#no i’m kidding i have insane fantasies | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lesservillain · 3 months

Text

inmate!eddie munson x teacher!reader

cw: drinking, explicit fantasies

September 16th,1994

The idea to you was asinine from the moment Principal Williams brought you into her office to explain the program details to you. How no one else thought that the idea of thirteen-year-olds becoming “pen pals” with prisoners wasn’t insane baffled you. It was dangerous at worst and inappropriate at best, but, despite your best efforts to reason with her, your opinion as a “newer” teacher was dismissed.

Now here you are listening to the speech of the prison rep, Mr. Bridges, as he explained the program to your 7th grade class. Not like you had a lesson planned for them today.

Mr. Bridges stands a whole 5 feet and 6 inches with a short stack military fade and the most unsettling sunny disposition. He reads as incredibly fake, like a snake oil salesman, and his shiny, white, slightly too big for his mouth veneers not doing him any favors. It doesn’t surprise you that your newly divorced principal was able to be persuaded by this guy's charms, but thankfully you’re used to his kind of tactics from your own previous relationship.

Before leaving, Mr.Bridges approaches you at your desk. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he starts, leaning too far into your space. One of his thick fingers points at a paper he had given you before he started his speech, “but is a student absent today? We have an unassigned inmate—”

“We had a student move,” you say shortly, keeping your voice monotone and not bothering to glance at his paper, “so I’m short one student in this class.”

Bridges nodded, clearly deep in thought. His brows furrowed for a moment before perking up.

“Maybe you’d like to take on a pen pal?’” He proposes, his chipper disposition coxing on the migraine that wants to break through behind your eye.

The look on your face must have said it all as he tried to convince you further. “The inmates that signed up are all trying to better themselves before being re-released into society, ya’know?” His eye’s shift, landing on the floor with a solemn look. “We thought talking to kids that grew up while they were incarcerated would help them get in touch with the times, be able to cope with time they’ve lost. Give them something to look forward to when they get out.”

The pads of your fingers dig into your temples, eyes rolling to the back of your head before finally giving him the eye contact he so desperately craved from you.

“Fine, I’ll take whoever you have left, I guess. What’s his name?”

“Perfect!” Bridges hands clap together next to your ear, “The leftover inmate wants to go by The Banished One and he—”

“Banished what?” You ask, confused.

“Oh, The Banished One! It’s his nickname for the project. We have all the inmates disguise their names just in case the kids may be related to one of them.”

“Oh my god,” you groan, resting your head in your hand, “Okay, fine, sure I guess that makes sense.”

Bridges continued to assure you that all the letters are anonymous and would be vetted both ways, adding that only ‘good behavior’ inmates were allowed to take part in the program as a last push for your participation, you reluctantly agreed. Mostly just to get him to leave your classroom before your head explodes, but not without the stipulation that if you thought it was too much for your kids that you would pull them out. That seemed to be enough to satisfy him.

October 7th, 1994

The first writing session took place on a Friday, the soft sound of music from your mixtape playing for the kids to help them relax. It had been a long week of testing and you felt like an easy day was in order for both you and the kids, most of your other classes would just be doing free work.

You grabbed the stack of letters from your desk, Pictures of You by The Cure filling the air as you hand each student their respective letter.

“Don’t forget to keep personal information like names and where you live out of your letters. Once you’re done, bring them to my desk.”

Once the kids were settled, you returned to your desk and grabbed your own letter. The envelope before you had “Teach” written across the front, the pen name you chose to go by. The handwriting was like chicken scratch. Not much different from the 13 year old boys whose papers you grade, though, so you were confident in your ability to decipher the rest of the letter. But still had a roughness, an edge to it.

As you opened your letter, unfolding the paper to it’s full state, the first thing to catch your attention was the graffiti like drawings along the margins of the paper. It reminded you of a flash sheet at the tattoo shop your friends took you to for your 21st birthday, a permanent reminder of that day on your inner ankle in the form of a small butterfly that was already starting to fade. There was nothing too offensive; a rose, a sailor ship, a dove with an olive branch, all impressively done for just being pen on paper.

Once you got past the artwork, you began to take in the letter's contents. The single page was filled from front to back, barely any room for the signature at the bottom.

“Hey there, “Teach”... if that is your real name…” the letter starts. The lame opener makes you crack a small smile that you quickly cover with your hand. You read on, taking in each sentence, and you start to get the idea that your pen pal doesn’t take this pen pal assignment too seriously.

The letter is casual, a few puns here and there, with some Tolkien references that would have been missed if one wasn’t familiar with his work. It’s clear that this person is young, or at least young at heart, which saddens you to think about, but you try not to dwell on it.

Getting into the meat of the letter, your pal explains that went to prison in 1989 for drug related charges, but is set to get out in about a year if he keeps up his good behavior.

“I’m ready to get out of this place and get back to my hometown in Hawkins.”

A shiver goes down your spine for a moment when you read that he’s from Hawkins. Bridges assured you that the inmates wouldn’t know what school the kids would be from, but you weren’t expecting to be talking to someone from this small town. You wonder if Bridges knows more than he’s letting on with his comment about the kids being related to the inmates.

Once the creepy feeling dissipates you continue to read on. The details your pal gives about himself tell you that he’s very different from the people you usually hang out with. His favorite genre of music is metal and he used to play guitar and do vocals for a band every week before he started working as a mechanic full time. They’d have a crowd of 20 or so some nights, but it was usually just the regulars at the place they would play at.

The final paragraph of the letter consists of a seemingly scripted warning about the dangers of drugs and that no one should make the same mistake he did. You wondered if this was obligatory for the project. At the bottom of the page your pal signs with his chosen moniker “The Banished One.” When thinking about it, you find that it’s very fitting for an inmate.

After taking a moment to check in on your class, Morrissey’s somber voice serenading them as “I Know It’s Over” plays from the small radio’s speakers, you pull out your own pen and paper to start your response.

As you ponder on where to start, a thought that crosses your mind; does your pen pal even know they’re talking to an adult? The pen name you chose might be on the nose but you didn’t want to assume. Granted, your handwriting itself may be a dead giveaway if you were to compare it to a teens.

It took you a couple of tries to start your letter. Instinctively, you wanted to be formal, but the longer you thought about it the more you didn’t want to come off as a boring writing companion. You tried and failed to come up with something witty to match the vibe of your pal, but comedy wasn’t your strong point, though you’d argue that it wasn’t his either. Instead, you approached it as if you were writing to a friend.

“Hello! Nice to meet you “Banished One." Though, it sounds like you won't be banished much longer.”

Erring on the side of caution you chose to only respond directly to things he wrote, slipping in that you also enjoyed the works of Tolkien with your own reference. You mention that you listen to metal from time to time, more into radio rock at the moment, but you’d really listen to anything.

It took you a minute to calculate how to respond to the reveal of his dealings in drugs, ultimately deciding to lightly say that you hoped he learned his lesson unless he saw himself returning to prison in the future. You shared that you were familiar with Hawkins, noting that you loved the milkshakes from the old diner in town, but left it at that. As you closed the letter you complimented his artwork, informing him that the rose was your favorite and that you looked forward to seeing his artwork on future letters.

You’d manage to write enough to cover the majority of the back of your lined paper, signing your pen name a few lines away from the bottom. Going over your letter again, you can't help feeling like it’s a bit dull. Safe, but that’s what it's supposed to be.

October 24th,1994

It only took two weeks for Mr. Bridges to return with new letters for your class. Truthfully, you had almost forgotten about the letters entirely while trying to keep your students on track as the holiday season approaches. The emotional whiplash of seeing your ex out with his new, younger girlfriend while you were out looking for Halloween decor for your apartment wasn't helping either. It felt like no matter what you did, how much your friends tried to help, you just couldn’t catch a break. At least the manager of the local liquor store was nice to you.

When your students seemed too preoccupied with the stack of letters on your desk to pay attention to your lecture, you decided to call it a day and give all of you a break. You click on your small stereo and let the tune of Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah take over the room while you pass out letters.

Once the letters were distributed, you settled at your desk where your eyes met with the same chicken scratch handwriting as before. It was tempting to reach for it… until you glanced at the pile of ungraded papers that sat next to it, taunting you. You desperately needed to go over them, the deadline to turn in grades fast approaching.

You deliberated on what to do. You had to admit you were curious about the letter. Part of you wondered if you’d even get one back. You didn’t want to give any personal information away, so you couldn’t blame the random man in prison for not responding if he thought he was talking to an old lady teacher.

But the stack of papers is practically glaring at you.

A thought; you could always finish your papers later at home. But you did tell yourself you would be better at bringing so much work home with you this year…Your friends had an influence on that decision, making sure you took at least every other weekend to go out and do something — anything to keep you from shutting yourself in again.

With a sigh, you tuck the letter into your work bag, grabbing your pen to start grading.

“Damn it, why can’t I find one stupid pen!”

Slamming drawers and stomping around, the red liquid of your cup sloshing around in your glass as you grew more and more frustrated in your search for a pen to write out the checks for the coming month’s bills.

After searching the kitchen, you make your way to the living room and spot your school bag on the coffee table. In your rage, you slam the glass on the table and begin haphazardly pulling the contents out of the bag, praying you still had a pen that hadn’t been “borrowed” to never be returned by one of your students.

The feeling of plastic on the tips of your finger almost brought you to tears of joy. Pulling out a purple ink pen you decided that it would have to be good enough if your landlord wanted your rent on time.

After finishing with the checks, you return to your bag to put the envelopes inside to drop off tomorrow at the post office. As you lift the bag, your eyes meet with chicken scratch again away. A burst of buzzed excitement runs through you at the sight, even if for just a moment before you shook it off. It was just an envelope from some random man sitting in a jail cell, why are you getting so excited? Is it because you’re at home and not feeling the pressure to be uptight and rigid?

Or maybe it’s because you can’t remember the last time you received a letter that wasn’t a bill. It sort of gave you a feeling of nostalgia, taking you back to a time when you wrote letters to your mom when you were at camp, or when you would write to your grandparents around the holidays. It even reminded you a bit of writing in your diary, if your diary could write back that is. It’s not like he would have room to judge you from his jail cell, right?

You snatch the letter from the bag and walk back into the kitchen, grabbing the dark bottle of wine to refill your glass and plopping down at the table. Ripping open the envelope, you pull out the letter and immediately notice that it is covered in artwork just as the last one was.

This time you notice a 20-sided dice with a banner that read “critical hit”, a very detailed dragon head, and a stylized version of the skeleton guy that you’ve seen on the cover of Iron Maiden albums. The biggest piece was of another rose, but in the fully bloomed center was an eye. It was…interesting. Well done, but not what you were expecting. Not that you were expecting anything anyway.

Getting the artwork out of the way, you take a large sip of your drink and begin reading.

“Hello again, Teach,” the letter starts, “I think we need to discuss the elephant in the room before I can write anything else.” Your brow quirks up, a slight nervousness begins to creep in your mind.

“I was already suspicious when I was told the person I was writing to wanted to go by Teach. And no seventh grader I’ve ever known can write as nicely as you. Not that I know a lot of seventh graders...Anyway, can I ask how I ended up being pen pals with the class teacher? I know I could ask Bridges, but I think it would be more fun to hear it from you.”

Your lips tug into a smile, but this time you don’t feel the need to cover it. Why did it feel like a game he won or a riddle he solved? It wasn’t exactly like you were hiding it. But something about him figuring out something about you was…exciting.

As you get into the meat of the letter itself he goes on to ask you what subject you teach and how long you have been teaching. He asks if you like working with kids and if they ever made you want to pull your hair out. The phrasing of his words make you giggle.

“I was never good in school,” he states. “It took me three tries of my senior year to graduate. I used to blame my teachers saying that they didn’t like the way I dressed or my taste in music. I guess now I have to admit that it was probably because I didn’t bother to show up to class or do any of my homework…”

A full laugh shook you in your chair. Was he actually funnier in this letter? And why did it come off feeling so personal? The air about it was different, like you were talking to a long-distance friend rather than a felon, your cheeks starting to ache from smiling as you continue read his sketchy handwriting.

He went on to ask more about you, like what your favorite band was since you “liked rock so much more than metal,” with a little frowny face to punctuate his disagreement. He says the prison lets them watch MTV sometimes, which has been his main exposure to new music. Sometimes he gets a hold of new music every once and a while, but usually just listens to his old cassettes on his Walkman that his uncle gave him when he first entered the system.

“Some people have tried to steal it from me, but they learned pretty quickly that I have my ways to get things back, and that I'm not one to be messed with.”

That left you curious. A small glimpse into the inner workings of prison. You never really thought about what a person in prison could or couldn’t have. It was nice that he could have at least a small luxury, an item of value if it was under constant threat of being taken. You also couldn’t help but wonder what he meant by not being messed with.

Before you know it you’ve hit the end of the letter. You can’t help but feel a little disappointed. It felt like there could have been so much more to say, but his pen name barely fit at the bottom of the paper as it is. You take a piece of paper out of your notebook, pulling the frayed pieces off the edge and replacing the one in front of you with it. Hopefully your pal won't mind the purple pen or the probable lack of coherence compared to your first letter as you feel the wine really start to kick in.

Referring back to the paper like a student answering a question in class, you make sure to answer all of his questions to the best of your ability.

“Hello again, Mr. Banished. I see you have uncovered my secret that I am, in fact, a grown woman and not a 13-year-old. I hope that doesn’t bother you. I have been teaching English since I graduated college, coincidentally in 1989. It's like we traded places; I got to leave the prison of being a student in college and you went to prison for whatever drug related charges you acquired.” You laughed at your own joke as you continued.

“As for why you are stuck with writing a late 20’s school teacher rather than one of my students, that would be because of the aforementioned Mr.Bridges. We had a student move a few weeks into the school year and Bridges practically got on his knees and begged me to take on a pen pal.” You left out the detail of not being totally comfortable with the program. Not that you weren’t still hesitant, but the last thing you wanted to do was offend him by insinuating anything about the type of person he was for being in jail. The wine had rationalized with you that sometimes good people do bad things when they’re in dark places.

Continuing on, you wrote that he was probably right in both his opinions on why his teachers failed him. The older teachers at your school were stuck in their ways and judged students before really trying to help them. You did your best not to be the same way, hoping to be a teacher that your students could trust and come to if they needed help. It was a passion of yours since you were small, wanting to help people learn and grow, so what better way to do that than to teach?

“I am interested in what you wore that would call for such harsh judgment. I try to be as unbiased as I can with all my kids. If you asked them, they would say that I’m stuffy or rigid most of the time, but it’s mostly because I care about their education. And partly because being a new teacher is…really freaking tough if I’m being honest. These older teachers don’t take half of the things I say seriously because their own kids are older than me. It’s kind of bullshit, actually, but I just deal with it until I can get more experience under my belt.”

A sigh slips through your lips, pen tapping against the kitchen table as you feel the frustration bubbling. It’s not fair to dump these feelings on him, but the anonymity made it so easy to just put everything out there. He doesn’t know anything about you, and if you were to weird him out by getting a little real, then he could just not write back, right?

After taking a moment to collect yourself, you decided to just move on to a different topic.

“Sorry, that was a lot of feelings on my part. Is it too personal to ask what you do in prison? You mentioned getting to listen to music, but what else do you do? I’ve seen in movies that inmates work out a lot and play basketball outside. Is that real or made up for the audience? If it is real, does that mean you are super buff from working out all the time? Do you beat people up if they try and take your Walkman, or do you stab them? I’ve seen people do that in movies, too. I hope you don’t stab them, that would be scary.”

You can feel yourself getting a bit rambley in your tired state, so you decide it’s time to call it a night. You wrap up the letter by telling him that you’re going to go to sleep and that you were looking forward to his next letter. You sign your name and draw a small doodle of a flower next to it.

November 18th,1994

It was 3 am when you woke up the first time. A nightmare had you shooting up from your pillow, cold sweat drenched the collar of your sleep shirt, chest heaving as you caught your breath.

He had been knocking at your door, your pen pal. You never saw his face, but heard the anger in his voice as he yelled for you to let him in. You remember sitting in front of the door begging for him to leave you alone, telling him it was too soon. That you weren’t ready.

The nightmare became reoccurring, waking you at least 2 or 3 times a week. Sometimes it’s your ex, but most of the time it’s your pen pal. Even though you have no inkling of what he looks like, you just know it’s him on the other side.

The disturbance in your sleep was starting to affect your daily life, one of your coworkers asking if you were okay after over pouring a cup of coffee in the teacher’s lounge.

“Are you okay?” Mr.Clarke asks, helping you mop up the spilled coffee with some paper towels.

“Yes, I’m sorry, yeah,” you say, trying and failing to reassure him.

“Hey, I know that midterms can be rough with the holidays coming up. But, try not to stress out about it too much. I’ve heard good things about you from the kids in my classes that have you this year. You’re doing a good job, so don't kill yourself, okay?”

It was damn near impossible not to burst into tears at your coworkers words, but you held it together until you could hide in the faculty restroom.

The dreams didn’t stop though. Even Mr.Bridges felt the need to comment.

“Holidays stressing you out?” he asked with an energy that seemed inhuman to you, his sunny disposition could make the snow outside melt.

“No.” You stated shortly as you looked through your lesson plan for the day.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” he said with a nod, “This is the most wonderful time of the year after all. We try to stay busy at the prison, keep the morale high and what not.”

He placed the stack of letters on your desk, along with a small box that read “Greeting Cards” with a wintery scene displayed on the front.

“These are for the students to give to the inmates.” You look at him with “no shit” written on your face. He cleared his throat, “But, uh, I’m sure you could figure that out. I know this time of year can be hectic for everyone, but we all deserve some holiday cheer, right?” Your expression remains unchanged as he continues on.

“Right, well, I’ll be giving the inmates their own cards to send to the kids with their letters. It might be a bit difficult for me to come back before Christmas, family affairs to attend to and all that. So, I went ahead and wrote the address and stamped the envelopes for the cards. If I don’t come back by, oh, let's say the 15th? Just go ahead and stick those in the mail and I’ll make sure the inmates get them!”

Before you could protest having to go out of your way to do his job, Mr.Bridges quickly made his exit as the warning bell rang, wishing you a happy holiday as he disappeared.

With the lack of free class time as you all crammed for test week, you decided to let the kids take their letters and cards home for the weekend to work on. As you passed them out, keeping the addressed envelopes in the box, you told the kids to write something nice in their cards.

“This may be the only card some of these men get, so think about that when you’re writing them this weekend.”

Getting to the last letter, you feel your stomach twist as you read your actual government first name in the familiar chicken scratch handwriting instead of your pen name. You hadn’t even realized that you had stopped dead in your tracks until the sound of the bell brought you back to your body.

“U-uh, ge--get your letters done by the end of class Tuesday!” You yell over your class as they begin migrating out of the room.

Quickly, you return to your desk and rip open the letter. Unsurprisingly, it’s once again covered in artwork. The pumpkins and bats and other Halloween inspired art felt out of place, putting in perspective how long it had been since your last letter. But before you could look much further into the writing your next class began to file in, forcing you to set the letter aside for later.

You’d felt nauseous the rest of your morning classes, You wracked your brain about how the hell your pen pal could have figured out your actual name. You may have been...a little tipsy when you wrote that letter a month ago, but you’re sure you didn’t say anything personal enough that he would know who you were. Could he have asked someone on the outside to look into you? No, Mr.Bridges assured you that the inmates don’t know what school they are writing to. Maybe Bridges said your name to someone at the jail and the inmate overheard?

As soon as the bell rang for your lunch period, you practically rushed your students out the door and closed it. Throwing yourself into your chair, you grab the letter and begin reading.

“Well, well, I wasn’t expecting to be getting more lore in your newest letter! You have a very cute name by the way…Sorry I hope that wasn’t weird. Anyway! I guess I can tell you my name, too. Call me Eddie.”

Eddie.

So you had included your own name in your letter somewhere. You sigh with relief, though it still makes you a little uncomfortable that this stranger knows something personal about you. Sure he’s been nice, but he was still a felon. Though knowing his name made you feel a little better. Made him feel a tad more human to not use silly nicknames.

“Can I start by saying I loved reading your last letter?” Your eyebrows raised in surprise.“The purple pen was a nice touch. Something about a teacher complaining about other teachers is really funny to me, too. Nice to know the torment of some teachers isn’t just limited to students! And I doubt your kids think you’re stiff or whatever. You seem pretty cool to me. Even if I’ve only gotten to talk to you through a couple letters, you talk to me a lot nicer than I probably deserve.”

The smile that had made its home on your lips from his sentiments dropped into a frown. You felt yourself wanting to get defensive, wanting to tell him that he shouldn’t think that way about himself. That even if he was a felon, he still deserves respect.

“Being a younger teacher must be hard. You did all the college stuff to be a teacher so that should be enough to get their respect in my opinion. I don’t think I had a teacher who wasn’t at least in their 50s so they probably can’t see anyone under 30 as anything other than a kid I guess.”

“Hit the nail on the head,” you say to yourself with an airy chuckle.

As you keep reading, he changes the subject to something you don’t remember asking in your previous letter.

“So you wanna know what I look like, huh? Well back before I was in here I would wear my band shirts, Metallica and Judas Priest and all the bands that make the old ladies cringe. My jeans had holes in them, too. And I have this battle vest that I’ve put together with some patches of my favorite bands on it. My uncle Wayne says he’s keeping it safe for me at home. It’s not much, but I learned how to stitch patches on by myself, so it means something to me. Gives me something to look forward to when I get out.”

Your mind paints an image of a gangely teen trying to look cool to impress his friends or scare off the old ladies at the mall. Sounds like the kind of guy you had crushes on in high school. There may have been a picture or 2 of Kirk Hammit or Vince Neil or Eddie Van Halen tapped to the inside of your locker door in high school, but you’d never admit that now.

“I also had long hair when I was younger. Can’t call yourself a metal head without having long hair ya know. But I’ve had to cut it since I’ve been in here. I’ve got pretty curly hair and it was getting hard to keep up with it. It’s short enough to keep out of my face most of the time. I’m actually due for a haircut, so thanks for reminding me! Hair cuts are free in prison so I get it done way more than I ever did on the outside. You gotta tip your barber though or else they might “accidentally” shave all your hair off next time. Learned that one the hard way.”

He goes on to answer some of your questions about the inner workings of the jail. They do get to work out a lot, but says he’s not a “big meat head” like some of the other inmates. He doesn’t like basketball for “personal reasons” so he prefers to run laps. “When you’re trying to get out of a big fight it’s better to be faster than stronger.”

“I am also proud to admit that I have never stabbed someone. Almost been stabbed myself, but I used to get my shit rocked in high school so I’ve learned to dodge over the years.” Your hand comes to your face, almost forgetting that you asked such a stupid question. Of course he hasn’t stabbed anyone. You could excuse it if it was out of self defense maybe. But then you recall him saying before that he doesn’t get “messed with”, so what is he doing that people aren’t bothering him if not stabbing them? Your head spins with possibilities as you think about it more.

As you are about to read on, you are interrupted by a knock on your door, the sound causing you to jump in your seat. Quickly closing the letter and shoving it into your bag, you rush to the door to find a student from your 3rd period class, a shy one at that, needing clarification on the newest assignment. You let her in, forgetting the letter for the rest of the period.

The rest of the period then turns into the rest of the day. It goes by like a blur as everyone seems to be getting last minute things turned in for the week. Grades for the upcoming report cards would be due by the end of next Tuesday, so you told your classes to get any missing work in by today and you would give them partial credit. It was setting yourself up for a busy weekend, but anything to keep your mind off the upcoming holiday was welcomed.

It would be your first Thanksgiving single in almost 10 years, and your 4th since your mom passed. Your soon to be ex-husband, Henry, had convinced you to move to his hometown of Hawkins after your mother died to be closer to his family and to help his dad’s business as his accountant. It wasn’t your first choice of places to live, and after looking back on the situation, you realized that he had used your vulnerability to get a lot of what he wanted.

Things seemed fine at first. His parents bought your house and he had a good paying job. All you had to do was cling to his arm and keep quiet. You were kept well manicured, your appearance catered to his liking as he paraded you around at office parties.

The not so hushed whispers from the women in his office always talking about how lucky you were to bag an older man reached your ears. But you kept your tongue against your cheek. They could be jealous all they want, because if they knew what happened behind closed doors they wouldn’t be singing the same tune.

Waking up early in the morning, way before he ever did, just to put on your face. God forbid you weren’t presentable to him always. Afterwards you’d iron his white button ups and khaki slacks, make him a huge breakfast, present his clothes to him, and be waiting by the door on your knees for him to use your mouth before he walked out the door.

At the time, you felt like you had a purpose. That being a housewife was what you were meant to be. But the degree you had worked so hard on stared at you as you cleaned the house everyday. Your passion was just in reach, boring you every day.

That is, until fate, and the well timed retirement of your predecessor, gave you the opportunity to start teaching that year. When you got the call, you were over the moon. Henry even said he was proud of you.

Until you forgot to iron his clothes. It was just a stern talking to the first time, an anger in his eyes like you’d never seen before had you on edge the entire first day of class. You made it up to him by waking up extra early, using your mouth to start his day since you couldn’t be at the door for him anymore.

But, then you started falling behind on chores during the week as grading papers took up most of your free time when you weren’t tending to his needs. It’s not that you didn’t clean, it just wasn't the only thing you had to do every day anymore. Passive comments about becoming lazy were brushed to the side until they collectively spilled over into your first big argument. You told him he could help, too. He smacked you across the face.

Too busy juggling work and cleaning the house full time caused you to miss the signs that things were declining. It started when Henry had to start staying late for work, claiming that they had a “big project” that was going to require him to stay over longer. He made it seem like a temporary arrangement that ended up becoming a pattern for months. But, he assured you that a raise could come from his hard work. So you continued to sit at home, a cold, untouched plate sitting across from you as you finished another bottle of wine. At least he wasn’t there to put his hands on you.

Then it was the pair of panties that you didn’t recognize when you did his laundry. When you confronted him, he told you that it must be a pair you owned back in high school that was mixed in with his clothes somehow when you moved. When you pressed on, he gave you a black eye.

Then it was the perfume you didn’t recognize on your pillow case when you came home from a weekend trip to see your new nephew. He told you it smelled like your perfume, you just hadn’t been home all weekend to smell it. You didn’t argue this time.

Then it was his father’s secretary, Missy, calling your home and telling you that she was sleeping with your husband. She had been nice at last year's Christmas party when you first met her. Nineteen, dumb as a box of rocks.

“Are you and Henry still married?” she had asked with her valley girl accent, “Because when I stayed over I saw that he still had pictures of you two at his house.”

Now you’re stuck in this tiny town, your closest relative being your brother who has his own family out in Chicago. Thankfully, you had made friends with the ever charming Steve Harrington, who’s father also worked with Henry. He came as a package deal with his roommate Robin Buckley, and the two of them quickly became your best friends. They were as blindsided as you about Henry’s affair and helped you move into your new apartment. Steve offered to let you live with him and Robin, but you didn’t want to live in the same house as your ex’s coworker, even if he was never there.

“We should make a grocery list for next week.” Robin called from the kitchen to where you and Steve were sat in the living room. “Do we want to bother making a turkey or should we do something easier?”

“Do you know how to make a turkey?” you asked looking over the top of your wine glass as she taps a pen to paper scowling.

“She can barely make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, d’ya really think she can make a turkey?” You watch as a roll of paper towels is launched from the kitchen into the side of Steve’s head and your laugh erupts.

“Well, then were fucked,” you say between giggles, “because I can’t make a turkey, and I know Steve “grabs a pan without a mitt” Harrington also can’t cook one.”

“Oh, that was ONE TIME!”

Steve goes to throw the paper towel roll at you, but you dodge, “One time is enough to never let you live it down, Steven. Maybe we should get some chicken instead.”

“Oh, I can make us some potato salad!”

After some back and forth about what to make for your “Friendsgiving” as Robin had been calling it, claiming inspiration from a new episode of Friends, Steve was begging to talk about anything else.

“School seems to be better this year,” he looks at you carefully, “You haven’t been talking about it as much lately. Not negatively at least.”

“Yeah the only thing you’ve complained about is that prison thing your class was supposed to be doing.” She looked at you with a look of curiosity, “How’s that going?”

You blink and suddenly remember the letter that you had gotten earlier. It was sitting in your bag back home where you had left it on your coffee table again. You were so busy getting ready to go to Steve’s that you had forgotten to finish it.

“It’s going okay. Hey, did you guys go to high school here?”

They both look at each other, then back to you. “Yep, graduated a year after dingus, though. Class of ‘86.”

Steve gave Robin an annoyed look at the nickname before returning his attention to you, “Why do you ask?”

You pondered for a moment if it would be okay to tell them about Eddie. The program was supposed to be anonymous, but that was just to protect the kids. If he wasn’t allowed to give you his name they would have confiscated the letter, right? Bridges said the letters were vetted both ways, so if it was a problem he would have told you. But this seemed like a breach of privacy. You only had a first name to go off of and a vague description. He never said his age, so could be older than even you, or younger than Robin.

“Um, do you guys know anyone that goes by Eddie?”

They both perked up at the name, giving each other a look that you couldn’t read. You swore they could communicate telepathically.

Steve was the first to speak after a moment of silence. “Yeah, we know an Eddie. Why?” His tone was curious as he side eyed you.

“Oh, well my pen pal from the, uh, the prison thing. See his name is Eddie, and he told me that he’s from Hawkins. I don’t know much about him, but I think he may be close to my age and maybe he was in school with you guys-”

Robins laugh caught you off guard. “If it’s the same Eddie we know, then yes he was in school with us. Way longer than he was supposed to be, and we didn’t really get close until the end of my senior year.”

The look on your face prompted Steve to elaborate, “Eddie was -- is, a friend of ours that we got to know better through a mutual friend. He did go to prison a few years ago, but it was because he was scapegoated by a guy he bought weed from. We thought he was gonna go to jail for, like, the rest of his life or something. I had to convince my dad to get our lawyer that he keeps on retainer to represent him in court. The guy owed my dad a favor and he did it, Eddie only got five years.”

“There’s no way,” you said incredulously. Your jaw had to be on the floor. You knew this town was small, but was it really this small? Robin and Steve would be the type to forget to mention they had a friend in prison, too.

“What’s his last name?”

“Munson. Eddie Munson. We still talk to him on the phone every once in a while. Usually his uncle gets a hold of us, tells us that he’s going to call at a certain time so we can stay by the phone. Oh!” Steve stands up from his spot on the couch, clapping his hands, “I have my senior year book up stairs. He should be in it as long as he showed up to picture day.”

As Steve walks away, you turn to Robin, who has an amused look on her face.

“What?” You laugh, still in disbelief at the information that has been given to you. She shrugs, lips turned in a downward smile, “Nothing. So what do you and Eddie talk about?”

“What do we talk about? Not much really. We’ve only sent maybe two letters to each other. He always covers the letters in artwork though. They look like little tattoos.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely our Eddie,” She shakes her head, “His notebooks that he would carry around with him are covered in art. He told us he’s given himself some tattoos while he’s been there. We keep telling him he’s going to look like a felon when he comes out.”

“Isn’t he a felon, though?”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t have to look like it!”

“Found it!” Steve yells as he comes back into the living room, blowing the dust off the book. He plops down on the couch between you and Robin and starts to look through the pages. “See, the funny thing about Eddie, he was supposed to graduate in ‘84, but he kept fucking around and ended up repeating his senior year -- three times.”

“Holy shit,” you were in absolute disbelief, “he told me that in one of his letters. He said he was because the teachers didn’t like him, too.”

“Yeah, that sounds like something he would say,” Robin chuckles.

“Ah-ha, He did show up! Here he is right here!”

Your eyes snapped to where Steve’s fingers pointed to the tiny black and white square. Eddie wasn’t kidding when he said his hair was super curly. The close up of his face makes his hair almost completely take the background out of the picture. You can barely see it but it looks like he’s wearing a Judas Priest shirt under a leather jacket and what you suspect to be the leather jacket he seems to treasure so much. When you finally let yourself focus on his face you’re met with a bright smile and dimples on either side. Dark eyes scrunched up from how high his cheeks were. You definitely would have had a crush on him if you had gone to the same school.

“Soooo…what do you think?” Robin sing-songs with an expectant look on her face.

You can feel yourself smiling and try to reign it in, “Well, he’s not a 40 year old biker looking guy with a beard so that makes me feel better. He looks nice, actually.”

“He’s a good guy,” Steve starts flipping through the pages of the book, “but everyone gave him shit because…of…this.” Stopping on another page in the book, you see a picture of a group of students leaning up against a wall, all of them wearing matching shirts.

“Hellfire Club?” You look between Steve and Robin.

“He hasn’t mentioned Hellfire Club?” Robin was baffled. “That’s like, his whole thing!”

You shake your head, brows furrowed,“What is it?”

“His D&D club? He’s seriously never brought it up?”

“No, not yet at least.” Taking the book from Steve, you get a better look at the picture. “Like I said, we've only sent a few letters back and forth. I wouldn’t say we’ve exhausted all of our topics for discussion yet.”

“You’ll never run out of things to talk about with Eddie,” Steve states sarcastically, “You’d think prison would have had an effect on his social skills, but that guy could talk for an hour about a crack he saw in the sidewalk.”

Hearing that made you wonder if he ever held back when writing to you. His letters were usually front and back all the way to the bottom of the pages. You wonder if they only allow him one page or if has to pay for the paper. Hopefully he wasn’t wasting his money to talk to you.

“When was the last time you guys talked to him?”

“Uh-“ Robin starts.

“It was still hot outside I think,” Steve interjects, “Like early September?”

“Yeah,” Robin nods, eyes wide, “September sounds about right.”

“Hmm, that’s around when we started writing to each other. I guess he wouldn’t have mentioned it if he didn’t know about me yet.”

“If it’s been that long we’re definitely due for a call from him.” Robin looks to Steve, you miss the mischief in her eyes, nor do you see the look he gives her back. “Maybe you could talk to him next time he calls us?”

Your head snaps up, eyes wide meeting Robin’s gaze. You saw the look now and immediately started shaking your head in protest.

“No, no, Robin I don’t think that’s a good idea.” You stand up from your spot on the couch, handing the yearbook back to Steve. Taking a few steps back to look at them, you bite one of your nails, thinking about the situation you’ve gotten yourself into. “Actually, if he does call, I’d also appreciate it if you didn’t tell him you knew me either. I’m sure he’s a nice guy but…”

“Hey,” Steve stood up and placed a hand on your arm, “It’s cool. You didn’t know Eddie before, and you barely know him now. I think Robin just meant that you could get to know him more since he is our friend. He’s gonna get out of prison eventually and we promised him that we’d just continue on like how things were before.”

“But,” you look at Steve with worry in your expression, “being in prison that long can change a person.”

“Eddie is too stubborn to let anything break him of being himself. He didn’t repeat his senior year twice because he’s dumb. He did it because he was too busy with what he wanted to do to bother with his schoolwork.”

“Actually,” Robin says, “he said prison is easier because he gets three meals a day and doesn’t have to do math, so…”

“But,” Steve gets your attention again, “My point is that you don’t have to go out of your comfort zone to be his friend for our sake if you don’t want to. Just keep talking to him on your own and see how you feel.”

You swear these two really were the only good people in Hawkins.

“Yeah, okay,” you nodded,” I’ll keep writing him, but I won’t mention that I know you two. Not yet at least.”

November 27th, 1994

Ever since your talk with Robin and Steve, your nightmares have changed. Now that you have a face to the name they’re not really nightmares anymore. Instead of a nameless, faceless voice at your door, you can see him through the peephole. He’s not knocking on your door with rage, but out of desperation. Still begging to be let in, but the lock is on his side. You hold the key in your hand, you just have to slide it under the door…

A sharp, grating ring wakes you from your sleep, eyes shooting open and taking in the room around you. The sun peaks from behind your bedroom curtains, the light just bright enough to pester the hangover migraine that’s already in full effect. You have to strain to get your eyes to focus on the numbers on your alarm clock that read just past noon.

The continuous ringing of the phone finally throttles you out of bed and into your kitchen. When you pick up the phone you hear Steve on the other end.

“Oh, good, you lived,” he exclaims, “Robin, she’s still alive!”

A muffled, “oh thank god” comes from the background in the receiver. You hadn’t anticipated being so emotional the night before, thinking you were past feeling sorry for yourself that you were alone on a holiday while your bastard ex had someone keeping your side of the bed warm every night.

All the emotions came up at Steve’s during dinner. It was just the three of you there, all with broken families. They had other friends who were home for the holidays, but they were doing their own thing this weekend. Robin and Steve insisted that you join in on the festivities but you declined, using not knowing them as an excuse.

Really you just wanted some alone time. Time to yourself, to let yourself feel whatever you need to feel without having to mask in front of strangers, brush off any awkwardness if the topic of your failed marriage were to arise.

You think Robin and Steve could tell that you were in your own head. They suggested taking you out to the only dive bar in town still open on the holiday, and assuming the place would be pretty dead, you said fuck it and all piled into Steve’s car. Sharing drinks and playing pool while metal music that made you think of your pen pal. You wondered what he was doing as you stepped outside to smoke a cigarette you bummed off an older, balding guy sitting at the bar.

After drinking so much that Robin had to drive your car home for you, their phone call really didn’t come as a surprise to you.

“Yes, god, I’m alive. Don’t yell into the phone, please.” You pinch the bridge of your nose to try and relieve some of the tension. The phone call is brief, Steve just wanting to check in on you and confirm that you didn’t want to participate in their outing.

“We’re going ice skating! And if you can’t skate, our friend Max would enjoy having someone sit on the sidelines with her.”

“Sorry, Steve,” you press your forehead against the cool wood of the door frame, “I’m sure everyone is very nice, but I’m just not feeling up to it.”

After a few cups of coffee and a long shower, you settle on your couch, flipping through the channels on the tv for something to watch and settling on a Beverly Hills: 90210 rerun marathon. It didn’t take you long to lose interest and you began fidgeting for something else to keep your mind from wandering into dangerous territory.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see your work bag on the floor at the end of your couch. The memory of tripping and knocking the bag over last night comes back to you, making you internally cringe at yourself. You grab the bag and see that the contents were an unorganized mess compared to how you normally keep it. The longer you looked the crazier it made you feel, so you carefully took the papers and folders out, laying them in front of you.

When you picked up your first period folder, the familiar envelope that you had forgotten a week ago fell out, landing in your lap. You quickly pick it up and open it, remembering that you hadn't even had the chance to properly finish reading it.

Something about seeing the letter again made you feel good. As you look at the artwork, you see the picture of the shirts his club members wore and smile as you realize he made the shirts himself.

You reread the description of himself and can laugh because he must have worn the same thing every day, recalling the holes in his jeans and his battle vest from his pictures. It was hard to imagine the wild mane of hair he had being cut short. Do they get conditioner in prison? Because his hair must be a mess without it.

Finally, you get to the part of the letter you hadn’t read. You felt your heart beating in your chest, an anxiousness building that you couldn’t explain.

“I’m running low on space to write and I don’t know when I’ll hear from you again, but I just wanted to ask-“

You’re thrown off when you see two lines of the letter have been blacked out with a black marker or sharpie. There’s no way to make out what was written, and the last line is just him wishing you a “happy whatever holiday you celebrate,” his real signature greeting you at the very bottom of the page. “What the hell?” You asked the empty apartment. The first assumption that comes to mind is that Eddie must have messed up what he was going to write and decided to black it out since he wrote in pen. Or maybe he wanted to write more, but realized he was running out of space? That would go with your theory that they are limited in the paper they can get.

There’s also the possibility he said something inappropriate and whoever checks the letters made him redact it. That was probably the least likely, but it makes you laugh to think about. Robin and Steve brought him up a few times while you were drinking and gave him the highest praises. But, you never know what someone would be willing to say or do when they’ve been touch starved for almost 5 years.

Butterflies invade your stomach when you think about it more. He’s probably had to take care of himself quite a bit while he’s been locked up. Where does one even do that in prison without prying eyes?

Your thighs clench together at the image you’ve conjured in your head. Steve had shown you some pictures of Eddie that he found from not too long before he went to prison. Sure, he resembled his yearbook picture, thin and lanky he once was. But the picture of him and Steve at a lake, both of them shirtless and clearly soaking wet, displayed muscles that he had likely gained from the mechanic job Robin mentioned he had. The tattoos that he had on his body were taking over, almost covering one of his arms completely.

The image of soaked curly hairs clinging to his face as he’s leaning into a shower wall comes to the forefront of your mind. Toned arms flexing as he holds himself against the wall with one hand, stroking himself with the other. You imagined his hands were rough and calloused from playing guitar and working on cars. He was long and hard as he pumped himself, water dripping off the tip with each down stroke. God, you can only imagine his face as he cums, a loud groan falling from his lips as he spills onto the shower floor, calling your name…

You throw yourself into the couch cushion next to you and physically cringe. Where the hell did that come from? Was this the result of your dry spell since you left Henry? A guy that you’ve never even met before gives you a little attention and your brain automatically goes into the gutter. Sitting up, you rub your face in your hands in an attempt to keep the scenario from replaying in your mind. At least you had successfully distracted yourself from the self pity you were wallowing in.

You roll onto your back, holding up the letter in your hand. You admire the artwork, the sloppy handwriting. A person wrote this letter. Someone who did something illegal and paid the price for it. Someone who is very loved and has an uncle waiting for him somewhere in this town, and friends who would do anything for him. And now, he’s writing you letters, and you wonder if he is feeling the same way that you are starting to feel…what are you feeling, exactly?

Sitting up from the couch, you grab a pen and paper from your bag.

“Hello Eddie” no.

“Hey, stranger” no.

“What’s up!” definitely not.

Another balled up paper tossed to the ground.

“Dear Eddie,” sure why not, “I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season yourself. Hopefully your uncle can come and see you for whatever you celebrate. If not, at least a phone call would be nice. Does the prison give you anything special for the holidays? Like a turkey for Thanksgiving, ham for Christmas, the traditional stuff. I spent the holiday with-”

Steve and Robin. You know them! I know who you are, too. Totally not weird, right?

“-my friends. They called it “Friendsgiving,” I think it had something to do with a TV show. None of us like to cook, so we ended up just picking up stuff at the store and then going out to a local bar. I’m writing this letter the next day, a little hungover I have to admit. But, writing this letter has helped distract me from the migraine I’m trying to stave off. It’s been very busy at school lately with projects, exams, a choir…thing? All that means for me is that I have mountains of paperwork to grade, and I spent the last month trying to get kids to turn in anything missing. It’s like trying to get squirrels to stay in a basket.

Winter break is just around the corner, though. Which means two weeks of getting to sleep in late, watching terrible TV reruns, and using the cold weather as an excuse to stay inside. Although, I think my friends will manage to get me out of my apartment one way or another. I feel like a cat who was adopted by two dogs who share the same brain cell. But, they have helped me a lot over the last couple of months so I owe it to them to be their voice of reason sometimes.”

You pause and have a laugh to yourself. You think about all the ridiculous adventures the two of them have taken you on in the last few months, doing things that you would never have done before Henry. They’ve taken the hard metal bones out of your binding and started loosening the strings. You wonder if you would have even said yes to doing this letter thing if you hadn’t already had your boundaries pushed a little.

“I hope this isn’t too much to ask, but do you have any big plans for when you get out? Places you want to go? Food you want to try? People you want to see?”

You smile when you dot the last question mark. It feels sneaky to ask when you know that your meeting is inevitable, and there is a small voice in your ear telling you that he wouldn’t want to meet you. You’re boring. Simple. Dull. Only shades of grey fill your wardrobe, your heart, where there was once colour. Broken.

The new bottle of wine you got at the gas station stares at you from the kitchen.

Anyway.

“Hopefully you’re able to get out in time for the summer. Wouldn’t it be nice to walk outside as a free man and get to feel the sun on your skin? I think Hawkins is having a Rose festival again next year. There could be some inspiration there for you for your art, and if not, the funnel cakes are worth the admission price. Everything else is overpriced, but what isn’t nowadays?”

Filling the last bit of the back of the page, you felt it only fair to give a few details about yourself. Just a general description, nothing too revealing. Not that there was much to give away since becoming a professional educator has taken any creative freedom from your sense of style. You did tell him that on the weekends you treated yourself by wearing comfy clothes all day. You didn’t tell him that you only felt okay to do that recently, since your ex husband always expected you to look your best.

As you reached the bottom, you remembered the redacted section of his last letter. Do should you ask about it? Would he even be able to tell you? You went ahead and brought it up.

“Before I close this letter, I am curious to know why the last bit of your letter had been marked out. I can only imagine what you could have asked that it had to be taken out. I hope it wasn’t inappropriate, Mr.Banished.” You added a little “ha ha” in parentheses so he knew you were just joking, careful once again not to offend.

“Looking forward to your next letter,”

You signed your name, fighting the urge to draw a heart next to it like the girls in your class writing notes to their crush. There was no way that feeling like this for someone that you’ve only had correspondence through letters and the bit of hype from your mutual friends can be healthy. Grabbing the box of greeting cards that you had sat on the coffee table, you wrote some well wishes and folded your letter to fit within the confines of the red envelope. You took a look at it for the first time since Bridges had handed them over and your heart dropped.

In one of the ethics classes you took in college a classmate did a presentation on Pendleton Prison. It had just come out the year before that there had been an abuse of power and prisoners were basically being tortured. It was hard to observe but informative. You couldn’t even imagine something like that happening to Eddie. You wondered if the reason they were participating in this program to begin with was to help with their reputation. We’ll let them talk to some kids and it will seem like we’re not abusing our inmates.

You look at the wine bottle again.

It’s fine. If Eddie was going through something like that, surely he would have told Steve and Robin, his uncle. But you wanted to be sure. You walk into your kitchen.

December 25th, 1994

“…You can say hello when you see me. You don't have to be afraid. There's a lot of things going around about me, but none of it's true. Okay?”

Your eyes flutter open, and you quickly close them when the harsh light of your tv playing Home Alone was too bright. Another dream about Eddie had taken over your mind in your sleep. You sit back to the door, the key in your hand. He doesn’t push you anymore, says to only give the key if you want to. That he enjoys your company no matter what.

Sigh.

As you sit up from the couch where you had dozed off the night before, you decide to make a cup of coffee and ring your brother.

“I could have come to get you. And brought you back. You know I don’t mind-“

“No, no, it’s okay, really. You have your own family now, I don’t want to dampen the mood,” you say as if you mean it. Coffee swishes around in your mug as you talk. It was true that your brother had a family of his own and was living the American dream. You liked that he invited you to be part of that, but you just couldn’t get past the notion that everyone would just look at you with pity. You’d rather be alone

Steve and Robin also invited you to Colorado with them. Steve’s parents had a house in Aspen where they were hosting Christmas this year. Steve insisted his parents wouldn’t care if you tagged along since they started to become fond of Robin. As much as seeing the beautiful snow covered mountains of Colorado sounds like a great reprieve for your mind, you still lied and told them you were going to your brothers. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

The sound of Kevin McCallister’s hijinks in New York got your attention. The movie distracted you for a while, until it didn’t. You watched the tv -- well, rather you looked at it for until you stood up, deciding to get out of the house, even if just to drive around.

The movie-esque scenery of small town Hawkins covered in snow was quiet and still, say for the few cars that you passed likely on the way to see family, traveling between houses. Something you and Henry did to make things fair for both of you. Your mom’s house first, then his parents.

Cars sat outside the Hideout, piquing your interest as you watched a man get out of a pick up truck and walk inside. It was close enough to five o'clock that you decided to pull into the lot, pulling into a spot by the door. Inside you were surprised to see it fairly occupied, mostly by men who looked like they worked at the factory in town or drove the big rig that was parked on the side of the building. The patrons seemed to talk amongst themselves, some semblance of holiday cheer keeping their spirits alive as their glasses clanked and boisterous laughs filled the air.

Sliding into an empty bar stool, you grabbed your purse to get your ID and some cash.

“Ain’t ya little young to be sittin’ alone at a bar on Christmas?”

You looked up from your purse at the man sitting next to you at the bar. He sipped from his glass, cigarette smoke seeping from his lips, attention set on nothing in particular. He was an older man, bald on top and plenty of aging on his face, but you had the feeling he was younger than he looked. Some of his features felt familiar to you but you weren’t sure why.

“Um, well, I guess so,” you stutter as you set your purse down between your feet. “But, uh, I really didn’t want to spend Christmas alone.”

A hum and a nod, “I guess loneliness knows no age.” He huffed a laugh before getting the bartender's attention. “What are you drinking?”

“Oh, no, please, you don’t-” you begin to protest, but he puts his hand up and waves you off.

“Trust me,” he takes a long drag from his cigarette, “I would be buying it for someone else if they could be here.”

Ah. You tell the bartender your order and the man tells him to put it on his tab.

“Thank you,” you give him a genuine smile, turning towards him to speak as the bar patrons become louder. You paused for a beat before speaking again, “I’m sorry you’re alone today.”

“Makes no difference to me really, just another day to me,” he takes a sip of his beer. You almost miss it, but you see the flash of a smile on his face.

“Just another day, huh,” you say smugly, dipping your head into his line of vision. He must have realized he was smiling because he covered his hand with his mouth shyly, the motion a contradiction to his hard exterior. Clearing his throat, he sat up in his seat, opening from his hunched position to talk with you properly.

“It’s just another day, always been to me, but,” He looks at you for a moment, then back down into his beer, “I used to celebrate, for my boy. Haven’t gotten to do that properly in a while. I’m hopin’ this year will be the last, that next year will be different.”

His endearment made your eyes misty. “That’s so sweet,” you coo, putting a hand on coat covered arm, “I’m sure things will work out.” You pull back when your drink is dropped off, quickly taking a few sips.

The man watches you, his head shaking in your peripherals. “So, what’s really got ya out here celebrating with Hawkins finest? Besides the, uh,” he gestures vaguely, “cheerful atmosphere.”

You stay quiet for a moment, eyes focused on the straw floating in your drink. Deep breath in, and out. “Do you want the half truth or the full truth?”

His body bounces from a chuckle, “I got a little time.”

Pouring your heart out to a stranger over drinks felt therapeutic, and not in the same way as talking to Robin and Steve. He just listened, nodded his head, grunted in what you assume to be agreement. This man, who looks like he hasn’t taken a day off in his life, made you feel more valid with no words at all than anyone else has in your entire life besides your own mother.

“And now I’m, like, kinda into this guy, but he doesn’t know I exist,” your words are a little slurred as you take down another drink. “Sorry, no, he knows I exist, but he knows nothing about me. Like, he knows some things, but he doesn’t really know me, ya know?”

His head bobs up and down, takes another drag of his cigarette.

“I feel weird feeling this way, because I would never have even considered a guy like him before. Henry, I told you about Henry, he was super uppity, snotty. A real tight ass. But, this guy is funny. Genuine, and his friends talk him up. Who wouldn’t fall for a guy like that? Even if he is rough around the edges.”

“Well, if it doesn’t work out with you and this guy, I outta introduce you to my nephew. He was always picked on in school for being different, but he’s a good kid. Just got into the wrong stuff,” the mans face sunk a bit, “My fault really.”

You tilt your head in confusion, “How so?”

“Heart attack. Had one while at work. Stayed in the hospital for a few, got the bill and almost had another one,” he chuckles at that. “I wasn’t even gonna tell ‘em, but he came over to visit and I forgot about it. Saw it sittin’ on the counter. Next thing I know he’s callin’ me sayin’ he’s booked on ‘possession with intent to distribute’. Buncha bull for some grass.” He put his cigarette out with a harsh stab. “But, he’ll be good soon. My deadbeat brother’s been keepin’ an eye on him in there and he’s been keeping his good behavior streak.”

“He sounds like a good kid,” you rest your cheek against the cool counter as you smile up at him.

“Yeah, he is.” His smile reaches his eyes, and so does yours.

“Well, gotta go, darlin’,” he slaps a couple bills on the counter and nods to the bartender, “Excpectin’ a call here soon. Get you some pretzels or somethin’ before ya take off.”

“Thank you,” your brows come together, “sorry, I don’t think I ever caught your name?”

“Names Wayne.”

“Nice to meet you, Wayne.”

thanks for reading.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x teacher!reader #eddie munson x yn #inmate!eddie munson #inmate!eddie munson x reader #inmate!eddie munson x teacher!reader #oto!eddie #eddie munson series #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson st

414 notes · View notes

livwritesstuff · 5 months

Text

i hit 100 followers while i was asleep (absolutely bananas imo but i’m so thrilled y’all are enjoying my steddie dads verse bc i’ve literally never had so much fun writing before) so here's a sneak peek of a wip featuring the Harrington fam

Eddie does not understand sports.

He may be approaching fifty years old and way past his old ways of rejecting every notion that doesn’t perfectly align with his own interests, but even after all these years, the wires in his brain simply cannot wrap themselves around sports no matter how hard he tries.

And he does try because, naturally, he has three daughters, Moe, Robbie, and Hazel, all of whom play sports.

To be clear – his kids can do literally anything they want, bar none.

He’s still in goddamn awe with the whole arrangement that is the life he lives every day – kids and a house and a job he loves and all that with Steve Harrington of all people. There’s no way Eddie would start fucking all that up by projecting his own weird quirks onto his children. He refuses to be the kind of parent that prevents their kids from doing anything just because they don't get it. If the girls want to play sports, they’re gonna play sports. Nothing wrong with that.

Still, sports are one of those things he takes the back seat and lets Steve hold the reins for, especially now that thirteen-year-old Moe is pretty deep into the whole basketball thing.

Steve understands the politics of the game, both on the court — like knowing which refs are gonna be biased towards which team and noting Moe’s play-time each game — and off. He schmoozes the coach, he’s friends with all the parents, all the things Moe, at thirteen, doesn’t even notice and Eddie, while aware of it, doesn’t understand. He still can barely follow the games themselves (and he goes to as many as he can, though he and Steve are outnumbered by one and with the prospect of the girls carting themselves around still a distant fantasy their schedule is insane so he can’t make them all). He does his best to follow his husband’s lead but Steve doesn’t always react to things the way Eddie thinks he will. He doesn’t bat an eye when a kid gets smacked in the face with a ball, nor at the impossibly loud thud when someone hits the deck (look — he gets the floor is hollow, but it is loud). He’s completely unbothered by the fit Moe throws every game whenever she’s inevitably benched for having an attitude with her opponents or her teammates or the coach or the ref or just about anybody who tries to get in her way.

As is what happened at Moe’s game yesterday.

Eddie hadn’t seen it — well, he’d seen it, but seeing something and understanding what he’s actually looking at are two totally different things. From what he gathers, Moe had missed an easy shot and gotten pissed off in her own little way about it, so she’d launched herself at whoever on the opposing team had gotten their hands on the ball after it ricocheted off the backboard. Unfortunately for Moe, the team they were playing had a reputation for being a little too aggressive for a middle school league, so when she’d hit the ground, she hit it hard. Moe had been pulled off the court by her coach (carded, maybe? Eddie still isn’t sure how that works in basketball) and scowled on the bench for the rest of the game.

Steve had tried to reason with her on the drive home (an interesting choice, in Eddie’s opinion).

“Darling,” he’d said, “I totally understand being upset about missing a layup, but I don’t know how to get it through your head that intentionally fouling someone isn’t the way to go about resolving that emotion. I love you and I support you, but I’m getting tired of watching you play for three minutes and then sit on the bench for the rest of the game.”

“Talk to the coach then,” Moe had grumbled.

“About what?” Steve exclaimed, “Moe — you do it on purpose!”

The conversation had ended not long later because Moe decided to give them both the silent treatment (a clear sign that she knew she was in the wrong even if she didn’t want to admit it) and Eddie thought that was the end of it (for that game, at least). Then, Moe threw them a curveball by spending most of that evening in the bathroom throwing up, at which point she admitted that her head had caught more of that fall during her basketball game than she’d originally let on.

Steve doesn’t mess around with head injuries (for obvious reasons), so the next morning he calls Moe out of school and brings her to their pediatrician to get checked out.

A couple hours after Robbie and Hazel boarded the school bus bound for their elementary school, Steve and Moe return home.

“So what's the verdict?” Ed asks as they enter the kitchen.

“She's concussed,” Steve announces.

“Like father, like daughter.”

“No sports, no bright lights, no reading, no school, no phone,” Steve says pointedly, and Moe only scowls harder. She’d been using the incident as a leveraging tactic in her crusade to get a phone. Not being able to play sports was a no-brainer; they’d all seen that one coming, so even as recently as this morning, she’d been claiming that she’ll “die of boredom without a phone,” while she recovers.

Even as recently as this morning, she’d been largely unsuccessful.

“Thirteen-year-old children do not need phones,” Steve had told her, “If someone wants to talk to you, they can call the house, and if it's urgent enough that it needs to be right now, you can get walkie talkies.”

“No one uses walkie talkies.”

“Your dad and I used walkie talkies all the time.”

“Uh, pretty sure it was just the one time, Steve,” Eddie pointed out.

“Yeah! And it worked out great!”

CONTINUE ON AO3

#did it work out great? or is steve's memory of 1986 a little fuzzy in 2014?#eddie is trying his best #basketball is very hard to follow if you don't know the game #as I have learned :/#steddie #liv’s steddie dads verse #steddie dads #steve harrington #eddie munson

415 notes · View notes

jolynesmom · 5 days

Text

aging yourself up or down in your dr (+ dating)

I actually refrained from talking on this topic on my tiktok since I knew I was going to get chased off the app and didn’t see a point in talking about it on tumblr since everybody here seems to be more open minded and mind their own business, until I saw multiple posts a few days ago here, where the op were shaming people for changing their age or changing the ages of people in their dr

those people definitely came from tiktok and I honestly hope this post reaches them as I didn’t want to directly interact with them

I think one of the posts was about how adults age ‘minors’ in their dr to date them is problematic, which made me laugh, because how is it problematic if they’re both the same age in their dr?

and the sad thing about that post is that the op said that they’re aware how shifting works and all that, but still finds it problematic and hopes people that do that never shift which is just… girly I hope YOU never shift because you don’t deserve it for shaming people trying to live their lives

I’m not going to go into details about the og posts, but they still have the outdated idea that if you shift for a character that is much younger than you here it’s ‘problematic’. once again: how is it problematic if you’re the same age in your dr?

and then they hit you with another outdated take ‘it’s problematic because you find them attractive here’ which is ridiculous because of so many reasons

1.many characters (especially anime characters) don’t act or look their age. if your perceived a character as an adult initially then found out they’re a minor, I simply don’t care. ages in fiction never matter, if your mind perceived x as a certain age then they’re that age idc; 99.99% people are attracted to a character for who they are, not their age

2.many people had crushes on characters when they were younger or the same age with that character and still like them. let’s boo them that their crush on the character didn’t die and their fav character didn’t age, acting like you’re not going to be in their place in a few years

‘not true I’ll stop liking my favorite character when I’m of age 😡’

okay sweetie keep telling yourself that, because I keep seeing people on tiktok that had this mentality: they liked an underage character when they were minors and wanted to shift for them, now they’re adults, haven’t shifted yet but STILL like that character and regret having said they’re gonna stop liking that character when they’re adults because it didn’t happen lol

3.people don’t always script that an underage person here will be their s/o, it just might happen. I’m actually going to use myself as an example for this: so here I’m an adult and I’m also aroace which I dislike because I always dreamed of a fantasy novel like romantic relationship, so I’m straight or bi in most of my drs so I can date. in my jujutsu kaisen dr, all the people in jujutsu tech are adults because I don’t like teens or kids and don’t wanna hangout with them. in my 30+ drs I only have 3 scripted s/os which are all adults here. I didn’t script an s/o for my jjk dr, because I want to focus more on friendships and training there (but secretly hoped choso would pick me, a girl can dream ok); a few weeks ago I channeled multiple people from my dr (yuuji, megumi, nobara, gojo, nanami and geto) and I received normal messages from all of them. I expected all of their answers, except yuuji’s answers which had romantic aspects to them. that made me realize that he might have a crush on me and maybe we’ll even date in my dr or something? who knows, I didn’t think too much about it so idk

so now if a character that’s underage here likes me in my dr, am I supposed to refuse them or shift out? lmao you’re delusional if you think I’m doing that

4.people that have never experienced adolescence love here. a lot of people dreamed of having that sweet experience of teenage romance that disney and an insane amount of shows and movies love to push, but instead their teen years were filled with abuse and hate. why shouldn’t they shift to experience what was taken from them here?

ALSO let’s switch this around: why is okay for minors to date adults in their dr, but not the other way around?

‘it’s not as bad 🤓☝🏻’

imma be the devil’s advocate and say it’s just as bad

do you genuinely think it’s okay to be a minor here and date an adult in your dr? like do you really think your s/o would feel comfortable being sexualized by a minor and dating a person that’s a minor in another reality? you lowkey forced your partner to become a pedo if you think about it 🙁 /jk

and also if you shift to a reality where you’re a minor and become of age there, you’re officially an adult and shouldn’t date minors anymore, even in your ‘original reality’ where you’re still a minor. please keep the same standards for yourself

#reality shifting #shifting #desired reality #dr #shifting rant #shifting discourse #anime shifting #shiftblr

154 notes · View notes

prinzrupprecht · 5 months

Text

Counter argument to those that are complaining about sexualizing anime high school characters

Why are people now crying about writers sexualizing school kids in anime? It’s fiction, they’re not real. Anime is not real. Finding a minor character in a show attractive, doesn’t make the reader or the writer a pedophile. Actually, the term pedophile has been loosely thrown around way too much. It’s a psychiatric disorder when a person has a strong attraction to pursue or try to engage with pubescent children below the age of 13. This is completely different to liking a character that is not real. Hate, disagree with this all you want. Liking or having a crush on underaged fictional characters isn’t comparable at all to pursuing/sexualizing minors in real life. People need to stop comparing the two. Fiction doesn’t equal reality at all. I couldn't care less what authors/writers do as long as we all can understand the difference between fiction and reality. For the longest time, I had a huge crush on Manjiro and I thought he was 18, but turns out he was 16. A lot of the time they don’t look or even act their age. Hidden inventory 16 y/o Gojo fanfics are insanely popular on wattpad/AO3 and he barely even looks like he aged from 16 to 28. There's also so much r34 art of Zero Two and Marin Kitagawa. It’s pen and ink. So who cares?

“Omg tHaT’s a cHilD yOu sIcK fuCkS.”

Some people here don’t seem to understand Japanese culture and it speaks loud and clear. Do these “anime” high school characters act or look like a child? No. Does Yuji/Megumi/Yuta look like a shota? No. They have bodies of an adult and don’t even look like or act like children. Also, liking underaged fictional characters doesn’t mean we are attracted to children / minors in real life. Stop with that shit. A lot of Mangakas sexualize their minor characters. It’s normal in their culture. So that makes Japanese weird too? Nah stfu, let the Japanese cook. I’m guessing the minority that are crying about it are probably pissy Americans that can’t seem to accept that it’s normal in someone else’s culture and many others to like the looks of fictional 2D drawings of characters that don’t look like real humans. All it is, is just art. None of it is real.

It may seem wrong to you, but it is normal to others. Especially those who’ve been writing fanfiction for years on Wattpad and AO3. There’s millions of fanfics of “underaged characters x OC/Readers” which has been normalized already for decades because people can separate their fictional fantasies from real life. Age doesn’t exist in fiction when you can change it in your fan made content. Authors can change the age of the characters too in their fanfics/one shots. There’s been countless of people making High school AUs of Gojo x reader/OC fan made content surfacing Wattpad and AO3.

Some of y’all be reposting Geto x reader smut, & Sukuna x reader smut and they are mass murderers, child murderers, Geto is a racist, and Sukuna is cannibal and arguably a rapist. Would you fuck a child murderer in real life? Y’all be having fantasies of these characters. Majority of Sukuna smut on here is him using a “minor’s” body to fuck the brains out with the reader and that’s somehow better than people finding Yuji or Megumi attractive? Relax. It’s just fantasies we all have, they’re not real.

Anime characters are 2D drawings, so no, I don't consider finding anime girls/boys attractive equivalent to finding young real-life girls/boys attractive. No more than being attracted to drawings with absurdly disproportionate eyes means you like humans whose eyes take up half their skull. It's just an art style. That’s the whole point of fiction, it’s just fantasies as long as you don’t act on those same thoughts in reality who gives a shit. I would never like minors irl, so ffs call me a pedo for liking anime characters or disagree with me. Idc.

212 notes · View notes

duothelingo · 1 month

Note

i have a confession. i…think france might be real…. (/j)

i, under 18 enby, was raised in a non-france believing household and i think france COULD BE real. i’ve been having these strange dreams about the fantasy land known as france, and it just seem SO real. i ate these things called ‘baugette’, which a local in the dream told me was a common ‘french’ food. i woke up in a cold swest in pure shock. i told my therapist about this and she left the room and then she admitted me to the psychiatric ward. i was discharged after convincing them that france was made up, blah blah, but it’s plaguing my mind.

i just need to get this out, i think i’m going insane. the colors red, white, and blue mean different things to me now. these feelings are so vivid…so tell me, duo, am i crazy? /j /ns (i’m kidding i’m just a silly little guy)

*cocks gun* it’s fatal

81 notes · View notes

jq37 · 18 days

Text

The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 16

Kipperlilly Copperkettle and the World's Smallest Violin

Welcome back to Fantasy High where everyone’s graduating with A pluses and we’re *finally* figuring out what the hell Kipperlilly’s deal is!

But, before we get to that, we have some loose ends to tie up. You’ll remember that the Bad Kids just demolished the Last Stand Exam and dropped Gavin Pundle off at the Council of Chosen office in Bastion City. It’s the day before Spring Break so hypothetically they should be relaxing–they don’t have a Spring Break project like everyone else because of the Last Stand–but these are the Bad Kids. They don’t get breaks.

First order of business when they get back to Elmville is to check the crystal they left recording at the crime scene. They see a massive figure--14 to 15 feet--wearing a hood approaching Buddy with their back to the camera. The stones behind Buddy glow with Ankarna-style light so they check to see if Bakur is escaping the gem he’s trapped in. He isn't but Riz using his spy tie can tell it's def something Ankarna related based on the magical mDNA he's clocking. Based on the footfalls, it seems like something big and humanoid (though not like a tabaxi or dragonborn with their digitigrade feet. Giant is def on the table though).

The figure moves closer to Buddy and Kristen thinks they’re about to slap the symbol on Buddy’s chest but Buddy’s body spasms and blood spatters as his organs seem to crush. He jolts awake with a pained roar and then says in his southern drawl, "Dang, y'all. I worship a nameless god of rage." The figure kneels over Buddy and they both vanish.

So, yeah. Good call setting up some CCTV.

Fig right away speculates that maybe all the Rat Grinders died and were brought back to life in that way. Maybe in the Mountains of Chaos, Fabian adds. Kristen points out that KP has been angry since Freshman Year and they all finally get around to digging into the file that Riz stole. Has she always been a follower of Ankarna or was she scouted at some point because of how insanely aggro she is?

Everyone piles on buffs to Riz’s already stupid Investigation score so he gets a 32. I’m going to bullets to organize all of this info:

Her Freshman and Sophomore Year accomplishments are pretty meh. She was doing quests but pretty low level, easy ones

We find out the reason KP hates Riz so much and it’s his tragic backstory. In a meeting at the top of Sophomore Year, they see KP complaining that it’s so unfair that Kalvaxus killed Riz’s dad. She’s too suburban and normal and she hasn’t been able to find any sordid secrets in her lineage that would make for good plot hooks essentially. Her parents went to *Mumple* for Cassandra’s sake! Over the course of Sophomore year she started having rage outbursts. and saying that kids with tragic backstories had an unfair advantage in adventuring and their grades should reflect that.

She talks about how much she loves her party. The way she speaks, she's def the leader (which we kinda already assumed from the vibes). She seems especially fond of Lucy and says that she's the only one who sort of "gets it". Apparently, KP came up with the name "High 5 Heroes" and Lucy was supportive of that because it meant a lot to KP. Rat Grinders was a name that Ivy and Oisin came up with (they're the other pair of besties in the group which checks out because they were the ones hanging out and playing beer pong together). Ruben voted for the change to piss off KP and Mary Ann voted for it as well and refused to elaborate (on brand).

In her Junior Year she gets even more unhinged. She talks about wanting to straight up murder Kristen. She thinks Kristen is going for President as a joke and won't even do the job when she's elected. And she he hates Fig for boxing her out from confronting Kristen.

There's a note that, for Spring Break, they're going to the Mountains of Chaos for the second time. The last time they went was a week or two after Spring Break last year, right before Lucy died. They had a school chaperone because it was too high an adventure for their abilities in the school’s view and no prizes for guessing who that was: Jace Stardiamond.

As we kind of already know, KP has been gathering Bad Kid info via Jawbone--specifically, stuff about the Prompocalypse/Kalvaxus fight and the Yes! Stuff. These questions are coming Sophomore Year, post the first Mountains of Chaos trip.

With a dirty 20 Insight, Fig sees that, starting at the end of Soph Year, there's a change in KP's language where it goes from, "I don't think X is fair"/"I think they get special treatment" to just straight up, "I hate them."

The group wonders if Jace is the mastermind here and scoped out which of the students were susceptible to rage poisoning or if maybe he died during that mountain trip and got taken over just as much as everyone else. As far as they know, he was super chill prior to this.

They take a brief detour to razz Fabian about The Incident in his dance class with some excellent puns and then another brief detour to IRL razz Murph because he makes the grave mistake of saying the phrase, “honor the cock.” And then, Kristen has a brain blast. She wonders if maybe the difference between someone who gets a crystal put in them and comes back as a rage person (eg: Buddy) vs someone who is left in limbo like Yolanda and Lucy is that you get a choice and you can either come back full of rage or refuse and stay dead with the mark on your chest. Brennan doesn't even make Ally roll for it, Kristen just gets it in one. And everyone realizes it makes sense. Yolanda was super principled and Lucy always stuck to her guns according to Ruben. [Note: This also offers a potential reason that Ivy wasn't shocked to see Lucky at the party–maybe she thought she finally took Ankarna’s deal.]

Another list of info just to keep things neat:

They check the tape from the Coliseum and see that there's a ten minute gap between the Bad Kids leaving and the figure coming to rez Buddy so that’s a bit of a timeline established (assuming no chronomancy BS I suppose).

They also get the thing about digitigrade feet I mentioned earlier at this point but I just thought it fit better with the other tape stuff above.

Ruben has deleted most of his social media presence from a little bit before last year but they can see from photos where he's tagged with his friends that the emo thing started after spring break of Sophomore Year, confirming what we assumed from his old Yearbook photo. Before that his vibe was more soft rock/folk pop (based on the musician they reffed who I've never heard of but just Googled--Jack Johnson).

The Bad Kids think they might have to waste yet another Spring Break, this time chasing the Rat Grinders into the Mountains of Chaos, but before that, they have in-town business and downtime to attend to.

Everyone's parents and guardians are so happy and proud of them for their Last Stand victory.

Sklonda asks Riz if there's anything she can help with and he asks if she can look into Bobby Dawn. She says Bobby used to go to Aguefort (info that has come up before according to Brennan though I don't remember it) and asks if Fig knows he's teaching there. It seems like a non sequitur until she reveals (via Emily figuring it out at the table with very impressive swiftness) that Bobby Dawn was at the center of Sandra Lynn's sordid past! For those of y’all who don’t remember, we learned in Sophomore Year that Sandra Lynn joined a party when she was young as a replacement member. There was a married couple in the group who were older and more powerful than her. She fell in love with one of them and when it all came out, she was kicked out and slandered (even though it takes two minimum to tango, as we all know). She was basically blacklisted from adventuring after that which is why she joined the rangers. Well, now we know who that couple was: Bobby and Pamela Dawn!

Which, ugh what an upgrade Jawbone and honestly even Gilear are from Bobby Dawn.

(Also, as an aside, we learn Pamela is the chief paladin of the church of Sol which, como se dice, yikes. That whole pantheon needs better reps. Tracker is doing all the heavy lifting herself.)

Gavin checks in to say that the Council of Chosen is looking into things but the body is missing. The Bad Kids, who already knew this, share their footage because they have to do EVERYTHING around here. Gavin also lets them know that they’re completely free from academic requirements other than filling out a teacher eval and attending graduation (which is odd considering they aren’t graduating but Aguefort is a weird school and Brennan never went to trad high school so shrug–we’ll see if that’s just a weird Aguefort thing or a something suspicious).

Back to Riz and Sklonda, he asks his mom if she's ever heard of Eugenia Shadow and she tells him that she's a granddaughter of one of the founders of the Society of Shadows (which was named after their last name--it's literal AND a metaphor. She offers to drive him to the cemetery in Ashgrove which is about 90 minutes away.

Wilma and Digby are exuberant as always about Gorgug's success. They’ve finally fixed up the Hangvan for him and give him the keys. He thanks them and then asks about why Frosty Fair picked their tree as the new event site. They think it's just because they're heavily in the Frosty Fair circuit and also someone (who we know is Ruben) vouched for them. But they mention that the FF reps had a lot of questions about their tree including whether the tree was a Root Warden. They don't have a Druid or Ranger who would know but Kristen gets a Nat 20 (and Cass is a sylvan goddess so it checks out that she would know some stuff about trees).

A Root Warden is a tree that is so magical that it's a little more alive than a normal tree (without fully being a treant) and has an Int of like 1 or 2 instead of zero. So it's basically the big, old tree that guards the other trees in the area and tells them when to have their guards up and protects them from general bad mojo. Brennan calls it a sentinel. The Thistlespring tree is the Root Warden for the trees in all of Elmville county. Gorgug rolls too low to tell if the tree is corrupted but his parents do tell them that the people who came by to check on the tree dropped something into the roots with eye droppers that was absorbed. Everyone is worried about rage pollen, especially since it’s the middle of spring. And once he’s looped in, Riz can see on a map that Loam Farm is significantly outside the tree network that Thislespring tree is a part of. It seems clear that they were trying to make sure they were not only operating within the network but poisoning its very heart.

Fabian gets a proud message from his dad now that they’re synced up with infernal/material plane communication. Gilear asks Fabian about baby clothes so, naturally, he burns them all. He also gets another 20k gold allowance because his life is full of intense highs and lows and that’s about it.

Kristen’s parents text her to ask her to make sure Bucky is going to his classes. Suspicious! She agrees to check up on him.

Aelwyn has accepted the job at Leviathan so she starts coming by the mansion again since there's a door/portal to the library which saves her the spell slot. Adaine tells her she can just come back home if she wants and Sandra Lynn agrees. Aelwyn asks if all her cats can come and everyone says yes, even if it means kicking out Kristen (which is a joke…mostly lol). So yay, Aelwyn is back in the bunk beds baybee! And during the month of my birth irl and in canon. Ty Brennan. Kristen tries to verbally spar with her because she knows Aelwyn is uncomfortable with people being too openly nice to her but Aelwyn accidentally claps back too hard and sends Kristen running back to her room near tears. Sorry, K! She’s working on her people skills! Fig of course has her President’s back and gives Aelwyn a wet willy which majorly grosses her out but she doesn’t sling any retaliatory spells. Progress!

Gorthalax makes sure that Fig knows he’s always a resource for any help with anything infernal. Meanwhile, Adaine has a couple of spells she wants to cast. She makes a Simulacrum of Kristen, to make it confusing for anyone who wants to go after Kristen. It’s a clone of her with half her HP which is slightly British and slightly straight. She casts Legend Lore on Kipperlilly and gets no info which means she’s a basic ass bitch. (Riz, in comparison, does get a ping but it’s for being the 5th person to summon the Night Yorb so he is keen to do better than that). Finally, she casts Scry on Kipperlilly and doesn't get anything because she has Nondetection casted on her. She realizes that all of the Rat Grinders do at all times which is 18 third level spells a day which is crazy. Clearly, they’re scared.

Graveyard time! On Saturday, they head to Ashgrove and find the grave of Eugenia Shadow who died at the age of 111. Adaine swaps to Ethereal Vision to try and find her but Riz (with his Blindsense) is the one who finds her (she’s carefully ducking behind Adaine to dodge her line of sight). Eugenia is annoyed to have two students find her in one year but very happy to drink, smoke, and do drugs with the Bad Kids(just go with it).

Despite being dead, Eugenia knows a lot about stuff that's going on and congratulates them on passing their Last Stand. Riz asks her about what "the Rogue teacher found her" re: Kipperlilly means and Eugenia says that KP somehow found out that she was dead (despite the fact that as far as Shadow knows, the only records of her death exists in Aguefort’s office) and showed up at the grave with a rented backhoe, threatening to dig her up unless she showed basically. Which, yes, is grave desecration and messed up but is it any more messed up than the concept of a rogue in general? Like, I hate KP as much as the next person but this feels like normal rogue behavior. As Eugenia says in this very scene, rogues do crimes! Anyway, Eugenia reiterates something we already knew about Kipperlilly: that she's obsessed with technicalities and loopholes. We learn for a fact that she's a Mastermind Rogue and Eugenia says that she's a lot like Riz but walking a darker path.

As they're speculating how KP could have gotten into Aguefort's office (via Jace maybe?) Mazey comes up since she's acting principal and Eugenia reminds them that Aguefort is not a normal school with normal positions. Things are set up so that whoever is VP has to follow whatever the Principal says no matter what since Kalvaxus is supposed to be in that position as a prisoner. Equally importantly, Aguefort is more than a school. It's a hotbed of very important magical threads that Aguefort had going and they'll unravel without someone at the helm. That fact and the fact that killing her would mean chaos and not a simple transfer of power to another party is probably the only reason no one has tried to assassinate her yet. At his friends’ urging, Fabian texts Mazey to hang out, to help keep an eye on her.

Eugenia tells them to keep their guards up and that she expects to see all of them in Rogue classes next year. She gives Riz an eval form and Fig asks about a Landscaping Company that KP contacted (which I think must be in cut footage because this is the first time it comes up in the ep. Eugenia says that the name of the company is Loam Landscaping which gives everyone pause for obvious reasons.

Speaking of the Loams, they're on the same death clock as Lucy since it's been a while since they died and Adaine wonders if they can Plane Shift to where they are if they can figure out where that is. Brennan says that the vibe is that Yolanda and Lucy are probably with Cassandra, wherever Cass is.

Downtime before Spring Break!

Fabian is up first.

He rolls a 27 for Popularity. People are hoping he's gonna keep up lofi study nights over the summer and they're so psyched that his birthday is the same day as the election (the 31st). Adaine realizes that THIS must be the bday party/election victory she keeps having visions about and tells him he has to do it. For his second track, he asks Mazey out on an official date to Krom's Diner. She says yes and, on a 20, we get a very sweet scene where Fabian has a nice normal date with a genuinely nice, down to earth person.

Even though she's not supposed to play favorites, she tells him that Kristen's basically demolishing Kipperlilly in the election so far (which she is impressed by because she didn't think Kristen was going to take it seriously). She also lets them know that technically any place (including a big house party perhaps) can be a polling place as long as someone from the school admin is present (which could potentially be Mazey or Riz).

Mazey gives him a goodnight kiss (getting his kisses in!) and we move on to his third roll which he uses to try and mend fences with Kristen for Gertie’s sake. He offers her any satisfaction she wants from an apology to combat and she chooses combat. With a 30 to her 16, he handily defeats her and she considers her honor satisfied. They'll chill now. And he even gives her some tips on flirting with Kristen. Trying to make sure his girl gets her kisses in too I see.

Corsica and Terpsicore find him to give him eval forms. (Also, on a Nat 20, Fig steals RIz's eval and changes his one negative comment about her doing drugs with her students into a positive one because of course Fig loves her). He just barely gets his Owlbears roll with a bardic and that's his last roll.

Adaine is up next. She uses a portent to get a 29 on mystery to learn about the Astral Plane and figures out that when a god is dead in the Astral Plane there's still some level of intelligence, like how a mortal can die but then have Speak With Dead cast on them and answer questions. She also finds some weird linguistic trickery in a passage about how where gods die, where they go, and where they're borne--not born, borne as in carried. Imagine the laws of the universe hinging on a pun. Wild. They wonder if that's what Bakur was trying to do/if the proper location would have been the Mountains of Chaos.

Brennan also says she gets some interesting stuff about the Mountains of Chaos and its history and is left with the question of, "When Ankarna was said to have 'died' in the Red Waste, what does that mean?" Adaine decides to roll to learn some spells to help her party survive in the Astral Plane if they need to go and on a 29 spell she learns one new spell of each level. She also talks to her teacher (Tiberia Runsetaff) who, in addition to giving her an eval to do, says she's been talking to Aguefort (Chronomancy) and when she mentioned that she was having problem getting supplies for wizarding, Ayda left her a geocache. Runestaff gives Adaine the coordinates and she texts Fig so they can go together because she assumes Ayda left stuff for both of them.

Next, she wants to roll Relationships and throws an ice cream party for the whole manor which everyone really enjoys. She chats with Sandra Lynn who tells her that the Mountains of Chaos have been nuts lately and social animals like wolves have been killing members of their own packs as of the last few weeks. That sounds very rage-y to Adaine so she tells Sandra Lynn everything they know (except for the Bobby Dawn stuff so Fig can be the one to break the news).

Adaine asks if Sandra Lynn will take them to the mountains since she knows the area so well from work and Sandra Lynn says they might have to sign some liability waivers but she's down as long as her bosses are down. They also have a very sweet conversation where Adaine says she’s very grateful to them for taking her in and she admits that she's not very good at being a kid. Sandra Lynn says that she's always available for any conversations that Adaine wanted to have with a mom and couldn't (on account of her mom being a raging bitch and also being chased by the Vands of course). Adaine thinks she's about to give her a talk on periods and dashes away, much to Sandra Lynn's bafflement.

Fig does her evals for her teachers including Lucilla who is weeping over her not remembering her name and just calling her "Attractive bard teacher", Porter who is irked to be sharing a sheet with Zara, and Zara who wants to see Fig because she send her a flap of flayed skin with writing on it (the contract from Bill). Valid concern.

Adaine wraps up her downtime by rolling to Scry on Jace and gives him a 1 to make sure he fails. She sees him sitting quietly working in his office where he's Fantasy Googling the Complicated Women podcast. Adaine doesn't see what else he's working on with a low Luck roll but on a 17 Perception, she sees that he's starting to sweat in his toasty office. He takes off his scarf and, as he does, she catches a glimpse of him in the mirror, revealing a deep ragged scar in his chest. He looks at the scar and, for a moment, his eyes flash red.

Detention

Kipperlilly for All Of That

Girl are you KIDDING ME?

“Oh boo hoo. Riz is so lucky. School is so easy for him because he has a dead dad to avenge. Some people have all the luck.”

Man, kick rocks. And she was like that *before* she got involved with Ankarna.

Also, sidenote, it’s not even like Riz ended up killing Kalvaxus because of his tragic backstory. He didn’t even know there was a connection going in. He just wanted to find his missing babysitter and the other missing girls! You’re a Mastermind Rogue. You want a plot hook? Nancy Drew it up, bitch!

You want Kristen dead? You want her DEAD? You’re jealous of Riz who lives in a household where sometimes you have to eat your cereal with water because there’s not enough milk to go around? Truly, get a grip.

Honor Roll

Kristen for Making a Clutch Connection

This should really go to Ally but yeah. What a great leap figuring out that staying dead is an option and that’s most likely what happened to Yolanda and Lucy.

This very likely explains a longstanding loose end from much earlier in the season. Ivy didn’t look shocked to see “Lucy” (Fig in disguise) at the party even though we know she was dead. With this new info, it seems likely that Ivy assumed that Lucy had finally given in and come back as a rage acolyte.

Anyway, baller connection and she got there before I did. I love it when Brennan is so impressed he doesn't even ask for an Insight roll.

Random Thoughts

Here is a super useful timeline of events Re: the Ratgrinders by @ratgrinders.

I’ve seen a lot of people assume that the RG’s died in the Mountains of Chaos but I’m not convinced that happened. Because that was way before Lucy died and we know that once she died, she refused to come back as a rage person. And we know you can take a rage crystal without having to die first. That happened in the mall fight with the wizards. If they TPK’d there and Ankara offered to bring them back, then they would have come back without Lucy because she would have said no.

Here’s my current theory: They went to the mountains with Jace. They either stumbled into information about Ankarna or were led there by Jace if he’s proper evil and not just taken over. They were offered a deal and everyone went for it but Lucy. KP really wanted Lucy to join them–esp cause she considered Lucy her best friend. She tried to strong arm her into it (maybe even forging her god change form) and, when she stuck to her guns, she organized everyone to kill Lucy, forcing her into a position where she’d have to say yes to Ankarna in order to stay alive. In KP’s head, Lucy would do this and maybe be annoyed for a bit but in the end see it was for the best and forgive her–maybe even thank her. But she miscalculated the strength of Lucy’s conviction and voila. Dead Lucy.

Edit: Wanted to come back and edit to note that it is of course possible that in the mountains everyone died except for Lucy and that's when they took the Ankarna deal, but even if that's the case, the rest of the theory would proceed as written. I was mainly thinking that while what we saw with Buddy is a strong possibility it's not the only possibility. If they died then they're a bit more sympathetic because self preservation is an understandable motivator and taking the deal doesn't make them craven--it just makes Lucy and Yolanda extremely principled. However if they just took the deal because it was offered to them then that's more eyebrow raising. Even though I'm skeptical, I'm kinda hoping their hands were forced because I think that's more interesting and we've had straight up petty power grabbing already from Penelope. But anyway, just being thorough.

"Flash of Stupidity” is so funny.

It's not surprising that Ivy and Oisin are one of the pairs of besties in the RG's--they were introduced playing beer pong together--but I'm super curious about what their dynamic is. And ditto for Lucy and KP. Was it like a high strung one/chilled out one kind of thing? I really wish the Bad Kids had been a bit nosier about their whole deal.

Do we think KP maybe wanted to make sure the BK's died in the last stand alongside Buddy and Pundle so they'd all come back as rage people? Maybe that crossbow bolt was laced with some rage mojo?

KP being mad at Riz for trying to pickpocket Jawbone of her file when (1) she’s literally a rogue as well and (2) she pickpocketed Kristen and Buddy of their revivify diamonds is insane.

I love Lou committing to the bit of being appalled at the thought of half-siblings via Gilear because I know he knows that every time he explodes it becomes even funnier which means it’s more likely to happen but he can’t stop because he’s Committed To The Bit. Classic Lou.

Wizards casting Legend Lore on themselves as the in-universe equivalent of Googling yourself.

I love the detail that Mazey’s family lives in a Labyrinth in the Red Wastes.

Kinda bummed we didn’t get to do more with the Relationship track so the special ability never came up and Brennan had to just reveal it (it can reduce stress but also increase it).

I am so stressed about the bylaws and also Bucky. They keep coming up and then falling off of everyones’ plates and we’re running out of runway here.

Adaine really said, “You didn’t just kill your parents? Skill issue.” She really is Aelwyn’s sister.

The VP has to do anything the Principal says, right? And Mazey is the Principal, right? There’s gotta be a way to exploit that, especially now that Fabian is in her good graces.

When did Aelwyn get FIVE MORE CATS?

Answered and Partially Answered Questions

Last week I made as thorough a list as I could about what info we were missing and I wanted to note the answers we got this week.

1) Why the move to Loam Farm for Frosty Faire? (The Thistlespring tree is a Rootwarden)

2) How is Jace involved? Why is he manipulating Ruben? (We know Jace went w/ them on the trip but that's not a full answer)

3) What were the exact circumstances behind Lucy’s death? Who was able to put the rune on both of their bodies and what exactly was the goal there? (We know the mark is from getting a rage crystal but rejecting it but we don't officially know who did it or what the goal was though you know my guess.)

4) How did KP find the rogue teacher? (Threatened to dig up her grave. Info that she was dead was only in Aguefort's office so maybe got that from Jace?)

5) Also what’s her damage? Why is she obsessed with Riz? What are her anger issues about? (She's a petty basic bitch)

6) Why wasn’t Ivy surprised to see Fig in disguise as Lucy who was at the time fully dead? (Most likely because she thought she finally chose rage zombie resurrection)

7) What’s up with the party vision that Adaine has now had at least twice? (We know this is election night and Fabian's bday now)

8) What made the Rat Grinders become the Rat Grinders when they started as the High Five Heroes? (We know it was a vote led by Ivy and Oisin and joined by Ruben and Mary Ann but not the why behind it)

9) Where exactly is Cass right now? (We still don't know for sure but it seemed like a realm within Ankarna’s dead body which is prob in the Astral Plane. We do know Lucy and Yolanda are prob with her as of this ep.)

As an aside, we still don’t know how Oblivati Mori was broken to write Ankarna’s name before the Bad Kids found it but is it possible that the person who wrote it was Ankarna herself? Because Ankarna is still “dead” right now, right? Because she’s been active all the same. Oblivati Mori disallows others from speaking your name but does it disallow the god themselves from speaking or writing their name if mortals find them somehow? Kind of a stretch but I’m wondering if there’s enough wiggle room there to make something happen, especially since this episode Brennan said that gods retain some intelligence even when they’re dead on Adaine’s high roll. I dunno, just spitballing.

(Also, I don’t remember where I saw this but remember how Aelwyn said KP is randomly loaded? The previous best guess on that was money from Oisin–the boy who was just gonna give Adaine diamonds–but is it possible that she’s spending the embezzled Frosty Fair money? We don’t know much much it was so hard to say if it was enough to be funding whatever this is. But wanted to throw that out there since we’re tying loose ends as much as we can.)

Anyway, can’t wait for next episode which I’ve been told will be more than THREE HOURS LONG and Brennan said in the AP that it’s gonna be a doozy. Excited, trepid, and preemptively bracing for another long haul review. See you then!

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card

60 notes · View notes

venuscnjunctpluto · 1 year

Text

Astro pt 3.

Credit: @venuscnjunctpluto

(I’m on spring break and literally have 50 other things I should be doing but we’re back at it again folks😝)

Venus conjunct saturn women 🤝 men w mommy issues

The worst moon square moon beef I’ve seen is Taurus and Aquarius. Both won’t let it go like the Taurus moon thinks they’re making sense while the Aquarius moon wants to seem unbothered it’s a mess.

Taurus Venus people are so beautiful (ex: Victoria Monet, Ariana Grande, Leighton Meester, Cillian Murphy, Matthew Gray Gubler, plus my mom💕)

There are three types of Aquarius risings: one who walks around in pajamas and chokers, one who is legit a model, and the one who wears graphic t shirts and multiple finger rings)

Also I notice a lot of aqua rising women love dressing masculine (ex: Zendaya, Nicki Minaj, and Aaliyah) if you see a girl w her pants sagging with her hat turned backwards w every color of the rainbow on. just know she’s a aqua rising.

Sag Venus women are bisexual ex: Erica Mena, Nicki Minaj, and me lol

Most kpop stans have libra placements and this is coming from a libra moon

Underdeveloped Men w Fixed sign placements are such incel. Leo esp mars when their ego gets hurt they cannot take it. Aquarius thinks they’re too good and smart for women so they can’t understand why no one wants to be around them. Do I even need to explain Taurus and Scorpio?😭

Pieces Venuses are down bad ex: the men crave a manic pixie dream partner and when they can’t live up to the natives fantasy; they cheat. The women are usually loyal but they are blind asf and will neglect and abandon their relationships w others just for their partner who may or may not be trash. On a good note; they are very very very giving in relationships and so sweet but just because y’all can give doesn’t mean you have to constantly.

Brent faiyaz and Jungkook have Scorpio Mars😮‍💨 I don’t know what it is but I wanna date one so bad. What’s y’all experiences?

Certain signs and placements date people w similar charts. Like I notice Taurus suns usually date eachother bc who else is about to put up w them (just kidding…no I’m not🙂) also Scorpio placements (ex: future and Ciara, Megan fox and machine gun Kelly, Karruche and Chris brown…these are terrible examples😭)

As far as Venus conjunct ascendant synastry…I honestly only feel the tension when I’m the ascendant. Whenever my Venus conjuncts someone’s asc it doesn’t really move me like I don’t think they’re unattractive I just don’t really gaf. Their personalities are fun because my sag Venus and mars knows they can take a joke. I think Scorpio/8th house doesn’t really care too much about looks and appearances. In fact I notice Scorpio Venus men view the people they date as beneath them in some way and they do that to feel comfortable as if that person can’t get better and leave or cheat.

I always tell people I don’t have a type which I kinda don’t aesthetically but: Virgo rising, moon-Pluto or Scorpio moons, Virgo mars, Taurus suns w aqua moons, air venuses or mars, libra risings, Scorpio mars😚

Blueface and Chrisean have Venus square pluto synastry. When I say they are the most exaggerated example of this synastry it’s crazy. She clearly seems trauma bonded and believes she’s truly in love with this man (Venus). While he’s using her for money (pluto) and maintaining control over her at all times. That’s another thing w Venus Pluto synastry the venus person looks worse in the public eye because we’re always outwardly vulnerable (the good and bad) while Pluto doesn’t show just how insane they are overtly. But he’s the jealous one because peep how mad and aggressive he gets when she gets any sort of attention outside of him (ex: when Drake followed her and he twisted it to be related to him) Pluto really thinks they OWN the Venus person like that Brent lyric “they only wanna fuck with you cause they know I fuck with you” that’s their mentality. (They’re both physically abusive to eachother and need to breakup asap)

Also everyone talks about how much she’s changed for the worst since she got w him. Her missing tooth and getting multiple tattoos of that man. I’ve seen this guy w his Venus square his ex’s Pluto and he looked terrible while w her and when they broke up he got hisself together. My conjunction synastry took me from wearing bold colors to black for months😭

Sag placements esp Venus or mars men are bow legged asf

Lana Del Rey’s catalog is the epitome of 8th house stellium. Constant changes, a certain loneliness that doesn’t go away, learning and growing, but also never giving up hope.🦋

Cancer mars men and their pregnancy fetish…lil durk has like 5,000 kids and his ex India said that she wanted another baby because of how affectionate he was when she was pregnant.

A lot of football/soccer player have air mars. (Ex: mason mount, kylian mbappe, phil foden)

Women w sun-Neptune, Uranus, pluto may have terrible relationships w men bc of their relationship w their father

Aqua, sag, and cap placements are funny asf😭 I’m one of them and I don’t even try but people are always dying laughing around me

I’ve been in two “lust” triangles and both pairs had one Taurus placement friend and one Scorpio placement friend. The Taurus friend (literally both of them had birthday two days apart) liked me and had their Scorpio friend (one was a Scorpio Venus and the other was a Scorpio mars) spy on me or maybe they just offered😭 long story short the Scorpio friend ended up liking me in both situations I just✨felt✨ it. Taurus and Scorpio are both sneaky and possessive they have opposite energy and it’s very likely they could like the same people. It gets complicated because Scorpio is more likely to keep their crush a secret which can cause unintended overlap.

Capricorn mars: I don’t get mad like I rarely get upset😐

Us all hearing them yell behind closed doors and come out like nothing happened:

#astro notes #venus pluto #synastry #taurus venus #aquarius rising #astro observations

546 notes · View notes

txttletale · 1 year

Note

Because I'm curious now, what are your favorite TTRPGs? One of my personal favorites is the Kids On Bikes system and its variants for their simplicity and ease of access for new players.

so first of all--kids on bikes is very cool. it’s a nice rules-light game with a pick-up-and-play vibe. haven’t ever run it myself but i feel comfortable seconding your recommendation. anyway here’s some of my FAVOURITE TTRPGS.

Blades in the Dark is probably my enduring all-time favourite game. it’s a little flawed in places but its core loop is pure fucking elegance at play. flashbacks (you can spend stress, a metacurrency, to have done something in the past) and resistance (you can also spend stress to evade something bad that happens to you) are two of my favourite mechanics in any TTRPG ever. every player character gets to be a competent badass while also facing real, tangible danger with every moment. not to mention an incredibly well-fleshed out and evocative setting in the gaslamp fantasy nightmare city of doskvol.

Eidolon: Become Your Best Self is a game that dares to ask questions like, ‘what if jojo’s bizarre adventure was good’ and ‘what if persona, also, was good’. characters manifest the power of their souls as weird freaks with incredible powers. the ‘reveal your master plan’ mechanic works much like BiTD flashback mechanic and a smart combat system where enemies get stronger as you fight them really makes this the perfect vehicle for creative character-driven superpower-based combat. if you subscribe to the developers’ patreon you can also get access to the draft of the second edition, which does some really cool fucking things like replacing dice rolls with a tarot draw.

Lancer is the game for people who like grid-based tactical combat. it has incredible tactical depth, well-thought out mechanics that interlace perfectly--and best of all, you get to design and customize your own mech from a truly dizzying array of options to find all sorts of fucking insane synergies between abilities like ‘teleport whenever you attack somebody’ or ‘do more damage the more you overheat’. it also has a very comprehensive suite of GM tools that make it a breeze, and even fun, to create and run a balanced encounter with clearly defined and narrativly interesting goals for both sides. i’m not too into the setting for reasons i’ve talked about elsewhere, but fortunately as long as you can accomodate ‘mech combat’ into your setting, none of the worldbuilding is load-bearing to the game’s core appeal.

Microscope is totally different from a lot of TTRPGs in that it’s noit about playing characters, but about creating a world. it’s a beautiful collaborative storytelling tool with deceptively simple tools that can easily add up into your table creating a world that’s way more intricate and eclectic and fascinating than anything one of you could have come up with on your own. good for creating TTRPG settings but also good just as something to play for its own sake!!

Dream Askew would probably round out my top five, but i’ve just posted about that one here--so instead i’ll give this slot to Nobilis 3e, a game that might not be one of my favourite games to actually play, but is genuinely fascinating to read and sit with, a fucking masterful work of both design and literature, something that so distinctly creates a world and a tone that it’s instantly magnetic. not for everyone, but worth checking out.

#ask #ttrpg #fish-king

674 notes · View notes

extremlynerdyfairy · 1 month

Text

Someone call me Dimension 20’s MatPat, cause I have some INSANE theories to share!!

‼️⚠️Spoilers for Fantasy High: Junior Year (Mostly Ep. 13 and back)⚠️‼️

❤️‍🔥🔮🌹Theory #1🌹🔮❤️‍🔥:

Cassandra is in the court of stars?!

When Adaine goes to the court of stars, I found something peculiar in Brennan’s description of the interior of the place. He mentions how in the center of the room, there’s a MASSIVE rose that is surrounded by shimmering, indigo-purple energy. Who in this entire franchise has been associated with those colors and Brennan ALWAYS described their magic/aura having that same vibe?

CASSANDRA!!!

WHAT IF the timeless rose in the court of stars is one of the few remaining items that has some of Cassandra’s essence?

But that’s not the end of it. The rose is described a huge rose, right? You could even say it’s GIANT sized. If my phrasing wasn’t obvious enough, I think the rose might’ve had a deeper meaning/connection for both Ankarna and Cassandra. I googled it, and it’s said that roses usually bloom around early spring and late autumn. This means that PEAK rose blooming season could possibly be summer. Ankarna’s domain.

So there’s a possibility (or better said a hunch) that a possible old gift amongst these two forgotten and corrupted deities is in Fallinel. But considering the fact that a monument about the wedding is in Fallinel, I wouldn’t be surprise if the flower in question is what remains of a bridal bouquet (roses are traditionally associated with love and are a popular bouquet options for weddings…👀). But we’ll see if anything will from this crazy observation of mine.

👹🔥👨‍👩‍👧Theory #2👨‍👩‍👧🔥👹:

Who’s Fig’s REAL daddy, really?

I know this might seem like a bit, but I think it’s one worth thinking about. Usually Tieflings are just descendants of one mortal being and an infernal being. To my knowledge (and I encourage any DND buffs to fact check me on this), Tieflings can pop-up in a family tree as long as ONE of the bio parents has infernal blood or ancestry in them.

Now, why does this have to do with Fig’s bloodline? Gilear even stated in sophomore year that him and Sandra Lynn weren’t having bedroom fun before fig came along. Well I’ll bring you this question as a rebuttal: If Gilear was always aware to some degree about Fig not being his, how did Sandra Lynn get away with that lie for MANY years?

My theory is that Sandra Lynn originally didn’t know WHO fathered Fig since (and I’m just spit balling here) she probably had adult fun with Gilear shortly after Gortholax (probably due to guilt and making sure Gilear didn’t catch on to the cheating) and basically decided to wing it and after Fig started growing her horns didn’t hesitate to consider Gortholax the father. BUT WHAT ABOUT GILEAR’S DEMONIC BLOODLINE?! We recent learned Gilear is a descendant of Backur and we know that the curse attached to the Feith family is past on to the eldest of the family to the oldest of their children.

What if Gilear IS Fig’s bio dad AND that Fig being a Tiefling was because of Gilear being a descendant of Backur?!

Tbh this is a theory I’m only 65% sold on, since I’m not sure my DND knowledge is correct or if Brennan’s world even operates under those same rules. But it’s fun to think about.

🐀🤓😈Theory #3😈🤓🐀:

Kipperlilly, the rat grinders, and Ankarna?!

I know that the season is leading up to a final confrontation between both of these adventuring parties, but here’s the fun question to ask:

WHY? Why the FUCK are these nerds SO determined to have the Bad Kids eat shit?

Very simple answer. Conquests. ✨ACADEMIC✨ Conquest. We know the rat grinders are basically exp farmers and (in many ways) are dark parallels to many of the Bad Kids own party members (Buddy and Kristen, Ruben and Fig, Oshin and Adaine, etc.). And we’ve seen how salty they are (Cunt-head Bitch face, especially) at how the Bad Kids (despite many of them not taking their academics seriously) are able to achieve things the Rat Grinders think THEY deserve. And who was recently revealed as a goddess of Conquest? Ankarna.

But HOW would the Rat Grinder’s know about Ankarna?! Well… remember Lucy?

Lucy’s death is very much hinted to be caused by the other members of her party (tho, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s revealed that it was someone else, most likely Kalina). But WHY did Lucy die?!

What if Lucy was trying to pull a similar stunt that Kristen pulled in sophomore year? After all we know Lucy wanted to switch gods and the name on the paper for that switch within the school was blank. Kinda like the god’s name wasn’t found or couldn’t be said…like Ankarna. I 1,000% believe that Lucy was trying to bring the uncorrupted version of Ankarna back (similar to how Kristen brought Cassandra back from her Nightmare King form). How she found out about Ankarna is a whole entire debate (maybe from her original goddess or through research, we’ll find out what more episodes released) but we are left with one MASSIVE question:

WHY DID THE RAT GRINDERS KILL LUCY?! What could they possibly gain from killing their friend?! Well…what if the rat grinders didn’t want Ankarna uncorrupted?

Afterall, Ankarna’s corrupted domain (that of conquest, rage, and dominating over others) fits better with Kipperlilly’s need to be the best at the school. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rat grinders’ end goal is to use Ankarna’s corrupted domain to help them (mostly Kipperlilly) win the elections.

After all, Cunt-head Bitch-Face did make it VERY clear from the beginning that her goal is to see the Bad Kids get what they deserve (which is expulsion) for their lack of academic integrity; and, for her party (the group that has been doing things by the book this entire time) to get what THEY deserve. Absolute power over the school.

Those are all my theories! PLEASE share your thoughts. And remember, it’s Just a theory… A DIMENSION 20 THEORY!!!

(Note: I went back and fleshed out a bit more theory #3 because I was writing it at 2am and forgot to add a few of the important details of that theory 😅)

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #theory #rat grinders #the bad kids #brennan lee mulligan #fabian seacaster #fig faeth #kristen applebees #adaine abernant #gilear faeth

48 notes · View notes

fanficriter · 10 months

Note

can u do kaidou shun dating hcs!?!?!?

UM YES I LOVE HIM????

——————————————————————————-

Dating Kaidou Shun

Warnings - None

Characters - Kaidou Shun

Gender neutral reader

Notes - Sorry this is a bit short, I’m a bit sick atm

——————————————————————————

- If you dress in Emo/Gothic clothes, expect him to fall for you like 10 times faster

- When he finally asked you out, he slide you one of those notes with the little yes or no checkboxes down the bottom

- He is definitely scared if the dark, he won’t admit it

- “The Jet Black Wings is scared of nothing! C-could you turn the light back on though?”

- He loves it when you play along with his little fantasies, it makes him feel loved

- LOVES physical affection!! But he does get very shy, especially when it’s in public

- Very shy when it comes to kisses. He will give you a peck on the lips and run away blushing

- If you surprise him with a kiss, he kinda just stands there for a moment, trying to figure out what just happened

- He is a clingy little shit tbh

- Loves cuddling with you sm

- He also love quality time, he’s inviting you everywhere everyday at all times

- Study sessions together always 🙏🙏

- If his mum likes you, expect home cooked meals every time you come over

- Literally is a shaking, nervous ball when meeting your parents

- “I promise to take care of them! I-indubitably!!”

- Your parents love him

- I feel like he really good with kids, so if you have younger siblings, they absolutely adore him

- Every time he comes over they will run up and hug him

- You feel like they love him more than you atp

- Has a huge hero complex, so he will protect you from all the bullies! But your usually the one whose protecting him…

- When his classmates make fun of him for talking about Dark Reunion, your always there to comfort him

- He doesn’t know how to swim, so you teach him. He tries to act tough though the whole thing

- “If I released my full power in the water… i’d course a tsunam- Y/N HELP IM DROWNING”

- For your birthday he always has a homemade present and a 10 page essay for a card

- He was definitely a night core kid

- Angel with a shotgun is HIS JAM (me to)

- He uses emoticon while texting

- “Hey angel! ^_^ Do u want to go get ramen with me tmrw? o(｀ω´ )o”

- Can also speak irl with them??? He just does it and no one says anything about it

- Your name is his phone is definitely something like ‘My Fallen angel’ or ‘My Queen/King of Darkness’

- Is oddly good at singing?

- Every time he’s in the shower you hear him having his own little concerts

- He’s insanely talented at eyeliner

- Will sit in your lap and do yours if you let him

- MATCHING HALLOWEEN COSTUMES ARE A MUST!!!

- This could very from being bacon and eggs, to being undead lovers, he doesn’t care! As long as he gets to look cute with you, he’s up for anything!

- He’s always talking about you to his friends

- “Me and Y/n went to the movie theatre yesterday!!”

- “Check you this cool ring Y/n got for me!

- “Did you see Y/n’s outfit today?”

- Your his first real partner, and he loves you a lot. You guys are always looking after each other!

- Also he’s a twilight fanboy so you have a twilight wedding 🙏🙏

——————————————————————————

I love Kaidou Shun goodnight tumblr (´-ω-`)

#the disastrous life of saiki k.#fanfic writing #tumblr #ao3 #the disaster of psi kusuo saiki #the disasterous life of saiki k #shun kaidou #kaidou shun x reader #kaidou shun #kaidou x reader #k #saiki k #kusuo saiki #fandom #fanfic #writers on tumblr #tumblr fanfic

185 notes · View notes

1moreoffkeyanthem · 9 months

Text

Aight here’s a few of my favorite SP fics that no one asked for

I’m generally more of a one shot kinda lad but since getting into South Park I’ve read SO MANY GREAT longer ones so here’s just some highlights: (all on ao3)

Ship In A Bottle FayOfTheForest. One of the first sp AU’s I read, we got PIRATES. HOMOEROTIC SWORD FIGHTING. WLW CREEK. SLOW BURN STYLE. (Injured stan my beloved) KENNY. BUNNY. The parents SUCK. Literally such a kickass story!

This House of Mine by OrcaTimes. VIOLENCE. GANG ACTIVITY. CREEK. I really love the characterization of everyone in this fic, especially Craig. Seriously man. Also THE K2 IN THIS SLAYS (we got some PRIME Kyle injury too god I love him) THE ENDING IS SO SATISFYING TOO!!!

Peppermint by boxwinebaddie. Bro. Literally my all time favorite style fic. I’m so serious. The writing and story are BEAUTIFUL LIKE SO FUCKING AMAZING The PINING. THE HEADCANONS. I COULD GO ON FOR HOURS. Pls if you check out any of my Recs READ THIS ONE.

Maybe For Real This Time & The Kids Are Alright by WeirdBBQDad. Dude. I have no words other than KENNY FUCKIN MCCORMICK. Also Style. Also families. Just- just check it out.

Hang ‘Em High by littledeathsinmusicalbeds. Cowboy au. Creek. Established Style. Bounty hunter Kenny. Massive slay.

The Thief Trilogy by wintergrew. WHEN I SAY IT LIVES IN MY HEAD RENT FREE. The world building is PHENOMENAL literally my favorite SOT AU OF ALL. Long as hell, but SO worth the read holy fuck. I adore Stick Of Truth.

You’re The Prettiest Boy I’ve Ever Seen by burnt_pancakes. CREEK. STYLE. MISCOMMUNICATION. BUNNY. KENNY IN GENERAL. the friendships in this are PERFECT.

Your name written upon mine by sooduhnim. SOT STYLE. Soulmate au that’s INCREDIBLE seriously I love this one and can’t wait for an update.

How We Began by PastorCraigEnjoyer. Ok yes I’m cringy as shit for the self promo but this is my favorite long fic that I’ve written. Slow burn SOT STYLE, no war just fantasy gays falling in love, injury, sickfic, all my favorite bullshit and I loved writing it ok.

N1SM by kiritila. A classic in the fandom. Style. A masterpiece.

Between the Sinners and the Saints by KaiterTot. Oh. My. God. When I say this one altered my brain chemistry… THE ENDING DUDE HOLY-

A Few Last Wolves by Jwink85. Yes, I am a resident of the State Of Style by way of Creek Nation but this is Cryle. And it’s a slay. If y’all liked Frank and Bills episode in TLOU, it’s kind of an au of that. It works man.

Winter Butterfly ALSO by Jwink85 and ALSO Cryle. What can I say it’s incredible. The Style in the beginning is CUTE until shit hits the fan, too, and I thought this fic was a really interesting take on all the characters and relationships. I adore Tweek in this one too.

Something Sweet Like Honey by bluebryy. Ok this one is unsettling and creepy Craig makes me feel icky but I cannot WAIT for an update on that fic, I got my fingers crossed for Style endgame. Also CHECK OUT THEIR ART ON HERE they converted me to a short king Kyle truther and it’s a slay tbh.

Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating In Space by gremlinteeth. A classic. The first sp multi chapter I read. THE LORE BRO. CREEK. STYLE. STANS CHARACTERIZATION GOES SO HARD HES MY BOIIIII

Ok. That’s all my recs for now. Sry for being insane.

#fandom #south park #style #fanfiction #creek #au #stick of truth #ao3 fanfic #sp bunny #south park kenjorine #fic rec #i’m insane #sp fic #cryle #recommendations #south park k2

161 notes · View notes

comfyhome · 5 months

Text

// cw: mentions of nsfw, cannibalism, and if this escapes my target audience, vore ofc

hey! sorry for the long hiatus, but I’d just like to say something.

if you don’t understand sfw vore, that’s ok!! there’s no need to interact, and you can block me as you wish. but sending hateful anonymous accusations in my inbox .. really sucks? you don’t know anything abt me or my interests??

I’m sorry that this is how I return to this account, but jesus christ. it’s insane how everyone online has begun to romanticize stuff like cannibalism recently and they can recognize it’s fantasy + they know for some people it’s sexual and for others it isn’t, but when it comes to more taboo interests, vore is totally shunned.

this is the same stuff they did w that infamous asexual vore blog lol. this person was asexual and said their stuff was sfw and people still got on their ass about it. it sucks! especially when people refuse to have an open mind and instead resort to harassment.

I’m happy to talk to anyone who doesn’t understand my interests. explaining this stuff to anyone curious has become natural to me. I’m not hurting anyone — I haven’t even spoken to anyone on this account — and there’s large enough of a community of people online who enjoy this interest nonsexually that it’s just ignorant to say it’s a sex thing.

I’ve been interested in this stuff since I was a little kid. it’s really comforting and it’s gotten me through a lot of tough spots, even if that sounds silly. anyone’s free to enjoy my posts, and even if I let anyone interact, it’s incredibly rare that I’ll interact back anyways.

sorry for writing this whole thing. it’s just really bothersome that there are so many real threats out here on the internet and people still choose to target accounts who haven’t done anything at all. this account was made because I was comforted finding a space where there were people like me who enjoy this interest nonsexually like I do; trying to fit myself into the sexual side of it never felt right, and I grappled with that struggle a lot growing up until I realized this niche of the community existed.

thanks for reading and I hope anyone who did has a good rest of their day. feel free to dm or send an ask if you have any questions or inputs! :]

#confetti important #confetti talk

69 notes · View notes

yeoja-dream · 4 months

Text

Intertwined

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Pairing: BTS OT7 X Reader

Genre: Fantasy, Magic, Eventual Smut, Plot, slight slow burn

Characters: Vampire!BTS, Elf!Reader

Content Warning: none

Word Count: 4.3k

You finally wake when the rays of the late morning sun warm your face and hurt your eyes. You sat up groggily, rubbing the sleep from them with balled fists. Unwillingly, the events of last night flood your barely continuous mind. The memories have you kicking at your sheets with frustration.

“What was his issue anyway?” You complained out loud. Maybe you’d never get to know. At least I get to say I’ve both instructed and kissed a member of BTS, you attempted to reason. The thought brings you little comfort.

While you set something fragrant to boil on the stove, you checked your phone, finally, scrolling through dozens of missed notifications due to your late slumber. Habitually, you checked for new work emails, the top of which gave you immediate pause. “SUBJECT: I’m sorry. SENDER: KIM SEOKJIN. You’ve got to be kidding me.” You laughed incredulously.

Dear Y/N,

Firstly, I would like to apologize for contacting you via your work email. In my rush to leave last night, I forgot to exchange more proper means of contact. I would also like to apologize for my behavior. I understand that it must have been, in a word, confusing. If you would be kind enough, I would greatly appreciate the chance to explain myself properly in person. The issue is more complicated than I have a great understanding of, so I would also like to bring Namjoon who has a better understanding of the circumstances. However, I wouldn’t want to impose or make you feel like you were being ganged up on.

Please understand we will take no further action with you, and should to ignore this correspondence we will take it as your disinterest in the subject matter and we will leave you alone.

Best,

Kim Seokjin

“Jeez, this guy is uptight.” You mumbled, reading the message in totality. You sighed, sitting back in your rickety kitchen chair. Confusing is an understatement. You thought to yourself. But you also couldn’t deny that curiosity clawed at your insides. You sipped your hot, spiced cider, the taste giving you comfort and confidence. Something is telling me to hear them out, Dad. You thought to yourself. I just hope the cinnamon is enough.

Dear Kim Seokjin,

Sending emails is cumbersome, so here is my cellphone number. Text me whenever you’d like.

Thank you for apologizing. I will decide whether or not I accept it after our meeting. It may be sudden, but I took the day off of work today. If today does not work, you can make arrangements with me after the studio closes every day at 10 pm.

Best,

Y/N

You type the email and hit send before you can overthink it too much. What makes a man go from ready to take you on the floor to running out the door you couldn’t fathom, but you certainly looked forward to finding out.

It was about 2 hours later your phone buzzed with a notification, a text this time.

Hello, this is Jin. We all have schedules this morning, but Namjoon and I will be finished around 5 pm. Is it alright if I go ahead and make dinner reservations? Is there any place you like in particular?

Dinner reservations? You mused to yourself. That sounded formal, more formal than you were comfortable with. Dinner reservations were for dates, of which this meeting was certainly not.

Dinner is fine, but there is no need for reservations. I’m in the mood for Mediterranean tonight, so you can meet me at Olive and Thyme at 7. You replied.

Your phone buzzed again soon after sending.

Olive and Thyme at 7. We will be there. Thank you.

At that you tossed your phone to the other side of the couch, settling back into the cushions, zoning out to whatever insane dating reality TV show was on. Speculation is going to get me nowhere. You reminded yourself.

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

It had been a while since you had a reason to get dressed up, you realized as you curled your freshly washed and dried hair. Except the concert you had attended just 2 days prior, you could list the occasions you had to dress up for in the last 20 years on one hand. The thought makes you sad.

Your theme is cute but casual, you reminded yourself as you selected your pair of favorite high-waisted jeans, a plain crop top to match, and a light jacket to go over. There was also no need to go overboard with makeup, a little bit of skin tone-flattering eyeshadow, mascara, and a pink lipgloss would be plenty.

Of course, you didn’t forget about your ears. You’d had the pointy pains in the ass your whole life, and as such, you had discovered dozens of ways to hide them away. Your hair was down today, so pinning them back with a dab of spirit gum on the back side of each was more than enough coverage.

You stood back, admiring your handiwork in a standing mirror in your bedroom. Cute and casual, you decided. It was while looking at your reflection, that you also realized how remarkably well you had been taking things. Just two days ago, you were a faceless fan in a sea of other fans. You were meant to enjoy a fun performance and return to your daily life, and yet impossibly, not but 24 hours later, the oldest of BTS was running out of your dance studio after a steamy make-out session, and now supposedly wanted to meet up to discuss something cryptic. It was absurd, anyone would agree. Even in your most delusional of fantasies you couldn’t have dreamed up something more ridiculous. Maybe that was what was keeping you calm, sane. Maybe this was all just a crazy dream.

The time to leave fast approached, and with those lingering questions you found yourself in the back of an Uber on your way to destiny.

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

The interior of the restaurant was dated in its decor and sparsely populated, even when it was time for the dinner rush. You were the first one there, the aromatic smell of spices and wine hit you like a wall causing your stomach to clench painfully in hunger. The hostess was a small, mousey woman, who upon your request, sat you in one of the booths on the far side corner of the restaurant, more privacy, you figured.

Quickly the cool-headedness you were able to maintain from the safety of your home gives away to waves upon waves of anxiety. Bouncing your legs and chewing your nails was all you could do to relieve some of the pent-up nervousness as the seconds felt like hours. You cursed yourself silently for needing to arrive early.

Your suffering is somewhat short-lived, however, and as the clock hit 7:00 on the dot, the bells on the entrance door chimed as two handsome, well-groomed men walked in. It was easy to identify the pair as your evening guests.

They were nicely dressed in outfits not dissimilar to your own. They too spotted you easily, and with a swagger in their walks that made you need to look away, they both slid next to one another in the seats opposite to you. It was weird, though. Having both THE Kim Seokjin AND Kim Namjoon sitting across from you should make you feel 10x more anxious than you had before, and yet, slowly, you felt the tension in your shoulders come to dissipate, and when you really focused, the buzzy, electrical feeling from the previous night was becoming more and more prominent.

“Thank you for meeting us,” Jin took the lead. “This is Namjoon.”

You cracked a smile. “I know.”

“Well, I didn’t want to presume…” Jin trailed off embarrassed. You didn’t think you had ever seen Jin get embarrassed before, it was cute.

“Hi,” Namjoon said, offering his hand to you. You took it, and before you could greet him back, the very same warm, tingly sensation zipped up your hand and down your spine. Your smile quickly faded as you found yourself needing to grip the table to reorient yourself.

“Woah…” you breathed, shaking your head to clear some of the building haze.

The two boys looked at each other, then back to you.

“We’re going to talk about that, actually,” Namjoon said. “But first let's put our orders in.”

It was easy enough to flag down a waitress and place your orders. Small talk was easy to pass the time until your meals were served.

“So…” you began, picking at your salad. “Every time I touch you guys I get a weird feeling, whenever I am around you guys I get a different weird feeling, and at least Jin was acting weird around me.”

The pair sat back in the booths and sighed, before looking to one another.

“I’ll start,” Namjoon said. “What do you know about soulmates?”

“Basically what everyone else knows.” You stated. “One true love and all that. Although…” you trailed off. You triggered a memory, distant at first but grows with clarity when you concentrate on it.

“Daddy, what’s a soulmate?” You asked, book in hand, curled up in your reading nook in his laboratory.

“Well I suppose that depends on who you ask,” He said, not pausing from his work. “If you ask most people, I think they would tell you that it was someone they love a lot, or maybe someone who they feel like they’ve known for longer than they’ve actually known them.”

“Hmm.” You responded. “What if I don’t ask most people?”

“Hm?” Your dad asked, confused.

“Well, you said if I asked most people, that they would say all that. What if I don’t ask most people.”

“Ah,” He said, holding up two liquids seemingly comparing them. “Well, some other people would tell you that soulmates are different than just people you love a lot. They would tell you that souls are real, and when a soul is created, it is created alongside another. Usually, they are created in pairs, but it's not unheard of for them to be created in groups larger than that. Each soul is placed in a different vessel, but it will always pine for the soul it was created with.”

“Woah…” You respond in awe. “What happens when you meet your soulmate?”

“They say when you meet your soulmate, you’ll just know.” He said, notating something down in his journal. “Your soul calls out to theirs, long lost lover and friends reuniting after millennia. You burn and ache for the other until your souls are finally tied in a tying ritual. The tying ritual gives you a bond that you can communicate simple ideas or feelings over.”

“Wow! What kind of ritual do you have to do?” You asked, curiously.

“Oh well,” he paused from his work, looking away. “It is a bit too complicated for you now, but when you get older I will explain.”

“Do I have a soulmate?”

“Of course, you have a soul don’t you?”

“Ew. I don’t want a soulmate, Daddy.”

He laughed at you, walking over to you to pat your head.

“I’m afraid there are just some things in life that we cannot control, Pumpkin. Besides, I’m not going to be around forever, and it makes me feel better that you’ll have someone to keep you company someday.”

“Nooo!” you whined. “Who else is going to make strawberry rhubarb pie with dinosaurs? You have to stay around forever, okay Daddy?”

He laughed at you again, kissing the top of your forehead before returning to his work. “Sure thing, princess.”

You shake your head bringing you back to the present as the memory flicked by. “Souls are created alongside other souls and put inside of people who then spend their whole lives looking for each other and once you find the person you just know and you can tie the souls together and they’ll be happily ever after.” You summarized from your memory.

“Pretty much,” Namjoon said. “I was worried you were completely unaware. Have you ever met anyone you felt that way about?”

“Like just knowing? Not really.” You admitted with a shrug. You had loved before, certainly, but you guessed that soul mates were something bigger, much more profound. Someone you loved and knew deeper than summer romances and puppy love.

“We have,” Jin spoke up this time.

“Oh,” You said, eyebrows coming together in confusion.

“But I kissed you, you must be now wondering,” Jin said. You nodded slowly in response.

“When you are near me, what sensations do you feel?” He asked.

You took a moment to gather your thoughts. “I feel like there is a current running through me, and the more I spend time with you and the closer in proximity to you I get, the stronger the feeling gets. My brain gets dizzy and hazy like I’ve had a few glasses of wine, and yet my acuity is still razor sharp. And when I touch you, it feels… weird.” You confessed. When I touch you it feels really good and it makes me want to touch you endlessly you added in your mind.

They shared a knowing glance before Namjoon spoke. “THAT is the feeling. THAT is knowing.”

“Huh?” You asked, cocking an eyebrow. “I thought knowing was more of an abstract concept, like wow it feels like I have known this person my whole life, I think I want to marry them someday.”

“In the movies, absolutely,” Namjoon agreed. “But those feelings are your soul, physically calling out to ours.”

“You’re kidding.” You said, unbelieving.

“Let me ask you this then,” Namjoon begins. “Yesterday when you were kissing Jin hyung, I bet it felt so, incredibly right, right?”

You looked at Jin. If you could be honest with yourself, you wanted to climb over this table and kiss him again. Maybe then he’d bend you over the table and take you right here, Namjoon’s hands on you helping bring you to completion- you cut yourself off before the thought can continue further.

Namjoon looked at you knowingly.

“So if I am to believe that what you are saying is correct, I am the soul mate to both of you.” You asked, matter of fact.

“We are suggesting that you are all of our soulmates,” Jin stated, looking at you seriously.

“As in, all 7 of you.” You asked again matter-of-factly.

They nodded in response.

You laughed, exasperated. “Bring out the cameras because this is un-fucking-believable. This has to be a joke.”

The serious expression on both of the boys’ faces says otherwise.

“I know this must be a lot to take in,” Jin said honestly. “It was a lot for me as well. And the others.”

“What?” You asked, confused again.

They share a look and Namjoon nods encouragingly before Jin speaks again.

“We are actually all mated to each other, all 7 of us.”

“Wow,” you breathed. “You guys are as close as you portray online.”

The pair chuckle at that.

“Me and Yoongi found each other first and from there we found different members at different times. Every member struggled with it in different ways, so you probably aren’t alone in anything you’re feeling right now.” Namjoon said.

“You said mated. What does it mean to be mated?”

“Oh, it just means that we marked each other.” Namjoon rolled up his sleeves, showing off two gashes, dark in coloration one next to the other. “We all have one. You can either accept the pairing and become marked, or reject it and become a single soul.”

“What is the marking process?” You ask.

“You don’t know?” Namjoon asks, before putting on a serious face. “In short it is a bonding ritual involving sex.”

You flushed red at that notion. “So if I wanted to be marked by each of you I would have to…” You trailed off, imagery and fantasy flooding your brain causing you to snap your knees closed. Namjoon looked away, swallowing hard.

“Yes,” Jin states plainly. “But there is a rejection process as well. None of us are familiar with it, but if that is the choice you’d want to make we’d happily assist you with that.”

“We should be a little more clear with you as well,” Namjoon looks at you again. “You have full choice and freedom in this case, but ultimately, now that you have found your soulmates, the empty, hollow feeling you will have when we are apart, and the buzzy electric feeling when we are together will become more and more unbearable as time goes on and if you don’t make your choice at all, it will drive you mad.”

“How long do I have to decide?”

“A few days, a week at maximum.” He answered earnestly.

“You are right this is a lot to take in.” You sighed heavily. “With all due respect, I know you based on some well-edited clips and your music. You are all attractive as hell don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know you, and intertwining your life with someone you have an entirely parasocial relationship with is, in a word, insane. And for you guys too, you don’t even know me.

“That is true, but we didn’t know any of the members that well when we went through the mating ritual,” Namjoon said with a shrug. “Besides, did you really think the universe was so unkind as to leave you without a way to break the bond? People can change, become abusive and cruel, and with or without your partner's consent you can break the mating bond at any time.”

That brought you some comfort. At least there was an ejection seat if the shit hit the fan.

“This is a lot to process,” you stated, rubbing your temples in frustration.

“I am the oldest, but I was the fourth to join,” Jin started. “When I found out I was pretty upset, I had a solid lifestyle going for me that I didn’t intend to give up.”

“How did you overcome that?” You asked.

“It was Namjoon that convinced me,” he said, gesturing at the younger man. “He asked me to get to know them. That the divines or the universe or fate had good intentions and I would be sorry if I didn’t at least try.”

“I was a bit heavy-handed and naive,” Namjoon cut in, embarrassed.

“At any rate,” Jin continued, “I resolved to give it a month. I wanted to date them, get to know them, you know?” He laughed. “I think I barely made it a week. Something about the all-consuming pull of your soul is hard to resist.”

“I bet…” was all you were able to mumble in response. “I feel bad,” You confessed. “About the whole getting-to-know-you thing.”

“What do you mean?” Namjoon asked.

“I think it’s fairly obvious that I am a fan,” you began, “and while I can’t claim to know you, I would certainly argue that I know each of you just a little more than you know me.”

“We have forever to get to know you,” Jin said with a wink. Namjoon elbowed him in response.

“For starters, I’m sure you understand that our public personas are different than our public ones,” Namjoon began “But put more politely, Jin is correct. In the way that some humans go through with arranged marriages that sometimes work out, sometimes something bigger than us calls us to make a leap of faith and trust that it works out.”

“That sounds like we are putting pressure on the situation. I think I speak for both of us when I say we meant to simply arm you with the most amount of information we can provide. Besides, on the getting-to-know-you front, we know more than you might think,” Jin said.

“Do tell.” You stated, raising an eyebrow. “It appears you somehow found out who I was, and further that I was a dance teacher.”

“I know you’re hiding some cute ears under all that hair,” Jin said with a lilt.

You instinctively reached up to make sure they were still in place. “How could you possibly…” you mumbled.

“The truth is,” Namjoon started, lowering his voice. “We aren’t exactly human either, and our, shall we call it, conditions, allow us to sense the energy of different creatures.”

“So you’ve known the whole time?” You asked, flabbergasted.

“Pretty much,” Jin stated.

“Sorry, that's just like, probably my biggest secret and it is just out there so I’m a little off-put. Not that it’s your fault just, in conjunction with everything…” You trailed off.

“We thought it important that you also knew,” Namjoon said. “That we are vampires.”

“Vampires?” You repeated. “All of you?”

“Yes,” He replied.

“No wonder you are all so unearthly attractive,” you mumbled under your breath.

They both chuckle at that.

“When we meet a soulmate, sometimes something darker, more carnal comes out. Vampires, once they are connected with their mates, can only feed off of them. All other blood becomes a virulent poison, so everything in a vampire’s body commands them to claim and mark their mate as soon as possible. Prevents their only food source from walking away.” Namjoon stated.

“That’s why I kissed you suddenly in the studio,” Jin explained. “It’s not that I didn’t want to already, but I had resolved to not make any physical contact with you until all of this had been laid out, but the way you were looking up at me, the feeling of your hand on my body, your smell in that warm, closed room…” he trailed off before clearing this throat. “It was too much to bear. It brought out that dark side and well, you were there. I’m sorry for doing that without giving you the proper context.”

“It’s fine,” You admitted. “Truthfully, I wanted you to kiss me, and I enjoyed it.” I wanted you to do more, you thought to yourself. “I was more hurt and confused when you, superhumanly I am now realizing, left with barely a word.”

Jin’s expression was nothing if not apologetic. “I realize that must have been upsetting, and again I’m sorry for that too.”

“But wait,” You began, tilting your head to the side. “If you are all vampires and are mated to each other, then do you drink each other’s blood? Do you even have blood in your body to drink? And if a vampire can only feed from their soulmate once they’re found, what happens if rejection occurs?”

“Yes and no,” Jin said. “It is actually a myth that vampires don’t have blood. The vampire toxin mutates the blood of the person being turned and makes it so it's the only way for the new body to get energy. Problem is, vampiric blood isn’t very nutritious and it takes forever to regenerate by itself, so we have to supplement with animal blood usually. It's barely edible, and not that much more nutritious but it's better than being dead.”

“Fascinating,” You said. “The universe really fucked you all over making you all mates and vampires then, huh.”

“Tell me about it,” said Namjoon.

“Well, what about my other question?” You asked.

They exchanged uncomfortable looks.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Namjoon said gravely.

“I thought we were being honest with each other?” You asked, feeling slightly frustrated.

“We are, it’s just…” Namjoon sighed. “It would add stress to a stressful and confusing situation and I don’t want you to worry about it.”

“Well, now I am worried!” You exclaimed.

A few beats of silence passed between you all.

“Just tell her, Joon,” Jin said.

Namjoon sighed at that. “When a vampire is rejected, or when a vampire’s bond is severed, the vampire dies. Jin mentioned that we can subsist on animal blood for nutrition, but what he didn’t mention, is that the consumption of energy is also part of what vampires consume when they eat blood, and once you find your soulmate, it is only their energy you can subsist off of.”

“So you’re saying…” You trail off, flabbergasted, before starting again. “You’re saying should I choose to reject you all, I am dooming you to starve to death and die.”

“You understand why I was reluctant to tell you.”

You put your head in your hands, head spinning with the information dump of the last hour. How could it be in just 48 hours you went from a passing fan to suddenly, apparently, being the deciding factor whether or not BTS dies? It was too much to handle, and with the added pressure, you felt like your head was going to explode.

“I need time.” You managed to say.

“Perfectly understandable,” The pair agreed.

“I have to go, I think,” You said, starting to stand up. “It was lovely to meet you but being so close is messing with my mind a little.”

“By all means,” Namjoon said. “Don’t worry about the check, it’s the least we can do.”

“Okay, thank you.” You said, standing fully now. “You have my phone number, text me any time, I guess. Bye.” You began somewhat robotically walking away from the two men who had just turned your life upside down, out of the restaurant, and into the cool early night air.

You walked for hours, the outside had always been a place of meditation and peace for you. Your mind swam, full of questions and concerns. On one side, your heart soared at the chance to be with BTS, by all appearances they were hot, funny, kind, and interesting people that just about anyone would sell their grandma to be with. On the other side, you worried. About how you didn’t really know them personally, how they didn’t know you, how stupid and impractical it was to make a life promise to someone you barely knew let alone 7 someones, and most importantly, it concerned you how loudly something deep within you called for you to accept them. Now, there was the added pressure of not killing them. If only you were here, you sighed inwardly. You’d tell me what I should do.

Somehow, you found yourself full, your feet sore, and no closer to a conclusion. You collapsed on your bed, exhausted, sleep finding you and carrying you off as soon as your eyes closed.

115 notes · View notes