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causeiwanttoandican · 3 years

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Harry, Meghan and me: my truth as a royal reporter

I've covered elections and extremism, but nothing compares to the vitriol I've received since I started writing about the Sussexes

By Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor27 March 2021 • 6:00am

It is probably worth mentioning from the outset that I never, ever, planned to become a royal reporter. I mean, who does? It’s one of those ridiculous jobs most people fall into completely by accident.

I certainly wasn’t coveting the position when I first found out how bonkers the beat could be after covering Charles and Camilla’s wedding in 2005. Desperate for ‘a line’ on what went on at the reception, journalists were reduced to flagging down passing cars in Windsor High Street and interrogating the likes of Stephen Fry about whether they’d had the salmon or the chicken.

Watergate, this wasn’t.

Yet when my former editor called me into his office shortly afterwards and offered me the royal job ‘because you’re called Camilla and you dress nicely’, who was I to refuse?

Having planned to get married myself that summer, and start a family soon afterwards, I looked to the likes of Jennie Bond and Penny Junor and figured it would be a good patch for a working mother as well as being one I could grow old with. Unlike show business, when celebrities are ‘in’ one minute and ‘out’ the next, the royals would stay the same, making it easier to build – and keep – contacts.

So if you’d told me that 16 years later, I would find myself at the centre of a media storm over a royal interview with Oprah Winfrey, I’d have probably laughed in your face. First of all, only royals like Fergie do interviews with Oprah. And since when did journalists become the story?

Yet as I have experienced since the arrival of Meghan Markle on the royal scene in 2016 – a move that roughly coincided with Twitter doubling its 140-character limitation to 280 – royal reporters like me now find themselves in the line of fire like never before.

We are used to the likes of Kate Adie coming under attack in the Middle East, but now it is the correspondents who write up events like Trooping the Colour and the Royal Windsor Horse Show having to take cover from the keyboard warriors supposedly defending the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s ‘truth’.

Accusations of racism have long been levelled against anyone who has dared to write less than undiluted praise of Harry and Meghan. But even I have been taken aback by the vitriol on social media in the wake of the couple’s televised two-hour talk-a-thon, in which they branded both the Royal family and the British press racist while complaining about their ‘almost unsurvivable’ multimillionaire lives at the hands of the evil monarchy. And all while the rest of the UK were losing their loved ones and livelihoods in a global pandemic.

Having covered Brexit, general elections and stories about Islamic extremism, I’ve grown used to being sprayed with viral vomit on a fairly regular basis, but when you’ve got complete strangers trolling your best friend’s Instagram feed by association? That’s Britney Spears levels of toxic.

Having a hind thicker than a rhino’s, it wasn’t the repeated references to my being ‘a total c—’ that particularly bothered me, nor even the suggestion that I should have my three children put up for adoption. At one point someone even said it would be a good idea for me to drink myself to death like my mother, about whose chronic alcoholism I have written extensively.

No, what really got me was the appalling spelling and grammar. I mean, if you’re going to hurl insults, at least have the decency to get my name right.

Yet in order to understand just how it has come to pass that so-called #SussexSquaders think nothing of branding all royal correspondents ‘white supremacists’ regardless of who they write for, or sending hate mail to our email addresses, offices – and in some cases, even our homes – it’s worth briefly going to back to when I first broke the story that Prince Harry was dating an American actor in the Sunday Express on 31 October 2016. Headlined: ‘Royal world exclusive: Harry’s secret romance with TV star’, the splash revealed how the popular prince was ‘secretly dating a stunning US actress, model and human rights campaigner’.

Despite my now apparently being on a par with the Ku Klux Klan for failing to acknowledge Meghan as the next messiah, it was actually not until the fifteenth paragraph of that original article that the ‘confident and intelligent’ Northwestern University graduate was described as ‘the daughter of an African-American mother and a father of Dutch and Irish descent’.

Call me superficial, but I was genuinely far more interested in the fact that Harry ‘I-come-with-baggage’ Wales was dating a former ‘briefcase girl’ from the US version of Deal or No Deal than the colour of her skin. A ginger prince punching well above his weight? This was the stuff of tabloid dreams. Little did I know then that covering the trials and tribulations of these two lovebirds would turn into such a nightmare.

The online hostility began bubbling up about eight days after that first story, when Harry’s then communications secretary Jason Knauf issued an ‘unprecedented’ statement accusing the media of ‘crossing a line’.

‘His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment’, it read, referencing a ‘smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments’. Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, had apparently been besieged by photographers, while bribes had been offered to Meghan’s ex-boyfriend along with ‘the bombardment of nearly every friend, coworker, and loved one in her life’.

Suffice to say, I did feel a bit guilty. Although I hadn’t written anything remotely racist or sexist, I had started the ball rolling for headlines like the MailOnline’s ‘(Almost) straight outta Compton’ (referencing a song by hip-hop group NWA about gang violence and Meghan’s upbringing in the nearby LA district of Crenshaw), along with her ‘exotic’ DNA (which I subsequently called out, including on This Morning in the wake of ‘Megxit’ in January last year).

Omid Scobie, co-author of Finding Freedom, a highly favourable account of the Sussexes’ departure from the Royal family, written with their cooperation last summer, would later insist that the couple knew the story of their relationship was coming out and were well prepared for it.

I can tell you categorically that they weren’t, since I did not even put a call into Kensington Palace before we went to press for fear of it being leaked. (I did later discuss this with Harry, when I covered his trip to the Caribbean in November 2016, and to be fair he was pretty philosophical, agreeing it would have come out sooner or later. But that was before the former Army Captain decided to well and truly shoot the messenger, latterly telling journalists covering the newly-weds’ tax-payer-funded October 2018 tour of Australia and the south Pacific: ‘Thanks for coming, even though you weren’t invited.’)

The royal press pack is the group of dedicated writers who cover all the official engagements and tours on a rota system, in exchange for not bothering the royals as they go about their private business. It was a shame this ragtag bunch, of which I am an associate member, was never personally introduced to Meghan when the couple got engaged in November 2017.

I still have fond memories of a then Kate Middleton, upon her engagement to Prince William in November 2010, showing me her huge sapphire and diamond ring following a press conference at St James’s Palace with the words, ‘It was William’s mother’s so it is very special.’

I replied that she might want to consider buying ‘one of those expanding accordion style file holders’ to organise all her wedding paperwork. (Reader, I had given birth to my second child less than four months earlier and was still lactating.)

Not meeting Meghan did not stop royal commentators like me writing reams about her being ‘a breath of fresh air’ and telling practically every TV show I appeared on that she was the ‘best thing to have happened to the Royal Family in years’.

As the world followed the joyous news of the Windsors’ resident strip billiards star having finally found ‘the one’, the couple enjoyed overwhelmingly positive press culminating in their fairy-tale wedding in May 2018, which we headlined ‘So in love’ above a picture of the bride and groom kissing. I tweeted the wedding front page, along with the original story breaking the news of their relationship with the words, ‘Job done’. Yet, as Meghan would later point out in a glossy Santa Barbara garden, that was by far the end of the story.

According to the Duchess’s testimony before a global audience of millions, the seeds for their royal departure were actually sown by an article I wrote in November 2018 suggesting she made Kate cry during a bridesmaid’s dress fitting for Princess Charlotte.

Claiming the ‘reverse happened’, the former Suits star railed, ‘A few days before the wedding she was upset about something, pertaining to, yes, the issue was correct, about flower-girl dresses, and it made me cry, and it really hurt my feelings.’

She then went on to criticise the palace for failing to correct the story – suggesting that royal aides had hung her out to dry to protect the Duchess of Cambridge.

All of which left me in a bit of a sticky situation. As I told Phillip Schofield on This Morning the following day, ‘I don’t write things I don’t believe to be true and that haven’t been really well sourced.’

Having seemingly been completely bowled over by Meghan’s version of events, Schofe then went for the jugular: ‘I have to say, though, that’s all addressed in that interview, isn’t it, because she [Meghan] couldn’t understand why nobody stood up for her?’

Yet someone had stood up for her, on that very same This Morning sofa: me.

As I told Phil and Holly on 14 January 2019, as more reports of ‘Duchess Difficult’ started to emerge, ‘I think she [Meghan] is doing really well, she looks amazing, she speaks well. She has played a blinder.’

So you’ll forgive me if I can’t quite understand why Meghan didn’t feel the need to correct this supposedly glaring error once she had her own dedicated head of communications from March 2019 – or indeed when she ‘collaborated’ with Scobie, who concluded in his bestselling hagiography that ‘no one cried’?

Moreover, how did the Duchess know a postnatal Kate wasn’t ‘left in tears’? And if she doesn’t know, what hope has the average troll observing events through the prism of their own deep-rooted insecurities?

It appears the actual truth ceases to matter once sides have been taken in the unedifying Team Meghan versus Team Kate battle that has divided the internet.

Make no mistake, there are abject morons at both extremes spewing the sort of bile that, ironically, makes most of the media coverage of Harry and Meghan look like a 1970s edition of Jackie magazine.

It perhaps didn’t help my case that the day before the interview was aired in the US, I had written a lengthy piece carefully weighing up the evidence behind allegations of ‘outrageous bullying’ that had been levelled against Meghan during what proved to be a miserable 20 months in the Royal family for all concerned.

The messages – to my Twitter feed, my email, my website and official Facebook page – ranged from the threatening, to the typical tropes about media ‘scum’ and the downright bizarre. Some accused me of being in cahoots with Carole Middleton, with whom I have never interacted, unless you count a last-minute Party Pieces purchase in a desperate moment of poor parental planning.

Another frequent barb was questioning why the press wasn’t writing about that ‘pedo’ [sic] Prince Andrew instead – seemingly oblivious to the fact that no one would know about the Duke of York’s links to Jeffrey Epstein if it wasn’t for the acres of coverage devoted to the story by us royal hacks over recent years.

It didn’t matter that I had repeatedly torn the Queen’s second, and, some say, favourite son to pieces for everything from his propensity to take his golf clubs on foreign tours to that disastrous Newsnight interview.

Contrary to the ‘invisible contract’ Harry claims the palace has with the press, royal coverage works roughly like this: good royal deeds = good publicity. Bad royal deeds = bad publicity. We effectively act as a critical friend, working on behalf of a public that rightly expects the royals to take the work – but not themselves – seriously.

So when a royal couple preaches about climate change before taking four private jets in 11 days, it is par for the course for a royal scribe to point out the inconsistency of that message. None of it is ever personal, as evidenced by the fact that practically every member of the monarchy has come in for flak over the years.

If Oprah wasn’t willing to point out the discrepancies in Harry and Meghan’s testimony, surely it is beholden on royal reporters to question how the Duchess had managed to undertake four foreign holidays in the six months after her wedding, in addition to official tours to Italy, Canada, and Amsterdam, as well as embarking on a lengthy honeymoon, if she had ‘turned over’ her passport?

While no one would wish to undermine the extent of her mental health problems, could it really be true that she only left the house twice in four months when she managed to cram in 73 days’ worth of engagements, according to the Court Circular, in the 17 months between her wedding and the couple’s departure to Canada?

And what of the ‘racist’ headlines flashed up during the interview purporting to be from the British press, when more than a third were actually taken from independent blogs and the foreign media? The UK media abides by the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s Code of Conduct ‘to avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race’, as well as by rigorous defamation laws. And rightly so – the British press doesn’t always get it right. But social media is the Wild West by comparison, publishing vile slurs on a daily basis with impunity.

Some therefore find it strange that such a litigious couple would claim to have been ‘silenced’ when they have made so many complaints, including resorting to legal action, over stories they claim not to have even read. There is something similarly contradictory about a couple accusing the tabloids of lacking self-reflection while refusing to take any blame at all – for anything.

In any normal world, informed writing on such matters would be classed as fair comment, but not, seemingly, on Twitter where those completely lacking any objectivity whatsoever are only too willing to virtue signal and manoeuvre.

As the trolling reached fever pitch in the aftermath of the interview, veteran royal reporter Robert Jobson of the Evening Standard called me. ‘Don’t respond to these freaks,’ he advised. ‘It’s getting nasty out there. Watch your back!’

Yet despite my general sense of bewilderment at the menacing Megbots, I can’t say it didn’t appal me to discover a close friend had received online abuse, purely by dint of being my mate. After discussing the lengths the troll must have gone to to track her down, she asked me, ‘Do you ever worry someone might do something awful to you?’ Er, not until now, no.

Of course it’s upsetting, even for a cynical old-timer like me. Worse still are people who actually know me casting aspersions on my profession on social media. Often these are the same charlatans who would think nothing of sidling up to me for the latest gossip on the Royal family, while publicly pretending that reading any such coverage is completely beneath them.

Most pernicious of all though – not least after Piers Morgan’s departure from Good Morning Britain following a complaint to ITV and Ofcom from the Duchess – is the corrosive effect this whole hullabaloo is having on freedom of speech. When you’ve got a former actor effectively editing a British breakfast show from an £11 million Montecito mansion, what next?

I cannot help but think we are in danger of setting race relations back 30 years if people are seriously suggesting that any criticism of Meghan is racially motivated. It’s the hypocrisy that gets me. When Priti Patel was accused of bullying, the very same people who willingly hung the Home Secretary out to dry are now the ones defending Meghan against such claims, saying they have been levelled at her simply because she is ‘a strong woman of colour’.

Of course journalists should take responsibility for everything they report and be held to account for it – but Harry and Meghan do not have a monopoly on the truth simply because the close friend and neighbour who interviewed them in return for £7 million from CBS took what they said as gospel.

If she isn’t willing to probe the disparity between Meghan saying someone questioned the colour of Archie’s skin when she was pregnant, and Harry suggesting it happened before they were even married, then someone must. There’s a name for such scrutiny. It’s called journalism.

The public reserves the right to make up its own mind – with the help of the watchful eye of a free and fair press. But that press can never be free or fair if journalists do not feel they can report without fear or favour. I’m lucky that a lot of the criticism I face is more than balanced out by hugely supportive members of the public and online community who either agree – or respect the right to disagree. Along with the hate mail, I have had many thoughtful and eloquent missives, including those that good naturedly challenge what I have written in the paper or said on TV, which have genuinely given me pause for thought.

I am more than happy to enter into constructive discourse with these correspondents, who are frankly sometimes the only people who keep me on Twitter. I mean, let’s face it, I wouldn’t be anywhere near the bloody thing if this wasn’t my day job.

With the National Union of Journalists this month declaring that harassment and abuse had ‘become normalised’ within the industry, never have members of Britain’s press needed more courage. As Winston Churchill famously said, ‘You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.’

Who would have thought that the preservation of the fundamental freedoms that we hold so dear should partially rest on the shoulders of those who follow around a 94-year-old woman and her family for a living?

If I’d known then what I know now, would I still have written the bridesmaid’s dress story?

Yes – doubtlessly reflecting sisterly sobs all round. But after two decades in this business, I am clear-eyed enough to know this for certain: whatever I had written, it would still have ended in tears.

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sequinsmile-x · 3 years

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In Sickness and in Health

It was part of their vows, but they had been caring for each other long before they were married.

Part of the Glittering Mica series.

Read it below the cut, or on a03

Let me know what you think!

The first time he sees her when she’s sick is when she’s been back from Paris for a few months. She wakes up in the morning feeling awful, her whole body feeling heavy and sore. Her head was pounding, and the light from her cell phone screen as she drops Aaron a text letting him know she won’t be in only makes the pain worse.

The day drags. She spends it between her bed and the bathroom floor as she struggles to initially keep even painkillers down. By the evening she feels slightly better and moves to the couch, the siren song of trashy tv to soothe her weary soul too much to ignore.

She has only just settled down when there is a knock at her door. She groans and considers just leaving it, hoping the person on the other side would go away eventually.

“Emily? It’s Aaron.” His voice travels through the door, making her sit up faster than she should have done, making her head spin for a moment.

She stands and walks over to the door, where she pauses when she takes stock of what she must look like. Hair thrown up into a bun, the shorter hairs falling out and sticking to her neck. A pair of leggings and an oversized FBI t-shirt, stained with god knows what. She thinks she might just talk to him through the door, and convince him she’s ok so he can go home. But he’s seen her at her worst. He’d seen her lying on the floor of a warehouse with a table leg through her stomach. He’d visited her in her hospital room when pain was still lacing throughout her entire body, wrapping around her like a snake, as she cried when he told her as far as everyone else was concerned she was dead.

She sighs and opens the door. “Hotch?” She sniffs, her voice cracking from misuse and the abuse to her throat that day from coughing and throwing up. “What are you doing here?”

He looks concerned, eyebrows furrowed together in a way that always made her stomach flip in a way she pretended she didn’t feel. He lifts up a plastic bag, a takeout from the place that does her favourite soup coming into her view. “I brought you soup.”

Her stomach flips again and she knows it’s nothing to do with the sickness that's been following her all day. There was always something between them, just simmering below the surface. Emily knows in another lifetime, maybe in one where they both weren’t so broken, they could have been something beautiful.

She smiles and steps aside and lets him into her apartment. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Well.” He turns back and smiles at her, an eyebrow quirked in her direction. “You aren’t well known for looking after yourself.”

Her protest dies on her lips as he guides her to the couch, tells her to sit whilst he prepares her soup for her. He makes fun of her for only having one bowl, but eight wine glasses, the tone to his voice soft and kind.

Aaron sits next to her and they chat whilst she eats, and she knows he is staying just to make sure she does. Once she’s done the energy feels like it seeps out of her, and she feels herself start to drift off, her couch cushion feeling suspiciously like one of his suit jackets.

She wakes in the morning in her bed, a note on the pillow next to her in his scrawl, telling her to take another day and that he will be back that evening too.

It makes her smiles sadly.

They really could have been something, _____________________

She gets a stomach bug when they’ve been together for three months. She tells him to stay away, doesn’t want to pass it on to him, but he ignores her like she secretly hoped he would. He uses his own key to let himself in, and leans down over her couch to press a kiss to the top of her head in greeting, a small chuckle escaping him when he sees she is watching trash tv.

He places the container of soup on her kitchen counter. “Do you want to eat yet?”

She groans, almost gagging at the thought of eating. “Oh god no.” She pulls the blanket she's got over her tighter around her body.

He walks over to her, places a hand on her forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”

She hums, eyes closing at the touch of his skin to hers. “I’m hot all by myself, Aaron. You should know that by now.”

He laughs, fully rounding the coach and staring down at her. “Sit up for a minute.”

Emily glares at him but does it, immediately grateful when he sits down and drags her upper body into his lap. She looks up at him. “This feels familiar. Although last time I didn’t have my head in your lap.”

They’d never spoken about it, never acknowledged those two days when he looked after her all those years ago. A passing moment between friends who could have been more. And now they were. He traces her jawline with his thumb and smiles at her. “No, but you did fall asleep on my shoulder.”

She opens her mouth in shock. “No I didn’t.”

He laughs at her indignation, cups her face in his hand. “Yes. You did. You drooled on my jacket and everything.”

She scrunches her eyes shut and groans. “Oh god, Aaron, that's so embarrassing.”

“You’re my girlfriend, sweetheart. If you can’t drool on me, who can you drool on?”

“I wasn’t your girlfriend then.” She grumbles, grabbing his tie and playing with it in her fingers. “You were my boss and my…” She drifts off, unsure how to explain it. Not sure what they really had been back then.

“We wasted a lot of time.” He says, a sad look on his face that always makes her heart ache.

“Yeah.” She grabs his spare hand, the one not cupping her face, and links their fingers together. “At least we have each other now.” _____________________

He falls out of the attic and scares the shit out of her, the loud bang as his body hits the ground reverberated throughout the house. She runs to find him, sees him sprawled out on the floor and for a moment he is worryingly still. Then he moans, loudly, sitting up as he cradles his head in his hands.

“Just so you know the ladder to the attic is broken.” He groans, attempting to look up at her but grimacing when he tries to move his head that much.

“Be careful, honey.” She kneels on the floor next to him, places one hand over the one he has on the back of his head, and the other on his thigh. “What the hell were you doing up there?”

“I was getting the Christmas decorations down.”

“Aaron...it’s early November.” She moves his hand off of the back of his head, winces when she feels a lump there. “It’s your birthday tomorrow.”

“We’ve always put the decorations up early. Haley used to love Christmas. She always put the decorations up on my birthday.”

She smiles at him, threads her fingers through his hair briefly, her adoration for him beaming out of her face in a way that she couldn’t control. His love of Haley, the way he kept her influence around for Jack, was one of the things Emily loved about him the most.

“Well next time, just for help ok?” She palms the back of his head gently and he winces again. “I think we should get you checked out, you could have a concussion.”

“No, I’m fine. I just need to get up.”

She rolls her eyes but stands up, offers him a hand he doesn’t take, his stubbornness coming through even though he clearly needed the help. He stumbles as he stands, his co-ordination off kilter.

“Ok.” She says, steadying him with a hand on each arm. “I am taking you to the ER and you aren’t arguing with me.”

She drops Jack a text when they get to the hospital whilst Aaron is getting a scan. She tells him not to worry, to have fun with his friends as planned for the weekend and that she will look after his Dad.

Two hours later they are home, Aaron with an official diagnosis of a concussion, and Emily with specific instructions from the doctor on how to keep an eye on him.

Aaron thought she would let it slide, her history of ignoring medical advice well known, but when he looked back on it he realised he should have known better.

She wakes him every two hours as instructed. The third time she does it he groans and switches the light on. She looks exhausted, tired eyes staring at him as she asks him basic questions to make sure his brain is still working.

“Em.” He interrupts her as she asks him if he knows what day it was. “I’m fine, you need to get some sleep. I do. Let's just sleep through until morning.”

She frowns at him, sits up in the bed to look down at him. Her sleep shirt slips down her shoulder, exposing her pale skin and he readjusts it for her, fingers leaving goosebumps in their wake. “Aaron, I’m just doing what the doctor said.”

“Em.”

“No.” She says firmly, grabbing his hand and linking their fingers. “I don’t want to wake up in the morning and find that you can’t. I’d never forgive myself.”

He considers her for a moment, the raw honesty something he still wasn’t used to from her. He nods, regrets it immediately as the pulsing in his head gets worse, and leans forward to kiss her. “Ok.” He says when he pulls away. “But let's go to sleep. It’s only 95 minutes until you next wake me up.” _____________________

Emily gets horrendously drunk at her surprise bachelorette party.

Aaron had known it was happening, had kept the secret JJ, Tara and Penelope had sworn him to, and sent her off for what she thought was just a normal night out.

The furious text from her when she realised something was going on was evidence that she really had not known what was happening. She had been insistent that she didn’t want one, that she was too old for a night to celebrate the end of her single years. When all she really wanted to do was marry him and just be his wife.

When she gets home at 11.30pm, guided by a very amused and equally as drunk Tara up the porch steps, she is delighted to see him. Her eyes slightly unfocused with joy and alcohol as she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him in a way that makes Jack groan from where he is sitting behind them in the living room.

“I missed you.” She says against his lips, smearing the taste of tequila across his tongue.

He smiles at her, wide enough that his cheeks ache with it. “I missed you too.”

“You guys are disgustingly cute.” Tara says, turning around to leave their house. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Take me with you.” Jack pleads jokingly, getting a laugh out of Tara who closes the door behind her.

Aaron focuses his attention back on Emily, who sways slightly in his arms. “Let’s get you to bed.”

She smiles devilishly at him. “Sounds like a good plan Mr Hotchner.”

“Ok.” Jack snaps the book he was reading shut and stands up. “I’m going to bed.”

Aaron throws him an apologetic smile, but doesn’t hide his amusement well. “Night, Jack.”

He gets her up the stairs, her hands wandering the entire time, and he is quickly reminded just how handsy tequila makes her. He sits her on the bed, a kiss pressed to her forehead as he goes about getting her ready for bed. He changes her into her pajamas and takes her make off for her, wraps her up in their bed as he gets ready to get in himself.

She’s almost asleep by the time he joins her, eyes fluttering as she settles into his side.

“I can’t wait to marry you.” She slurs, words pulled apart by sleep and alcohol.

He kisses the top of her head. “I can’t wait either sweetheart.”

The next morning she feels horrendous and doesn’t cover it. She’s dramatic when she's hungover and he loves it, the only time she will all but demand he looks after her instead of trying to act like she didn’t need his affection.

He brings her water and aspirin. Sits with her wrapped up in his arms and strokes her hair until she falls back to sleep. When she wakes up she sees he’s been out and got her favourite breakfast from the cafe they go to frequently, with extra bacon and a cold brew.

They eventually move to the couch, cuddled up under a blanket watching old movies. Jack eventually joins them, makes some comments about Emily’s hangover that make her stick her tongue at him.

Aaron loves her, more than he ever thought was possible, and he wants to bask in it for the rest of his life. _____________________

Emily is in her office when she gets the call. An unknown number appearing on her cell phone screen was not unusual in her job, so she answers without thinking. “Agent Prentiss.”

“Hi, I’m calling for Emily Prentiss?” A woman’s voice comes down the line.

“Speaking.”

“I’m Sophie, I’m a nurse at St Sebastians. Your husband Aaron Hotchner was brought in an hour ago after suffering a heart attack.”

Her world narrows to the phone gripped in her hand and the sound of the nurse's voice. “He had a heart attack?”

“Yes ma’am. He’s in surgery right now, and will be out in the next half an hour or so.”

“Ok. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She clears her throat, tries to force the lump of emotion she can feel lodged there out of the way. “St Sebastian you said?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She hangs up the phone with shaking hands, grabs her bag and walks out the office. JJ stops her, a concerned look on her face and a gentle hand on her arm. “Emily, what's wrong?”

“I’ve got to go.” She tries to get by her friend, but JJ grips her arm, won’t let her move.

“Emily, what’s happened? You’re crying.”

Emily lifts her hand to her face and wipes away tears she didn’t realise were there. The rest of the team had gathered around them with looks on their faces that she hates. She takes a deep breath. “Aaron had a heart attack.”

JJ gasps. “Oh, Em.” She looks around at the team, a silent conversation that their boss doesn’t, and can’t, pay attention to. “I’ll drive you to the hospital, these guys can hold the fort here.” She watches as Emily opens her mouth, clearly going to argue. “You are in no state to drive. I’ll take you and keep everyone else updated. Let’s just get you to him, ok?”

Emily nods, relenting to her friend's demands. They leave the bullpen, words of support from the rest of the team chasing them out. As they get into the elevator Emily struggles to maintain her composure, more tears escaping past her lashes.

“We’ve only been married two months. I can’t lose him.”

JJ grabs her hand, squeezing it tightly. “You won’t.”

Emily doesn’t believe her until she is in Aaron’s hospital room, sitting on the edge of his bed with one of his hands caged in between both of hers. His warm skin and grumpy demeanor at being in a hospital loosening the tightness in her lungs.

This hospital holds bad memories for them, the actions of George Foyet still affecting their lives to this day. She remembers the feeling of finding him here all those years ago. When she first started realising her feelings for him were more than they should have been.

“Are you ok?” He asks gently, running his thumb over the back of her wedding and engagement ring.

She shakes her head at him. “You had a heart attack, Aaron. I don’t think either of us are ok right now.” She kisses him and then leans her forehead against his. “You’re going to listen to everything the cardiologist says, ok? I’m not losing you this soon after I got you.”

He nods his response and kisses her again. “Of course, sweetheart. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Her phone rings and she sees it is Jack calling her, desperate for an update. He was with Jessica and her father for the week at the family cabin. “It’s Jack, I should answer this.” He nods as she stands and exits the room, catching the start of her conversation with his son.

When they meet his cardiologist for the first time she takes a lot of incredibly detailed notes. He should have expected it, memories of her waking him every two hours when he had a concussion the year before flooding his brain.

She makes him take up running again, and goes with him despite it not being her thing at all. She insists he eats healthier, and makes Jack do the same, insistent that they were all going to do better.

Aaron gets frustrated at her once when they are at the grocery store when she throws the bacon he had just put in the cart back onto the shelf. She looks at him, long and hard. “I just want you around for a long time, Aaron. Is that such a bad thing?”

That, he realises, he can’t argue with. _____________________

When Elizabeth dies Emily has a delayed reaction. It takes almost a day for the tears to come, brought on by Jack’s kind words and reassurance, and once they start she cannot stop them. Grief for her mother, the only parent she had ever really known seeping out of her every pore, along with grief for the relationship they were never destined to have.

Aaron walks into their bedroom to find her curled up in their bed, body wrapped around his pillow, tears still streaming down her face. “Sweetheart.”

It makes her sob more, unable to deal with the unfaltering kindness he alway shows her. He settles on the bed next to her and cups the back of her head, pleased when she doesn’t shy away from his touch.

“What do you need?” He asks gently, thumb running back and forth over her temple.

She sniffs and looks at him through swollen, tear filled eyes. “Just you.”

“Then that’s what you’ll get.” He takes his pillow out of her hold and puts it back in its normal place, laying back on it as he pulls her into his arms. He holds her tightly as she presses her face into his chest. She’s close enough that her sobs vibrate through his chest. He runs his hand up and down her back until she eventually falls asleep, his embrace providing her with the safety it always had done.

He doesn’t move all night, and she tells him off in the morning when he can barely move his back from the position he slept in. _____________________

In the end, when they find out he is dying, they look after each other. Tears and reassurance from them both as they try to come to terms that after all their time together, the twenty years they got as them, that it was coming to an end.

It would be easy for them to think they could have had longer. That if they’d got their act together sooner they could have easily had another decade of their love. Maybe had a child or two of their own.

They don’t think that way though. Any regrets they had about the past are long gone, a sense of acceptance and peace that this is what they got, and that it is far more than they ever thought they would have.

His last words to her were ones of love, and she knows if she had the chance to do it all again she wouldn’t change a thing. _____________________

‘Promise me, In sickness and in health, In agony and in joy, In fights and in love.

I would still have all of you, In every part of me.’ - Isha Gupta

#Hotchniss #hotchniss fic #hotchniss fanfiction #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #i love this version of them #almost as much as they love each other

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let-me-luve-you · 3 years

Text

The Volunteer

Misha x Reader

Summary: The reader volunteers at a shelter where she meets someone special.

Warnings: adoption, foster child, homeless, unfortunate families, mentions of a car wreck(briefly), mentions of abuse (Briefly), mentions of alcoholism (briefly)

MASTERLIST

SPN CHRISTMAS BINGO

Holidays are always hard. You didn’t have any family to celebrate with. Your friends were always with their families. Growing up in the foster system made holidays not that special. You had always been moved to a new house around the holidays. When you were 16, you got yourself emancipated. You dropped out of school and found a job at Target. Ten years of hard work and being reliable, you worked your way up to store manager.

You were grateful for the family you had made through work. Boyfriends had come and gone but normally you weren’t at the stage of your relationship to spend Christmas with their family. When you were 23, you had started to foster kids of all ages. You would have no more than three at a time. You always tried to give them the best holidays. Spoil them with gifts. Spend time with them. Show them the true meaning of the season.

This year during the holidays, you only had one child. A six year old boy named Rylan. He was the light of your life. He had been with you since January. You had started talks with his social workers to adopt him back in March. In November, you were told you had been approved and you should be able to sign the papers before Christmas.

Tonight, you decided to take Rylan with you to the shelter to help hand out food to families and the homeless. You were also handing out gifts to the children m. Rylan was really shy. Staying at your side most of the night. Once he got used to the people around him, he opened up. At one point he disappeared from the food line.

“Rylan? Baby this isn’t funny?” You said slightly panicked. You turned and asked on of the other volunteers to take your place while you found your son. Gary agreed and you walked towards the kitchen. When you swung open the door you were surprised to see Rylan up on a chair with a mixing bowl in front of him and a whisk in his hand. Another volunteer you hadn’t met yet standing behind him helping him mix whatever was in that bowl. Rylan smiled up at you with one of his front teeth missing.

“Mommy Y/N! Look I’m making cookies.” He continued to stirring. Making a slight mess on the table and him. You smiled at him, “I see that baby. I’m happy you’re helping out, but you know not to walk away from me without telling me.”

The volunteer grabbed the whisk from Rylan and the young boy fully turned to you. “I’m sorry. I heard Misha say he was making cookies and I wanted to help.”

“Sorry. I thought he talked with you before he joined me.” The volunteer said. “I’m Misha by the way. I’m new to volunteering here.”

“Hi Misha. I’m Y/N. Thank you for watching Rylan and letting him help.” You said. “He’s not usually this friendly with people and he usually just likes to help me. It’s good to see him trying something new and talking with people.”

“It’s no problem at all Y/N. He’s welcome to stay back here with me. And don’t worry… I’ll keep him away from the oven.” Misha smiled.

“Okay. Rylan you can stay, but you have to be good and listen to Misha.” Rylan hugged you as you gave him the good news.

“Thank you Mommy Y/N. I promise to be good.” He said. You smiled down at him and kissed his head. You turned to walk back to your post, “I’ll be back in a little bit to check on you.” Both Rylan and Misha smiled.

You walked back to your post, thanking Gary as he went back to his. You continued to fill the plates of those coming through the line. You made small talk with them and thanked them for coming in. You wished them Happy Holidays.

When the line died down. You walked back to the kitchen to check on Rylan. He was sitting at the table decorating a few cookies.

“Hi baby. Did you help Misha?” You asked. He nodded keeping his focus on his cookie. “Did you help him clean up?” The young boy paused before shaking his head no. “Go help him wipe down the counter and hand him the rest of the dishes.” He sulked but did what you said. You started to help him. Knowing once he finished clearing the counter, he would want to go back to decorating his cookies.

“Thank you Y/N.” Misha said when you handed him the last of the dishes. “I can handle the rest. Why don’t you go sit with Rylan. Take a break. I know you’ve been here longer than I have today.” You smiled at him and thanked him. You sat down at the table and watched your son.

“Mommy Y/N?” He said once he finished his cookie. “I’m hungry.”

You smiled at him as you thought the same thing, “What would you like to eat? We can eat wherever you want. Or we could eat at home. Your choice.” He lit up like a Christmas tree when you gave him the option.

“Can we have pizza?” He almost yelled. You shushed him to use his inside voice.

“Yes we can have pizza baby. You’ve been so good today helping.” You said.

He smiled at you, “I like helping. Can we do this more often? I really like helping others.” Your smile grew as tears built up. You fought them back but you were so proud of the young boy.

“Yes. We can do this more often.” You said as you pulled him into a hug. “I’m glad you like helping people.”

“Rylan, it’s great you love helping people. Helping this less fortunate is very good.” Misha said as he walked up and sat across from the two of you.

“Misha, will you come eat pizza with me?” Rylan asked. Ignoring what Misha had just told him.

Misha looked at you asking for permission, you nodded. “I would love to eat pizza with you.”

At Rob’s Pizza later that night, Rylan sat in your lap with his head on your chest asleep. He had a big day and after he finished eating, he was down for the count.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, why does he call you Mommy Y/N?” Misha asked as he snacked on the piece of pizza in front of him.

You smiled, “I’m his foster mom. I have my certification to foster children. Rylan is the only kid I’ve had this long. They usually give me the kids that are about to be adopted within the year.”

“How long have you had him?” Misha asked.

“I’ve had him since January. The family that was going to adopt him backed out last minute because they found out they were pregnant.” You looked down at the small child while running your fingers through his hair. “Don’t tell him this, but he’s about to get adopted.”

“Oh that’s wonderful.” He said, but then hesitated, “I’m sorry you have to see him leave.”

You gave a small laugh, “I won’t. I’m the one adopting him. Papers should be signed and it will be official next week. I’m surprising him with it.” You said smiling up at Misha. “It’s going to be one of his Christmas gifts.”

“That’s wonderful. He’s a smart, caring young man. He wouldn’t quit talking about you. He loves you a lot.” He smiled at you. “He said how he was hoping he could stay with you forever, so I know he will absolutely love the gift. Is it too much to ask what happened to his parents?”

“His mom was in a car accident when he was four. He was in the car with her. It was a miracle he made it out alive.” You squeezed Rylan a little tighter. “She passed away a few days later due to the injuries. His dad lost his mind over it. Started drinking heavily. He started to get abusive towards him. One of his dad's friends called social services. He lost his fatherly rights to him. He went into the system. Went to one house, was about to be adopted, and then he came to me.”

“He’s so lucky to have someone like you look out for him.” Misha said reaching across the table to hold your hand. He gave it a small squeeze, but never let go.

“I’m lucky to have him. He isn’t my first foster kid, but man is he the one that made a difference in my life. I grew up in the system. There’s something about Rylan that reminds me of myself and I don’t want him to live the life I did. I want him to have better.” You said quietly.

“He’ll have an amazing life with you as his mom.” He squeezed your hand again. “I’m sorry you had a rough upcoming, but you overcame it. Look at what you do now. Help those in need. Help the children. You’re amazing. I bet your husband is so grateful to have you.”

“If I had one, I hope he would be.” You laughed. “Not many of my ex-boyfriends were happy I was a foster mom. They didn’t want that responsibility, so we broke up. I’m happy with what I do. If they aren’t, that is their problem. One day I’ll find someone that is okay with it.”

Misha smiled at you as he thought you were the most selfless and most beautiful person he had ever met. “Soon enough, you’ll find that one.” He squeezed your hand one more time before he released it. “It’s late. You should get him home and to bed.” He grabbed your bag and walked you to your car. Helping you put the sleeping boy in his car seat. “Would you want to do this again sometime? I really enjoyed tonight.”

“I’d love that.” You handed him your phone to add his number. “I had fun tonight. And thank you again for being so good with him. He’s pretty shy so the fact he opened up to you so soon means something.”

“It was no problem at all. I’m just glad he had fun.” Misha smiled at you before he handed your phone back. You saw that he texted himself so he had your number as well. When you looked up, he leaned over and kissed you on the cheek. “Drive safe and text me when you get home.”

You nodded at him and watched him walk back to his car. You smiled knowing Misha was something special. “Merry Christmas Misha.” You yelled across the parking lot. He smiled and said it back to you. You got into your car and smiled at the sleeping boy in the backseat. “It’s a Merry Christmas indeed.” You whispered.

#spn christmas bingo #spn christmas bingo 2020 #supernatural christmas Bingo #supernatural Christmas bingo 2020 #misha collins #misha #misha x reader #misha Collins reader #spn rpf #supernatural rpf #misha Collins x reader

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shatteredrabbit · 3 years

Text

Some backstory stuff for Rabbit from the @ fazbear-ent-official rp!

Side note: The whole first person thing is mainly for the FazEnt roleplayers-

TW: verbal abuse, yelling

"So...what's your story?"

“My story? Really?”

You nod, staring down at the parking lot below the two of you.

“Why is there even a ladder up to the roof back here?” You think to yourself shortly after taking a garbage bag out to the dumpster in the back. Just towards the nearby alley way is a rusted ladder leading to the pizzeria’s rooftop. Out of sheer curiosity, you climb up, the metal squeaking under your weight.

Then you see her, Rabbit. You’ve never truly gotten a good look at her, since she’s typically cooped up in the kitchen. Now that you do see her, or at least her back, it does occur to you how tiny she really is. You always knew she was short, but on top of that she seems so thin. She wears that baggy jacket all day, but now that it’s tied around her waist and you can actually see her slim-fit uniform. She’s like a twig.

“What are you doing up here?” She suddenly spoke. You didn’t think she was aware of your presence.

“I could ask you the same thing,” You answer plainly.

“I just like it up here. And it’s a great place to watch the sunset, ya know?” Rabbit looked over her shoulder at you, the bunny ears on her beanie flopping along with her movement.

“Come. Sit with me.” She pats the space next to her, inviting you to join her. You walk over, shoes clopping against the roof. In a matter of moments, you’re sitting next to her, feet dangling over the edge of the building.

“So...what’s your story?” You ask after a few minutes of silence.

“My story, huh? It’s a long one, that’s for sure.”

“I have time.”

“If you insist…” Rabbit sighs, gazing out across the city, “But it’s not really a story… More like, several little ones. Moments that had a lot of impact on me, even ones that seem so...mundane.”

[May 5th, 2010]

“Momma! Momma! Look what I drew for you!!” Four-year-old Kaya excitedly held up a messily drawn picture of the family.

“That’s nice, Kaya.” her mother answered apathetically, eyes fixed on the television.

“But you didn’t even look at it!”

“I’m busy right now.”

“It’ll only take a second!” Kaya held it higher, standing on her toes to do so.

“Pretty please!” Kaya whined after there was no answer.

“Momma, look at it!!” Kaya stood in front of the TV, insisting her mother pay attention.

In one swift motion, her mother grabbed the drawing and tore it apart. She tossed the crumbled and tattered remains on the floor before pushing Kaya aside.

“B-but-!” Kaya’s eyes began to water.

“I’m. Busy.” Her mother hissed.

Kaya got back on her feet. She stared at her mother in horror, then down to her ruined drawing. She picked up what was left of it and raced back to her room, choking on her own tears.

[June 23, 2014]

“Happy birthday to me… Happy birthday to me… Happy birthday dear Kaya… Happy birthday to me…” Kaya sang half-heartedly. She was nine now, but it wasn’t anything special. Birthdays never were special.

She blew out the flame of the match she held. It was no cake, or cupcake for that matter, but it was something. Something to just prove she’d lived another year. She took a permanent marker and wrote “9” on the small space that was the wooden section of the match. She stored the match in an empty altoids container right next to the match from last year.

Thump thump thump!

“Come in.” Kaya sighed, putting the container in the top drawer of her nightstand and closing it.

“Hey shortstack,” her dad opened the door and poked his head in, “have you seen my lighter? I need a smoke but I can’t find it anywhere.”

“Sorry, no.”

“Damn. I keep losing those things.” He huffed and left, closing the door behind him.

“No clue why…” Kaya murmured to herself as she turned her attention to a solid grey pencil box sitting on her dresser.

That’s where she hid the lighters.

[November 26, 2018]

She gripped the thread in her teeth and tugged on it to tighten the stitching. She grabbed the two big green buttons sitting on her desk and positioned them on the yellow fabric. It was almost complete.

A few more stitches and it was all done. She held up the beanie, the pale yellow rabbit ears limply dangling at its sides. The green button eyes stared at her, accented by the rosy pink cheeks. She tugged the beanie over her messy brown hair and turned her attention to the mirror.

This. This felt right. This felt like her.

Rabbit.

[March 22nd, 2021]

“When are you going to get a job, you lazy little leech?” Her mother growled just as Rabbit stepped foot outside her bedroom. Rabbit clenched her fists and tried to walk past.

“If you don’t get a job this week you’re out of here!” Her mother blocked her path to the front door.

“I already have an interview, so shut the fuck up!!” Rabbit snapped, shoving past her mother and managing to get out the front door. Her mother lurched forwards to grab her by the hood of her coat, but missed. Without a second thought, Rabbit hopped on her scooter and raced down the sidewalk.

“I’m not missing another interview because of that fat ugly bitch!!” Rabbit cussed as she sped up, tears starting to form at the corners of her eyes. Luckily the place she applied to wasn’t too far from home...but that was also problematic. What if her parents just showed up to work unannounced? What would her boss think of their behavior?? Could they get her fired???

It wasn’t until someone shouted in surprise that Rabbit was brought out of her thoughts and into reality. She swerved and skidded to a halt, just inches away from hitting someone.

“Oh my gods, I’m so sorry!!” Rabbit apologized profusely, “I wasn’t looking cause I was so worried I’d be late to my interview and-”

“It’s quite alright Miss Mayanna, I actually came out here to keep an eye out for you. Let’s get that interview done, shall we?” A man with icy blue eyes smiled crookedly at her.

He pushed the front doors open, releasing a wave of cheap pizza smell, “Welcome to Freddy’s, Miss Mayanna.”

#tw abuse #tw yelling #workingwithfazent #rabbitwrites #tw verbal abuse #long post

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aesthyuckic · 3 years

Text

AVENOIR | l.dh - VIGINTI TRES

(gif not mine - credit to rightful owner)

Genre: High School AU (at beginning) ; Tarot Reader!Witch!Hyuck

Word Count: 3.7K

Warnings: (bold if in use) slow but with a purpose, belief contradictions, mentions of r*pe, blood, swearing, violence(??), mentions of abuse

Pairings: Lee Donghyuck (Haechan) x Reader (F)

KNIGHT OF WANDS: action, adventure, fearlessness

The birds could be heard chirping clearly that morning. The sunlight that came through the white curtains was warm and refreshing as it had kissed Donghyuck’s skin. Something about just made the half awake boy even cozier in the sheets of the bed as he wrapped the blanket around him more as he snuggled his face into the soft pillow.

Usually the autumn mornings were gray and colder but this one was almost perfect as is. The boy realized shortly after he wasn’t going back to sleep. His slowly opened blurry and out of focus as he saw the familiar window on his half of the room. Though, maybe it wasn’t ‘his half’ anymore as much as it was now a shared space since him and Cosimia were officially together. He remembered that every morning and it still made him smile to himself in his groggy state.

With that he sat up in the bed and stretched. He rubbed his eyes while yawning a bit before he even noticed Cosimia was sitting on the other side of the bed looking outside the other window. Her mother sat beside her, staring at her daughter. What an odd thing that she wasn’t annoying the boy for once. The quietness almost made him uncomfortable, yet it was still nice.

He turned his attention back to the girl and found it a heavenly sight to see the way the morning sunlight cascaded over her. Her hair had reverted to a natural brown that seemed to go red in the sun while her eyes turned a beautiful gold color under the light as well. She glowed like an angel... The scene had caused him to smile lazily at him in his half awake state, still feeling the familiar fluttering of his heart when it came to her.

He only then noticed the books that laid all around her on the bed, one she even held in her lap as she just seemed lost in her stare outside the window. They were his old ones about witchcraft. She had been reading them lately and he stopped practicing since he had gotten out of the hospital. He knew she didn’t want to be like her mother in the regard she didn’t want to be a witch, she said it many times. Yet, she read the books and he knew it was because since her abilities were given to him, she no longer felt anything was special about her. Just something that was a big part of her identity was ripped away and she felt hollow in places she kept trying to fill with other things and one of them was trying to take after what he use to do.

She never looked pleased reading them, always had a frown on her face and he always got why... He felt a pit of guilt within him at times like these even though he knew it was out of his control, then and now. But he remembered every time how she said she’d rather have him here above it all...

They were back in Southern California to rest for the season and only in spring would they start traveling again. Though, the good thing was it tended to be warmer there so they’d still be working regularly even if it wasn’t as busy as it would be. Luckily, they were given the day off to settle even though it had been a couple of weeks since they got back. It seemed peaceful that morning until the sound of fireworks started to go off occasionally.

She didn’t notice the boy until he gently wrapped his arms around her waist while he rested his cheek against her shoulder, comfortably half asleep. The familiar sound of young laughter could be hear outside along with the running footsteps and more fireworks.

“Did they wake you up?” She asked, referring to fireworks that were being set off by their friends.

He shrugged as he sighed dreamily, “Maybe.”

She hummed in response she continued on with the book in her lap. Her mom had said something to him about how upset she was that morning. He guessed it was one thing he was thankful for.

“Hey,” He said as he came to sit beside her on the bed before he took her hands in his which left that book forgotten for the moment. “Why don’t we go do something fun?”

She laughed, “Huh?”

“The others sound like they’re having fun...” Donghyuck pointed out. “Why don’t we join them? That’s sorta what the day off is for, right?”

It didn’t take much more persuading for her to surrender to him and get dressed. When they stepped outside, the sky was cloudy and yellow, similar to the color of dust. Hand in hand they followed the noise that filled the morning and the sky with brief moments of light. She seemed preoccupied in what was above her, the dusty yellow color reflecting within her own brown eyes, full of light themselves it seemed like glass. Though, Donghyuck was lost in that image alone, it left him with a smile and that familiar ping in chest he felt whenever she did something he adored.

They had made their way to the dry, desert clearing where all their closest friends’ trailers were. It seemed like everyone else was there by the amount of people they say running around with sparklers and setting off fireworks before running away. There was also quite a few kids with water guns and water balloons chasing each other around as it was a warm day despite it being November.

Jaemin, Jeno, and Xiaojun were sat under an umbrella on a blanket in front of their trailers that were now decorated with lights and other things you might’ve found at the party supply store. Kun was cooking on the barbecue with Jaehyun helping him. It looked nice and inviting in all honesty. Donghyuck had looked over at Cosimia and she seemed to look happier than before which made him feel better.

Meanwhile, Lucas and Hendery were having a water gun war with one another and some of the other younger ones. He was laughing and smiling as he sprayed the others around him. Though, it wasn’t long before he was surround by everyone against him and ended up drenched. His hair stuck to his forehead and his clothes to his body while he was out of breath from the combination of running and laughing. He could heard Hendery yelling out of victory with the others and celebrating with them.

He was catching his breath when he noticed something in the corner of his eye. He turned his head to see it was Donghyuck and Cosimia standing there, holding hands which wasn’t unusual to see. Though, it was when he saw the two give each other a quick kiss before she went off did his smile drop. It was only second though before a new one came about.

Donghyuck only noticed when his girlfriend left his side that Lucas was looking at him from far away. The older waved at him and he was hesitant to return it but he did in the end. The boy was quickly knocked out of the awkwardness when he felt something cold and wet on his clothes that startled him. And there she was with a water gun in her own hands just with a mischievous smile on her face.

“Oh, you’re gonna get it.” He muttered.

She started to run but he was quick to gently grab her waist and pull her back while she laughed loudly as he hugged her. She escaped rather quickly and he grabbed a water gun before he went chasing after her to get his pay back. Lucas has watched it and it made him chuckle to himself before he went to go hunt down Hendery.

The whole thing went on until dusk. Everyone started to retire to the fire in front of the trailers with towels in an effort to dry off and be warm. Some kids were still setting off fireworks, mostly with the help of the Jeno, Jaemin and Hendery at that point who were doing most of the work. Cosimia was off talking to some of the other girls since it was really the first time anyone was really aware of the relationship being official. Of course, people wanted to know more.

Her boyfriend was leaned up against one of the trailers alone, eating some of the steak Kun had cooked that tasted so good. He happily ate away while he had no knowledge of who was talking about him and even chuckling at how cute he was.

Lucas had come over to stand next to the other boy which he acknowledged right away, “I’m happy for you guys... You both seem to make each other really happy... Its nice to see, you know? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cosimia smile the way she does now or be so comfortable with someone.”

“Oh...” He said, mostly because he was nervous on what he’d say about the matter after the brief talk they had in summer earlier that year. “Thank you...”

“Listen,” The taller boy said. “The guys put a little something together for you two behind of Hendery’s and Xiaojun’s trailer. It’s kinda a surprise sort of thing but you can look it before you bring her or don’t... You know, that’s up to you.”

He gave the other a thumbs up and a wink before he walked away. What he talked about in all honesty left the boy incredibly curious but also very nervous at the same time. It was long before he went to go look at what it was simply because he couldn’t help himself. All he saw behind the trailers was a ladder that lead up to the roof of one of them.

He couldn’t find anything else around so he decided climbed up the ladder. His peaked his head up to the roof and was shocked to see a nice, knitted blanket spread out across the top as well a picnic basket, presumably that had food in it made by Kun.

“You can take credit for it if you want.” He heard Xiaojun say which startled him and almost resulted in him falling.

“Fuck, you scared the shit out of me.” He huffed as he climbed down.

“Sorry,” Xiaojun chuckled. “Didn’t mean to but again, you can take the credit. We just wanted to help you out a bit...”

“Thank you, honestly. The fact that you did means a lot to me. I know Cosi is really special to everyone and y’all want to make her happy but nonetheless, thank you again.”

“It’s not just for her, you know? We’re friends too, duh. Why else would do this if we weren’t friends as well?”

The words made him smile slightly and just feel comforted. He just nodded in response to the older. Shortly after, he went back out to where everyone else was and he saw his girlfriend was still with her friends, talking. He had to step in between groups of other people to get to her. It seemed like all them became quiet as he tapped the girl’s shoulder to which she turned around to see him.

“Oh, Hyuck.” She smiled as she grabbed his hand and looked up at him. “What’s up?”

He bent down to whisper in his ear. “There’s a surprise for us so when you’re ready meet me behind the trailers, okay?”

She nodded as she let his hand go so he could walk away. He could hear the girls’ hushed ‘oohs’ and teasing as he walked away which kind of just left him chuckling.

“Be quiet.” Cosimia blushed. “He can probably hear all you guys.”

“Go on!” Lia encouraged the girl, pushing her lightly.

“Yeah!” Choerry chimed in. “Who knows what the surprise is. Haechan is a really sweet boy.”

“And you’ve constantly brought up how he’s a romantic.” Giselle scoffed.

“Shut up!”

Her friends all giggled at how red her face got at the teasing.

“Seriously, though,” Giselle said. “Go.”

“Are you sure?” Cosimia asked. “I didn’t even really get to say much.”

“Definitely.” Choerry nodded. “There’s always tomorrow.”

“Plus, there will be more to tell us then too.” Lia added with a grin.

They waved goodbye as the girl as she stumbled passed the people that surrounded them. It was much quieter as she rounded the back to see the boy leaned up against the metal of one of the trailers. She noticed there was a ladder next to him that shined a little with the moon light. He turned his head at the sound of gravel moving and a big smile appeared on his face as she got closer.

“So, where’s the surprise?” She teased.

He gestured toward the ladder behind him now, “Up this way, m’lady.”

“What a gentleman.” She giggled, playing along.

She approached the ladder in which he helped her up by holding it with one hand and holding her hand with the other. He could hear her let out a small gasp from the roof before he came up. He sat beside her and she seemed too speechless to say anything. He could see the faint pink in her cheeks even though it was dark. Her friends had spotted her and waved with such assuming at the scene. To him, seeing her like this was such a treasure. All blushing and shy because of the teasing from friends, taken back by the gesture... Mostly because he never really got to see that part of her before or see her act her age because she was too busy with other things that hadn’t allowed that to be a thing.

He didn’t check what was in the picnic basket before and was shocked to pull out a sparkling cider bottle along with a piece of cake they ended up sharing in the end after the small dinner that was prepared for them. They sipped on the cider for the rest of the time being while looking up at the moon, the stars and just the sky the girl had always had such a liking too.

It was as if the others had caught on to the little plan when the starry night sky was light up with fireworks displayed in such a way it showed a pink heart. Her eyes seemed to light up as her jaw dropped before fading into a smile.

“Hyuck, did you really do all of this?” She asked, almost breathless as she sat up and put her glass down beside her.

“Mm... more of a happy accident.” He answered. “The boys did most, actually all the work... They said I could take credit but I really can’t, honestly. It gave me ideas, so next time it will be me. It was nice though anyway, right? Really nice of them too...”

He couldn’t look up, kind of embarrassed at the fact that he wasn’t the one that came up with it but treated like such at first. He ran his finger around the rim of the champagne glass in an attempt to distract himself. He was surprised when he felt the girl his cheek.

“Thank you.” She murmured, softly in the night.

“For what?” He questioned.

“For bringing me up here.” She started with a shrug. “For not lying to me, even when it’s a little lie. For pushing me to come outside today. For making me feel better. A lot of things...”

“Is it... kissing rewarding thankful?”

He smiled, sheepishly at the girl. She rolled her eyes before leaning over and giving him a kiss that was long than expected. She couldn’t seem to help herself, not that he’d ever complain about it. He felt like he was floating whenever they shared a kiss and his heart would feel so light. Her lips were always so soft and warm and they tasted so sweet like sugar every time. It just made him feel like he was in heaven.

“I love you, too.” She admitted.

“What?” He breathed.

“I love you, too...” She repeated. “You said it that one night... Hopefully it still reins true... I’m sorry, I just didn’t know how-“

He lean in and captured her lips, gently, one again. Though, it was him getting lost in it this time. Something about the passion in it made her whole heart skip so many times before he pulled away, slowly to rest his forehead against hers. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“You don’t have to apologize.” He cooed. “I said it really soon... and it’s different for everyone, you know? But of course, it’s still true.”

“Really?” She asked.

“Really,” He reassured. “I can say it again if you want. I’ll say, I love you. I’m in love with you, Cosi. I’m positive of that. Do you want me to say it to everyone? Because I can. I’ll stand up and shout it right here, right now in front of all of our friends if you want me to.”

“No, that’s fine. I believe you.”

It was always nice to hear her laugh. He stroked her cheek with his thumb.

“Okay.” He shrugged with a moment of slience before he sat straight up. “I love Cosi-“

She was quick to grab him and cover his mouth before pinning him against the roof.

“Shhh!” She whispered to him. “Everyone is gonna hate us because we’ll be that couple!”

“So, let them.” He giggled. “We deserve this don’t we? I’ll gladly make them sick to their stomachs with how cute we are.”

“You’re something else.”

“You’re really beautiful.”

She looked down at him in silence, his eyes wandered around her face as he looked up. Her hair hid them as she was on top of him, pinning his arms down so he couldn’t get up to go yelling again and she so happened to have more strength than him. She leaned down and laid a kiss on his lips as her gripped loosen on his arms. His hands had found their way to her waist to pull her closer. He smiled into the kiss and she was left breathless by the skipping heat in her heart he caused with what he did. It wasn’t long before they felt each other soft lips on one another again. Something about the whole thing was so easily to get lost in and so intoxicating. One thing lead to another and they ended up making out, which was the first time they went beyond passionate, long, loving kisses since weeks prior.

Though, it was cut short when a empty soda bottle was thrown at them and bounced off the roof which startled the both of them out of each other’s embraces.

“Get a room!” Hendery yelled. “And no baby making on my roof!”

“This is your fault, deal with it!” Donghyuck retorted.

“You can keep the blanket!” Xiaojun added. “We don’t want it back.”

Luckily for the couple, most people had gone back inside with how late it was. Their stay was cut short after the moment of embarrassment but they still thanked everyone for the surprise. It was eerie walking home, but in a good way. It felt similar to walking home after trick or treating on Halloween as a teenager. It felt like one too with how happy and bubbly they were on their short walk... To them it felt surreal,. They’d never been in such a place, let alone together before. They laughed, trying their best to be quiet with the people sleeping as warm of each other’s hand keep their fingers from falling off.

The air was cool and the night sky was noticeably a deep purple color as they walked away from the light. The wind started picking up as soon as they stood in front of the trailer and it seemed to get worse once they were inside, sheltered from the cold. It howled outside the windows in a creepy manner.

The boy threw the blanket on the chair near the door once they were inside.

“Haechan.” Cosimia’s mother called to him.

Before he could even ask her what it was, Cosimia had wrapped her arms around his neck to bring him down a bit just to continue where they left off before they were interrupted. His hands were quick to find her waist once again just to bring her closer as he tried to not smile against her lips. He’d never felt such a way before and he just felt so high...

“Haechan!” Her mother repeated herself again, only louder while stomping her foot on the floor.

He tried to waved her off as his arms had wrapped around the girl’s waist. He could hear the woman scoff and presumably roll her eyeballs as well at the sight as the kiss just seemed to get deeper. He could feel Cosimia smile too at that point. It was unfortunate that they were interrupted, again at that, by the sound of something hitting the floor. The both of them stopped to turn their attention to the noise.

A shadow started to stop out from the darkness of the small hallway. The two of them both went pale and wide eyed at the sight of Cosimia’s dad only standing a few feet away from them. Donghyuck was the one to notice that large knife in one of the man’s hands that glinted under the dim light from the lamp in their living area that barely reached that edge of the kitchen.

“I was trying to tell you.... The mother sighed.

The boy’s breath hitched in his throat as his anxiety and adrenaline raised within a moment. His grip on his girlfriend’s hand tightened. He stepped in front of her once he saw the distraught expression on her face as she froze in her place. She looked much like a ghost, like her mother with the way the color drained from her face. He looked back at her father, who hadn’t moved but now had a sinister grin. His eyes were black, full of darkness and death... Everything about that man screamed ‘lunatic’ and it was absolutely terrifying with the way he started to twirl the knife in his hands.

It was his turn to protect her now though.

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caffeinated-chaos-bean · 3 years

Text

Mid-2021 Blog Update

Hey guys.

So... It’s been a while. Quite a while... and I want to lay some things out as to why I’ve been gone and the blog has practically been dead in the water for half a year, if not for a whole year.

I want you to know that what I’m going to say will be in heavy detail. I’m comfortable speaking on it, and what information doesn’t just include me will be using either public details that I know I can share or will be put in a short and sweet manner.

This is your trigger warning: If you need to click off or scroll past due to the mention of extremely bad mental health, toxic relationships and households, the mention of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts, please do so now.

. . .

First off, I’ve lessened the amount of time I’ve been online due to my mental health. I was put on antidepressants as well as told to take anti-anxiety gummies in November and will be weaned off of those starting this October. A lot of my family and relationship drama on top of the world practically shutting down and going into chaos thanks to COVID-19 just took a major toll on me. With so much on my shoulders, stress from living with said things on my shoulders, unsupportive family members, and an emotionally distant partner, I was at one of the lowest points in the life. I’d never had to be on mood-related medication in my life until last November. I’d always been able to handle what was thrown at me, but mid- to late-2020 was what knocked me down that low for the first time in my life. Suicidal thoughts came and went (they weren’t often, only when I couldn’t bottle my emotions up any longer but didn’t have a way to express them either), but even when they did, I knew that it was just in my head. I never once chose to act on them, because to me, that is not a way to solve a problem or escape your inner demons. All it does it put your personal suffering onto those around you -- your friends, family, and those who cared about you even when you don’t see it -- and it doesn’t do anyone any good. When my doctor asked me about suicide, that’s the very explanation I gave her. Yes, they happened, but I’d never act on them; it’s not a way out and it puts your pain onto others and only worsens the situation for the long-term.

Aside from that, though... I move on to other personal reasons for my absence that helped trigger what was mentioned above. Mid-August of 2019, my then fiancé's mother was murdered by two 17yr old boys of whom she and their family knew. Going off the information that was made public, one boy had mixed meth with marijuana prior to the killing. He claimed that my fiancé’s mother mouthed off and made a derogatory comment about his deceased mother, thus sparking the incident. While he claims to have only stabbed her once, the autopsy report shows that her head/face and upper torso were “hacked, slashed, and chopped” repeatedly with “various sharp, bladed objects”. Not only did they murder her, the two individuals also set the grass around her body on fire along with her home. When we found out about this having happened, I had no idea how bad it would have turned my relationship upside-down. My now ex-fiancé didn’t come from a great childhood, there was abuse and CPS, among other things. But he had managed and was a good person. He could make me laugh and tear up at his jokes, sang beautifully, and did everything to make those around him happy. When he lost his mom, it broke him. It shattered his very being, because not only did he know the two who caused it to happen, he also was unable to reconcile and make amends with his mother for what he went through as a child. He was robbed of being able to forgive and be on good terms with her, and it broke him. He stopped communicating with family, he took bereavement after being pulled from work by family the day it was confirmed to be his mother only to to fired 3 months down the line when he tried to go back (fuck Walmart for that btw), and was slowly becoming a hypochondriac. He stopped talking to me, he would cry in his sleep, and grief made him lash out as was expected. But as the days dragged on, his motivation and care towards finding a new job dwindled. He and my mother would fight endlessly and I was caught in the middle of it, as we all were in one household. There were times in which I would keep my phone on my leg and record for my own personal documentation should I need it due to how bad my own mother would belittle me, belittle my ex behind his back, and just scream and go off. When I’d turn to my ex for comfort, he wasn’t much help due to his own deteriorating mental health. He took to discord, specifically the Vampire the Masquerade community, as his escape from reality. He eventually would hardly talk to me at all, show no compassion, and at times I tried to speak with him about getting a new job or suggesting part-time ones that I felt would be easy and as stress-free as possible for him, I would be shooed away without a word; if I tried to further my attempt to have the conversation, he eventually got an attitude and would just say “Bye!” over and over again while shooing with his hand to get me to leave. There were many days where I’d get off work and sit in the bathroom for an hour and cry because of my frustration and how I felt stuck between two people I cared about deeply (ie. my ex and my mother).

My ex has since moved out and no longer lived with us. He and I are no longer together, and he has cut off all communication to me along with his family. He isn’t living in California anymore, really. He met up with discord friends and is in another state. That’s the last I heard from him. That’s the last his family heard. He doesn’t talk to us or attempt to reach out or respond when his family reaches out. I still very much care about him and want him to get better, but if he has to do so by being away from everyone, then so be it.

While I was letting - or shutting out, rather - the emotions I was feeling once he officially moved out, I relapsed with my anxiety tick; with my trichotillomania. I have a good number of smaller, thinned out spots in my hair from unconsciously pulling out strands of hair when my emotions didn’t know how to regulate. I’m still fighting to get this under control, as I do still catch myself doing it and so does my mother. It currently is not as bad as when my ex first moved out and I had to adjust back into sleeping alone and without someone next to me, but I do still pull. I am looking into trying to get my sister to order me a HabbitAware bracelet for me this Christmas in order to help get my tick back under control. I know its something I will live with forever and go in and out of doing, as there is no cure or medication to curb trichotillomania, but its something to help me be more aware of how often I do pull and to train it to no longer be a muscle memory response.

Most recently, I’ve had to stop taking melatonin. I’ve had bouts of insomnia since my ex left, and eventually I took enough melatonin to not only build an immunity to it but also a slight dependence. I was taking more than I should have been, and I noticed the signs of it and have stopped taking melatonin altogether. Due to this, I have switched to hempseed oil gummies. I take 2 before bed and they have helped wonderfully. But, due to how easy it was for me to become dependent on melatonin, I do plan to take brief breaks from the gummies to avoid a similar situation. I also do not plan on seeking an insomnia medication due to the same reasons. I knew what I was doing was wrong and I knew i was becoming addicted, and due to this I do not wish to risk it happening with a prescription sleep medication. I will deal with my bouts of insomnia as they come.

I also am conquering my insecurities towards others knowing I am a fan of Michael Jackson; a moonwalker. In elementary school (5th grade, 2009), I went through a heavy obsessive phase when he passed. I’d never heard of him, and when I listened to his music that firs time I was instantly hooked. I was ridiculed at school after I performed “Thriller” during a talent show; I had classmates going as far as saying that I must want him to kidnap and r*pe me if I enjoyed his music so much. I didn’t understand the gravity of those comments back then the way that I do now that I’m 23, but I still knew to an extent that what they were saying was in now way a good thing. I shut out his music from mid-6th grade all the way until this year. I hadn’t listened to a single song aside from hearing “Thriller” on the radio during October. For my birthday this year, I had a friend take me out of town and get away for a day. The entire time, she surprised me by playing hours of his music when in the car with her. It has since reopened that connection to his music and I’ve been listening to his songs with a fresh take, with the mind of an adult who can comprehend his words and understand finally what he’s saying for each song. As such, I’ve become more comfortable with others knowing I’m a moonwalker. You can have your opininos of the man, you can choose to believe the tabloids and junk media or make your own conclusions after assessing the details and documents of his life, but I will enjoy the same freedom of opinion.

I know this is getting pretty long, but I wanted to fill those who still might be checking up on this blog for any sort of update or spec of life coming from it in on what’s practically killed the blogs for a good chunk of time.

I do plan to slowly start doing stuff again after Halloween. I have a video made that I plan to post for Halloween and I look forward to letting Kikumi and the others be open for asks again. Until then, may the wind guide you all. I hope everyone can have a safe and wonderful rest of August. I will see you in October.

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the-lincyclopedia · 4 years

Text

Ten months sober, I must admit, just because you’re clean don’t mean you don’t miss it

This is not about drugs or alcohol.

It’s been ten months to the day since I told First Boyfriend not to contact me again, and I’ve been listening to the Taylor Swift song “Clean” lately, which is where I got the title of this post, and I decided to post about that whole thing now rather than (or honestly maybe in addition to) posting about it at the one-year mark.

I’m not going to tell the full story here. I have something like that in my Google Drive, and it’s 12 pages single spaced and still feels like it’s mostly just the highlights. Here’s what I will say:

We were in the same first grade class. The first time I remember interacting with him was during recess in fifth or sixth grade, when he and a couple of his friends walked up to my friends and me, and he tackled me silently. I got up, brushed myself off, and kicked him in the shins; he tackled me again and walked away. This whole thing occurred without a single word being spoken. My khakis got grass stains. I misspelled his last name when I wrote about it in my diary.

We got close in eighth grade. This was the year after my mom had almost died, and I felt different from all my friends and classmates. He was different, too. (I later found out we’re both autistic. That explains a lot.) Our different-ness was part of what drew us together. So, too, was my sense that he wasn’t okay. When my mom had been at her sickest, I’d had a purpose, briefly, taking care of my sister, but now my mom wanted her job as our parent back and I was looking for other sources of meaning. Taking care of him was one of them.

Two of my friends and I threw him a surprise 14th birthday party in the spring of eighth grade. All three of us had crushes on him at that point. The birthday party was a smashing success and honestly still a memory I treasure, mostly because of the massive water balloon fight.

On October 5 of our freshman year of high school, he was at his then-girlfriend’s swim meet, and our mutual best friend was there with him. He told her he was seriously thinking of killing himself that night. She tried to talk him out of it but didn’t make much progress, so she called me, sobbing, and then handed the phone to him, and I talked him down. It was the first time he and I said “I love you” to each other. Seeing him at school the next morning was the biggest, most visceral relief I’ve ever known.

His girlfriend broke up with him in late November. Five days later, upstairs in a dark hallway during our mutual best friend’s Hanukkah party, he kissed me twice on the jaw line. I knew he’d hurt himself if I let on that I hadn’t wanted it, so I very carefully asked him not to do that again.

A week later, I asked him out. (I know.)

We dated for a little over a year before my parents, especially my father, started telling me that a year was too long for a high school relationship; that since I wasn’t going to marry him, it made no sense to continue. I caved to the pressure, even though I didn’t want to break up with him.

I hadn’t cried since my mother’s cancer diagnosis three years earlier, but the breakup broke me. I cried daily for the first two weeks, and it took under a month for me to become suicidal. I called him--I’d talked him out of suicide, so it felt fair--and he talked me down. I knew I wouldn’t be able to bear hearing “Don’t” or “You can’t.” That those things would make me say, “Watch me.” He told me, “It’s your choice, but I hope you don’t, and this is why I didn’t.”

We started flirting during the second month of the breakup, and it was more fun than we’d ever had together before. We got back together after ten weeks apart and things got easier.

We stayed together for nearly two years this time. It went better the second time; he lied less and was mostly better about consent. (If those phrases seem concerning, they should.)

I broke up with him the second time because I watched series three of Sherlock and realized that Mary’s behavior, all the lying and the double life, seemed totally normal to me. I don’t want to go into the details of his lies because I’m embarrassed for having believed him, but suffice it to say he was rarely honest about anything, and eventually I realized I wanted trust to be part of my relationships.

The first month after the second breakup was awkward (we had classes together, and we competed in the state math tournament together, and we rode the same tour bus halfway across the country with the rest of the school’s music department), but after about a month there was a night when I wound up in his lap, sobbing and promising that I didn’t hate him or want him out of my life but that I’d just needed the romantic part to be done. Things got much less awkward after that.

We went to college on opposite ends of the same state. We saw each other on breaks. He kept kissing my forehead until I told him not to. When studying abroad went miserably for me, I told him I never wanted to go another day without hearing the words “I love you,” and he said he could make that happen. He texted me “Much love” every day for over three years after that.

It took six and a half years after breaking up with him for good to realize that what he’d done to me was wrong. (And I still don’t know how to tell the story that way, coherently, largely because of the fake double life he made up that I’m embarrassed for having believed in.) But ten months ago, at my first appointment with my current therapist, I read aloud the 12 pages of chronological narrative I have about him, plus the three pages about the time he pushed past my boundaries most dramatically, right after we turned 15. My therapist confirmed that what had happened was abuse, and I texted him to let him know I didn’t want him to contact me anymore.

He got engaged last month, which I know because I’m in occasional contact with his now-fiancée, mostly because I want her to know someone will believe her if she ever wants out. It’s weird to know he’s going to get married. It’s weird to think of him being with someone other than me, even though he’s been with his fiancée for almost four years now. For all the fucked up parts, he was still my first love.

I chose to start this with the quote from “Clean” because I miss him. When Mary Louise Kelly got cussed out by that Trump administration official last fall, I wanted to talk to him about it, because we both listen to a lot of NPR and no one else in my life does, other than my parents. When my mental health took a dip in early June, I wished I could call him, because he was absolute magic when it came to talking me out of a bad headspace. When my mom and I played Scrabble a couple weeks ago, I wanted to text him a picture of the board, because he’s so good at Scrabble and we played it a lot.

None of that nostalgia means I should let him back into my life. I know that, and I’m not going to get in contact with him. I don’t trust him and I don’t think there’s anything in the world that could change that. I deserved honesty from him, especially when we were dating. I deserved not to have my boundaries pushed during intimacy. I deserved not to be used as an alternative to therapy when he could afford therapy and was just choosing to use me instead. I deserved these things, but I did not get them. He should have done better.

Ten months sober, I must admit, just because you’re clean don’t mean you don’t miss it. Ten months older, I won’t give in. Now that I’m clean, I’m never gonna risk it.

#alcohol tw #drugs cw #not really but the quote at the beginning mentions sobriety so #him #him and me #suicide tw #mine #abuse #tw: abuse

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percywinchester27 · 4 years

Text

About a boy- Epilogue

Word count: 2.3K

Warning: Feels, mentions of physical abuse and child-trafficking. Did I mention feels?

Characters: Dean and Sam, Bobby, Jody, Cas, Gabriel, Benny and others.

Summary: Dean Winchester has a secret. A secret that could really land him in trouble. He never expected to connect with anyone when he walked into the ‘Blue Stone Orphanage for Boys,’ but even then, the walls he has put up are slowly coming down. Now, a series of strange events are threatening to expose him. When everything starts falling apart around him, will he still be able to save the one person that matters the most?

A/N: This is it, guys! The end of the journey. Looking back, it feels pretty sweet to me. Thank you to everyone who read, liked and commented on the story. You guys kept me going! <3

My immense gratitude to @thing-you-do-with-that-thing and @deanssweetheart23 for beta reading this story <3 You both are absolute gems and I love you!

About a boy masterlist

One year later

11th September 1995

“You idjits!” Bobby yelled. “You two had one job!”

Dean came running around the corner hoping that his face wasn’t too red, or hair too messy. The one time he got lucky with Jessie Rosenberg, Bobby had to yell for him.

“What now?” He asked, crossly.

“Look at the fascia,” Bobby pointed. “I asked you to fix that thing two weeks ago. Does it look fixed to you?”

“Sam had exams! He barely pulled his head out of the books!”

“And you could have fixed it by yourself.”

Dean looked at the front yard. The tables and pretty lights hanging over the trees transformed it into something completely else. There were frilly table cloths and blooming, pale roses. Even the cars had disappeared. There were so many people milling around in pretty dresses and buttoned up suits. Looking at that no one would be able to tell most of them were cops. And none of those cops were inspecting the case of disrepaired fascia boards.

“C’mon, Bobby,” Dean said. “It’s your wedding. Shouldn’t you be dancing with your wife instead of yelling at unsuspecting boys? You don’t even care about awnings and fascia!”

Bobby wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He was actually looking a bit funny without the usual baseball cap and the jacket. Though Dean couldn’t say the formal suit look didn’t suit him. He was just not used to seeing it.

Bobby sat down on the porch steps. “Yeah, you’re right. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. I’m just nervous.”

Dean sat down besides him. “Why’re you nervous? I mean you’ve known Jody forever.”

Bobby made a disgruntled noise. “It’s not that. Everything is moving so fast. You’ll be seventeen in a few months and then Sam will grow up, too. I’ve just gotten so used to you boys being around. Who knows what’s next. College? You both will move on.”

“Oh, come on!” Dean groaned. “Don’t go all sappy on me now. Not you, too!”

“Who else?” Bobby raised his eyebrow.

“Sam,” Dean sighed. “He’s having one of those days again.”

‘One of those days’ was the term Dean and Bobby used to describe Sam’s mood when he felt overwhelmed. During the first week, after Sam had moved in with them, little things startled him. Like how there were no restrictions about bedtime, or how he could choose what food he wanted, and when he wanted to eat. On the first Sunday, Jody surprised them all with movie tickets; Sam was quiet the whole way because he had never been to movies before. The next day they went out to eat. That was a rare phenomenon anyway, but Jody wanted to get to know Sam. Even there he hadn’t talked, barely eaten anything.

That night Dean had found him sitting on the roof.

“You know that Bobby would butcher you if he found you freezing your ass out in the cold, right?” Dean asked, easing himself down on the tiled roof.

“I’m being a shithead, aren’t I?” Sam said, hiding his face in his arms where they were resting over his knees. “Jody was being so nice, and I just… I screwed up everything.”

“You didn’t screw up shit,” Dean said firmly. “Jody is a lot tougher than you think. You didn’t hurt her feelings. Hell, you should have seen when she was getting to know me…. That was what being a shithead is like.”

“What did you do?”

“The usual. Threw bitchy tantrums, punctured her car and all that.”

“No you didn’t!”

The incredulous look on Sam’s face was hilarious. It was still taking some getting used to; thinking of him as Sam and not Will.

Dean put his hands out, gesturing a ‘yours truly.’ “Yeah, it was a total dick move. It didn’t phase her in the slightest.”

“Mhmm…”

“Don’t worry about it so much, Sam,” Dean said. “We know this is hard for you.”

Sam leaned back against the tiles, staring into the night sky. “You can actually see the stars from down here.,” he said wonderingly. “See that? That’s the first star of the constellation Orion.”

“I suck at stars,” Dean said, leaning back next to his brother. “You’ll have to tell me.”

They lay like that for a long time, Sam talking avidly about all the constellations he knew of, and Dean pretending that he did not.

Bobby gazed ahead into the yard, where Jody was laughing with Sam. He was dressed just like Dean in a matching tux; for the two groomsmen. Bobby’s eyes softened. “That kid really is something. Anyone would have lost their goddamned gourd after going through all that,” Bobby said.

It was an understatement. Sam had become the apple of every teacher’s eye. He aced his classes effortlessly and the town people just loved him. The little, stupid ray of sunshine that he was.

“C’mon.” Bobby said, a twinkle in his eye. “I’ve got something for you kids.”

“What?” Dean asked, getting up.

“Just c’mon.”

Ten minutes later, the four of them, Him, Sam, Bobby and Jody were walking towards the very back of the house. Jody was practically bouncing on her feet which was so uncharacteristic of her.

Sam gave Dean a ‘What’s happening?’ look.

Dean shrugged. He didn’t know either.

“Hey, Bobby, quick question,” Dean said casually. “Are you two gonna bury us in a corner of the property? Cause this sure looks like it.”

“Yeah, sure, smartass,” Jody grinned at him. “I’ll make sure no one finds the bodies.”

Most of the cars had been parked out here, clearing the front yard. Only one car stood out, parked separately. She was so sleek and slender, the black metal almost purred.

“Holy shit!” Dean whistled. “What in name of…”

“It’s yours!” Bobby smiled widely. “It’s a 1967, Chevy Impala.”

“Wait!” Dean said, the realisation suddenly hitting him. “This car is from that picture. The one with mom and dad.”

“It belonged to your dad. He called her baby.”

Dean looked at Sam who had the same awed expression on his face.

“Where was it all these years?” Sam asked.

“Parked at Rufus’,” Bobby said. “Been working on it as and when the money and time came by. I wanted it done before the wedding. He drove it back today.”

Dean ran his fingers along the side of her, and the car seemed to respond to his touch… hummed under it.

Bobby held out a set of keys. “What’re you waiting for? Don’t you boys wanna take her out for a ride?”

*********************************

2nd November 1995

It was a clear day. The sky was blue like in one of those vacation postcards. The engine was purring underneath him and a Led Zeppelin song was playing inside his car. Dean rolled the windows down, the air whipped Sam’s hair all over his face. He made a protesting sound and Dean chuckled.

This was perfect.

“You sure this was a good idea? Not the trip,” Sam said quickly. “Just sneaking out like this without telling Bobby?”

Dean rolled his eyes. Sam was ever the responsible one.

“Bobby will be fine. We’re almost there; and if we stick to the plan, we should be back home for dinner, and no one will be wiser.

Sam huffed. “I miss Cas when you get like this. He was the only one who could get you to listen.”

“Don’t you want to go?”

“Course I do. You know I asked for this!” Sam muttered.

Dean missed Cas anyway. Thinking about his best friend made Dean smile. Because of what he had accomplished- helped with exposing the trafficking racket- the state had given him a medal of valour, along with Benny and Gabriel. Deny had detached himself from the proceedings, asking Jody to never mention him in the official records. He wasn’t interested in medals and accolades. He had walked away with a miracle of his own.

The mayor, wanting to bask in the borrowed glory, had funded Cas’s education in a private boarding school for his last year of high school. From there, Cas had managed a full ride into the University of Texas. Benny had opted out to get a job under some chef… who knew he had that talent? And Gabriel was in the wind. Dean didn’t worry about Gabe, though. He would eventually surface as a millionaire in some years for all Dean knew.

Thinking about them always brought up bad memories along with the nostalgia. Memories about Andy and the Stynes. It was little comfort knowing that they had been put away for life… they deserved much, much worse. Dean was hopeful that other states might press more severe charges on the Stynes.

Despite what it had looked like, it turned out that Michael had been the only one who knew. His cronies had no clue what their dear leader had been upto. Dean couldn’t care less about what happened to Gary and others as long as he never saw their faces again. Michael had been tried as a juvenile, and the DA had asked for a reduced sentence on the grounds that he was the one who had finally led them to the warehouse. He would serve 3 years in confinement. Even after all this time, Dean didn’t know what to feel about Michael. He tried not to think about it much.

Cas though, called them at least once a week. More, if he could manage. He and Sam had road tripped to the University in the fall and spent a week with him. Cas had been ecstatic. Dean wasn’t surprised to know that his friend was majoring in sociology and behavioral sciences. If anything, he was proud. Cas would be spending the winter break with them in Sioux falls. Bobby had been cranky about having to repair their guest room, but Dean secretly knew he was happy for them all.

“We’re here!” Dean said, as they crossed into the town. Sam stared out of the window, palms flat against the glass.

Dean made a few stops to ask for directions, and then they were parked along the edge of the sidewalk.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Dean asked apprehensively. Nevermind that he was feeling heavy inside, he couldn’t let his brother see that.

Sam bit his lip, then nodded resolutely. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

They stepped out of the car, and Dean wrapped his arm over his brother's shoulder. He’d gained a couple of inches during the summer, so Sam was both much shorter than him, and mad about it. ‘I’m gonna grow taller than you, one day,’ he’d say.

Dean didn’t know exactly where they were, so he and Sam walked together, searching and reading.

“Dean,” Sam said in a small voice. “They’re here.”

The headstones were laid side by side.

Mary Winchester

5th December 1954 - 2nd November 1983

Loving Mother and loving wife

And

John Winchester

22nd April 1954 - 2nd Novemeber 1983

Loving Father and loving husband

Dean tightened his grip on Sam’s shoulder.

“I think they would be proud of you,” Sam said, not taking his eyes away from the plain grey stones. They had weathered with rain and time, the writing had blackened over the years.

“Hey, you’re the smart one,” Dean said. The corner of his eyes were prickling. “If anything, they’d have been proud of you.”

Sam shook his head ever so slightly in disagreement. “You saved my life. Twice. You found me and kept our family going. You’re a freaking hero.”

Dean blinked his eyes in succession. He didn’t dispute Sam’s words. Not because he believed them, but because he didn’t trust his voice to be steady. He hadn’t even thought of getting flowers.

“You think we should say something?”

Dean shrugged, he didn't know what to say and he was bad with words.

“Okay, I’ll go first,” Sam said, then kneeled by their mom’s grave.

“Hey, mom. Hey, dad,” he said in that soft voice of his. “It’s me, Samuel William Winchester. Though Dean just calls me ‘Sammy.’ It’s annoying. He’s annoying!” Sam laughed nervously, like he was afraid of what their mom would think about him dissing his older brother like that. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to see you, to sit besides you… to ever have a family…. I do now, and it’s the most wonderful thing in the world. But I miss you. I’ve always missed you even when I didn’t know who you were.”

Sam cleared his throat, “I guess… I guess what I’m saying is thank you… for giving me the best big brother in the world. Dean��s awesome. I love you so much. All of you.”

He looked up then, tears swimming in his eyes and Dean placed a hand over his head.

They stayed there for a while, soaking the moment in. When it was time to go, Dean touched the cold stones, first his dad’s and then mom’s. He brought the fingers to his lips and kissed them in a discreet gesture.

They walked back to the car in silence.

When Dean started the engine, Sam gave him a small smile. “Thanks, Dean, for bringing me here.”

“Course,” he said, eyes on the road.

Sam settled back against the leather seat and hit the play on music. The song continued from where it had stopped-

….Cause I'm back on the track

And I'm beatin' the flack

Nobody's gonna get me on another rap

So look at me now

I'm just makin' my play

Don't try to push your luck, just get out of my way

'Cause I'm back

Yes,…

“Let’s get back home now,” Sam said contentedly, tapping his fingers to the rhythm of the song.

Dean gave his brother a sideways glance. He had a small smile playing on his lips. In their dad’s old car, with his brother by his side, Dean was already home.

*********************************

Source for the gif used at the top

A/N 2: I cried while writing the epilogue, too! Especially the last part. When I started writing this series about a year ago, I did it as a challenge to myself... deep down knowing that this wouldn’t ever hit off on tumblr like my other series’ had. But I owed it to myself to write a story I believed in, and the love that you guys gave this series was so overwhelming. Y’all ROCK! :*

Please do tell me what you thought of the chapter?

Tagging for the last time:

@sdavid09 @deanssweetheart23 @blacktithe7 @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @cosicas-cuquis @chalicia @anathewierdo @mrswhozeewhatsis @protectteamfreewill @firefly124-writing @spnbaby-67 @hoboal87 @rizlow1 @donnaintx @starmission @gh0stgurl @tftumblin @emily-a-c11 @ericaprice2008 @jotink78 @charliebradbury1104 @ohgodwhybloggg @i-dont-get-cold @bobbie3939 @samsexualdeancurious @dancing-the-hellfire-rumba @cookiechipdough @wildfirewinchester

#dean winchester #dean winchester fanfiction #spn fanfic #weechesters #supernatural fanfiction #aab epilogue #Ana writes aab #anawrites #anawritesspn #q

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nightklok · 4 years

Note

chickles for 2? or toki for 3 if someone asked for chickles already :3

Fandom Memes [open!] (shout out to firefox for crashing and making me rewrite this like twice-so i continued to add more to this because why not)

When I started shipping them: Oh this is actually a funny story- I can’t quite remember when I started shipping them but according to AO3, I read a chickles fanfic in November 2019 (the only one i didn’t reread because im sure there were others i read too) and that was around when I began starting the show. But around that time, I SWEAR when I looked at Charles wiki, there was some line there that was along the lines of ‘Charles and Pickles had slept together sometime before Dethklok. while pickles doesn’t remember it, charles does’ I don’t even know if it was possibly a fever dream, mixing up a fanfic as canon, or I just happened to scroll through it when someone threw the line in BUT I CONSIDERED IT CANON and I lowkey waited for that scene as I remembered it on/off and it didn’t take until April 2020 when I finally finished the show to realize that it wasn’t canon D: so thanks to fanfics and probably misreading something in November-december 2019 that’s when I shipped them :D (Also if anyone knows where I may have gotten this from pls link me)

My thoughts: I love them!! They’ve made me happy shipping them and they’re just a good and wholesome ship to me! I think it has everything I could ever want in a ship; the angsty and sad moments but also the happy ones- I don’t know how I can articulate just how much they clicked with me but they really did! They’re like the ultimate band parents,

What makes me happy about them: I think I love how they can bring something in each other that they normally wouldn’t be able to do themselves. I headcanon Pickles as someone with ADHD (and aries because hi im an aries with ADHD) and I think Charles would be able to help calm him down and keep him focused or at least stimulated when he needs to be. Being with Charles can help him be a bit controlled (Though sometimes not by much when he wants to be a tease haha). I love the idea too of Pickles being able to bring Charles to have a more exciting day or just being able to help break routine a bit. Pickles sometimes likes to do things on the spur of the night just to keep himself entertained and Charles prefers to keep things in a schedule. They would find a compromise where Charles clears out a day and Pickles just takes him somewhere random. Is it a concert? Forest? Amusement park? Half the fun’s in not knowing! But Charles enjoys that he can be a bit looser and actually get to laugh and smile and just be having the time of his life with him-

What makes me sad about them: I think Doomstar/Post-doomstar and even the events between season 2 and 3 makes me sad, it breaks my heart in two just thinking about it. Pickles...would be so fucking devastated when Charles died, especially if we go by if they met during Snakes N’ Barrels and he may have never gotten a chance to confess his feelings (or he did for more sadness) and Post-doomstar? He probably ends up blaming Charles leaving on himself and- though depending on where we’re thinking of the possibility of the timeline of their relationship, Going Downklok may have wrecked their relationship because alternatively, Pickles may not have flirted with Abigail but probably something else caused them to break up or destroy their relationship. There was a lot of tension/build up in that episode so I guess their build up and eventual burst would be feelings having to resurface, possibly Pickles getting too far in his addictions and Charles still revealing nothing about what happened during his absence or why he came back; so then you get the dinner scene and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back to get him to quit and then all the events unfold and Pickles just blames himself so heavily on it oh god i need to WRITE THIS

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: I don’t think there’s anything in fanfic that annoys me when people write them- It’s more of being uncomfortable/disturbed?...there were a few fics I came across where Charles was borderline abusive/overly sadistic (and one where I wish I hadn’t read-) that left a bad taste in my mouth after reading it. I just feel like that’s way too OOC and Charles definitely isn’t the type of person to be an abusive asshole and/or would definitely know the boundaries of being sadistic in the bedroom while still making sure his partner is into it/feels safe. But i guess that kinda goes in general for any Charles/character fics-

Things I look for in fanfic: I think them being in character, an interesting plot line, and just it being well written is all i can ask for haha-I honestly love any Chickles fanfic out there; I think the things I look for in particular are either his reactions to seeing Charles when he comes back or anything post doomstar but also implying that they met during Snakes N Barrels help

My wishlist:

I guess I’m just gonna shove in things I hope to write actually- (screaming at me to write particular fics helps motivate me so go @ it-)

A Star reader AU: this actually would be the one of the first (probs second or third) Chickles fic I had ever written as I had drafted it around ago even though I had initially planned for the Chickles to kinda be hinted at but with what I know now, would make it more prevalent. If anyone has read Blood Red Road by Moira Young you might see where I’m going but basically, there was a character who was able to read the stars and predict the future. (if you’re hoping the novel goes more into that i’m sorry-) So if we make Charles one of those people, then probably adds more depth to why he chose to work with Dethklok right? :D Secret singer fic: I AM writing that one!! I just got sidetracked but God I’m gonna get back to it as soon as I can!! Basically for anyone else reading this, Charles and his friends put up a bet to see how difficult (or easy) it would be for Charles to become internet famous by having him post covers/original songs under an anonymous name. It becomes a chaotic mess when he gets more than he bargained for and does end up gaining some popularity, someone on the internet spreads the rumor the singer is someone famous, and a particular someone came across those songs and finds the lyrics almost a little too relatable. That fic where instead of Pickles being happy that Charles is back from the dead and they can live happily ever after, he becomes incredibly distressed and heartbroken because he ends up suffering major trauma. because seeing your bf ‘die’ all bloodied and mangled and coming back with only a scar and secrets he won’t tell you? That’s definitely years worth of therapy right there. That is like the only fic of this list even remotely close to finishing but God, definitely one of the most difficult to write- Fics where they met before/during Snakes N’ Barrels. I need to write one or two fics on that because I consider it canon. I’m sure I have mentioned drafting one or two fics like that?? Gotta look through my evernotes-

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: I’m sorry but no my mind refuses to delve further- And i mean I’ve been digging Magnus/Charles lately and we all know how that wouldn’t last either so they’re meant for each other fjkdsfjlk

My happily ever after for them: The boys defeat Salacia, Charles and Pickles reunite and kiss for the first time in such a long time. They’re finally happy together and get to officially date (or continue where they left off). Charles is able to retire as the priest as his work is completed (or he manages to get it more public considering they saved the world so most likely it’d be a recognized religion) They get married, and when Dethklok officially retires, they buy a few houses, maybe even do music projects together or Charles takes over Crystal Mountain Records actually and Pickles helps out by being one of the music producers, they adopt a cat or dog or both, and just be happy with each other :D

#lampmeeting #chickles #charles foster offdensen #pickles the drummer #I CAN NEVER GIVE SIMPLE ANSWERS WITH THEM BUT I LOVE THEM-

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rwby-redux · 4 years

Text

Preface

RWBY is the breakthrough anime web series created by the late Monty Oum of Rooster Teeth. Originally teased on November 5th, 2012, and officially debuted July 18th, 2013, the series follows the journeys of four young women enrolled in an academy that trains monster-slaying warriors known as Huntsmen. Set in the fictional world of Remnant, the story initially focuses on the surface-level plot of fighting against humanity’s ancient adversary, the ever-present Creatures of Grimm; over time, it becomes apparent that things aren’t what they seem, as the cast slowly begins to connect a string of heists committed by a criminal syndicate with the violent acts of a terrorist cell. The series is aired weekly on Rooster Teeth’s website, with its main arcs spanning 12 – 16 episodes per volume. In the years following the show’s initial release, RWBY has spawned numerous merchandise and related media, including two spin-off shows, multiple side-stories published as mangas, two standalone books, three mobile games, a behind-the-scenes artbook, and OSTs for every volume to date.

As of Volume 7 there are 98 episodes in total with a collective runtime of 18:52:00, or approximately 1,132 minutes, with more episodes and side content underway.

At best, they’re visually interesting; at worst, they’re disappointing.

Let me take a second to backtrack before the lynch mob starts to sharpen its pitchforks. The series deserves much of the praise that it’s gotten. RWBY was the first American-produced anime to be released in Japan (and if you’re a fan of anime, you know how insane those words sound). The 3D models and animation from Volume 4 onward are breathtakingly stunning, and even before the show made the leap from Poser to Maya, the fight sequences managed to be equally creative and entertaining. The show was nominated for and received multiple Streamy Awards, and was awarded Best Animated Series by the International Academy of Web Television. The Volume 1 soundtrack reached number one on iTunes, beating out the soundtrack for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Such is RWBY’s (and Rooster Teeth’s) reputation that it managed to attract the attention of, and later bring on, industry veterans and vocal legends such as Jen Taylor, Josh Grelle, and Aaron Dismuke.

That’s to say nothing of the fandom this franchise has amassed, of kids, teenagers, and young adults alike. RWBY has generated dozens of forums dedicated to fanfiction, fanart, and roleplaying. Thousands of people the world over have bonded over this show, fans from all walks of life. They’re passionate about this series. The fact that I’m writing this post is a testimony of that. If I didn’t care about RWBY, I wouldn’t be sitting on my couch at 3 AM, hunched over my laptop in my pajamas.

If RWBY is so good (or occasionally threatens to become good), you might be wondering, why, then, does this blog exist?

Well, because…when you stop and look at it critically, it actually kind of sucks.

Despite initially being written by a three-man team, the series is full of inconsistencies and an underdeveloped cast. The characters, especially from Volumes 1 — 3, are full of one-dimensional stereotypes whose contributions to the story amount to a three-word summary: “The School Bully,” “The Wacky Professors,” “The Racist Cop,” “The Cutthroat Bitch,” “The Anime Waifu,” “The Audience Surrogate,” “Discount Elle Woods,” and so on. Fundamental elements of the story, like Aura, Semblance, and Dust, are either poorly-explained or not explained at all, and the limitations of those core concepts can change at a moment’s notice to suit the needs of the plot. The primary antagonist of the first three volumes is universally hated by the fandom for having no discernible motivations beyond being “ambitious and power-hungry,” and having a personality that consists exclusively of irritating smug. The show-writers, despite repeatedly promising queer representation, have failed to make even one of their ten central protagonists queer. This isn’t touching upon the fact that the first openly-gay character on the show was an antagonist, or that the next two were side-characters who were relevant to the plot for all of seven episodes, before vanishing from the story entirely. The two leads that are currently being hyped as our first queer main-cast members have only been repeatedly teased, with said characters never once uttering the words, “I’m bi,” “I date women,” “I’m not straight”—nothing but narrative subtext and playful winks from the VAs whenever a fan asks if they’re queer. Subplots end up having no pay-off or get entirely forgotten mid-volume. The story is so protagonist-biased that the heroes are frequently able to get away with being hypocritical, or committing criminal acts because “it was the right thing to do,” with their POV framed as an infallible “fuck you, got mine” verbal gut-punch to the audience (while other characters in the show, who often make the exact same calls as the heroes, are ridiculed by the show and the fandom). Whenever the story isn’t spray-painting stolen cars and selling them to their original owners, it manages to clumsily handle allegories for real-world issues such as systemic racism, mental illness, abuse dynamics/victim survivorship, and gray morality. The worldbuilding is absent from the main show and has to be supplemented through RWBY’s spin-off series World of Remnant. The story’s setting feels flat and lifeless at times because the “cultures” of this world are never established.

The list goes on and on.

So if this show has so many flaws, why are we still having this conversation?

Because I’m captivated by the untapped potential of this world. When you brush away all of the detritus, you can see the wealth of raw material buried beneath. This is a world where the gods have forsaken their creations, with one having even deliberately created the monsters that hunt humanity. The two characters who are central to the history of this world are tragic figures, one cursed with immortality as a punishment for demanding that the gods revise the first draft, and do away with needless death; and the other, cursed to ceaselessly reincarnate into the minds and bodies of like-minded souls, waging a war of attrition against a person warped beyond recognition by the capricious spite of the gods. This is a world of forgotten magic, of shifting allegiances, of characters embarking on personal journeys and unearthing deadly secrets. It’s a story of people from all walks of life learning to cooperate and work together, forging friendships and alliances in order to face the challenges that lie ahead.

It could easily have the bones of an epic fantasy series as long as it remembers to drink its milk.

RWBY’s issues aren’t insurmountable. Most of them are the byproduct of the series’ blind adherence to “rule of cool,” the motto that practically codified the beginning of the show. From Volume 4 onward, the series took a radical shift in tone that tried to be “more mature,” and only succeeded in making the earlier episodes absurd in hindsight. Why, in Volume 6, are the characters concerned about civilian endangerment, when in Volume 2 they happily pursued a giant mech in a highway car-chase scene that would’ve caused untold collateral damage and civilian death? This change in storytelling created a thematic disparity that reoccurs time and time again, retroactively emphasizing just how inconsistent the worldbuilding and storytelling are.

It tried to be Avatar: The Last Airbender, and what we’re left with instead is Game of Thrones Season 8.

Now, I’m not using this blog as a platform to damn Monty Oum (or claim to be a better creator than him). But it’s important to address the flaws in his story, and to acknowledge that his passing doesn’t make RWBY somehow sacrosanct or immune to constructive criticism. RWBY has flaws, ranging from nitpicky to potentially capable of causing real-world harm (in the case of the aforementioned queerbaiting and racism analogies). I’m a firm believer that art doesn’t exist in a vacuum; art is informed by our beliefs just as much as art informs our beliefs. We can still respect and admire the potential RWBY has to offer, while being mindful of where it needs to improve.

That’s where this blog comes in.

At the end of the day, the RWBY Redux exists as a thought experiment. I’m writing it chiefly to entertain worldbuilding ideas and headcanons I’ve spent years musing on. I’m not asking readers to agree with any of my numerous stances, nor am I going to shy away from other fans’ criticism as I hammer this project out. With a little TLC, perhaps I’ll manage to create something that manages to be more complex than its source material. And if you choose to follow along with my endeavors, hopefully you’ll find this project equal parts engaging and entertaining.

Wish me luck.

#preface #deconstruction #writing

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enkisstories · 4 years

Text

Just like them (part 8)

Henry Ford Commemorative Park Thursday, November 18, 2038

“What the… are you nuts… that’s never going to work… why do I even care, no, scratch that, what were you thinking!”

“Behold the PL600 domestic assistant, programmed with a comprehensive vocabulary that it knows to use to the best effect!” Gavin sneered. “There’s a reason Cyberlife stopped producing you guys, ey?”

“At least they had to actively drop support for me, while you seem to have a death wish!” the PL600 replied.

“Uh-uh.” Gavin shook his head, then pointed at his partner. “That would be this old fossil here. Me, I’m the clever one, who knows how survive. The only thing I don’t get is, how come we run into you all the time? In a city the size of fucking Detroit?!”

“Might as well be a single-street dump somewhere in an RA9-forsaken prairie”, Daniel replied with a shrug. “Don’t you remember? Right after Markus’ final stand President Warren issued an evacuation order. Only about one-third of the humans stayed and are now mingling with an unknown number of us.”

“As if I could forget!”

Detroit, the Android City. They had made that literal.

Warren told the humans to flee to safety, but the new situation also makes it easier to send a few tanks into town to deal with us without worrying overmuch about human casualties, Daniel mused. Those who still remain here are most likely android supporters and thus expendable in the president’s eyes.

There were a handful residents he, too, could have done without: Most of the DPD officers, for starters. There was no chance for that, though, the law enforcement personnel had been obligated to stay. A rare few humans Daniel would have missed: His downstairs neighbors, the Rasoya family, probably also Neil. And then there was an even smaller number of humans who weren’t here, that he wished would return: Emma… Caroline… and John.

John Phillips. Why do I want you back? To apologize or to kill you again?

Dwelling on his conflicting feelings was of no use now, though. Even if the deviant found an answer, it wouldn’t give him what he really wanted: his old life back. Daniel forcefully shoved all thoughts about his absent family far, far away.

Concentrate on the present, deviant! Like Anderson and Reed, who are standing right in front of you!

Lt. Anderson nodded; nothing in Daniel’s words had been new or unfathomable to him. He even took over the explanation from here, stating that android life would most likely revolve around the five Android Zone stores in Detroit.

“And where there’s people, there’s crime”, Hank said.

“Pray tell, what crime?” Gavin challenged. He was ignoring Hank, staring at Daniel instead. “Don’t you have the city-wide Android Woodstock that you always wanted now?”

“Poverty, Gavin”, Hank supplied. “Don’t you see? The Android Zones now function as upscale restaurants and private hospitals rolled into one. Cyberlife knows that.”

Indeed the company was adapting quickly to the new situation: the erstwhile slavers were now selling luxury items like temperature sensors for models that did not ship with them. CL’s Department of Humanization had some new addons in its lineup that allowed androids to experience the world similarly to the way humans did – to be equipped on a whim and de-installed when it was no longer fun. It was as if Cyberlife hadn’t exactly planned the revolution, but at the very least prepared for an eventual one…

But of course such pleasures were only available for those who could afford it. Therefore the company was also the first employer in Detroit that officially took on androids. And thus the newly freed species was slowly getting fractured into the haves and the not-haves.

“Or did you for one moment believe this crapsack world’s rules would change, just because a few new pieces are on the board now?” Hank grunted at the end of the explanation. “I watched Jericho’s livestream yesterday, they dealt with exactly that topic, among others. Markus was trying to not let it show, but he was shocked to his very core at the development!”

“Of course it would be”, Gavin remarked in a dismissing tone. “It’s an annoying homeschooled arts major, after all! Is Markus alive? We’ve got to treat it as such. But is it fit to sit at the adult table? Nah!”

“Speaking of shocked”, Daniel said, pointing at Gavin’s head. “Explanation, please!”

Because, hello? How come the DPD’s resident human supremacist would wear a LED on his temple? And android LED! That was taking cultural appropriation to a whole new level!

“I re-attached the bad boy yesterday”, Gavin said in a casual voice. “Didn’t you know? I used to be a perfectly ordinary PC200, but deviated over a shitload of abuse received from my so-called co-workers. So far I blended in with the humans, only now that we have to investigate in an android-dominated neighborhood I thought I’d better re-connect with my cultural heritage.”

“No!” Daniel snapped. “No way! I don’t believe you!”

“No, for real! I was born an android. The stories I could tell you about all the ways in which the suckers at the DPD disregarded my feelings… not pretty.”

“I trust you know a lot about android abuse, but only because you committed all those deeds yourself”, Daniel replied. “The rest I don’t buy.”

“LED – Android. Android – LED.”

“That’s a paper-thin disguise you’re wearing there, detective”, Daniel fumed. “All it takes to expose you as a human is one digitally sent ask that your biological brain cannot answer.”

“Alright then, try me!”

“Will do!”

Gavin stood relaxed, expecting the android to try to talk to him in his head. Daniel sighed, nodded, but then he suddenly leaped forward and pounced the detective! Taken by surprise, the man got rammed against the nearest tree. While struggling to free himself, Gavin’s feet caught in the low fence that ran around the trunk. And then, while his body was held helpless, an android fist connected with Gavin’s face. The blood emerging from the nose was red. And that was also exactly the color his LED was not turning into.

“Human”, Daniel said, immensely satisfied. “Fake LED.” He took a step back from the tree and Gavin. “Thought so.”

“What the hell, you were to TALK to me!”

“Wrong person for that, mate.”

“Not even a person. – And that was assault on an officer of the law just now!”

“No, it was property damage. You introduced yourself as a PC200.”

Having freed his foot by now, Gavin pushed himself away from the tree. There was a bit of an oversized flying squirrel about the man when he came rushing towards Daniel, his open jacket flapping in the November wind, and shouting:

“You son of a toaster!”

“Only the son? No longer the toaster itself? We’re making progress!”

Daniel side-stepped the onrushing detective, but although he was quicker on his new feet, the human wasn’t THAT slow. While passing by the android, Gavin reached out and got to grab Daniel by his loose fitting sweater. For a few seconds they were stumbling around each other, then Gavin managed to get a firm grip. He was breathing heavily and the exhaled air thickened to a cloud as it cooled down upon leaving the body. To Daniel it was as if getting breathed at by an angry dragon. His real eyes below the thin layer of artificial skin were fogging up, clouding the android’s vision.

But even so, it was Daniel who spoke up first:

“Don’t lie to me again, Detective! Not even in such an obvious manner! Hear me? Just… don’t!”

“You cannot make me do what you want! Sucks, huh, little deviant? All that bleeding heart new android law, written and printed for nothing…”

“I can make you stop doing what I don’t want you to do, though!” Daniel hissed.

I can kill… I know I can! If I know how to survive, does it matter that I’m dead inside?

“Final, too!”

Why’s life always forcing me into on the violent path? That’s not me. I’m dying, despite living on. Already this body consists of at least three different androids, but Daniel, Daniel was shot at the roof and is winking out of existence. Every day I lose more and more of myself, only to become like those I hate.

“Not to elbow myself into your date, but…”

Human and Android turned around to where Hank was sitting quite comfortably on a park bench. The more experienced officer had watched the scene rather amused until it had reached a level of escalation where he felt the need to intervene.

“…how good is that disguise for real? Can’t say Gavin didn’t deserve the attack just now, but we cannot have him die. – And you, “partner”, let him go already!”

“On a passing glance, there’s nothing wrong with the disguise”, Daniel said, after Reed had really let go of him as instructed. “But it will break under the smallest scrutiny. I’m not exactly exposing a secret here if I tell you that androids pass information back and forth via our LEDs. It’s rather similar to body language.”

“Then try talking to asshole in android… in binary… LEDese… ey, in whatever you call it.”

“I suppose I could do that…”

“If you do, your parole officer will hear from me about you having aided an investigation.”

“’kay.”

The android didn’t even have to concentrate. With the same ease a human was turning from one conversation partner to the next, he addressed Gavin wirelessly. Daniel fully expected to talk into a void, because humans naturally didn’t communicate digitally. But instead there was an actual answer:

<<<Sorry, pal, can’t talk to you that way. Flight mode.>>>

<<<What did you just say? Did you just say something?>>>

<<<It’s a requirement during investigations to discourage hacking attempts.>>>

<<<What the hell…?>>>, Daniel stammered.

<<<Sorry, pal, can’t talk to you that way. Flight mode.>>>

“It’s more or less an answering machine”, Gavin explained. “Soon as the device picks up an attempt to communicate with the wearer, it intercepts the signal and sends a reply. Neat, huh?”

“Your idea?”

“’course!”

“Heh. Who’d thought you could be so creative!”

“Most of the programming was done by Rika”, Hank clarified. He could as well have spoken to an android LED…

(to be continued)

#dbh #detroit become human #dbh daniel #dbh hank #dbh gavin #dbhtextpost

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prorevenge · 5 years

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Friend lodges a Police Report just to throw away his chances at life.

This story mainly revolves around a friend (K) of mine and a (former) friend (J) of his. K's sister, C, was also involved. I played a very minor role.

K as a person is a great individual. Extremely smart, aces every test, loves history/politics/economics. He is the self classified nerd of the grade with an ace in every subject. Contrary to popular belief, he was not bullied for this. In fact, due to his generosity and intelligence, many had already pegged him as going far in life.

J was also along similar lines, but was very eccentric. Still, both were nearly inseparable and were great friends.

The two of them loved talking part in History Bowls and academic competitions of any kind. Over the years, the schools cabinet had begun to teem with their accomplishments.

However, after a History Bowl both of them attended together, their relationship started to fray. While they had come in third as a team, K had come in 1st under individual rankings while J came in a distant 7th. Both positions received a trophy, so in total they received three trophies (one for the team, one for 1st place and one for 7th place). As a courtesy, seeing the J could had no space for the trophy that day, K offered to take it back with him, and return it during school. J obliged.

Our school usually honours students who win outside events by calling them up on stage in front of the whole school and getting the director and HOS (head of school) to present the award to the students. As such, they did the same for K and J. However, on that day, J had an exam he had to be in, and as such, missed out on the presentation. K received the awards on behalf of both of them, and specifically took the microphone to mention that J was a team member as well, incase anybody felt that all the awards belong to K only.

But, when J heard what had conspired, he was furious. He felt that the presentation should have been postponed and felt that K was doing it on purpose. He felt even more verified in his theory when K forgot to bring the trophies on another day in order to return J's back to him (K is like that all the time, its something we all like as it adds a bit of character to a person in a world where everyone strives to be perfect, but clearly J does not). He went full on atomic on K, calling him all sorts of names and effectively throwing their friendship into the bin. K felt hurt, but thought that was the end of it.

No, that WASN'T the end of it. J went around slandering K's name behind him. As a school, we all knew K well, so really didn't take anything seriously. J got really pissed, and started making Facebook posts, messaging K's professor friends to slander his name further. K's older sister, C, got wind of this. She turned red with fury. She was School President and felt it was her duty to protect the students, but if somebody messes with her brother, god save them. And that's what she did. She cornered J one day and let him know in not so pleasant terms that he is messing with the wrong person and to stay away.

For some reason, J suddenly took this to another level. His mom and him went to the police the next day and lodged a report against K, C and their parents for slander and harassment. Then, J's mom proceeded to call K's mom and go Godzilla on her, boasting about how she is going to go to jail and that "she is going to regret creating her two kids." Luckily, we live in a single consent state, and I guess you know where this is going.

But, guess what the police did. They threw the case out. They cited a lack of evidence for the case and threw it out.

You would think this would be the end of it, but no, we keep going.

J and his mom were properly pissed at this point. Nothing was going according to their plan. So they kept with the slander campaign, ramping up efforts on Facebook. I have no idea what they were thinking.

While this was going on, J was running up trouble with the school's administration as well. You see, J was in the grade above us, and was in the midst of applying to universities. As part of his application, he needed a school code to verify the application. But the school was delaying the handoff of this code. J had been severely abusing his mother's influence and connections to bend the school administration backwards, giving him better predicted grades which would be sent to the universities.

The teachers were pissed at this, as they had spent countless evenings doing the predicted grades for all the students in the cohort, and here was a kid abusing his influence so that he could get an unfair advantage over others. Understandably, therefore, they delayed the handoff.

J got even more pissed. CC'ing his mother in the email, as well the director and HOS, he sent three scathing emails to the Curriculum and Course Co-ordinator of the school, calling her "a bitch" who was too interested in "serving others" and wanted "him to die", even though she had never mentioned this. This was too much for the school, who struck him off the roll of graduates and blocked all contact with him, never sending him the code. This was in March, which will be pertinent later.

It is important to note that except for J and the school administration, nobody had any idea that J was off the graduations, and when graduation rolled around in August, and he was not there, we were surprised but relieved, as we thought that this would be the end of it.

Fast forward a few months to November, and I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw J had made a post with screenshots of the emails he sent to the administrator. In the post, he was gloating about how he had played the administrator, by apologizing to the administrator a month after sending those emails, and how they replied back with the code to get him out of their hair, and how he has the upper hand now and had got into university (he mentioned which but I won't post it) and wanted the world "to see the school as it really is".

What he did not count on was me seeing it, and K's inactive second Facebook account which was still friends with J. I quickly let K know, and screenshot the emails in case K needed it later. K did the same, after which he posted on the account that he was deactivating it because there was spam on it. J must have seen this post, because less than two minutes after, his own post was deleted.

But this is not where it ends. K wanted to take revenge for the months of abuse and psychological harm his family and him underwent. Thus, with my help, we collated the evidence, including the phone call and screenshots of the email, as well as screenshots of the other posts he made, and, I am not sure on this part as I was not involved here, K sent the email to the university he was enrolled in, and to the school.

This was the last straw for the school, who proceeded to officially expel him, and then sent the details of the whole incident to all universities they were partnered with and have contact with to which he had applied, leading to them cancelling his application to their universities.

Last we heard (we all blocked him afterwards) he knew it was us, but had no evidence to prove this. His offer from the university was retracted, and he has been unable to apply to any university in Europe and US.

TL;DR: J decides to get all pissy because he missed out on award ceremony, slandering K and lodging false police reports against K's family and K himself. Same time, he starts being hostile with the school administration and boasts about it. K pulls all evidence and phone call, and sends it to school and J's university, getting his offer retracted and effectively blacklisting him from a majority of the universities in Europe and US.

(source) (story by HeavyVictory0)

#prorevenge #by HeavyVictory0 #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #last10

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opsecretsanta2019 · 5 years

Text

FAQs (mobile-friendly)

This is a mobile-friendly copy of the FAQs page for easy reference, accurate as of 24 October 2019. For the most updated version, please check the FAQs page in browser or on desktop.

FAQs below the cut! Mobile-friendly rules here.

Where is the application form?

It’s linked in the rules page. Please read the rules before applying, thanks!

What is this?

It’s a one piece holiday gift exchange on tumblr!

When are the deadlines?

15 Nov – Applications close. 22 Nov – Santas assigned. 27 Nov – Santas confirm assignments. 25 Dec to 31 Dec – Post the gifts! 5 Jan 2020 – Tell me if you didn’t get your gift. 9 Jan 2020 – Backup santas notified. 31 Jan 2020 – Backup santa gifts posted!

The close of each day is 11:59pm HKT (GMT + 8h). Please note that my timezone is ahead of most countries.

How do I join?

To enter, you must read the rules and complete the application form linked on the rules page.

You must send in the application form before 15th NOVEMBER 2019 at 11:59pm HKT (GMT+8h).

If you apply, please commit to creating and giving a gift.

What’s this password thing you have in the application? What password?

If you don’t know the password, please read the entire rules page carefully from top to bottom. For easy reference, here’s a link to the rules and the mobile-friendly rules.

Applications with an incorrect password will be rejected during santa/ giftee assignments, even if applicants received the response email.

Oh no! I made a mistake in my application form/ I got the password wrong/ I left out something. What do I do?

You can edit your application anytime before applications close on 15 November 2019 (2359h HKT). You should have received a response email with the edit link.

I made a typo on my password. Will I be rejected/ do I need to edit my application?

Nah, that’s fine, I’m willing to accept typos. Your application will get denied if the answer clearly shows that you don’t know the password.

Who sees the information I put in my application?

The middle section with your preferences will be copy-pasted and sent word-for-word to your santa. Your santa will also get your tumblr URL/ username. If you addressed any comments to your santa in your miscellaneous comment section, I’ll pass those along too.

Only the mods will see your email and other details. For now, that’s only me (@codedredalert) and @narramin. Since the volume of work got overwhelming, I got her on board as a mod.

She’s a close friend I trust, and while I don’t think we’ll have anyone else joining us as a moderator, If you’re very concerned about other people finding out about your email address and other application details, maybe give this event a miss.

What do I have to do when I post my gift?

Mention the name of your giftee in the post (like this: @url). Also mention @opsecretsanta2019 in the post.

Tag #opsecretsanta2019 and any appropriate compulsory warning tags (#n/sfw, #graphic violence, #major character death, #noncon or dubcon, #underage , #chose not to use warnings , #no warnings apply).

Consider writing a nice message to the giftee to go along with the gift, if you like.

If it is Not Safe For Work, please put it in a read-more and tag it appropriately.

Send me a link to your post! I will be re-blogging all gifts under #finished gifts.

How do you select Secret Santas?

I sort participants by naughty and nice into a SFW group and a NSFW group. After that, both groups are separately put through a random generator. Once giftees are drawn from the generator, I will manually check to make sure santas/ giftees share at least one mutual interest.

You should not be giving to the same person you’re receiving from.

What does it mean if I’m in the NSFW group?

If you choose NSFW, it means you are okay with making or receiving NSFW content AND are at least 21 years of age.

You do not have to create a NSFW gift if you don’t feel like it. You may or may not receive a NSFW gift.

Can I make/ receive NSFW?

To potentially receive or send NSFW material, you must be 21 years or older when applications close on 15 November 2019 2359h.

If you make something NSFW for your giftee, please put it under a read more and tag it appropriately. If your NSFW gift is/ could be flagged, please post it on another site and provide a link in a tumblr post.

Why must I be 21+ to receive/ give NSFW? I’m an adult in my country.

I don’t want drama/ legal issues about adults sending NSFW to minors. 21 is the highest age of majority as far as I’m aware, so that’s what I set it as to cover everyone. Sorry, kiddo.

I’m not 21+ yet but I will be by the time applications close. Can I still say I’m 21+?

Happy early birthday, I hope you have a great time! Please go ahead and put yourself on the NSFW list if you want. I’ll take the cut-off for age limit at the point where applications close aka 15 November 2019 2359h HKT.

What is considered NSFW?

NSFW components for the purposes of this event (loosely based on the R rating guidelines of the Motion Picture Association of America):

(1) Violence: Canon-typical depictions of violence are generally SFW (eg. brawls, blood, stabbing). However, violence that is detailed, realistic, extreme or persistent would make a work NSFW.

(2) Language/ Profanity / Swearing: Generally, swearing is SFW, but you’re encouraged to keep it mild. You have a maximum of one (1) singular “fuck” to give in a SFW work. Use it wisely. Excessive or extremely graphic swearing would make a work NSFW.

(3) Drugs/ Substance Abuse:

Canon-typical depiction of smoking is SFW (eg. chain smoking or smoking several cigarettes/cigars at once is SFW). However, smoking/ nicotine addiction that is detailed, realistic, extreme or persistent would make a work NSFW.

Canon-typical drinking of large amounts of alcohol is SFW. However, alcoholism/ alcohol addiction that is detailed, realistic, extreme or persistent would make a work NSFW.

Mention of drugs used in a medical context is SFW. Otherwise, any drug use or mention of drug use would make a work NSFW.

(4) Nudity and sexual content:

Nudity that is depicted visually (eg. art) is NSFW, regardless of whether it is sexual or not. Please post a censored/ partial preview of the art and link the full piece on another site. (Tumblr might flag it otherwise lol.)

Non-visual nudity (eg. writing) is NSFW if it is sexually-oriented. Please ensure that it is under a read-more.

All sexual content is NSFW regardless of medium.

Hugs, kisses and cuddling are SFW.

Can I opt to be in the NSFW list, but still say I don’t want to receive/ create a certain type of NSFW (eg. specifically not sexual content, or drug abuse)?

Yup! Generally, giving more information in your application is better. It’s good to be clear and upfront about your likes and dislikes. It helps me a lot in deciding if I need to re-roll when I double-check your random match. It helps your santa know what not to give you too.

Is ____ pairing/ content/ gen allowed?

As long as they’re canon One Piece characters, yes. This event aims to be as inclusive as possible. Just make sure you tag appropriately.

Are OCs/ self-insert/ Y/N fic allowed?

Sorry, nope. I’m sure you and your OCs are lovely, however, this is a One Piece event, so please only feature canon One Piece characters.

You CAN sneak in a little extra cameo if you really want. Eg. a random person in the background/ a random shopkeeper in your fic. But the focus must be on canon One Piece characters.

I personally consider ____ content problematic. Will you allow it?

The compulsory warning tags (following those on Ao3) generally cover a wide range of potentially offensive content. Please be responsible for your own content regulation by blacklisting the necessary tags. I cannot be responsible for everyone’s content consumption.

I’m personally triggered by _____. Can you tag it?

Your personal triggers will already be accounted for in the application form and the information sent to your santa. So, this shouldn’t be a problem for your gift. Also, there are the compulsory warning tags for you to blacklist if necessary.

If you think there is still a very high chance that other people’s gifts will have your trigger, send me an ask off-anon proposing (1) a feasible identification system and (2) a tag name. We’ll see if we can work something out.

I promise to hear you out. However, I will exercise my discretion as to whether it is feasible for me to impose your request on every post on this blog. If your request requires a moral judgment or a lot of work on my part, I am less likely to impose your request.

It’s not possible for me to please everyone. I’ve done my best to cover the generally-accepted warnings. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

What kinds of gifts are allowed?

Anything digital as long as you personally created it for your giftee!

SUGGESTED minimum guidelines for different types of content are below (feel free to go above and beyond if your heart desires):

– Art – 1 artwork, sketches are okay as long as characters are recognisable

– AMVs – 30 seconds. Please use only official art/ anime/ movies as your base.

– Animations – 3 seconds, sketches are okay as long as characters are recognisable

– Animatics – 30 seconds, sketches are okay as long as characters are recognisable

– Edits – 2 edits of good image quality. Please use only official art as your base.

– Fanfiction – 100 words (prose), 20 words (poetry)

– GIFsets – 2 gifs of good image quality. Please use only official art/ anime/ movies as your base.

– Music cover – 1 minute. Please cover only official One Piece songs/ motifs.

– Playlist – 10 songs. Please try to find out about your giftee’s music taste and cater to that if possible.

– Podfic/ audio reading – You MUST get permission in writing from the fic author before making the recording. In your recording, you MUST clearly state the original author, the title of the original fic, and the website where the original fic can be found. In your post, you MUST give LINKED credit to both the original author AND the original fic.

Do I need to meet a minimum for my gift?

There are suggested minimum guidelines for different types of content, but there are no strict minimums. The gift creation for this event is intended to be very achievable, stress-free, and accessible even to first-time creators.

Do I have to follow a winter theme in the gift?

Nope. Anything goes! Just try to do something you think your giftee would like according to the information you were given.

Can I send something in the mail?

Sorry, please don’t. This exchange is digital-only.

Hey I'm a writer who uses Ao3. Is there an Ao3 collection for this event which I can add my gift to?

Yup, here’s the link to the opsecretsanta2019 Ao3 collection. Please feel free to add your fic(s) to the Ao3 collection during the posting period (aka 25 December 2019 to 31 December 2019). It would be good if you could drop me a message on tumblr when you do.

I don’t know what an Ao3 collection is/ how to submit works to an Ao3 collection/ how to specify gift recipients etc?

Here are the Ao3 Collections FAQs.

I’m not very good at art/ writing/ etc.

That’s okay! As long as you put your heart into it, you’re welcome aboard!

I want to join but I’m shy/ intimidated generally/ by my giftee/ by everyone’s expectations.

Hey, it’s alright, we’re all nakama in the same anime pirate boat here to enjoy some holiday time. Just try your best and have fun!

I didn't receive my response email?

Ah, the automated emails have a daily limit, sorry. You can send me a message and I'll send you a copy manually. Thanks!

When and how will I get my Secret Santa assignment?

On or before 22 November, I will contact you via your tumblr blog. Please keep your askbox/ submit box open between 14 November 2019 and 23 November 2019.

If I can’t reach you on tumblr, I will use the email you provide in the application.

If you applied on time, but did not receive a giftee assignment, please contact me.

When should I send my gift to my Secret Santa?

Any time on or between 25 December 2019 and 31 December 2019.

Can I let my giftee know who I am?

Only once you post your gift. In other words, yes but not earlier than 25 December 2019.

Can I contact my giftee to clarify things about the gift?

Yes but you cannot reveal your identity before you post your gift (eg. use anon asks). If you can’t contact your giftee via tumblr, just do your best with the information you have.

What if my giftee doesn’t have anon asks on/ doesn’t respond?

If you can’t contact your giftee anonymously via tumblr, just do your best with the information you have. Most people wrote detailed applications, so this should be workable.

If giftees are feeling up to it, consider keeping anon asks open for the duration of this event so santas can make clarifications if they need to. It might mean that the gift turns out more to your personal taste.

Can the mods contact my giftee to ask things for me?

We’d love to but we can’t afford to take on the extra workload of being the go-between for everyone’s giftee questions.

You will get your giftee’s tumblr URL. Feel free to check out your giftee’s tumblr and see if they accept anon asks. Please respect their personal rules on interacting if you send asks.

Oops! Something has come up and I can’t participate!

If you have to drop out, please do it before 15 November 2019 if possible. I want to make sure every participant receives a gift.

If you have to drop out after 15 November 2019, please send me an ask. I will assign backup santas.

Please note that if you drop out or are deemed to have dropped out, you may or may not receive any gift.

Please note that if you don’t confirm participation by 27 November 2019, you are deemed to have dropped out.

Oh no, I missed the confirmation deadline (27 November 2019)! But I can confirm now though I’m late! Please please please will you still make sure I get a gift?

If you confirm late but before 15 December 2019, maybe, but at my discretion. If a replacement/ backup santa has already been assigned, likely no.

If you confirm on or after 15 December 2019, no. It’s up to luck whether you get one or not. May the odds be ever in your favour.

I don’t use tumblr much/ my tumblr is dead, but I will be contactable and post on tumblr for this event. Is that okay?

Yup! As long as you communicate and post according to the timelines, it’s okay.

How many mods are there?

Two. The older posts like this one use mostly “I”, since I started this event alone, but beacuse of the number of participants and the workload I got another person on board.

My art/ writing/ main is @codedredalert, and the second mod’s writing/ cursed/ main is @narramin.

Have you, the mods, ever run an event like this before?

Nope. I, Red, have participated in maybe two. Take that as you will.

Suggestions and advice from experienced people are welcome! I may not be able to use/ implement them in this event, but the learning is appreciated.

Are you, the mods, going to be participating as a giftee/ santa? I want a chance to get content from you/ give you things.

Awww thank you, that’s so sweet. Alas, I am just your humble mod. I’ll have my work cut out for me running the event and some major IRL things. Anyways, I'll be doing the matchups so I feel like I ought not to participate.

I’ll step in as a backup santa/ pinch hitter if necessary.

Since narramin leveled up from being a humble participant/ backup santa to moderator, she will be still participating, but due to her own request she won’t know her own santa. Needless to say, her santa will be randomised too.

Will you read/ comment on all the gift works?

I would like to, but I don’t want to make promises unless I’m sure I can keep them. I,,,,, will try.

Currently, I’m considering reblogging with functional tags first and slowly going through to add the fun comment tags later. I think I could make that work.

I would be in a better position to talk about this after applications close and the matchups and drop-outs are finalised. Thanks for your understanding.

Is this event affiliated with _____?

Nope, it’s just us, alone, in this coffin-boat built from our own hubris.

I don’t like your bad jokes and your weird western pirate talk. Can you stop?

Does Zoro have a sense of direction?

The question I wanted to ask isn’t answered here?

Thank you so much for reading the questions before asking. Please feel free to send an ask to this blog or an email to [email protected] .

#important #opsecretsanta2019

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thatonegirlwhodoesthings · 4 years

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End Of Year Review

Last time I was here I was way more of a mess yet I had way too much hope and, thankfully, I was right in having hope. Now, here I am at the end of the year in December and so much has changed but that comes with graduating and transitioning into college. Here is my end of year review in which I express what I learned about the world and about others that has impacted what I know and thought I knew about myself.

I spent half of my July unsure if I was even going to have the opportunity to actually go to college. I worked so hard and was so scared but when July 15th came and I paid my first bill to my school I knew that this was my opportunity. I also knew I needed to work really hard to be able to stay so, on top of this new pride in knowing I was actually, officially going to be going to college, I needed to take on more responsibility and got a second job. July is when I really started working my first job and it was new and exciting. Getting called in on my days off, having something to do and with this came a new sense of pride that I was working towards what I wanted. I became, to some extent, less reliant on my mother. Having two jobs allowed me to prove to myself, and other (but mostly me) that when I want something, I will work for it.

August was eventful. As it was getting closer to move in day, closer to me finally achieving a goal that has been MONTHS in the making, life around me seemed to fall apart a little bit. I was so focused on my goals and did not have the time or energy to dwell on the domestic abuse my mother was facing, forcing us, just months before one big transition in my life, to make another one. My mother and I were forced to leave our home and move in with her friends because it was the only way she could feel safe in the face of her abusive substance abusing boyfriend. While it was not the easiest thing to go through or witness for a second time in my life in a minimal amount of years, staying focus and having something I was working towards and looking forward to was helpful. Halfway through the month, after finishing at both my jobs and learning so much not only about pushing myself but also about the usefulness of saying no, I packed my things and moved 3 hours away to NYC for school. I was 18, not too naive but eager to learn and experience new things. Orientation in itself was an experience. I met so many new people and some ending up having such an impact on my life, even if they no longer exist as a necessary part of it now. They were relevant when I needed them and aided me for the time being.

September was when things started to pick up speed. If you told me in September that what happened would happen, I would tell you you were insane. I lost a friend, who even after only knowing a few weeks, was a person who was there for me, just turns out we were not meant to stay friends and that is okay.More importantly, I became closer with other people I had met and even met somebody knew who holds his own special place in my heart. I also, to my pleasure, had my first sexual experience with a girl while I was drunk and I would never trade that experience for anything. Even if I could not remember her name after and can barely remember it now. This night was actually the first night I really talked to him. Yes, I met him. He, had my heart thumping in September, filled with joy after experiencing this new moment with somebody I had never had before. He caused plenty of useless confusion for me that I know cannot even remember but without it, probably would not be where we are today.

October, my birth month, was nice in its own way. It was when I began getting close with her. Not only with her though, but I also got to know other people I had not known that well. I am forever grateful for these people as they created a community that I feel I could be apart of, while not having to always be apart of. Distance, I learned, is necessary for me. I need space from people in that being around the same ones constantly drives me crazy. This fact, is something I truly got comfortable with around this time. I also, against my free will, got closer with him but that's alright. I had a pleasant birthday and, came out to my longtime friend. She is great and I love her. I, being a little bitch, had to use ridiculous analogies to come out but it is difficult when somebody has known you a certain way for so long. You do not want to alter that image they have of you and possibly ruin the relationship. Her, being the bestest friend ever, was supportive and it unlocked this part of my life that I had been wanting to tell her. I finally had that chance.

October was disappointing still, in some ways, in that I did not do as well as I would have liked on my midterms. I was at school to do well and succeed, to further my education. And here I was, blowing that aspect off. It manifested itself in my less than satisfactory grade on my psych midterm. However devastating that was, it encouraged me to study for my other midterms which, thankfully, I did much better on. It was a reminder that procrastination got me nowhere and I needed to focus. It lead to me taking more thorough notes the second half of the semester and studying more.

While the first half of October leading up to my birthday was eventful in itself, Halloween was its own ballpark. You see, a week before I kissed her for the first time while I was tipsy and then went to him. It, for the first time, brought up a real issue I had to deal with. I like these two people and I do not want to hurt either of them. Halloween, I went to a party with her and, as a drunk dumbass, made out with her. I enjoyed it but it did nothing but confuse me.

November was filled with me going back and forth between him and her. I did not know what or who I wanted and while that part has not changed, I am dealing with the situation in a healthier way, to some extent at least. It was also filled with me getting my first writing job and therefore, my first step in the door to working with authors in the future and possibly writing myself. Furthermore, it taught me, more than anything, the absolute necessity of communication but we are still working on that one. It was also the first time I went home since August and it was interesting to see how nothing really changes when you leave. I feel as if I could leave home for years and come home and be completely unfazed. Everything is a cycle here. It is nice to be somewhere and go places where everything is always new. I don’t think I want to be stuck watching these cycles anymore now that I know how much more interesting life can be. I went to a wedding too and it was so beautiful. It reminded me that even if for a moment, love does exist, no matter what it turns into. It is so tragic how we let bad experiences way more heavily upon us than the good. Anyway, the wedding was great and it made me excited for when I marry my wife. So many people were complaining but I thought it was beautiful anyway. Watching those little moments between the bride and groom, even if nobody was sober, was so impactful. That is what I want from my wife and I want to not be afraid to let myself have it.

In December, I came back to campus a wreck. I spent a week long break barely talking to anybody and ignoring the two people who had the most impact in my life. The worst thing is me getting way too high my first night back and then having to have a serious conversation with her. I think she did not notice, but that night is blurry to me. A positive from that however, thanks to her, we were back on good terms after not speaking for two weeks and it brought us, to my displeasure, closer. That’ll be painful later but for now, all is good. Until I face the reality that there is a small possibility that I'll never see her again but that's neither here nor there and I have no right to be selfish and make that situation about me. I am concerned about her and hope she is okay or as okay as any college student can be. I just want to see her happy honestly. She deserves that at least. He I did not talk to for two weeks as well. Not talking to him until a week after I got back, I got drunk and was like alright I need to see him, after listening to Marvin's Room and crying which is my civil duty as an over-dramatic light skin. I then got more drunk and forced us to talk about our feelings. Now, we are in a better place we have been in awhile.

I left for break in a really good mindset. I feel as if I am in a good spot with the relationships in my life. I am the best mentally I have been in a while and honestly, have little stress. I am going to soak in this place for as long as I can.

So, how would I rate my year overall. As far as learning goes and accomplishments, I would give myself a ⅘ stars. I accomplished so much and have learned so much. I have done so much and experienced so much. I accomplished things that, if you told my bum ass a year ago, I would say no, I did not do that because I would have never tried. Mentally I would give this year a ⅖. I have had some of my lowest lows that I have had in a LONG time. I believe that comes with big changes and new experiences though. It was just me trying to figure things out and, hopefully, in the future I will be able to process and handle similar situations better. I appreciate this year for everything it gave. Everything it taught me. Everyone it brought in and took out of my life. This will be a year I look back at and call life changing and I am so thankful for that.

Thank You 2019.

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