#also debating which staff he should use...

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

i know the main-gauche is a dlc weapon but i kind of want arthur to have it as a starting weapon either in addition to or replacing the usual prisoner estoc. because. i think using a close quarters dagger would maybe be much easier than a giant precision piercing weapon for someone who can't fucking see their opponents.

[kamaluhkhan]

LONG HOT SUMMER NIGHT

pairing: luke castellan x fem!poseidon!reader word count: 8.4k chapter summary: it's the summer solstice and olympus is throwing a party! thalia notices the tension between you and luke, poseidon gives you some relationship advice and you punch the god of desire in the face. warnings: angst! jealous reader. lots of drinking. complicated relationships. reader dealing with ptsd + survivor's guilt (post-titan war). mention of injuries + blood. creepy guy pushing reader to hook up. ending is a bit steamy but no actual smut. spoilers for the entire pjo (book) series. no betrayal (au where chris was the one who sided w kronos and led the titan army) so slightly ooc luke <3 also reader is in a band called the midnight sirens and is born on the summer solstice! author's note: thank you so much for all the love for part 1!! summer is almost over and this is very much a summer series BUT summer's not over yet !!! hope y'all enjoy this one too and thanks 4 reading 💙

part 1 | series masterlist

♪: long hot summer night by jimi hendrix

mail to: 

Luke Castellan Camp Half-Blood, Half-Blood Hill 3.141 Farm Road Long Island, New York 11954

LUKE! 

I’m sitting in my kitchen right now, watching Percy make us blue blueberry pancakes and hoping he doesn’t burn down my kitchen while doing so. I caved and agreed to take him to Disneyland while he’s here and breakfast was part of the deal, but I think I might regret it later. 

We went surfing yesterday. It was Percy’s first time, but he was (unsurprisingly) amazing at it. I still can’t get over how beautiful the beaches are and the waves — gods, the waves are unreal. You’d seriously love it here. It’s like every day is summer. You have to come visit. PLEASE come visit!!!!

- [your initial]

P.S. The band and I are working on some new music, which means I won’t make it to camp again this summer. I’m sorry ;( Fingers crossed I’ll make it next year. 

P.P.S. hi luke! happy to report that i did not burn down my sister’s kitchen. anyways, can’t wait to kick your ass in sword-fighting this summer. xoxo, percy

THREE YEARS LATER 

the first time you visited olympus, you had been sent on a quest to retrieve zeus’ stolen lightning bolt, bringing luke and charles beckendorf along with you. you had missed the summer solstice deadline, but still tried to reason with the king of the gods when presenting the symbol of power, maybe calling him out once or twice along the way. before zeus could strike you down for your boldness, poseidon stepped in. the war between them was averted in fear of a much larger, looming threat; an ominous introduction for what was to come in the next chapter of your life.

another time, the gods debated whether or not they should kill you, some seeing you as a threat to their future. that was the day you accepted your destiny, not wanting your brother percy or your cousin nico to deal with the weight of the great prophecy. 

your last visit to olympus was on your 18th birthday, after helping to defeat kronos and his army. you made the gods swear to stop neglecting their kids and to allow all demigods, regardless of whether their parent was an olympian or not, to have a home at camp half-blood; to treat their children as children rather than heroes as pawns in their twisted games.

needless to say, it’s quite strange, being back here under very, very different circumstances, where the gods invited camp half-blood’s senior counsellors and staff to join in their summer solstice festivities.

it’s not every day you’ll be invited to a party on olympus; you’re determined to have a good time, to have fun. there’s already an abundance of music, dancing, food, or alcohol, and the night is just getting started.

you’re happy to be there with new and old friends, but you’re ecstatic when you see that thalia grace is there, too. 

“immortality looks good on you, t!” you compliment, raising your voice slightly over the music.

thalia preens, and you bask in her silver glow. 

“bet you wish you took the gods up on their offer, huh,” she teases. then, her eyes widen. “oh - shit! it’s your birthday! happy birthday!” 

thalia tackles you with another hug; even after all these years, she still smells like pine trees. she grabs two goblets of honeyed wine and hands one to you as you catch up. you eagerly gulp the sweet drink, until you’re reaching for another while listening to her stories about adventures she’d been on with the hunters of artemis. 

about halfway through her story about fighting off a manticore during a snow storm, a nymph appears with a platter of the ripest of fruit – sweet plums and fresh figs, tantalising pomegranates, succulent grapes and crisp apples. 

“oh my gods, this is the best apple i’ve had in my entire life!” thalia exclaims after indulging in a taste, herself giddy from a few goblets of wine. “where’s luke? he’s gotta try this — he’s always reminding us to eat more fruit. luke!” 

you hadn’t kept track of luke, at least not on purpose. you assumed he’d been off partying with van or his siblings, and, probably, avoiding you. wherever he was, thalia calls his name twice more and, like a ghost, luke appears. 

“i’m here, t.” luke’s voice is a deep, steady rumble floating above the music. his cheeks are slightly flushed, either from the heat or the drinks. likely both. “what’s up?”

“you need to try this.” thalia shoves the apple in his mouth before luke can respond. 

luke takes a bite, and some juice drips down his chin. you, in a honey-soaked haze, think about running your tongue over to catch it, but he beats you to it, wiping it away with the back of his hand. 

probably for the best.

“holy shit. yeah, it’s good.”

thalia, a sparkle in her eyes, urges you to try it as well. from across the makeshift triangle the three of you had formed, luke tosses the apple your way. you catch it effortlessly, and sink your teeth into it. 

you’ve almost overwhelmed by the burst of flavor. the fruit is just the right amount of tart to balance out the sweetness, and it’s damn near the best crunch you’ve ever experienced.

“good is an understatement,” you say after another bite. a distant memory crosses your mind. “i wonder if these are the same ones we almost got killed by a hellhound for.” 

thalia shakes her head, laughing in disbelief. “all because luke said we needed more vitamin c.”

“i was just looking out for us!” luke guffaws. “how was i supposed to know that persephone owned an apple orchard in connecticut?”

you pat his shoulder, the three of you smiling at the memory. “let’s call it an honest mistake.”

“well if annabeth had been with us by then, i’m sure that she wouldn’t have made that same honest mistake.” 

“okay, but she’s the daughter of athena —”

you let luke and thalia slip back into their playful bickering as if no time has passed. you listen and continue eating that glorious apple, enjoying how the golden glow of your shared past fills whatever distance might have grown between the three of you. 

somewhere down memory lane, luke’s amber eyes flick towards you.

“hey, you’ve got some….” without another word, luke suddenly reaches over to brush away a trail of juice with his thumb before sticking the finger in his mouth to savour the taste. he holds your gaze as he does so, and you feel a familiar kind of heat rush through your body — not from alcohol or summer sun, but from luke. 

it’s such an intimate gesture that you almost forget that you’re at some extravagant party on mount olympus, where gods and half-bloods and a whole bunch of other mythological creatures are celebrating the start of summer by essentially getting drunk together, until thalia clears her throat. 

“okay, well, seems like the two of you might want some alone time.”

luke’s cheeks grow more flushed than before, and his eyes widen as if realizing what he’d done.

“oh, we don’t need —”

“we’re not —”

you and luke both stumble over your words; thalia just smiles knowingly. 

“i’m gonna go flirt with that nymph,” she announces, pointing across the grand marble pavilion.

“i thought — doesn’t artemis sort of frown upon that sort of thing?” you ask.

“she makes exceptions on holidays. besides, i’m her favourite. you guys have fun.” thalia winks at you and walks away.

you glance at luke and, gods, there’s so much history between you. 

the time you jumped into an ocean full of sirens to save luke from drowning? you have a scar running down your forearm where one of them scratched you as you struggled to get luke towards the surface. 

or when you took turns holding up the sky while on a quest to save lady artemis and defeat the titan atlas? it’s evident in the matching streaks of grey that you each have running through your hair. whenever you see your reflection in the mirror, you remember how you couldn’t save your cousin bianca di angelo earlier that day, and how nico has had to grow up without a sister because of a promise you broke.

how about when you, luke, and one of your best friends were sent on a mission to destroy the princess andromeda, the headquarters of kronos’ army? only the two of you survived, and sometimes you can still feel luke squeezing your hand pike he did during charles beckendorf’s burial shroud ceremony while you both cried.

or when luke took a sword between the ribs for you because he, somehow, knew the one spot the curse of achilles left you vulnerable? he can only slouch for so long before the bones there start to ache.

so, yeah. there’s way too much history, and so many tangled threads, and now really isn’t an ideal time to unravel it all. 

“i’m gonna go find my dad,” you blurt out and disappear into the crowd with no real intention of finding your father. 

the once sweet apple now tastes rotten on your tongue; you rid yourself of it in exchange for some more wine. you’re determined to have fun — no pain or heartache or grief. 

you’ve all had enough of that for three lifetimes. 

summer — age 14

“sorry your birthday was ruined.” 

luke exhaled sharply when you pressed a disinfectant-soaked cloth to the wound on his leg.

“hold still,” was all you mumbled in response, brows knitted together as you wrapped the cut in gauze. 

once you were done with his leg, you moved on to luke’s hands, burned by poisonous acid. the four of you had run into a hydra earlier that night. you managed to wound it enough so you could all get away, but not before a few injuries were sustained. 

you were uncharacteristically quiet as you worked. you only met luke’s gaze to warn him before pouring some nectar on his wounds. you let luke hold your hand, tightly, as the liquid dripped through his fingers and down to yours, first right, then left. the pain was instant, seering almost as much as the hydra acid, but it was over quickly. the last thing you did was bandage each hand before getting up. 

“i’m…i’m gonna check on thalia and annabeth. i’ll take first watch.”

luke caught your hand before you got away.

“wait. you’re bleeding.” he pointed to the cut on your brow. you had been so preoccupied in making sure everyone else was safe that you let crimson liquid drip down your face. it probably stung, too, based on your grimace.

luke wiped away the blood with his sleeve, used nectar to disinfect the wound, and dressed it with a fresh bandage, working silently as you did.

“it’s still your birthday,” luke finally said once he was done. “you get some rest; i’ll take first watch.”

you gave him a small, strained smile before checking on the others. 

later that night, you stayed up with luke anyways. 

seemingly out of nowhere, you handed him your portable cassette player. luke stared at it for a moment, unwilling to comprehend just what you were offering and, more importantly, why. 

you and luke had grown accustomed to sharing things: flannels, socks, makeshift beds and scavenged food. but this —

it was your aunt’s. 

you never met your mother, who’d left you as a baby, and of course, poseidon was too busy tending to his underwater kingdom to step in as a parent. your aunt raised you as her own. and then you lost her, too. 

you kept her cassette player buried deep in your bag with some mixtapes she had made and ones you’d stolen throughout the years. when it wasn’t your turn to keep watch, luke would sometimes catch you with headphones on, looking up at the stars. 

luke liked to think he knew you well; all those subtle elements that made you — the crack of your knuckles, the cadence of your voice, the slope of your nose, the dreams of your childhood. engraved in his own personhood. bones and all. 

and, still: he didn’t know you, not entirely. 

you’d only allowed luke to listen with you once, maybe twice. he’d never forget what it was like: knees pressed together and heads just as close to keep the wires from stretching too far; you gushing about the magic of jimi hendrix, recounting memories that echoed through gentle guitar riffs; luke yearning for one more song to play, for another a wistful smile of yours to appear. luke, wishing to linger in your private oasis a beat longer before you pushed him out again and closed the door behind him. 

the one lock luke couldn’t crack: your grief, and how you carried on so buoyantly despite its weight.

well, there you were, presenting the key to luke as an offering. a sacrifice for something luke would never ask of you. 

“this….” luke swallowed the lump in his throat, refusing to look at you. he turned the device over in his bandaged hands, the metal smooth, though well-worn. “you can’t just —”

leave. you can’t just leave. you can’t just —

“hey.” 

your hand over his, forcing him to stop spiralling and look at you. 

right away, luke regretted it. a small sliver of him, however delusional, had hoped that you were joking. 

you weren’t. behind you, there was an empty space where you had previously wedged your sleeping bag. your backpack was already strapped around your shoulders, fully packed. 

“i need to leave, luke. we can’t stay together. it’s too dangerous.”

“you don’t need to —”

“there’s more of us, now,” you interrupted, pulling your hand away to rest on your thigh. “four demigods together isn’t ideal. we’ve been attracting more monsters. more deadly monsters.”

“that would happen, anyways. it always has whether it’s the four of us, the two of us, or….” 

luke stopped his sentence short, not even wanting to give you the idea to go out on your own, even though you’d probably been thinking about leaving for some time. 

you made reckless decisions sometimes, but this didn’t seem to be one of them.

“well, it’s happening more.” your voice was steady, too steady. luke imagined you rehearsing just what to say to counter the inevitable backlash. 

luke shook his head. “i’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

“you almost died because of me,” you clipped. you lifted a hand to touch the bruise on luke’s jaw, but let it drop just as quickly. “you know that children of the big three cause more trouble. maybe we managed it when it was the two of us, but now, there’s more to consider. a child of poseidon and a child of zeus, travelling together. it’s like we’re asking to be killed. it’s too dangerous.”

“that’s our life,” luke snapped. “you can’t just run from it.” from us.

you faltered, looking back to where annabeth and thalia were sleeping peacefully. 

oh. he must have said that last part out loud, too. 

“you know i’m right,” is all you said.

luke could only shake his head again. because, fine, you weren’t entirely wrong. it was more dangerous — but it was danger luke hoped you’d all face, together. 

“i’ve made up my mind,” you added, an anchor in the sand.

“don’t leave.” luke’s words came out as a prayer. if he offered something, maybe you’d stay.

you paused to take a shaky breath. “this isn’t goodbye, luke. i swear to poseidon…fuck, i swear to all the gods that this isn’t goodbye.”

luke couldn’t speak. there were tears bubbling in his throat, threatening to spill. 

“so, keep this for me,” you whispered, once again placing your hand on top of luke’s. his fingers gripped your cassette player tightly, like it was the only piece of driftwood leftover from a shipwreck, keeping him from sinking into the cold, dark nothing. “you’ll give it back when we see each other again.”

a promise. 

“fine,” luke conceded, though he wanted to scream at you. he wanted to argue like little kids — petty, loud, meaningless, back and forth until tears streamed down cheeks and throats were raw. 

but, you were leaving, one way or another. luke didn’t want this shared memory to be tainted if it might be your last.

“you have to take this, then. give it back when we see each other again.”

luke removed the chain from around his neck, the one that held the key to his childhood home. he placed it around yours, instead.

he didn’t need the key now, but his mother had given it to him when he was six. before he knew what it meant to be the son of hermes, god of thieves. 

call him sentimental, but luke had kept it. just in case he ever got lost. 

“if you’re ever back in connecticut, you have a home.”

“yeah, okay.” you smiled softly. 

it fell just as quickly. 

“take care of them,” you told him. “of yourself, too. i’ll see you again when it’s safe.”

luke didn’t ask when it would be safe, because the truth is that it might never be.

“because you want your cassette player back?” luke joked, instead trying to lighten the mood, to capture one last moment of brightness.

you laughed softly to not wake the others. 

“yeah. that too.”

you pressed your forehead to his, something you hadn’t done since you were kids. 

“i’ll see you again,” you repeated.

without another word, you got up and jogged away. luke shut his eyes, refusing to see you become nothing but a shadow. 

(you looked back several times, but he couldn’t see through the darkness.)

now

call the gods out on their bullshit (you encourage it), but if they have one thing going for them, it’s that the olympians know how to throw a party. 

the night grows darker, yet somehow becomes more lively. demeter and persephone had supplied a generous amount of fresh, decadent fruit, and dionysus an even more generous amount of wine. apollo starts a karaoke corner and you’re just tipsy enough to agree to sing a duet with him in order to break the ice. apparently, he’s a big midnight sirens fan and had seen your band when you headlined at glastonbury festival. you smile to yourself, imagining your bandmates’ faces if you told them that the god of music had watched you perform.

as you hand the microphone to a giggling dryad, the sound of your name washes over like gentle waves on a shore.

“if it isn’t my sweet, summer child!” your father brings you in for a hug and an ocean breeze engulfs you — salt and sand and sun. 

“hi dad,” you exhale as you pull away. 

you hadn’t seen each other in a while, but poseidon looks the same. he’s dressed in a turquoise hawaiian shirt and birkenstocks with a crown of seashells on his head. there’s a cocktail umbrella in his glass, a slice of pineapple wedged onto the rim. you’re about to ask him how he managed to secure a pina colada and where you might find one, too.

“that was quite the performance!” poseidon takes an eager sip of his drink, green eyes sparkling like sea glass in the sun. “i must tell you: your newest album is all the rage in atlantis. the nereids and merpeople can’t seem to get enough of it and, truthfully, i find myself playing it on repeat as well. you’re quite talented.” 

you try not to let your shock slip through, instead smiling and asking how things are in his underwater kingdom, but you’re….touched at your father’s unexpected praise.

the gods aren’t perfect, and your father is no exception. they’re divine beings who have time to conceive children, but not to raise them. there’s a long history of them abandoning, mistreating, and manipulating their own offspring. of course, being the prophecy child, it became practically impossible for your father to ignore you; you’re sure that being dubbed the saviour of olympus gives him bragging rights with his immortal family. even with their sworn promise to change, it’s impossible not to resent the gods in some ways. 

still, you feel comforted by your father's presence at times — when you catch the perfect wave on your surfboard, for example, or when you sit on your fire escape during a storm after a bad day. it’s been like that pretty much all your life: poseidon there in spirit, not in practice. despite everything, he’s watched over you, and percy, throughout the years.

and here poseidon is now, grinning at you like you’re his pride and joy. 

“enough about aquatic politics.” he pats your shoulder enthusiastically after telling you about the struggles of keeping humans from overfishing. “i came over to wish you a happy birthday. and to give you this.” 

poseidon reaches into the pocket of his shirt and hands you something you’d long thought gone: a leather cord with several clay beads and a silver key.

“i found it off the california coast,” he explains. “i kept meaning to get it to you, but i suppose time has a way of getting away from us, immortal or not.”

a warmth grows in your chest as you run your thumb over your old camp necklace, bright and full. it had fallen off one day when you’d gone surfing, and you assumed it was lost to the ocean. you'd been given a fresh leather cord when you arrived at camp earlier this summer, but it felt empty. hollow.

“thanks, dad.” 

you smile at him as you put on the necklace; it feels like coming home. your father then asks you about your summer so far.

you tell him all about your life as of late, until you catch a glimpse of luke with van on a marble bench at the other end of the pavilion. van is sitting in luke’s lap, and they lean over to whisper something in his ear before kissing his cheek. 

you freeze mid-way through your sentence.

sensing the shift in mood, poseidon frowns. he turns his head to follow your gaze.

“ah.” poseidon turns back to you and clears his throat. “now, i don’t mean to pry, but i saw you earlier with the castellan boy.”

you flush at the fact that your moment with luke was witnessed by your own father. “dad —”

“did you know in ancient greece, throwing someone an apple and having them catch it is considered a marriage proposal?”

“i’m pretty sure that was disproven,” you scoff.

poseidon raises an eyebrow at you, clearly amused. “which one of us was actually there, hm?” and though you roll your eyes, you can’t argue with that. “i just wanted to know if there was a wedding happening in the near future.”

you almost choke on the last remnants of your wine. “dad.”

“i’m kidding. i’m kidding! mr. castellan seems otherwise occupied.” 

“yeah, it does seem that way,” you grumble.

poseidon puts a hand on your shoulder, firm but reassuring. “regardless: if you find someone who would go to tartarus and back with you, someone who would fight alongside you every step of the way, you hold on to them. there’s only so much time you mortals have on this earth.”

you sigh — easier said than done — but your father is trying, so you manage a nod.

“i’ll keep that in mind.”

“now, i better go — ” poseidon looks over your shoulder, where the air behind you starts to feel staticky. “it seems a disagreement is brewing between zeus and hades. they always get into it whenever dionysus makes the wine a bit too strong. brother, put away the lightning bolt —” and he rushes away to prevent another divine conflict from arising.

left to your own devices, you venture over to the food table, finding an array of fresh and dried fruit, breads, cured meat, fresh oysters and, of course, more wine. you grab a goblet and a few dried figs.

“careful, i heard dionysus made the wine extra strong tonight,” someone warns, creeping up beside you. the voice is soft and alluring, and you feel something tug at your heart. 

you do a double take when you turn to them; the person is devilishly handsome, a golden aura paired with a golden smile. 

(you will soon find out that the god flirting with you is the son of ares and aphrodite, the latter of which takes the appearance of whoever the onlooker loves. as it turns out, her son appears in the same way. 

all this to say: it doesn’t mean anything that this god looks like luke castellan to you. 

it doesn’t mean anything at all.)

“i’m eros.”

“hey. i’m —”

“i know who you are, savior of olympus.” eros winks at you. “i just never realized you were so beautiful.”

your cheeks heat up as you take a sip of your drink.

oh, shit. 

okay. the literal god of desire and pleasure is flirting with you. 

you’re flattered, really, and maybe the wine has gotten to your head, but you’re not eager to turn him away.

“well, i’ve definitely heard about you, and the rumors do not do you justice,” you quip, painting on a flirtatious smile.

eros puffs out his chest, clearly pleased. 

over the next few minutes, you decide that eros can hold a decent conversation, asking you the classic first date questions about your likes and dislikes, and he’s cute enough that you wouldn’t mind things going further. 

(he might be a god, but he’s no luke. you push that thought away, and force yourself to flirt with helios. eros. right, eros.)

eros leans in close, pretends to listen to you, lets his gaze drop every so often to the deep v-neck of your shirt.  

“no way! 13 going on 30 is a classic,” you argue. you nudge your shoulder into eros’s playfully, and let the contact between you linger. eros, the inspiration for cupid himself, has angel wings, and you feel them brush softly against your burning skin. 

“it’s totally overrated!” eros exclaims. “also, the childhood friends to lovers trope gives people false hope.”

“it’s not false hope. it’s about the buildup to their happily ever after,” you reason, swallowing some wine to dislodge the lump in your throat.

eros shakes his head. “trust me, baby, it’s all about the instant attraction. that’s where the excitement is.” 

he’s so close now, you can smell the sharp alcohol on his breath. not wine, but something stronger.

“oh? what do you mean by that?” you lean impossibly closer, trailing a finger down his chest.

eros smirks, placing a hand on your thigh. “want me to demonstrate?” 

not even a second after you whisper a yes, eros crashes his lips onto yours, and you will yourself to kiss back. he slides his tongue in your mouth, runs his hands over your body. 

you’re making out with the god of desire and passion, so, objectively, it’s a good first kiss: soft around the edges and firm where it needs to be.

sure — you feel nothing, no real spark, but it’s almost enough to fill the hole in your heart in the shape of a certain son of hermes. 

the son of hermes who has moved on and is in a loving relationship with a perfect emotionally available partner. 

so, it’s fine. 

this, this thing with eros, is fine. 

you’re fine.

eros pulls away first, but keeps a hand on your cheek.

“let's get out of here.” 

he grabs your wrist before you have a chance to answer. you stand up, let him weave you through the crowd towards the stairs of the pavilion. apparently, his room is just through the garden. 

as he tugs you along, he looks back at you, smiling. under the glow of the stars, eros looks just like luke, except it’s becoming harder to ignore that he isn’t luke and that makes you feel all sorts of nauseous. your camp necklace weighs on your chest and, in particular, the silver key that you’d kept for all those years burns through your skin. 

lightheaded, you pull away from eros’ grip just as you reach the top of the stairs and place a hand on the column next to you to steady yourself.

eros turns around sharply. “what is it?”

“i changed my mind, actually. let’s just…keep talking here.”

eros grabs your wrist again, his grip tighter than before. “don’t be a tease.” his tone is ever-so-gentle, but there’s an edge behind his words. 

this time, your voice comes out more assertive. “i just changed my mind. that doesn’t make me a tease.”

“come on, baby, don’t you wanna experience what real passion is? this is a once in a lifetime opportunity that a million girls would kill for. you’d be an idiot to pass it up.” he brags, and you’re this close to breaking this guy’s nose, god or not. 

“i don’t care,” you snap, struggling to break free from his grip. “and i’m not your baby.”

“okay, whatever,” eros rolls his eyes, but quickly plasters on an arrogant grin. “we’ll go somewhere private and i’ll call you whatever you want.”

he manages to drag you down two steps as you strain against his iron grip, now almost cutting off your circulation. your heartbeat quickens and you feel dizzy. finally, you grab onto the railing for leverage and use your strength to rip out of his grip, forcing eros to stop in his tracks.

“what is it now?” he snaps, whipping his head around once more. 

he looks nothing like luke, now.

“just stop, eros.”

“listen,” he starts, speaking to you almost mockingly, like you’re a naive little kid. so much for being the savior of olympus. “trust me, i know what people want, so you don’t have to be shy. i promise to be the best you’ve ever had —”

“eros, is it?” the rest of the party is in full motion, but here’s percy, giving eros one of the most intense death stares you’ve ever seen. percy, your little brother who talks to lonely fish at the aquarium; who, if you cut open, would bleed blue m&m’s; who would never let anyone, god or otherwise, hurt someone he loves. “i’m gonna have to ask you to let go of my sister.”

“mind your own business, kid,” eros hisses. “we’re kinda in the middle of something.” he tries to move you down another step, but you stand your ground.

annabeth, no longer the scared little seven year old you, luke, and thalia found behind a dumpster, is also glaring at liam from the top of the stairs. one of her hands rests firmly on her belt, where she keeps her dagger. 

“i’d back off, if i were you,” she warns. “wouldn’t want to cause a scene.”

“just mind your own business,” eros snarls.

“they said leave her alone,” thalia asserts, walking over once she sees what’s happening. “and you don’t wanna mess with us, trust me.” she clenches her hand into a fist.

“who the fuck are you? her bodyguards?” 

“just let her go,” percy orders. “my sister can do a lot better than a minor god with a major god complex.” 

eros growls, baring his teeth at percy. “you impertinent little shit.”

as soon as eros lunges for your brother, you tug one of his wings towards you, hard. he whips around and you take the opportunity to punch him in the face. he doubles over, golden ichor gushing from his nose.

“i’d be careful if i were you, baby,” you seethe. “you wouldn’t want to go up against the demigods who led an army against kronos and won. unless, of course, humiliation is a kink of yours.” you laugh humorlessly at the way eros scowls at your words. “to each their own,” you continue. “but i’m not in the mood to fuck an entitled creep with angel wings to compensate for his tiny dick. you better fucking respect that, and leave us alone while you’re at it.”

eros’ flirtatious smile is long gone, replaced with the kind of anger only entitled, self-important jerks have when they don’t get what they want and they’ve taken a few blows to their ego. 

call it stupidity or arrogance, but his only response is a punch delivered right back to your face. 

you hear a crack upon impact, and pain radiates from your nose. you stumble, but percy manages to reach out and catch you before you fall down the stairs. he holds you as thalia and annabeth create a barrier between you and eros. you hear them shouting at eros over the music, but their exact words don’t register.

you lick your lips, tasting blood. your ears are ringing, and everything is suddenly all fuzzy. percy tries his best, but you slump your body weight into his and he almost topples over.

“i’ve got her.” luke’s calm and measured voice cuts through the chaos. you feel a strong, familiar arm wrap around your waist to steady you. “from what i remember, you were too much of a coward to even step foot on the battlefield, so i’d listen to her if you know what’s good for you.” in a haze, you guess that luke is directing his sharp words towards eros, before turning to the others and instructing: “you guys take care of this — find clarisse if you need back up.”

somehow, you find yourself over in a small secluded temple, sitting on a window bench overlooking the clouds as luke sits next to you.

like most of olympus, the building is made of marble with gold accents; this one has roses engraved on the walls, and the space smells like flowery perfume. it’s much quieter than the pavilion, though you can hear laughter and music in the distance. it’s cooler, too, but not by much; even without all the body heat, you're left with sticky summer air, and luke’s breath on yours, sweet with wine and ripe fruit, as he carefully examines your injury.

you feel your head spinning all over again. maybe it’s the alcohol, or the adrenaline, or the fact that the two of you haven’t been this close in a while — probably a dangerous mix of all three. 

you know (from trying not to but ultimately not being able to pull your attention away from him after all) that he’s had a few drinks as well; it seems like the two of you ignore each other best when you’re sober.

“thought the curse of achilles would protect you from nosebleeds.”

“guess it doesn’t protect against —” what did percy call eros? “ — minor gods who have major god complexes,” you recite.

luke looks slightly amused. “that’s a shame,” he hums. “would have been nice to get one birthday without being injured.”

a smile creeps onto your face, despite the dull ache from your nose.

“you remembered.”

“of course i remember,” luke almost scoffs like the mere suggestion of forgetting what day you were born is an insult to his very character. he meets your gaze, and you could melt when he offers you that lopsided smile of his, painfully familiar. “happy birthday, aquagirl,” and it’s the softest he’s spoken to you in a while. just like old times.

he remembers. 

somewhere within him, luke holds on to fragments of you.

he wipes the blood off your face, the sleeve of his silk white button-down now stained crimson. “how’s your hand?” he asks. 

you flex your fingers. “it’s been better,” you answer, your knuckles slightly aching. “totally worth it.”

“i guess all those years away didn’t change anything. still willing to put a god in their place, huh?”

all those years away. 

the reminder feels like a stab to the heart, and you’re worried that it might burst the comfortable bubble you and luke had drunkenly stumbled into. 

thankfully, luke continues:

“the kids really take after you.”

he says as a joke, mostly, but there’s a sincerity in those deep brown eyes of his, too. something you also hadn’t seen from him in a while. 

the kids, who you’d in some ways raised together when monsters were trying to kill you and the gods didn’t care enough to stop it. 

the family you and luke had built together despite being born into the world of greek tragedies. 

“as if annabeth wasn’t threatening to pull the dagger you gave her, skywalker,” the nickname rolling off your tongue with ease. “besides, they’re not kids anymore.”

“yeah.” he pauses. “neither are we.” 

luke’s fingers trace your camp necklace, brush against your collarbone. the breath hitches in your throat.

here you are again, at the edge of something real and very scary, and you fear luke is going to push the two of you over. 

but he doesn’t. instead, luke suggests, jokingly: “maybe we should start a fight club at camp.” 

you take that as a good sign: like you, he’s hoping to preserve the playfulness between you before everything else seeps in and ruins it. before you’re brought back to the present, where you’re practically ignoring each other.

where you’re fine, but really. 

you snort. “chiron and mr. d would love that.”

“like they’d ever find out!” luke explains. “you know the first rule of fight club —”

“don’t talk about fight club,” you finish together. 

luke laughs, even though it’s not that funny. you laugh, too. 

and that’s the thing that really, truly gets you. 

try as you might to ignore it, some days it’s hard to forget the pain and heartache and grief. 

you still feel like your life is a battlefield; you still see the ghosts of everyone you couldn’t save even though people call you a savior; you still have those scars, inside and out, that seemed healed but ache every once and a while. 

but that isn’t all. 

sometimes it hurts more thinking back to the good times and knowing, deep down, you can never go back.

summer — age 13

“ugh — you think with all their power, the gods could help stop global warming,” you groaned, swatting away a mosquito that tried to land on you. “do you think they have air conditioning on olympus?”

“oh, for sure,” luke quipped. he gave you a lopsided smile, his curls sticking to his forehead, drenched in sweat. 

it was the summer solstice, the longest and the hottest day of the year so far. the two of you had found a perfectly good hideout, but luke insisted that this place would be worth the move. 

he’d been leading you down side streets for what felt like forever. the sun had already set, and you were very close to passing out from the heat, until luke finally stopped at a door behind an alley, with a sign reading CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS. 

luke knelt down to do whatever son-of-hermes lock magic he had to do to get the door open. he flipped a switch, and you winced at the sudden overwhelming brightness. 

the destination was different than the hideouts you usually sprung for: those small, hole-in-the-wall type places. instead, this space was big and bright, filled with arcade games and fun posters and neon colours. the type of place a kid might have a party or where a group of normal teenagers might spend their friday night. 

“what…what is this?”

“you thought i forgot, didn’t you?” luke smirked at you. he sat down on the colourful carpet, taking out some snacks, a small plastic bag with coins, a wrapped box, and a plastic blue crown, and gestured for you to join.

you did, in fact, think that luke had forgotten your birthday. 

birthdays were bittersweet for children of gods, who were constantly reminded that any year could be their last, their youth cut short by monsters or prophecies or a fatal flaw. all the two of you usually did on either birthday was split any sweet treat you could get your hands on. 

it wasn’t a big deal, really, to skip that tradition of yours. there were much more urgent things to worry about, like finding food and water and shelter, and not being devoured by monsters. 

you did think it was strange that luke hadn’t so much as said happy birthday to you all day, but you knew that he loved you.

(like a friend loves a friend. nothing else, no matter how much your stomach fluttered at the thought of him.) 

“i wanted to surprise you,” luke explained once you claimed your spot next to him. he reached over to place the crown on your head. “i found this place a few days ago during a food run. it reminds me of where we had your —”

“eighth birthday party, yeah.” you smiled at the memory of running around and feeding quarters to every machine and trying every game, of your classmates singing happy birthday to you off-key before you all stuffed your faces with sickly sweet confetti cake. 

truthfully, you never thought about having another celebration like that again.

but, it was five years from that faded childhood memory, and luke was presenting you with something you didn’t even realize you had needed: the chance to be a kid again.

“so,” luke got up, a wide smile on his face. he held the plastic bag in one hand, extending the other to you. “which do you wanna play first?”

you started with space invaders, then moved on to dragon’s lair and pac-man. you took a break before street fighter ii so that luke could ceremoniously light a candle and present a cupcake that had been tossed around in his bag (but you were still very, very grateful for), along with fresh batteries for your portable cassette player. he had made you a mixtape too, though you couldn’t figure out how. 

your last stop was a photobooth. you vowed to keep those pictures — a collection of you and luke together, smiling bright and colourful, goofing off and laughing — for the rest of your life.

now

those moments from past summers are like popsicles melting in the sun: tangible for a limited time before leaving you with a sickly sweet mess of what once was. 

you think about what happened earlier, how percy, annabeth, and thalia stepped in to protect you, still the brave kids you had once known so well. how luke is here with you now, taking care of you so tenderly even after you’ve silently agreed to give each other the cold shoulder. 

maybe luke is right. maybe all those years away didn’t change anything. 

except — once you leave this temple and the alcohol leaves your system, it won’t be the same. 

none of you are kids anymore, if you ever even were. 

“why’d you go for eros, anyway?” luke asks, breaking you away from your thoughts. he removes his sleeve from your nose since the bleeding seems to have finally stopped.

“you really wanna know?”

“yeah. most gods are assholes. and you’re…” luke places a hand close to your leg, pinky finger brushing your thigh. “you.”

“i went for eros because….well, honestly, i don’t think i cared who it was, as long as they made me forget you,” you admit, because what did you have to lose. you probably have a broken nose, you definitely have blood on your shirt, and your time with luke is running out. 

luke’s eyes darken. his fingers start to play with the hem of your shorts. 

“did it work?” his voice is a whisper, but he’s close enough that he’s crystal clear.

“no.”

it’s hard to determine who leans in first, but soon enough your lips are on luke’s — messy and urgent. noses bumping together, teeth clacking against each other. he cradles your face in his hands, and you move to straddle his waist. you taste wine on his tongue, and maybe a hint of sweet pears, but it’s overwhelmed by the salty, metallic taste of blood stained on your lips. when you run out of air, you pull away. it’s clearer now: you’re not dizzy from the alcohol or adrenaline, but dizzy from him. luke’s gaze is heavy on yours as he traces your top lip with his thumb.

“luke,” you whimper, itching to kiss him again. 

“you’re still bleeding.”

luke wipes away the blood with his thumb. before either of you can do or say anything more, there’s an echo of footsteps on the marble floor. a flower nymph, there to leave an offering and let you know that, while aphrodite encourages acts of love, she prefers it doesn’t happen in her place of worship. 

you realize that aphrodite also might not look so fondly at you kissing someone else in her place of worship after publicly rebuking her own son.

luke untangles himself from you, and you know that he’s been jolted back to reality, too. 

and, just like that, another moment has melted away.

your father was right. time has a way of slipping away for us, immortal or not.

summer — age 18

“hey, you awake?”  

“yeah,” you replied softly. sleep hadn’t been easy, in the days and weeks and months leading up to that final battle with kronos and his army. 

and once it was all over? 

you rested your head on luke’s shoulder, sword discarded at your feet and armour half-removed, as argus, the hundred-eyed security guard of olympus, drove a school bus with a dozen or so demigods back to camp.

“why’d you turn down their offer?” luke whispered.

oh.

"why...why do you ask?"

"i don't know." luke paused. "just curious, i guess."

you closed your eyes and replayed that moment on olympus when you refused the gift of immortality. the look of shock written on the gods’ faces. and on luke’s.

“i don’t care about living forever,” you told him bluntly.

forever seemed too long, especially for someone who was prophesied to die at 18.

you tilted your head up to meet luke’s gaze, and his messy curls brushed against your forehead. evidence of the battle was clear on his face: caked-on dirt and blossoming bruises and dried blood. 

behind him, outside the bus window, the world was flying by. a child who had fallen off their bike being comforted by a friend. two people sharing an mp3 player and a pair of earbuds. an elderly couple walking their dog.

“you once told me that this was our life,” you continued, gesturing towards the weapons and battle-worn kids, some quiet, others crying, many injured. “what if it didn’t have to be?” 

luke furrowed his brow. “do you mean….are you talking about leaving?”

you shrugged. running from monsters for your entire childhood then being the child of the great prophecy was a lot.

a break might be nice.

there was so much about the world, the one you’d fought and bled to protect, that you wanted to experience. 

maybe something closer to a normal life.

“would you ever leave camp?” you wondered, not really answering luke's question. 

“no,” luke replied instantly. his fingers started fiddling with the beads on his necklace. “i can’t just walk away, not after everything.”

“yeah, i get that.” and you did; you really, truly, did. the guilt of wanting to leave camp curled in your stomach like a venomous snake. you took a shaky breath. “let’s talk about this later, yeah? i’m tired, and we have the rest of — ”

the rest of the summer slipped away in the blink of an eye. gone, before you even had a real chance to say goodbye.

you closed your eyes and held on to luke, as if gripping his arm would anchor you to something you weren't ready to let go of, but in some ways needed to move on from.

it was no use, though. 

by the end of august, you’d be gone too. 

now 

you learned early on that the curse of achilles doesn’t protect you from hangovers.

you wake up the morning after the celebration on olympus with a deep, throbbing pain lodged in your temple and an uncomfortable swirling in your gut. parties and late nights at bars are common on tour, which means migraines are, too, so you have a routine to make sure you’re not out of commission for too long.

except this time, the aspirin and blue gatorade and dry toast don’t work. the sting in your brain and uneasiness in your stomach doesn’t go away, even after a few days. you haven’t been able to sleep, either.

desperate for a cure, you consult lou ellen, head counsellor of the hecate cabin, who you’d unexpectedly grown close to in the past few weeks. she mixes something for you, while asking if there’s something that’s been weighing on you.

you couldn't keep it in anymore; you tell her about the summer solstice and luke.  

later, with nothing but your thoughts and percy’s snoring occupying your time post-curfew, you grab your phone and flip it open, deciding to finally reach out to luke, when you get a text from him.

luke is already on the beach when you arrive, looking out onto the water. 

“hey,” you greet as you sit next to him on the sand, but not too close. “i was actually about to text you —”

“did you tell anyone that we kissed?” he interrupts. you can’t quite read his expression as he waits for you to answer.

“no, i didn’t,” you lie. “would it matter if i did?”

“well, i mean, word travels fast around camp, and i don’t want van finding out. it’s not like it meant anything.”

the throbbing in your brain becomes a sharper sting, the uneasiness in your stomach a tidal wave of nausea.

“it didn’t?” you hate how fragile your voice sounds, compared to luke’s stoic demeanor.

luke shrugs. “i mean, we were both drunk and the thing with eros happened…we just got caught up in the heat of the moment.” 

“you’re saying there’s nothing between us, then? nothing?” the word tastes bitter in your mouth.

luke turns away before he answers. “no. nothing.”

“then what about last summer?” you demand. you force yourself to keep it together, your tone firmer than before. “i guess that didn’t mean anything, either.”

“y/n…” he sighs. “i don’t know what you want me to say. we’re barely even friends anymore. you come back here, after all this time, after so much shit happened, and expect us all to drop everything to fit you back into our lives. but, you don't. whatever you came here for, it's not here for you. there's nothing to go back to. we moved on. i moved on, and i can’t deal with you —" 

“got it,” you snap, already turning to walk away. “loud and fucking clear, luke.” 

it’s not like it meant anything. we’re barely even friends anymore.

you replay luke’s words as you crawl into bed, holding back tears so as to not disturb percy. finally, you swallow a generous amount of whatever concoction lou ellen had brewed up for you.

drifting off into your own sleep, you decide that you don’t love luke anymore. not as a friend, not as a.....

nope. 

according to luke, there's not even anything to go back to.

nothing.

nothing.

[hoemainexpansion]

Chapter Four - Pain: You find your husband, Satoru, in the hospital and figure out why he was galivanting around town instead of coming home to his pregnant wife. Also on AO3

The universe hates you.

The universe fucking hates you.

It has to hate you because there’s no other explanation for this ridiculous shitutation that you’ve found yourself in.

On one hand, your husband didn’t leave you to start a new life with someone else.

Well… that may be up for debate for now.

But it certainly wasn’t intentional. So while it’s not what you were thinking, it’s still pretty bad.

Dr. Yaga has been droning on about his condition and you know that what he’s saying is important, but you kind of zoned out not too long after giving his diagnosis.

Before you ask him to repeat everything, you just have one question, “how much time has he lost?” You hate to make this about you, but you’re desperate to know.

“I’m not sure, that’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself as time goes on. The more time you spend with him, the more things like that will come into focus.” That makes sense but you really wish he just said something like, "it's only the last ten years” because that would give you more of a starting point as far as helping him goes. “And what should I do to help him with everything?” You don’t even know how to phrase what you want to ask.

“There’s a few things that you can do to help. But the most important thing is to have a lot of patience and don’t take it personal if he doesn’t remember something. Second, if you had a routine before, I would suggest getting back into it now. Returning to routines has been proven to be helpful versus going completely off the books hoping for the best. Obviously, returning to work may not be the first option right now. But getting back into other patterns can help.” Okay, reasonable.

“Making little notes or reminders and keeping them around the home can also be helpful in forming new memories which may also help in unlocking older ones. At the very least, it doesn’t hurt. I’ve also been told by previous patients that memory games with photos or notes can help. Just be patient, supportive, and explain whatever is needed in an easily digestible way. But don’t overwhelm him with too much at one time,” he pauses to let you take all of that in.

“Do you know how long it’ll take for everything to come back to him?” You have a feeling that you already know how he’s going to answer that but you can’t help but ask. “There’s no way to determine exactly how long that will take.” You were right. “But we will run some tests for his migraines to see if there’s any underlying damage and that will help us figure out how severe his condition could be.” You really hope it’s not worse than it already sounds. “As his wife, we would like you to fill out some paperwork though. It seems he was recognized by some of the staff, but since he hasn’t been admitted here before, we don’t have anything on file for him, not even his name at this point. So I’ll go get that and then we’ll take it from there.” After saying that, he walks out of the room.

You just stand there, frozen, still facing the door. It’s awkward, it’s uncomfortable, and you don’t even know how to speak to your husband seeing as he doesn’t even remember that he is one. That’s especially evident based on the model who just walked out of the room.

But you don’t have to break the ice because Satoru does it for you, “so, we’re married?”

You turn to look at him and ‘yes’ is all you say.

He nods his head and says ‘nice’ with a smirk.

Yeah, that’s your husband.

“When did we get married? How’d we meet?” For some reason you thought him finding that out would cause him to shut down but you’re relieved that it hasn’t.

“Uhhh, we met in high school, through mutual friends, and we stayed friends for a couple of years before we started dating. Then we were in a relationship for two years before getting married on Halloween. Our five year anniversary just passed.” You’re trying to give him the bare bones version of the start of your relationship. The last thing you want to do is overload him or cause problems with the people he needs to be re-introduced to.

“Halloween huh?”

“You actually suggested it. I wanted to wear a black dress and make it goth, so you said we should just do it on Halloween and everyone can get dressed up however they want to.” It was actually incredible seeing everyone showing up in costume so needless to say, he had the right idea.

“You wanted a goth wedding but you’re standing there in head to toe light blue?”

“You got me this outfit.” He looks so proud after you say that.

“I have good taste,” he replies with an air of confidence.

“Well, you married me, so obviously.” Now it’s your turn to wear a smirk. You both chuckle and so far, so good.

Just when things are getting comfortable, a nurse walks in with a clipboard holding all the paperwork that you need to fill out. You take it from her and then sit down on a chair in his room to begin filling it out. You wanted to ask him if he knows the answers to anything on it but seeing as they’re having you do it, that’s probably a no. But you’re curious so you’re going to probe a little bit.

“I don’t want to pressure you, but is there anything that you can say you definitely remember?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s anything real specific. I feel like I can vaguely remember faces and maybe quick flashes of events. Some things I think I might remember if they were put in front of me.”

You give him a break before asking anything else. You don’t want to make him feel bad for something that’s not his fault.

As you start filling out the usual information on his paperwork, you get to his birthday and realize that it just passed! Maybe it’s a good idea to hold off on that information unless he asks you. Maybe you can make it up to him and have a late birthday party / welcome home party when he’s discharged. You also have to find a time to re-announce your pregnancy but you’ll probably hold off on that one as long as you can.

“Are we… happy?” He asks in a voice barely above a whisper.

Of all the questions he could have asked you, that’s not one you thought would be on the list.

“Yes. Very happy. Why?” On one hand you want to know who the hell that woman was. But on the other hand, you don’t know if you can handle the roller coaster of emotions that would come with a devastating admission.

“It’s just,” he pauses again and now you’re getting really nervous. “Why haven’t I seen you until… today?”

You didn’t want to overwhelm him with information today but there’s probably no way around it now, unless you lie. And you can’t lie to someone who already doesn’t know what the hell is going on. It could jeopardize any progress he makes.

“Well, nobody knew where you were, Satoru.”

A look that you can only classify as ‘what the fuck are you talking about’ flashes across his face before he asks, “what does that mean nobody knew where I was?”

“Uhm, you went missing a little while ago. Today is the first time anyone has been able to find you.” You really hate giving him such a basic explanation but this is probably a conversation better suited for the two of you with the detectives.

“How long?”

“Just under six weeks.”

His brows raise, his eyes widen, and his jaw drops open as you probably knew it would. But this isn’t something that you can lie about. And if you want to establish trust with him, you can’t push things off either. Instead of speaking, he lays back in bed and just looks at the ceiling.

You don’t know what to say, so you go back to finishing all this paperwork before the nurse comes in to retrieve it.

You can’t imagine what’s going on in his head. You don’t even know exactly where his memory starts or with you. And to learn that you have people in your life who missed you but you didn’t even know and probably had no way to find out, it has to be the worst thing.

After a few more minutes of silence, you decide to try speaking to him again, “Satoru? Are you okay?” Probably a stupid question, but you don’t want him to shut down completely.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” is all he says.

You’re both sitting there in that awkward and uncomfortable silence when you feel your phone vibrate. You pull it out of your coat pocket and see that it’s a text from Kento.

Kento: You’ve been gone for a while. Is everything okay?

You; There’s a lot to talk about. Did Utahime and Yu show up yet?

Kento: A few minutes ago. So, is it him?

You: Kind of.

“Hot date?”

“Huh?” You’re not sure if he really said that or if it’s just what you heard. He points at your phone and you know that he really just decided to start teasing out of nowhere. Thank god. That’s so him.

“No. Our friends came with me to see if it was really you, they just wanna know what’s going on.”

“Really?” He looks stunned. But why? What was he being told over this time period? Clearly he was with other people so what the hell is going on?

“Yeah, everyone was really excited to see if you were here. I would have brought them up with me but, you know, doctor’s rules and all.”

Just as he’s about to say something else, the door to his room opens up and a nurse walks in.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I have to steal him away to start his tests. You can wait here if you want, but it’s probably going to take a while,” she says in a pretty upbeat tone. It’s nice considering most women seeing you with Satoru start to act like it’s a competition for attention instead of going about their day.

“That’s fine, I’ll head out. I also don’t want to continue to pester him while he’s getting all of this done.” Before leaving, you walk over to Satoru to say goodbye for the day, “I’ll see you tomorrow, if that’s okay?”

“Of course it is, why wouldn’t it be? Aren’t you my wife? I’m not gonna ban you from coming to see me.” Fuck, that’s a relief.

“I just… I know you’re going through a lot and don’t want you to feel overwhelmed or pressured or anything like that.” That’s the nicest way you can say ‘I don’t want you to feel obligated to love me again.’

He seems to understand how you’re feeling though and wastes no time in dispelling those fears, “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Especially if you show up in another outfit like that.” This fucking guy.

“I’ll see what I can do,” is all you say before turning around and walking out the door.

Once outside his room, you stand outside for a minute to take a deep breath before making a quick trek to the elevator at the opposite end of the hallway.

Out of all the possibilities that were running through your head while he was missing, this was not one of them. There were two theories that kept coming and going. One, it wasn’t him on the surveillance footage and there was no chance of him coming home. And two, it was him and he didn’t care to stay hidden because he had an affair and moved to go start a new life with someone in the most cowardly way possible.

Him coming home with no memory of at least the last ten years of his life was not something that ever occurred to you.

And not only that, but there was some random woman with him. Did he fall in love with someone else over the time he was gone? What the fuck is going on?

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

You’re back at your apartment after practically sprinting out of the hospital and then sitting in a very awkward silent car ride home. You didn’t want to break the news to your friends while you were still there since you knew that they wouldn’t be allowed to see him.

But now you’re sitting at your dining room table in the home that you and Satoru share trying to figure out how to break the news to them. There’s probably no easy way to do this so you may just have to rip the band-aid off as they say.

“So, what’s going on? Was it him?” Suguru asks you. Okay, so Kento didn’t relay your text message, maybe that’s a good thing. It probably would have resulted in a lot more confusion if he did.

“Yeah, it’s him. For the most part.” All eyes are on you and it’s very fucking uncomfortable. “I met his doctor and got his diagnosis and it may be difficult to deal with at first, so we have to be patient.”

Everyone is staring you down right now. You can’t really blame them seeing as they probably think you’re speaking in riddles. But if you’re being honest, you didn’t realize how much this situation affects everyone at this table. Everyone here has known Satoru for as long as you have with the exception of Suguru who’s actually known him since childhood.

And now that you’re sitting here, stalling when it comes to breaking the news to them, you realize that you’re not the only one who may feel like they’re losing something. “Difficult, in what way?”

“I met his neurologist and he diagnosed him with post-traumatic amnesia.” That’s all you say. You have a feeling nobody is going to believe you, so you want them to work that out for themselves first. After a few seconds of silence, everyone except for Kento starts laughing. You had a feeling that this was one of his theories he was keeping to himself and by the look on his face, this was confirmation. As for the rest of the group, they clearly think you’re telling a joke even though you gave no indication of such a thing.

It’s Utahime who stops laughing first when she sees the look on your face, “you’re not kidding, are you?”

“Nope.”

Everyone stops and just looks at each other as if it’s the craziest thing they’ve ever heard.

“How did this happen?”

“Well, he did suffer blunt force to his head. It’s probably from that.”

“This explains his new sense of fashion and that shitty haircut,” Suguru couldn’t wait to bust that one out. But you can’t help but giggle a little bit after he says that because Satoru’s short hair is so fucking weird to you. It looks like he just joined the military and his head looks so big.

“How much does he remember?” Kento inquires.

“We don’t know yet. He didn’t recognize me when I walked into his hospital room.” There’s an audible gasp after those words leave your lips. “I figure that when we visit him, we can just go a couple at a time to try to see who he may remember in order to estimate how much time he lost.”

Everyone seems to be in agreement with that plan. Unfortunately, there’s really no other option. You just really hope that he didn’t lose his entire life even if he doesn’t remember you.

But now, you have to break the rest of the news.

“There’s one more thing that I have to tell you guys,” you pause to take a breath before continuing. “When I got to his hospital room, there was another woman there.”

You look around and all your friends have pure rage in their faces. You honestly didn’t think that’d be the thing that pissed them off more.

“Are you sure she wasn’t a nurse?” Oh Kento, always the voice of reason.

“She looked like a model and clearly wasn’t part of the staff. She also alluded to being Satoru’s girlfriend so there’s that.”

You flinch as you hear a bang on the table next to you. You look over and see that it’s Choso, the quietest one in the group.

You explain the rest of the situation with Mei, your new adversary if you were making an educated guess. Everybody’s face shifts from anger, to being modified, to being sad, to being full of rage again.

“Is it really fair to hold it against him though? I mean, he has no idea what’s going on with himself, let alone relationships with anyone else.” You’re trying to talk down your friends because you don’t want them all showing up tomorrow spewing nothing but negativity. That won’t help the situation in any way.

“So… you’re fine with another woman coming in and stealing your husband while you’re sitting at home pregnant with his child?” Damn Utahime.

“No, of course not. But he has no idea what’s going on so I don’t want to blame him for that. It’s not like he left me for Mei, he had no idea I existed.” You knew you were going to have to do a lot of defending, but you are a little surprised at how upset everyone seems.

“Mei? Did she look like this?” Yu pulls out his phone and shows you a picture. Damn, it’s her.

“How did you instantly know who I was talking about?” Does everyone know this woman except for you? “Is she famous or something?”

“She’s a social media influencer,” he replies.

“Okay, so she’s not famous.”

“Maybe not technically, but she has a pretty decent following. She’s constantly getting dressed up, going out, taking pictures, all the things that those people do.” He seems to be pretty familiar with this woman.

Ugh, you already know that instead of sleeping, you’ll spend hours looking at this woman’s social media wondering ‘why her?’ You never thought you’d be put in this position and it fucking sucks.

Everyone else starts pulling out their phones and looking her up as well. One person is on Instagram, another is on TikTok, etc. You didn’t feel like doing the same so you just cheat by sneaking glances at the phones next to you.

“Why didn’t Satoru know that he was missing?” Kento asks the room.

“He did lose his phone, so it’s not like he was posting on his own accounts,” Suguru responds.

“I know that. But this woman makes a living off of social media, a place where a lot of awareness was raised for his case. If he was with her, how did he not find out?”

It’s a good question and it’s one you’ve been wondering yourself.

Was she a part of whatever happened to him? Or did she just find someone in a vulnerable state and decide to take advantage of them? Unfortunately, these aren’t answers you could get from Satoru and you doubt that she’d admit to being such a miserable bitch.

“When is he allowed to have more visitors?”

“I think as long as we don’t show up with too many people at a time, it might be okay to continue going tomorrow. I wanna stop by early to take him food and drop off the bag that’s still in Kento’s trunk.” Even though the situation is incredibly frustrating, you still want him to be comfortable. You’re not going to abandon your husband for something that’s not technically his fault.

“I think Suguru should go with you tomorrow.” Oh Kento, always has a plan.

“Why is that?”

“We don’t have any idea as to where his memory is at. Suguru is the only one at this table that he’s known since childhood and everybody else sitting here, he met when he met you. If you go with him tomorrow, it’ll help us find out how much he knows and how to help him. Plus, we don’t want to have too many people around all the time and completely overstimulate him.” Fair point.

“I’m gonna start working on a photo album!” Yu shouts with pure excitement in his voice.

The rest of the friend group starts brainstorming ways on how to help Satoru. Everyone wants to create their own photo album and include little descriptions with them to help him remember things. If it wasn’t so devastating, it would be super cute.

As the night goes on, your friends slowly start to leave one by one, with the exception of Choso who has practically moved in at this point.

Choso decided to take over the cleaning that he once again, will not let you help with. So, you decide to go to your room and make a phone call.

You haven’t spoken to either of the detectives on Satoru’s case in a couple of days and since they haven’t called you, you’re assuming that they don’t know that he’s been found. You know that they have to confirm that it’s him regardless, but you don’t want them to drop too many bombs on him in one day. So you’re going to call them first and give them a heads up on the situation.

You pull your phone out of your purse and start searching through your contacts for their numbers. You decide to call Usami since he’s the one who you’ve had the most contact with since all of this started.

One ring. Two rings. Three rings. And you remember how bad your phone anxiety is. Lame.

By the fourth ring, you hear a man answer the phone, “Detective Usami speaking.”

“Uh, hi. This is Mrs. Gojo.” You feel so fucking awkward on the phone and you can’t understand why.

“Yes, I recognize the number. Is everything alright?”

“I just wanted to let you know that my husband has been found.”

There’s silence for a few moments and you start to wonder if you’ve been put on hold or hung up on.

But finally, he responds, “are you certain that it's him?”

“I spoke with him in the hospital this afternoon.”

“That’s interesting. We had a lead as to where he was but we didn’t want to get your hopes up before we confirmed it. I apologize.”

“Ohh it’s okay! I have a friend who works there so that’s how I found out. I know that you still have to verify his welfare in person, but I wanted to let you know a little bit about what I learned.”

You spend a few minutes on the phone explaining everything that you’ve learned today. You tell him exactly how you found him and what his condition is. He told you that they’ll still be showing up to meet him and make sure he’s okay. But that they’ll hold off on the hard hitting questioning until he heals up a little more. Since he doesn’t seem to know anything, they don’t see the point in potentially traumatizing him when they have a better chance solving the case without him at this point.

You eventually get off the phone and finish up your night time routine before climbing into bed. You try to distract yourself by putting something silly on the tv but your mind just won’t let you rest. You pull your phone back out and start browsing through Mei’s social media accounts.

She is attractive, you won’t deny that. But what else does she have going for her? Even though both you and Satoru have social media accounts, you don’t make it a point to post constantly. You like to share photos, but neither of you let it run your life. He used to laugh at people who acted like their life was over if they missed a day of posting. And now what? He’s in a relationship or a situationship with someone like her?

But you can’t stop thinking about what Kento said earlier, if he’s been with her, and she’s introducing herself as his girlfriend, where the hell is he in these posts about her life? You wouldn’t think too much of it if she didn’t post other friends up and down her accounts.

Fuck. You’re tired.

“Put your phone away before you start asking yourself ‘that’ question,” you hear behind you, not even noticing that Choso entered the room until he spoke.

“What question?”

“The ‘what does she have that I don’t’ question. You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re fucking funny, and the two of you have a hell of a lot in common. I think it’s safe to say more than them. You just need to spend more time together so that he can see that.”

You put your phone away and lay back in bed because he’s right. You were starting to let yourself get to that line of questioning and it’s not healthy. You’re literally carrying this man’s baby, you can’t allow those negative feelings to take over ever, but especially not right now.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

You look good. Real good.

You’re wearing a short, black, silk, mini slip dress. You paired it with a black faux fur coat and a pair of strappy heels. And of course, a pair of black thigh highs which he always loses it over.

You did your makeup with a very dramatic smokey eye that he always liked and that plumper lip gloss that he’d end up smearing not even five minutes after you put it on. You tied your hair up into an intentional messy bun and threw in a couple sparkly clips to pop amongst all the black.

Nevermind, you don’t look good. You look fucking incredible. .

You do a once over in the mirror to make sure everything is in place, and then you finally leave your bedroom to meet your friends in the kitchen.

The only person who’s coming with you today is Suguru so you don’t want to have him waiting on you too long.

But Kento still decided to come over because you live closer to the hospital and he wants to be closer in case you need a shoulder to lean on.

“Woooohhhh! Can you be classified as a MILF before you have the baby?”

“Suguru!” He would say something like that.

“Ready to go?”

“Yes sir. But we still have to stop off to pick up Satoru’s food.” You know that hospital food isn’t exactly gourmet, so you decided to order from one of his favorite places and take it with you when you go.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. We’ll get his food so he can get the precious princess treatment,” Suguru says with a sigh. He knows you mean well, but he’s still upset about the Mei news on top of everything else. “Shouldn’t his ‘girlfriend’ be bringing him food?” See. There it is.

“Suguru,” Kento scolds. But honestly, he’s kinda right.

You don’t want to make it a whole big thing so you bid farewell to your friends and then you make your way out.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

Alright, maybe you overdid it with the food. He likes a lot of stuff on this menu so you got a few appetizers and entrees, but then made the choice to get one of each of the sweets. Not only do you have two bags of food, but you have two boxes of cupcakes, cookies, cake pops, fruit tarts, all the stuff you expect to see in a bakery. Thank goodness for your strong friend who wants to do all the heavy lifting for you.

“Suguru, are you really going to be able to carry all the food and his bag? I can hold stuff you know. I’m pregnant. My arms didn’t fall off.”

Once again, he declines. As much as you want to help out, you’re not going to push him on it. If he wants to grab all the bags and boxes, you’ll do the rest. You get his keys and lock the car up before you two start to make your way into the hospital.

You see that it’s only Nobara sitting at the reception desk and it makes you feel so much better that she’s the one greeting you today. You get the visitor's stickers and then start making your way to Satoru’s room.

Once you enter the elevator and the doors close, Suguru asks you if you’re nervous. If you’re being completely honest with yourself, you are. But you keep trying to push those feelings down because they are going to cause more harm than good.

“Are you nervous?” You ask him.

“Ehhh, not as much as the others probably are. I am a little annoyed that he doesn’t remember making my life a living hell when he wanted to date you. But it is what it is, I guess.”

Before you know it, you’re standing outside of Satoru’s door and that’s when the nerves really kick in. You’re just really hoping that he’s the only one on the other side. You knock but this time, you don’t hear anyone answer. You slowly open the door and walk inside to see Satoru sleeping, in his bed, alone. Thank fucking goodness.

You and Suguru do your best to quietly enter his room and put his things away without disturbing him. But it’s irrelevant because when you’re helping Suguru place the food bags down, you hear Satoru call your name and it melts your heart. At least he remembers that.

“Heyyy, sorry to wake you up.” You apologize profusely because being here all the time must be exhausting and you know you hate when someone interrupts your sleep.

“No, it’s fine. I’ve been drifting in and out for the past hour because I’ve been so bored.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but we have stuff for you. Are you hungry?”

Satoru doesn’t respond at first. He just looks you up and down with his mouth agape and hunger in his eyes before finally saying, “famished.”

This dress was such a good investment.

“Uh Suguru, could you help me set up everything for him?” After saying that, you hear Satoru repeat ‘Suguru’ in a voice barely above a whisper. Did that trigger something? You hope so.

As you’re setting up the table and bringing the bags over, you’re startled when you hear your husband yell out “you!” while pointing at his best friend.

“Do you remember me?” He asks him.

“I think I remember your face, although the romance novel cover hair threw me off.” Okay, so Satoru still has jokes.

“Better than your shitty wannabe drill sergeant haircut you have right now.” These fucking guys.

“What’s wrong with my hair?!” Satoru asks with a pout.

“Dude, we don’t have all day for me to list everything that’s wrong with it.” Of all the conversations they could have had for the first time, you didn’t expect this to be it.

“Anyway,” you take the time to interrupt them before this gets out of hand. “I got a few of your favorites from the restaurant down the street from our home. I also got one of everything on the dessert menu.”

“Damn. It takes one hell of a sweet tooth to eat all that. Do I really eat that much?” That’s surprising.

“You started eating sweets like crazy saying that it helped you focus, and now you just can’t stop,” you tell him with a chuckle.

You take a seat in the chair on one side of his bed while Suguru sits in the one on the opposite side.

“So, how have you been, dumbass?” Fucking Suguru.

“I don’t remember you being such a bully,” Satoru says but you can tell he’s not taking it seriously.

“Yeah but it seems like you don’t remember everything.” Fucking hell. “What do you remember?” Okay, right into it then.

“I remember something about suits and a tree. Everything is just really fuzzy. It feels like one of those things where you don’t remember someone’s name or face too much, but if you see it or hear it, it clicks. Besides that, I just see flashes of you as a kid, I think.”

Okay, that’s good to know. That means that creating albums and telling him stories may help him out.

While you’re lost in thought, Suguru explains what Satoru was alluding to, “that sounds like the night of homecoming our freshman year. We decided to ditch early and have a few drinks of some really cheap Vodka in a treehouse. But, you can’t hold your liquor to save your life, so I had to carry you on my back down the street to get you food because you kept complaining that you were going to die even though you only had two shots.”

You can’t help but laugh at that. Two shots? That makes you think of that scene in Fun with Dick and Jane when Jim Carrey was dancing on a table and then the bartender revealed that he only had half a beer. You don’t drink either so you might have the same reaction, but damn.

“Anyway, your wife brought you stuff.”

“More stuff? You spoil me, but I’m not complaining.” Yeah, that’s still your husband.

“I’m complaining, but hey, she loves you and wants your stay to be comfortable or something,” Suguru dramatically explains.

You walk around his bed to the other side of the room to get the weekend bag with everything you packed.

“I put in a few sweaters that you always like wearing around the house,” you start pulling things out to show him as you explain everything. “I also threw in a blanket in case the ones here aren’t that comfortable. I packed you a bag of snacks and got you a new phone since yours is destroyed. I restored it using your account so that it’s exactly the same as the one you had before.” You hand that over to him immediately. Since he said he was bored, maybe this will help out.

“You didn't have to do all of this, but thank you,” he says with a bit of sauce on the side of his mouth. He’s so fucking cute that you can barely stand it.

“I took the passcode off so that you didn’t have to worry about it, but you can change that back whenever you want to.” You move back over to your seat on the other side of his bed.

He picks the phone up and starts going through it right away. You’re a little nervous yourself because you don’t know exactly what’s in there. While you two have always had each other's passcodes, you always made a point to respect your partner's privacy and you never went through his phone. You know he has a lot of albums of the two of you because you did a quick little browse to make sure stuff loaded in, but that’s about it.

“When was this?” He turns his phone over to show you the album he’s inquiring about.

“That was this past summer. We went out to the lake to feed the ducks and then we decided to just hang out and have a little impromptu picnic while we were there. There’s food trucks in the area so we picked stuff up and hung out for a bit.”

You remember that day very well. After the ducks no longer found you interesting, Satoru pulled a blanket over the two of you and decided to bury his fingers inside of you the first chance he got. Luckily, there was nobody else in your area to witness such an act. But you really hope that there’s no videos of it in there. He does like to record everything and that makes you a little nervous.

You look back up at Satoru and see him with rosy cheeks staring at his phone and you can only guess what he came across in what, a minute and a half?

“Everything okay?” You don’t want Suguru to potentially witness your porn but you wanna know what he’s staring at.

Satoru doesn’t say anything, he just turns his phone around and shows you a picture. It’s you, bent over, on your hands and knees while he lifts up your skirt and takes a picture of your panties. Honestly, it’s pretty tame compared to what else is probably in there.

“Oh, that?” You giggle and refrain from saying anything else.

That’s how the rest of your visit with Satoru goes. He goes through the various albums and asks you to tell him about the pictures he comes across. It makes you feel good to know that he’s trying without you even asking him to.

Suguru also shows him a bunch of stuff on his phone and gives him the stories of your matching tattoos. Satoru was stunned to learn that you also have the heart tattoo but you think it helped him see just how close you two are.

And he started absolutely demolishing the desserts. Since he made it sound like he hasn’t had anything, you were wondering if he no longer liked them. But that’s clearly not the case. Maybe whoever he was staying with just didn’t keep those things in their home.

You didn’t ask any questions about what happened and who he’s been with for the past few weeks. You wanted today to be a positive visit where you taught him more about his past and less about you interrogating him to get answers for yourself. You also know that the detectives should be coming by at some point and you’ll leave them to do the good cop bad cop thing seeing as they actually are the cops.

“Well, Suguru and I are going to be heading out now because he has to take me to a doctor’s appointment.”

All the color drains from Satoru’s face right after those words leave your lips. “Are you okay?”

You don’t want him to worry but it makes you feel good to know that he cares.

“I’m fine, it’s just a checkup. Nothing to worry about. Can I come see you tomorrow?”

“You can come on me anytime.” He freezes before correcting himself, “I mean, you can come see me anytime you want.”

You giggle and lean in to give him a hug and you can hear how deeply he breathes you in. Ugh, he’s so hot.

“I’m not gonna press my tits up against you so I’ll just see you later,” Suguru says before waving and walking towards the door.

You follow Suguru out the door and let out a breath you feel like you’ve been holding in since you got there. All in all, today was a good day. And most importantly, no Mei today.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

“How’d it go?” Kento asks after you walk in and have a seat on the couch.

“It was good. Baby’s healthy, about the size of a turnip.”

“Hmmm. And how was the visit with your husband?”

“I think it went well. He asked Suguru and I a lot of questions so I think that’s a good sign that he’s trying. But he’s a little different. He seemed shocked when he told him that he eats sweets like he’s trying to make sugar go out of business.” It seems like he just came back thinking it was opposite day and that’s bizarre. But who cares? You still have time to figure it out.

“Did you tell him about the pregnancy?”

“No. I wanted everything today to be as low stress as possible so I decided to save that for another visit depending on how things go when I return.“ A part of you wanted to do it today, but you don’t know how well that would have been received and you just didn’t feel like today was the right time.

Kento nods before getting up and walking into the kitchen to bring you back a plate of food. “I know you fed him, but I have a feeling that you didn’t take care of yourself yet.“ he pushed the plate and the utensils in front of you and motioned for you to start eating.

He’s right. Especially with the baby moving closer and closer to entering the world everyday, you need to take better care of yourself.

“When are you going back?”

“Tomorrow. I’m gonna take a photo album with me. I have one where there’s descriptions on the page opposite the picture so I think that’ll be good for him,” you say while taking a big bite of food. Kento filled this plate with steak and roasted potatoes. This man knows your weakness.

“I think I’ll go with you tomorrow, if that’s alright.”

“That’d be great, thank you.” You’re excited because you didn’t think he’d be so willing to go.

“Have the detectives spoken to him yet?”

“I think they’re supposed to go sometime today. Usami told me he’d let me know after they’d spoken to him.”

The two of you continue to sit in relative silence while you eat the rest of your lunch. If there’s one thing you can say about Kento, it’s that this man can cook his ass off.

Why is he single???

Just as you start wondering that, his phone rings.

“It’s one of the models I’m supposed to shoot this week, I have to take this.”

That’s right. Work-a-holic.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

A couple of days have passed and you’ve seen Satoru several times. The past few days have been very tiring so you don’t stay for too long when you see him. It’s usually you going as early in the day as you can and bringing him lunch, then you go back a few hours later and take him dinner about an hour before visiting hours shut down.

Being that you’re only seventeen weeks pregnant at this time, you’re not showing too much. But you still keep a coat on whenever you visit him because you’re not ready to drop that bomb on him until he comes home. You’d hate to tell him and then have to leave right after so that he’s alone with his thoughts all night.

The two of you have even been texting back and forth when he has questions about photos and videos on his phone, things you’ve done as a couple, or even questions about himself. He’s really been making an effort so you’ve been making sure that you’re always available to him.

And because of the fact that he didn’t know the volume on his phone was turned up, you know firsthand that he’s come across some of your more adult videos he filmed.

The detectives went to meet with him to confirm his welfare and ask him what he remembers, if anything. They gave him the bare minimum on what was going on with the investigation and asked him just enough to see if he remembered anything about his attack, which he didn't. They decided to give him a break until he seems comfortable back at home since they don’t get the vibe that his life is in immediate jeopardy.

Kento also started visiting him the day after your initial visit which resulted in him already being tired of seeing him. As soon as he walked in the room, Satoru apologized to him and told him that he doesn’t remember anything more than he didn’t yesterday which resulted in Kento having to explain that he’s not law enforcement on his case and he was actually his wedding photographer. For the rest of the visit, Satoru periodically made jokes about how they look like twins. Poor Kento.

You don’t ask them too many questions about their visits because you don’t want to pry. But Kento did tell you that Satoru said, “she married me?” Like he was in completely disbelief. And it resulted in Kento saying, “yes, and for the life of me, I still can’t understand why.” You wouldn’t expect any other response from him and you kind of love that even with everything going on, he still has that one-liner ready to go at a moment's notice.

Choso, Utahime, and Yu still haven’t been to the hospital though. Everyone decided that between testing and the few people already visiting him, any additional people may do more harm than good by completely confusing him.

But there is still one additional person who continues to see him, and that’s Mei.

The good thing is that you haven’t seen her as often. She’s usually coming as you’re going or going as you’re coming so there’s not really any interaction between the two of you. But it has definitely resulted in a bit of unspoken competition.

She wears perfume? You wear yours a spray stronger.

She wears heels and a dress? You wear higher heels and a tighter dress paired with the thigh highs that always has your husband losing your mind.

You haven’t seen her be too physically affectionate, in person, that is. You have seen her sitting on the side of his bed when you come into the room, but nothing more than that. But one day she did leave a lipstick mark on his cheek and you had to stop yourself from making sure that she was also admitted into said hospital.

That was a tough pill to swallow considering the fact that you’ve been trying to keep your distance and not be too physical with him because you don’t want him to feel like you’re being too pushy. You give him hugs when you arrive and before you leave, but you try not to do more than that. But it’s hard when you see another woman being completely comfortable with him to do whatever she wants while you end up on the sidelines watching your marriage basically crumble.

But throughout all of that, the biggest positive is that Satoru is coming home soon.

When you visited him earlier today, his doctor came in and informed you that he’d be discharged tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

After seven weeks of not being together, he’s gonna be able to come home. And he seemed really excited about it which made you even happier.

Because of the fact that he’ll be coming home tomorrow, you decided to skip the second visitation time today. You’re having Kento and Suguru pick up food for him which they promptly respond with, “you spoil him.”

So what? Maybe you do.

And you’re going to spoil him even more when he gets home.

You’re taking the rest of the night with Choso and Utahime to make everything comfortable for him. You’re washing all his sweaters that you’ve been sleeping in for the past seven weeks. You washed and changed the sheets on your bed but also the guest room in case he’s not ready to share a bed with a relative stranger yet. You’re fluffing all the pillows, polishing everything you can, you’re even scrubbing down all the walls.

You’re even working on a fancy two tier cake as a welcome home / belated birthday cake for the occasion. You’re not the most experienced cake decorator, but you can create that frosting drip effect. So you’re making a blue cake with white frosting dripping all around the top. You’re going to write ‘Welcome Home Satoru’ on the top and hope that it comes out looking nice.

Tomorrow morning, you’re going to set up all the party decorations. It’s not gonna be a big thing, just your closest friends. But you are going to have balloons, streamers, welcome home banners, and maybe confetti somewhere because it just makes it feel more festive.

So much to do. So little time.

“Didn’t you already dust all those photos?” You didn’t even hear Utahime enter the room but there she is.

“Probably, but I just want to make sure that everything is perfect for him.”

“Okay, but do you really think he’s going to inspect the picture frames?”

“Maybe not intentionally, but he may come over to look at the photos.” She’s right though, you are probably overdoing it.

“He’s been in the hospital for days, he’s just going to be happy that he’s coming home to a real home with a real bed,” she says while taking the feather duster from you.

“Maybe. But I don’t know how he was living with whoever before he ended up in the hospital. What if our home isn’t enough?”

“It will be. Because it’s yours.” You hope that she’s right. You’ve been in this place since he asked you to live with him so it holds a lot of memories.

Truth be told, you still don’t know too many details about where he was or who he was before he ended up in the hospital.

Suguru did ask him questions because even though you were reluctant to put him on the spot, he wasn’t. He wanted to know where he was, how he wasn’t found, and how apparently nobody else knew he was a missing person.

He didn’t press him for too many details, but he did learn a few things.

He was staying with Mei.

He did interact with other people while being there.

Mei was very forward with him about wanting a real relationship.

He wasn’t really surprised hearing those things, especially not the last one. She comes off as territorial seeing as she acts like his wife is the other woman in the relationship. But he was a bit concerned that he was apparently around someone with an active social circle but nobody knew what the hell was going on with him.

But then again, maybe they genuinely didn’t. That couple at the pharmacy didn’t know what was going on because they didn’t watch the news so maybe this isn’t some big thing, maybe it’s all just a coincidence.

You hear your cooking timer go off and rush into the kitchen to check the status of the cake. It still feels like you have so many things to do even though you’re practically done with everything except for that.

“How does it look?” Choso asks as he rummages through your refrigerator for something to drink.

“I think it needs a few more minutes. I hope it finishes soon so that I can add the frosting tonight.”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll help you with the rest if you need to go to bed.” Other people complain about being babied, but not you. While you’re excited for your husband to return, you’re also going to miss someone always being there to help you with things when you need them. Now you’re going to be the one doing all the work for the home and for Satoru.

You feel bad because you don’t want to leave him with the work for your husband, but you’re fucking exhausted. You’ve been up since early this morning getting ready to see Satoru and take him things. Then you ran to multiple stores getting stuff to have for him when he gets back home, and now you’ve been cleaning for hours. You’ve been tired for awhile, but you’ve been trying to not let it show.

“Go to bed. I see you making excuses in your head. But you’re tired and being pregnant is making it worse, go to bed. I’ll finish up here.” It’s like he can read your thoughts and for that, you’re grateful.

“I think I’m gonna head home and get some rest too. I gotta get this stuff ready for tomorrow for your loud ass husband.” Thanks Utahime.

“On the bright side, he may not remember who you are so he may not tease you as much,” you tell her and she fucking smiles. “Thanks for coming by and doing so much.” You give her a hug and she heads out the door.

You’re exhausted so you go to your room, brush your teeth, and then go straight to bed. You couldn’t give less of a fuck about anything once your body feels those sheets. It feels like you haven’t rested your body in weeks even though it’s only been one long day. You try to stay awake for a little longer in case Choso needs help with anything, but after your head hits that pillow, you’re out in a matter of minutes.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

It’s the next morning and you’re up bright and early.

Too fucking early.

But there’s a lot to do which means that you can’t stay in bed and hit snooze on your alarms six times.

You slowly climb out of bed and get in the shower to start your day. You even do your lengthy hair care routine so that it’s as soft and beautiful as possible.

After getting out of the shower, you wrap a towel around yourself and have a seat at your vanity. You decide to do a halo look for your eyes today using various shades of black / grey with a pop of blue in there. You make your highlighter bright enough to blind someone and work your lip-liner magic as much as you can to make your lips look as plump as possible. You dab on some pink blush because he loves the rosy cheeks and start to work on your hair. Lucky for you, not too much goes into that. It is already a bit air dried so you use a blow dryer to do the rest of the work before putting your hair up in heated rollers and letting them sit while you work on everything else.

When you woke up, Choso was gone which means he was probably setting everything up.

All your closest friends took the day off of work so that they could be here to welcome Satoru home.

You throw on a robe and leave your bedroom and you���re absolutely blown away by everything you see. All the things that you had on the list are perfectly set up. There’s welcome home banners, some helium balloons filled with confetti and some blown up but on the floor. There’s other dangling decorations and everything just looks incredible.

You go into the kitchen to get something to drink and see Choso in the kitchen working on something.

“Good morning,” you greet before getting too close. You have a habit of accidentally scaring people.

“Morning. How’d you sleep?”

“Fine, I guess. Did you do all of this?”

He nods. “I woke up some time ago so I decided to get as much done as possible. Do you wanna change anything?”

“No, it’s perfect. Thank you. I just hope it wasn't too much for you.”

“It was fine.” He still hasn’t looked up from whatever he’s doing.

“What are you up to now?”

He motions for you to come over and your jaw drops. He’s been working on the cake this whole time and it’s fucking incredible. It’s still white, but he’s taken blue and black frosting and somehow drawn little caricatures of Satoru along the sides. It pays to be best friends with an incredible artist.

“What do you think?”

“I fucking love it. I was just going to do the bare minimum, but this looks amazing. Thank you!” You throw your arms around him to hug him. It’s nice to see everyone in your life putting in so much work for him.

“I’m glad you like it.”

He finished decorating and setting the cake up to give it its two tiered drama and you return to your room to finish getting ready. You decide to go above and beyond with your outfit today. You’ve pulled out a light pink, strapless, floor length dress, with cutouts open down the sides and just some ribbons holding it together. It’s tight, it makes your tits look good, and you can’t wear panties with it. Whatever, it’s gonna be amazing.

You take your rollers out and your hair falls into the most beautiful curls. You decide to pull back some of your hair into a sparkly clip just to make sure it’s not in your face, but still frames it beautifully. After fixing your hair, you slide on your dress and you take your own breath away.

You go to check your phone and right as you pick it up, you have a message from Kento letting you know that he’s outside. He’s going to take you to pick up donuts for Satoru and then pick up Satoru and bring him home.

This is the most excited and most nervous you’ve ever been and unfortunately it’s happening at the same time.

You put on your heels and throw on your cream coloured faux fur coat before spritzing yourself with Satoru’s favorite perfume. He even got you one of those vintage perfume bottles to keep it in because he likes watching you get ready. You grab your purse and finally leave your bedroom.

“Choso! Kento and I are heading to the hospital now. Do you need anything before I go?”

“Nope, go get your man” he says while still putting all his focus into this cake.

You grab your keys and rush downstairs to go meet Kento.

When you get downstairs, he’s outside his car waiting for you and when he sees you, his brows raise and a hint of a smile appears on his face.

You pull your jacket down and do a little spin, “do you think he’ll like it?”

All he says in response is, “obviously.”

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

Once you arrive at the hospital, Kento decides to stay behind so that he can keep the car warm. You have no problem with that because you don’t see yourself being here long. Dr. Yaga said Satoru was being discharged in the morning so that should be soon.

When you enter the hospital, you see the receptionist that you can’t stand so you immediately walk past her and into the elevator. You’d feel bad if it was Nobara, but you have no time for this woman's shenanigans today.

It feels like you blink and you’re outside Satoru’s room. You knock twice and when you open the door, you see his back is towards you and it looks like he’s packing.

“Heyyyyy,” he turns around when he hears your voice and his jaw drops. He’s completely frozen with his eyes wide and cheeks pink and now you know that it was worth it when you spent hours getting ready for this moment.

You set the box of donuts down on his bed and ‘accidentally’ allow your coat to slip off your shoulders so he can get a better look at your outfit.

As happy as you are to get this reaction out of him, you’re a little concerned that you broke him because he’s been frozen for about a minute.

“You okay, Satoru?”

He literally shakes his head from side to side like he had to work himself out of a trance. “Yeah. Just uhhhh.. You. Look. Sensational.”

Maybe today was a bad day to wear a dress that you can’t wear panties with.

He takes a break from packing, sits down, and pats the space on the bed so that you can sit next to him. Things between you two are getting more comfortable by the minute and you can’t wait to spend one on one time with him, not in a hospital.

Not too long after you arrive, Dr. Yaga walks into the room. “Good morning.” He picks up Satoru’s chart and does a once over before speaking again. “How have you been feeling?”

Satoru turns to you and says, “much better.”

“That’s good. That’s good. Well, looking over all your test results, we don’t have any answers for your migraines other than it’s probably just from the assault. Since there’s nothing else that we can do for you here, I’m gonna allow you to be discharged today. Any questions?”

“Nope. Just excited to go home.”

Your heart skips a beat.

“Great. I’ll send the nurse in with your paperwork and then you can get going.”

You’re ecstatic. You can’t wait for him to get home and see how much everybody has missed him. Even Utahime even though she doesn’t want to admit it.

After a few more minutes pass, you hear a notification from a phone. You check yours that was buried in your pocket and it’s not from you so it must be him. But when you see him reach for a phone, it’s not the one that you gave him.

If that bitch gave him a phone she’s definitely getting her ass whooped.

After reading whatever the hell the message said, his smile falls and his entire personality shifts.

Fuck.

You don’t know what’s coming, but you can already sense that it’s not good.

Just as you’re about to ask him what’s wrong, the door to his room opens and the nurse comes in. You’re ecstatic but he seems even more disappointed. She drops off his paperwork, wishes him well, and then leaves.

Easy breezy. Except it seems like he’s getting more tense by the second.

“Satoru, is everything okay?”

He hesitates and you are already sure that whatever bad shit is about to happen, is going to fall down on you.

“Uhhhhhh, I don’t know how to say this.” Fuck.

“Say what?” You’re trying to not sound too disappointed but you’re probably not doing a good job at it.

“It’s about coming home.” Okay, now your stomach hurts. “I think… uhhhh… just for now…” He’s rocking back and forth and looking everywhere but at you so you have a feeling that you know where this is going.

“Satoru, relax. I’m not going to lash out or anything. Just say what’s on your mind.” That’s partially true. You won’t lash out at him, but you absolutely might slam some doors or something once you get home.

“It’s just, for now, I think I’m going to return to Mei’s instead of going home… with you,” he says with his head down.

It feels like your heart is crumbling.

“Oh… okay.”

He interrupts you before you can ramble on, “it’s not anything personal against you or anything. It’s just, while dealing with memory issues, it might be a little bit better to return to a familiar place so I don’t overwork my brain.” The doctor did say to go back to previous routines but okay. “I also don’t want to make things awkward with you with everything going on.” How sweet… except it’s fucking not.

You put on your best smile because you don’t want the last time you see him to be a yelling match. “It’s fine, I understand. I hope you do well. If you need anything, you now have a bunch of numbers to call.” You purposely didn’t say to call you because at this point, you may not answer the phone. “Anyway, I’m gonna head out.”

“Oh I wasn’t kicking you out. You can stay for a little lon–”

“It’s fine. Kento is downstairs keeping the car warm and I don’t want him to blow through all his gas doing so, so I’ll just hear from you when I hear from you.” That’s the last thing you say before turning around and bolting out the door.

[suggs444]

Bad For Buisness:

William Afton/Steve Raglan x Reader

Sypnopsis: You find out your boss, Steve, who is also your secret lover, has a false identity. As well as an unknown history. You attempt to be reasonable, to set things right, but your boss .. well, he knows you all too well.

TW: swearing, degrading, manipulating, implied sexual actions.

Authors note: Hi, Suggs here. So this is my first x reader that I’ve written in a long long time. And it’s my first ever William Afton based one too. I literally saw the movie and I was 🙈🙈 whenever peepaw was on screen. Anyways, I hope y’all enjoy and lmk if you want more / a part two. Thanks for reading !! <33

Gif by brotherdusk

..

“I should tell everyone!”

You protest, boldly, standing on the other side of Afton’s desk. Your arms cross in an attempt to assert your dominance in this situation - which is rare. William was usually the one with the upper hand. You were foolish to think otherwise, even now.

There he sat with his sunken frame, slouched in his office chair, hands loosely intertwined in his lap. Brows raised in mocking surprise, almost expecting, as if waiting for you to come to your senses. He stares, and you find yourself stuck for words.

You gulp, hard. Frozen in his icy gaze.

“I mean — you’re lying to our consumers! To your staff - to me! Your names not Steve Raglan ..” Your words drift off, lacking much defence and reason.

“It’s bad for business.”

You continue, proudly, pointing your chin upward. As though that sentence completely justified your debate.

William’s head tilts slightly,

“Since when do you care about business quality, y/n?”

You didn’t care. He knew it, and he knew you all too well. Well enough to know you didn’t give a shit about the business, or anyone else. You were upset about not knowing every little detail about him. You’re obsessed. Needy, he knows. Only the two of you mattered. The secret of your intimacy. The sneaking off, the inappropriate relationship. Now, that? That was bad for business.

“Hm?” He presses, condescendingly, brows raising more while waiting for an answer as he sits forward out of his slouch. His exposed forearms coming to lean against the table.

You’re quiet, already. Defeated.

He sucks on his teeth.

“That’s what I thought.”

He leans back into his chair with an exhale, shaking his head.

“I’ve done some things, y/n.” He confesses, “-bad things.”

You can only stare at him.

He pushes himself out of his chair, eyes remaining pinned to yours. You knew your boss wasn’t a good man, fuck, maybe that’s what drew you to him, but you hadn’t expected this.

“What things?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He cuts you off, stern. Stern enough that you know not to push it any more. You bite your tongue, suddenly feeling small by his towering height. William wasn’t a necessarily attractive man, or at least not for everyone. He was older than you. Much older. But clever, so very clever - and wise. Something about his stability, the way he carried himself. The reassurance he gave you and the praise. You could hardly resist him.

“Had to cover my tracks. Tie up loose ends, do you understand? That’s my business, it’s need to know and you don’t.” His voice, a nasal drawl as he slowly rounded the desk, the pads of his fingers drawing along the old wood as he reached you.

“And I certainly don’t need you,” he pauses, pressing his torso against your back. You can feel the heat of his breath on your neck, his scent, a mix of cheap cologne and tobacco.

“-running your sweet mouth and spilling my secrets.” He continues. You melt against him despite the firmness of his tone. You were a slave to your desires. Only he could make the meanest things sound so indulging.

You hum at the closeness. Trying to remain strong headed despite your vision clouding from the intensity of the lustful haze you had for this man. You weren’t weak, just devoted.

“Turn around, sweetheart.”

You do.

“Do you understand?”

You nod stubbornly. He tuts,

“Use your words, y/n.”

“I understand.”

He shoots you a unsatisfied look.

You sigh, “I understand, sir.”

He smiles then, cockily, knowing he had won this time. His eyes creasing beneath his glasses.

“That’s my girl.” He coos, a warm hand coming to cup your cheek. Your eyes close, savouring the action, leaning into his palm. He was always so busy, so intimacy came slim. A rarity. You learnt to enjoy the small gestures.

The warmth was gone the next second. Opening your eyes to find him returning to his seat. You whined softly, turning to him as he settled back in his chair - instantly going back to his paperwork.

“That’s it?” You plead.

His eyes shot up to you over his glasses. Almost surprised you were still there. He sighs through his nose.

“Tell you what,” he lifts his head to give you his full attention.

“You’ve got the rest of this week to prove you can keep your mouth shut. I wanna trust you, y/n. I can do that, can’t I?”

You nod, “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, Mr Afto-“ You stop yourself, realising you’re using his real name, his secret name. He’s glaring.

“-Mr Raglan.” You correct yourself, smiling wearily.

“Much better. Keep that up, and I’ll make up for lost time. I’ll give you what you need.”

You sigh sweetly, nodding. The mere thought of that making your knees weak.

“I won’t let you down, I promise.”

You reassure, shooting him one last smile as you turn and leave.

The week can’t end soon enough.

[extremelyblackandwhite]

pairing: dad!bucky barnes x au pair!reader

warnings: age gap (reader is 10 years younger than bucky), smut (18+, dni if under 18)

author’s note: an earlier update because i got some good news so you guys get good news as well xx

masterlist

i'd like to hang out with you for my whole life

Y/N was sure she was gonna lose her driving license the moment the police ran the plates based on how many accidents she'd almost gotten into and how many speeding limits she'd crossed, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter that she was gonna lose her license because she was also gonna lose her freedom as Y/N was very close to murdering the receptionist of the paediatrics department if she told her once more she couldn't tell her anything. She sighed angrily once more before continuing on to try and argue her soul about why she should know more about Sadie. What were all the years of debate club presidency if she couldn't argue with a receptionist?

      - What's going on? - Bucky came from the entry, joining Y/N and looking equally frazzled.

      - They won't tell us anything about Sadie. - Y/N pointed at the nurse in a way that reminded her of the way her mother used to argue with the baker whenever he tried to swindle her with stale bread.

      - What do you mean? - now he turned to the nurse and God bless her, because upsetting Bucky was not something someone should ever want. - She's our kid, since when do your staff keep us in the goddamn dark?

      - The doctor is still running some tests and when we have any news we'll let you know. As I've told your wife, please take a seat and we will let you know.

Bucky punched the desk a bit before grabbing Y/N and leading her towards the waiting area. Y/N crossed her arms, her gaze burning the receptionist as she wondered if when she was distracted she could steal and break her mug. Sadie is two, how come they're doing anything to her without talking to Bucky, the father, the parent. Bucky, himself, was shaking which stole her attention from the hellish receptionist.

      - Hey, what's going on? - she put her hand on his arm, hoping it would calm him down.

      - I don't like hospitals. - he looked up at the ceiling. - Reminds me of when they I lost my arm. I don't like it.

      - Uhm ... - she tried to distract him, looking around before she noticed Sadie's toy box. He'd brought the toy box. - Buck, is that Sadie's toy box?

      - Yes.

      - I said bring her cuddly toy not every single one she ever had. - how had he even managed to carry that so effortlessly? She'd once got her shirt stuck under it and it took her a while to get it off. It was a handmade wooden box Bucky had made for her with little flowers and her name carved in.

      - Well, Sadie sleeps with Bingo which is her favourite but what if she has a new favourite or her favourite needs a friend?

      - Point taken. - she shrugged. - You know, what's the point of me even studying and paying Columbia if they won't tell Columbia students anything?

      - I'm gonna make a call. Look after the toy box.

Y/N didn't like hospitals too much either, specially paediatrician aisles. It saddened herself and sometimes it gave her baby fever which was never good. Bucky yapped in the phone for a few seconds and as he was about to sit down, a doctor came through the doors and walked in their direction.

      - Sergeant Barnes. - he extended his hand to shake Bucky's. - I am so sorry, I didn't know you were here.

      - How's Sadie? We tried speaking to your receptionist but she wouldn't tell us anything.

      - I will absolutely check on your girl and I'll let you know. Give me five minutes.

The doctor left and Bucky sat down looking visibly upset once more. Y/N didn't know what to do or how to comfort him but she could distract him.

      - You could rule the world with your little phone there.

      - I know some people.

      - Honestly, can you call someone and make me pass my PhD?

      - Maybe I can sleep with Professor Anderson. - he said getting a chuckle out of Y/N for the first time since they fought. - She has a cute ass, I could do it.

      - She has a husband.

      - Married ladies, my favourite. - he joked before settling down, looking at the wall in front of him. - That's Doctor Tinsdale, he's on the board and he's ... Anna's dad.

      - Anna, your Anna?

      - Yeah. He doesn't know Anna's the mother. Not that it would matter anyway. - he shrugged. - Anna used to say she had a brother in New Haven she barely saw. Anyway, he can get information.

Y/N didn't say anything, instead leaning her head against his shoulder, her hand holding his until the doctor came back holding a medical board. Y/N got up, pulling Bucky up with her as he walked towards them.

      - So, the school guessed appendicitis and they were right. Because Sadie is so young and the risk of perforation is so high, we're wheeling her in for an appendectomy. You should be able to see her in an hour.

      - Can we see her before she goes into surgery?

      - She's already in surgery, Sergeant Barnes. Why don't you and your wife go and get some food and some coffee? I promise you, I'll tell you the second she's out of the block. She's with our best surgeons, she will be taken care of until you can see her.

Y/N nodded still holding Bucky's hand. At least the school had taken action and Sadie was going to be fine and see the two of them when she woke up. Until then, Y/N and Bucky were stuck with lovingly awful hospital cafeteria food. It was some kind of stew served with a bowl of carrot and squash soup. The two sat down in a table looking at the food with disgust.

      - Do you want some salt?

      - Hm? - Bucky looked up at Y/N.

      - Salt. I have salt.

      - How do you have salt?

      - I carry salt in my purse. They're always out at Columbia so I usually have some and you know how unflavoured and unsalted hospital food is. - she shrugged rummaging through her purse. - What are you thinking about?

      - Hm?

      - Earth to James Barnes. - she waved her hand in front of his face. - Hey what's on your mind?

      - Nothing's on my mind. - he went back to his soup, tasting it before grunting and putting the spoon back. He'd rather go hungry for the remaining of his time here.

      - C'mon, the TV has no sound and we have crappy food. We need entertainment so tell me what are you thinking about?

      - I'm thinking about Anna. - he finally said, looking at her as if he expected her to say the exact same things Steve said. He just stayed there, waiting to hear an earful, but she instead placed her hand over his. He looked at her for a few seconds before pulling his hand away, clearing his throat and getting up from his chair. - I'm gonna get some cake. You want some?

      - Huh ... sure. - she smiled, stretching the corner of her lips in a comprehensive smile. - Hey ... can I use your phone? Mine is out of charge and I need to make a call.

      - Sure. - he fished the phone from his trousers' pocket and handed it to her before going to grab themselves some cake or something with a bit of flavour.

(...)

A few hours passed down and Y/N had fallen asleep horizontally in the line of seats next to Bucky. He'd placed his jacket over her, himself also slightly between the states of awake and asleep. All Bucky could do was stare at the lights on the ceiling, the blinding yellow light reminding him of things he didn't wish to be reminded off.

      - Don't think about that. - a voice surprised him as he turned to the side, seeing who he least expected. - It's was in Switzerland for starters, not here.

      - Anna. - he got up staring at the woman in front of him. - What are you doing here?

      - Seems like you need some company. Shall we get some coffee?

Bucky looked at Y/N and Anna read his mind.

      - Let her sleep. It'll be quick.

He took a last look at Y/N before following Anna back to the cafeteria. He followed her with a mix of both confusion and distrust. He didn't know why she was here, maybe Steve told her since they're apparently such great friends. Judas. She sat down on a small table, it was blatant she was still wearing her work clothes - those matching suits which now only annoyed him.

      - Were you gonna tell me Sadie was in the hospital?

      - I'm sorry, I must've forgotten to call the woman who is not her parent.

      - What if she needed something from me?

      - I have my ways. What are you doing here, Anna? Steve call you since you two are so close?

      - Nice to know you're still hateful. Is that what you're gonna teach Sadie?

      - Absolutely and then we'll have daddy-daughter hate sessions. - he said sarcastically. How dare she act all upset when she hadn't been here before.

      - I'm actually here for you, Jimmy.

Jimmy. Bucky hated being called Jimmy and out of everyone, it was only Anna who did it. He used to put up with him because he used to believe she was a good person. Not anymore. He didn't even understand why she was here. To make his life a living hell probably.

      - You look like shit. - she said putting a bag on the table. - When was the last time you actually ate?

      - Gee, Anna, I don't know. I've been too busy worrying about my daughter's well being to eat.

      - I thought maybe it was because you were distracted with the girl on your lap just a few minutes ago. Steve said she was a postdoc, how did you trick someone smart into sleeping with you?

      - She's not sleeping with me.

      - Why not? She's cute. You have my blessing.

      - I don't need your blessing, Anna.

      - Hey, I'm sorry, James. I'm sorry I am not the mother you want me to be, I'm sorry I left Sadie by your door, I'm sorry. - she got up from her seat. - Just because I'm not cut out to be a mother, doesn't mean I don't care about you. C'mon, we've known each other since we were 7.

      - My daughter comes first, Anna, and you hurt her. When you hurt my kid, you hurt me.

      - Tell my dad I said hi. - she grabbed her jacket. - Eat something and brush your hair or the staff will think you kidnapped that girl.

      - Don't forget your bag.

      - It's for you. Looks like you need it. - she waved him goodbye, leaving him to stare at a white label-less bag and a terrible cup of coffee.

The day couldn't get any worse. He had his shitty cup of coffee and grabbed the bag which had a bottle of whiskey. Well, at least Anna knew that she needed to give him alcohol whenever she came. As he started to make his way down the stairs to join a sleeping Y/N, his phone started ringing like crazy.

      - Bucky, Sadie is out of surgery. Where are you? - Y/N's voice came through before he even had the time to say Hello.

      - Y/N? How are you calling me? I thought your phone was out of ch ...

      - Seriously? That's what you're gonna ask? If your daughter wakes up and you're not there so help me god Bucky Barnes you'll be lucky you're in a hospital because I'll kill you with my own hands.

taglist: @talesofadragon @themermaidscales82 @winters1917 @vladsgirlxx @stinkerbelle007 @maybefoxysouls @blackwood-bodecker-housewife @chipilerendi @kandis-mom @belennasif @fedeffy

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Radley Balko at The Watch:

Donald Trump has never had much tolerance for the free press. Throughout his first term he demanded we “open up the libel laws” to make it easier to sue journalists for unflattering coverage — which, more than anything else, reveals that he doesn’t really understand how any of this works. Even if he were able to persuade some red states to pass libel laws more hostile to the press, and even if he could get the Supreme Court to uphold such laws, few public figures would be hit harder by those laws than Donald Trump, who regularly defames his perceived enemies . During his first term Trump also threatened to withhold federal contracts and funding, and to revoke tax incentives from his critics. He repeatedly threatened such repercussions against Jeff Bezos and his various businesses because the Washington Post published investigations into Trump’s incompetence, corruption, and abuse of power. Those threats in and of themselves were likely unconstitutional, even if Trump had never followed up on them.

But the threats also had their intended effect. Bezos intervened to stop the paper from endorsing Trump’s opponent last month, and since the election the billionaire has been tripping over himself to heap praise on the incoming president. Trump has since only doubled down threatening the media. Over the course of his 2024 campaign he threatened to strip legacy broadcasters of their licenses (it’s not clear what that would mean, given that broadcast is all but obsolete), and his surrogates have pushed the absurd idea that unflattering coverage, “biased” debate questions and fact checking, and the edits 60 Minutes made in its interview with Kamala Harris amounted to “illegal in-kind campaign contributions” that could bring criminal liability. Trump now appears ready to make good on many of his campaign threats. Here’s a quick rundown of what to look for.

Civil actions against journalists

We can start with Brendan Carr, a Project 2025 contributor and Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Communications Commission. Carr has already suggested that the FCC should investigate CBS over the 60 Minutes interview, as well as NBC’s invitation to Harris for a cameo on Saturday Night Live. Carr also wants to impose a partisan, contradictory regulation regime on social media platforms that would basically make it impossible for those platforms to exclude Nazis and white supremacists, harassment, and other objectionable content. It would basically turn every social media site into the cesspool that is X. Carr’s censorious blueprint is based on the theory that the owners of social media platforms have no First Amendment right to run their operations in a way that reflects their own beliefs and values. Carr and his ilk argue that social media sites are the “new public square.” But public squares are, well, public. You’re free to stand on your soapbox and pontificate to your heart’s content. Social media sites are companies. They require servers, paid staff, and other expenses. By Carr’s logic, if a private bookstore or coffee shop also became known for hosting political speakers, they’d be required to host and provide a platform for anyone else who wanted to speak, whether or not the owners agreed with that person’s views.

Trump’s plan to make the Department of Justice his personal, publicly-funded law firm will also have First Amendment ramifications. We’ll likely see him use government personnel and public resources to pursue his personal vendettas against media outlets. Don’t be surprised to see the DOJ or White House legal counsel use taxpayer resources to pursue, for example, the accusations against CBS, Washington Post, and New York Times, in which Trump claims to have suffered Dr. Evil-like damages.

Trump will likely look to red states for other ideas. Florida Republicans have tried to follow Trump’s lead by “opening up” the state’s libel laws to make it easier to sue for defamation. Their aim is to provide a vehicle for the Supreme Court to overturn NYT v. Sullivan. So far, they haven’t been able to get those bills passed. But they’re trying. And at least three Supreme Court justices seem open to the idea. Both Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have opened investigations into the advocacy group Media Matters over its report about paid ads from mainstream companies appearing next to Nazi content on X. To be clear, the Media Matters report is journalism, full stop, and these attempts to silence them to win favor with Elon Musk ought to be as embarrassing as they are illegal (they’re both). Even if none of the Trump administration’s retributive civil actions hold up in court, as we’ve seen with Musk’s own absurd lawsuit against Media Matters, Trump-friendly judges can make investigations and lawsuits as cumbersome and costly as possible. The mere threat of retaliation will likely intimidate some outlets from covering Trump critically. I would hope good journalists and editors would continue to pursue important stories regardless of these threats, but the capitulation we’ve already seen from Bezos, as well as from the corporate owners of Gannet, the L.A. Times, and other papers, bodes ill for the independence of news desks.

Criminalizing journalism

Trump and his allies have made clear that they also plan to target specific journalists. It was only about a year ago that then-Senator JD Vance sent a letter to the DOJ on official letterhead calling for a criminal investigation of journalist Robert Kagan because of a column Kagan wrote for the Washington Post. Ironically, that column was about Trump’s authoritarianism. It was arguably the single most censorious act any member of Congress has undertaken in years. The same JD Vance would later deflect Tim Walz’s debate question about January 6th by decrying . . . “censorship.” We know that the first Trump administration was already targeting journalists who cover immigration and the border. Officials kept lists of reporters who covered Trump’s immigration policy skeptically, and singled them out for “secondary screening” when they left and attempted to reenter the country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials would later say they were considering opening a criminal investigation into some journalists for possible violations of the federal law that makes it illegal to “encourage or induce an alien to enter the United States.” This is the same law under which some immigration activists have been criminally prosecuted for leaving water out to migrants crossing the dessert.

[...]

Protest

Trump has made clear for decades that he has little tolerance for protest. We know from former aides that during his first term, Trump badly wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act and bring in the military to end the George Floyd demonstrations. We know that on more than one occasion he asked his aides why protesters couldn’t just be shot. We know that he has privately praised dictators in China, Venezuela, and Turkey specifically for their ruthless crackdowns on protest.

Trump was prevented from following through on his worst instincts the first time around by people like former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper. In response, Trump publicly suggested that Milley is a traitor who should be executed. If we see protests after the inauguration, Trump will quickly bring in the military. How the public reacts to the ensuing violence will probably determine how violent he’ll get going forward. But Trump and the people who will run his second administration have vowed to make sure there are no Milleys or Espers this time around. Trump has made that clear with his nomination of Pete Hegseth to run the Department of Defense. In one of his books, helpfully titled American Crusade, Hegseth warned that if Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Trump supporters would turn to violence, which he argued would be justified. He then wrote: “The military and police, both bastions of freedom-loving patriots, will be forced to make a choice. It will not be good. Yes, there will be some form of civil war.”

[...] Expect the Trump administration to defend or, with the help of a Republican Congress, even try to federalize some of the anti-protest legislation we’ve seen from red state lawmakers — policies like “buffer zones” in which members of the public are forbidden from recording law enforcement, limiting the criminal and civil liability of people who strike protesters with their cars, and criminalizing consumer boycotts (but only those that legislators find personally objectionable). I think we’re also likely to see more Republican state legislatures — and possibly Congress — take aim at charitable bail funds. Expect to see federal and state prosecutors go after the people who operate these funds under racketeering and money laundering laws, as we’ve already seen in Georgia. Republicans will claim that these funds are fronts for terrorist groups while also attempting to expand the definition of terrorism to include “antifa,” pro-Palestine organizations, and activist groups like Black Lives Matter.

[...]

Other threats

After decades of complaining (with some merit!) about leftist hegemony on college campuses, conservative activists and Republican governors have fought back with the brute force of state coercion. Republican legislatures in dozens of states have passed bills restricting academic freedom, from banning entire fields of study at state colleges and universities to prohibiting speakers from discussing certain topics, to even barring certain words and phrases from appearing on school websites. As with every other threat to speech we’ve discussed so far, we’re already seeing too many schools preemptively surrender. Just last month, the University of Alabama threatened a professor with termination for organizing a protest against a particularly censorious bill in the state legislature.

Many of these state laws banning DEI and CRT on campus were modeled after an executive order Trump signed in 2020. There’s ample reason to think the new Trump administration will federalize this right-wing holy war on academic freedom. MAGA figures like JD Vance have cited Hungarian President Victor Orbán’s hollowing out of and taking over academia as inspiration. Project 2025 calls for withholding student loan and federal research funding from colleges and universities unless they adopt policies like eradicating DEI programs and prohibiting gender studies, critical race theory, LGTBQ studies, and other subjects that give polemicists like Chris Rufo the vapors. Same for federal contractors, recipients of federal research grants, and anyone else who gets any sort of federal subsidy.

MAGA also seems ready to embrace the idea of compelled speech. Carr, along with several state governors and AGs want to force social media sites to host content they and their users find objectionable. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently announced he’s opening a separate investigation into companies that don’t want to advertise on racist and far-right social media sites, either. Apparently, it’s a crime to not give Elon Musk your advertising dollars. Republican attorneys general are also using antitrust laws to silence corporate activism on issues like climate change.

Paxton and two dozen other Republican AGs also filed yet another anti-speech lawsuit, this one against against Yelp, for publishing information (that happened to also be true) that he believes to be critical of crisis pregnancy centers. As with the attack on Media Matters, the AGs are trying to silence the site under consumer protection laws. As the Reporters Committee for a Free Press warns, “The application of consumer protection laws in the context of editorial decisions — by any private speaker — is dangerous. And Texas has articulated no limiting principle that would preclude the application of the state’s consumer protection law against members of the press on a similar theory.”

Project 2025 also calls for prohibiting a list of terms and phrases from being published in any federal document. Incredibly, it also calls for retroactively removing those terms from existing documents. In the introduction to the blueprint, former Heritage head Kevin Roberts calls for the elimination of the terms “diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights,” and, in a particularly Orwellian twist, “any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights.” It’s striking just how quickly the right shifted from complaining about soft censorship and content moderation on social media sites to sheer joy over the prospect of using state power shutting down dissent and silence critics. After Musk purchased Twitter, he converted the enormously influential platform into a bustling Nazi bar and far-right arm of the Trump campaign. The site is all but unusable now. For all the right’s complaints about throttling and “shadow bans,” Musk’s prioritization of accounts that pay him has effectively shunted anyone who isn’t echoing Musk’s own politics to the margins. It also means the top replies to every post tend to be racist, bigoted, trollish, or grievance-fueled garbage.

More recently, Musk has been joking/not joking about purchasing MSNBC and converting it into yet another right-wing outlet. This — along with the editorial interference of newspapers owners who are worried about government sanctions of their other businesses, is also classic authoritarian maneuvering. In Russia, Putin quickly realized that he could control newspapers and media outlets two ways — by pressuring their owners’ other business interests, and just by having his oligarch cronies simply buy them up and convert them into government mouthpieces. (He soon found it was easier to just arrange for critical journalists to fall out of windows — a habit Trump has had difficulty criticizing.) The same thing is happening in Hungary under Orbán. Setting aside whether or not Musk could actually buy MSNBC, his mere mention of the idea had right-wing personalities salivating at the idea of subverting a leading left-of-center outlet into the right-wing echo chamber.

That glee stems from a belief that conservative voices have been silenced by left-wing control of the media. This is self-evidently false. It is true that those newsrooms that still attempt to be accurate and fair — to deliver “straight news” — are disproportionately left-leaning. But it’s also true that the right has successfully created its own media ecosystem that’s wholly independent of those newsrooms, and can now bypass them entirely to get information to its audience. The sheer giddiness on display from the people about to take over the government at the prospect of snuffing these newsrooms out is alarming. Adding to the problem, Project 2025 also calls for targeting public broadcasting. That’s a longtime conservative hobbyhorse, but it would do the most harm to local public radio — not the national NPR programs that irk conservatives — and it will hit hardest in areas that lack daily newspapers.

[...]

Finally, there’s the threat to nonprofits. Here, too, the Democrats have utterly failed to prepare for the gravity of the threat. Last month, 15 House Democrats joined Republicans to pass a bill called the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act. That’s far fewer than originally supported the law, which was introduced to target groups who advocate for Palestine. It was still 15 too many. The sweeping law would give the Treasury Secretary the power to unilaterally declare any nonprofit a “supporter of terrorism.” Trump could effectively shut down nonprofits for the flimsiest of reasons, from the ACLU to Planned Parenthood to ProPublica. Beyond the screaming unconstitutionality and general un-Americanness of it all, it’s just a breathtakingly stupid policy for any Democrat to support, especially just months before a man hellbent on vengeance and retribution takes over the White House.

The upcoming Trump Administration will be disaster for the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and the right to dissent without fear or intimidation.

[eaglesnick]

“I think there's no higher calling in terms of a career than public service, which is a chance to make a difference in people's lives and improve the world.” - Jacob Lew

Elon Musk is determined to sack hundreds of thousands of US federal employees. Trump has put him in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Yesterday he issued an ultimatum to US federal employees. They must justify their work by responding to an email with approximately five bullet points of what they accomplished last week. If they fail to do this they will be considered to have resigned their job. If Musk finds their answers unacceptable they will be sacked.

The directive has affected hundreds of thousands of workers in departments such as Veterans Affairs, Defence, Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service, and the National Parks Service. Employees from the FBI, State Department, and federal court system have also received Musk’s email asking them to justify their place on the government payroll.

While we here in the UK look on with concerned amusement at Musk’s latest dictatorial missives, we would do well to take his actions more seriously. Only a few days ago Nigel Farage gave his unreserved support to Musk’s efforts to sack people without cause.

“I believe that the talents of the world’s most successful businessman, going into this amazing Doge project, I wish him all the luck in the world and god speed, I really, really do.” (2025 Conservative Political Action Conference)

Farage’s Reform UK party is growing in size and influence and in a recent YouGov poll, 26% of the electorate said they would vote for Farage at the next election. Farage has been highly vocal in his desire, like Musk, to "reduce the size of the state", especially with regard the public sector. He has argued that a smaller state would lead to lower taxes and greater efficiency.

Let us look at both those claims.

Certainly, a smaller government workforce means a lower government wage bill.  Whether of not any government would pass these savings on to the ordinary taxpayer in the form of tax cuts is open to debate. It is easy, as Nigel Farage, knows all to well, to speak in generalities such as “increasing efficiency",  “reducing the tax burden” and “cutting a bloated government workforce” but what are the negative effects of such a policy?

As of September 2024 there were 6.12 million public sector employees in the UK, including local government and public institutions like the NHS. Of these, 3.97million were employed directly by central government. (ONS: Public Sector Personnel)

This brings us to the second argument Farage uses to justify job cuts – efficiency.

If Farage were to treat all UK public sector workers to the same Musk-style inquisition Britain's public services would collapse.  Teachers, the police, doctors, fire-fighters, nurses, dentists, the armed forces, security officers, prison officers, ambulance staff, engineers, environmental officers, inspectors, railway workers etc etc would all have to justify their jobs.

We all know what 14 years of Tory Austerity has done for public sector efficiency and service: Farage's policies would be far worse.

In addition to the collapse of essential public services there would be a massive rise in unemployment. This in turn lead to more people claiming welfare support at a time of a rising cost of living crisis. Is Farage really suggesting hundreds of thousands of British workers should be made redundant and thrown onto welfare? Is this what voting for Reform UK really means?

Those who support Farage and the far right should think very carefully what they wish for.

[hoshiko2000]

So with production for Good Omens Season 3 officially halted, it does look like cancellation may be on the horizon. Because yeah, I really don't think Amazon would 'pause' production on a show this lucrative if there wasn't serious discussions currently going on about 'if' and 'how' it should continue. A production shuffle-up - ie. Neil Gaiman getting booted and new staff being put in charge - is certainly a possibility. But it is important to remember that this will still be a show that is written by him and very intrinsically linked to his brand. And whether fans or studios will still have an appetite for it considering this fact is something that has to be seriously considered.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that as disappointing as it would be, cancelling Good Omens season 3 may be the hard but right decision. And, frankly, if season 2 is anything to go by, we may not be missing out on too much to be honest.

But on a serious note, I do want to use this news as an opportunity to share my own thoughts on the situation, which I will do under the cut (and as is probably obvious, there are trigger warnings for references to SA).

Despite Neil Gaiman's works being a massive part of my content here on this tumblr - and yes, that is something I am very aware of- I've not posted about the sexual assault allegations up until now for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I'm a working adult in my 30s; tumblr is very much a place I come to chill, I'm far too old (and frankly, tired) to get involved in discourse or heated fandom debates (not that those are the correct terms to use to refer to rape allegations but you catch my drift). But the other reason is that these revelations have honestly devasted me, in a way that I'm still processing and doesn't feel like an exaggeration to describe as grief, a feeling I'm sure is echoed by many other people.

Neil Gaiman's works have been a massive part of my adult life, and while I know it sounds like a cliche, they have gotten me through some incredibly difficult times. Coming to terms with the fact that such beautiful, thoughtful, empathetic novels and series have been written by a rapist has been incredibly difficult.

What has also been incredibly difficult to come to terms with is the fact that the incredible queer representation that has drawn so many of us to his television works in recent years was, in hindsight, indisputably a grooming tactic. And yes, grooming is the right word.

The grooming of communities is not something that is often discussed but is absolutely a thing. Predators groom victims to gain access to them, and they groom the people around both the victim and themselves to make it seem unbelievable when the victim later comes forward. And this can happen parasocially too. In the case of Neil Gaiman, he groomed his fanbase by constructing a calculated image as vocal a LGBT ally, drawing in queer fans and creating a smokescreen of apparent empathy and kindness to cast doubt on the future allegations he likely knew would inevitably catch up with him.

I really want to stress - particularly for younger fans - that no one is stupid or somehow culpable for having been fooled by Gaiman, for having supported his works previously, and for continuing to support his works now. I myself have no intention to leave the fandoms I am already a part of, and I genuinely do not believe anyone is under any sort of pressure or obligation to do so. The separation of the art from the artist is a very tricky subject and not something that can ever be done entirely. And if I'm honest I'm not really sure how to navigate this myself, or what this is going to mean for me in the future.

But to get back to the subject of my blog, yes I am planning to continue reposting content related to Good Omens and Dead Boy Detectives. However the latter differs drastically in that the series was not actually written by Neil Gaiman and is effectively an author-approved spin-off of one of his works. Good Omens on the other hand I have more complicated feelings towards, and at this point I am not sure how I feel about future series being made, with or without Gaiman's involvement.

I'm sorry if this post is a rambling mess, it has taken me a lot of time to build up to being able to share my thoughts, and while there is a lot more I could say I will stop here. But on a closing note, let's just be kind to each other. This situation is awful, lets not make it any worse. Give space for the victims, give space for the fans, and give space to people to continue to enjoy fandom spaces without making assumptions about where they stand on these allegations. It is a hard time, but things will get better, and these fandom spaces will continue to be a positive place for people to exist online. Lets keep it that way.

[blacklegsanjiii]

Some hcs about ASL x S! Of course, if you don't mind

• Even if the ASL brothers loved food, I think they just noticed how hard cooking was after seeing Sanji cook. How some recipes need hours and hours, how even a little mistake can spoil all the food, how that don't matter how good you are cooking, accidents still happen and Sanji end up with some cuts and burns. Sometimes Sanji even needing to put bandages in his hands.

• I believe most times ASL and Garp go at Baratie, the restaurant is closed or Zeff closes it when they arrive. So they never saw all the chaos that Baratie is on common days. I can perfectly see a time where the restaurant docks at Foosha and ASL go see their boyfriend, but Baratie is open and he's working. So they sit and don't have other option than just wait. It's crazy for them how Sanji manages to go between being a waiter and a cook, take down various customer orders and remember what food go at what table, carry twenty-odd dishes at once, and still having just a fifteen minutes break.

• This hc is more for Fem!Sanji, but I believe that Sanji was taught that she should be a lady, always with a smile and sweet personality. And while she IS this way naturally, she isn't just this. So I believe that, after Germa, she would still hide half of herself as a way to protect her. The more you knows her, the more she shows all of her. And I can see Sanji freely acting like a little shit while with ASL because she trusts them, even more after dating. They don't notice this until someone point this, maybe Makino, and after noticing they just start to help her show who she is in full.

ASL x S has taken over this blog in veins similar to when Warlord!Sanji first happened which is fine by me. Get this man some love!

I feel like if Sanji was dating them when he was learning how to butcher things they would see him constantly with bandages on his hands. Burns from morons not telling him hot pans as well as his own dumb mistakes. Sanji shows them some basic recipes and how to cook more effectively on a fire and burning himself. He stares dejectedly at the fire and with an 'et tu, brute' attitude as he continues on like nothing bad happened. Sanji fucks something up and sighs as he apologizes at the inedibility of it but his boyfriends scarf it down regardless. Sanji is used to his boyfriends forgoing taste for edibility on more than one occasion unless Sanji absolutely demands they do not eat something for fear of poisoning them all.

One time The Baratie is docked on Foosha with normal business hours, not closing due to the boyfriends or Garp coming to eat, ASL go to surprise their boyfriend but instead find an absolute shitshow of a rush. Waiters are scrambling and there's a lot of yelling from the back kitchen and those who know ASL tell them they don't have time for them today. Sanji will be out if he's awake after close. There's just too much happening and not enough staff and they're fucking swamped. Then Sanji joins in on waiting tables because there's not enough waiters and he's going back and forth in a chef coat from waiting tables to cooking and he's so loud. The way he yells 'behind', 'to your left/right' 'hot' with a projection they've only ever heard from Garp of all people is rattling. They sit and watch through the rush until close and join in on cleaning up, mostly Sabo makes Ace and Luffy join in because they've never cleaned a day in their life but the staff is grateful and Zeff does make them something to eat with the staff of Baratie. Of course everyone is so wiped out that Ace carries Sanji to his room and he's out before they're even halfway there. Sabo and Ace are debating on getting Sanji changed when Luffy just lays on top of him and falls asleep making it impossible to change their boyfriend, so of course they pile on top as well.

Okay now Fem!Sanji being a shit. This has to be accurate. Being raised a princess and then as Zeff's daughter has to make perfectly lady like but also...look at the men she's around on the Baratie. She's pulled some shit and always gets away with it because she's Zeff's darling daughter, she would never do anything like choke Patty with his own socks, never! ASL know what she's like though, she's a gremlin like them, not as feral but definitely a gremlin. Makino has definitely seen the attitude shift from when Zeff is gone and she's free and clear to not have to worry about getting in trouble for getting dirty and acting like a child. She's free with them. Makino probably brings it up to them at some point, the way Sanji morphs from Zeff's princess to jungle gremlin like them, she's absolutely fond of the girl and it's clear in her voice, but they pay closer attention after that, or at least try to. Sanji doesn't like getting dirty or bugs but she loves climbing and swimming in the river and doing dumb shit with her boyfriends. Maybe they try to get her to be more brash and open, but she's still theirs. Always will be.

[marsvs-thesun]

SHIT I WOULD WANNA SEE IN A SOW REWRITE: a non exhaustive list in no particular order

(read more for length and generally being critical of SoW)

• give a name to more story relevant weapons. Voltar is cool, but I wanna know what are the names of Ingressus' kickass flame blade, and thalleous' sword, and Achillean's staff! Mostly cause I wanna refer to them more easily for Symbolism(tm)! ALSO an opportunity for Senn&Ria bonding over naming her spear!!

• SPEAKING OF SWORDS give thalleous' sword to Ria. NO HEAR ME OUT; she starts the story with her spear, sendaria burning, killing Tygren ect. When Tygren dies SHE gets the sword instead of Senn, and gives Senn her spear (from her point of view, she's giving back a weapon she trusted to protect herself, she's now protecting him and signaling that she trusts his craftsmanship. Subtextually it signify the rift that forms between them as she gets more into hunting Voltaris down and Senn gets closer to his heritage). She keeps using it throughout the story, culminating in attacking Senn with it when he surrenders in Northwind, which he deflects with the shield song like in canon. Anyways, Senn comes back from Hailstone, rejoins the group and Ria is happy but doesnt trust him the same until the Final Battle(tm). Some random element (doesn't matter what, were doing symbolism here) makes it that she loses/cannot use Thalleous' sword, at which point Senn gives/throws her her spear because PLOT TWIST: THE REAL SOLUTION WAS TO LET GO OF AN ARBITRARY SYMBOL OF STRENGHT AND INSTEAD PUT FAITH IN LOVE, TRUST AND FAMILY ALL ALONG, Pythus gets eviscerated, happy endings all around

• speaking of Ria, you might guess it from my last point but GIVE MY GIRL A CORRUPTION ARC. Gimme women's wrongs! Let me watch her go from 'i wanna be just like Thalleous (the cool ex-soldier with awesome stories)' to 'i wanna be just like Thalleous (the guy who threw a kid off a cliff)' and find herself on the way! I've heard people find her overpowered and honestly,,,, yeah kinda but idk how to fix that (also power scales aren't really real to me). You know what's real? CHARACTER ARCS. Plus free Senn angst and frankly I love that. SUBPOINT: could Herobrine be like,,, a character? You're telling me two major characters made a soul pact with a demon entity from another realm and that never paid off? What is Herobrine even gaining from this I MUST KNOW

• MAKE THALLEOUS A VILLAIN PROTAGONIST 2024 okay ik he kind of already is, and ik im basically Thalleous' number 1 hater, and ik this is my complicated relationship with my own father speaking BUT REGARDLESS. Have him do shady stuff before season 3 and just sliiiightly more often pls. Let him be a bit manipulative! Let him lie a bit more! Let him kill a disarmed opponent or strike someone in the back! Let him even be outwardly prejudiced a bit more openly. I'm not even gonna argue his responsibility in the Great War cause thats no the point but you can't tell me he isn't morally grey. Let that little bastard man shine! Honestly im (more than) a little disturbed by the narrative expecting me to a agree with a guy who preached genocide, after all we've seen him do (once again, the child yeeting wasn't great). Please just have someone tell Thalleous to fuck off. Please.

• ALMRAK SHOULD BE USING CRUTCHES OR A WHEELCHAIR INSTEAD OF A CANE. A CANE IS ACTUALLY MOST OFTEN USED FOR BALANCE ISSUES. THIS IS AN ABSENCE OF LEG ISSUE. That's it that's the point.

• ACTUALLY IM NOT DONE i find Almrak's entire character,,, strange. So the only visibly disabled character in the show is Voltari. Cool! He's the only Voltari portrayed sympathetically (Ingressus does not count, he's the main villain). Less cool! It's heavily implied the reason he's sympathetic is because he's disabled and therefore cannot fight (debatable. Give my man a crossbow). Pretty bad! I'm not physically disabled (diagnosed) myself but I am a Sufferer of some kind of chronic pain and autistic (and the mental Horrors), so idk how relevant my commentary is but there's a bunch of things I don't like here: 1) a disabled character can be optimistic for sure, I love that actually! I dont love how tied those two things are tho. Almrak is the only optimistic Voltari we meet, and while I like the trust he has in his people, his behaviour is oddly reminiscent of those inspiration porn video about how incredible it is that disabled people can be *gasp* happy. This also has the unfortunate implication that the only way a Voltari becomes trustworthy is by becoming/being made harmless? Which is kind of a reach but also tracks a little to much for comfort 2) his death (HE LIVES IN MY HEART, AND SO DOES DELTHEUS) but in canon he dies. And he does so without even really defending himself? Just lays there waiting for the sword? Not only does that seem weird at all (you have a CANE baby BEAT EM UP) it seems out of character for The Only Not Depressed Voltari to just,,, accept death. Mostly the narrative seems allergic to giving him agency. 3) he was created specifically to prove life for the Voltaris was hard (it's somewhere in the supplementals). First, do you think accidents don't happen in other Clans? Thats stupid. And second, ew. This, to me, shows that I'm supposed to look at Almrak, a character living his best life, hopeful for the future, reaping the benefits of a close knit community supporting and respecting him, and feel what, sadness? Pity? That seems incredibly disrespectful. And I say all that as an Almrak lover, he and Deltheus are among my fave. Now, thats a lot of issues but I feel like they could easily be fixed in 3 easy steps: 1) more rep. Just by adding a sprinkle of disability rep to the cast, Almrak stops sticking out like a sore thumb because he's disabled, and starts sticking out because he's a genuinely interesting character with a unique worldview. Wild i know. 2) LET HIM LIVE give him agency in this. Im not saying he should fistfight a Netheran, but let him try to flee or something. 3) now, disability can absolutely be caused by a hostile environment, there's nothing wrong with that. So my solution here wouldn't be to avoid that, but to show some other hardships as well? So it's not Just That? Like, idk, Deltheus remarking how much better the food is in Hailstone because Humans can stockpile and the Voltaris were starving before? Mentions of lacking medicine? Offhand mentions of dead family like they did for Thalleous and Galleous? Idk man, just dont let disability be the Worst Fate in your story. Please.

• Either more of the Necromancer Arc, or none at all. Listen, I love my cat girl necromancy as much as the next guy and Xaria is one of my favorite characters, but, as is, it feels disconnected from the rest of the show and not in a good way. I love the idea of having a more down to earth/everyday pov of the SGW but this Arc doesnt feel different enough to work for me. The characters arent in more danger or difficulties then in any other arc, they arent more developed (actually, kinda less. Why was Lucan in jail? why is Nikaa so anti necromancer? what even was the catalyst of the necromancer movement starting? i guess well never know those important character motivations), they don't really explore more down to earth stuff (human politics! survival in Ardonia during the War! maybe explore WHY people join factions like the Necromancer or the Legion!!) and, because SoW as a story is so focused on individual actions and heros, and the Arc offers neither those nor its own flavor, it ends up feeling pretty redundant, which is a shame. I guess a way to fix this would be to actually lean in to it's separate aspect and maybe focus on the building of a revolt against the Nether (and mayyyybe link that with what the necromancers had going on? maybe? Who am i kidding they'll never give my blorbos the love they deserve. Xan, Xaria, no one gets you like i do)

• I do not know how to fix the K'arthen arc. I do not know if the K'arthen arc can be fixed. To whomever is out there trying to fix the K'arthen arc: you are an endlessly brave individual and i send you power on this journey.

Aight that's it for now :) there's way more (i havent even touched my beloved abbigail!! barely touched on the voltaris!!) but im trying to stick to canon. feel free to agree/disagree/add your own stuff!! i havent read the script in a while too, so i most likely forgot stuff

@minecraftfanatic your turn ;)

[kradogsrats]

not me getting distracted tracking the configurations of the Staff of Ziard over like five seasons, that definitely doesn't sound like something I would do

anyway, specifically thinking about this:

What's confusing about this scene and line is that Claudia demonstrates what could be two separate behaviors of the staff that we have (at that point) never seen before:

We have the open-front configuration, and then we have the... gem pop-out, for lack of a better description. It's not clear if Viren is referring to one over the other, and I had kind of assumed by default that it was the entire open-front concept he was unfamiliar with. Y'know, seeing as it was also unknown to the audience until this scene.

But then???????

"I didn't even know it could do that." Sure, Mr. Selective Memory.

However, it's still tough to get a good read of this simply because the staff doesn't actually see much of any use in the second arc. My first thought was that maybe we should consider it as a soft retcon for the staff's prior behavior, and the "open-front" configuration is supposed to be read as the standard "extended" state. Except that's demonstrated to be very conclusively not the case:

My next thought, which is slightly more credible, is that it's linked with the staff's unique abilities. Not to beat my own stupid drum again, but while the staff is capable of empowering basic dark magic spells, it has an otherwise-unique ability to move around "essence," i.e. souls. Viren doesn't actually use the staff much at all until mid-late s3 (where he goes hog-wild) and all of those uses are closed-front. Even what could be considered the staff's signature arc 1 spell, the spell that explicitly links a thousand years of dark magic together and to Aaravos, is cast closed-front:

(Remember when we were all debating whether the significantly smaller gem in the staff during Ziard's time was intentional, meaning the gem must have been replaced? Good times.)

Similarly, in the second arc, Claudia uses it for opening the chrysalis, and then it isn't used at all until s6e8. Literally not a single spell is actually cast with the staff in the time span between between opening the chrysalis and Hearts of Cinder, round two.

(This one I'm counting as "not cast with the staff" because, look... we've never see the staff do anything when it's not at least extended, and it very specifically is not:)

Now, we do see the staff used an additional two times in the second arc, during visions/flashbacks... and in both of those cases, it's being used for the coin spell, i.e. to suck out someone's soul and trap it.

(Note how with Harrow, we have the gem... recessed, for lack of a better word, but in the scene with Viren and Kpp'Ar it's "extended." I will not be exploring this further because I'm already, y'know, insane. And also because the staff is already both phallic and yonic enough that I cannot fucking handle this train of thought while still taking myself even remotely seriously. THIS IS WHAT AN ART DEGREE DOES TO YOU.)

If you're not keeping track, this means that all of the times we have seen the staff used with the open-front configuration, it has been taking (coins) or giving (Sir Sparklepuff) a soul. Now, someone would have noticed this being the case with with Runaan in s1 if it was actually consistent, but just for the sake of due diligence:

Closed-front, of course. Even so, I'm more inclined to place this scene as a outlier that can be discounted, just because it already has a number of irregularities relative to the rest of the show.

which still leaves us with goddammit Viren why did you fucking say that it doesn't make any fucking sense at all

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Iam not usually one to offer diagnoses of people I’ve never met, but it does seem like the pundit class of the American media is suffering from severe memory loss. Because they’re doing exactly what they did in the 2016 presidential race – providing wildly asymmetrical and inflammatory coverage of the one candidate running against Donald J Trump.

They have become a stampeding herd producing an avalanche of stories suggesting Biden is unfit, will lose and should go away, at a point in the campaign in which replacing him would likely be somewhere between extremely difficult and utterly catastrophic. They do this while ignoring something every scholar and critic of journalism knows well and every journalist should. As Nikole Hannah-Jones put it: “As media we consistently proclaim that we are just reporting the news when in fact we are driving it. What we cover, how we cover it, determines often what Americans think is important and how they perceive these issues yet we keep pretending it’s not so.” They are not reporting that he is a loser; they are making him one.

According to one journalist’s tally, the New York Times has run 192 stories on the subject since the debate, including 50 editorials and 142 news stories. The Washington Post, which has also gone for saturation coverage, published a resignation speech they wrote for him. Not to be outdone, the New Yorker’s editor-in-chief declared that Biden not going away “would be an act not only of self-delusion but of national endangerment” and had a staff writer suggest that Democrats should use the never-before-deployed 25th amendment.

Since this would have to be led by Vice-President Kamala Harris, it would be a sort of insider coup. And so it goes with what appears to be a journalistic competition to outdo each other in the aggressiveness of the attacks and the unreality of the proposals. It’s a dogpile and a panic, and there is no one more unable to understand their own emotional life, biases and motives than people who are utterly convinced of their own ironclad rationality and objectivity, AKA most of these pundits.

Speaking of coups, we’ve had a couple of late, which perhaps merit attention as we consider who is unfit to hold office. This time around, Trump is not just a celebrity with a lot of sexual assault allegations, bankruptcies and loopily malicious statements, as he was in 2016. He’s a convicted criminal who orchestrated a coup attempt to steal an election both through backroom corruption and public lies and through a violent attack on Congress. The extremist US supreme court justices he selected during his last presidential term themselves staged a coup this very Monday, overthrowing the US constitution itself and the principle that no one is above the law to make presidents into kings, just after legalizing bribery of officials, and dismantling the regulatory state by throwing out the Chevron deference.

Trump’s own former staffers are part of the Heritage Foundation’s team planning to implement Project 25 if he wins, which would finish off our system of government with yet another coup. “We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” said the foundation’s president the other day. This alarms me. So does the behavior of the US mainstream media, which seems more concerned with sabotaging the only thing standing between us and this third coup.

“Why aren’t we talking about Trump’s fascism?” demands the headline of Jeet Heer’s piece in the Nation, to which the answer might be a piece by the Nation’s own editor-in-chief titled “Biden’s patriotic duty” that proposes his duty is to get lost. Sometimes I wonder if all this coverage is because the media knows how to cover a normal problem like a sub-par candidate; they don’t know how to cover something as abnormal and unprecedented as the end of the republic. So for the most part they don’t.

Biden is old. He was one kind of appalling in the 27 June debate, listless and sometimes stumbling and muddling his words. But Trump was another kind of appalling, in that almost everything he said was an outrageous lie and some of it was a threat. I get that writing about the monstrosity that is Trump faces the problem that it’s not news; he’s been a monster spouting lurid nonsense all his life (but his political crimes are recent, and his free-associating public soliloquies on sharks, batteries, toilets, water flow and Hannibal Lector, among other topics, are genuinely demented). He’s a racist, a fascist and a rapist (according to a civil-court verdict).

We are deciding whether this nation has a future as a more-or-less democratic republic this November, and on that rides the fate of the earth when it comes to acting on climate change. If the US falters at this decisive moment in the climate crisis, it will drag down everyone else’s efforts. Under Trump, it will. But the shocking supreme court decisions this summer and the looming threat of authoritarianism have gotten little ink and air, compared to the hue and cry about Biden’s competence.

Few seem to remember that Biden’s age and his verbal gaffes were an issue in the 2020 campaign. Biden is a lifelong stutterer, and the effort to keep his words on track means that he operates under an extra burden with every unscripted answer he gives, particularly under pressure (though he had a long, easygoing conversation with Howard Stern a couple of months ago, in which he discusses his stuttering at about the 1:13 mark).

Some speech pathologists have suggested he may (not does, just may) have a disorder that sometimes accompanies stuttering, called cluttering, which is not an intellectual deficiency but a sometimes hectic and disorderly translation of thoughts into words. In recent months, actual gerontologists have said in print that Biden appears to have normal signs of aging, not signs of dementia. Nevertheless, the amateur armchair diagnosticians have been out in packs, and their confidence in their ability to diagnose from watching TV is itself an alarming delusion. I am not giving Biden a clean bill of health; I’m saying that I don’t have a basis to render a verdict (and neither do the august editors of large publications).

Few seem to remember that Biden’s age and his verbal gaffes were an issue in the 2020 campaign

Although the Biden administration seems to have run extremely well for three and a half years, with a strong cabinet, few scandals and little turnover, a thriving economy and some major legislative accomplishments, the narrative the punditocracy has created suggest we should ignore this record and decide on the basis of the 90-minute debate and reference to newly surfaced swarms of anonymous sources that Biden is incompetent. Quite a lot of them have been running magical-realism fantasy-football scenarios in which it is fun and easy to swap in your favorite substitute candidate. The reality is that it is hard and quite likely to be a terrible mess. Nevertheless, this pretense is supposed to mean that telling a presidential candidate in mid-campaign to get lost is fine.

The main argument against Biden is not that he can’t govern – that would be hard to make given that he seems to have done so for the past years – but that he can’t win the election. But candidates do not win elections by themselves. Elections are won, to state the obvious, by how the electorate turns out and votes. The electorate votes based on how they understand the situation and evaluate the candidates. That is, of course, in large part shaped by the media, as Hannah-Jones points out, and the media is right now campaigning hard for a Democratic party loss. The other term for that is a Republican victory. Few things have terrified and horrified me the way this does.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

[n2qfd]

Here's the new rig in action.

So tonight I tried a head to head between my Xeigu G106 ham radio and 151' of dipole antenna and my new ATS-20+ and it's telescopic antenna + an alligator clip with another 6 feet of headphone wire to copy the @swradiogram

These were the images I copied on both sets the Ham equipment on the G106 and G5RV Dipole on the left and the ATS-20+ and telescopic whip on the right

9265 kHz WRMI 2330z in Southern Tier NY

This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK64

Please send your reception report to radiogram@verizon.net

From RFE/RL:

EU Lawmakers Debate Support For RFE/RL Amid US Funding Freeze

By Rikard Jozwiak April 01, 2025

European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos has emphasized the “need to protect Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL),” warning that "if we don’t, we hand a gift to autocrats the world over."

Her remarks came during a debate in the European Parliament plenary in Strasbourg on April 1 that focused on safeguarding access to democratic media, including RFE/RL.

The debate was initiated in response to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on March 14, which reduced the size of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the body overseeing RFE/RL.

Shortly afterward, Kari Lake, a senior adviser to the USAGM CEO, issued a letter stating that the Congress-approved grant funding the broadcaster had been terminated.

While the grant termination has since been rescinded, the USAGM has not sent any of the congressionally appropriated funds, prompting RFE/RL to furlough some of its staff on April 1.

Kos, speaking on behalf of the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, said that “the European Union needs to be a refuge for independent media, including from Russia and Belarus, so they can continue their work; holding their political and business elites to account and exposing corruption.”

While the commissioner refrained from speaking about the potential of the EU stepping in to fund the media organization, several members of the European Parliament did mention the idea. Stormy Discussion

Sebastiao Bugalho, a Portuguese member of the largest group in the chamber, the center-right European People’s Party, said that “we will pay the price and shoulder the burden.”

Lithuanian lawmaker Virginijus Sinkevicius from the Greens underlined that “we must ensure that RFE/RL has access to long-term and stable funding, including from the EU.”

Alexandr Vondra, who was a prominent dissident in communist Czechoslovakia and is now a Czech MEP from the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists, said that the radio helped spread information in repressive countries such as Iran, Belarus, and Russia, and called on the European Union to contribute to the station’s finding.

“Let us be open to finance [RFE/RL] also from EU money and find agreement on what form,” he said.

The one-hour debate became rather stormy at times with lawmakers shouting at each other in between speeches.

Several members from populist groups in the Strasbourg chamber spoke against potentially using EU money to finance the broadcaster.

Mary Khan, an MEP from the far-right Alternative for Germany party, said that RFE/RL “can finance itself” and added that “media should not be financed by European institutions.”

Slovak MEP Milan Uhrik, who belongs to the same Europe of Sovereign Nations Group as Khan, said that the EU should instead help farmers in Slovakia battling foot-and-mouth disease among its cattle, adding that “your independent media is the absolute opposite of independent media.”

Julien Sanchez, a French parliamentarian belonging to the Patriots for Europe, another populist right-wing fraction, said that the chamber was “hypocritical” in talking about this situation and “interfering with the situation in the United States.”

The debate will have no resolution to be voted on during this plenary session, which ends on April 3, but this could come at a later stage as several European parliamentary officials told RFE/RL that the house will continue to monitor the situation.

7ahkp»iitave Radiogram in MFSK64

Please send your reception report to radiogram@verizon.net

This week's images …



Two men push a pallet of goods over tram tracks in Hong Kong. tinyurl.com/2cy8tryh …

A worker adjusts colorful lanterns during preparations for Buddha’s birthday celebrations on 5 May at Jogye temple, Seoul. tinyurl.com/2ccg7x3d …



The opening of the cheese market season in Alkmaar, the Netherlands. tinyurl.com/2ccg7x3d …

 The cherry blossoms in Washington DC were at peak until a storm on March 31 blew many of them off the trees. tinyurl.com/2ao9vrfb …

Tulips at the Netherlands Carillon in Arlington Virginia, looking east towards Washington. tinyurl.com/2ynp4ygp …



Loch Knapps, Scotland, shortly before sunset. tinyurl.com/2ar4r95d …



From the Atlantic coast of Canada, through the clouds, the sunrise partial solar eclipse of March 29. tinyurl.com/2dlzcgno …

An Allen's hummingbird at Santa Cruz Arboretum, Santa Cruz, California. tinyurl.com/25w8n6c9 …

The first spring blooms at Indiana Dunes State Park. tinyurl.com/28kh5zgb …

Our painting of the week is "Garden on the Roof" (2022) by Jean Mallard (French, b. 1997). tinyurl.com/2ao6j4ez …

Shortwave Radiogram returns to MFSK32 …

 Before RSID: <<2025-04-03T23:58Z MFSK-64 @ 9265000+1500>>

This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK32 …

Transmission of Shortwave Radiogram is provided by:

WRMI, Radio Miami International, http://wrmi.net

and

WINB Shortwave, http://winb.com

Please send reception reports to radiogram@verizon.net

And visit http://swradiogram.net

X/Twitter (for now): @SWRadiogram

I'm Kim Elliott. Please join us for the next Shortwave Radiogram.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

I am not usually one to offer diagnoses of people I’ve never met, but it does seem like the pundit class of the American media is suffering from severe memory loss. Because they’re doing exactly what they did in the 2016 presidential race – providing wildly asymmetrical and inflammatory coverage of the one candidate running against Donald J Trump. They have become a stampeding herd producing an avalanche of stories suggesting Biden is unfit, will lose and should go away, at a point in the campaign in which replacing him would likely be somewhere between extremely difficult and utterly catastrophic. They do this while ignoring something every scholar and critic of journalism knows well and every journalist should. As Nikole Hannah-Jones put it: “As media we consistently proclaim that we are just reporting the news when in fact we are driving it. What we cover, how we cover it, determines often what Americans think is important and how they perceive these issues yet we keep pretending it’s not so.” They are not reporting that he is a loser; they are making him one. According to one journalist’s tally, the New York Times has run 192 stories on the subject since the debate, including 50 editorials and 142 news stories. The Washington Post, which has also gone for saturation coverage, published a resignation speech they wrote for him. Not to be outdone, the New Yorker’s editor-in-chief declared that Biden not going away “would be an act not only of self-delusion but of national endangerment” and had a staff writer suggest that Democrats should use the never-before-deployed 25th amendment. Since this would have to be led by Vice-President Kamala Harris, it would be a sort of insider coup. And so it goes with what appears to be a journalistic competition to outdo each other in the aggressiveness of the attacks and the unreality of the proposals. It’s a dogpile and a panic, and there is no one more unable to understand their own emotional life, biases and motives than people who are utterly convinced of their own ironclad rationality and objectivity, AKA most of these pundits. Speaking of coups, we’ve had a couple of late, which perhaps merit attention as we consider who is unfit to hold office. This time around, Trump is not just a celebrity with a lot of sexual assault allegations, bankruptcies and loopily malicious statements, as he was in 2016. He’s a convicted criminal who orchestrated a coup attempt to steal an election both through backroom corruption and public lies and through a violent attack on Congress. The extremist US supreme court justices he selected during his last presidential term themselves staged a coup this very Monday, overthrowing the US constitution itself and the principle that no one is above the law to make presidents into kings, just after legalizing bribery of officials, and dismantling the regulatory state by throwing out the Chevron deference. [...] Biden is old. He was one kind of appalling in the 27 June debate, listless and sometimes stumbling and muddling his words. But Trump was another kind of appalling, in that almost everything he said was an outrageous lie and some of it was a threat. I get that writing about the monstrosity that is Trump faces the problem that it’s not news; he’s been a monster spouting lurid nonsense all his life (but his political crimes are recent, and his free-associating public soliloquies on sharks, batteries, toilets, water flow and Hannibal Lector, among other topics, are genuinely demented). He’s a racist, a fascist and a rapist (according to a civil-court verdict). We are deciding whether this nation has a future as a more-or-less democratic republic this November, and on that rides the fate of the earth when it comes to acting on climate change. If the US falters at this decisive moment in the climate crisis, it will drag down everyone else’s efforts. Under Trump, it will. But the shocking supreme court decisions this summer and the looming threat of authoritarianism have gotten little ink and air, compared to the hue and cry about Biden’s competence.

Rebecca Solnit at The Guardian on why the pundit class is calling for Joe Biden to suspend his campaign but not Donald Trump to also do the same (07.06.2024).

Rebecca Solnit's opinion column at The Guardian regarding the pundit class's demands for Joe Biden to end his campaign over a bad debate performance but not for Donald Trump to do the same over his 34 felonies is a masterclass.

[nutzgunray-lvt]

The Eri Problem

I'm going to get some flack for this, but I've never been a fan of Eri. Yeah, she's a cute kid who was dealt an awful hand in life, but I hate the way she's written/placed in the story. I think she could have been so much more if different things were done with her character, but as things stand right now, she's just a walking-talking plot device. I'll try and break down why I'm not a fan of how she's been written thus far and what it means for the story thus far:

(sidenote: this has some anti Bakugou and anti Aizawa elements, as well as some UA critical ranting, so it's also been tagged as such)

1. Her backstory

Her backstory sounds like something straight out of fanfiction, and while other people may like that (I'm not judging if you do), I'm just not a fan of it. You have characters with much more realistic backstories such as Izuku (absent father, mercilessly bullied due to being Quirkless), Shoto (hospitalized mother, has an extremely famous public figure for a father that happens to be abusive), and Kota (hero parents were killed in the line of duty when he was a toddler, raised by his aunt as a result of that).

Then you have Eri: she erased her father from existence on accident (she also has no birth certificate for whatever reason), causing her mother to hate/fear her to the point where she's put in the care of the Yakuza. The head of the Yakuza - who happens to be her maternal grandfather - becomes unable to care for her, leading Overhaul to experiment on her for his Quirk erasing bullets. She then gets taken in by Eraserhead and the staff of UA. In fanfiction (depending on how it's done), I wouldn't mind seeing this, but seeing this done in canon just doesn't sit with me.

2. Her Quirk

I'm not saying anything new here, given that this is by far the most debated thing about her, but her Quirk just lowers the stakes of the story to me. Why should I worry about Mirio being Quirkless when we all know that Eri's going to restore his Quirk? For that matter, why don't they have her restore Aizawa's leg and eye? Why don't they have her restore All Might back to his prime? If they have her do one of these things, why not have her do the other two?

3. Her Role

The above two points kind of converge into this one, and I think it's one of the biggest reasons why I have such a problem with her character: she HATES her Quirk (for totally valid reasons, I'd hate Rewind if I had it), yet is used by UA to restore Mirio's Quirk with no consideration for her own feelings on the matter. That doesn't sit right with me, and I've seen a few other people agree.

She's also used to rehabilitate Aizawa and Bakugou's images without giving them proper character development.

Aizawa is a mess of a man who has no business taking care of any child, regardless of their age. I understand that pragmatically, he's the best option until she gains control of her Quirk, but we don't even see him take care of her! Whenever she's trotted out in the story for her designated cute moments, he more often than not just leaves her in the care of his class. I will give him props for sacrificing his leg for her sake, but that's just about the only big "bonding" moment that they have. People often point to Aizawa's relationship with Eri as evidence that he's not just some asshole teacher, but that just raises a question for me: if he supposedly cares for his students as much as he does for Eri, why don't we see him loosening up on his assholery towards them? Why don't we see him reflecting on his frankly horrible treatment of them (Izuku in particular) and resolving to try and do better? In the light novels, we see how much Eri adores Izuku (wanting Santa to visit him as well, asking if Izuku was okay when he ran off to get the candy apples to surprise her with), which would have been a perfect set up for this.

*bonus complaint, but how can these teachers take such good care of Eri and then turn around and pretend to kidnap the parents of Class 1A for Parents Day? How can they just sit by and let Bakugou treat everyone around him the way he does? How can they say that they see these kids as their own children if they not only do nothing to help Izuku, Aoyama, and Kaminari control their Quirks, but they let Izuku drop out of UA to go fight All For One and Shigaraki? How can they ignore all of the child abuse red flags Todoroki throws up? How can Midnight make outright sexual comments that canonically make the students uncomfortable?

In the 6th light novel, she's also used to teach Bakugou to not be such an asshole 24/7. I don't even need to get into why leaving a traumatized 6 year with such a mean-spirited bully is a horrible idea... then again, Aizawa thought he could resolve the bad blood between Izuku and Bakugou by forcing them to work together, and we all know how well that turned out (Bakugou backhanding Izuku and outright stating he'd rather fail than work with Izuku), so what the hell do I know?

In my honest opinion, Eri would have been much happier if she had somehow gotten her Quirk erased and was taken in by Mirio and his family. She could still be in the story, but more along the lines of how Kota is in the story: very occasionally popping up to show their recovery and their love for Izuku.

Maybe they could even start an Izuku fanclub together.

[voxiiferous]

Yeah I'll take all the blame The front page and the fame But you'll all know my name

River Below - Billy Talent | apparently now the inspiration for an AU in which Vox and Alastor’s falling out is staged.

"I’m thinking of getting a new head,” Vox says, straightening his bow tie. The broadcast starts soon enough, but the habit of talking to Alastor before had become part of it. Gradually, Vox's employees had stopped panicking every time they saw him.

“Hideous choice,” Alastor scoffs, and Vox finds his partner’s eyes in the mirror. “I don't see what's wrong with your current one,"

"The decaying cathodes might play a role in it," he answers. One could only knock things loose a few times before the damage stuck, and it’s typically considered poor form to give your employees low level radiation poisoning form your presence. There was also the fact it has a nasty habit of switching, unceremoniously, to black and white-- or, god forbid, the times his entire display just descended into static.

Alastor waves a hand dismissively. "Sign of a flawed medium," Which would be more insulting if they hadn't had this debate for years already.

Vox doesn’t turn to look at Alastor, keeping him in view of the vanity mirror. “I think it could be useful. Something new,"

Alastor twirls his staff, coming to lean against Vox's chair. "Yes, about that,"

Vox pauses where he's adjusting his collar over the bow tie. "The rumours?" He questions. The rumours had, of course, followed them from the start. Accusations, fears, from those who would never amount to anything, and those discontent nothings that littered Pentagram City. But they had become more notable recently, and some of the more... important people had started looking more carefully at their monopoly. "They've never bothered you before,"

Alastor spins his staff again, looking at it, with a faux casualty. "Things can change,"

Vox laughs, and leans against the opposite arm of the chair. "You, darling? You're categorically adverse to it," it’s the source of half their disagreements. He’s half expecting a camera to burst into the room like some unexpected joke.

"Still, I think it's high time we cut this... ménage à deux short," Alastor says, and Vox’s amusement sobers.

He turns to look at his partner, directly this time, rather than through the mirror. It’s a sort of incredulity that needs direction, rather than diffuse through the reflection. "You want us to pretend to have a falling out?"

"You said it, not me," Alastor says, resting his arms on top of the staff. "Play up the existing differences, and no one looks twice,"

“No one thinks you’re going soft, or that I’m reliant,” which he’s not. Their friendship hadn’t even begun until Vox had already started making a name for himself. But Hell’s memory is a strange thing, simultaneously too short, and eternal.

“You want me to play the cad,”

“You’re so good at it.” It’s a role he’s used to certainly, even if for different reasons. The more things change…

“There will be doubt,”

Alastor waves his hand again. “You’ll hardly need to search for someone to act as an unwilling collaborator.” Alastor says, with a pointed look at the letter Vox had forgotten on the desk. It’s got the faintest whiff of perfume on it. He’s there justification, the explanation. The thing that makes Hell stop looking at them with narrowed eyes.

“And you’re certain it should be me? That they’ll believe it?”

Alastor smiles, fixing Vox’s forgotten collar. “Indubitably. You’re a talented performer. No one else could pull such a farce off,” He taps his microphone against Vox’s cheek, almost like a kiss. “You have a show, insufferable picture box,

Vox pauses, a slight moment that would have been a dry swallow if he still had a mouth. “I do,” he says. “I trust I’ll have one less viewer than usual?”

“Indeed,” Alastor says, and he’s turning, the shadows swirling to carry him away.

Vox takes a deep breath, the scripted narrative already coming together. He takes one last look in the mirror, and then heads to the stage.