#I have a thread saved I need to go get them and dump them here 🥹

[nonglukest]

NutWilliam cheekies 🤏

[lees-chaotic-brain]

swapped! (todoroki x reader)

summary: after you get hit with a strange quirk, you swap bodies with your long time crush and hero partner todoroki shouto. somehow, every single thing that could possibly go wrong goes wrong and chaos ensues. idea dump here

genre/content warnings: afab reader, reader has some sort of telekinesis quirk for plot efficiency (i got lazy sorry), suggestive, periods, reader is implied to have a heavy flow but it's really just for the plot to ensure maximal crack, mentions of blood, swearing, fluff, crack, todoroki is a little shit (when is he not)

wc: 5.9k (oopsies this is my longest fic to date)

note: this is for @andypantsx3's pretty boy summer collab! (sorry it's late andie) it is also one of my sponsored fics for @ficsforgaza's fundraiser! i couldn't fit all the scenes i wanted into the fic without ruining the flow, so go check them out and sponsor them if you want to read more! also everyone needs to go say thank you to @thelov3lybookworm for giving me the push i needed to stop making excuses and find solutions so i could post. thanks girl <3

i'm not sure how i feel about the ending, but i think it's as good as it's going to get! since i haven't written in a little while and things have been tough, likes, reblogs, and comments would be so so appreciated, and will help me get the next fic on my list done faster!!!

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The first thing you notice when you finally emerge from the depths of your slumber is how comfortable you were. Everything feels just right, your pillows are cool against your neck, and your sheets hold the perfect amount of warmth; enough to keep you cozy, but not so hot that your sweat is creasing the silky sheets and making you feel sticky and gross.

The second thing you notice is the very large, very male hand sprawled on the pillow next to your head. A deep male voice lets out a surprised cry as you jerk back, the hand moving with you.. It takes you several moments to realize that it had come from you. 

Your bare feet thump against the wood paneled floor as you stumble out of bed disoriented and realize where you are for the first time. Namely, not in your bedroom.

Glancing around in confusion, you wonder what the hell happened, and how you ended up somewhere so nice.. The space itself is fairly bare, but you can tell that all of the furniture inhabiting it is expensive. From the sleek wooden dresser to the geometric modern light fixtures to the insanely high thread count of the sheets, everything screams tasteful luxury. 

Where are you? You definitely feel asleep in your own bedroom. Reaching up you rake your hair out of your face and freeze. Instead of the familiar texture and length of your own hair, you’re greeted with short, silky soft strands that definitely did not belong to you.

Mussing your hair to make sure you’re not imagining things, you glance down, and for the first time notice some inexplicable things.For one, the ground is a lot farther away than it normally is, and for two, last time you checked you did not have washboard abs, or a male anatomy.

The entire situation was confusing, and you were still slightly sleep-addled. Despite that you knew that you needed to find a mirror. A quick glance around the room located one in the corner and you hurry over to it. 

Sliding to a stop you grip the edges of the little stand, frost spreading from your right hand to cover the wood while you gaped at your appearance.

Intense heterochromatic eyes stared back at you, shock filling them. Your hair was a unique mess of red and white strands, the two colors mussed with sleep. With those distinctive features, plus high chiseled cheekbones, a jawline that could cut stone and a slim yet unfairly muscular body there was no doubt about it.

You were Todoroki Shouto. At least, that’s whose body you’re currently inhabiting. His very shirtless body. 

BZZZZZT BZZZZZZT

Saved from having to fight your urges to poke at his abs by the noise, you jump, swinging your gaze around in search of the origin.

BZZZZZZT BZZZZZZT

A simple black phone flashes on the otherwise empty nightstand (does he seriously not even have a lamp??), the caller i.d. sending you scrambling across the room to the phone. 

Fumbling in your haste, you manage to swipe and pick up the incoming call from your cell phone.

Your mind is racing a mile a minute. There were only two ways to get into your phone. The first was the password, but even you forgot it most of the time. It sat safely tucked away on a post it in the safe you store all of your important documents in. The second was through face i.d. and the only person who could unlock your phone with their face was you. And since you were in his body, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that he….Lifting the phone to your ear you speak hesitantly.

“Todoroki? Is that you?”

“Y/N?”

It was unnerving to hear your voice saying your name from the other end of the phone,

“What happened?!” You’re a little mortified to hear the hysteria lacing your words, but you can feel the panicked adrenaline flooding your veins as your body goes into fight or flight.

“I believe that the quirk we got hit with yesterday caused us to switch bodies. However, it is highly unlikely that it is permanent so it will be fine.” Even though it’s your voice, something about knowing Todoroki is on the other end was reassuring enough that some of the tension bled from your shoulders.

“That’s good.” You sigh, rubbing your face. There’s a mildly uncomfortable throbbing coming from your lower half, and you absentmindedly reach down to rub at it, forgetting you weren’t in your own body. Brushing against a bump in your gray sweatpants, you shiver as a familiar feeling spreads through your lower stomach and something twitches.

“Todoroki?” Your voice suddenly gets a little higher, the hint of hysteria from before returning to the normally deep monotone. “We have a problem.”

“What is it? Is something wrong?” 

Ignoring his questions, you stare in growing horror at the very obvious tent in the front of the sweatpants you were wearing. You have no idea how you didn’t notice it earlier, but now that you’ve seen what’s going on down there you can’t help but be extremely aware of the uncomfortable pressure. 

“Y/N? Please explain what’s going on. I’m growing concerned.”

“I-” You splutter, unable to form a coherent sentence. Finally you gather your wits enough to say something. “It’s uh, it’s hard.”

“What do you mean? What’s hard? Oh...” He trails off into embarrassed silence.

“OH?” You can’t handle this. “What do you mean ‘oh?!’ Do something!”

“Like what?” He sounds a little defensive. “What am I supposed to do from here?”

“I don’t know!” You’re shouting now. “But you have to do something! How am I supposed to sit here with your massive boner?!”

There’s a loud crash on the other end of the phone, and you jump. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” He answers a little too quickly, but his voice still retains his usual impassivity. “Anyways, returning to the problem at hand. It will go away on its own after a little while. Unless you would rather handle it yourself-”

“No!” You wince as you practically shout into the phone. “I mean, no it's okay. I feel like that would be unprofessional.”

You can hear the amusement in his voice as he responds. “I feel like this entire situation is rather unprofessional. After all, I did see your breasts this morning.”

There must be something wrong with your hearing because there’s no way he just said what you thought he did. In such a nonchalant manner at that. “Wha-What?” Embarrassingly your voice cracks as you rack your brain, frantically searching through your memories of the night before. Then it hits you. 

“You went to bed without pants, a shirt, and a bra last night.” He informs you matter of factly, and you must be going crazy because there’s no way that that’s smugness you’re picking up from him. “Judging from the temperature of your apartment I’d say that your air conditioning is broken. You should probably get that fixed.”

You’ve completely forgotten about the boner you’re currently sporting due to the mortification of it all. Of course the one time the two of you switch bodies it just has to be the day your AC broke and you went to bed in nothing but a pair of striped cotton undies.

A small part of you mourns that you weren’t wearing something sexier, but the larger part of you is screaming that he is your boss. Sure you’ve been friends for years, and you have a not so little crush on him, but you are his subordinate. This was going to make things so awkward in the office. Hopefully once this is all over you can go hunt someone with a memory erasing quirk down to wipe his mind. But maybe not yours. You kind of want to remember the toned planes of his abs and the impressive bulge in his sweats. 

Giving yourself a shake you chastise your internal voice. Absolutely not. That would be an invasion of his privacy. In fact, you should put on a shirt right this second to respect his privacy, not that he didn’t walk around with half of his hero suit burned off from time to time. Wait. A thought suddenly occurs to you.

“Wait. You have a shirt on now, right? You put on a shirt before calling me.” You laugh nervously, because of course he has more common sense than that. It’s not like he would just sit on the phone with you while your tits were hanging out, right? Right??

“Well no.” Your heart falls out of your ass and you accidentally sear a handprint into the edge of his nightstand at his casual answer. “It’s uncomfortably warm in here and without the use of my quirk I am unable to regulate my body's temperature. Aside from that, I don’t know where you keep your shirts so I prioritized calling you to discuss the situation over going through your personal belongings.

That all sounds perfectly reasonable and you would have fallen for it except for one little thing. “Todoroki. I know for a fact that I was too lazy to put my laundry away yesterday and there is a stack of clean t-shirts sitting on the end of my bed right now.” 

You hear rustling -is he still in your bed?!- as he leans forwards to check. “Oh. You’re correct. My apologies.” There’s more rustling and the sound of fabric sliding over skin as he pulls a t-shirt over his head. “It’s on now.”

“Thank you.” You pointedly ignore the fact that he did not sound the tiniest bit apologetic, filing it away to revisit later. For now, the two of you need to discuss what to do next. “I appreciate it. What’s the plan now though? I think we should meet at the agency as soon as possible and go from there.” 

“I agree.” He seems to lack the sense of urgency currently consuming you as he hums in agreement. It’s incredibly annoying. “We should probably give each other directions on what to do, and where to find the things we need.”

On second thought maybe it’s better that he’s calm and thinking clearly because that was an excellent idea. “That’s smart. I keep a pad of paper and a pen on my nightstand to jot down reminders if you want to use that. Where do you keep your paper?”

“Check my bookshelf.” The telltale sound of paper flipping told you that he found the notepad as you crossed the room and stopped in front of the simple wooden bookcase. “Where is it on your bookshelf?”

“I think I keep a notebook and a pad of paper on the middle shelf.” He sounds distracted and a little uncertain, but when you stoop down to check (it’s weird being this tall) you find a simple yellow legal pad and a black pen. “I got it.” 

“Okay.” The sound of a book closing accompanies his words and there’s a hint of some unidentifiable emotion lacing the two-syllables. 

Not thinking much of it you shrug it off, sitting down down at his desk and listening as he tells you where keeps his car keys, hero suit, and other necessities. You ask a few follow up questions, jotting down what cabinet he keeps his cologne and deodorant in, before launching into your own instructions.

“The first thing you need to do is start the coffee machine. Trust me. My body will not be happy unless you give it at least three cups of coffee or like two big energy drinks before 9 am. Next…” After you’re sure he has understood the importance of caffeine, you move on, explaining where you keep your clothes, car keys, and shoes, as well as where you parked your car. 

“Don’t worry about makeup or hair products or anything while you’re getting me ready. I know there’s a lot on my bathroom counter but it’s not necessary. But you do need to go into the first drawer on your left when you’re standing at the sink and grab my anxiety meds. They should be in an orange prescription bottle. Only take one. And please for the love of god do not forget to put a bra on. You got all that?”

“I believe so. Is there a specific outfit you want me to wear or should I just choose?” You stop and think. Left to his own devices there’s no knowing what he might put you in (his first hero costume proof of his abysmal sense of fashion) so it would be best to give him some guidance. “Could you just wear a casual sweater and some jeans?” 

“Yes. Let’s get ready and meet at the agency in about an hour. If that works for you.” There’s not much writing on the yellow legal pad, the black scrawl of your handwriting barely taking up half a page. Okay. It isn’t that much. You can do this. “That sounds good to me.”

“Oh, I also think it might be best if we kept this from the general employees at the agency for the time being just to reduce drama. Is that okay with you?” 

“Of course.” More than okay actually. Some of them were aware of your not-so-little crush on him, so it would spare you some teasing and interrogation.

There’s a couple seconds of awkward silence, and you get the feeling he wants to say something more, the tension crackling through the speaker of his stupidly expensive phone. Opening your mouth, you start to say something then realize you don’t really have anything to say. The awkward silence persists a couple seconds longer before he wishes you goodbye and hangs up.

Click. Click. Click. Clickclickclickclickclickclickclick. You didn’t even realize that you had started clicking the pen open and closed, a nervous habit of yours. Sheepishly you place the pen down on his desk and stand. Sure the vibes were kind of weird at the end there, but it’s not like anything worth making you nervous happened. The situation might not be ideal, but it wasn’t the biggest deal in the world. You could handle it. The worst part was already over. You just had to meet him at the agency, figure out what to do with the rest of the day, and wake up in your own body tomorrow. Piece of cake.

Gaping in horror, you realize that this was not, in fact, going to be a piece of cake. 

Getting ready had been easy enough so you had arrived at the agency a few minutes before your agreed meeting time, which fortunately/unfortunately put you in the perfect position to witness the walking shitshow.

You had been idly sipping at a cup of coffee, marveling at how many packets of sugar it had taken to make it acceptable to his taste buds when he staggered in, catching the eye of pretty much everyone in the lobby.

Hunched over weirdly, he staggered in, wearing a pair of jeans that rode just a little too low to be professional and a very white, very sheer shirt that was meant to be layered over an undershirt. Or, at the very least, with a sturdy, modest bra underneath.

Alas, you can only stare in abject horror at the sight of what everyone else would assume was you stumbling in, your nipples visible from across the room, the bra that should have been on your body clasped in one hand. 

You’re pretty sure you disassociated for a few seconds from sheer mortification, standing there unmoving for several seconds. Once you had processed (and gone through the seven stages of grief multiple times) you were bolting across the floor, seizing his (your?) arm and dragging him down the hall and into the family bathroom where no one could see.

Slamming the door shut behind you, you shove Todoroki/yourself into the small space, wincing as you watch him stumble in your body. Did you always seem this weak and small in his eyes? The sound of the lock clicking as you shut the door reminds you of the current situation and you turn on him, rage emanating from every pore of your being.

“I. Thought. I. Told. You. To. Put. On. A. Bra.” You’re hurt, and seriously pissed off, neatly trimmed nails digging into your thighs as you grip your pants. Humiliation courses through your body, pulsing behind your eyes in tears that you will not let fall, no matter what. “Is this some kind of joke? Are you trying to embarrass me-”

“No.” It’s disconcerting watching yourself speak and move, but subtle mannerisms remind you that it’s Todoroki you’re looking at, not yourself in the mirror. “I wouldn’t do that to you, I swear.”

“Then what is this?” You wave your hand at your body, flinching at what others must be whispering about you. “Do you want people to think I’m some sort of crazy person who goes around practically flashing people at their workplace? Someone who has no sense of decency?”

“Of course not.” His tone is as even as ever, but you can tell that he feels bad. “People here know what type of person you are. I’m sure they’re more concerned than anything.”

The fabric of his blue hero suit unscrunches as your hands drop to your sides, chest heaving as you take a deep breath. “I hope so.”

There’s vulnerability in your voice, and for a second you find peace in the quiet of the moment before he ruins it. “Besides, I’m more worried about my reputation than yours right now.”

You look up indignantly. “Why? I did everything you asked, and I’m fully dressed so I’m not sure why you’re complaining.”

He winces as your voice raises (maybe the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet) but he hides it quickly. “I mean, from their point of view, they just watched me forcibly drag my subordinate off and locked myself in a bathroom with her. They probably have all sorts of unseemly ideas about what I’m doing right now.”

You freeze. Shit. You hadn’t even considered what it would look like to the others. “I’m so sorry. We can explain this to everyone. Like you told me, everyone here also knows you, and that you would never do anything inappropriate.” 

“It’s fine.” He gives you a genuine, yet slightly strained smile. “I’m not too concerned. However, your body doesn’t feel great.”

‘What’s wrong?” You reach out and touch his forehead. “You don’t have a fever.” Glancing down, you sigh. “First things first let's make you decent. You literally brought the bra. Why aren’t you wearing it?”

“The best way I can describe it is it’s similar to the time I accidentally ate Bakugou’s extra spicy curry, except it’s not in my stomach. It’s more in my abdomen. And I meant to wear it, I just couldn’t figure out how to get it on.”

“Okay. I can help with that.” You motion for him to lift his arms. “Take off your shirt.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Is now really the time?” The bathroom is silent as you give him a death look. “It’s my body. There is quite literally nothing about the body you are currently inhabiting that I do not already know about. Now, shirt. I’ll help put the bra on.”

Understanding that you were not in the mood, he hurriedly pulls the shirt off, and you’re presented with the sight of your bare torso. Ignoring the strange intimacy of the moment (it was literally your own body you had no idea why you felt weird) you help him slip his arms into the straps, then motion for him to turn around. 

He complies, and that’s when you see it. The relatively small, but somewhat noticeable stain on your crotch in the back of your pants. That’s why he wasn’t feeling good. Your body started your period.

The clasp of the bra dangles in your hands as you stare at it, evaluating your choices. One. You could pretend like nothing is happening but chances are he’s going to have to pee at some point during the day so he’ll find out eventually. Plus the stain wasn’t small.

Two. Be the mature, rational adult you are and calmly explain the situation. After all, there was nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a perfectly normal, perfectly natural, biological function that comes with being a female.

And three. Just leave and go crawl into your bed until this nightmare is over. Let him deal with it himself. 

Option number three was looking pretty good there for a moment and you were calculating how fast you could escape the agency without drawing attention when Todoroki spoke. 

“Everything okay? Why aren’t you doing the hook things?” Snapping out of your trance, you clumsily clasp the back, taking several tries to get all the hooks in the same row. Patting it, you tell him to put the shirt back on before taking a deep breath. “Hey, Todoroki?”

Wisps of hair emerge from the neckline of your shirt, followed closely by your head as he pops into your shirt. “Yes?”

“So like, it’s going to be okay and I swear I’ll help you and I’m sorry you have to deal with this but please whatever you do, don’t freak out. Promise?” He tilts his head slightly, regarding you with confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you say it’ll be okay I don’t see why I would feel the need to freak out.”

His calm response puts you somewhat at ease, and you just rip the bandaid off. “My body just started it’s period. With you in it. That’s why your abdomen was hurting. It was period cramps. Don’t worry, I’ll get you some advil soon. There’s a small stain on the back of your pants, but it’s not bad yet. However, it’s really heavy on my first day so we’re going to need to get a tampon in and a pad on asap.”

A blank stare is your only response. “What…is a tampon? And what does heavy mean? Also, does it always hurt this bad?” A small furrow appears between his brows, and you can tell he’s overthinking.

“Normally it’s only this bad for a few days, but I’m used to it by now.” You reassure him, grabbing a tampon and pad from the free dispenser on the wall. “And to answer your question, a tampon is basically a fancy roll of material that goes up there and absorbs the blood.”

You’re doing your best to remain calm and unbothered on the outside, but on the inside you’re losing your mind because there was absolutely no way that you were about to teach your crush how to insert a tampon into your cooch because you managed to swap bodies on the worst possible day.

He looks at you pensively as you approach him with the hygiene products. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

You pause, considering. How did you want to do this? It would be weird for you to put it in yourself, even if it was your body. The packaging crinkles in your hands as you turn the items over in your hand. The easiest route would be to have him just put the pad on, but you also didn’t want him to deal with the mess and discomfort of sitting in a pad. 

“Alright.” You clap your hands, the sharp sound echoing off the clean linoleum floors. “We’ll get a pad on first, then we’ll try the tampon. Ready?”

“Yes. How do I do that?” Okay. You can explain this. It’s not that complicated. “First things first, pull down your pants and underwear and sit on the toilet.”

A rustle of clothing and the click of the toilet seat against the porcelain bowl told you he had complied. “Wait, but like, don’t look okay. Keep your eyes averted.”

“Understood.” You choose to ignore the amusement in his voice, instead grabbing another pad and giving him a demo. Feeling guilty about the waste, you rip open one of the packages and pull out the pad. It’s thick, and made of cheap material like all free pads in public bathrooms tended to be.

Holding it up so he can see you demonstrate peeling the tab and unfolding it before peeling the sticky back off and showing it to him. 

“Basically you just have to remove the covering and stick it to the bottom of your underwear. Make sense?”

He nods, so you pass him the pad and watch him carefully peel back the appropriate backings and smooth it into the center of your panties. His eyes gleam at you hopefully as he looks up, and when you tell him he did a good job you could have sworn he preened. 

“Good job Todoroki.” A subtle frown pulls at his lips. “So for the tampon-”

“Shouto.” He cuts you off, looking disgruntled. “Call me Shouto.”

“I-What?” Thrown off guard by the sudden demand request you blink at him. “I don’t see how that’s relevant to what’s going on right now, but you’re my boss. It doesn’t seem right for me to address you so casually.”

“But you call me Shouto while we’re at work.” He stubbornly refuses to give the point up, clinging to it like a dog with their chew toy. “How is it any different?”

“Because-” You give him an exasperated look. “Some idiot decided to make his hero name his first name, so when he’s at work his co-workers are forced to use it. I don’t call you Shouto as in Todoroki Shouto. I call you Shouto as in Pro-Hero Shouto. That’s the difference.”

“But we’ve known each other for years.” He’s very matter of fact, clearly missing the point. “I would say we’re close enough for first names.”

He’s unbelievable. Of all the things to focus on right now why on earth is he choosing to argue over how you address him? “Of course we’re close. I consider you a good friend. But I wouldn’t say we’re close enough where it’s appropriate for me to address you by your first name when you’re my boss.”

“I’m currently in a bathroom with you right now, in your body, sitting on a toilet with no pants, on your period. I don’t see how we can possibly get any closer.” He had a point, and you just wanted to get this whole disaster sorted out as quickly as possible so you conceded. “Fine. Shouto. Now, will you please listen to me so we can get this over with and go on with our day?”

Using demonstrative hand motions and trying not to show how flustered you were you explained how to put the tampon in. Finally you finish, and hand him a tampon. He unwraps it, then hunches over in an awkward position trying to see what he was doing.

A red flush crawls up your neck as he quite literally examines your pussy, your insecurities running rampant, thoughts you’ve never had before occurring. Like, what if it looks weird? You didn’t exactly have a huge frame of reference, and all of your past experiences were horny hookups so you literally had no idea what it looked like from his point of view. He was probably repulsed by it. If everything that already happened hadn’t ruined any chance you had with him this was the final nail in the coffin.

A quiet splash cuts through the silence of the bathroom, interrupting your downward spiral. Looking up, you lock eyes with Todoroki, who’s frozen guiltily on the toilet.

“What just happened?”

“I, er, well I’m not sure.” Your eyes narrow. “What was the splash?”

“I did my best.” He sounds defensive. “I had a hard time finding…it…and it’s not easy to line it up and I think I did it wrong because as soon as I put it in it kind of just…spat it back out?”

Gaping at him, you’re at a loss for words before a loud, unflattering cackle rips itself out of your chest. The self-consciousness caused by the strangeness of the moment and being in the presence of your crush fading away as you reverted to treating him like you did in high school.

“Oh-Oh my god!” You’re doubled over, almost crying with how hard you’re laughing. “You can’t find it. You can’t even find the hole. You must be so popular with the ladies.”

As you laugh, a strange sensation builds in your stomach, and next thing you know it feels like you’re getting sucked into a vacuum and shot out the other end. Your vision goes black and fuzzy, the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom hurting your eyes when you finally open them.

When you finally open them and find yourself staring into the unimpressed face of one Todoroki Shouto that is. 

Seeing his face again instead of staring at yours is a relief, but it’s also unfortunate because now you are the one perched on the toilet, your pants hanging around your ankles and a tampon floating around in the toilet water beneath you. 

The two of you lock eyes, and you realize that now you’ve both returned to your own bodies it’s even worse that he’s seeing you half naked (don’t ask you why it just is somehow. Maybe it has something to do with him seeing it from his point of view instead of yours?). 

Embarrassment floods your face, and you yell at him to turn around, hurriedly grabbing another tampon and putting it in before using your quirk to retrieve the tampon from the toilet and dumping it into the trash. A rushed tug has your pants back on, and the two of you stand in the bathroom not moving or speaking. Finally you break the silence.

“Uh, well, anyways. I’m glad this all worked out, sorry for the inconvenience and how weird it was. I’m going to head home and enjoy my day off now. Have a nice day!”

Not giving him the chance to respond, you dart past him and out the door, ignoring him as he calls your name. Yeah right. Have a nice day? More like have a nice life. There was no way you could ever show your face around him again. Maybe you could call Kyoka up and ask her if she needed a new hero at the agency she shared with Denki.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t always go as planned, and you wake up the next morning to your phone buzzing. You called in sick the night before, partially because your cramps were really bothering you, and partially because you were avoiding Todoroki. 

Blearily, you roll over, pawing at your phone before lifting it to your ear. “Hello?”

“Good morning.” Immediately recognizing the smooth, deep voice belonging to none other than the one man you were actively trying to avoid, you do the only logical thing and hang up immediately. 

A couple seconds later your phone rings again, and this time you let it go to voicemail. The sharp trill of your ringtone reaches you through the pillow you pressed over your head, alerting you that he called several more times after that. Finally the calls stop, and you emerge from under the pillows, beating back the strange sense of disappointment rising in your chest.

Ping!

The sound of your phone chiming startles you, causing you to drop it. Picking it back up, you check your notifications with bated breath.

(1) New Message From: Todoroki Shouto

Scared to read the message, you hesitate to click on it, having no idea what to expect. Your thumb hovers over the banner, the light washing over your skin as you work up the courage to check it.

Ping!

Your phone lands on your carpet with a plop as you accidentally drop it over the edge of your bed, not expecting it to go off again.

Ping! Ping!

Cautiously, you poke your head over the edge of your bed, glancing down at the illuminated lock screen. You let out an internal screech of horror.

(4) New Messages From: Todoroki Shouto

Unable to deal with the agony of not knowing what he said any longer, you scoop your phone up and tap the notification, scanning the messages, your heart dropping further and further the more you read.

Todoroki Shouto: Did you just hang up on me?

I’ll be at your place in fifteen minutes. Do you want anything?

*image attached*

Also: are these the chocolates you’re fond of? I asked my mother and sister and they told me they enjoy chocolate when they are menstruating. 

Those are, in fact, your favorite chocolates, but as much as you wanted them you wanted him at your apartment in fifteen minutes even less. The sound of aggressive tapping filled your room as you typed out a response at breakneck speed, praying to whatever was out there that he wouldn’t actually come to your place.

You: Good morning Todoroki-San. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize it was you and hung up because I was half asleep. It’s sweet of you to think of me, but those are expensive. Also, I’m taking the day off today so is there any possible way the matter you have to discuss could wait until tomorrow? Thanks!

A couple seconds after you hit send, the little label beneath the message changed from “delivered” to “read.” Then radio silence. Anxiety bubbles up in the pit of your stomach? What does read mean? Did he agree with you? Is he still coming? Too drained to deal with the emotional turmoil this was causing you, you rolled over and pulled your covers up over your head. This was a problem for future you.

Drifting off, you were awakened a short time later by your phone chiming once, then again a few minutes later, and the sound of your doorbell ringing. Surely it wasn’t…Half-closing your eyes to shield against the harsh glow of your phone, you unlock it.

(2) New Messages From: Todoroki Shouto

Todoroki Shouto: I’m here. Open your door.

I didn’t want to tell you over text, but you aren’t responding. Bakugou says I have romantic feelings for you and I think he is correct. He also said you’ve been “a mooney-eyed moron” for me since we were in high school. If that is true and you do feel the same way, please let me in. I would like to see you and care for you while you are on your cycle.

Three dots appear, signaling that he’s typing. A couple seconds later, your phone chimes again, not even giving you a moment to process the previous messages.

Todoroki Shouto: Our former classmates also unanimously agreed that I am, in fact, popular with the ladies. I’ll forgive your comment if you let me in. The old lady who lives next door to you is giving me suspicious looks. 

You blink. Rub your eyes. Squint closer at your screen. The words didn’t change, and neither did their meaning. And Todoroki wasn’t the type of person to joke around like this. Your mouth suddenly felt dry, and your pulse thundered in your ears as you realized there was only one thing left to do.

You had to get out of bed and let him into your apartment.

taglist: @arlerts-angel @ponderingmoonlight @sunaraii @hotvinimon

as always, please please please let me know if you want to be added to or removed from any of my taglists. tysm for reading, and i hope you enjoyed it!!

[dailyadventureprompts]

Homebrew Mechanic: Meaningful Research

Being careful about when you deliver information to your party is one of the most difficult challenges a dungeonmaster may face, a balancing act that we constantly have to tweak as it affects the pacing of our campaigns.

That said, unlike a novel or movie or videogame where the writers can carefully mete out exposition at just the right time, we dungeonmasters have to deal with the fact that at any time (though usually not without prompting) our players are going to want answers about what's ACTUALLY going on, and they're going to take steps to find out.

To that end I'm going to offer up a few solutions to a problem I've seen pop up time and time again, where the heroes have gone to all the trouble to get themselves into a great repository of knowledge and end up rolling what seems like endless knowledge checks to find out what they probably already know. This has been largely inspired by my own experience but may have been influenced by watching what felt like several episodes worth of the critical role gang hitting the books and getting nothing in return.

I've got a whole write up on loredumps, and the best way to dripfeed information to the party, but this post is specifically for the point where a party has gained access to a supposed repository of lore and are then left twiddling their thumbs while the dm decides how much of the metaplot they're going to parcel out.

When the party gets to the library you need to ask yourself: Is the information there to be found?

No, I don't want them to know yet: Welcome them into the library and then save everyone some time by saying that after a few days of searching it’s become obvious the answers they seek aren’t here. Most vitally, you then either need to give them a new lead on where the information might be found, or present the development of another plot thread (new or old) so they can jump on something else without losing momentum.

No, I want them to have to work for it:  your players have suddenly given you a free “insert plothook here” opportunity. Send them in whichever direction you like, so long as they have to overcome great challenge to get there. This is technically just kicking the can down the road, but you can use that time to have important plot/character beats happen.

Yes, but I don’t want to give away the whole picture just yet:  The great thing about libraries is that they’re full of books, which are written by people,  who are famously bad at keeping their facts straight. Today we live in a world of objective or at least peer reviewed information but the facts in any texts your party are going to stumble across are going to be distorted by bias. This gives you the chance to give them the awnsers they want mixed in with a bunch of red herrings and misdirections. ( See the section below for ideas)

Yes, they just need to dig for it:  This is the option to pick if you're willing to give your party information upfront while at the same time making it SEEM like they're overcoming the odds . Consider having an encounter, or using my minigame system to represent their efforts at looking for needles in the lithographic haystack. Failure at this system results in one of the previous two options ( mixed information, or the need to go elsewhere), where as success gets them the info dump they so clearly crave.

The Art of obscuring knowledge AKA Plato’s allegory of the cave, but in reverse

One of the handiest tools in learning to deliver the right information at the right time is a sort of “slow release exposition” where you wrap a fragment lore the party vitally needs to know in a coating of irrelevant information,  which forces them to conjecture on possibilities and draw their own conclusions.  Once they have two or more pieces on the same subject they can begin to compare and contrast, forming an understanding that is merely the shadow of the truth but strong enough to operate off of. 

As someone who majored in history let me share some of my favourite ways I’ve had to dig for information, in the hopes that you’ll be able to use it to function your players.

A highly personal record in the relevant information is interpreted through a personal lens to the point where they can only see the information in question 

Important information cameos in the background of an unrelated historical account

The information can only be inferred from dry as hell accounts or census information. Cross reference with accounts of major historical events to get a better picture, but everything we need to know has been flattened into datapoints useful to the bureaucracy and needs to be re-extrapolated.

The original work was lost, and we only have this work alluding to it. Bonus points if the existent work is notably parodying the original, or is an attempt to discredit it.

Part of a larger chain of correspondence, referring to something the writers both experienced first hand and so had no reason to describe in detail. 

The storage medium (scroll, tablet, arcane data crystal) is damaged in some way, leading to only bits of information being known. 

Original witnesses Didn’t have the words to describe the thing or events in question and so used references from their own environment and culture. Alternatively, they had specific words but those have been bastardized by rough translations. 

Tremendously based towards a historical figure/ideology/religion to the point that all facts in the piece are questionable.  Bonus points if its part of a treatise on an observably untrue fact IE the flatness of earth

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

Rewriting DC Monkey Prince & Nezha: Characterization (it’s really bad)

I previously mentioned how I believe Marcus Sun = Gene Luen Yang self-insert, and it only gets worse.

Credit to @journeytothewestresearch, @sonicasura, @nightstar47, @gaaralover55

Marcus' character is established through relation with other characters. Marcus is being traumatized by Batman. Marcus is being bullied by Riz. Marcus is being told off by Kaya. Marcus is being wrongfully attacked and kicked around by Big Bad superheroes.

Then Marcus gets superpowers, and he immediately uses them for selfish revenge. He is then saved by Zhu Bajie, who forces him to be a superhero.

Marcus seems very reactionary, only getting the story moving because of plot convenience.

The poor writing isn’t just limited to Marcus. The original characters are bland and lacking in depth. Kaya is a generic love interest who does next to nothing about her bully brother. Riz is an over the top bully who gets redeemed for no reason other than giving a pointless arc closure.

All of the DC characters have been misused and mischaracterized, all for the sake of making Monkey Prince the star of the show.

A rule of writing is that characters have to be distinct. If you can replace Character A with Character B, and there would be no difference in behavior and action, you’re doing something wrong.

The biggest issue (as always) is Batman. Yang did not write Batman. He did not even write, to quote OSP, “the Punisher in a silly hat.” He wrote an edgy wannabe with delusions of being the Punisher.

Batman is also incredibly dumbed down, falling for the "you got your fly down" trick, and the whole “Marcus’ Batman trauma” subplot goes nowhere. After appearing for the first few issues, Marcus just moves on to hating and dumping on the Dark Knight to hating and dumping on other superheroes.

The only exception to Marcus’ “I Hate Superheroes” is Supergirl, who only serves to be the generic love interest who needs to be a “Damsel for the hero to prove their worth to”.

What did Kara do besides show up, pick a fight with the protagonist, flirt with said protagonist, fawn over how “AMAZING” the protagonist is, then be the “Damsel in Distress” for protagonist to save?

Marcus as a character is a bit bad (not just in terms of lackluster characterization). Marcus flirts with Kaya and Kara on sight, which is kinda creepy. He never bothers to discuss or work on his "I Hate Superheroes" trauma, which means this plot line goes no where, but is forced into relevancy by contrived encounters with superheroes. He never questions the morality of what his parents are doing, or find ways to help them not be henchmen.

Does he have any actual flaws that he recognizes and improves on? Does he overcome his trauma in a meaningful way? Does he take any action of his own?

The only arc he goes through was the vague "I don't believe in myself, I don't know who I am" which gets resolved after 12 issues with little to no change in behavior or thought. All the changes is he has arrived at the "I don't know what the future holds, but it will be frickin' wicked" stage.

I hate this self-actualization ending. It’s very Mary-Sueish, especially since there are loose plot threads that were never tied up.

For Devil Nezha, I'll already ranted about him here.

It’s the same problems as the DC characters. He’s an interchangeable baddie who can be swapped with any other character, who only serves to make the heroes look more awesome and good for defeating him.

What’s worse is that many of the Devil Nezha stories were written by non-Chinese people, and it shows.

Fixing This in 新神榜：孙太子

There is how I would redo it in my rewrite:

I would scale down the world to just Gotham. There will be a consistent cast of characters to show up, and enough time to flesh them out as individuals. Give Kaya and Riz some actual depth and growth. It also gives Marcus the opportunity to interact with Batman's Rogues.

Since this is just going to be focused on Gotham, I might not include Shellestriah, but I could write a one-shot with her later

Give Marcus' "I Hate Superheroes" an actual arc. He needs to confront Batman, the source of his trauma, in order to have growth.

Address the "Evil Grandpa Ultra-Humanite" and "Parents are Evil Henchmen" storyline. Give them resolution. Give Laura and Winston some character beyond "Good Parents".

GET RID OF SUPERGIRL. She's been butchered into being Yang's self-inset fantasy "generic white bread damsel in distress", and I hate it. Yang should have just stuck with Kaya, or no love interest.

GIVE MARCUS AGENCY. He needs to want something of his own. Since he's staying in Gotham here, it gives him more opportunities to try to be the hero that he thinks Batman isn't. Give him opportunities to have meaningful relationships with characters other than Zhu Bajie.

For Nezha, my plan is to split him into two characters: Devil Nezha, and Li Yunxiang.

Li Yunxiang, under the guidance of Yang Jian, arrive at Gotham in hopes of collecting Nezha's weapons and help Yunxiang escape Heaven's watchful eye.

Devil Nezha, the understudy that Heaven took in when the original was banished to Earth to be stuck reincarnating. He was a pawn of the Celestial Court, held in place by the Huntian Ling. When he found out the truth, he tried to rebel, only to be sealed away in a tomb.

I have big plans for Devil Nezha that I won't spoil.

MAKE BATMAN COMPASSIONATE AND SMART. He does research about the strange crimes and sudden wave of demons. He does his best to provide guidance to this monkey superhero who hates him for reasons he doesn't understand. He learns about the Shugel-Shen situation and tries to offer them a legitimate job at Wayne Industries, where they can do good. He meets Li Yunxiang, De Zheng, and Yang Jian.

[amaisms]

ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA & CAKE | Ep. 9 Feel free to edit as needed

★ Let's go to our house. ★ I feel snacky. ★ Try my new pastry. ★ Okay, we're safe now. ★ I'll put in a video game. ★ You go make us margaritas I've always wanted to try one of those. ★ What if it was an omen? ★ It was just a nightmare. ★ I can't wait for this dump to change. ★ Can I help you? ★ Hey, get off the ice. ★ This place is gonna be magic soon, ★ Cool threads. You been thrifting? ★ You just disappeared. ★ Okay, this is gonna blow your mind. ★ Scared of the darkness that lay before your eyes… ★ What did you do to my spell, huh? ★ Why must this be? ★ I've wanted to see you again for so long ★ I finally get to you when I'm not even trying. ★ I really tried to fix you. I searched for years for a way to undo this… but I failed. ★ I felt completely out of place and time. ★ My life had been drained of all meaning. ★ You gave me a second chance, and I've wasted it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, ★ I just wanted to come here and tell you that ★ You would have liked them. ★ They'll use a second chance better than I ever did. ★ You of all people should understand why I must do this. ★ I finally have a purpose now. ★ Keep it coming. ★ You wont get away with this! ★ Tell my kids… I resent them. ★ Quit wigglin around, you nugget, or you're walkin'. ★ If I'm going to the library, you're going to have to carry me. ★ You just got real weird there. ★ Are you going through puberty? ★ I'm from another world far different than your own. ★ You're not getting out of going to the library by acting weird. ★ That's great, actually. I could really use a library right now. ★ Are you making fun of me? ★ I love the library. ★ I like this new you. ★ I have free will. ★ I keep stepping on my tail. ★ Ugh, this will take some getting used to. ★ Stay out of this. ★ I'm a professional, and professionals don't hold grudges. ★ So you're not a robot? ★ I'm just back to my original form. ★ But if everything's gonna change, will we still be together? ★ Well, we did see a world where versions of y'all tried to kill each other, so there's that option. ★ Hey, hey, don't worry. We smoothed it over. ★ Honestly, I don't know if you'll even remember each other. ★ But I don't want to forget anything. ★ I told you it shouldn't be up to us to decide ★ I'd still date you if you were a vampire ★ It's worth a shot. ★ Shh. We have to be quiet now. ★ I love all plants and animals, but not these things. ★ I got your dumb crystal. ★ A Godlike being outdone by a humble cheese-ball barrel. ★ The book! I need to see the book. ★ We're almost to the ol' reading spot. ★ Why do you want to read this one so badly? ★ Let's save your friends, then. ★ I'm digging the commitment to this bit.

[numericalpie]

WCW 3: The Long Road to the End of Winter

Here's my offering for day three of @wintercourtweek: the Snow Queen story I've been threatening for years. Hope y'all enjoy!! Bonus points to anyone who traces out Viviane's journey.

“Viv!” Kal yelled. 

She slammed to the ground, face right into the snow. A clump of ice whistled over her head, landing softly right next to her nose. 

“Kal,” she giggled, getting back up. “You can’t tell me when you’re about to throw.”

Viviane picked the snowball back up - soft snow, today, so the near-perfect lump he’d carefully twisted stayed together just fine in her hands. 

“And you’re not supposed to make them perfect,” she shouted, throwing it back at him. 

He ducked; it hit the side of his shoulder. 

“Ow,” he said, laughing. “It’s so hard!”

“It wouldn’t be if you didn’t make them so tight,” she exclaimed, throwing more at him. Smaller and lighter, partially because at seven to his eight Viviane was two hands shorter, and partially because she cared so, so much less. 

You weren’t supposed to care. Viviane had known that since birth. There was enough else to care about, gods knew, or so Mama always said. You have to take care of the big things, my Vivianna, and forget about the small ones, lest the snow queen herself comes to steal you away from your troubles, away from us. 

But apparently no one had bothered to tell Kal that, or no one else, because no matter how many times she told him he wouldn’t stop. 

“You make more than I do,” he complained, unable to dodge all of her barrage. “It’s not fair!”

She laughed. “I work faster! That’s what you get for making them tight!”

He threw another suspiciously round and well-formed snowball at her. Viviane ducked behind a drift of snow, giggling. 

She had seven - wait. She recounted. Six snowballs. That was enough. Probably. She could untie the kerchief Mama demanded she wear whenever she played with that boy and fill it with her snowballs and run over to where he was and dump them all on his head, and then he would admit defeat and they could go inside and Mama would tut disapprovingly at how wet her kerchief was but would warm milk up for the both of them anyways. And then eventually it would grow dark and he would go back to his home, high on the hill (Viviane had never been: Mama said it was too beautiful for a dirt-covered urchin, laughing and scrubbing at her hair; Kallias just said her home was more fun) and then tomorrow they could do it all over again. Forever and forever and forever. 

Viviane silenced her giggles and scraped the snowballs into her kerchief, braids coming loose around her head. The tails would get all snowy and wet, later, but that was alright. Mama would say she was mad but wouldn’t be, and tomorrow she’d just have to promise to wear her kerchief again. 

(She wouldn’t, but Mama didn’t need to know that.)

______________________________________________________________

“Kal?” Viviane asked, quiet, nervous. 

One of his friends said something, she couldn’t hear what, but a laugh rose from the group of all of them, well-dressed boys together for their short teatime. White tunics, furs, fine and pretty; Viviane smoothed her worn dress, the one Mama had embroidered a year ago, the one she’d promised to make as pretty as anything they wore over there. It wasn’t, obviously, but Viviane liked it anyways: little flowers from the lípa in spring sketched around the neckline and the sleeves and the waist, fine as anything Mama ever did.

Perfect stitches by candlelight, as pretty as anything that could be bought over there. Good thread that Mama saved up for two months to buy. And now a stain, she could just tell, or what was going to be a stain, bloodred and obvious, if Kal would not help her this instant. 

“Kallias?” she tried again, louder. 

One of them - she did not know his name; had patently decided against learning it the second he first mouthed off at their teacher - looked at her and laughed. 

“Oh, Kaaaaaalllll,” he sang, snickering. “A giiiiirl wants to speak to yoooouuuuuu.”

“Would you shut your - “ Kallias began, turning around with a glare in spite of the chuckles that were currently spreading red poppies across Viviane’s cheeks. She looked down at her toes. 

“Viviane,” he said, much lighter. “Do you need -”

“It’ll just take a minute,” she interrupted, not meaning to. Her cheeks grew hotter and hotter by the minute. 

Maybe she would just die. That would be easier, and Mama would not be angry about her dress if she were a corpse. Probably she wouldn’t. 

“Over there,” he suggested with a tilt of his head, and Viviane almost ran because it meant she would get away from the rest of them. Laughter chased at her heels. 

She stared at the corner of their schoolroom, just through the window, determinedly not turning around so she wouldn’t have to see him laugh back. 

“What is it?” Kallias asked, and Viviane could not help but relax, because he was not laughing at her, he sounded kind and confused, as always. 

“I need your scarf,” she explained in a rush. A red, flushing rush. “Please. Or a kerchief. Or a scarf. Something you can give up. Please.”

“Why?” he asked, reaching for his neck, for the scarf he was wearing. Viviane blushed a little more. 

“I -” she hesitated. “I’m… I’m going to get something on my dress, if I don’t have something.”

Kallias frowned, carefully folding his scarf so he could hand it to her in a neat little square. “Won’t it wash out?”

No. Viviane searched for an explanation. 

“It won’t,” she said, swallowing. “And Mama will be so…”

“Angry?” he guessed, handing it to her. She couldn’t help but finger the fabric - fine and brown and probably more expensive than anything she’d held in her whole life. 

And she was going to bleed all over it. Practically 

“I’m sure your mother won’t be angry,” Kallias said, smooth and kind and very, very wrong. “Especially if it isn’t your fault.”

It is my fault, Viviane thought, paling. I was stupid enough to leave without my cloths. 

Was he going to make her give them back? Oh, oh, Mother, please no. Please, Mama would be so - 

“But by all means,” he concluded, smiling. “Need anything else?”

“No,” Viviane said, nodding vigorously, barely holding back the urge to clutch the scarf to her chest like a beggarwoman with a coin of gold. “Thank you. So much. I promise, I’ll pay you back for it.”

Somehow. The money - the money would take her months, especially now that Mama was pregnant. Months of darning socks and mending shirts behind the counter in the village, the little job that Mama almost killed her over. No daughter of your father -

Viviane shut away the memory. She’d pay him back. Or tutor him, or something. Expect he definitely didn’t need tutoring. Um. She’d… find something. 

“I have other scarves,” he promised. “Don’t worry a minute. Anything else?”

Gods, Viviane thought, looking at him, he really is so stupidly nice. 

Then what she had just thought hit her in full force, and she waved him away as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t see how badly she was blushing. 

______________________________________________________________

Viviane looked down at the poppies, red and pretty, bunched together on her desk. Her favorite flower, still sharp, fresh, beautiful. 

She swore loudly and shoved the desk in front of her. It heaved along the floor, heavy and wooden, not nearly so far as she would’ve liked. 

Viviane groaned and shoved it again, further, pushing the chairs in front of it further. They fell over, legs clanging against the desks in front - metal, thin and cheap but still metal, and she swore louder because the chairs definitely left scratches in the metal. And their teacher wouldn’t know it was her, but the next time he held class he would point to them and ask, loudly, what urchin did this? What vermin was so classless, so - 

“Viviane?” a familiar voice asked, very cautious. 

She straightened immediately, twisting and lifting off of the surface of her desk quick as if it could burn her. 

“Kallias,” she said, sighing. “At least it’s you.”

The rest of that sentence went unsaid: you, and not any of the others, not them. 

“I heard about your mother,” he said, quiet, walking forward to stand next to her. “I’m sorry.”

Viviane bit back her instinctive are you? Are you sure? You, who used to - 

“I’m, um,” he started, looking at the mess she’d made of their schoolroom casually. As if it were any ordinary scene. “I know it isn’t much, but I thought you could use something to make you smile.”

He nodded at the flowers, crushed against the floor; Viviane’s stomach sank to her feet. 

“I thought, um,” she said, swallowing. “I thought they were from someone else.” 

“Oh?” he asked, polite as anything. If he was offended, it didn’t show. 

“Milo,” she explained quietly, and something flashed in his eyes, something definitely flashed in his eyes, but Viviane could not bear to look past that. 

Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. It couldn’t. 

“Milo,” he repeated, tone unreadable. 

Then: “I think I would throw around a few chairs, too.”

Viviane snorted, and then she could look at him again. 

“With Nora - the baby,” she corrected at the confusion on his face. He wouldn’t know, obviously. She should’ve known that. Idiot. 

“With the baby, I can’t afford to live alone,” Viviane continued, gaze flicking down to her feet. “I need, um.” 

She looked up: he was still studying the chairs, casual and calm. 

“I need a husband,” she blurted. It felt wrong to say, wrong to say to him, but then it shouldn’t have, because the prospect was absolutely laughable, he wouldn’t think of it, and she shouldn’t either. 

Readers: she did, of course she did.

“Milo?” he asked, after a moment. “I - Milo? There isn’t…”

He trailed off, but Viviane could fill in the rest - anyone else? Really? 

Viviane squared her shoulders. 

“There’s other boys in the village,” she said, straight and easy. Totally. Very easily. Hopefully her blush wasn’t too bad. “So. I hope not.”

Kallias frowned, she saw, and immediately Viviane’s sense of self-preservation called her to look away. 

“But marriage?” he asked. “You’re so young, Viviane.”

“I’m as old as you are,” she retorted. “Don’t tell me your father isn’t pushing you to wed.”

“That’s different,” he snapped. “For the estate. Not -” Kallias hesitated. 

“It’s not,” she said. “Not different at all. And I have to do it. I have to.”

Kallias swore and sat down in one of the chairs she hadn’t managed to touch, so swiftly Viviane almost thought he’d collapsed, after she recovered her shock. 

Kallias never swore. Oh. 

“It’s not right,” he said, looking back up. “I’m sorry, Viviane. It’s not. You deserve…”

He trailed off. Viviane, without a response, sat down in the chair next to him, one of the one’s she’d moved. 

“There’s my grandparents,” she said, very quietly. “But they’re miles and miles away, and I don’t have the money. I barely had enough to send them a letter when Mama -” 

Her voice failed on the last word, just as she knew it would, because of course it would, and then Viviane could not help herself, she was crying, tears streaking across her desk. 

And maybe Kallias could not help himself, either, because though it was light as anything she could feel his fingers, tracing slow, comforting circles on her back. 

______________________________________________________________

The next week, Milo asked for her hand, smiling broadly in the middle of the street. 

Viviane, exhausted, covered in the dust of the back room of the shop, did not bother to answer. He gave her a ring, the thinnest metal imaginable pounded into something that looked a little like a circle. 

Idly, Viviane decided it had once been a spoon, one of the cheap ones they gave to tenant farmers. Which, she reminded herself, was the sort she would probably use for the rest of her life. Married to Milo, who would almost definitely spend the length of his toiling away on their land. 

But what he lacked in silverware Milo made up for in having a house at all. Even if he always squeezed her hip or her shoulder or the side of her chest, almost bruising, even before they were engaged to be wed. 

He had a house; Nora could go to school. That was enough. 

Surely, that would be enough. 

______________________________________________________________

Viviane woke that night to a knocking on her door, steady and loud. That was inaccurate: Nora woke to the knocking on her door, and Viviane woke to her screaming, and after she bounced her sister the required thirty times, after she hummed a light little tune that fit well enough to the steady beat of the knocks, Nora soothed enough that Viviane could pull her threadbare robe over her nightgown and answer the door. 

Kallias stared back at her, at the little girl in her arms. 

Viviane stared back. Nora’s fingers clutched on the strings of the front of her nightgown. 

Kallias stared at her, lit only by a candle, miraculously shining even in the falling snow. 

The first snow, auspicious. 

Viviane stared back. Nora pulled at one of the strings. 

Kallias stared at her, a sack that Viviane did not see in his hands. 

Viviane stared back. Nora pulled so hard at the string that her nightgown started to open, and Viviane groaned and pulled it tight again. 

“You’re not supposed to do that,” she whispered to her sister, knowing full well Kallias could hear her. He’d pretend he couldn’t, she knew; Viviane knew that better than anything. 

Kallias cleared his throat, and Viviane looked up. For a moment they just looked at each other, quieter than the snow, falling softly all around them. 

He handed her the sack, coins clanging as it shifted, noise softened by the fabric. Viviane held it to her chest, just as tight as she held Nora. 

And then, with a little bow that made her giggle, the sort they always used in country dances that he was never supposed to attend, he left. 

The next morning, so did she. 

______________________________________________________________

Viviane had been at her grandmother’s home for over a year - through the long, cold winter, all of the slow mud of spring, and another winter after that, before she first heard the rumor. 

Nora played in the grass, high by the mountainside where the perunika grew, when Grandmother first told her. Very casual, light, oh, by the way, some man has gone missing from your old village. 

“Oh?” Viviane asked, only half-listening. It was easier to work with a pattern, but she could not resist the challenge of the real model, the pretty purple iris swaying in the breeze. The quilt would sell, she knew it would sell, knew very well that she could make something nice enough to sway even the richest of them. 

Grandmother hummed. “One of the lordlings. Odd, isn’t it?”

“Lordlings?” Viviane repeated, leaning forward to get a better look at the iris. It wouldn’t have the same dimension, she knew, not at all, but if she could manage the way the petals folded over each other - a decorative seam, maybe? The thread would be costly… 

“Mmh,” Grandmother agreed. “Some name with a K, I think. You know Johanne goes on for so long.”

Viviane froze. 

“Kallias?” she asked. 

Grandmother snapped. “That’s the one.”

Viviane was suddenly completely, achingly certain that her heart was frozen inside her chest, that all of her was frozen, that the entire world was frozen. 

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. 

“Viviane?” Grandmother asked, concerned. “You look pale, dearest.”

She couldn’t move, so she didn’t, stared unseeingly ahead at the perunika swaying softly with the breeze. 

It couldn’t be. It absolutely couldn’t. Kallias was going to marry some wealthy woman, the sort that wore silks and damasks and whatever else they called fabric that wasn’t cotton, and have a hundred children to inherit his father’s wealth before presumably dying of too much prosperity. 

It wasn’t possible, it wasn’t. Not Kallias. 

“Nora,” Grandmother called in some other frame of existence, some place that was not frozen in ice, “will you help me get Viviane inside? Too much sun, I think.”

Nora, all of two, bounded over. Her “helping” consisted mainly of pulling at Viviane’s leg, tugging, playful. Vivi, why won’t you play my game? 

Viviane did not answer, not even once. She moved slowly, heard her bones creaking with every step as if she was one of the dead. And yet maybe it worked, because it was not until she was inside that the tears started to flow down her cheeks, and another eternity more before she thought to reach for her handkerchief. 

______________________________________________________________

“Wait,” said Grandmother, when Viviane wanted to follow her first instinct and march down to the village and into his father’s beautiful marbled portico and ask what, under the sun, he had let happen to Kallias. 

And Viviane remembered that her grandmother was not young, for all she had married young enough to still be a little off of old. And Nora was young, so young, and she could not leave her behind. Shame pooled oily and cold in the bottom of her stomach at the thought. 

But she could not leave him to be dead, either, not after - 

Not after everything. So she swallowed her pride and walked into the fishmonger’s stall and begged for work. He blinked at her, old and salt-warn, for all they lived so very far away from the sea. Once, Viviane had wondered where he could possibly have come from, back when the world still had bright colors and there was a sound aside from Nora’s bright little laugh to break through her world of silence. 

Now, she didn’t care. Couldn’t. Mama had been right: there was too much else to worry about. Nora needed boots and Grandmother needed a shawl and Viviane needed to buy ink and paper and however much it would take to bribe the postman into delivering her letter into friendly hands. Not that there were many, not really, but some of her old classmates would tell her the truth.

Hopefully. Hopefully they would tell her the truth. 

No, they would. They had to. Viviane had nowhere near enough money to secure a spot on the back of a wagon going over there. And even if she did, who else would she ask? There was no one else, no one aside from the few friends she used to have, the girls who didn’t snicker at her thin dresses. Surely the urge to gossip alone would be enough. Surely. 

They would tell her the truth; Viviane was sure of it, absolutely sure. Especially if she paid the fare for their return postage. 

A letter there, and back, and boots for Nora, and a shawl for Grandmother, and food for the winter, and their payments to the lord of Grandmother’s village. She could do it. 

Viviane had to, so she did. Hours and hours and weeks and months of serrating fish with small knives in the back of the fish shop, guts spilling over her hands. Nights and nights and nights of sewing by candlelight, darning socks and fixing shirts and working yet again at that quilt. Someday it would sell. She knew it would. 

And then, finally, she sent her letter. Her best penmanship, her precious ink, her parchment, her bribe, all neatly done. And the response: we’re all well. Harvest’s poor, but you know. Oh, yes, they sent out several search parties. No one found him. They held a burial a few weeks ago - empty casket. Do write again! 

Viviane would not; she could barely stand to look at the letter in the first place. 

“Wait,” Grandmother reminded her, creaking in her chair by the fire. Viviane flew from the room, planting herself in the snow outside, again, outside, as if it could cleanse her. 

She could not go, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, and she shouldn’t, because Kallias was nothing more than a kind wealthy man she knew in her youth and she should not go. 

Nora needed her. Grandmother needed her. 

Viviane knew: she could not go. 

But, oh, she wanted to. She could not help wanting to. Viviane threw herself back into her work, hours and hours of fish and thread and scrubbing Nora’s hair in the washbin. Of finding willow bark for Grandmother to rub on her joints whenever it rained, haggling for cloth from the women in the market, unpicking the dresses Nora grew out of and putting them back together with wider shoulders and four inches added on to the hems. Days passed, cyclical, dreams: she woke in the morning and braided her hair as tightly as she could, floated down to the village, scrubbed against scale and bone, thoughtless. Returned in the evenings to smile at Nora, faraway and wrong, so wrong in her home, in her bones; to ignore the looks Grandmother gave, searching, afraid. 

“My dear,” Grandmother said, one evening when the sky was dark because it was the winter so it was always dark. “I think you should sleep more.” 

Viviane did not respond. In truth, she did not hear: her focus was on the muslin in front of her, the pinned-together segments that would soon be yet another reworking of Nora’s favorite dress. Assuming it did not dust away to nothing before she finished. 

“Viviane,” she said, louder, and Vivianne finally looked up. 

“Grandmother?” she asked. The urge to yawn struck and she did not fight it, did not fight the urge to let it stretch her jaw in half. 

“You should go to bed,” Grandmother said. “I’ll finish the dress.”

Viviane waved her off. “I’m fine. I promise.”

Grandmother frowned. “Don’t lie, my girl.”

“I’m not,” Viviane said, lying. “I’m not tired. Youth.” 

Her grandmother snorted. “You just yawned for a sixth time. Bed, Viviane.”

Viviane pulled her needle through the fabric of what had already been, twice over, a sleeve. “As I said. I’m well.”

“You’re not,” Grandmother said, reaching forward to snatch the needle out of her hands. Viviane sat back in her chair with a sigh, hard wood against her spine. 

“You haven’t been since that man died.”

“Went missing,” Viviane corrected, route, unthinking. “Not dead.”

Grandmother sighed and reached for the cloth. “Either way,” she began, tone certain of which way, “you ought to rest.” 

“No use,” Viviane said, pulling the cloth back to her own lap. She took the needle - Grandmother let it go - and sighed, because the thread had come unhooked through it. 

“Every use,” Grandmother countered. “He’ll hardly be found by your efforts.”

Viviane licked the end of the thread so it would come smoothly through the eye. “I see his face, Grandmother. When I dream.”

It was thirty stitches before she realized her grandmother had never given a response. Viviane looked up from her fabric, from the sleeve now fixed to the bodice.

Grandmother stared at her, sorrow shining like the moon in her eyes. 

______________________________________________________________

“Where are you going?” Nora asked, for probably the fortieth time. 

“Away,” Viviane told her, stirring the pot bubbling by their tiny stove. A few more preserves with the berries, a few more carefully stored and put away so Grandmother would have enough to last until she came home. 

“When?” Nora asked, pulling at her feet. 

Viviane clucked. “Not for a long time, little sister.” 

She reached down to readjust the kerchief that slung back on Nora’s head. It was cold, even in the beginning of spring, snow still melting on street corners and clutching at the sides of the mountains. No perunika, not yet. 

Nora groaned and pushed it back. Viviane could not help her smile. 

“Gremlin,” she said, fondly. 

“But when?” Nora asked, insistent. “You can’t leave until my name day. You promised you would make me a cake.”

“I did,” Viviane remembered, stirring the pot. No sugar, but that was just as well; Grandmother didn’t like sweet things, and Nora had never really had any. “And I won’t leave until the lípa bloom, Nora. You know that.” 

“But why,” her sister begged. “Vivi, why?”

Viviane set down her spoon. “Why am I going?”

She untwisted her kerchief while Nora nodded vigorously, shaking her leg from the force of her rocking. Her hair spilled out, blond braids falling down her back. 

Carefully, she tied it around Nora’s head, smiling at the way her sister scrunched her nose. Viviane untied the kerchief she’d had, too, wrapping it around her own head even though it was still wet with spring-melting snow. 

“There. Isn’t mine better?”

Nora grumbled something unintelligible, which was probably for the best. 

“I am going,” she said, leaning down to gather her sister up and into her arms. It was difficult; she was heavier than she’d once been.

Viviane knew she wouldn’t be able to lift her at all when she returned. The thought made her nauseous. 

“I am going,” she repeated, patting softly against her sister’s warm back, “because a very dear friend to me, and you, is in trouble.”

“Trouble?” Nora gasped. “That’s not good. Grandmama says to stay out of trouble.”

“She’s right,” Viviane agreed. “You must listen to her, Nora, always.”

“Grandmama scares me,” Nora confided into her neck. Viviane lowered herself to the ground to sit, not able to bear the weight standing for another moment. 

“Me too, sometimes,” Viviane admitted. “But only because she’s right and she doesn’t worry about saying right things nicely. Not all the time.”

Nora frowned, she could feel it against her neck. “But why are you going? Why, Vivi?”

“I told you,” Viviane said, patting her back again. “I have to. But not yet, and I promise I’ll come back. I promise, Nora.”

“You have to do the things you promise,” Nora said, the wisdom of all the ages made clear in her tone.

Four, Viviane thought. Four and when I return she will probably be six. 

“I know,” she agreed. “I will. I promise.”

______________________________________________________________

Viviane did not weep at their parting. Head level, spine straight, satchel packed with food and clothing, her needles and a few scraps of fabric and thread. She counted the coins she was leaving behind - all that she’d worked for, toiled in the night and day and hours in between for almost two years to gather. Just enough, hopefully, to sustain Grandmother and Nora until she could return, enough to buy food or medicine if Grandmother got hurt, enough to pay the taxes for a few years if she didn’t.

It was enough, it had to be. It had to be. 

Nora wept; Grandmother did not, but she looked like she could, which was how Viviane knew it was time to leave. The lípa bloomed, outside, lime trees holy on the hills. 

Kallias was waiting, somewhere. She had to go. 

Viviane did weep hours later, slowly climbing the path back to her old village, to the place she knew her journey had to start, but that was alright. Surely, that was alright. 

______________________________________________________________

The tombstone before her was smooth marble, beautiful and cold. Viviane could touch the letters carved in the surface: KALLIAS MILKOVICH, clear and fine. 

She turned to the side and vomited in the grass, just far enough so that she was not puking over his empty grave. Her kerchief - Nora’s - came unbound somewhere in the middle, landing in the patch of nausea she left in the grass. As if she needed the day to get worse. 

Her old friends had received her well enough - tea, the sort served in any farmer’s kitchen, wives covered in dirt or coal dust by association asking after her sister, the husband she really ought to have had. They grew colder when she asked of him, questioning, suspicious, before finally swearing that they had no part in it, Viviane, whatever you think you are implying, and no paid spy of them will have a place in our homes as a friend! 

I’m not, she’d sworn, but they did not care and frankly enough in their place she wouldn’t have either, so she left, head down like a traitor, a woman with shame enough to hide. 

Someone tittered, she could hear it in the wind, and when Viviane looked up a woman in fine clothing, black fur and wool cut beautifully to her frame, was pointing at her from a few graves away. She could feel the poppies rushing to blush her cheeks, a girl again, and so Viviane ripped her kerchief from the ground and ran for shelter anywhere. Anywhere she would be free of eyes and empty graves and them. 

She ended up beneath a lípa, the one that grew strong and thick and tall by the very edge of the cemetery. Wide roots, wider trunk; just enough to shelter herself by the side of it and sob into the dirt at its feet. 

The tears coursed, hot on her cheeks, and every time she tried to wipe them away there was just more to follow. And she could barely wipe them away, because her hands were shaking - her whole body was shaking - and Viviane could not help it, could not help the noises she was making, somewhere between animal and girl. 

Eventually, inevitably, she grew quiet, and her body stilled, and Viviane decided that it was really rather cold under the lípa but she could not move, not if she tried. The branches swayed, above and around her, the last bloom of flowers honey in the breeze. 

She watched them float, frozen like ice by the roots. 

River, she heard, from nowhere and everywhere, and Viviane jumped. 

She got a bearing on herself, quickly, turning around in a circle almost violently fast, nearly falling over her own feet. No one was there, just as she knew no one would be there - why would they bother? Hardly anyone came to the wealthy cemetery, and the Mother herself knew full well that they never stayed for long. 

No. No one was there, and there was no noise, other than the breeze. She’d made it up. 

Losing her mind, then. Viviane could work with that. She sat back in the dirt, not caring that it was undoubtedly creeping its way onto her skirt. 

River, she heard again, and this time she did not jump, but leaned back against the lípa. It was strong against her back, steady though its branches rocked like a ship on the faraway sea. 

RIVER, she heard, or rather felt in the very bones of her skull, vibrating through her entire being. 

Viviane looked back at the lípa in shock. When she was a girl, a very small girl, Mama had told her: oh, darling, you know you must trust in the lípa, the Mother’s trees. 

She scrambled to her feet and ran like a madwoman for the river. That was a stretch, or it ought to have been: when she was a girl it had been little more than a steady stream with fish flipping through its currents. Something must have changed, though, because she could hear it as she approached, the steady gurgle of the waters, a hundred lengths wider than she had thought it was. Perhaps a hundred times stronger, too, whitewater in patches, spraying wild in the air. 

River, she thought. I am at the river. 

Viviane waited. Nothing happened, nothing but the flow of the water, the spray in the air. 

“I’m here,” she said, out loud. 

The water continued to flow, fast and cold. 

“I’M HERE,” she shouted, loud and sharp, carrying only a short while across the water. No response, of course, nothing of note from the gods. 

Viviane folded like one of Nora’s ragdolls against the shore and began, again, to cry. 

“Please,” she sobbed against the ground, cold beneath her. “Please. I just want to find him. Even if he��s…”” 

She could not get out the word, dead, it stuck to the inside of her throat. It did not much seem to matter to the rushing water. 

“I’ll trade,” she said, desperate and perhaps a little mad from lack of warmth or sleep. “Here.”

She threw her kerchief, Nora’s kerchief, the one she’d spent hours stitching careful lípa blossoms onto, into the water. It carried it away, down and under the currents; Viviane gasped with immediate regret. 

And then, because she really had nothing better to do, Viviane waited. Just sat there, staring at the river, while the sun drifted higher and then lower in the sky, reflecting off the water like something holy, which in truth it probably was. 

Something dark and wet floated across the top of the water, she noticed, after minutes or hours. It traced its way back to her, against the current, gentle and slow. 

Nora’s kerchief. She ripped it out of the water in disbelief, laughing with no little shock. 

Against the current, she realized, feeling the imprint of the lípa in her hands. 

A boat was tied up, not very far away, a shabby little thing of wood and rope and the odd rusted nail. Viviane untied it, mad as anything, far away from her body and very near it at the same time. She would have left coins behind for the trouble, if she had any to spare, but she did not. Besides, it was decrepit, almost falling to pieces in the water. Hopefully whoever owned it would not mind. 

Hopefully it would not break beneath her on the river, but Viviane did not think of that for more than a moment. Heart in her throat - kerchief, soaking wet in her hand - she untied it, leaving the rope on its little dock. The boat creaked when she settled onto it, but Viviane could not blame it for that. She did not take a breath until she had been on it for minutes without it falling apart, though. 

Only after she’d managed to breathe, in and out, did she push away from the shore. The river picked them up almost immediately, the little boat and her, whisking them away from the land so quickly Viviane wondered if she should be screaming. 

She didn’t, though. The river was fast but friendly, almost kind. Viviane felt the boat rock to and fro in the currents. 

And then, without noticing, Viviane fell asleep. 

______________________________________________________________

Viviane twisted in her blankets, reaching back to brush against the soft pillow underneath her head. Black night rested upon her eyes, still, inviting and beautiful and so enticing she could not help but sigh and twist back over. Her hip sank a little further into the mattress, feather-light, almost molding itself to her bones. 

Her eyes flew open and she shot upwards, shoving off the fine blankets of wool and fur. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. The bed was one she had never seen before, plush and rich, blue quilt stretched over the top. The walls were of fine make, straight and high, covered with a design of repeating flowers, clover and lípa. The little table, stout and brown, covered with lace finer than Viviane had ever seen in the shops, a little bowl of polished clay resting empty atop. 

Unfamiliar, unfamiliar, unfamiliar. She stalked to the door at the end of the room, redwood varnished nearly to a shine, swinging it open so strongly she almost took it off its hinges. 

And then she screeched, unbidden, at the sight of the old woman standing before her. 

The woman clucked her tongue. “No need for that, dearest Viviane.”

Viviane stared for a moment, forgetting herself. 

The woman held out a cup of tea, dark and bitter-smelling. Viviane took it, hands feeling weak and powerless, shocked that it did not drop from her hands to shatter upon the floor. 

“You are of age to my daughter, did you know that?” the woman asked. “She looked just like you.”

Viviane, very slowly, moved back to sit on the edge of the bed, sipping her cup. Fear beat against the cage of her ribs, but she did not know why. 

She was safe, clearly, she was safe. And warm, and in a finer bed than she’d seen in the whole of her life. 

Or was it? Viviane tried to remember what she had slept on the night before. The ground, yes, that was it, a clump of moss that looked inviting, that she had desperately hoped belonged to no creature of talons or teeth. 

Although she could not remember why. Viviane raked her mind: not for - who? 

The tea really was very good. She took another sip. It was sweet, strange and sweet, like nothing she’d tasted before. 

Viviane frowned. Like nothing she could remember tasting before. 

“You’ve come a long way, dear Viviane,” the old woman crooned. 

“I’m sorry,” Viviane managed, around the odd fog sweeping through her mind. “I don’t recall how we met. My boat…”

She trailed off. Her boat was, was, was…

“Don’t worry, dearest Viviane,” the woman proclaimed. “Let Stryná brush your lovely hair. So blonde, the sun in the sky.”

That sounds nice, Viviane thought, suddenly so, so tired. 

“And then sleep, yes?” Stryná clucked her tongue again; Viviane smiled because it was so very familiar. “Sleep, I think. And then a meal, of course.”

She collected a brush and went on, settling behind Viviane to pull it through the tangles of her hair. Occasionally she muttered something foul under her breath, at particular knots or spots of mud and dirt. 

“I’m sorry,” Viviane apologized. “I don’t know what I did to get so…” 

She searched for a word, finding none. 

Stryná pulled the brush through her hair a little harsher, catching against her scalp. Viviane did not cry out; perhaps she had been expected to, for Stryná hummed lightly, almost approvingly after the knot was out of her hair. 

“I’ll get some meat on you,” Stryná promised, as if Viviane had not spoken. “Something to warn those bones. Clothing, too; what you have are little better than rags.”

Viviane opened her mouth to respond, and closed it when nothing came. Her dress was practically rags, yes, but… 

But. 

But what? 

She was still trying to remember when she let Stryná pull off her clothing and cover her in a nightdress, a new, soft, pristine nightdress, so white it almost glowed. And she was still thinking about it, turning it over in her mind, slow and muddy, when she slipped back into bed and fell asleep. 

______________________________________________________________

In the morning she was at the table, the lovely dining table in the lovely dining room, staring down at more silverware than Viviane had ever seen in one place in her entire life. 

“It doesn’t matter which one you use, child,” Stryná chided. “It is just me.”

Viviane picked up a spoon at random and took a bit of her porridge. It tasted familiar, or… 

It did not taste familiar. The texture was of something she had never before had in her mouth, honey-sweet, flecked with cinnamon and spotted with little bits of apple. 

It was, unquestionably, the nicest thing she’d ever had. Viviane had seconds; Stryná did not chide her for eating too much. She gave her clothing - insisted on it, really; a white blouse, a dark apron, a skirt blue like the sky. And a scarf for her hair, brown and soft - flowers, too, Stryná promised, but only for festivals. 

Viviane didn’t mind the lack of flowers. The fabric of each item was soft, almost warm, certainly warmer than anything she’d felt against her skin before. And beautiful, so beautiful; Stryná had no mirror and forbade her from going to the river to see her reflection, but Viviane knew in the clothes she was beautiful. 

Time passed slowly, Viviane was sure it passed slowly, hours creeping by as she sat with Stryná and chatted over the gossip the older woman brought in from the village, weddings and funerals of people Viviane had never so much as laid eyes upon. Styrnà said she shouldn’t, said she was still confused from her journey, said she should not leave until she was herself again. 

Viviane did not remember any journey, and she was sure she would, but Styrnà was too kind to question, so Viviane did not. She did the washing-up after every meal, and swept the floors, and darned holes in Stryná’s socks for her keep, everything but the laundry. For that she would have to go to the river. 

The sun was kind on her skin, Viviane thought often. It was warmer, she was sure, than it was supposed to be, for it was barely the beginning of summer. The lípa were just blooming. But the sun clung to her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, until Stryná chided her one evening and made her stay inside for - for a while. 

A while. A day? Viviane tried to remember how long Stryná had said she had to wait before she went outside again, scrubbing at the dishes after another breakfast of porridge. Just her second, really, Viviane was sure. She hadn’t been there long. She knew she hadn’t been there long. 

She hadn’t! 

In her dreams, dreams that Viviane did not, could not, tell Stryná, the river flowed beneath her, rocking along a surface of water as clear as the sky at daybreak, blue and shining.  

It was only her second breakfast - Viviane was sure it was only her second breakfast, really, she would remember having porridge that good more than twice - when Stryná cleared her throat, and so of course Viviane put down her spoon like any good, well-mannered individual. No matter how much she wanted to lick the residue of apples and cinnamon off it. 

“I have something for you, my Viviane,” Stryná said. She reached behind her chair - Viviane could not see where, transfixed by the glare of light off of the shining beads, red coral like blood on the other woman’s neck. 

Blood in her hands, too, until Viviane blinked, and then it was just a ring of poppies. 

Red poppies. “For your lovely hair,” Stryná explained, smiling. “And beads, too, three strands of beads for my beautiful daughter.”

Viviane did not hear her as she went on, did not hear the woman smile at her stare, did not hear her laugh at her country girl, transfixed by the smallest of earthly beauties. 

Viviane did not hear, and she did not see, because all that was in her was there, in her classroom, so many years ago. She could feel it - felt it, felt the wisps of rage start to coil in her chest at the sight of the neatly-tied bunch of red poppies. Could feel the shame, too, as she looked at them smashed against the floor, as Kallias - 

As Kallias - 

Viviane looked up, and Stryná was gone, and she did not know why, nor did she bother to ask. She untied her kerchief and started to throw rolls into it, still warm from the oven for later, later when she would not be there, when she would be far away and moving. 

Go, go, go, the wind sang within her, the river, the blossoms drifting in the breeze. Go! 

Viviane tied the edges of her kerchief into a hasty knot around her rolls and bolted for the door, down the hall of Stryná’s ridiculous house, nothing in her head but haste, haste, haste. 

She flung open the door and rushed through, only to stop at the edge of the doorway, momentum carrying her down into the dirt. Viviane landed harshly, skinning her knees; she did not care. 

The world outside was orange. Orange and yellow and red in falling leaves, in dying grasses, in the wind that promised colder times again, and it was supposed to be summer. 

No, she thought, wooden. No, no. No. 

Stryná sighed, behind her. 

“So you’ll leave me,” she said, forlorn. “For him.” 

“I never wanted to stay,” Viviane cried. 

Stryná frowned at the lie. “It won’t be easy, you know.”

Viviane did not bother responding, stared instead at a leaf, falling gently through the sky, brown and dead. 

“She took him north,” Stryná said. 

Viviane whirled around. “You know? Where - where is he? Please, I -” 

She hesitated. “I’ll stay. Longer. As long as you want. Where is he?”

Stryná smiled at her, old and sad, and sighed. 

“Dear Viviane, if only I knew. He is north, or he was, so long ago.” 

Viviane stared, and Stryná told her all of it: how she could hear the sleigh as it came, frost crackling against the earth, the soft laughter of the woman Stryná only called her, and the man riding with her, frozen like a statue in his seat. 

A tall man, blond, broad of shoulder, according to Stryná. Viviane did not need the description; she was certain, absolutely certain, it was Kallias. 

What made her pause, though, was the rest: the sleigh of ice, the spread of frost, the laughter of a woman pale as snow itself. 

“You do not believe me,” Stryná said, with a sigh. “You should, dear one. You really should.” 

Viviane just laughed, in the dirt, knees bleeding, laughed like the deranged. Stryná sighed, again, and strung the beads around her throat. She eyed Viviane’s parcel of rolls, but did not protest. 

“Go north,” Stryná advised. “Follow the river. Do not attempt to travel with it again, girl; you have seen as well as any that it takes you only where it wills.”

“Thank you,” Viviane said, gathering herself. “For everything.”

She did not bother to recite the list they both knew, not even to say the very last of it: thank you for letting me go. Stryná nodded, and Viviane gathered her courage, and began the long journey north. 

______________________________________________________________

Four days later - four days of walking and walking and walking and wishing only to the stars, the stars that could not hear her, or were at least nice enough to pretend they could not hear her wish fervently to be back home, or with Stryná and her warmth - Viviane stumbled into a town. 

She fumbled her way to the nearest tavern, letting herself forget about little things like the general expectation that a person bought something when then entered a business. Viviane needed to be warm. And it was blessedly, blessedly warm inside; even more so by the fireplace, so Viviane slid into a seat right next to it and tried to look like she belonged. 

A barmaid walked by, ale in hand. She looked at Viviane, quizzical; Vivianer smiled and looked away, holding her breath, praying she would keep walking. 

The barmaid did, and Viviane exhaled. 

She did not relax, not in the general sense; more so Viviane melted into the sound and warmth and flow of the building, more and more each minute. Conversations floated by her: and Yolande’s getting married, finally, it’ll be so nice to have her settled…

The harvest was good this year, praise the Mother. Do you think they’ll raise the taxes? Probably… 

I wish I knew where you got that fabric, it’s divine. Oh, from…

And with the Princess married, finally! Oh, do you think it was that man, the one who came years ago? 

Viviane perked up, listening a little sharper. 

I don’t know, but he was headed that way. He seemed a good fellow. Nice head on his shoulders, confident walk. All the things the ladies…

She strained, but could not hear more. 

“Miss?” a voice asked in front of her, and Viviane jerked back to her own body. 

The barmaid was staring at her, almost wry. 

“You’ve been traveling a while, miss?” The woman swept her gaze up and down Viviane’s body, catching at all the dirt. Viviane felt her accursed blush rise again.

“Yes,” she answered, finding her tongue. “Days.”

“Where to?” the woman asked, casual, leaning forward across the bar. 

“The, um,” she sputtered. “I’m going to see the princess.”

It just flew out of her mouth. Viviane gaped at the words for a moment, at herself. 

The barmaid raised an eyebrow. “If you’re sure. The northern road is difficult, miss. Especially for…”

Her eyes swooped up and down again. “Lonely travellers.”

Viviane smiled, forced. “Thank you very much for the warning.” 

The barmaid scoffed, but then a man on the other side of the room yelled for beer, and she turned away. 

Viviane took her chance and ran out of the tavern as quickly as her legs could carry her. 

The northern road. 

It was a start. 

______________________________________________________________

She came upon her next town in a week, after eating the very last of her rolls and passing through a range of mountains she had never heard spoken of before. They were not so high as some, the ones Mama had called Tatry, once; those she passed on the river, though she did not know it. 

All Viviane knew was they were different: not hers. 

She kept walking anyway. Twice, at the bottom of long plains stretching so far Viviane caught herself wondering if she was even in the same lands anymore, if she had walked so far she had come upon a different world, she had to beg for passage against long stretches of water. Her beads worked well enough as payment; though the men captaining ships on foreign docks eyed her in other ways at first sight, they did not complain when she took a strand of red coral from her pocket, shining like pearl, and offered it in outstretched hands. 

The castle was the first thing she saw, wide and stout upon the earth. It boasted none of the spires of the stories, none of the dark stone walls, but it was unquestionably beautiful, beautiful enough for a princess. Even as it was, half-buried in winter snow.

Viviane, dust-covered and cold and tired, stood before its gates and steeled her nerves. Just this, she promised herself. Just this. He will be married to her, and alive, and safe. Just this, and I will go home. 

Her stomach rumbled and she flushed, even though no one could see. 

She walked up the palace drive, though she never would have thought to call it such, walked right up to the front door, stepping and stepping and stepping through the snow, forcing her path and she had forced her path for so many miles. 

Oh, her feet were so cold. 

A snowball hit her, right as she neared the door. Viviane squawked and fell over, shocked and frozen. 

A child laughed, behind her, and for a moment all Viviane could think of was Nora, laughing in her perunika on the mountainside. Oh, oh, oh. 

I should never have come, she thought, but then she remembered how Kallias had bowed to her that night, and she regretted the words even in her mind. I will not regret, Viviane told herself. I will not fail him as he did not fail me. 

Another snowball landed on the back of her head, and then a weight was on her back, just about right for a child, heavy as a stone and sinking with all the force of one. 

And laughing like a child, too, which was the only reason Viviane did not scream. 

Someone else did a moment later, and Viviane found herself facing the opposite end of at least three spears. 

______________________________________________________________

It took Viviane less than a minute to realize her greatest problem, when a woman who was unquestionably the princess stood before her, raised on a dais like a goddess seeing a supplicant. 

They did not speak the same language. 

Eventually a servant was found, someone from home - Slovak, the princess said, find me a person who speaks Slovak. It did not erase the shame from her spine, her stomach, the feeling of being an ant underneath another person’s boot. 

She still cried when the man they brought out started speaking, though. His accent was right, like he had grown up in their village, in the house next to hers. He spoke, and in his voice was home. 

Viviane told him everything, warbling through tears. He watched her all the while, steady as stone. 

The princess waited, solemn on her dais. 

She had no good way to finish the story, not yet, so it drew to a close with the ever-lyrical and so here I am. The man did not so much as flinch, just turned to the princess and started to say something completely unintelligible. 

Viviane forced herself to stand still and calm and wait, wait even longer than she already had. Each breath took a hundred years to draw and pass, in those long moments he theoretically recited her tale. 

And she was still so hungry. 

She expected the princess to say something, after all that, to say something and then for the man to say something she could understand. Viviane did not expect the woman to rush forward and fold her into her arms, murmuring something Viviane could not understand and perhaps never would. 

Viviane felt the woman run along her back, comforting circles feather-light, like the very tips of her fingers were all that contacted the fabric of her dress. 

Her dress. Her once-fine, now dirt-encrusted, snow-wet dress. Her apron, no better, her once-white blouse, the kerchief she’d had to slide into her pocket days ago so it was not whipped off of her head by the wind. 

Tears clung beneath her eyes; she let them fall. 

Later, much later, the man led her to a room with a bed that looked amazing, a thousand times better than anything she could’ve bought with coins she did not have in the nearby town, and even better: a bath, a bath, an actual bath! 

Oh, she was probably crying again. Viviane didn’t care. A bath, and a mirror - a mirror! - and a stack of what looked like impossibly comfortable clothing nearby. 

A bath! 

The Mother, Viviane decided, looking down at water that after three runs finally floated clean around her, free of her own dust, is kind, and also exists. 

After she had soaked for an eternity, a wonderful eternity in which Nora was in another room, and Grandmother was watching her, and Kallias was alive and safe and probably reading to Nora or something, Viviane stood and forced herself out of the bath. 

The water ran off her, rivulets dripping down to her feet, sloughing out of her hair. She delighted in it, absolutely delighted in it, and then - she looked in the mirror. 

Really looked in the mirror. Not just a passing glance: she stood, tall as she could, and took true stock of herself for the first time in years. 

The first thing she noticed was her own ribs, countable enough to wince. The dark lines around her hips, her thighs, the bruises on her shins. The hair that was too long but she couldn’t bear to cut, the sun-streaked blush atop her cheeks, the ridge of her nose. 

Viviane closed her eyes, and breathed deep, and looked again. 

Her eyes were nice, she decided. Nice and blue. I have nice eyes. 

Her legs were tired but long, long enough for her purposes, and they had carried her how far? Across how many miles, how many days, how many lands she should never have even thought to see? 

I like my legs, Viviane decided. She twisted on her ankles, just to see the sides, the backs. 

Her hair was nice, nice and pretty, and it floated across her shoulders when dry. Her nose was right for her face, her eyes were sunken but beautiful in their way. The sunburn gave her color, and it sat well against the wind-whipped skin beneath. 

Her arms lacked the muscle they should have had but they were alright. Her hands were beautiful, calloused and worn and scarred from fish-knives and oh, how Viviane loved her hands. 

I will do this, Viviane thought, looking at all of herself in the mirror. I can do this. I will find him, and I will bring him home, or if I do not I will bring myself peace. 

I will do this. I will do this. 

Then, she fell into bed and slept for what felt like a week. 

______________________________________________________________

In the end, the princess gave her a ship. 

Well, not gave, no one had the resources for that. But there was a ship, a trading barge heading north along the sea, and the princess bought her passage to its northernmost stop. 

Viviane tried to thank her, tried her very best, repeated it first steadily and then through choking tears, but the man was not there and the princess seemed to get the message anyway. They parted as friends, Viviane thought, or at least hoped. 

Likely enough they would never meet again, but that was alright. It had to be, it had to be. Viviane had left too much behind for it not to be alright. 

It was attacked by pirates (a new word for Viviane, marodör; only later would she learn the translation, and only later would someone manage to teach her what that meant. Landlocked children; pity their souls) within four days. 

Naturally, she was asleep: Viviane only woke to the thump of fighting, above her, but only a little at that. Businessmen were not swordsmen, as a rule, and though the princess had been kind beyond measure she had not been that kind beyond measure. 

She could not help her scream at the sight of them, tall and dark and bleeding into the night as if it cloaked them. The two men smiled, though, smiled at the sound of her fear, and said something in a language she did not know. 

Whatever it was, it made the once-captain of their ship pale. Viviane rejected her fear; I will not cower in the face of what I do not know. 

She thought of her hands, again, the lovely, perfect, aged and cracked skin on her hands. They forced her forward, hands on her waist, her gifted dress. They pulled off her apron, untied its rippons, pulled the kerchief from her hair. 

It was the one that had been Nora’s, before, still edged in lípa blossoms, forever in bloom. She screeched and jumped for it, boots landing on the unfamiliar wood of an unfamiliar ship. 

A woman’s voice sounded, and the man who had held it high above her head let it drop, fluttering to the deck. She dived for it, desperate, unsteady until it was once again safely tied about her head. 

“Slovak?” the woman asked. 

Viviane’s head shot up. 

“Yes,” she said, to the creature in front of her. Long, golden hair, not blonde but wheat-gold and then some. Tall, taller than Viviane by hands, in the shirt and trousers of men, sword belted around her own waist. 

“Thank you,” she managed, when her shock abated. “For my kerchief. It is -” I should not be saying this to a maradör, I think - “dear. To me.”

“I guessed,” the woman said, languid and loose but so heavily wrong Viviane knew it was not possibly her mother tongue, “by the lípa.”

Her finger, long, fine as porcelain, smoothed against an embroidered blossom. Viviane swallowed.  

“You’re a long way from home,” the woman said, conversational. 

“Where am I?” Viviane asked, brave as she could muster. “I have not known for… a long time.” 

At that, the woman laughed, and it rang out against the water like the chime of a bell. 

“You stand,” she announced, pride hanging like honey on every word, “on the ship of the Morrigan, traveler. Tell me: what do you offer?”

Offer, Viviane thought. I do not have very much to offer. 

The sea below them was dark and cold, she knew. Very, very cold. 

“A story,” she said, finally. “I cannot offer more than that. Unless you would like my clothes. Please, let me at least keep the kerchief, and perhaps my boots.”

The Morrigan lifted an eyebrow, glorious, impassive. 

“Tell it to me first,” she demanded, not without humor. “Then I will decide on your boots.”

She was a good listener, Viviane decided, though the ship rocked forward around them, thankfully in the direction she had been going before. Luck, luck, oh, Viviane was lucky. 

If nothing else, she promised herself while relaying her stay with Stryná, I can swim. 

At the end, the Morrigan looked as if she was about to cry, and for all the world Viviane could not have guessed what did it. 

(In truth, it was this: the Morrigan’s cousin, a man who had once promised to keep her safe, disappeared years ago, marrying a much older woman to keep safe the lands they both called home. The woman died, not too long later, and yet nothing had ever been heard of the man many called whore and Morrigan called brother, or else Rhysand. 

He was happily married to an artist in their hometown, but Morrigan had been at sea for much too long to know that. She’d find out in a few years, when she went home and her nephew greeted her and Cassian and Azriel at the door.)

Instead, the Morrigan promised to bring her to the end of the sea - they were going there, anyway, something about a man named Kier. Viviane had stopped paying quite as much attention by then, still tired for all the excitement of the night. 

Morrigan offered her a bed, or what she called a bed. Really it was a collection of ropes strung between two poles, but Viviane was too tired to care. It was better than the ground, anyway. 

It should have been hard to fall asleep, between the rocking of the ship and the strangeness of the ropes and the pirates, but Viviane managed. 

She was really quite good at that. 

______________________________________________________________

Morrigan left her on the northernmost shore of the sea with only two words: go north. 

Her friend - yes, friend, the journey had been long enough for that - knew little of the woman she called the snow queen. Viviane would not say that, only describe her as she had been described: a pale creature, of ice or near it, glowing as the moon. Viviane, frankly, did not dare to call her anything she knew to be true. 

Don’t waste your worry, she could hear Mama chiding. There is too much else for that. 

Go north, Morrigan said, so Viviane did. She climbed the shoulders of mountains just to slide down the other side, letting her feet slip further and further downwards with every step, not daring to lean forward and shoot down on her stomach as she might have, once. I cannot find Kallias if I am dead. 

Through great plains, wide and blanketed in white snow just starting to fade into the earth, the sky. Through forests stretching to the very edges of the horizon, spindly pines just starting to show the faintest green of new growth. She walked, and she walked, and she walked. 

As she walked, she talked. Not to anyone, not to any imagined companion, just the trees and the grasses and the snow and the air: I am Viviane, and I am searching for Kallias. I will find him; I will not fail him as he did not fail me. I will go home, I will go home. I will bring him home, I will bring whatever peace I may find with him home, I will go home. 

“I will go back to Nora,” she said, aloud, and of course there was no response, not from the hills sloping ahead of her. There had never been, not from the trees, not from the snow. She expected none now. 

“Noarsa?” a voice asked behind her, and Viviane screamed. 

It came from a woman - Viviane felt safer, but not much - in furs, dark and brown and probably beautifully warm. 

The woman said something else; Viviane, wide-eyed, again could not understand. She shook her head, again and again. 

The woman pointed to Viviane’s cloak, and she unhooked it as quickly as possible. Viviane could not help but shiver, without it; the woman felt her cloak and tied it back around Viviane’s shoulders, kind and fast. 

She motioned to move, then, and Viviane watched as she took steps through what little remained of the snow, before turning around to look at her, eyes wide. 

Viviane, without anything else to do, followed. 

She had a cabin, apparently, or something that looked conic but otherwise similar; a building of wood so warm that Viviane nearly cried to enter. The woman gave her a meal, too, a fish entirely unidentifiable but delicious, or it would’ve been, if she’d bothered to taste it. Viviane threw it down her throat like the woman would snatch it away, determined that she would not have the chance. 

The aftertaste, fish-juice lingering on the lining of her throat, was really good. 

Eventually the woman sat down next to her, shoulder-to-shoulder, and shifted a blanket onto her lap. Thick and furred and soft, so lovely and soft. 

Viviane did not intend to fall asleep, not at all. She intended to thank the woman as best she could and continue north, always north. North until she found him. 

But warm in the woman’s home, warm under the blanket, full for the first time in weeks, Viviane fell asleep. 

It rose before her, piercing the sky in a spire as thin and spindly as the tip of a finger. A wind whistled against her ears, through her clothing, slipping through the weave of the threat and the weave of her skin and the stream of blood beating against her heart. 

She moved, or rather she did not move, but Viviane shifted as the world shifted, and then she was inside. It closed around her like water did the drowned, stealing breath from throat and lung until there was nothing else to steal but life.

She kept her air, though. When she tried to breathe it out it held in her mouth, going nowhere, trapped in - in - in something, something cold and hard and smooth, so smooth. 

Viviane would not say it, would not think it. It could not be. It was not, it was not. 

Panic creased against her spine. 

She held there, trapped, a fly in amber but not amber, definitely not amber. She’d be sick, if she could, if she could move her stomach enough for it to convulse, if her throat could shift enough to retch. 

It could not happen, Viviane knew, and yet. And yet she tried to rail against it, because she had to, she had to, Nora and Grandmother and Kallias were waiting and she had to. 

She tensed her muscles, but they would not tighten, would not move. She blinked, but her eyelid would not close. She screamed, but her mouth would not open, the sound would not bellow out of her chest. 

So she hung, trapped in her body, trapped in it. Waiting, waiting, waiting. 

He appeared before her, then, and Viviane wanted to gasp, felt the urge to gasp, did everything but actually gasp, because she could not. She wanted to laugh, too; four years, and he looked the same. 

Four years, a disappearance, and a funeral. Kallias looked the same. 

She tried to reach for him, but she could not, was stuck in it, cold and hard and burning. She tried, and she tried, and she tried. 

And then - then. He laughed. Laughed, and laughed, and then Viviane was fifteen again, begging to borrow a scarf, and he was laughing. 

She woke with a gasp, shooting upwards from the blanket, pushing it down her shoulders. The woman looked to her from the other side of her home, concerned, or at least looking concerned, but Viviane could not stay. It was under her skin, thrumming in her blood - leave, leave now, get out get out get out.

Viviane ran for the faraway hills, and the woman did not follow. 

______________________________________________________________

It started as just a spark, faraway, nearly indistinguishable from the glow of the horizon. 

Viviane, hungry and tired and cold, so, so cold, saw it. For a moment she was a girl again, raising her thumb to squash the vision of it, whatever it was. 

And then she stumbled onward. 

______________________________________________________________

Her toes were so numb she was thinking about pulling off her boot to check that they were still there when she looked up and saw it again. The dying light of day reflected against it, whatever it was, a torch shining off water. 

Viviane pulled off her boot and started to desperately rub against her colorless toes, praying she could keep them. 

______________________________________________________________

In the morning - the cloudless, beautiful morning - it held the light of the sun, as bright as a star itself. 

But the wind had picked up, so Viviane, forcing herself forward, did not notice. 

______________________________________________________________

By the third day, Viviane figured she was going to die. 

I am lost, she thought, not bearing to open her mouth, to expose her throat to the cold that cracked her skin, that stuck against every hair of her body. I am lost, and there is nothing to eat, and I am so cold. So very cold. 

This was a mistake, Viviane thought, pressing against the relentless wind. She pursed her lips, tasting blood when the motion tore apart her flesh. 

I am going to die, she thought. And then she looked up, and before her, unmistakable, unbelievable: the palace of the Snow Queen. 

______________________________________________________________

Viviane pushed through the door, and it made a sound like the booming of ice upon a lake, cracking beneath your feet. It is like a drum, the noise, fear lighting through your spine. 

Viviane closed the door, and fell into the deep. 

______________________________________________________________

“Mama,” Nora said, reaching for her, pudgy little arms stretching past the wooden bars of her makeshift cradle. 

“Sister,” Viviane corrected against the pang of her heart. Nora clung to her hair, heavy in her hands. 

“Mama,” Nora said, again. This time quieter, a sigh against Viviane’s blouse. She stretched her arms around Viviane, too small to make it any further than her shoulders, holding against her like - well, like a baby. Her baby. 

“Sister,” Viviane corrected, again, but with a little sigh Nora closed her eyes and fell asleep. And Viviane should’ve put her down, there was so much to do - Milo would be by in an hour, at least, and she needed to get ready - but she didn’t. 

She leaned down to brush a kiss against the soft down of her sister’s hair. Nora cuddled closer, if possible, clutching wider in her sleep. 

Viviane smiled, and when the tears came she did not fight them, slipping down her cheeks. 

______________________________________________________________

“Daughter,” Stryná called. 

“Stryná,” Viviane responded, wiping soap suds from the dishes onto her apron. “Is there something -”

She broke off at the sight of the other woman, holding out a skirt edged in a pattern of perunika, pretty purple blossoms. 

“A beautiful gift,” Stryná said, smiling. “A beautiful gift for my beautiful daughter.”

Viviane took it. Held the fabric between her fingers, fingered the perunika locked in eternal bloom. 

Only later, when she was alone, did Viviane cry. She didn’t know why, not even a little, but she could not look at it without her throat tightening, without tears pricking at the bottom of her eyelids. 

She threw the skirt, Stryná’s gift, in the dresser, buried it behind the threadbare clothing from - when? 

Before, came in her mind, certain, sure. 

Before what? 

Viviane didn’t know, but she couldn’t look at the flowers anymore. She couldn’t look at anything, tears clouding her vision. 

Why, she begged, why? 

______________________________________________________________

The Snow Queen looked at her, and Viviane looked back. 

She did not fall to her knees, did not beg, did not plead.

If I get on my knees, Viviane thought, I will never get up again. 

The Snow Queen did not say anything, not a word. Viviane breathed in the frigid air and wondered, again, if she was going to die. 

She brushed her hands against her skirt, her apron. Nerves or energy or something, Viviane did not know. It was like she could not think, could not breathe. 

Her hand brushed against her hair, and a clump of ice flicked off. She stared at it, landing quietly on the floor, too small to make even the smallest sound. 

The Snow Queen watched her, unblinking. 

Viviane swallowed her fear, all of it, letting it sink down to the pit of her stomach.

In her pocket, something went clink! 

And the Snow Queen lifted a brow. 

Viviane, nervous still, slid her hand down against the fabric, slipping into her pocket to pull out her last, precious string of red coral beads. 

“It is not much,” she said, small, trying to be brave. “But it is all I have left.”

The Snow Queen laughed, high and bright, sweeping off of her throne, her dais, to snatch the beads from her hand. They clinked, tinny, sharp. 

“If you want him,” she said, sly. “By all means.”

A door that had not been, before, slid open across the room, and Viviane ran through it like bears were clawing at her feet. 

______________________________________________________________

She did not breathe, not once. 

It could not be real. It could not. Viviane knew very, very well that it could not. 

Kallias sat before a table, frowning down at small shards of ice. Some had been arranged into an E - a small, meticulous E. 

“Kal?” she called, still breathless, and he jumped, and his hand moved and ruined the letter. 

He cursed. He did not look back.

“Kallias?” she asked, again. He frowned at the shards. 

“Kallias,” Viviane said, louder, insistent. 

He huffed, frowning further when his breath moved the shards around. 

“Kal,” she shouted, tapping his shoulder. With a - with a snarl, he whirled to his feet, throwing her hand off his shoulder like it repulsed him. 

“Stop,” he snapped. “Go away. Leave me alone to finish this.” 

Viviane recoiled, mostly in shock. “I - Kal, Kal -”

“Go away,” he snarled. “I hate you.”

She gasped, she could not help it. And then - and then - 

“I hope you die,” Kallias muttered. “Eternity, aeternitas, I hope you freeze.” 

Involuntarily, Viviane let out a sob, loud and sharp. 

Eternity, aeternitas, I hope you freeze. Gods, gods, great and holy - gods. Gods. 

And suddenly all she could see was Nora, gurgling in her cradle, reaching upwards, perfectly trusting. 

Her knees gave out, and she fell, crashing into the floor. Kallias swore and leaned down to pick her up, muttering under his breath, but she did not see him or feel him or know him and she sagged against him like a falling tree. 

And she was crying, desperately crying, and as he tried to maneuver her back to her feet the tears landed against his skin, his cheek. 

One stuck to his eyelid, strangely enough. And as he cursed and muttered, swinging her to unsteady feet, as she crashed back down, pulling him with her - it slid. Slid down the curve of his socket, around his eye, melding against the membrane, the whites of his eye. And he blinked, because it was against his eye, and it worked its way in, warmer than any tear should have been, or was he the one that was cold?

And, and, and. 

Deep inside him, something tiny, miniscule, unimportant to all others, all else - it melted away, the last vestige of snow under the heat of the summer sun. 

“Viviane,” he gasped. “Viviane.”

______________________________________________________________

A year, a whole year later they were home, finally home. Or Viviane was home, and Kallias was with her; he did not seem to care about the difference. 

Neither did she. 

But the perunika bloomed, and Nora laughed as she ran through them, Kallias chasing her, laughing louder than he had in a lifetime. 

Viviane wore flowers in her hair, because she could, because she wanted to. The lìpa bloomed, bright and holy against the cloudless sky. 

(A world away, the Snow Queen ran her fingers against the beads at her throat, red and smooth.  And she smiled.)

[jaybug-jabbers]

Isopod Update - 12/9/24

Hey all. Been about a month since my last update, and been busy. I've been deploying mosqutio bits in my bins in an attempt to curb the fungus gnat invasion. I've been using a tablespoon of bits for 2 cups of distilled water, let the bits soak overnight in the water, strain the bits out and then water the pods with it. (Need to make a fresh batch every time since it does not save). Also been taping sticky traps inside the lids of the enclosures and tried to seal up the Magic Potion enclosure with mesh as best I could (recall, I keep the Potions in a converted aquarium, so it didn't have mesh to prevent gnats). It's not perfect, gnats still escape into my room sometimes, but I got myself a bug zapper which deals with the gnats a lot better than the Katchy seems to.

It's been 2 weeks of using the moquito bits and endless sticky traps. I think it's finally starting to dent the population of gnats, at least I hope so. Things got really out of control in the Potion enclosure.

I've also been in the process of transferring the Potions to a new enclosure, the new acrylic bins. This is because I want to have them in an enclosure that will prevent future infestations. I mentioned in my last post somebody was sending me custom vents for my bins. Unfortunately they did not fit because they were for a different bin size, the person didn't realize I had a larger size. So I just hot-glued some mesh over the holes myself. Then I set up the enclosure, seeded it with springtails, and started to transfer pods slowly to it. I've just been putting food out, waiting until pods gather on it, then moving the whole bunch gathered on food by grabbing the leaf the food is sitting on. The difficult part is trying not to get any gnats along with them. At first I accidentally transferred a few gnats, to my great dismay. I've been more careful lately, by putting the pods in a small container and examining them all carefully for gnats and then dumping them into the new enclosure.

Despite moving a lot of them, there's still plenty of pods left in the aquarium. Including some terribly teeny mancae. I'm starting to suspect somebody had more babies besides the initial 2 litters of mancae I had. I have a LOT of Potions, more than I even realized.

The new acrylic bin seems good, they seem to like it in there. A few weeks ago I went on a walk and foraged for a small amount of leaves for my pods. It's the first time I've attempted to do so. Most of the parks near me are small ones that I'm worried might spray pesticides. But on this trip I went to a larger park in the woods, so gathering there should be much safer. I rinsed the leaves off and baked them briefly (15 minutes) in the oven. I'm still nervous about pesticides but I'm nervous about everything, lol. I gave them one leaf from the foraging I did and the acorn tops. All seems well so far. They love to play inside the acorn tops. It's adorable. I continue to watch the new bin for gnats and water it with mosquito bits for preventative reasons. I'm still not positive if the lid for these bins fits snugly enough to prevent gnats. I have small books sitting on top of the lid just in case, since it presses it down a little more and closes the very small gap between the lid and bins.

The mancae still are alive in the Marble enclosure, I see them eating peas on occasion. I'd like to eventually move them to an acrylic bin too, just so I can see them better. I bought some smaller bins fitted with custom vents, but I'm not sure if they'll work-- the lids on these bins are pretty garbo. Maybe if I find clips that will work for it, but I've been searching a while now for clips and nothing has worked to my satisfaction so far. So I'll probably just use the larger bins I have.

I've been posting a lot more to Bluesky lately. If you want to see my isopod thread, head here.

All my photos on Tumblr will have alt text going forward, so check the alt text for additional info on the photos if you'd like.

[wrothian]

finished yakuza 7 last night. i have nothing to say about the story bc i truly for once never give a fuck im here to make my protag drink baby formula and fight naked men but i enjoyed it even when there was a lot of silly moments that felt like "we just need to get from point a to point b man"

whats really important here is nanba. yu nanba. NANBA. why was i not warned that there was a 41 year old ex-nurse who saves a mans life with fishing line and pokes at the stitches and tells the guy "yeah you have to take that out yourself im not doing it". why didnt you inform me that i would have a stinky lying depressed mage who casts SUMMON PIGEON and gets disappointed when he cant do mouth-to-mouth on another man? he scopes out the best places to take a "nice dump" when he goes somewhere new and considers passing out in fear to be a "defense mechanism". he is the king of bunts. hes the partys princess and is a massive coward but pushes through it anyway. why didnt you tell me ichiban would beat him over the head with the brick of friendship and love to the point that nanba cannot avoid finally confronting the claim that he doesnt have friends or doesnt deserve them. ichiban, if he were to die today, would want his last meal to be the first one that nanba showed him how to make. ichiban could suck this man dry every day for the rest of his life and still not feel like hes done enough to repay him. nanba knows when he lies and lets him keep doing it because it feels good when people are nice to him.

why is nanba a milk freak? why is he addicted to drinking milk after baths and why does he drink spoiled milk? he fights his tummy wars completely silent, stoic and unmoving, as the hand of death passes over him and adachi leaves him to die in the grass. nanba can do addition. why is he forced to do manual labor when he can add numbers? hes a frail mage that falls over if he tries to swing his cane. his healing hands always slide across each party members groin and they always thank him for the help. he lied about stealing medicine but i think his capability to save ichibans life with a thread and a rusty pair of scissors says more than enough. seong-hui destroyed him in a single, perfectly aimed orbital strike at his heart by saying he has nightingale syndrome and is in love with ichiban. DID SHE KNOW? THAT NANBA WANTED TO BE NIGHTINGALE, BUT HES A 41 YEAR OLD MAN-FAILURE? his life is only worth 2500 yen.

he has an agenda against chili shrimp. he eats random mushrooms all the time and almost dies. hes a germaphobe but only in specific instances. he gets asked if he can put off dying for a minute and he says NO. I CANT. IM A BABY. he doesnt know the difference between boxers and briefs and is ready at any time to drop his pants. whenever he wants a change of pace he tears down his cardboard house and rebuilds it, a true engineer and architect of our modern age, upon which pigeons and crows shall perch and shit all over him the moment he leaves his home. he is a self-proclaimed walking red flag and admits he has something deeply wrong with him. He always thinks hes going to die. something is going to go horribly wrong. everything is fucked. life sucks.

i want yu nanba to be my nurse for the rest of time

[bestworstcase]

with only three episodes left, what do you think is in store for the rest of the volume? personally, i’m having trouble imagining a solid resolution fitting into such a small window. not that i doubt there’s a way to end this volume succinctly—rwby is always throwing curveballs i could’ve never predicted hitting, which i love—but i suppose the hangnail in resolution’s cuticle is that jrwby are all finally facing their lifelong, beaten-in worldview being turned on its head and that seems like the kind of thing (on top of neo’s untold ever after story) that needs more time to be resolved. in which case, ig we’re not looking at a clean wrap up? do you think they end this volume ascending the ever after? escaping back to remnant? (i ask those two questions separately bc i wanna say they might have different answers lol)

as a point of comparison, here’s everything (not necessarily in chronological order) that happened in the last three episodes of V8:

1 - ironwood vs everyone beat down

2 - winter heel face turn completed

3 - met ambrosius + staff of creation rules

4 - magic rules lawyered penny into a flesh body to save her from the virus with a side dish of horrible body horror robot body death scene and holy shit atlas is FALLING.

5 - creation of whacky portals for evacuation to vacuo

6 - emergency evacuation broadcast CANCELLED!

7 - cinder remembers the power of friendship and uses it for evil

8 - cinder recovered the lamp and scored the password and used the last question to spy on team oz which is fucking hysterical by the way, so she knows the entire plan

9 - YANG DIES?

10 - ruby and blake fall too. and neo

11 - the evacuation dumps everyone in a sandstorm so they can’t call for backup and also the exit is one-way (“oh dear. ambrosius \:” love that enthusiasm sir)

12 - HARRIET TRIES TO NUKE MANTLE?

13 - ironwood murders jacques

14 - eleventh hour harriet heel face turn also zeki dies because atlesian tech goons thought the nuke needed to be plugged into the IOT for some reason god bless

15 - PENNY???

16 - and winter becomes the winter maiden

17 - TEAM RWBY TOTAL PARTY KILL!!

18 - jaune also

19 - salem and cinder playing chicken over who is going to blink first like they don’t both already know that it’s going to be salem

20 - ATLAS OBLITERATED FOREVER

that’s a lot of things!

now, it’s a lot easier to set up and execute a dense, tightly-paced climactic spiral of disaster than bring a lot of interconnected emotional crises to satisfying resolution in the same amount of runtime—but on the other hand, V9 has a lot less going on. it doesn’t FEEL that way because the emotional development has been so rich and done so, so well, but there honestly are not that many narrative threads to tie off. basically, the big ones are:

1 - ruby’s emotional crisis

2 - jaune’s corruption

3 - neo

4 - how do we get home?

5 - what do we do once we get there?

compared to the sheer amount of dominoes V8 had to juggle, handling this stuff is a nice little walk.

the key thing to remember—& this has been true for every one of rwby’s climactic sequences and also counts as writing advice—is that none of these major threads are truly discrete. they’re all interwoven with each other and bound together with all the smaller filaments (like the cat’s arc or little’s arc or the framing device of ‘the girl who fell through the world’ and what really went down with alyx and the tree), so you don’t have to resolve them separately and indeed you can’t because it all has to happen at once. what this means, from a writing standpoint, is you layer up and make every scene work towards the resolution of two or three major threads and however many minor filaments you can fit comfortably so that everything is doing work for everything else. if you’re efficient you don’t need a lot of time to pull off a stunning climactic sequence, and efficiency is something rwby has always been very, very good at. this is true even of V1 even though V1 feels laughably inefficient by the standards of V8; which is to say, they started off good and got much better.

the other piece to bear in mind is that V9 is not meant to be self-contained; it is not a character-focused breather volume to let the protagonists heal up before returning to remnant to carry on as they were, it is The Answer. when rwbyjn go home they are not going to return to the story they fell out of at the end of V8. that story is OVER. it ENDED. the final word was checkmate and the world they knew is GONE FOREVER. salem WON. the ever after is an epilogue to that story and the prologue for another; it isn’t building towards a resolution so much as it is building a hook.

(<- remember V3 “beginning of the end” and “end of the beginning”? this story-within-story device is something rwby has utilized before; this show is a singular contiguous narrative in the literal sense, but it’s structured as a trilogy.)

so V9 needs to be a satisfying farewell to the middle book and also make the case for continuing on to the third and final story—which very much works to its benefit here, because the sweeping emotional changes being developed actually SHOULDN’T be resolved. a clean wrap up would critically weaken the narrative structure. the immediate crises need to be realized—there must be a moment of peace, of closing one book and beginning the next; a hopeful glimpse of the story to come, of what it could be—and then they go home. and the new story begins.

in the figurative sense you could call it ascension. in the literal sense, no, i don’t think any of the remnant characters are going to ascend because i don’t think they can (frankly i’m bemused as to why so many people seem to believe otherwise; it seems to me that the cat has made it very clear that ascension is closed to non-afterans). but the idea of ascension? oh, yes, they’re carrying that forward with them.

as for whether they’ll return to remnant—yes. i think the probability that they don’t find their way home by episode ten is zero. how they return is an open question but also not a question at all, because the tree is the question and their answer is the door; this has been spelled out, explicitly, albeit in wonderlandish terms. what we don’t know yet is what this will look like, because the tree is also the blacksmith and the ever after runs on wonderland rules. it’s not going to be literal. (<- unless abstraction is less absurd than the literal option, which is possible given the likelihood that the ever after itself is fictional.)

[birgittesilverbae]

bea & mary & legacy

The game jerseys are already hanging at each locker when Beatrice arrives at the changeroom. The lights are down low, on the energy-saving setting, and when she turns them up a figure sits up on the massage table in the centre of the room and scrubs at their eyes.

"Good morning, Mary," Beatrice says, patting her on the calf as she walks past to her locker. "You're here early."

Mary sits up and swings her legs off the table. "Shan said I was liable to drive her mad with my pacing."

Beatrice hums in commiseration. "Thanks for hanging up the jerseys."

"No worries." They lapse back into a comfortable silence as Beatrice empties her duffle out and aligns its contents in her stall. "It's gonna be weird, y'know," Mary continues finally, idly kicking her feet. "It's the first time anyone but her has worn the eight in five years."

"Tell me about it." Beatrice leans down to scoop up the captain's band sitting in pride of place at the front of her stall and lifts it for Mary to see. "I don't know that I'm ever going to be comfortable putting this on."

Mary shakes her head, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Shan was right, you are overthinking it. You're gonna do great, Bea."

Beatrice makes a noncommittal noise and settles on the bench seat, letting her head fall back against the wall as she sighs. "They're just big cleats to fill."

"As though you weren't right there alongside her on the all-star roster last year. Anyway, it's only Todd reffing today. You'll be fine."

"He let that match last year get out of hand–"

"And got reamed out for it. You just keep up the respectful dialogue you already have with him and it'll be alright."

"It's less Todd losing control I'm worried about than–

"Than Crimson?" Mary laughs. "I couldn't give less of a fuck about Crimson. Our pack is stronger, our systems are better–"

"And that means she's going to get dirty."

"You don't need to tell me twice, Bea. I've had enough bruises from her studs to know exactly what kind of dirty she gets. But if that's where the game goes, you make sure Todd hears about it, and you leave Crimson to me."

Beatrice lifts her head to lock eyes with Mary. "Don't–"

"I know full well how to toe the line without crossing it. Line myself up against her coming out of rucks a couple times, dump tackle her harder than strictly necessary, shove our driving maul down their throats–"

"That's what got Ana's knee blown out last year, Mary."

"That's not going to happen again, okay?" Mary rolls her shoulders back, tilts her head towards her shoulder until her neck cracks, then grins. "And anyway, we shouldn't need to set much of a platform for you to work off of than a ruck or two, hey? I've seen the needles you can thread given the barest inch of space."

Beatrice allows herself to relax, then, tension ebbing from her shoulders at the cue, the sensation that burrows into her at the words. The choreographed contraction of muscle as she cuts towards open ground, the press of the pebbled exterior of the ball against her fingertips, the catch and release of studs against grass as her legs churn. "No," she agrees, a smile spreading slow and wide across her face, "we shouldn't need much more than that."

[idrellegames]

I'm not quite sure where this falls in your ask guidelines, so please ignore if you prefer!

I admire you as a creator and you always give very well-thought answers, so I was curious about your feelings engaging with the public? I'm writing my own interactive fiction but I'm conflicted about sharing it; on one hand, I love how transparent the process is and as a fan getting to participate has been really cool and it's led to some amazing communities, but on the other interacting as a creator just seems kind of daunting? Draining?? It just seems like a LOT I guess.

No worries at all, I’m happy to help!

Public engagement (and social media management in general) is an important part of being an independent creator. When your work is centred online, folks are only going to be interested if you build some kind of presence. How much time you invest in it will greatly depend on how much time you want to devote to it (because it does take a lot of time) and also how comfortable you are. Different creators will have different levels of comfort for interactions with fans.

For me, the social media management is one of the most fun parts of my job. I wouldn’t do it this way if I wasn’t having fun. I love hearing from players, I love seeing reactions to the game, especially as folks find new paths they didn’t think were there. But there are downsides, too: for every positive ask I get, there’s a negative one lurking around the corner. There are negative reviews and ratings on my itch.io page. I have folks dump criticism in my bug report form (that’s not what it’s for). I get repeat asks about things that I have already responded to public and documented clearly on my blog or the game page itself.

I have a few base rules for handling social media and interactions with the playerbase:

1. Set boundaries and stick to them. You might be tempted to respond to everything, but for the sake of your own mental health, set boundaries. Figure out what kind of questions you don’t want to answer and write it down. I have mine listed here (no NSFW asks, no RO react asks).

Don’t feel like you need to sort out everything right away; you can always update your ground rules. If you receive a message that crosses your boundaries, delete it.

2. Set aside time to do social media management and don’t answer anything outside that time.   This one’s really important, otherwise you will get overwhelmed. Social media management is work. For me, some asks are really easy to answer; others take upwards of 30 minutes or an hour (advice, tutorials, etc). If you feel like you need to respond to something as soon as you receive it, you’re never going to have time for yourself.

3. Be selective about what social media apps you use. I primarily use tumblr and Discord because that’s where I’m comfortable. While I do have Twitter and Instagram, I post very infrequently there because I don’t particularly like them and I don’t have to time to figure out how to use them accordingly for my project. While I’m sure I could grow a Wayfarer community on either platform, I don’t have time to manage tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, and Discord*.

*If you're making a ChoiceScript game, I would consider your Choice of Games forum thread social media management.

4. Prepare for common questions. More than one person is going to have the same question. When this happens, prepare a post you can link the asker to so you don't need to type out the same answer every time.

This is why I have the Troubleshooting Game Launch & Save Errors post on my itch.io community forum.

Making a clear FAQ also helps with this; if in doubt, just link them the FAQ.  

5. Get help managing your accounts. You won’t need this right away, but if you find you’re getting overwhelmed, ask for help. My development blog is a sideblog, which made it easy to add a friend to help me manage my inbox and queue. I also have a moderator team on Discord who handle the more intimidating interactions with members. I rarely do moderation myself because as a creator, it’s best I stay a few steps removed from the action; my view of what’s going on is always going to be biased in my favour.

6. Don’t answer when you’re angry or annoyed. You’re going to receive a lot of weird shit in your messages, especially if you accept anonymous asks on tumblr.

(You can always turn off anon. I like to keep anon on because my blog is the main way to contact me and I’d like to stay open for players who don’t have tumblr accounts or who are too shy to send a public ask.)

Most of the time, I delete messages that are genuinely upsetting. People who send hate asks are trolls looking to get a reaction out of you; I like to deny them the satisfaction of knowing they "got" to me.

But if I do need to respond, I usually give myself a few days to settle down before I reply. Sometimes I’m misinterpreting what the sender is saying, or I took it more negatively than it was intended. There’s always a genuine human being on the other end of an ask, and I don’t know what their life is like or what they’re going through. I try my best to treat them with grace (though sometimes this can be difficult and I'm snappier than I intend to be, especially if they're asking a question I've already answered, breaks my guidelines, or whose answer is easily available on my blog or game page).

7. It’s OK to delete and block, no matter the reason. If someone is harassing you, if they’re being particularly annoying with repeat asks, or if you’re getting messages that leave a bad taste in your mouth, delete it and block the sender. On tumblr, blocking an anonymous ask will block the sender’s IP address so they can’t send public or anon messages anymore*.

*Sometimes it glitches on desktop and I have to use mobile instead.

8. It’s OK not to answer everything. I struggled with this one the most when I first started my blog. I felt like to create a community, I had to answer everything, even the asks I wasn’t comfortable answering. But it’s not your responsibility to answer everyone all the time. An ask (or any social media message) is just a question, and it’s within your rights to decline to answer.

If you’re just starting out, most of the above is not going to apply right away. But a good rule of thumb to go by is to never do more than you’re comfortable.

If your game is new or you're just starting out, I have a few other pieces of advice that may be helpful:

1. It takes time to build a community. It takes a long time. I’ve had my blog since 2019 and it’s only in the past year that it’s started to really grow. Don’t rush it. Focus on your game first, then the playerbase.

2. Focus on your game above all else. You can’t build a community if you don’t have playable content. If you want folks to engage with you, you need to have an existing game. I made my dev blog before I had a working demo, but my dev blog floundered for about two years before I had enough publicly playable material for folks to start to take an interest. If I was doing this over again, I would make a sizable public demo* before starting a blog or any related social media.

*By sizable, I mean more than a prologue and a character creator. You want players to spend enough time playing your game so they have a good sense of your world and who their MC is. Ideally, you want your first public demo to fully set up your MC, the world, an initial companion character and/or characters, and also feel like a complete experience. Don’t have your demo just end because you’re rushing to get something out. You have one shot at making an impression; don’t leave players hanging on an awkward note. Your first demo should end with the completion of your game’s first major story beat. Give players something more significant to do than choosing what their MC looks like.  

3. Character asks/prompts (RO react asks and related) are often a waste of time. While these types of asks can help generate interest in your game (especially in the interactive fiction tumblr sphere), they are usually a waste of time and reveal too much information, too soon. While it’s good to give players a taste of what’s to come and things to be excited about, in-depth character asks can spoil the experience of a character before that character is introduced in the game itself.  

More importantly, if you find you’re spending more time doing social media management and answering character asks than working on your game, then you need to switch gears. More game content = more community building. Asks are secondary to that.

Don’t fall into the trap of wanting or needing engagement to be able to create.  

4. Don’t do more than you’re comfortable. You don’t need social media to make a successful IF game. If you feel like it’s too much at any point, it’s OK to take a step back.

I’m not sure if this is what you were looking for, but I hope it helps! Good luck on your project. 💕

[spice-chan]

Legally Incapsulated

yandere!Bakugou Katsuki x darling!reader

In a different, dystopian world, yanderes are allowed to run rampant and they make up 15 percent of the population. It gets a little interesting when Bakugou, a protective yandere falls for you, a taken darling. 

warnings: dystopian society (ig?), yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, reader has a bit of an early stockholm syndrome kinda thing, blood and near death, captivity. 

also hi, i came back from the undead with an update. 

.........

Bakugou laid on the ground, bleeding profusely, cold and alone. The red liquid soaked through his clothes, painting him as an ugly manifestation of destruction and death. However, he did not welcome the latter yet, clinging to-hanging tooth and nail to the threads of life.

What cruel irony. To be dumped somewhere so public, yet at a time when no one would bother to come. To have the Hero hanging onto the hope that someone would visit the park at three in the fucking morning. 

A brutal fight between him and a particularly vicious villain ended in Katsuki suffering not only the humiliation of defeat but injuries that will do him in soon enough from blood loss. All alone, with no back-up, Katsuki suffered possibly the worst defeat of his life, for it might cost him that very same thing. Fucker attacked him after he finished his night shift too when no reporters or anyone would be around, knocking Katsuki out and dumping him in a public park just for the mockery of it. 

His head felt light and doozy, and he was starting to succumb to the feeling sucking him in when he heard a gasp amidst the fog. 

With what little stamina he has left, he turned around, sharp red eyes spotting a petite woman heading towards him. 

You quickly got to his spot beneath a tree, crouching down and inspecting him, your warm eyes becoming horrified at the blood pool. 

“Oh no, what happened here?! No matter. I’m going to call an ambulance. You’re going to be ok.” You reassured, or tried to, for the words coming out of your mouth could only be taken as self-assurance when one notices the dampness of your eyes. He tried to concentrate on what you were doing, but the next time he was aware of what was happening around him was when you clutched his hand tight with tears streaming down your cheeks.

“You’re gonna be ok.” 

He sure hopes he will be now. 

“What’s your name?” 

Despite the haze covering, his red eyes zeroed on you, calmly taking you in despite the battered state he was in. You froze. 

You stammered, heart hammering as you finally had another person's attention for once. It should’ve made you really ecstatic, but it just made you feel like you were naked on live TV. 

“It’s um-“ you nibbled on your lip as if unused to your name, Katsuki just got lost in the dainty, delicate sound of your voice. 

And when you said your name, as if testing foreign words on your tongue for the first time, he couldn’t help but think it suited you. 

So pretty. 

Honestly, if the sight of you is the only thing he’ll see before dying, he’ll be content. Your hand remained in hold his, your warmth travelling to his frigid hand and warming his very soul. 

But the sound of ambulance sirens broke him out of his trance, and you too, it seems. For you broke away from him in fright, he had to hold back from grabbing you and keeping you close. He would, had he not been injured. 

“Whe-where are you going?” He asked brokenly, desperate to keep the angel that saved him close. You shook your head, frightened and frantic. Looking at the time, and seemingly getting further and further. 

“I’m sorry-I—I’ve got to go. I’m gonna late, I’ll get punished if I’m late.” 

His heart sunk with every syllable you uttered, feeling a pain he had never felt before, something not tangible enough to be compared to injuries and not comprehensible enough for a man like Katsuki to express. 

You’re a darling. 

You’re someone’s darling.

By the time the ambulance rolled in and took him, you were long gone…

But not for long. 

……………...

Katsuki Bakugo: Yandere. 

Classification: Protective

Darling: Unregistered 

In a world where yanderes are allowed to go rampant with their love, an ordinary citizen doesn’t know when they’ll become trapped by a person who claims to ‘love them unconditionally’. Thus making them a darling. And from the moment that label is put on them, the law ceases to help them and they become entirely at their yandere's mercy. 

Yanderes are often separated into their schools and housed in their specified yandere classification ranging from obsessive, possessive and protective, and if a person overlaps two during their classification test they get reign into which house to go to. At UA, the houses are split between those three types and are equally split. 

Katsuki, who scored rather high in both protective and obsessive traits, chose to go with the protective unit where he met Kirishima, who’s currently blabbering on about nothing in Katsuki’s hospital room. 

“You barely made it man, I still can’t believe it. One can never be too careful these days.” He said, for the hundredth time. Katsuki was topless, the nurse having just finished bandaging his wounds. The stark white stood out against his chiseled, muscular front, it had every nurse swooning but he only had one thing on his mind. 

You. 

Where were you? Who were you? Did you really have a yandere? How can he take you away now? 

No, he doesn’t like you. He’s just curious. 

He’s survived this long without a darling. He doesn’t need one, contrary to popular societal belief. 

When babies are three, they undergo tests and scans to see whether they have OLD, obsessive love disorder, which is something about 15 percent of the population suffers from. 

They go to their own schools and such, but their identity as yanderes won’t be revealed to the general public, making it easy for yanderes to take their darlings by surprise when the grand reveal comes. 

Katsuki himself attended a yandere oriented hero school, but what the public doesn’t know is that the acceptance rate is so low because only yanderes are accepted. Yanderes rarely, but not never, go for other yanderes so it poses as less of a distraction. 

And so, the talented in the 15 percent of Japanese yandere are carefully picked and honed. 

And the separation only proves something. That darlings are a distraction. He won’t be like other wanderers, he’ll get a hold of himself. 

…………..

Y/N L/N: Darling

Under yandere of classification: Obsessive

Yandere name: Nagisa Mura

Katsuki ground his teeth, red orbs staring viciously at his computer screen. Hypothesizing and being faced with the fact that you do belong to someone else. The distraction, unneeded angel who fell from heaven just to save him. 

Poor you, he bets that piece of shit doesn’t treat you as good as he could. 

After looking further into you, he found several allegations of sexual assault made towards Mura that got completely dropped after he captured you. 

A flash of searing pain made Katsuki jerk back, narrowly missing scorching his screen to smithereens. 

He...he hurt you. The fucker hurt his angel, his princess...he hurt you, he hurt you, he hurt you. 

He thought of your pretty, kissable lips, making unsure, clumsy movements as you tried to vocalise your name. 

No, Katsuki has to have you. He needs to save you. It’s the only way for both of you to be happy at this point. 

And this, spurred on a thorough check at your yandere, and Katsuki delved so deep that when he found what he wanted, he couldn’t help but break out into a lopsided, sinister grin. 

………………

Nagisa burrowed his face in your neck, breathing in your scent while you sat still and rigid, not wanting to move away and risk his sanity flying away. 

“Did you enjoy it?” He asked softly, suddenly attentively look at you with his cat-like, loving, sick eyes. Your heart palpitated in fear for a second before you nodded. 

“Oh, where did you go? You...didn’t talk to anyone right?” Your heart erratically hammered, thinking that he might’ve somehow found out you did, and even told him your name. You shook your head at the speed of a sewing machine, then thought that might’ve perhaps been too aggressive to be convincing. 

“I didn’t. I walked to the park and came back home.” 

He sighed in satisfaction at that, moving his dark bangs back to stare at you with his green hues. 

“I knew night time was a better idea. There would be no one around at this time that you can’t deal with with pepper spray. Fewer people to talk to, fewer people who see you” he was smiling, not breaking eye contact once, and with each syllable, his soft voice seemed to get more sinister and sinister. 

You only nodded, pliant as a lamb in his grip as he twisted you however he wished. He buried his nose in your hair, inhaling the scent of you as if smelling a rare fragrant flower. 

“We’ve gotten so far since the days in the orphanage when you refused to share your dolls with me when we were five.” 

Memories. Something that should fill one with nostalgia, only filled you with an unbearable sense longing to a freer, more easy time. When you only had to worry about Nagisa bothering you during breakfast, lunchtime, movie time, sometimes worship time and wash time. 

Desperate for a sense of normalcy, you hugged him back, feeling icy cold in his embrace. 

“Nagi, what are we having for dinner?” A twinge of regret pierced you as you lowered your guard for a second. His hold became stiff, and he didn’t bother to swipe back his bangs as he flashed you a blank face. 

“You’re thinking about dinner while we hug?” 

But you knew how to deal with him better by now, deflecting his anger and turning it into something more malleable. 

“Oh no, it’s just that I feel a little dizzy. I don’t think I ate or drank well those past few days.” You paired the lie with a yawn for extra measure, and the ice of his face melted to reveal a familiar worried expression pouted lips and widened greeny eyes. 

He carefully put you down, bundling you in a blanket before he rushed to the kitchen to prepare you some food. 

The worry he harboured for your well being should’ve filled you with warmth, but instead, you were left twiddling your thumbs and rocking yourself back and forth, an unexplainable feeling of doom filled you. 

The feeling of a hand touching you caused you to spring out of your reverie in fright, but the sight of the green hues staring back at you only calmed you a fraction. He put the food in front of you, which he brought back with some vitamins because he can’t have you getting sick. 

“Thank you…” you murmured, feeling incredibly stupid and useless. 

He insisted he feed you and that you go to bed early. 

But as you laid in bed, thoughts of strange red irises and their bewitching beholder swarmed your thoughts along with the fatigue. You hope he’s alright… 

You wanted to check on him, but if you asked or even implied to Nagisa that you met someone, let alone a man albeit injured or not, that he will opt to not let you out for a year again, or possibly longer this time. 

Even in his injured form, there was something undeniably feral about him, as if ready to pounce any second and gamble his chances at life if the situation called for it. It frightened you. 

You shook your head, willing comfort to return to you through the soft duvet and sheets enveloping your body. You better sleep before Nagisa comes to bed and finds you awake…

…….

Finally, Bakugou has the best reason to get that fuck arrested. And you? Poor you, you’re going to have your yandere taken away, and you can’t *just* be let free. You didn’t earn it after all. Well, you would have, had there not being a perfectly suitable yandere for you to be rehomed with. 

Heh, to think of it, you might hate him a little for this...but he’ll show you that he can treat you better, in no time, you’ll be wrapped around his finger like he’s shamefully wrapped around yours. 

Bakugou’s thoughts come to an abrupt halt when the L-word is mentioned, not noticing when his thoughts spiralled to that degree. His deranged obsession with you had been planted the moment you saved him, but Katsuki didn’t notice when he lost the wheel of his rationality to his heart. 

Yeah, sure, he did background checks on you, felt a twinge of pain when he realised you grew up in an orphanage, felt a tornado of anger when he saw the assault charges that went nowhere after that obsessive fuck captured you. Yeah, ok, he felt proud when he saw that you were the valedictorian. But… where did the stone hearted Katsuki go? Where did the one who was afraid of getting close to anyone in case his true nature shows and distracts him from his dream go? 

But then, he remembered your glassy eyes, staring at him in worry that no one ever showed towards him before, fumbling with his phone to dial the ambulance while holding his hand. Telling him he’ll be ok. 

The moment Bakugo looked in the mirror, he knew he lost. 

His cheeks were flaming hot. 

Whatever, he better start preparing your room. 

…….

It felt like preparing the room of a newborn baby, Katsuki bought enough stuffed animals and plushies to make it resemble a fluffy asylum, along with pastel pink sheets. Your name was also put on the wall, with cursive pink letters that had butterflies surrounding them.

Not to forget a dresser filled with all kinds of things you could ever desire. But his favourite was filling the closet. 

Besides adding some of his own shirts, he stuffed it with all kinds of pretty dresser and cute clothes that he can’t wait to see you wear. 

Bakugo dusted his hands, taking a sigh and looking at the finished guestroom, previously a spare but now your own room, it looked as if a sparkly fairy vomited all over it. Hopefully you’ll like it… 

He wishes you were here to see it… 

An unfamiliar sense of isolation invaded his heart, perhaps it was the realisation that he just finished a room to a person who doesn’t even live with him *yet*, or knowing what he’s missing out on with you, but he knew he desperately wanted you here. 

He wanted to protect you from the bastard who has you in his clutches

…….. 

A day later

You sat on the sofa, munching on some popcorn while you sat on Nagisa’s lap, watching anime. 

A rough knock sounded out, the sound so aggressive is sounded as if the wood itself was gonna break under the aggressive force. Nagisa tensed up, he wasn’t expecting any guests, in fact, he rarely invites anyone over. He disassociated the both of you from any acquaintances from the orphanage, and you weren’t allowed to mingle with anyone. 

He saw your curious look, even without any verbal question, but he opted to simply kiss your forehead and put you on the sofa. 

He quickly went to answer the door, but not without grabbing a dagger and hiding it somewhere discreet. 

He turned the knob, feeling his chest tighten painfully, as if sensing a near, imminent loss. 

Three aggressive, toned cops welcomed his sight as soon as the door was open. They forced their way inside, cuffing him and telling him things, words that were spoken too fast and went over his head as the only thought that went through his head aas you. 

He turned around to where he left you, but you were suddenly standing besides one of the officers, not allowed near him. No…

“According to our database, you are a yandere who has a darling. This means that she will be permanently taken away from you and handed to an eligible yandere as part of your punishment.” 

He swallowed, his gaze, which always seemed morbid to you, now looked panicked and morose, gaze moving like a boomerang between you and the officers, as if not processing what’s happening. 

“Nagisa, what have you done?” He couldn’t answer you, he couldn’t speak a word. You were leaving him, and there’s nothing that he can do. 

“Eligible yandere? But as far as I know, there’s no one after her besides me.” The thought comforted him. Maybe he’ll recapture you after he serves whatever sentence he has, even though he’ll have to do it on the down low now. It’s illegal for a yandere who had their darling taken away to go after them again. 

“Well you thought wrong. Scum” 

Bakugou felt like the star of the show, coming in to rescue his damsel and finish his quest, with you as the prize. 

Your mouth was agape, the little hope that simmered in you that you might possibly be free is now crushed, confusion coming full force in place of it. His face was all too familiar, it was the face of the man you found on death's door only a few days ago. 

Nagisa’s face blanked, turning to you with bloody accusations in his eyes, which made your vision narrow to only focus on him, afraid to make eye contact yet afraid not to. You almost felt the bile rise up your stomach as goosebumps covered your entire body at his familiar, haunting stare. 

“(Y/n)...how does he know you?” 

“I-“ you swallowed, unable to answer. Who is he? 

The dots were starting to connect in Nagisa’s head, however, instead of his chilling rage, all you got was a sad, nostalgic smile. 

“Very well (y/n), it’s ok.” You couldn’t feel relieved from his ambiguous tone. Your very gut screaming at you that something was wrong. 

And your gut was right. 

“It’s ok, I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, I’m sure of it but I’m sorry because if I can’t have you then nobody can.” In the blink of an eye, Nagisa charged at you with a dagger, with speed you didn’t know he possessed, while you were frozen in place in fear. 

However, before he could reach you, the blond, brawny man moved like the wind, catching the hand that threatened you, firing an explosion at the wrist in a show of wrath, probably giving Nagisa third degree burns, then twisting his arms behind his back and pushing him harshly into the floor. The level of strength between them was visibly imbalanced to the blondes' favour, Nagisa was by no means fit or sturdy, not at all when compared to the wall of strength in front of you. 

The officers, novices who should have expected this turn of events by all means, have proven to be useless until the very end of this spectacle, thanking the blond the blond profusely while handcuffing the hysterical Nagisa, who was taken kicking and screaming by one of the officers while one stayed behind. 

“Miss (y/n), I believe? Sorry we couldn’t prevent this unsavoury turn of events, that criminal will be locked for good, you don’t have to worry about him.” The officer tried to reassure the frightened lady in front of him, disappointed that a yandere would try to kill the person he loves. That was one of the most prohibited laws, though what can he expect from a criminal? 

“You don’t have to worry about your safety though, as it turns out, you will be rehomed with Mr Dynamight. This will serve as both a punishment for the offending yandere and a way for darlings who haven’t earned their freedom to stay with their next eligible caretaker.” 

You nodded shily, overwhelmed by the influx of information directed at you. It didn’t help that you barely spoke to anyone besides Nagisa in years. 

The officer took your agreeableness in stride, scramming quickly as he physically felt the burn of Bakugou’s stare. 

Now it was just him and you. 

“You ok?” He managed to mutter, not sure how to start a conversation with you now that he had you. 

You nodded, not facing him. Are you ok? 

You felt the moisture gathering in your eyes, making your eyes seem like gleaming crystals. 

Of course you weren’t ok. 

You just had the person who, for years, claimed they loved you, stole you against your will and forced you to adapt to a lifestyle that suited them try to kill you. You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry but apparently your body did as it broke into a sob. 

Your shoulders shook in failing effort to try to hide yourself from him-Mr Dynamight or something, but he felt his heart clench when he heard you sniffle. 

You heard him kiss his teeth, and you had a half mind to apologise, having unfond memories of the sound, but he instead, to your surprise, brought his beefy arms around you and embraced you warmly. 

Your crying halted, head turning up to fave him with a ‘deer caught in the headlights’ look in your eyes, making him blush and turn away from you with another kiss of his teeth. 

“Stop crying.” 

Why did his simple gesture stop your tears? Why are you not trying to make a run for it? 

Most importantly, why do you feel something warm blooming in your chest instead of hate? 

You looked at him, trying to channel all the hate you harbored for Nagisa for this newfound captor of yours, but all you could think about is when he saved you from Nagisa’s sharp blade— how strong and capable he was, really, shouldn’t you be thankful? 

At that moment, you experienced something that never happened to you in your years of being with Nagisa. 

You blushed. 

……

 You stepped through Bakugou’s house, already having an idea of what kind of lavish place it is from the exterior, but you were nevertheless impressed. 

The place is something out of a movie, extremely different to the small and cozy apartment you lived in. Everything seemed up to date and costly. 

You didn’t notice Bakugou preening in pride at the impressed look on your face. He tried to appear nonchalant, but he was seconds away from grabbing your hand in excitement as he tours you around the place. 

Still, he wanted some form of contact with you, so he opted to put a hand behind your back, excusing it as you being too slow when you turned to him with a quizzical look. 

His hand felt warm on your back. 

“This is the bathroom nearest to your room, but there’s one in your room as well.” 

Your room. It felt strangely delighting to have something be your own, when previously everything was ours with Nagisa. Everything was happening so quickly, you didn’t know whether you should try to pause to catch your breath or pick up your pace. 

“And uh, this is your room.” This time you did notice Bakugou’s redness, it was quite hard not to when his entire face was red. Of course it would be. 

The room looked like it was something out of a barbie house. Soft, pastel rugs paired with baby pink curtains. Plush, stuffed dolls littered the place, some small and some big enough to engulf you. You slowly stepped inside, unsure how to feel about this interior, until you felt your bed. It was also a gentle pink, but the catch was how featherlight soft it was, it felt silky, and the mattress reminded you of when you’d dream of sleeping on a cloud. 

“Like it?” He asked, not taking his eyes off your blessed face. That’s the first he’s seen this expression on you. He feels almost cheated, like he would have seen way more of you and learnt way more than he already knows if that piece of shit let you out. 

You hummed to him in response. 

“Good, ‘cuz it’s your nap time now.” 

“Huh?” You straightened your back, looking at him in protest. 

“But, I still have things to ask you! Plus, I don’t need a freaking nap-“ 

“Sleep now, questions later.” 

The sun was starting to dip, giving the room a warm, orange glow which did make you feel somewhat lethargic. Bakugou closed the curtains, and shut the door, but surprisingly didn’t leave your room. He pulled the covers back, gesturing for you to slip under. You were afraid for a moment that he was gonna slither his way inside as well, uninvited. But he merely sat besides your supine form. 

“Um-?” 

“I’m gonna stay here ‘till you fall asleep.” You nodded mutely, not finding a point to objecting anymore. You never have a say anyways. But, this wasn’t so bad. He put his large hand on your head, caressing it and admiring its texture, and how amazing it feels beneath his fingers. You felt his touch to be invasive at first. Who does he think he is, touching you when you don’t even know him?

But you don’t speak. You instead relax and let the stress you built up melt away, and you welcome sleep. 

…..

Your eyes slowly fluttered open to the feeling of someone lately shaking you. You were disoriented, glancing around the fluffy place in confusion, your eyes looking adorably lost and confused. 

“C’mon dumbass. It’s time for dinner.” 

Oh, right, you were living with him now. 

“I put the clothes you’re gonna wear on your bed, and here are your slippers.” You glanced on the bed, seeing a comfy looking white, silky pyjama dress slippers at the foot of your bed. 

“Ok.” You nodded, “I got it.” 

He gave you one final final intense look leaving your bedroom. 

…….

In the dining room, Bakugou had already set everything up. He made your favourite food, lit up some candles and sat down, anxious glancing at the door and waiting for you to appear. Will you like it? Will you ask him questions? Do you enjoy living with him so far? 

If the answer to some of those questions is no, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He does know that you aren’t going anywhere though. 

You quietly walked in, feeling the tension increase with each step you took. 

You spied the contents on the table, salivating at the smell of your favourite food like a starved ogre, not even bothering to grimace at the memory of Nagisa’s poor attempt at making it. 

Bakugou was salivating as well, but for different reasons. He couldn’t look away from your exposed skin, staring creepily as if he’s never seen a leg before. 

The meal was consumed with awkwardness, neither party breaking the ice. You were afraid of confrontation, of asking too many questions and receiving nothing but anger and resentment in return. He seems so much nicer than Nagisa, you didn’t want him to hate you. 

The silence reigned, and the dishes were cleared away and being washed by Bakugou, who insisted you stay near him but also insisted you stay unoccupied. 

Every moment that passed felt like a moment lost, and you kept summoning your courage, but the words just wouldn’t leave your mouth. Maybe you should build up to what you really wanted to ask instead of jumping straight to it. 

You saw his red eyes sneakily glancing at you, rapidly leaving your form when you noticed him, causing his ears and face to flush. 

“So um, what do you do?” he quirked an eyebrow, looking at you strangely while his movements didn’t pause. 

“You-you don’t know?!” he exploded, looking at you in disbelief. You just shook your head like a deer caught in headlights. 

Oh, that shit must’ve not let you watch TV much. 

“I’m a pro hero.” 

Your eyes widened in wonder, the decadence of the place suddenly making sense. 

“Cool! What’s your quirk?” he ditched the dishes, excitedly showing you his quirk and explaining how it works, delighted at your cute smile and interest in him. The air felt charged and lively, and maybe that’s what led you to ask the questions that have being nagging at you. 

“So um, how did you-uh, how did you even find out anything about me?” 

Your heart dropped when you saw the excitement on his face disappear, his usual scowl in place of it. 

“You told me your name, that’s all I needed to know. I never stopped thinking about you ever since I saw you, I tried but I couldn’t. If even someone as strong as me can end up on death's door, then what would happen to you? I couldn’t just leave you.” At this point, he was caressing your face, looking at you with love stricken eyes. You were reminded of who you were talking to, you were talking to a Protective yandere, who took you. 

You didn’t have to ask anything else really, pandora’s box opened, and everything you weren’t previously privy to is now made obvious to you. 

“It sickened me though, knowing you actually fucking belonged to someone else. So how could I leave you? I had to save you like you saved me.” he had both of his huge hands on your face, looking at you with pure insanity, love, adoration and bloodthirst swirling and mixing in his irises. He was a yandere, he was the person every ordinary person should fear, he has you in his clutches, you should be trying to escape and regain your freedom, you saw first hand how easily capable of hurting you he could be if he wanted… So why weren’t you scared?

[izusun]

*hands you an AU dump to hoard like a little goblin handing a small coin to a dragon*

OKAY so basically: after the doctor's visit where Izuku learns he's quirkless (I hc that they went when he was about five n' a half), Inko does a little bit of research on quirks and more specifically on her son's notebooks, learns that he's even more brilliant at quirk analysis than she originally suspected, and (after looking at some not great quirkless statistics) she instead informs Izuku that no, he's had a quirk all along! It's an analysis quirk!

So she updates the quirk registry, and Izuku goes through his life believing he has an analysis quirk, albeit teased for being a late bloomer, but he still can't shake the insecurity being quirkless for that one and a half year gave him.

He does research on all sorts of things, hacking, knife throwing, first aid, and building his own support gear and takes to all of it like a duck to water. He also does research on UA's policy for support gear in the entrance exam (cause surely they've gotta have a policy for non-offensive quirks like Koda and Hagakure) and finds that he can take one with him if he builds it himself. He goes fuckin bonkers.

Anyways: he trains with Katsuki, cause they're relationship is pretty good since Izuku has a 'quirk.' They both demolish the entrance exam. (Also Izuku kinda swears a lot because Katsuki rubs off on him)

Aizawa doesn't notice a goddamn thing is amiss until the battle trials on the second day (he decides to shadow All Might that day), where when he was using his quirk to silence his students while Izuku was rambling, he just didn't stop, as if he didn't notice anything was wrong. It happens again during the USJ.

So at some point during the sports festival, Nedzu (who is now intrigued because of Aizawa's complaining) invites Izuku into his office during a free period and lets him go ham on analysis, all while Aizawa is secretly there erasing Izuku's 'quirk.' Nedzu invites Izuku to be his personal student (making Aizawa go grey), he says yes, and then Nedzu drops the absolute BOMBSHELL that Izuku is actually quirkless. Cue an existential crisis.

(Also Izuku gets captured at the training camp alongside Katsuki because of his "analysis quirk," wonder how well that goes for him~)

- Goblin anon (sorry this one was kinda long)

GOBLIN?? DUDE???? HOLY SHIT I KNEW YOUR AUS ARE ALWAYS PHENOMENAL BUT THIS RIGHT HERE??? D U D E

i misunderstood the prompt a bit but i genuinely don’t know how to backtrack, so here you go goblin. sorry again o(TヘTo)

ok first of, inko taking on a stronger stance to support her son? love that of her. like, she doesn’t say sorry when izuku turned to look at her and cried that he can’t be like all might. instead, she took him in her arms and assures him that he will be a great hero. at first, of course half of it is lip service because she doesn’t know how to help her quirkless boy be a hero, since, you know, heroes need quirks.. (or do they)

and then she comes across a quirkless self help group which rang many many warning bells in her head. what kind of life do quirkless people live when a google research of them resulted in subsequent pages of results like how to stay safe when quirkless, or how to find jobs when quirkless, or quirkless mortality rates?

she fears for izuku, until she notices that her son’s smart. too smart for his age, but inko thought she’s just being biased. but izuku’s wit is something many people notice, for an instance, when izuku goes to the park to play and his friends’ (the few ones who stayed) parents tell her that her son’s smart for a quirkless person, she realizes that izuku’s wit is far more vast than normal.

then a thought worms into her head but wouldn’t it be bad to lie…but also, no one would be any the wiser.

further pushed by all the statistics she keeps seeing, or the lack thereof, about quirkless people, she makes the decision and pours it to izuku.

izuku who’s far smarter than his age and understood what his mom is asking from him. izuku who already saw the disparities between quirked and quirkless people at the tender age of five. izuku who knows what it means to lie about something as personal as a quirk, but realizes that it’s necessary for him to do so if he wants to live a “normal” life.

so he agrees; he tells inko that he’ll work even harder to sharpen his mind, and to keep expanding his knowledge.

when izuku’s quirk file is officially updated, he watches how his peers and teachers revert back into treating him as izuku. he regains his old friends, but he chose to drop them because he doesn’t want to surround himself with people who thought he was less for being quirkless.

katsuki stayed, surprisingly. katsuki stayed and everyday he kept bothering izuku to “get your quirk already!” katsuki stayed because he can’t fathom that the smartest boy in their class (of course not as smart as him, psshh) is quirkless. deku couldn’t be quirkless. (but if he found out that izuku, indeed, is, i wonder what would happen…)

katsuki was one of the loudest to celebrate when izuku announced that his quirk arrived.

“finally!” he screams and bothers izuku about the semantics of his quirk. he really wasn’t surprised to find out that izuku has an analysis quirk because he thought that nothing else would better be suited for izuku.

he doesn’t know that izuku pours so much of his time into learning and studying, often bypassing basics and intros to take more of the developed courses that are usually recommended for older ages. he doesn’t know that izuku is just a naturally smart kid with the ability to fill the gaps of his young mind with knowledge upon knowledge, storing and stacking them until he feels that he’s laid a sturdy foundation for his fake quirk.

then izuku began threading into different areas. he learns how to get into cyberspaces; hacking into accounts and delving more into how to access private information. he doesn’t thread too close lest he gets caught, but he learns the logistics of maneuvering around the web and burrowing in empty spaces to branch out his own. he creates and designs web algorithms for himself, just so he doesn’t trigger anyone who is looking into the web movements. he hones this and uses it to access more information.

then when he deems it enough, he turns his attention to something more tangible and something more physical. he learns other ways to be a hero; how to fight without a physical quirk, how to win against bigger opponents, how to use analysis quirk in fights.

izuku becomes more than a fake analysis quirk user; he creates it.

mental quirks are hard to describe, more so to compress, thus he creates new definitions of an analysis quirk. what used to be a silly lie is now a tangible fact that izuku believes in. because what makes a quirk? because what makes analysis a quirk? he learns these semantics (often political) and uses it to his advantage.

then he finally threads to hero analysis. at first it were classmates he analyzed; eyes running quickly at their forms and watching with great interest before calculating everything he’s seen and transversing it with the things he learned, and bridges these two facts together to create an analysis. it was a struggle at first: he didn’t know which to put emphasis on until he realizes, he doesn’t need to. he weaves them together and lets his analysis run long and watches how his hobby comes into fruition.

following his classmates are current heroes. these were more tough and more fun, and any of the information is less shared. he doesn’t tell his classmates or teachers about his analyses, only katsuki. and katsuki’s breath hitch every damn time at izuku’s talent quirk.

it is in their second year of middle school that midoriya begins to incorporate the facts with himself to create physical performances. the issues and things he learned through observing are now practiced by himself. he calculates the best way to fight with a body as petite as his, often taking examples from pro-hero hawks and other women heroes. their agilities and physicality suit izuku’s young body; he doesn’t see the merit in punching his way through things when he physically cannot.

so he learns ways to ease his muscles. he learns ballet and gymnastics; lets his muscles contort and mend themselves anew. he finds his balance and roots himself firmly, and learns to calculate his actions so he doesn’t waste his energy. katsuki doesn’t say anything, but he sees izuku’s dance and falls in love.

then in the spring of their third year of middle school, izuku learns how to build and handle weapons.

this is the easiest. izuku learns that weapons aren’t tools, but extensions of his arms and hands. they are not to be revered and not to be depended on because they can fail. instead, he learns to wield weapons as though they are parts of his bodies. he learns how to use swords and often narrowing to wooden sticks that can be picked up anywhere; he learns how to fire guns and how to hide daggers in his uniform. he learns that his body is the best weapon to use and that tools are just arsenal to help him win.

then he learns how to build them.

by summer, izuku begins reaching into UA’s servers. they are hard codes to crack, but not impossible. it takes him five days to access old entrance exam videos. the next day, the videos are snuffed and he is left to try digging deeper into UA.

he fails.

nezu must have caught onto his codes and proceeded to build walls against it.

so he slithers out. but a five minute video of last year’s entrance exam is enough for izuku because he learns two things: one, heroes must defeat villains and two, heroes must save others.

izuku prepares for this. unknowingly, katsuki is taught these same principles. katsuki would grumble and tell him that he knows what heroes must do, but izuku continues to hammer it down to him.

by the time of the UA entrance exam, izuku falls into the ease of having a fake quirk. he passes the written exam with flying colours and although it took three teachers to approve his support gears (present mic had to pull in powerloader, midnight, and hound dog to ensure that the well designed support gears are made by the hero student examinee and not by a support student examinee. majima saw the works and begged nezu to allow izuku to be his student.), izuku still succeeds and dominates the entrance exam.

when the zero pointer was released, he had flung himself towards the girl crushed by debris and yanks her out. he doesn’t waste a modified grenade to explode the zero pointer because through his calculations, doing so would not only create more collateral damage, but would also endanger the examinee in his arms because she still would be caught in the crossfire.

nezu hums in appreciation from the screening room, after all, smart minds always do think alike.

izuku gets a whopping 92 in the physical aspects of the entrance exam.

katsuki gets 85.

aizawa gleefully takes them in.

izuku thinks that no one will ever know of his and inko’s secret, but one look at nezu’s beady eyes and he knew that the stoat knew. it became a game to them, then. a game to see who else would realize.

and while izuku is smart, he doesn’t realize that nezu has basically taken him as his personal student the moment he and izuku had created a bet.

it takes two months for aizawa to figure things out. surprisingly, he is the only one to do so and he only realizes due to the many untimely attacks of LoV.

——

how angst would it be if katsuki realizes that izuku’s always been quirkless during their captivity in the LoV’s hideout.

[aviculor]

Twitter is not a safe place to critique pokemon designs, so I'm going to dump a lot of my thoughts here.

Spidops. It's not a bad idea, like a black ops special agent ogre-faced spider. But the execution of its design needed a bit more oomph. The bouncy ball of thread -> kevlar vest idea would make more sense if Spidops' vest was its silk rather than a pattern that looks more like it's wearing an apron. It's not even black to make it look more like a stereotypical covert assassin. There's also a seamstress motif happening at the same time where its abdomen is a spool of thread and it has the aforementioned "apron", but there's not enough synergy between these concepts and it just looks confusing and unfinished as a result. Like they had two separate ideas for a new spider pokemon and ended up mashing them together to save space for their three dog lines. Of course, a lot of this could just be me having high standards and expectations because I want there to be a "perfect" spider pokemon. If I came up with my own take on a Tarountula evo, I would have made it a jorogumo wearing its own silk as a dress. Which is a concept I already had, it was sitting in my list for over a year because I couldn't get its design off the ground. You can dig through my "fakemon ideas" tag for proof. I'm actually ashamed of myself for that.

Slither Wing is another very...interesting pokemon to me. It's a dinosaur-like 'kaijuu' akin to what was common in Gen 1. It could easily have been our first bug/dragon, but instead it's a bug/fighting. I like it a lot, but I don't quite understand why it's fighting type or why its name is that. It doesn't slither, it has feet that it stands up on. Its wings don't slither either, it's not as if they're weird tentacles that resemble Larvesta's horns. Which is a strange thing to say, but having slithering wings that it punches you with would have at least justified it being a fighting type called "Slither Wing". The way Khu described it in his leaks, I was expecting a neotenous caterpillar-like creature, like some horrible flightless moth with tiny vestigial wings. Which is a pretty spicy idea, and one I should take for myself since by all rights it is my thought that I thunk.

Even though I would have preferred a more standard toothed chest for our first genuine rpg-style mimic pokemon, I'll admit it would be a cop-out to strip Gimmighoul of what makes it unique from all the other mimic monsters out there. But Gholdengo. Gholdengo does not look like a mass of coins, it looks like Cinna Mon the old Apple Jacks mascot. It looks like a shiny string cheese man. I get that it would have been difficult to properly render a humanoid stack of coins in a way that would remain easy to draw, but they could have just not done that and gone in another direction. You know what would have been neat? If it was a genie made of loose coins floating out from the chest like it was a lamp. It is still a ghost type after all, and collecting 999 coins to evolve Gimmighoul is basically having a wish that gets granted.

All of the future paradox pokemon being robots is something of a shame since we could have gotten some real speculative evolution happening. But that is a wholly deliberate choice that I do respect. It kind of is more fitting in Violet than in Scarlet where you see a Donphan with spikes and fur and everyone's like "is that thing even a pokemon!?". But in both cases, they could have pushed the envelope even more with separating the paradox from the "original". Take Iron Jugulis for example- it's just a robotic Hydreigon. You want to know one example of what they could have done? Bring back the tank treads from Hydreigon's early concept stage. I also think it would have been cool if its wings were like spider legs, but at that point it would be a bit hard to call it a flying type. Granted, I'm 99% sure we haven't gotten the full story about paradox pokemon anyway, but there's a reason I find myself liking fan takes on the concept more than the actual ones we got.

I don't have any quarrel with Tatsugiri, but I think it would have been interesting if instead of a little guppy fish it was based on a tongue louse...or even better, a liver fluke. It would have still looked like a piece of nigiri, and being a parasitic animal would have meshed perfectly with its relationship to Dondozo. Plus, humans can get infected by Clonorchis by eating raw fish. The thematics would have been very interwoven.

I don't hate Quaquavel, it's not my thing but no starter ever really is. I'm not going to furiously scribble it out and suggest a "cooler" ducky man that abandons the original intent and inspiration behind it. That's not what any of this is about. But I bring Quaquavel up because when I look at Quaxwell, I feel as if there was a missed opportunity for a ballerina swan. Swan Lake and such. Like, it's pretty much low-hanging fruit right there for you to pick.

Pawmi's evolutions...I mean, obviously they deliberately wanted it to barely change, but there's no practical reason behind it. It's not even like Palafin who is a superhero with a "civilian identity". They just made Pawmi stand up and get scruffier. It doesn't even have any visual connection to a defibrillator, which is the whole point behind it knowing Revival Blessing.

As I said, I'm not typing all this because I want to scrap certain pokemon or rob them of their original design processes. I just think some of them could have used a couple last-minute tweaks to improve synergy, or they otherwise gave me ideas that I could potentially use for my own fakemon using the same general concept. For instance, I'm not a fan of Tandemaus and Maushold, but I can still respect their existence and the thought that was put behind them. With them, I think they need more visual interest. Something as small as making their mouths visible when closed or giving the "shirt" and "pants" some contrast so they're actually visible. And when they evolve into Maushold, do just a tiny baby bit of change to the "parent" duo. I don't know, like a mustache on one and a hair bun on the other or something. I don't get why "it looks the same when it evolves" is such a running theme in Paldea.

Bellibolt could have afforded to look more frog-like, closer to the beta Politoed that inspired it. Basing it on a real species would have been ideal. But at bare minimum, if I was allowed to make just one singular tweak, I'd make the false eyes have their "pupils" at the edge of the bumps, dilated and staring off into space. You know, like Iono's Magnemite hairclips? They just look too much like its actual eyes imo. I know that's the point, but the illusion is too convincing and it becomes distracting. I'm also not in love with how they rendered the plasma ball belly when it lights up.

Wugtrio threw out a subtle differences between Wiglett and Diglett: where Wiglett's face is positioned on its head. It would have been neat if Wugtrio had some more differences from Dugtrio the way Toedscruel does from Tentacruel, but the face thing actually almost bothers me. They need to be at the end of the bodies which need to be curved forward.

Glimmet and Glimmora have some great thought and aesthetic behind them, but I'm honestly not a fan of Glimmet's body shape which people have compared to a bike horn or a rubber chicken. If it was up to me, I would have configured it like Yokomon from Digimon- the bulb being the actual core of its body. Maybe the flower on top would even be just a bud rather than a full bloom. As for Glimmora, some people believe it's partially based on the Passiflora, so its flower could have been a lot more elaborate even if you kept Glimmora as just a floating head. Although personally I think this would have been a great opportunity to make a pokemon based on a sessile invertebrate like an anemone, sea sponge (ie a glass sponge or ping pong tree), or feather duster worm. The existing "flower made of toxic minerals" theme would remain perfectly intact, but the designs would have been given a more focused direction. Coral or barnacles would be good choices too, even though there are already pokemon based on them. A Bryozoan would also fit the bill, but there isn't as much brand recognition so to speak.

[likeastarstar]

Invisible String Pt.2

Part One

(A/N: read part one before this part if you haven't already so it'll make sense!)

masterlist.

Jungkook interested you, so you kissed him.

"I don't normally do this," You promised, feeling breathless as Jungkook kissed his way down your jaw to your neck.

"Same," Jungkook nodded urgently, barely processing what you said in favor for tugging you by the waist so that you were straddling him in the back of the cab he had called for the two of you. He said he just didn't want to leave you stranded at the club, that he'd see you home. But one thing led to another and you were currently praying the cab driver didn't yell at you.

Jungkook's hands were everywhere, rubbing at exposed skin, grazing through your hair, flattening against the small of your back. He rocked your hips back and forth against his lap, frowning again in concentration. Shit- he was really hot.

You wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed, wondering what he looked like under his leather jacket. He felt so solid under your touch, like he belongs there. You dragged your other hand through his hair, pushing it back and off his forehead. He keened under your touch, smiling slightly while his eyes fluttered closed as your nails dug into his scalp lightly. You reached the nape of his neck and tugged on Jungkook's hair so that he was looking up at you in his lap, eyes snapping open in sharp attention.

Jungkook's lips parted slightly, as if he was about to say something before-

"First stop." The cab driver interrupted, making you jump slightly as the car came to a screeching halt in front of your apartment complex.

You would've asked him to come inside- except that Jungkook practically pushed you out of the car with a fleeting reminder about the money you still owed him. Ouch. You had clearly completely misread the situation, but that didn't stop you from thinking about Jungkook from that moment on.

You looked for him everywhere, scanning crowds on your daily commute, lingering at the same crosswalk you had met him at. Your eyes stayed glued to the floor when you boarded the bus on your way home most days, trying to catch a glimpse of those black boots.

The next time you did see him was three weeks later, at a gaming cafe, of all places.

"No, no, no- NO!" You whispered, scoffing in disbelief as you lost for the third time that night.

This was not normal for you- loosing, that is. You blamed it on the other abnormality of your current situation: being in a gaming cafe. Normally, you'd be playing LoL in the comfort of your own home sans-pants. But one overly excited moment and a mug of tea placed too closely to your set up and boom- no computer for you. At least while it's in repair.

"You're very dramatic," A voice said next to you, snapping you out of your spiral.

You frowned and looked over to whoever was next to you, locking eyes on Jungkook, who was currently slurping down noodles like someone was going to take them from him. You shrieked in surprise, the two of you jumping in your chairs at the same moment. "Are you stalking me?" You whisper-yelled, leaning away from him.

"No," He snapped, talking with his mouth full. "I got here two hours before you, I just didn't feel like saying hi until now. I could ask you the same question."

You watched him eat in awe, trying not to fixate on the way his tongue looked snaking out to lick his lips every now and then. There had been too many coincidental run-ins between the two of you for this not to be fate. You shook your head, throwing the incredibly stupid thought out of your head.

"Anyway, good thing I ran into you," You shrugged, choosing to ignore the fact that the last time you had seen him, you were rubbing your pussy all over his lap. "I have something for you."

He looked at you with his eyebrows raised, waiting expectantly as you dug around in your bag for a moment. You found what you were looking for, a small keychain of a skeletal hand in the same positioning as the tattoo on his forearm. "I saw it and thought of you, so I got it for you. Here, rock on." You explained, handing it to him.

He laughed slightly, taking it from you gingerly and inspecting it closely. "My tattoo means I love you, not rock on." He pointed out, pulling out his keys and putting the token on the loop.

There was a warm feeling in your chest knowing he was actually going to use it, one that only grew when you noticed the slight blush on his cheeks, "Yeah, well, the keychain means rock on." You quipped, "Do you like it or not?"

"I do," He said quickly, holding up his keys with a bright smile. You sent one back to him, beaming so hard your cheeks hurt. "Thank you."

At this point, neither Jungkook or you ever made plans to see each other. You knew it would just happen on its own. Which is exactly what happened a month later, on what could only be called the worst day of your life.

Things hadn't been going your way for a very, very long time. You usually had pretty good luck, but suddenly it was like the universe had forsaken you altogether. After a particularly terrible blind date, you had had enough- no more dating. This guy was all kinds of awful, he didn't laugh at any of your jokes, he had a terrible taste in music- he even wore the wrong clothes. He had loafers on- loafers. God, Jungkook would never wear those.

Instead of wallowing in a ruined night, you did what any struggling girl boss would do- you got yourself dessert.

You walked to the nearest 24 hour diner, pushing the doors open quickly. There was barely anyone here, thankfully. It was the perfect place to be alone.

Except that two seconds after you sat down in a quiet booth next to a window, Jungkook came marching up to your table. He was wearing a color other than black- this time it was a patterned buttoned down shirt and loose fitting trousers. You couldn't see his shoes, but that wasn't really what you were focused on at the moment. No, instead you could only stare at his latest haircut, cropped short on the sides and parted neatly. Who was this guy and what did he do to your fluffy headed soulmate?

"Are you sure you're not stalking me?" You asked calmly, at this point you were completely unsurprised to see him popping up at the most random times.

"I saw you from the window on my way home and figured I'd say hi," He shrugged, sliding into the booth beside you, immediately tossing his phone haphazardly onto the table. "Although I'm beginning to think you're a figment of my imagination. It's bizarre how you just keep...appearing."

"You're telling me," You snorted, resting your chin on your hand propped up on the table. "But I'm not sure if you'd be able to kiss a figment of your imagination."

Jungkook blushed deeply and you laughed for the first time that day. He was just so easy to mess with. Jungkook pouted childishly and stole your menu, burying his face in it.

"We did a little more than a kiss in that cab," He said in a whiny voice, "It's pretty late, why are you at a diner at one in the morning?"

"Nothing, bad day." You mumbled, "I needed pie."

"Valid reasoning," He said pensively, "You look nice, by the way. I like your earrings, they match mine."

You looked at the chain looping through his double piercings, realizing he was right- you had a similar version in your own ears. Weird. You didn't get a chance to return the compliment before the waitress came over and Jungkook ordered literally every kind of pie on their very extensive menu and two coffees.

"If pie will make you happy we might as well go all out." He reasoned, only noticing your outraged face when the waitress left. "Anyway, I got you something."

He dug around the backpack he has dumped in the booth beside him when he got here, pulling out a flash drive with a a tiny keychain of a butterfly connected to it.

"I don't know if I've never mentioned this before, but I'm a musician." He explained, holding it out to you. "This has my latest stuff on it. Nothing fancy, just wanted you to listen before I send it off to my label. Plus, the keychain reminded me of you."

You took it from him slowly, holding it as if it were worth a million dollars- which to you, it was.

"Sometimes I think I dreamt you up," You mumbled, still staring at the flash drive. You couldn't wait to listen to it, to hear his velvet tone and silvery vocals whenever you wanted. This was the first, tangible thing that connected him to you, a reminder that even if the universe hated you right now- at least Jungkook was in it.

"Touch me and see," He offered, leaning back in his seat with a small smirk on his face.

Your eyes flicked back to him, a dare written across his features and a thread pulling at your heart. You leaned forward, a smirk of your own on your face until his phone buzzed, interrupting the heated moment.

You weren't trying to be nosey, but the bright light of the screen caught your eye and you glanced at it quickly. It was a text from someone, their contact saved under a series of hearts and one word: wifey.

Wait- his what?

TO BE CONTINUED...PART THREE

(A/N: MUAHAHAA! If you've made it to the end, thank you, I love you, I'm sorry. Next part is the last part, as always feedback is so so appreciated! Send me an ask goddamnit!)

[researcher-serif]

Masterlist

for me and you cause I like reading back on my works. I'll try my best to put this all in order

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Introductions!

Call me Ree or by my full url! I also go by Sweden.

Im an aroace masc nonbinary that uses mainly they/them pronouns followed by he/him. I also use other ones like xey/xer/xem, we/us, and hai/hir/hoi.

I like cats, pasta, flufy and shiny shit, reading fanfics, and trying to info dump ideas at a fast rate. Hate em wronguns who thinks fucked up shit like child abuse or pedophilia is ok and caramel. Fuck caramel. And taffy.

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Here's my art side blog @cat-and-fox-hub

Here's my NSFW (art & writing) blog @grandfather-of-sin

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Currently in the following fandoms in interest order:

Skibidi Toilet

Yu-Gi-Oh (Arc-V an' Zexal mostly with GX & s0 on the side)

Titanfall (BT-7274 is so fuckin CUTE!!)

Twisted Wonderland (Yuu angst or comedy with x reader slides)

Cookie Run

Dream SMP (TommyInnit-centic shit)

Madness Combat

Transformers (time travelin Sam Witwicky & great, albeit rare, x reader content)

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Miscellaneous

Existence AU

Existence- The Starter Post

How do you Know you Exist?- A question for @sad-boy-hank

How do you Know I Exist?- What do you Perceive me to Be?

Authority- We do not have Authority and the cost is much, much, too high.

Writing Prompts

Your Reward: The No Harm List- You live in a city where crime runs rampant. One day, you save a young boy's life, not knowing that he is the crime lord's son, and you have just joined the no harm list.

Last Words- "Choose your last word's carefully," the villain sneered. The hero shakily lifted their head, "I love you"

A Short Aggressive Excerpt of My Day- Describe an average day as aggressively and violently as possible.

Series

The Little Green Bunny- Madness Combat x BNHA

Dream SMP

Loop Excerpt #479: Of Music And Ballet- Dream & Tommy in a time loop; funny shenanigans ensue after they put their shit aside and become friends

Spinel Heart- Tommy-centric AU where Tommy is left at his childhood cottage all alone by the SBI, Spinel inspired, and left to take care of the home and farms all by himself for 7 years until they come back when Tommy turns 17.

TRANSFORMERS

Multiverse Shenanigans- Merfolk Reader & Human Megatron get thrown in a traveling the multiverse trope

Monster in Human Disguise- Humans are Scary Reader in a Humans are Cute TFA universe

Unintentional Cupid- Megatron but everyone secretly wants to kills him and he and their very beloved liaison are in love with each other

Gen Z Humans & Madagascar Penguins- Thread chain about Gen Z Humans in G1 scenarios & the human equivalent Madagascar Penguins

MADNESS COMBAT

Miscellaneous

Human Reader planning a vacation

Reader in a nurse outfit as 2B's 'assistant'- small imagine off of @yansoftie's response to an ask for 'nice dress' AU

Rapunzel reader, Pascal 2Bitty, and Hank Ryder- Rapunzel AU

Integrity AU

Shower Thought- The Starter Post

Poor Word Choice Gets Grunts Horny AF- suggestive one shot with Dom Sheriff

Just Sheriff or Everyone Else?- @gonergoat's ask whether or not breeding kink is for him only or expendable to everyone else.

Soft Ara AU

Beginning- The Starter Post(will be updated)

Perfect- @gonergoat's short ask about how funny SA Reader's situation is

Affection Battle- Church & Gorge meeting Reader

"I need to survive"- Internal monologue of Reader during Tricky Boss Fight

SIX Musical AU

SIX Catherine Reader- Character Intro

SIX Anne Reader- Character Intro

SIX Jane Seymour Reader- Character Intro

SIX Anna Reader- Character Intro

SIX Katherine Reader- Character Intro

SIX Parr Reader- Character Intro

PAWSG Reader AU

Nephalem in Madness- My PAWSG Reader gets yeeted into Madcom

Clay God AU

Accidentally Became Zeus lmao- The Starter Post

The Nameless- One of CG Reader’s more terrifying creations

The Overseer

Madcom x FNF Story Idea with Auditor Reader & Dimension Traveling- Starter Post

SKIBIDI TOILET

Skip & Solo- A prompt with AIL Reader saving a moot's silly duo from a pickle

TWISTED WONDERLAND

Once 4 Stood, Only 2 Now Remain- The Dwarves Mines goes terribly wrong.

Yuu AU Ideas- Somewhat obscure Yuu crossover ideas