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astraystayyh · 3 months

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please fall before i fall

jeongin x reader. best friends to lovers. they think it's unrequited love so a bit of angst. but they're just idiots. happy ending :))

summary : 3 times you saved jeongin's ass and the 1 time he saved yours (and ended up confessing along the way). holidays themed.

winter falls masterlist.

a.n. : i am very happy to finally post my first fic for the winter falls collab with my author xi hehehehhe i hope you'll enjoy this one <333 it's very light and fluffy she's the cute one!! oh and my song rec is i bet on losing dogs by mitski

One.

Jeongin’s thumb hovers over your contact name, his rosy lip pulled tightly between his teeth. He hesitates for a few seconds before finally dialing your number.

“What do you want?” you start which makes an incredulous snort escape his lips, a gust of powdery air materializing before his mouth from the cold.

“How much do I have to pay you for you to come over?”

“Ten thousand dollars. Cash,” you precise as he mouths along to what you say, already guessing what your next words would be.

He's come to know you at an abhorrent speed these past few months; since you sat right next to him in your biology class, head buried in an oversized navy hoodie. Your perfume knocked into him like a gentle breeze— Sicilian lemon and white bouquet notes, nostalgic summer amid an unforgiven autumn. Memories of sticky fingers from molten ice cream and feet soles meeting the warm sand wafted in the air, alluring him to the kindness of a long-gone summer, you.

That is why he talked to you at first, because you smelled nice, incredibly so. He tells you it's because he liked the pair of shoes you were wearing.

“What if I brought you your favorite coffee?”

“Are you outside my dorm?” you squeal and he imagines you must be scrambling to get up, opening the curtains. He knows he's right as your figure materializes behind the window. “Hi,” you wave, a small giggle escaping your lips. He can't help the fond smile that draws upon his lips.

He thinks he likes you a little.

“Hey, please help me wrap my family’s gifts,” he pouts, waving the coffee in the air. Your order that he memorized by heart, not even meaning to, it was just natural for him to order you coffee every day, to remember your preferences as if they were his own.

“Why are you here if we're going to your dorm anyways?” you laugh, leaning against the window.

“Because I know I need to bribe you,” he sighs, angling his head to the side. “Are you not going to hang up and come downstairs? The coffee will grow cold.”

“I’m coming!”

An hour later, four gifts are resting beside Jeongin's figure, perfectly wrapped thanks to your skilled hands. He's lying on the warmed tiles, and you're right beside him, so close your knee brushes against his thigh now and then.

He is keeping count, well, more so his heart, constricting in his lungs each time you touch.

He's so aware of you, so much he's sure you’ve crawled into his skin, morphing him into nothing but a shell of you.

Perhaps he likes you a lot.

“You're an insane man. Who leaves gift wrapping to the last minute?”

“You're best friends with said insane man.”

“Remind me how did that happen again?” you ask, propping your head on your elbow, and turning to the side to look at him. Jeongin has to pretend that the sight of you hovering over him doesn't affect him. That his eyes aren't drawn to your lips, heart dissolving at your feet, hoping to brush against your own.

Please fall before I fall, he nearly pleads.

“Why are you so close,” he feigns disgust, pushing your face away with his pointer finger.

“What? Does that fluster you?” you question, amused, bringing your face even closer to his. He scrambles away before a blush sprouts on his face, one he wouldn't be able to justify to your scrutinizing gaze.

“As if. You're ugly,” his eyes squint, lips thinning into that particular smile he knows annoys you. He moves to the side swiftly, anticipating the shoe you throw at him.

“You're literally— remind me to never help you again, asshole.”

“I'm kidding. Thank you for today, seriously. I didn't know wrapping gifts could be this hard.” He falls back to the floor dramatically, banging his head against the tiles in the process.

“Well deserved,” you whisper.

“I heard that.”

“Good,” you giggle, before gently massaging the spot where he has bumped his head. He purses his lips against one another, afraid of what words might escape the confines of his throat, vocal cords moving to the gentle rhythm of your touch.

“Will you keep on being this clumsy, Innie? mm?” you muse, tone quieter.

The nickname makes his insides churn, it is always so tender when it falls from your lips. No one has ever called him this softly before. No one has ever called his heart before you.

He shouldn't be this clumsy with it. It is a fragile organ, akin to glass, easily breakable, so translucent— it'd be easy for anyone to peer inside and find you in it.

“Yeah, I probably will.”

He'll stop liking you next year. He hopes. He'll try.

Two.

Next year has come, familiar frigid winds pulling you to Jeongin’s heart, perhaps even more so than before, cementing your being into the nooks and crannies of his soul, perfectly so, as if it was destined for you alone to fill the emptiness inside him.

Seasons have changed and yet summer remains, its essence stored safely within the notes of your perfume, it tickles his nose as you're seated on the countertop, legs swinging lazily while he scouts through his fridge.

“Remind me why we're doing this again?”

“Because I made a bet with Yoon.”

“Your sixteen years old brother?”

“Yes.”

“You are in college.”

“I know.”

“Why are you taking it to heart?”

“Because I have my pride,” he says solemnly, hand on his heart and you roll your eyes.

“You literally begged at my feet fifteen minutes ago to help you.”

A year later, Jeongin stood beneath your window once again, phone brought up to his ear, hand hidden behind his back. You pick up on the first ring.

“Look out the window,” he quickly says before you can even speak.

“Hello, Y/n, how are you, Y/n, are you surviving with the cold—” you say sarcastically as you pull the curtains, the words dissolving in your tongue as he brings a single flower before him— you recognize its pink petals easily, Camellia, the rose of winter.

“I did not have time for coffee, but I plucked this off the sidewalk,” he offers, an amused grin on his face. “Help me bake cookies, pretty please, I'll be forever indebted to you. Forever and ever and ever and ever—”

“This is such a poor rendition of Romeo and Juliet, I'm afraid Shakespeare is suffering in his grave right now.”

“Do you think he knows of every theater play that was done to his story?” Jeongin muses.

“That's a good question actually. I hope he didn't see mine,” you shudder before your face pales.

“You did not tell me you ever did that!”

“I'll bake your cookies and you'll never bring this up again.”

“Deal. My Juliet,” he smirks and you throw a middle finger aggressively to his face before hanging up. He shouldn't find it as endearing as he does.

“Because, my dear Y/n, this is my holiday reputation at stake. I kind of raised the bar last year with my gift wrapping.”

“You did?” you raise an eyebrow promptly at his words and he sighs, taking out the butter before leaning against the fridge.

“We did. Which is exactly why I need your help again. Imagine how embarrassing it would be if Yoon wins,” he shudders and a giggle finally escapes your lips.

The kitchen warms up at the sight of your smile.

“It's cute when you need me once in a while,” you say nonchalantly, hopping off the counter and moving to wash your hands. Jeongin freezes in his place.

“I always need you though,” he confesses quickly, swallowing the words, hoping that this way you wouldn't be able to taste the sincerity coating them, sticky honey dripping from his tongue whenever it speaks of you.

“Good thing you'll always have me then,” you beam, your words hanging into the air, oxygen suddenly harder to inhale.

“Gross,” he fakes a shiver, as his heart drops in his chest, breaks, and twists at the weight your words carry.

He'll always have you, but not in the way he wants to, your eyes would never soften at the mere mention of his name, and you won't think that a season blooms into every room he is in. He has you, but just a fragment of you, not how you have him, as a whole, heart, body, and soul.

He's already fallen, a terrible, terrible fall.

“Will you help me or just stare off into the distance?” you ask, tilting your head to the side. He smiles bashfully, rolling his sleeves and sidling by your side to mix in the eggs, one by one, per your instructions.

It smells nice in the kitchen, the caramelized fragrance of browned butter, sweetened by the sugar dissolving into the warm liquid. Tentative sunlight streams through the window, and it falls perfectly on Jeongin's face, highlighting his sharp features.

Not that jeongin needs any additional light, he reminds you of spring, a flower blooming on his face each time he smiles, his dimples two youthful fountains the roots strive from, brightening his face even more.

He tentatively glances at you as he adds the chocolate chips to the mix, only to find you staring forward. He misses the fond look on your face by a few seconds, the tinting of your features with soft hues of pink, of spring, of him. He always misses it, always misses you.

Three.

"I can't believe you have 37 pairs of shoes but not one nice shirt.”

“It's 36, please count correctly,” Jeongin retaliates and you snort, flopping around in bed till you land on your stomach, chin propped up by your hand. Jeongin is still rummaging through his closet, head almost disappearing into the dark void of his wardrobe.

“What do you need this for anyway?” you question, as you scroll through your phone mindlessly. Jeongin’s eerie silence causes you to look up.

“Um. I have a date tonight.”

“Oh.”

His words hang over the room like a heavy cloak soaked with rain, the oxygen sucked out of your lungs and ensnared within that singular gasp.

Jeongin swiftly turns around, before kneeling beside the bed, eyes brimming with a hopeless search— you are too focused on steadying your breathing to notice.

“Should I go?”

“I mean… Why are you asking me?”

“If you don't want me to, I won't,” he speaks in an overflowing sincerity, as though he'd willingly surrender the reins of his life for you to guide, should you only dare to ask.

A breath, a pause, and he adds, “In case you'll be lonely tonight.” Your hope deflates in an instant, akin to a birthday balloon tossed into the careless hands of children.

Pity, that's what he feels for someone who hasn't had a date in a year while he went on ones regularly. Although they never transcended beyond that first meeting, always a first date, never a second. He says none of the people he meets are his type.

“I have a date too.” It was the truth, Suhoo had told you to meet him at the ice rink. You said you'd think about it. You knew deep down that your answer would be no, solely because he isn't Jeongin.

Perhaps it is too late for him to fall for you.

“Really?”

“Yeah, with Suhoo, you know, the guy in our Economics class.”

“He's nice.”

“Mm.”

Could you lose something you never had in the first place?

“You should wear Seungmin’s white shirt.”

“Yeah. That's what I thought too.”

“And bring them flowers. The rose of winter, maybe.”

You had preserved the plucked flower he gave you in a vase. The pink of the petals liquefying and bleeding into the blush on Jeongin’s cheeks once he noticed.

“That one's just for you.”

Four.

You're alone on the ice rink, the frigid winds assail your form, fingers numb from winter's cruel grasp. Suhoo didn't come after all, perhaps he was offended by you calling him at the last minute to confirm your date.

The chill of disappointment is more biting than the frost— you want to melt off the ice, you want your spring. You want your Jeongin.

But he isn't yours, perhaps he will never be. He is too sought after, too captivated by the fleeting chase of someone new to spare a glance at you.

But in this instant, you need him. You need him to hold your hands in his larger, warmer ones and get you off the ice rink. You need the sight of his familiar dimples and blooming smile.

So, you call him. He picks up on the first ring.

“Are you that bored on your date?” He playfully taunts, and his voice becomes a gentle breeze that stirs the emotions you struggle to contain. Tears cascade down your cheeks in an achingly familiar path.

“I-Innie,” you hiccup, and you’re instantly met with the sound of scraping chairs against the floor, the hastening cadence of footsteps hurrying out into the street.

“Did he do something to you?” He speaks so coldly, a tone so foreign to the warmth of your Jeongin. He shouldn't be tainted with winter too.

“He didn't come. Can you p-please pick me up?”

“I will. I'm coming in a bit, okay?”

He finds you rather quickly on the ice rink, a sore thumb unmoving between the gliding bodies. He skates over to you, almost falling twice in the process.

“You're so clumsy,” you snort as he stands before you, sobs racking through your body once more at the sight of him.

You weren't mad at Suhoo. You were heartbroken over Jeongin.

“I'll beat him up for you. I'll tell Changbin to help me too,” he smiles, hands fidgeting as they land upon your cheeks, trying their best to wipe away your tears.

“Please don't cry. I hate seeing you cry, Y/n, I really can't bear it." The tears only fall harder at his words, as if he's stringing them forth with each touch of his.

“Did he do something to you?” an unknown voice startles you and you turn to your right to find a girl looking at you then at Jeongin, a frown etched on her eyebrows.

“No, I'm her friend I didn't-”

“I wasn't talking to you,” the girl cuts him off and you laugh despite you, as Jeongin’s jaw hangs open, before closing once more.

“It's not him, thank you so much though,” you smile gratefully and she nods, eyes wary as she glares at Jeongin one last time, before skating away.

“I can't believe that just happened,” He exhales, a breath tinged with bewilderment, before he delicately encircles a hand around your back. Gently, he guides your head to rest against the comforting refuge of his chest.

“What are you doing?” you mumble against his navy hoodie, the one he borrowed from you. You can still smell your perfume on him.

“I'm comforting you.”

“You don't like hugs.”

“It's different when it comes to you.”

You close your eyes, allowing the tide of his warmth to envelop you like a cascade of spring petals.

“Where is your date?”

“I didn't go.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I love you. I'm tired of looking for you in other people,” he quickly says and you peel yourself away from him, feeling as if his clothes were suddenly made of fire.

“What?” you whisper, eyes glistening with unshed tears.

“I love you,” he repeats, each word drawn out, much slower this time, his hands cradling your face, tenderly, as though holding the sun between his delicate fingers. “I'm tired of pretending you're not my summer.”

“Don't say things you don't mean,” your voice wavers.

“I mean it. I've always loved you. You complete me in ways I didn't know were possible, and I know you only see me as a friend but-”

Your lips press against his, a culmination of aching desires that have lingered for two years. Distant laughter echoes in the background, ice cream melting onto your fingers, a soft breeze ruffling your hair, flowers blooming under the soft caress of the sun— two seasons melting sweetly into the kiss.

“You're literally so blind,” you giggle against his lips, and his smile widens, your noses brushing against one another. “I love you too, idiot.”

“You love me?”

“You're my favorite season.”

“Don't steal my lines.”

“Hey—” he kisses you this time, the winter is long forgotten.

Was it ever a fall if you caught him in the end?

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milkibabe · 11 months

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♥ family camping trip w/ kenny (headcanons) ♥

✢ summary: headcanons on going on a camping trip with Kenny’s family

✢ authors note: heyy since my first post blew up i'm deciding to do all of the boys ;p

✢ gender: reader is implied to be female <3

✢ warnings: nsfw, mentions of weed/smoking

Kenny HCs

𝒮𝐹𝒲

Begged you to go camping with him for months.

When you finally took some time off to go with him, he was ecstatic.

"We're gonna have so much fun"

Was confused why you packed so much stuff.

"What do you mean you still need to brush your teeth?"

Boy is an animal I swear, he can be so nasty.

You, Kenny, and Karen played 'I Spy' while in the car.

Kenny loves when you play with his little sister, it makes his heart melt.

"You'd make such a good mom"

Kenny just casually drops that while you're unpacking, like it isn't the sweetest thing you've ever heard.

You cannot escape his kisses, you've lost count of how many times he's kissed you.

You'll just be getting the fire wood ready for the campfire and he'll sneak up and kiss you on the neck from behind.

"There's my pretty girl"

Kenny is already rugged by nature, so camping is really his element.

When it's just you around he'll purposely be shirtless to get your attention.

Seeing him chop wood... while shirtless??? You nearly exploded at the sight.

"Whatcha lookin' at hm?"

He gives you a cocky grin that makes you roll your eyes.

Stupid, sexy Kenny.

He is a night owl. He prefers to do everything later at night with you.

He always sleeps through breakfast, so you always nag him to eat lunch.

"Only if I get to eat you for lunch" He grins at you.

You groan and push him away. Dude can be so cheesy.

Never lets you wear your own sweaters or jackets. He wants you to wear is giant, orange parka, always.

He saw you shiver and immediately draped it over your shoulders.

His parka smells like his cologne and weed.

You always tell him "Babe... you're gonna make my hair smell like weed.

Speaking of weed, boy is always offering you some.

"Babe, can we please smoke by the water?"

You look at your phone. "Kenny, it's like 3 am..."

You, of course, do it anyways. It's fun getting high with your hot, blonde stoner bf.

*Queue Moonlight by Kali Uchis*

He makes sure to bring plenty of water for the dry mouth and your favorite snackies when you get the munchies.

He loves to feed you the snacks himself, he loves spoiling you.

"I want to do this with you every night for the rest of my life"

𝓝𝓢𝓕𝓦

Everyone already knows Kenny is a horny ass man, so it was no surprise when you couldn't get him off of you.

Cannot fucking resist teasing you every second.

Would whisper in your ears in the car while you're just minding your own business.

"Can't wait to fuck your brains out"

The face you made when he whispered that satisfied him a lot.

Everywhere you went on that trip was a place to fuck.

The tent? Yep. Some random isolated place in the middle of the woods? Yup. The showers/bathroom? You betcha.

Asked you to go skinny dipping with him in the middle of the night.

You were freezing cold of course.

This dude has the audacity to say "Aw, you can come to me to conserve warmth"

Obviously, this whole thing was a ploy to hold you while you were naked.

He would instantly start to suck on your neck, while massaging your ass with both hands.

You dug your fingernails into his back and in response he bit your neck.

Your moans made him grin, he loved how easily you melted into his touch.

Turned you around so he could grind his cock between your ass.

Wrapped his arms around your shoulders and whispered into your ear while he grinded against you.

"You're fucking perfect"

When shit was getting super heated, he walked you over to an isolated rock so you could hold yourself up on it while he fucked you.

You held on to that rock for dear life while he pounded you.

He loved watching how your body looked under the moonlight.

His favorite thing about standing doggy style is being able to watch himself pull out all the way and slam back into you.

Always riles him up when you stroke his ego.

You whine out, "Ah, its too big Kenny!"

Kenny smirks and says "Aw, but you take me so well, baby"

He only fucks you harder when you whine and whimper.

Takes him forever to cum, you probably came three times by now.

That's fine by him, he enjoys overstimulating you.

You were losing your grip on the rock and your legs could no longer stand, so he has to hold you up.

Kenny knows his job is done when you are about to collapse.

"Fuck, I'm gonna cum"

He finally hits his climax and he pulls out to cum all over your ass.

"My favorite sight in the world"

He's proud of the work he's done but notices you about to pass out and quickly uses the water to wash you off.

"My sleepy little princess"

After drying you off with a towel, he puts his parka on you and carries you back to camp.

"Ooh, remind me to fuck you while you wear this next time"

Dude's always thinking of the next time he gets to fuck you smh.

#south park fanfiction #south park x reader #kenny mccormick x reader #kenny mccormick x reader smut #south park hcs #south park #south park smut #kenny mccormick

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heeliopheelia · 10 months

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"no one has ever cared about me like you do" (jungwon x reader)

genre: fluff word count: 0.7k requested by nonnie ♡

warnings: a little blood, mentions of getting into a fight, alcohol, jungwon being tipsy

a/n: i actually love the way this turned out!! i'm gonna post another drabble later on tonight <3

One of the things you completely didn't expect to find at your door at 2 am was a tipsy Jungwon. Frowning, you take in all of the cuts marring his face, bruised knuckles coming up to your view as he raises his hand up to wave at you awkwardly.

"Hi," he greets you, other arm outstretched on the door frame to stop himself from stumbling over onto you. "Can I come in?"

You nod your head silently, opening the door wider so that he can step in. Now, patching up Jungwon is something you've already grown used to doing throughout the past couple months. What you're not used to witnessing is the fight-seeking boy being drunk. Maybe it's all thanks to his high alcohol tolerance but not even once in your life have you ever seen him stumbling and tripping over his own feet as he giggles drunkenly underneath his nose.

After making him take off his shoes, you lead him to your bedroom, carefully guiding him through every step and threshold until he's safely resting on your bed. The soft floral scent of your fabric softener instantly brings peace to his hollering heart and he leans backwards until his head drops down on your pillows.

You leave him in your room, trusting him enough to know he's not going to hurt himself within your absence, and when you come back with your heavily-used first aid kit, he's watching you intently with his misty eyes.

"Tilt your face up," you tell him, grabbing him by his chin to help him with the task yourself.

Reaching for the soaked cotton ball, you start cleaning up the cuts on his face, dabbing on the already dried blood and wiping it away. Jungwon endures it all without the smallest whine, always feeling thankful for you to even have the will and strength to deal with him yet another time. Getting used to the stinging, he finds himself drifting off with the gentle touch of your fingers.

"Hey, stay with me for a little longer, okay?" You ask, leaning closer to him. Only now he can see the concern more prominent than usually painted on your features and he feels a sharp sting of guilt for making you feel such way. "Why are so you drunk tonight? And who did you get into a fight with again?"

He hums low in his throat, blinking up at you with his heavy eyelids. "I dunno. Kinda felt like doing shots today. Jake has no control when it comes to vodka, you know that," he explains simply, shrugging his arms with a small smile. "And it was just some guy at the party. Pissed me off loads."

You nod your head with a sigh. "Wonder when will be the first time you come to my doorstep in one piece."

Jungwon instantly notices the resentful hint in your voice, so he leans up on his elbows. "I'm sorry. I should stop bothering you with my bullshit at nights, I know you're probably tired of it at this point. I'll try not to the next time, okay?"

"That's not what I meant." You shake your head, putting the kit aside as you finally take a spot right next to him on your bed. "I don't mind you coming here. I'm glad that you're comfortable enough to let me help you. I'm just worried about you, that's all. I don't want you to seriously get hurt somewhere along the way, Won."

His heart melts at your words, so he quickly pulls you to his chest, face nuzzling in the crook of your neck so that you don't see the chokehold that you have on him written all over his features. He stretches his arm out, flicking the switch of the lamp on your bedside off and engulfing the both of you in a comfortable darkness.

He tugs the covers on top your bodies. The silence nearly lulls you to sleep, his calloused hands softly running over your skin before his muffled voice interrupts it.

"No one has ever cared about me like you do. I know I don't show it a lot but I really do appreciate you. Thank you."

"I love you," you mumble into his t-shirt tiredly, arms tightening around his middle.

Even though it's the first time you've ever said these words to him, they sound so incredibly easy on your tongue that instead of feeling nervous, a soothing warmth flows down his system. Pressing a kiss to the side of your head, he feels you snuggling even closer to him and he can't keep the exhausted smile from creeping upon his lips.

And he knows that no matter how drunk he would be, these words he would always remember. And would always mean with his entire heart.

"I love you too."

permanent taglist: @bambisgirl @arizejkt19 @luvmura @milisabunny @cathy-1997 @venividibitchin @ramenoil

#carly's 1k event ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა #1k event: requests ✎#enhypen imagines #enhypen x reader #enhypen fluff #jungwon x reader #jungwon imagines #yang jungwon x reader

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mylovelies-docx · 6 months

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Sorry, I Love You - Part 10

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?! I'm finally posting Part 10 after an unplanned/unexpected hiatus?

Yes. I am. Sorry for the long wait!

Plot: You and Bucky have a good thing going - best of friends that also have more than a little chemistry between the sheets. Everything is fine until you develop feelings for the man who doesn't want a relationship. What will happen when Bucky finds out?

C/W: Angst, HYDRA experimentation, mentions of death. (Dear sweet Hyunjin in the gif below also a CW for myself and other Stays)

Word Count: 3,075

Tag List: NOW CLOSED! If you'd like to keep up with this story, please follow my blog and turn on notifications! ❤️ you :)

[Prologue][Part 1][Part 2][Part 3][Part 4][Part 5][Part 6][Part 7][Part 8][Part 9]

You hear Bucky’s key rattle in the front door and the soft snick as it closes downstairs. You’d arrived at your shared home only minutes ago, but that was plenty of time for you to race upstairs, lock your door, and start bawling into the pillow. You hiccup and choke, suffocating the sounds into the cotton fabric clenched between your teeth.

Why?! Why did Bucky have to go and say that shit? As much as you had hoped and begged the universe for Bucky to say those words to you earlier this year, it responds to your pleas now?! You’ve spent months resigning yourself to having him as a friend only – that’s what he said he wanted!

Why would he change his mind? Is it because he’s had a change of heart? Doubtful. Bucky was very certain in his decision to shut you down and out of his life. So what? Is it because you’re hanging out with Petre? Is he jealous? How? Why?

Bucky’s actions towards you tonight make no sense. Why would he say something that he knew would upset you? And if he didn’t think they’d upset you, what’d he expect? That you’d run and leap into his arms, no more words needed? Why the hell would he think that’s what would happen? He can’t just act like he didn’t completely eviscerate your heart that night in the alley and that morning in the kitchen.

Those days are burned into your memory, not a day goes by that you don’t remember the way your words affected him and his response. He was so betrayed and angry that he lashed out at you for admitting that you wanted more than the no-strings-attached, friends-with-benefits situation that you had.

But now – now! – he wants to say you could be together? Together in what way? As fuck-buddies again? Hell no. There’s no way that you will ever put yourself through that pain and hardship again. Not for him, not for anybody. You want something real.

You’d wanted something real with Bucky, but he’d shot you down as soon as you’d brought it up.

Bucky’s footsteps shuffle from the front door and up the stairs, stopping just outside your door. You hold your breath but continue to flinch as your lungs spasm on unuttered cries.

A soft rap sounds at your door and Bucky murmurs your name softly into the doorjamb. You squeeze your eyes shut and keep your voice as calm and level as possible, but it still cracks when you say his name. “Leave me alone, Bucky.”

“Doll, I –”

“I don’t want to hear it!” You respond vehemently, chucking your wet pillow at the door. It smacks against the wood with a thwump and lands in a sad heap on the floor. It looks just like how you feel. “Just go away.”

You can hear Bucky suck in a shaky breath, but you refuse to picture his watery eyes and quivering lip. He has a right to feel like shit, but you are under no obligation to try and assuage his guilt when he’s the one that caused this whole mess.

His bare feet tread across the hallway and into his bedroom, his bedroom door barely making any sound as he closes it behind him. His shower starts up a few seconds later and stays on for nearly an hour. After that, his bed creaks and there’s not another sound to be heard.

You don’t sleep that night.

***

“I need to leave.”

“What?” Nat hisses through the phone. It may be 4 am here, but the team is having dinner together right now back in New York. Nat’s whispering voice is her attempt at keeping this conversation between the two of you while she walks away from the dining room to talk. You can hear her boot-clad leg thunk, thunk, thunk its way across the hardwood floors as she finds privacy.

“I need to get away from Bucky,” you explain further.

“What did that fucker do this time?” Nat questions menacingly, already gearing up to kick Bucky’s ass with no information.

You heave a sigh and watch your breath fog in the air, the cloud hanging heavy in front of your face before slowly dissipating in the humid, cold air. “He… he said something about us. As in, him and I. Like we could go back to how we were.” You bite your chapped lips and worry the dry pieces of skin with your teeth. “I didn’t handle it very well.”

Nat is silent for a long moment, the other end of the line buzzing over the long distance. Finally, she says, “He said he wanted to be friends with benefits again?”

“Well not exactly,” you hedge. “He got all weird and jealous when I was hanging out with Petre last night like I always do. We got into a fight and he said that it could be us sneaking off together like we used to and I just… I lost it.” You hurriedly wipe an oncoming tear out of your eye, surprised you’re even hydrated enough to produce anything after last night’s sob fest. You suck in a shaky breath and continue. “Nat, I can’t do it again. I can’t.”

“I know, honey,” Nat consoles, her voice soft as she shushes you. “I won’t let you do that to yourself again, either. You know I’m here for you – and so is the rest of the team.” You make a questioning noise at that last part and Nat explains. “Well… the whole team kind of knows why you left.”

“...they do?” You press the palm not holding your phone against your forehead, pushing hard to focus on anything but the embarrassment the situation makes you feel. You chuckle humorlessly and say, “Everybody must think I’m pathetic now.”

“We absolutely do not,” Nat states defensively. “Wanda and I were giving him so much shit after you left and no one knew why – Bucky eventually had to tell everyone after I nearly put him in a coma when he finally found the guts to spar with me.”

You do crack a genuine smile and laugh at that. “You’re telling me Wanda was mean to him?”

“Well, I mean,” Nat laughs as well, “she didn’t put smiley faces on his pancakes when she made everybody breakfast. Trust me when I say everyone noticed her displeasure with him.”

You feel the overwhelming urge to wrap Nat and Wanda up in hugs that are long overdue. The love for your friends overflows from your heart and manifests in your words: “I love you guys so much.” It’s no substitute for the hugs you want to give, but it’s all you can offer at the moment.

“We love you, too,” Nat replies. You’re both quiet for a moment, you soaking in the silence of the frozen outdoors and Nat chewing on the question you can practically hear filling her mouth and pushing against her lips.

You sigh heavily. “Out with it, Nat.”

She sucks in a breath before starting. “You know I’m always on your side…”

“Uh-huh.”

“...but are you sure that’s what Bucky meant?” she finishes.

“Huh?” you question dumbly. “What else could he have meant? He accused me of going off and fucking Petre every time we left a room – TMI, but that’s exactly what Bucky and I used to do. So when Bucky said we could be like that, I don’t see how he could have meant anything else.”

You hear a smack from Nat’s side of the line and a grumbled ‘stupid motherfucker…’ before she composes herself and resumes the conversation. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

“Not particularly,” you respond. “I’d rather you just come and get me.”

“You know I would in a heartbeat, but this mission took a long time to set up…”

“Yeah, I know,” you sigh. “I wouldn’t actually leave over this, but it’s just nice to know that you’d come and get me if I asked.”

“Always,” she says.

You and Nat chat for a little longer before you end the call, citing your need to head into ‘work’ soon. You hang up, feeling better for having spoken with your best friend.

Your improved mood lets you ponder on what Nat was trying to get at about Bucky’s intentions. Does she know something you don’t? The answer is likely yes, her being who she is and all. But if she has reason to doubt your interpretation of Bucky’s actions last night, don’t you owe it to yourself to find out for sure?

Mind made up, you send a short text to Bucky.

Can we talk?

A few seconds pass as you type out a follow-up message, but you’re interrupted by Bucky’s text.

You’re not here. Where are you?

You smile at the realization that Bucky had to have sprinted to your room, saw your empty bed, and then searched the entire house in record time before sending his text.

Your stomach fills with anticipatory nervousness, but you remind yourself that you’ve already gone through hell without Bucky once, so if there’s something in the way of being in each other’s lives you need to clear it up.

I’m getting an early start at work. I’ll call you during lunch?

Please.

***

The morning rushes by in a blur. Your tasks take you up, down, and around areas of the HYDRA facility you’ve never had access to before. You can’t be seen lingering around any certain area, but you take every opportunity to peek inside rooms and hallways when no one else is around.

There’s one particular hallway that catches your attention – not because there’s any screaming or moaning coming from the cells along the walls, but because there is a steady beep, beep, beeping coming from multiple heart rate monitors.

You’re unable to investigate since a scientist with dark hair stands at one of the open cells at the end of the hall. His clipboard hangs down at his side as his other hand rests on the doorjamb as he watches whatever is happening inside. He’s too far away for you to get a good look at him, but his height and build seem… familiar. You stare for long seconds as he continues to linger, wracking your brain for how you recognize him, but footsteps down your hallway cause the man to startle and scurry away in the opposite direction.

The person who scared the man away rounds the corner towards you. You recognize them as the scientist that had sent you down here in the first place. Quickening your pace, you rush over to them.

“Hello, sir. Here are the materials you requested.”

“Yes, quite,” the man says as he takes the samples from your hands.

He riffles through the sealed bags and paper work, a concentrated look on his face. You stand politely next to him, your hands folded in front of you while you wait for a dismissal.

“Argh!” the scientist exclaims in anger. “That absolute buffoon! She can’t even label correctly.” He looks up and pins you with a cold stare. “You. Go collect the bloodwork – and do it correctly!”

He shoves a piece of paper with the subject’s ID number and location into your chest. You reach up quickly to catch it and bow your head in deference. “Yes, sir. Right away.”

He storms off, stomping his way to presumably berate the poor technician who collected the samples the first time.

You sigh, glancing down at your phone. It’s well-past lunchtime and you need to call Bucky, but this task needs to be completed first. You’ll call Bucky soon and hopefully he’ll apologize and clear everything up. The anxiety from this morning returns and causes your stomach to tighten and a lump to form in your throat.

It’s okay, you tell yourself. He’s been trying to apologize since it happened. If he confesses the reason behind why he got weirdly jealous last night, you will tell him that he has no reason to be – that there hasn’t been anyone for him to be jealous over. Especially not a civilian during an undercover mission.

Would that be too much? Would he think that if you haven’t been with anyone since you left that you’re still hung up on him? Even though you told him you’d never actually loved him (a massive, bald-faced lie), would he still accept your words at face value even when your actions contradict them?

Why did he say all that last night?

If he doesn’t want to have any kind of intimacy with you, why’d he suggest being friends with benefits again? Did he suggest being friends with benefits again? It certainly seemed like that was what he was implying, but Nat’s words from this morning makes you doubt your assumption.

If he wasn’t talking about reverting back to your situationship that you both clearly regretted – for different reasons – then what?

Ugh, you sigh. This is too much. You’ll figure it out when you call him.

You find the medical supply closet and collect the needles, tourniquets, vials, and labels necessary for the samples. Looking down the list, you see that the location is actually the hallway you were interested in earlier. Gathering your supplies onto a cart, you head out.

***

You’ve collected two of the samples when you run into Olaf, the contact you last spoke with when you first arrived. You had just left Subject #268’s room and nearly ran right into the man.

“Oh, hello,” you greet sincerely before registering the wild look in his eyes and his bloodless face. “What’s wrong?”

Olaf shoves you back into the room and looks around frantically. “I need to go,” he states, frightened. “I need to leave and I have to take my family with me.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” you murmur, setting your hand on his shoulder. “Deep breaths.” You show him an exaggerated inhale and exhale, staring into his eyes and trying to calm him down. “Tell me what’s going on.”

The breathing exercise does nothing for him. Olaf grabs your hand and squeezes hard. “They know.”

“They know?” you question. “Who knows what?”

“They know that I contacted the Avengers!” He nearly shouts. You shush him with your other hand over his mouth, but he rips it away and continues. “They know I brought you here and that we’re trying to shut this place down.”

“Hold up,” you plead. Your heart races in your chest at the implications. “Why do you say that?”

“I heard them!” he rasps. “I heard them discussing the ‘rats in the organization’ and that they’re finally ready to get rid of them.”

“And you think that’s us? Why?”

“Why else would they mention my name and the Avengers in the same sentence moments later?!” Tears leak down Olaf’s face and his breaths heave in and out of his chest.

“Okay. Okay,” you say, a million thoughts and plans running through your mind. “Get out of here. Go get your family and run – it doesn’t matter if you look suspicious since they’re already aware of the situation.”

Olaf nods his head rapidly and starts to back out of the door and into the hall. “What about you?” he questions weakly.

“Don’t worry about it,” you say. “I’ll wrap things up here. Just go!”

He nods again and turns to run down the hall, but stops dead in his tracks. A horrible, gut-wrenching feeling invades you. You step out into the hallway and find…

“Petre?” you whisper.

Petre stands there, with his dark hair and clipboard – he’s the one you saw in this hallway earlier. Your brain short-circuits while trying to put all the information together.

You hear Olar whimper behind you. You turn your head and mutter quickly: “Go.” Olaf bolts down the hallway and out of sight.

You turn back to face Petre, his eyes wide and breathing heavy.

“What are you doing here?” you ask him. “How much did you just hear?”

Petre hesitates for a moment before responding. “Enough.”

“Petre,” your voice is hard. “What are you doing here?”

“They…” his lip quivers. “They have my sister.”

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. “They have Sasha? I thought she was just sick?”

“She is,” he says. “They said that they’re the only ones who can cure her, so my parents… we agreed to their treatment plan. But then they started asking for more and more things – things mother and father weren’t comfortable with. But they said we have to comply if we want Sasha to get better – so I came here at their demand.”

You suck in a deep breath. Something about Petre’s broken, dejected demeanor sends a wave of foreboding through you. “Grab Sasha and run, Petre. You know who I am now. I can help you.”

Petre shakes his head sadly. “She’ll die.”

“No. No, Dr. Cho can figure out what’s wrong – she can help Sasha.” But Petre’s head continues to shake.

“They give her something everyday, something that will kill her if she doesn’t receive her next dose at the correct time. I… I’m sorry. I have to protect my sister.”

A tear slips down Petre’s cheek as he begins to back away from you.

“Petre, please,” you beg. “Give me five minutes.”

“I can’t,” he whispers, and takes off.

You curse and start running. The only thing you can do is get to the control room and wreak havoc. You thunder through the hallways of the compound, dodging scientists and slamming and locking the doors that separate different wings from each other.

The lights shut off. A loud, blaring siren rings through the facility and emergency lights flash red. On, off. On, off. Your eyes try to adjust to the darkness, then are assaulted by the light only fractions of a second later – the strobing effect causing the scene to look like stop-motion animation.

You recognize the area you’re in, realizing that the control room is only a few doors away. Shouting and the clambering of combat boots to your left catches your attention. A whole host of agents run towards you, weapons drawn.

You put on a burst of speed, grabbing the control room door jamb and swinging inside. You close the door and drag a desk to barricade it – it won’t hold for long, but it’s better than nothing. You turn to find several men rising from their desks, startled looks on their faces.

Grimacing, you begin the arduous task of taking lives.

Tag list: @jackiehollanderr @rabbitrabbit12321 @12345sebby @blackwood-bodecker-housewife @lauraashley93 @themorningsunshine @happinessinthebeing @nash-dara @calwitch @stany0url0calwh0res111 @pono-pura-vida @learisa @introverbatim @kentokaze @marvelogic @kaz11283 @terry2227

Part 11

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky fanfic #sorry i love you

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gloomy-prince · 8 months

Note

Honestly I've been in this huge Reddie depression, I try to say as casually as possible.

Like my heart aches for these two to be happy and it's the first time ever a ship has truly effected me. With past ships there's always been some sort of happiness to their ending; their together, or it's implied, or their still friends, or they get to say goodbye, or their both still alive and their ending can still happen later. There is just such a finalness to their sad ending.

It doesn't help that I love both of these characters so much. Also, adding the pain of seeing my spouse (they/them) and me (she/they) in Eddie and Rickie respectfully, I can't help but project ourselves in their situations.

I've always had a little fondness for this ship, nothing too big, for years. Then a month or so ago I casually clicked on a Reddie animatic by Noodle and now here I am! In a pit filled with tears and I swim'n laps! (Really weird phrasing but anything else I tried to come up with kept accidentally being morbid) And you and Sunny are a huge part of that. With your amazing drawings, comics, and fanfictions, I couldn't stand a chance.

My feelings for these cute dummies has even caused me to make a playlist, mixed with songs that remind me of them and with the indescribable queer/yerning feelings one might have.

All this to say, and sorry it's a lot, I saw your post about wanting some more Reddie songs and thought you might like a lot of the songs in my playlist. Also, I've been really needing to type out my feelings about these two, sorry again.

(Oh! And you'll see this but the thumbnail is from Out of the Blue with color editing. Hope that's okay. It really fits and I credited you if that helps.)

https://spotify.link/xZxZHpdH0Cb

Thank you!! I feel you a lot, esp on being able to relate them to you and your partner, I'm sure that's part of the reason I got into them so much (and I know that's why Sunny did!) and it makes them more relatable and lovable... idk. Trans Eddie is basically me taking a character I relate to and making them Even More Me. The projection is off the charts. There are going to be direct things that happen that are just things that happened to me nearly 1 to 1

And thank you for sharing your playlist too!! I definitely don't mind people using my art for personal things like that, it's totally cool :3 ❤️

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clevercatchphrase · 4 months

Text

2023 Year In Review~

at the time of me writing this, it is 8:11pm on tuesday night, january second. Let's see how long it takes me to type this entire thing. I expect no less than two hours. This is gonna be a long one, so I'm gonna put it under a read-more. Proceed only if you dare!

So! Another year down, another begun, and this is my.... 5th? time looking back on my year and assessing what I accomplished and what I did. Lots of changes and new things happened to me this year! Not nearly as many good things as bad! But first I'm gonna dig up my old resolutions list and see how well I did on them. Let's see... for 2023 I had 9 goals, six of which were serious and 3 of which were more casual. those goals were;

Read 12 new books in a year (one book a month)

Finish the Snowdin Arc before Ghost Switch's 5th birthday

Rewrite the 3rd draft of my Nanowrimo project from 2021/22

Write 4 one-shots for BSaPT

Solidify the details of the waterfall arc

The one secret goal

Finish writing the last 4 chapters of Clemency and finally post the dang thing

build a comic buffer of 8 pages, and finally,

write the crack fic

Of these nine goals, I achived... 4 of them, those being reading 12 books, finishing the snowdin arc before june 18th, rewriting my 2021 nanowrimo project, and finalizing the waterfall arc for Ghost Switch. All of these were serious goals, which I am proud of! but it was still less than half, which was a little disappointing. As in past years, I'll go into more detail below:

Read 12 books I BLEW THIS ONE OUT OF THE WATER! the grand total of books I read this year was THIRTY-SIX! three times as many! In fact, I forced myself to stop in order to have more books to read for 2024! Most of the books I listened to this year were through librivox, and mostly on my commute to work. Great way to pass the time! I wrote short little notes about the books I read on a personal discord with only me in it, so let me see if I can just copy and paste all of that here... (all of my original notes will be italicized, while additional thoughts on it now will not be)

1) Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Short, cute! Inspirational. About self actualization. Read by richard Harris. People call this a demonic book?? Apparently a fourth part added in 2014. Look it up later. (Edit; I never did look it up later. there's an audiobook for this on youtube, and while the voice is nice, there is, like, a solid 10 minute segment with a single violin note playing in the background and it is GRATING) 2) fire bed and bone. Ok. Middle of the road. Too focused on people and not the dog, but I get that's the point. it's ~symbolic~. Like the use of no dialogue and no name for the main dog 3) dogs of the spires book 1: reads like fan fiction (derogatory). Sentences go on for 4 or 5 words too long. Used the word orbs for eyes 3 times. Duke is ALWAYS FUCKING GRINNING. Half-brother reveal makes no sense and comes out of nowhere. How… Big/old is Step? Talks waaay too mature for a kid. What happened to Twig? Very tell and not show. Pink foam pink foam pink foam. Why are dogs separated? Hoe do the packs work? Why training? Not given enough to care for characters. Feels like a warrior cat reskin. Too rushed and yet nothing happens at the same time. (I was very curious about post-apocolyptic xenofiction this year, and this was one of the books I could find on the matter, but it's very childishly written and just... bad. Surprisingly, there seems to be a very tiny but dedicated fandom for it on youtube? the series has a fandom wiki anyway...)

4) old granny fox. Very cute! A little repetitive, but passable for a children's novel. Great introduction to xenofiction for kids. Wonderful audio book. 5)the adventures of Sammy Jay. Short sweet also a lot of fun. Both books are Definitely of their time with their usage of the word "queer" as a synonym for "strange/odd"

Now, this is a little known fact about me, but I'm secretly a massive furry. yeah, who could've guessed, right? Anyway, i'm always on the look out for good xenofiction, and when I searched through the "animals" playlist of the librivox youtube channel and stumbled across the books by Thornton W Burgess, I was INSTANTLY enamored. Old Granny Fox, and The Adventures of Sammy Jay were the first two I read/listened to, and was immediately captivated. I MUST give extra props to the narrators of these audiobooks, with some of the more frequent readers for this series doing unique voices for each character, which really added to the charm (Jude Somers and John Lieder particularly come to mind). I WISH I had these books as a kid. I love the way they describe animal behavior and reasoning. While it is anthropomorphized, it never crosses a line into "too" human, if that makes sense. There's another book on this list that is very similar to Burgess' work, with talking animals, but in that book, the animals make and read signs on the doors of their houses, and go to animal tailors to get their clothes fit. this doesn't happen in Burgess' work. Sure, they talk about their homes and the coats they wear, but it's all very intentionally conveying their natural states and habitats in a slightly more human way for us to picture them. Sure, the art on the covers of the books may say otherwise, but it's never depicted that way in the actual text. All their behavior is very animalistic, too, explaining their thoughts and actions in a way that would make sense for a wild forest creature. These books are a little gentle when it comes to the cycle of life. While the predator characters do need to hunt, they are always juuuust out of luck when they are the main character, and the prey characters juuuust manage to escape each time they're the focus. I will definitely be reading more of Burgess' books this year (the man wrote over 170 of them!), but expect quite a few more titles of his to pop up on this list.

6) adventures of jimmy skunk 7)adventures of paddy beaver (not much to say on these two. both were charming, but I feared I would have sounded repetitive if I just kept writing "cute!" in my notes) 8) my father's dragon Short, cute and silly. Listened to the audiobook. Does the physical have pictures? Not really so much about the dragon. Wish there was more after the ending, like what became of the dragon? (I also watched the netflix movie adaptation of this book. I.... could not stand the dragon in the movie. I'm sorry, he's annoying as hell) 9)adventures of buster bear

10)adventures of old mister toad.Favorite one so far. Puts toads in a positive light and describes them as beautiful instead of ugly or gross. [Burgess] Really appreciates all animals and their unique abilities and traits

11) The tale of freddie firefly. Ehh, okay. Not as great as Thorton Burgess' books, but still enjoyable. Not the same 'voice'. (this book was written by Scott Bailey) 12) The adventures of Chatterer the red squirrel. Fine~ Fun. 13) The Fox That Wanted Nine Golden Tales. Funny, short. Would make a good 22 minute short film 14)tale of master meadow mouse. Alright~ why do the animals know what groundhogs day and February are? How does mouse know how to write, and fox to read? Do they wear clothes? Mention a tailor frog. Oars for a raft. Don't like the animals being described as "(color) person". Feels like it's missing an adjective, ie "feathered" or "furred". (This is what I was talking about above. Scott Bailey wrote very similar stories to Burgess, but something was just... off about is writing style. ) 15) the adventures of reddy fox. Okay. Feels like an earlier book. Not as kind as the other ones. (I later looked it up and confirmed this was one of the earlier books in his series, and this one was, like, his tenth ever published one)

16) the adventures of jerry muskrat

17) the tale of doctor Doolittle. Fun! Kiiiiiinda racist in the africa parts, but an overall good time! (I'm more familiar with the Doolittle movies, but was surprised to learn that Doolittle's ability to speak to animals was something he learned with effort and practice, and not a magic power or weird innate ability of his. It was an interesting read!) 18) Nomads of the North. Fun animal romp. I Flinched at the use of "fat" "tar baby" "half breed" and "Indians". First half is mostly about the bear, then a sudden sharp turn to mostly about the dog. Kinda meanders, has no over-arching through-line, conflict or plot. (Apparently a movie was based off of this book, but focused more on the humans than the animals. Eh, it was the 1920s. what can you do) 19)falcons of nerabedla; short sci-fi novella about a bodyswap time traveler. Its… Fine. Not the greatest. A little too confusing and kind of wish they explained things more earlier on. Not really about the falcons. Even for a sci-fi, still pretty sexist in the future.(honestly I don't even know if I should count this as it's own book. I'm pretty sure it was a short story inside a bigger magazine?) 20) south American jungle tales. Enjoyable! Very strong jungle book vibes with a South American flare. The story with the racoon was pretty dark, though. 21) a gryphon's journey. Too fast pace. Characters have a habit of spilling their entire backstories onto arias without prompting. Not enough show, not enough explanation of how the gryphons work. Some aspects completely pushed to the sides, like the satyrs and naugi until the end. Very rushed. The skyhaven arc could have been its own book, the stygagryph arc could have been it's own book. The heron gryph arc could have been it's own book. Not enough time to get to know the characters or care about them. Arias speaks far too maturely for his age, I feel. (Still on a gryphon kick from the last... two years now? Mostly I'm waiting for the fourth book in the Griffin Ranger Series to come out before I read the third. The author said it would come out before the end of 2023, but that date came and went and it still isn't on amazon at the time of writing (which is now 9:26pm, jeez...) I want to read isthmus so bad, but I don't want to wait on a cliffhanger) 22) myths and legends from Alaska. Okay. Feels very white washed and overly simplified. missing nuance. Reader is so deadpan and monotone that the audio book was a slog to get through (One thing I was determined to do for my own enrichment this year was to read more legends and mythologies from other cultures. There are SO MANY cool creatures and monsters and ideas out there, and I just feel so LIMITED by the small amount I know. We humans come up with some of the craziest shit imaginable!) 23) the white czar; a story of a polar bear. Bad, boring, incredibly racist. Barely about the bear at all! 24) the twins of buster bear. Another thornton w. Burges book. Its middle of the road. Certainly not bad, but my least favorite so far. Just kinda dull, and the audio book was horrendous. (honestly if the audiobook wasn't so bad, I wouldn't have disliked it so much, but it was a CHORE to listen to this one. I mean, thank you librivox for doing all this work for free, but is it too much to ask for some sort of vetting process for your volunteer readers??) 25) the wishing stone stories; BEST thornton w burges book so far! I would have been obsessed with this book as a child. Transforming into animals to learn about their ways. Not super PG like the others. The animals hunt and kill and get killed. 10/10

26) lightfoot the leaping goat 27) Toto the bustling beaver. Both alright. Nowhere near as charming as thornton Burgess, but endearing none the less. A little more 4th wall breaking. Toto audio book fun with silly voices, but I don't like the description of "tramps". A little too humanized for me. Lightfoot audio book fucking trash. Almost gave up. (Both of these books were written by Richard Barnum, another children's xenofiction writer of the time, but I quickly came to realize that his writing style is just not for me. I listened to a handful of his books too, this year, but they left me feeling uncomfortable more often than not because common attitudes of the time period reeeeeally show through his work.) 28) the adventures of poor misses quack. How do these qualify as adventures. She lands in a pond, dumps her backstory for 60 percent of the book, finds her mate and lives happily ever after. Not very strong, not very adventurous. 29) Mother West Wind "When" Stories; a lot of fun, charming, Aesop fable-esque. Fun mythology for children. A little too much peter rabbit, but I understand why he's there 30) the adventures of tamba the tame tiger. Yeahhhh, this series isnt my thing. A little too humanized, and the audio book is fuck GARBAE. (Pretty sure I meant to say "fucking garbage" there, but "fuck garbae" is funnier)

31) joust 32) alta 33) sanctuary All really good! All revolve around dragons and their usage and care. The books are a liiiiiitle too serendipitous, with the right thing always happening at the right time. Vetch/kuron doesn't "fail" enough. Second book is the best so far because the magi are a legitimate threat and it feels like time is running out so they must always stay one step ahead. (All written by Mercedes Lackey, all about dragon husbandry with a nice Egyptian flare! Check them out! But... maybe skip Aerie, the last in the series. It's not really worth it.) 34)aerie weakest one. Ahketen was absolutely unbearable and I didn't like the literal deus ex machina at the end with the actual gods coming down to help. Final ranking in order from best to worst; 2)alta, 1)joust, 3)sanctuary and 4)aerie. 35) the adventures of johnny chuck. Fun, average. Simple but doesn't need to be complicated. First of the thornton books ive read where the main character forms a family with children as the main focus 36) blacky the crow. Fun and charming as always. Feels a little simpler than the others with only 3 main mini stories, two of which involve stealing eggs. I wonder if I can find a box set of these books. (Aaaand that wraps up all the books I read this year! 15 of them were from thornton w burgess, and I hope to read even more from him this year! If you know of Burgess' books, tell me your favorites! I'd love to discuss them with someone~)

2.WHOO! the time is now 9:50, and I am just starting on talking about my second goal, which was to finish the snowdin arc of Ghost Switch before its 5th birthday. I did this! I did this exactly on june 18th! (for public readers, anyway. Anyone on my patreon got the page early, but a one week difference isn't much in the grand scheme of things.) I also get to say that I passed the Snowdin Test this year! "What is the Snowdin Test," you might ask? well, it's something a mutual acquaintance of mine, from the Fan Fic Paradise discord I lurk in, made aaaaall the way back in 2018, right when I was just startin' out with Ghost Switch. (Hi, Vikingaspoke, I don't know if you follow me on tumblr, or even have a tumblr for that matter, but I want you to know I thought about your thesis every single day since you first posted it, and have been determined (har har) to succeed where so many other undertale stories have failed. I did it once with my Epic-long fan fic, You Monster, but to do the same in comic form was a new and unique challenge. it took me almost 5 years, but I got there in the end! Cutting out the memories, I've officially concluded snowdin and started waterfall just this year!) I've also got to mention that I think my estimation on how long it will take me to finish Ghost Switch is slowly unfolding to be oddly accurate. I've never made a comic this long, but back in 2019, when I made an anniversary comic for Ghost Switch's 1st birthday, I guestimated that it would take me roughly 11 more years to finish the story, meaning it would take me 12 in total from start to finish. Well, we are rapidly approaching the half-way point of the comic, and if I haul ass it get to 312 pages out by the 6th birthday, we very well might actually hit it. I haven't drawn up to page 312 yet, but it's strangely close. Granted, my guess didn't account for the length of the flashback segments, which may push it back, but the sheer Idea that the "vibes" I got on how long each arc would take just by roughly judging the time it took me to finish ruins as a baseline to compare... it's just weird, man. I just "felt" that snowdin would be 1.5 times as long as the ruins, waterfall 2 times as long as the ruins, and hotland+New Home also 1.5 times that of the ruins. I have no metric for this since the final scenes were not written out yet. It just... feels like it should be that, and I'm kinda scared at how on track it's been.

3. Third goal was to Rewrite my Nanowrimo project from 2021/22. I did this as well! It's still no where near a final draft ready for beta readers or anything, and towards the end of the year I got distracted writing the second book in the trilogy because this is an epic fantasy story so it just HAS to have three books. Maybe I'll self-publish these stories one day. it sure is the most passionate I've ever been about something original i've ever written, but I want to make sure the entire rough draft of all three stories is done first so I can easily go back and add hints in previous parts without having to retcon anything later down the line. I've already had to do it once, so no doubt in my mind I'll have to do it again when I start trying to wrap things up in the final book. Speaking of the sequel, that was my nano project for this year! I won, but much like 2021 and 22, I didn't finish the book. my 21/22 project ended up being roughly 80k words, and I still expect to add about 10k more when I add some missing scenes and flesh out some description. I don't think that will happen with the second book. If anything, I expect it to barely stick around 50k in total because I just know I wrote a lot of filler and junk and repetitive stuff in the first draft this year because I was STRUGGLING with nanowrimo this year. Idk yet if I'm going to make a rewrite of book 2 my nano project for 2024. we'll have to wait and see how I'm feeling once september/october rolls around.

4. My fourth goal was to write 4 one-shots for my fic collection of Blankets, Socks, and Pillow Talk, over on AO3. I didn't do this, mostly because I was too distracted with my original fiction this year. i DID write one one-shot, hilariously during nanowrimo when I was suffering from writers block. Hopefully this year will be different. I would like this fic collection to at least hit 50k words so it could be a full novel of short stories all on its own. I think I can do it, I just need the time and inspiration.

5. My fifth goal, and last one I achieved this year was to finalize the details of the waterfall arc. I'm sure I've said it before in the past, but all the major story beats for Ghost Switch were planned out well before I even drew the first page, but the scenes connecting them were filled in more as I went. Rest assured, I make sure the entire arc is scripted before I start it, but my dirty little secret is that the snowdin arc wasn't completely written until I nearly finished drawing the ruins arc, and I was well into the snowdin arc before the final scenes of the waterfall arc were written down. It is now, and has been for at least 10 months. This was a goal I always knew I would achieve. Sometimes the resolutions I make are things I know are gonna happen whether I want them to or not. Sometimes you just gotta give yourself a guaranteed win to boost your self-confidence, you know? (now I just need to do the same for the Hotland arc. I think it's gonna take me 3 years minimum to finish waterfall, just like it did snowdin, so I got time, but the sooner I figure out the dialogue, the better. Will I make that a goal for this year? Ehh, probably not. I just wanna focus on building a buffer first)

6. The one secret goal was not achieved. If it was, this post wouldn't nearly be as long and you all would have heard about it as soon as it happened. Idk if it will happen this year, or anytime soon. A vicious combination of anxiety, the economy, and the uncertain state of the world make me hesitant to even attempt this goal.

aaand those were all my serious goals for this year! the time is now 10:37, I am tired and dizzy. I'm gonna save this as a draft and get back to it tomorrow~ nighty night~

OKAY! IT'S JANUARY 3RD NOW, 8:34AM! LET"S CONTINUE!

my three casual goals, none of which I accomplished, were;

7) Finish writing clemency. While I didn't do this, I did think about the story a lot. If you've been around since late 2022, You'll know that when AI writing generators started gaining popularity, news broke that the internet was scraped for data sets, including fan fiction websites like AO3. This extremely pissed me off because Fan Fiction is... well, I guess there's no better word than "sacred" to me. The unadulterated desire to write, create, share and expand on media that has touched us, inspired us, (hell, even angered us!) and to do this all purely because we can and we want to, just to make connections with other people who were fans of the same media, people we may never meet, thousands of miles apart from us, who we can touch and inspire in turn... Fan fiction is a gift. it means so much to me, from the professional writer who writes ficlets as an exercise, to tweens just starting their creative writing journey by imagining themselves hanging out with their favorite characters, to the hobbyists who wanted to imagine how things would change if just one thing happened differently, to those who feel underrepresented in media, and want to see themselves be the hero. People working through shit, people who are just bored, people who love a story so much they will retell it a hundred times over so it never has to end. Young, old, girl, boy, fluent writers, to writers in fandom where english is not their first language. It's an amazing, nearly incomprehensible melting pot that can connect us all... and some CEO jerkoffs just wanted to steal all this heart-felt work and feed it to a machine to make a quick buck. I was so enraged, so violated that works of passion could be abused this way that I locked down all my fics on AO3, and you now need to be logged in to read any of them, and I didn't write a word of fan fic in over a year. Every time I thought my anger had cooled off, more news would come up about "AI" generated stories appearing in the kindle app, or authors having works published under their name without their consent because thieves are trying to make a quick buck with their identity to trick fans, or hear that tv show and movie writers being told they are worthless and replacable, and I would get mad all over again. I'm still mad just remembering it, and until actual laws are in place regarding the use of "AI" in art and writing, I'll stay mad, and my stories will be under lock and key. If some good has come out of it, I focused a lot more on original fiction this year, which I haven't shared online at all, so no fear of that being stolen, but I do miss writing fan fic more regularly, yet I can't stand the thought of something I make for fun being taken and used by someone else to line their pockets. It's like... the antithesis of the purpose of storytelling to begin with and makes me sick to my stomach.

WOW! That sure was a rant! Let's move on! My 8th goal and second casual one was to make a comic page buffer of 8 pages. I almost did this one! At one point, (like, the second week of december) I had a buffer of 5 pages because I was finishing up Memory 5 of ghost switch, but then I realized I could line up the end of the memory with the end of the year, and I ended up posting all of my reserve pages in, like, a week! During those weeks, though, instead of making more pages to keep the buffer supplied, I played a lot of video games instead, which I hadn't done since... october? because I didn't touch my PS4 at all during november while I was writing for nanowrimo, and I missed playing Horizon Foridden West and wanted to get back to it. Maybe this year, though? I'm dead set on trying to get to 312 pages before Ghost Switch's 6th birthday, which is, like, 30 pages away, so I gotta improve my output process regardless.

And the 9th goal of mine and the last of the casual ones, was to write that crack fic. This goal has been on my resolutions for a couple years now, but I still haven't done it. I'm gonna blame my AI hatred grudge for this, since it made me not to want to write any fan fic at all this year. I'll get to this someday, but maybe now I should put it on the back burner for some newer goals and projects~

Okay! The time is now 8:57! if you're still reading this stream-of-conscious ramble of mine, it's time for me to list off my goals for this year!

IN 2024 I WOULD LIKE TO...

Read 12 new books this year (one book a month)

Reach 312 pages of Ghost Switch by June 18th (the 6th birthday)

Build (and maintain!) a comic buffer of 8 pages

Go walking on 3 new greenways around my neighborhood

Go camping by myself

Make at least one new song comic

Finish 4 video games to as close to 100% as I can (currently looking at Horizon Forbidden West, the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Blue, Carto, Alba, Stray, Journey, Unraveled and The Talos Principle 2, as these games currently entice me the most, but I still want flexibility and options if one game ends up not clicking)

Finish the first rewrite of my 2023 nanoproject (this will probably end up being my nano24 project, if i'm being honest with myself)

Write 4 one-shots for BSapT

-- These 9 goals I want to be serious about, but like last year, I have some casual goals i want to do as well. They include...

10. Get reacquainted with Neocities and make a personal website

11. Learn to code to improve said website/learn to make games

12.Listen to the entire royalty free youtube library for reasons

13. Research every d.o.n.g. ever featured on VSauce, for neocities reasons.

I feel like I had a couple more off-handed things I wanted to do this year, but these 4 casual things are the only ones I can remember at the moment. Maybe I'll come back and add to this list later.

Alright! The time is now 9:37AM, and I have to go run some errands/do some house chores! Saving this again as a draft to come back to this later!

Okay! Done with errands, and it is 11:30am on the nose! Time to resume my inane ramblings and hopefully finish this thing within the next two hours.

One thing I mentioned in my recap/review of 2022 was that I never actually felt like I was looking back on the year in depth. So much was forgotten or blurred together with other years because I didn't keep track of it. Well, this year I kept a monthly diary, again in my personal discord of 1, and wrote in it whenever I felt anything of note or significance happened to me, or whenever I had reoccurring thoughts or feelings. i managed to write in it at least once a month, often times twice, that being every two weeks. I found the whole experience quite therapeutic, frankly, and I'll share snippets of it now, though I will cut out the more personal entries. Be forwarned! A lot of the following text is straight up copied and pasted from my diary entries, so there is a lot of misspellings and short hand. I'll try to fix some of the more obvious ones, but these paragraphs are just as stream-of-concious writing as the rest of this massive post. Anything in parentheses with A/N is me adding context right now on the present day!

january 5th, two very close coworkers of mine quit due to upper management being petty. These two employees had worked here for nearly two decades. They were married to each other and were the mom and dad of the work base, with everyone else relying on them, looking up to them, and going to them for their problems. Them walking out scared everyone lower on the pecking order, because we felt that we were no longer protected from manager bullshit with them gone. I was off the day they walked out and didn't get to say goodbye. the grief I felt upon learning they left caused me to have my first ever anxiety attack that night. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in my life. I try to keep in touch, but we don't talk much due to our age gaps and busy work lives.

in January I also had a body-horror nightmare that still makes me squirm just thinking about it. I dreamt no one in the world wore pants, but we were all cool with it because we had pockets built into our legs. Not like... fabric sewn into skin, mind you, I mean naturally evolved extra flaps of flesh over our thighs like the pouch of a cartoon kangaroo. flesh pockets. even in my dream I could feel them. the insides were surprisingly dry and smooth- no sweat or hair in there, but the sensation was uncomfortably irritating, like when you rub your knuckles too much and it feels sore. worst part of this dream was, I woke up, thought "thank god I'll for get this in a few hours", but then watched cartoons later that day and saw a... tom and jerry(?) short where tom also had built in pockets on his body which made me remember everything, and now I can't forget.

February 8th. Watched The Flight if Dragons. Good, campy 80s feel. Drags in some parts, rushed in others. Some aspects feel like they have 0 explanation. (How did peter separate from gorbash? Did peter know that denouncing magic would vanish him from the safe haven? What happened to the princess's parents? EVERYTHING with the wolf and whatever was going on between the huntress and knight. I also Watched 1996 dragonheart. Slow start, but good fun. Pretty decent cgi. Acting is downright TERRIBLE in places, but it was good campy fantasy fun in the end.

On february 14th, I dreamed of a haunted house, but the house wasnt malicious. It felt like a friend that worried for your safety when you left, because it was rooted to the spot and could not come to you when you were in trouble. I did not stay long, and felt melancholic when I had to leave. Once outside, I turned around and said "goodbye house" and waved it farewell. Then, in all the curtains and windows, dozens and dozens of shadowy human arms waved goodbye to me in return, wishing me well and safe travels. It would miss me, but not keep me prisoner, because a house is only a home if you had the freedom to leave and return when you wished.

March 18. I got recommended a video on YouTube about screen savers, and it reminded me of one that our family computer had in the early 00s. After searching for a while, I rediscovered it; the createacard screensaver pack. So many buried memories unearthed. The sense of wanderlust and inspiration and not over such beautiful art came rushing back to me; https://youtu.be/zFPKmnegK0c

I was generally tired for all of march, not having much energy for any project outside of my comic, and even that was starting to wear me down.

I played a lot of kingdom hearts 1 in late February/early march. Synthesized the Ultima weapon for the first time. Cried farming sniper wilds and stealth soldiers because they unsettle me. I'm trying to grind to level 100 before the game is over. Debated on doing a kh song comic this year (A/N: This did not happen)

I want to redo my personal website. Wix added an image file size limit, and my whole site currently surpasses that twice over. The wix site editor is slow and finicky any way. Looked into blogspot and WordPress. I want to start a xenofiction book review podcast. Are solo podcasts popular? I Looked into neocities. Felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and child-like wonder. Made my own account/basic website, but haven't edited anything yet.

I got hit with the seasonal depression late February/early march, watched some home gardening videos on youtube and got inspired. The videos I watched were about people building actual massive scale pond and lakes, but I just went to home depot and Lowe's and Wal-Mart, bought, like, 12 different kinds of vegetable and flower seeds, 3 long rectangular planters and 2 massive bags of dirt. I also bought some peat seed starters, a plant heating pad (which I might just give to my cat) and a plant light. I spent over 150$ total.

My cat turned 5 years old on the 15th this march as well!

In late april I got really into analog/digital horror args and unfiction realities. Been watching a lot of Night Mind and similar analysis videos (I'm too lazy and dumb to try and solve them myself).

April 28th. Maternal grandfather might be passing soon. He's been in and out of hospitals since late January, needs around the clock assisted living, and my mom and her sister are constantly having to take time out of their lives to help him. I hate it. It's stressful and aggravating to mom, the assisted living people are incompetent, and my mom is stretching herself thin, running ragged trying to do everything at once. It's not fair to her. It's not fair to anyone.

May 11th. Mom's computer has a solitaire program with hundreds of versions of solitaire, most of which have gone unplayed. Ive been trying new games and learning them through trial and error (the "rules" tab doesnt work because it accesses a file that is no longer installed on this computer). Ive found new favorites in "twenty" and in "carpet". It makes life just a little bit more interesting.

June 4th. Been really into watching blind lets plays of undertale from 2022/3 lately, as well as dissection/discussion of undertale's music. Also into shayy's undertale mods. Glad the fandom is still having fun with this game. Got interested in pokemon infinite fusion. Downloaded it, but havent played yet. Getting back into PMD, though I have to grind now for leveling and evolving mons I cant recruit. Took a break from listening to librivox books, but might pick it up again. Same with checking in on flight rising. This year will be it's 10th birthday iirc

Looked at my ao3 recently and noticed I havent written anything in over 6 months. Still mad about the AI data scraping. I didn't stop writing entirely though. I spent all of October, November, January and February writing an original story, and still really proud/excited about it. Finished typing the rough draft on Wednesday, taking a break before I start edits.

All my flowers I planted in February are dying. Has a lot of rain this year. I think they're getting over watered.

June 6th. Been thinking a lot about Hawaii recently. I miss my old school and house. Went to Google earth to look at it again. I think our old neighborhood of [REDACTED] was razed and rebuilt becuase the streets dont look the same. This makes me feel… Not quite sad or bitter, but hurt none the less. I knew ever since we moved here chances of going back would be slim, but knowing my most nostalgic childhood home is gone forever…

Saturday June 17th fucking sucked for everyone. Two coworkers got seriously injured at work. My car battery completely died and couldn't be jump started. Had to call for a tow and wait 2+ hours for it to arrive. Wanted to cancel but they told me I would be charged even if the tow never arrived. Got charged 80 extra dollars for a "wench fee" I didn't need, but they talked to fast for me to think about it. Massive accident on the 4-lane highway home put all traffic down to 1 lane, and we were stuck there an extra hour. Dairy Queen's lobby closed early, going to drive through only, sonic was OUT OF ICE CREAM, and the local grocery store was almost sold out too. Did not get home until almost 10pm. Both my car AC and my mom's car a.c. don't work. I FUCKING LOVE OWNING A CAR. IT'S SO MUCH FUN AND SO FREEING.

June 28. Been playing a new video game recently; horizon forbidden west. Price dropped by 50% on Amazon and I had a 10$ gift card so I got the game for 1/3 the launch price. It's okay so far. Been slowly exploring and uncovering the map, ignoring the main story and discovering secrets. There is definitely A LOT more to do in this game than in the first. Dont really like a lot of Aloy's line deliveries. Some of the controls are different which throws me off. Robo enemies cool as ever, though noticeably fewer dinosaur ones.

Mom continues to take care of her dad. Aunt does too. All of mom's free time and energy this summer has been stolen by him. She keeps insisting she won't have to look after him as much when he gets better. I don't think he's ever getting better.

All my flowers I planted back in March have died. It's just too damn hot for them. It's too hot for everyone. We have just hit ten straight days with weather in the triple digits. I'm miserable.

Might have to replace my laptop soon. It's almost 12 years old, the battery doesn't work anymore, it overheats, and it's super slow. Looking into gaming laptops.

June 29; grandfather passed away last night. All I feel is relief.

July 11th. I got gifted my grandfather's bed, but had to switch it back out with my old bed because it was too soft and fucking up my back. No lumbar support.

July wrap up: month went by sooo fast I can hardly believe it. Its too fucking hot. Texas is stuck in a heat cyclone. Havent played solitare in a while, or listened to audio books. I managed to do 7 jigsaw puzzles this summer, and hope to do one more. each one has been 1000 pieces minimum, with two being 2000 pieces, and 1 being 3000. I should have taken more pictures of them finished, but it's fun to know we finished one puzzle per week this whole summer.

August 5th; Wish I recorded some smaller details throughout the year, not realizing id want to recall the last time I did something. When was the last time I intentionally watched a movie or listened to a specific song? (but then again, how will I know I'm going to think the exact thought; "when was the last time I did X specific thing?") I rewatched wolf children 2 months back for the first time in years, same with relistening to HeyHiHello songs. Been having a lot of lower back pain lately. Stretching helps, but I can no longer sit or sleep in my favorite position without cramping up. I need to be perfectly straight and i hate it. (A/N: The very next night I pulled a muscle in my back so bad I thought I was paralyzed. for the first time in years, I had to call in sick to work because I could not physically move from my bed)

August 19th. Went to a chiropractor. No pinched nerves or slipped disc, just a pulled muscle. Stretching helps and have been wearing a back brace. Finally had grandpa's memorial on the tenth. It was nice to learn he made friends at his community center. I'll try to be out going when I'm old too. Doctors would not sign his death certificate for 7 weeks because they just didn't give a shit, and we finally threatened to call a lawyer. He finally got cremated.

August 30th- recently had to go to pepboys to get my car fixed again. It was "stuck" in neutral. Grandma came and picked me up to let me go home. She said she doesnt plan to be driving much longer and intends to give her car to me. I dont know how to feel about this. Grateful for the future gift? Sad that she is getting older? I had to have my car towed and had to leave work early, which I hate doing because it makes me feel like I'm leaving everyone else to do my work, but I did not want another repeat with the towing situation that happened in june.

September 19th. I finally put on my brave face and ordered a new laptop for myself earlier this month (the 5th to be precise) and today it finally arrived. I bought myself an HP omen gaming laptop. It's so nice, but also different and a little scary trying to adjust to all this new interface. I went from using windows 7 for the last 11 years to jumping into windows 11. It'll be an adjustment. Gotta re-download all my old programs and transfer my files. Hope my drawing tablet will still work on this laptop. Might have to buy a new one of those as well. I already hate the subscription model being used if you want to do ANYTHING with the tech YOU BOUGHT nowadays. Goodbye microsoft office! It was fun while I knew you! I got libreoffice now! Fuck off adobe! OpenShot and Shotcut are my video editing programs now! I still need to learn my way around OBS, opentoonz, and pencil2d, but I gotta say there's something.... rustic? homey? about having a desktop full of opensource programs made by people who want to help other creatives free of charge. I miss the days where you buying something meant you own it forever, but free homegrown programs updated by community feels friendlier than just owning a shiny "offical" big named piece of software, I gotta admit.

The new laptop is wonderfully fast and silent. It cost me 2 grand so I hope it lasts just as long as my old one. There is no removable battery from what I can tell, which is sad. Also no disc drive. The keys light up rainbow which is cool (but I had to turn that feature off to improve battery life). I customized the desktop background to some concept art of the videogame RiME. (I thought I had saved the default bg pic from my old laptop to my external hard drive, but I guess I hadn't?) Funny to me that in the 10+ years of owning my second ever laptop, I never changed the wallpaper because I liked the default art so much. Might add more art to a file and have the wallpaper rotate. I want to replay RiME again too. Love the simple gameplay and strong colors of that game.

October 4th. So much has happened in 2 weeks, it feels much longer than that. I pretty much completely switched to using my new lap top ad my main computer, transferred all the files, downloaded a bunch of open source software for writing documents, video editing, streaming and animation. Fuck you Microsoft. I shouldn't need an account to use basic microsoft word. Hope to bring back page making streams next year for patrons~ ive even been playing some steam games that my old laptop just couldn't run, and quite a few new ones as well. Candleman, carto, so many fun and charming titles~ replaying snakebird because all my progress was lost 🥲I'm not mad. I love snake bird.

I have so much desire to do so many things, but not enough time to do them. I need to queue up my november posts for tumblr before I go on break. I need to get my oil changed soon. I want to go back on steam and play more humongous entertainment games. I want to write, I want to draw, I want to animate, I want to learn how to quilt and crochet and garden. I want to do it all right now all at the same time. I want to go on a nature walk. I want to see my friends.

Its finally starting to cool off. We still get in the 90s easily, but it rained last night for the first time in weeks, and we havent hit 100 degrees in a couple of days. Been reading a lot of webtoons lately. Been having the urge to start my own with my original storylines, or at least use webtoons as a backup/mirror for my fan comic. So many unique stories there all ready. So many fun art style and worlds to get lost in. I love stories and the people that tell them. The joy of creating a tale and sharing it with the world is humanity in its purest form.

November 1st: youtube is cracking down on adblockers. Havent had any problems yet on desktop, but on this day, my default youtube app on my lg smart phone started showing me ads for the first time in the 8+ years I've had it. I was so mad that i forced stopped the app, and logged into youtube through an ad block browser app instead. Some of the app's features will be missed, like being able to watch a video and search at the same time, but these little annoyances are nothing compared to the fury I felt at being shown ads. I didn't write nearly as much as I wanted to for nanowrimo today because of this.

November 6th: I turned 31! Both my friends forgot my birthday, and I wasn't able to reserve a camping site for the April 8th eclipse next year! 🙃 ive been writing like mad for nanowrimo, but I'm still falling behind.

December 17. Has it really been a whole month since i last made a diary update? Thanksgiving came and went. No drama at our house but my mom and I watched an argument unfold in the yard of our neighbors. The one mobile game I play, dragon's world, officially shut down for me 4 days ago. I'm a little sad I could never 100% it, but glad I got as far as I did, and even managed to buy some dergs so it didnt feel all my hard earned gems went to waste. Havent uninstalled the app yet out of nostalgia, even though I only played this game for a year and a half. I made the mistake of reinstalling the google play store to look for a new dragon raising game, but none had the same appeal, and the reinstall caused my discord app to update and hate it ):< I kinda want to learn how to make a mobile game of my own like dragons world, but with gryphons instead and a focus on rescue/rehabilitation and zoology angle. (I mostly just dont like how common fighting is in these kind of games.) Finally been playing horizon forbidden west after a few months away. I'm not progressing the story, just trying to max upgrade all my gear. It's a fun challenge~

December 26, 2023. Got bit by a dog at work on Christmas. Right on the nail of my middle finger. He broke my nail but not my skin. Its odd. Thankfully I can still draw without much issue. I got a tetanus shot and flu shot just to be safe. Mom got me a tent for Christmas because I plan to go camping by myself next year, even though I wont get to see the eclipse on my outing.

The fan game undertale yellow came out on the 9th… Which was before my last journal update? I've been enjoying the game play but the story is just a little... eh. the sprite work is phenominal, though, no complaints there. I hate that it's making me want to write my own AU version of it already to "improve" it, since I think the story loses its way pretty much once you leave the ruins. (maybe I can try to shove it into Clemency in stead since i still haven't finished that either).

I watched a documentary on kangaroos on netflix this month. I had to play it at 1.25 speed because I swear they slowed down every single clip for the film to get it to a certain length. I also watched "dog gone trouble" which had terrible voice work and awful character design, and then "back to the outback" which was surprisingly well made even if the characters stumbled sometimes, but I'd easily recommend it. I want to watch more Christmas movies before the year is through. (A/N: this also did not happen).

Finally uninstalled dragons world today. My phone's been acting up. Hope I don't have to replace it soon. I don't like how, nowadays, the technology I pay for, I don't actually own, and features are being removed left and right. I'm afraid any "new" phone on the market offered now won't nearly last as long as my current one has.

Aaand that was a brief glimpse into my year! The time is now 1:10pm! I already have one other post going up today, so I'll queue this one to go up on thursday instead~ if you managed to read this far, thank you so much, i guess! I hope my ramblings don't make you see me differently as a person. It's odd reflecting on where I was in my life over these past 12 months, remembering my state of mind and the feelings I felt as I wrote these entries. I'll be sure to do it again this year.

Overall, did I learn anything?...no, I don't think so? I did come to the realization that at the end of every year, in multiple youtube videos and tumblr posts, people mentioned how hard the year was for them, but like... after june, for me, everything improved quite a lot. it doesn't feel right to say that 2023 was hard for me. It was unbearably sad for me at the beinging. annoying and (physcially) painful half way through, but once august hit... everything slowly started to get better, despite the small petty things I complained about in my journal entries above. youtube ads, car troubles and discontinued apps of games I enjoyed still feel like small potatoes when compared to what I accomplished. Finished writing a draft of personal fiction, finished a major arc of a fan comic, got a new laptop to stream and share art with others, played a bunch of new video games, and generally enjoyed life for the latter half of this year.

And it almost feels selfish to say that... I'm happy.

I hope I can stay happy in 2024 as well.

Thanks for reading~

Have a safe and joyous 2024~

#long post #year in review #new year's resolutions #2023 review

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umbracirrus · 6 months

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An incredible half of a year, and looking forward to what is to come! 💛

So! Today, it is November 3rd 2023 - this marks exactly six months since I posted the first chapter of The Perfect Storm, as I mentioned in my post a few minutes ago as I posted chapter 14.

It's not a major anniversary, but is a big enough one for me. The reason why? I honestly didn't expect to still be writing at this point! It was my first foray into writing fanfiction once more after a few years of simply not being in the right place mentally to bring myself around to writing, in a fandom which I was new to (though had already been enjoying the Elder Scrolls for a few years by that point), posting a fanfiction based around a very uncommon relationship that was rated E on AO3 and set to be a slow burn... I honestly felt set up to fail from the start, half expected to lose heart within days/weeks of posting that first chapter...

Yet here I am, six months later, still writing - over 40,000 words in at the 14 chapter mark - feeling hopeful for the future and that I will still be writing at this time in six more months and my mind is filled to the brim with ideas of what is to come!

Now, I am first and foremost writing for myself, but I cannot deny that the effect that others - yes, all of you! - has been a massive driving factor. On AO3, my fic - much to my surprise - has somehow got almost 90 kudos, nearly 2,000 hits, 46 subscriptions(?!), and that honestly completely blows my mind whenever I look on my stats page on there. Knowing that people have actually interacted with what I have posted (and in some cases, actually want to read more?!) honestly spurs me on so much because... well, wow!!

And then there is on here! I had my account on here for a few months before I actually started to become active on here about 3-ish months ago, and honestly, I want to just hug every single person I have ever interacted with on here, or who has interacted with me. Followers, mutuals, and the like, I honestly love you all! 💛 I hadn't been involved in a fandom community in years, but the experience here has been incredible - I especially love WIP Wednesdays (even though I sometimes don't post them on a Wednesday) because, again, people actually want to see what I create? But it's such an inspiration driver - the realisation that it is Wednesday/getting tagged on Wednesdays makes me so excited and has me digging through my word documents (or my cross stitching) to show what I have progressed with.

So I really do want to say thank you to everyone for these past six months, and I am absolutely looking forward to another six more - because unlike six months ago, I'm finally feeling happy in myself and my writing, and am honestly the happiest I have felt in years in spite of all the highs and lows I have been through during this period.

Hugs to you all! 💛💛💛

#meg is rambling #like this seriously was me rambling this time lol #but I really felt the need to make a post to mark this occasion <3

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drizzileiscool · 3 months

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BIG GIANT POST ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE PLAYING TWEWY!!!!!!

CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!

NO I HAVE NOT PLAYED NEO YET!!!! I AM POOR!!!!! PLEASE DON'T SPOIL ME ON IT!!!!!! I've played some of the demo though!!!!!

I first decided to get into twewy last month. I saw that there was a switch version available, but I was unable to play that version. I did, however, have a ds emulator, but after talking to some people I realized I probably would've gotten arthritis playing it on emulator.

When I was just about ready to give up, I decided to watch the first episode of the anime. I enjoyed it a bit.

I was then told to not watch the anime.

So you may be wondering.. "How did you play twewy?"

I played the mobile version. Solo mix. Yeah that one. The one not available for current gen phones.

I found a link to a modded version on an old reddit thread that was updated for current gen android phones, and one of my friends helped me get it set up, and I was finally ready to play.

During my first few hours, I didn't actually like neku all that much. Honestly, he was a dick. i remember what you said about plushies, neku. i will not forgive this as a plushie enthusiast.

While playing the game, I was under the assumption that I would get to change partners whenever once I unlocked it. Rhyme seemed cool, so I was hoping to get to partner with her.

And then the game killed her off.

Despite not knowing anything about rhyme, she was still my favorite character. Besides beat of course, but that's later during week 3.

I remember that I was crying when I first saw her death. I was all like "why did they make such a cool character design, just to kill her off?? that doesn't make sense."

earlier today I saw a tweet on twitter that said "cute cosplay idea for couples!" and it was a rhyme cosplay and a shark costume and I nearly lost my shit laughing, so I guess I'm over it.

When week 1 was ending, I remember feeling like "wait, that's it?" of course, I was wrong.

anyways week 2 now uhh uhhhhhh-

when I first met joshua and learned that I could scan him I was all like "huh???". also excellent foreshadowing there, square enix!

also JOSHUA IS A FRUIT YOU CANNOT TELL ME THIS PERSON ISN'T GAY JUST LOOK AT HIM

at this point, I didn't really know what to expect anymore. the game broke one of its already established rules, "players can't scan other players" so I had no idea what was coming next anymore.

SHO MINAMIMOTO IS HOT!!!!

uhhg. don't got anything else to say about this week except I genuinely thought hanekoma was the composer.

I was extremely shocked to learn that joshua killed neku during this week, and was even more shocked to learn that it was a misfire (and then I learned it wasn't a misfire but that's in week 3 and we haven't gotten to that yet!)

WEEK THREE!!! BEAT TIME!!!

alright, before I started week 3, I actually didn't like beat all that much. that changed a LOT during week 3. he is now one of my favorite characters.

later that week, I had finally learned joshua was the composer and was actually extremely shocked lol.

oh uh I also got spoiled on how beat and rhyme got hit by a car from ign so uhhhh oops

SHO SOMEHOW GOT HOTTER!!!!

I beat the game. I loved the credits theme (and will rewatch the credits later) and really liked how neku threw off his headphones to symbolize how he won't shut himself off from the world anymore.

10/10 game, really enjoyed playing it!

also there was a scene early on where neku went up to a reaper and said I know what you are and I didn't get to screenshot it :(

so.. yeah! my experience with twewy! good game! one of my favorites now! getting neo soon!

#not drizzile #ooc

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thereallivingded · 12 days

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8 months

Nearly 8 months have passed since I blogged. Damn.

I apologize profusely if anyone was interested in my ramblings. I have zero excuses other than life got hard. Full time job. Which I hated profusely - not that I'm not going to be working full time again soon - tends to bring on crushing depression when I feel stuck in it. Which I did, and I was. When you are paid bi-weekly and you see that entire paycheck go to your cost of living.. well. It doesn't do good things to your psyche. Energy levels get low and all that extra you had energy for before gets used up with day to day survival. Getting out of bed. Getting to work. Feeding yourself. Cleaning your house. Squeezing in workout (a thing I do now).

It's not all bad I suppose. I've finally been able to interview for and obtain a position that will not only net me a raise but be closer to home. Hopefully, that should get me more free time to pursue the things I actually enjoy.

I'd like to say that in this time I've been able to tackle my backlog of Steam games. But. Well. BG3 happened. And I spent even more time in the game than I had in early access. It's maddening how much time I've sunk into Faerun. I have no regrets though.

The only thing really that's kept me from finishing my campaign - as I am in Act 3 - is my computer. I haven't upgraded the beast since 2020 or 2021-ish. And it's starting to show. My mobo is acting extraordinarily peculiar. Sometimes I'll walk away from my computer to come back a couple hours later and find it stuck in bios. Super fun. The connection to the mobo gets wiggled a little and everything pops back on. Super. However, anything heavy to run - like BG3 - tends to get very crash-y.

Again. Super.

T.T

AND. Due to my financial constraints because of the job I recently left, I was completely unable to fix this. I'm hoping with the advent of the new job, getting a few paychecks in to stabilize, I can rectify the problems. Hopefully.

I started a couple of fanfics for the first time ever. I am ridiculously shy about them. My writing skills have become so sodding rusty. The stories came to me while I was playing BG3 and I was compelled to write them down. Note now, that the frequency of updates directly reflects the time I have to invest in them. So keep that in mind.

Be gentle on me here lol!

I have been able to get some gaming done. I have ceased playing Back 4 Blood, as it became no longer supported by its dev team. A sad move really. The gaming industry as a whole has become this parasitic beast. Devs work on a game for an extremely limited amount of time and abandon it the moment it becomes less lucrative than their board of directors care for.

There is a trend towards monetization of minutiae and online play in inappropriate genres, that has become an insidious infection in the game industry. It robs us of good game development. There's this mentality of more, more, now that's just slow poison to the whole beast. It makes everything very same-y and boring.

Which is why I strive at this point in my life, to not give money to the companies which I feel are most guilty of this. The only way to make these corporations listen is to hit them in the $. As such I will probably be carefully curating any games I discuss or mention on this blog from here on. My next post will likely be discussing a visual novel I've spent some time in that I equal parts enjoyed and became frustrated with. So that's in the pipeline. Until then keep to the lights lovies. <3

#gaming #gamer life #pc games #gamer problems #steambacklog

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cyarsk52-20 · 11 months

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Kristen Doute's Scene In The "Vanderpump Rules" Finale Was Actually Such A Full Circle Moment And I Am Seriously So Here For It

BuzzFeed Staff

We made it, folks. After nearly three months of #Scandoval consuming our screens, feeds, and lives*, we're finally on the other side of the Vanderpump Rules Season 10 finale. This is how I feel:

*Or maybe you're a normal person and you haven't made this show your entire personality since March 3. And to that I say, good for you!!! But the people who get it, GET IT. And the people who don't, DON'T.

It's been a wild ride so far, and the finale was 54 straight minutes of pure adrenaline and unbelievable moments. I laughed, I cried (like, A LOT), and I wondered why Tom Sandoval still INSISTS on wearing that godforsaken white nail polish.

But one of the most iconic moments was a surprise visit from someone we haven't seen on the show for quite some time. Someone who probably knows Sandoval's crusty, cheating ways better than anyone. Someone who isn't afraid to wear open-toed slides on camera...

That's right, I'm talking about KRISTEN DOUTE.

Kristen hasn't been seen on VPR since Season 8, because she was fired in 2020 for falsely reporting fellow former cast member Faith Stowers to the police in 2018.

FWIW, I stand by this. Actions have consequences.

BUT that doesn't change the fact that Kristen coming back on the show to support Ariana in her time of need isn't a RBFD (Really Big Fucking Deal™), and I'm sorry but it absolutely MUST be talked about!!! So let's get into it, shall we?

Right off the bat, there's the intricate web that is the dynamic between Ariana Madix, Kristen Doute, and Tom Sandoval. If you've made it this far in the post I already know I don't have to tell you, but these three have HISTORY.

In case you don't recall, Kristen and Tom dated for nearly six years before he and Ariana got together. They lived together and literally entered the show together as OG cast members in Season 1. It was a toxic, dysfunctional relationship for the ages that I'm thankful I can stream/relive anytime I want (sorry, Kristen). During their time together, Tom cheated on Kristen multiple times (and she did the same to him, but that's a different story). One of those times was when Tom famously cheated on Kristen with Ariana at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas.

Never forget.

There may or may not have been other trysts between Tom and Ariana, but they both SWORE up and down that nothing happened. Ariana especially went to bat for Tom, basically pushing Kristen to the brink.

And once Kristen and Tom finally broke up for good, Tom and Ariana immediately started dating. Like, IMMEDIATELY. And here we are, nine years later.

Tom's actions and reasoning for cheating on Ariana and blowing up their life partnership are almost IDENTICAL to what he said and did to Kristen. I don't have time to pore over every little detail, so please watch and enjoy this lovely comparison video by TikToker and fellow Bravohead, Stephanie Tlejii:

TLDR: Kristen GETS IT. And in the years since Tom and Kristen's breakup, she and Ariana have actually become really good friends. She was literally WITH Ariana the night she found out about Tom's seven-month affair with Raquel. So who better to come and console her in her time of need??? Who better to bond over the collective trauma caused by this "worm with a mustache" who calls himself a bar owner???? No one, that's who. Not a single soul in all of WeHo or Valley Village. We see this immediately when they lovingly refer to Sandoval as "OUR ex-boyfriend."

This is the part where I'm gonna say there will be absolutely NO comments on this post being like, "How you get him is how you lose him!!!" when talking about this, because...stop it. First of all, gross. Second of all, Kristen literally shamed y'all for saying that on WWHL , and third of all, Ariana immediately acknowledges this after they sit down. It wasn't that Kristen was "nuts" or that Ariana was super special (even though she is, obviously). It's a pattern of behavior!!!!

Then, Ariana literally acknowledges that she spent years defending Tom against Kristen when she should've been doing the exact opposite. A huge moment of self-awareness and clarity!!!

And then Kristen is essentially like, "IDC about that, at least we're both rid of him." We LOVE women supporting women!!!!

After their chat on the couch, the two go into the backyard to do some kind of self-love spell. Kristen brought a shit ton of crystals and some kind of vibration tool, naturally.

For this Witches of WeHo ritual, Ariana writes down something she wants to manifest for herself: "true self-love." I'm not afraid to admit that this moment made me tear up.

Then, she burns and stomps out what's no longer serving her, aka "unrequited loyalty."

Finally, Ariana and Kristen close the spell with this iconic line:

And then they embrace!!! Two women who've been screwed over by the same narcissistic man, coming together to lift each other up and look forward to the days ahead, WITHOUT THAT LOSER.

In all my years watching VPR, I couldn't think of a more full-circle moment. And people agree!!!

Here's to both of these women living their best lives sans Sandoval! Now to gear up for the Season 10 reunion, aka SuperBowl parts 2, 3, and 4.

You can stream all of Vanderpump Rules , including the #Scandoval finale, on Peacock now.Kristen Doute's Scene In The "Vanderpump Rules" Finale Was Actually Such A Full Circle Moment And I Am Seriously So Here For It Kristen was with Tom for six years before he cheated on her with Ariana. Now, she's here to be Ariana's comfort and support!

Read in BuzzFeed: https://apple.news/AGGgKo9FyQWuTuQ-xaWmdxQ

Shared from Apple News

Sent from my iPhone

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cntrpt · 2 years

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She was hearing many voices, but she found herself unable to put a face to most of them. Some were teary and excited, others mournful and filled with remorse. Some were angry. Some she recognized herself in.

If she was forgetting things...

[Part four of If we got each other, and that's all we have]

Relationships: Yelena Belova & Natasha Romanoff; Post-Endgame/Post-Hawkeye Fix-It Fic;

[Chapter 1 | Words: 3099] • [Ch. 2] • [Ch. 3]

Tell me if you think that's wrong

If I let you know I'm here

Cause I am falling down

"They say there's a diserter. I heard it's Romanova."

She made it. She's free.

"Yelena, nobody's coming. Not for us."

"What do you mean, I saw her, she's—"

"No, she's not."

She's not coming back for you.

"Our family was never real, so..."

Liar.

Is this real?

"It was real to me, too."

Go. Save the world.

"I'm sorry, Yelena. Natasha is gone."

No, I can feel her, she's still here—

She has to.

"Maybe you'd like a shot at the man responsible for your sister's death."

He is real. He can be killed.

"She made her choice. We just have to find a way to live with that."

Tell me how. Please.

"Steve went back for her. It finally worked."

No. No, It's been months. It can't—

"It's me. I'm really here."

—•—

Yelena's eyes snapped open as she awoke with a start, the breath caught in her throat threatening to suffocate her.

Her head was floating, as the words wrenched from carefully tucked-away memories rang out again and again in her ears. She felt paralyzed. She felt numb.

The telltale signs that she had just come back from a nightmare.

No screaming, or crying, or full-out panic, no, a life spent withholding any sort of emotive reaction had taught her better than that. But this didn't mean her heart was going at a nearly regular pace, or that she could hear anything above the whispers crowding the empty room enveloped in the dark, her eyes scanning wildly what little she could see of her surroundings.

As soon as she recognized the outlines of the small apartment she had settled in, almost a week before, she forced in a deep, shuddering breath, slowly letting it out while squeezing her eyes shut again.

Not this again. But by now she knew what she needed to do.

She started going through what she knew for sure; she was in a temporary safe house in Berlin, some sort of fancy one-room apartment that Mason — she supposed — had somewhat got for her last-minute. She had stopped by Melina's farm for a few days to check how things were going down there, in Russia. She was on her way to go back to America — she couldn't recall exactly why she had to make her way back there of all places — but she guessed she could leave that for later. Natasha was...

"I'm sorry, Yelena."

A sudden twinge made her chest constrict. She tried to wade through the fog occluding her mind, frowning deeply in concentration.

Her sister was...

"Natasha is gone."

She could feel her breaths starting to come out faster. One of her hands went up to press on her forehead and eyelids, pushing away strands of messy hair as she tried to focus.

"It worked."

She was hearing many voices, but she found herself unable to put a face to most of them. They were fragments scattered all around her mind, each one telling her different things and conveying many conflicting emotions. Some were teary and excited, others mournful and filled with remorse. Some were angry. Some she recognized herself in.

The point was, as it had always been, what was true?

Ever since she could remember, most of her dreams and nightmares had been a blurred merge of memories and fantasies. After being subjugated to the chemicals of the mind control, she had started to find more and more difficult to tell the difference. She would wake up with images burned into her brain of missions she didn't remember taking part to, fragments of a life she hadn't lived, and scenes of a life she wished was hers to live.

She was free now, but she was still subjected to her own mind.

When she had been told that five years had passed with her frozen in time in that bathroom, and that Natasha was dead, all of it had worsened. She would wake up believing that it had all been a figment of her own imagination, just for reality to harshly hit her all over again shortly after.

She had dreamed that Melina, with her science that could control lives, could control death too. That her sister's friends — so called earth's mightiest heroes — could actually bring her back. That they could've done something. That she could've done something.

"It's me."

Her jaw clenched as she fought the tears threatening to well up in her eyes. She had imagined it so many times.

And yet...something still felt off.

She lowered her hand and stared at the ceiling in contemplation. She was going to America. She had made a stop in Berlin.

But why was she still in Berlin?

She had always tried to avoid staying in the same place for more than a couple of days while on the move, and that habit had sticked with her over the years.

Tentatively, she pulled herself up to a sitting position, studying the room around her and drawing in some steadier breaths, her hands shifting to firmly grasp at the sheets.

She couldn't remember.

The fabric was rough, and felt real under her touch.

She racked her brains searching for an answer that wouldn't lead her thoughts back to Natasha — because Natasha was dead, and she was so tired of hoping for something different and be let down each and every time. She came up empty.

It was like there was a dark hole in her mind, and the more she tried to dive in to reach for the missing pieces, the more she risked being drawn in the darkness and dragged to the bottom, with no way out. Trapped.

Panic started to rise in her chest, creeping into her mind. She clutched at the sheets harder.

If she was forgetting things...

No. She couldn't think like this, she couldn't handle it. Not now.

With one sharp motion she hastily pushed the covers away, swiftly making her way to the door separating the bathroom from the rest of the apartment. Her feet padded lightly on the floor, but the soft noise was enough to momentarily quiet down the voices in her head.

She focused on that until the door slid closed behind her, her knuckles turning white gripping the door handle, her thoughts directed on maintaining her breaths steady.

Dragging herself to the sink, she quickly turned the faucet on, reveling in the feeling of cold water running down her hands and flowing between her fingers.

Her stomach tightened uncomfortably when she closed her eyes to splash some water on her face, and she couldn't help the little sigh of relief that escaped her when she opened them and found that nothing had changed — she ignored the part of her that felt slightly disappointed.

Her reflection in the mirror stared back at her as she leaned forward, hands open and safely resting against the countertop, and she tried looking through her own image, searching for answers.

"It's me."

The words kept ringing in her ears, and there were those scenes, flashing right before her eyes — the avengers all gathered in one place, Natasha's body colliding with hers and the familiarity of arms tightening around her, the feeling of not wanting to let go — making her feeling like she was going crazy.

It didn't make any sense. Of every scenario she remembered having ever dreamed of, this felt different. Brighter.

More dangerous.

She forcefully shook her head and reached out to the drawer under the sink, hastily pulling it open. Mechanically, her hand went for the handcuffs she kept stashed there — she always brought a pair along wherever she went, for any eventuality — settling them on the counter. Staring down at them now, she wanted to throw up.

She inhaled deeply, curling her fingers against the sink's edges and pressing her palms and fingers down.

In the few times she had seen Natasha after taking down the Red Room, they had tentatively addressed the subject, the redhead sharing her own personal experience and some things that had helped her get through it at the time. She had made Yelena promise to call her if she ever felt like resorting to them again. That she would have answered her phone at any hour, no matter what, or that she would call her back as soon as possible.

Yelena almost let out a wry laugh at the memory, while her chest kept constricting painfully and her mind screamed something she didn't want to hear.

The first time she had felt the need of having that cold metal around her wrist again, to let it dig into her skin, had been the first time she had really tried to sleep after the blip. She had used them also the following night. And the night after that one as well.

The handcuffs had returned to the bottom of her bag only when she had left to hunt down Clint Barton.

She didn't remember how much time had passed since she had last used them, and she really, really, didn't want to reset that count. But, right now, they felt like the sole, familiar thing around her — or anywhere, for that matter. They were the only tangible connection to her past that she could rely on. A past that was very much fucked-up, no doubt, but that was hers, something nobody could ever take away from her, and of that she could be sure.

She didn't want to go back to sleep. She didn't want to do anything, really. But she needed this.

Yelena remained in the bathroom a few more minutes, until something caught her attention above the sound of water running down in the sink, making her movements pause.

It had been just a fleeting moment, but she was sure she had heard it — a muffled clattering, coming from outside.

Slowly turning the water off, she wiped her hands on the towel nearby and reached down under the drawer, grazing the gun taped there, all her senses heightened. If someone was trying to break into the apartment making this much noise, she was sure it couldn't be too much of a threat. But there were no windows in the bathroom, and if they were already in, that meant she was stuck in there. And while she was confident that she could easily take them down even with limited space, she didn't particularly like the feeling of being trapped, especially when she was already struggling to escape her own mind.

The only thing she could keep thinking of, was that she had to get out of there.

A minute passed by, in which she kept completely motionless, barely breathing, her whole body tense and ready to strike. But no noise other than her own heartbeat was reaching her ears.

Her free hand slid on the counter to grab the handcuffs, holding them tightly and drawing them at her side.

Maybe they had gone away. The apartment was supposed to be empty, maybe it was some naive burglar that, upon seeing traces of her presence, gave it up and ran off. Or maybe, they were outside the bathroom door, waiting for her to come out.

Maybe she had just imagined everything.

But then, she heard a quiet shuffling coming from the direction of the front door, not quite near enough to mean that someone was close to the bathroom, and her body reacted in a matter of seconds.

Her hand darted and grabbed the gun, the other shoving the door open while her legs moved of their own accord, rushing outside, and in no time she found herself standing at the furthest corner from the entrance, just beside the bed, the gun ready and aimed at the doorway.

She was about to pull the trigger, waiting just as long as she needed to find a non-lethal spot on her eventual opponents' bodies, but her hands freezed around the weapon.

Her heart, that had been hammering in her chest since she had woken up, felt like it had now completely stopped, replaced by a huge weight twisting and growing inside of her, compressing her lungs.

On the doorway — geared up as if she had just gotten back from a mission, one hand on the door handle and a duffel bag in the other — there was Natasha. Or at least, she was seeing Natasha.

With her eyes locked onto the figure standing right in front of her door, the memories of the nightmares came rushing back to her, flooding her mind with renewed force, pressing more urgently.

She couldn't breathe.

Natasha had let a slightly startled expression slip on her face, but once she realized it had been her who had just stormed out of the bathroom, her shoulders visibly relaxed, and her lips curled into a gentle smile, one of her eyebrows slightly raising in light mockery, and it was all so painfully familiar—

"Ah, there you are."

Her ears had started ringing again, and it took her a moment to notice that Natasha had started to talk. Yelena managed to draw in a shaky breath, and could simply watch as the redhead gave her a small grin and turned to shut and lock the front door.

"Sorry, I didn't want to scare you. I know, I know, I said I would arrive in the morning, but we finished early, so I...thought—"

Natasha had turned around, her voice trailing off. She was now staring at the gun still pointed firmly toward her, Yelena's grip not loosening in the slightest. The blonde could see her eyebrows furrowing in confusion and her gaze shifting down to the handcuffs that, she realized just now, were still in her hands and dangling from her hold on the weapon.

Natasha's eyes briefly met hers — making her feel uncomfortably exposed and suddenly aware of the heavy and labored breaths coming out of her — before moving to the bed, taking in what she could see of the room and the crumpled state of the sheets in the dim light coming through the window.

Yelena tried to swallow, but she noticed that her mouth had gone dry. She felt like paralyzed, her mind split into multiple parts, each of them telling her mixed versions of the same story.

She wanted to believe the one that was trying to remind her all that had happened in the past few months, remind her that Natasha was indeed alive and now standing here with her. But that would have meant believing in resurrection, bring magic and space and gods into the picture. And she just couldn't do that.

She believed in death. She believed in deception. In the red of blood that would inexorably spill out, if you just cut deep enough. In the cold of Russian winters, and the cold of lifeless hands. In bad jokes. In torture. In pain. She believed in not to trust anyone, not even herself. And she didn't know what to do.

When Natasha raised her gaze again, it was filled with worry and uncertainty, and Yelena felt a pang of guilt settle deep into herself. The redhead took a hesitant step forward, letting go of the bag at her side.

"Yelena—"

"Stay there!"

Both of them slightly jolted at the hoarseness and harsheness in her voice, but Natasha did stop immediately, cautiously raising her hands in front of her.

Yelena stepped back, but she bumped against the wall. Her finger was still grazing the trigger.

Natasha tried again, softer.

"Yelena..."

"Please."

This time, her voice came out smaller, weaker, a pleading tone and words that she didn't seem able to control.

"Please, stop."

Natasha went quiet, and they stayed like this — seconds that seemed hours — searching each other's gaze, until Yelena's eyes flicked briefly to look at a particularly dirty and frayed spot right under the shoulder of the black suit.

She had already seen Natasha in similar conditions a few times, on her way back from missions that left her covered in dirt, blood and scrapes. Her mind wouldn't have had to make up that image from nothing, it would have been easier than that.

The redhead followed her gaze and took a moment to consider her own appearance. She then looked at Yelena, seemingly lost in thought. Then glanced down at her bag on the floor, and at the bathroom door between them. Finally, her eyes shifted back to Yelena, a new resolve now settled within them along with the still evident hesitation. She made sure to let the words out slowly.

"Yelena, I'm not sure what's going on, just...just listen to me for a second."

Maybe it was something about the way she had said it, a coaxing tone that was meant to convey safety. Maybe, deep down, she wanted to listen to her, an involuntary desire to cling onto every word the other might utter next. Maybe she just couldn't bring herself to do anything else. Either way, Yelena found herself listening. Natasha took it as her cue and went on, talking softly.

"Now I'm going to come closer and go into the bathroom, so I can get rid of these clothes, ok?"

As she had said it, she slowly lowered her hands to pick up the duffel bag from the floor. Yelena didn't move a muscle, didn't say anything as the redhead gradually started toward her, never breaking eye contact.

"It'll be okay, I promise. I won't be long, and when I come out we'll figure this out together."

Natasha stopped when she reached the bathroom, stretching out her hand toward the door left ajar from the previous outburst, and pushed it open.

She then stared intently at her one last time, opening her mouth as if about to say something else, before thinking better of it and disappearing into the other room.

As soon as the door closed, Yelena felt like she could finally breathe again. She waited a few seconds more, and then forced herself to start taking long, deep breaths, allowing her eyes to slid closed.

It had never been like this. Usually she could snap back to reality before succumbing to any self-induced illusion, and to the pain or hope they brought with them. She didn't know if this was real, or if it meant that she was too far gone now for even fight her way out of her own mind.

Yelena lowered her gun only when she heard the shower starting, and the apartment filled with the sound of water falling.

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simon-newman · 2 years

Text

Long Overdue Animal Post Part 1

So. I’ve promised to make a large update post to celebrate the 2 years of my tarantula keeping...

It’s been quite overdue... And by quite I mean... I’ve been keeping tarantulas for 3 years and 4 months now...

A lot has changed. I had some losses and... Well. I went a bit over my set limit of 6 spiders...

But here’s the deal.

1. Tliltocatl vagans (ex. Brachypelma vagans) female

So. My first spider luckily turned out to be a female. She’s grown quite a bit but is not nearly as large as some of my younger spiders - being from a medium-sized species in general.

One thing for sure - she’s a big and healthy female even if she likes to disappear underground for several months at a time (I haven’t seen her from December 2021 to July 2022).

She’s also the first spider I’ve paired. But you should know that from the post I’ve made before.

2. Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens - male (Typhoon)

My first spider. What most keepers consider to be the most beautiful species out there - the Greenbottle Blue Tarantula.

Has matured as a male in 18 months and not long after I’ve loaned him to one of the breeders in my country in January 2021 - in return I’ve received two slings from the same species.

Unfortunatley, when I inquired about his fate 2 months later they confirmed that Typhoon was eaten by a female they paired him with.

Here’s one of the last pictures I took of him:

3. Phormictopus Sp. “Green - Gold Carapace” - female, Draka

The BIG ONE.

Probably the largest spider in my house. She’s huge and likely has not yet reached her maximum.

For a while I was convinced she’s a male and called her “Durotan”.

Hearing I have a sub-adult male some people offered me a nice price for “him” as the price for this species tripled since I’ve got mine. I could have made 5 times what I paid for the spiderling.

Luckily I haven’t sold her as the adult female is likely worth even more.

Now - finding a male for HER might be more problematic than most.

To add to this - this is the spider I am actually nervous when dealing with. Draka was moody and jumpy all the way back as a sling and now she’s extremely defensive. Every feeding is a potential angry fit from her and I don’t want her fangs in my hand.

Yes - I have much more venomous spiders now. Draka is simply big and much more eager to bite when compared to them.

Here’s the most recent photo.

Yes - she threw a threat posture right after I took those pictures... I had to wait with watering the enclosure - doing it with her already angry risks a case of spider outside.

4. Psalmopoeus cambridgei, famale Bertha

The one that got away.

Yes - the only spider that escaped in my care. She spent some 16 hours loose in my house and neither me, my mom or my sister’s cat were able to find her until next morning.

Also quite large but less bulky spider. Mostly a ghost. I see her once every few months now that she’s in her final enclosure.

I’ve got a mate for her at the same event I’ve got a mate for #1 but... I don’t know why he died some 3 weeks after molting. I fed him a week before and he seemed perfectly healthy. Then next week I just found him dead.

Anyway. Here’s the most recent photo when she decided to grace me with her presence.

5. Lasiodora klugi, ?????

Okay I am confused. I can’t tell if it’s a male or female tho my last attempt would indicate it’s a male after all this time.

Potentially the largest spider in my collection. Definitely rivals Draka when it comes to sheer bulk.

A bit jumpy but nowhere nearly as moody as her and overall a good specimen to deal with when you want to get used to huge ass spiders that aren’t pet rocks.

Keeping him (?) has been a delight and the fact it’s likely not female is only a bit of a downgrade. Some breeders already told me they’ll gladly take him as males from this species are hard to come by. In fact when I got him as a spiderling it was likely the first time they appeared on sale since 2014 - some even assumed males went extinct in the European branch of the hobby.

6. Harpactira pulchripes, male “Gilgamesh”

The golden boy. Matured too fast. Loaned. Met his demise much like Typhoon.

I looked up my spreadsheet - I’ve only had him for 16 months.

Very moody for a species often suggested as a good first Old World tarantula (old worlds are more defensive and have stronger venom).

The species has been a disaster for me.

I’ve raised Gil from a tiny sling without any issues. Loaning him I’ve got 2 slings in exchange - much like with Typhoon.

Both slings suffered from DKS - a symptom of illness that disrupts tarantula’s coordination. I don’t know what caused it. One sling passed away shortly after developing this condition. The other one struggled for over 2 months - seemingly recovering to some degree just to pass away anyway... Those were Spiders 11 and 12.

7&8. Phoprmictopus Sp. “Bayahibe”, male and female.

So. This is the species I’ve broken my limit for. Can you blame me? They are absolutely stunning:

#7 - male:

#8 - female:

They’ll hopefully get more violet coloration as they age - I’ll try to slow down male’s growth as well and hopefully pair them later on. There was exactly one time they were sold in Poland until recently. The entire population in Europe is likely very limited and I have a pair.

9&10. Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens, ???

The two slings I received in exchange for Typhoon.

They’re growing nicely and now that I think about it they’re actually older than Typhoon when he matured - being around 22 months old.

I didn’t bother to check if they’re males or females but I might be forced to do so soon.

They’re in vertical setups made in plastic jars and with their last molt both spiders destroyed most of their webbing that allowed them to use this vertical space efficiently. If they don’t remake it I’ll likely look for more horizontal enclosures for them.

To be continued...

#Animal Post #Spiders #Tarantulas #Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens #Tliltocatl vagans #Phormictopus Sp. Green-Gold Carapace #Phormictopus Sp. Bayahibe #Psalmopoeus cambridgei #Harpactira pulchripes

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phoenixrisesoncemore · 2 years

Text

Anything Goes: "You think I don't dance?"

Updated Version for linking to the fic Masterpost

This is a newly-edited version of a piece that was originally written and posted here on Tumblr as a response to a writing prompt. Instead of being a one-off, it ballooned into a scene from an entire Jazz Age/Prohibition AU which is in the very, very slow process of being written. I am reposting this newly edited version of this chapter to link to in the Anything Goes Masterpost.

This chapter takes place about ⅔ of the way through this fic, and this portion of this chapter begins about ¼ of the way into the full chapter (I know: could I be any more confusing if I tried?). I’ve included some context notes below.

Follow the tag #WangXian 1929 for updates. If you would like to be pinged with an @ when new chapters go live, let me know.

The first half of this fic is written entirely from Lan Wangji’s perspective, and that’s whose perspective you are in when you fall into this scene.

This scene takes place inside Wei Wuxian’s dance club speakeasy, The Rabble, in August of 1929 in Los Angeles. Flashbacks take place in San Francisco in 1906 and 1917.

Mianmian is a relation of the Jin family who routinely sings here and has several times now made (apparent) passes at Lan Wangji.

The Jins are involved in all kinds of organized crime. The Wens (supposedly) were, too, until they were nearly wiped out.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji first met each other briefly as children and then met again later as teens, but until three months ago, they had not seen or heard from each other since 1917, and LWJ had believed (except perhaps for the tiniest hope) Wei Ying to be dead. Each remembers the other from before very, very, very clearly. Both have doubts that the other remembers them from before at all, and neither has said anything to suggest they have known each other for more than three months, partly for reasons Not Fully Examined in this Scene, but also partly because Wangxian struggles at first to communicate in all universes.

“Wei Wuxian” is a name LWJ had never heard until the day he accepted this assignment. Imagine his shock when he finally meets the person attached to that name. But how much has Wei Ying changed to become Wei Wuxian? Why does he seem different in ways twelve years can’t account for? That’s a question Lan Wangji is desperate to find an answer to.

In the first part of this chapter Lan Wangji spies (at WWX’s request) on a meeting between Wei Wuxian and bigwig bootlegger Jin Guangshan in a backroom of The Rabble. After JGS and his entourage as well as the band and patrons leave for the night, WWX and LWJ are supposed to debrief, but WWX is getting in over his head in more ways than one and starts hitting the gin. Mianmian, he insists, is totally into LWJ (who wouldn’t be: LWJ is gorgeous) and LWJ, tragically unattached, deserves to find himself a good girl. If he’d just let WWX teach him how to dance, he could easily sweep her off her feet…

“You think I don’t dance?”

Wei Wuxian nearly chokes on his drink. “To this? Please, tell me, Lan Zhan, tell me: who would assume you do?”

It’s not a jab worth responding to, especially since the three fingers of gin is partly to blame for it, to say nothing of it being 3:00am and—

“Luckily,” Wei Wuxian leans in dangerously, each glazed eye reflecting a half dozen electric lights, “you have me!” He grins a feral grin, hops off the railing, and downs the remainder of his glass. He makes a show of closing his eyes and laying his free hand solemnly over his chest: “I’m both extremely knowledgeable and extremely skilled in these things.”

This can’t be good.

Lan Wangji is about to protest, but Wei Wuxian is off and rummaging behind the bandstand before he can get a word out. There’s a muffled thud, something indistinguishable rolls haphazardly out and under the piano, and Wei Wuxian emerges seconds later clutching a smallish suitcase in one hand and a single record in the other.

Oh, no. There is chaos coming. Dominoes are about to fall, and not the good kind that line up tidy—the kind that clatter about and make a mess. Say goodnight and bow out quietly, Lan Wangji thinks. But there’s something in Wei Wuxian’s face as he deposits his payload on one of the tables across the dancefloor that makes him pause. There’s energy swelling in him, and he seems desperate to catch it before it can float away. It’s burning out through his fingers as he opens the suitcase to reveal a portable gramophone, as he gently slides the record out of its sleeve, as he seats it on the turntable and turns the hand crank a good two dozen times. There’s a moment when he pauses, as if second guessing—and Lan Wangji can see those fingers trembling—before he recovers and plunges ahead, lifting the tone arm.

He looks genuinely happy. That’s what it is. The sardonic cant of his head is nowhere to be found; the lopsided smile of the man Lan Wangji has spent the last three months working with has been replaced with the unspoiled grin of the boy he knew twelve years before, beaming in the burnished sunset light of the last lantern festival before the Great War.

And that’s simply too much, especially at 3:00am.

Escape is the best course of action. They can continue their discussion tomorrow when Wei Wuxian is sober and... slightly more professional.

Lan Wangji is up and grabbing his coat and hat from where he’d tossed them as music crackles into life. It drifts, thin and watery, across the wide and empty dance floor, a pale, quivering thread imitating the deep, swooping rhythm of the exact same music that was playing live no more than two hours before. Yet it brings things altogether unbidden to his mind: the rush of pure adrenaline that saturated him the moment he walked through the door and saw the face of the man that was meant to be his contact—the man he’d been warned about in no uncertain terms, the man believed to be responsible for all manner of crimes—and knew instantly and without doubt that despite the gaunt cheeks and old scars and pale lips and darkened eyes, he was the boy he had been told had died somewhere far off in the mud and muck a decade past.

He crushes his hat in the rush to put it on his head.

He’s halfway to the door and trying to put his coat on when that same man is running towards him, the beginnings of a flush blooming across his cheeks. “Lan Zhan!? Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan? Where’re you going?”

“Go upstairs and go to bed. We’ll talk more about this tomorrow when you’re sober.”

“Nothing’s worth talking about sober—take that off!”

“Goodnight, Wei Ying.”

“Lan Zhan!” He grabs the hat right off his head. Despite the growing signs of inebriation, he’s still agile enough to keep it out of Lan Wangji’s reach. Dangling the hat like bait, he starts backing towards the center of the dancefloor.

Lan Wangji does not follow.

This development seems to disappoint him. “Lan Zhan, how are you going to get Mianmian to open up if you’re not willing to dance with her?”

“That’s not part of my job description.”

“...Dancing?”

“Se...” he tries again. “Seduction. There are protocols—”

“Oh, come on! Forget what she knows about Jin Guangshan. She’s asked you twice!”

Lan Wangji is stone. He is stone, and the hand he reaches towards Wei Wuxian is stone. “Give me my hat.”

Wei Wuxian smirks that satin smirk and plops it on his own head. “No.”

There will be sirens. There will be klaxons. There will be paperwork in triplicate. “It is three in the morning.”

Wei Wuxian’s slow steps melt into a backwards sashay. “What’re you going to do? Arrest me? Is there a curfew I don’t know about? Wait! Is that your department, too? They really expect you to do everything, don’t they!? And I hear they pay you so poorly; not that anyone would know that from looking at you.” He flashes another, showier smile. “So, what is under your jurisdiction then? Whose vices might invoke your long arm?” He giggles for a moment then starts counting it out on his fingers, “Bootleggers, we know. Drunkards as well, surely. Curfew Breakers? Troublemakers? Non-conformists? and... wait...”

Lan Wangji takes a calming breath and closes his eyes. He is stone. “You’re drunk.”

“No, I’m just forgetting something…. Smoke-eaters?!” He pulls his own silver cigarette case out of his pants pocket by way of illustration. “Lan Zhan, you already know I’m guilty of every vice under your jurisdiction and then quite a few I imagine you would frown upon. If a little foxtrot at three in the morning really is a vice, well then grant me just one more—just this one more, Lan Zhan—and after that you can take me in, hmm?” He holds his wrists together out in front of himself and actually has the audacity to pout.

Wei Wuxian has come to rest in the middle of the dancefloor, the stolen hat still askew on his head, but Lan Wangji does not answer him, so he drops his arms, sighs, and seems to consider things for a moment. At last he plants himself squarely and clasps his hands behind his back, taking on a serious and didactic air, head held high. “Lan Zhan. Lan Wangji. Do you know what I read not more than three weeks ago?”

Lan Wangji shakes his head.

“It was an astronomy paper, written by an astronomer working up at the Mount Wilson observatory.” That energy is still burning hot and his hands clearly need to work; he unclasps them and opens his cigarette case. “Did you know that there are whole other galaxies outside our Milky Way, so far away the distances are just unimaginable, and we can see them from here? Right here!? Just north of Pasadena you can look at other galaxies, all full of stars.” He takes out a cigarette and returns the case to his pocket where he retrieves a small lighter. “‘More things in heaven and earth,’ eh? Or at least in heaven. Not so sure about earth anymore.” He lights his cigarette and then takes a long drag. Lan Wangji can see the mechanism slowing, the concrete concepts abstracting, their edges blurring, and Wei Wuxian struggling to pull them back into focus as the buzz kicks in. Lan Wangji starts to protest again and Wei Wuxian holds up a hand to stop him. “No, now just bear with me for a minute. Do you follow astronomy?”

Lan Wangji does not, and rocks his head back and forth exactly once to say so.

“Hm. Well, the thing is, we now know that these other galaxies are hurtling away from us at incredible speeds, and the farther away they are, the faster they’re hurtling! Now, there’s a lot of math in there, and I won’t bore you with that. Who wants that at three in the morning, right?” He takes another long drag on his cigarette, likely for the dramatic pause as much as anything. “But it’s not that these galaxies are moving, but that—and this is the important part—the space between them is growing!” It’s clear by the expression on his face that he finds this deliciously absurd. “Isn’t that outrageous? Have you ever heard anything like that?”

Lan Wangji has not.

“Well one day, you see, these galaxies are going to be moving away from us so quickly that even light from them won’t be able to reach us any longer. They’ll just—poof!—be gone.” He punctuates the sound with a snap of his fingers. “Completely and forever out of our sight and reach. And that holds true for everything! Absolutely everything not gravitationally locked to something else will end absolutely unreachable, solitary and untouched by anything else.” He stands quiet for a minute, a slender exclamation point. “So, Lan Zhan, doesn’t all that fatalism put things into perspective? Even a bit? If that’s how things are going to end, wouldn’t it be worth the risk or of one dance? If nothing else, it would make m... it would make Mianmian very happy; I know it would.”

For reasons Lan Wangji doesn’t fully understand, his mother’s voice bubbles up from the silent past, clear and musical.

“Don’t be frightened. It won’t hurt you.”

In his memory her ruqun is blue like the heavens. The silk clouds woven across the collar glitter in the sunlight and the rabbit is soft and white in her hand. He realizes, looking back, that he hadn’t recognized yet what the sadness behind her eyes was for.

In his memory it is spring and the magnolia tree is in bloom, powdered magenta against the sky. From the direction of Du Pon Gai, where it cuts a line through tangrenjie, he can hear the whir of an engine, but within the walls of their courtyard this other world persists, slow and steady.

“You’re so gentle, Zhanzhan. Don’t worry.” In his memory she takes his hand in hers and lays it on the rabbit’s back. “You won’t hurt it either.”

He strokes the fur, amazed at how soft it is. “Uncle won’t let you keep it,” he warns.

“No. Let’s enjoy it while we have it, then, hm?”

Things can be taken away so quickly. A surge of adrenaline soaked fear brings him back to the present, where Wei Wuxian looks at him with an intensity that passes almost into pleading.

“Humor me?” Wei Wuxian, hand outstretched, smiles thinly. “Please?”

Lan Wangji does not believe in hypnotism; he was a child when he mastered compulsion; but something makes him take that first step towards the whirlpool at the center of the dancefloor, where the finish has been mostly worn off with use, tracing the paths of thousands of courtships. Wei Wuxian watches with widening eyes, slowly blossoming into a smile as rare and delicate as the vulnerable unfolding of a magnolia flower, pure and achingly ephemeral. That smile is as close as anything has ever come to what he would describe as irresistible, and that is not a concept that has troubled Lan Wangji for a very long time.

It’s as if a latch is released. Wei Wuxian springs into motion, taking Lan Wangji’s coat and retiring it with the hat to the table next to the gramophone. He resets the needle—the song having ended minutes before—and bounds back as if flying. He’s quiet for a second as if suddenly unsure how to begin, then takes up a position a surprisingly respectable distance away, almost shyly; Lan Wangji might almost believe he was not expecting to have to come through on his offer.

“Really, this one is easy because it’s all a foxtrot,” he says. “Now, I’ll be you. We’ll start with just the basic steps.” He orders his hands in space, cradling an imaginary partner... presumably Mianmian. His posture is unexpectedly formal, considering; his back is strong and his head proud. Whether that’s in imitation of or mockery of himself Lan Wangji doesn’t know.

“The steps are really simple, you’re really just striding, see? Just flowing across the floor.” He speaks the rhythm as he walks it—slow, slow, quick, quick; slow, slow, quick, quick. “But you can embellish it all you like. Lan Zhan, do you know Rudolph Valentino? The movie star? Would you believe he was here once? Not long before he died. In fact—“

The words fade into a cheerful background hum as the dynamic grace of Wei Wuxian’s movements command all Lan Wangji’s attention: for such simple steps Wei Wuxian can’t seem to help but fill them with his own sense of character. This is not a man who is a professional dancer. His steps are not that precise, his form occasionally goes a touch sloppy before he reigns it back in (the slow and relentless assault of the gin is partly to blame, Lan Wangji is sure), and every few steps he can see the slight favoring of the left leg. But… it’s 3:00am... and he’s beautiful when he moves.

As Wei Wuxian spins about in angular figures, cresting on the “quick, quick,” something catches Lan Wangji’s attention out of the corner of his eye. It’s Wei Wuxian. And another Wei Wuxian. And another—winking in and out of existence in the many mirrors that line the opposing walls. One Wei Wuxian becomes three, becomes five, becomes seven, and each duplicates recessively backwards into a green-tinted nowhere.

As if sinking into fetid water. His skin prickles for a moment, just barely, and he wonders if he should take it as a warning. He has come to know of many Wei Wuxians now: the brilliant boy and the charming man, but also the callous man and once even the cruel one. And of course, the ruthless criminal he was warned about. He wonders if he really knows which one this is, but also... if it would make any difference. Wei Wuxian is a comet that’s come flying in for the second time, disrupting once more the careful gravity of everything in his life, and he has spent the last three months suppressing the overwhelming urge to reach out and catch him.

Collision at such speeds is dangerous, of course, but….

What would be the harm in only a daydream? A daydream about a couple of lonely satellites finding each other and dancing in each other’s orbits? Hidden by the dim light, shrouded in the haze of a decade of cigarette smoke left suspended in the air, protected by the secret agreement made by everyone who walked through that door that in this space the rules of the world did not apply… could his uncle’s eyes and their ossifying crows feet find him here?

“Now you try.”

Wei Wuxian has retreated to the gramophone to restart the music. When he returns he positions himself halfway to the proper form for the following partner, stopping just short of touch. Which is very out of character.

“Come on, come on. We’ll start slow. I’ll be Mianmian. Left foot first.” He looks down at their feet as if waiting for Lan Wangji to make a move. He’s swaying slightly and doesn’t seem to realize it; flush has spread from his cheeks to his nose, but the music is rolling past them now, and he looks so expectant.

So happy. So carefree.

And that’s simply too much.

So Wangji connects, his right hand firmly but respectfully below Wuxian’s shoulder blade, his left gently cupping the fingers of Wuxian’s right, in one fluid motion guiding him backwards along the floor as decades old muscle memory takes over.

Wei Wuxian lights up with surprise, and it’s honest surprise, Lan Wangji is pretty sure. “Wha...?”

“I had to learn when I was young; social engagements demanded it. You’re the one who assumed.”

Wei Wuxian laughs as if he’s delighted by an unexpected joke. They flow through several bars of basic steps, a promenade, a couple of underarm turns. “Lan Zhan, you’re really good. Really, Lan Zhan but….” Wei Wuxian trails off but shows no signs of disengaging; instead his focus seems to have turned inwards.

They take several turns around the floor, and the passage of movement-to-movement is smooth like sleight-of-hand. There’s no collision, no sudden and violent tumbling out of orbit, and even if being this close is secretly thrilling, the scripted framework balances it with calm and familiarity.

The past decade of Lan Wangji’s life has been a continuous pattern. In the foreground: routine, an unfolding caseload, paper and ink and weak yellow lamplight. Investigate. Determine. Judge. Resolve. Slow, slow, quick, quick. But in the background: the ghost passage of memory and desire. It had been visible only out of the corner of his eye or audible only as a soft tapping, a tangle of thoughts that would drift uncomfortably close in the dark reminding him he should have made himself clear when he had the chance because now Wei Ying was dead.

Except suddenly he wasn’t. Suddenly he wasn’t! And the tapping had become a hammering that beat in time with Lan Wangji’s increasingly harried heart.

“Ooooh,” Wei Wuxian laughs suddenly and playfully slaps at his shoulder, “You don’t know what to say to her, do you?” The gin is starting to win and Wei Wuxian is drooping towards him now. “Alright. Practice on me.”

Practice on him? What could he possibly say? He thought he had said everything a long time ago.

“You have to say something, you know. Let me tell you something: she likes you. I happen to know that direct from her, but she won’t put up with your silent treatment like I will. I like it,” again he smiles, “if you’re silent it gives me more room to talk.”

Lan Wangji has no intention of following through on any of this, of course. He has nothing against Luo Qingyang, who, unlike most of her extended family, has always seemed kind and noble and uncompromising, even if he is, most assuredly, not “interested” in her. But the thought of disappointing Wei Wuxian now is too much to bear. “Then... what would you say?” he asks, as Lan Wangji leads him through another turn.

Wei Wuxian practically snorts. “Oh, I don’t know, don’t ask me, please.”

“...Why?”

Wei Wuxian suddenly tilts his head against Lan Wangji’s shoulder. Muffled against his suit jacket Lan Wangji can just make out the words as Wei Wuxian starts to giggle, “I’m too drunk. How would I know how to speak to a lady when I’m like this?”

He makes no sign that he intends to move. In fact he melts closer, bringing with him the juniper scent of gin and something else, a familiar sweet fragrance Lan Wangji can’t yet place. He’s quickly becoming more acutely aware of the silken softness of Wei Wuxian’s shirt, the way the lavender cambric with the tiny carmine pinstripe catches the light across the bridge of his shoulder, how it flows down the plane of his shoulder blade. As their frames gradually contract, Lan Wangji’s right hand shifts unconsciously downwards, collapsing the folds of cotton one by one as his fingertips trace a slow line down Wei Wuxian’s spine, savoring the little undulations below the skin, vertebrae like a path of stones breaking through a shallow river, until they come to rest against the hollow of his back.

There the smooth fabric is marred by a single ridge of stitches patching a tear. It stands out loudly in the field of his senses, incongruous. He runs his finger up and down it slowly and replays in his mind all the details that haven’t made sense since he first set foot in this place: Wei Wuxian’s shirt is torn and mended, his pants are a couple years out of style, the apartment upstairs is small and poorly furnished. He’s seen the books. With as much money as Wei Wuxian is making he could have at the least a new suit made each season and as many new shirts as he wanted. What was he hiding? And what made this man out of the boy he knew?

Wei Wuxian turns his head just enough for his breath to register on Lan Wangji’s neck “Just... what’s the first thing that comes to mind?” His voice is drowsy and slack and silken.

But the things that come to mind are a litany of questions he should not, cannot ask, but which keep surging behind his teeth, primed to erupt: Wei Ying, do you really not know me? Why did you leave when you did? What happened to you? How did you get here? Did you really not know back then? Did you really not understand? How can you—you—be the kind of person they say you are?

“You know... this isn’t making me very confident.” Wei Wuxian’s smile is audible. “Does your mouth cease to function at night?”

“No, I prefer the night,” Lan Wangji says, entirely without thinking, and realizes that it’s both true and not something that he’s ever said to anyone before.

“Really? I don’t. Too still.” He chuckles deep in his chest, and a whisper of breath tickles Lan Wangji’s jugular. “And here I am every night into the wee hours. Really, I prefer the day.”

“Mm. We don’t often get what we prefer.”

Wei Wuxian is quiet for quite a long time after that.

The music is rounding towards the last few notes. When the song is over Lan Wangji will stop, he thinks, say goodnight, see Wei Wuxian up the steps to the apartment so he doesn’t fall, like he’s done a half dozen times already when he was surely too inebriated to remember. He’s decided. He has indulged this as long as he should. But then he turns his head just a few degrees, planning to ask Wei Wuxian if he is able to walk without assistance, and suddenly that encroaching fragrance springs to the foreground. It’s perfume: dark, sweet, and heavy, like ripe peaches at the peak of summer. It invades Wangji’s senses, and he realizes he’s smelled it before.

———

Lan Zhan had been searching the streets for three hours, an unlit lantern dangling from the stick in his hand. He’d bypassed two dozen stalls, most more than once, as their owners—those whose names he knew and those he didn't—tried and failed to garner his attention and his cash with food and drink and gifts painted with snakes to commemorate the new year, none of which held any interest for him. One was selling brightly-tinted tangyuan in sweet syrup and another a miniature forest of pastel fairy floss, but the colors were dull and unappealing. The knot in his stomach had kept him from eating much at all for the last two days.

Music converged from three different directions, a mixture of the old and the new, and sometimes the melodies complemented each other, but most often they did not. Up and down the street lanterns were being lit and hung, staining walls and faces with red light. It was sunset, and the air was becoming chill.

He was starting to consider going back to the Jiang residence and asking after Wei Ying again, more forcefully this time, when two children ran past, escaping the glittering explosion of a firecracker they set off in the middle of the street. He turned his gaze to follow them, watched them laughing—envied them laughing—as they ran down a quiet and darkening alleyway past a man with a long pole hanging a newly lit lantern on a wire stretched over the thoroughfare. As it rose its soft red-orange glow Illuminated the figure of Wei Ying.

The world stopped for a moment. Suddenly, there was no festival, there was no music, there were no vendors, no crackling firecrackers. There was only a dim pool of light with Wei Ying in it.

He was sitting on top of a tall wall that enclosed a rare, small yard, letting one leg dangle carelessly and swinging it in rhythm, staring eastward toward the bay as he took a drink from the jug in his hand.

Lan Zhan tried to force himself forward, to do what he came here to do and say what he came here to say, consequences be damned. On the third try he succeeded, crossing into that solitary pool of lantern light which may have been the only real place on Earth.

“Wei Ying?” he called.

Wei Ying looked down. An expression Lan Zhan couldn’t quite place passed quickly across his face then disappeared. Uncharacteristically, he nodded in acknowledgement but didn't say anything.

“I was looking for you,” Lan Zhan said.

It took Wei Ying a moment to respond, and the hesitation made a part of Lan Zhan’s insides tense. “Are you coming up here or should I come down there?” he finally asked.

Lan Zhan held up his left hand by way of illustration, displaying the simple but beautifully made red paper lantern with two silver butterflies painted on the side: he was not in a position to climb walls.

Wei Ying nodded, swung his leg over, and hopped down. He managed, rather impressively, to avoid spilling whatever was left in his jug, and seeing this he took a triumphant drink.

“I was looking for you.” Lan Zhan said again, hoping maybe that that alone conveyed everything he meant.

Wei Ying seemed to consider this for a moment. “Not that I’m not flattered… but why’re you looking for me?”

There was something distant in his voice, the kind of thing Lan Zhan had never heard from him before in the conversations they’d shared, the ones that Lan Zhan had replayed far more times than he could count, so that he knew the many varieties of Wei Ying’s pitch and rhythm. Lan Zhan glanced around them: they seemed to be safely nestled in a quiet pocket away from the turbulence. He lifted up the lantern again. From the bottom hung a slip of paper with several lines of writing on it. It took him a moment to form the words: “I was hoping you could help me.”

“Riddles? You’re the one with the fancy education. Why would you need my help?”

“You shouldn’t disparage your intelligence. I don’t know anyone as clever as you.”

Wei Ying was already turning the lantern around, twisting it on its wire and admiring its craftsmanship. “Where’d you get this? I didn’t see anyone selling any this nice.”

“...I made it.”

Wei Ying smiled at him instantly and that alone made the work worth it. “Really? It’s so good! I didn’t know you could do this. You should light it!” He reached into his pocket and began to dig, as if searching for matches.

“Wei Ying… I’d like to solve the riddle first.”

At that Wei Ying shrugged, taking no note of the pauses in Lan Zhan’s speech, “If you insist.” He went to take another drink but stopped, looked at Lan Zhan with some embarrassment, and then held out the jug to him. “You should join me, Lan Zhan. It’s the last bottle. Come on! It’s barely even alcohol.”

The quivering in his abdomen was what finally drove him to accept the offer. He took the jug and brought it to his nose. The deeply sweet, fruity scent of osmanthus wine rose to meet him, and when he tilted it just right he could make out the faded yellow petals at the bottom of the jug drifting across the amber surface like tiny boats.

Satisfied, Wei Ying turned his attention to the slip of paper.

Lan Zhan quickly downed the jug’s contents.

“Long for a riddle isn’t it? Wait, did your brother write this for you?” Wei Ying asked as his eyes roamed across the characters. “You two are the only people I know with perfect handwriting.

Lan Zhan watched, trying to ground himself by concentrating on the sweet-soft warmth in his mouth and throat. Wei Ying was uncharacteristically quiet as he worked. He would read the riddle, look at the lantern, and then back at the riddle; his lips at first working silently and then pressing very tightly together. Once for the briefest moment his eyes even flickered upwards, catching Lan Zhan’s own, and then darted back. Lan Zhan thought he could have stayed that way forever, Wei Ying like a butterfly that had at last landed on a choice bloom, no longer fluttering about but beautifully displayed in its languid contemplation of a particularly fine nectar. But of course that contemplation ended, as it had to, when Wei Ying took a long breath and looked up, letting the slip of paper fall out of his grasp.

The next 15 seconds were the longest in Lan Zhan’s life.

Wei Ying’s face could chart an entire language's worth of expressions in just a moment, and its variety has been the singular source of color in Lan Zhan’s world for some time. During those 15 seconds Lan Zhan witnessed a private performance of what might be the sum total of human emotion dancing across Wei Ying’s face, moods fleeting and uncatchable. It was breathtaking, but it quickly settled into what Lan Zhan was sure was fondness as Wei Ying reached out tenderly, his thumb making contact with the skin of Lan Zhan’s lips at the corner of his mouth, wiping away a stray osmanthus petal. Then two things happened: Wei Ying smiled—a wide, brilliant, effervescent smile—and the last of the day’s sunlight broke down the alley, crystallizing that smile in amber, and with it the sudden daydream of a whole potential life, vibrant and bright, spreading out before them. But then...

Wei Ying laughed apologetically and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I really don’t know. Like I said, I’m not so good at these things. You’ll have to ask someone else.”

The golden moment ended, the sunlight faded, and the floor dropped out of Lan Zhan’s stomach.

Wei Ying went quiet again for a moment then seemed to gather himself and turned serious. “I’m glad you found me, though. I didn’t know if I’d get to say goodbye.”

Goodbye? A single, wholly insufficient, stuttering question is all Lan Zhan could form: “Where are you going?”

“Oh, anywhere and everywhere!” Wei Ying puffed himself up. “This place is so small—way too small for me. There’s a whole world out there. I have big plans for my life. How can a few square miles contain me?”

He smiled again, or tried to smile, though it didn't come out quite right, it was lopsided and tense and his eyes flickered up and down the street.

“Anyway, long goodbyes just make things harder, don’t you think?” Wei Ying looked him right in the eyes. “Lan Wangji… find a good girl, have a brood of kids, huh? Don’t keep that pretty face all for yourself.”

With that and a wave, Wei Ying turned and walked away. He never once looked back as he strolled down the sidewalk, away from the festivities and into the dark. Three blocks away he turned the corner and disappeared from view and from Lan Zhan’s life.

Lan Zhan had no memory of it, but that night his brother told him, concern etched on his face, that he must have stood there for an hour, unmoving, staring down the street with the lantern hanging at his side. Lan Huan had heard from someone–who had heard from someone else–that it was only when someone touched Lan Zhan’s shoulder gently and asked if he needed help, breaking him from his daze, that Lan Zhan had turned around and walked silently home without even bothering to answer.

The next morning Lan Zhan walked to the Jiang house, but when the door opened it was Jiang Cheng with an even darker scowl than usual. He told Lan Zhan that Wei Ying had left, would not be coming back, and to not ask after him again. No further information was given before Jiang Cheng shut the door in his face, but in the time it was open, Lan Zhan heard what sounded like a woman crying.

Lan Zhan spent the next two years in those 15 amber-tinted seconds, the happiest he had ever known, analyzing his perfect recall of every expression that passed Wei Ying’s face, but finding no discernible solutions to what exactly had transpired. Had Wei Ying really not understood what he was trying to say? Had he understood but felt he could not overtly reject him? Had he understood but was so repulsed at the idea that he chose to not even acknowledge it? Or was there something else? Something Lan Zhan hadn't seen? And why had Wei Ying left so suddenly?

Lan Zhan spent those two years looking for information on where Wei Ying might have gone–without success. That uncertainty was almost as hard as the rejection. Both the Jiang children seemed to avoid him and from the other families most likely to deal in rumor plenty was said, but little was trustworthy. Only the Jins seemed suspiciously quiet, but if they knew anything, they were keeping it to themselves.

Then one fall morning…

It was the day after parades had filled Market street to celebrate the end of the Great War when his brother found him at work in his study and said there was something he needed to hear from him before he heard it from anyone else: Jin Zixuan was going to pay his respects to Jiang Yanli and her family because they had just received word that Wei Ying was dead.

There was very little color in the world after that.

———

The music had stopped some time ago, and their steps have contracted to fit within a tight patch of dance floor. Against all hope and Lan Wangji’s better judgment, Wei Ying is a warm, living presence against him, breathing so softly, like an endangered creature at last safely at rest. The tactile exposure to so much vitality and vulnerability soothes and terrifies in equal measure; eyes closed, Lan Wangji wraps his arms fully around his dance partner in some fuzzy entanglement of protectiveness and careless desire.

Wei Wuxian tucks his head further into Lan Wangji’s shoulder: having fully succumbed to the effects of the alcohol, Wangji is surely the only thing keeping him upright. “Lan Zhan,” he whispers from where he’s submerged, and the edges of the syllables nibble at Wangji’s skin. “Lan Wangji... Agent Lan,” he titters that last one and presses his lips close to Lan Wangji’s ear. “Let me tell you the truth.”

Lan Wangji stops and opens his eyes. A quiver of excitement and dread runs through him.

“The truth is you don’t need to say anything. Just let your pretty face do the work.” A desperate edge cuts through the sweetness of Wei Wuxian’s voice. “She’s... a very modern woman. She’ll know what she wants… maybe she’ll just say....” He tilts his head back and looks Lan Wangji in the eye. His lips are pink with drunken blush now, no longer pale and deathly, and his curling smile seems to keep shifting, slipping quickly past any attempt at definition. With those lips just the barest second away from Wangji’s own, he whispers through shuddering breath, “Kiss me.”

The universe extends into forever with wonders and possibilities unimaginable.

It is trillions upon trillions of miles to the closest star.

But here in the dark and empty dancehall of an LA speakeasy, the longest distance in the world…

May be that last

shallow

span

of fractious breath.

All it takes is a last leap.

Just the pull of a trigger, Lan Wangji thinks.

What’s an inch compared to a decade?

What’s an inch compared to the space between stars?

What’s propriety when the world has showered mercy on you, and given you the chance to try again?

It’s nothing. It’s nothing, he thinks.

But just as he feels himself closing that last distance, Wei Ying mutters a single sentence.

“I know the answer, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji’s spine goes cold.

A thousand assumptions reorient themselves, and the man in his arms becomes instantly alien, the smell of osmanthus becomes a rush of cloying sweetness.

Lan Wangji doesn’t know if he’s holding the boy he knew, or the dangerous man he was warned about.

So he lets go.

Wei Wuxian slides to the floor in front of him, landing in a lanky jumble, and for a second he looks at him with surprise.

And then he laughs.

He laughs.

As if the whole thing were hysterical.

To his absolute horror Lan Wangji does not know if it’s genuine mirth or cruelty, cannot tell if that sound is directed at him or at Wei Wuxian himself. He stands there staring down at him. Why would he pretend for so long only to tell him now all he ever wanted to hear? The boy he was holding was so close, so temptingly close, and the man on the floor in front of him is a million miles away.

Wei Wuxian stops laughing and stares up at him in drunken confusion, a pitiful, drooping sight.

Was I a joke to you then? Lan Wangji thinks. Am I joke to you now? I meant every word. Have you ever meant anything you’ve said?

But as always Lan Wangji holds his tongue.

Silently, he goes to collect his coat and hat and then stops in front of Wei Wuxian one last time. He hates himself for it, but it is all he can do to fight the urge to help him up. “Go to bed,” he says. “Goodnight… Wei Wuxian.”

He leaves all seven of him disappearing in the silver-green glass. He doesn’t say he’ll be back, but he knows by now he will be.

———

The senses come back one-by-one.

Wei Wuxian wakes with what feels like the weight of an upright piano on his head. He doesn’t know how much is from the hangover and how much is from the crying.

Opening his eyes is more painful than he anticipates. Afternoon light is filtering rudely through the curtain and onto the sofa back, overlaying an interference pattern on faded paisley. His mouth tastes absolutely foul, and his automatic response to this, for whatever reason, is to wiggle his toes, as if to shake off the sensation, and that’s how he realizes he never took his shoes off. His left arm is twisted under and behind him, nearly numb from the hours of his unmoving stupor, the awareness of which begins the inexorable recall of the finer details of the cause of said stupor. There’s a lot he doesn’t remember, but the hurt on Lan Zhan’s face as he told him goodnight was horribly, uncharacteristically clear. Awakening is, as he feared, nothing but compounding confrontations with a string of unpleasant conditions.

Still, beneath and behind it all there is something else his half-unconscious mind instinctually latches onto and derives comfort from, the sound of something soothing and pleasant: the soft bubbling of water.

“I’m making you some tea.”

He looks over his shoulder to see Mianmian sitting in the little armchair, her attention on the magazine open in her lap, the 3 p.m. light illuminating the soft waves of her precisely permed hair. Behind her the kettle is on and his old gaiwan and matching cup—the one with the lotuses and the chip out of the rim—is sitting at the ready.

He’s still bleary-eyed as he starts to sit up, and he must look at least a little confused as he notices the blanket draped over him.

“It was Qing-jie. She thought you might be cold so—“

“You look terrible.” Wen Qing sweeps out of the second bedroom like a heavy wind, carrying the scent of strong coffee with her, and disappears into the little bathroom where he can hear her rummaging around. As loud as her voice seems, she might as well have dropped a boulder on him.

Mianmian looks at him apologetically and sets her magazine aside. As she places it on the side table, it bumps against her bottle of osmanthus perfume, and he’s pretty sure she notices. He can tell she wants to say something.

Of course she does. Maybe if he looks away she won’t ask, but when he glances down all he sees is a nearly empty bottle of gin and an overturned tumbler tucked against the sofa leg, which, he suspects, half-answers her question anyway. Still, he can’t help but delay the inevitable. “I thought you weren’t coming back for the rest of the week?”

“Qing-jie needed some things. When we got here the door wasn’t even locked.” She makes a point to catch eye contact before continuing. “We were worried.”

“I don’t need anyone’s worry.” That was harsher than he intended, but it doesn’t seem to phase Mianmian, who leans forward and puts a hand lightly on his knee.

“No luck?”

He snickers at that. Oh well. “What do you think?”

She’s quiet for a moment. “Maybe if—”

“—Look, I appreciate your help, but you shouldn’t ask him any more, alright? It’s not safe for him. It was a mistake. I made a terrible mistake. The most recent in a really very exceptionally long series of terrible mistakes.” He leans his head back in hopes the change in angle might relieve some pressure. “I think he maybe hates me anyway. I wouldn’t blame him.”

He can hear Wen Qing snort a room away. “His safety? What about our safety? Does this mean you’re done making a fool out of yourself?

“I’ll make a fool out of myself if I want to! I’m 31 years old; I’m an old, grizzled man and it’s my dignity to dispose of.”

“Will you risk our safety if you want to?” Wen Qing emerges with her cheeks nearly as red as the sun pattern on her qipao. “If so, maybe we should find somewhere else to live. This isn’t a game. You—”

He lays back down and rolls over and doesn’t hear the end of the sentence. Behind him the kettle whistles.

The clink of china is followed by the round and brilliant trickle of water, the subtle aroma of brewing tea, and soft footsteps. He can hear Mianmian setting things on the side table and can smell the vegetal scent rising as she sits down behind him on the edge of the sofa. Her voice is low.

“Yanli would love to see you. Please, tell her what’s going on. Jin Ling will be eight years old in a few months. Eight years old! He’d love to have another uncle in his life. You know how Jiang Cheng can be with him.” He does not respond so she lays a hand on his shoulder. “Wuxian?”

“You know your family is dangerous.” He turns back to look at her so as to make his point. “You know I’m dangerous.”

“I’m ready.” Wen Qing steps out into the common room, an old rumpled and oddly-bulging carpet-bag in one hand. “A-Ning is waiting.”

Mianmian clearly wants to say more but instead stands up and retrieves her bag, gloves, and hat.

There’s something bittersweet in the look Wen Qing gives him.

“Be careful,” he tells her. “Don’t let anyone follow you.”

“I’m not worried about us; we’ll be fine. But please... please! Wei Wuxian, take care of yourself? We need you, none of this works without you, and you’re...”

He does manage to look ever so slightly contrite, he thinks. He certainly feels more than ever so slightly contrite.

“Do you have everything you need until we get back?” Mianmian asks. “Remember, Wen Ning won’t be here to run errands for you.”

“I can take care of myself. Cross my heart.”

She returns him a sad smile, then both of them disappear out the door. The latch clicks softly into place and footsteps retreat down the stairwell, but as they leave he can hear Mianmian’s fading voice: “Why are you so hard on him? How would you feel if it was us?”

Her words dissolve into nothing and Wei Wuxian is left alone with his tea and his thoughts. He does not drink. Instead he lays back down, wraps his arms around himself, and imagines it’s his sister.

Notes:

The paper Wei Wuxian read is Edwin Hubble’s “A relation between distance and radial velocity among extra-galactic nebulae” which was published on March 15th of that year in PNAS and which you can still read online. He’s also familiar with Georges Lemaître’s "Un Univers homogène de masse constante et de rayon croissant rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des nébuleuses extragalactiques" as published in Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles in 1927 and which he read in the original French, as well as the mathematical work of Willem de Sitter.

Wei Wuxian is synthesizing a lot of astronomical observations and mathematical theories here and is making an anachronistic cosmological leap toward the possibility of The Big Rip (caused by the hypothetical accelerating expansion of spacetime). He is an expert lateral thinker, however, and I can’t stop him; he’s also got a leg up by having an equally anachronistically early understanding of Dark Energy (a concept not otherwise explored until the very end of the 20th century) for Reasons Not Explored in this Scene.

Last I read, current projections suggest we are looking at a “Big Freeze” rather than a “Big Rip” or a “Big Crunch” and, frankly, I think the “Big Freeze” is the most horrifying possibility, so kudos to the universe for picking the worst option.

I’m really not trying to reference the “universe is expanding” scene from Annie Hall but... *shrug* (Alvy is also, coincidentally, theorizing The Big Rip).

Magnolia X soulangeana—a French-bred hybrid of two magnolia trees native to China—is my favorite flowering tree. An old, healthy tree in bloom is just about the single most magnificent marker of springtime, but the bloom period is extremely short (at least where I live).

Wei Wuxian was not raised to learn styles of Western dance, but is clever enough to have picked it up from watching his own patrons and is more than capable of improvising on it.

The piece they’re dancing to is “Ain’t Misbehavin’” as performed by Louis Armstrong. He first performed it at Connie’s Inn in Harlem in the early summer of 1929. It was so popular that within a few weeks—on July 19th—a recording had been made. Wei Wuxian was one of the first to get a copy and has been daydreaming about dancing to it with Lan Wangji since the first time he heard it both because he likes the swooping beat and because the irony amuses him. You can listen to it HERE.

There actually was an extremely popular nightclub called “The Cotton Club” in Culver City, CA in the 20s and 30s (no connection to the famous Cotton Club in Harlem beyond sharing a name and some performers, including, in 1930, Louis Armstrong). It was the first Prohibition-era nightclub to feature all Black bands.

Wei Wuxian stole a few drops of Mianmian’s (very expensive) osmanthus perfume especially for this night.

Osmanthus fragrans is hardy in all but a few patches of CA (theoretically I mean: I’ve never tried to grow one there). Therefore: the Jiang family has at least one on their property, from which the wine Wei Wuxian is drinking was made.

#WangXian 1929 #wangxian 1929 #wangxian #mdzs #the untamed #cql #Jazz Age AU #Prohibition AU #wei wuxian #lan wangji #mianmian #wen qing #madam lan #lan xichen #my fic #my writing #CW for drunkenness #drinking #and depression

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