#These are getting easier to write

[womp-womp-waa]

Broken and alone.

Those are the only words that could be used to describe Ceiling-chan. Aiden and those girls left her destroyed. What was the point of trying anymore? She was forever alone. Nobody could even consider loving her, all she is a passing thought, the last choice. Why would anyone pick her. She wouldn't pick herself either.

She layed there despairing, no hope for her life to get any better. It's not like she deserves it anyways. But then she saw him. A cute tree. She wanted to talk to him. But would he even want a girl like her? He's even cuter than Aiden was and the blonde didn't even look her way why would this guy even think about her?

He made eye contact with her and started to make his way over to her. W-What?! Why was he approaching her, was it just to make fun of her and how lonely she is?

"H-Hey there." He says shyly looking down at the floor (could he be any cuter?). "M-My names Tree-kun. What's your name?" He asked with a small smile on his face. Why was he talking to her, though? Maybe she was in the way of something that he needed or he wanted to ask her something.

A few seconds passed before she realised he was waiting for a response. "My name is C-Ceiling-chan." Muttering nervously. "Is there anything you need?"

In response all she got was a confused look. "I, um, no I-I just" she watched as he fumbled over his words. "I wanted to ask you out." He gave her a nervous smile.

"You wanted to ask me on a date?"

"W-Well yes" she couldn't believe it someone actually asked her on a date but why? The question plauged her mind and before she could stop herself she asked "Why?"

"Why, what?" He asked. "Why would you want to date me?" She finished the sentence for him. Did she make a mistake? Will he no longer want to date her anymore? Did she ruin the chances of dating the one person who could love her? "Well, I want to date you because I think you're beautiful-" beautiful? "And you seem nice so I thought I would take a chance." Tree-kun looked at her hopefully before quickly adding "I-It's completely fine if you don't want to date me though. I would understand, I mean alot of people don't find themselves sticking around me because I tend to ramble alot and-" She cut off his adorable rambling.

"I would love to go on a date with you"

[inbabylontheywept]

bad dating stories time: the shoe incident

so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.

at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.

he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?

and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.

but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.

i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?

(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)

and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.

i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.

that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.

i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.

anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.

i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.

we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.

he was okay at it.

eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.

soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.

realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:

"i can't get pregnant"

which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.

still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"

and then i was in my car, and i drove away.

if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.

and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.

WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.

we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.

do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.

and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.

then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.

and then they started making out.

i was close enough to hear it.

i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.

so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.

now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.

so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.

about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.

my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.

my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.

they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?

and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.

[inkskinned]

i'm still trying to piece together the truth of it. when you left, you said: feel free to spin this narrative however you want. i have no idea if you were being cruel or if you just genuinely don't remember what you've done to me.

it's hard because i'd done so much of the work for you. i had seen the parts that flaked off, the rust underneath. i started separating you into two people - the one i loved, and the one who hurt me. i had this fantasy version of you - my partner - and then i had this stranger, a third person who would show up randomly to shatter me. i am deliriously glad i'm no longer with "the stranger". i miss the gentle (unreal?) "other" you terribly.

at first, i was so strict about my boundaries. i remember telling you to get the fuck out of my house if you were going to talk to me like that. by the end: i would justify your behavior for you, accepting even your mistreatment as "my fault" in the grand scheme. i look back on the person i was before you - smart, independent, confident - and i feel a strange sense of detachment. i don't even recognize me.

even in one of our last conversations, you said: if you want a partner that always talks warmly to you, find someone else. there was a time that a comment like that would have made me leave. and instead, somehow, i just placidly accepted that kind of thing. you were literally telling me that i wasn't allowed to have a reaction to your cruelty - and i just took it, because you'd so fully turned things around on me.

when people are faced with irrationality, a rational brain tries to make sense of it. this is the trap. they're lovely in the morning, gentle and blue-eyed and sweet. like nothing even happened, they breeze around the house and kiss you on the mouth. but at night; who is that? they snap almost randomly; flying into an impotent rage about just-about-anything. it just doesn't make sense. so the problem must be me, and my brain, and how i think.

the traumatized brain just wants peace. so maybe i'm misremembering. maybe you were just having a bad day. maybe it's actually me.

you eventually would fully turn on me and start implying that i am the bad actor in our relationship. that's what happens, right? that's literally in the playbook. you went to therapy for all of a month, told her a half-truth, co-opted therapyspeak. you figured out how to reframe your actions as "seeking peace." any time i stood my ground, i was "gaslighting." when i asked you to be more gentle, you said i was "tone policing." you said, randomly, i had emotionally manipulated you - i still have no idea what that's even specifically referring to. maybe my consistent requests for calmness and empathy?

and while i literally know better, and i'm sitting here, trained by you, thinking: wait, fuck. was i actually the person you made me out to be?

and the thing that scares me is that i literally do not know if you ever actually saw what you were doing to me. when you'd tell me how you remember arguments, you'd always summarize them in a way where you come off as gentle and easy: "i was trying to set an important boundary." what had actually happened was 15 minutes of you shouting at me i know you did something shady, just admit it already. eventually you'd say my reaction to your shouting (when i finally reacted, which usually happened around hour three) was inevitably "disappointing" and "another way i'm silencing your feelings."

how many times did i ask you - beg you - to just take accountability? looking back, i don't think i ever heard you say: you're right. the way i talked to you was wrong of me.

i am trying to tie together the two people into a full version of you in my head. yes, you made my coffee and made me laugh and spent hours on the phone with me. and yes - you would scream at me until i had to run away and hide behind something.

i wish i did have a narrative i could pull out and shape to my whim. i wish i did have some semblance of reality. instead i just stand here, strange and vibrating, wondering: what the fuck just happened?

[forgettable-au]

Sans do you ever feel that something might be missing?

Maybe he felt like that at some point, maybe for a long time. In the present, I think he's made some kind of peace with it.

Also, I really like the ask blog format, but I don't really mean this to be an ask blog.

So when writing questions, try to refer them to me instead of the characters. That way, they don't have to break the fourth wall lmao. I really wanted to answer this one tho

-

[sparticus2000art]

Revisiting my nightmare design and giving him another outfit for fun!

Also some practice with expressions based on the expression sheet by @/capochiino because I need to work on drawing faces more expressively-

I’m not quite there yet, but it’s not doing terribly I think…

Nightmare was made by jokublog

I also drew this cause I wanted to explore a better dressed nightmare- personality wise I feel like it makes more sense to have him be a bit more extravagant or well put together than his cannon design with just the hoodie.

For my own interpretation of him, I feel like it would be interesting to approach his character in a way where he does both- the more elaborate or fancy outfits preferably, but the hoodie fit as more of a crutch for when he needs it, linking his outward expression and appearance to his stability and control over his own emotions/ the corruption.

I think when he first turned, the corruption would’ve made him quite unstable emotionally, and taken away a lot of control- being visually represented by it soaking through and staining all of his clothes to be the same colour as the corruption itself. Kinda showing him being overwhelmed by the new influence. But the more comfortable he becomes, the better he’s able to manage the new state, giving him the opportunity to do things more to his own taste.

This also allows him to experiment with adding some pops of colour to his clothes, though he’d still stick to darker tones to protect his pride- so that it’s not as obvious when his control lapses and the corruption seeps through to contaminate the garments. On particularly bad days he’d revert to his cannon clothing, both to save the clothes he likes from being tarnished, but also as a way to seek comfort.

I’m not sure if I explained that super well lol, but those are kinda my personal head cannons.

[leonardcohenofficial]

the two biggest pieces of advice that i would express to anyone thinking about grad school are

1) do not pay for grad school. i am dead serious on this one. this was the number one thing every single professor i had in undergrad expressed to me. going to a grad school that doesn’t offer tuition remission or teaching or any type of funding so you can complete the work you need to do is not worth going into debt for don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it because—

2) besides the obvious (the degree) grad school offer you two things (ideally they offer both); training or access. by training i mean rigorous high level hands on practice honing your skills in your chosen field; by access i mean connection to people/institutions/funding to help support whatever work or research you’re doing. (i think that at least in the arts broadly speaking, it is easier to find training than it is to gain access.) i think it’s extremely important to weigh out what you’re getting out of a specific program and decide not only what is more important to you but also what opportunities a school is offering you

[fetidbog]

I find the Dark Dany conversation really confusing (and maybe part of this is because I haven't watched the show, and I think a lot of analysis of Dany's arc is wrapped up in trying to use the show as a barometer for where George is going to end up – which I don't agree with), because I feel like she already had her Dark Dany arc and the end of ADWD is her realization that compromising with the masters is bad! You can make no peace with slavery!

Her last two chapters seem really clear to me as a denunciation of compromise in the face of moral evil!

Here's her second to last chapter (when she's going to the re-opening of the fighting pits):

The "floppy ears" comment is in reference to the tokar, the outfit of the ruling (former slave owning) class. Brown Ben Plumm makes a joke that if you want to be king of the rabbits, you have to wear floppy ears, and so Dany refers to blending in with the ruling class (again, the former slave owners!) and adopting their customs as putting on her floppy ears. Here she describes how putting on the floppy ears, the symbol of her attempt to compromise with slavers!, will keep her cool and hide any blood splatters. But she also acknowledges little about this day shall please her – she knows the compromise is wrong.

Dany is upset that that so little has changed despite ending slavery. "One step, then the next, but where is it I'm going?" is Dany questioning herself about if she's taken the right approach to agreeing to reconstruct Meereenese society under the influence of/beholden to the whims of the former masters. Has she compromised her entire abolitionist project?

Dany witnesses Barsena's violent death in the fighting pits. The boar realizes he can't charge Barsena directly (much like how the masters of Meereen have changed tactics. Instead of fighting Dany directly, they are manipulating her into compromise, attempting to provoke and misdirect her, and waging violent guerrilla war from the shadows with the Sons of the Harpy).

Barsena is brave, but dies horribly in front of the crowd, and Dany is sickened. The sequence ends with her TAKING OFF HER FLOPPY EARS, the symbol of her compromise with slavers, because she can no longer ignore the violence of the fighting pits and the moral rot of appeasement.

She's realizing the depths of her mistake in compromising.

I am looking into hell (the fighting pits), but I dare not look away (instead of allowing Hizdahr and the rest of the masters to convince her to ignore the problem and lead her astray).

If I run from him, he will burn me and devour me (the moral consequences of compromising with slavers will destroy her.

And here's her final chapter (where she's wandering lost with Drogon):

"That was where she belonged, surely" – she's trying to convince herself that her place is in Meereen, back with her husband. She's telling herself to keep walking forward despite the previous chapter's quote about "one step, then the next, but where is it I'm going?"

I also think this part about Drogon is interesting – is she talking about the path of moral truth, that she shouldn't have bowed to whip or words (of the ruling class)? Or is she talking about the rot of slavery, that she can't turn the masters away from it if they do not wish to be turned?

And then! In this next paragraph she contradicts the previous statement, saying "Drogon had bent before the whip, and so must she"

But she believes that her place is in the arms of her noble husband, the husband who has pressured her to reopen the fighting pits, which she knows is evil, that's the realization she has in the last chapter! So she's conflicted here, and I think we're supposed to be taking away that she shouldn't do that. Her place is not there! She should not bend!

Then Dany describes the blisters she gets "from the way [she] walk[s]" a clear callback to the line in her last chapter "one step, then the next, but where is it I'm going?" – the path of compromise is quite literally hurting her!

Dany has to remember who she is – someone who abhors slavery, who doesn't compromise on her principles.

She's sick, dehydrated, hallucinating (and seemingly having a miscarriage), all alone at her lowest point, and finally she realizes Meereen is not her home and never will be! She cannot be a Harpy!!!

[mammoth-clangen]

D’you perchance have any thoughts on the morphological (for lack of a better word?) dire wolves that Colossal Biosciences just revealed to the public? 👀

Oh my god Aenocyon, you can't just ask someone why they're white!

"Morphological dire wolf" my ass. Which is coincidentally where Colossal pulled the white coats from…

Give me an example of a modern temperate/grassland predator that's white*, I'll wait. *Excluding white lions, which are an uncommon but resilient morph resulting from leucism.

I based my Aenocyon design off bushdogs and dholes. They are called Masked Wolves in Kindred's setting, because I enjoy a good pseudo hyena niche uvu-b

Extremely extremely long 'thoughts' below the cut lol c':

Preface: in this discussion the term "dire wolf" has too many meanings, as such I will be referring to them as follows:

Thrones' wolves: for the huge, white, fantasy animals from Game Of Thrones GMO wolves: for Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, Colossal's creations, Canis lupus Aenocyon: for Aenocyon dirus, the true, extinct dire wolf known from fossils across North America

----

Part 1: That's not a dire wolf-

The first question everyone has been asking is "So, are dire wolves de extinct now?" The answer is an emphatic "NO!" from anyone with knowledge of genetics, palaeontology, or taxonomy.

Aenocyon dirus were actually not wolves, nor dogs, but a secret third thing.

They are canids, but last shared a common ancestor with grey wolves and their lineage some ~5.7 million years ago.

For context, this paper suggests a similar divergence time between genus Homo (humans, Neanderthals and co) and Pan (chimps and bonobos); animals that look and behave markedly differently from each other.

The genomes of Canis lupus and Aenocyon dirus being 99.5% similar may sound like a lot, but again, humans share 98.8% with chimps, and 99.7% with Neanderthals, and yet are very distinct from both.

Skeletally, behaviourally, in soft tissue, etc, you could tell any of the three apart; the same goes for Aenocyon and Canis members.

Additionally, Colossal made 20 changes in 14 genes.

The grey wolf genome has 2,447,000,000 base pairs. Does that maths seem a bit off to you?

That's not even enough to change a grey wolf into a domestic dog, let alone an ancient outgroup!

This would be akin to modifying a lion to have bigger teeth and saying you resurrected Smilodon fatalis.

Or editing a Asian Elephant genome so they retain their juvenile hair and calling it a Woolly Mammoth.

It's a bold-faced lie.

Beth Shapiro says "they look and act like dire wolves" but that, too,simply isn't true.

Visually, the GMO wolves simply aren't what Aenocyon would have looked like. It's what a Thrones' wolf looks like.

Hmmmmm, funny about that, seeing George R R Martin helped fund the 'dire wolf project'...

As with many fossil animals, we don't know much about Aenocyon's behaviour.

You can't say the GMO wolves (who are also still pups) act like Aenocyon, because that's based off nothing.

What we do know is Aenocyon were likely pack animals (from the sheer number found in La Brea Tarpits), and crunched more bones than modern wolves (from their many broken teeth).

Also, crucially, they had Wild Sex Lives (from the many, huge, broken and healed bacula... youch).

Colossal is also being colossally shady by: doubling down on their bs use of the outdated "morphological species definition", blatantly misleading the public with their use of the words 'cloning', 'dire wolves', and 'de extinction', and refusing to share their methods in a peer reviewed paper before going public with a clickbait headline.

Do not trust them with your Red wolves either. They're using coyote hybrids and considering what they deem 'close enough' for a dire wolf, I wouldn't put any money on the quality of their GMO red wolves either...

Also can I just say, whatever genes they modified to "make the skull larger" clearly didn't impact the lower jaw...

No, I'm not sorry for this image uvu-b (But for real look at that poor pup and his overbite jfc)

Part 2: -and if it was, that wouldn't be good either.

I fundamentally do not support de extinction.

No, not even for the Thylacine, not even for passenger pigeons, nor the dodo. Even my beloved Homotherium should be left in the past.

This might be an unexpected stance because I am, surprising no one, a big fan of extinct animals, megafauna and otherwise.

But the thing is, I'm an even bigger fan of actual, living animals.

The animal ethics of de extinction are dubious at best.

The surrogate dog mothers of the GMO wolves likely won't live good lives.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were destroyed after being used, because their bodies could contain feto microchimerisms and Colossal absolutely doesn't want their special wolf genome getting out.

I doubt the GMO wolves themselves will live a full life before they outgrow their hearts, like Ligers.

This would likely be the case for any modern animal genetically modified into megafauna; a body not adapted to deal with the increased size.

Purely conjecture, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi have vision/hearing issues from their white coats.

White coats in wolves are associated with hearing impairments, so the gene used for these animals was from domestic dogs. Meaning Colossal has created a very expensive wolfdog.

Again, what kind of life are these wolfdogs supposed to live? As awful pets for the rich? In a zoo? Released to pollute wild wolf genomes? (assuming they're fertile; I hope not)

Regardless, it's not looking good if they ever planned to have them be 'wild animals'

Even true clones (which the GMO wolves are not) tend to have health issues.

Celia the Pyrenean Ibex (bucardo) was cloned, but the clone died after 9 minutes from a deformed lung.

So in 2003, this made the bucardo the first species to go extinct twice, yippee?

There's also the problem of genetic diversity.

How many intact genomes do you have on hand?

For dire wolves the answer is Zero!

To my knowledge, we don't have the full genome coded from one individual, just Frankenstein-ed from many. Which is fine for sequencing the canine family tree's relatedness, but not for cloning.

The absolute minimum individuals to survive a genetic bottleneck is said to be 50 in larger species. Called the 50/500 rule, it states that 50 is enough to survive, but 500 is required to prevent genetic drift.

To which I say, good luck!

Even with well preserved permafrost species (such as woolly mammoths), you'll have a hard time finding 500 individuals with prefect genomes.

And then, where will you put them?

If you were to, somehow, make a breeding population, where are they going? A national park? A zoo? Is their old habitat still available to them?

In Aenocyon, the answer is simply "they don't have a niche anymore".

Unlike the Thylacine or Dodo, humans did not directly cause the extinction of Aenocyon dirus. And even if they had, it was 10,000 years ago!

Would making room for a de extinct species impact the habitat/niche of another species?

Regular grey wolves fill Aenocyon's role as a canine mesopredator, with Puma as the apex (alongside bears as an apex omnivore).

With the loss of megafauna to prey on, a de extinct predator would just compete with other, also endangered species.

Animals also change the environment they life in.

Mammoths will clear trees like modern elephants. This would recreate the Mammoth Steppe, but those trees making up the taiga and boreal forests are themselves crucial habitat.

Other species have moved in since the mammoths' extinction. Siberian tigers, lynx, muskoxen, brown bears, elk, moose, and so many others; many endangered.

Trees also prevent erosion, which is already happening at unprecedented rates due to agriculture and deforestation.

Crucially: What's to stop an extinct animal going the same way it went out last time?

Ask yourself this:

Would the average American appreciate "flocks of Passenger pigeons big enough to darken the sky and whiten ground with their guano"?

Would people suddenly be okay with lions in Europe eating their livestock, when they are champing the bit to shoot Iberian wolves again?

Would Tasmanians suddenly feel the same about the Thylacine, when farmers in Australia still happily kill dingoes and eagles for lamb predation? [citation, I am an enviro technician and have had farmers tell me they shoot Wedge-tails, knowing I'm a toothless lion to stop them.]

I doubt it

At what cost?

Are we going to find 50 thylacine genomes?

If so (doubtful), how much will cloning and/or modifying a relative into a thylacine cost? Now that x50?

Wouldn't that money be better spent on quoll reintroduction?

What about finding 50 gestational carriers for mammoths?

Are you going to use their closest relative; the already critically endangered Asian Elephant?

Wouldn't that time and effort on those elephant mothers be better used making more elephants?

And the social cost:

If extinction isn't forever, what's to incentivize lawmakers to fund conservation?

Really, it comes down to this:

Why bring back the dire wolf when we could put this money into protecting the Iberian and Red wolves?

Why bring back the thylacine when their cousin is dying of a transmissible cancer?

We've already seen the impacts of "extinction isn't forever anymore", with those in power already trying to cut funding to conservation, because you can "just bring them back".

But as we've seen time and time again: there is no Planet B. There is no De-Extinction, not really.

Maybe what was gone should stay gone, so we can focus on what we still have.

[dykehelly]

trying not to become anti ai in a reactionary way but when this coworker starts writing his grant proposals with chatgpt I do start to see red.

[katabay]

“And you never asked about the—place with the door?” said Mr. Utterson. “No, sir; I had a delicacy,” was the reply. “I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it’s like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden and the family have to change their name. No sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.” “A very good rule, too,” said the lawyer. “But I have studied the place for myself,” continued Mr. Enfield. “It seems scarcely a house. There is no other door, and nobody goes in or out of that one but, once in a great while, the gentleman of my adventure. There are three windows looking on the court on the first floor; none below; the windows are always shut but they’re clean. And then there is a chimney which is generally smoking; so somebody must live there. And yet it’s not so sure; for the buildings are so packed together about the court, that it’s hard to say where one ends and another begins.” The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then “Enfield,” said Mr. Utterson, “that’s a good rule of yours.” “Yes, I think it is,” returned Enfield. “But for all that,” continued the lawyer, “there’s one point I want to ask. I want to ask the name of that man who walked over the child.”

so! a page! this was a revisiting (for me) of an old old old. OLD. page I drew over ten years ago immediately after seeing a local production of the musical. usually when I revisit and edit ancient drafts, I gut a lot of it in the process of re arranging the insides, but this was one where I was like: AH. I see your vision, past self, now I can articulate it and draw shoes.

someday I'm going to find the time to get the whole thing on paper (this was also a color palette test page! I still want a noir-ish influence, but I'm debating sticking to a classic black and white only or leaning into something like this. much to think about........) until then though! a confrontation inside a house goes wrong! takes place moments after this scene.

[koipudding]

jing yuan, who loves when you’re wearing his clothes, and you return them to him. it’s so domestic and simple but he craves it. (gn reader, not a serious drabble.) reader is characterized as smaller than jy, interpret as you wish.

wc: 470

The clothes smell like you, of course. The laundry detergent you bought, your shampoo and the little scent beads you like to put in the washing machine. He doesn’t mind the musk that lingers on his old shirts after you clean the whole house, no of course not. Jing Yuan adores smelling your musk, lotion and conditioner melding together and melting into his shirt.

You go out to buy new scent beads every other month, a tiny little jar of them. Jing Yuan swears to anyone who listens that you’re doing this on purpose. Mixing your shampoo and lotion to match with the scent beads, changing the fabric softener to mess with his head (and laundry). He laments this to Fu Xuan, Qingzu, and Yanqing, who all beg you to stick to one routine before the General loses his sanity (of course, everyone groans and ignores him. they’ve had enough of his marital escapades, and they just tell him to marry you again if he’s this smitten. Thus, after a decade of marriage, Jing Yuan has rewritten his vows.) He likes these little variances in his routine, the little harmless surprise that keeps him on his toes.

(He swears it's just because you picked it out. You know it's because it reminds him that there's finally a home for him to return to.)

"I'm back, do you know what the others said during the meeting, they were planning on handing off more paperwork, but I insisted mimi and you would--" He stops in his tracks. This must be unfair. Divine Punishment? Did he anger Lan? his ancestors?

Jing Yuan sees you wearing nothing but some socks, his shorts and t-shirt (both of which hang off of your smaller frame). He runs over, pace quickening.

You yelp quietly, backing away before he pounces onto you, bearing all of his weight onto you. He can't help it, you're so cute wearing his outfit, doing laundry and making dinner.

“You smell so good.” he buries his face into your neck, inhaling the sun on your skin, lotion he bought for you, and the conditioner you've taken from his stash.

“And you smell icky.” You push him off gently, but his arms only tighten. He just got back from work, and he reeks of sweat. But you can’t ignore how your heart races whenever he gets up to these antics, and you can’t help but indulge in his whims. 

This is a regular habit. He barely removes his armor before running to you, and clings to you like a sullen child, asking about dinner and how his darling and mimi have been. You can only sigh and pat his head while he recharges in your lap (or, in Yanqing’s words: naps.) 

"thank you, for everything," He whispers into your ear, "You're doing great, sweetheart."

a/n: I was talking to a coworker abt how the only thing that brings me joy now is a 2d man (jy) and buying new scent beads/laundry scent boosters or sample perfume. then I had this idea. also that ending bit :,) sending good vibes to all with my first fic of the new yr!

[stellewriites]

Hii! Can you do ghoap x reader fluff? Like cuddles with mild flirting (from soap, obviously) and like soap is the little spoon, because in return he gets head scratches in return, reader in the middle, and Simon as the big spoon just pressing his face into the crook of readers neck?

Would rlly apreciate it <3

-🌑

i loved this idea when i read it and then proceeded to take far too long to actually answer it lmao BUT!! here it is,, ghoap x fem!reader fluff - ty for the request 💓

you picked up the cheap jar of pasta sauce and compared it to the branded version stacked next to it. as far as you could tell, the ingredients were the same and the little veg chunks included weren’t any smaller.

you nodded to yourself. it was decided, you weren’t paying two quid extra just for a name, fuck dolmio.

you looked higher to the top shelf and frowned when you saw the pasta had been pushed away from the edge and you’d be unable to reach it on your own.

“need a hand, dove?”

you turned to see a handsome man with a mohawk beelining towards you, his eyes tracing your frame with hot familiarity. without waiting for your response, he bullied his way into your space to reach over you for the pasta. barely stepping back, he handed you the pack and looked you up and down.

“thanks, stranger,” you said, holding back a laugh at his amused smile. you saw the moment he decided to play along.

“pretty skirt,” he said and nodded down to your bare legs peeking out beneath the denim.

“hm, my boyfriend got me it,” you said, a little teasingly.

“oh? and this boyfriend, he’s left ye all alone to do the shoppin’ has he?”

“no, he’ll be back soon. and he’s kinda protective, won’t be happy seeing me talking to other guys,” you said trying not to smile.

“ah’m no’ scared,” he scoffed, his own smile breaking out as he looked around the aisle eagerly for the aforementioned boyfriend.

“i don’t know, he’s pretty big and strong, wears a scary mask,” you said.

“aye? reminds me o’ my boyfriend,” he said and you finally giggled, leaning in to kiss him and giving up playing pretend.

“dove, they got their tiger bread in stock again,” simon said as he rounded the corner of the aisle and interrupting your kiss. “i ha’n’t ‘ad this in ages.” simon barely paused at the unexpected appearance of johnny, his eyes turning up in the corners as he smiled under his mask. “johnny, look, tiger bread.”

“yeah, i seen, si,” johnny said fondly, crowding you back against the trolley. “only getting the one loaf?”

simon paused. “hm. you’re right.”

you snorted as he dropped the bread into the trolley before heading back to the bakery section and leaving the pair of you alone again.

“work was a fookin’ drag, dove, cannae stand all this paperwork they’re keepin’ me busy with,” johnny groaned into your temple. you petted his arm consolingly before turning back to your list and shopping trolley.

“you were injured less than a month back, john, you can’t have been expecting to be back in the field so soon?” you hummed as you continued shopping with johnny leant over your back.

his silence spoke volumes.

you shook your head as you made your way through the store and waved simon over as you passed him by, hoping he hadn’t harassed the bakery staff into making more tiger loaves last minute for him. the absolute fiend.

“wha’s wrong with him?” simon asked as he got back, hands full as he nodded to johnny’s slumped frame. you refrained from asking simon if you really needed three tiger breads and instead nudged your other boyfriend up from your shoulder.

“he’s bored,” you said easily, grinning when johnny pulled back properly to send you a betrayed look.

“fuck’s sake. c’mere,” simon huffed before dipping down to kiss him, chuffing a laugh as johnny sputtered at the woollen texture of the mask in between them. “you’ll be back in no time. just behave or it’ll be longer.”

“ye sound like cap,” johnny grimaced. he wiped a hand down his tired face. “when are we goin’ home, hm? fuckin’ knackered, could do with a nap before dinner.”

“y’drive ‘ere?” ghost asked while you grabbed a box of eggs, checking for any cracked inside.

“aye.”

“then you can leave whenever,” ghost said flatly, though the glint of his eyes in the overhead lights betrayed his amusement at johnny’s plight.

johnny pouted.

“yer cruel, si. tell him, dove, he’s heartless,” johnny bemoaned dramatically.

“you’re cruel and heartless, simon, would you prefer strawberry jam or raspberry for a change?”

“could be a treat,” ghost conceded.

johnny groaned at the both of you, pinching your hip when you laughed.

“you both know i cannae sleep without someone’s arms around me,” he huffed, turning his big puppy eyes on you both.

you caved immediately.

“aw poor baby,” you cooed, biting your lip when you saw simon roll his eyes. “let’s get this done quick then, yeah? go grab the burgers we like from the frozen section and that ice cream we got a couple weeks back.”

“yes, ma’am.” johnny jogged off.

“si, can i trust you not to make your way back to the bakery if i give you a list of items to grab?”

“no,” he admitted without shame. “i saw the lad in the back prepping more for tomorrow, think i could convince ‘im to cook ‘em now for me if given the time.”

“right. hand holding it is as we find the toiletries then. ‘s like herding cats with you two.”

simon hummed, his eyes trained on the section you knew the bakery to be hidden in.

—

once home, johnny packed away the majority of your shopping in record time, snatching the jam from simon’s hands and almost throwing it onto the work top before plying his mask up one handed and dragging him down into a rough kiss with the other. you watched, amused, with raised eyebrows as johnny dragged him back towards the bedroom desperately, waving a hand at you and gasping out a needy, “dove, c’mon, stop fucking around,” in between wet kisses.

you didn’t need to be told twice before attaching your hands onto simon’s thick waist from behind, guiding them from bumping into any furniture or walls as they stumbled blind to the bedroom.

johnny pulled back with a dopey smile and pushed simon none too gently onto the bed. you took advantage of his lowered height and pulled off his mask completely, rubbing a gentle hand over his buzz cut hair and down to his jaw. you leant in for a soft peck before feeling johnny’s hands and arms wrap around your soft stomach.

he clung to you, nuzzling at your cheek over your shoulder until you turned in his arms to share your attention.

you heard the bed creak as simon settled further up the bed as johnny kissed you. you shuffled back, parting from johnny just long enough to get your bearings and climb onto the bed, simon’s hands moving to guide you back as johnny hummed against your lips.

you flopped back into simon’s arms, got comfortable as he wrapped you up and held you tight against him.

johnny sighed in relief at the sight and shuffled down so he could rest his head on your chest.

you gathered him close and laughed when he started whining when your hands stayed on his shoulders.

“so needy johnny, have you ever heard the phrase ‘patience is a virtue’?” you teased as you started to run your nails through his hair, lightly scratching until he sighed and dropped his body weight against you and simon.

“too t’red,” he mumbled.

simon lifted his warm hand from your hip and draped it heavily over the back of johnny’s neck, keeping him close. soon enough, the scot was snoring.

you tried not to laugh, your chest bouncing johnny with your muffled chuckles. “i think that might be a record.”

“tired lamb,” simon said condescendingly, but he rubbed his thumb lovingly over the soft skin behind johnny’s ear.

“don’t be mean.” you grinned back at him.

simon hummed and rested his head into the crook of your neck, tucking you in closer with the arm still wrapped underneath your waist. “not bein’ mean.”

he nipped at your neck, a soft nibble that had you gasping and clenching your thick thighs around the one johnny had slipped inbetween.

“prick,” you huffed without malice when he stopped and let out a long tired breath in your ear. he hummed with closed eyes, clearly not listening.

you chuffed a laugh into johnny’s hair. the low thrum of arousal simon had brought on was easy enough to ignore but you’d have rather he’d finished what he started. instead, you tucked your cold toes between his large calves behind you in penance and tugged johnny even closer, enough to smother him. with your arse perched perfectly in simon’s lap and johnny nestled close to his second favourite place on your body, you were sure they’d give you what you were after once their nap is over. you closed your eyes with a smile; you could wait for them to get their energy up, and you loved your puppy piles just as much as they did.

[niccolites]

green cliffs: lessons in mortality. chapter five

highlander!johnny x fem!reader. cw dubcon and period typical violence. read on ao3 here.

You assume that Johnny will get bored of you now that you are officially married.

In that slow ride back to the Keep, you imagine that it was all about the chase for him. Catching you as you fled, the snap of teeth at your heels. There is nothing for him to run after now, you were suitably caught, on your back with your soft belly up. The picture of defeat.

You were wrong. If anything, Johnny is hungrier than he was before. The first night that you are back, he barely lets you stumble into his bedroom before he is on you. Discards your dress like it’s a personal offence, saliva slicking your chin with how he kisses with his mouth open against yours.

He doesn’t even let you reach the bed, bucks into you on the floor until he spills into you with a whine that you echo. You protest at the ache in the muscles in your back from being on the stone floor.

He makes it up to you, lifts you onto the bed and seals his mouth over your cunt until you howl.

It’s relentless, you watch him constantly out of the corner of your eye, waiting for the moment that he loses interest, when he decides that you bore him.

It doesn’t come, you aren’t running but he’s still nipping at your heels. Pulling you back into him so he can grind his erection into your backside in the corridor. Tugging you into alcoves so that he can hitch your skirts up and wrap your legs around his waist.

You think he is trying to eat you alive. His hands are always just too tight, clenching around any give in your flesh. His tongue in your mouth, all the way to the back of your throat while he groans, vile and titillating.

It’s dizzying, leaves you on edge before he pushes you over it and you let him.

You seem to fascinate him, more so now than you did before. You wake up in the morning and find him studying the strangest parts of you. His chin on the curve of your belly, smoothing his thumb over where the skin of your breast disappears into the skin of your side. Other times it’s the slide of his hand up your throat, tilting your head back until his thumb frames the curve of your chin into your throat. A delicate hollow of flesh, the heel of his hand digging in as if to make it wider.

He frightens you, but you’ve also never experienced being under someone’s attention like this. You bask in his affection at times, flattered at his open adoration of you. Then you shy away later, when his attention is too much, a sun that burns you and leaves you red and raw. It doesn’t seem to matter either way, there isn’t far that you can get with Johnny following you there.

“I’m gettin’ a ring forged fer you, later,” Johnny announces, popping up in the doorway to the kitchen and spooking you. By the grin on his face, you suspect that was his intention.

“A ring?” you query, giving him an irritated look before you look away again, pulling more linen into your basket.

“We’ve been married fer a few weeks, but we have nothin’ to show fer it,” Johnny continues. He slides his arms around you, tugging you back into him. You are swallowed up in the breadth of him, thick forearms crossing over your stomach.

You hum in response, continuing to sort the dirty linens to wash. Most of them were the sheets from Johnny’s room, which is why you insisted on washing them yourself.

You hadn’t thought much of the physical show of your marriage. Johnny’s father had accepted Mrs Duncan’s nephew as a witness, and the two of you had shared a room since. You were referred to as Mrs Mactavish, something that you forgot to respond to half of the time. In your village there was the exchanging of rings, but that was usually if a family had a family ring that had been passed down, or could afford a strip of metal to mould into a ring. It wasn’t something that you had thought much about.

“Dae y’want a ring?” Johnny asks, suddenly quiet. His head next to yours as he watches your hands, temple to temple. You feel the inhale of his chest against your back and mimic it, subconsciously.

“I hadn’t thought about it, honestly,” you answer, hands hovering in the air, pulled to a stop. You were used to Johnny being brash, pulling you to where he wanted you to be. His sudden moments of contemplation always left you uncertain. He had never raised his hands to you, but looking down at the thick of the back of his hand reminded you of the violence that he enacted when he wanted to. “My mother had a ring, but my father buried her with it, so I barely remember it.”

Johnny smoothes his hand up your side, warm even though your stays and your shift. You turn your head and see a slight frown on his face, his eyes faraway, but he blinks, focuses on you. “Hello,” he murmurs, his arms squeezing you, making you wheeze slightly, which makes him smile. He turns you around, still not allowing for any room between the two of you. Picks your left hand up and frowns at your bare skin.

You stay silent, studying him in return. He shaved just after your wedding, after you complained too much about the burn on your thighs, but it was growing out again. The hair peeking out of the collar of his white shirt seems darker as well. You had pointed it out once, delirious after he had worn you out. “Makin’ a man oot of me, angel,” he had responded, grinning as he pulled you closer to him.

You tilt your hand into his, linking your fingers between his own. Your movement is clumsy, unpractised, but it knocks the frown off of his face anyway. “Hello,” he repeats, knocks his nose against yours, fingers squeezing yours.

“I need to wash these sheets,” you say, which he barely seems to notice. “I was going to go down to the stream.” You know that he will take it as an invitation, in the way that he does with all of the closed statements that you say.

“I’ll come wae y’,” he answers, kissing a wet trail down to your neck, sucks a little at your pulse point which has you jumping. He laughs, a buzz in the column of your neck. Everything you do amuses him, like you are a puppy that is trying to bark at him but can only yip.

“I need to go now,” you say, unlacing your hands but not getting far before he catches your wrists and wrestles them to the table behind you.

“I’ll be quick,” he answers again, licking at your collarbone before he drops to his knees and hikes your skirts up.

“Johnny,” you hiss, kicking him in the shoulder and only get that same laugh pressed into the curve of your knee. “You can’t do this in the kitchen.” You try to wriggle away, but he has you pinned to the table, hands shoved up to catch your hips and press you back.

“Sure ah can,” he responds, his words muffled beneath your skirts. You try to shove him off and you get a bite on your thigh that makes you squeak. “Keep still and let me get my fill.”

You shudder, staring anxiously at the door as Johnny pushes aside your shift and coos at the sight between your legs. “Johnny -”

“She’s achin’ fer me, angel, just look at this,” Johnny murmurs, voice muffled beneath your skirts. You see the lump shift, almost frown at how silly this must look before your knees buckle as he presses his mouth against you.

His hands are there, tight on the back of your thighs, hoists you up so he can pull himself in deeper. It’s vile, his mouth wide open against you. Saliva slicks until it drips, but he doesn't seem to care.

He kisses your cunt like it's a mouth, laves his tongue up until he sucks. It’s not the first time that he’s done this, but usually you can see him while he does. Make sense of what he’s doing through sight if not touch. You feel jumpy, legs kicking like a startled rabbit. His teeth make you gasp before they are gone, replaced by the loving slide of his tongue.

“Johnny, I can’t,” you whimper, arms shaking as you cling to the counter that you are leaning against. He pulls one of your legs over his shoulders and you feel split. A tear that Johnny wrenches his fingers into, always so greedy when it comes to you.

He doesn’t seem to hear you, or more likely chooses not to hear. He hums, sucks a kiss against the top of your sex that has you trembling. He leaves one hand on the back of your standing leg, but uses the other to slide a finger inside of you. You hear the groan he lets out as your flesh parts for him, feel ashamed as you also hear the wet noise that comes from you even through the fabric.

It’s messy, his tongue pressing around the split of your cunt around his fingers, like he’s trying to cram his mouth in there as well. You turn your head to the door, praying that no one comes in, or worse, that someone can hear the way that you're whining - worse than Johnny is.

Sickness blooms in your stomach until it takes, a split that becomes a cavern. One of your hand drops from the counter to the lump that you think is Johnny’s hand. You hold him there as you cry out, hips bucking out. You sob as he keeps going, fingers relentless even as your flesh wrings out everything that you have to give.

You collapse back, chest heaving. Johnny doesn’t move, and you think he would keep going if you didn’t thump the back of your foot on his back to get him to stop.

He pulls your skirts out of the way, and stands up, grinning at you. His stubble is wet and you would flush with embarrassment about how unabashed he is about it. He grins, hunches over you as he takes in your sweaty face.

“Go wash your mouth out,” you mutter, cringing as he pushes his nose into your cheek and you feel his skin stick to yours for a moment.

He snorts, his hand cupping your chin as he drags you up to meet his mouth. It’s a perverted rush that slinks up your spine as he kisses you the same way that he kissed you between your legs.

He seems content enough, with his tongue in your mouth. Forced relaxation upon you, muscles un-knotted enough to let him smooth his hands up and down your spine.

You jolt, caught again, as grinds his cock against your hip. Your mouths separate with a wet noise as you rear back. He grins down at you, unrelenting. “Cannae blame a man for this, not with those pretty noises that y’were just singing fer me, angel.”

“Johnny, I should really clean these sheets,” you start, trying to lean back.

You’ve misstepped, you know it in the way he suddenly frowns. Not in the usual way he might, before he purses your mouth with his hand and coos at how sweet you look. Irritation is a dark mask that cracks across his face, leaving him scowling.

“Oh, ah see,” he says, towering over you. “Yer allowed to use yer husband as y’wish, but God forbid he ask anythin’ in return fae his wife.”

“I never asked you to -”

“But you were happy enough tae take it, weren’t y’?” he snaps. The blunt edge of his teeth hides the pink of his tongue. Hard to imagine that the same mouth was pressed against the tender spot between your legs moments ago.

He’s working himself up, angry like a bull. You picture standing your ground, fantasize about spitting in his face.

You wouldn’t. You don’t. His hand is guiding on your shoulder and you kneel in front of an angry god.

-

You get your ring later, sat atop a wide stretch of fabric of the same red that his plaid is made with. An arasid, in your husband’s colours.

The ring is barely on your finger before Johnny pins you down and huffs like a beast, his eyes on your hand when he comes inside you.

-

Johnny doesn’t let you hide within yourself for long. There is a retreat in a recess of your mind, where you can let him pull you around as he wants, a haggard doll that he is a little too rough with most of the time. And you rest, separated from it all, aware enough to hum and gasp as he wants you to, but apart, dreaming of open fields and a bed you wake up alone in.

You thought that you had been getting away with it, but Johnny is intent, a bloodhound for every bit of you.

“I love you,” he tells you, his hands cupping your face, thumbs pressed into your temples. He’d been sitting at his desk when you had approached him, asking him if he wanted to come down for dinner. Now, his fingers cradle your skull, wide enough that you think he could separate your head from the rest of your body if he wanted to.

You blink back at him, still. Prey animals know when they are caught, and you’ve been hanging from this wolf’s mouth for a while now to know when his teeth are especially sharp.

“You love me?” he asks, half a question, half a demand. Fingers press into the skin of your scalp, thin like he wants to press into your mind and form the words for you.

“I-” you start, helpless. He inhales as you speak, as if to taste the words as they sit in the air between you. You can’t continue, mouth working silently. You’ve only known this man a month, you think. You will spend the rest of your life with him, if he doesn’t get tired of you. These are already impossible to reconcile before you start to wonder how you feel about it.

He steps closer, presses his forehead against yours. He’s usually unintentionally rough, fingers bruising in his haste to pull you where he wants you to be. Instead he’s slower, his hands soften as they frame your head. Nose rubs against yours, gentle.

“Tell me,” he murmurs, eyes hot on the curve of your mouth. One hand slides down to cup your jaw, as if to aid the forming of the words he wants to hear. “Tell me, please.”

Something trembles inside of you, an ancient ache that you think started up the moment that you saw him. You can’t do it. It is one thing to let him touch you, burn his hands on you until you give in. It is entirely another to lie and let him infect everything about you, even the parts of you that he can’t parse his hands over.

His hand tightens on your jaw, the hinge giving at his grip. You remember those Englishman, his own man that he beat into the ground. All for you, back when he didn’t know you, then when he knew you and you didn’t want him anyway. You don’t love him, you know this. Not the way that you’ve come to know love, steadfast and consistent. Some viscous expression is creeping across his face, the longer that you stare up at him, quiet.

You don’t love him, but he frightens you sometimes, even when he doesn’t mean it. And sometimes when he does, a satisfied glean in his eye after he gets what he wants. A lie, just for you, to cradle like a newborn. “I love you,” you murmur, give it life.

The snarl on his breath gives way to a sigh, and he presses even closer. “I love you,” he says, louder than you did. He says it, over and over again. Your lie is suffocated in the air, strangled in his confession.

You suspect that he knows it’s not true. The same way that his brow smoothes over when he reaches for you and you hesitate for a moment. Flesh stiff and unyielding in his palm as he passes over it. You tell him what he wants to hear and he goes soft, but his eyes look like ice, a tension around them that doesn’t fade even as he smiles at you.

He exhales like relief against your mouth, eyes boring into yours.

You thought that being unchewable would make you discardable. Unwanted, half-digested and ruined. Instead it seems to make Johnny more intent on you, teeth sharp as he digs into you further.

“Say it again,” he demands, sitting back in his chair, his hands wide on your hips. He presses his face into your dress. You don’t understand it, he seems to know that you’re lying, but he wants to hear it anyway.

Either way, it’s easier to admit it to the open air in front of you. Unbidden, your hands cup the back of his neck, feel the way he shudders, fingers flexing. “I love you,” you murmur, voice brittle.

“Ah know,” he responds, tugging you closer until you’re half in his lap. Unbalanced, caught with his desk digging into your back, the rest of your weight on the edge of his knees. Your hands cling to his shoulders, nails biting which makes him grin. “C’mere, angel, ah love you, ah do.”

More intimate to let him vow this to you than it was to stand in that church and have him bind the two of you together.

You let him kiss you and grunt at the graze of his teeth.

He bounces you on his lap, his fingers in your mouth. Right to the back of the throat, as if to touch the words before they even form yet. Takes that from you as well.

-

The journey back home isn’t long. Memory has elongated it into an endless beast, as if it were multiple nights and days. Endless and snapping like something wild.

You’d let the dust settle for just over a month before you approached Johnny with your desire to go home. It sat like an ulcer on your tongue, polluting the air around you. The stinking pull to leave. Johnny always seemed to know, always quick to skip past it, drag your mouth up to his, or hike your skirts up. Anything to push it back until it sat like a lump in your throat.

Finally you’d found the courage to suggest taking the trip back to your village to meet your brother, half-expecting Johnny to decline it outright. After all, your last attempt to go home had involved leaving Johnny behind.

Johnny surprised you, agreeing to go but had snapped his hips in yours sharply afterwards, as if to leave you a reminder of where you belong now.

It ends up only taking a single night that you spend in a village rather than the woods this time. “Nothin’ but the best for my bride,” Johnny grins, teeth pressed to the column of your neck. It is on your mind to point out that when you were unmarried and vulnerable, he’d slept with you on the forest floor and spent himself on the back of your skirts. The idea that he will march you back to the Keep if you anger him is what stills you.

The next morning and you are on the edge of your village, finally recognising some of the hills and the bends of the path.

You murmur to Johnny, telling him stories of the daffodils that you would pick in spring, the cow that you only had for a few years, the dogs that Ian had to keep in check because you were always a little too soft.

It’s likely the most that you have ever said to Johnny, but you feel the need to justify yourself, to justify why you want to be here. Johnny seems largely indifferent, as if you could be going to any village, and you want to start leaving the groundwork for future visits here. You aren’t silly enough to think you could come back permanently, but if it went well enough, you imagined a future where you could come back whenever you could.

You leave Cerberus tied to a tree and walk with Johnny when you reach the edge of your village. The way that you’ve come, by path rather than wildly through the woods, your home is on the opposite side, so you have to pass through the rest of your village before you can reach it.

Everything is as it was the same few houses are still standing in the way that they did before you left. Everything has stayed, even after you have left and came back changed.

There is a post that is used for whipping, standing in what made the rough centre of life here. You remember the man who was tied there for stealing money from some passing Englishmen, how they had painted his back red until he collapsed and they finally untied his hands from the stand.

This treatment was not granted to the man that was tied to the post. He’s been left to rot in the sun for days, weeks likely. The birds have been at him, picked away, most of his flesh gone. Rotted, down to the bone.

You’d know your brother in death, though. The same shock of hair as your own, dangling above what’s left of him.

You stare at him, unable to comprehend what you are seeing. You wait for him to stir, to look up at you and witness your return.

The wind blows and his hair stirs before it stills again.

Johnny murmurs your name, tries to reach out and catch you when you step forward. You dodge his hands, try to dart forward but he catches you around the waist.

You howl, mindlessly trying to force yourself forward again. A woman stops at the sight of you, and you barely recognise her. Animal brain at the forefront, any cognition capable of calm conversation has been buried.

She gives you a sad look, exchanges some words with Johnny that he barely responds to. His hands are full, as you try to scramble forward again. You need the truth beneath your hands. Your sight has failed you, you will only accept that your brother is dead if you can feel his dead flesh beneath your palms.

Johnny tugs you forward, but past the post and up towards your childhood home. You reach a futile hand out, only brush the post. Soaked in blood but dried so it doesn’t even stain, but you imagine it can.

Johnny lets you go when you step foot on your property, as you stop struggling to get back to Ian and instead throw yourself into your cottage.

The door is swung open and you force yourself inside, stopping in the kitchen. You look at everything in here, the cups washed and left off to the side, ready to be used again.

Everything is tainted, all of it is ruined. You had expected to come back and find your brother in here, to let him scold you for running off, feel the moments before those Englishmen dragged you outside and changed you.

You’ve turned back time, but no one is waiting for you here. The house that you grew up in is empty, and you are an intruder in it.

You sit on the chair by the kitchen table and stare down at the floor. There’s blood here, spilled from Johnny’s wound on his calf. You stare at it until your vision blurs and you cry until you feel wrung out.

You sob into the table, barely able to get a breath in. Johnny must come in at some point, because suddenly there are hands smoothing down your arms, trying to tug your hands away from your face. You howl, nails digging into your face. Johnny suddenly yanks your hands down, restrains them by your legs with one hand before he pulls you out of your chair and into his lap.

You let him comfort you, let him tuck your face into his neck and cry there until his shirt is wet with tears. He lets you sit like that for what feels like hours, until you manage to speak, wrung-out and ruined.

“I killed him, it’s my fault,” you croak, not lifting your head from where Johnny cradles you. You don’t deserve any comfort, but you soak it up anyway. Johnny has warped you, made you something greedy.

He shushes you, rocking you back and forth. “That would’ve been you up there, if ye’d stayed,” he tells you. Voice hardening at the end, fingers digging in just a little too much. Angry, at even the idea of it. “Ah couldnae let that happen. No’ tae you.”

A life traded, in a bargain that you didn’t want to make. Here is the knife, here is Johnny’s hand on yours, guiding it down until it sinks into flesh. Who is the one holding the knife?

“My fault,” you murmur, suddenly cognisant. Forehead pressed to Johnny’s pulse point. You are finally telling the truth, but it is stripped of meaning now. Weeks too late, your words no longer have any weight to them. Coming back here is stripped of meaning, a fruitless endeavour that has only left you sick.

Johnny pets his hand over the back of your head, down to the nape of your neck. Hand wide there, swallows up the vulnerable parts of you.

You expect Johnny to start shifting impatiently, maybe stand you up and announce that you have to leave. He doesn’t. He is still beneath you, kneels and holds you to his front. His knees must be sore in this position, you can feel the tension of his thighs beneath yours, but he stays silent. Just pets the back of your skull in his palm, until you feel trance-like, lulled into complacency.

You stir finally and stand up. Johnny follows behind you, a warm wall at your back.

You feel scraped out and empty. Look around the kitchen, unable to reconcile that this was once yours, that you once sat here and ate breakfast. Step outside into the yard, all of the animals gone, likely taken by the English.

Everything is empty and unlivable, but you shouldn’t be surprised. You were the one to leave dead men in the yard, and let their blood pollute everything.

You turn to your right and look at the pitchfork left in the hay. You know it was you that left it there now. Careless, and unthinking.

You walk over, and pull it out. It’s rusted, left out here. This is why Ian was always scolding you to put it back in the shed. The handle is uncomfortable and flaking in your palm but you endure. Walk the few steps it takes to put it back where it belongs, hanging in the bare shed. The rest of the tools that once hung here are gone. Gutted, as well.

You fix it where it used to hang. Futile and yet all you have left to give.

Johnny watches you, face still, except for the slight dip of a frown across the cleft of his brow.

There’s nothing left for you here, now. You leave the rusted pitchfork and walk back over to Johnny. Let him take your hand and smooth his thumb over your ring.

Time folds and presses into each other. This is the same moment as when he first saved you from those Englishmen, everything in between is squished and flattened until it is now. A month is nothing, it was all already decided. Futile to fight the tide that pulls you into his side and presses his face into the crown of your head.

You’ll let Johnny guide you back to Cerberus and you’ll go back to the Keep. You’ll most likely fall pregnant soon, and then you’ll have that child and then the next one after that. Time is nothing, this might have already happened, you can feel it unfolding in front of you now.

Johnny steps back and you echo his movements exactly. You step into the future and force it into the present, shudder with the ache of it.

Both of your feet kick up red dirt. Maybe in the coming seasons it will grow green again, but you won’t be there to witness it.

[cozylittleartblog]

9th annual nick valentines day (ft. soup again) + doodle i made last year that i forgot about, from when bethesda gave us that free update

[cheswirls]

short asl thing based on @where-does-the-heart-lie's modern au :) i started this over a year ago but the beginning is all dialogue and felt more like a script to me i suppose??? which deflated my desire to work on it. anyway i checked it over recently and it's completely fine lmfao, self-confidence restored here we go !

-

"Yo. Aren't you usually in the middle of your shift by now?"

"I've been banned from the hospital."

"Like, for life?"

"No. For the next, uh.. Twenty-two hours."

"That's oddly specific."

"It was twenty-four, but I fell asleep after leaving the building."

"That wouldn't have to do with why they kicked you out, at all?"

"Hmmm. I'm too sleep-deprived, apparently."

"Ah. And, um, you called me because...?"

"I pressed a random number in my call log after waking up. Lucky you, I guess."

"Yeah. Right. Lucky me. And your car keys are...?"

"Confiscated."

"Ah, right, of course."

A beat of silence. Two. Three, then "Look, if you're busy, then–"

"No, no.  You called me, so I'll be there. Give me twenty minutes."

"Alright. Thank–"

"Thank someone else. Also, if you fall asleep in my car, I'm taking it as express permission to drive you around wherever I want."

"Ugh, go die. I don't even know why I bothered."

"LUCKY YOU, I guess," sounds off way too loudly in his ear. "No take backs. See you in ten."

"I thought you said–" Sabo breaks off as the call ends, leaving him staring blankly at his phone's too-dim screen. He squints, turns the brightness all the way up, and still squints as the sunlight proves too strong for the display.

Ace shows up in more than ten but decidedly less than twenty minutes. Sabo doesn't waste much brain power on it, only climbing into the passenger seat and yawning into his palm while his other hand fixes the seatbelt into the buckle. Not a second too soon, too, as Ace roars the engine to life and peels away from the curb at record speed.

Ace fiddles with the radio. He turns the music up, then dial it back down to inaudible. They hit the expressway and he leans over the steering wheel, frowning with his eyes fixed on the road far ahead. Sabo yawns again and this appears to be the limit to his patience. 

"Hey, so, I had a thought after you hung up on me."

Sabo grimaces. "You mean you–"

"Today's Wednesday."

He doesn't elaborate. Sabo is too tired to process. "Yes," he follows, after a second. He glances at the sky out the front window. "What time is it?"

"Oh, uh." Ace fumbles with hand placement so he can lift his watch to his face. "Nine forty."

Sabo takes a couple beats to try and process this, moves his eyes away from the skyline, and sighs as he pulls his phone out. 2:47 is what the display reads, which sounds much more believable.

"How did the minute hand get off?" he mutters to himself, chancing a look at Ace's busted wristwatch. Ace raises a brow, taking his gaze off the road to scrutinize Sabo. "No, it doesn't matter," he mutters to himself once more, sliding his phone away back on his person and out of his hands.

"My point is," Ace continues, like he hasn't just been interrupted by a whole thing. "Your timeout will be done midday Thursday. Did they switch your days off?"

"No." Sabo sighs. "They technically gave me the next thirty-six hours. Technically closer to forty. Something like that. I go back in on Friday. Sometime.” He tries to smile and it turns out very lopsided, from that he can make out in the rearview mirror. “Can you tell I’m tired?”

“I don’t think ‘tired’ is an accurate description,” Ace quips. “When did you eat a proper meal last?”

“Uh, yesterday. Maybe.”

“Maybe??”

“A ‘proper meal’ means different things to the two of us,” Sabo huffs. “On my account it was yesterday. I’ve had food since then, of course.”

“Alright, so here’s the plan,” Ace announces before absolutely whipping it around a curve. Sabo is his passenger in the passenger seat and had fully prepared to be so when he got in the vehicle, but he’d been vastly underprepared for this sudden course of action, which is how he ends up halfway out of his seat with his cheek slammed into the cold window. Ace doesn’t quite notice his brother’s terminal velocity until the car is once again on the straight and narrow, and only then it’s because of the audible thunk Sabo’s face makes when it collides with the glass.

“Aw shit. You good bro?”

“Ow,” Sabo mutters. “If I have broken bones I’m suing your ass.”

“Well, if you’re good enough to make jokes, I think you’re better than you’re letting on.” Ace keeps the wheel steady with one knee while he takes both hands away to crack his fingers. When he glances over at Sabo again, he looks even more pathetic – like he’s becoming one with the glass. “Anyway, as I was saying.

“I’m taking your ass home. You’re going straight to sleep and while you crash, I’ll make you something decent to eat and stick it in the fridge for you to heat up later. I’ll even make you two servings to eat two different times, since you clearly can’t be trusted to take care of yourself correctly.”

“Ouch.”

“I want you to conk out for as long as your body allows. We can reset your sleep schedule tomorrow, alright? Put your phone on silent; do not answer any calls. In fact, you know what, just give it to me.

Sabo glances over to see Ace’s hand held out to him, palm up. Fingers wiggling expectantly. His lips pull up into a grimace. “I’m not doing that.”

“Fine.” Ace takes his hand back. “But you will comply with everything else.”

“Wow! It’s so funny, I didn’t realize you turned into my mother overnight! Really tapped into your mom potential, huh? Anything exciting happen in your life that would cause that? I guess I wouldn’t know, since I’ve been a zombie for the past two days.”

“There’s nothing wrong with acting like your older brother, you dipshit, especially if you keep putting yourself through the wringer like this. You go home. You sleep. You wake up and eat. You go back to sleep. Then we do laundry. Does that sound agreeable?”

“That’s negotiable, at the least,” Sabo mumbles. “I will accept good food as a form of bribery.”

“Oh, nice, because I’m flat broke at the moment.”

Sabo makes a mental note of that, and then they’re pulling into the driveway. Ace lets him exit the vehicle by himself and then promptly manhandles him all the way onto the couch where it will be easier to force his body to relax than in a real bed. Ace knows this, so he calls him weird before chucking a loose blanket at his head. Sabo is almost too tired to function at this point, so he lets Ace have the last laugh in favor of finally closing his eyes.

Coming to is a surreal experience, especially since the sun is still out. He must make a noise because Ace is suddenly within view. His limbs are tangled in the blanket and still so heavy that he doesn’t bother moving. “Thought you would be gone,” he half-groans, eyes slipping shut again for a moment.

“I did leave,” Ace confirms. “I had to go pilfer some stuff to make stew with. It’s almost done, so I’ll hang here until then.”

Pilfer. That could mean any number of things. Sabo chooses to believe in the option where Ace is an upstanding citizen, and then remembers Ace saying earlier that he had no money. He frowns and squirms on the cushions enough to where it looks like he’s checking his pockets. “Where’s my wallet, Ace?” he bluffs.

“Somewhere around here,” Ace pipes up. “Your stomach will thank you for your contributions to the Portgas Household’s pantry!”

“Ugh, I got robbed,” he complains. “This sucks. ‘m going back to sleep.” He rolls over so his back is to Ace.

“Yeah, you do you, bro. Stew will still be here later. I’ll see you when you’re back in the world of the living.”

—

Luffy comes in late that night and slams the front door shut as loud as humanly possible. When he appears in the main room, he doesn’t seem to be upset, so Ace writes it off as a Luffyism. Sabo hasn’t stirred at the noise, so it’s all good.

Realizing this, Luffy pads closer to Ace’s side and looks at Sabo’s unmoving body warily. “Why is Sabo passed out like a corpse? Is he sick?”

“No, he’s not sick, he just can’t take care of himself. Which is why we are going to let him sleep for as long as possible.”

Luffy just nods to this, but it’s the uncomprehending Luffy-nod that means he’s just going to end up doing whatever he wants to regardless. Ace sighs, then jerks his head towards the kitchen. “He ate a little earlier, but I want him to eat again when he wakes up. There’s stew in the fridge if you want it – just leave him a little. Got it, Monkey D. Luffy?”

Luffy throws him a salute and then runs off in his socks. “Yippee! Ace made stew!”

“Think of your brother, Luffy, and make good choices!” Ace calls after him. “He’s a pathetic man who needs food to feel better or he’ll end up sleeping through Laundry Day!”

—

Sabo does not sleep through laundry day, but he does sleep for sixteen whole hours, so it’s just around noon when he forces himself up off the couch and into a warm shower.

Ace is around, which is mildly unexpected. But he’s still half-asleep, so everything is at least a little unexpected. He glances up from playing video games with Luffy to see Sabo leaving the steam-filled bathroom with his hair hanging around his shoulders. “You look like a wet cat,” he calls.

“Sabo’s awake!” Luffy cheers. “Ace thought you died at one point.”

Ace elbows Luffy in the gut, making him hunch over. “I did not!”

“He totally checked to see if your heart was still beating!”

“I’m undead, actually,” Sabo says completely seriously.

“Does that mean you don’t need to eat anymore?” Luffy questions. “Because I ate all the stew last night.”

“I saw that coming and made extra.” Ace finger-guns in Sabo’s general direction. “That’s why I bought two sets of ingredients. With your money!”

“With my money,” Sabo echoes, because it’s such a wild statement to have to deal with this early in the day. Well, early for him. “Fuck you.”

“I mean, I can tell Luffy where I hid–”

“Thank you, Ace, for agreeing to share your quarters with both of your brothers so we can all do laundry today on your dime!” Sabo raises his pitch so his voice is mockingly squeaky when he says this. He starts moving down the hall before Ace can start to argue, letting his and Luffy’s voices bleed into the background.

When he comes back out, now dressed, it smells significantly better than before. “I reheated the stew,” Ace announces, gesturing for Sabo to take a seat at the kitchen counter. “Let’s all have lunch before we head out.”

“You have to drink this too,” Luffy tells Sabo, sliding a Gatorade across the counter so it sets in front of him when he finally does take a seat. “Ace’s orders.”

“Gotta get those nutrients back somehow.”

“Aren’t we so considerate, Sabo?”

“Do you even know what ‘considerate’ means?” Sabo asks, lips quirking up into a half-smile. At Luffy’s shrug, it turns into a real smile. “Well, thanks anyway. Both of you.”

“No sweat. And look!” Ace brandishes a five dollar bill for both to see. “I found this baby for us to use on coins! It’s all on me today–”

“Where’s my wallet, Ace?!”

[beloveddawn-blog]

Call Out Doom! Aika Has a Sleepover!

Fandom: Pretty Pretty Please I Don't Want to be a Magical Girl

Rating: PG for swearing

Summary: Akia and Zira have a sleepover. Evil has other ideas.

Word Count: 2500

Notes: This is for @kianamaiart's amazing new project! The idea came from @shroudtailor in an ask. Sorry for stealing it, but I just fell in love with the idea. Also this might be wildly OOC considering the pilot isn't out yet, but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway!

“You could tell me how accurate it is! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

No, that would be the last thing I’d find ‘fun’ Aika thought, but when faced with Zira’s excitement all that she could actually say was, “Sure. Does Thursday work for you? We’ve got a Pro-D day on Friday so we’ll have some extra time.”

“That would be awesome!” Zira cried, vibrating with excitement. “I just gotta check with my Mom, okay? I’ll get back to you by the end of the day! She doesn’t answer my texts at work.”

Aika did her best to hide her wince at that. It was going to be a loooooooong weekend.

*

19:00

Zira’s house

“Thanks so much for coming, Aika! I hope you don’t mind that we’re watching it in the basement. It’s all set up for Dad to have his football buddies over, so at least it’s comfortable. It’s a bit away from the bathroom and kitchen, but we’ll have privacy. If we were in the living room Mom and Dad would be… well… they phrase it as it’s my house and I can go where I want and I guess they aren’t wrong but also, like, I don’t wanna hang out with them today? They’re my parents, they’re embarrassing, and they don’t even like Moon Sailor so I don’t know why they’d wanna watch anyway…” 

“Sound like my kinda people.” Aika muttered under her breath as she followed Zira down the stairs.

“What was that?” Zira asked, turning almost completely around on the stairs in a way that made Aika reflexively reach for them, her training shining through like it always did.

“I said it’s their loss.” She fibbed, basking in the way Zira’s face lit up at that.

“It is.” They agreed. “But that’s okay. I can share it with you now!”

Aika melted at that, her trepidations about the plan leaving her as her resolve hardened. It was just an anime. She reminded herself. If Zira likes it this much, how bad can it really be?

*

19:23

Zira’s House

“Don’t touch that cat!” Aika yelled at the screen, stuffing popcorn in her mouth. “That cat is bad news! Walk on by, girlie!”

“That would make for a very short show.” Zira replied wryly, sitting primly on the edge of the couch to avoid Aika’s animated limbs.

“It would make for a very happy show.” Aika insisted, inspecting her next handful of popcorn critically. Zira had no idea what she was looking for, but it appeared she found it as she stuffed that one in her mouth as well.

“Then it would just be a show about her failing her math test. Who’d watch that?”

“Excuse you, Azumanga Daioh is amazing.”

*

20:52

Zira’s House

“Dooooooooooon’t. Don’t do that. Just don’t.” Aika was hiding behind her hands like she was expecting a jumpscare. Zira shifted towards her in concern. The mist and the computers were a little creepy, but this still wasn’t really a scary episode. For someone who fought for real at times, Aika was being a bit of a baby about this.

“Don’t just declare her your friend, you only just met her.” She continued, her voice so soft Zira had to strain to hear it. The main girl embraced her new teammate, and Aika hid behind her hands with a squeak.

You’d have thought it was Jason with his chainsaw, the way she was acting.

*

22:22

Zira’s House

“Have you ever been on a cruise ship?” Zira asked, curious about the way Aika was scoffing.

“No. But do you hear those two? Ridiculous! She should have taken her night off and let her so-called friends deal with this nonsense. A long bubble bath would be way better than fighting a sea monster, and they said they didn’t want her there!”

*

22:45

Zira’s House

“Wait, they actually have character deaths in this show? I thought it was for kids!”

“... He’s a bad guy.”

“Still.”

*

00:39

Zira’s House

“She’s so stupid. So stupid. Why is everyone so stupid?”

“She’s in love.” Zira replied softly, taking some offence at Aika’s sarcasm for the first time.

“She’s still better than that. She can’t be making mistakes like this. Not this late in the game. Not with this much riding on them… And not when it’s so obviously a trap. Be honest, Zira, don’t you think you’d hesitate on the One True Love thing if it turned out they were flirting with every girl in town? Don’t you think she deserves better than a love like that?”

Zira paused, then nodded. It caused Aika to tug slightly on their hair from where she was styling it into two buns (“So we’ll match!). Aika let go then, and her voice dropped even softer. “She deserves her own future. Not just what everyone says fate has in store for her.

Zira didn’t know how to answer that, so she just laid her head on Aika’s knee in comfort.

*

03;17

Zira’s House

“Zira… I’m sorry to say this but I need to go to sleep.” Aika had curled up against the arm of the sofa almost two episodes ago, and now she was starting to do that jerk-startle thing that made it clear sleep was imminent.

Zira pouted. They couldn’t help it! This had been… This had been nice, even if Aika did take everything the characters did a bit personally. Halfway through the second villain arc she’d actually developed some sort of rubric and was giving all of the main characters scores like they were figure skaters and Zira had laughed so hard at some of her commentary that their sides still hurt.

They just… Didn’t want this to end.

Aika jerked awake again and Zira nodded, acknowledging that her friend-they were friends-was at the end of her rope.

“Alright. Pop up for a moment. The couch pulls out.”

Aika groaned dramatically and flopped herself over the arm of the sofa, landing in an undignified heap on the floor. Zira couldn’t help smirking at that, especially since it was so obviously on purpose. “‘S all yours.” She slurred with a slight wave. “Have at.”

Zira laughed again, then quickly set up the bed. As fast as it had been, Aika had still almost passed out on the floor. Zira had needed to help her up and tuck her in.

“Not much of a teenager sleepover.” She teased, though truth be told all of their information on sleepovers was theoretical. “I thought we’d aim for sunrise.”

Aika snorted. “Past m’bedtime. By… lotttttttttt… Hoshi g’n’a fight ‘bout it. “Mind me a… smother…” The last word trailed off in a soft exhale as she passed fully out, a surprisingly loud snore her next noise.

Zira tamped down on the wild urge to coo about it and instead got herself into the other side of the bed. They’d switched to pjs shortly after midnight with this in mind. And, as much fun as it was to tease Aika, she was also fading fast.

Between one breath and the next, darkness came.

*

06:23

Zira’s House

“Hmmm? Whazzat?” Zira muttered, a strange noise pulling them from sleep.

“Don’t worry about it.” A soft, familiar voice replied and Zira smiled. “It’s just the star shard.”

Zira hummed and fell back asleep.

*

10:03

Zira’s House

Zira was awoken suddenly by a loud thump. She shot up in alarm, only to blink dazedly at Aika. Aika, who was wearing her work uniform. Aika, who was staring at the floor in confusion as she tried to figure out why she was lying on it.

Zira blinked and went with the obvious question. “Are you alright?”

Aika turned her gaze up, then grinned when she saw Zira. “Oh good. Right basement this time.”

Zira turned that over in her mind for a moment before disregarding it. That wasn’t a question they needed answered right now.

“Do you need a hand?”

Aika waved her own around. “Got TWO!” She proudly announced, followed by a pitiful, “Owwwwwwie,” as she brained herself with her own staff.

“Have you been…” Zira hesitated, not quite knowing how to phrase this. “Out?”

“Growth ray got tested on a Chiuaua.” She confirmed, flopping down onto the floor. “Didn’t want to hurt the dude, ‘s not his fault, but the downtown was a mess. During rush hour too!”

Zira nodded, not quite sure how else to acknowledge that. “So… you definitely need a nap. Did you want breakfast first? Mom got this whole Dutch… thing for us to have. There’s bread and like four types of cheese and these weird chocolate sprinkles. Her uni roommate used to feed it to her on the weekend.”

Aika shook her head petulantly. “Nooooooooo. We had a… a plan. To watch the thing. Your thing. With the magic girls. I’m fine. I’ve had like… four redbulls. They’ll kick in in a moment.”

“Aika… You’re in no shape to watch Moon Sailor right now. You won’t even be able to pay attention.” They got out of bed and stretched. “Besides, I’m hungry. I’m gonna go grab us breakfast, kay? Just wait here.”

Aika gave her a thumbs up and a grin that held just an edge of mania to it as Zira passed… and was expectedly asleep on the floor upon return. Zira shook her head and hoisted her friend back onto the bed. Aika’s transformation had faded as soon as her conscience did, and Zira made sure to place the star shard carefully on the side table where Aika could see it as soon as she woke up.

It was precious, after all. It was what allowed Aika to transform.

*

15:37

Corner Store Near Zira’s House

“I’ve told you like a dozen times that you don’t need to apologize.” Zira insisted, snagging some gummy worms off the display. “Now pick a candy so we can go look at whatever dubious cheeses they have paired with the pepperoni over there.”

“For now.” Aika replied glumly. She perked up afterwards, but Zira could tell it was just a mask. Those words turned themselves over and over in her mind, but she put that away as well.

For now she would honour Aika’s unspoken plea and match her energy. They still had a whole weekend together. There was no sense in ruining it now.

*

16:53

Zira’s House

“Don’t eat too many of those pep ‘n’ cheds.” Zira warned. “Dad’s doing a BBQ tonight. You’re gonna want room for burgers.”

Aika stared critically at the snack in her hand, completely ignoring the show in the background. “I’m not sure if I’m tasting the cheese or just the spices from the pepperoni. I’ll have to give Monterey Jack another try some other time, I think.”

“Sounds like a plan.” They replied, tuning back in to the show just in time to watch two of the heroes make utter fools of themselves in front of a guy who already had a girlfriend. She winced. Aika probably had the better idea.

*

21:33

Zira’s House

“Thanks for being such a good sport about that.” Zira commented softly, eyes boring holes into the second fake male lead in as many days. “They… ah… have been worried. About the no friends thing. So they’re… A bit overdoing it. Thanks for not making it weird.”

Aika laughed, followed by one of the groans she’d been periodically letting out since her fourth burger. It had not stopped her from having a fifth. “Dude, don’t even worry about it. Your Mom brought seven types of cheese home with her. Seven. Then made a cheese platter while your Dad was cooking! I’m just glad I didn’t make it weird myself by asking to be adopted on the spot!”

Zira laughed at that, ignoring how weird an adoption would make… things. “I’m pretty sure you’d want to go home eventually. Their overwhelming parentness really starts to grate after a few days.”

Aika hummed, sounding unconvinced. “Why do people keep falling for the fake dude? Can’t any of these airheads tell it isn’t him?”

Zira let herself be distracted, as ready as Aika to drop the subject.

*

21:43

Zira’s House

“He fell for the fake too?? Never mind, those dumbasses deserve each other!”

*

23:58

Zira’s House

“They enrolled in Princess school?!? How do they keep getting dumber every episode? That’s it, they all fail this episode. All of them. And what sort of Finishing School teaches frisbee anyway??”

*

02:07

Zira’s House

“SHIT! Shit, don’t panic!” Aika sprang from the couch in a manner that completely belied the way she had been dozing mere seconds previous. Her star shard was pulsing and vibrating in a way she knew very well, but had been hoping wouldn’t happen for at least a few days (forever).

“Again?” Zira asked, and Aika flinched at the implied criticism in the question.

“Sorry.” She replied, staring down at her most hated possession and wishing it to the depths of the ocean. “I’m really sorry. I know we’re on the finale now and the timing is terrible…”

“Fuck the timing.” Zira replied with fervor. “Aika, you’ve had like nine hours of sleep across the last three days. You can’t go out now!”

Aika gave her a grin, but there was too much darkness in it to lighten anything. “That’s just how it is, Zira. I don’t get movie nights, I don’t get family meals, heck I don’t even get birthdays off. I’ve snuck out of both of the last Christmases. Even most on-call jobs you can schedule some important time off, but not here.  I have to answer, so I’m never going to get to have anything that’s mine again. That’s what being a Magical Girl means. We just saw two of them die, and it’s supposed to be sad but I was jealous. They don’t have to answer the call anymore.”

That was entirely too heavy for Zira to manage at this time of night, so instead she just said the first thing that came to mind. “There’s four more seasons. They come back.”

“OF COURSE THEY FUCKING DO!!!”

*

03:15

Zira’s House

Aika was fairly certain this was the right basement and she wasn’t going to have any more incredibly awkward encounters. She was proven right when she was Zira, still waiting up for her, and she smiled.

“Sorry ‘bout… that.” She said, covering a giant yawn that appeared in the middle. “I was as quick as I could be. Let’s finish off this finale.”

Zira eyed her critically, then shook her head. Aika felt her heart drop to her feet. One more who can’t take it…” She thought, but was surprised when Zira just came over to wrap her in a blanket and hand her a cup of milk. She blinked at it, caught totally off guard.

“The internet said the fight was over.” Zira admitted, fidgeting with the edge of the blanket. “So I got you some milk. We’ll watch the finale tomorrow. For now, I think we could both use some sleep.”

Zira led her towards the bed, and Aika followed in a complete daze. She wasn’t sure yet if this was the first step to acceptance or leaving… but for now she’d take it. She’d take it.

For some reason her teammates had never been as lonely as she was.

She felt asleep with the warmth of a friend beside her, and her last thought was maybe I don’t have to be any more.

She’d forget it before she woke.