what felt like forever he had reached the shore, he quickly undid the bond and began screaming for his mother as he ran to her with you in his arms tightly held against his chest as it turns red.

Ronal hearing her son screaming rushes forward, a loud gasp leaving her lips at the sight she saw.

Her son holding the love of his life in his arms with blood covering both of them, tears were streaming down his face as he could barely breathe properly, with hiccups between each breath.

She quickly yells for Ao’nung to follow her as she runs to the nearest healing Marui. She tells him to carefully set her down as she began to grab every single paste and medicine she could find.

Ao’nung sat on his knees the whole time never leaving your side, holding your hand in his as his mother began to work on healing you.

He prayed and prayed to Eywa to let you be okay, that this was not your time to be with her. You were still so young and had such a long life to live, there was still so much you haven’t gotten to explore. So much thing that he had not been able to tell you, to show you.

He even had this whole day planned out for you and him.

Ao’nung and his father were going to travel to your village to surprise you and your family after the celebration, He was going to do this big thing where he personally went to your parents giving them the handmade gifts he had been working on for the past week ranging from baskets to jewelry, to spears and the fish that he had been catching all day that would feed your siblings and parents, he prepared so much so that he could ask your parent's permission to court you, to be mated with you and become one with Eywa.

He had even been practicing a speech for your father, telling him that he would take good care of you for the rest of your life and that he could trust him, he would make sure you always had a secured roof over your head and how you would always have food and would never become hungry, How he would protect you with his whole life from any danger and he was willing to do anything for you, he would worship the ground you walk on.

But how was he supposed to do that now as he sat there next to you and watched your body lay as if almost lifeless?

How was he supposed to confess the love that he has had for you since he was 8?

How was he supposed to show you the secret underwater cave spot, that since the day he found it, he couldn’t wait to take you there?

How was he supposed to grow old and have a family with you as you both watch your kids grow older and become the next Olo’eyktan or Tsahìk?

He let out a deep sigh, He began to scan your face, finally taking in what you look like and how you have grown over the years. You were beautiful.

You were the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on. With your long dark hair and a beautiful shade of aqua skin, perfectly round eyes. Even at this state he still found you beautiful. You were perfect every way in his eyes.

As his eyes trail over your face his gaze falls downwards and the necklace she was wearing caught his attention.

He remembers the memory as if it was yesterday, he saw the way your whole face went from scared and shy to lit up and excited. He remembered the way his heart started beating faster and was scared that you would be able to hear it.

Tears began to fill his eyes.

“(Y/N)…I love you, please don’t leave before I can tell you these words. Please fight and come back to us, Eywa please help her find her way back to me, back to her parents, back to her younger siblings” He whispered as he held your hand to his chest, tears began to fall from his eyes as he breaks down, feeling his heart throb in pain, feeling this it was slowly cracking, falling into little pieces.

Ronal and your mom both were there working on healing you, they had done everything the could and now what was left to do was pray to Eywa.

And Eventually, after a couple of days you had finally begun to heal, getting better as the days passed but still had not worked up which worried Ao’nung.

He still hasn’t left your side too scared that if he left you would disappear again. His parents and your parents would come in and visit to check up on him and you. They all had that same face of pity as they looked at the both of them.

Of course the day he had went out to finally go bathe properly, he had just wiped your blood off him with a cloth and water though his skill still stayed stained.

You finally woke up.

As you open your eyes it was so bright that you could only close the again but then the sound of someone entering in the Marui reached your ears and the light soon was covered by something or maybe it was someone as you could hear their breathe come in and out shakily. Opening them again you look up and meet the eyes of someone else.

The eyes were familiar and brought instant comfort as you began to tear up at the boy and also remember the events that had happened. It was pain and happiness all at once. You couldn’t believe who was sitting there in front of you.

“Ao’nung is it really you?!, I didn’t think I would see you again after our village got attacked” you whisper as your voice was hoarse. You stared up with at him in adoration with tears turning your vision blurry with a faint blush creeping on your cheeks.

The years have been very kind to him, he grew up to be a very handsome man that caught all the girls attention, and that crush you have had on him since you were a little girl only grew more the very second.

“Yeah it really is me,” Ao’nung said while caressing your face in his hands, wiping the tears falling from your eyes with his thumb. “Long time no see huh? You changed quite a bit there’s no more little girl that cowards behind her father, I see you young beautiful woman and warrior even, is that a tattoo already? You completed your Iknimaya before me?!” he tried to enlighten the mood but it didn’t help the fact that he was crying with tears streaming down his face as well.

You caress his face back with one hand and he leans into your touch kissing your palm. “I know, crazy right?” You tried to laugh but it was cut off as you cough and wince at the pain that came from your abdomen.

“Hey take it easy, your still healing, you had gotten shot , and you have burns on your legs. But hey on the bright side imagine how cool the scars are gonna be aye? Your gonna look so badass” you blush and lightly hit his leg. “Stop making me laugh it hurts”

He could only laugh himself with a big smile on his face. His happy mood quickly shifting into a serious one as began to talk. His hands moves from your face to hold one of your hands kissing the back of it.

“You know, I wanted it to be more romantic…I had this whole plan set up for you…but I have to tell you now.” Ao’nung begins to speak between sniffles.

You tense up a little worried about what he was going to say.

“(Y/N), when we first met each other, even though we were just kids I knew there was a connection, and I knew that you were gonna be someone that I hold dear to my heart. And when I gave you that necklace, the way your eyes lit up as you saw it and you looked at me with a big smile...I made it my goal to make sure you always had that look on your face even when we weren’t together. I was so sad when you left and we weren’t able to meet up, but when you sent me that little letter you wrote about how much you missed me. That’s when I fell, I fell in love with you though out the years. You make me the happiest man since day one of meeting you and if you give me permission, I want to spend the rest of my days with you. I love you (Y/N), I see you”

You wipe the tears out of your eyes and nod your head while sniffling. Slowly you sit up and lay your forehead against his, you both stare into each other's eyes basking in the other one's presence.

“I see you, Ao’nung. I wish to be by your side forever”

tag list: @alerouxstyxsblog @embrycallsballz @grierpilots @simpingoverfictionalmen @liyahsocorro @bloody-hell-00 @allurvion @fucksnow @littlemissbooie @melsunshine @trulynotavailable @baddieslaybaka @theratprincessforever @iheartamajiki

#atwow #atwow x reader #avatar the way of water #aonung x reader #atwow imagine #avatar x reader #x reader #ao’nung #ao’nung x reader #avatar #☆ — ao’nung ˖˚⊹

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pascalsummers · 8 months

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Hey, could you please write Marvel men with a bf that likes to knit/crochet?

A/N: Here you go! Sorry this took so long I am trying my best to get back into the groove of things so hopefully I can post more stuff soon. Enjoy!

You Like to Knit and Crochet (Avengers x Male Reader)

BUCKY

Bucky wouldn't have much of a reaction to it but he would find it to be an interesting hobby to have. While Bucky wouldn't admit it out loud he really likes it when you make sweaters for him. The thought of you taking all that time and effort into making something for someone like him gives him a warm feeling in his chest. Whenever he is relaxing in the tower you can usually find him wearing one of the sweaters you made him. Eventually, you offered to teach Bucky how to knit and crochet. Bucky was actually able to pick it up quickly and while he doesn't do it in his free time he will sometimes join you whenever you are working on something.

STEVE

Steve was impressed by your knitting and crocheting skills especially since it seemed so time-consuming. He would generally accept anything you give him but Steve does tend to like your handmade sweaters and socks the most. He especially likes it when you add little designs to them but he will playfully roll his eyes if you add anything American flag-themed to them. Over time Steve would get curious enough and ask you if you wouldn't mind teaching him something. Steve would have a little bit of a struggle in the beginning but he would eventually get the hang of it. Steve would give you some knitted socks as a present and a thank you for the ones you made him.

THOR

Thor would think it was a nice hobby as some of it would remind him of how some people in Asgard would make their tapestries. One day Thor noticed you had made a crochet bee and was curious if you could make a snake for him. Thor loves it when you present him with another crocheted or knitted animal and he will make sure to show off your creation to the other Avengers. Thor was very honored when you offered to teach him how to knit and crochet. Despite Thor's enthusiasm to learn it was apparent that Thor wasn't that good at it as his creations tended to turn out lopsided and incomplete in places.

TONY

When Tony first heard about your hobby Tony made sure to add senior citizen jokes to his conversations with you. While Tony was appreciative of your gifts to him they didn't really fit his style. Usually, you can find the scarfs and hats you make for him on a couple of his suits in the lab. Despite his seemingly dismissive attitude about them, he does genuinely like them and if you really want to he will wear some of them on occasion. Tony turned down your offer to teach him multiple times but eventually you wore him down enough to give it a try. Tony after some time actually wasn't too bad at it but he would tell you it's not his thing plus it makes him feel old.

LOKI

Loki wouldn't react too much to the discovery but he would comment on your skill at doing such a task. When you first presented Loki with a scarf you made for him he was taken aback and didn't really know how to react to it besides a subdued thank you. Loki can be seen wearing the scarf from time to time which lets you know that he does appreciate the gift even if he would never say it out loud. Loki would be a little reluctant to try out knitting and crocheting but would decide to try it out at least once. After a little bit of time, Loki would actually get the hang of it pretty quickly but he wouldn't do it often since it doesn't interest him that much.

BRUCE

Bruce would be a little curious about your hobby and would ask you some small questions about it from time to time. Bruce tends to appreciate anything that you give him but the one gift you gave him that he holds close to his heart is a blanket you made for him. When he first saw it he was taken aback by it and gave you a genuine thank you for the gift. Bruce will usually bring the cover out for the two of you to lie under whenever you watch TV together. Bruce would actually be the first one to ask about you teaching him and while he may not be the best he does get a pretty decent grasp at it. The two of you will sometimes knit and crochet together to relax.

#avengers x male reader #marvel x male reader #bucky barnes x male reader #bucky x male reader #steve rodgers x reader #steve x male reader #thor odinson x male reader #thor x male reader #tony stark x male reader #tony x male reader #loki laufeyson x male reader #loki x male reader #bruce banner x male reader #bruce x male reader #mcu #marvel #the avengers #x male reader #male reader

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mymyapplesigh · 2 months

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Hihi!

Could you write a Walker Scobell x Reader fic where the reader gave him a handmade gift (crochet, origami or smth) at a fan event and she hid a piece of paper inside of it with her instagram handle? (I'm sorry if this is a weird request😭; I don't even understand the stuff my brain comes up with💀)

Anyways, thank youu! I hope you have a great day! :D

OOOO A WALKER ASK I LOVE IT !!! 🙈🙈

PLS SEND MORE REQUESTS GUYS PLS😇

Walker Scobell x Reader

Youve been a fan of Walker for a few years now. When you saw the Adam Project something was pulling you towards him. Following him on Instagram you gave it a rest. Its when he got his role of Percy Jackson on Disneys new spin off is when he really blew up. You saw all the behind the scenes and interviews he was in. The show itself was amazing, other than the slight jealousy you would feel here and there but thats normal for any teen.

He quickly became a HUGE celebrity crush for you. You knew that everyone felt like that for a celebrity crush but Walker felt like a school crush. You felt like you knew him. And like any cleberity crush, you told your best friend, your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother, your cat/dog, your school friends your not as close to, yiur favorite teacher, your least favorite teacher, and the old lady next door that loved hearing you talk.

“No you dont understand, hes different. I feel like I ACTUALLY know him.” you ranted to your best friend at your guys lab station in science.

“Y/n, hes just a celebrity. Half of the teenage girl population feels the same way you do right now.” She responded sort of knocking some sense into your brain. It didnt quite reach the part of your brain responsible for common sense as you still felt the same way.

“You know, hes having that fan meet thing close by in down town. If you really want to meet him just go to that, my daughter will be there too.” Your science teacher said coming behind you scaring the shit out of you.

Then it hit you, he was coming here. Your crush coming here. Walker THE Scobell. Pulling out your phone you looked it up to see if it was true. Seeing Walkers story it proved it. He was even staying at the hotel near your apartment. Near isnt the right word, ONE BUILDING OVER.

Coming home from school that day went awfully quick. The subject from earlier being the only thing occupying your mind.

How would you even make him notice you? You fit it with everyone else. There would be no way. Your eyes wandering around your room in thought just as your cat was playing with your crochet yarn. Now you have an idea.

After a little bit of social media you realized he really looked up to Ryan Renolds and had this thing for Deadpool. You were definitely going to make him a deadpool stuffed animal.

When your hands were cramped enough and it finally looked like deadpool you knew you were done. Then another thought hit you. Even if he took it, that would be it. Hed notice you for about 5.6 seconds and then itd just be stored randomly in his house.

A notification came from your phone, Walkers notification that he posted. Youd give him your Instagram. Even though it was unlikely hed ever take it the hope inside of you was stronger than any doubt you had.

The day to finally see him came quicker than you imagined. You spent hours putting on your best formal wear and even more to do your hair (and makeup if your a girl 😋).

When you finally saw him you realized he saw you first. His eyes being drawn to your face as he walked over to you. You shouldve taken your meds before you came. He walked over and smiled at you. Not any smile youve seen, a genuine one. Not the kind youd give when you see a stranger pass by you, but the one that you give when you actually see someone you love.

“Please tell me this is for me.” He sort of yelled as he tried to make his voice louder than his screaming fans.

“Yes, yes of course.” you giggled as your shaky hands gave it to his. You noticed how his hands gently went over yours. Then the screams of fans changed. They went from begging for his attention to being on them to sounds of awes and your personal favorite; “are you guys dating” “is that your girlfriend”

When he walked away though your eyes and heart didnt miss the way his head turned back around to see you, that smile was back on his face.

When you got home you were euphoric. Walker THE Scobell noticed you and you were freaking out STILL.

Your phone buzzed again. A more agressive vibration so it wasnt a imessage.

‘Walker Scobell followed you!’

Your heart dropped into your ass.

Opening up Instagram you shook even more. About to message your friend on Instagram you noticed his note.

‘I fell inlove at a fan meet.’

And before you could even text your friend another notification went off.

Walker Scobell

Hi, is this the fan that gave me the deadpool?

yes! it is 🩷

I just wanted to say that I think your really cool and I was wondering if you wanna be friends?

Seen 32 mins ago

You didnt know what to do. Respond or never text him again. Throw up or pass out even.

You decided to reapond to him.

Its funny how that whole story was only 2 years ago. You were now with your lovely boyfriend Walker. You were at his house watching the new season of Percy Jackson starring you in it. Life is amazing when you take chances.

“Man I hate watching my acting, why did I make that face.” Your boyfriend started complaining watching himself on the tv.

“Oh shush you look good and you know it.” Your assured him lifting up the curls on his head to give him a genuine kiss on his forehead.

He looked up from you from where his head was laying on your chest and gave you those eyes. Those sea blue eyes that filled with warmth tenderness. You knew he was always more than a celebrity crush. He was your soulmate.

Pls send me your requests !!

#walker scobell x reader #walker scobell #walker scobell pjo #pjo cast #pjo series #percy jackson fanfiction #percy pjo

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the-s1lly-corner · 6 months

Note

Not too sure if you’ve done this but can you do TADC x Ghost!reader? Like they’re kinda just wearing a white sheet with black holes that resemble eyes, but there’s like nothing under the sheet so when it’s pulled off it looks like no one’s there

TADC cast x ghostsheet!reader !

Wasnt sure if I shouldve said ghostsheet or ghost... ghost implies like, traditional ghost but ghostsheet ties in the... sheet..

Still a lil sick and imma be blunt (not to you but in general.. actually I had ideas for nearly everyone for this idea!) I do be struggling with coming up with ideas for some characters for some requests <\3 I feel so bad when a characters part is dry or short 😭😭 I promise I'm invested in yalls ideas but some prompt/charafter combos do not give me many ideas <\3

CAINE:

Assuming this is romantic imagine he tries to lift up your sheet.. probably says something about "wanting a lil sneak peek of his darling" or maybe even making a joke that the sheet is a veil.. only to pause when theres visibly nothing there. His jaws probably hang open before he composes himself and tries to play off his shock with quick witted flirting. Of course this is all stemming off the idea that you forget to tell him/he has yet to see your sheet fall off so..!

POMNI:

Depending on how long your sheet is (mentally I'm seeing it at the ankle... oddly enough I can see the reader wearing these sneakers) she probably finds out you're... invisible... after accidentally stepping on the back of your sheet and pulling it off. Stops mid apology before just absolutely freaking out. Probably let's out a choked out scream thinking she just krilled you before you slap a hand over her mouth, so no one rushes in to see the commotion.. it's a little embarrassing for both sides...! You're basically nude..!!!/j

Or actually who knows, maybe the reader views it like that... I dont know the readers personality

RAGATHA:

Ooo okay so I think she would give you cute little pins and patches for you, so you can personalize your sheet more! Also ties in the hc that ragatha makes handmade stuff for her friends/partners!

A little thrown off guard when you go sheetless around her for the first time, but she quickly shrugs it off. Pro not the weirdest thing shes seen in the circus!

Offers to make you entirely new sheets, with patches and patterns and all that now that she knows it detachable

JAX:

Does the same thing as pomni except he would do it on purpose. Or maybe he yoinks your sheet and tries to make a run for it.... before stopping dead in his tracks when he turns around and you're seemingly not there. Of course assuming this is his first time snatching your sheet

Kind of just

Stands there

A little confused, really

Also assuming reader doesnt have shoes and just has their dogs out/j

Lets out a short Yelp when the sheet is suddenly torn out of his hand

I know you may be thinking that he would try to recruite you for his pranks but I wholeheartedly believe he would be terrified of you. Like all you have to do is take the sheet off and you can be hiding anywhere. For all he knows YOURE planning to do something to him, prank wise

Also likes having his pranks me a surprise

KINGER:

He sees your sheet abandoned on the ground and he thinks you melted, or perhaps you can "collapse" like gangle... huh, weird... goes to pick your sheet up, asking if you're alright. Before jumping st least 2 feet in the air when your voice answers his question... from behind him...

Oh reader please please dont do that ever again, his poor digital heart cant handle scares like that.. paranoia or not, I think kinger always hated jumpscares. Long before he entered the circus

Please apologize to him

ZOOBLE:

Now ZOOBLE would ask you to cause some mischief when they find out you're invisible under the sheet. Except, only target it to one person... jax. I mean think about it, zooble already doesnt seem to like him... and they're probably annoyed about the whole "stealing your arm to scratch my own back thing"... I mean I doubt it's the first time jax has messed with zooble, considering he did it so casually and how he treats the others... so if you're... down with a little haunting..

Similar to ragatha, I dont think theyd be all that phased. If anything they would think it's cool! I already hc that before getting stuck in the circus, zooble was into cryptids and the supernatural as well as general "disturbing" topics, so ghosts are right up their alley...... even if you're not really a ghost

GANGLE:

Thinks the sheet is cute! I was gonna say she finds out after accidentally tripping over your sheet and pulling it off, but... I actually.. dont know if gangle has heavy enough feet to do that

I mean she's ribbon

I think it would be revealed when you casually ask if you can.. "get comfortable" while in her room while you guys are drawing

Obviously, she says yes, because who wouldnt want someone to be comfortable... before literally dropping her comedy mask in shock when you literally. Take the sheet off

Of course this is assuming you dont view it as being nude, as opposed to pomnis segment but

Yeah

Tries not to make a big deal of it, last thing she wants is for you to feel bad... definitely takes her s minute to compose herself...

#tadc x reader #the amazing digital circus x reader #digital circus x reader #caine x reader #pomni x reader #ragatha x reader #jax x reader #kinger x reader #zooble x reader #gangle x reader

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svnny-days · 3 months

Text

The First Snow

pairing: luke castellan x gn!reader

w.c: 1k (got a tad carried away, oh well)

content: fluff?, gn!reader, reader is a little… dumb(?), not in camp... or canon tbh, it snowed !, established relationship, there's like... two swear words, readers favorite color is green because that's my favorite color (duh)

warning: not edited, i was writing it literally right before i went to bed so if something doesn't make sense... ignore it <3 I also got the idea for this from a prompt generator, so 🤷🏻‍♀️

For the past couple of days you have been wanting to go to your boyfriend’s home, but it’s been snowing. And it’s been a little while since the two of you had last seen each other, since you’re too busy with school work and your jobs. So, when you finally got a proper day off, you jumped at the opportunity to visit and relax with your lover.

Now, instead of walking to the front door and being a normal person, you decided to have a little fun with all the good packing snow around you. You had made a small snowball and thought it’d be a good way to get your boyfriend’s attention if you threw it at his bedroom window. You giggle to yourself at the thought of his confused face after you throw it and it makes a loud ‘thud!’ on the glass. You take a second to compose yourself before aiming and… there’s no thud. No indication of the snowball hitting anything for that matter. You look down at your hand and find it empty before turning back to look at the window where your snow-covered boyfriend, Luke, is now staring at you with a blank face, “What… Is wrong with you?”

“Ah! Sorry, I didn’t think your window was open! It was supposed to be this cute thing, I was gonna throw the snowball at your window and supri-” You’re cut off by him laughing. He was laughing? Your brows furrow together as you move closer to the window, to him, and notice the lack of screen. Then you notice the rest of his room, it’s cozy looking with all the decor and dark, navy blue sheets and blankets on his bed. “You… You’re not mad, right?”

“No sweetheart, I’m not mad,” He shakes his head and helps you in through the window before closing it for good. His curly, brunette hair sags and drips a bit from the now melted snow, “I just can’t believe you thought it’d be a good idea to throw that instead of tapping on the window or knocking on the front door,” there’s a hint of amusement in his voice as he takes a seat back on his bed, binders and books sprawled on the blue sheets, some wet from the snow and others untouched completely.

“HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW YOU HAD IT OPEN WITH NO SCREEN?”

“You could’ve actually looked?” He responds with a cheeky grin gracing his features.

“Oh whatever, Castellan,” You roll your eyes and plop down on his bed beside him. Your eyes scan his room, taking in your surroundings. As you look around you notice a familiar bracelet sitting on his semi-cluttered desk, “Is that the friendship bracelet I made you… when was that? 3 years ago?” You take notice of the way his cheeks flush and he hesitates to answer your question. You shake your head in response as you work to move his books and papers off his bed, “Look, I don’t care that you kept it, but gods it hurts my eyes to look at.”

“Are you calling your own handiwork an eyesore?”

“Yes! Because it is!”

“Nuh uh.”

“Did you just say nuh uh?” You shake your head at him as you set his stuff down on his desk, swiping the bracelet in the process. You move back over to his bed and reach for his hand, gently sliding the piece of crappy handmade jewelry onto his wrist, “If I wear mine 24/7, you have to wear yours all the time too.”

His face contorts to a look of confusion as his eyes move from your face to your wrist where he sees the matching bracelet to the one you placed on him, “You… You actually wear yours?”

“Well yeah! Why wouldn’t I?” You tilt your head in confusion.

“Well I just thought that…” His voice trails off as he fails to find the right words. You look at him expectantly as your hands motion for him to ‘spit it out.’ Luke lets out a soft sigh before shaking his head, his brown curls bouncing with the motion, “I don’t know. I didn’t think you’d keep it.”

“Luke, honey, we’ve been dating for what… a year now? Do you seriously not know me that well? What’s my favorite color?”

“Isn’t it forest green?”

You smile at him and press a soft, chaste kiss to his cheek, “Okay, I guess you can have a pass this time.”

“Oh yay. How lucky of me! I looooove freebies,” Luke rolls his eyes, the sassy man apocalypse got this one too… You shake your head at him and sigh while ruffling his hair with a smile. And that’s how the two of you decide to spend the rest of the day. Bickering, throwing sass, and making the smallest things out to be bigger than they are because that’s just how you two are.

Hours later, the sun was starting to set, making the sky explode in beautiful shades of pinks and oranges. “You still never explained why your window doesn’t have a screen in it, or why it was open. I mean do you seriously need your window open when it’s 5 degrees outside?” You ask as you look up at him from your spot in his arms. The warmth of the blankets and his body wrapped around yours are enough to lull you to sleep but you fight it back, forcing your eyes open. Luke’s chest rumbles as he laughs softly in response to your question. “Let’s just say a little birdy told me you’d try to come over today,”

“So you’re telling me you took the screen out of your window and left it open for gods know how long because a quote unquote little birdy told you I was coming?”

“That’s what I said, yeah.”

“Sometimes I wish you could just tell me the truth!”

“I AM telling the truth,” Luke huffs and sits up, the blankets around you moving with him as he disentangles from you. You sit up too, following the warmth of his body in a desperate need for it to be wrapped around you once again. “You just don’t want to listen to me because I sassed you one too many times.”

“You wish!”

“Oh so now you want a sass off, is that it?”

#luke castellan #luke castellan x reader #luke castellan x you #luke castellan imagine #pjo series #percy jackson series #luke castellan pjo #percy jackson #percy jackson tv show #pjo tv show #i love him so much #i can fix him #hes so babygirl #i want him

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perfectlovevn · 2 months

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Hello!! I just finished playing Perfect Love and OMGGG, I LOVED ITT. The entire plot-line and game concept was extremely unique!! And ouuhhh I loved Milo the most <33. Best boy, really.

Is there anything else you can mention about Milo? Like some sweet fun facts about him that were not mentioned in the game? I'd really like to know him full on out! Otherwise, that's all. Have a good day, afternoon, or night!! :D

Wooo! I'm glad you liked it! It always makes me happy to hear!

I did have a list of things here about Milo, but here are some more.

Pre Milo:

In theory, Milo can have multiple forms, not just Violence and Manipulation. He can be motherly, competitive, preppy, vain, anything so as long as Eris is able to influence them in that way.

In the same vein, Milo is actually a really fast learner, as you can see in the game. He doesn't think he is but under the pressure of wanting to make sure that his love doesn't leave him, he learns and understands remarkably fast.

Milo is deathly afraid of bugs, as seen in the manipulation route. I guess that's what happens when you're forced to eat insects as child. Thanks bullies.

I think I should probably make him shorter but I headcannoned him to be about 6ft. It's literally because I'm really bad with heights so I wanted a good round number.

He really likes rabbits/bunnies as it's his favorite animal. He still has his first bunny stuffed animal that he had as a child and has repaired it several times. He likes large lop bunnies the most but his parents wouldn't let him keep it when he was smaller.

His major is school is kinesiology for the sole reason that I think it would be funny that he's kind of buff under all those clothes. He probably does work out on occasion, but considering how sad he is I don't think he always maintains it.

The backpack he is wearing actually handmade by him. He actually is pretty good at handmade crafts and makes a lot of stuff, however, he usually ends up not finishing them or throwing them away because he ultimately thinks its useless.

If you make anything handmade for him, no matter how bad you think it is, he will keep it. He also would probably add something onto it because he can't help himself.

If given clothing, handmade or bought, he will try to sew something onto it unless you tell him not to.

He is pretty good basic first aid because he always had to patch himself up when he was growing up.

If you access the scene in the code, you'll find that he likes more relaxing games like Stardew Valley, Spiritfarers, Animal Crossing, etc.

When holding hands, he will usually hold Eris by the fingers, not the palms for some reason.

Manipulation Milo:

He's learned he's like rubbing his face on things he likes (not at all influenced by my habit of doing that). Because of that, he likes to rub against Eris's hair a lot.

Pre Milo can actually hold his alcohol pretty well because of his size, but doesn't drink much and gets sleepy pretty fast after drinking. Manipulation Milo has embraced this and now basically can drink a ton without getting wasted. Tends to be a lot more clingy towards Eris the more he drinks.

Manipulation Milo practices speaking like Eris by recording them when he thinks they're not noticing. Practices a lot in the mirror to be as close to them as possible when talking.

Has learned to have a strong appreciation of cats and they come flock to him when nearby. Also has learned how to purr.

When holding Eris's hands, he tends to sweat a lot. Eris, I imagine can't hold his hand for very long without it getting soaked.

He never wears the first earrings that Eris gave him and keeps them preserved somewhere in his room. Always wears copies of it in case it ever gets lost or stolen.

Changed his eating habits to appear more thinner and dainty, to match his new personality and appearance.

Has gotten really good with social games, so much so that in some groups they can't play it anymore because he always wins. Also is surprisingly good at Co-op, especially with Eris.

Violence Milo:

Probably won't admit it, but likes being headpatted. Will come towards Eris and slightly nudge his head towards their hand to indicate they want to be headpatted, but will never ask them.

Eats a lot more now than he did previously. Pre Milo ate more like a bird, but Violence Milo devours his food. Seeing him eat meat is like watching a dog tear apart steak.

Because of this, he's also learned how to cook more meals. Before Milo just cooked to survive, but now Violence Milo makes pretty good meals. Will cook anything Eris asks.

Has gotten more into shooters and fighting games. He actually seems to have really good reaction timing now compared to what he was like before.

When holding Eris's hands, tends to squeeze too hard before loosening it because he gets shy. He's working on not doing that but Eris's hands have been crushed multiple times before.

Really into wolves and big dogs. Really likes german shepards and watching him play with dogs is like night and day because he's so mushy around them .

Probably has a punching bag with Ryan's face on it somewhere in his room. That picture has been replaced over and over again and that punching bag looks like it's on the brink of breaking.

Growls and whimpers in his sleep sometimes. When his back or head is stroked, it turns into a more comfortable and happy growl and he tries to hug whatever is closest to him. If it's mentioned to him by Eris, he'll probably get embarrassed. Being big spooned will also cause his leg to shake for a bit before he ends up sleeping soundly.

I hope I remember a lot of these facts later because I feel like some of this stuff I just made up on the spot.

#perfectlovevn #male yandere #milo asks #yandere vn #yandere #yandere boy #about milopre #about manipulation milo #about violence milo

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markantonys · 5 months

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Ok I just need to come here and say: got costumes were not that great. They were showing off with the embroidery, but it was made purposefully “rustic” which contributed to it looking unprofessional, and made Cersei look like an idiot. The embroidery was very detailed, true, but you couldn’t see it while watching, it just looked like a blob usually.

The colours were dull, and most of the costumes were not well thought through. And also I don’t really think they fit that well? what looked great on Lena, looked very questionable on Sophie, which was not supposed to be happening. I’m not even going to discuss the jewelry.

Wot costumes are much better, are clearly comfortable for actors to be in (remembering Sophie again and how awkward she moves in the dresses sometimes, and like compared to the way Madeleine and Zoe look and move, even though they have spent most of the second season in uncomfortable clothes), show status clearly without the insane classism of got “you are either wealthy and beautiful or literally live in a pigsty” and are weather appropriate. And they embody the “early 90s late 80s fantasy looks” much better than got. So in my book wot is definitely much better.

Sorry I’m the costume rant anon. Wanted to add that a lot of costumes in got and wot have a similar silhouette and the difference in quality is like. Obvious. I know it’s subjective but like. I think we have been gaslit that got costumes are THAT good

iiiinteresting! i only know GOT costumes from seeing them around social media, so i can't weigh in here since i haven't seen them in context while actually watching an episode, so it is interesting to get a perspective from someone who's watched both shows! (and who knows stuff about costumes and how to judge quality - i don't at all haha i just go "oh that looks pretty, i like it!")

but i definitely agree that WOT costumes look generally pretty comfortable in the sense that i buy real people would actually wear these clothes day-to-day (i mean, except for statement pieces like lanfear's TAR dominatrix outfit or siuan's ceremonial attire). one that jumps to mind right away is one of alanna's s2 outfits - super pretty, but also looks quite cozy for just a normal day at the tower teaching novices!

and that's a really great point about how status comes across in WOT costumes. here, we can obviously tell that moiraine is upper class and egwene is a humble villager, but egwene's outfit is still pretty and well-made and colorful and clean, just simpler fabric & style than moiraine's (and she gets to wear jewelry too despite being a humble villager, just simpler jewelry than moiraine. and her skirt is a cute plaid pattern and she has a nice dash of simple, handmade-looking embroidery on her top - perhaps she added that embroidery herself to jazz up her Best Feastday Shirt!)

#anonymous #answered

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agoracactus · 1 year

Text

GOW x Reader - Real Life AU Pt.1

i couldnt fit everyone in here so i thought id do a part two for the aesirs. if u got anyone u wanna see lemme know!

question, would ppl wanna read odin x reader?

or mimir?

Warning: no proofreading as im doing this late with my eyes half closed again

Kratos

He came from a military family, was raised with strict discipline, which gave him a stern and rigorous manner.

He's a huge man, tall and very well-built. Very. Intimidating. You would have stayed as far away from him as possible if not for your curiosity.

At the start of your relationship, you relied a lot upon Atreus- Kratos's son- to be the middleman of your conversation. After a lot of "practice" and determination, you're now confident to read his emotions and have a general understanding of what he's trying to say (but not saying).

He was a general in his country, then got a dishonorable discharge. Got into business with the local cartel for a while, brought down the cartel single-handedly, and is now an independent contractor doing construction work. You often joke that he should get his life story made into a movie.

You love that under all the hard shell and tough demeanor is a big warm heart. While he secretly admires you wearing your heart on your sleeves- although he worries from time to time for you rarely let your guard up.

He doesn't talk about his past much, even after dating you for some time. It was frustrating at first, you thought he either didn't trust you or wasn't serious about the relationship. After some heated arguments, you two finally talked it out. You'd patiently wait till the day he's ready to open up about his past, and it would be perfectly fine if he never want to.

Speaking of heated arguments, it is rare to happen. He's a very logical person and straightforward. And slowly he's learning to open up and communicate more.

He had 2 marriages before, both gave him bitter-sweet memories. On your anniversary, with Atreus's help, you dug out the very few photos he had of his family, framed them yourself (with handmade wooden frames, you had multiple cuts following those tutorials on youtube), and gave it to him over dinner.

You were so nervous that he might see it as crossing his boundaries that you thought you'd throw up, instead he almost choked up.

You helped him hang up the photos on the entry wall afterward.

And he started liking his pictures taken especially when it's with you.

Atreus gave him a film camera for his birthday. So he started the hobby of photography, and even learned how to develop photos.

He writes poems for you.

You submitted some of his photos to a local photography contest, and he won the second prize.

He prefers the old-school stuff, for the life of him couldn't catch up with all the new techs. And he hated using smart phones. Later you found out it was because his fingers are too thick for a small smart phone screen, so you got him an ipad. Now he facetime everybody if he needs anything and puts the tablet by his ear to listen.

Drives a 4 -door pickup, and wouldn't let anyone drive his precious car. Not even Atreus.

You often buy him clothes, knowing he would look good in either style- also knowing that if you don't care about what he wears he would wear whatever flannel he has in his closet- often with some holes.

He does not care about whether it's hot or cold, he basically wears the same thing all the time. You don't know how he is warm when he's only wearing a t-shirt in the snow, while you wrapped yourself up like an onion

Not like you wanna complain though, it's nice to have a human heater in bed keeping your feet warm.

Has a friend called Mimir, a somewhat hippy-looking man. He helps with Krato's company's finance and other paperwork stuff. Unlike his appearance, according to Kratos, he's actually very smart.

You often wonder how these two people become friends in the first place.

adult!Atreus

Works at a wildlife rescue organization, and travels all the time to help all sorts of animals.

You two met on a rescue mission. He admires your compassion and love towards the animals, and you love his capability of handling hurt and tense beasts.

When you first met, he had a full head of braided locs. He claimed that since he couldn't grow a full and luscious beard, he overcompensate with his hair.

Likes braiding your hair, and you'd let him do it because he can do all sorts of braids and does it better than you.

Used to participate in archery tournaments when he was still in school, won lots of trophies and medals. Now he plays amateur games.

He brought you to an archery range for your first date. You being competitive thought it would be a piece of cake. But couldn't even draw the bow string.

You thought you were going to impress him, instead, he impressed you with extreme patience and well-articulated instructions. You were able to hit a target after half a day's training thanks to him.

He loves to read. You planned a treasure hunt at the bookstore for your anniversary, looking for books to gift each other and to read together. He always talked about it to his friends, showing off how thoughtful you are.

He just loves showing you off to people.

He's as stubborn as a mule. Whatever he set his mind to, no one could change his mind. Sometimes you admire his level of determination, other times you wanna bang your head on the wall.

He has a huge dog named Fenrir, Atreus rescued him when he was just a little puppy. The first time you visit his house, Fen tackled you- it was almost traumatizing. Atreus told you it was because Fen really liked you, and he doesn't usually take a liking to people.

Of course he would be a prankster, often pulling small pranks on you (harmless though), you are constantly amazed at how creative he is, and would often laugh at these pranks together.

At first you were scared of his father, a big man who rarely speaks let alone smiles. Sometimes you wonder if he really loves his son, when he barely gave Atreus any response to whatever he was sharing

Plus , what loving parent lets their kids call them "sir"?

Later in your relationship, after many childhood stories Atreus shared with you, you realized how wrong you were. You apologized to Kratos over family dinner.

When you two have a fight, he'd storm off, usually out of the house. He'd return after a few hours with flowers or other gifts to apologize, and would be cool to sit down and talk about your issues.

Freya

She's a florist/herbalist, has a dainty flower shop on the street where you live. Before you two got together you often went and got flowers for your mother.

She'd insist that you pursued her first.

Has lots of plants in the apartment, and a small herbal garden on the balcony.

If you're good with plants, she'd argue which plant loves her the most. If not, you're forbidden from even going near her babies.

The pair of you each own a cat before your relationship, but somehow both of the cats seem to like/obey her more.

She has published several books about herbalism, led a few workshops, and there's a small community on social media praising her work. You often joke that it's her little cult.

Your parents adore her, especially your mother. Whenever you two went over for dinner they'd hang out in the kitchen, cooking and chatting. To your parents, Freya would be the one to go to for opinions of stuff instead of you.

Your mother knits her a sweater every winter. You don't even get a hand-made sweater from your mother that often.

Had a marriage with a businessman before, and had a son who died in an accident. She has the son's photo on her phone's lock screen, and would curse every time the businessman shows up on the news.

Has a twin brother who she worries about all the time. He travels around and is rarely home, when he's home she'd cook him a meal fit for a king.

When she was young she had to work several different jobs to raise herself and her brother. Even though she doesn't have to worry about finance or her brother anymore, a lot of the time she still acts as a "mother", you'd have to remind her to lean on you more.

You two often go for a weekend drive, have picnics at the beach or in the forest, enjoying nature together. For some reason small animals like birds or squirrels- sometimes foxes and rabbits- love her.

Every month you two go help at the local rescue center on at least one of the weekends. It still amazes you how she knows herbal remedies for animals.

You'd apologize first every time when you had an argument. Most of the time it would be your fault anyways. Your queen could never be wrong.

Freyr

He's the lead singer/songwriter of a popular band, doing alternative music. The band has a decent amount of followers but their music is mediocre. You had a theory that most of their fans are in love with the band members, not their music. (He wouldn't agree though)

Very charismatic, often is surrounded by a bunch of people in social situations. It's hard not to feel jealous, but every time when he sees you from the crowd, he'd pish whatever conversation aside and get to you.

Sometimes you go visit him when he's on tour, his band-mates adore you, but would constantly make fun of him, saying he talks about you too much.

An indoor person, doesn't like going out very much. He claims that it's because he travels a lot for work, and he wants to be as still as possible in his spare time.

Has long hair, and often has it in a messy bun. Sometimes you'd feel playful and ask to braid his hair. He'd let you, and if he has a show in a few days he'd make sure the braids last till then, and would tell the whole crowd you did his hair.

He's a great cook, often cooks for you. He explained that he used to cook a lot when he was a kid.

Definitely a gamer, and is very competitive. Although he is not a poor loser, and would let you win if you lose too much.

Sings in the shower. Before you moved to a better apartment with better sound-proofed walls, your neighbors often come to knock on the door to complain about how loud he is. (yes other aspects as well he is looooud)

Obviously, he sings for you all the time. He claims that after you two got together, all of the songs he made are either for you or about you.

And he praises you all the time, you often giggle at the creative compliments.

He's more into anniversaries than you, insists that you celebrate every one of them. From the day you first met to the day you move in with him. Even when he's away on the tour, he'd make sure to send you presents/flowers and facetime you.

Also very into holidays, he makes sure he would be home during any of the holidays. Sometimes you two visit Freya and celebrate together.

Bought you a puppy for your birthday, though in fact he was the one who wanted the puppy. He fell in love at first sight at the store and insisted on getting the pup. He named the golden retriever Ingrid.

Has a twin sister, you've met her a few times. Every time you see her you think that "majestic" is the perfect word for her. Though she's very friendly.

You'd ask her about his favorite food, and cook it for him, surprising him when he gets home.

You two don't really fight, he'd make it up to you before you even get upset. And you are absolutely perfect in his eyes.

adult!Angraboda

She's an artist, known for her unique way of utilizing color.

You first met at her exhibition, you didn't expect to be fascinated by this random artist at the exhibition your friend dragged you to. Soon you became her number-one fan, showing up at all of her exhibitions.

She'd recognize you and come greet you every time, greetings gradually evolved into coffee and dinner dates. Then it became nightly phone calls. One night she just blurted out a confession over the phone.

You two share a studio apartment, allowing you each to have your own space while enjoying each other's company.

She's pretty messy. When you first moved in, her stuff was left everywhere, you could find brushes on the stove, remote in the fridge, and clothes on the back of every chair you own. You had to teach her how to be more organized (her manager was very grateful). Now she keeps her messiness in her own space.

She's an animal lover, owns two dogs and three cats. Whenever you two watch something together and some animal shows up, she'd wanna have them as a pet.

She doesn't drive, she either takes public transport or rides a bike.

She doesn't really like living in the city, and is saving money to buy a little country house.

A spiritual person. You always find some crystals in the house, sometimes, she'd drop some rocks in your bag claiming it would help with fatigue or anxiety. The apartment always smells nice with the burning incent.

She also loves to bake, often experiments with different recipes, adding a sweet and buttery smell to the apartment.

You learned how to meditate from her. When you start working from home, she'd grab you every afternoon to do a 30 min meditation.

You do weekly pamper nights together, having face masks on, rubbing each other's feet, watching movies, and catching up.

Eventually you two would move to a nice little country house. And slowly but surely she would turn it into a small farm with sheep and chicken and goat and other animals.

You would get a secondhand car so it's easier to get groceries. You'd give her a ride if she has work in the city, and have a launch date in your favorite cafe.

You two never fight, whatever problem you have you are always comfortable talking to each other.

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inkwolvesandcoffee · 8 months

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TH Characters and Crochet

TH Masterlist

This concept was prompted by my new hobby and led to some very interesting (and, in my opinion, good) plot points. Henceforth, I might turn some of these wee ideas into full-fledged one-shots. For now, though, enjoy!

Tag List: @potter-solomons @buttercupsandboys @zablife @mollybegger-blog @liliac-dreamer @vir-tual @rose-like-the-phoenix @babaohhhriley @solomons-finest-rum @hoodeddreams13 @moral-terpitude @onlydeadcells @hecatemoon87 @wandawiccan60 @dreamlandcreations

Tommy Conlon

The art of crochet is an absolute mystery to him. Nevertheless, though he won’t admit it plainly since he’s been raised and trained to keep his emotions in check, he absolutely loves and adores the husky you made him.

It had been another fretful night, one that leaves you alone in the bed and him either wandering about the beach nearby or leads to a night of training at the boxing school. Either way, Tommy shut you out yet again, refusing to show you even a glimpse of the chaos he carries with him.

Later that day, the short night was followed by an equally as plagued nap. It's that he woke up before it was too late, but otherwise he'd have fallen off of the sofa and face planted into the soft carpet (which you had bought after the one time that actually did happen). Now, it’s his snuggle buddy and you’ve noticed it’s helped with the nightmares caused by his PTSD. So nowadays the silence when you come home after work is laced by soft snoring, an oddly comforting sound that stems from the most heartwarming sight.

Tommy, tightly holding on to his husky as he snuggles it. His ear phones are connected to his laptop, an ASMR video with rain sounds displayed on the screen.

Perfectly content.

At rest.

Alfie Solomons

You were already magical in his eyes, but the fact you can create stuff out of yarn makes you even more so. He still thinks your hooks look uncannily like embalming tools, but he adores the scarf you made him. He wears it whenever he can, loving the texture as well as your scent.

Alfie proudly promotes your stuff wherever he goes and helps you set up at markets. He’d like for you to do only markets in Margate and Camden so he can keep a close eye on you. However, should it be anywhere else, rest assured he’ll hang around the area and make sure you eat and drink properly. He’ll literally pop by a Prêt-A-Manger to buy lunch and deliver it to you or, as is more often the case, pull you away from your stall so you two can sit down in a coffee shop or restaurant together.

He loves it whenever you text him to provide him with photos of a new project you completed. Lastly, Alfie also always asks what you’re working on.

Forrest Bondurant

He’s actually the one who taught you how to crochet (and secretly adored how shyly you asked him to teach you). He’s a stern teacher, but a good one. Forrest is a man of many hidden talents (like baking, he makes a mean apple pie). Then again, so is his brother Howard, who is great at knitting. Jack, on the other hand, has skipped out on the creative gene though he’s been trying to teach himself how to sew.

Forrest and you do markets together. However, he mostly does the general set-up while you busy yourself with the customers. Because even though he’s very business savvy, the quiet force behind Little Moonshiners (specialized in the cutest handmade stuffies) is in fact a social disaster.

He does like talking to you, though.

(And has made you a custom wolf stuffie, which has become your all-time favourite)

Eddie Brock

Eddie and Venom alike love the stuffies you make, but V thinks his host sometimes takes his support of your hobby a bit too far. Recently, he’s asked you to teach him and ever since you’ve been trying to figure it out together. Eddie seems to finally have the basic stitches down while Venom is bordering on giving up. Not even reading the body language of his host makes him understand crochet. So he’s now your ultimate yarn spinner.

Eddie, on the other hand, has become a little competitive. Though he tries to be inconspicuous, you occasionally catch him glancing your way in an attempt to estimate whether your way of crocheting a certain project is more efficient and neater than his. To this extent, he proposes to try a new pattern together (and compare the results).

He does admit, without a second’s doubt, you’re the queen of plushies.

Eddie loves the journaling aspect of it too. He keeps a neat and very minimalist journal. Well, he tries to be minimalist and objective (as his work has taught him to be), but often finds himself writing about you, pondering your opinion on his works.

And Venom loves to tease him about said entries by mentioning them to you.

Farrier

He’s loath to admit it, but he can’t help but think of his Nan whenever he sees you crochet. The confession almost slipped out when you gave him a cream coloured crocheted turtleneck sweater for Christmas, the reason you puzzled him with taking measurements three months earlier. And it’s this turtleneck he wears quite often and takes with him whenever he’s sent abroad.

Because your scent lingers in it, mixed with his.

Because it’s a piece of home.

It’s you when you aren’t there.

And it’s the only thing that’ll prevent him from crying when he's so far from home it feels like his heart is torn apart at the seams.

Reggie Kray

Reggie loves to watch you work. He doesn’t need to understand it, finding perfect contentment in seeing you absolutely absorbed in your projects. He’s simply happy to plop you in his lap and rest his head on your shoulder, though that does little to help you focus on the pattern or the tutorial you’re watching.

He gives the best hand massages too! Whether you asked for one or not, Reggie will give you one regardless after you’ve put the hook down for the time being. Sometimes he even stops you after a certain period of time, knowing how your tight grip can cause your hand to cramp after carefully observing you for a while.

Although he does not say it whenever the topic comes up, he will blatantly admit when riled up enough that part of the reason he wants out of the gangster life is to permanently give you the peace and quiet that surrounds you whenever you crochet.

And stills his inner storm.

Also, have a wee treasure I accidentally found😉

#Alfie Solomons #Alfie Solomons imagine #Peaky Blinders #Peaky Blinders imagine #Venom #Eddie Brock #Tommy Conlon #Forrest Bondurant #Farrier #Reggie Kray

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yourlocalartsonist · 11 days

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ROTTMNT Moths Fly In Packs - Chapter Nine

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT I'M ALIVE AND I AM SO SORRY! It's been way too long and I'm genuinely sorry this chapter took several fucking months to make but IT'S FINALLY DONE! It ended up way longer than I intended man, I THOUGHT THIS WAS GONNA BE SHORT. It's my longest chapter yet fun fact. I don't even regret it really, it benefited so much from the extra effort. Hopefully the next few chapters won't take this long but I will refrain from jinxing myself again so🧍‍♀️Anyway enough blabbering, hope y'all enjoy this one ;w;

CREDIT To the MFIP Team: Thank you to @yosajaeofficial, @urlocalmj, misfortun3_ismyname (on TikTok), @chaoticspeedrun, @ramblehour and @goldanrabbit for being my lovely editors! MAN did they give this chapter a lot of polish-

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Chapter One

Disclaimer: Chapter involves verbal abuse/manipulation, harassment, gaslighting, depressive thoughts, violence, blood, mentions of a wounded limb, brief mentions of nausea, displayed anxiety, and curse words. If you're sensitive to that, scroll past and stay safe!

I rushed around my room throwing shit on as fast as I could. Not fast enough apparently, since my phone’s vibrating like it’s gonna explode.

It’s late as hell right now, but Zane insisted on meeting up. Pretty randomly at, like, 11pm on a school night. I was initially planning to reject the idea or ghost with the excuse of sleeping, but it’s been a good while since I actually did hang out with him. I know insomnia’s gonna keep me up for a bit anyway, so why the hell not? We might even have fun! Just wish he’d stop flooding my notifs like I didn't already say I was actively getting ready.

I looked in the mirror, checking to see if I was presentable enough for the outside realm. My reflection’s the same as always; for better or worse. Still the same pink dress, same green skirt, same boots. Can’t forget the gold earrings; the only emergency asset I held onto. I don’t know what I expected. I don’t have much to work with. Guess the gloves from Donnie are new, at least. But I’m still getting… bored? A change in appearance—even a small one—might be able to fill that hole for a while. Keep me distracted.

Maybe I could do something with my hair tonight? I still have Mi’s ribbon lying here somewhere.

I ignored Zane’s digital pestering and spent a few extra minutes shuffling through drawers and boxes, eventually finding her long, white ribbon—handmade from moth silk. She wore it all the time. I barely remember her hair being fully down unless she was sleeping or about to shower. Except for that one night, of course. The night she left and was never found again. She almost did take the ribbon with her. Had her hair done up in a bun and everything, even a little fancier than usual. But she took it off once she saw me behind her, barely reflected in the mirror. She crouched down, placed it in my tiny palms, and gave me her wonderfully warm smile. It’s the last thing she left me with. The last gift she could ever give me.

After that, the ribbon’s survived years of storage and then more years of… unconventional bullshit use. I know moth silk ain’t the weakest thing on Earth but I’ve deadass used this ribbon as a make-shift pulley system to sneak stuff into my room through the window before, some of which weighed more than me! Its got the endurance of a Nokia at this point.

I’ve barely used the ribbon for its intended purpose, though. I mean, how could I? I’m not my mom no matter how similar we look. Maybe this is a me-thing, but I always felt wearing the ribbon would be like replacing her with myself.

Although, I’m sure Mi would’ve loved it if I wore it.

Using the ribbon, I tied my hair into a ponytail and styled it as a loose bow, just to see how it would look. The white tails gently draped over my back down to my hips. I never quite realized how long the ribbon was before now. I don’t look as fancy or pretty as mom did, but it’s the best I’ve got. It… it doesn’t look bad, though, I think. It actually looks kinda nice! Maybe I’ll use it a bit more often.

My phone’s repeated buzzing snapped me out from my trance. “Alright, alright, shut up already.” I groaned. Zane’s growing impatient.

You: hey sorry I jsut finished getting ready

You: heading out the door now! :3

Fuck doors. Sneaking out became a whole lot easier ever since I did it from my window, but he doesn’t have to know that. I can already imagine him scolding me about the dangers of dropping down from high places, even with the fire escape there. He wouldn’t be wrong, per se, but at this point I’ve handled worse. Would probably send him into cardiac arrest if he knew what I’d actually been up to these few months.

I sprinted to the spot we agreed to meet up at. Zane was already there, leaning against the wall with his hands stuffed in his pockets like always.

“Salena! Hey!” He lit up like a star when he saw me, beckoning me over.

God, for a sour person, he has such a sweet smile. He’s usually so good at being intimidating and frightening. Yet the second he brings out his smile, all that built-up fear washes away like it was never there to begin with.

“I almost thought you wouldn’t come.”

“Well, I figured I could use some fresh air.” I tilted my head to the side, eyeing his fit. “You left your sweater at home?”

“Hm?” He followed my gaze to his pitch black tank top in place of the usual outfit. “Oh, right! Yeah, the weather’s too hot for a sweater tonight. Forgot I changed it, really.”

Now that I’m looking closer, his choker’s missing too. It probably didn’t match with the top. Seems like it got swapped with a black watch on his left wrist that complimented the look way more. Doesn’t matter what he pretends to be though, I know Zane pays very close attention to his appearance. He’s gotta maintain the rep of our grade’s “Pretty Boy” after all. When it comes to him, every little detail matters.

Wait a sec…

“What happened to your arm?”

I couldn’t see ‘till he turned towards me but his left arm had a deep bluish-purple bruise spread across it. It looked like it was from something long like a pipe or a bat. Either way, it was gnarly enough to worry me.

“Oh that. It’s nothing too bad.” He shrugged.

“You kiddin’ me? It looks awful! What happened?” I carefully grabbed his arm and took a closer look at the mark. I wish Leo was here, but thankfully I’ve picked up a little medic knowledge from him so I can at least tell if a bone is broken or not.

“Hey, don’t get your feathers all fluffed! I got a little hurt rough-housing with the guys, that’s all. You know how they are.”

“Rough-housing? Or a secret murder attempt?” I was only being half sarcastic. It wouldn’t be out of character for them.

“Don’t worry! It’s really sweet of you to care, but they’d never dare hurt me on purpose! Now, on another note…“ He paused for a moment, taking a proper look at me. For a little bit, I couldn’t tell why he smirked. “Looks like someone wanted to look cute tonight, ey? You wore your hair up.”

“Huh?” I touched my hair, forgetting I changed it earlier. “Oh, um, yeah! I-I did! I thought I’d give it a try. Does it… um, you know, look too bad or weird or?…”

“No! No, it… it looks really pretty.” Oh god, that’s a relief to hear! I was so paranoid it wouldn’t suit— “I gotta ask, though.”

I caught him inching closer. I tried creating space, but quickly realized I was up against the wall again. Should’ve been more careful about that. His hand reached out, bringing back all sorts of cringe-inducing memories. He didn’t technically pin me like last time, but he tucked my bangs back behind my ear. Feeling his fingers come into contact with my skin almost feels just as nauseating, though.

“How’d you know I had a thing for girls in ponytails?”

And fuck, he made it weird again.

“Z-Zane?”

“Yeah?…” WHY ISN’T HE GETTING THE HINT!? “You know, you always look so soft when you dress up. You just bloom.”

“…So! What are we doing tonight?”

His smile slightly dropped, likely upset I ruined whatever moment he was trying to have. Honestly, didn’t matter to me, as shitty as that sounds. I just wanted to change the topic so he’d step back a bit. We go through this every time; this stupid ass, awkward aura. I wish it would stop happening.

On the bright side, he did step back and redirect his focus to answering my question. On the not so bright side, his answer was a pathetic shrug.

“I don’t know.”

“Y-you… What do you mean you don’t know? I snuck out here in the middle of the night, you told me it’d be something special! You’ve gotta have something planned.”

“Honest, I don’t! I thought it was beautiful outside and it reminded me of you. Wanted to see where such a lovely night could take us. I think that’s special enough, don’t you?”

“W-Well, I mean—“

He chuckled “What’s wrong? You’re not backing out now, are you?”

I may have praised his smile earlier, but right now it’s making my eye twitch. I’m a little peeved knowing he brought me out here for shits and giggles when I could’ve at least been resting in bed, replenishing some of my energy. I know I don’t have the best sleeping habits, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get tired from the constant action going on! I don’t even know how long he’s gonna keep me hostage for! But… he’s also right that it’d be kinda shitty to bail now. Besides, I’m already out here so…

I guess all that’s left to do is suck it up and try to make the best of it.

“Well, do you wanna… go for a walk or something?”

“Sounds perfect to me! Come on, hold my hand, Dove.”

For someone who supposedly didn’t have a plan, he sure took an awful lot of charge during that walk. He suggested we go to Central Park and practically dragged me there despite my common sense screaming to never go to that hellspawn at night. Although, I can’t complain too much. The park’s definitely the best place to see the stars, and tonight had clear skies! He made sure to keep a tight grip on me in case we ran into any classic New York weirdos anyway, so I should probably be less tense. I guess I got used to the guaranteed safety of having literal ninjas around me, I forgot what it was like hanging out with a regular person.

On top of that, Zane seemed really happy! Happier than I’ve seen him in a while, actually. He was giddily pointing out any interesting greenery we saw and rambling random facts he knew about them.

Even later, when we went and dined inside a relatively fancy restaurant, all he could focus on was the different plants they chose as decor. He’s such a huge nature geek, but he’d never let anyone know. Zane’s the type of guy to get 100% on a biology test and shamefully shove it in his backpack to avoid being labeled as a nerd. Being a nerd myself, I think it’s pretty cool, so I never understood it. But either way, I’m glad he feels safe around me. I’m glad he doesn’t hide around me.

I forgot about this side of him, I really did. The side that is my friend.

We were walking back to my place, taking in the bliss of the quiet night. Even if a part of me prefers the busier, noisy parts of the city, it’s really soothing to experience the calmer sides of it too. Everything about tonight feels nearly perfect. I’m surprised nothing ruined it. I’m debating if I could ruin it…

I really want to talk to him. I wanna bring up those photos, get some answers, put my strange emotions to rest once and for all. I wanna hear it from him that neither of them meant to hurt me. That this was just my mind screwing me over again. I need to know. I really need to know.

You know, friends are supposed to lend a shoulder when you need it.

I don’t want to ruin the night. But friendship takes risks sometimes. That’s what shows its strength, right?

I take a deep breath and go for the leap of faith.

“So, I was wondering—” “Salena, I wanted to ask—”

I really gotta work on my timing for these things.

“S-Sorry! You go first.”

He shook his head with a delicate smile. “Nah, it’s okay. You can go.”

“Are you sure? I-I mean it’s kinda complicated…”

“Yeah, I’m sure! I always love hearing you talk, anyway.”

“O-okay then, well…” My hands balled up into determined fists and I looked him right in the eyes. I have to put an end to this or I’ll never be able to move on. “I’ll be real, it might be a weird question.But you’re my friend and I really trust you a lot. I… I have to know this, so please don’t get mad.”

“Yeah…?” Why did he have to lean in closer…

I came this far, I’m not letting my tongue shut me up again.

“What’s going on with you and Jaiden?”

Immediately his demeanor changed. His posture slouched, the disappointment clear as day on his face. “Jaiden? You’re—you’re really thinking about… about them, now?”

“Yes, b-but I want to stop! That’s why I need to ask you this, so please bear with me, Zane.”

He leaned back with a hand on his hip, the other covering his face as he exhaled. “And here I was getting my hopes up for nothing.”

He would never think that I heard him; Zane’s a good whisperer. Unfortunately, my hearing rivals it.

He looked at me again; his eyes didn’t feel the same. “Okay, fine. What is it?”

I felt my stomach twist into itself. My chest began to ache. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was about to hurl.

It’s okay. Friends get a little upset at each other all the time. Doesn’t mean they’ll break apart. Don’t be a coward, Salena.

I told him about everything. The canceled plans, Jaiden’s distant behavior, the increase in their pics together on his Instagram. I vented about how frustrated I felt with seeing them spend so much time together and then completely ignore me. And then vented some more about how frustrated I felt from that frustration, how I knew it was wrong yet couldn’t help it seeping into my everyday life! I let out a lot of steam tonight, even things I didn’t plan on telling him. The only things I left out, honestly, were anything related to the turtles to hide their identity. And to avoid any irrelevant questions.

He seemed strangely chipper hearing all of this, a curiously amused smirk plastered on his face. Not the reaction I expected, but I guess it’s better than him flipping out like I thought he would.

“So, if I’m getting this right, you see me and Jaiden hanging out more often and it actually bothers you?”

“I don’t want it to but yeah, it bothers me a whole fucking lot. It’s taken over my life and I hate it! I hate being jealous! It’s so—“

“You’re jealous!? You’re jealous! Oh man, I can’t believe I am living in the same timeline where the Salena Moni is experiencing jealousy like every. Average. Lowlife. Person!”

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead and rub it in, why dontcha? That helps me so much.” I pouted.

He laughed, enjoying my misery. “I know, I’m sorry. Just, damn! Somewhere, pigs are flying aren’t they?” If Meat Sweats could fly, I’d be his murderous Cupid.

“Har har. I get it though. I mean, you know me! I’ve felt envious before, but jealous? How does anyone even deal with this…?” I held myself a little tighter.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Dove. It happens! Everyone gets a little jealous. It’s a normal thing to go through, Salena.”

“Yeah, I sure did want a normal life, so I guess I got what I wished for.” I can’t help feeling salty over all this.

He only laughed and patted my hair, fluffing up the ponytail a little.

“Hey, Zane? For the sake of my psyche, you sure I’m not a bad person for this?”

A tender sigh rang through my ears. “I’m sure. You could never be a bad person, Salena.”

…I never realized a husky voice like his could feel so honeyed.

But he’s right. I’m not a bad person, I’m just human. If both him and Raph said the same thing, it’s more likely to be true.

“And for the record, Jaiden and I are just friends right now. There’s nothing going on between us, so you don’t have to worry.”

“Uh… Cool? I… might be a little lost here. Why are you telling me that?”

“Reassurance, obviously.”

I blinked, not really getting it or knowing how to respond. He thought for a moment, then had a face of realization while he giggled.

“Oh my god, don’t tell me you’re actually that innocent! You’re so cute, I swear!” He booped my nose and leaned in again with a huge smile. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “You’re jealous because you have a crush.”

A crush?

“But why would I have a crush on Jaiden?”

“I’m just saying—Wait, rewind. A crush on Jaiden?” He physically paused for a bit before awkwardly laughing. “No, sweetie, you don’t get jealous of your crush, you get jealous of the people they’re with!”

“That’s why I’m asking. Why would I have a crush on Jaiden?”

…Why does the air feel colder all of a sudden?

The night was warm just a minute ago, but now it’s dead like the core of winter. His smile is long gone. His eyes, they’re slicing me in half. Is my breathing a little faster? He’s coming closer. I’m suddenly aware of just how alone we really are here in this silent little street.

“To be clear. Who are you jealous of.”

My throat clogged up. I blinked and lowered my eyes so he wouldn’t see the tears being fought back. I forgot this side of him, too. The side that made my heart close in on itself.

“Salena, don’t make me ask twice.”

“Of you.” I managed to let out. “J-jealous of you.”

He wouldn’t speak for a while. Only felt him staring me down like a predator stalking its prey, making me swallow to keep my throat from drying up. My hands felt so clammy, begging me to wipe them on my skirt. But I didn’t dare move. I couldn’t even look at him right now.

“Of fucking course you are.”

I knew it was coming, but I still flinched when he cursed with no shame, tugging his hair and punching the wall next to me. It’s stupid, isn’t it? I can handle giant mutants and a literal cult of evil, but Zane’s temper was not something to be messed with, and my unlucky ass did exactly that.

“Why did I ever expect anything different! Of course it’s me you’re jealous of! Why the fuck would you phrase it like that if you meant something else, god dammit!”

You’re gonna bleed if you keep doing that…

“Z-Zane, I’m sorry. I-I didn’t think it’d come off as me being jealous of Jaiden—“

“OBVIOUSLY, IT FUCKING WOULD!!!” He grabbed my shoulders, bringing me closer to him. I don’t know if it’d be an exaggeration to say I nearly got a panic attack from the action alone.

“When you say things like how you’re jealous of how much time Jaiden and I spend together, of course I think you’re jealous of them, not me! Why would I ever assume it was me! That never happens with anyone else! God, you’re such a fucking moron sometimes, I swear!”

“I'm sorry… P-please stop…”

“After everything we’ve fucking been through, everything I did for you! All you can ever do is somehow relate me back to Jaiden! There’s always someone else! I mean nothing to you, Salena! Don’t I!? I! Mean! Nothing!”

“I-I didn’t mean to, I promise—”

“THAT DOESN’T MATTER, IDIOT!”

He let go and pushed me back. Sometimes I overlook how much bigger Zane is compared to me. This is not one of those times.

“You know what? You know what’s funny, Salena? That night you’re so fucking fixated on, the one that’s consumed your ability to even think like a normal person? Yeah, I’ve got some news about that night.”

I just want to disappear…

“I asked Jaiden to go with me to that shitty party on purpose!”

…

What?

“I asked them on purpose, I posted those pictures on purpose! I did everything ‘cause I knew you’d see it! I thought maybe then, for once, you’d finally, finally feel a single ounce of longing for me! That was all I wanted!”

What.

“…You better be lying, Zane.”

“I’m not. And you deserve this.”

I glared at him the entire time while he was too focused on his own bullshit words to even notice. My arms burned with the sensation of my nails digging deeper and deeper. I hope they'll draw blood.

“You don’t understand, Salena! You keep saying all these… all these stupid fucking things that no one else says to me! Do you know what it does to me? If I had my way, I’d hold you forever and never let you go. No one’s shown me kindness like you.” I was so numb I couldn’t even react to him caressing my cheek. Only kept glaring.

“But then you barely ever give me the time of day! You’re barely ever with me! Fuck, honestly, you’re never with me anymore! I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not like you to say one thing and do another! You’re not that type of two-faced asshole! So why are you fucking acting like one!? Ever since that day you went to ‘hang out’ with that stupid drugged-out bitch you called a friend, you’ve never been the fucking same! With the way you act, I wouldn’t be fucking surprised if you got addicted and stay on the high 24/7!”

He’s… Is he talking about Mikey? That’s what this is about? Is he fucking serious right now.

“Who are you!? Where is my Salena?”

“Did you know Jaiden and I had plans that day?”

“No, I didn’t. I’m not stupid, I wasn’t gonna go that far. I wanted you to get a taste of what it felt to not be chosen, that’s it! Obviously, it was dumb to think it would work!” The dumb bitch sighed, exasperated. As if he had any right to be. “Seems you don’t have room for me in that big heart of yours after all, huh? Maybe I’m a dick for saying this, but it’s honestly karma that I happened to choose the one day you two were gonna hang out. That’s gotta be a sign, Salena.”

You never get the fucking hint, do you Zane Evans?

“I need to go.”

I couldn’t even get two steps in before he gripped my wrist to stop me.

“Wait, what do you mean go? Go where?”

“I meant exactly what I said! I’ve had enough. Now let go of me.”

I yanked my arm back and stormed off, Zane following close behind. At least, judging from the sound he was. I didn’t bother looking back.

“Hey! Your place is in the opposite direction!”

“Stop following me, I can go wherever I want!”

“Salena, seriously!? It’s already late, you’re gonna get lost! Come on, are you really that pissed off—”

“YES!!!”

I turned my heel and faced him.

“How are you even unsure of that!? You got upset I hung out with someone else for one day—a person I made plans with in advance, might I add—and you decided to take revenge on me!? Do you have any clue how fucked up that is!?”

“I got a little mad! So what? You’ve known me for two years! Stop overreacting about a harmless dig!”

“Harmless!? You have no idea what I’ve gone through this past month because of your little ‘harmless’ stunt! I’ve suffered so much because of you! I can’t even sleep because of you! God, sometimes you’re so—Ugh!”

I began counting down from ten to one, just like Raph taught. I shouldn’t say something I’ll regret later. Honestly, I shouldn’t have said anything at all.

He looked like a sad puppy. It’s clear he wasn’t expecting this. But somehow, my sympathy won’t halt my anger tonight.

“Salena, I… Look, I didn’t know you’d be so sensitive over this—“

“Zane, I really need to leave. I’m sorry I exploded like that, but it’s gonna happen again if I stay here any longer. So please, just stop following me. Hurting you would add more shit to my plate and I really don’t need that right now, okay?”

“N-no! Stay! I can make it up to you!”

“Another day, any day, but not now! Not now.”

I walked away and this time he didn’t follow.

“…Fine.”

I heard his footsteps stomp in the other direction, slowly fading away.

My own legs went faster till the wind consumed me.

The anger returned almost instantly after I knew he left. I’m happy I kept my cool during the end back there but holy fucking shit! What was he thinking!? I wanted answers tonight but I didn’t expect this! I thought I was overthinking again! I thought my brain made up the possibility that they ditched me intentionally! But no, turns out it wasn’t just Jaiden but Zane, too! What the fuck did I do to them? What did he mean I “deserved it”!?

I don’t get it, what is he expecting me to do? I know he… feels a certain way about me. But even then! I can’t just shit romantic feelings for him out my ass!

Ugh, so fucking stupid. I’m gonna lose my head if I keep thinking about this.

I wandered around the city some more and got back to the main road where a good handful of cars were passing again. It’s past 1am now and I’ve gotta get ready for school in less than five hours. But I know damn well I won’t sleep, not after this. I don��t wanna go home. Take me anywhere but home. I don’t feel like facing any of this right now, I…

I want somewhere I can feel safe for a while, just so the day won’t end on such a horrible note.

I pulled out my phone and opened the contacts. I wish I was one of those folks who didn’t have to think of someone before they dialed but alas, here I am.

I can’t talk to Jaiden.

I obviously can’t talk to Zane.

I don’t know if I can tell Casey any of this yet.

I’d love to talk to April but she’s probably asleep by now. But… but the guys might not be! They’re usually up at these sort of freakish hours of the night. I could try giving the group chat a call and hope for the best. I feel bad for bothering them so often but who else do I have right now?

It took three rings before the line went through.

“You are conversing with Donatell—Why is your screen so dark?”

Oh fucking lovely.

“H-hey, Donnie. Sorry, I didn’t realize it was a video call.”

As my luck would have it, Donnie was the one to pick up. No offense to him; he never did anything wrong. I’m just not entirely sure how he feels about me yet. So, having him answer when I’m already high on nerves isn’t what I pictured hoping for the best would result in. But he’s much, much better than being alone right now.

“Uh, what… Whatcha up to?”

“Oh, simply being my usual genius self to aid with our nightly hero duties! Sure, no regular teenager could detect a break-in on sensitive confidential info before the actual government could, but I, Othello Von Ryan, have proven to be no regular teen!”

“Yep, definitely the usual for you.”

Donnie’s def no less than Leo when it comes to being allergic to humility. Though, they both earned their egos. Donnie’s not wrong; not just any person could be nearly as smart as him.

“So, did you need anything fixed? You’re calling at a rather unusual hour for a school night.”

“Oh, no, not really. I mean, I was kinda out with a friend, but things… ended abruptly. I don’t really feel like sleeping right now. I wanted some company?”

He opened his mouth to respond but got interrupted by a familiar accent asking who was on the phone. The instant my name left his voice, three others repeated it with joy. My screen suddenly overflowed with four green goofballs all trying to fit in the camera’s scope at once.

“SALENA! How are you? How come you’re not asleep? Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

“Mikey, it’s Salena, it’s way too early for them to sleep.”

“Wow, Leo, anyone ever tell you how funny you are?” My words didn’t match my tone. I wonder why.

“Leo, let ‘er breathe!” The camera shook as a red bandana came into frame. “Hey, but for real. Why you up so late, Salena? Somethin’ up?”

“Nah, just couldn’t sleep! I thought I’d call you guys for a bit, but from the sounds of it, y’all seem kinda busy.”

The camera moved again as the device got transferred to the next turtle. “Give me my—Ugh, there we go. And yes, you’re correct. We are actually busy with a mission tonight.”

I tried keeping my smile intact as I understandingly nodded my head. Is he mad at me for assuming they were free the exact moment I needed them to be? I mean, I’d be mad at me, so it’d make sense.

“Hey, but you know what?” Leo leaned next to Donnie, trying to see the screen. “You should totally join us! Tag along, have some fun, we’d all love that!”

You would?

“What? Nardo, what are you—“

“OMIGOSH, YEAH!” Mikey jumped in, knocking Donnie out of frame entirely. “If you’re not gonna sleep, we should totally hang out! I really miss you, Salena!”

“Uh, am I really the only one thinking it would be a bad idea to let the person who barely leaves their house join us on a mission to a highly-secured and regulated government facility?”

“Chillax, Don, she’ll be fine! You’ll be fine, right Salena?”

“I mean, uh—”

“See? What’d I tell ya, totally fine!”

“Raph agrees! Salena can handle herself.”

“Oh sure, I’m absolutely positive nothing could go wrong! He said without a trace of doubt.”

…I can’t tell if he’s trying to protect me or just doesn’t want me there. Neither option feels good right now, to be honest.

“C’mon, Dee, we’ve all seen her fight before! Including you, remember? When they helped us stop Meat Sweats?”

Mikey’s got a point. That was before I had any real battle experience, too! I don’t know why Donnie seems so hesitant about this. Or why it’s making me so pissy, actually.

Another car passed by and I lowered the volume a bit, remembering the time. Now that I’m actually near some apartments, I don’t wanna accidentally wake someone up. I really gotta save up for some new earbuds; my last ones broke like, a month ago and I can only make do for so long.

“Three to one, hermano. You’re outnumbered.”

“But—Sigh, forget it! Salena, I—“

“‘NOUGH SMALL TALK!” At this point, they’re just playing hot potato with Donnie’s phone. “Salena, hurry up! We’re boutta start the mission so don’t want ya missin’ out!”

“Ha! Almost made a pun!”

“Shut up, Leo. Anyways, we’re at uh… Uh… Hey, Donnie, where we at?”

I could hear him struggling for his phone in the distance. “You could just send our coordinates!”

“I could send her our coordinates! …How does Raph do that, again?”

The audio muffled as the phone shuffled back to its rightful owner. “God, I’m so gonna install security on this thing. Anyway, I’m sending our location to you right now. And as I was GOING TO SAY BEFORE! Salena, I look forward to seeing you again.”

He flashed a smile and part of my worries vanished. I’m still not sure how to read him but if he’s being nice, it can’t be all bad, right?

“OH, AND IF YA CAN, COULD YOU BRING ME A SNACK—“ Donnie hung up before the teddy bear could finish.

Luckily for him, his face beamed when I finally arrived around twenty minutes later and did, in fact, bring him a snack.

“Hey guys! Hope I didn’t take—“

I couldn’t even finish speaking before finding myself laughing on the floor with four giant turtles hounding me in hugs.

“It has been way too long since we’ve hugged!” Poor Mikey, I haven’t been able to see him in a hot minute. “Nice ponytail, by the way. Really makes your eyes pop.”

“Aww, thanks! I missed you guys too. Ugh, I really wish scheduling was easier! I’d hang out more often.”

“Dude, why waste time on schedules when you could just come over?”

“‘Xactly! Ain’t like you’re not welcome!”

“Oh. I-I mean, sure! If you guys really don’t have a problem with it…” I wonder if this is what it’s like to feel wanted.

“I just wanted you to get a taste of what it felt to not be chosen!”

…T-then again, they’re probably just being polite.

Click!

“And fits perfectly, just as the estimations foretold!” The fuck?

I looked down and saw a shiny black belt matching the arm wraps now resting above my hips. It’s actually fairly loose around my waist but I’m guessing that was the intention. There’s a giant pink button on the left with the same M-shaped logo as all of theirs. It looked super cool, honestly! Even seemed to match with my outfit!

“Woaaah, what is this thing?”

“Donnie. Really?” Leo didn’t sound impressed and neither did the others but, like, who cares! The belt’s dope as hell!

He ignored them and continued addressing me. “It basically functions both as your very own panic button and is a carrier for your sickles thanks to a highly specific magnetic attraction! Plus, it obviously helps tie in your outfit better ‘cause Great Galileo did you need some accessories.”

“Damn, I didn’t know my sickles were magnetic!”

“Oh, they weren’t before, I installed magnets in them last night.” With that, he pulled my fucking weapons seemingly out of his ass. Judging by everyone else’s groans though, I’m the only one who’s surprised and confused.

“Donald! What did we say about breaking into strangers’ homes!”

“Hey, I didn’t break in!… to a stranger’s home! I broke into Salena’s, Salena is not a stranger—OW, HEY!” Raph slapped the back of his head. One quick yet dramatic recovery later, we all began our route of sneaking into the building.

Security wasn’t monitoring the higher floors, so we only had to ninja our way up ‘till there and the rest was easy peasy. I tried focusing on the quick briefing I was receiving on the way up but my mind was admittedly elsewhere. Back to the weird situation I thought I dreamt up last night.

I don’t remember much. I was too tired to really register anything, and Donnie being a ninja probably enhanced that. But I do remember still hearing faint footsteps in my room; drawers being opened, the closet getting browsed. I was so out of it I figured I probably hallucinated everything. Either way, I was way too paralyzed to do anything; I couldn’t even put my phone back earlier. Kept passing in and out of consciousness. But it seemed like someone put it back for me. They helped my sloppy body into a position that wouldn’t leave me aching the next morning and pulled the covers up to tuck me in. What really sealed the whole dream theory to me was the metallic-textured “hand” that patted my head before they left and let the world return to tranquility.

I seriously did figure it was all a weird fever dream or some shit. Personally, I still feel like that’s more believable than it being Donnie all along. But staring down at my sickles, I guess I can’t really argue against the proof right in front of me.

“Gentlemen, here we are! The Techno Cosmic Research Institute! Otherwise known as”—the door opened as I returned back to present time—“The TCRI.”

The moon illuminated the flat, revealing that we were in a main lobby of some sorts. Huge and spacious, decorated with different plants I’m sure Zane would’ve gone crazy over.

…I shouldn’t think about him right now.

It was a huge and spacious lobby full of plants. The windows that were tinted from the outside now presented a full view of the city skyline. Doors were carved into the walls, transitioning to the other rooms. Some, like the several meeting rooms, were made with glass so I could vaguely make out the interior from here. Others were blocked by heavy, solid, metal doors, holding whatever secrets the government had behind them.

I felt strange setting foot in this place, like I wasn’t supposed to be here. Well, I guess we are breaking and entering, but it’s not that. It’s something else, something I can’t quite explain. Unrelated to the guys but personal to me. I feel I’m not wanted for a reason I’m not yet aware of. It’s freaking me out a little.

“So, what do the Purple Dragons want with this place again?”

“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. I only caught a break-in to the system in general and tracked it back to Kendra, I don’t have info on what they’re trying to gain access to. Whatever it is, though, it has an impressively tight security system that’s nearly impossible to break! At least, not through their simple B-tier remote hacking.”

“If the Purple Dragons want it, then it’s gotta be something major.” I’ve known about them for a while thanks to April.

It kinda shocked me at first, not because a group of teens created a tech-smart gang but because April O’Neil was a loser to someone. Call me a little biased—and you’d be right—but I still think Kendra’s got rocks for brains if she ignores someone like April.

But that’s a mental essay for another day. Right now, Leo’s smirking. And if Leo’s smirking, things will either go amazingly well or horrifically wrong.

“So… If we’re already here, why don’t we just figure out what they want ourselves?”

Mikey propped his chin up on Leo’s shoulder. “You mean like, go and explore? Sounds rad to me!”

“Yeah! Sneak around, let Donnie do his nerdy smart people stuff and see what’s so great about this place, yeah?”

“Invade the privacy of our nation’s government and scavenge for confidential data!? Nardo, I love you!”

“Raph? Your call, buddy.”

He was shockingly quick to shrug. “Sure! Raph don’t see a problem with it. Sounds hella fun to me!”

“Uh, guys?” I raised my hand. “Isn’t this, like, highly illegal?”

“And?” They all said in unison. To be fair, legal doesn’t sound like them anyway.

“What are they gonna do? Arrest us?” His hand circled in front of his blue bandana.

“And don’t worry, you won’t get in trouble for anything that happens! Donnie can get rid of the evidence and no one will know you were here, right Dee?” Mikey shot a wink at Donnie.

“Affirmative!”

Dang, Mikey’s made a lot of good points tonight.

“Eh, you’re right. To hell with laws!” Passing up an opportunity to explore a space institution would be laughably unlike me, anyway!

We decided to split up and meet back at the main lobby in fifteen, assuming the Purple Dragons hadn't arrived by then. It’s kind of scary wandering on my own in this place. It still feels off to me, but at the same time, I’ve always wanted so desperately to walk through a facility like this. Fascinating space research, meeting after meeting to discuss whatever new breakthrough was made, access to a shit ton of databases and technologies I’ll never have the chance to use at home!? Everything about this place is perfect! It’s all I dreamed it to be.

So why won’t that damn feeling go away?

Whatever, it’s probably just tonight in general. I really, really, need to get over it and move on already or else I’m guaranteed to fuck up the whole mission.

I sighed and glanced down at my arm wraps, raising them to get a better look. Despite my flip-floppy mood, I couldn’t help but smile. It’s dorky but they do comfort me every now and then. They felt nice to wear and even looking at them made me all fuzzy and nostalgic. They feel like an older me even though I got them recently.

“I take it you liked them, then.”

His voice startled me, I thought everyone went their own ways but I guess Donnie was nearby.

“Yeah, I do! The belt, too, they’re really cool gifts! Thank you.” He lit up when he heard those magic words. Man, I can’t believe I forgot to thank him sooner. Poor guy was probably aching for some feedback.

“I-I actually always wondered how you made them. They feel really sturdy but like, it’s not heavy to wear, either, if that makes sense.”

“Oh yeah, totally!” He typed on the screen on his arm, booting up the scanning feature to make sure we didn’t miss anything. “It’s an intentional design choice. They are supposed to act as armor, so.”

“Woah, cool! Do they count as tactical gear? As in military grade and all that jazz?”

“What? No, that’s not even good quality, that’s just a buzzword. Military grade simply means they met the minimum stated requirements at the lowest unit price.”

“…”

“…Low budget, few money, lead to mid product, good enough for gullible minds and general public consumption.”

Ohhhh. “So they lied.”

“As per usual. It’s shit engineering in actuality.”

I pushed open one of the meeting rooms’ glass doors as Donnie’s shell held up a bright torch. We began scouting the area for anything interesting while continuing our talk. All this investigative work’s reminding me of April and the way she’d gush about doing the same. Completely understanding the appeal now; it feels so thrilling snooping around somewhere you’re not supposed to be! Especially when the law’s involved.

The room wasn’t anything unordinary. It looked like any other corporate meeting room. The long table leading to the small TV on the wall, decorative paintings and plants, the usual. Man, we probably should’ve gone into a more interesting—“OW!”

“…Watch your step.” He said after I already fell to my knees.

“Thanks for the very useful warning. What even was that?”

He shined the light closer to a… metal? No, definitely not entirely metal. A robot arm sloppily plopped on the floor. We couldn’t see what the arm was attached to, if it was attached to anything at all. It’s too long to trace back with the torch light from where we are. One thing’s for sure, though: It’s giant. The claw I tripped over is practically the same size as my head.

“Hmm…” He crouched closer to the arm, slowly inspecting it. “Weird. It looks like it’s made of some cheap plastic. Perhaps a prototype of some sorts.”

“I don’t think they’d make it this big if it was a prototype.” Maybe we could do a test to see what type of plastic it is. “You got any fire?”

“While I see your angle and would love to carry through that experiment, it’s probably not wise to burn something we don’t know the purpose of. Or, you know, alert the security of our presence from the alarms.”

“Yeah, fair…” Man, would’ve been hella fun, though.

We both stayed on the floor, a little stumped on what the hell this thing was. My eyes got bored after a while and wandered around the room again. The only interesting thing in here was this weird ass plastic arm, it’s pretty much useless looking around the room but it did keep me entertained. There were five plants in this room which explains the fresh smell, all of them were basic enough for me to recognize. Two zebra plants, a ponytail palm, and…

I ignored the plant on the table when I spotted something thin underneath it, hidden by the shadows. I think it’s a slip of paper?

Donnie’s sigh brought my attention back. “You know what, I’m gonna go to their computer lab to see if one of their databases has anything about this thing.”

“Aight, I’ll stay back and keep exploring. Good luck!”

Right as he left, I sped over to the mysterious paper, unable to contain my curiosity any longer. The table was tall enough for me to comfortably sit under, leaning over the paper on the floor to read it. It’s, coincidentally enough, about that puzzling arm. The incomplete text made it clear it was probably part of a stack of paper or a file and fell out. Sadly, it didn’t reveal much but what I could get out of it was that it’s an automated arm controlled by an AI system, mostly covered with polypropylene plastic. Heh, PP plastic. Oh, it was created for the purpose of security. Well that’s just fantastic. I should go warn the boys about it.

I quickly snapped a pic of the loose sheet, almost getting out from under the table.

…But I’m glad as hell I didn’t.

I heard it. A soft, mechanical hum as something slithered off the ground. I grabbed my sickles from their belt, trying to minimize my shaking. It took a few blinks and tries but I managed to turn invisible, watching the machine move through the darkness. How was it suddenly on?

Its movements were smooth and natural. Too natural for something meant to be robotic. It’s so eerily graceful, slithering through the air. The arm swiveled its claw around like an animal head checking its surroundings. It… It’s looking where I am. It’s looking at me. It shouldn’t be able to see me, I’m not supposed to be visible! But it won’t stop staring.

”FUCK!” I shrieked when it lunged at me, quickly slicing it before it could grab me. Thank god it’s just plastic… Why the fuck is it hollow?

That doesn’t make any sense! Shouldn’t there be wiring or something? Even if not to connect the AI, how the hell can it move like that without anything to mimic muscle!?

I gasped, turning my head to the side. I can hear something else. It’s gooey and mushy and…

It’s looping around the room.

It’s getting louder.

”W-what the hell?”

…I think I can see it now. Something solid but stretchy, resembling thick vines climbing up the plastic arm. I backed up, watching as it crawled over to the newly severed claw. It pulled the claw back to its other half and tightened around them. It glowed? A sickeningly blinding green color. Before I realized what was going on, the claw suddenly reattached as the vines slinked back into the darkness.

It saw me again and the chase resumed.

It’s so damn fast, I can barely outrun it! Dodging is saving my ass but it keeps knocking over any furniture I used against it!

I jumped when I heard Donnie from the comms. Wait, he installed comms on my arm wraps?

“What’s making all that racket? Everything okay over there?”

”You can hear that!?”

”Yeah, I’m literally right next door?”

”Well—SHIT!” Too fucking close, too fucking close! It almost fucking grabbed me! Fuck, my knees hurt from that! “SON OF A—Don’t worry, I can handle it! I’ll explain soon!”

I tried getting off the floor as quickly as possible but the claw pulled me back down. The four sharp grippers opened up like a mouth and a fucking chainsaw came out. It went straight for my head, life flashing before my eyes as my sickles blocked it by pure reflex, holding it back. It won’t back off! I can’t keep pushing forever! How the hell do I get out of this!?

“FIBONACCI!”

A spinning titanium blur whacked the arm back, grabbing its attention to the maniacally smiling turtle now dashing through the room. His arm reached out, grabbing his staff from mid-air, and chopped off the robot arm with a giant drill. I curled in on myself right before a bright, violet shield spread over me and kept the arm’s falling metal parts from landing on me.

“You know, that did not seem like ‘handling it’.”

My vision cleared to his hand offering to help me up. I’m suddenly getting deja vu from the other countless times my helpless damsel-wannabe ass needed a rescue. Panicked and guilt-ridden, I waved it off and got up on my own.

“We gotta get outta here right now!”

“What? Why? I already—”

The vines returned and began repeating their process of fixing the arm. Though this time, it seems to be going faster.

“Oh my banana pancakes! What is that!?”

“I don’t know but that’s why we’re leaving! Come on!”

I grabbed his hand and we ran out the room, running into the others in the main lobby.

”Leo! There’s—”

“Crazy killer robot arms, we know. Was just in the middle of talking about that, actually.” He gave a glance of disapproval to the pouting red giant next to Mikey. Who also looks hella annoyed. It would appear we’ve walked in on a teensy squabble.

I heard Donnie sigh beside me “Raph, please tell me you didn’t.” He left my clueless ass standing there to join in on their talk.

Wait—Oh god, not again!

Turning around, I grabbed my sickles. I heard it again. Managed to dodge just in time for its jab to my right. It seems the guys are too busy to notice and I really don’t wanna burden them again. I’ll solo this one!

“When I said we should go explore, I didn’t mean go ‘round pushing things! We’re in a government building, why would you touch anything!?”

I heard another hit coming and blocked it with the blade.

Yeah, I-I can totally take this! I should let them finish their conversation—Holy fuck, there’s more than one, fucking end my suffering already.

”I didn’t mean to! You guys know I got a weak spot, what was I supposed to do? If they didn’t want Raph to push the big, red button, maybe they shouldn’t make it big ‘n red!”

“Buddy, that’s not how that works and you know that.”

There’s three of them now and they’re so unreasonably fast! It’s so hard to keep up! Ugh, it almost feels like I am being punished after all.

My accidental yelp luckily got drowned by Mikey’s groan. “Man, just let it go! We can smell your ‘I know I fucked up but don’t wanna admit it ‘cause I’m the big brother’ stench!”

”THAT’S A DIFFERENT STENCH!”

”AHH!”

I really didn’t mean to blurt that out but the claw dug into my leg and yanked me off the ground! Guilt aside, it’s probably a good thing I caught their attention, especially since I dropped my sickles like a fucking moron!

“SALENA!” His sword slashed through the air but got promptly blocked and thrown back by another metal claw. A scary amount of them are showing up now! The guys are completely surrounded and I’m stuck useless, dangling in the air!

One of the arms came closer and opened its grippers, a scanner popping out this time, its red beam blinding my eyes. My breathing grew shallow, the commotion from below fading away. I’m getting lightheaded from being suspended upside down. I need to get out of this situation. But there’s nothing I can do. Just squint past the light and anxiously wait for its next move.

My ears burned from the claw’s monstrous shriek. It sounds like a fucking animalistic version of nails on a chalkboard! Why did it react to me like this? Why me? Aren’t we all intruders? Why is it just me!?

“You deserve this.”

Was he right?

I didn’t process getting swung in the air until I was let go with enough momentum to cause a crash through the decor. My arms shook as I tried lifting my body up. Everything hurts, everything fucking hurts! My ears, my arms, my legs! My head! I just wanted a little distraction tonight! Why is this happening?

Is this really my karma?

…Wait a sec.

When I managed to lift my head, I came face to face with a crack in the wall where the robot arms were emerging from. The vines I saw earlier turned out to be permanently merged with the arms at the roots and lead to… something behind the wall. The crack was too small to properly make much out but it looked like it was breathing?

Whatever, I don’t have time to be surprised. “Guys! The arms! They’re coming from over here!”

The crack’s small but just big enough for something slim! Like—

The claw dug into my leg once again and began dragging me away. “Leo! Donnie! One of your weapons can fit through!”

“Got it!”

“I’ll cover!”

Flashes of blue scattered around the lobby. Each portal and throw of his sword brought Leo closer and closer to the wall. I couldn’t watch for too long, though, as I found myself back in the air again. It froze my skin getting thrown across the room faster than before. This time, towards the glass windows.

Chains grabbed at my ankle and yanked me back to the ground away from my disastrous fate. I looked up to see the tangerine flashing a confident yet relieved smile at me. “Hey!”

“…Hey!”

Mystic metal clinked as Mikey pulled back some of the robot arms chasing after Leo to buy him more time. Raph and Donnie quickly shifted gears and guarded me to make sure the plastic freaks couldn’t grab me again. Mikey continued to aid Leo, bouncing all over the room, keeping the arms distracted with his flow and somehow, still bringing them back to where he originally stood: Away from Leo.

Finally, a sword was heard stabbing through the air and splashing through a soft, squishy substance. The arms dropped to the floor as the thing in the wall hissed in pain, slowly leading to the dreadfully awaited silence at last.

Mikey reached his hand out for me and pulled me up. “You good?”

“Not dead, yeah.”

“Guess that’s a start.”

I glanced to the side at Donnie staring blankly at me, confused until he walked over and held one of my arms to examine my wrap.

“Hmm, I wonder if there’s some modification I can do to your gloves that prevents your sickles from getting so easily lost.” I guess that’s why he was staring a minute ago.

“Honestly, that’d be great. I keep losing them, so…”

“Yeah, I was thinking—“

“Nerd-talk later! Do a med scan!” Leo shoved him out the way and accidentally knocked Mikey back. Didn’t seem like he noticed since he immediately started checking me for injuries. I don’t even know when he got here?

Donnie sighed but went through with it anyway, tapping on his wrist as he checked my vitals. “No broken bones, no internal bleeding, nothing too concerning to report thankfully. Salena, do you feel alright?”

“Mhm! Just some scratches here and there but I’ll live.”

“Just some scratches, hm? You forgettin’ something?” Leo pointed down to my horrifically bruised and bloody leg. Whoops.

“…I-I’ll still live.”

While Leo took care of bandaging my leg, the rest of us spent the next few minutes catching our breaths. Mikey laid on the floor, limbs starfished out, while Donnie was texting April and catching her up to speed. I can only imagine how devastated she’d be in the morning, finding out she missed all this action. It’d have been nice having her here, honestly.

Raph wasn’t near us, though. He stood by the wall where the once-breathing specimen was at. He kept peeking through the crack, rubbing his arm and looking hesitant about something.

“Raph?” My voice prompted the others to turn their attention to him.

“…Nobody else wonderin’ what the hell this thing could be? I know we’re only here to stop the Purple Dinos—“

“That’s Purple Dragons, Raphala.”

“—Whatever! But really, guys! After all that, we just gonna head home and forget about it?”

He’s not wrong.

Come to think of it, this place is government funded. There should be no reason why some foreign entity exists in a place like the TCRI. They’re supposed to do space research and nothing else. That’s what they’re paid for.

“You know what?” Donnie turned his phone off. “I could work on hacking through their system myself. I don’t know if it’ll prove successful, but I can try.”

I felt Mikey’s head drop on my shoulder. He sure loves doing that. “What do we do about the vine thingies?”

“Well, we can’t just—“ Leo paused, making eye contact with Raph. They shared a smirk and nodded.

“You thinkin’ what thinkin’ big bro?”

He chuckled, punching his fists together. “You bet!”

A bright red aura surrounded his figure as his arm reeled back and locked the sais in his hands.

“POWER PUNCH JUTSU!!!”

My body staggered as the ground shook upon impact, the dust clearing to reveal the tiny gap in the wall is suddenly a giant ass hole now.

“Man, y’all really don’t give a shit about government property, do ya?”

“Nope. But hey! It was def the right choice!” Raph’s snaggletooth gleamed through his mischievous smile.

The five of us stared through the hole, trying to comprehend the oversized specimen in front of us. It was a pulsing, yellow-green thing in the shape of a tall tube, wider on the top than the bottom. There were reddish lines on it zigzagging up and down almost like veins. It was punctured at its middle, caused by the blade of the katana that shot right through it a few moments ago.

“Ya know, it kind of resembles a plant. Which would explain the mystery vines, actually.”

“What plant, then? Ain’t no plant Raph knows of that throbs.”

He shook his head with a light shrug. “Sadly, I am not sure. It looks a little like a pitcher plant but also not really? They shouldn’t be luminescent or have vines emerging out like that. And also the throbbing, of course.”

Pitcher plant, ay? I’ve heard of that. They’re my favorite out of all the carnivorous jungle plants Zane rambled about once. Plants were actually one of the first things we had a genuine bond over, even if I’m pretty clueless about them. The way his eyes lit up when talking about them with so much love and adoration just melted me.

His eyes…

His godforsaken eyes…

“Salena?”

“Huh?” How long have I been spaced out?

“You sure you’re good? You seemed kinda out of it just now.” I forgot how close Mikey was to me, I should be more careful.

“Yeah, it’s nothing.”

“Really? ‘Cause lowkey, you’ve been off all night. I didn’t wanna say anything but…”

“Oh, no, no, I’m—“

“Actually, you did mention something happened between you and your friend earlier, remember? Before you called me.” This violet ass motherfucker did not just erm actually me at the worst time ever.

“That what this about, big man? Had another fight with your friend?” Why is everyone suddenly focused on me!?

“N-Not the same one! This is someone different, I promise! T-that’s not to say I have a problem with everyone! I just… Um…” Great going, Salena! Now they’ll think you’re just insufferable and incapable of friendship! “I-I don’t think we should be—Well, we kinda have worse issues to worry about, don’t we?”

“Kendra and her yes-men ain’t here yet. What I wanna know is why you’re so spacey tonight! Dr. Feelings can’t help if he can’t know!”

“It’s nothing! N-nothing too bad, at least. He just—A-actually, it was really mostly me so um… It’s hard to explain exactly…”

Geez, my palms are annoyingly sweaty. I really don’t wanna give them the wrong idea, it was just one fight! It’s not a representation of our entire relationship! But I know from experience any time I try talking about Zane to someone, they end up hating him and I don’t want that! Fuck, I should’ve been more careful. My stupid tongue-tied gibberish ain’t helping the situation, either!

My shoulders flinched when I saw Leo stand in front of me, hand on his hip as he faced towards his brothers. “Okay, hermanos, give her some space! Stop smothering! I know we’re all worried, I’m worried too, but if Salena doesn’t wanna talk, they shouldn’t be forced to.”

The others finally piped down. None of them looked happy about it—understandably so—but it seemed Leo was able to convince them to drop it, anyway. I really owe him one.

He peeked over his shoulder to glance back at me. “If you do wanna talk about something, though, we’re here for you.”

…It’s not that I don’t want to. I just don’t see how it’d help anything—

CRASH!!!

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, HAVE WE NOT HAD ENOUGH SURPRISES FOR ONE NIGHT!?

“Good going, Jase. Real quiet of you.”

All of us, equally tense and gripping our weapons to stand guard, took a solid minute to process that the loud crash wasn’t another dumbass robot-plant-arm thing, but instead was Kendra and the other two stumbling through the main door they hacked open. Speak of the dragons and they arrive, I suppose.

She looked over at us and her sharp eyes drooped lower. “Of course.”

I only ever knew Kendra before tonight, none of the other members. Hate her guts since she’s forever engraved as April’s bully in my mind and doesn’t seem to have changed. Her movements and mannerisms still match the coy, conniving person I remember her to be, walking over in such a smug, superior way that screams “greater than thou”. Once, back when they were still in high school, April had a mini breakdown due to college applications kicking her ass. She was struggling and stressing over not getting accepted into a good amount of her options and believed she’d have to rely solely on her safeties at that point. Kendra really rubbed it in. Wouldn’t shut up about it, demeaning her for being a failure.

April knows damn well to never take Kendra seriously. However, it’s not a surprise those words still stung considering how stupidly frightening the whole college process is. Joke’s on Kendra, though. One of April’s main choices that had her wait-listed ended up accepting her in! As for Kendra? All hypocritical bark, no bite it seems.

“Hello, Von Ryan. How’s life?”

“Good, good. How about you, enjoying your—what’d you call it? ‘Intellectual freedom’?”

“Low blow even for you. You guys couldn’t fuck around here with your little toys another night?” She scoffed and rolled her eyes, her arms crossed over her chest. Her gaze drifted towards me as her brows furrowed more.

“Who’s that—Hold up. You… Yeah, I remember you!” She’s doing that annoying fake-nice tone she uses sometimes, the one that makes me wanna punch her in the face. “You’re that idiot kid April wouldn’t shut up about tutoring last year! What’s a teacher’s pet like you doing here?”

Mikey gasped and covered my ears like a parent to a toddler witnessing sailor-speak. “Hey! Don’t you dare talk about our friend like that!”

I honestly couldn’t care less what Kendra says about me. Personally, I’m more focused on the other two, right now. It’s my first time ever seeing them, I think Donnie said their names were Jason and Jeremy? They’ve been pretty quiet so far, standing at her side and smirking like Saturday-morning cartoon lackeys. One of them had a large, blocky figure, dark skin, and dyed green hair. His gold visor looked pretty cool, I’ll admit. The other—I could guess from his hunched demeanor alone—was definitely their token punching bag. He’s got these awkward gloves that are way too big for his hands. Dark eyes, short, black hair, and round… glasses…

NO FUCKING WAY!

“YOU—HIM! OH MY GOD! NOOOO, NO-NO-NO-NO! NO! NO!” Ain’t no motherfucking way this bitch is who I think he is, this has to be a prank! It has to! For the sake of my sanity! Oh, but it isn't! It’s fucking real!

“...Salena? You doin’ okay?” The others looked concerned at my sudden and dramatic outlash. Fucking of course, Donnie and Mikey wouldn’t know! Jason still had the bag over his head when he was around them! Fuck, why didn’t I just take it off right there!?

“Jason! That asshole was who we saved from Meatsweats a few months ago!”

Raph and Leo looked just as lost as before. Mikey and Donnie, on the other hand, went pale with shock.

“That was you!?” Donnie’s staff pointed directly at the fucker. “Why didn’t you say anything!? I know you recognized my voice!”

“I can’t believe Salena and I interrupted a perfectly nice day to save you of all folks! You ruined our lovely little ice cream date, dawg!”

“I was being kidnapped by a pig monster? Why would I reveal I’m a rival when you were the only help I had?”

“And yet, here you are, the very reason we’re stuck in this creepy facility, preventing you three from illegally accessing information and doing who knows what with it even though you now owe us one, YOU UNGRATEFUL MENACE!”

Before I could fix my brain enough to join in on justifiably shaming the idiot, I noticed Leo and Raph exchanging confused glances at each other.

“...What the hell is going on?”

“Raph don’t know.” They both looked at me for answers because the universe hates me.

I tearfully and shamefully explained the bullshit scenario we are now stuck in due to my impulsivity. “Donnie, Mikey, and I saved a guy from Meatsweats I think back in April? H-he had a bag over his head so they didn’t know what he looked like and I-I was the only one who saw him without it b-but I didn’t know he was part of the fucking Purple Dragons and—Fuck my life! My first ever save and it was a villain!?” The one time I actually did something useful…

God, there’s so much noise everywhere! Everyone’s arguing with each other or trying to get it to stop or whatever else is going on! My head hurts. Why did I even come here? I should’ve just went home. I should’ve stayed with Zane. I keep getting in the way, I keep making mistakes, I keep ruining things!

I have to keep my composure, though. I don’t wanna cry in a situation like this, not when I’ve already done enough harm.

“Wait a sec, where’s Jeremy?”

We all paused, the realization clearing up as we heard a cheer from another room. “Yes! I got in! I got past the system!”

“Holy shit, he’s in the computer lab! Quick, we—”

A bat hit Donnie straight on his stomach and knocked him back, Raph catching him so he wouldn’t fall to the floor.

Kendra clicked her tongue as she laughed. “I gotta hand it to ya, you morons somehow turned off these stupid security systems. Definitely the most annoying part I’d have had to figure out; I guess that’s why I wanted ‘em, anyway. I don’t know how you did it but congrats! You’re not completely useless.” It looked more like she was addressing Donnie over any of us.

“But now?” She and Jason blocked the door. Her bat stood by her side. “Stay out of my fucking way.”

Obviously, that’s not happening, so chaos erupted instead. One would think a Two VS. Five would be pretty easy to handle… until they saw how well Kendra used her bat, that is. She’s faster than I expected, able to zip around before anyone could properly react. Definitely has a strong arm, too. Then, of course, there’s the traitor. Jason pushed his glasses up his nose bridge and took out his own set of weapons. Or should I say, whipped them out. ‘Cause they’re actually fucking whips.

They were almost impossible to get by. Glowing in the dark room, buzzing from the static friction they made against each other.

He targeted them towards Leo who barely managed to dodge just in time. Mikey, not being as lucky, got smacked right in the face.

“OW! Hey! Since when did he even have those!?”

“Oh! Since last week, actually. I made them using—”

Either the bitch has good hearing or I was too loud when my sickle swung at his head. “Are ya dense!? How are you still tryna maintain small-talk after literally betraying us!? You know what I looked like, you wouldn’t have even said anything if I didn’t call you out! You lied to me! I saved you and you lied!”

“AH! The hell, man!? You’re gonna kill me for that!?”

“No!” The sickles weren’t sharp, only a little solid. I know I gotta resist. Unfortunately. “Just knock you out for a bit, you scheming piece of shit!”

I wish I could say I was making up for my several blunders tonight by at least being able to handle the living embodiment of a toothpick. My leg’s not super mangled up but, surprise-surprise, it’s hard to move at my fastest and dodge with it still being injured. He’s a little impressively good with those whips, too. It’s hard keeping track of where they both are at all times, the difficulty only increased by how quick he’s able to use them considering he’s only trained for a week. I’m trying my damn best with what I can.

“Oh my god, give it up with the guilt-tripping! I’m not gonna turn on my sister just ‘cause you saved me once!”

“Hell no! I risked turning into mutant-munchies for you—Hol’ up a sec.” The pure blasphemy that came out of his mouth shocked me so bad, I actually had to pause. “Kendra’s your sister? Ew, what’s that like?”

Yet another mistake on my part. One of the whips wrapped around my sickle to fling it and I—determined to not lose them again—got shot through the air along with it.

At this rate, I’ll be free-bird flying and crashing to the floor every five minutes. I don’t even feel like getting up anymore. Fuck, I don’t usually feel pain so easily.

Hm?

The battle ground’s a little chaotic so it’s hard to follow when in the middle of it. But, now that I’m seeing it from a distance, everyone’s intentions are suddenly ten times clearer. Kendra’s hovering towards a specific direction, dancing around the door to where Jeremy is. Jason’s distracting everyone and keeping them from paying attention to her. I have a feeling that’s very much so on purpose.

She’s starting to go in. I guess it doesn’t matter whether or not I want to, I gotta get up now. I closed my eyes and with whatever strength I had, used my sickles to turn invisible and go after her.

I snuck by Kendra and entered the lab. Jeremy was glued to the computer, staring at a loading screen. On the side of the PC was a USB stuck to the port. Of course, accidentally saving the villain wasn’t enough! They had to use the same shitty USB we went back for, too.

“Jeremy, status report!”

“It’s almost done downloading the files! Just a few more seconds and… We got it!”

“Nice work! Quick! Toss ‘em over!”

Oh boy, if Kendra’s able to gain the instructions for those freaky arms, who knows what she’ll make with it! I can’t let them get access to anything here!

Thus, following my usual rule of acting-without-thinking, I threw a sickle at the USB. I don’t know if it was my panic or my rage that caused it to be so sharp but it cut the USB in half mid-air and smashed straight into one of the PCs. My punishment for resorting to such destructively impulsive solutions was being greeted by the lovely melody of security sirens going off for breaking their important tech.

“No! My USB! There was so much stuff in that! Fuck!” She is so seriously distraught over the wrong thing.

Upon retrieving my sickle, I hadn’t realized I was flickering in and out of visibility till Kendra’s bat nearly made contact with my head. “You little skeeze! Do you have any idea how much of my progress you destroyed!”

“But that’s mine and Jason’s progress—“

“SHUT UP!” She snapped her head back to bark at him and I took my moment of escape, knocking her down out of my way. Still, she kept up by yanking at my leg and pulling me down with her, severely getting on my nerves by now.

So, I kicked her in the face.

She stayed there, groaning in pain, while her sidekick buddy checked on her. Sure, I could’ve kicked a little softer but I think a bloody nose is merciful enough for her.

I returned to the lobby, greeted by chaos more hectic than before. The alarms and sirens were still blaring, red lights flashing on and off the entire facility. Our oh so beloved security arm friends returned in even greater numbers now! If I believed in superstition, I’d believe this night was cursed.

Jason’s looking a little overwhelmed now having to solo both the Teenage Mutant Mad Dogz and the newly emerged robot claws, yet he’s still not giving in and letting the guys go in peace. Speaking of them, they’re scattered all over the place, trying to keep themselves and each other from getting yoinked and flung like I was earlier.

Donnie was the only one who managed to maneuver over to me.

“Salena!?”

“Donnie! What’s going on!? Where’d the stupid arms come from!?”

“Well, I suppose it’d be impractical if they only had one source of their weird mystic high-tech robots, so there’s that.” He spun his tech-bō and whacked away the claw that was following him. “What happened in there? You disappeared and then we heard a loud crash from that room and suddenly everything got dialed up to eleven!”

“Uh, yeah, my fault, I uh—Eek!” Thank god for reflexes, the only thing that let me slice at a robot arm before it sliced me. “Good news is, I destroyed the USB they were using so Kendra can’t access the government’s whatever-the-fuck anymore! Bad news, I also accidentally destroyed one of their computers in the process, set off the security alarms, and now we’re here. Sorry, haha…”

“You what!?”

“It was an accident, I swear! I really didn’t mean—”

“You annoying little twinkle-toes!” Kendra charged at us from behind and her bat swung directly at me. Thankfully, Donnie blocked it from knocking me dead and sent Kendra back a few steps.

“You know what? If you got Kendra this mad, then you’re forgiven for everything on my terms! Let’s go!” He grabbed my wrist and dragged us away from the bat-wielding maniac.

Though, I’m not sure whether a metal bat or metal claws are worse. A bunch of them charged towards me now that I got back within their sight.

“Move!” He shoved me out of the way of the monster claws.

I slid on the ground, actually keeping my balance this time, and swung at another claw coming from my right. Without having a moment to breathe, I ducked and slashed at one right above me. I would’ve missed the one coming from behind me, had Raph not been there and created a mystic shield. There’s so many all around the flat and it seems I’m still their favorite toy.

“Salena, try hidin’ somewhere!” He punched one of the claws straight on, the impact causing a loud clunk. “They keep coming after you!”

“I can’t! They saw me even when I turned invisible, they probably have a different type of vision or something!”

“Infrared vision, genius!” Kendra’s bat got caught by my sickle. She aimed for my torso this time, I’m surprised it wasn’t back at my head. “They were built with thermal sensors! Which I would’ve been able to shut off if somebody didn’t break the computers!”

“God, were you built to get on people’s nerves!?”

I’ve just about had it with her bullshit, reflected in my blades turning sharp enough to slice her bat in half. I elbowed her in the stomach and took the chance to roll over to a new spot. The closest I can get to hiding is continuously moving, staying in one place meant getting hoarded.

Mikey grumbled nearby, his nunchucks spinning in his hands. “Man, they’re too much! We gotta go! Leo?”

“A bit busy!” Busy was right, he’s cutting down a good number of the plastic pains with his katanas. There’s no good opportunity to use them as an escape portal, let alone any safe ones.

Beep! Beep!

Donnie raised his gauntlet up and flashed what I assume to be the building’s security cameras he hacked into. “Oh, no, no, no, guys! They’re sending actual human officers up now! What do we do!?”

Everyone’s panicked, shit’s fucked to the brim, and the constant beeps and shrieks are only making it harder to think! Kendra’s yelling about her bat, Mikey’s chosen to deal with the Purple Disasters while they’re bickering away, Raph’s boxing the claws and shielding Donnie, who’s frantically typing at his wristwatch to hack the security, and Leo’s… Screaming and getting flung. Sweet, we’ve matched now.

I ran over to Leo, guarding him from the arms trying to take advantage of the situation. “So, how’d you like your first flight?”

“I’d prefer it more if I was actually expecting it.” He got up almost as fast as he crashed down, not wasting a single second to getting back in the fight. “Ugh, I gotta get us out of here, but I need an opening!”

“Want me to try clearing something out?”

“You got any plans on how—Shit, get back!” His arm pushed me back behind him to avoid getting hit.

The white tails of my ribbon flew forward, slightly blocking my vision. I looked straight ahead, past the death machines and battle-ground chaos, and saw the glass windows showcasing the brightly-lit city night.

The ribbon…

…Bingo.

“I actually might.” I tugged at the silk tails and felt my hair flow down as it got undone. “Just trust me and get everyone out at the first opportunity you get!”

“Wait, what are you—”

I dashed past him before he could ask any questions, no real time for them now. My multitasking skills were given the ultimate test as I focused on darting across the room, intentionally getting the arms to gather and chase after me, while tying the ribbon to the handles of my sickles and connecting them together.

In the corner of my eye, I saw Mikey had managed to take out Kendra and her sidekicks. Don’t even gotta worry about them now, it’s going better than I thought! There was pounding at the door. Seems Donnie locked the officers out for now, but I doubt it’ll be long till they find a way to break in by force. Gotta move fast. This plan could fail horrifically, but it’s the best shot we’ve got!

With all the security arms focused on me now, the boys had a clear opening to leave. I sprinted to the windows, wound back my sickles, and broke the glass with a single throw.

Now or never!

“HOT SOUP!!!”

And out the window I went.

The air felt amazing, rushing by my skin as I let gravity take over the fall. I turned myself over, now looking up at the sky. The arms were shooting out the windows, unable to reach down any further to get me. A flash of blue from the inside indicated everyone was out safely. That’s my cue to prevent myself from dying now!

I held onto one of my sickles and swung the other one up. My spine tingled as a pink aura washed over my hand and over the sickle that I grabbed, trailing its way up the white silk ribbon…

Transforming it to chains!?

The pure white mystic chain clanked as it stretched out. The sickle I threw up now broke through the glass side of the building and continued shattering through it straight down. A few broken shards chipped at me as I snapped back to reality and remembered the original plan. I closed my eyes and refocused on the sickles. No thoughts, no distractions, no room for any of them. I have to breathe. I have to focus.

The blades morphed them into a stiff rubber. Too soft to break the glass, too strong to break itself in half, effectively yanking me to a stop.

I did it.

I actually fucking did it!

“Holy truffle mac and cheese, that was awesome!”

“I know!” I excitedly greeted Donnie who had flown over using his jet pack. “I can’t believe it went so well! You saw it all?”

“And recorded!” He turned his back towards me and pointed at his shell. “Need a ride?”

“Definitely.”

We cruised across the sky onto the roof of a nearby building where the rest of the guys were. The instant I hopped off Donnie’s shell, Leo jumped me with a hug, followed by several frantic checks to make sure all limbs were intact.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are you dizzy? What’s wrong with you? You’re crazy! You’re crazy, you know that!?”

“Now who’s smothering them?” Mikey snickered at Leo, who looked relieved and on the verge of tears at the same time.

“Everyone shut up and look at this video first! You’ll probably forget whatever meaningless chitchat you were having, anyway!” Donnie hissed from glee, using his extra mechanical limbs to huddle us all around his phone that was playing the video of me from a few moments ago.

Looking at the footage now, it seemed the pink aura actually came from my whole body. It spread throughout my arms and circled past my hands, flowing to the white ribbon and replacing them with shimmering, white chains.

Mikey screamed from excitement, holding onto my hands. “MYSTIC CHAINS! Omigosh, we match now! We’re like twins!”

“I know! Isn’t it great!? We can be chain buddies—Eh, nevermind, that doesn’t sound right.”

We sat around for a while so Leo could help with all the cuts and microscopic bits of glass stuck to me. In the meantime, they were all curious how the chains even came to be, which I sadly didn’t have a clear answer for. I went ahead and reassured them my plan would’ve still worked with the ribbon itself, though. Speaking of, I can’t really get my ribbon back now. Sorry, Mi. However, I did figure out how to make the chains vanish and re-materialize, so at least I don’t have to learn a different fighting style!

Donnie was paying attention, I think. Just multitasking with a few holographic monitors up. He sighed and put ‘em away after a while.

“Yeah, no, sorry guys. Maybe my brain’s too fuzzy but I can’t hack into the actual database tonight.”

“No big deal, Don. Ya done enough.” Raph gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Hey, you guys wanna go grab some pizza? Raph could use a break.”

“Yeah, I think we all could.” Hopeful, green eyes faced towards me. “Salena? It’s late but… You wanna join us for a bit?”

It’s around 3am now. If I went home now, I’d only get three hours of sleep and that’s assuming I’ll conk out immediately. It’s not impossible, though, I can feel the energy crash creeping up from all the adrenaline. But, I don’t know. I don’t wanna go yet.

“I’m already out, aren’t I? Might as well!”

Turns out, for once tonight, I made the right choice. It was fun getting to be with them in a more casual manner. Just chilling at a park, enjoying some pizza, and re-energizing myself as I watched them goof around. I checked through my phone while I enjoyed the delicious cheesy glory.

Everything seemed normal.

Except for one tiny issue.

I was putting it off but Zane sent a voice note to me a few hours ago. I don’t have earbuds but everyone’s pretty distracted right now, anyway. I could listen to it. Maybe it’s… Maybe it’s better than I think it is.

I lowered the volume just to have it barely audible and clicked play.

“Hey. Um… I hope you’re home and safe now. I…” He sighed and went silent for a while.

“This wasn’t how I intended tonight to be. It was such a gorgeous night. The weather was perfect. Everything was perfect. It was all going so well. What happened? Why do we always end up like this?”

I wish I knew. Or that he knew. Maybe we could’ve helped each other if just one of us knew what was the problem.

“Everything in my life always goes so wrong. I’m so tired of it, Salena. You’re the only thing I haven’t messed up. I don’t want to mess this up. I just—” I could hear a creek from the door opening as someone came in the room. “Yeah, it’s on the floor, clean it up. I don’t know how, just go clean it!”

Sounds of glass being swept up filled the background atmosphere. Zane sighed again. “Sorry. One of my vases broke tonight. The cherry on top, right? Anyway, uh… I’ll just end it here. I hope you’re okay. I hope you’re dreaming of something nice. And I’m… I’m sorry.”

The voice note ended. It wasn’t that bad, I guess. I feel a little bad about earlier but I’m glad he apologized. I guess things are fine now. I should probably leave a text, it’d be wrong to hold a grudge if the situation’s already resolved.

You: hey i’m safe yea. I just wanna say i’m sorry too for lashing out like that earlier. I hope you’re sleeping well, sweet dreams and see ya tomorrow <3

There we go. Nothing to worry about now. Nothing to stress over.

A hand tapped at my shoulder. I raised my head to meet Mikey smiling down at me. “Mind if I sit? They’re bein’ a little loco even for my taste right now.”

I looked straight and saw Leo and Donnie arguing over whether pineapple belongs on pizza and Raph taking the opportunity to sneakily eat their slices. Pretty tame behavior from them, but Mikey’s tone was too lighthearted to be serious, anyway.

I shifted over on the bench and patted the empty space next to me. He sat down and brought his knees to his chest, his back leaning against my side. He shuffled with his phone for a bit before offering me one of his earbuds. “Wanna listen to Fall Out Boy with me?”

“Sure!”

I could use some music after tonight.

Next Chapter

This chapter was nearly 15K words btw-

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kynmoonlight · 8 months

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Bard's Broken Heart

I present: 1 motif of what I’m calling “Bard’s Broken Heart Lace”

OK, not quite, but still a cool design. Inspired by this post from Tumblr user @loki-is-my-kink-awakening https://www.tumblr.com/loki-is-my-kink-awakening/723753602720661504/oh-my-gods-are-these-the-hearts-hidden-on?source=share Who noticed that the trim on Jaskier’s shirt in Season 3 Netflix Witcher is little hearts! And a reply (sorry OP, I can’t find it now) noted that they’re very symbolically, hearts that are divided!

So anyway, I got crafting-obsessed and had to try to figure out how it was made and attempt to recreate it.

Which lead to research on historical lace-making and needlework.

[Disclaimers: this is all my best guesses as an amateur crafter, not a historical expert. I know my stitching is uneven, especially the pin-picots, which I just learned last week]

by the way, crafters or fic writers looking for historical fibercraft reference, check out Project Gutenberg’s (free!) The Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/20776/pg20776-images.html SO much fascinating stuff!

First, based on the clearest photos I can find (ie not very) I’m guessing the actual trim was machine-made, because a) the stitching is really even and smooth and tiny, b) handmade lace would be extremely expensive, and c) TV/Movie costuming needs multiples of every garment, especially for something like a delicate chemise Jaskier wears running all around the continent for a whole season.

My first guess and attempt was crochet, which wasn’t it, then thought it might be tatting or bobbin lace, which also weren’t right once I looked up images.

I finally settled on whitework cut-work embroidery with some needle lace techniques for the edging. Which I think gave me a kind of close facsimile. This one is about 1-½ x the size of what he wears (because that’s the limit of my aging hand steadiness, crafting magnifiers, and the materials I had.)

This one motif took me probably two hours, including many screwups and tangles. Not including drafting, blocking and snapshots. With the right materials and one done for practice (as it was only my second project in whitework and first try at needle lace!) one heart would take around an hour. For someone whose lifelong job, all day every day, was embroidering lace trim, they’d probably manage a meter/yard or two of the actual size trim, which I’m guessing is how much is on that shirt.

So in-universe, this still wouldn’t be a cheap piece of clothing, with at least a full day of skilled craftswomen wages for just the lace, plus finely woven, printed fabric that (I think, historically, that would have been block printed by hand), and additional seamster time to make it up. Modern-day equivalent would probably be easily USD $1000 if not 2x that. Our boy is making good money as a now-famous bard! (I suppose in a universe with magic, it could have been magiked, or magically duplicated after an expert created a template, but I suspect that would cost as much as handcrafting anyhow)

If I get bored and the crafting bug hits me again, I might try to make a whole edging this, maybe on a handkerchief.

Now, what do I do with one lace heart? I settled on starching it and attaching a safety pin back, so I guess if I ever go to a convention I can wear it as a pin so fellow Witchercrafters and Jaskier fans know how much of a nerd I really am.

I could write up direx with step by step pictures if anyone else really wants to try it.

#the witcher #fanart #fan crafts #netflix the witcher #witcher season 3 #needle crafts #costume details #lacemaking #witchercraft #jaskier

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20dollarlolita · 1 year

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CuratedKawaii Lolita Fashion Mystery Bundle Review

So a while back, I was made aware of this etsy listing:

I love mystery packs and lucky bags. It doesn't matter to me if it's good or terrible. I love me a lucky mystery bag. This listing had just little enough information about it to be unable to tell if it's bad or good, so I went for it. The thing about having this blog is that if something's bad, it's still good blog content.

Ordering process was pretty simple. I believe I had to pick a substyle from a drop-down list and then had a fill-in box where I could list colors and motifs that I want. I picked brown and cream classic. I paid $75, shipping non-inclusive.

Finally got the order in the mail a couple months later, and I had a whole lot of fun with this.

The idea is that the items included would be a full coordinate (minus shoes and petticoat).

Quick little economics comment: buying this is buying a service and a product. I knew going into this that I'd be paying for the curation service as part of the cost, so I was expecting to get less than $50 worth of items. The etsy seller has to make money on this, and you have to know going in that the seller has to make money on this. Expecting every item in the bag to total up to $75 is kind of stupid. This isn't like a AP lucky pack where everything is being sold at cost.

Actually, the price was one of the things that made me so interested. A full lolita coordinate for like $50 of stuff? Color me interested.

So, what did we get in the bag?

Main piece: Love Nadia JSKOP by Bodyline, in brown.

So on baby me's second ever Bodyline order, which I received Dec 31, 2012, I bought Love Nadia in purple, and was immediately disappointed in it. I then cut it up to plan to make a skirt out of it, put it in a box that's now labeled "abandoned projects", and it's still here to this day.

In that time, I've really regretted cutting it up, because I figured it probably wasn't as bad as I remember it being, and I just had a lot of confusion about how I wanted my own body to look.

So the first thing that I checked was to see if the weird printing part was still there. It is. I'd like to let everyone know that, in the past ten years, Bodyline did not fix the weird printing part. However, they DID add a side seam pocket!

Anyway, this wasn't a review of Love Nadia. This is a mystery bag review. I was very excited that there was an actual identifiable brand in the mystery bag. It wasn't super clear from the listing exactly how much experience with lolita the curator had, so I was bracing myself for some quality sweat lolita.

Second item was a cute bolero from Liz Lisa. I did immediately have to put this in the wash because, speaking of sweat lolita, it was a used item and it had a little bit of smell adhesion. But it's a nice cream lace cardigan thingy with a front tie. Love Nadia is not sure if it's an OP or a JSK and so having a shoulder wrap helps me not have to decide if its' a JSK or an OP. I like the term JSKOP, pronounced j-s-ko-p.

All the rest of the accessories are offbrand.

The socks are cream net socks with a little loop opening in the back. I find these so cool because they would probably look like they were trying to be really sexy on me if they were black, but they look just lovely in cream. I could go on a rant about color contrast here, but that's not why we're here. I loved getting some nice and detailed socks that I didn't have to worry about not fitting my kitten-holders.

There were two hair accessories included. Since this was supposed to be a full coord, I decided to try to wear both of them at once. One is a cute little beret with rickrack and a bow. It's got wig clips to help it stay on. I wore this yesterday in my comfy casual coord.

The other hair accessory was a bow barrette with a little lace drape. I think this one was handmade. I don't know who made it, but I really love that there was a handmade accessory included.

Fitting both the beret and the barrette (and keeping track of how many r's are in each word) on my head was a challenge, but I did it.

There was also a tie-on headbow. Since I already had two hair accessories going on, I opted to wear this one as a belt in the context of this coord. I do love me a good head-eating bow, so the fact that I can use this for that is very fun to me.

And then there were some little stretchy pearl bracelets. I wear stretchy bracelets all the time, and so it's good to have some new ones!

Total coord:

I was going to take a better picture without the cat poop box and where I was looking vaguely interested in being there, but Carhartt was in this picture (having just thrown litter everywhere) so we used it instead.

As far as substyle goes, it's very sweet. It's definitely the sweet end of the classic spectrum, and I could even just say it's brown sweet. There are a lot of little details that want to push it over to the classic edge. It's definitely brown and cream.

Functionally, there's a little bit of an issue where too many things want to take up the same space. IDK if the coord was intended to wear the headbow on your waist (but I couldn't find a better way to include it), but that bow sits right where the tie-front of the bolero wants to tie. The beret and the barrette are competing for the same real estate on the head, so I can't wear the beret like a beret without covering up the barrette. I promise that I DO know how to actually wear a beret normally.

In terms of including all the necessary parts of the coord, yeah, we checked all those boxes. Color balance is pretty good. All the colors are incorporated into the coord without leaving any weird blocks of just cream or just brown. I feel like whoever curated this box knows how to wear lolita fashion.

We knew this going in to the idea of getting a coord for <$50 of items, but there is a concern about the overall quality of these pieces. One of the fun things about lolita fashion is that you can balance things into your look. You can use a less expensive or lower-detailed accessory if you put it in a coord with more detailed items. A lot of these items are going to be really useful for me in future coords. However, I've previously addressed the idea of the "faking it" card, where you can only use so many not-quite-right items before it starts overtaking the coord. The accessories are lovely on their own, but when they're all put together, you kind of start to feel it. But this is a solid case of getting what I paid for, and I'm very happy.

Who do I recommend this for? I'm not sure I can recommend this package for a beginner that has no other items. You can build a wardrobe that's more accurate to how you want to coord things with the same money, and get pieces you know you'll use. But I do think that, if you have established pieces to later work the accessories in, it's a really fun sort of surprise gift. If you already wear lolita fashion and you want to try a new color or a new substyle, this can be really good inspiration, and fill in some gaps that you're likely to have as you branch into another direction.

A couple of things that I'd potentially like to see changed about this listing in the future: I'd really appreciate if there were photos of mystery bundles that had already been sent. I get not wanting to spoil the mystery, but taking some good flatlays of the bundles and then adding those flatlay pictures after the buyer reviews the bundle would be a really good addition. There's nothing wrong with the collages as listed, but seeing real items people have been given would help buyers a lot. I think it'd also be nice to drop something like, "This mystery bundle may contain new and lightly used items from Japanese and Chinese lolita brands, nonbranded accessories, and handmade accessories." I bought this partly because if it was terrible, that'd be funny for the blog, but I don't think that the primary audience of this was "people who want to take a gamble on losing their money." These kind of notes would be really helpful for people who were making the decision of if they want to buy.

Another potential option that I would love: CuratedKawaii definitely has good resources for getting fun offbrand and nonbranded accessories. I love my little beret and I love the socks and I love the tie-on bow. I love how well everything worked together. I feel like the budget here is the major limiting factor. While I don't think I'd want to spend $300 on a mystery bundle, I do think there's an untapped market that's at about the same price point as the mystery bundle. Everyone who is reading this and who has a problem where they keep buying dresses and not buying acessories, please raise your hand. Since that's most of us, let me pitch my idea: A mystery accessory bundle, where instead of saying what color and substyle we want, we just tell CuratedKawaii what main piece we want accessories for. I can write, "Hi, I just impulse bought this OP, and have no accessories for it. Please help!" This would give our curator friend a bigger budget to work with, since they don't have to budget for a main piece. I would absolutely LOVE to trust buying accessories over to another person and seeing what they come up with.

So yeah, I had a TON of fun unboxing this. I picked brown and cream because I knew that I needed more of both of those colors, and I love the flexibility of the things that I got. I got a bunch of stuff that I normally wouldn't buy for myself, and I like that I now have a bunch of cool creative items to work with in my wardrobe. I DIY a ton of things, and so I'm already planning how I can change and use the pieces I got to be a little more like I'm used to working with. I asked CuratedKawaii if they planned on putting up a listing for this again in the future, and they said they were. If anyone else out there reads my experience and thinks that it's the kind of mystery surprise that they'd want, I definitely recommend checking them out.

#curatedkawaii #lolita mystery bundle #20dollarlolita #now to idk make a love nadia bag out of my old purple one #coordination and shit #can't get over that they added a pocket

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