#(also constant tiny little battles of little guys who just want you to survive and live!! you are their whole world and they will help you!

[hyah-lian]

I have been in program prep hell, and anxiety alley, and today is program day and I'm like Hm Yes. Perfect time to start rewatching that 8+ hour series on the history of antibiotics

[interact-if]

Umm hi 👉👈 I realized that most of the asks you guys get are about games and rec lists. You guys deserve so much recognition for the work you put in this blog, so I wanted to ask if I can do a little get-to-know-the-mods thing? If that's okay!

1. Besides writing, what are your hobbies?

2. Do you have a niche interest right now?

3. Any fave songs/artists/bands?

4. Any fave movies/tv shows?

5. On a scale of 1-10, how likely would you survive in your wip's world?

You can totally ignore this if you guys want, no pressure. Anyway, much love to all the interact-if mods! You guys are incredible! ❤

We saw this ask and we went 👀 👀 👀 so we’re happy to answer! Thank you so much for the fun ask!

 We also rated our survivability in all of our collective games, since Mars isn't an author! Fun stuff! Spoilers, though: it’s really not looking so great for me (Dani) but that’s fine!!!  😌

1. I’m a photographer as well as a graphic artist (but not like. A painter/drawer kind of artist!) and, on a general level, a maker and a tinkerer!

2. Fountain pens! I only write with ink, and only with fountain pens, and I use bottled inks/converters!

3. I’m pretty eclectic with music, but my top genres are alt rock, indie, indie pop, etc, as well as top 40s and some rap.

4. I feel like this is the hardest one for me to answer? Favorite movies/shows? Avatar: the Last Airbender has been a favorite show of mine since I was a little kid, but I have a harder time thinking of shows I would call a favorite in recent years. There are shows I’ve liked, and a lot of shows I’ve watched. But I’m picky! And demanding! It takes a lot to earn a place in Dani’s Trophy Case of Favorites. 😌 I would say I quite liked A Quite Place (movie), and I liked Us (movie). When it comes to TV shows, I have a hard time being pleased with them if they don’t end well. As a result, I have a penchant for a good limited series/miniseries (because they’re stories that have an end in mind and the plot reflects that, dagnabbit).

5. Heh. Okay.

In The Goodfellows? I think I stand I chance. I can exercise my sparkling wit and lovable personality to the best effect. I’m gonna give myself an 8/10 survivability rating. Even if I don’t have the right skills, I can go crying to the person who does and they’ll save me. Maybe.

In Creatures’ Cradle? I’m super $**!%d. 😌 1/10 survivability rating. And that 1 is me being nice to myself. The day the apocalypse breaks out I would probably be patient 0. I am self-aware. I would not do well in an apocalypse. Zombies care not for aforementioned sparkling wit and lovable personality, and I have all the muscle of a boiled spaghetti noodle. So it’s a no go.

Greater Than Gods (Cruz): Well. I’m going to be optimistic. And say that I have the wisdom not to do things I shouldn’t do and not to rock boats I shouldn’t rock. I’m going to give myself a 7/10 based on insider information, but also based on reckless optimism!

Vardir (Cruz): Cruz says this is a lighthearted game, so 10/10 LOL.

When it Hungers (Roast): I’m giving myself a nice, mediocre 5/10. I think I could put my mind to work here; I joke that I’m the village idiot, but I’m actually pretty smart! Unfortunately, I’m also curious, and maybe a little bad with authorities who won’t answer my questions. So I knocked off a lot of points due to the fact that I’d probably poke the metaphorical bear. So it’s a real coin flip as to whether I’d really make it or not.

Orthall Bay (Nines): Considering the genre is “horror” and the game intro includes the words “monster” and “maim,” I’m giving myself a whooping, enthusiastic 3/10. Yes, folks, I am that confident in myself! Once again, I can’t charm the socks off a monster (or can I?), so one of my greatest weapons is snatched from beneath my feet. Alas!

1. Beloved I’m a college student in the middle of a pandemic... i can hardly even write LOL i do draw at times which u can see in my personal blog (nothing too good really) and i used to do karate before things went to shit <3

2. Nothing niche I believe? All I do is leave Netflix as bg noise every day n play popular videgames (genshin)

3. Porter Robinson <3 I love Bea Miller a lot as well but lately I’ve been feeling Porter a lot

4. The Good Place <3

5. My WIPs:

Greater than Gods: Highly situational, the world GtG is set in is as broad as the real world LOL so I don’t have an universal answer. But keeping it vague, and knowing my own personality, I feel like 5/10. depends on my luck.

Vardir: 10/10 no one dies in Vikgade, unless you’re a hunter but I wouldn’t be a hunter <3

Others’ WIPs

I'm gonna give myself a solid 5/10 in all other WIPs because y'all aren't writing lighthearted stories either. I feel like as long as I avoid the role of the MC I will be mostly fine. I hope. But as Dani said I'm also prone to fight the wrong person and dig my own grave so 😌

1. Well, writing is a very, very, very, distant hobby since Words Hard, but I like to crochet and sculpt a little! Anything to do with fiddling with my hands and I’m good to go. And like, debatable but graphic design is my passion [insert clown emoji here since Tumblr said No]

2. Oh yeah a bunch! DnD yelling at people, thinking of arson, crocheting, rock climbing and simply vibing. I got into podcasts a few years ago and I’m always looking for more recs, so if you have some, hmu 😤

3. Pls,,,,my music taste is,,,so weird do not let me expose myself with lack of consistency but uhh. Current songs that are stuck in my head include; Cult of Dionysus , Achilles Come Down and The Last Shanty  

4. If you’ve ever spoken to me before, I probably yelled about Pacific Rim to you or at you. Plus I love all The Mummy films and really enjoyed Castlevania (s3 excluded, we do not perceive that) as well! 

5. Ah, mod survival simulator pt. 3

Alright, let’s go!  I don’t have a WIP because again, words hard, but like, considering how feral I am when not tryna seem professional hm... 

The Goodfellows: I wanna say a solid 7/10 because I’d hardcore vibe with the Traveler and probably instigate so much nonsense. I can also bribe with blueberry cake so maybe. 

Creature’s Cradle: maybe a 4/10 and only because of pure spite keeping me alive long enough to smack someone. I’ve prepared for hypothetical  zombie apolcapyses and I won’t hesitate to bap, but will be bapped back because I’m weak as hell. 

Greater Than Gods: a toss up between 2/10 and 7/10! I can vibe and be chill but I also have terrible impulse control so... 

Vardir: hm....I think pretty good survival rates all around? If you ask me to fight then like, okay sure, your knees are mine. So maybe a 8/10? 

When it Hungers: .......8/10 just because I’d refuse to die if I can be a cool creature. Living for the aesthetic can and will drag me outta hell. But I’m also clumsy as hell so I’d probably crash as a porcelain or hold a rooster and perish (aka, real rating is a good 3/10) 

Orthall Bay: 2/10, nope. Nope I’d be taken out in a heartbeat. Monsters can go pspsps and I’d head straight into the dark creepy forest like a fool if someone comes @ me. Half the time I’ll just assume it’s sfx makeup and vibe until it’s too late. 

god, never put me in a universe where I cannot squawk like a bird and throw pebbles from a window. Oof

Anon, you're so sweet! I give you a forehead smoomch <333 As for your questions...

1. If I'm not writing, I'm usually watching video essays on Youtube. My go-to channels as of right now is Disrupt and Aperture! I just really like their videos. Aside from that, I recently got into podcasts. Currently going through Hello From The Hallowoods and Shelter and Warning, which are made by queer creators!

2. Oh oof, there's quite a bit so I'm just gonna put down one thing. For some reason, I really got into collecting tiny astronaut things? I recently bought this astronaut desk light, and I've got a package coming in for the miniatures I ordered. No purpose for them other than I think they're neat <3

3. I'm a bit private with my music taste (even tho I have Spotify connected on Discord lmao), but there's 5 songs that I'm currently obsessed with. I keep replaying them over and over again. Just squeezing all the serotonin I could get outta them.

4. I can't really say I have a fave TV show or movie because I can't really just pick one, but my current fave is 9-1-1 and Resident Alien. 9-1-1 because I just really love the found-family dynamics and how the show tackles sensitive topics, and Resident Alien because it's lighthearted comedy. My all-time fave movie is Flipped! I have the book too and I like rereading from time to time <3

5. You're in for a doozy, anon, because we're rating each other's games <333

The Goodfellows: 7/10

Listen. Shenanigans with the Traveler. I would get up to so many of them and that is what'll get me possibly bodied, not the actual environment itself <3

Greater than Gods: 7/10

I like to think I have enough common sense to uhhh not recklessly flip stones that should not be flipped <3 I'm a cautious and skeptic person irl so I think I'll hold up well? Then again, it's a vast environment change and while I can adapt pretty quick, I wouldn't like the lack of control in the unknown.

Vardir: 10/10

Going off what Cruz said, Vardir is lighthearted and focused on personal growth so I think I'll be okay! Self-growth here I come, babey!

Creatures' Cradle: 8/10

Maybe I'm overestimating myself, but I think I'll be able to survive in a supernatural post-apocalyptic world! Ah, but it depends on the motivation though. I like the idea of rebuilding communities and eventually societies, but the survival turmoil would be a constant battle I'd have to overcome. If we're talking survival itself though, I think I'll do well.

When it Hungers: 8/10

That's probably my wishful thinking but I think I'll be fine. Maybe. Possibly. Don't like the idea of being regulated by an organization so if I was a non-human creature that could pose a problem but I can roll with it <3

Orthall Bay: 6/10

Assuming I'm not playing as MC, my chances of survival uhhh changes quite drastically. Not enough to guarantee an untimely demise, but certainly enough that it would constantly keep me on my toes. I think that's the safest answer I can get without spoiling anything lmao

Thank you so much for asking! It's super sweet of you <3

1. Too many :'D I knit, I sew, I do carpentry (well, learning), I bake, I'm hammering away at HTML and CSS, my job kind of encourages learning new things and I take that to picking up new hobbies!

2. My time is kind of consumed with school work and work work and WIP work so not a lot of time to pursue niche interests right now. I've been watching a lot of horror game playthroughs, true crime youtubers, and an adorable show on Netflix called the Repair Shop <3

3. My taste in music is "what am I vibing with atm?" I've been listening to a lot of 80's music atm (don't @ me), but also Lo Fang and Kaleo, and whatever spotify recommends me on my discover weekly which is usually complete chaos.

4. I love the Mummy even though it hasn't aged 100% well (I'm a librarian, of course it's one of my gotos LOL), Legally Blonde, Leverage, Jumanji (the original), I'm....very bad at having recent tastes... and very bad at remembering my favorites when asked.

5.

The Goodfellows: I'm a creature of comfort, 5/10 if I can just luxuriate in town and not actually interact with the story sfjkdbsdkf

Creature’s Cradle: I'd like to think I have a 50/50 shot XD 5/10, I want to think I'd be decent at a zombie apocalypse but ultimately would suffer an early fate.

Greater Than Gods: 10/10 if I'm just vibing, less so if I'm involved in the actual story XD

Vardir: I'd still suffer without technology but I can also knit for a living in this world so I'm down 8/10

When it Hungers: I feel like I could vibe here, there's tech if dated, hot showers, telephones are around by now... might still get bored. 7/10 though it'd be cool to be another creature....I should make a 'what creature of snv are you' quiz!

Orthall Bay: 7/10 idk I feel like after the first monster of the week I'd just skip town XDDDD I'm the worst protagonist, I see danger I just leave.

[pieces-by-me]

Strangers on the Road

Gif by the lovely @honestsycrets​ 

Words: 2605

Summary: Goodness can be found everywhere. Even for a stranger on a strange road.

Warnings: mentions of ablism

Kinda feel like this is not that good and lost inspiration at the end but I didn’t want to just delete the whole thing. Would love to hear what you all think of this✨

The Silk Road was a lot of things but never boring. People would meet from west to east to bargain about jewels, exotic foods, animals, slaves and as the name says silk. Anything you could ever need you could find on the Silk Road.

There was a market place. Close to the border where sand meets snow. It was colder here. The sun not having enough warmth to burn you, but still keep you a bit warmer. The market was not the biggest but the last one you would find for miles before the terrain changes from rocky mountaintops to frost covered grounds. Hundreds of people scuffled about to find the best goods. Different prices were being called around the area by the handlers to make the travelers come to their small stalls and seats. Many big men would shout at the top of their lungs. Some women would walk about and thrust their fabric in peoples faces. Anything to make yourself and your worth known.

One small stand, it was so tiny you might not even call it that, was at the end of the market. At first sight one couldn't even see what was presented for trade or purchase. But the closer you came the more you saw. Small clay pots with lids on them, little bowls with salves and a basket filled with weirdly looking dried leafs. Medicine.

The young women behind her small stall made herself useful by cleaning small crumbs of dirt from her pots. Smiling at buyers that walked by and greeting the once that came to her.

Y/N may not have a lot of supply but the demand was high. So the little she had she could sell for more then some other merchants. With made her life a little easier. But even if she sold everything each day she would still scrape at the ends of her revenues. It's only enough for her to live each day. Which was fine. She didn't have anyone she needed to support. Her parents died when she was young and she never had any siblings. So anything she made was for herself.

It wasn't easy at the beginning. Having to collect plants in a mountains was not an easy task. Walking miles upon miles into the nearest forrest for maybe an hour just to run back as soon as the sun went down. It would be a death sentence to walk on the Silk Road at night as a little girl. And Y/N had to start make a living for herself at a young age. But she managed. The knowledge she inherited from her mother helped her a lot. As soon as she found the little round leafs buried under the snow she knew she could survive.

They weren't just normal weeds. If you cooked them they would make a tea that would help with the biggest pains. If you chewed them raw you could help your teeth stay strong. And when you stomp them together with with goat fat and a specific snake venom it would help heal wounds in half the time. That was her biggest seller. It was hard to come by. Having to milk her snakes herself and trading things for goat fat took time. Every time she made it it would sell out in seconds and it would be worth it.

Today was like every other day. Waking up. Skipping breakfast to open the stall. Standing your feet into the ground for the day. Closing up. Making preparations and tinctures for the next day. Sleep.

Y/N knew nothing else so she was happy with it. Every day she would stand between Bran the forger, the nice guy that couldn't really stand anymore due to an old injury he obtained in a fight, and Lorah the jewel seller, a hardheaded women with to many opinions and a need to gossip. It was noisy between the constant banging on metal and women's chattering about the best new stones or quality of an arm ring. But it was her little place and she couldn't imagine standing somewhere else on the market.

The sun stood high in the sky when, for the first time in years, something changed. A lot of different people would travel the Silk Road to trade and buy. Different people from different places of the world praising different gods and coming around with the weirdest foods. But never in all her years had Y/N seen a cripple being carted through the market.

He was not hard to spot. The wagon he was sitting in was a big telltale. There weren't a lot of people with carts like that. The next thing she spotted were his legs. Two legs in metal braces. They looked old and rusted, as if they were about to fall apart. And then, the last sign of the stranger were his eyes. Y/N only caught them for a second but the shade of blue that pierced though hers was something she had never seen before. They were clearer then Lorah's jewels. Bluer then the sky. She could have looked into them for the whole day and never would tire.

“What in all the lords name is that?”

The disgusted voice of Lorah snapped the young woman out of her staring. She looked at the cripple with so much hate it seems he had killed her first born child.

“What do you mean? He's just traveling through here.”

Bran voiced his thoughts.

“I can see that you old fool. The question is why is it even here in the first place. It should not be here.”

“He's not a thing. He's human just like you.”

Y/N small voice grew colder then what it usually was when she talked to the women. She didn't like the tone and words her stall neighbor used for the stranger.

“Y/N dear you're young and naive. Human puh. No we are humans, you and me. Bran even. But the likes of...him should have died right after the birth. See the legs. They're crippled and wrong. We used to bring them outside to die when children like it were born. It's not natural. It's evil and bad and must be banished from the world.”

Y/N was shocked. She knew that Lorah was opinionated on a lot of things and that she would stand for her word. But this? How could she decide that this men should have died when he was a babe? What kind of monster could decide who lives and dies just by the way they were born?

“How can you truly think that? Your jewels might be beautiful but your heart is ugly Lorah.”

“I'm not the only one with that knowledge little witch. You'll see. That creature will not get anything from the people here on this market.”

Witch. Lorah knew that Y/N was called that behind her back and that she didn't like it. But she was rather a witch then heartless. She turned around to face the evil women once more but was met with nothing. Lorah must have stormed away in believe of having the last sentence and won the argument. Pathetic.

“Let her be Y/N. She sometimes seems as evil but she has truth to her words. The poor man won't find anyone to trade with him. He looks like he will travel farther east and probably die in the cold. Crippled people don't make it far in life. It's a wonder he made it this far. God must've be kind to him.”

“There are a lot of people here who will trade with anyone. They need the money and don't care if he's a cripple or not. And screw your God Bran. Your God would want me to burn alive for simply knowing some herbs.”

The clanging from bended metal was the only answer she'd get from the smith. Maybe she shouldn't have insulted his believe. Whats done is done.

Movement from the stranger caught her eyes again. He was making his way out of the cart with the help from a crutch. Also looking as if it would fall apart. Something was off about him though. His motions looked ragged. Tugging, almost as if his muscles would give out. She looked at him and again her eyes met his. This time she could see that not only the color of his eyes were blue but also the whites around them. Pain.

She knew what blue whites meant. In her live she met some men that came back from battle with light blue colored eyes. And they always proclaimed to be in the worst kind of pain they've ever felt. Him walking around with his crutch you wouldn't see that he felt pain with every step he took. It could simply be hard to walk on this ground. But she knew. And her heartstrings pulled tighter at the picture of this man struggling to only get food or whatever it is he needs.

Y/N hadn't realized how close the stranger has come. He was close enough to see the goods that were sprawled out on her little table and for her to see that there was a silver of a necklace peaking through his tunic. It looked like a hammer and she recognized it immediately. Nothing interested him though for he just walked by her without a glance. But she couldn't let that stand. Back in her head she searched for the old language her father tried to teach her. It was hard but she managed. She turned to him and with little confidence she called.

“Stranger”

That made him halt in his step. Turning around he met her eyes. This time on purpose. His eyes were filled with a sort of anger and he answered to fast with too many words for her to understand.

“Please, talk slower”

“How do you know my language?” It came out more of an demand then a question.

“My father thought me.”

“But why did he teach you Norse. You don't look like a Viking.”

Her answer came after a short minute but with a small smile on her face.

“I'm not Viking. But my father was friends with some. Back when he was alive.”

That made the stranger pause again. He was considered what she told him. You could see it.

“What is your name?” This time it was a question.

“Y/N and yours?”

He hesitated. Should he tell this woman who he was? Could it come back and bite him in the ass if he told the truth?

“You don't have to tell me. It's not of my buisn..”

“Ivar”

His interruption made her to stumble over her words but after she heard that he told her his name her small smile grew larger. Ivar had to say she had a nice smile. And she was the first one to start a conversation with him and not the other way around.

“Well Ivar, is there something you might need that I can help you with?”

“No, I'm looking for food and you only sell weird looking porridge.”

Her smile didn't falter. “Well I don't have food but you can buy something six stalls to your right. Bella sells the best and cheapest dates on the whole road. Also if you say that I send you she will probably give you more for your money. But here please take this”

With the last words she turned around, ducked behind her stall and when she came up again she held a small brown pouch filled with dried leafs inside a yellow cup.

Ivar looked at her with skepticism. Why would this weird, yet beautiful, women talk to him and then also help him?

“I don't have enough gold to pay for...whatever that is. And why would you help me with food when you would gain nothing in return?”

“I don't want your gold. I just want to help. I see the way your eyes are blue and I know that you are in pain. So why wouldn't I help you when I can? Also Bella owns me one for making medicine for her son so it's nothing really”

Y/N held the pouch still in her hands but with the missing answer form Ivar her smile fell just a little. But she wouldn't take no, or the lack of one, as an answer. So with a little smirk that looked more mischievous than the smile she held before she threw the little bag to the side of him that didn't hold him up on his crutch.

With a startled look, as if he was expecting a knife, he caught the bag. The stare he threw back at her made her laugh so hard even on Bran's face grew on. He observed the weird interaction between the two even though he couldn't understand a word they'd said. He hand't seen Y/N laugh and smile for a long time.

“Well now it's yours and I don't take returns” Her voice matched her smile and after a moment to overcome his initial shock Ivar smiled back. And Y/N swore her heart skipped a beat.

“Fine... then as it seems that I am stuck with this..would you explain to me what I have to do with it?” His smile was a little dimmed but still on his face.

“You'd have to boil the leafs for a while and then drink it slowly. Little sips. And no more then one cup.” She gave him the cup too and he hid both of her gift somewhere in his robe.

They held eye contact. Knowing that their interaction would be over soon. Him still plagued with hunger and her with the need to sell more of her goods, now that she gifted some away. But neither wanting to let the other go. Y/N was the first person since he fled Kattegat that was actually nice to him. She treated him like a person and not ogled at him like the freak he was. Well as the freak he saw in himself.

And Ivar was the first men that made her laugh and made her truly feel happy for a little while. She could forget the struggle of having to be alone in this world. She would miss him. Even though they only knew each other for an hour she would truly miss this stranger with the blue eyes.

And what she didn't know was that Ivar would miss and think of her for the rest of his journey. He would see her act of kindness a far greater thing then just a small favor. And her laugh would bring him warmth when he went into the snow filled forests.

“Thank you” His small voice was filled with honesty.

“You are more then welcome. I wish you all the luck and that your gods help you on your journey”

He hadn't expected to hear that but it brought him a little bit of hope. If the gods made him meet her he was on the right path.

He only bowed his head a little, a sheepish smirk on his face, and made his way away from her and to the mentioned stall from Bella. Dates sounded magnificent right now.

Ivar vanished in the masses of people but her smile stayed on her face.

“Well someone is a little smitten”

“Ah shut up Bran” 

Her insult was met with laughter from the old forger.

__________

Tags: @youbloodymadgenius​

[stuffedeggplants]

hullo pls can you tell me about your clone ocs?? any and all of them would be just lovely :D

Lieutenant Six! He’s a supply officer in Coruscant Guard Aviation Support Squadron 66. (They handle logistics and are also an OC squadron! So they don’t have pilots but deal with maintenance, parts, ordnance, etc..) Conveniently he’s CT-60-3102 which also adds up to six- twice. He likes making the kind of jokes that are usually way too obvious for most people to actually make, indulging in clone humor, and has a very optimistic personality. He’s creative with language (and chewing people out lol), but does not excel at lateral thinking and is routinely defeated by bureaucracy and his inability to think outside the box, (but that’s what he has friends for.) Very nice guy, will absolutely go out of his way to help you, but struggles with coming up with creative solutions on his own.

Trooper Eyes-up! He’s on the younger side and also in the Coruscant Guard where he works at the detention center. He got his nickname in very unfortunate and embarrassing circumstances wherein commanders Fox and Thorn caught him doing something he absolutely should not have been doing and told him to bring his “eyes up here, shiny!” So they gave him his name which he’ll never live down. He’s curious, enjoys reading, and is prone to pushing boundaries when he shouldn’t. But he’s also honest and owns up to his screw-ups and is kind of resigned to routinely getting shit for the nonsense he gets himself into, but people love him for it because the fallout is amusing. He was unfairly blamed for bringing granite slugs into one of the barracks (which then proceeded to eat the duracrete walls and cause a problem that only flame troopers could ultimately fix.) He’s good at reading people emotionally but his risk vs reward calibration is a little off. In worlds where Order 66 happens, Eyes-up never participates though the rest of his unit does- this is because his latest screw-up put him on SUFR duty (”sweeping up the fucking rain”), Fox telling him to stay outside in the rain and keep sweeping until it was completely dry. Well the ground was still wet when Order 66 was activated, and Eyes-up’s visceral fear of upsetting the commanding officer of the entire Coruscant Guard overrode his in-built compliance with Order 66, so he stayed and swept up the rain while his brothers went on to worse and darker things. :(

Corporal Corr: the Coruscant Guard Corpsman who ‘mysteriously’ has not managed to promote to sergeant (and likely never will....👀) He works under Thorn in the Diplomatic Service, is a great connoisseur of alcohol, and goes extremely hard for the Coruscant Guard (and nurtures a rivalry with 501st guys whenever they go planet-side for whatever.) He’s very serious about the concept of CG brotherhood and becomes a fixture in Diplomatic Service initiation rites (where shinies are ‘officially’ inducted into the group after their first milestone) to the point where he pretty much leads them. Part of this involves shinies mixing a drop of their blood into red paint, and then their older brothers in the CG mix in their own blood as well. The ex-shinies then use the paint for their armor. Corr has been implicated in brewing his own barracks moonshine which Fox and Thorn let him get away with just long enough to let him finish the process so they could see how good the final product actually was when they confiscated it. Corr also has an agreement with Toast clone, where he trades alcohol for the bread that Toast makes in a crematorium oven that’s non-operational on official records but which is very much operational in a hushed, practical sense. (He also has Toast score the bread surface with the pattern of the CG symbol because he can’t help himself, and has tattoos of the CG armor armbands and legbands actually over his arms and legs. Some might describe Corr as overzealous, but he believes you need passion and strong bonds in life or you have nothing. [This guy is also kind of a joint OC with my friend who runs a Coruscant Guard blog here!]

Are you sick of the Coruscant Guard yet? Well I have 12 more guardsmen alone where this came from and 13 if you count this next guy; I wasn’t kidding when I said I had half a platoon worth of OCs. 

Kov, rank to be determined, pronounced like “cove.” (I might change the spelling to better reflect that.) He’s in one of the Special Tactics Groups of the Coruscant Guard, a unit which I made up to work kind of like a SWAT team. He and his STG are also part of a designated force that can respond extremely quickly to developing situations and get there first to deal with the trouble before anybody else comes in. His STG’s motto is “made to kill, decanted to die” and he has a target tattooed over the side of his face to go with it. (They get shit from non-CG and units that think all they do is give out parking tickets and stand around looking pretty in the Senate building- these guys very much do not do that.) His face is very expressive, and he’s decisive, straightforward, and unfortunately comes off as kind of low on empathy. He wants people to see him as very pragmatic though he’s actually rather idealistic and kind of naive about certain things. He and his best friend are very interested in plants- Kamino didn’t have any, and they’re generally rare on Coruscant. There’s something calming and ‘constant’ about them that he enjoys. He likes taking photos of the ones they find together and looking them up later to learn about nature/biology. Kov learns he really likes children, but is uncertain/a little afraid to let himself interact with them because he’s worried about what sort of influence he’d have on them (and on a deeper level whether he’d learn from them that he’s not actually the person he thinks he is or tries to be.) He and a Twi’lek woman who immigrated from Ryloth sort of fall into a relationship without meaning to, and they both learn a lot from each other and grow as people. (I’m planning on having her take him to a botanical garden that he had no idea existed, and sometime during their visit he realizes he loves her even. He has trouble putting it into words in his mind, but he definitely knows.) 

Okay last one, I’m sorry! :( 

Lieutenant Rakia of the 212th, part of Slick’s direct chain of command. He goes through Geonosis with his best friend and batchmate Arak. When they were cadets on Kamino, and Arak’s helmet saved his life during a training accident but was partially shattered, and Rakia’s random compulsion to bend down and pick up a shard of the helmet inadvertently saved his life too during this incident. Arak and Rakia kept the small plastoid chunk, carved designs over its surface, and exchanged custody of it for years. Before Geonosis Arak gave it to Rakia. Rakia survives but somehow can’t find the chunk where it’s supposed to be in his utility belt, like it just disappeared, and Arak goes missing and is presumed KIA during the battle. On a deep internal level, Rakia has similar realizations to Slick, but because his personality is different he takes that in another direction. He doubles down on a deep trust and faith in the Republic and the Jedi because he’s subconsciously afraid of what it means about his life and purpose if those things are not the things he should believe in. He sees that they’re all cogs in a machine, but his response is that that’s a good thing. He finds something very personally significant about the idea that all those tiny cogs come together to become something much bigger. So his own internal tendencies towards a collective approach and trusting the leadership he was instructed to trust all his life just get kicked up to higher levels after Geonosis in the face of his anxieties.  

In normal speech he’s casual and kind of playful, but when he gets angry he becomes overly explicit/didactic about things and snaps a lot to the point where he can be condescending even without meaning to be. Rakia has an artistic side but doesn’t get to explore it much at first. He’s clean-shaven and lets his curls grow out a bit because he likes how he looks that way, but otherwise looks like everyone else and doesn’t want to visually distinguish himself from his brothers too much besides the slightly longer hair. He wants to be someone others look up to and tries to ignore/deny parts of himself that he doesn’t feel fit that ideal image he wants others to see. Part of that ties into him really struggling with grief but not even allowing himself to contend with it and find closure, stuffing it back down and ignoring it to negative effect. It also ties in to him resisting discovering himself as an individual beyond a certain point/his comfort zone because he’s afraid that will isolate himself from his brothers, but resisting that (and continuing to deny his grief/keep it bottled down) ends up doing that exactly, leading him to feel cut off and alone in certain ways that compound the problem in a bad spiral. (He gets out of it, I promise.) So because Slick is busy developing his own radical ideas and solutions which he can tell no one about (on top of feeling like he’s the only one who’s cottoned on to something nobody else can see,) that’s isolating too, and he and Rakia understand each other a lot better than they think they do in some respects, regardless of their disagreements. 

I know you didn’t ask for a six paragraph essay. Sorry I just really love these guys.😅

[leahazel]

More about my morally-grey heroines and their messed-up relationships

I wanted to elaborate on this post I wrote about D&F and BFS, but it turns out that adding readmore links to reblogs is a PITA, and I just now that this is gonna turn into a fucking novelette. 

So here we go.

Time to go into some detail about this!

Let’s define our terms:

“Decline and Fall” is my 120K+ series of loosely chronological, interconnected short fics, set in a tiny fandom for a visual novel that’s been in alpha development since 2015. For the record, the word count disincludes unfinished drafts, and stories that I’m holding back because they’re based on canon spoilers.

“Blood from Stone“ is my 100K unfinished Skyrim WIP, which began as a response to a kink meme prompt, and is not so much a rarepair as a non-existent one.

Both of these stories centrally feature young female protagonists and their sexual relationship with a much older man. Both heroines are... “grey” to say the least.

Let’s compare our fandoms, shall we?

Skyrim is a juggernaut fandom for a super-popular RPG which is part of a 30-yo franchise. The setting is moderately dark and casually sprinkled with murder cults, cannibalism, secret police death squads, and the prison industrial complex. The player character can be a thief and a murderer and everyone just learns to be okay with it because the only alternative is a fiery apocalypse. They also rob graves for the lulz.

Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem is a pinkie-toe-sized fandom for a hybrid RPG and dating sim where attractive young people flirt and date for the purpose of brokering world peace. The setting is one where you can actually broker world peace effectively. The player character can perpetrate a fair amount of proxy violence, but maintaining a good reputation dishonestly is legitimately difficult.

Now, let’s compare our heroines:

Corinne is a 24-year-old bounty hunter who became a folk hero, a soldier, and a cult assassin. She’s living alone and working for a living since she was 18. She’s never been in love, but she’s had multiple sexual and romantic relationships in the past. I deliberately wrote her as being very sexually confident and self-assured. She also has combat training, magical training, her special Dragonborn powers, and an incalculable amount of social clout. By every metric, she’s a powerful character. Though she can talk her way out of a tight spot (all my favorite characters can), she can also fight her way out.

Verity is (at the beginning of D&F) not yet 18 years old. She’s a princess from a very conservative kingdom who was raised to become a barter bride in a diplomatic marriage. The values that were passed to her were duty, tradition, and absolute obedience. Her primary skills are social, charisma, eloquence, and persuasion. Then she was dropped into the deep water of a diplomatic summit and had the weight of future history put on her shoulders, without ever having been taught how to make her own decisions or live with her regret.

To sum up, we have one hyper-competent, confident, and independent badass, universally recognized as powerful and dangerous, and then we have someone who’s basically a deconstruction of a traditional fantasy princess.

Okay, what about the more specific setting within the game world?

BFS is set in Markarth, arguably the most corrupt city in Skyrim, and the site of a localized war, on top of the 2-3 other wars that Skyrim has going on. The city is controlled by the cartel-like Silver-Blood family, and their enemies are swiftly and brutally eliminated. The rule of law is a joke. When the player character arrives at Markarth, they witness a chain or murders and are drawn into a conspiracy that sees them sentenced to life in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. The ruling elite suppress the native underclass by a variety of inventive methods. The roads into the city are controlled by the remnants of a violent but failed uprising, and this uprising is actually the origin story of Skyrim’s entire civil war storyline.

D&F is set in Revaire, explicitly the most violently war-torn of the seven kingdoms. Once the epicenter of a conquering empire, it was a country full of arts and culture, until a bloody coup slaughtered the entire royal line and instituted a new and more brutal regime. The new regime is on shaky grounds and foresighted people predict its imminent fall to rebel forces. So much, so canon. In D&F, I made a point of developing the new royals and their small coterie of supporters, as well as illustrating their constant struggle to conceal how widely reviled they are by the populace, and most of the former nobility. Their apathy to the plight of the common people is underscored in contrast to Verity’s compassion, which is ridiculed as a sentimental feminine affectation.

I’m attracted to certain themes, as you might have noticed.

Now, we get to talk about love interests.

Thongvor Silver-Blood is rather anemically characterized in Skyrim’s canon, so much of the information that I include in BFS is inferred. From his limited number of dialogues in the game, we know that he’s politically ambitious, a Stormcloak supporter, easily angered, and that he has one legitimate friend in the city. Like most Skyrim characters of his age bracket, he served in the Great War. He’s defined by his relationship to his generational cohort. In BFS, he’s def8ined in contrast to his brother. Thonar is comfortable being thought of as a villain. Thongvor still needs to believe that he’s the good guy. And I’m gonna get more into that in later chapters, too.

As a love interest, he’s initially in awe of Corinne, and always genuinely adoring, but more than a little jealous and possessive. BFS is not a story about love redeeming bad men (don’t get me started), but Thongvor shows different sides of his personality to different people, and the side that Corinne gets to see is much nicer than what most people do.

Hyperion Asper is a character of my own devising, whose existence in 7KPP canon is purely implied. We know his children, Jarrod and Gisette, and we knew that he organized a coup to seize the throne. I posit him as a tyrant and unrepentant child-killer (not directly stated in D&F, at least not yet). He’s ruthless and manipulative and his sole purpose is maintaining a sense of personal power. I structured him as the bad example that Jarrod tries -- and fails -- to live up to.

As a love interest... look, he’s a man who’s cheating on his wife with his son’s wife. He seduces Verity and manipulates her, and takes a special delight in pushing her buttons. All his compliments to her are mean-spirited and back-handed. He’s also jealous and possessive... which is especially pathetic, since he’s jealous of his own son, whom Verity doesn’t even like. His rage is a constant implied undercurrent in the narrative.

And the relationship dynamics themselves?

Corinne kisses Thongvor, proposes marriage to him, and then sleeps with him before riding off into mortal danger. She’s fond and affectionate, but she shies away from intense emotions, whether negative or positive. Since they spend most of their time apart, their marriage has been defined by Thongvor yearning like a sailor’s wife, while Corinne ran around doing violence and crime. They only just had their first fight. It will change when they get to spend some more significant time together... but on the whole, their marriage is fairly happy, and the emotional dynamic favors Corinne -- so far. It’s not a pure gender reversal, but that element is definitely dominant.

Hyperion starts seducing Verity on their very first meeting, and relies on a combination of magnetic attraction and Verity’s inexperience in life to keep her coming back, against her better judgment. Their relationship is mutually defined by a combination of attraction and resentment of that attraction. The danger of the situation is an essential element, to the point where it’s hard to imagine their affair would survive without it. It’s a puzzle and a battle, a source of fascination but not of comfort. There’s lust involved, and curiosity, but not a shred of love or even like. The closest thing to genuine affection is when Verity briefly imagines that there could be a version of Hyperion she actually liked, cobbled from his various, hidden good qualities. Any trappings of a genuine relationship are deliberately discordant.

I have tried, more than once, to imagine an alternate universe in which these two could be happy. It can’t be done. they are a study in dysfunction.

So where’s the similarity, with all these differences outlined?

Corinne’s choice to marry into the Silver-Blood family makes her complicit in their rule of the Reach, corrupt and reactionary as it is. Her reluctance to accept being called by their name reflects a reluctance to confront unpleasant truths that’s fundamental to her character. Choosing to be one of them affects and will continue to affect how other people see her, mostly negatively, and mostly without her being aware of it. Being Thongvor’s wife has gained her enemies. The fact that she doesn’t share his more reactionary views is something that they’ve both chosen to elegantly ignore, but the rest of the world won’t be so generous.

Verity’s choice to marry into the Revaire royal family makes her complicit in their violence against the forces rebelling against them, albeit in a more subtle way. Her personal dislike of Jarrod and the fact that their marriage was purely political will not absolve her in anyone’s eyes. Neither will her compassionate and charitable character, which can only be seen as a fig leaf to the Revaire royals’ general brutality. She has lost at least one good friend -- who will never see her the same way, since she chose to throw her lot in with his enemies. She will go down in history as an Asper wife -- but if she’s lucky, not just as that.

Both Corinne and Verity choose to accept some of the violence of the system that they live under, in order to serve their own lofty, long-term goals. Both of them are more image-driven than they care to admit, and though they are genuinely caring and compassionate, they will readily sacrifice compassion in service on their goals. They are queens (or queen-like figures), one-degree-of-separation members of the ruling class, implicated but not directly in control.

And their relationships serve to highlight what they are willing to accept, even though it goes against their conscience.

Is there a conclusion to be drawn here?

Sort of. I want to write about power, compromise and complicity. For whatever reason, it turns out that yw/om relationships are... a really good vehicle for exploring that. I can’t really explain why that is, just yet. I just... have had these thoughts floating, unstructured, in my head for months on end. I needed to get them out on paper, and give them some semblance of order.

I don’t even know why anyone but me would read this, as long and meandering as it is. But having it accessible might be of use to me.

[jq37]

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 17 For Candia (Part 2)--Mini Recap

Hey guys. It’s been a bit, huh?

I haven’t been on Tumblr a bunch lately because I’ve been busy as hell irl for a lot of reasons, but I also hate to leave a thing undone, especially when it’s so close to being done. So I decided to provide at least some level of closure for anyone who might have stumbled across these with no access to the ep and really wants to know how the story ends.

Maybe I’ll do a proper recap at some point but, for now, let’s wrap things up.

This episode is basically a series of Boss Fights standing in for the more significant but less interesting final battle going on in which the Rocks Family face off against all the Important NPCs.

Amethar and Joren together waste Grissini, Amethar saying that he might have been good to Jet, but he’s fighting for the wrong side. (Joren goes down but it’s never really resolved whether he survives or not. I feel like he probably did considering Liam’s epilogue.)

Ally gets their obligatory Nat 20 to intimidate Keradin for the rest of the fight by greatly shaking his faith in the Bulb before icing him. Then he sees the Pontifex watching the fight from the wall of the keep and makes a beeline. 

Amethar, likewise, sees Cal running across the castle wall and breaks from his unit to go after him.

Ciabatta shows up and I am reminded in the absolute DOPEST way that Ruby never used her watersteel dagger. “In sweetness there is strength, bitch.” Ciabatta is toast. 

White flags start to go up. 

Liam catches up to the Pontifex, does the insane amounts of damage that’s just like par for the course for him at this point, and drops her, taking St. Citrina’s Book. 

Cal tries to make for a secret tunnel to escape but Cumulus blocks his path. Amethar blocks him off from the other side. “What’s the last part of my title? Say it.” Cal, being forced to kneel by Cumulus, acknowledges his “Unfallen” title (throwing a man w/ the title “the Unfallen” off a roof and not checking to see if he’s dead is the very height or hubris. That’s some, “Not even God can sink this ship” levels of asking for it) and then attacks. Amethar gets 4 attacks back and his last is a Nat 20, activating Payment Day’s special ability: On a Nat 20 against someone who has killed a member of Amethar’s family? That person instantly dies. Boom. Fight is over just like that. Piece of cake. 

With all the Big Bads dead, the fight is more or less over other than logistics. Or at least it would be if Brennan didn’t have some mind games up his sleeves. As the fight is winding down, Ruby and Rina lock eyes and they both know they have a moment to turn the tide in their favor in their little cold war by attacking the other and striking first. Out of game, Brennan makes Siobhan and Emily decide secretly on slips of paper whether they each want to attack or show compassion. It’s a classic prisoner’s dilemma setup. If they both play nice, it’s golden. If they both attack, it’s even. If you play nice and get betrayed, you’re screwed. 

But like...it’s D20. It’s the Game of Thrones season of D20 but it’s still D20. 

They choose compassion, both of them. 

“Saccharina, you’re an astonishing leader, but I can’t be your subject. But please, I would like to be your sister,” Ruby says, and Siobhan keeps her perfect track record of taking me out in every finale. 

Rina has her guys stand down (to Swifty’s dismay). Ruby tells a skeptical Cara to stand down and choose family (which she does, snapped out of her paranoia by Ruby’s brave move).

Brennan’s attempt at PvP thwarted, Amethar swears on the Book of Leaves that he was named Emperor and Primsy--who is here in too for some reason--recognizes the claim. That leaves the recently (forcibly) vacated throne of Castle Candy to Rina. Which is great for her because Liam remembers the wish seed and uses it to just quadruple Candia in size, the absolute madman. 

We get epilogues! Liam becomes Master Gardener (and also casually says that he brought back the Pontifex and Kerradin to jail them which is wild because that’s not a spell that exists in this world--Ally just brute forced it in in the last second in a line so poetic that Brennan was just forced to let it happen). Cumulus takes a break from snapping chicken’s necks. Theo gets laid. Rina and Ruby do the sister thing and Ruby joins the circus for a while. Cinnamon becomes a vegetarian which mellows out his constant hunger. And Amethar enjoys time with his newly expanded family. For the first time in a while, things are looking sweet. 

A Few Notes

I’m going to fight the editor who had me worried about the “family is exposed” clip all season for the exact wrong reason. But also, gold star. Well played.  

Lol at Brennan not even getting his PvP in the GOT season w/ a prisoner’s dilemma. Like, give it up dude. Watch next season start in media res during a fight to the death to force everyones’ hands. 

On the same topic, very funny that the previous episode it was like, “Loyalties tested! Lines drawn!” and then this episode Theo was like, “Come on guys you shoulda just talked to me. I would never betray you.” It’s like he just wanted to have a dramatic moment. 

MVP this ep is Ruby with the watersteel dagger imo. Like everyone had their moment. And Amethar w/ that Nat 20 was dope but you were kind of waiting for that all season. But I totally forgot Ruby had that dagger. I, like, verbally cheered when she pulled it out. 

I haven’t watched the last AP or the behind the scenes special so I don’t know that much about unseen characters besides what I’ve glimpsed on Twitter/Tumblr but Amand Maillard looks very dope. 

I wish we’d gotten to know more about Citrina. Like I get that if you dump these players in a world, they’re gonna wanna take down The Man and often The Man is The Church and the Pontifex *did* need to go but sometimes people are just Good and I dug her (Citrina’s) vibe in the flashback we got.

I can’t believe Siobhan got me with the “Be my sister/Let me be your sister” stuff in back to back seasons. You’d think I would have developed some resistance in the intervening months. Nope! Weak as ever baybee!  

One Final Thing

One of the reasons I’ve been so busy lately is I’ve been working on my podcast*, Absolutely No Adventures, which is dropping in a tiny bit over a month. The trailer drops on Sunday so if you wanna check that out when it’s out, you can follow the show’s Twitter (@noadventurespod)! I’ll also link it here as my pinned post once it’s up. I hope some of y’all check it out! 

*ONE of my podcasts but one announcement at a time.

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Webs We Weave

A spider has decided to move in. Aang has decided to let it stay.  ...Zuko and Sokka did not agree on this new roommate, and they will do what needs to be done.

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A/N: This was originally a vent-write (because I had a horrifying in-my-face encounter with an airborne spider) that #1. I had way to much fun writing and #2. Spiraled far beyond what I originally imagined lmao

(Also jumping spiders are tiny and precious and wear raindrops as lil hats and Aang would take a bullet for one.)

Rating: G (S for Short Aang is bae)

Words: 2,376

ArchiveOfOurOwn

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Aang had a considerable grip for someone more than two heads shorter than who he was trying to restrain. The young Avatar managed to hold Sokka back, nonetheless. “Stop it, guys! Please! You can’t kill him!” 

Sokka shrugged Aang off. He side-stepped the airbender before he could weasel past him. The kitchen wasn’t big enough for Aang to do a tricky-trick on him this time.

Sokka almost felt bad when Aang’s cheeks puffed red and his fists clenched. Sokka had hit his growth spurt, so Aang had to tilt his head vertical to meet his (in all but blood) big brother’s eyes. He stood on his tip-toes, and Sokka had to bank on his warrior’s discipline not to laugh when Aang couldn’t even get his head close to his shoulder-level.

“You guys can’t kill him! It’s just—It’s just wrong!”

“Yeah, we can. Easily, in fact.” 

“Sokka!”

Sokka rolled his eyes not for the first time that night.

Behind Sokka and just beyond Aang’s reach, Zuko crouched close to the very small, very fuzzy, somewhat colorful eight-legged critter not even a full half-inch big. It huddled into the corner under the umbrella of its tiny web. Its legs looked almost too short for its body. Six of its beady eyes blankly stared at them, but the two eyes at the forefront—which were so big they almost looked like they were glued on—shined with a waxy gloss that rivaled the tears gathering in Aang’s eyes.

“B-But you can’t! Every life is sacred!”

Zuko made his finger into a blowtorch and crouched like a prince performing a formal execution on a war criminal. “It’s the natural order, Aang.”

“But you can’t!”

Aang tried to dart past, but Sokka snagged him by the scruff of his robes. The short airbender yelped as his feet left the ground. He was as light as his element. He squirmed not too unlike Momo when he refused to bathe, but Sokka held him higher so his kicking legs couldn’t even toe the floor.

Aang’s face bloomed several shades of frustration and embarrassment, and Sokka made a mental note to thank Suki for teaching him some elemental chi-blocking. 

Because judging by the look on his little brother’s face, he would have been taking the brunt of all four elements five-times-over by now. 

“Sokka! Put me down!”

“Sorry, but no can do, sport.” Sokka turned his head. “Do it, Zuko.”

Aang thrashed harder. “No, don’t! Zuko, please—!”

Katara—winded and whipping her head around like she was looking for a horde of assassins—appeared from around the corner like Aang’s plea had summoned her from across the continent. A warrior’s discipline and experience let her take in the scene at a glance. Sokka nearly rolled his eyes again when her glare zeroed-in on and burned him in particular. 

Sokka wanted to rub his head. Spirits, he had thought the constant headaches he got during the war would go away, but with stuff like this always happening, it’s no wonder they were getting worse and worse. It felt like his head was about to split in two. 

Katara waterbended her liquid ammo back into her waterskin, though she didn’t become any less of a threat. “Sokka, put him down. Now. And Zuko, what—What in the world are you guys doing?”

“What must be done.”

Katara cocked her jaw at Zuko, grim-faced like a true executioner. “That explains so much and yet so little.”

Aang struggled more, but Sokka just held him higher and away from himself. 

“Katara! Katara, they’re gonna kill Bartholomew!”

Katara looked affronted. “Bartholomew?” She glared between Zuko and Sokka with equal levels of disgust. 

Zuko and Sokka shared a side-eyed glance and an exasperated sigh. 

“Katara, look,” Sokka said, gesticulating with even Aang who was hanging from his grasp like a polarbeardog pup by its scruff, “the spider has to go. It’s a pest, and Zuko and I are not going to let those things curl up and make their home wherever they damn well please. They can hide in the rafters or whatever, but not out in the most open corner of the kitchen. If you let them see that there’s no threat in places where we don’t want them, then, before you know it, we’ll have dozens of them in the kitchen.”

Zuko sagely nodded. His finger was still a torch. Bartholomew’s six small and two abnormally large eyes reflected the red glow of its would-be murder weapon but were otherwise as black as ink and void of fear. “Have to make an example out of it.”

“Thank you, Zuko, for listening to reason.”

“He’s not hurting anything!” Aang gave up his struggle and hung limp in Sokka’s one-handed grip. The young Avatar’s pooled robes made him look even smaller, and Sokka could feel the blinding rays of his wounded pigmypuma eyes getting bigger. “Bartholomew just likes to hang out and watch you cook and—”

Sokka held Aang to his eye-level and got nearly nose-to-nose with his little brother. “It is a spider, Aang.”

Aang poked Sokka’s chest. “He is my friend, Sokka.”

Katara crossed her arms. Despite themselves, Sokka and Zuko both flinched. “Zuko, put that out. Sokka, put Aang down. Now.”

Sokka, in fact, did not put Aang down. He returned her glare with his own and subtly stepped between his love and his sister as he felt the heat of her glare reach the capacity to melt steel bars.

“I can’t do that, Katara.”

“Well, you’d better figure out how before I make you, Sokka.”

The searing whish of Zuko’s finger-torch got stronger. Aang pawed Sokka’s hand on the back of his robe’s collar and cursed his genetics into oblivion for not having hit his presumed growth spurt yet. 

“Zuko, don’t! Please!”

Zuko growled. He put his torch out and threw his arms up. “Fine! Whatever! Just give me a cup or something and I’ll take it outside!”

Aang looked appalled. “You can’t!”

“Why the hell not?”

Aang fiddled with the end of his robe. “He’s—Bartholomew’s been inside too long. He won’t know how to survive outdoors. And he isn’t—”

Sokka groaned. His urge to bang his migraine-aching head into the wall was becoming more of a compulsion that bordered on a need.

“—the outdoor spiders don’t like him? And what if—” 

“Do it, babe.”

The torch was back. “On it.”

“No!” 

Aang got free of Sokka’s grip but didn’t stay free for long. Airbender or not, Sokka was a big brother, and he easily scooped the young monk off his feet again in a light but firm headlock. Aang wiggled and pushed against him, but Sokka tightened his grip. “Bartholomew!” Aang cried out as he reached out to his tiny insect friend.

Katara snarled. “Sokka, put him down! He’s not—Zuko. Don’t. You. Dare.” 

Zuko paused his finger-torch an inch away from its target. The chilly voice that bent the Southern Raiders to their knees crawled like frost freezing over into his ears. 

The pressure in the room nearly crushed them. The universe rippled in a strange way that made the hairs on the napes of their necks stand on end. He and Sokka looked at each other before turning inches at a time to face the tempest-made-flesh who was glaring them down.

Katara’s eyes held the promise of bloodshed, and her voice bellied the threat of major bodily harm. Arms crossed and hackles raised like a sabretooth-mooselion, she stalked towards them. 

“You two are not going to lay hand or foot on Bartholomew. Got it?”

Sokka rolled his eyes again and tightened his slippery grip on the escape-artist whining and wiggling in his hold. He wound one of his arms around Aang’s middle to pin him flush against him. “Or what? Are you going to freeze our—”

“Don’t give her any ideas, you idiot,” Zuko hissed. He put his fire out and stood, though he subtly-but-not-as-subtly-as-he-thought shimmied away from the heated waterbender so that he had partial cover behind his boyfriend.

Sokka turned to him with half-lidded eyes and a half-blinding migraine. “Not you, too. Come on, guys, it’s a spider. It’s not like it’s a puppy or—”

Sokka looked down. The kicked puppy trapped in his arms was looking up. Aang’s grey eyes were miserable puddles of pleading that were so dilated that Sokka almost fell into their tear-filled abyss. 

“Please, Sokka?” 

Aang’s voice broke, and when Katara clasped her hands to her chest in a heartbroken aw while simultaneously letting her brother know her very clear intent to shed blood should Aang shed a tear, Sokka rolled his eyes so hard that his whole head nearly rolled with them. 

Aang tugged the arm around his neck with his one free hand, and he somehow changed his facial anatomy to make his eyes even bigger.

“Pretty please?”

Sokka sighed. “Fine. You can keep the damn spider.”

Aang smiled so brightly that Sokka had to look away to save himself from being blinded. He let Aang go and tried to nurse the now full headache he had. 

Aang raced to his pest-pet and cooed it like it was a newborn. Zuko touched Sokka’s shoulder to offer his condolences and share his frustrations...and to shimmy further out of Katara’s path.

Katara smiled and nodded like they were soldiers in battle who had satisfied their honor. Sokka stuck his tongue out at her. She returned the gesture in kind. Zuko backed him up, and Katara grumbled and looked away in defeat.

Zuko and Sokka, without looking, shared a small high-five.

Aang zoomed up to them and gave his de facto big brothers a group hug. He jumped on the balls of his feet and thanked them profusely. Thankfully, he couldn’t see the moment when the two of them went braindead to his rambling and just nodded when he stopped for breath.

Behind her boyfriend, Katara kissed Aang’s arrow. She plopped her head on top of his as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Aang placed his hands on hers and smiled so wide that the force of it had Zuko and Sokka bracing themselves from being blown backward.

Katara tugged her rambling boyfriend flush against her chest, and she protectively curled around him. When her eyes met their others’, she stuck her tongue out again.

Sokka huffed. He side-stepped Zuko and mirrored his sister’s maneuver with his boyfriend. 

Zuko blushed in Sokka’s arms, Aang redirected his smile to his Sifu Hotman, and Sokka returned his sister's stuck-out tongue with a hidden middle finger in addition. 

Aang, with his smile creeping dangerously close to a supernova, looked back and forth between the water tribe siblings until Zuko, done with this and ready for a nap or a drink or both, gave the airbender a partial head-pat like he really was a polarbeardog. 

...(later that day)

“No! No, Sokka, wait! You can’t!”

“I can! I will! I’m gonna! And you will watch me! Now get out of the way, Aang!”

“But it’s true love! Petunia is his Forever Girl!”

“I cannot put into words the depth and intensity of the fuck I do not give! Now move!”

“Think of their children, Sokka!”

“I AM THINKING OF THEIR CHILDREN!”

Zuko saved his and Katara’s boyfriends from bodily harm while Katara quickly but quietly set up the terrarium she and Zuko had special-ordered for Bartholomew (and Petunia, now, as well).

Aang still kept it in the kitchen, though. He didn't want to stress out his ‘lil babu’ and his ‘lil babu’s babu’ by moving them to a change in scenery.

Sokka (gently but with passion) flicked the corner of the glass whenever he walked by. Zuko flipped it the bird.

Aang saw neither action. He just smiled and melted into Katara’s hug as he relished thinking about how well all of his friends were getting along.

Bartholomew and Petunia watched on from their new home in the corner on the counter.

And they watched.

And they watched.

And they watched.

And though they were nocturnal, they always crawled out of their hide when the humans’ voices drew near so that they could watch them some more.

...That night—Petunia’s first in the house, to Sokka’s dismay—Bartholomew and Petunia crawled onto the clump of bark and moss outside their burrow. The moon was full, and some of its light reached the terrarium just like Aang had hoped their minor change of scenery would do. 

They curled their thin legs together and sat in the strongest of the moon’s rays. And, once everything was quiet and all were asleep, Bartholomew turned to his companion and shared his thoughts with her.

/This Avatar is a strange one./

/Very./  Petunia curled closer to his side. /The two males are very quick to violence, it seems. The Avatar’s mate, as well. I’m surprised you didn’t blast the firebender into the Spirit Wilds./

/I was going to, but I was curious to see how the situation would unfold. I probably should have taken a different form. The lemur and skybison said their master would take interest instead of offense to this form. They failed to mention the opinions of the others sharing his dwelling./

/I’m sorry, my love. It won’t be too much longer, now, will it? Because I swear on the Ancients themselves, if the firebender’s mate flicks the glass one more time, I will flick him into—/

/Calm yourself, my dear. It won’t be too long. The web is woven, and we need him near if it is to work./

/I suppose that is one benefit to this form, then./

/Aye./ Bartholomew drummed all of his legs like he was shifting his weight impatiently. /He is the last one Hei Bai took into his forest during the Solstice. Thankfully, it hasn’t festered long enough to corrupt his spirit./

/Because of the firebender?/

Bartholomew pawed the bits of a dead leaf and would have grumbled if he had a voice. /Yes. And he’s lucky, too, because otherwise I would not have hesitated to banish him and his mate to the Spirit Wilds./

Petunia touched her legs to his and gently herded him back to their den. One of her legs gently tapped his back. /I’m sure you would have, dear./

**************************************

The spiders know all

(Many thanks and more to @coldmentalitystudentme @thecaroliner for helping me settle what these dorks’ reactions to spiders might be!!!)

[deejadabbles]

Crime and Consequence (Atem x Reader) Chapter Three

Three: The Namesake

One //// Two //// Three //// Four //// [Five coming soon]

Summary: Years have passed since Atem's crimes came to light. Years have passed, but in some cases the wounds of that time were still fresh. Despite that, however, you've done your best to rebuild your life for you...and for your son. So, when Atem's crimes come back to hurt you and your boy, how will you survive and protect what little you have left?

Years have passed since Atem last saw you. Years have passed, and he had never been able to meet his son. Despite that, Atem carried on with his life, as limited and meaningless as it was, locked away for his crimes. So, when a threat is made against the only ones he still holds dear, how will he defend the love of his life and his boy?

(Modern, season 0 inspired AU. Contains some disturbing themes, depictions of violence, cursing/vulgar language, and sexual content.)

A.N. At first I intended for this chapter to cover something completely different, for it to just jump into the action, but then I got caught up in some of the emotions I imagined for this series and...yeah. So, it'll be another chapter until things start heating up, I'm sorry lol. I guess it also doesn't help that I keep thinking of more stuff I want to add to this series, even though I intended it to be kinda short at first *shrug emoji* Anyway, hopefully you guys still like this chapter!

A fit of coughing brought you out of your stupor, eyes snapping open and darting to the man walking beside you. Yes, walking, you had been half asleep but still managed to walk down the street with your son and surrogate grandfather.

Sugoroku’s face turned pink before his coughing died down, and he took a sharp intake of breath as you rubbed his back in comfort.

“Have you been taking your medicine?” you asked gently, and the old man offered you a small smile.

“Every morning and evening. Don’t worry about me, my dear.”

That was impossible. Even without your innate compassion, one of the things that made you a good nurse, this man had been invaluable to you in the past years, a life preserver that had kept you and your son afloat; how could you not worry about someone you cared so much for?

“I’m going to send you some instructions on breathing exercises that might help, since your doctor didn’t seem to bother giving them to you.”

Again with that reassuring smile, Sugoroku patted your hand with affection, “It pays to have a nurse in the family when you’re this old,” he laughed at his own joke and looked ahead again, though the sidewalk was hardly crowded.

The tiny fingers around your other hand tightened and you looked down at Yugi, who was giving his great-grandfather a concerned look with his soft lavender eyes. When you gave him a gentle nudge, he looked up at you and seemed to ease with the assuring smile you gave him.

“Don’t worry, grandpa!” Yugi said, that bright expression on his face, the one that could warm even the most dour of moods. “We’ll be there soon and then you can sit down and take a nap!”

You and Sugoroku chuckled at that, “Hey now, I may be old but I don’t need a nap after every walk!” After a moment his eyes darted up to you, likely taking in the dark circles that seemed to be a constant accessory of your face. “Besides, I’m thinking that you’re needing a nap more than me.”

You only answered with a shrug. Sure, visiting friends after a ten-hour shift might take its toll, but you’d be damned if you gave up this time with the people you considered family.

Barely a minute later the three of you finally reached your destination and rang the doorbell to Mai and Jonouchi’s apartment. A loud call to ‘come on in’ answered from inside and your trio were greeted by half a dozen people a moment later.

As you had expected, Honda elbowed Duke out of the and crouched low, extending his arms to Yugi, “Come give your favorite uncle a hug!” he said, though was immediately toppled over by Jonouchi, donning an apron.

“As if! If anyone’s getting a hug first, it���s me!”

This was a typical routine at these get-togethers, everyone doting on little Yugi and making a friendly game of claiming they were the little one’s favorite. You had to stifle an outright guffaw as both men’s hopes came crashing when Anzu, always one to take matters into her own hands, simply stepped up and scooped a happily squealing Yugi into her arms.

“I’m the one who’s been on tour for three months, so I get the first hug!” she declared before planting a kiss on Yugi’s cheek and earning tiny arms flung around her neck in an embrace.

As Yugi went on about how much he missed his Auntie Anzu, both Honda and Jonouchi muttered their annoyance. Anzu also took the time to give you and Sugoroku hugs, though never let the little guy go. Only when everyone wandered back to their seats and Jonouchi was dragged back into the kitchen by his sister did Anzu finally set Yugi down, promising him that if he was patient, she would give him a present she had bought him while on tour.

The look she cast your way after the words silently told you that she was wanting to talk to you about something too. So, after Yugi proudly stated that he would be good and patient as long as it took to get his present, you gently told him to go sit on the couch with Ryou and Mai so you could have a more private word with your old friend.

“How’ve you been?” she asked, eyes darkening just a bit with worry.

Much like you had with Sugoroku, you shrugged, “About the same as usual, I guess.”

Anzu nodded, “Jonouchi told me what happened with that yuppy school, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, we’ll figure something out, we always do.” When you smiled to reassure her, she smiled back before waving you over to the chair set you two usually sat in.

“I cleaned out an old storage unit before I left on tour, and I found something that I wanted to give out to everyone, just didn’t have a chance to before I left.” From her purse, she withdrew a framed picture. She gave it a look over, something warm and affectionate, but still somber crossing her eyes before she handed it to you. “I found it in an old school binder, it's better than most of the pictures from then.”

Your eyes went wide the moment they fell on the photo, and your chest gave a small ache that was bittersweet. You, Jonouchi, Honda, Anzu, and the first Yugi, the man you had considered a brother, all smiled back from the picture. All of you were young and awkward-looking, preteens about to enter high school, pulling silly faces at the camera and hanging on to each other with youthful giddiness. It wasn’t a surprise when your eyes focused mostly on the friend who had been taken from you just three short years after the photo was captured. Yugi was blushing slightly, squished between you and Anzu with Jonouchi leaning on his back, but his smile was so bright and happy- elated that he got to share this moment with good and dear friends.

“Thank you, Anzu,” you said, and looked up at her with genuine gratitude, “I have a few pictures like this, but, not enough.”

The woman nodded, a look of understanding answering you, “Yeah, none of us have enough.”

A moment later, Anzu was distracted by Mai, who was telling her to back her up with a light argument that had started between her and Honda. When she got up to assist, it left you to look down at the picture a few moments longer, letting yourself get lost in old memories. The background was Yugi’s old room, a setting all of you remembered well, trading cards and stacks of video games littering the floor behind you.

However, the longer you looked, the more you realized that the photo may have been taken just days- perhaps even the same day, that you had met Atem.

“No way!” Jonouchi scoffed, eyes narrowing at Anzu.

The brunette simply crossed her arms in defiance, “Yes way, pay up, jerk face!”

You laughed, loving the nearly scandalized look on said ‘jerk face’s’ face. “She beat you fair and square, you better pay up.”

“Come on, dude, be a man and just admit defeat,” Honda yawned, obviously eager to get his turn on the Nintendo console next.

Jou turned to face Yugi, who was trying and failing to hide his amusement at the situation. “Yug, back me up here, she cheated!”

“Excuse me!?” Anzu yelled, making the blonde jump and wince.

Yugi didn’t hide his laughter that time and, in the moment of Jou’s distraction, he threw you a knowing wink. “She didn’t cheat, Jonouchi, she just played the game,” he assured.

“And ripped your head off in the process,” you laughed, admiring the words ‘fatality’ flashing across the screen.

Finally, Jou conceded and handed over the crumpled dollar bills Anzu had won in her Mortal Kombat victory. You might have felt sympathy for your male friend, considering you and Anzu had both improved your skills by battling Yugi, the practical master of the game, over the weekend. But, considering Jounouchi had said something about girls never being able to beat his skills, you didn’t feel bad at all.

In fact, you challenged him next and said that if you beat him in the first round, he’d have to bow before you and Anzu and acknowledge you as video game queens. Always a prideful young man, he had of course accepted.

Halfway through the battle, Yugi excused himself, promising to come back with snacks, much to everyone’s delight. Not two minutes later the bet was settled. You won, of course, also decapitating Jonouchi’s character with the final move you had practiced over and over again with Yugi.

After you and an equally smirking Anzu took a moment to tease the bowing Jounouchi, you noticed that Yugi hadn’t come back yet and instantly hopped up to go help him.

After padding into the kitchen you saw that Yugi was rummaging through the fridge, back turned and unsuspecting to your presence. A smirk crossed your face as a childish idea came to mind. With careful steps, you crept closer to the unwitting Yugi and the moment you were close enough, you threw your arms around his back in a bear hug.

“You wouldn't believe the look on his face when I beat him, it was priceless!” you cheered as you tried to lift him up.

It was then that you took notice to Yugi being...quite a bit taller than you remembered. A confused noise left him, followed by a stuttered something that might have been ‘excuse me?’ and it caused you to pull back and look up (up!) at his face.

Heat flooded your cheeks when you were met by a pair of eyes that were similar to, but very different from your cute, shy friend. His whole face looked a bit more mature, again he was taller, and he was looking back at you with complete shock.

“Oh!” You instantly released him and jumped back as if burned. “I’m so sorry! I thought you were Yugi!”

The red-faced boy blinked at you as you tried to smooth over the scene with an awkward laugh, and thankfully, a moment later, he gave his own shy smile. “It’s okay, people confuse us a lot.”

“You must be Atem,” you hurried on, desperate to dissipate the lingering awkwardness, “Yugi talks about you all the time.”

Indeed he did. Yugi’s brother was two years his senior, and Yugi had been hoping to introduce you and the others to him for some time. Yugi always said that his brother was typically busy studying, usually at the library when any of you came over and the book bag slung on the counter supported that. With the way Yugi went on about his big brother, you honestly had started to envision him as some sort of dashing hero straight out of an anime.

Of course, when Atem’s shy smile turned to more of a knowing smirk, that vision didn’t exactly prove false. Oh dang, he was really cute!

“Yes, I’m Atem, and you must be one of the friends my brother raves about, he’s been hoping for us to meet. So, are you Anzu or-”

You interrupted him with your name, practically yelling it, and the moment the introduction left your lips you cringed, almost wanting to curl up in a ball of shame for the awkward terribleness of your action. The heck was wrong with you?!

Clearing your throat you repeated your name, much more calmly and evenly that time, and willfully ignored the burning sensation across your cheeks.

Thankfully, Atem seemed to be every bit the gentleman Yugi painted him to be, because he only gave a lighthearted chuckle at your awkwardness, then nodded his head, that smirk turning more warm as he said, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

He stared at you a moment, then opened his mouth to say something more, only to be interrupted by a cheerful voice. “Atem, you’re home!” When you both turned, you saw Yugi coming down the hallway, practically beaming at you both. “And you’ve already met one of the gang!”

“I have. I’m glad I’ve finally come home early enough to meet your friends,” Atem said, eyes shifting back to you and lingering, “I hope we can become friends too.”

You smiled back at him, “Don’t worry, if you’re half as cool as Yugi, I’m sure me and the others are going to love you!” you made sure to flash Yugi a wink, wanting to giggle at how he instantly turned red at the compliment.

Electing to ignore your words, Yugi stepped into the kitchen and started pulling chips from the cupboard. “Come on, help me pick out some snacks and you can come play video games with us, Atem.”

The older brother, who was smirking again, obliged by nodding his head and turning back to the fridge. A few moments later he drew back with some dip and canned drinks, to which you instantly jumped in to help carry.

“So, you’re in Yugi’s class, right?” Atem asked as the three of you turned towards the hallway and started back to Yugi’s room. “That means you’ll be starting at Domino High in just a few months?”

You nodded, “Yup! First year of high school, pretty exciting! I’m glad all of us are going to the same school, it’d suck to find awesome friends just to go to separate schools later.”

Something in Atem’s gaze seemed to soften a bit, and a brief question passed your mind, wondering (maybe even hoping?) if he was already becoming fond of you.

“Well, if you- or if any of Yugi’s friends need help getting used to the school when you start, please, don’t hesitate to ask me.”

Again some warmth crept onto your face. Maybe it was just the allure of a ‘mature high school boy’ being so nice to you (ridiculous, considering he was barely two years older than you) but this Atem boy was already seeming to have an..interesting affect on you.

“I- yeah, sure thing!”

A sudden voice made you jump in your seat and your head snapped around up, gaze tearing away from the photo to meet a pair of green eyes. Duke was leaning against the back of your chair, looking down at you with that trademark almost soft, almost flirty look on his face.

“Sorry- uh, what’d you say?” you asked, trying to recollect yourself.

“The picture, I said I was hoping to find out that Honda used to wear braces of something,” he flicked a finger to the photo still clutched tightly in your hand, but the joke fell flat on your now melancholy mood.

Still, you managed to smile at him and joke as well, “Nope, just the general awkwardness of the teenage years.”

He snerked at that, but his eyes narrowed, possibly sensing the cover-up. Though Duke (like Ryou and Mai) had joined your close-knit friend group later, in high school, he too knew what it had been like to lose Yugi; to go through that tragedy. But he also knew that it had hit you particularly hard.

“You okay?” he asked, voice lowering so only you could hear, “You look exhausted. Beautiful, as always, but exhausted.”

Another concerned friend. Another who wanted to help, but, though you were endlessly thankful for the support, truth be told there wasn’t really much they could do. So again, you shrugged.

“Just long hours at work, as usual. I’ll be okay when tomorrow comes round.”

“You still go to the park with the little guy on your days off?” Duke asked and you nodded in answer.

Only when the weather turned bad did you not go, and even on those days you made sure to make time to spend with Yugi. It was hard to keep up with him some days, even given your own young age, but he needed to know that you were there for him. That he would never be ignored or pushed aside, despite how tirelessly you had to work.

“Speaking of our favorite kiddo,” Duke began in your silence, taking the chair beside you with a graceful plop, “there was something I wanted to ask you.” He looked you in the eyes, as if asking permission, and when you nodded he went on. “So, there’s this gaming convention going on in New York in a couple months, I’m going so I can promote my new game and...I wanted to ask if you wanted to come.”

Despite your eyes going a bit wide at the suggestion, Duke hurried on, though always keeping that cool and calm air of his.

“I just thought it’d be good, for you and Yugi. You haven’t been able to take a proper vacation in years, and you deserve- need a break. I can book the hotel for a few extra days after the con, and we can do all sorts of stuff in the city. And don’t worry, I can cover all the expenses, all you and Yugi have to do is come.”

You were speechless, struck dumb by the bold proposal. You weren’t oblivious, you had always suspected that Duke’s high school crush on you never completely faded. He was always offering his help, always showing that he was good with Yugi, maybe even subtly hinting that he didn’t mind the role of stepfather. Still, he never crossed too many lines and had never done something quite this...forward. Though you guessed he wasn’t actually implying any romantic motives.

Instead of becoming nervous over your silence, Duke’s smile just softened a bit, perhaps slightly disappointed, but not outright annoyed or even discouraged. “No pressure, I just wanted to make the offer. You and Yugi deserve some fun and I saw a good opportunity for it. You can think about it as long as you need, just, promise me you will think about it?”

For a moment, you only answered him with more stunned silence, but after a second to recover, you closed your eyes and nodded. “Thank you, Duke, I promise I’ll think about it.”

Some hope returned to that smile, and he nodded in turn. He might have said more on the matter, but a call of “Mommy!” drew your attention. A second later Yugi was climbing into your lap with the grace of a newborn fawn, waving an odd-looking box around.

“Mom, lookie what Antie Anzu gave me! Isn’t it awesome?”

“Really, you had to give it to him right before dinner?” Jonouchi griped as he stepped out of the kitchen, casting a vexed look at a proud Anzu while drying his hands off on his apron.

The blonde acting like an annoyed grandma actually made you laugh. “Don’t worry, Jonouchi, he can play with it while I make his plate, then he can put it away until he’s done eating.”

At the compromise, one that Yugi didn’t seem to object too (he had always loved his Uncle Jou’s cooking, after all), the man sighed and waved everyone into the kitchen. “Alrighty then, come on, all, dinner’s served!”

Atem worked with swift and methodical hands. The very little that he had in his cell, all of it was being implemented in the plan that his mind had laid out in minutes, and refined over these past two days. The lighter he had stolen from Ushio was tucked in his sleeve, and all the numerous fan letters he had received in his imprisonment were laid out before him.

Fan letters, Atem didn’t particularly care for the term, but that’s what they were.

Letters from people who had their loved ones taken from them by the vermin Atem wiped from the world. From survivors who still struggled from what was done to them, but slept at least a fraction more soundly knowing Atem had rid the streets of their abusers. Then still others from people who simply thought he was a hero, a dark avenging angel, like Batman or the Punisher.

Over the years he had been thankful for the letters because they helped him keep his mind, stuck in this isolating hole, and now they would help him save his family. Anything could become a weapon in the hands of someone who was determined or desperate enough.

And Atem had both in spades.

For instance, fold enough pieces of paper in the right shape a certain number of times, and they became as sturdy and reliable as a metal ice pick. Well, sort of. He could get one, maybe two if he was quick, fatal injuries out of it before the blood soaked through and made it a limp, useless mess. But he didn’t intend to need it for anything more than that, so this would do just fine.

He mused as he worked, wondering if his admirers who thought he was some righteous knight would think it fitting or honorable to have their letters used against criminals. Used so he could have a chance at stopping drug peddling filth from laying hands on his loved ones.

The only things that were left untouched in his cell, were the four pictures he treasured, your letters, and the few letters his grandfather had sent him.

His grandfather, yet another person he had betrayed, another person burdened by Atem’s sins. Atem had been surprised when his grandpa contacted him, and even more surprised by what that letter said. In essence, he had said that as a man, he wished Atem had never started his bloody mission, but, as a brokenhearted grandfather who had to bury his too gentle and too young grandson, he understood and forgave Atem’s actions. “I won’t pretend I didn’t feel a sick sense of justice when that beast was found dead,” Sugoroku had written, “Not after what he did to my, to our Yugi.”

He had also promised to take care of you and the child you were carrying as much as he could, and Atem felt at least the sparks of happiness knowing he hadn’t left you completely alone. Not that the solace lasted long in this pit that swallowed hope and humanity like a ravenous dog, but still, it helped. “She had to move out of the apartment, too many people leaving death threats on her door and throwing rocks through the windows, but she’s okay. She’ll live with me for now, and hopefully this old man can still take care of a baby while she’s at work and such. Don’t worry, Atem, we’ll be okay.”

Unfortunately, in order to maintain a distance from Atem that was important to his, yours, and Yugi’s future, his grandfather’s correspondence were even more infrequent than yours. But, at least the man who had been more a father to him than his birth father kept him informed on your well being; something you had always omitted from your own letter, always only talking about Yugi. “She works too hard,” grandpa’s last letter from over two years ago had said, “I tried to get her to stay here, with me, but she has this idea that her and Yugi are a burden on me, and wants to be more independent now that Yugi’s a little older. At least she still lets me watch him several times a week, but I still worry. You can tell she wants to give that boy the whole world, always making him laugh and smile, spoiling him as much as she can. You picked a good one, Atem.”

The updates were always bittersweet, simultaneously leaving Atem with a sour taste in his mouth but an elated lightness in his chest. The words connected him to you, made him able to feel like he was still a part of your life, at least by proxy, much like your letters about Yugi did. But, at the same time, they made regret and anger and even some palpable self-loathing coarse through him like poison.

At least with this, this daring plan and mission to protect you, at least with this he might prevent any more harm from being done.

Atem examined his weapons; three simple picks, methodically made and more than enough for his plan. He tucked them up his sleeve with the lighter, folding the cuffs just right to hide them. He still had some time before the guards came to escort him outside, for his minimal privilege of sunlight.

With that time Atem pulled out the things he treasured even above yours and grandpa’s letters; his pictures. The first, the one of his newborn son wrapped in the softest purple blanket. The second, a picture of his boy on his second birthday, icing all over his face, smile wide, and bright with youthful glee as he presented his still wrapped present to the camera. The third, also of his son, excited eyes wide and held in the arms of his great-grandpa as the old man presented him with a deck of trading cards; it was the one you had sent with your last letter, almost a year ago.

The final one was the only picture Sugoroku had sent Atem. It wasn’t one of his son, but rather, of himself and the boy his son was named after. A younger, happier, perhaps more stable, version of Atem smiled a small smile at the camera, holding his diploma in one hand, while the other was wrapped around his little brother’s shoulder, said brother side hugging him back and beamed with pride. Sugoroku had said he made a copy, knowing Atem would treasure having a picture of the first Yugi, and the old man was all too right.

Atem stared at the picture now, eyes locked on the large round ones of his little brother, the boy he had wanted to protect and champion for- the boy he had failed. He had failed to do what big brothers should always do. When Yugi needed him most, Atem hadn’t been there to save him.

It hurt. Gods damn him, did it still hurt. But at least in this picture, in this captured moment before the beginning to his end, he could remember a happier time. A happier him.

“My boy’s growing up too fast!” Sugoroku cried after snapping the picture of his grandsons, wiping a fake tear away with a dramatic sigh.

The two boys exchanged a look that bordered eye-rolls as they parted from the hug, but Yugi’s beaming grin was back in an instant. “Come on, time to let everyone else embarrass you with congratulations!” he said, taking the diploma from Atem’s hands and setting it safely on the kitchen counter.

Yugi practically dragged Atem into the living room, where all those gathered cheered and clapped the moment they entered. Atem scanned the room, noting that everyone in ‘the gang’ was there, which made him smile. Unfortunately, the only other ones in the room were a couple of neighbors who had always liked the Mutou family. One key player was missing, not that Atem had expected any better.

“He said that he couldn't make it back from Tokyo in time,” Yugi whispered to him, noticing the way Atem’s eye’s searched. Yes, couldn’t, so wouldn't bother coming home at all, most likely. Honestly, their father could be the poster boy for ‘absent parent of the year’.

Still, Atem made himself push the tendrils of disappointment aside and patted Yugi on the back. At least everyone else important to him was there, and Atem would make sure that was enough.

Yugi was determined to do the same, apparently, because he quickly began ushering Atem into the room while the rest of the gang stood up to greet him more intimately. It was only after Jonouchi gave his arm a light punch, and Anzu gave him a hug, that Atem took notice of something else his little brother might be scheming. Especially when Yugi practically shoved him in your direction, saying that the seat beside you was reserved just for him.

Atem felt his mind go blank when he locked eyes with you, especially with that sweet, beaming, and very (very) cute smile on your face. “I’m so happy for you!” you said and put your arms around him in a loose hug.

Still faltering, something he had never really experienced until you, Atem could only answer with a short thank you and an awkward pat on your back. When you sat back down and urged him to take the seat next to you, Atem didn’t waste the chance to shoot a narrowed look at his little brother.

Yugi only grinned back at him knowingly and passed out drinks to the other guests as if he hadn’t done anything. Always one to be in-tune with the emotions of others (especially his big brother), Yugi had noticed when Atem’s feelings for you started to shift passed friendship, likely before even Atem himself had known. It was true that Atem was fond of you...more fond than he had been of anyone before; you made his chest warm, and his heart accelerate. You drew him in without even trying, with your voice or smile alone. You made him unsure of himself, made him flounder in a way he had never experienced before. He was certain that he was falling quite deeply in love with you.

But, there was little he could do, and nothing he would do about those feelings. You were still in high school, and now that he was of age, a legal man entering adulthood, it felt wrong to have those feelings for you, and he refused to do anything that even had the possibility of taking advantage of you. And of course, not only did it feel wrong, but it was also now technically illegal to do much of anything about his feelings. Besides wallow in them and silently suffer, of course.

Despite telling Yugi all of that, the boy was still determined to “test the boundaries” and “lay the groundworks” for the day that Atem was able and willing to do something about his feelings. To Atem, the acts were equal parts annoying, and endearing. Part of him hated that he was forced to confront his feelings for you when Yugi meddled, feelings that made his mind muddled and his chest ache. But still, another part of him appreciated Yugi’s attempts, appreciated that he had this...excuse to get closer to you, to revel in the way you made him feel, even if it was only for a moment before he made himself pull away.

Like now, for instance. You were sitting close to him, completely unaware that the warmth of your body spilling onto him and the subtle scent of your perfume was practically making him dizzy- yet still, he delighted in it. He delighted in the way you made him feel, barely resisting the urge to reach out and touch your hand or arm, to test the waters and see if you might reciprocate. But he did resist the urge. For now at least. Maybe in a couple of years, when it didn’t feel wrong, he would see if you had similar feelings for him. Until then he would wait patiently, focus on his next steps in life and let you enjoy your last teenage years unbridled by his strong affection for you.

He just hoped, selfishly, very selfishly, that you didn’t get a boyfriend in that time.

“I’m sorry your dad didn’t show up.”

The sudden words of comfort were accompanied by a friendly shoulder bump from you and Atem nearly jumped, having been so lost in his own mind. Still, he caught the words, and they made the speed of his heart pick up again.

When he didn’t answer at first, you furrowed your brow, “Sorry, I just noticed you seemed a bit distracted, I thought that was why.”

“Oh- y-yes,” he started suddenly and awkwardly. God he prayed that if he ever was able to do something about his feelings, he wasn’t so cringe-worthy. Hopefully if that day ever came, he would be able to sweep you off your feet and properly charm you. At least for now he was able to clear his throat and regain his composure. “Thank you. It’s disappointing, I guess, but,” he looked around him, at his friends, his family, and smiled, “at least everyone else important to me is here.”

His gaze had returned to you at the last second, lingered on you, hoping to silently convey that you meant so much to him. Perhaps not exactly, how much you meant to him, but hopefully enough to know that regardless of his romantic feelings, he was still thankful for your friendship.

You must have received at least some of what he was trying to convey, because the soft, precious, touched expression that crossed your face and reached your eyes was profound.

You reached out and gave his hand a brief, but too welcomed squeeze, “We’ll always be here for you, Atem.”

There he went again, drawn in and practically mesmerized by you. All he could do was stare back, lost in your eyes and likely looking like a dumbfounded fool. Thankfully he was snapped out of his reverie by a flash, though realizing said flash was just made him want to blush.

Both of you turned to see Yugi with their grandfather’s camera, and he was peering over the top of it with a very pleased smile on his face. “Just taking pictures for the family albums!”

Anzu, who was standing behind Yugi, giggled at the comment and when Atem looked away upon feeling a certain heat creeping onto his cheeks, Yugi snapped yet another picture.

“Yugi,” you tried to scold, though it was marred by your own chuckle.

“Okay okay, I’m done,” the boy replied and indeed turned away to spare his beloved big brother further embarrassment.

Of course, said embarrassment became rather worthwhile, since he got to hear you laugh, and when you turned back to Atem with that humored smile on your face, he knew he didn’t care at all about the pictures.

In that moment, with your eyes on him, surrounded by his loved ones, he dared say that he was one of the luckiest men in Domino.

Atem, sitting alone in his pathetic, isolating cell, felt something sour crawling up his throat at the memory. Yugi was always there, always encouraging and supporting him, making him stronger and kinder. And, in a way, his little brother had given him the love of his life, too. Yugi had been the reason he met you, why he befriended you, and even the reason why he hadn’t pushed his stronger affection for you aside completely. His brother had given him so much and yet…

“I’m sorry, Yugi,” he whispered to the smiling picture.

Drawing in a calming breath, Atem let himself wallow in the sorrow for a moment, just a moment, before pushing it back to the recesses of his mind.

Atem then tucked the pictures into his jumpsuit, securing them within the orange fabric so there was no risk of losing them in the chaos he was about to unleash. Not a moment too soon either, because he heard the guards approaching his cell a second later. Atem stood, lighter and picks ready to use at a second’s notice, pictures tucked away safely on his person as the door to his cell opened. He was ready.

He may not have been able to save his brother, but he would be damned if these bars prevented him from saving you and his son.

[kimmimaru]

Yet more remake randoms.

One thing I really did enjoy about the remake was that at least two (or maybe it was the same guy, can’t be sure) infantry/security soldiers recognised Cloud. That’s one thing in the OG I got confused over, HOW did no one recognise Cloud when he would’ve been known to at least a few people. He obviously went through training, he would’ve worked with some of them, surely? I’m glad we got those moments. Also Kunsel got mentioned! I assumed they were trashing most of Crisis Core, obviously not. Judging by the posters for Banora we can assume that it exists/existed. Hojo’s mention of project G suggests the existence of Genesis at least...I’m not sure how I feel about that since I was never a massive fan of Genesis. His part in Sephiroth’s descent into madness annoyed me, he’s a big boy and can go mad perfectly well on his own lol. Hints of a possible deepground is also interesting, I mean if they have a secret base under sector 7 then maybe deepground does exist too? There’s no solid evidence of it but logically it makes sense. Although DoC has it’s issues, obviously I didn’t mind the reveal of secret bases, ShinRa is a dodgy company I don’t see why they wouldn’t have underground places full of nasty monsters. Also, the main reason I cling to DoC is because of the Vincent content tbh, Vincent is one of the main three characters I used in the OG (Cid being the other) and he’s amazing.  I get people’s issues with the remake, I really do. It DOES lack the grittyness the OG had. It feels...more fantastical which is kind of annoying. If the characters didn’t swear so much I’d have thought it was a game aimed at younger audiences. As an adult playing it that grates on me. I love the characters, Cloud especially is better than I had hoped, I was worried they’d make him all soft and woobyish, I’m glad they kept his hard edges. And the fact that Cloud knows how security stuff works, like the emergency locks and how to access the computers etc is yet more hints that he’s not all he thinks he is. Pretty sure SOLDIER’s wouldn’t know half the stuff he does, they wouldn’t have any reason to. I was...disappointed to see that Sephiroth didn’t cause anywhere near as much chaos as he did in the OG. I don’t understand why they didn’t do that. That moment in the OG when you realise the doors to your cell have been opened and then you have to follow a trail of blood and you see scars on the wall from Masamune. It was...so powerful. And eerie. The dead bodies along the way and then the president lying across his desk was like; :O It was scary and intense. That scene in the remake was lame. No blood. No corpses. Just a trail of purple bubbly stuff. Yeah no I didn’t like that. Sephiroth shouldn’t give a fuck WHO he kills in his quest for power. He should have stormed through ShinRa with his sword swinging but all he did was stab the president only after Cloud got there. That scene should have been handled much better. I love the fight with Rufus though. That was actually fun, although i’m not one for dodging or blocking so I took a beating lol. And that trick with the coins just...suits him? Wasting money like it’s nothing to him. His possessiveness and all the quips he makes while fighting. Just perfect Rufus. Honestly, out of everyone (for me), they got Rufus, Reno and Cloud perfect. I do like Tseng too and Rude...i thought Rude would be somewhat more callous but it’s cute that he feeds birds from his hand. I love Reno’s anger. Don’t know why he’s so angry but it’s fun and his foul language. The fact that Rude actively saves Tifa was a bit of a surprise for me, I know in the OG Rude likes Tifa (she could break his neck if she wanted, as I’ve always thought Rude is into that, the kinky bastard) but was very shocked to see him actively interfere and save her. I need to replay it but I always thought in the OG when you fight Rude and have Tifa on your team he never actually attacks her...or maybe that was just my game? I don’t know if that was deliberate. So it is faithful to the OG if I didn’t just imagine that. Also, on the subject of Rude, did I imagine it or did he hit the button to drop the plate because Reno couldn’t do it? I know Cloud attacks Reno before he can do it but his hand hesitates. Again, may have imagined it but it looked like he hesitated so Rude did it for him. (that rockstar slide under Cloud’s sword WAS cool. Not something I would have expected of Rude but I LOVED that). Also not sure why they didn’t have Tseng slap Aerith. He does it in the OG. Maybe they were worried about the reception of a move like that? Violence against women etc. I personally didn’t mind it, it was a shocking moment and the Turks ARE supposed to be bad guys. I did notice he does raise his hand to her, looking like he’s about to back hand her but the security guard seems to pull her away before he can. In the OG I believe that Tseng’s supposed to be putting on a front? Like, it’s hinted that he didn’t do it for any other reason than the fact that he thinks Aerith SHOULD be afraid of the Turks and maybe to stop himself from getting too close to her? Either way, they could’ve and probably should’ve left that bit in. It also doesn’t give me hope for later  on when they do the temple of the ancients bit and Cloud loses his mind and beats the crap out of Aerith. Somehow I don’t think they’ll put that in anymore, which is a damn shame.  Honestly, I like all the tiny gestures and body language they put in. It really goes a long way to make the characters much more human. All the little smiles, the hand gestures and everything. Like having Reno restless, unable to keep still. Short, sharp, angry gestures. Constant cursing. Rude’s calmer motions, the little moments of fear they both have when one of them is injured or possibly dead (when Rude’s helicopter crashes and Reno picks up his glasses). It shows how close they are and yeah they are bad guys but I have always been against making a bad guy ‘pure evil’ and inhuman (only exception is Sephiroth in this case because he IS part alien monster). Even the Turks are human, they should feel fear, they should care about something and have motivations beyond the simple; we are bad so we will try to defeat the good guys. I don’t want pure good guys either, I want them to have flaws and failings which is why I loved the OG so much. They were all just...human. And obviously we didn’t get QUITE as much Turk actions as I would have preferred but now that we are getting it I’m pretty happy with what we have. Edit to add; my issue with the remake’s version of the plate drop is it lacked that sense of helplessness. And a lot more people seemed to have survived. Maybe if they’d added a mission to go through and help look for more survivors, have people trapped, people you can’t save etc. I wanted to feel that despair when I played it, the same feeling I got when I played Zack’s final battle in CC. You know he doesn’t survive, you fight over and over again and that feeling of knowing that no matter what you do he’s going to die anyway. I loved that. It’s so real. It shows that even a hero can’t save everyone and it’s a hard fact of life. It definitely lacked the sheer horror and evil of the act. I mean I did cry when I played it...but the end ruined it for me. Having it turn out that people are alive who should have died, kind of destroys the whole emotional aspect. There’s no real consequences to anything in the remake. And, judging by all the hints at changing fate and stuff, there won’t be in the coming parts either. Makes me really quite angry. Everyone lives and nobody dies, totally unrealistic and pointless for a game like final fantasy 7. I am silently begging square to reconsider their direction if what they’re hinting at is true and they’re going to keep Aerith alive. Please, please don’t do that. It will totally ruin the game and it’ll lose all meaning. I love Aerith but her death is a poignant, emotional tragedy and Cloud’s (or the players) helplessness is a key factor in that. If this ends with ‘and everything was fine and everyone was happy’ I’m going to puke.  Anyways, will stop here. This got LONG.

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 113 Thoughts

See, there’s this fundamental problem with Zeke’s strategy for dealing with Levi.

It hinges on Levi having a good heart, and loving his subordinates.

It hinges on the world being a kind enough place to Levi that he’s ever believed he has the benefit of that bringing him something besides pain.

Didn’t anyone ever tell you, Zeke?

War is cruel.

And Levi prefers tea.

How frustrating must that have been, though? Day after day of watching every single person in the squad take a drink. Day after day of reading the same book, over and over again, dealing with the angriest little soldier that could.

All while Levi doesn’t drink a drop.

Or was it fun? Did it bring Zeke some joy to know that Levi’s only escape would be doing what was necessary, and his too-soft heart would never be capable of doing that?

It’s hilarious how badly Zeke misjudges Levi.

Like.

Zeke.

Kiddo.

(I’m gonna call you kiddo.)

Just because you don’t value your foot soldiers, just because you don’t think twice about the people you transform into monsters, just because you haven’t grown out of thinking of them as your tiny tin soldiers you can wind up for the heck of it and pop out their eyes if they happen to not follow your orders...

You think your lengthy moral defects are the only thing that can drive someone to be willing to throw bodies upon bodies on the chopping block?

You’re so angry when that last gasp of a charge comes after you in Shiganshina, because it’s so pointless. Throwing bodies at the problem doesn’t change anything. When you do it, though, you have a mission in mind. That makes your way better, right?

You think because their constant sacrificial ways are so ineffective, their hearts are less resolute?

You think their soldiers consenting to their sacrifice makes them weaker?

Zeke’s entire plan goes so smoothly. The Yeagerists are running unopposed, the MPs are poisoned (and hell, with the range on that, things somehow continue manage to get even worse), and Zeke’s on his way out of the woods.

His one mistake is misunderstanding Levi.

Or, again:

Misunderstanding the Survey Corps.

When Levi first wins against Zeke, it’s immediately after Zeke’s scornful judgment of the Scout recruits giving their lives away. These uninventive fools can’t come up with any strategy but killing themselves. It’s idiotic and pointless.

At that point in the story, we have some idea of Zeke’s abilities, but not the extent. Not the utility. He has sent hordes of mindless titans after people. He’s performed his role as a cog in the war machine exquisitely. The idea that seeing someone else do the same thing offends him... oh, but that’s fun. The world is Zeke’s playground, not someone else’s. His methods have purpose. Your fave could never.

Only the Survey Corps has always found purpose in their deaths. They accept a hopeless mission knowing that death is coming for all of them.

Their bodies are building a bridge over the walls that keep their people caged. Their deaths will never be meaningless. They will fight the best way they can, and do it with clear eyes and proud hearts.

Their sacrifices aren’t about a failure of imagination; they’re a testament to their will. Give them an inch, they will find a mile.

The walls start them out with so much less than an inch, so they improvise, and their bodies become the tools to carve a better future. For them? No, probably not. For the world. For their people.

That’s what Zeke derides.

He’s grown up surrounded by a society selling that myth; Marley will never let Eldians have a better future. Eldians are only tools, and Warriors are suckers for believing that they have a prayer of changing things. Zeke can, but Zeke? He’s royalty. He has royal blood. His belief that he can change something is backed by something solid and real, not fairy tales of a glorious death bringing about a new world.

Erwin is the one who orders the charge on Zeke.

He does not want to give that order, initially. He wants to be selfish. He wants to learn the truth. He wants to see it with his own eyes, something that every single Scout has always been denied, and gone into battle knowing they probably won’t be the one to finally figure it all out.

Levi is the one who brings Erwin back to the best of himself. He pulls the Commander back in. Give the order. If there’s even a single spark of light, chase it, even if it kills you, so your body can carry your comrades and people further onward.

The first time Eren is saved by Levi, he sees the wings on his back.

The Wings of Freedom are Levi’s to bear.

Heavier than any iron, they still fly.

If Zeke had understood that even a little, he would have transformed with the soldiers. He would have joined the mindless squad in killing Levi instead of assuming it was a done deal and saving his energy.

You don’t win in a world like this by saving tricks for the final hour. Every hour is your final hour.

Strength, time, and choices.

Those things aren’t real.

Zeke thinks he knows that lesson, but he thinks, somehow, that a squad of mindless titans is enough to take down Levi even though it never has been.

Levi’s done nothing but kill humans his whole life. Victims.

He’s the first character to give voice to that, when Hange announces the theory. While everyone’s reeling with the horror, Levi goes straight to his actions, and the implications of what he, himself, has done. He’s Humanity’s Strongest. That translates very quickly into being the person responsible for killing more Eldian victims than any other person on the island.

That doesn’t change what he does. The awareness doesn’t diminish his belief in its necessity.

Zeke misses that. Completely.

The Survey Corps is full of insane dreamers who are capable of envisioning a better world when all logic and history dictates it won’t happen. That isn’t the same as innocence or naivety. The surviving members of the Survey Corps are people who look at monsters twelve times their size, and decide that they are going to fight until one of them wins.

Zeke’s been to the rest of the world, where Titans are losing significance, but still so horrifying that it’s only the development of heavy artillery that’s finally making it possible for anything in the world to fight them. One tiny human against a titan? That’s over before it starts.

Paradis does not have the luxury of thinking that way. Yeah, they’ll probably die, but they’ll put in some work before they leave. Such is life. They aren’t strong enough to win for themselves, so this is their only chance to make use of their limited time.

Every soldier has a choice to make. MPs, Garrison, Survey Corps.

90% death rate.

That isn’t a choice, it’s just that the options are death (of you) or death (of your people). A choice you’re forced into isn’t something you can truly embrace as your own decision. Everyone is a slave to the system, and a fool if they think otherwise.

That paragraph describes Marley’s system perfectly, and that’s what Zeke grows up with.

It also is a relatively fair description of Paradis, and I’m sure plenty of citizens would see and agree with that argument.

But the dreamers who make up the Survey Corps transform that illusion of choice into intent. This is the one option the world offers for improvement? It’s hell? You and everyone who fights for it is going to die, possibly without making a single dent in anything?

Fine. That chance of light is infinitely better than the promise of darkness if we do nothing. Bring on the gloom and death, we don’t need to be the ones to overcome it, but we’re going to make damn sure the one who does has a starting line to plant their feet on.

Marley Warriors believe wholeheartedly that if they just try hard enough, and die well enough, they’ll bring a new dawn for their people.

The Survey Corps is much more cynical in their approach. They don’t say that their plans will work. They don’t make those promises. They say that this death comes closer to change than any of the others you have available, and we’ll all fight for it with you.

Marley’s hope is a lie that’s allowed to be called truth to bring in recruits.

Paradis’ hope is a tiny flicker in the far distance that’s almost unanimously regarded as a shared delusion by the people being fought for.

Zeke’s given up on it long before he ever knew about it.

That’s why he’ll never win against Levi.

It isn’t even a fight. Zeke runs, Levi wins because he catches him. Contact happens. Zeke loses.

Zeke has always been the one in control. He’s always been superior. He might have his issues with Grisha, but the belief that he’s special goes down to his roots. Only his blood relative (and whatever Xaver is, probably) is given the respect of hearing Zeke’s truest worldview. Everyone else couldn’t possible understand, after all.

Also worth a note is that even though Zeke says that Eren’s the only one who understands, that actually does not disprove the theory that mind control is involved, because Zeke has some really bizarrely fucked up beliefs about people’s autonomy. Eren could lose his pupils and go around saying, “Yes, Master Zeke,” and Zeke could still conceivably praise his baby brother for being on the right side.

I don’t know where I stand with all of that, since I still think that Eren is making his own (very stupid) choices, but it seems that it’s Zeke hour, so here’s the latest edition of Zeke being unreliable af as a narrator.

He calls the squad Levi killed “the poor things” when he’s the one who transformed them into titans.

Zeke’s a special snowflake douche who thinks that anything’s justified unless someone else is doing it.

Going by the ominous sunlight, Levi’s done with the middleman approach, and they’re off to see Historia.

Sooo. Options.

NPC Farmer Guy eats Zeke, Historia The Obviously Pregnant waits for her offspring to be born before she eats him in a few months.

Anticlimactic, heavy on convenience, low on Zeke and whatever his fucking plan is being revealed.

Levi and Historia fight so long about her eating Zeke while she’s pregnant that Zeke finds a way to escape.

Trite, overdone, and Zeke really sucks at running away from Levi except when

Pieck is there.

I still like this. I don’t feel that where Mikasa and Armin scrambled off to in a carriage was properly answered, and that means it’s likely that those carriages were heading to see the Queen, and since Pieck’s eyes were on them, heeeey.

Additionally, I remain of the opinion that Pieck is given too many clues about Zeke’s allegiances to be accidental. I don’t necessarily believe that she’s in on Zeke’s plan, but I believe he left the door open so she could be convinced to be part of his plan, and I think having her help Marley to the realization that Zeke is alive is well within Zeke’s contingencies.

He presumably knows Pieck better than he knows Levi. Otherwise, yeesh, we’ve got a grand mastermind who doesn’t actually understand anyone’s mind, and that would be so dull.

There is also a chance that Zeke’s plan aligns with what Marley wants just enough for Pieck to go with it for now. Or maybe Pieck’s given up on hope, too, and Zeke’s one of the few ways out, if only for shaking things up.

Alternatively,

Pieck is not there. Neither is Historia. 50/50 on NPC Farmer Guy being there, but badly wounded, only not because Levi is so Done that he’d probably feed Zeke to him, which I’m not even going to wait for the end of the bullet point to call idiotic and meaningless. His name’s NPC Farmer Guy for a reason.

Give me ????? allegiance Historia and give her fucking themes a chance to actually fucking matter to the fucking plot you fucking fucked up story.

Really fast now because I know people are done caring about me being angry about this: Since so much of this post has been dancing around the importance of consent as an aspect of sacrifice, I would like to point out that it’s very much been pro-consent, which means that if Historia actually is pregnant, I hope Zeke wins and every single character dies, because they’ve essentially ripped away a person’s agency before it’s even born to save their skins, and they can all go fuck themselves if they’re at that point.

(If you think I’m bad about this now, just wait until next month. I’ll repeat that verbatim probably, only with streamers and balloons with angry Sharpie marker eyes.)

...Oh. I guess I can’t shrink or cross this part out, because it’s actually to do with the story instead of my continued grievances. Damn it. Sigh.

Personal preferences aside (ha no not even a little), the thematic implications of Historia’s current narrative continue to infuriate, because it makes all the pretty words about the Survey Corps meaningless. They sacrifice themselves. They’re soldiers. They pick this. They have barely any choice at all, but they still make the choice and make it their own.

Breeding royal children sacrifices those children. The fact that it causes their mother pain, that it might be hard for the DNA providers, is something I feel is largely insignificant compared to that detail.

Because you know what happens when that’s how you think of a child?

Zeke.

Zeke is what happens.

SO YEAH GO AHEAD AND HAVE ANOTHER ROYAL KID WHO’S ONLY ALIVE BECAUSE OF THEIR SIGNIFICANT BLOOD I’M SURE IT WILL WORK OUT GREAT.

That kid’s going to be a person at some point. Counting on that person to not hate them?

To directly quote that person’s mother:

“Exterminate the Titans?! What a pain in the ass! Who’d volunteer to do that?! In fact, I think humanity’s the problem!! We should just let the Titans destroy mankind!”

In summary, your plan is bad because it’s morally bankrupt and directly opposes the ideals your organization has backed for a century moments after those ideals did something tangible for once.

What, fifteen-meter monsters are worth fighting, but a bunch of angry humans need to be scared into compliance because trying to make something better out of it is too hard?

I thought we all agreed we didn’t like Karl?

No?

If Historia’s really pregnant, and the plan to use her kid is still greenlit (still optimistically going with ‘if’) Paradis deserves Zeke. The only question is if they get current!Zeke, or Reiss!Zeke.

....

Fine, so that wasn’t fast at all.

Meanwhile, to our left, we continue to find reasons why that quoted line of thought above is way more tempting than any of the higher moral values like five characters are still trying to keep track of.

As much damage as titans do, they’re just tools. On every single level, humans are driving the monstrosities forward. Humans are literally and figuratively the monsters, and really, if you spend enough time dwelling on that, Eren’s completely dead look starts making sense, because why the fuck do you even try for a scrap of light when people like Floch take a spark and douse it in gasoline to burn the house down?

Circling us back around to why the Survey Corps is where our protagonists are supposed to come home to roost.

Because the world (people) is so fucking cruel, but worth fighting for. There is a victory, there is a better, and lying down in the crap everyone else has made of it is not the way to get there.

-cough- Eren -cough-

Eren’s the original protagonist because he embodies that. If you don’t fight, you don’t win.

Simba. You are more than what you have become.

Once upon a time, Armin tells Eren about a body of water larger than anyone could harvest, made entirely of salt. It’s an unthinkable wonder to a child locked in a box, but Eren believes him, and one day, he sees it.

Once upon a time, Armin talks about diplomacy, and making peace with the world without war, and Eren shuts him down.

Not all fighting’s violence. That’s the most visible symptom of emotional revolution, but the fight Eren wanted all the people around him to have so badly when he was a child is that revolution, not stabbing slavers in the chest (though that’s important too).

Zeke’s stagnated. Whatever he has planned, however much it drastically changes the world, however imaginative and creative it is, he thinks he’s living in a world where certain things are inevitable. He’s jumped off the treadmill, but the meteor’s still going to hit the gym. He’s just chosen to rearrange the furniture to his liking before it all explodes.

...I say, still waiting for the actual reveal of what his detailed strategy napkin says. If it’s, “let’s gather all our enemies to this one island and step on them,” I’m going to be disappointed, and also argue that a lot of people on the island would be able to understand those intentions perfectly.

Blah.

Zeke being The Worst somehow hit critical mass for me with this chapter, but I still want to know what’s going on in the basement his head. As badly as he misjudges Levi, he’s methodical about every decision he’s making. His plan might not be justifiable, but I’d be surprised if it made no sense, or didn’t look really good in some shades of light. Hearing it would be nice.

Flashback time with Real Dad Mister Xaver (CR, how sure are you that there’s no i in that) probably holds some key to that. Ugh.

Mean-fucking-while for real this time...

Oyyyyy.

Isayama has gotten better, on the whole, with every aspect of his writing.

His determination to drive the drill as deep into darkness as it’ll go at the kick off of each major arc remains... really unpleasant to read. I won’t go as far as to call it unrealistic, because wow humans, but I would argue that it’s routinely having characters roll 1s in their morality checks in order to bolster the ideals that the good guys value.

I don’t like it when stories make the strings that visible. People do get caught up in crap like this. It’s horrific, but this is a sudden drop into an area we’re unused to, with the narrative so plainly driving it home that these people are going too far that the sympathetic feelings that get them there are lacking.

Eren looking like the best choice to an island who feels they have no choices is understandable. Floch being convinced that you need a demon to win wars is understandable. Recruits groaning over learning how to fight titans when humans are their primary enemies (kiddos, learn how to fucking fight titans. the fact that the things are capable of existing should scare you into enough common sense to want that knowledge) is understandable.

But Yeagerists are chill with civilian deaths, collateral damage, poisoning key government leaders, and generally throwing their society into chaos for reasons of, “Eren is the only one who can save us!” while the audience is left looking at the pieces on the board and saying, “cool, but how? (also who cares when you guys are being this dickish)”

The divide in methods and thinking is too stark for the Yeagerists to come across as a force recognizable as anything besides angry children who are due to get smacked down. They’re 2013 parody of fandom perception of Eren personified.

Which. is not an unthinkable development, but it makes the bad things people do a lot harder to read when the driving force of character reasoning is flouting the banner of power and glory they’re gathering behind.

I actually feel oddly weird complaining about it now that I’m actually retreading it all. I don’t mind the fact that the wrongness of what the Yeagerists represent is so candid. I might have criticisms of the graceless way it’s written, but on the other hand...

The idea that these people are awful, and encouraging people who might not be that dipped in darkness to strip and get their feet wet, is maybe better than giving the kind of thinking they’re backing the time of day. Understanding how they all get there might smooth out the writing, buuuuut.

Destroying their old enemy turned some of their own into enemies, and the challenge, again and always, for the Survey Corps, is to want better in an environment that has given up on better in favor of glory.

In some ways, having these people be undeniably wrong, no matter how they got there, is somewhat refreshing.

As graceful as a damn anvil, which will continue to annoy, but. Yeah, sure, refreshing. Gracelessness is part of Attack on Titan’s charm.

Really fucking dark read, though.

Next month should be the end of the volume.

No matter what happens, I think we can all agree no one is prepared, and drinking will make everything worse.

[praximeter]

Thank you for that wonderful insight into the Barnes kids dynamics! Can I ask a similar question, how do each of them relate to their parents? Are George and Winnie closer (or not as close) with any of them?

Nonnie! I am so sorry, this ask has been hanging out in my inbox for forever, and the reason is that I literally wrote like -- easily a 1000-word response to it, which Tumblr then destroyed. So it’s sort of been just sitting there mocking me for a long time, and I was too bummed to attempt a rewrite. 

But, no longer! Here we go! Because this is a GREAT question and one that I kind of doubt will be explored much in future installments of the TNW-verse. I’m going to just focus on Ted, though, and leave Rebecca and Jack for another post. :)

In my opinion, Teddy has a very interesting relationship to his family and parents. As a middle child and one who was naturally quiet, steady, dutiful, etc., he didn’t have the flashiest of relationships with either of his parents. He got a lot of the paternal-style validation and attention young men crave from Bucky, who also did a great job at shielding both Ted and Jack from the occasional hot mess their dad became, when he’d backslide in his battle against the booze & depression. He was certainly closest to Winnie, whom he greatly respected and admired, though he often felt inadequate by comparison to her and to Bucky, in terms of his intellect, interests, and so on. He did his damndest to follow in the ‘dutiful son’ footsteps that Bucky had set, and was just generally a very thoughtful, sweet kid -- a very still-waters-run-deep kind of a fellow. 

He grew up thinking he was the ‘dumb one,’ even though he was a perfectly normal kid and certainly smart enough in his own right -- he graduated high school with honors! It’s just that Bucky was a very smart and charismatic guy -- and his idolized older brother -- and Jack was extraordinarily engaging and super athletic. Ted sometimes felt a little like the ‘spare,’ in the heir-and-the-spare sense. 

Coming back from the war was one of the darkest times in his life. He was discharged in June ‘45 under the Sole Survivor Policy -- the War Department established this policy for when one or several of a family’s children were killed in service, so that they would at least have one surviving child.

He came home very angry with a tremendous amount of survivor’s guilt -- not just in the sense of the friends he’d lost overseas, but most especially as ‘the only Barnes boy to come from from the war,’ which was the subtitle of a New York Times profile piece in late 1945. He lived at home, but chafed at Winnie’s constant attention and her obvious grief -- and the ‘fishbowl’ of being who he was in relation to Bucky -- and he couldn’t stand being in the house with Jack’s orphaned twins, either.

He was also absolutely disgusted with his father, who relapsed dramatically after Bucky and Jack’s deaths, and couldn’t stand for George to look at him and have the specter of his brothers hanging over every. single. conversation. George tried on a few occasions to talk to Ted about his experiences in combat, but Ted shut him down. He would later regret that, but his sense as a young, decorated, angry young veteran -- who’d fought in D-Day, Normandy, Holland, Belgium, and Germany as part of one of the most celebrated formations of the entire U.S. Army -- was that his dad needed to get over it, and handle himself like a man. It’d been all about George’s trauma and sadness and pain for decades, and Ted absolutely did not want to be that -- he wanted to be like Bucky, or how he imagined Bucky would be (or want Ted to be).

He didn’t stay at home for very long. He began working construction, and soon found himself a very tiny apartment to rent that was ‘closer to his work’ -- he needed to get out of the house -- and in 1947 met Alice Washburn, whom he married in early 1948. They moved upstate, where Ted became an apprentice cabinetmaker. He next traveled home to Brooklyn for his father’s funeral. It would be another twenty years -- at a another funeral, this time for his own son killed in combat -- before he would let go of his anger for his dad, and find a measure of understanding and sympathy for him.

[prompts-and-micro-stories]

Okay guys, I’ve decided to post something longer for a change, because sometimes one gets ideas for story bits that you feel are intriguing, but there is no way you can integrate this in one of your WIPs. So not to forget them I inserted just enough stuff around that it works as a rough outline for a story. Will this ever be turned into a final product? Who knows, but at least I won’t forget the idea ;)  Of course if I feel like there is substantial interest I might put some more time into this.

The story takes place in a fantasy world (it does not really need many elements to work, just that there is no modern tech and that the divine is a tangible real influence). Demons are a constant thread for this world, that’s why there are places where people are instructed to become paladins, which fight those and close the rifts where they step into the world. Anyone can enter the school, but to succeed you need to pass on a series of tests which don’t only include fighting skills but also things like history and the like. Paladins are held to a very high standard.

Our protagonist is one that wants to become a paladin, but she has a hard time with school. She’s not dumb, but just can’t manage to concentrate properly on her text studies and she also gets constantly distracted by minor shit happening around her during physical lessons. Just looking at her personality would suggest she’ll make for a fine paladin; but all those constant mistakes take a huge toll on her sense of self-worth; not only do others tell her constantly that she ought be much farther in her studies, but she herself constantly compares herself to others which seem to have a worse starting point, but do manage to do so much better.

The story starts in the week before a big test, one that the protagonist cannot under any circumstances allow herself to fail, because that would be the end of her dream; but despite her trying even harder than usual and isolating herself from her peers to get less distracted she feels like concentrating just gets harder.

But then things get massively shaken up when a message arrives at the school. Some cult has build a massive portal to the demonic realm. They could shatter the group, but there is not way to destroy that portal until it opens up in a few days, spewing out a giant demonic army. On te plus side they now know of this, so they can assemble their own troupes to fight back the moment they emerge. But even when using not only every paladin and paladin-in-training available things are looking extremely grim.

So the higher ups send up their prayers to the gods, asking for their divine help, and indeed, they recieve an answer in the form of a messenger angel.

The angel explains that they cannot directly supplement the proper paladins, just those in training and even this not for free, because of cosmic balance reasons.

The angel gives them instructions: Everyone viable can get a divine tool in exchange for something that they are willing to sacrifice for the goal. To do so they need to write the things (which don’t have to be tangible objects) on a blessed piece of paper that they have to keep with them; it will transform into a divine tool when the time is near; the more precious the god considers the pledge to be (and the more honest the intentions seem), the more powerful the tool they recieve can be.

The protagonist is eager to participate, but has a very, very hard time to decide what to pledge. All her worldly possessions seem not good enough and promising to to some service just does not seem adequate (in the light of her self-worth). So she starts writing down what she thinks of all of this, and finally comes to a conclusion and pledges the only thing that comes to her mind that seems to have at least a tiny bit of value for the good, at least theoretically.

(At this point the readers are not told what she pledges.)

The day of the fight arrives and exacly like the angel had said, the papers start to turn into divine tools. The people who simply followed their guts get them first, while the people who take longer also need to wait longer.

Our protagonist is one of those who recieves a tool before the portal opens, but she’s determined to be let down by disappointment. Demons are invading, and even if the system has come to the conclusion she’s not worthy of becoming a proper paladin she still can fight.

She throws herself into battle and it turns out that automatically reacting to any little things happening around you is actually great if everyone and their mother is trying to kill you. The battle starts out great for the forces of good, but for each demon slain two new seems to pop out of the portal turning the tide of battle to their favour.

And just when the protagonist is sure that she won’t survive that next attack, finally her own divine tool, a sword, appears, just in time. She is not the only one to recieve it very late and three of the last ones stand out to be of a distinctly higher level than the ones dished out so far.

But that sword she got is awesome, too, emanating a cold so fierce it simply burns demons away. She does not really get the big picture, but with the appearance if those four tools the paladins’ side gets the upper hand back, and pushes the invasion back where it came from, sealing the portal, The victory is sweet, but an oath from a boss demon to return with an even bigger army leaves a bitter aftertaste.

Directly afterwards the messenger angel reappears and informs them that the proper collection of sacrifices will be postponed until after the second fight, but this who already can give should do so, because they’ll recieve new tools for the next fight (the old ones already disappeared) and showing their seriousness for their pledge ups their chances to be getting a good tool (or a worse one, if the payment is disappointing). People also can add to their pledge if they feel that this will make it more precious, but there is no compulsion to do so.

Suprisingly things turn back to business as usual afterwards, at least as far as the protagonist is concerned. She has no idea how to actually start paying off her pledge, and spends quite some time to think about what to do. In the end she decides to strive for self-improvement, because even if it does not count as payment, she still hopes that it pleases the god. She starts doing social services on top of studies, something a lot of the others also do, which does not make her stand out, which she thinks is a good thing.

She kinda feels like a fraud getting such a great tool in the first fight when her pledge still seems to her so worthless. 

The test is still on the horizon, and she learns for it, but her constantly nagging self-doubts are making it even harder to focus. On the day of the exam she even sleeps in, and hurries to it after the official starting time.

The examiner meets her with bewilderment and it turns out that she completely managed to miss the repeated announcement that everyone will get bonus points for that fight; and she is one of the four people who earned enough credits this way that the only way to fail the test would be to actively cheat. Not attending would result in a passing (but low) grade. (Turns out that her tool was one legendary sword called “Gefrierbrand” - which she would have found out herself if she had been able to learn her materials properly.)

The news hit her like a brick, and instead of feeling validated (because clearly the higher ups have interpreted this as her having the official approval of a god) her self-doubts grow stronger and she even starts questioning her faith.

Trying to make sense of things, she seeks out the other three that got high-level tools to find out how they are and what they pledged, hoping to find out more about herself in the process.

Turns out those three are also quite quirky and don’t have much in common with each other at first glance. Number one is extremely calm and collected and hardly fazed by anything. Number two is fierce and eager to figth, because that’s what makes them happy. Number three is a dedicated rules lawyer, determined to twist any rule they come across to its breaking point, to uncover hidden flaws.

On closer examination though, they turn out to have kinda similar pledges: Number one pledged “my gratitude” and spend now a while each day to think about stuff they feel grateful about. Number two pledged “my love” and now prepared little gestures and presents for the god, as if they were some person they’re dating. Number three pledged “my doubts” and now writes elaborate essays to sort out their thoughts.

The protagonist befriends those three (not on purpose, it just happens over time) and starts to regain a little bit piece of mind (because having good friends is awesome).

Time flies by and things seem to go the usual way, and the thread of the second invasion turns into a mere background thought, but a constantly nagging one. The protagonist manages to build up her sense of self worth slowly with encouragement from her friends and finally decides that she needs to stop worrying about how her pledge might have been missjudged. She’s doing her best and simply can’t offer more than that, so regardless of what tools she will get the second time, it should not be the sole thing that determines her value as a person, she needs to do that herself.

She even manages to deal with the expectations of the higher ups which think of her as some kind of trump card and count on her to pull out something legendary again. All the time she keeps her own pledge to herself and not even tells her friends.

The portal finally opens again, and the paladins’ army reassembles at the drop of a hat. Again, tools pop up and people recieve multiple ones this time, and our protagonist is among the first to get some, but they are worse than the gear she already has, so she puts them away. She groups with her friends, which unlike her are generously gifted again. But this time there are not the only ones, there are many high level tools on the battlefield this time, it’s now the norm, not an exception.

And how they need it! the onslaugh of demons is seemingly endless and paints the last battle as a piece of cake. The protagonist fights at her best, but is utterly outclassed without better tools, and only sheer determination and her friends keep her from immediatly joining the casualties.

Then the demons use their secret weapon: Their boss summons a thick darkness that wraps around anyone, stealing the light away and muting any sounds to a whispering. This turns the table into their favour immediately, because they are in no way incapicitated, so they start chipping away gleefully at the seriously incapacitated paladins.

Our protagonist loses her sword, and that’s the moment she had it. She starts cursing out like a sailor and angrily berating her good, even getting her current attacker to stop his charge because that emotional outbreak amuses them.

She starts complaining that she feels misstreated and that she does not deserve to be humilated this way, because she had done nothing that would justify first elevating her and then dropping her like a hot potatoe - and even if she had done something wrong this was still a shitty thing to do! This was not about someone worthy or not this was about stopping an invading army of demons and the god should stop from plaing dumb games and give them what they need to even the odds. She doesn’t want some superweapon, just a fair chance, because that was enough for a paladin. And if they had trouble with her they could wait till after the battle.

Another tool appears. It’s no weapon, just a big ring, gently glowing and filling one with a sense of hope and warmth. She recognizes what it is and decides on a whim to put it on, then attacking the nearest demon with her bare fists.

And with her determination the ring glows brighter and brigther, cutting through the darkness, marking her as a target, but also spotlightning the courage she found. She does almost now damage, but still feels her comrade with inspiration, enough to access their last reserves, and hitting back with all they got.

And then the fight is over. An eerie silence lies over the battlefield, until suddenly the tools start disappearing as they had appeared. Then pledges start to vanish, like one guy who had pledges his majestic bard, finds himself suddenly cleanly shaven.

Our protagonist sights heavy from relieve and vanishes just a moment later, while the paper with her pledge drops onto the ground.

[love-with-you-i-have-everything]

we’ll give the world to you, and you’ll blow us all away

This is a tiny bit of Captain Cobra fic that will become canon to me if we don't get any interaction between Henry and real-Hook by the end of the season! Thanks to @happilyswanjones for reading this over for me!

You can find it on Ao3 here. Enjoy!

He found the horizon calming. He didn’t really know why, whether it was instinctual or thanks to too much time spent with Killian. But sitting on the bow of the Jolly Roger, legs hanging over the side, Henry felt at peace, despite the storm of issues he was inevitably about to face in the coming weeks.

Over the last eight years, he’d stumbled upon heaps of positives of having two mums. Regina’s place was perfect if he needed an escape from Emma and Killian’s love-sick teenager routine. It worked vice versa too, and whenever Regina was in one of her standard bad moods, he always had somewhere else to run to.

Having to share potentially earth-shattering news twice was not one of those positives.

No one was going to understand. Or maybe they would, but they wouldn’t like it. There’d been so much talk of college, of heading off to New York City, or Boston to write for publishers and papers. And Henry knew that both his mothers, even Killian had been putting money aside for it.

It’s not like he wasn’t grateful; he knew how desperate people were to get places in colleges, to have the funds to do so. He knew he was lucky.

But it wasn’t what he wanted. Not really. In theory it sounded great, but in its actuality, it didn’t seem like enough.

Maybe it was Violet breaking up with him a year ago, heading back to her home in the Enchanted Forest that brought it on, but either way, college didn’t seem like the right fit anymore.

He heard the footsteps before he saw who they belonged to. Not that he needed to check. Henry had heard them way too many times marching up the corridor, always followed by a voice telling him to get out of bed on early mornings, asking if he wanted to go sailing.

“Something on your mind, lad?” Killian asked, hovering behind him as if waiting for an invitation to sit. Henry let out a sigh, shrugging his shoulders ever so slightly.

“Why would you think that?” he asked, finally looking over his shoulder to meet the tilted head of his stepfather, eyes deep with concern. Henry moved over slightly, making room for the man to sit beside him.

“Because,” Killian started, moving to take the offered seat, “when I was a lad, a brand-new lieutenant on this very vessel,” he let out a breath as he sunk onto the raised edge, shuffling to get comfortable, “I used to sit in this very spot and think.”

Henry snorted, now keeping his eyes locked on something in the distance.

“Also, because I got a worried phone call from your mother saying you very efficiently fled the house as soon as she asked you about college applications.”

He shrugged again, not game enough to comment in fear of spilling out the truth. Killian cleared his throat at the silence, taking his eyes off Henry and onto the horizon. They sat for a moment in silence before Killian spoke again, this time softer.

“Look, lad. If the last few years of parenting,” he stumbled over that word, and Henry laughed in his head at Killian’s constant hesitancy to call himself a parent; it was clear to everyone how far their relationship had come, “has taught me anything, it’s that there’s no point pushing you if you don’t want to talk. So I’m happy to sit here in silence as long as you like.”

Looking across at him now, Henry studied the man sitting next to him. Only a few years ago, Henry would have shied away, not willing to talk to his moms about things like this, let alone Emma’s pirate boyfriend. But somewhere along the line, he’d become more than that. Maybe it was the sailing trips, the family dinners or movie nights, or even the little moments, like when Killian tried his first Pop Tart.

(He’d claimed to hate it, but Henry had noticed the supply depleting at a faster rate after that day.)

So, at some point, Killian had become family. Not that he hadn’t been before, or even that he legally was after the wedding. No. He had become family to Henry .

He could remember, way back in the time of the Missing Year, when his mum would date guys. None of them cared about him, they’d tolerated him at best. Walsh was marginally better. But Killian was the first guy who really seemed to care about Henry as his own person, not just an extension of his mother. Honestly, he wasn’t sure why that meant so much to him.

But it did.

Henry let out a sigh, and before he could think, the words poured out of his mouth.

“I don’t want to go to college.” There is was. The cat was out of the bag. It was a relief in a way, like the pressure had been building and had finally been let out. Much to Killian’s credit, he didn’t react. “Don’t look so surprised,” Henry continued sarcastically.

Killian hesitantly reached an arm around Henry’s shoulders, “I will admit, lad, I did see this coming.”

Letting out a breath, Henry became very interested in the wood beneath him, running a nail through a grain in the red paint, “Does that mean my moms know too?” he asked, hoping he was wrong.

“Your mothers may know a lot about magic and the like, but I think you’ll find they can be a bit blind sometimes.” Henry let out a snort, “Especially when they’re both so excited for you at the moment.”

Henry felt his stomach drop with guilt. He was graduating near the top of his class, and he hadn’t stopped hearing about it. First it was his grandma, then she had told Emma, who had told Regina. And he was proud of himself, really. But all the fanfare and celebration had just made him feel worse about everything.

Killian seemed to catch onto his mood and quickly tried to cover up his mistake, “Not that that means they’re not going to understand how you’re feeling, lad.”

“Yeah. Right.” Henry replied shortly, hoisting himself up and moving towards the main mast. He didn’t look back, but could hear Killian follow him. He tried to be annoyed, but he couldn’t find it in him.

Everyone knew Killian didn’t give up on the people he loved.

The ropes that wrapped around the mast were complicated and interwoven with one another, twisting up the wood towards the rigging above them. He’d spent many days sitting on the deck between Killian and his mum, or even his grandpa, tying knots and untying them, just enjoying rare days of warm Maine weather. He was going to miss days like that.

“You know,” Killian began, voice cutting through the short silence, “when your father was on this ship he battled with questions similar to yours. What am I going to do with my future? What’s the right path? I doubt he would have imagined the story his life played out, but I also doubt he would have traded it for anything.”

Henry rolled his eyes at the pirate’s words, “What are you trying to say here, Killian?”

He felt a pressure on his shoulders and finally turned to face Killian. His eyes were full of sincerity, not the playful glimmer that usually lived in them. It was the look they got when Emma came home from the station, stressed and cursing the dwarfish population of the town.

“What I’m saying, Henry, is that you might not know what the ‘right’ thing to do is right now, but your story will find you.”

Sighing dramatically, he broke away from his stepfather and walked to look over the edge of the ship, “That’s what I’m saying, Killian.” he exclaimed, voice rising, “I need to find my story. And I don’t think it’s here in Storybrooke or at college...”

Killian interrupted, “Well, I know Belle always talked of travelling the world, maybe some of her things could give you some ideas, and I’m sure your mothers would be happy to let you…”

“Will you let me finish?” Henry said, throwing his arms up by his side, turning back to face Killian, who smartly shut his mouth and gestured for him to continue. “I don’t think it’s in this realm either.”

Silence settled over the pair for a good minute before Killian spoke again.

“I see.”

They held each other’s stare, and Henry could see the gears ticking away in Killian’s head. While he hadn’t counted on telling him everything like this, he had hoped of all people, Killian would be the most open to the idea. But his hesitancy was reason to doubt.

“Well, Emma and Regina may struggle a bit more with that kind of travel.”

Folding his arms stubbornly, Henry rolled his eyes, the picture of his mother. “They shouldn’t. It’s not really that different.”

Killian’s brows furrowed in concern. “I’m afraid it is, lad. There’s a whole other range of dangers in other realms, ones that are far less easy to deal with than taxes and bank loans.”

Looking at his feet, Henry scuffed his toes along the deck of the ship, the same one he’d cleaned as retribution for all sorts of things, like the time he and Violet had snuck out to see a movie.

“I’ve survived them before.” he replied, this time less confident, quieter. “I don’t know, Killian. I just,” he stopped to gather his thoughts, “I’ve spent my whole life around fairytale characters, reading their stories in that book. I want to be a part of that. I need to be, I know it.”

Over the last few years, Killian had been somewhat of a confidante to Henry, someone who was more than happy to pull pranks on his mum, who he could try risky sword fighting moves with and petrify everyone else with them afterwards. But every now and then, when his mothers were either too busy or just didn’t understand, he’d be there for comfort, for solace.

That was the Killian that was in front of him now. That was the Killian that reached out and pulled him into a hug, patting him on the back.

“I understand, lad. Truly, I do.” Henry did his best to hide his sniff. “And for what it’s worth, I think your mothers will to.”

Henry let out a wet laugh, pulling away from the hug but staying close enough for Killian to keep his hands on his shoulders, “I’m not saying they’ll understand right away, but they’ll come around.”

Then he came out with the big one.

“We all just want what’s best for you, Henry. What makes you happy. Whether that’s here, on the other side of the world, the Enchanted Forest or the bloody moon, we’ll learn to deal with it. As long as you’re happy.”

Looking into this man’s eyes, Henry was yet again stunned by how much they’d both changed. Never would he have thought the man he caught staring at his mother would become this ..

“Thanks, Killian,” he replied simply, not knowing what else to say. “Do you think you could be there when I tell everyone? So I have someone on my side, at least?”

Killian looked down to the deck, then back up at Henry through his dark fringe. “Aye, Henry. Anything.”

Before the moment could get even sappier, he turned away to return to his spot on the bow, only to be joined moments later. They sat in silence, both staring out into the water. Henry could understand what Killian got out of being on the water for so long; there was nothing better, more calming, than staring out at the waves.

“I’m going to miss you, lad,” Killian admitted softly. Without responding, Henry simply nodded.

There was nothing else to say.

[rilenerocks]

Hi Michael. It’s that time of year again. That time you always hated when I was so, so very hot and sweaty and thus, always had the air conditioning turned down, the overhead fan turned to high and the small floor fan churning away all night long. Like living in a wind tunnel, you’d say. I’m sure you wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that nothing’s changed. I climb into our bed, each night, still on my side, yours untouched, with the dull roar of all my cooling machines as my companions. The thin sheet quivers in the breeze. You’d hate it. I’m physically comfortable and I lie there, thinking. Look at this headline from an article I read this evening.

Scientists Have ‘Woken Up’ Microbes Trapped Under The Seafloor For 100 Million Years

I mean, really? While I was trying to wrap my mind around the impossibility of those numbers and the subsequent life options they revealed, I suddenly hoped that meant we had a chance of reuniting somewhere in this mystifying universe. Certainly our collective and relatively young microbes have just as good a chance at survival as those ancient ones. I’m positive that your microbes are all over our house, our garden and in the few personal items of yours which I’ve stashed away. There might be a few hairs in your brush. I wouldn’t care which version of us we’d be, young or old. Ish.

So then I was thinking about all the tiny details of life I’d normally tell you every day when you were still here in the flesh. I mean, I like your constant cosmic presence, but I usually turn to that with just the most important stuff. I’ve been dying to share with you all these strange little nothing thoughts that cross my mind. Mostly, no one has ever been able to put up with the endless stream of seemingly random, disconnected thoughts that pour out of me. My sister, Cheryl is probably the next best listener after you. As my younger sibling, she was well trained in the absorption of my peculiar brain workings. I’m lucky she’s still here. But there’s just nothing like you for that bottomless reservoir of acceptance which  you provided for me. Isn’t it ironic that we both know you’d be appalled by me releasing all this private information into the faceless universe? I mean, I know some people who read my blog but mostly, they’re strangers. Honestly, except for a few private spaces in myself that defy language, most of the rest is just irrelevant in the long run. What impact do our little quirky selves have? I know you’d disagree but I need to survive now, in my own way. So here are a few random thoughts that beset me as I lie in our bedroom, my favorite space, while my mind wanders in the wee hours after I’m done reading, wishing I could talk to you above the whir of the fan blades spinning around me.

You’re the only person who knew that while I was listening to WLS radio during my pubescent and teen years in Chicago, I wasn’t just a rock and roll/rhythm and blues kid. I also liked gospel, jazz and classical music. I still remember that when you were working at the Record Service, you kept track of my favorites and made sure I always those albums in my stash. And then, you updated them to CD’s so I didn’t have to wear out my vinyl. I’m still listening to lots of different genres every day. I don’t think I could’ve gotten through this bizarre pandemic time without it.

Here’s another weird thing I’ve noticed lately. I don’t watch much television during the day. I turn it on for a few minutes when I get up in the morning, mostly a defensive move to make sure nothing impossibly earth-shattering happened overnight. That’s how things are right now – every day seems to bring a story that’s incomprehensible. Today the story was that after the worst economic quarter ever reported since they started measuring these things, Trump suggested that perhaps we shouldn’t hold an election this fall. This guy will sling any idea that he thinks will get him a second term. As an historian, you just wouldn’t believe how this country has devolved since you’ve been gone. Anyway. When evening rolls around, I’m tired from being outside most of the day. After dinner, I watch the news and then scroll through the tv guide, looking for anything that might distract me, amuse me or otherwise edify me in some way. Lately, I’ve realized that virtually every day, The Godfather, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Gladiator is playing. Often they’re on at the same time, while other times, they’re staggered. It’s so peculiar. Usually I watch bits of all of them. By the end of the week I’ve seen them in their entirety, albeit out of order. I’ll also pause for Sense and Sensibility, The Princess Bride, Pride and Prejudice or any Errol Flynn movie. Makes me laugh. If you were here, you’d be doing the same thing with The American President, To Have and to Have Not, You’ve Got Mail or The Maltese Falcon. Also Goodfellas, A Bronx Tale, or Stand by Me. I’m working my way through a decent number of tv series that I missed when we were too busy to watch them. But recently, I’m needing revolution. I’ve got “Z” and Battle of Algiers on my DVR. I probably don’t need to get more cranked up than I am these days, but I guess that’s too bad. Watching them anyway. I wonder how any new shows will be made for the fall? Better not go down that rabbit hole. They’re probably not going to happen.  

I want you to know that in your honor, I have loyally kept up with a smaller version of your food garden. Not just the perennial herbs that still marvelously appear and make me feel that it’s you who’s emerging through our rich dirt. That’s kind of absurd because your ashes are sitting in a beautiful box in the house waiting to some day being mingled with mine. Then we can be in the garden together. That aside, I’ve also been diligently planting and nurturing the annual herbs and vegetables, although at the moment, I’m losing the vegetable battle with the squirrels and rabbits. I’ve managed to get about two dozen cherry tomatoes off the vines while I try to ignore the smushed ones on the ground with one bite mark taken before abandonment. All the low-hanging large tomatoes have been filched along with the green peppers. I’m holding out hope for ones that are a little higher on the vines.

I’m really missing your cooking, though. Yesterday, I started ferreting around your recipe folders and dug out the one for pesto which, by the way,  wasn’t labeled. I’m going to make it. I don’t have as much basil as you would plant so I don’t expect to be spooning the mixture into ice cube trays that we could pop out of the freezer for pastas and pizzas. But I’m going to get it done. You really spoiled me. The good news is that I knew it and let you know. So there’s that.

Meanwhile, I’m being really mindful about enjoying every bloom in my flower world. I wait impatiently to make sure that my perennials return and get so happy when they show up. Then I try not to get sad because soon they’ll be gone. That’s something I have to work on – if I’ve learned anything, I know I need to stay in the present. So I’m out there a lot, with the butterflies and the birds, chasing them around with my phone to get good photos that I hope will be comforting in what I expect will be a socially distanced winter.  

Regarding the birds. So far, since spring, there’ve been 50 species in the yard. I don’t know if you’d recall that I started drawing them and filing them in a binder called The Yardbirds. I know you’d get the music reference. Anyway, my renderings are improving. If I practice, I’ll get better. Here are a couple of my recent ones.

I’m really happy that I’ve created a great bird habitat in the yard. I’m learning a lot about their behavior. I love watching the hummingbirds and the house wrens. Tiny, but mighty. I’ve grown fond of catbirds which are showing up regularly at the feeders. They’re perky and curious and pretty brave.

I’ve done something pretty dumb, as getting attached to wild animals doesn’t bode well for a happy emotional outcome. But I’m very fond of the cardinal pair that lives here year-round. After a rousing rescue of one of their fledglings last week, I felt so familial with them that I decided to name the strikingly beautiful female who comes for here daily for a dip in the birdbath. I’m calling her Pumpkin. Now, how absurd is that? I like her boyfriend too.

Another thing I did after a good deal of thought was sell your beloved bike. That was hard for me. I know it was just a thing but you loved it so much. I heard your voice in my head saying, “don’t be ridiculous – it’s just sitting there being wasted. Get yourself some extra cash.” So I did. But I took photos first. All these things I have to do. When I lie in bed in the night, I think about how much easier it is to share the loads of life. I miss that a lot although I’m glad I have what it takes to manage on my own. I think back to my mom after my dad died. By the time she was my age, she’d been dependent on me for almost 5 years. Makes me shudder.

How could I not tell you this most important thing? Our daughter, who went from working remotely to having to appear in person in a closed courtroom, found out the other day that a court clerk had tested positive for Covid19. She was asked to leave her office, get tested and do another 14 day quarantine. Then the judge in charge pf hearing her cases tested positive as well. Ugh. That meant that all the rest of our little family bubble had to be tested too. So far, she and our son got negative results. Our son-in-law, both grandsons and I await our results. I hope we’re all negative and can resume our little intimate enclave. The months ahead look daunting to me. The virus is traversing the country at will with no definitive treatments or vaccines. I dread flu season adding to the complexity of everything. Feels positively medieval.

  In other news, I got an email from the park district informing us that the indoor pool was reopening immediately. The list of precautions and requirements is very long and detailed. I read it carefully while keenly aware of my longing to get back to swimming. In the end, I’ve decided against it. I just don’t think being in an indoor facility shared with high school students can be safe enough for someone like me, a member of what I call the “death group.” So I’ll just have to know that a block and a half from our house, people will be paddling away while I won’t. This adult decision-making of risk vs. reward is overrated.

In other news, I actually wish I was more like my mom in her widowhood. She used to talk a lot about how all she wished she could do was hold my dad’s hand one more time. Lucky her. I remain deeply interested in resuming our intimate life for another 30 years or so. I hope if this reaches you, you’ll be glad to know that some of our best things are strong enough to survive death.

So that’s all for tonight. By the way, I thought you should know that I just restlessly flipped on the television. There is Gladiator in the midst of the re-creation of the battle of Carthage. Round and round it goes, my dearest boy. Until next time.

A Message from the Wind Tunnel Hi Michael. It’s that time of year again. That time you always hated when I was so, so very hot and sweaty and thus, always had the air conditioning turned down, the overhead fan turned to high and the small floor fan churning away all night long.

[alwaysreblogneverpost]

Lance sat on the floor of the blue lion’s cockpit, back leaning against the pilot’s chair as he tinkered on the small robot in front of him. ‘How are you faring, my cub?’’ Blue’s voice rumbled, a steady and calming presence always at the back of his mind. Lance couldn’t help but smile, the lion had been the only real constant in his life since they left Earth – the other paladins were always around the castle, sure, but none of them really ever seemed to want him around or appreciate him – and thus his bond with her had grown in leaps and bounds. He’d even wager that he was the only one that had bonded so strongly with his lion that their quintessences had bound together; this was a great asset as he was able to manipulate his own quintessence far more easily than before their binding, and he was now able to borrow her powers to some extent (not that the other’s knew, as when he had tried to bring it up he had been shut down and brushed off, so he had left it be).

“I think I’ve almost got it,” he hums, making a few miniscule adjustments to the wiring as he spoke. Blue, though he had taken to calling her ‘Azul’, just to have something that’s between just the two of them, had been helping him replicate herself on a much smaller scale; leaving the secondary blue lion that he had dubbed ‘Leona’ to be about the size of a standard main coon. He’d been working on it the last few months whenever he had down time as a way to busy his hands and reflect on his place in Voltron as part of the team.

He wouldn’t call himself a genius, not by any means, but he also knew he wasn’t stupid like the others seemed to think; he had managed to make a miniature of Azul for quiznaks sake. He couldn’t do some of the things that Pidge or Hunk did, but he could replicate what they made given enough time to work on it. Instead he was good with languages and people; he had learned English as a second language when he was accepted into the Galaxy Garrison, had steadily been learning Altean with Coran’s help and even Galran with (secret) help from Kolivan, and could read people incredibly well within a few hours of knowing them.  He wasn’t an amazing leader like Shiro, who could (almost) always do what was best for the team, able to lead and inspire them with ease and command attention and respect with a subtle change in voice. In place of those abilities the blue paladin could remain calm and collected in any situation, could act any part he was given, and kept tension light between all of them. He wasn’t a (near) perfect diplomat like Allura, but he was an astounding strategist – when the team allowed – that could pick apart any plan placed in front of him and identify nearly if not every flaw it had, and then improve it. Coran was the one he had the best relationship with, viewing the older man as an uncle and even calling him tío from time to time, but even so Coran had things to do about the castle and – as much as he loved talking to him – Lance sometimes needed a break from Coran’s constant stories of Altea, as they made him homesick if he listened for too long. Keith, on the other hand, he probably had the worst relationship with; though if he was honest he knew that most of the animosity on his side of things was born of jealousy, and Kogane was probably just giving as good as he got; at least, most of the time that was what he was doing, there were some days that Lance didn’t do anything to him at all but he’d still seek Lance out for a fight. Keith, perfect fucking Keith, was the favored paladin of Shiro – he would deny it, but they all knew it was true, and it probably wouldn’t bother him so much had he not fallen hard for the black paladin – and likely everyone else besides Coran who had told Lance himself that he favored blue over red, or any of the other colors. He was a soldier, excelled in hand-to-hand and close combat fighting which were, admittedly, better suited for most of their missions, as opposed to Lance’s preference for long range weaponry, though he could use a trident or spear well enough if he got his hands on one. Keith was fiery and passionate – he could be to, about the right thing – whereas Lance was colder, and more calculated, needing to take a step back and analyze before acting, even if he did trust his instincts to the fullest extent (he had to, he rationalized, during a war he didn’t sign up for but fought anyways). Keith ran headlong into situations without a thought, which made him a formidable fighter, but Lance was quiet on his feet and could sneak into almost anywhere without being caught, which made him good for recon missions. The blue paladin knew for a fact he wasn’t useless to the team, but it still felt like he was when no one would give him the chance to prove himself; his talents weren’t flashy or overly obvious like the others’, which meant they got overlooked more often than not.

“And… done,” he beamed as he fixed the last panel into place, setting down the smaller lion in front of him. “I’m hoping that you’ll be able to transfer your quintessence into it should something happen. Like, yeah, being down a lion would be bad for Voltron, but a useless lion is still useless in the hands of the enemy, right? Do you want to give it a go, Beautiful?” He didn’t get a response as he felt Blue essentially shut down around him, a soft blue glow surround the smaller robot before the little lion’s eyes lit up a bright yellow as it let out a ‘mrow’ – rolled r and everything – lunging forward into his lap to seek affection.

‘You have done so well, cub,’ she crooned, a soft rumbling purr coming from her new body. ‘I have the most wondrous paladin of all the lions,’  her praise made him blush, a bashful smile on his face, ‘Never has any paladin thought to make a secondary body for their lion. Now I will not have to leave your side.’

“Easy there, Azul,” he laughs, pushing her off his lap in good nature. “You can’t just take this little guy for a spin right after it’s completed. We’ll have to keep working on it, make sure there aren’t any bugs that need to be fixed before we show the others. Plus, your quintessence is a pretty large presence to be in such a tiny robot, we don’t know how well our bond will help with the overflow.”

‘If you insist, my cub.’ Her voice was resigned, and he felt her disappointment about it himself, but it was only smart to make sure everything worked properly before letting Azul run around in it. He didn’t want her to get hurt, after all. He watched as the glow faded from the small robots eyes and felt Blue come alive around him again, sending her a good deal of love and affection over their bond. He was about to suggest going for a fly when his wristband beeped, Hunk letting him know that training was starting. Saying a goodbye to Blue, Lance makes his way to the training deck, ready to work hard with his team.

~*~

Lance spent the next week training, both on his own and with the others, cleaning with Coran, or spending time with Blue, working out the kinks in the smaller robot and practicing their manipulation of quintessence. He had been on his way to work with blue again when the alarms had gone off, sending him sprinting to the hangars in into Blue, they were taking off before he was even in the pilot’s chair, as he changed out of his everyday clothes and into his armor; he’s glad he kept it in his lion, and that he had modified of few of Coran’s storage cubes to be stored in his armor via quintessence like his bayard. Grinning, his eyes glowing a soft blue thanks to his bond with Azul, Lance eagerly flies to battle, determined to protect the family he built in space.

~*~

Lance doesn’t remember how he got to this planet, so similar to Terra, to his home planet Earth, that it sends a pang of heartache through his chest. It was primarily ocean based, the water a brilliant turquoise like the precious stone he remembers being so fond of back on Terra for some reason, with scattered islands that varied in size and distance from one another. They were all very similar, with soft pinks sands, a lilac sky and flora that was all manner of blues and greens, with a spattering of different colors here and there. Lance resided on one of the smaller islands, still large relatively in size considering it was at least the size of Hawaii back on Terra and he had the entire thing to himself. There was a much larger island to – what he understood to be – the East; when he had done what he could, which was admittedly not much at first, to secure himself a form of transport, he had made his way there with Leona on his shoulders in order to find out what he could do for food or shelter on the island he had deemed his own. He had been lucky, the crystals he had collected on a whim so long ago on a different planet, the name of which escapes him presently, were incredibly valuable here, and could be used as a form of currency. He had several storage cubes worth of the small crystals – they really weren’t much bigger than one of Leona’s claws – and each one bought him enough goods that, after his initial spree to buy everything his would need to survive here (a proper boat, a way to build shelter, and other important everyday items), each one bought him far more than he ever truly needed at one time. He had spent a whole three gems at a tailor’s shop buying fabric and tools in order to make his own clothing, but after that he tended to break them into halves when he needed to buy anything, since the only things he really bought was either food or things to create more armor or weapons for himself. He had been lucky, waking up washed up on the beach with a bow slung over his back and covered in head to toe armor; he didn’t need it here, and hadn’t in the months since his appearance, but the locals had told him stories of the Galra, a terrible empire that conquered planets and enslaved the people living there; or worse, obliterated them all together like they did to Altea in all the stories he’d been told. He had also been told of the tales of Voltron, and the rumors that it had returned only for one of the paladins to go missing in battle not long ago.

Now the locals, they were interesting; they were shorter than him by close to a foot on average, leaving most of them at chest height or shorter. They looked like anthropomorphic cats to him, but with furs of soft pastels across the rainbow instead of being confined to the standard colors, though he had seen some pelts of soft grays, gentle golden browns, and the occasional brilliant white. The leader of the tribe he interacted with reached to just under his chin, and was a soft golden brown in color, reminding him of the large cats from Terra called pumas; he was a kind man, with an equally kind husband and cub of their own, welcoming him in his time of need and allying with him in the event of the Galra finding this planet. He was good friends with most of the village, and on good terms with those he didn’t know well, which meant he enjoyed his time with them once a week when he made a day of traveling to the larger island, though if he had the chance he often took to joining the fishing party on their trips; the water was nontoxic to him, and he was the only one not afraid to go for a swim while fishing, which allowed him to haul in the more exotic prizes that dwelled deeper in the water. He spent a large amount of his time playing with Leona, the cub-sized lion robot that sat on his shoulders during his trips, or would sit on his boat when he was in the water.

Lance smiled as he rested his arms over the side of his small boat, out for nothing more than a swim a few hundred yards from his island, petting Leona as she began purring at the sight of him. He caught site of himself in the reflection of the water – only mildly distorted because of the color, he thinks idly – as he had lifted himself up for a rest, smiling contentedly to himself as he reflects on the changes that he’s gone through since he ended up here.

His hair was longer, French braided and reaching down to the small of his back (he’s neglected to cut it for the five or so months he’s been here out of shear laziness, he’ll admit, and it had already been getting shaggy when he landed), and his skin is a bit darker due to the increased amount of sun he’s been getting. His eyes have gained a gentle glow over time, a side effect of his bond with Leona he theorizes, what with the fact that there’s so much quintessence that he’s had to keep in check in order for her to have a proper ‘life’, though he’s unsure if the silver that overtakes them completely when he gets particularly angry originates from the bond as well. His left ear’s been pierced in the past months, leaving him with a crystal stud with a matching teardrop hanging from it in his lobe and a pair of obsidian colored hoops resting near the top of his ear just where it begins to curve, and he’s also gotten a tattoo of a yellow tulip with the word ‘Blanco’ expertly hidden in matching white colored ink in one of the petals on his left wrist, and another that rested on the lower right hand side of his back just above his hip; it consisted of a blue paw print outlined heavily in black, surrounded by pairs of black calla lilies, lavender roses, and forget-me-nots, in what he thought to be a rather lovely arrangement. It had taken a lot of finagling before he was able to get the artist to understand exactly what he wanted, and had taken even longer to get the perfect outline of each flower, but it had been well worth it to him – if only he had been able to remember why it had been so important to him to have these exact tattoos.

He sighed once more in contentment as he gave the demanding cub in front of him his full attention and affections; he might not remember how he got here, he mused, or even much about his past, but he was happy. A feeling of love washed over him from his bond with Leona, the small lion leaning forward to press her nose against his; yes, he thought, he was happy.

[strawberrymarshmallowstories]

Gift of Darkness

Title: Gift from Darkness

Pairing: Taehyung/OC

Word Count: kind of 2.7k

Rating: SFW guys, it’s all safe!

Summary:

And you knew his shadow was close. You knew of his struggles, how he was always stuck in between of two extremes, each choice bringing him back to the beginning. It was always the same, feeling closer but then further away.

You walked around to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, his whole body cold as ice. He didn't respond.

  BTS Oneshot Collection: Gods & Goddesses AU

It had been a while since you had last seen Taehyung. Even though you told yourself you didn't care much, you had become used to him hanging around, being at your hand's reach. He always came and went as he pleased, sometimes missing for weeks and a glance at the calendar showed that he had been gone for three months now.  

 Even the next sip of coffee was ruined as it tasted more bitter than a second ago.

 You understood that it was just the way his family was - all full of powerful gods with offensive powers and he was no different. As your own ancestors line promoted peace, you didn't even wish to understand the need for violence, didn't understand why this showcase of power was so important to Ancients.

 You made your way downstairs in silence, letting the soft carpet caress your feet until it was exchanged for cold tiles that made shivers run down your back. Luckily enough your fluffy slippers were there to save your day from the damp grey pressing itself in through the glass. It was still quite early in the morning but for some reason you hadn't been able to sleep. You had opted for a nice cup of coffee instead while you got some work done.

 You opened your fridge and for a second you froze in surprise. At first glance you could've sworn that you had a big chunk of glass in your refrigerator. A couple of seconds later you draw in a quick breath.

 'Why is there a changeling egg in my fridge?' You shouted but in spite of sharp words there was a smile playing on your lips.

 Hearing a tiny rustle from the living room behind you, you shuffled over and then you felt it, felt him. And there he was, lying on the couch with your small blanket pulled loosely around him as a cover, his blue jeans peeking out from underneath.

 His eyes remained closed as he murmured something about a present and something else about pancakes.

 'That is disgusting Taehyung,' you said with a grimace as you sat down in front of the sofa, familiar feeling settling in your stomach while his words made your skin prickle in joy. 'What have you been up to anyway?'

 'I've been hanging out with Hoseok, did some introductions but it didn't go well.'

 'And I thought I was bad.'

 'You are,' he said without hesitation and you resisted from giving him a slight punch of appreciation where your eyes had been fixed on a second ago. This would've been a sign of emotion you were not supposed to show. There would always be a part of you that could never be shown.

 Not if you wanted to be taken seriously in this world.

 He sat up slowly and you were surprised by what you saw. Taehyung, who always seemed well put together and at ease, looked drained and weak. His every move took a second longer - as if it took too much effort, like his every muscle had become heavier, had given in to gravity. His eyes that had held a blank gaze finally seemed to understand his surroundings and it was only then when you recognised the familiar glint in his dark eyes.

 'How come I didn't notice you?' You asked instead, nothing but cool interest in your eyes and in your tone, ignoring the mess inside, ignoring everything else even though you would've wanted to pet him, to caress him.

 'It's a secret,' he said and added with a small smile, 'and I'm also responsible for keeping your bed clear.'

 'Like that's any of your business. Look at yourself, barging in uninvited.'

 His eyebrow rose in question and you could see he was about to say something. He was just about to, when a shadow passed over his eyes and his eyes focused on an empty space somewhere in the air between you.

 And you knew his shadow was close. You knew of his struggles, how he was always stuck in between of two extremes, each choice bringing him back to the beginning. It was always the same, feeling closer but then further away.

 You walked around to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, his whole body cold as ice. He didn't respond.

 'It's alright Taehyung,' you whispered, your voice silky smooth, trying to lure him out from where he was trapped. He had created too many cages for himself and had carried too many along over the centuries. You had always found it funny how humans thought that an eternal life was a bliss, when it was also full of unimaginable pain.

 That was the reason for these healing sessions with him. He had sought you out and even though at first you had thought he was mocking you - a man from an Ancients troupe coming to find you - you soon realised that this ran deeper than that. You soon found out how he had been trained, how every warrior had been trained, and you were appalled of what you learned.

 'Think about how I'm going to feed you that changeling egg and where you're going to be stuck in for the whole afternoon.'

 You saw a small smile ghost over his lips and he shook his head. 'You can't do that, you have no power over me.'

 'You sure about that?' You said and released a tiny bit of energy, enough to challenge him - to show him that you were no weakling that he sometimes seemed to forget. Even though your expertise lied somewhere else, by no means were you weak. It was enough to gain his attention.

 Your eyes locked in shared understanding and the edges of his lips formed into a smirk. You both knew that your threat was empty, but he seemed to like brushing up against your energy field and you didn't deny him of this little joy.

 'Things are getting worse,' his voice was low and a little rough. 'Earth's balance is interrupted,' he started, his dark eyes solemn. 'I have no care for humans but this war does not belong there.'

 You didn't say anything, only waited for him to continue. You did motion for him to place his hands in yours, which he did without hesitation as a sign of trust, and you started your work. He always reached out to you in this state - on the verge of a breakdown but his strict training had ensured he would always keep it together, always just on the borderline but never crossing it.

 'Sometimes I think it would be easier to just kill them all.'

 'What did they ask you to do?' You asked, all while working on healing his auric field and secretly reaching for the wounds deep inside his heart. With each session you got in further but you could still feel resistance.

 'To put a fire on one of my dear friends' villages. And the worst is, it was her father who ordered me to do so.'

 Your whole body froze and he must've felt it, 'So is she dead?'

 'No,' he paused for a long minute, 'I masked regular fire and sent in a couple of creatures. That was the weakest I could get away with.'

 You released a breath you hadn't noticed you had been holding and looked up at him. Jagged bits of dark hair fell onto his eyes but that didn't do much to hide his pain. He didn't have many friends due to what he was, and the couple he had he treasured highly. You couldn't even begin to fathom what this must've done to him.

 'I also told Hoseok,' he added dryly and you nodded. You knew he couldn't defy an order, his family made of warrior gods took pride in what they did as masters of battle arts. Taehyung had been born with the worst gift of all - he had been born from the never-ending darkness itself that he now had to fight to survive. Only his training had helped him control it.

 But that also came with a price.

 'I don't think she's ever going to forgive me.' There was so much pain and agony in these words he muttered, his tone hushed and low. His eyes were closed as if he was ashamed to look at you. He would not cry, he never did, but sometimes you wished he was capable to do so.

 Yes, Taehyung had done some incredibly awful things over the centuries. His world had only consisted of battles one after another. He hadn't known anything else but constant death that followed at his heel because that's what they had used him as - a deadly weapon ready to kill and to destroy. He had grown up within the training camps, had battled with his classmates and had taken most of their lives. These children were given to these camps to control their power, to save them from the madness and violence that came along with their great abilities.

 Sometimes it helped, sometimes it made them into uncontrollable monsters that had to be eliminated.

 When you first met him, there was a knife pressing against your throat. You could still recall the madness in his eyes as he loomed over you with a snarl. His energy had been overwhelming and all colour was drowned out by the darkness in and around him. At that point you were certain there was nothing else in his mind but his blade and your blood.

 And he almost succeeded, if you hadn't been prepared. His rage had taken over him and the only way you could save yourself was to knock him out the old fashioned way. It hadn't been easy but something in your energy had lulled him into an illusion, stealing a second where you could do what necessary.

 Ever since that day he occasionally sought you out for your help, placing his trust in you. Surprisingly enough his darkness had accepted your light, yielding to it, letting itself bask in your energy. For some reason his darkness was attracted to your light, trying to corrupt it and refusing to give up before it did so.

 'You should seriously start paying me for this.'

 'Last time you said you didn't want my money. Unless what you're really after-'

 He stilled in his spot and you saw his smile fall off his lips. You stood up immediately, closing off all your energy channels and crossed your arms in front of you. It was rare when a direct communication line was used but you took no risks of it detecting you.

 He looked apologetic but you knew there was nothing he could do.

 And it was then when you received a message as well.

 Code one eight nine. Square thirty eight has been struck. Immediate presence required.

 You looked at Taehyung and his eyes were already locked on yours.

 Square thirty eight was his old training camp.

 You nodded, letting him know that you were ready to go. There wasn't much you would need, only having to change your slippers into something more presentable. There was no doubt others would fail to understand your weakness towards pretty fluffy things.

 He extended his hand and you accepted it, only for the whole world around you to blur before you found yourself in an unfamiliar environment. You gave him a confused glance but he only replied with a shrug. His teleporting skills had improved rapidly and this confused you.

 His skills shouldn't have allowed him to teleport so fast, over a distance that usually took at least three leaps. Gods rarely got more powerful, they only learned how to pull out more and how to use it more efficiently. And this definitely did not look like just training.

 Had you misjudged his powers?

 You tucked it away for later analysis as hazy smoke gathered your attention. Everything was quiet around you but this silence didn't mean that there was no one. You saw many others rushing around, many of them with a green halo around their body, signalling that they were at work.

 'You're here!' You came face to face with an elderly lady with wise eyes. After a quick introduction she gave a brief overview of what had happened - apparently one of the children had lost control and had blown up the place. Taehyung tensed at your side while you noted the discomfort the woman was directing towards Taehyung.

 You weren't surprised - he had completely changed. If he had been nice before, he now reminded you of how well he fit in with the Kim family. Cold, intimidating, his whole presence instigating fear and making weaklings flee at the sight of him. You could see others casting wary glances before scurrying off as silently as possible. He could change at a blink of an eye, and what was so usual for him, looked so strange to you.

 There was no sign of the Taehyung you knew that had gifted you with a changeling egg as a joke, there was nothing behind his expressive eyes apart from a vast void. He asked brief questions and gave concise replies, his voice monotone and dry. There was nothing extra or nothing warm about him at all.

 Tiny hairs at the back of your neck rose as you realised once again how deadly he actually was. You checked the air around you, realising that his whole aura had turned pitch black. He had dropped back into what the world expected of him and it had been long since you had seen this part of him. But now you could see it once again, how the darkness had overtaken his aura, how it engulfed him in its embrace.

 What he usually kept hidden away was now released.

 With the purpose of bringing about fear.

 This didn't seem to faze the elderly lady in front of you, who did send a couple of sharp looks towards Taehyung which he didn't acknowledge. However, you noticed it. You also noticed how she shook her head and her message was clear.

 Do not meddle with them.

 'I have to go,' Taehyung's voice interrupted your thoughts and just as your eyes met, as his fingertips grazed against your arm in a short farewell, he disappeared.

 'He's no good, that boy,' you heard, all four eyes fixed on the spot where Taehyung had stood a second ago. 'He is a child of darkness itself, he's not suited for a young bright woman like you.'

 Your eyes snapped to her, no doubt your surprise evident even when your voice was controlled, 'That's definitely not the case.'

 But her gaze was wise and knowing, her eyes sad with a sign of warning. Your eyes must've given away more than you would've liked to admit and with a tinge of guilt, you remained quiet as you followed her.

 Was it this obvious to Taehyung as well?

 And that was the last thought you had before your mind fell into its regular pattern as you pulled your green halo around yourself. You saw a glimpse of him here and there, walking around with others as dangerous as him. You saw numerous high-ranked gods who you acknowledged with a nod from far away, and saw Ancients teleport in and then disappear.

 Even Hoseok was there and you knew that this was not just about one little boy - there was something bigger at stake.

 You remembered Taehyung's words and his broken soul in the morning when he confessed his latest doings. You only saw him once more that day when he was discussing something with Hoseok. But to your surprise there was nothing ill in the air between them. Hoseok greeted him with a pat on his back and Taehyung gave him a grim smile before they fell into a more serious conversation.

 They both looked lethal, standing together with a group of others, all dressed in black.

 But your attention was soon grabbed by the eyes that looked up at you, one pair more broken than another.

 They all reminded you of Taehyung, as broken as the first time you had met him.