#it's a combination of his self-loathing (both in general and about his scars) and his asexuality

[beesinspades]

something something ace people often being told they're not human for not experiencing sexual attraction and/or not wanting sex, something something vash seeing his sex-averse asexuality as yet another thing that makes him even more different from humans than he already is because of it

[demigod-shenanigans]

The choiceless hope in grief

Summary: Leo Valdez has lived and died for the gods. Their war has shaped his life since he was a baby. With Gaia defeated, he sort of hopes he can finally rest. He has friends and some semblance of home to return to for the first time since he was eight years old. Just this once, he allows himself to hope the good things might stick.

But the gods aren’t done with them just yet, and by the time Leo finds his way back, Jason is gone.

This time, Leo decides he’s done just taking the Fates’ bullshit lying down. If getting his best friend back means striking a deal with the gods and venturing into the Underworld… well, it’s probably not even the most reckless thing he’s ever done.

The caveat of said deal? He has to trust Jason will follow him, or his self-doubt will doom them both.

And after the life he’s lived, Leo is so intricately familiar with self-doubt that he could probably trademark the word.

Or: The only possible way for Orpheus to succeed is if he learns to think of himself as a person worth loving.

Word Count for chapter 1: ~5k

Rating: Teen and Up

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Fic updates weekly on Fridays!

A couple of important notes before we start:

-TW for suicidal ideation. It’s less Leo actually wanting to die and more his canon behavior of “I’m doing something extremely reckless that might succeed but if it doesn’t, my death is an acceptable consequence”, paired with general grief related self-loathing, but if you think you’re not in the right headspace to read about that, come back when you are or at least tread carefully. This fic pics up at the end of The Burning Maze, so especially the beginning is pretty heavy on the grief stuff.

-Since ToA is vaguely canon to this fic, Leo and Calypso are technically dating in the beginning, but they don’t really interact positively as a couple (honestly they don’t interact that much in general) and break up pretty early on. Just be aware in advance that they’re still together for a little bit.

-Fic title is from Talk by Hozier which is maybe a painfully obvious pick but it was too perfect for me not to use it.

Chapter 1: Leo and Piper have an extended sleepover

It wasn’t a discussion between Leo and Piper whether or not to go to Jason’s funeral. They came to the decision that they wouldn’t silently—or as silently as one could come to an agreement when all parties involved were sobbing.

Maybe it should have been a discussion. There was a part of Leo that worried he’d regret this later—his refusal to take this chance to say goodbye and let himself grieve.

But Leo remembered his mother’s funeral. Remembered the way his aunt Rosa had looked at him like she knew his mother’s death had been his fault. Leo couldn’t stand the thought of people looking at him like that again.

He also didn’t remember his mother’s funeral bringing him any sense of closure or comfort. He’d stood at her grave, afterwards, just as desperate and afraid and utterly inconsolable as he’d been before the funeral, except it had suddenly felt sickeningly final. The wound it had torn in his soul had kept bleeding for years, and the scars would stay forever. He didn’t need any of Apollo’s shitty oracles to know Jason’s death would be exactly the same.

At this point, Leo was pretty sure his sanity was being held together by a combination of jokes and a truly questionable amount of duct tape.

Beyond all that, though, Camp Jupiter was a battlefield right now. It would continue to be a battlefield for the foreseeable future.

Leo wasn’t a coward. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go back and help. But one of his best friends was already in a box, and there was no way in hell he’d risk the other.

With how tightly Piper was clinging to him, maybe she was thinking the same thing. 

For all his big talk about dragon escorts, Festus did most of the actual escorting on his own, occasionally torching what Leo hoped were monsters and not random public monuments. Leo, for his part, spent most of the journey crammed into the backseat of the car next to Piper, sandwiched between her and a bunch of moving boxes that seemed determined to flatten him into a Leo-shaped pancake whenever they took a sharp turn.

He’d spent so long thinking about seeing her and Jason again. 

He’d talked Calypso’s ear off about them the whole journey, to the point where it had clearly started to annoy her. He’d thought about various ridiculous entrances he could make, and the fact that he’d probably get yelled at, but he’d also thought about sitting together by the campfire, sharing nachos. He’d thought about Jason hugging him so fiercely that he couldn’t breathe, and Piper cussing him out while she held him, making him promise never to do anything that reckless again.

Now Piper was actually holding him, and Leo couldn’t feel anything. There was a numbness in his chest. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to ever feel happiness again. Hell, even if he did, what was the fucking point? Every time anything even remotely good happened in his life, it got ripped away from him again.

They didn’t talk a whole lot for most of the drive. They cried until it felt like they couldn’t anymore, clinging to each other like desperate children.

Even if they’d wanted to talk about what had happened, Piper’s dad was right there, and despite the Mist usually working overtime for them, having him overhear seemed like a gamble. Or, well, maybe that was what Leo told himself. Maybe he just wasn't sure he was ready to hear it all. He still felt like he couldn’t think. He was overwhelmed to hell and couldn’t stop fidgeting.

Several hours into the trip, his stomach started grumbling. Piper dug through the bag at her feet and offered him one of her PB&J sandwiches, but Leo couldn’t eat. He hadn’t skipped a meal in forever—he’d been homeless and unsure when he’d even get access to the next meal enough times that it had been all but tattooed into his skull that he couldn’t afford to—but he couldn’t even think about eating without feeling sick. He thought about Jason. He thought about the state he’d left Camp Jupiter in and the fact that they hadn’t even been able to give the dead their proper funeral rites.

Had Leo’s help made any difference at all? Had anything he’d done in his life changed things even slightly?

Leo knew the Fates had intended for it to be fire that fell—for him to burn in a bright, hot blaze and turn himself to charcoal. But he’d refused to stay dead like a good little pawn, and now Jason was gone, and it was all his fault.

He wasn’t sure how Piper could even look at him right now, but he was beyond grateful that she was holding onto him as tightly as she did. It was the only reason he didn’t fall to pieces completely. The cog at the heart of Leo’s machine had broken in a way that made it utterly beyond repair, and now it felt like a matter of time before the whole thing came apart. Piper holding him was the only reason his remaining pieces were still functioning. 

It should have been impossible for Leo to fall asleep under these circumstances, but he’d been traveling for hours and fighting before then and he’d cried out his remaining energy, so eventually, the world started to fade around him, reduced to just the sound of Piper’s breaths, until finally, those went, too.

~~~~

It would have been kinder, maybe, if Leo had dreamed up some shitty visions promising violent death and/or the end of the world. That would have been business as usual. 

Instead, he dreamed of his time on the Argo II—of one of those early nights when the different groups were still getting to know each other, having a brief moment to breathe between their ridiculous tasks and saving the world. 

It had seemed reasonable to catch each other up on what had happened on their end. Percy, Hazel and Frank had talked about rescuing Thanatos, and Piper, Jason and Leo had told them what had happened with Hera in turn. 

This would have been a boring intel conversation at best, seeing as Leo had been there for all of their part, but they’d grabbed snacks and sat on cushions on the floor and made it a whole bonding activity. Jason had been wedged between Piper and Leo, and they’d taken turns storytelling. 

And Jason had bragged. So much. But he hadn’t even had the decency to brag about himself like a normal human being. Instead, he’d talked about how capable Piper and Leo had been, somehow managing to make Leo sound like the coolest person he’d ever met. Which was ridiculous, considering he’d met everyone else on their team.

And sure, Leo made it sound like he thought he was amazing all the time, but he was exaggerating, which everyone, himself included, knew. 

Jason didn’t seem to have gotten the memo, though. He had one arm wrapped around Leo the whole evening, and he got all starry-eyed when he talked. 

“Leo took on three Cyclopes by himself. Three!”

“Dude, stop!” Leo had laughed, shaking his head. “I know I’m incredible and you’re blessed to be friends with me and stuff, but you weren’t even conscious for that part.”

“Still happened, though.” Jason had beamed at him. “You’re amazing, dude. I would have died about fifteen times on that mission if it hadn’t been for you. You guys should’ve seen him.”

It would have been easier if Leo had thought Jason was just trying to talk him up to the others to make them more willing to trust him after how badly he’d messed up in New Rome, but Jason wasn’t the type. He’d looked like he honestly believed every single word he was saying.

So, of course, Leo had refused to seriously deal with any of the things that made him feel.

“Sorry, Pipes, but I’m pretty sure your boyfriend is in love with me. It’s the fire powers, I’m afraid. I’m just too hot to resist,” Leo had joked instead, and Piper had untangled herself from Jason’s other side to throw Doritos at Leo, and everything had been right in the universe.

~~~~

Waking up from that, blearily blinking himself awake in the car full of moving boxes and remembering… that was a worse punch in the gut than waking up from most nightmares had been. And Leo should know. He’d had so many of those over the years that he was basically a certified nightmare expert at this point.

Leo wanted to go back in time and spend forever in that one evening, living it over and over and over again until the Fates or a temporal paradox or something eventually killed him. He wanted to hold on to what they’d been back then—the three of them together and happy and whole,back before they’d realized what the prophecy really meant. 

He wanted to stay wrapped in Jason’s arm and hear him laugh at whatever stupid joke Leo came up with while he and Piper threw snacks at each other like ten year olds. He wanted to believe he could actually be the person Jason was bragging about—this invincible hero that could do just about anything and saved people’s lives.

But Leo had never been that hero. Even his sacrifice had been the selfish decision of a coward who wasn’t ready to die just yet. Jason had been their Superman. The guy who could fly and threw lightning and saved people from falling to their deaths. Jason had been the hero. And ultimately, that had been what killed him.

Leo wasn’t exactly sure what he planned to do once they got to Oklahoma. He should have been heading back to the Waystation, to give Calypso the normal life he’d promised. But he wasn’t thinking about Calypso, or the Waystation, and the thought of a normal life had gone out of the window the second he’d seen the coffin. Besides, the Waystation would mean people asking questions, wanting to know about his mission and asking him to talk about his feelings, and he didn’t want that.

The only thing Leo really wanted to do right now was not think. 

By the time they got to the house, it was so late that cross-country dragon flight seemed inadvisable for visibility reasons alone, so Leo agreed to stay the night. Festus nuzzled him for a bit, got a fuel snack from the canister Leo had brought and then folded down into his million pound suitcase form for the night.

It took a little under two hours to carry all the boxes inside, which was an annoying amount of time to be carrying boxes but seemed like an absurdly short amount to move the contents of an entire life.

They spent some time in search of the necessities that needed to be unpacked, but the house was still furnished and also had running water and electricity as of a few days ago, so it wasn’t that bad.

While Piper went in search of some ancient camping gear so Leo wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor—this seemed silly to him, the floor was far from the worst place he’d ever slept—Leo asked Piper’s dad if he could help with dinner. 

Tristan looked relieved at his offer, actually. He’d been staring at the assorted vegetables with a slightly lost expression, trying to hack at one of the zucchinis with a butter knife. It seemed like he was trying to remember how cooking worked and had just discovered he had absolutely no idea. 

Considering how long he’d been an insanely rich guy with a personal cook, Leo guessed that actually might have been a pretty accurate read on the situation. 

“You might want to try a sharper knife,” Leo suggested, which made Piper’s dad look absolutely mortified. “Try not to chop off any of your fingers, though. I think Piper’s been traumatized enough for one week.”

The words were out of his mouth before Leo could think to stop them. Tristan didn’t laugh, but at least it didn’t seem like he’d be tossing Leo out of the house over this. Maybe he realized people sometimes said stupid shit when they were grieving. Maybe Piper had just warned him in advance that Leo was like this sometimes.

Tristan just went to find a different knife, which would have maybe been concerning if he hadn’t gone back to hacking at the vegetables a moment later.

“Well, at least this one is actually cutting through the zucchinis. That’s already an improvement.”

“Yeah, I’m basically a cooking expert,” Leo said with a grin, only half-joking. He went to peel and chop up the carrots, and was done with those and about half the mushrooms by the time the poor zucchini had been hacked to bits.

“You and Piper went to school together, right?” Tristan asked after a while of them quietly chopping vegetables for the casserole, trying to make sense of things with information he didn’t have and that, judging from past evidence, probably would have made his skull crack. “You and her and Jason.”

“Yeah. We went to Wilderness school together.” Leo winced, trying not to think too hard of Jason while also trying to remember the lies they’d already told Piper’s dad. At this rate, he was pretty worried his own skull would crack, too. “Then all three of us switched to a different school. Then I was gone for a while.”

Tristan nodded like this made perfect sense, though he mostly seemed lost in thought. That was a little rude, in Leo’s opinion. If he went through all that effort to remember their elaborate setup of lies, the least Piper’s dad could do was appreciate it!

“I’m glad you’re here now, with everything that’s happened. Piper was really upset when you left,” Tristan said, still with that faraway look in his eyes. “The last few months were hard for her. Between the move and the breakup, she really could have used a friend.”

Leo promptly lost all rights to make fun of Piper’s dad and his vegetable chopping skills because at the word ‘breakup’, the knife slipped and he nearly sliced off two of his fingers.

“Fuck! Ow!” he said eloquently, trying to avoid bleeding all over the cutting board in his attempt to get to the sink. “Jason and Piper broke up?”

The question sounded absurd even to his own ears. Why would Jason and Piper break up? They’d been happy together.

Surely, Piper’s dad had to be talking about something else.

To Leo’s shock, Tristan nodded.

“A while ago, yes,” he said, but he didn’t go into details—possibly because Leo was bleeding all over the sink. “We should bandage that. Do you think you need stitches?”

“No, the cuts aren’t that deep,” Leo decided, turning on the faucet and holding his bleeding hand under the stream of cold water. Maybe he should have been more concerned about the injury, but his mind was still whirring at the thought of his best friends breaking up. Unfortunately, the cold water stung like hell. He hissed with pain. “Sorry for making your kitchen look like a crime scene right after moving in. Usually, I at least have the decency to wait a day or two.”

Because the house was a small, cozy place and Leo had not had the decency to curse quietly, Piper appeared in the doorway a moment later, an alarmed expression on her face.

“What happened?”

“I’ve been bested by a stupid potato,” Leo cursed, holding up his bleeding hand and wiggling his fingers for emphasis. He figured out immediately that this was a mistake. “Ow.”

“Stop that, dumbass!” Piper cursed, moving to stand beside him. “Sink was the right call, but you need to use soap or the cuts could get infected. Dad, any chance we have gauze lying around somewhere?”

Tristan didn’t seem to question why his daughter had immediately jumped into emergency medical treatment mode. He just abandoned the cutting board and headed for the front door.

“Not exactly sure what box our regular medical supplies are in, but I’ll get the first aid kit from the car. I’ll be right back.”

“Do we have to do the soap?” Leo whined, because fuck, that stung, but Piper nodded with a scary expression on her face, so he complied. “How do you even know this stuff? Are we sure you’re not secretly an Apollo kid?”

“I know this stuff because I’m friends with a bunch of morons who have zero sense of self-preservation,” Piper cursed, gritting her teeth. “You shouldn’t be around knives when you’re this distracted.”

“I can usually cook just fine when I’m distracted. Your dad was the one who told me you and Jason broke up in the middle of this stupid potato,” Leo said defensively. “Is that the Mist messing with him?”

That was the only explanation his mind had supplied so far that made any sense to him.

Piper shook her head. “We really did break up. That was a few months ago.”

Leo felt his jaw hit the floor. 

“What the hell happened? You were together for ages. I thought- you always seemed so happy.”

“I know, but-” Piper broke off abruptly when her dad came back inside with the first aid kit. Demigod stuff, then?

Leo’s mind was racing. The breakup was a completely stupid thing to focus on, considering everything that had happened in the last few days. He knew that.

But it was easier to try and make sense of this than it was to try and make sense of the fact that Jason was gone and he’d never get to see him again.

“Is it alright if we do this somewhere else?” Piper asked her dad, taking the first aid kit from him.

“Of course. It might be easier to patch him up when you’re both sitting down, anyway.” He turned towards Leo. “Thank you for your help, but I think I can take it from here.”

Leo sent a silent prayer to whichever deity was responsible for protecting vegetables—Demeter, probably?—and gave what he hoped was an encouraging thumbs up with his uninjured hand before he followed Piper into the hallway to presumably be reprimanded some more.

~~~~ They ended up sitting on an old bed that looked like it had lived a long, miserable life and was excited for retirement, but the wooden frame thankfully didn’t break down under the weight of the new mattress or the additional weight of them sitting on said mattress. Piper explained that this had been her dad’s room when he’d lived here as a child, and that it would probably become her room now. Then she went very quiet and focused on bandaging his hand, clearly avoiding looking at him.

“It wasn’t because of me, was it?” Leo asked. The thought made him feel ill. “Please tell me it wasn’t something like, I don’t know, you two being unable to stand being around each other after what happened to me. I think I’d actually have to blow myself up again if it was.”

He tried to make it sound like a joke, but it didn’t feel like one at all. The thought that he'd managed to ruin his best friends’ relationship on top of everything else made it hard to breathe.

When Piper shook her head, it felt like a whole boulder was lifted off his shoulders.

“I actually think we would have broken up sooner if you hadn’t gone missing. We leaned on each other a lot after you disappeared. It wasn’t until we realized we wouldn’t find you and things started to settle down a little that I had time to think. And when I did…” Her voice went very quiet, and she still didn’t look up at him. “I realized I wasn’t happy in the relationship. I don’t think I ever was.”

“How did I not know that?” Leo wondered quietly. “I just… you two seemed happy to me. What kind of garbage best friend am I?”

Piper shook her head. “It isn’t your fault. I was telling myself I was happy for a long time. It’s almost- sometimes I wonder if I was charmspeaking myself. That maybe I kept saying I was in love with Jason until I convinced myself I actually was. And with Hera and my mom setting it up… I love-” her voice caught in her throat, and Leo felt like maybe he needed to throw up, “-loved Jason, but not like that.”

“Pipes, I’m really sorry.” Leo squeezed her shoulder. “That sounds like it was super hard for both of you.” Leo felt awful about the fact that he hadn’t even been around to comfort either of them, but it wasn’t like he could fix it now. It was just another item on Leo’s unending list of epic screwups he’d never be able to make up for.

“Jason was… well, he took it exactly like I expected him to. He was surprised, but he didn’t get angry or anything. He mostly seemed okay. Part of me wonders if maybe…” But whatever Piper had been thinking about, she seemed to decide it wasn’t important. “It was hard to get a proper read on him, and as nice as he was about it, things were still super awkward after. I'm terrified he died thinking I didn’t care about him.”

And then she was tearing up again, and Leo thought he would shatter if she cried. 

“He knew you cared,” he said as earnestly as he could manage, pulling Piper to his chest again. “You love way too annoyingly for him not to have known. Hell, even I know you love me, and we both know I’m a fucking nightmare when it comes to this stuff.”

“I missed you so much,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his back like it was the easiest thing in the world.

“Oh, I’m about to make you regret saying that,” Leo said, forcing himself to smile. “I’ll bring it up each and every time you say you find something I do annoying.”

“You’re annoying as hell, but you’re still my best friend.” He could feel her tears dripping onto his shoulder, and he knew that would make him start up again too. “I don’t know how I’d do this without you.”

And well, passing away from dehydration after crying too much would be a really lame way to die the second time, but everything was just too much right now, so if that was how he went, Leo wasn’t sure anyone could blame him.

~~~~

For the next couple of weeks, Leo stayed.

Helping Piper and her dad unpack was the perfect way to keep himself occupied and not have to think. Usually, a mundane task like this probably would have driven Leo nuts. But right now, it was a bit of a godsend—if not literally, at least figuratively. Being productive was always so much easier when it was done in order to avoid something you wanted to do even less. There was a reason his spaces in the foster homes had only ever been tidy when he had exams coming up.

He helped cook, too, and Piper’s dad became increasingly less garbage at it the longer this went on—like muscle memory was finally kicking in after years of disuse.

It was mostly good—listening to Piper reminisce about trips she’d taken with her dad and where she’d gotten the weird variety of items she kept in her room. When they weren’t unpacking, Leo and Piper played video games or watched movies or explored the area. Twice, during the night, they took Festus on a little flight to a nearby fast food place. Finding a parking spot was a bit of a nightmare, unfortunately. Leo would submit a complaint about their inability to accommodate celestial bronze dragons the first chance he got.

The first time they tried hiking—Leo didn’t even like hiking, he’d spent enough time outside for several lifetimes, why did he do this to himself—they got hopelessly lost in the woods, and of course, due to demigod bullshit, neither of them had brought a phone, so Google Maps wasn’t an option. It was probably for the better. The last thing that situation needed on top of them being lost was a monster attack. 

They were already jokingly planning out their new life in the woods when, thankfully, a girl their age came to their rescue.

“A human being! Thank the gods. The squirrels weren’t talking to us,” Leo greeted her, which had Piper shout “Please ignore Leo!” loudly from the branches of the tree she’d been climbing.

The girl lifted her head, spotted Piper and promptly burst out laughing.

“What in the world are you doing up there?” 

“Trying to get a better vantage point,” Piper sighed, making her way back down the tree. “We’re hopelessly lost.”

“Well, nice to meet you, hopelessly lost. I’m Shel,” the girl said, still grinning. Leo decided immediately that he liked her.

Piper had almost made it back down when she somehow missed a branch and fell the rest of the way. In comedic movie fashion, Shel moved before Leo had the chance to and caught her mid-tumble. “That was a bit of a dramatic way to get my attention, but you’re cute, so I’ll allow it.”

“Oh yeah, Piper’s got a bit of a thing with falling for people that way,” Leo commented, and Piper gave him her most murderous look while she got back on her feet.

“You guys need help getting back?”

“Please, yes,” Piper said immediately. “It turns out we’re both garbage with maps.”

“Maybe you just need a tour guide next time,” Shel suggested, winking at Piper, whose face turned scarlet. Leo wasn’t even mad about being the third wheel for once. He’d give her so much shit about this later.

And he did. And then Piper properly came out to him—no label or anything, mostly as extremely confused but sure she liked girls, which also made a few additional pieces click into place regarding her breakup with Jason. She ended her anxiety-riddled explanation by thanking Leo for being so normal and annoying about all this. 

Which was how Leo realized he’d apparently never told Piper he was bi.

Or maybe he had, and it had gotten lost along with their other memories of Wilderness. Stupid memory-stealing babysitters.

Well, at least they got to hug about it now. 

~~~~

It was strange how normal some days felt when nothing would ever truly be normal again. When in every moment Leo and Piper spent together, the gaping hole that had been ripped into their trio was so blatantly obvious.

The benefit and problem of this friendship was that Leo and Piper were both experts at not talking about things they were struggling with. 

This wasn’t exactly news. From what little Leo did remember of Wilderness School, they’d spent months not talking about his mom, or about the fact that Piper’s dad kept canceling their weekend plans. They’d both known there were things left unsaid, but as long as they’d been able to cheer each other up, that hadn’t really mattered. It made sense, honestly. Put two people who hadn’t had a shoulder to cry on for ages in a room together and see what happens!

Right now, this meant they were expertly ignoring the box of belongings Piper had picked up from Jason’s school. It had been pushed so far under the bed during that first night that it was no longer visible, and neither of them made any effort to move it out of its new home since. They ignored the topic of Jason, period, until it inevitably hit them in the face again. 

It was mostly dumb shit that set them off. Piper automatically reaching for vanilla ice cream at the grocery store because it was Jason’s favorite—seriously, who in their right mind even liked vanilla ice cream?

Sometimes, Leo would make a joke and burst into tears instead of laughing because he knew it would have cracked Jason up. They found old photos unpacking. One time, Piper’s dad suggested they make tacos and they started simultaneously bawling their eyes out.

Leo had spent a long time exactly like this—pretending everything was normal and okay when it wasn’t either of those things until he inevitably broke down. Then he’d started to actually feel sort of okay whenever he was with Jason and Piper. Now, he was sure he would spend the rest of his life pretending.

His appetite was too used to being stuck in survival mode for him to bow to nausea for long, so he went back to eating properly after a few days. He still cried himself to sleep most nights. He kept dreaming about Jason. The memories wrapped themselves around him like a safety blanket that he knew would get ripped away again in the morning. He always woke up feeling empty. Sometimes, he wished he could just go to sleep and never wake up again.

But other than that, it was mostly good.

Then demigod communications went back up, and everything went to hell.

———

Chapter notes:

Fun fact! I originally planned for this chapter (as well as the next few chapters) to just be backstory in my head and for me to maybe do a flashback or two. Unfortunately for me, Piper McLean waltzed into the room and refused to leave.

I do actually think the fic works better this way, but it will take a second to get to the plot! Hopefully you’ll enjoy the whole journey :)

I may not be able to have Leo and Piper go to Jason’s funeral without seriously messing with the plot of Tyrant’s Tomb, but I could at least pick the most evil reason possible for them not to go!

Side note: I sort of forgot that Hedge and Mellie were supposed to be here according to TBM, but by the time I remembered I already had this chapter written out and, as someone who cannot be bothered to figure out how to write them, I decided to just leave it. ToA is vaguely canon to this universe, but only for the most part. Some details are inaccurate, and I think that’s okay.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading! Comments and reblogs super, super appreciated as always!!

List of people that at some point asked to be tagged when I post this: @poppitron360 @ginnyluna @keefessketchbook (feel free to comment if you want to get taken off or be put on the tag list for future chapters!)

[prevaricatcr]

‹ TARON EGERTON, HE/HIM, CISMALE, BISEXUAL.  ›  ELLIOT GALLAGHER is the TWENTY SIX year old from SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA. when a friend asked them what they thought of the manor they said,  ❝ MIGHT AS FUCKIN’ WELL, RIGHT? GONNA HATE MY LIFE EITHER WAY, MIGHT AS WELL DO IT WITH SOME SCENERY. ❞ they claim FUNNY GAMES is their favorite scary movie, and if they were to die in a horror film they would TAUNT THE KILLER AND GET WHACKED FOR IT. their fears include DRIVING A CAR, WRITHING SNAKES and PUPPETS, and they don’t know we know, but… HE’S PAID OFF MULTIPLE WOMEN WHO HAVE HAD HIS CHILDREN. hope they enjoy their stay.  ‹  MUSE A from HOLLYWOOD’S BLEEDING penned by, Z, 25+, CST.  ›

- - - - - - - BASICS.

Name: Elliot Rian Gallagher. Pronouns: He, him. Nicknames: n/a Age: Twenty-six. Birthdate: April 18th. Zodiac: Aries sun, taurus moon, gemini rising. Ethnicity: white, his father's grandparents were second generation irish and his mother always stated that her parents came from Sandusky, and didn't know more than that. Nationality: American. Birthplace: Santa Monica, CA Gender: Cis Male. Sexual Orientation: Bisexual.

- - - - - - - BACKGROUND.

Parents: Craig Robert Gallagher; 58 years old, alive. Teresa Dawn Shwitzer-Gallagher ; 52 years old, alive Siblings: 2 older siblings, a boy and a girl, and two younger sisters. Spouse: n/a. Children: 3 by different mothers, whom he sends monthly allowances to. He makes it his business not to know any more. Current Job: out of work musician. Dream Career: to be back on top of his game, winning grammies like he used to. Schooling: Attended Crossroads in Santa Monica on and off, eventually graduated with lots of monetary assistance. Income: Receives pay from royalties from the band he was in as a teenager that kicked him out.

- - - - - - - PHYSICAL.

Height: 5'8". Weight: 160 lb. Eye Color: Blue. Hair Color: Dark brown. Hair Length: Fairly short. Hair Type: On the thinner side, with some wave. Body Type: Fairly skinny, with small hips and waist. A little thicker around the midsection with his short stint of sobriety. Clothing Size: Medium to large. Shoe Size: Size 11 Complexion: Very pale, freckles fairly easy, burns very easy. Scars: scars and calluses on his hands, a puckered scar on his temple half hidden by his hair, and a scar on his right hip from a bad car accident, his knees are assessed as much older than himself because of how poorly he treats them combined with genetics, and a long scar on the left side of his back.

- - - - - - - PERSONALITY.

Positive Traits: adventurous, charming, direct, passionate, sociable, competitive, creative, lively, versatile. Negative Traits: volatile, extravagant, defensive, envious, juvenile, wasteful, unreliable, vulgar, pessimistic. Mental Condition: Currently drinking again and using cocaine along with a few prescription pills after attempting out-patient rehab and tapering down his drinking, which he's been addicted to since age fourteen. No officially assessed disorders or conditions besides his alcoholism. Struggles with intimacy while sober. Emotional Condition: Fragile, filled with guilt and self loathing after relapse. Sees trust as more important than love and is very guarded with what he considers his innermost self. Likes: All black outfits, sunglasses, a tall glass of boulevard when he's drinking to taste it, people that make him laugh out loud, old school SNL, the fine tuning of behind the camera work, treating the people he cares about to nice things, arguing about oscars prospects for any given film, penny slot machines, jokes that make people groan loudly. Dislikes: lazy jokes about addiction, late night talk shows, people who look at him and see his misdeeds and not who he is as a person, "lizard people" conspiracy theories, elevator music, plastic covers on mattresses, the concept of an all seeing, all knowing god, TMZ, the smell of industrial cleaner. Strengths: intelligent, ambitious, sincere, passionate, generous, philosophical. Weaknesses: reckless, impatient, cowardly, detached, foolhardy, irresponsible. Fears/phobias: sobriety, letting someone see every single part of him, allowing himself to be vulnerable when sober, having hallucinations, driving a car. Hobbies: little to none as his primary hobby has always been drinking, mostly reading and watching movies. Quirks: fiddling with his glasses, biting the inside of his cheek, humming any song that comes through his mind out loud when he's distracted or concentrating hard on something.

- - - - - - - HISTORY.

!!! possible triggers in the following biography: drug use, alcohol abuse and alcoholism, driving while intoxicated, car accidents, parental neglect of children !!! You are two and a half when you land your first commercial. Your younger sisters managed their first roles before you, but it was a little easier for them as they were infant twins; far more in demand than just a tiny toddler boy. This is how your family eats and keeps themselves in an apartment in Santa Monica that's meant to house three when your family eventually grows to hold seven in total. A lot of mouths to feed. Thankfully you don't remember a lot of this, as the small time work you and your siblings do is enough to keep your family afloat. You make your way into middle school; pissed and stand offish and looking like a cherub; which insures that no one takes you seriously. The friends you make, you hold tightly to, and you kick around in your best friend Boston’s basement, just fooling around on his parents drum kit, their guitars that aren’t actually supposed to be touched. It’s all just for fun, the band and the EP you slap together; just trying to impress each other, until one of Bos’ parents finds someone who wants to sign the band. Everyone tells you over and over again, that this is the deal of a life time. That this will make sure you work in Hollywood for the rest of your life. This is both true, and untrue. The EP is an unmitigated success, and every review has something to say about you, the kid on bass with backup vocals who’s face looks barely legal but plays like he’s planning a murder. Almost everyone remarks on how much older than your few years you seem. Which at first makes you feel special, important. Makes you seek out big words to use when you're sitting on the couch as a guest. The audience really loves that. Of course, this also spawns those times when you end up at wrap parties and after parties, your mother schmoozing whatever producers and execs she can find, your father nowhere to be found, and a sea of adults getting high and wasted around you. None of the vices of Hollywood have ever been all that strange to you, though. Your parents have always had a very blase approach to the innocence of childhood, and didn't much care to shield you from anything. It’s still all fun and games, really. The five of you have too much fun, and everyone wants to treat you to everything, so. Somehow the option you end up choosing most often is the bottle in your hand. The bottles that are so readily available, everywhere, that get pressed into your hands and put into the end of the night goodie bags your mother always takes three of. You think that waking up in an unfamiliar bed every single night of a week is something the rest of your bandmates are doing. It’s all a laugh, we all drink and we all smoke and it’s kid shit, right Boston? You learn that it very much is just a ‘you’ thing when you come to rehearsal (late, as usual) one Thursday afternoon and they’re all somberly waiting for you, hands in their lap and silent. You are being released from your contract with Cthulhu Rising...but the band has elected to move on and create their debut album. Unfortunately at this point you are eighteen and very, very deeply entrenched in alcoholism. The press has been playing you as a party boy who enjoys simple teenage excess for a very long time, but it's starting to wear thin. TMZ is growing a lot less glowing in their articles. You try not to pay attention even as you get yourself thrown out of clubs and tossed into drunk tanks and bailed back out again by whichever assistant your mother has hired this week. As long as you can find a way to make music, you can keep breathing. But with your growing notoriety, offers start to dry up. Those late night shows that loved your precociousness take pot shots at you in their opening monologues. Kimmel's pre-taped Lonely Island style sketch about 'you' endorsing a brand of gin in the style of I Love Lucy gets over a million views on youtube. All of Hollywood, and by extension all the world is laughing at you. It get a little less funny when you ram your matte black Lamborghini Aventador into the median taking the exit for Interstate 10, pinball off of it and into the car in the lane next to you, back into the median hard enough to flip your car into a roll, tumbling side over side across the lanes into the ditch. Your blood test results at the hospital show your blood alcohol content was nearly triple the legal limit. The accident doesn't kill you, though it's a close thing. You're convinced the recovery is worse. The total at the end adds up to a fractured pelvis, six broken ribs, safety glass embedded in your left temple, lacerations all over your arms and face, bleeding in your lungs and swelling in the brain that leaves you in a coma for the better part of two weeks. The most pathetic part of it all? All of that, the things you don't remember from that day coupled with the bursts and flashes of what you do remember, the year and a half you spend in recovery still isn't enough to make you put the bottle down forever. And doesn't that just make you fucking hate yourself?

[imaginarydaydreams]

Her Garden of Unspoken Words (Part 2)

Fandom: Mystic Messenger Pairing: Saeran x MC - Modified Hanahaki Disease AU Date Written: 6/2/19 Thoughts: I never wanted to finish this. I found poetic and sadistic satisfaction in leaving it unfinished. And honestly, had I not found a backup after I deleted everything in a fit of anger, it would have remained unfinished. But alas, here we are. Thank you to both @choisgirls and @thatrandomlittlegirl for beta-ing, but more importantly, not stopping this small ball of rage ;3c

If there was one regret and blessing that he had in his life, it was meeting her. Not because he despised her—no, he loved her with his entire being. She had saved him from himself, from a controlling guardian disguised as his savior, and guided him back to the world of light. She endlessly gave him the love he thought he would never have, always patient and encouraging towards anything he put his mind to. And for that he was forever grateful. He would do anything for this woman. The last thing he ever wanted was to hurt her, even by accident. And yet…

How can you say you truly love someone when you don’t even know anything about them? That was a question that constantly plagued Saeran’s mind as he stared at the sleeping form of his beloved, lying cold and stark still. The sterility of her hospital room reminded him of the whites of the petals in his arms—pure, blank, empty. Clean of any signs of injury. Meanwhile her expression—a void expression, his mind whispered tauntingly, oh so emotionless now—was so peaceful and calm that he could almost, almost convince himself that this wasn’t real. That none of this was truly real. However, with each glance at her, he could see flashes from weeks prior run through his mind. The angry reds that coated her hands, her face, the floor, everywhere as he watched her collapse in a flurry of petals. The twist of pain that marred her features; the fear and regret that twinkled in her eyes as she fell over, barely whispering a word as he rushed forward to catch her. The fleeting warmth of her body as he held her close and screamed for her to wake up, to not leave him. He could still remember the night following her surgery. The hushed conversations with doctors that looked down at him with pity still rung in his ears. “This is quite a rare strand of Hanahaki disease; we haven’t seen this strand in years, much less one of this severity.” “This specific strand attacks a person in severe distress; a combination of self-loathing and unrequited love turned deadly without the right treatment in time.” “I’m afraid that, with a case at this stage, we had no choice but to remove the flowers at the cost of her empathy.” “You know, in our records, it says that this patient has been in and out on account of some heavy mental trauma that she was suffering from.” “Are you sure you knew her as much as you think you did, sir?” The hands gripping the bouquet shook and trembled at the memories that tore his mind apart with anguish. His eyes shifted down to stare at the flowers, hoping for some distraction, anything to distract his tortured soul, but the pink-tinted petals did nothing to ease him. They only taunted him as the whites shone up at him through the blood, under the sunlight streaming through the open window. Anemones. Betrayal and forsaken love. Snowdrops. Hope, consolation, sympathy, rebirth, and purity. Lily of the Valley. A promise of happiness. These were the cost of her sins—were they her sins? Or were they his, since he caused her to suffer in silence for his own delusions? After all, they were right. He knew nothing about her. Not her favorite color, her skills, nor what made her tick. But he was drawn to her—drawn to the way that she smiled with the brightness of her soul; the way that she carried herself with calm, unyielding kindness, never raising a hand towards him even in his darkest times. And he thought that would have been enough. Because, for years, he didn't think he would ever get to see his family, much less would be able to get rid of his grief and hatred towards his brother and his guardian. Yet, she had held his hand gently, guiding him back to himself with nothing but encouraging words and soft embraces. A reunion with his brother, the both of them safe and sound for once in their lives, had never been possible. At least, not without her help. She had taken the pieces of his soul, pieces that he thought couldn't be fixed, and had magically mended them together to secure him a peace of mind. They knew nothing of each other, but it seemed like she knew the right answers to his problems, generously took him into her embrace, and showered him with love and affection that he so desired yet did not deserve. And he was so enamored with the thought that someone loved him so wholly that he became selfish. He wanted to be the one by her side. He wanted to be selfish for once in his life as he asked for her permission to make her happy, thinking that those eleven days spent together would be enough to become lovers. As if such a status could bridge the fact that they were still essentially strangers to one another. Or that it could replace the trauma, which stained their souls with scars and unwanted remembrances, with unmistakable love, similar to the one that she had shown him. If he would have known that this was how it would have ended, he would have never asked her in the first place. He loved her on the basis of infatuation clouding his vision, not once seeing her for who she truly was. Instead, he had fallen for the illusion of her in his mind; fallen for the girl that held her head high in the face of adversity, never wavering. The girl who could forgive even the most depraved of souls. The girl who looked at the positives in a world that was dark and so drearily cold. But because of this, he failed to see how she flinched when he pulled her in for an embrace and rested his head into the crook of her neck. Failed to see how she left their shared bed in the middle of the night, the sound of choked sobs and petals following her as she quietly left to cope on her own. Never even realized that her eyes—eyes that were so bright, so expressive, so compassionate—were now so dim from when they first met, ringed in deep, dark circles that screamed of pains far beyond what any person should experience in a lifetime. Hell, he never even noticed the way her smile wouldn’t reach her eyes as she told him “I love you.” So, in the end, how did he repay her kindness? By breaking her beyond repair. And the realization finally hit, causing him to break down in that little hospital room, tears falling down his cheeks with the all the guilt that ate him alive and tore him to shreds. Fingers grasped desperately at the flowers forged from her own heart and sorrows, almost as if doing so would bring her back; that he would feel her warmth under his fingertips instead of the sting of the truth ringing in the silence. But they only spelled out his mistakes so plainly for even someone as dense as him to see. He did this. He's the one who irrevocably destroyed her spirit. He had blindly promised her a life of happiness by his side. A life filled with endless love and reverence. But as he stared at her broken figure, listening to the resounding beeps of the machine that struggled to keep her alive, he realized that all he gave her was a life of endless suffering. It was entirely his fault. He had been selfish in ever thinking that he could love her. And that was something that he couldn't take back.

[tenaciousarcadeexpert]

My Ideal MCU Fantastic Four Fancast

After finding out that Disney and Fox reached a deal in which the rights of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four are reverted back to Marvel(Thank god), I figured that I might as well make a fancast for the Fantastic Four. These are personally my choices so please don’t judge me. 

The Heroes

Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic: Daniel Henney

  The smartest man on Earth who has the ability to stretch, twist and re-shape his body to inhuman proportions, Reed is the leader of the Fantastic Four, developing a ship that could travel deep within time and space, allowing him and the team to travel through different planets, time periods and universes. Ever since the accident that gave him and his team powers, Reed has often been filled with guilt, blaming himself for the accident and Ben’s condition. Still, with the love and support from his family and friends, Reed would learn to overcome his problems, allowing him to become a capable leader and accomplished superhero. I chose Daniel for a couple of reasons(And yes cause he’s handsome.) I know the the MCU is seriously lacking in Asian characters, particularly males, so I figured why not racebend. Before anyone says anything, I just want to say that yeah, I cast an Asian actor to play the smart one out of team but there’s a lot more to Reed than his intelligence and it’s his strong, unconditional love for his teammates. After seeing him in movies like Shanghai Calling and voicing Tadashi from Big Hero 6, I could totally see him play the brilliant scientist.   

Susan Storm/Invisible Woman: Natalie Dormer

Wife of Reed, a biochemist and CEO of the Future Foundation, Sue has the ability to bend and manipulate light to render herself and others invisible as well as generating near-indestructible invisible force fields around herself or other targets, making her the most powerful member on the team. Natalie Dormer was an interesting pick, though I envisioned Susan as someone who is not only a caring, loving wife and sister but also someone who does not tolerate any bullshit and is not afraid to get a little tough on others if it’s necessary. Natalie has quite the look and I could imagine her trying to make sure that Reed keeps his feet on the ground. Plus, she and Daniel would make a nice couple with good chemistry(Hopefully).

Johnny Storm/The Human Torch: Hunter Parrish

Johnny has the ability to control fire, allowing him to project fire from his body, as well as the power to fly. Due to being the youngest member of the team, Johnny is the most adventurous, always eager to explore new worlds and creating trouble on the way. I think Hunter would be the perfect choice to play the more brash Johnny after seeing him in 17 Again. 

Ben Grimm/The Thing: Robert Kazinsky

A life-long friend of Reed since college and has been transformed into a monstrous, orange, rock-like humanoid possessing high levels of superhuman strength and durability. Ever since the accident, Ben has often been filled with anger, self-loathing and self-pity over his new appearance. Unlike the others, he is unable to revert back to a normal appearance. This has brought a strain to his and Reed’s friendship and was desperate in wanting to be normal again. He even relied on the help of Victor Von Doom, Reed’s archnemesis in curing him. Eventually, with a change of heart, Ben would soon reconcile with Reed and the rest of the team as well as gaining some more confidence in his appearance, with the help from his soon-to-be girlfriend, Alicia. With Robert, I think that as long as he can pull off an American accent, he would do great as Ben, bringing him a sense of dry-humor as well as butting heads with Johnny.

The Villains

Harvey Elder/The Mole Man: Josh Gad

A scientist that aspires to become the next Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym and even Reed Richards but was shunned not only for his ugliness but also his belief of a “Hollow” Earth. He would soon discover  Subterranea, an underground realm and would rule over the moloids and conquer Ancient monsters. He then seeks revenge on the surface world. I know Josh Gad was a odd choice but when it comes to casting, the MCU has a thing for casting actors you’d least expect to appear in a movie, like Sylvester Stallone in GOTG Vol 2 and Cate Blanchett in Thor Ragnarok, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Josh somehow finds his way into the MCU. I also feel that it might be refreshing to see him in a different light as a villain as opposed to playing the comic relief. 

Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Doctor Doom, also known as Victor Von Doom is the monarch and dictator of Latveria. Highly intelligent, he is an equal to Reed, which angers him. He also use to attend the same college as Reed and Ben till an accident occurs, leaving him with a scar on his face and causing him to be expelled. He would then travel to Kamar-Taj, where he gained some knowledge of sorcery and magic. With that, he would soon use it as an advantage of invading his home country, Latveria and would rule over Latveria in a dictatorship. He would swore revenged on the one person that was responsible for most of his problems: Reed Richards. Doom does not admire the idea of him and Reed being equals and claims to be far more superior and better than him. In all honesty, it would been better if I cast a Eastern-European actor to play Doom, but there was something about Nikolaj that made me choose him. I could see him and Daniel play rivals. Doom is a villain that I consider to be tragic, similar to Loki and Magneto and could imagine appearing in multiple movies, becoming a more interesting and menacing villain along the way.

Note: I am aware of Victor being of Romani descent in the comics and I apologize for whitewashing. I do love Nikolaj, but I do also hope for an actor of Romani decent play Doom.

Kang the Conqueror:Arnold Vosloo

A time traveling conqueror with vast powers and technological supremacy from the 31st Century, he travels back to Egypt c. 2950 B.C. and became known as the Pharaoh Rama-Tut. If you seen The Mummy, you’ll know why I chose him. Kang the Conqueror is quite an interesting villain in which I could imagine like Doom, is also a villain that could crossover in other films with other superheroes like the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Impossible Man: Lin Manuel Miranda

A prankster and hedonist, the Impossible Man claimed to belong to the alien race of Poppupians from planet Poppup in the "Tenth Galaxy", who all share a collective consciousness and the ability to shapeshift, as their planet is so dangerous they have the ability to evolve very quickly.  I could imagine Lin portray this charcter with a sense of quirkiness and mischief to him.

Annihilus: Jason Flemymg

Annihilus, a native of the planet Arthos, is the ruler of the Negative Zone and a  nihilist who is obsessed with constantly finding different ways to extend his lifespan and destroying all that which he sees as a threat to his existence. He’s the owner of something known as the “cosmic control rod”. After watching him in X-Men: First Class and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, with a little help from prosthetics, CGI and even motion capture, Jason can somehow pull off playing the alien ruler of the Negative Zone.

Blastaar: Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

A member of an alien race known as the Baluurians, of the planet Baluur in the Negative Zone . He ruled the Baluurians as their monarch ruthlessly until his subjects rebelled and rose against him. Blastaar was deposed as monarch, and became a Negative Zone outlaw. Blastaar was locked up in a special containment suit and set adrift in outer space in the Negative Zone. He would soon encounter the Fantastic Four during their travels in the Negative Zone. Having the right built and body, Hafþór would fit perfectly for this role.

Lucia Von Bardas: Hiba Abouk

She is the servant and advisor of Doctor Doom who poses as a diplomat at the Latverian Embassy in the U.S. who is also secretly a cyborg created by Doom. I can imagine her play the villainess and going up against the Invisible Woman.

Esteban Corazón de Ablo/Diablo: Pedro Pascal

A 9th Century alchemist known as Esteban Corazón de Ablo, Diablo is someone who desires of world dominance. He is also able to produce any number of amazing potions that defy scientific analysis. Based on his portrayal as Oberyn Martell, I think Pedro can pull off as a evil alchemist. I originally thought of Javier Bardem but felt that Pedro has a better resemblance to Diablo.

Bentley Wittman/The Wizard: Jemaine Clement

Was one a child-prodigy and chess-champion, The Wizard is a well known innovator and inventor who decides to pursue a life of villany and target some of the best well-known superheroes, particularly the Human Torch. I think Jemaine can pull of the cunning and mischief inventor. I personally see him as a minor villain, similar to Crossbones.

Owen Reece/Molecule Man: Matt Smith

Owen Reece was a weak, shy man by nature. He was a momma's boy, both fearful and resentful of the world. Then, one day, he was transformed into the Molecule Man by a lab accident. While working at an atomic power plant Owen mistakenly activated an experiment device that opened a portal to another dimension. This portal caused him to be exposed to a powerful explosion of a strange energy. The explosion horribly disfigured his face with scars in the shape of lightning bolts, but it also granted him immense power, which he used to take out his pent-up frustrations on the world. I’d loved Matt as the Eleventh doctor in Doctor Who and seeing him in a different light in the mcu would be really interesting.

Kl'rt/Super-Skrull: Joe Taslim

A warrior that was given the combined powers of the fantastic four, Kl’rt became known as the Super Skrull who was used as a special weapon and sent to Earth to pave way for the Skrull-Empire Invasion. Joe was an odd pick cause I could’ve pick someone with a little more muscle like Manu Bennet and Vinnie Jones(Which were some of my alternates.) but I figured that with his martial-arts background, Joe would fit perfectly for the warrior. (If anything goes wrong, he could always play Namor, lol) 

Lyja: Sofia Boutella

A Skrull who was sent to Earth to infiltrate and destroy the Fantastic Four, by seducing the youngest member of the team, Johnny a.k.a The Human Torch. Seeing Sofia in movies like Kingsman and Star Trek Beyond, she could easily play the skillfully badass Skrull warrior. 

The Beyonder: Oded Fehr

The Beyonder is an immensely powerful extradimensional entity of disputed origin. Virtually omnipotent in his realm, the Beyonder has striven on occasion to be mankind's both greatest savior and enemy in his quests to understand human nature. I picked Oded based on the Beyonder’s appearance in the 1994 Spiderman cartoon but either way, I could see him give a melodramatic performance as the Beyonder. 

Galactus: Either Peter Cullen or James Earl Jones

  Also known as the “Destroyer of Worlds”, Galactus is a sentient being that is beyond good and evil as he merely feeds on the energy of planets to survive. I was torn between choosing the man who voiced Optimus Prime and Darth Vader, though either way, both actors have a voice that could give the character a menacing feel to him.

Secondary Characters

Alicia Masters: Genesis Rodriguez

The love-interest of Ben and friend and neighbor of the Fantastic Four. A blind sculptor, she is what gives Ben the confidence in his appearance. Alicia has a big heart, who always tries to find the goodness in anyone, which is what she did in trying to convince the Silver Surfer to disobey Galactus. Even when blind, it does not stop her in trying to help others, especially the Fantastic Four. I think Genesis has that sweet smile and voice that matches the caring Alicia and that she and Robert would make a nice couple.

HERBIE: Voiced by either Alan Tudyk or Matthew Gray Gubler

A small, robotic assistant designed by Reed Richards, think of his role similar to J.A.R.V.I.S and F.R.I.D.A.Y. I was stuck between Alan and Matthew and I figured that either actor would be perfect for the role as they both have done some voice-work in several films before. 

Wyatt Wingfoot: Martin Sensmeier

A close friend of Johnny whom despite not having any powers has saved the team on several occasions and shared many adventures with them. I can imagine Martin being friends with Hunter’s Johnny.

Alyssa Moy: Yaya DaCosta

Alyssa is a close friend and ex-lover of Reed who is also equally smart as him. Even as the two are no longer together, they still remain on good terms, even helping out the Fantastic Four.  About the race change, I feel like the MCU is still lacking in women of color and especially those that are brilliantly smart and into the science field(Like Jane Foster and Helen Cho), so I figured why not and Yaya is a great actress that could seemingly play the equally smart ex of Reed.  

Thundra: Ronda Rousey

  From an alternate reality, Thundra is the mightiest warrior from the United Sisterhood Republic, a country populated and ruled by the Femizons, a matriarchal society of Amazon-like women warriors. Thundra's reality is the alternate reality of the 23rd century Earth-715 in which, she is the strongest person of her world. I can see the Fantastic Four encounter her while traveling through time and though she comes off as antagonistic at first, becomes a good ally to the team. I think Rousey is able to portray this fierce and bold warrior.

Norrin Radd/Silver Surfer: Jacob Anderson

Norrin Radd of Zenn-La is the mighty herald of Galactus, the devourer of worlds. Gifted with the Power Cosmic and a trusty board which he can summon and return to him faster than light speed. He would be known as the Silver Surfer. To be honest, finding an actor to play the Silver Surfer was quite difficult, though I figured Jacob could play him. After watching a couple of episodes of Game of Thrones, I could imagine him give the character some emotional depth.

Frankie Raye/Nova: Riley Keough

Frankie Raye worked for the United Nations as an interpreter. She met Johnny Storm. and became his girlfriend, despite her fear of fire. She would soon develop powers after an accident cause by her step-father, which causes her to become Nova. Technically I thought of having her as Nova instead of Richard Rider because why not, and thought that Riley could pull off playing a badass superheroine, not to mention that she would be perfect for my Human Torch pick.

Uatu the Watcher:  Irrfan Khan

Uatu the Watcher is an incredibly powerful being that has sworn never to interfere with the happenings of the Universe, only to watch, yet he has broken this oath several times. Yes, I know about the whole “What if Stan Lee is the Watcher” though I still figured that someone should still play him. I figured that the character would be motion-captured like Galactus. I chose Irrfan since I figured his voice would suit the character perfectly.

 So that’s about it, I’m sorry if the list is too long as well as the descriptions, but I figured that I might as well share what my interpretation of the MCU’s Fantastic Four would be like. These are personally my picks for the characters and it’s okay if you don’t agree with some of them, just please don’t send in any hate or what not. Hopefully you guys enjoy.

[obiwanwhat]

What We Could Have Been: The Clone Wars

The second installment of the Obidala AU I posted like 2 months ago.

Episodes 1&2

The Clone Wars happen.  Obi-Wan is a general fighting a war, Padme is a senator trying to end a war.  It’s rare that they’re on the same planet at the same time, but they still write send each other letter-style messages - both because a written message is easier to hide than a verbal one, and also because it reminds both of them of happier times.  They steal moments when they’re both on Coruscant at the same time - stolen kisses when Obi-Wan comes by Padme’s chambers to give her updates on the war, a tender glance in an abandoned corridor, a hand squeeze under the table at a formal banquet or negotiation.  And the best of all, when they have a moment to themselves, and they can simply talk - Padme can share her concerns about the war never seeming to end, Obi-Wan can talk about the growing darkness in the Force, and about his worry for Anakin…or they can talk about the shiny who just joined the 212th who, for whatever unknown reason, had adopted some sort of six-legged furry animal from the last planet they were on and the little girl who stopped Padme in the hall to give her a flower.  They talk about the horrible things and the good things, the ordinary and the extraordinary.  The war is long long and hard, and they know that each meeting could be their last.  But for now, they have each other, and it makes the war bearable.  

Unlike Anakin, Obi-Wan is capable of being subtle.  As far as the rest of the galaxy is concerned, Obi-Wan and Padme are nothing more than friends.  Anakin especially has no idea - he couldn’t fathom the idea of his master, the man he always sees as the perfect Jedi, having emotions that are so close to forbidden attachment.  Anakin himself is still in love with Padme; he has been since he laid eyes on her just before the Clone Wars started.  But he knows that Padme doesn’t have feelings for him in return, and with a war going on and a padawan to train, he doesn’t have time to pine over love that wilr work out.  So he buries those feelings deep, deep within himself and ignores them, for the most part.  

And so the war goes on.  Bills are ratified in the Senate, bills are shot down, and the war goes on for Padme.  Battles are won, battles are lost, clones die and are replaced.  Ahsoka is accused of a crime she didn’t commit, and she leaves the Order.  And still the war drags on, and on, and on, and it feels like nothing will ever change.

And then Anakin gets the news that Obi-Wan’s ship was shot down en route to his latest assignment.  They’re scanning for survivors, but they don’t think it was possible for anyone to survive that explosion.  

Anakin’s first thought is that he would have felt it if Obi-Wan was killed, but…..Obi-Wan was in the Outer Rim on the other side of the galaxy - about as far away from Coruscant as you can get.  At that distance….he might not have felt it - he hasn’t been able to sense Obi-Wan for weeks.   And it’s the uncertainty that’s killing him and the idea that he should have felt it, he should have been there, he should have done something….in summary: Anakin is a mess.  Palpatine appears in Anakin’s chambers to try to turn the situation to his advantage, but after about five minutes it’s pretty clear that Anakin isn’t hearing a word he’s saying and that the manipulation is going to have to wait for another time.  So he goes with plan B: he gives Anakin an expensive bottle of Corellian brandy “in honor of Obi-Wan.”  Anakin is too distraught to question the fact that the Supreme Chancellor just suggested he drown his sorrows in alcohol.  Eventually, because he can’t handle this alone anymore, Anakin shows up at Padme’s door with the bottle of brandy - he doesn’t know the full extent of Padme’s relationship with Obi-Wan, but he knows the two of them are close enough that Padme’s probably the only person who will both understand him and not scold him for letting his emotions take control of him.  Padme looks as bad as he feels when she opens the door, and without a word she takes the bottle and pours them each a glass.  Because she’s also worried out of her mind - she doesn’t know if the man she loves is alive or dead, and she knows that the next day she’ll have to go out and act as though nothing is wrong, even though she is dying inside for fear that Obi-Wan is dead.  One glass leads to another, and another….basically, both Anakin and Padme get drunk out of their minds because neither of them can handle the levels of emotion they’re dealing with at the moment.  

What neither of them knows, however, is that Palpatine knows that Obi-Wan Kenobi is not dead, but imprisoned in a Separatist colony in the Outer Rim after his escape pod was captured.  He knows that Kenobi won’t stay missing for long, but if he can use the opportunity of Kenobi’s absence to drive a wedge between Kenobi and Anakin….and what better way to do that than with the irritating senator, who managed to capture the hearts of both the Jedi?  He knows about Anakin’s feelings because Anakin’s confined in him, and he knows about Padme and Obi-Wan’s relationship because of his frankly excellent spy network.  Palpatine knows that Anakin won’t be able to resist turning to Padme to help him cope with Obi-Wan’s supposed death, so he laces with a lust-inducing drug.  Hopefully, Kenobi discovering his former Padawan is having an affair with the woman he loves will be enough to destroy the friendship between the two men, leaving Anakin even more susceptible to Palpatine’s manipulations.  

So Anakin and Padme are not only drunk beyond all belief, but they’ve also been dosed with a lust drug.  Also, Anakin’s never been able to hold his liquor that well, and his grip on the Force is….shaky at best at the moment.  Specifically, it means that without knowing it, he’s projecting his emotions like crazy onto anyone in the general area (which happens to be Padme), and as a result of the drug, the fact that he’s in love with Padme is at the forefront of his mind.  Normally, this would be nothing more than an embarrassing revelation, but because Padme is similarly drunk out of her mind, she’s not in a state to realize that those emotions aren’t her own.  The fact that she was also dosed with the lust drug isn’t helping either.  So with the combination of alcohol, the drug, and Anakin’s emotions affecting both of them…..one thing leads to another and when Padme wakes up the next morning in bed with a naked Anakin Skywalker, her first thought is what have I done.  She runs to the refresher, and puts on some clothes - any clothes, Senatorial dignity be damned - and practically runs out of the apartment.  

Anakin wakes up about half an hour later, and his first thoughts are similar to Padme’s.  Yes, he’s in love with Padme, but he never wanted it to be like this - not when both of them were drunk, and not while Obi-Wan is…..Anakin can’t even think about it.  He gets dressed and, once he can sense that the hallway’s clear, slips out.  

It is important to note, however, that Anakin has no idea he was projecting his emotions the night before.  He thinks that the love he sensed from Padme last night was real - he has no idea that it was, in actuality, his own emotion mirrored back at him.  So in some small part of his mind (the very tiny part that isn’t filled with regret and shame and worry for Obi-Wan) there’s the hope that maybe, someday, the two of them can happen the right way.

Obi-Wan makes his escape from the Separatists.  He steals a ship, and as soon as he’s safely away and able to access a comm, he sends two messages: a coded message to the Jedi council detailing where he was and that he escaped, and a message of two words - I’m alive - to Padme.  Padme is in the middle of a Senate meeting when she gets the message, and she has to leave so that she can sob in relief without disgracing herself.  But after the pure, indescribable relief and joy that Obi-Wan isn’t dead comes dread.  How is she going to face Obi-Wan after what she did with Anakin? The one line that the two of them never had crossed, never could cross - and she crossed it with his former apprentice.  She doesn’t know what she’s going to say to him. He’s alive, she tells herself.  He’s alive, and that’s all that matters.  And mostly, she believes it, because words cannot describe her joy that the love of her life is alive.  But still, a small part of her worries.  

And then Obi-Wan is home, and he’s bruised and scarred but not broken, not broken and wonderfully alive.  As soon as he’s able, he finds himself in Padme’s chambers, and she’s in his arms, weeping from relief and shame and love.  He can tell something’s wrong as soon as he sees her - he knows her Force signature like he knows his own name - and the truth pours out from her lips between sobs.  And it’s a knife in Obi-Wan’s side to hear the words - imagining Padme with the man who’s like his son, like his brother makes him feel like he can’t breath.  But Padme is sobbing into his chest, and he can feel the regret and self-loathing pouring off of her in waves, and he knows to the depths of his soul that there’s nothing she could ever do that would make him stop loving her.  And so he holds her, and tells her he’s here, and he’s safe, and it will be alright.  

Obi-Wan falls asleep in Padme’s chambers that night, his head in her lap as she runs her fingers through his hair.  And for that moment, just for that one moment, they are at peace.  As things so often are before a storm comes and changes everything.

[redorblue]

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

Boy was I hyped for this book. I read The Secret History in September (twice) and had to keep myself from making a shrine to Donna Tartt, so when I finally got my hands on The Goldfinch (which is a Pulitzer Prize winner no less) I was very, very excited. Which, as I keep forgetting, is not a good way to start a new book. So... It’s not like this book was a waste of time, and who am I to criticize a Pulitzer book anyway, but to me it’s definitely not as good as The Secret History, and at times I found it very hard to keep going.

Let’s start with what I liked though. I like how Donna Tartt writes relationships. I read an interview with her the other day where she says that she’s less interested in writing romance than other kinds of relationships. So far I’ve read two of her three novels (and at least in those two it’s very obvious that she doesn’t find romance all that interesting) and I’m very grateful to come across an author who doesn’t treat romance as the end-all-be-all. Granted, her depiction of friendship and family, and really her books in general, are rather dark and I dare say pessimistic, but still, it’s refreshing and superbly done. The main friendship here is the one between the protagonist and narrator, Theo, and his childhood friend Boris whom he meets a few weeks after his mother’s death in a terrorist attack (not committed by Islamists. Thanks, Donna). They soon become the only fixed point in each other’s lives in a solitary world of neglectful and violent fathers and absent/dead mothers. Objectively speaking, neither one is a good influence on the other: Boris is an alcoholic at the tender age of 13 and introduces Theo to a whole lot of other disreputable substances, as well as petty crime, and Theo’s self-destructive behaviour only exacerbates Boris’ tendency toward recklessness. But despite all that they form a strong friendship (with some romantic subtext here and there) based on a deep understanding of the other’s character, and morals aside, it’s really beautiful to see how far they would go for the other. I’d still say that they’re bad for each other and that their relationship is destructive at its core, but not because it’s a bad friendship - rather because their respective personal issues inadvertently make the other’s worse and also have a negative impact on their environment. Actually I think that’s true for most of Donna Tartt’s characters: They’re not really bad people (by whatever standards), and their issues don’t make them bad people either; it’s more the specific combinations in stressful situations that produce bad outcomes for them and others.

Another important relationship in The Goldfinch is the one between Theo and several parental figures: his mother (dead, which leaves him deeply scarred), Mrs Barbour who takes him in for a while after his mother’s death, his father (a relationship that haunts Theo his entire life), and Hobie, his guardian. It’s a rather tired trope to kill the protagonist’s mother in order to induce personal trauma, but I think in this case it’s very well executed and although we only meet her for a few short pages, she feels like a real, layered person instead of some sacrificial lamb meant only to create manpain. Her death, and specifically the manner of her death (the terrorist attack, during which Theo is also injured) leaves a huge hole in his heart and causes a whole bunch of mental health issues, but the reason for that is that we know first hand what a great person, and great mother, she was, and that’s what makes Theo’s pain over her death so relatable. (spoilers) His father, on the other hand, remains rather one-dimensional although he gets a lot more screen time. The only thing I know about him now is that he’s an abusive, unreliable coward, and honestly that’s enough, the less said about him the better. What’s really interesting is not him as a character, but his relationship with Theo, specifically how Theo recognizes (or thinks he recognizes) his father in his every action and urge and how it contributes to his self-loathing and carelessness about his destructive impulses.

So Theo’s biological parents are abusive and/or deceased, which is why he turns to other parent-aged people, namely Mrs. Barbour and Hobie. Especially Theo’s relationship with Mrs. Barbour becomes a bit obsessive, to the point where he mainly agrees to marry his girlfriend (Mrs. Barbour’s daughter) in order to please Mrs. Barbour, but in general they have a positive influence on Theo’s life. Theo has severe mommy/daddy issues and is very insecure toward them since subconciously he always thinks they’ll kick him out, even when he’s financially independent and an adult himself, so he always does his very best to hide his inner torment from them. Of course this is not a good thing in general, but it forces Theo to keep up appearances, to keep it together at least superficially, and I’m pretty sure it’s the only thing that keeps his drug addiction from escalating so much that it impairs his ability to function. They don’t know enough about what’s going on inside him, maybe also turned a blind eye a bit too often in an effort to see what they hoped to see and respect his privacy, but at least he didn’t end up as another body in the gutter, dead from heroin overdose, which would very likely have happened without them.

Lastly, there’s the romantic relationships, if you can call them that. The one with Kitsey (the woman he almost marries) is not really romantic; if anything, Theo’s in love with the idea of being in love with her, and the sense of normalcy that comes with it. It’s quite obvious that he doesn’t really know her, and she doesn’t really know him, and they’re both not remotely interested in changing that since it would mean letting their facades of a normal life without emotional trauma drop, and they’re both not ready for that. Not with each other anyway. They get along well enough when they’re alone although they don’t seem to share any interests, but they’re definitely not marrying for love but rather for convenience.

Theo’s relationship with Pippa, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. I dare say it’s not so much love but obsession that binds him to her, stemming from an emotional connection because of shared trauma (she was a survivor of the same terrorist attack that killed Theo’s mother and left him injured). Theo knows a lot about Pippa, they can talk to each other and they share interests - which would be perfect if in his mind she wasn’t so inextricably linked to his guilt complex about the loss of his mother, and if she reciprocated the feeling. Which thankfully she doesn’t (to that extent, at least; it leaves her enough reason to see things as they are) because she understands very well that what they both need in their lives is not another unstable person. She doesn’t cut ties with him entirely because after all they share many experiences and mean a lot ot each other, but she continually makes it clear that she doesn’t want to be with him - which doesn’t stop him from developing a more or less respectful, but very unhealthy obsession about her. However, while I don’t see anything remotely romantic or cute in this kind of relationship, I like how Donna Tartt executes it. Theo’s relationship with Pippa could very easily be turned into something that the reader is supposed to find romantic - the lonely, broken man pining for his childhood sweetheart - but it’s not. It’s shown for what it is: unhealthy, obsessive, damaging to both of them, a curse rather than a blessing. Which for me makes it all the more interesting, if painful, to observe.

So. Obviously, I liked the interactions between the characters and how they all make so much sense considering their personal backstories. What I didn’t like was mainly the length of it. For the entire 800+ pages the reader is stuck in Theo’s head, and let me tell you, it’s not pleasant in there. On the one hand, descriptions of drug abuse are simply not my thing, I don’t like spending a lot of time in the head of someone who’s constantly on alcohol, painkillers, cocaine and what have you. It’s doubly not my thing if the character in question is 13 years old. The part in Vegas dragged so much I was seriously tempted to put the book down, which goes against my every principle as a bibliophile. It got better when Theo was grown up because the problems of a twenty-something are more interesting to me than those of a teenager - but not much better. Because Theo keeps making the wrong choices (only one wrong choice, really) over and over again, and worse, he keeps whining about all the missed turns. Yes, it makes sense in terms of his character, someone who’s so cagey about personal information doesn’t just walk up to his guardian one day and tells him that he accidentally stole a 65 Mio. Dollar painting - but on the long term it’s so frustrating I kept wanting to shake some sense into him. Theo isn’t a take-charge character (even in the end it was thanks to Boris that the painting finally got back where it belonged), he’s someone who just floats along while wistfully looking at all the missed chances, but there’s only so much I can take of such an approach to life. And it’s definitely less than 800+ pages.

[branblessed-blog]

F U C K Y A B O I B)c Do them Ari. Do'em.

SINDAY MEME.

F = Favorite Position

As I’ve said before, Dave is really into shibari. A beautiful arrangement like this one definitely him excited for sure. Boy loves his aesthetics. In combination with his photography kink, he has a very good time tying his partner up and taking photos. So, in terms of that kink, any position works for him, because he’s seeking to make something that’s nice to look at – like a flower arrangement, but with a person and ropes instead of plants and vases. His only interest in any sort of suspension is for photography purposes only, however – though he’ll very happily do the do during unsuspended shoots. And, of course, he doesn’t push anyone further than they’re comfortable, or leave them bound for longer than they want. The purpose of shibari may be to create beauty from discomfort, but he is very adamant about knowing his partner’s limits before doing any serious bondage stuff, including shibari.

In terms of actually having sex, he’s got, like, two modes, very similar to how he is in general. Mode one is very chill, laid-back, let’s-chill-out-and-have-a-good-time, lazy romantic sex. Basically the first one over here. Mode two is just. Holy-shit-I-need-to-fuck-NOW. That’s really the only way to describe it. Aggressive, rough, dead set on a very single-minded goal of getting off ASAP. Any position that fulfills that purpose works.

U = Unfair

He loves teasing his partners. He’ll edge the fuck outta them. That’s really all there is to say on the matter.

C = Cum

It exists. He doesn’t really have any particular kinks regarding it. He’s not fond of making messes, so condoms are pretty much standard fare not just for safety but for cleanliness. That’s. About it, really.

K = Kink

I think I just about covered his major kinks above. Shibari, photography or filming, teasing, and rough rutting. Yeah. He’s willing to try plenty of other stuff to please his partner, though. 

Y = Yearning

It’s kind of embarrassing how much he wants to fuck all the time. Thing is, he’s not into stranger or anonymous sex, so he’s not interested in one-night stands, and he’s monogamous as hell. So even though he’s basically up for having sex nearly all the time, he’s not at all interested in doing the do with just anyone; it’s only really with serious partners that he’ll accept an invitation. So, he jacks off a lot, is basically what I’m saying here. After having sex, though, especially if it involves a few of his kinks – I mean, he and his kinks are pretty exhausting for both parties. So he’s good for a few days after that.

A = Aftercare

Aftercare is super duper very important for him, firstly because he does a lot of kinky shit and knows the value of aftercare in any kinky relationship. Cuddles and kisses are a must. Even though he usually is ready to pass tf out after a good sesh. But also, when he does any significant amount of dom stuff, he gets major topdrop, so he needs the cuddles just as much as his partner does. Even after none-kink-related sex, though, he is more than happy to just snuggle for a little while, maybe take a nap together.

B = Body part

Surprisingly, he’s not actually fond of his appearance at all. Ironic, given his occupation as a model in a lot of modern verses. He knows that he’s good-looking, and he definitely flaunts it, but he. doesn’t. like himself? at all. He has a lot of self-loathing problems, and in terms of appearance, this manifests in thinking his vast array of scars are ugly or disgusting. Even if he’s been shirtless or nude in a platonic setting with his partner before, he’ll get very shy and self conscious about his appearance in a romantic or sexual setting, because now his appearance matters – at least, in his head it does.

O = Oral

I mean, who doesn’t love a good bj, am I right. He definitely likes receiving. But, with that sentiment in mind, he also likes giving oral, because he knows full well how fun it is, and he likes making his partner happy. So, it’s safe to say he’s got some skill using that mouth. Given the opportunity he would probably always choose to receive rather than to give, but out of respect and love for his partner he’d still pick to give about half the time. Fair’s fair, after all.

I = Intimacy

Depends on the partner and setting, if they’re being kinky or not, etc. Because he definitely can have the capacity to be a huge goofball. One of his favorite things to do is make jokes right as his partner is climaxing so that they laugh when they orgasm. Something about that is really appealing to him. So that might take place in both a relaxed and a kinky setting. But more standard silliness is definitely present during lazy, relaxed sex.

[redlemonz]

Day #14

Waking up from another wonderful fantasy can really suck. I remember this one particular Walt Disney saying, or song rather, that a dream is a wish your heart makes. Cheesy as hell I know, but you can't really be surprised by now. Now I'm not sure how that would necessarily apply to the nightmares I've had unless I'm just that much of a twisted being (wouldn't be that surprising to be fair with a mind like this), but when putting that idea aside, and focusing on last night - there's obviously a lot of truth to the saying when your dreams convey nothing but the sole love between the two of you. We briefly chatted last night about her conquering the snowy mountain, and more so than was required about my thrillingly boring weekend, and then some mild chit chat about how modern music has turned to shit. She showed me some stunning photos of the snowy covered mountain, as well as her local snowy mountain which we visited two weekends ago. It was nice to end the weekend on this high note for myself, as my eyelids shut and mouth widened a little bit. And there's the sudden realisation now that it's been two weeks since sick-day monday, and having to say goodbye as we did. Me thinking back to that final moment as I walked her back to her car, exchanging as many last kisses as I could in that moment, and then was forced to face the rest of the passengers when boarding the plane back home, upon being allocated the one emergency assistance seat that was facing backwards, with every single bit of me having to fight the urge to draw a single tear in public. That battle raged on inside me throughout that whole flight, especially as the last thing I viewed was a snap from her on my phone, informing me she reached home safely (as I'd always request her to tell me), and that she loves me. My heart skips a beat each moment I think back to this moment, and constantly wishes to relive that weekend over and over with her - it was the perfect example of what we should've, and more so, could've still become. It didn't have to be discovered too late, regardless of that very label being the definition of what had happened between us. A fresh beginning such as it was.. is just something to carry on in my own fantasy sadly. So, as you would have it, my reality of waking up after such a lovely dream, packaged with the linking memory through time, resulted in sorrow, considering that travelling the world and partnering up on all these new, exciting and unfamiliar adventures around the world with her by your side became nothing more than fiction. She's smiling there, holding onto you, and you're wrapping your arms around her and lifting her up, spinning her around a bit before meeting her lips with yours. She looks as beautiful as she always does, when you look into her blue eyes and brush back her blonde hair softly. Sounds like a work of fiction based on a dream girl right? Because it is. Right now anyway. The thing is, it use to be my reality - I've experienced all these amazing and magical moments with her that truly can't be justified through words. That moment of true love, in which you feel as though you're finally complete, because you've peaked in a level of happiness that you've never experienced before.. until she brought it out. What a dream come true she's been to me.. which is why I despised opening my eyes this morning, to find the emptiness next to me in my bed, and to remember my new truth. It's part of the reason why I started going to bed much earlier, or generally sleeping a lot on the weekend too.. not because I'm tired physically so to speak, but rather because I'm tired of life. I want this valuable time to just speed on by, and I can meanwhile just enjoy and live in my alternate reality that are my dreams. They're much nicer after all. It's why I wish I didn't wake up sometimes. Sleeping permanently just feels more appealing than being in the endless pit of reality which contains despair, pain, agony, regret, and self loathing - to say the least. As my most played song of all time goes (which she once again would cringe at, which makes me smile that I'd know her instant reaction) - It's hard to say I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep, because everything is never as it seems. Day 14 - return of an old friend and foe Unsure whether it was due to the coffee or just generally me (probably the combination of both to some extent, but considering I have a coffee every working day anyway, it's likely the latter), a familiar friend named anxiety came to visit me at work. The bitch was certainly not welcome, I'll tell you that, but nevertheless it barged it's way in through the weakly constructed walls of my head (no wonder she strengths them otherwise, she's a clever architect). Primarily because it's Monday, and I have a lot of significant work to actually do, especially prior to going up North for the whole day tomorrow for various work related interviews (look at me guys, I'm trying to make it sound like I'm important and what I do makes a difference, but I'm just another cog in the machine that can easily be replaced). But also, I'm not enjoying the fact that I'm beginning another working week and getting use to this shitty idea of not having her in my life in that way, through this anxious time. It was always so simple and nice to just speak to her about any stressful or pressure filled days, and to just feel so much better as a result of her listening and providing her presence. It would calm everything down, and I'd actually be able to feel as though I was breathing like a normal person. Even more so when I would see her in person or speak to her on the phone, as all that unnecessary load on my shoulders would just disappear or turn as minimal as it could be. She was my guardian angel, and just simply an angel, to even bother listening to me blabber on about my nonsense and put up with me in that regard, let alone display a level of care for me. I miss that. Being able to just message her anything at any point in the day without the fear of judgement or the fear and insecurity that once again I'm annoying / bothering her. Though I suppose it's more than nice to know yet again that she doesn't have to put up with these ongoing problems that were never really her concern anyway. It just reemphasises that growing sense of loneliness in me further however. I loved listening to everything about her days too, even if I didn't understand architecture jargon at times. I'd try google stuff at times just to attempt to make more sense of it and catch up to the same page as her, even though she was a full 5 years, inclusive of a thesis ahead, and also assure and show her that I do in fact care. And I still do - I genuinely enjoy hearing about what she's working on, what's being developed and what she's achieving (in addition to her indoor football stardom, and office antics inclusive of some co-worker personalities) - and in accordance with all that, if she's happy. Once in a while now, I'm still lucky to be involved enough in her life for her to continue to share these stories, and her days in general with me, though on a less regular basis. Though at the same time it sucks that it can't be as often as it use to, or go back to how it once was, as she's made it quite clear that it's not my concern, my duty, or my place to care like that anymore. Hurtful as those words can be, I can understand and try my best to listen to her. I'll just continue to persevere through it and still enjoy whatever she does decide to share with me, and it'll still make me happy to have that shared knowledge regarding how things are going for her. I just miss being the daily ears on the other end, as someone in my position would, because I do miss her every single day. But it is what it is, and I need to continue to start adjusting towards being this lone wolf, who needs to learn to deal with his added problems and stress on a daily basis like a real adult, on top of the problem of a human being that he already is. Evening time spent with the family after a hellish, yet productive day at work. Nothing exciting planned or required to be done this evening, aside from some light exercise and an early sleep for a pre-5am wake up call in the morning. Not that anything in my recent couple weeks can remotely fit the criteria of exciting or be defined as anything nearly as close to that - with the exception of the mission, last weekend.. and well, most thoughts about her in my head. Well there's other stuff too, but she's just set the bar high, and excitement is not currently an active mood whatsoever. But that's where my real exhilaration lies - imagination. Even though it is pretty limited, similar to my vocabulary and ability to describe all these scattered thoughts and emotions from different segments of my mind - which is why none of this is to literally have any likely proper form. It's just a failed punctuative of a continuous rambling about the same old stuff over and over, much like in this very inceptive moment. Anyway, back to my short evening of despair regarding everything that's broken - it sucks, even more so with acceptance. Sometimes the worst and most damagingly scarring feeling is knowing that some variables are now fixed - that no matter what, there is absolutely no possibility of changing this decided fate. No matter how utterly badly you might want it, and how ever much you wish you could go back in time and amend all your wrongs, Chris Martin will not try to fix you. Not anymore. Fuck you Coldplay. It was not all yellow, you overpriced English bastards. Though I'll admit you've now inspired me to pick up the guitar and play whatever crappy, limited chord and strumming capability stuff that I can. More on the depressing side of choice however, as it's obviously poetic and engages me with my overbearingly lame and emotional self, whilst making me sound like an absolute douchebag (self-high five for empathic emphasis). Anyhow, back to embracing the thudding of my heart against my chest oh so hurtfully - because it's what my ecstatic audience of nil really wishes to hear about, and you gotta give the people what they want after all. In this case, it's just me, myself and I - who switches persons and persona quite often it seems. Damn, you're really going to end up in an asylum, aren't you? Probably. Anyway - What gets me even more nervous and anxious now is not knowing when I'll next ever see her, because I certainly don't think I'll be able to stand for the first time since the last(whenever it may be), to be in a group setting, that's for sure. Not that I wish to assume how it'd turn out either way, but I know that it would be unorthodox for me to just pretend like everything's okay, or to just be a somewhat polite and passive existence, for the sake of being mature and politically fair in a circle of people. There's obviously a reason that I'm failing to face a group of people properly right now, even without her presence. I'm not saying I would be a dick on purpose (though it may come naturally), but I just can't fake it enough in that circumstance, considering my last memory of us together in each other's presence is.. something completely different. Group politics aside, it's still unknown and unfamiliar what the dynamics would be like between us since that moment if we were alone. What I can be certain of, is that it'll be some sort of variation of my months on end friend-zone of admiration, though toned down, based on the history since and our hardships equally suffered. Although - the most serious and significant fact of this matter right now is, that I'm going to shut the hell up. Because I'm doing it again. It's the problem with blabbering on too much, and thinking out loud even more as a result - stop complicating things that aren't complicated. She may as well sing Avril to me because it's the most appropriate thing to do at this moment - I mean It's not a fucking scientific study in which you test out which potential hypothesis ends up being the victorious result. Just calm down, and relax - no more assumptions and expectations of any sort. It's the key learning that I'm trying very much to implement in myself, to make myself a better me, who doesn't screw things up - which is still an impossible feature. Even more that I'm the asshole of a hypocrite whom always requested that she kindly didn't think too much ahead about anything, and that she just relax and live in the moment with me.. when I'm the idiot who once again can't follow his own advice. My goodness she must've gotten sick of me constantly telling her to relax and calm down, repeatedly on many a occasion, when even that blame should be upon me for aggravating any of that behaviour unnecessarily. I brought each and every justified reaction of hers upon myself through my own accord - Newton's third law. I'm the selfish bastard who would keep pushing, and pushing and then complain about what he can't have, even though she's right there. I may as well play the role of the phantom, but a demented version of even him. No wonder I constantly drove her up a wall, and past all the red lights on the road (I kid, she's a great driver - but may as well finish off this tragic evening consisting of a two week mark on a somewhat positive and comedic note, right?).

[zutaraverse]

Chapter 9: Badgermole Caught in the Sun

Chapter 9 of Blood, Chi and Full Moons: Find previous chapters here or: Chapter 1 Part 1 | Chapter 1 Part 2 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 Part 1 | Chapter 3 Part 2 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 Part 1 | Chapter 7 Part 2 | Chapter 8

Zuko decided that he rather liked waking up with Katara in his arms. They both slept late but woke up with the first rays of sunlight, stirring against the other's body. Neither spoke for a long while, simply enjoying their skin next to one another, the steady breathing and the comfort of the sheets. The grey dawn was racing towards daytime and they knew their respite wouldn't last, the chinks in the curtains allowing light to fall across their features in the stillness of the room.

As the morning sounds started up around the palace, they both knew they could hide no longer. Zuko sat up, rubbing his eyes and yawned. He looked back at Katara still lying down, the bed sheets pulled down to her hips by his movement. Zuko's breath hitched in his throat at the figure lying beside him. This was nothing like anything he had felt with the other girls he had woken up beside. In fact, he distinctly remembered being somewhat frustrated that there was somebody in his bed.

Katara yawned too and stretched, rolling over onto her side facing away from him.

"I don't want to get up," she grumbled into the pillow. Zuko chuckled.

"Hmmm. Well we could let the Fire Nation collapse today… I wouldn't mind," he teased, pulling her into a cuddle from behind. She sighed in resignation.

"Fine. I'm up! Wouldn't it be wonderful to be irresponsible for once? To just do what you want all the time instead of trying to fit it in around wars and meetings and families…" Katara sat up and tried to locate her clothes from the night before. Zuko managed to see her scars in the half-light creeping through the curtains. His stomach clenched at the sight and he ground his teeth in anger. Katara didn't notice Zuko's reaction as she scrambled around finding her things. She held up her clothes triumphantly and started pulling them on, clearly upset about the fact.

"Right. I will go back to my room and get washed and dressed. And I guess I will try to get Toph out of bed! Remember, we talk to her over lunch," she reminded him while she smoothed out some of the creases in her clothes. Zuko watched sadly as her body was covered up piece by piece. He held out his hand and beckoned her to him with pleading eyes.

When she stood in front of him, he pulled her into one last kiss, before brushing his lips against her forehead and letting her go. Her fingers lingered on his longer than they should have, but Katara straightened her back, took a deep breath and crept out of the room back to her own.

Toph had not been as stubborn as she used to be about getting up early. Katara suspected it had something to do with her general unfeelingness towards life; it would make no difference if she got up to if she stayed in bed. Katara knew depression. She had known it at various points throughout her life, and she could tell first hand how far gone Toph was. Her mocking comments were forced, her senses dulled, her expression eternally blank. The only feelings she would be experiencing were frustration and indifference - a combination that forms part of a vicious cycle of self-loathing and confusion.

Katara was glad that Zuko had agreed to teach Toph. It would not be immediate, but she hoped giving the girl some sort of a project to concentrate on and making her feel important might reignite some of the essence that was Toph. After all, when she had last lost her path it was the book in Ka' Bei and fire that sent her on her way once more. Zuko had been second guessing his position due to his own boredom and loneliness, and water brought him back to beauty. Perhaps Toph would be able to latch on to both water and fire to pull herself through back to stable rock.

Or at least, Katara hoped.

Lunch came and Zuko entered Toph's chambers where they were due to eat right on time. He was surprised at how diligently he had worked that morning, but he figured that the satisfaction of the previous night coupled with his excitement for the lunch time conversation must have given him enough motivation to finish on time.

"Right, what is this thing you two want to talk to me about?" started Toph, being the first to take a bowl of rice.

"Erm. I don't really know how to start… I guess the back story?" Katara wondered aloud, looking at Zuko for encouragement. He nodded, indicating that she should continue.

"Right. The back story - except I will shorten it, the details aren't important. When I was travelling I learned blood bending. Hama taught me but I was far more powerful than her and ended up teaching myself. I used it for healing - which is actually far more effective than water," Katara paused to sip some tea as Toph raised her eyebrows in appreciation.

"I stumbled across an old Fire Temple on Ka'Bei island in the Fire Nation. I stayed there a long time reading all their old records in search for any mention of blood bending. Eventually I found a copy of a very ancient text belonging to a population that inhabited the world at least during the times of the lion-turtle cities, if not before them. It took a while to translate it, but when I did I found many things about bending in general - as well as blood bending," Katara took a deep breath, feeling an odd sensation prickling over her body, as if she were about to jump off a very high cliff.

"Blood and chi are linked. By controlling blood you can also control chi - or more accurately chi flow. Every type of bending requires a different - eh - route of chi flow… but I can change this so that it encompasses more than one type of bending." Katara paused to let that sink in. Toph was sitting stock still, her rice forgotten in her lap.

"You can't do this with everybody, though. Yue came to us and told us that -"

"Wait," interrupted Toph, holding up her hand, "Yue spoke to you?!" Katara and Zuko glanced at each other.

"Yes, she did. She told us that not everybody can have their chi flow - eh - altered, and those who can, have some connection to her. Since then I've been observing people's chi flows. Many people have sort of pools of chi in key areas connected with their bending style - which means that any redirecting would do nothing. Others though, have chi flowing in equal amounts all throughout the body and you can shift it so to bend more than one element. Zuko and I are two of those people. You are too." She let her words hang in the air, both her and Zuko waiting calmly for any sort of reaction.

Toph drank some tea. She placed her cup back on the table. She then picked it back up and drank some more. She placed it on the table again. She opened her mouth to speak twice before closing it again. Finally she spoke.

"So. Can you both bend fire and water?" she asked.

"Yes," replied Zuko simply.

"Can you bend earth?"

"No."

"So, since there is something weird about the three of us, you two want me to teach you to earth bend in exchange for fire and water?" she stated quietly.

"Er… well, yes. There is another thing though, when Yue spoke to us, she said that the world was out of balance and that her children (that would be people like us) would rise to set it in balance again. I don't know what that means exactly, but she was happy I was learning water bending. But why the world should be out of balance now that we have the Avatar I'm not sure," explained Zuko.

Toph pursed her lips in thought.

"Since Aang has returned he has ended the war, but then he disappeared to recreate his Air Nomad culture. He has ignored the other three nations that are all in some sort of internal conflict. Bringing the elements together is distant from everybody's minds - if anything he has separated them more by disappearing with the air nomads. Now that there is no war, not even the earth kingdom and water tribes have a common goal," said Toph to both Katara's and Zuko's surprise. When had the little, rude, master earth bender become so wise? Then again, she had always been the most perceptive of all of them.

"So maybe we are destined to fill in the gaps left by Aang?" reasoned Zuko. Katara rolled her eyes.

"You and your destiny Zuko! Look, I have no doubt now that Yue had something to do with all of this, but there is still so much we do not know. She did say though that people… people like us are drawn to one another and that we would find them among our closest friends," started Katara in her old authoritarian voice.

"And Toph is one of our closest friends and has chi flowing throughout her body… so you could say that it was our destiny after all," teased Zuko with a small smile. He still found it incredible that he could find humour in her teasing. Rewind the clock a few years and when anybody questioned his destiny he would attempt to snap their necks.

Katara huffed in defeat.

"Alright, alright, quit with the flirting, its sickening," interrupted Toph, snapping out of her stupor. "I'm in. I'll teach you and you teach me and we do whatever it is we're destined to do," Katara squealed in delight but was silenced by Toph's hand held up to stop her. "I hope you know, though, that it isn't going to be easy. I'm blind. I can only teach you the way I learned, and I don't think I can learn the way you did easily, if at all. Have you thought about how to get around that?"

"Meditation," said Zuko and Katara simultaneously.

"Really guys!" groaned a still very sleepy Toph when Zuko and Katara kicked her out of bed just before dawn the next morning.

"It is what it is, Toph," chuckled Zuko, leading them down to the gardens and their usual meditation spot. All three sat on the grass, facing east.

"What am I searching for exactly?" asked Toph, resigned to her early rising.

"When I change your chi flow, you will have a heightened connection with the sun. The light won't mean much to you but the heat will - the sun gives heat and life to all living things and you should be able to feel it seeping through as the sun rises. If you want to you can meditate on something familiar to you - the earth or the rocks or the marble of the palace, and try to feel how they change with the sun. It may be difficult but stick with it! Eventually you should feel a… a sort of power pooling in your stomach. But that may not happen yet. Are you ready?" explained Katara, calming herself in preparation of letting somebody else into her secret.

"Lets do it!" cried Toph, punching the air with a mocking enthusiasm.

Katara took Toph's hand and closed her eyes, willing herself to follow Toph's blood ways. She let herself drift along with the flow of chi, appreciating how the orbit was different to her own. When she reached the area around the torso, where the fire bending chi orbit focussed, she pushed gently so that Toph's flow would expand to encompass it too. She sighed in satisfaction. She would wait to do water when Toph started appreciating fire - otherwise it might confuse her.

"Dawn is starting," observed Zuko, making himself comfortable and focussing his breathing. Zuko and Katara lost themselves with practiced ease into the heat waves of the garden, loving how they became more and more enhanced by the rising of the sun.

Toph, however, felt nothing. Contrary to many people's belief about her, she was really very good at meditation. Sure, her brash personality and energetic character may seem opposed to the usually quiet and self-reflective stereotype, but it was only through meditation that she learned earth bending at all. She'd had to follow and focus on the badger moles, she had to learn to feel to the minutest degree everything that happened within the Earth. It hadn't been easy.

But this? This she wasn't getting anywhere with! She bit down her frustration and decided to take Katara's advice and meditate on rocks instead. She focussed a rock right in front of her, by the pond. She felt every vein, every crack than ran through it. She felt the quiet vibrations of the bugs that lived beneath it and a slight pressure from above - a frog maybe? She became the rock.

She decided that she needed to think of the changes that were happening. Of the exact position of the rock, of the pressures coming to the rock from around it. Toph lost track of all space and time apart from the rock. She noticed that it was becoming bigger. Not by very much, hardly anything, but it was growing. That was strange! What could it be? She explored the surface of the rock and felt that it was different to the inside. Not just in texture, but in activity. It was excited? Do rocks get excited?

She realised this must be heat! She moved in and out of the rock again; yes, the inside was cold, it felt solid, smooth, devoid of energy. The outside was different. It was vibrant, alive almost. Instinctively she followed the strange force that brought the rock alive and flowed with it throughout the garden. She realised that there were intense pockets of energy scurrying around, both near and far from the earth. The ones further away must be birds; the others animals. There were other objects that were less hot, but still warmer than rocks. These were very still and strong - she realised trees! Her excitement seemed to grow with time as more and more energy was being poured into her surroundings, more and more life was buzzing.

Then suddenly, when she felt actual, physical, tangible warmth hit her face, an energy seemed to explode within her. Her stomach felt giddy and she felt like recoiling from the sheer power she felt.

Toph opened her sightless eyes and broke her meditation position to curl up slightly and catch her breath. So this is what the sun felt like.

She realised that Katara and Zuko were moving as well.

"You found the sun," stated Zuko. It wasn't a question. Toph wondered what her face betrayed in that moment.

"Its … its pretty strong isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes. It is energy. Katara is still getting used to it," said Zuko, a smile in his voice. Toph imagined him being affectionate to Katara. It was disgusting.

"Well? Are you going to teach me or are we going to sit here like lame turtle-ducks all day?" quipped Toph sharply. They could be gooey if they wanted to be - as long as it was not around her. She discarded her initial plan of being very annoying and not letting them have any time together… she would most definitely be letting them have a lot of time together so they could get it all out of their damned system and be at one another's throats as they should be.

Or maybe I'm just jealous, she thought to herself. Yeah, probably. But that doesn't change the fact that they are making me feel sick!

Both Zuko and Katara expected Toph to be hesitant at best when it came to fire bending, given the fact that she couldn't see the flames and the memory of Zuko burning her feet. However, they once again had underestimated the girl; she was used to handling things she couldn't see. For a while all she did was play with heat - if she was going to learn this, she had to feel the heat flows like she felt the ground vibrations.

"Right, tell me when I make fire," she said finally. Katara was the only one left in the indoor arena - Zuko had had to see to some disgruntled guards.

"Alright, go ahead."

Toph took up the stance they had taught her and focussed her breathing. Up till this point she had pushed about heat, removing it from one side of the room and focusing it on another. Now she wanted to make it hotter until she achieved fire. But you need eyes to judge that!

She went through the punching move Zuko had demonstrated and felt heat moving away from her. She tried again. This time, it was hotter. Again, and hotter still. As she gradually increased the amount of energy she was putting into her punches, she noticed two things. First, like Katara, she found the same giddy, powerful sensation in her stomach that she had felt that morning with the sun. Secondly, she realised that the moment before she was punching, the heat surrounding her would rush to her, through her, and then out in a condensed form from her knuckles.

"Toph! You did it!" squealed Katara, clapping her hands. Toph repeated the same move to get used to the sensation of creating fire. Now that she knew how much power to put into it, she could feel the difference. This was more like an explosion rather than a push.

"Ok, now I understand why fire bending is so dangerous," she muttered, half to herself as she relaxed her stance.

"Because it burns?" asked Katara, regarding the girl in front of her.

"Well, yes. But also because its like an explosion; see if I scatter bits of rock everywhere, I have no control over where each little one goes. Thats kind of the same thing here - the heat of the fire is scattering as well as going where I want it to. So accidents are bound to happen…" she trailed off, thinking of Zuko when he burned her feet at his camp. He was probably just trying to defend himself, sending out a warning shot that a person with full eyesight would see… but of course she was blind. And at the time would not have known what was heading towards her.

She would make sure to talk to him about it later.

The three friends decided to have dinner in the sitting room. This seemed to be one of Toph's favourite places in the palace - she could lounge around on the cushions and there was all the tea anybody could ask for!

Zuko looked distracted though. Katara could see the worry creasing between his eyebrows, crinkling the edge of the scar in an odd way. Whenever she or Toph weren't directly addressing him, his eyes would wonder away and flick back and forth as if he was trying to make a decision. Katara frowned. She would have to ask him about it later.

At this moment they were going through the steps Toph had made in her lesson that day. She explained about the heat being drawn the the person bending.

"So I'm guessing that the highest security prisons in the Fire Nation are really really cold?" she asked. Zuko blinked.

"Yes. Yes they are. You can't bend when you are too cold…"

"Right, because you are drawing heat in and compressing it and shooting it out!" Toph grinned at herself.

"So… its sort of like water in the sense that it is always there," reasoned Katara. Zuko considered this.

"Yes. I guess it is! What I don't understand, though, is how that works with lightening? Uncle taught me how to redirect lightening - and that is like heat and water in the sense that you let it flow in and then out again. But how is it that we create it?" mused Zuko. Katara pursed her lips in thought.

"I don't know. But it has to be something to do with moving heat since it burns… right?" she considered.

"I guess we play around with it tomorrow? But not in the indoor arena," started Zuko.

"You know, Sparky, the floor of your arena is stone," pointed out Toph.

"And?"

"Well, if you shoot lightening at the metal walls it won't touch us. Lightening likes metal," she stated as if it were obvious. Katara and Zuko looked skeptical. Toph could feel their hesitation and rolled her eyes.

"Look, where I come from we have really really tall buildings, right? So what happens when there is a storm? The lightening hits the tall buildings, and they either crumble of burn or a bit of both. So, in order to protect said tall buildings we stick metal rods on the top that run all the way into the ground. That way the building is not hit, but the metal is. The metal takes it to the ground," explained Toph, in her best condescending voice.

"We could try," concluded Katara.

"So," started Toph again, arousing them from their thoughts on lightening, "will I be water bending tomorrow Sifu Sweetness?"

"No. We wait for the full moon to start your water lessons - which is next week. Tomorrow we earth bend," stated Katara simply. She was pleased nobody argued with her. She also wanted to teach Zuko blood bending under the full moon. He had picked up water as quickly as she had picked up fire - she thought because they had both mastered their own elements and watched one another bending for years. Also, combining the bending styles made the transition very simple. He might not be able to handle blood yet, but they could try.

Katara felt funny after dinner. She was more tired than usual and could feel the dark bags under her eyes eating into her skin. Her hair felt greasy even though she had already washed it that day, and she was unnaturally annoyed at Zuko for not telling her what was bothering him. When she started feeling pain in her lower abdomen, she knew for sure - it was that time of the month. She groaned to herself and found the cloths she used to soak up the blood.

Of course! When she had arrived she had just finished… and then there was a full moon. The full moon always brought her relief from her cycles, and a calm after the storm of a very frustrating week.

She knew that if she didn't get herself some painkilling tea immediately, she would get no sleep at all that night. Having made sure she looked acceptable, she padded down to the kitchens to ask for the right kind of tea. They handed it to her without question, and watched her leave with sympathetic looks.

By the time the tea had brewed, she was already incapable of standing up straight. The cramps had her almost doubled over. She controlled her breathing as Yugoda had taught her to do, and kept one hand over her cramping muscles coated in water to ease the pain. Katara hated this time of the month. She could only relax muscles and heal wounds, redirect blood and move liquids - but she could not eliminate pain. Relaxing the muscles seemed to help somewhat, but never enough. It was as if her own body and her own element were turning against her. And she couldn't do anything about it! Once she had tried to blood bend all the blood out in one go so it would be over quickly, but soon found out that it was not as simple as a sack of blood that needed to come out. She learned from the healing scrolls in the Northern Water Tribe that it is the lining of the womb that is shed - blood is merely a by product. So trying to take out blood only left her weaker than before, and she kept bleeding where the lining was freshly separating itself from her.

She did not understand why she had to go through all of this, nor why some women hardly felt it at all while she was sometimes reduced to a pale, shivering corpse on her first day, and an aching, stroppy wreck the rest of the week.

The tea had started to take effect. She could feel her body's priorities swap from dealing with pain to dealing with tiredness. But she knew, from experience, that if she didn't finish all the tea she would be up in a few hours reduced to the same state. To sleep the whole night she needed the whole teapot.

There was a timid knock at the door, and a hesitant voice calling her name.

"Zuko?" she asked. "Zuko, come in!"

Zuko walked into the room, still looking very unsure about himself. He was in his night trousers, shirtless and shoeless as if he were about to go to bed. He bit his lip as he looked at Katara, and scratched the back of his neck nervously.

"Katara? Have I… have I done something?" Katara was confused. He thought she was mad at him? Well she was irritated, but she was irritated at the world in general, not just Zuko.

"What are you talking about?" Zuko looked away awkwardly again. "Oh for Agni's sake Zuko, spit it out!" she said a little too sharply. Zuko looked slightly frightened.

"Well you usually come and sleep in my bed… and well you didn't turn up so I… have I made you mad? Because if I have I'm sorry and I'm sure I didn't mean it…" he was looking at her with pleading eyes, shifting his weight from one foot to another.

Katara laughed. Oh he is so awkward! She thought. She stopped laughing as the movement triggered another spasm and she forced more tea down.

"No, Zuko. It is the wrong time of the month," she said, still smiling. However Zuko only looked confused. Katara sighed. "I'm riding the red tide, getting acquainted with death, trapped in the bloody torture chamber," she said listing off the most entertaining names for it.

Zuko's eyes widened in realisation, but his shoulders relaxed and he breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Oh! I thought you were angry at me!" he exclaimed, approaching her with a smile. "Are you feeling alright? Can I do something?" he asked worriedly, taking in the darkness under her eyes and her face drawn in pain.

Katara held up her tea cup.

"Painkilling tea. There isn't really much more to do," she explained. He sat down next to her on the bed and kissed her forehead affectionately.

How was Zuko - the Zuko who had knocked her out in the North - how was he so gentle and caring? Katara found herself wondering more and more if this was a side to him that was always present but buried, or if it was something he developed when he was surrounded by people who cared about him. Right now, she didn't care. She was so moved by his affection that she felt tears spring to her eyes.

Somewhere in the back of her mind there was a small panicked voice telling her that she should be scared of such an attachment, that she was better off alone. But she suffocated it and leant on his shoulder, brushing away her tears.

"Katara? What's happening? Are you still in pain?" asked a panicked Zuko, noticing the tears. He forced her to look at him in the face. She shook her head.

"No, I'm just happy!" she croaked, reaching for some more tea.

"Generally speaking, you don't tend to cry when you are happy," started Zuko uncertainly.

"You don't understand. I'm happy you're here and not hiding from me," she explained with a logic that escaped him completely.

"Um. Why would I be hiding from you? You're not making much sense right now," he said, teasing her gently. She shrugged. She didn't care if he understood or not.

"Do - uh - do you want me to stay here tonight? Uncle always told me that it is better if women stay warm when they are bleeding because it hurts less…" Katara looked at him to see if he was in earnest, but she didn't detect any reservedness behind his words - on the contrary, there seemed to be a hope in his eyes.

Katara nodded.

"I'd like that."

[micronecro]

KHR fanon VS DET: The Tragedy And Darkness Of Sawada Tsunayoshi

<<KHRF VS DET Part 2: The Station Location

Now that DET is over, I can FINALLY talk about how I broke a minimum of 3 fanon!Tsunas over my knee out of spite because I’m a bitter, bitter person who bathes in plot bunnies 24/7. This one is really long, because Tsuna is the main character and one of the most consistent elements in fic I’ve read.

So let’s talk about fanfic based around Tsuna’s tragic backstory.

From the outset, fics that try to make Tsuna tragic don’t really work. Tsuna already has a coping mechanism for emotional abuse, it’s his loser complex, created to cope with the fact he internalizes other people’s opinions of him and thus struggles to deal with the concept of him being an innate burden to society, a natural-born failure who will never amount to anything. This is the kid who goes “haha, I’m so dame” and committed so deeply to acting like this is comfortable to him that his mom picked up on it, even though he directly mentions how much he doesn’t want to end up like his father, who he perceives to be doing the exact same thing. This kid has issues, is what I’m saying.

And I get wanting to write Tsuna differently; his attitude means he’s a complete self-satisfied buzzkill unless you go to cartoonish extremes. If you keep telling him he’s awesome instead, he’d instantly switch to being an egoist (a la Mochida), but it’s not exactly easy to get an emotionally battered and socially isolated teenage boy to internalize ‘if you try harder, people will be comfortable with you’. It’s like telling him ‘if you REALLY get into it, you can make rejection feel even MORE painful and scary’. Reborn pretty much had the right idea when he went with “fuck you, these people are your friends now, and there’s nothing you can do about it”. AU Tsunas are pretty natural, here, because Canon Tsuna really only works in a select few kinds of fic. Less of a dark drama character and more of a ‘awkward guy in your coffee shop who struggles to speak to people and is uncomfortably willing to prostrate himself to the guy who spilled coffee all over his shirt’ character.

The problem is that people treat Tsuna like he’s a completely ordinary delicate flower and try to fly by on that concept alone.

And to make interesting AUs from that, they give him a tragic backstory.

The tragic backstory is always the same. His peers don’t just reject him, they beat him up. (Presumably because Enma got beat up..........by irrelevant high-schoolers.) His mom neglects him and never shows him affection. His dad is is, in Reborn’s words in at least 16 different fanfics, “Idiot Iemitsu”, who is incapable of noticing the blatantly obvious. A lot of the time, there’s an abusive twin brother soaking up the attention. Neglect is often involved. Something traumatic might have happened to drastically change Tsuna’s personality, like a kidnapping.

Now, I have to remind you, there’s nothing actually wrong with drastically changing Tsuna’s personality. DETsuna is completely unrecognizable. 

The problem is that the fics use that tragedy as excuse to stop treating Tsuna like a person.

Type 1 - The Wilting Violet

So your Tsuna has well and truly broken.

 This is the Tsuna that appears most often with ship fics written by Teens, because Teens are the type of people least likely to understand how acute stress affects people; that level of empathy can only be achieved by personal experience, acute research, or extended exposure to media that depicts trauma in empathetic ways.

For the Type 1 OOC Tsuna crumples, acts shy, and does a bunch of self-conscious stuff, often in ways that don’t really make sense for the abuse he experiences. People who don’t understand abuse tend to be hyper-correct, like small children learning how English works (using words like “eated”); someone being physically abused is going to be hyper-vigilant for possible attacks. It’s not logical for a person to flinch when someone raises their hand to grab something off the shelf, but it happens anyway. And even if the author has the character act irrationality, they still love making it seem like it’s Correct behaviour, with the abused character acting like they genuinely think they’re about to be struck, even actively thinking about the assumption, rather than a kneejerk jolt of fear at a familiar gesture, completely separate from conscious thought, like you can somehow convince someone to stop doing it if you make sure they trust you.

It pretty much works this way for Wilting Violet Tsunas. Tsuna is just a trembling woobie, and he shies away from others, but holds a Great Kindness. People who open up to him are like people baiting a wild animal with food, coaxing him into comfort. He’s constantly set to ‘slight fear, occasional happiness’. He’s nothing but a hurt/comfort vehicle. Wilting Violet Tsunas are completely incapable of anger unless it’s on behalf of his friends, and are never petty unless it’s against bad characters who deserve it. 

In DET, Tsuna is demure, self-loathing, and ‘broken’, but he’s mean.

He’s spiteful and easily frustrated, gets bored all the time, is unreasonably petty and often really catty. He compulsively talks back. His personality is riddled with flaws.

Tsuna is more or less aware that he’s pathetic, but all that does is make him feel powerless to stop his own flaws. He, too, listens to people when they tell him he’ll never amount to anything and is deeply scarred by this concept, but most people just tell him he’s really creepy and emotionless. Tsuna kicks off the series genuinely thinking he doesn’t have feelings because emotions don’t come quickly to him and his lack of external reactions made people Assume that of him, and because he's devastatingly lonely, he’s more willing to listen to them.

As stress is added, he does wilt, but it’s not just a crumpled pathetic little baby to dote on, it’s a kid with a very strong idea of what his Normal is struggling to balance out the negative buildup through his life. The thing is about Giving Up is that that is, in of itself, a type of coping mechanism, a way to reduce stress so no matter how bad things get, the person is always on the exact same level of Rock Bottom. It’s the reaction of someone who’s decided they don’t have the strength or footholds to risk dancing on the edge of the Marianas Trench. 

 In DET, Tsuna starts out with that caution, that pathetic baby attitude that makes you want to take care of him, but he’s not hiding some deep, untouched purity and kindness. He’s hiding ugly shit, the kind of tumultuous emotion that comes from trauma; anger at innocent people who are dealing better than he is, pushing people around so they don’t get anywhere near his actual psyche, abandoning people so he doesn’t have to deal with actually addressing his problems, and just being a snarky little bastard in general. 

Tsuna’s wilting personality isn’t just sad emo crumpling, it’s turning into something ugly, rotten, and unappealing.

But the important thing is that he’s still likeable, he’s still kind-hearted, and deep down, he’s the type to fight back his stress with teeth and nails, clawing his way back up until he ruins himself. Tsuna’s emotional coping mechanisms are always extreme, violent, and unstable, but the amount of effort he puts into them is alluring to people not used to dealing with any sort of stress. That’s true for both the characters that interact with him and the readers themselves.

Type 2 - The BAMF

But wait, you say. All this anger sounds a lot like the BAMF! The hardass that is angry that they’ve been wronged. They’re snarky, forceful, and tend to be bitter. And when that goes into unhealthy territory, the character funnels their rage into a fighting spirit.

This one is actually a more accurate representation of dealing with trauma, but it also kind of reeks of liberal Suffering Is Fake and How Dare You Hurt.

In fics, BAMF Tsuna has been wronged, and his abuse made him stronger. He’s powerful and competent now. Everyone who wronged him? They were mistaken. Tsuna is actually quite strong and awesome, and now he’s pissed.

The BAMF is a power fantasy, pure and simple.

This is actually reflected both in Hibari, who is being actually actively physically and psychologically abused, and Tsuna, who has his negative self-image and PTSD reinforced at every turn. 

Hibari is unstable, and his unwillingness to show weakness doesn’t do much but make him incredibly annoying to deal with. Hibari is an asshole, and he has no motivation to do awesome stuff, and the actual BAMF stuff he does (like beat Zeni to death) are poisoned by his selfish motivations and awkward (and on some level horrifying) execution. Tsuna’s running commentary on his baddassery sounds like like ‘UUUGGGHHHHHHH’ than any acknowledgement of him being cool.

Mirroring this, Tsuna is, again, pathetiiiiiiic.

Tsuna is constantly doing badass stuff, but he doesn’t just poison the image, he actively sabotages it as much as possible. He talks casually with the feared Hibari Kyouya, but he’s scared shitless of the guy and the only reason he sounds casual is because of his blunted affect. He throws down with Hibari, but only because Hibari is forcing him to do it; he doesn’t like it, and the only reason he doesn’t quit the DC is because he enjoys the high of having some sort of power because dodging Hibari just feels so awesome, in theory.

Tsuna kills someone to save his friends, but it’s not rational; it’s an extreme self-destructive impulse, tempered by his lack of respect for his own self. There’s nothing cool about it. He’s scared, but doing his best to galvanize himself by telling himself he’s worthless so there’s nothing wrong with throwing himself at someone who will definitely kill him. Protecting Hana barely even factors. He just feels like it’s the most sensible thing for him to do because he values his own life that little.

Combined with the fact he’s still bitter and petty, you get the picture of...someone who is unstable, and hard to use as a power fantasy. His triumphs don’t give you a rush, they’re at best comedic and at worst emotionally exhausting.

Type 3 - The Dark character

But wait, you insist, isn’t that what a dark!Tsuna is?

Oh boy, my dude, you sure hit the mark, because parodying dark!Tsuna fics was the entire point of DET to begin with. They are an epidemic and I’ve had enough.

An important part of understanding how this is is knowing what dark characters are, and how they work in relation to an intertextual narrative. I’ve used this phrase before; You see, an intertextual narrative is when one story’s narrative is influenced by knowing about the progression of other narratives. CLAMP’s xxxholic and Tsubasa Chronicle are intertextual narratives, for example, but in the context of fanfic, it’s something closer to, say, BBC Sherlock or CBS Elementary’s relationship with the original Holmes canon. Their very existence is intertextual, their texts being influenced by knowing the text of the Holmes canon exists at all.

A Dark character AU is an extremely intertextual trope. The entire appeal is giving a normally harmless character an edge. Dark characters have very few moral compunctions, are very Machiavellian in nature, and aren’t limited by their strength; they can be destroyed by their demons or rise above them with a vicious kind of of ambition. The point is simply that they go against the grain of comfortable social standards and break away from complacency. You may recognize this from ‘way too many Harry Potter fics, please god stop, I’m so tired’.

A badly written Dark character is a loosely-strung-together collection of concepts that seem cool and Dark, and with Tsuna, those concepts are often stereotypical canon stations mixed to be edgy. Tsuna often runs away from the world that’s limiting him to excel in his ambitions. Sometimes, an event turns him cold and calculating. Most of the time, the world feels afraid of what they’ve done to make Tsuna like this.

And here’s how DET breaks this trope:

The things that happen to Tsuna are infinitely darker than Tsuna himself, and Tsuna is funny.

Rape is quite possibly the most uncomfortable thing for the average person to think about. It hasn’t been normalized by society and media the way torture and domestic abuse has. It’s used as an atom bomb of tragedy and horror, a shocker to create cheap villains and cheaper drama. If you’re depicting rape as bad in your story, it’s bad. Child rape is the most dramatic possible thing anyone could write. This is true darkness. True horror.

Tsuna does not care.

That isn’t to say that what happened to him somehow doesn’t matter, or that he wasn’t horribly traumatized and had his spirit broken and shattered into itty-bitty pieces. That definitely happened. The fact he was already broken was a huge factor in how he reacted to the Seal. 

The most important thing, though, is that people are still people, no matter how bad the things that happen to them get. They’re complex and constantly striving for some semblance of normality, and they’ll often do literally anything to achieve it.

Tsuna isn’t preoccupied with what happened, and doesn’t strive for revenge, and doesn’t consider his behaviour in terms of the all-consuming influence of his tragic backstory. This shit was normal to him, and he strives to maintain that normality. It’s the same rhetoric that makes people crave their abuse after leaving it, but he funnelled into healthier things. He knew what happened was wrong and he felt he was wronged, but the most important thing to him was that he had been ‘gullible’ enough to manipulated and used by someone he thought cared about him, and then was subsequently ‘abandoned’. It fed into his conformation bias of things that are horrible to him, specifically, which is abandonment, isolation, and neglect. Since the neglect is what spooks him the most, Tsuna’s reaction is less on overcoming tragic backstory and more on doing his best to keep it from happening again by never doing anything to jeapordize his positive relationships. If someone’s decided to treat him a certain way, Tsuna is dead-set on making them keep that opinion, even if it would improve if he was more proactive. He is TERRIFIED of rejection, and he will do ANYTHING to avoid it, up to and including actually abandoning his friends before they can do it to him.

And above all, he’s funny.

He’s cold and bitter and angry and prone to backtalk, he’s shy and meek and submissive and puny and cute, but his headspace is a screaming wreck. It’s almost impossible to tell that he doesn’t emote on the outside for most of the fic, because he spends so much time overreacting and overthinking, picking at the scabs lining his train of thought, and losing himself in his ideas. He reacts to everything. It’s a constantly-jumping series of surprises, and surprises are the heart of comedy. Tsuna’s actions are unexpected to even Tsuna himself, and it drives him nuts. His attempt to deal with sudden fear is to scream at it in his head until it goes away. His attempt to deal with confusing new circumstances is to go to unnecessary extremes to make the situation completely unfamiliar to him, and he hates that he does this, but he feels compelled to do it anyway.

Tsuna knows that he’s dark, is the point. He knows, and he doesn’t like it, and not unlike a teenage Spiderman, his primary reaction to it is to sass it to gain some level of power over it, to shine as much light as humanly possible onto himself just to maintain the illusion of normality, and most of the time, he does it so loudly that it works. His urges to do things that make him happy are just as ludicrous as the things that make him feel stable, and Tsuna has decided that YOU KNOW WHAT, MAYBE THAT’S A GOOD THING ACTUALLY. MAYBE IT’S AN OKAY THING???? EVER CONSIDER THAT?????

It’s not. It’s terrible. It fixes nothing and without a second Roof Scene he’s going to burn out. It’s pretty clearly exhausting him. But the internal conflict and brazen unpredictability is, by nature of all absurd things, very funny.

It makes him complex. It makes him tangible. The Reaction To Self is the most important aspect of writing, as a three-dimensional character, and in DETsuna, it’s brought to its most logical extreme.

I mean, canon Tsuna does this too. That’s why his attitude isn’t completely insufferable. The self-awareness is what’s causing his problems to begin with. KHR wasn’t popular for it’s compelling plot, after all. But sometimes, you just wanna be a little Extra.