#I kinda want to give him an honor title that means 'Whole Shadow'

[bonefall]

(dif anon) So is Ashfur grooming Shadowsight a plotline you would keep/rework in BB? I'm not so keen on the way canon used it to retcon his epilepsy, but I do think a plotline examining how clerics can be vulnerable to abuse from StarClan spirits is kinda compelling

Shadowsight's epilepsy is staying in BB, the Erins can try and take it away again over my dead body

Yes, that's staying and BB!StarClan was reworked with unfairness in mind.

This time around, I'm considering the idea that Ashfur didn't work completely alone. After the events of Squirrelflight’s Horror, Silverpelt's divisons are starting to crackle the stars.

Skystar and the other more traditional spirits are losing patience with the peace that Fire Alone brings, and the ways that the code has been bent.

They feel that honor is being lost in their descendants.

Even angels disrespect the collective; see how Skypelt has its own heaven? With a demon in its midst? There is blasphemy even in the skies.

Firestar and the more modern pantheon are ferociously defensive of the choices of the living. StarClan exists for them; not the other way around.

Meanwhile, Mousefur has gone missing. Others start to blink out, too. This is causing panic... and Ashfur keeps it quiet that he's the only one who knows where they've gone.

The angels that plan action probably were a small group to begin with, radical spirits. Skystar and Ashfur are two of them, and Ash is the "youngest." So when he comes down to the mortal plane and betrays them, very few other angels knew what had happened.

(I might even have a few angels be doing the various supernatural things in that first book, but slowly, Ashfur is wittling down their numbers until it's just him.)

I'm still working out specifics, but the other angels that Ashfur has consumed are giving him a massive power boost. He can use this to jump between planes freely, and he's able to do some whacky things like weave dreams and pull nightmares out of the Dark Forest.

The most important unique power he has, which he can do ALL on his own once he's absorbed enough starpower, is blast Shadowpaw with a bolt of lightning. The electric current runs through Shadowpaw's brand new scar, giving him a connection to StarClan like he's a little radio tower.

Thing is... when StarClan is blocked off, the only signal he receives is Ashfur's.

So, Shadowpaw.

From the time he was very young, Shadowkit has had an unhealthy relationship to life and death

He watched a lot of cats die before he was old enough to really understand it, and the only one who came back was Heartstar.

His epilepsy was so severe it would have been terminal. He was prepared to die as a kit.

Tawnypelt took him to the Tribe to learn more about treatments, bringing back a method of refining chamomile to manage the convulsions.

When people come back from death, it was to serve "a purpose."

He feels like he needs to be special, like he needs to find the great meaning in his life. The reason why he's still here.

In BB, there can be guardian angels. Cats you knew in life who decide to watch out for you in the afterlife. Moleflight is Jayfeather's, Shrewface is Squirrelflight’s. Ashfur poses as Shadowpaw's.

THAT is how I plan to address my criticism. Ashfur DOES build a very personal, trusting relationship with Shadowpaw, pretending to be the one who's here to give him the destiny he craves. Pretending like he's someone looking out for him.

I actually LIKE how desperate the situation was in-canon and I want to stress how none of this was Shadow's fault, so I also plan to keep that they had very little choice. Shadowpaw trusts his angel completely, and Ashfur coaches him on saying all the right things.

The older Clerics are suspicious, but... what else can they do?

Also, instead of framing this all as something Shadowpaw needs to "atone" for, I'm going to make certain cats unfairly scapegoat him for bringing the Impostor into the forest. Shadowpaw himself agrees with them, blaming himself, but he has to learn it wasn't his fault.

He DIDN'T let anyone down by failing to live up to great expectations, and there's no way he could have known that Ashfur was using him. This never happened before, he always made the choice he thought was right and tried to make up for harm done, and he's not responsible for what his abuser made him do.

I actually want to have him figure out some of this by talking to DF demons, towards the end. Cats faaaar more responsible for what they did in life than him.

Ravenwing in particular, who was also mislead by a rogue StarClan spirit, but... ultimately decided that if StarClan was right in their judgement.

He was told (by Birchface, but he still doesn't know who it was in particular) to make three kittens unsafe by revealing their parentage. His choice killed three innocent children, and lead to the Queen’s Rights.

And StarClan was furious that he'd ever believe they'd want something so CRUEL.

And even if they DID want something so cruel... "Then they wouldn't have been ancestors worth following. And that's why I believe it's right that I'm here."

As a Cleric, he had authority on their behalf. And if they would misuse it through him, he wishes he could have just given it right back.

And Shadowsight's lightbulb goes Ding!

The very last thing Ashfur does in TBC, when the jig is up and he's about to be killed by the Lights in the Mist and a bunch of Demons who have come to defend their home, is swallow a Founder-- Skystar.

He takes the level of a true god, and reaches a nearly undefeatable level of power. Instead of black water, he's so large, malicious, and has a gravitational pull so massive it starts destroying the afterlife. It shatters the purgatory (Meadow of Young Stars) into floating cosmic fragments, and Heaven and Hell are set to collide.

Shadowsight confronts Ashfur, politely explaining that he's, well... done a lot of thinking, and, he doesn't really want what he gave him. "You can, uh, have this back!"

And blasts the lightning from his scar right back at him, like a chain, holding the screeching eldrich horror in place. Every ally he's made, here in the DF, come down from StarClan, and as Lights in the Mist, jump to his side. They can't hold down Ashfur, but they can hold SHADOWSIGHT

While they're all supporting him, Bristlefrost sees the one chance to get rid of him, once and for all. A clear shot. She bolts, pounces, and SHOOTS right into Ashfur like a falling star, knocking them both off the edge of the heaven he destroyed, burning up in orbit with a monster a hundred times her size.

And after that, Shadowsight has to go home and live with this.

He gave up the very connection that made him so special, and now he has to go back to being a Cleric without StarClan.

but the other Clerics accept this. They have to. They were all complicit in the choices that allowed the Impostor to rise.

What Shadowsight learns is... everyone was part of this. From those who made the follies with him, to the supporters and rebels against the impostor, to those who helped him realize his worth, to Bristlefrost who ultimately killed Ashfur.

He is valuable because living is valuable.

Everyone, and everything, matters. All cats have a role to play, and he was never alone.

I want to close him out in BB!TBC on a tea scene that parallels the various points in his life. Others used to prepare his chamomile treatments FOR him, in careful doses, because it is a very serious medicine. Now, at the end, he's the one brewing it.

A fully fledged Cleric, who realizes he's never been alone. Cats who love him were around him the whole time, making his medicine, and they'll love him even after he's given up his powerful gift. So now he's at the stage in his life where HE can make that medicine, share his wisdom with others, and find fulfillment in the skills he's acquired over a hard life brightening.

[ink-beneath-her-fingernails]

reach your hand through the everglass (the boat to nowhere gets there fast)

read it on ao3   |   masterlist

Fandom: Hades (video game)

TWs: major character death (canon-typical), graphic depictions of violence, mentions of unhealthy parent-child relationships. please let me know if there are any other warnings that should be added.

Wordcount: 1,748

Originally Published: January 27, 2023

Summary: here is what they do not tell you: running through every level of hell, being reborn in a river of your own blood, experiencing every thousands of ways to die, failing and failing and failing and yet persisting—you will change.

here is what you are scared to ask yourself: how much?

Notes: whoops i thought too much about this game!! idek what the title on this one is. originally it was "persist in the fathomless depths" bc i couldn't find any of the dialogue that inspired this story in the first place, and none of the other stuff was jumping out, but then this just. kinda happened. and now i'm attached to it so.

Transfer Notes: n/a

here is what they do not tell you: running through every level of hell, being reborn in a river of your own blood, experiencing every thousands of ways to die, failing and failing and failing and yet persisting—you will change.

here is what you are scared to ask yourself: how much?

*

here is what you learn:

how to die (stabbed through the heart, body seizing, skin frizzing with magical energy, choking on blood and bile and poison, bleeding out in a quiet corner, crushed by falling debris, at the hands of one of your oldest friends),

never to meet your heroes (of any sort; every olympian you've ever talked to is fickle and proud and angry beyond measure; it takes you three meetings to even realize who patroclus is and he is nothing like any story, tired and drowning in sorrow and apathy and having given up in every way; you tell theseus that fighting him would be an honor and he calls you a fiend, a blackguard, and a coward, tells you he will show you no mercy, relishes more in the crowd and glory than anything else above or below the earth),

how to talk to people (you've always been alright at it but you need it now more than ever before—new people, not the ones you've grown up knowing, ones who will talk back and stick around for longer than their sentencing; you talk and you talk and you give and you give and sometimes you take and this you are forced to realize before anything else: everyone here is your ally, and everyone here is your enemy. they are bound to this house just like you are, want you to escape because they never could, want you to fail because it's their job, want you to die because they'd rather swallow you whole and let your ever-lit feet scorch their insides until they learn not to burn than let you leave them.

you learn to toe a fine line, never show too much of your hand at once, look for double meanings, take nothing at face value; line thin smiles with sharp teeth and honeyed words, and you hate it and you hate it and you hate it and—),

people change (sisyphus tends your wounds, gives you spare obols he's picked up on his perpetual path, slips you gemstones of darkness incarnate that make your blood sing, always offers you an ear to listen and a kind set of words. you ask nyx where his pact might be so you can void it, and she asks if you think that is a wise decision. you tell her you don't know, so she sends you to her son. you cannot look sisyphus in the eye when next you meet, taking his gifts sets something roiling in your gut. he has been here for so very long. you cannot even imagine what he was like living, cannot possibly reconcile the crafty king you've been told of with the bashful, friendly man who offers you encouragement on your runs. you still do not know if you should free him. you wish you'd never thought of it.

your father is a shadow over your entire life, you have learned nothing from him except every painful part of the words blood and darkness. he has tried to teach you how to hate and despite all his wishes, you have not let him. (you still love him, you still love him, why do you still love him, how can you still love him?) you have given him the benefit of the doubt at every turn and still he surprises you, still it shocks you to the core of something you didn't know you had to hear him uncertain, to hear him loving, or trying, to hear him attempting to make the right choice in a way that matters differently from the rulings of the universe and politics and mortality.

achilles tells you he tore the world asunder once but will not say how. try as you might, you cannot picture it.

the shades milling outside the stadium in elysium murmur about how, in life, theseus killed the minotaur with his bare hands, and you spend long minutes wondering if you'd misheard, trying to understand when presented with the information for the first time since you'd actually met the pair how that makes any sense, when they're a team, when theseus bargained asterius out of erebus just to fight by his side. they tell you, again and again, that you could never understand the bond they have, and you believe it every time),

how to use each of the infernal arms (that have found their way crawling from the darkness where they were always meant to be forgotten, that fit your palms like they were always meant for you to wield them, that make your hair stand on end and your blood pump and your muscles pulse and the need for something great and terrible and violent to spring forth from you frying the very air you breathe.

you collect bounties, and they're something awful, something old, something you shouldn't be seeing, holding, using—titan blood. each weapon, without fail, reacts when you do. they shiver, and quake, and whisper, and you think you finally know what achilles must've meant when he told you that they'd hunger for it before long.

you carefully pocket a vial of the ancient ichor, and the trembling of aegis brings you pause. its open mouth is gaping, and you wonder, if it had a tongue, would it be licking its chops, and is it just you, or are its fangs longer now than they were before? you feed them eventually, because of course you do, you're running out of options, and you wonder if, in several hundred slices of agony throughout the depths, your forefathers' forefathers can feel it).

here is what you don't: who actually hired skelly? who was he before?

why do the gods of olympus, who all quietly hate each other so, bother to put up with one another for all this time? (is there perhaps more than one reason lord ares has been kept so very busy on earth recently? is it nothing but a desperate hope that he will not have time to turn eyes to their mountaintop, considering?)

why did your mother come here, and why did she leave?

why does the river phlegethon keep flooding?

why, when you are so very frustrated after a ruined escape attempt that ended slowly and painfully, when meg refuses to even talk to you, when everyone at the house has stonewalled every question you've asked in the hours since, and you throw something—was it a pot? a book? a statuette?—across your room in a fit of rage, does the mirror nyx once gifted you shatter like it never, never should? why does nyx not instantly storm in, having felt it?

why don't you feel any different when it does?

(nyx tells you the mirror will make you stronger, and by her grace, it does.)

(so why is it, when you kneel amongst the shards, trying to figure out how you're going to fix your own impulsive stupidity, that it doesn't feel dangerous? it did, before, even when it was whole, when you first used it. now, you handle the pieces, and don't even make an effort to handle them carefully because some part of you knows they would never dream of cutting you open.

when you press them together, the darkness sings, and where it once made you feel small, like prey, maybe, now it is a comfortable hum in your chest, in your heart, in your soul if you were to have one, and you act without thinking, letting the music of the cosmos you should not hear or feel or taste guide your hands without thought, and suddenly you have one larger piece instead of two smaller ones, and one pair less of jagged edges. you keep on, like it's your purpose, because maybe now it is, and shard by shard, edge by edge, you build something, and the darkness sings ever louder with each joining, until you could swear the whole house is shaking in its foundations. eventually, you press an entire, jagged panel into the frame and what's stayed there, and it's like nothing ever happened. slowly, the music fades.

when you ask nyx if she heard the singing later, she just blinks at you, says she's not sure what you mean, and orpheus still hasn't been much for playing lately.

you don't bring it up again.)

*

this is what it seems everyone has forgotten except you: how gods become.

young gods are a rare commodity these days. they always have been.

more often than not, gods come into existence fully formed for their purpose, or nearly there. gods that are created more than born often have it given to them, even.

their powers are not uncovered through a slow process of trial and error, or by accident. rarely are they a surprise.

people tend to forget that it wasn't always this way. people forget that once, the world wasn't split in three, that the infernal arms exist for a reason, that gods can be made as much as they can be born, and sometimes, they can be both. they forget that gods can die, just not forever; forget that there are things older than them that still watch.

but you don't. you can't. you're living in it.

we're gods, boy. killing one another is our lot.

you wonder, then.

you think that maybe that is how divinity is forged—if it is through resentment, and spite, and battles to the death again and again, and running and fighting and learning and falling into places you aren't supposed to and seeing things from beyond your realm.

the darkness sings, and your blood roars in time with it, and you let it, feeling a sort of whole you didn't know was possible.

make things more interesting, indeed, the being that is beyond time and world and reason murmurs when next you meet. a smile curls upon your face, and you wonder when you stopped finding things like that ominous and threatening.

well.

perhaps it was when you started making your life a little more interesting, after all. or, perhaps, it was when life started making you a little more interesting.

it's hard to say, really.

[miekasa]

more boyfriend headcanons: love languages

↯ pairing: eren jaeger x (fem) reader

↯ genres and warnings: modern au, college au to some extent, fluff

↯ notes: i cannot stop thinking about him, so have 50 more head canons about this absolute menace. despite the title, he can and will turn anything into a love language, so beware.

annoying the hell out of you (quality time)

You’ve heard of girls sitting on their boyfriend’s laps and hugging them/falling asleep while they play games, now get ready for: boyfriends hugging you from the back while you attempt to do any mundane activity bc they miss you.

Because that’s Eren. About almost anything, because his physical affection, when not in the presence of other people, is absolutely on ten thousand and one.

The only public place he doesn’t mind cuddling up to you is the library. He doesn’t mind putting his arm around you or leaning his head on your shoulder, or even doing the sitting hugging thing in the library. Mostly because few people are there anyway.

Mind you, you’re the one who even showed him where the library was, and now he doesn’t know how to act. “Eren it’s not a ‘cuddling spot.’ It’s the library where I—and lots of other people, including yourself—go to do homework.” “If not cuddling spot, then why library chairs and study rooms cuddly?”

Particularly when it’s getting late and you’ve been crammed in the library for hours, and Eren just wants you to pack it up so he can drive you home. He’ll squeeze himself between your body and the back of your chair, wrap his arms around your stomach, and lay his cheek on your back.

Most times he falls asleep waiting for you to be finished. Sometimes he gets impatient and tickles you until you agree to leave. Either works for him.

He doesn’t not like holding hands in public, but it’s not his go to either. If you’re walking together, sometimes he’ll wrap his arm around your shoulder—usually after some cocky comment—or even walk behind you with his hands on your shoulders like it’s a two person conga line.

He doesn’t kiss you in public a lot, and never around his friends. They can see the literal hearts in his eyes when he’s around you though, so it’s not like he has to. On occasion, he will kiss your cheek. It’s kind of random, but you don’t question it.

In all honestly, whenever he gets affectionate or cuddly in public is all pretty random, even to him. Sometimes he’ll just be standing around you and he’s hit with the urge to engulf you in a hug and kiss your cheeks and he has to stop himself like, “....Why did I just think about doing that?”

Partially because he wasn’t outwardly hugged or shown affection a lot as a child, so sometimes he gets to urges children do to just want a hug. But he’s also pretty bad and/or new at processing his emotions like that so he mostly stands there like 🧍 looking at you with lovey dovey eyes instead.

Touchy when he’s drunk. But that’s not exclusive to you; anyone in a five foot radius of him will be subject to his arm slung around their shoulders, or him being slumped over their back, or random head ruffles.

Most commonly Armin, but I think we all knew that. Sometimes it’s Jean, and Jean is an even messier drunk, which results in the both of them actually being overly affectionate with each other in a strange, but endearing way. They both deny it to their graves when they’re sober, though.

Hovers around you. Constantly. Like a shadow. 

Does not leave you the hell alone when you’re in the kitchen. Will make it 100x more difficult for you to cook or just maneuver, which is ironic seeing as the most gourmet thing he can cook up is bagel with cream cheese. 

Sometimes Eren seems unaware of his size in comparison to you and your friends. It’s very sweet that he laughs with his whole body, but he’s got to realize that if bumps into you because of his sporadic laughter, that he might accidentally knock you into next Tuesday.

Likes when you touch his hair, doesn’t matter where or when, or who’s around. He loves it, all of it.

Will press his face against yours if he has stubble, just to be annoying. Like always.

If you hadn’t gotten it from everything else, he just likes to annoy you in general. But, like, affectionately. I keep saying it’s his love language and I mean it. Really—what it is is that he likes spending time with you, but he also likes annoying the hell out of you, too.

Bites. Not in a sexy way—well, unless you want him too—but, just because. Bites your shoulder when you’re not expecting it, bites your cheek while you’re in the middle of watching a show. Sometimes he takes your hand in his and your think it’s going to be sweet and he’s going to kiss it, but really he just brings it to his mouth to bite it.

Bites your ass, too. Again, just for fun. Because he thinks he can get away with it. Biting is a love language I’m telling y’all.

Likes to give you piggy back rides, even if you don’t ask for them or need one. You could be going from your room to the living room and Eren insists on carrying you there. 

And for some reason, he thinks that because he likes to hold/lift you, that that should apply to you as well?? Like he’s not 6′1 and big bodied, hello?? Eren you cannot just jump on top of people, you’re grown. 

He lets you dress him a lot. His fashion sense isn’t bad, and to be honest with you, I think he’d be a little bit of a hypebeast LOL. I don’t mean decked out head to toe in Supreme (god forbid...) but definitely has a bit of a sneaker obsession.

Not that he keeps them clean or is obsessive about creasing them he couldn’t care less. He just thinks they’re cool. Maybe even some accessories too, like those KAWS toys. Not a lot because they’re hard to get, but is really proud of his little growing collection.

But if you want to dress him up, he’s down for it. Would even let you buy him a pea coat so he can pretend to be a scholar. (He’s not BYE). He’ll tell you if something really isn’t his style, but he’ll wear it if you tell him he looks hot 🙄

Kinda forces his way into your life in little ways. Like, he’ll start adding his favorite snacks to your grocery lists. Moves a pair of your shoes from the door to make room for his own when he’s over. Basically claims two drawers for himself in your dresser. Annoying. Endearing.

Lowkey has his own intricate skincare routine, but he likes doing it with you more. He’ll make it a whole thing, and buy wine, and stupid drinking card games, and sit with you on your bed for 2 hours playing while your face masks dry. 

Texts you if you’re in the same room as him, but not paying attention to him. Especially if you’re doing schoolwork.

Throws pillows at you while you’re sitting at your desk to get your attention. He could just say your name, but it’s so much more fun this way (according to him anyway). It’s all fun and games until you smother him with one. 

Thinks arguing with you is cute, and sometimes says or does—or doesn’t do, for that matter—things just to incite an argument. Not a big one, or something serious, just petty things to rile you up so he can kiss and make up for it. For example, he’ll purposely putting the dishes in the wrong place, or hiding the remote from you, or putting his clothes in the wrong hamper.

“Eren, I swear to god, if you don’t stop putting the water bottles on the top shelf—” “What are you gonna do it about, pretty girl? Hit me with it? You can’t even reach—ow!”

being your loudest hype man (words of affirmation) 

The amount of pictures he has of you... criminal. From off-guards, to posed photos, to selfies, to screenshots, he has them all tucked away in a little folder with your name and a string of very inappropriate emojis after it.

Screenshots 90% of your snaps to him, even if his just of your eyebrows up. Sometimes because he thinks it’s funny, sometimes to save the picture because he likes it, but mostly because he knows you don’t understand WHY and that’s gives him the most satisfaction 😌

Loud and annoying in your comments on social media too. Hype man almost to a cringe fail level. He doesn’t care though, he has to let it be known. 

You could post a simple picture of you and Mikasa at lunch and Eren is in the comments screaming as per usual. @jaegerbomb: do i see TWO pretty best friends??? fuck it up besties 😫🥵🥵😜

GOD. HE WOULD RESPOND WITH “SO TRUE, BESTIE” TO ANYTHING ONCE HE LEARNS WHAT IT MEANS.

Oh, but he doesn’t take to it lightly when you call him bestie, or refer to him as your friend in any capacity. He’s your boyfriend, and would like to be labeled as such.

If you did that prank where you pick up the phone while you’re around him and say “Oh, I’m not too busy, I’m hanging with a friend right now,” he would pout about it for days. Days. Doesn’t get over it, and reminds you of your transgressions every two to three business weeks.

Tells you you look hot all the time, regardless of what you’re doing or wearing. He means it, too, genuinely, he thinks you’re hot. But he does get a kick out of how potentially embarrassed it makes you.

Tells you you’re smart and beautiful and his favorite person on the planet. He means it, always, even if the delivery isn’t romantic. Although, he would argue that telling you he would “tap that” is very romantic. 

for him: receiving gifts & words of affirmation

Eren would be really humbled and honored to receive a gift from you. He needs to receive physical affection, too—but something about you thinking about him enough to buy or make him a gift that he’ll love and cherish really hits home for him. He doesn’t have many people who would do that for him.

If you buy him anything, he’s using it the second it’s out of the wrapping paper. You buy him shoes? He’s wearing them the next day. A new case for his phone? Rips the old one off in an instant. A little trinket for his keychain? He can barely remember to carry his keys in the first place, but suddenly he can’t ever forget them now.

He just can’t get over the fact that you think about him and know him well enough to tailor your purchases to his liking. It’s almost an impossible concept to him, and really reassuring that you love him as much as he loves you.

On a similar note, he actually doesn’t mind couple items, as long as they’re not obvious and/or corny. Down to have a pair of matching hats or phone cases or even sneakers. You don’t even have to always/only wear them at the same time, just knowing you have the same thing at home kinda makes him feel fuzzy inside.

He also thinks it’s hot. He can’t explain why knowing his girl has the same kicks at him is hot, he just knows it is.

As much as he likes telling you how hot you are, Eren also likes to hear that you find him attractive—and that you like him, in general. For the most part, he gets that from your physical reciprocity and quite literally letting him hover around you like a fly, but it’s nice to be told with words every once in a while.

For as much as he knows it, he gets a little caught of guard whenever you tell him you love him. He knows you love him, but hearing it sometimes is a little surreal to him. Very reassuring, too, and everyone needs a little reassurance from time to time.

[nancywheelxr]

For Sokka/Zuko prompt (2/?): Sokka saving Zuko after miscalculation how long he can hold his breath during the North Pole Siege

anon, like i said before, you are an angel and I hope you like this

*

Sokka is going to kill Aang.

No, seriously, he means it, the next time he sees the kid, he’s going to murder him because this is all his fault. It has to be, because there is no other explanation for this except Aang beginning to rub off on him. There really, really isn’t.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he murmurs, dragging Zuko out of the freezing water and away from the cracking ice. Honestly, the guy is heavier than he looks and Sokka bets it must be the crushing weight of all those issues. “Should’ve let you drown, asshole.”

And you know what? He stands by that. The little voice at the back of his head that sounds annoyingly like Aang be damned, Sokka should have taken one look at the jerk, incandescent hands slamming against the thick ice, too cold in the freezing water to properly melt the frozen floor, wide eyes blinking sluggishly, and, and– okay, fine. Maybe Sokka couldn’t look the other way and pretend he didn’t see him.

Still. He resents Aang for not being there to convince him to save the guy and let Sokka advocate for the drowning. You know, for argument’s sake, just ‘cause Zuko’s the freaking Fire Nation prince that’s been chasing them all the way since the South Pole and they should at least make an effort to look like they’re doing this under duress.

“Come on, we can’t stay here, wake up, jerk,” well. Sokka can’t stay here, he has a duty and also, the place will be crawling with soldiers soon, but if he leaves Zuko here, there’s no telling if he’ll make it. Do Firebenders get hypothermia? The guy looks hypothermic enough, at least.

Something explodes nearby.

Staying here any longer would be crazy. Sokka eyes Zuko consideringly. “I did my best,” he says, frowning because it sounds weak even to himself and he already knows what he’s going to do, “truly, it’s tragic. I dragged him out of the water, but there was nothing I could do. Too many Fire Nation soldiers around,” he grumbles, heaving one of Zuko’s arms around his shoulder and getting only a faint mumbling in response, “I had to leave him there.”

Just to be clear, though, Sokka is only doing this– he’s only dragging Zuko across the town in the middle of a Fire Nation invasion because he’s gone through all this trouble already to keep the asshole alive, it would be a waste to leave him for dead now. Hey, he didn’t spend five minutes slamming at the ice with his boomerang for nothing, okay?

“What were you thinking anyway?” He asks him, because the only thing worse than be dragging your nemesis around is to be dragging your nemesis around in silence. “Stupid firebender swimming around. At night! Were you trying to die?”

Another mumble. At least that’s better than the wheezing sound from when he first came out of the water, he figures.

“And I mean, it’s pretty clear this whole thing isn’t your doing,” he continues, ducking under a bridge to avoid the worst of the fight, “it’s way too organized, and honestly? Last time we checked, you didn’t have an entire fleet with you.”

And, not the Sokka would say it aloud, but it just doesn’t seem like something Zuko would do. From what they’ve seen of the guy so far, he’s less about conquering and invading, and more like capture the Avatar, restore my honor, blah, blah, blah. Which makes bringing him straight to Aang probably a very stupid thing. 

Damn.

He groans. What’s he supposed to do now? Zuko’s a dead weight at his side and he has no idea where Yue and the others went, even though he’s supposed to be protecting Yue. And Katara. And Aang. 

Instead, here he is, shuffling into another alley. “This is all your fault,” he glares at the still unconscious moron prince. “Yours and Aang’s. There’s a blizzard outside, did you know?! What, you were just going to get Aang and walk out on the snowstorm?!”

Zuko still doesn’t answer him. He does begin to shiver, though, so that’s something? Better than hypothermia, that’s for sure. Still, Zuko’s shivering and looking sad in his wet clothes, and this is something, at least, that Sokka can help. He can take his own fur coat and drape across him.

“Yeah, you didn’t really think this one through, did you?” He sighs, letting his head thump lightly against the wall behind him. “Me neither, buddy. I’m supposed to be looking after the princess, but I’ve got no idea where they went. I guess I’m looking after you instead, huh? I’m not happy about it either, trust me.”

If only he had some sort of rope– Sokka groans. How does he keep getting in these situations? He levels Zuko with a resentful look. “Why is it always you?” Looking at Zuko now, though, it’s pretty hard to muster much anger. He doesn’t look very intimidating like this– his hair is falling out of his ponytail and his face is paler than usual, his scar stark against the white. Actually, he looks a lot younger like this. Aang had called him a teenager when they met him, but Sokka thinks this might be the first time he’s ever thought of him like that. It’s pretty messed up. Zuko can’t be much older than Sokka– a year? Maybe less? Oddly, it makes him wonder how did he end up here, like this, hunting Aang in a banged up warship and only his Uncle along. Shouldn’t a prince have like, more back up?

Not that Sokka is complaining, it could be a lot worse than Zuko, it could’ve been someone like freaking Zhao. He doesn’t think Zhao would have kept his promise not to destroy his village back in the South Pole. Actually, the guy would’ve probably started with the destroying and left the questions for later.

A hoarse shout shakes off that line of thinking pretty quick.

Zuko wakes up all at once– one second he’s lying motionless on the ice, chest rising and falling steadily faint, pale and pitiful wrapped in Sokka’s furs, and the next he’s fumbling with the cloth, tangling himself further with frantic movements. His eye zeroes in on Sokka, widening as far as they go for a split moment, and managing only a flickering flame with his trembling hands, probably too busy heating up to do any proper firebending.

“Oh, goody, you’re alive,” Sokka says, choosing to let the sarcasm bleed on his voice and quietly grip his boomerang a little tighter, just in case. 

“What,” Zuko coughs up, and the shivering is back, and Sokka doesn’t think he means to be furrowing further into the coat like that. “Where– you. What have you done to me?”

Yeah, Sokka should probably have seen that one coming. Still, “hey! I saved your life! You did all the drowning yourself, buddy!”

 Zuko frowns. Hysterically, Sokka kind of wants to smooth that out, go back to the young look from before. The frown is a very angsty one, though, and full of suspicion, which is fair, all things considered, but he still takes offense. They’re the good guys, after all, they’re not the ones doing the invading.

Spirits, the invasion. Sokka doesn’t have time for this, he needs to find Katara and Aang, he needs to find Yue, he needs– 

“Why?”

He blinks. “Why what?”

“You said you saved me,” Zuko is still sounding worse for wear, rough and cracking at the edges, but there’s some color returning to his cheeks, the shivering finally dying down.

And isn’t that the question? Well, not really. It’s what Aang would have done and that’s usually a pretty good moral compass. Sokka shrugs, “it was the right thing to do. You’re a jerk, but even you didn’t deserve to die like that.”

Zuko doesn’t seem to know what to do with that information, faint steam wafting off his now dry clothes, and Sokka has half a mind to ask for his coat back, a weird tightness on his chest the only thing holding him back– the same odd feeling that sort of made the Aang excuse taste a tiny bit like a lie.

No time to dwell on that, though. Before Zuko could brood some more or throw any other wild accusation, a shadow falls over the both of them, Zuko’s weird uncle pausing at the start of the alley and taking in the scene. His face kind of does a complicated thing where he looks like he wants to bundle Zuko on his arms in the tightest hug in the country but knows Zuko would probably like, throw a fit and then die of dramatic indignation, and Sokka feels like maybe he shouldn’t be witnessing this, especially because the angry jerk is looking like he maybe wouldn’t go so far as dying if hugs were to be involved.

“Nephew,” the old man says, and the relief is his voice is palpable, “you are alive– I feared–”

“I’m fine, Uncle,” Zuko cuts in, getting up in wobbly legs and giving Sokka a wide berth as he inches his way along the wall.

“I owe you a great debt, young man,” he continues, now turning to Sokka with such a grateful face, it’s really hard to remember he’d been doing some chasing the Avatar just weeks ago. He looks so normal. “You saved him when most would not and for that, I can never thank you enough.”

“Uncle!”

“Erm, you’re welcome?” Sokka clears his throat, loosening his rip on the boomerang, suddenly awkward.

“Have you thanked him yet, Prince Zuko?”

“I–”

Iroh– well, Sokka thinks that his name, at least– doesn’t glare, but his eyebrows do a very disappointed move and Zuko seems to cave like a sullen teenager. It’s kind of great. And very surreal, honestly, Sokka is kinda just rolling with it at this point. “Thank you,” Zuko bows, making a very fire nation-y sign with his hands, adds softer, “Sokka.”

“Huh, you do know my name.”

A loud explosion interrupts whatever retort Zuko had been planning, and Iroh grimaces. “I’m afraid we are running out of time,” the grave expression seems foreign in his face and Sokka feels a terrible dread in the pit of his stomach, “Zhao plans on doing the unthinkable– he is going to kill the moon spirit.”

Well, it’s official, then. Zuko’s just been demoted from the worst to pass on the title to Zhao. “Is that even– I mean, how?”

“The Avatar,” Zuko says, but it’s a weak complaint, even he knows stopping the murder of an ancient spirit ranks a bit higher, like immediate catastrophe higher. “Fine,” he snaps, hands curling into fists, “but Zhao is mine.”

Okay, because that sounds like it’s not going to blow up on their faces at all. Not that it matters, because Sokka knows that it’s a done deal now. There’s something urgent in the air, pressing down on them, almost buzzing with the expectations of a tragedy. They’ll need all the help they can get if they mean to stop Zhao’s idiotic plan.

Sokka looks at Iroh, at Zuko. He’s still wearing the fur coat, stretched across his shoulders, sleeves too short at his wrists. 

“You guys,” he feels the need to say, “are the worst. But we should probably hurry up, then.”

[punkremus]

okay, i have listened to the playlist in full and here are my thoughts (please forgive my rambling; i had so much fun with this and it allowed me to procrastinate the next chapter so truly thank you ❤️):

“go fuck yourself”: as i listened, i tried to categorize them into either din/reader/or reader&din songs and this one felt very din&reader. just this tandem slog through life beside one another without really being together (yet).

“fresh blood”: oh a din song, absolutely. the line “i know you’re probably gettin’ ready for bed” made me think of gorgu too 😩

“help i’m alive”: shit that’s the reader in a nutshell omg. “hard to be tough/tough to be tender” OOF

“i come with knives”: BITCH THE VIBES OF THIS SONG. right off the bat. damn! idk wtf they’re saying in the german section, but i’m fucking here fOR IT!!!!

“angel of small death…”: i am obsessed with the idea of the reader somehow being seen as this tiny, magnificent force. like so much bigger than herself even though she doesn’t realize it quite yet.

“sour times”: ooh, this song. gosh, where to start? it has such a dangerous thread to it. it makes me think of them tiptoeing around one another in this eggshell sort of dance, not knowing who will break first. cHilLS

“broken boy solider”: someone give DIN DJARIN A HUG. this is his inner theme song on a constant loop.

“if you run”: wow—such a change of pace, but i love it. i think NH has such a grungy, metal feel to it (idk what i’m talking about) but also some folksy whimsy and this song fits that perfectly in my head. also: “fading into each other’s arms/he took her down to his hiding place” i don’t think that’s supposed to be romantic, but i’m pretending it is. sue me.

“give up the ghost”: this song makes me kinda emo. a din&reader to be sure. them both just wanting to be loved by each other, too afraid to ask. FUCK.

“black flies”: yES another folksy! the refrain at the end really gets me good. right in the heart.

“gasoline”: aw hell yeah. another reader BOP. she’s got such a bitchy vibe; i love it.

“dark”: shit… “I am the dark one in my bloodline/I fear my shadow like a beast/It's a lingering mellow that won't leave me/I fear one day it'll swallow me whole” is this…. her backstory in a nutshell? idk, you tell me.

“fuel to the fire”: this gives me reader addressing din vibes. like a pained loved letter to him.

“biting down”: to be frank, i don’t know what the fuck this song is talking about. but somehow, in relation to nighthawks, i get it.

“no one knows”: DIN. A DIN SONG. BECAUSE HE’S LIKE A BLANK BILLBOARD, IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE, IMPOSSIBLE TO READ. LOVE IT.

“virgin”: the chorus of this song… damn. i don’t know how to describe what it makes me imagine. them, together, still unsure of their future, just… trying?

“bully”: the line “bet you never though that I could be the one to let you down” makes me think of this as another song addressing din. woof.

“toxic”: britney, is that you? almost, but this version is better.

“master’s hands”: i feel like i’m ascribing every song to the reader and not enough to din….. but….. i just love her.

“hearing damage”: ooh! this is an interesting one! “You wish you felt better/In my eyes” feels quite din to me?

“howling”: oh fuuuuuuuuck they’re gonna be so in love one day and this is gonna be IT for them. “You were plush and I laid bare” DAMMIT

“troubled waters”/“patron saint hunter”: i just love the folksy vibe nighthawks can have at the same time as the metal/headbangers. i’m so glad that comes through the fic and i’m not the only one who felt that way.

“easy”: again, lorde with these confusing bangers that somehow just…. are chef’s kiss and fit perfectly to the mood of the fic. at least in my head!

“third eye”: this again feels like a song for the future of the fic, as things begin to unfold for them and they become more comfortable with one another.

“howl”: this definitely feels like a din&reader song! makes me wanna shimmy my shoulders hehe

“clockwork”: how do you find these songs that just fit them both so perfectly? there’s lines that could go for one or the other or for both and just… YOUR BRAIN

i cannot thank you enough for the gift of this playlist. it means more than you know. ❤️

Oh my god. OH MY GOD YOU WENT THROUGH EACH ONE??

Whew. Okay.

I am so glad you like this!! Music is how I process things, and it's like the only thing I contribute to fandom. My spotify looks like a crazy person's. Seriously.

I just gahhhhh!! Thank you for taking them time to write all this out. And I have some other Thoughts ✨

1. go fuck yourself: sexy vibes, but like, you hate this person. big vibes for current nighthawks.

2. fresh blood: again, sexy vibes but the line "beautiful woman get out of my head" just reminds me of Din thinking about Reader in the last chapter.

3. help i'm alive: I mean, that's just Reader. But also Din. I feel like they are such good parallels of each other.

4. I come with knives: again, just Reader. I love her, your honor.

5. Angel of small death: reader is a pint sized power house and it breaks Din's brain. That is all.

6. Sour times: I feel like even though they don't get each other yet, Din and Reader are so similar. "Nobody loves me it's true, not like you do"

7. Broken boy soldier: so I was actially thinking of Reader for this, but it totally fits for Din too now that I'm thinking about it. But just the line "I'm throwing the childhood things away" reminds me of Reader and Jeelia.

8. If you run: "if you run, you better have a place to go" that is all.

9. Give up the ghost: they both have so much baggage to work through, it thought it was a good song.

10. Black flies: "I don't want to beg your pardon, I don't want to ask you why, if I was to go my own way, would I have to pass you by"

11. Gasoline: just. Sex with no feelings vibes. (For now 👀)

12. dark: hit the nail on the head. Just tons of past Reader thoughts.

13. Fuel to fire: I mean, that's just their relationship in a title so far.

14. Biting down: this whole song is a drug reference, but the vibe reminds me of just bracing yourself through the pain because it's all you know and it's better than the alternative

15. No one knows: "oh what you do to me, no one knows" fun fact - I like this version better than the original (QOTSA fans, don't come at me)

16. Virgin: this entire song is about how you can devote your life to something (creed/son, or family/sister) and it can still be taken away in an instant

17. Bully: "I like it when you play too rough, so tell me when you've had enough"

18. Toxic: I mean...the ultimate dark sexy vibes

19. Master's Hands: "Pull my strings and cut my rope, rattle my frame and shatter my ghost" works with Din teaching her hunting and also works for sexy times 😏

20. hearing damage: "a tear in my brain allows the voices in" and "they say you're getting better, but you don't feel any better"

21. howling: "Cold I fell into your skin on the night you let me under your sin. You had me howling"

22. troubled waters: big reader and her past vibes. "I must be one of the devil's daughters"

23. patron saint hunter: "keep the family in, keep the family sin" and "evil isn't in your core"...i just love Reader okay

24. Easy: "easy, pull out your heart to make the being alone easy" they're just two lonely people with so much baggage, don't look at me

25. Third eye: "don't make a shadow of yourself, always shutting out the light" and "Cause there's a hole where your heart lies, I see it with my third eye."

26. Howl: "you are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl"

27. Clockwork: one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands. "Just like clockwork I react. You wind me up until I crack."

Aaaaaanywayyyy I'm just so happy you like it and I absolutely cannot wait for whatever you write next ✨

[beautifulterriblequeen]

King Runaan of the Moonshadow Elves, pt 5

Viren’s Plan and Runaan’s Shirt

Angst Rating: 9/10

You know the line from Hamlet: “Methinks the lady doth protest too much”? Meaning someone is trying too hard to seem innocent? That is the vibe I always got from this line of Viren’s.

I couldn’t really figure out how he could’ve invited them, and that’s not the full focus of this section of my King Runaan theory. But I do think Viren basically did just that. Here’s how I see it going:

Viren got into the Storm Spire and saw the egg and the magic mirror. We don’t see him pay it any mind, but you know a smart, enterprising, pragmatic guy like that noticed a not-dragon-sized mirror in their lair. The biggest power couple in all the land has something secretive and unique. He wants it, and he wants its power. He just helped his friend kill the King of the Dragons. This mirror, and this egg—as Tiadrin suggests—are powerful, and they’re now free real estate.

So he takes them, as we know. But he wants to know how to use the mirror, not just possess it. And the key to his master plan—which kinda got derailed but still isn’t entirely complete—is written on Lain and Tiadrin’s faces.

They’re Moonshadow assassins, bound to the Dragon Throne. I’m assuming Viren knows this because it’s ancient history and current events rolled into one, even in human lands. The Dragon King or Queen sends out Moonshadow assassins to do their bidding ever since the humans got kicked out of Xadia. Everyone with a stake in a human kingdom knows that.

Viren also likes his research, though. He wants to minimize threats to Harrow’s power, so he’s as familiar as possible with Moonshadow assassins. And in a bright aha moment there in the Spire, Viren hatches his master plan. If he kills the egg simply to protect Harrow and Katolis, he won’t get answers about the mirror. The elves might not avenge a grizzled and warlike king who committed terrible acts of his own. But they will absolutely avenge the death of an innocent egg, with the most powerful assassin they can send.

Just the elf Viren is looking for: the king of the Moonshadow elves will know all about Xadia’s magical history, its relics, its threats, and so on. And he knows just how to get this king to deliver himself to Viren’s doorstep, because that king is also an assassin.

He steals the egg, and he steals the Moonshadow elves to use as a threat against him. He may or may not have any idea that Lain and Tiadrin know Runaan as well as they do. But if they’re Moonshadow elves in the Storm Spire, they’re assassins, bound to service as their king is, and he’ll know them at least a little. It’s good enough.

Yadda yadda yadda, Runaan pops up in Katolis with his assassins. 

Why was Marcos patrolling the woods the night before the full moon, anyway? Perhaps Viren ordered extra patrols. If you’re expecting trouble, a dead scout who doesn’t report in means the same thing as a live scout pounding on the door.

Viren was right there at the battle outside Harrow’s chamber door. The High Mage of Katolis, standing there and watching. He was looking for someone he knew would be there, because he’d all but sent him an engraved invitation. And he was studying all the assassins’ markings until he found the elf wearing the brightly glowing painted crownmarks on his shoulders.

Target acquired.

Once he located the king of the Moonshadows, he made sure that Runaan survived, and no one else. After the battle, Runaan lost his royal tunic and his hoodie, but he still had on his armored vest, green shirt, and gloves. 

Yet the next time we see him in the dungeon, he’s lost all of those things.

Viren took off his shirt. He took it off to look for the mark of the Moon staff. And he took off his gloves too. Making very sure he’s got the right elf, while also making him colder and more vulnerable as a prisoner of war. We keep hearing mention that Runaan’s shirt mysteriously went missing. That’s because its removal was a plot point.

Viren put the King of the Moonshadows on his knees and kept him there for a week, hungry, injured, cold, and unable to escape his fun little magic-experiment games, in order to soften him up. He knew who Runaan was the whole time, but he was only interested in the information Runaan could provide him. He didn’t care about his name or his title, calling him only “elf.”

If you have a starving king in your dungeon and you want something from him, you go out of your way to acquire rare Xadian fruits, because that’s what Moonshadows eat, and Viren assumes kings eat well even in Xadia. There was a jelly tart on that tray, too, but it was persimmon, not the dark red that looks closer to moonberry. So close, Viren!

But one does not simply bribe the Moonshadow King, and one does not threaten him easily, either. Runaan has lived his life at war and in the shadows. Viren’s fake kindness isn’t even remotely scary, and Runaan is quietly contemptuous. Even the threat that Viren so carefully planned when he kidnapped Lain and Tiadrin only drives Runaan to broody silence, giving him no answers.

Viren says he’s heard of “I am already dead,” but he doesn’t truly understand it. He describes it to Runaan in unfeeling terms, as if he learned it from a book. So when he finally resorts to verbalizing death threats, it feels like his big dramatic finish. But that’s not what makes a dent in Runaan’s stoic exterior. It’s the mirror.

Runaan is probably directly descended from the Moonshadow elf or elves who collaborated on locking Aaravos away. Despite how long they may live naturally, assassin lives may burn through faster, so I won’t guess at how many generations separate him from that time in history. But he’s well schooled in the history and facts as his people see them. He knows quite a lot about the mirror. Enough to actually scare him. Runaan has been dancing with death his whole life. It’s his job and his calling. But this mirror and what it represents is so much worse than falling honorably in battle.

And now a dark mage wants to use it. Runaan’s had a hard week of privation and pain. But he is still at war, and Viren is still the enemy. His first instinct is to protect literally everyone in the world from this horrific event, so he flat refuses to cooperate. And Viren loses his patience entirely.

But he doesn’t kill Runaan. That would be a waste of a perfectly good elf king! He stashes him carefully in a coin for later. One never knows when one may need a very expensive bargaining chip, after all. The pragmatic never throw anything away if it might prove useful later.

So he’s been wandering Xadia with a Moonshadow king in his pocket all this time. Just in case.

part 6

[ironmandeficiency]

day five: ba & jort

ohmygod these boys are two of my faves, can’t have one without the other which makes the longest of all the posts abt my clone boys. i guess you can say i have favorites even tho i will vehemently deny it

playlists: jacob & ba - jort/belladonna

fics: who’s my commander & 13x7=28

a/n: jacob & bella belong to @capricornrabies & the art was made by @persaloodles

warnings: mentions of smut

is a soft and precious boy who tries his best

is a soft and precious boy who tries his best

got his name from this one time when his squad had to take shelter in a barn & the sheep wouldn’t let him sleep with his brothers in the loft area, instead keeping him by them the whole night and threatening to bite jort when he tried to free his batchmate

also has v v floofy hair which also works with the name

he and jort have joint ownership of best older brother ™️ title to naturally, a soft and pure medic-in-training (refer to 13x7=28 for details)

absolute mother hen to anyone and everyone. doesn’t matter if he met you an hour ago, you’re going to get mothered by this soft sniper

“you could pour soup in my lap and i’d apologize to you”

was selectively mute for several months after leaving kamino, jort helped him come out of his shell again and it’s fabulous

jacob sutton (younger sister to jamie) is an admiral for the 91st and their star cruiser crashed, and the 25th was the closest to send aid

ba sees jacob for the first time and tried to flirt but instead inserted his foot into his mouth with his awkwardness

but it gets better between them as time goes on. these two are my personal goal for the future

they have a precious massif named yogurt

jacob found him as a puppy by a dumpster on coruscant eating from a yogurt cup and was like “yes this is my boy”

ba would sometimes get to take him on campaigns. would have to fight who half the time just to see his girlfriend’s dog. when yogurt is a puppy the 25th will carry him around in one of those pet/baby backpacks

in a world where the war ends without order 66 and clones kinda get rights (but jacob doesn’t really get them bc of her status as a not-quite-person), they get a rude awakening when they realize that they wouldn’t legally get the post-war life that they deserve bc the republic isn’t letting her go

other clones help ba smuggle jacob (yogurt was listed as an emotional support animal) off-planet and they settle down in a house they build together. there’s a wraparound porch, a porch swing, fence for yogurt, etc.

since the republic doesn’t know what to do with the baby clones, kamino is commandeered and turned into a clone adoption agency. jacob and ba end up adopting four little boys who are their absolute world. they’re batchmates and were toddlers when adopted (so like 2-3 standard years, 1-1.5 clone years)

cabuor - his name is mando’a for “protect”; the oldest of the four, as he’s older he is the most protective of his bros. is basically jamie 2.0 and even tho he loves saviin they butt heads A LOT.

saviin - name is “violet” in honor of the 25th’s paint colors. jort 2.0. absolutely chaotic but highly lovable. there’s a problem? 99% chance sav caused it. first to start trusting ba and jacob. is the kind of child you would want to put on a leash

ciryc - his name means “cold” simply bc he runs colder than the rest of them. from the time they knew how, they would all dogpile w ciryc on the bottom to keep him warm. gets free pass to snuggle closest to jacob to get warmer faster. will steal jacob’s shirts (that once belonged to ba). sunshine baby!!!

meer - personification of 🥺. got his name from jacob who affectionately calls him a meerkat (he’s smaller and skinnier than the rest). jacob has a second shadow and his name is meer. has mute spells similar to when ba was young but eventually they only happened when he was startled/in new environment

so the boys were hesitant abt their new parents at first. it was only marginally easier for them to warm up to ba bc he was a clone but it took them nearly a year of living together for them to look at jacob and think “this woman is mom-shaped”

but once they get comfortable with her, these boys are all 100% mama’s boys

jacob has a metal spine (incident during her training) that clicks when she walks/moves/does anything. ba and jacob hear it and think of the trauma that led to it, but the boys hear it and their young minds correlate it to “mom, safe, comfort”

it leads to them being able to know when jacob is close to finding them during games of hide-and-seek

ba and jacob both get tattoos that represent their sons (and yes, yogurt too)

jacob has tattoos of handprints of ba, the boys, & yogurt’s paw on her back

ba would get tiny ones for the boys: a meerkat silhouette, a splash of purple “paint”, a shield, and a snow cloud

then he gets a massive one for jacob — a copy of her metal spine tattooed over his

jort:

he’s a bastard child and is proud to be one

scout & chaos bisexual

is a whore at first but when he’s w someone, has eyes for only them

got his name when he turned his blacks into a crop top and short shorts while on felucia during a heatwave

he ended up getting a handprint tattoo on his thigh/ass bc of how often he was smacked when he wore the short shorts

he and ba have joint ownership of best older brother ™️ title to naturally, a soft and pure medic-in-training (refer to 13x7=28 for details)

prankster af

look into his eyes, there is nothing behind his eyes except for elevator music. the only time he’s allowed more than one coherent thought is when the dvd icon hits the exact corner of the screen

will play up his dumbassery around ppl he’s uncomfortable with

will bully/blackmail his bros into going to the medbay — “don’t make nat’ika sad by hiding things, he only wants to help you” bc jort isn’t gonna get caught slippin. you won’t know he’s soft on you until he’s mother-henning you the way ba and naturally do for literally everybody

can bullshit his way out of any situation

isn't the best w crying ppl and will just try to make them laugh and hope that someone that can talk abt said emotions arrives soon usually this person is ba

“and i also don’t want me to be doing what i’m doing”

ends up dating the daughter of a very prominent mob boss who runs a fashion company in the form of seven feet and eight inches tall belladonna tomb, bella for short

has no idea whatsoever that he’s dating the daughter of a very prominent mob boss

bella thinks it’s an unspoken agreement to not bring it up but jort just. doesn’t know.

since bella is seven foot eight, jort can fit into her tops and is unashamed to wear “women’s clothes”. bella will design him clothes (and LOVES to be a model for bella’s clothes). his civvie fashion is comparable to harry styles

bella’s species is half soleon/half skeleton-monster-thing (soleons are an original lion-like species & the skeleton details are all made by cap, mentioned above) (also bella’s partly translucent and you can see some organs thru her torso) and she has talons and very pointy teeth and eyes that slightly glow jort ends up getting a tattoo of her teeth marks in his ass opposite to the handprint but that’s another story

when him and bella start becoming intimate, there are lots. of. marks. teeth, talons, you name it. the medics (esp no, poor man) are frightened that jort is bragging about these marks

then jort has the brilliant idea of sneaking his giant mob boss girlfriend into the barracks while on leave. somehow, maker only knows how, but NO ONE NOTICES until

late that night when everyone’s sleeping, her and jort are sharing his bunk (it’s a tight fit but they make it work). no is doing bed checks to make sure his bros are doing okay, as a concerned medic does. since bella is dark grey in color, she blends in to the dark barracks.

jort starts to fall from the bunk in his sleep and no sees that he’s abt to fall (but does not see bella) and just as no walks to jort’s bunk to fix him, a finely manicured and taloned hand snatches him back into the bunk and gives no a death glare and she deadass GROWLS

poor medic thinks his bro is abt to get eaten by a monster but doesn’t actually do anything to protect his bro from the “monster”

no immediately runs to find who and wakes up nearly everybody in the process. by the time no returns to the barracks with who in tow, jort is awake and is like “hey guys what’s up”

“WHAT IS UP?! THERE’S A KRIFFIN MONSTER WITH CLAWS IN YOUR BUNK!!” “oh no this is bella. bella, meet the boys. the boys, meet bella.” “hi”

ba wakes up during no’s windows shutdown, looks around and sees everyone wide ass awake and then sees bella and jort, “oh hey bella” and then goes back to sleep bc he knew bella

jort did hold ba’s hand while his bro got the spine tattoo for jacob

[paradiselostbythedashboardlight]

So it’s kinda like my thing now that whenever I enjoy something with an ensemble cast, I gotta assign each character a song by The Mountain Goats, so welcome to Fire Emblem: Three Houses as Mountain Goats songs. 

Black Eagles

Edelgard: Going Invisible 2 “I'm gonna burn it all down today and sweep all the ashes away.” This song feels like her mantra for defiantly destroying everything corrupt no matter the cost. Also the slow and increasingly intense performance of the song just feels exactly how her plan unfolds. 

Hubert: Genesis 30:3 “Open up the promise of the day, drive the dark things away. I will do what you ask me to do because of how I feel about you.” I know this song is about having a baby, but the absolute yet tender loyalty feels perfect for Hubert. 

Ferdinand: Sicilian Crest “Look to the West, look to the man bearing the Sicilian crest.” This song captures the exuberance of Ferdinand while also being about blinding overconfidence and hey! It has the word crest! Fun!

Bernadetta: In the Craters of the Moon “If the strain proves too much, give up right away. If the light hurts your eyes, stay in your room all day.” Honestly, TMG is a very Bernie band what with all the paranoid isolation and abusive fathers, but I like that this one captures her sense of epic-level dread over even small interactions. 

Dorothea: Linda Blair was Born Innocent “Hungry for love, ready to drown, so tie down the sails, we're going downtown.” For a girl who just wants love, a song named after a movie about the exploitation of teen girls. 

Linhardt: Sourdoire Valley Song “Dream the pleasant dreams that people dream when they grow up down here.” A weird song about peaceful Paleolithic life that seems to align with the peaceful, sleepy world Linhardt prefers. 

Caspar: For Charles Bronson “Set you sights on good fortune, concentrate, pull back the hammer, try to hold the gun straight.” A song about giving your all, earning your place, and having the heart of a champion despite everything. 

Petra: Deuteronomy 2:10 “I have no fear of anyone, I'm dumb and wild and free. I am a flightless bird and there'll be no more after me.” This ode to a captured animal who is the last of its kind seems to align with Petra’s existence as a sort of exotic hostage in the empire. 

Blue Lions

Dimitri: Maybe Sprout Wings “I thought of old friends, the one's who'd gone missing, said all their names three times. Phantoms in the early dark, canaries in the mines.” This is just the most heartrending song about waking at night from a dream of people who are now dead, just as Dimitri is haunted by his own ghosts.  

Dedue: Sax Rohmer #1 “I am coming home to you, with my own blood in my mouth.” Loyalty, but this time with Dedue’s penchant for having to fight through literal hell for Dimitri in every route. 

Felix: Spent Gladiator 2 “Stay alive. Maybe spit some blood at the camera. Just stay alive, stay forever alive.” Since Felix is committed to fighting for survival rather than heroic sacrifice, this furiously defiant song about continuing to live despite terrible odds seems appropriate. 

Ashe: Sept 15 1983 “Try try your whole life to be righteous and be good. Wind up on your own floor, choking on blood.” A song about an unjust killing for Ashe who has to reconcile his noble ideals with the unjust death of his adoptive father. 

Sylvain: No Children “And I hope when you think of me years down the line you can't find one good thing to say. And I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you'd stay the hell out of my way.” I mean come on! The title, No CREST BABIES, also its like the ultimate anti-love song for the ultimate anti-love guy. 

Mercedes: Unmasked! “And by way of honoring the things we once both held dear. I will reveal you. I will reveal you.” I imagine this being sung both to Jeritza, masked both literally and metaphorically, with all the kindness mixed with brutal honesty that is Mercedes. 

Annette: Genesis 3:23 “Living room to bedroom to kitchen, familiar and warm. Hours we spent starving within these walls, sounds of a distant storm.” A song about breaking in to your old house aligns with Annette’s own troubled memories of a childhood marred by paternal abandonment. 

Ingrid: Age of Kings “Wolves in the hallway gaining ground. Reach down to the moment when I should have said something true. Shadows and their sources now stealing away with you.” A song about the loss of a heroic past for the idealistic girl who lost her fiancé and watched her own father try to marry her off for money. 

Golden Deer

Claude: Heel Turn 2 “Spent too much of my life now trying to play fair. Throw my better self overboard, shoot at him when he comes up for air.” Claude is so interesting as both a brutal pragmatist but also a dreamer. I really like how he can always survive the game if you let him, despite the compromises he has to make. 

Hilda: Riches and Wonders “I am healthy, I am whole, but I have poor impulse control. And I want to go home, but I am home.” This one is hard since Hilda is a pretty low angst character, but I feel like this song walks the line between her love of the finer things in life versus her eventually learning to stand on her own. 

Leonie: The Legend of Chavo Guerrero “And I need justice in my life: here it comes. Look high, it's my last hope. Chavo Guerrero, coming off the top rope.” Replace Chavo with Jeralt and we have a perfect song about hero-worship and how it can get us through hardship. 

Lorenz: The Mess Inside “Tried to find the creeping sense of dread with temporal things, most of the time I guess I felt alright.” This was another hard one, but given Lorenz’s persistent failure as a lady’s man it seems right that he would just be enjoying luxuries to distract himself from his lack of love. 

Raphael: Animal Mask “That was when we were young and green, in the dawning hours of our team. Some things you will remember, some things stay sweet forever.” One of the few genuinely sweet and happy TMG songs for a sweet and good boy. I am conceptualizing this as being about his childhood friendship with Ignatz and his role as a protector to his sister. 

Ignatz: Unicorn Tolerance “Get a momentary chance to see the thing I've been trying to beat to death, the soft creature that I used to be.” A song about forcing yourself to seem tough when you actually love unicorns, just as Ignatz tries to be a knight for his family, but he just loves art and semi-horny religious iconography. 

Marianne: In the Hidden Places “I turned my face away and I shut my eyes tight. Dreamed about the flowers that hide from the light, on dark hillsides, in the hidden places.” A song to sum up Marianne’s desire to keep herself away from anyone she might endanger. 

Lysithea: The Autopsy Garland “You don't wanna see these guys without their masks on, or their gloves.” This is more metaphorical, but the song is about the abuse of Judy Garland throughout her childhood, which parallels Lysithea’s experience with TWSITD. 

Ashen Wolves

Yuri: Fire Editorial “Lord of the hidden pocket knife. Tawdry dreams all come to life. Save yourselves, save this town, save everything not nailed down.” If anyone deserves to be called the lord of the hidden pocket knife, it’s Yuri. Also, the repeated chorus to save the town aligns with his savage defense of Abyss.

Balthus: Color in Your Cheeks “Come on in, we haven't slept for weeks, drink some of this, it'll put color in your cheeks.” A welcoming yet rowdy song for the rowdiest of boys. Also he is like an actual adult so he can serve liquor. 

Hapi: Possum by Night “All your pack dogs have your say. Let me just find my own way. Moon in the trees my guide. Walk with my jaw hinged wide.” Hapi with her prickly attitude and forced loneliness seems right for this heroic little possum. 

Constance: Game Shows Touch Our Lives “Our house sinking into disrepair, Ah, but look at this showroom filled with fabulous prizes.” The feeling of a little brightness in the despair of something fallen makes sense for Constance’s efforts to reclaim the glory of her house. 

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 49

Embassy of Stories said:Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas indeed! In honor of the bar formerly run by Roy’s foster mother, let’s see the next episode.

Last Time: Madame Christmas went on vacation, Pride got a case of the munchies, and Mrs. Bradley was “rescued” by Roy’s Crew.

Congratulations! You are being rescued. Please do not resist.

Onwards!

Episode 49 - “Filial Affection”

Beard’s trying to wake Al up from his forced nap, while Pride WHOA NELLY his artwork seems a little harsher than I remember and you can definitely tell he’s got the power of two Goths in one package, the Shadow Blades are back with ferocity as he tries to draw Beard out by attacking his other son. Ed’s dodging and weaving yikes!

…

Ha! As much as I’ve been crowing about Ed growing taller, he’s still short enough to duck under Pride’s Shadow Mouth attack that chops the tree he was against. Now it’s Greedling’s turn to backflip to safety, and hoo boy. Lan Fan I know you have a massive crush on your young lord but in the middle of a battle against an upgraded Pride is not the time to demand Greed surrender control of the body. And cripes I’d forgotten about your arm, as much as you want to help now you’re no good if by trying to fight you aggravate your injury and turn yourself into a liability.

See? Ed agrees with me, Lan Fan tries insisting she doesn’t need help right after Ed kicked her away from a Shadow Mouth, as much as I like her she needs to back off until she can help without hurting herself. The other ninja is helping away Lion who’s apologizing for not killing Pride earlier, but Greed brushes it off.

[Greed]: “Heh! Don’t sweat it. Can’t exactly fault you for that one. Even I consider him to be a monster.”

Beams of light? Hey, Al’s back! Poor kids a bit confused on waking up halfway across the country, and understandably upset that Pride hijacked his friggin soul. Beard’s taking an analytical approach to the issue, thinking that as aspects of his own counterpart they’re close-enough “relatives” they can influence Al’s seal through his blood. Cheery!

The genetics lesson’s interrupted by Fu and Lion arriving with news. Good News: they’re down to one Goth. As for the Bad News… Al angsts about getting caught oh poor baby it’s not your fault. This is freaking Pride, the First Goth we’re talking about here. Backed up by Gluttony and with your fainting spells, they’re the ones to blame, not you. Fu reports that Pride’s got plenty of light for shadows with the spreading fire and he’s out of flashbangs. They need to think of something before the villagers oh-so-helpfully show up to put out the fire and get slaughtered by Pride. Time for Beard to show his powers?

Al’s hashing out an idea with Beard, so we cut to Greed and Ed getting batted around by Pride. Unfortunately the Goth’s done a bit of gardening, no more trees to take the hits for our heroes. Lan Fan’s hanging out by the edge of the clearing nope never mind Pride’s got her pinpointed with his enhanced sense of smell… hey, Ed! You got any more dynamite stashed somewhere?

[Greed]: “Ugh… dammit! Hey, you still breathing over there?”

[Ed]: “Does wheezing count?”

Oh neat, Prides calling Greed out on caring for others. And notably Greed didn’t argue against that, say something like “I’m just protecting my possessions” or whatever. He just called Pride a monster. Aw, is Greed getting character development?

Ew ew don’t call yourself Greed’s brother you little gremlin. You don’t get to claim family ties (oooh I just got the title ok then) when you’re getting ready to eat your “sibling”.

[Greed the First]: “Just don’t blame me when I give you a stomachache! You did it to yourself!”

Pride’s sniffing? Adventure Strings? YES. Beard is entering the fray! Show us what you can do, Papa Elric.

Wait what? “The hero always waits until the last second to make his move.” Pffft no. Buddy, if you think you’re the Protagonist of the show then I’ve got some bad news for you. Unless this is just grandstanding for Al’s plan…

But now he’s just standing there, cheerfully saying that he could never possibly fight Pride. Which unnerves the Goth so much he withdraws his Shadow Mouths and focuses all his attention on Beard NOW AL ATTACK FROM BEHIND damnit.

[Pride]: “Are you joking? This was your pathetic plan?”

Uh I kinda have to agree with Pride here, your plan was to charge screaming across the field to try and punch Pride in the face? This can’t be it, but Beard’s holding Ed back and Al’s forced to his knees among Pride’s shadows.

Oh hell no you did not just call Al stupid. Ed, push past your father and kick his-

[ShinyGlasses!Beard]: “That’s crossing a line, Pride. Don’t ever mock my son!”

RED ALERT RED ALERT RED SPARKS BEARD’S IN THE FIGHT NOW HERE WE GO

Hooooly Leto. So while standing completely still, Beard’s tearing up the ground to form a giant dome over Pride and Al, and if the dome blocks all the light and Al’s right there now without any shadows to bind him, then Al can pick up where Lion left off!

Huh. So Al’s plan wasn’t to finish Pride off, but just to trap him? Huh. I mean, there’s no way this is going to stick until the Promised Day is over, you can’t just shove the secondary Protagonist in a cage a dozen episodes before the finale. But what about the comment of Al’s body not needing food or water or air? Is little Selim going to start choking and Good Guy Al will have to decide between breaking the trap or watching an apparent little child suffocate?

Whatever happens the dome is holding for now, and Beard’s explaining that Al told him not to warn Ed, who’s a little upset that his brother’s stuck in a cage with a Goth. Beard goes to put the fires out, while Ed yells through the stone at Al who apologizes for the bad reunion. Sorry kids, hopefully this will blow over soon.

Greed? Greed what are you doing? Why are you leaving the good guys… aw, damnit! Dude come on, I was just complimenting you on your character growth earlier this episode, don’t go and pull a Vegeta on me now!

[Ling]: “Hey Greed! What the hell are you planning?”

[Greed]: “Heh. I’ve told you; I’m planning on ruling the entire world.”

Mid-ep pictures of Pride and Kimblee damnit not this guy again. Uuuuugh. Fine whatever he got mildly competent again after tricking the Drachmans into attacking and dying so I’ll try to cut him some slack.

A couple of hobos are around a bin fire, talking about all the Ishvalans who have moved into the neighborhood. Kind of like that murderer with the distinctive scar on his well look who it is! Scar politely asks for directions, but gets a little upset when he learns that May Chang came back through wait a few weeks ago?! Jeez I keep forgetting there’s been such a large time skip. But where is she? And for that matter, where’s the Goth she was carrying?

Scar also doesn’t like his people being called terrorists and accused of blowing up Bradley’s train. Because they’ve got that whole Honorable Warrior Race thing going on where even Scar justified his killings with the fact that he faced people directly. But soon enough they’ll be seen as allies and heroes of the Amestrians!

...well, other Ishvalans will be seen as allies and heroes. These guys seem to have come down with a case of death, courtesy of someone humming to the Sinister String Music yup it’s Kimblee, skipping over bloody corpses and berating himself for getting his tailor-made suit dirty before the scheduled “fun” starts.

In the Dome, Pride’s trying to tunnel out with a stick before Al tells him it’s pointless. So of course he drops the wood and goes for Al’s discarded metal helmet with the sharp point on it, nice job getting the baddie to upgrade again. Although now Pride’s stopped moving as Al points out the biggest flaw in the Goth’s plan: the humans. They’re needed as “sacrifices”, but the whole thing would have fallen apart if they had just said Fuck It and joined ARMSTRONG SR. and family on the vacation to Xing.

Oooh, but the Goths were banking on the Protagonists to be that selfish and leave them to cause havoc in their wake. Pride even brings up Mrs. Bradley, who once got between Pride and a car crash. She obviously didn’t know the truth, but she still risked her own life to protect what she loved. And the Sacrifices were chosen specifically because they were “a step above that”, with souls so strong they would never turn their backs on those who needed help.

[Pride]: “So explain to me again, how were our plans so sloppy?”

While Pride and Al are debating humanity and compassion, Roy’s visiting Hughes’ grave when Riza comes to check on him.

[Afterlife!Hughes]: “Alright, you guys are going into the final fight. Riza, now’s the time to- wait no Roy stop! Damnit man she was just about to say something but you had to put on your Commander Face and walk right past her! You were going to have a moment dude! Get back here and confess your love, you idiot!”

Alright so Scar’s crew have reached the clearing ooooh no. No no no crap dudes don’t notice the Dome and get close and get tricked into opening it. Whew ok good, the respective Chimeras of the groups have met up and spent so long accusing eachother of still working for Worst Boss Ever that Ed was able to run up and get them to face Shorty as a common annoyance. Later they’re catching up over the campfire-

[Toad]: “Once the sun comes up, things are going to get rough.”

[Gorilla]: “I know. Let’s just hope that everyone makes it through the day alive.”

Welp you’ve signed your death warrant. Nice knowing you, Gorilla.

Fu’s heading off to do some recon in Central, I predict that’ll last right up until he finds Greed pulling a coup and is torn between helping the Protagonists and siding with the Goth inhabiting his charge’s body. In the meantime, you gonna explain your strategy? Nope? Relying on the Unspoken Plan Guarantee? Alright then.

Aw there’s that Red Jacket that got tossed aside a few episodes ago. I’m sorry, I just got really attached to the White Jacket and the character growth that the outfit change symbolized, but I’ll agree that the original look is closely tied to Al’s character. I’ll try to get over it.

[Ed]: “Al’s doing everything possible to keep us safe. The rest of it… That’s up to us!”

End-credit music kicks off as Ed dons his jacket and the sun rises on The Promised Day.

After-credits: A young blonde girl is yelling at her sleepy older brother to get up or he’ll miss the solar eclipse. But Older Brother wakes right up when his younger brother sees smoke, which turns out to be Roy destroying government property. An officer’s getting the update that they know it’s Roy’s group doing the damage but they’ve got Mrs. Bradley as a hostage so they can’t never mind Officer just said they were all expendable except for Roy. Cue troops in berets smashing through windows, even as Riza holds a gun to poor Mrs. Bradley’s head.

[Beret!Officer]: “The only one we need alive is Mustang. Kill the rest.”

Mrs. Bradley is not pleased to hear that.

…

Gunshot?

Gunshots?

…

Well ok then.

[rqgnarok]

the turns of the heart, or: coming home – derek hale

continuation to this.

fandom: teen wolf

words: 2555

warnings: talk of blood, death, teen wolf spoilers, if you haven’t finished the series? brief mention of a kinda ptsd episode. STILINSKI!READER

summary: some things aren’t the same as when derek left beacon hills behind.

author's note below.

Coming home shouldn’t feel like this, but then again, Derek Hale has never been quite good at it.

He’s driving, into what he feels is another one of Gerard’s deathtraps, but he learned long ago that he’d be willing to follow Scott McCall and his pack literally anywhere, even if it also meant for him to be willing to lose his own life. He turns, for a moment, from staring at the road to gaze at the youngest Stilinski in the copilot seat, and any tranquility he had acquired after seeing his pack again fades as anxiety fills his tensed muscles. He can smell it, too, (Y/N) reeks of it as she realizes Derek’s staring, eyes tearing her apart as they’ve done many times before, and yet, it’s different. 

He hadn’t been away this long before. (Y/N) hates feeling like she’s talking to a stranger. They’ve been through too much together for it to be like this. 

“Are we gonna talk about this?” he presses, almost winces because yes, he’s never been smooth, but this is a whole new level of awkwardness. On the corner of his eye he catches (Y/N) shifting uncomfortably, a tic somebody who wasn’t looking for it wouldn’t have been able to find. It kind of bothers him to know that she was hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“I’d really rather not,” the familiar Stilinski form of humor, her favorite way of self-defense, rolls off her tongue effortlessly, and okay, at least that hasn’t changed.  “But thanks for asking, though. God knows what would’ve happened if you hadn’t.”

“(Y/N),” a downside of one of his favorite traits of her, and he can’t help but grow annoyed by how quickly it turned against him. He makes a face, and (Y/N) sees him, it would be the only sane explanation to why she shrunk further into the car seat. The guilt takes less than a second to settle into his chest, and his voice softens after a few moments of difficult silence. “When?”

“When or who?” she bites back. Of course, she knows exactly what he’s thinking. They’re bonded, for Christ sake, or at least they were before he left. Despite his wolf heritage, he knows little of bonded soulmates, and now he wishes he’d listened closely to his mother whenever she tried to explain. The thing is, after Page, he’d doubted he’d find anyone else, let alone someone he would want to spend the rest of his life with.

Imagine his surprise when little (Y/N) Stilinski came into his life, as sudden as a recently bitten Scott and an overly curious Stiles. Except she wasn’t little at all, even when still human, she thrived in the supernatural world and managed to keep herself alive all by herself, until the bite was necessary for her not to die and Derek had gladly taken the honor of marking her, back when he was still an Alpha.

Months passed and his title of leader of the pack disappeared, but his bond and attraction towards the youngest Stilinski didn’t, and it was only a matter of time before he surrendered to his want, bringing her into a rough kiss one late night in his loft after she was kidnapped by Jennifer. The sheer relief and need of the embrace led him to confess his feelings right there and then, and the day after that and then the day after that, cause Jennifer’s harsh, manipulative and biting words, as only she could be, had blinded (Y/N) to believe there was no way someone like Derek would want her, let alone as a mate.

Oh, and had Derek had so much fun proving her wrong…

Those days seem lifetimes away now, as the darkness of the night in Beacon Hills is being shadowed by the feeling of despair and hate Gerard and the Anuk-Ite have brought into town.

“If you want to talk about that, then yes,” he insists, hands tightening around the steering wheel. The streets are completely empty, yet he stops at a red light because it means he can give her his full attention, and he’s always loved the way (Y/N) reacts under his spotlight. “You used to tell me everything, (Y/N), what could have possibly changed since-”

“Since you left? Enough has,” her eyes flash a bright blue, something Derek can’t help but stare, half amazed half terrified, at. It’s a look, definitely, but the memory of her he’d left Beacon Hills with had been a beta, golden eyed and with a light he hasn’t caught sight of yet ever since he came back.

  He’d arrived mid battle, and it had taken the younger Hale more than he’d liked to admit that the blue-eyed werewolf that had been effortlessly slipping throats was the same (Y/N) Stilinski he’d left behind. 

“What, cat got your tongue, Bad Wolf?” she sneers out the nickname, opposed to the usual fondness she spoke it with, and Derek looks away, ashamed that he has nothing to say. The light is still red, and time couldn’t be passing by any slower. “What does it matter to you, anyways? What is so important that you need to know what changed the color of my eyes?”

“You are,” he says simply, oh, and (Y/N) hates him for that. Hates him because he’s not good with words, they’re both well aware of that, but sometimes he has these brief times of clarity in which he says things like these, and it takes all energy inside (Y/N) not to kiss him senseless. If Derek notices the change in her heart rate, he does not show or mention it. “You always have been, (Y/N)-”

“You can’t disappear for over a year and come back, say things like that and want me to just crawl back to you,” (Y/N) spits out, but the way she struggles to get out her words makes Derek believe she’s lying her ass off. Even when fighting, there’s something that links her to him, and invisible force that’s been pushing her to him, ever since he arrived. She looks desperate, eyes faded back to the familiar brown, and even in this mess, Derek has never loved her more. “And I’m not expecting you to,” he insists, even though he’d like nothing more than to embrace her tightly, just like he did when he first kissed her, and shelter himself from all the dangers in Beacon Hills. It doesn’t matter. He’d rather get his point across even if it meant not having her for him again.  “But I know what that color in your eyes does to you.”

She tenses, looks away and stupidly hopes that now that the light is back in green, they’ll move on and she won’t have to have this conversation. She already went through all of this with Scott. It was his house (Y/N) had crashed into after it happened, in the middle of the night, babbling about a hunter who’d managed to intercept her in the woods, and how she had no other option but to defend herself. She rambled about how she’d realized too late, he was a father, to someone at their school (someone (Y/N) had considered a friend until now, too afraid to cross their path ever again since that night), and two other little kids, had a wife, a family. The blood, there was blood everywhere, his blood, and (Y/N) had caught her glowing golden eyes in the reflection of her phone, shifting to a cool, bright blue, it slipping from shaking hands when she’d realized that she could never go back to what she used to be. She was a killer, a monster-

“Hey,” Derek calls, soft and concerned about the fact that it seems that she hasn’t been listening to a word he’s been saying, which only proves his point further. (Y/N) seems in some sort of trance, staring at the nothingness of the road in front of them as her hands wrung with each other, a nervous tic he recognizes well enough. Derek can’t help but reach to hold one of them in both of his. “(Y/N).”

She snaps out of it, albeit slowly, first her mind returning to where she is, in a car, with Derek, far away from the night in question, and long moments later she’s removing her hand quickly from his grip, unable to look at him in the eye. “You should drive,” she mumbles, for the first time since she engaged this conversation with Derek remembering that there’s an outside world they belong and should be helping. (Y/N) looks around, searching for hunters hidden in the shadows, ready to attack the two distracted werewolves. “I don’t want to die because you were having a mental breakdown in the middle of the street.” “Look who’s talking,” he scoffs, not even pretending that he wants to follow her orders. He shifts his torso completely and abandons the task of meeting Scott at the school completely, earning an immature huff from the teenager besides him. “Please, let’s just- talk this out. What killing someone does to you? An innocent person? It changes you, (Y/N). I know that all too well.”

He reaches for her hands again and this time she falls into his embrace, enough for him to notice but not quite for him to assume he’s forgiven. (Y/N )thinks about the nightmares and the visions, shivers, and decides he’s right, even if she’s not willing to admit it to him.

“And if you don’t know how to manage it,” he continues, somewhat frantically, the mere idea of (Y/N) losing herself to her own mind being too much for him to handle. Derek remembers as clear as crystal what killing Page felt like, that night tattooed into his memory despite how much he’d begged his mother to take it away, and he would never even dare to wish someone else that heavy feeling of guilt on their chest. Let alone someone he loves, probably too much. “It- it destroys you completely. And I don’t want that for you. I can’t let you-”

He hesitates, frustrated, but (Y/N)’s looking at him with those wide eyes that he loves, and he wants to spill everything he’s got to say there and then. Can’t let you lose yourself like this, I’m sorry I left, I love you, I’ve always loved you, I’m sorry, I-

“It was a hunter,” she finally admits, when Derek doesn’t continue. He feels her trying to pull away, but he tightens his grip, and something softens in her features when he does. Derek’s not sure if he should count that as progress. “He caught me in the woods after a late study night with Lydia, tried to hit me with wolfsbane bullets. I slit his throat.”

Derek doesn’t flinch at the harsh wording, but (Y/N)’s voice does crack, and he hates himself, he so does and wishes he could turn back time so he could be there, even if she hadn’t run to him when in danger, he at least would’ve found out the right way and not mid battle when she turned to him with that blue stare that could freeze hell over if she wanted it.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she continues, sounds half as panicked as she actually was that night, crying and shaking and covered in blood. “I’d never, y’know, obviously, so I ran, and it took me too long to realize where I was going. It was until I got to the loft that I remembered there was no one there.”

He can hear her heart beat wildly against her chest, so he’s completely sure she hears his when it does a flip on his chest at the revelation.

“I ended up going to Scott’s, but I-” she bites her lip, suddenly looks exhausted as she leans into the car seat and looks up at him, movements sluggish. “I was so out of it, and so, so terrified of what would happen next. And when he held me, he told me it would be okay I just kept thinking- I wished it had been you.  Even after you left, everything ended up being about you somehow.”

It’s what he’s been waiting for to make his move, he realizes, as he lets go of her hand and leans into her, seatbelt and all, takes her face into his hands and kisses her, almost as passionately as he did two years ago for the very first time, with more longing and want that he ever imagined someone would be able to keep inside their body.

(Y/N) kisses him back, equally as desperate, hands fleeting all over his body, as if she didn’t know what she wanted to rememorize first. His broad shoulders, his neck, his cheeks, his chest, all clothed and unclothed skin burning at her touch, his body eagerly responding to the hands of his soulmate. It’s amazing how well they fit against each other, even after all this time and here, now, in the oddest of places when their lives are so, very much in danger.

Somehow, he feels like it’s the first time he can breathe freely in months. “I’m here now,” he breathes when they part, hot words near enough to her lips for (Y/N) to shiver against him, for a whole new different reason rather than a few moments ago. She opens her eyes to look up at him, even if she ends up cross eyed, Derek knows her attention needs to be completely on him as he says this. They both need a resolution, and Derek really hopes that giving it to her doesn’t mean the end of their relationship. “It might not be enough right now, or ever, but I am. If you want me to stay, I will. If you want to run away to college then I’ll be right behind you. I’m never leaving you again. I don’t think I would be able to live with myself if I did.”

One of (Y/N)’s hands rests above Derek’s chest, and there’s nothing but complete sureness beneath it, the rhythmic beating of her heart assuring her towards complete tranquility. He’s never been one of public displays of affections, specially if it meant having one of their too many enemies realize how important she is to him. Nevertheless, his heart has never once lied to her. Its beats are as familiar to her as her brother’s sarcasm or her father’s embrace, her mother’s face moments before she passed, all things that she has committed to memory.

No one, not her father finding out about the supernatural, not Stiles being kidnapped by the Wild Hunt, not even Theo Raeken, who came crashing into her life more than once, the last time with the wish of earning his redemption and planting more than one sinful kiss against her mouth in hopes of making her forget about the Wolf (Y/N) just couldn’t seem to forget, were able to make her forget him. And after getting her heart broken by Derek Hale, it had been all she had wanted for so, so long. 

And right now, she thinks, with the promise of him being hers, even after everything, and despite what supernatural threat might come to them, (Y/N)’s sure that he has never loved him more. 

So, she kisses him again.

so. hi.

yes, i know i haven’t written anything that i promised since, like, june or july of last year. i also know i gave you the summary of this story MONTHS AGO but i hated what i had written (which was something almost as long as this) and forced myself to restart and give u my best aka something im kinda okay with.

and this is it! IM SO SORRY i have been gone for so long, and whatever i write and post next won’t be much for a while, school’s keeping me busy and rehearsals for the school’s musical are, well, not exactly a drag, but they do take a lot of my time.

in the meantime, i hope you enjoy this material and don’t be afraid to request for more! i can’t say i’ll have it ready soon but i can say it’ll be my best.

thank u so, so much to those who have stuck around, even after my worst case of writer’s block, yet, and i hope for your opinion on this!

much, much love,

- e.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 142: HHAH!! *GRUNT* *PUNCHING NOISES*

Previously on BnHA: Tamaki faced off against three villains on his own. At first he managed to keep them at bay by generating a bunch of giant kraken arms, which was badass. But then it turned out one of the villains had an eating quirk and just kept eating the damn arms like fucking Gluttony or Monkey D. Luffy or something. The other two villains worked together to beat Tamaki up, but then Tamaki neutralized one of their quirks and fucking absorbed the other one’s quirk and used it against him. Needless to say, he beat them, and it was pretty cool, although I’m not quite sure it was cool enough to warrant an entire chapter being devoted to it, but what are you gonna do. We’re moving on now anyway, so that’s that.

Today on BnHA: Tamaki passes out after winning his fight. We cut back to the rest of the heroes as they make their way down the neverending corridor. Mimic starts messing with the walls again and tries to crush Aizawa, but Fat Gum knocks him out of the way and takes the hit for him. At this point things become very jumbled, but basically FG and Kirishima end up separated from the rest of the group, and find themselves in a pit somewhere with two new villains. One of the villains is a big guy who likes punching shit, and the other is a Buddhist monk who likes to stand around and do absolutely nothing at all. The punching guy punches FG and Kiri a bunch, and Kiri has trouble withstanding it even with his quirk. FG yells at him to not give up and to maintain his will to fight no matter what. He and Kiri face the bad guys in determination and are all “we’re gonna punch ‘em some more, goddammit.”

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 175 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

all right kids. it’s been two weeks since I last read a chapter. I just did a quick refresher of the past dozen chapters or so, partly to remind myself of everything that was going on, and partly to remind myself of all the cool things that have happened in this arc. it kinda helped. somewhat

Tamaki’s fight didn’t really drag on that much. it was just two chapters. it felt like an eternity -- despite the fact that I actually like Tamaki a lot -- but it really wasn’t that long

and yeah, it’s been like four chapters since they started this raid, and all they’ve basically done so far is run down a few hallways. but I feel like things have to pick up soon, so we’re going to press on

BnHA got the Jump cover again! hopefully that means things are about to get exciting

ooh and there’s a color page too

basically, now that he’s finished beating these three assholes, he’s dosed them with a bit of poison to keep them in check, and now he is passing out. shit

also, “that was far more trouble than it should have been” is one of the more accurate summaries I’ve read in some time

so now we’re finally getting back to our badass 1-A boys! yesssss. I missed you lunkheads

I kinda just want the rest of the arc to be them busting through wall after wall of the labyrinth until they finally catch up to where Mirio is. then Aizawa neutralizes Overhaul’s quirk and they knock him out and rescue Eri and everything is happy and good again. and Nighteye announces that All Might is not going to die after all, and it turns out this whole time he was just misremembering an old cliffhanger episode of the canon All Might anime. and they all live happily ever after etc. etc.

(ETA: you know that anon ask about what I’d change about this arc? scratch everything I wrote in response to that. pencil this in. done and done)

but SOMETHING TELLS ME this is not going to happen

all right, so we’re back in the ol’ villain labyrinth

I’m having so much trouble spelling the word ‘labyrinth.’ I keep mixing up where the y and the i are supposed to go. stupid English language

what the fuck is this title

lol wtf

(ETA: now that I know the meaning of this title, I simultaneously have new respect for the title itself, and new exasperation towards Horikoshi for somehow still failing to see the problem with this extremely dull matchup. listen dude. no one fucking cares if “defense wins championships.” I’m just a poor soul trying to stay awake during panel after panel of blurry punching action. please never do this to us again)

Kirishima’s all “is senpai gonna be okay”, and no one fucking knows, Kiri

but no. he’s not. why on earth did you all leave him. whatever

FG is annoyed that they’re doubting Tamaki

um, no, this is the kind of stupid policy that this series has so far done its best to avoid. in fact, FG, I’ll see your point and raise you one “a true hero offers help even when it’s not asked for”, which is almost the exact opposite of what you’re saying. so WHAT IS THE TRUTH

oh my god Kirishima is immediately doing a 180 from being worried about Tamaki to being all “HE’LL BE FINE”

so am I to understand that you can get Kirishima to say or do anything just by implying that it is or isn’t manly

...actually, yeah, that checks out

so Kiri is fiercely saying that he’s still worried, but he has no choice but to believe in him

meanwhile Rock Lock, whose name was actually mentioned back in like chapter 138 but I missed it but I picked up on it when I went back to refresh my memory, is being annoyed by their enthusiasm. yet again

I feel like Rock Lock actually loves these kids now. right? they’re so fucking lovable. how can you not

(ETA: everyone gives in to class A’s charms eventually)

so now they’ve found some stairs and they’re all “let’s take these stairs”

but then they’re like “maybe we shouldn’t take these stairs”

this kind of indecisive bullshit is exactly why this arc has taken 500 chapters so far you guys. come the fuck on already

Aizawa is suspicious because wth happened to that guy who was manipulating the corridors before

well wasn’t he high af though? so maybe the quirk enhancing drug just wore off and he passed out?

Aizawa is speculating that his range might be limited and he can’t sense them all the way over here. or maybe he’s distracted by the other guys who were still fighting him earlier

I’m tired of trying to sum this all up so I’m just gonna post it

this is the room where Tamaki just finished kicking these guys’ asses. oh shit

now Irinaka’s eye is peeking out, and he’s all mad that the three of them lost to just one guy

and now for some reason we’re cutting back to where Bubble Girl and Captain Cockroach (I forget his name. but it was basically something like that) are restraining the villains who they previously stayed behind to battle

they’re questioning why the villains who were in hiding came out of the woodworks to attack them when they could have potentially gotten away if they’d just stayed put

but one of the villains says that if they’d done that, “Overhaul would have our heads”

this is why I don’t really understand villains like that last bunch who are so fucking loyal to a guy who clearly could not give less of a shit about them

and it seems like most of the current Eights are more loyal to the previous boss than to Overhaul

clearly the previous boss should have picked a 13-year-old peace-loving suburban Japanese kid to be his next heir rather than Chisaki. this is what happens when you don’t have Reborn around

anyway, even though these guys are all complaining about Overhaul, they’re all certain that the heroes aren’t going to succeed in capturing him

-- WHAT IN THE

DID A GIANT BATTERING RAM THING JUST EXPLODE OUT OF THE WALL AND SLAM INTO AIZAWA BECAUSE HOLY SHIT?!

AND NOW IT’S MAKING A HOLE IN THE WALL AND SHOVING AIZAWA INTO IT SHIIIIIT

LEAVE AIZAWA ALONE FOR ONCE, HE NEVER GETS TO DO ANYTHING IN THESE ARCS. LET HIM KICK SOME ASS

Fat Gum is tackling the giant wall hand and knocking Aizawa away from it!

so now Fat Gum has been punted through the hole in the wall instead

I’m relieved Aizawa is still with the kids, but we’re staying with FG, and I s2g if we have to spend another two chapters away from the protagonist watching characters who -- as lovable as they are -- we’d never even met before the start of this arc, I’m not gonna be super happy

-- OH MY GOD

KIRI YOU BLOCKHEAD WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE

motherfucker, he jumped in to take the hit for Aizawa too and then Fat Gum obliviously jumped in behind him and Kiri got sucked in and FG didn’t even realize

well this is just fucking great

so now some guy is emerging from the shadows ready to have fisticuffs!

and Kiri is going into Unbreakable mode again!

should you really be using your trump card right away like that. the trump card which you can only hold for a very short amount of time

um what in the

I’m not really enjoying how blurry and indistinct and difficult-to-follow these action panels have been getting as of late. it’s starting to feel like this series is finally entering a sophomore slump. get it together BnHA, c’mon

anyway, this guy looks to be punching Fat Gum really hard and possibly repeatedly. kind of like when All Might fought the Noumu at USJ

hmm

honestly it sounds like this guy was born to fight Kirishima in an epic showdown

“people oughta kill each other using just the power they got in their bodies” oh, you wacky Honorable Villains. you guys are always all over the place

FG’s turning to Kirishima, but OH SHIT

relax, I’m sure he’s fine though

ah, yes, good

this is probably gonna look really cool in the anime which will make up for this panel being something of a blurry mess right now

(ETA: just to clarify, when I originally read this chapter, I wound up with FA’s original scanlation which was significantly lower in quality. I’ve since found their version 2.0 which used cleaned-up scans which are very much improved.

here’s the original for comparison:

so yeah, the improved scans alone help to make this fight a significantly better read this time around. it’s still dull, but at least it’s readable now lol)

now FG is... trying to punch the other guy, but like. well, take a look

FG is very confused

and now another villain is there! were you there this whole time omg

okay so it must be his barrier then, right?

must... resist... urge to call him Chance the Rappa. no one else thinks it is funny. just you

but you know what. it’s my recap though. so

(ETA: honestly, this association is the only reason why he’s one of the few Eight Expendables whose names I actually recall)

so now Chance is punching FG again and it looks like it hurt him. damn

you know what I didn’t sign up for here. another fight with a tier 3 character where there is no plot advancement and where the villain’s quirk appears to just be “I punch stuff real hard.” wtf. goddammit BnHA, I’m rooting for you so get your shit in order already

so now the barrier villain is referring back to the title and clearing all of that up

actually, Kiri is spear and shield all in one. just saying. boy knows how to throw a damn good punch. who do you think was smashing through all your labyrinth walls earlier

so now Kiri is climbing back to his feet and thinking that the dude’s punches hurt him even in his Unbreakable mode

now there’s a single flashback panel of Bakugou, and my god. I’ll take it. where are you, son. how’ve you been. how’s my other son. I’ve been stuck in a villain labyrinth with side characters for the past half dozen chapters. I hope you’re off having a nice time somewhere

Kirishima is looking like he’s about to get all When The Going Gets Tough THE TOUGH GET GOING

oh! what’s this??

is this... flashback Kiri???

are you telling me he’s not a natural bright flaming redhead. what the hell. next you’re gonna tell me Mina’s not a natural pink and that Deku’s been dying his hair green since childhood

although in Kirishima’s case, he did look up to that Crimson Riot guy seemingly in the same way Deku, Shouto, and Kacchan admired All Might, didn’t he? so maybe it’s got something to do with that

FG is shouting at him not to let up his Unbreakable mode, and that if his spirit breaks that’s when he’ll really lose

and the last page is just Kiri and FG looking gritty and determined. but Kiri’s in his Ben Grimm mode so it looks weird lol

look, I’m hella down for some Kiri flashbacks. I just don’t want this fight to take longer than one and a half chapters. that’s it. that’s my limit. starting a timer... now

BONUS:

I think maybe this bonus page is supposed to go with chapter 143, but eh. it works here too

so Rappa’s quirk is explained in another omake, and basically it’s something that allows him to rotate his shoulders really fast so he can punch a lot. to think, he could have been the next Michael Phelps, but instead he wound up being a third-rate villain in the most boring arc. such a waste

Tengai’s whole character just makes no sense to me whatsoever. why are you a villain. you’re so boring. nothing in your personality or backstory offers up any type of explanation for why you would be working for a murderous crime syndicate. it’s a complete mystery, but not in a cool way, more of a “none of this adds up in the slightest” type of way. just because you never open your eyes when you talk doesn’t make you cool you asshole

[the-kipsabian]

Please do this at your convenience but like. Can you put me together a playlist of what you consider to be Danny's best vocals? Or his best work in general? Nsp, starbomb, skyhill? I just want a good starting place

dude, honestly tho? i would be absolutely honored to do this

k so aaaAAAA lets start with. skyhill i guess since thats the first one on the line? (technically i think northern hues is the first band he was in that published stuff but i havent listened to it myself so i dont knoooow anything about it other than what i just read from a comment on a youtube video and that is that it definitely sounds like the kind of music dan would have made in his stoner days which probably was true lol)

skyhill has a lot of really good chill songs tho? i personally really love ‘the city as you walk’ and ‘black & white’ the most i think - both are like lyrically really nice to listen to and the chorus especially in black & white is just hnggg. its so good tbh. but really any skyhill songs are good! they arents. as advanced vocally as his later stuff obviously, since this band is like. 12 years old at this point at least but its nice chill stuff with honestly really nice but simple lyrics if you want some good stuff to listen to as a break from all the dick jokes and whatnots that nsp and starbomb have to offer tho!

starbomb is honestly a bit more difficult tho cause its like. much more arin-heavy with the raps and such? but! lets not have that fool us cause there are still plenty of quality songs with pretty vocals by dan tho! ..also hahaa i think its needless to say but hey heres a heavy nsfw warning for these songs

‘mega marital problems’ is a personal favorite, mostly cause dan does like. three different voices in this one? and its hilarious. also if you listen in the chorus parts, you can hear the layered singing he does and its honestly just so good mmmm

‘crasher-vania’ i feel like im gonna betray myself if i dont put this on the list for multiple reasons. 1. its EASILY the most popular song on the album. 2. its freaking fantastic, with the story and the lyrics. 3. the chorus, again? (as dan most often did the chorus work on the first album!) it sounds beautiful and especially in the second chorus, you can hear him emoting it out with the lyrics. 4. the background music. if you stop to listen to it, its honestly so good? like, its very simple, yes, but it works and it just sounds awesome. always brings a smile on my face to listen to those tasty keyboard jams ~

im gonna add ‘regretroid’ here too, as its a personal favorite too. but also his voice. goes so high? and it sounds nice?? also this song is just banging with a female feature vocalist! which is real nice!!

as for the second starbomb album! im separating it a little cause woo the boys honestly improve a lot between the albums (which is crazy cause theres only like. a year? year and a half at max? between these two albums so i cant even think how good the third one is gonna sound with five years between albums and how good current nsp sounds lol)

‘smash!’ i gotta mention cause its like. the single song from the album i feel like? also cause mark is in it! and they all sound rad and yeah it doesnt have exactly too much singing but what it has sounds. so freaking good tho mmmmm i lov

‘glass joe’s title fight’ is a must on this tho cause like. this is the one starbomb song thats so much more sing than rap heavy and hngggg its so good

‘god of no more’ okay but. dans vocals in this are gorgeous. and its a super fun song too. so its a win-win

and as a personal favorite, im just gonna throw ‘robots in need of disguise’ here cause i love this song. no other reason really lol

and thennnnn we arrive to the glory that is ninja sex party! i could be a little shit and just say to listen to all lol, but im gonna try to pick things here and there among my favorites! trying to also go by album order with these ~ also nsfw warning for this but idk what you expect with a band called ninja sex party tho

‘nsp theme song’ i mean. come on. you gotta start somewhere so lets go with this lol. and its hilarious (and kinda cute but maybe thats just me lol) and the lyrics are just. well what you’d expect with the name of the song. its very simple vocal-wise, but other than that, grade a stuff tho

‘dinosaur laser fight’ is just a classic, so here you go. its wonderful and weird and animated by arin so aaaaaa!

..also i wanna add ‘objects of desire’ here cause this song is like. lyrical genius tbh. its fucking weird but its also like a ballad so theres some nice vocal stuff here too so yay. thingssssss

‘unicorn wizard’ i honestly wouldnt be true to myself if i didnt add my FIRST nsp song to this list, the one that got me listening to these fools cause mmm. this song is ridiculous and but also lyrics? are so good?? idk how that combo works out but it does and its beautiful. also dannys vocals in the chorus are mmmmm. so solid

‘fyi i wanna f your a’ im not even ashamed to say this is one of my faves tbh. its just. the glorious kind of weird and this is like one of my favorite examples of how well these nerds write lyrics tho? also such a hard song to learn the lyrics tho, but its so worth it, trust me lol. aLSO DAN HARMONIES IN THE SECOND PART GIVE ME SO MUCH LIFE HOLY SHIT

‘let’s get this terrible party started’ gets a special mention cause of the badass jams tbh. also the lyric ‘its a ninja sex party party’ gets me every fucking time. even after five years of listening to this song lol

oooof attitude city is so hard to pick just few songs from tho aaaa. but, as ive done about three from every album so far, lets try that with this one too. tho honestly just. listen to the entirety of attitude city its so good mmm. but. lets start with what i personally feel is the most underrated song on the album, ‘peppermint creams’. i dont think i need to say more than holy shit the emotions tho? especially in the chorus cause mmm. my heart

‘attitude city’ gets here too tho cause like. im personally very nostalgic for this song as it was the first real hype i had for the album so yeah. also its honestly just a really good song. also the video. includes dancing. and we all should know how i feel about dan dancing so mmmMMM im biased as shit i admit it

‘cookies!’ i wanna put this here cause it shows the how stupidly versatile these nerds are with their songs, cause this is badass and silly cute at the same time and hngg. also visually? demon!dan is way too much of a guilty pleasure. judge me all you want i donT CARE

..also i just gotta mention ‘samurai abstinence patrol’ cause of the vocal work. and just cause this song was in progress for four years before this final form and its beautiful honestly. also ‘danny french kissed a girl like he was the king of versailles’ will never get old to me gosh

I SWEAR IM DONE WITH ATTITUDE CITY AFTER THIS but also ‘6969′ is a must to mention. its an eight and half minute song but its just. amazing at everything. beautiful jams and awesome vocals. its gorgeous tbh, a masterpiece

‘cool patrol’. first of all cause apparently i “traumatized” one of my friends by making him watch the video to this and yeah. this is vocally one of my absolute favorites from them tho, dan sounds amazing in both styles, and its just. so positive and cute and aaaaa. its just such an uplifting song i love it

‘danny don’t you know’ cause this one made my cry the first few times i listened to it and its just. so relatable. also fucking beautiful vocals tho and yes the lyrics are personal which makes it even more emotional song. hnggg i love this so much tho cause it just. goes from kind of a ballad to a more of a rock song and its amazing. development similar to the story its telling

‘first date’ i mean. i gotta put my current fave song of theirs here, right? RIGHT? personally i love this cause its just a positive song, in a way i guess, but it stays true to the original nsp style and the lyrics are just perfect for their song about dating tbh. especially with how it just keeps getting gradually weirder and weirder. its just perfection hnggg i love this song. so much. god its so good (honestly tho if you give me a lyric like ‘i’ll take you back to your place and we’ll craft the perfect alibi’ idk how you expect me, a thriller writer, not to absolutely love this song to hell and back)

‘courtship of the mermaid’ idk how you expect me to make a list without this. the emotions in the vocals of this song are beautiful and its, again, hilariously absurd. as a mermaid princess i highly approve of this song

‘mansion party’ its so sad there will probably never be a video of this song cause they want to film it in an actual mansion and so far they havent mentioned that they got a chance to do that so mmmm. cause this song is so fucking banging it deserves a video honestly. the chorus is like. one of the few things in this world that makes me wanna dance. and also theres so many genius lyrics in this that its just pure gold all the way through tbh (also how do you smoke champagne? asking for a friend)

one more i swear, but the whole cool patrol album is so good hngg. but! ‘smooth talkin’’! in all of its absurdity is a must to listen to. its just what the title says, about how smooth danny is with talking to ladies. im not gonna explain more just. it goes as well as you’d expect at this point

..this is already super long but hey did you know we are still missing the two cover albums tho??

‘everybody wants to rule the world’ this one makes me wanna cry every single time. its so nice and emotional and just. a+ vocals. its just beautiful

‘subdivisions’ idk what it is really with this song but these lyrics just fit together with dan’s voice so well its just. hnggg so gorgeous? i mean it might be cause its a rush song but also yeah. its so good

‘africa’ i mean i already told you, but his vocals are so nice in this and they fit into the style of the song so well. plus africa is a beautiful song to begin with so its a win-win really

‘pour some sugar on me’ cause oh boy my pal isnt this song just banging mmmmmmMMMMM

and for the finale! ‘heat of the moment’! like. everything about this song is just really good okay? the vocals and especially the music itself is like mmm i love it?? also the cowbell. idk what it is with that in this song, but it just. it sounds so good with dan’s vocals and aaaaa

..have i rambled enough? is this a good list?? literally just mmm anything from any of these bands is a good listen, these are just mostly my personal faves or what i feel like would be the best representations of what they are about!

[sumigakure]

Staring at the Sun

Happy Holidays!

To: @rezelis

From: @miss-fandoms-shakespeare

Title: Staring at the Sun 

Rating: Teen (for swearing)

Wordcount: 2000

Prompt: So I wrote a time travel fic but it got really long and sad and it was kinda awful so I reread your wish and latched onto the supernatural creatures bit and ran with it. 

Warnings/Notes: I have never written Gai ever before and I tried my best not to make things too awkward and cringy since you said that stuff wasn’t a thing for you. I hope this is something you like and send holiday wishes!

Summary: This had a working title of “Kakashi no don’t do that you’ll end  up…. it’s too late isn’t it?” and that is the best summary for this. Feat. Gai to the rescue and incorrect assumptions of clan heritage. 

When Kakashi opened his eyes before the sun had risen over the Hokage monument, he expected it to be another one of his more tiring days. He couldn’t remember the dream that woke him so early, but if it had been bad enough he wrenched himself out of his unusually deep slumber, then it was probably better he didn’t remember. Maybe, for once Gai wouldn’t harass him into another foolish challenge. Or maybe he hoped that Gai would, the challenges did have a way of making him feel far more rooted in Konoha, more wanted. For a moment he thought about just not going to meet his team, yeah, that’s it. He’ll make them wait for a few hours, choosing instead to go stand in front of Obito’s grave and apologize to the Uchiha he’d been best friends with before poking a little fun at him, and then by–Kakashi’s thoughts screeched to a halt. He didn’t have a team. Sasuke had run off to Orochimaru, Naruto had run off with Jiraiya, and Sakura had run to Tsunade. He was most certainly proud of each of his students, Sasuke for progressing so quickly (he saw far too much of the grieving toddler he had been), Naruto for getting his head on his shoulders and really doing something to help him reach his goals (he felt a pang every time Naruto used the Rasengan, knowing it had been Minato’s strongest magic), and Sakura for not taking anyone’s shit and quickly becoming a shinobi of notability (he felt so awful every time he remembered how he had ignored her training in favor of her male teammates.) But he missed them. They gave him something to do with his days, allowed him to take missions that didn’t involve killing and blood. He saw his own team in them, for the little bit of time he had been part of one. He longed for Minato to be here, to still be alive, but alas, he couldn’t let his head wander to silly fantasies.

Kakashi was a shinobi, a magical person or creature that swore to use their powers to protect humanity from the darkness of the shadow realm. They could be all human, werewolf (like his father had been, as well as many powerful fighters like Jiraiya), seelie (like the infamous Hyuuga clan), vampires (the Uchiha), or other non-human or partly non-human magical beings. And while they were all technically on the same side, that did not stop anyone from establishing territories and engaging in minor, petty rivalries. Especially for long-living proud clans. (*cough cough* Uchiha *cough cough*) They had a leader or group of leaders, often an assembly major figures in the human realm of politics. At the moment they were led by a council of Kages. They bickered and sometimes [read: always] got territorial, but they ran the world relatively fairly and kindly, at least, they didn’t actively start too many major wars. Those were almost always caused by non-magical political leaders.

Kakashi finally sat up with a weary sigh and pulled in the mask he always wore. It was a habit he picked up as a toddler and never thought to change. He pushed himself out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen-living space that was the main room of his small apartment. His dogs, all right of them, looked up and started wagging their tails, excited to see him up. He flicked the coffee machine on, grabbed a random sweatshirt from the rack next to the door, took a few of the leashes and then opened the door. His dogs followed after him obediently, Pakkun in the lead. He clipped the leashes to a few of his more troublesome dogs and then led the small caravan to the local park. Kakashi has not looked too closely at the sweater he pulled in and had not really thought about running into anyone. So when he got to the dog park and let his army of hellion loose, he did not expect to see another man there with his own rather impressive group of dogs. The man was clearly a vampire, from the way he kept carefully out of the rising sun, and nets were he was an Uchiha. A trickle of an idea formed in Kakashi’s mind.

It should be stated that Kakashi did not actively seek out Uchiha to annoy. It’s just that after having Obito as a teammate and Sasuke as a genin and working with Itachi before his desertion and fighting a number of the clan, he’s developed a certain…habit for getting in their nerves. And after the melancholy of his morning and the dream last night, he could use a little [mostly] harmless fun. And so, with a mostly formed plan in his mind, Kakashi casually walked over to the bench the vampire was sitting on and slouched down into the seat. Now to bide his time and wait for the perfect moment.

It took about five minutes before the vampire started side-eyeing Kakashi. Which he was sort of impressed by. Most people only lasted a minute before getting squirmy. Kakashi smirked inwardly and was glad for the mask. They were approaching the point he found so amusing, when the Uchiha broke. The other man lasted another five minutes before turning to face Kakashi. This was going to be good….

“I don’t know who Tobirama said I was but I am the Uchiha clan head and you can tell your boss that if he keeps sending god damn surrogates just to piss me off I’ll have his head! It’s even worse than the fucking clones! At least those didn’t reek of animal like you do.” The vampire bellowed, voice very clearly carrying across the whole two feet between them. He was loud and also insulting. That last shot about animal hurt. Well, Kakashi had not intended to annoy Madara, but if this was the result he might understand why Tobirama Senju routinely got into petty spats with him. Kakashi blinked his visible eye once.

“I don’t work for the Senju at all. And I certainly haven’t been sent by Tobirama-san” Kakashi protested lightly, careful to keep his voice calm. It had infuriated Obito when they were kids, but he also did not want to piss off a Head Vampire. Not while he was unarmed and had no proof of his shinobi status. Madara looked utterly disbelieving and was slowly growing a nice red.

“Of course you work for the Senju! You smell like their blood and look like Tobirama’s twin for heaven’s sake!” Madara shouted back. Kakashi knew that they had the same silver-white hair and had his face been visible they would’ve had similar noses, and that the Hatakes were related to the Senju distantly, but that didn’t mean he was a Senju. In fact, Kakashi was pretty sure he was about as far from being a Senju as possible. He hadn’t even slept with someone from their bloodline, no way did he smell like them.

“I’m telling you, I’m not a Senju.  I’m a shinobi, yes, but I’m from a different clan.” Kakashi insisted, hesitant to reveal who he was. He wasn’t sure what the Uchiha thought of him and didn’t want to get his ass handed to him by Madara. Kakashi was a powerful shinobi, but Heads had more power than anyone else. And to be entirely and completely honest, the vampire scared him. On instinct he started to call chakra to his hands, feeling his fingertips tingle with the promise of power and lightning. Kakashi didn’t really want to fight in public, but it wouldn’t be his first (or second or third or fourth) run in with an Uchiha in public and the park was empty except for them. Right when Madara opened his mouth, eyes narrowing into a glare, fangs elongating, no doubt to berate Kakashi and further try to prove he was sent by Tobirama and possibly seconds away from going for his throat, a bright green blur appeared in front of Kakashi.

“My eternal rival! It is so good to see you out and about on this youthful morning!” Gai, a very green, very spandex-y shinobi who liked to wax poetic about being youthful. Kakashi had been dulled to the strangeness of it all over the years of knowing and being good friends with the man. Madara, however, has had no such exposure and was rather appropriately shocked out of his goddamn mind at the almost magical appearance of what surely smelled like a human. The vampire made a choking sound and thumped a hand against his chest. His fangs made an audible snick as they retracted. Kakashi was so  glad he was here to witness this. A flustered Madara not about to kill him was highly amusing. He let his chakra fade into the calm state it was usually in.

“Who is this?!” He spluttered, still recovering from the shock. Kakashi smirked under the mask, but the smugness must have transmitted through because Madara glared at him again. Kakashi gulped a little, but didn’t let the look phase him. After seeing Madara surprised he was far less terrifying.

“I told you I wasn’t a Senju. And definitely not one sent by Tobirama-san to antagonize you.” Gai beamed.

“My most honorable comrade here likes to poke fun at people sometimes!” The beast of a man exclaimed. Madara fumed, but relented and stood up before giving a flustered attempt at…something. Kakashi couldn’t actually understand what the man said before he called two of the dogs Kakashi’s pack had been playing with and walked away, muttering to himself about “useless shinobi, gonna kill Tobirama…” Kakashi let the feeling of a little fun wash over him, completely cleansing away the feeling from earlier this morning. Gai clapped him on the shoulder. Kakashi chuckled slightly and Gai gave Kakashi a Look ™.

“He was the one who started it. I simply sat down here.” Kakashi shrugged. Gai beamed again and struck a Nice Guy pose, thumbs up and feet planted wide.

“My eternal rival! How I wish I could emulate how cool you are!” Gai exclaimed. Kakashi let out a long sigh, but even as he brushed off the other man he let a hand drop to Gai’s shoulder.  Kakashi knew he’d regret his earlier wish for more Gai, but right now his presence had saved him from a situation and he was really glad to have such a good friend. Gai opened his mouth, with the look in his eyes that meant a challenge was coming and Kakashi acted quickly.

“Sorry to bail on you so early, Gai, but my dogs have been out for a while and I need to take them back home to eat. I’ll see you later, okay?” As he spoke he called his dogs over with a flare of chakra. They all came running, even if they were reluctant to leave their doggy friends. Gai’s posture didn’t droop and his smile became more genuine.

“Of course Kakashi, you cool, cool man! I shall find you later to issue our daily challenge. Until then!” Then Gai sprung off into a sprint and Kakashi sent up a prayer for whatever unsuspecting jogger was about to be blown over. He attached the leashes and then started walking back towards his apartment, taking the route that would lead him past the grove of trees the contained the Memorial Stone. Kakashi no longer felt the drag on his insides and knew that while he’d definitely not be able to blow off Gai’s challenge today, he would also have time to write a few emails to his former students. Maybe even see if there were any short missions. He gave a smirk. Maybe there would be a mission where he’d get to work with a vampire. Especially a red-eyed vampire, if he was lucky. Smiling to himself, Kakashi walked peacefully back, pleased with his morning and looking forward to the day ahead of him.

If you enjoyed this piece, why not take a look at other pieces written by the same author on AO3.

[nightblink]

Blink Reads Oathbringer - Chapters 55-57, Interludes 4-6

Chapter Fifty-Five – Alone Together

I'm calling it, it's Sazed. Balancing Preservation and Ruin ain't easy. SAAAAAAZE~

RLAIN. RLAIN RLAIN RLAIN OH FUCKYEAH WE'RE GETTING A RLAIN CHAPTER BLESS U BRANDOSANDO

It'd be really cool if that became a thing, if humans (Rosharan- variant 'humans' at the very least) could somehow learn to hear the Rhythms and get a better understanding of the Listeners/Singers/Parshendi. A step towards peace.

[winces] Yeaaaah, I noted back in Rock's chapter how watching the humans 'invade' and build in Narak must be really, really difficult for him.

The last. Oh, Rlain.

He still feels heavily ostracized. Even with him being Bridge Four, he's still set apart from them in ways they'll never be able to truly understand.

(okay, but an archer squire Windrunner. that could be really cool and useful.)

Please take Rock's advice. Bounce some stones off of their skulls when they deserve it.

Sando please let Rlain fly with the others.

Yeah. They were so afraid of becoming those things once again that they assassinated Gavilar and brought the wrath of warlike Alethkar down upon their heads.

Can we get more Renarin+Rlain scenes and friendship can we please-

Okay but with Rlain attuning to Rhythms and now with Rock's family around (we at least know that Rock can pick up on them ever so faintly) I'll bet one of them starts humming along with him, even if they don't realize what they're doing.

!!!! Skin patterns have/had an importance or maybe even function among the Parshendi? Can they change, with or without changing forms, or are they genetic?

Oh come on, guys, you're getting worked up over Renarin maybe learning to read? Kaladin, please talk some sense into them.

EXTRA MANLY. LOPEN I'M WH E E ZI NG

(though tbh that's actually a great way to put it)

Thank you Kaladin for putting things into words that they can all understand and mull over on their own. Hopefully they'll even start internalizing it.

Rock is the unofficial psychiatrist of Bridge Four, apparently. Ahhh, but they're all a big support group for eac other in the end (yes, Teft, this is a feelings-sharing party, now join the club). Alone together indeed.

[winces] Save for the one even more alone. You can't blame Rlain for his frustration.

At least Kaladin's willing to admit that he doesn't know, but it willing to try anyway.

Chapter Fifty-Six – Always With You

Ooo, this is the first time Hoid's chatted with Harmony? No interaction before this letter. Not that Hoid would have reason to do so, but you never know…

“How do you know so much about Adonalsium” HE WAS KINDA THERE, SAZE

oh shit oh shit oh shit Dalinar's going back to the Feverstone Keep vision, Jasnah and Navani with him. We're gonna find out something important, this chapter, this is a Recreance vision-!

He's getting a lot better at the vision-transfer, but I don't think it's technically part of his Surges? That's a complete unknown, though, since it was Honor himself that left the visions.

Timeline note for the Recreance – maybe 2,000 years ago.

(side note, but listening to the Journey OST during this part is jiving really well. it's shiver-inducing.)

False Desolation. What. Jasnah, plz continue your elaboration.

Mmm, that makes sense, especially with what we know of the Parshendi so far and their efforts to fight off the Voidspren. Of course Vorin teachings would deny there were any survivors. But how the Recreance, then….

Oh, hey! Gawx! You've gotten a lot snarkier over time in these visions, at least from that fist quip.

I wonder if Honor included the dying screams of the spren into this vision, and he's feeling it at the very edge of his senses.

Speaking of which, this must mean that Honor was Shattered at some point after the Recreance.

Gawx honestly does have it hard, and now he's pulled at in different directions by the people who want to see their homeland safe and the Blackthorn who wants to save Roshar. It's not an easy place he's in.

Shivers there, Dalinar. Good speech.

Technically, Gawx, Dalinar owns up to what he's done – or at least what he can remember? He doesn't deny the Blackthorn, but he is trying to be a different man than he once was.

….what's happening. The vision's not ending. And this man in white and gold….?

ODIUM

FUCK FUCK FUUUUUUCK

AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'VE “ALWAYS BEEN WITH [DALINAR]”

ARE YOU SPECIFICALLY THE REASON THE BLACKTHORN IS AS HE WAS. NOT ONE OF THE UNMADE, BUT YOU YOURSELF

FUCKING HELL

Chapter Fifty-Seven – Passion

Oh good it's another Dalinar chapter, because if it had changed POVs I would have rioted

Oooo, calling Hoid back to Scadrial, Sazed? To speak with the kandra?

YEP BACK THE FUCK AWAY DALINAR, HE IS BEYOND YOU RIGHT NOW

g o d the Stormfather is whimpering and if that doesn't tell you how much you need to fear…

Dalinar looks like he's gonna drop on the spot of a panic attack and tbh I already would be

Don't you dare call Dalinar 'son'.

And there's Odium himself confirming that this Stormfather-bonding is different than all the others before it; I was right.

What shackles you, Odium. What is it specifically.

SHIT, DALINAR, WATCH YOUR WORDS

'Intent' is capitalized and obviously means just that but does it also mean that it has something to do with the broader spectrum of power

Consequences aka probably ridding himself of Roshar a la Alderaan

Oooo, not only are you bound by the Shards themselves, but even the Splinters here somehow have power wrapped up with you.

Now see, here's where we come to Odium Blatantly Fucking Lying, because if the embodiment of Honor cared only for bonds and oaths themselves, then you wouldn't see any difference between Honorspren and Highspren. Not to mention the Passion thing (likely subtly sliding in a tie to the Thaylen Passions there as well). You, care? Love? HAH.

[squints @ Odium] While I can believe you had something to do with the Recreance, it's definitely not as you're explaining it.

Ohhhh, is that confirmation that the Nightwatcher is Cultivation – or at least an avatar of hers?

Oh shit, oh shit, a vision of sorts, touching the power of the Odium-shard itself-

...what's there. Something Not Of The Vision. Oh man is it Lift. Please let it be Lift. Let her flip off Odium himself.

It IS.

But. Odium couldn't sense her? Not entirely? Cultivation DID give her something special

“What was that thing, tight-butt?” Lift you are the pride of Roshar and the gem of all worlds

oh my god please make the first thing you do in Urithiru stealing Dalinar's lunch

That's… definitely a way to end Part Two with a bang.

Interlude Four – Kaza

Oooo, we're back out on the ocean!

!!!! Someone else with visions? I don't think this is another Bondsmith, but maybe another Truthwatcher…?

'hirelings out of Steen' Steen, Steen, where's that map… ah! South of Shinovar, east of Aimia, and probably the closest country to Aimia, save that island chain stretching out from Tukar

Ahhh, she's an older lady, too! Good, we need all the older ladies we can get.

Soulcaster? But does she have one or is he calling her that as a title?

So, they were braving the slower Everstorm winds, huh – or… not the Everstorm, but a strange, strong storm that has nothing to do with either? Either way, they're aiming for Aimia. Now there's a land that we need to know more of.

Ahhh, so she's a Soulcaster (but probably not an ardent because Not Vorin) and looking to reverse the whole turning-to-stone bit. ….understandable, but you think Aimia holds the answers? Maybe? Why? Is it because it's the last place you have to look, or do they have some sort of rumoured super-medicine there?

Well, there's a rumour of some kind, at least.

…..not stone, smoke.

Oh that is interesting. The transformation with Soulcaster use must be dependent on certain variables – what kind of transfigurations they most commonly do, perhaps – considering that all of those we saw at the Shattered Plains were turning to stone, not smoke, and most of their job would be to make buildings and food.

Ooof, a prisoner of her own family, kept for their use. Even without the whole 'dying' issue, it's no wonder she fled. (Assuming she wasn't just making up the story to scare off the sailor.)

Huh. I wonder if extended soulcasting starts to connect one to Shadesmar each time they use it, or if it's only when the person starts getting closer and closer to death-by-soulcasting.

“Each would have required several Soulcasters in concert.” Or maybe just one Elsecaller or Lightweaver with a fuckton of Stormlight.

Again with 'something larger' that's attached(?) to spren that normal people can't see.

That is a powerful call that she's almost losing herself to, and quite possibly a spren that's interested in her backing the Soulcasting. Hmmm.

So, the Soulcaster devices came out of Aimia and Akinah in particular. Huuuuh. Were the Soulcasters an attempt to mimic Radiant powers, if so, and were there any Aimian Radiants? Or were they an attempt at balancing power?

Wait, what. Everyone's starting to go unconscious? And Kaza feels like she's being pulled to Shadesmar? Is there an overlap here of the Physical/Cognitive realms…? Also the shadow stretching in the wrong direction like all the Aimians have – does that mean that whole people have/had some kind of presence in Shadesmar that can be seen in the Physical realm?

The sailors are all dead? ...well, shit.

Wait, and the sailors were right about greatshells coming here to die? That wasn't just a pirate-treasure sort of legend? (not that it matters, as none of them are left to even see it)

The cook? (Always, the cooks are so important in these books…) Ahhhhh, another cremling-person, fffffftttt- We need more information on these people, stat.

“The cost would be the ends of worlds.” Plural. Something exists in Aimia that could affect the greater Cosmere. Well then.

Interlude Five – Taravangian

FUCK OFF YOU OLD MURDER-MAN

“Today, Taravangian was a storming genius.” I can't help but laugh at the phrasing, even as a corner of my mind just goes fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-

He is not wasting time here on pleasantries of any sort, but just powering ahead and being a complete ass as he does.

Well, that answers my question of 'does Malata know bout Taravangian and his plans' though I did not expect that she'd already been a member of the Diagram before she'd become a Radiant. I am somewhat pleased at knowing 'the Dustbringers would be the Radiants most likely to accept their cause', not because it gives me any pleasure to know that goddamn storming Taravangian is getting any Radiants on his side, but because it's another step closer to confirming my suspicion that the Dustbringers are the I Will Do What Must Be Done order, closest of the Radiants to the-ends-justify-the-means.

GIVE US MORE DUSTBRINGER INFO, SANDERSON, I DEMAND IT

H e r alds but smart!Taravangian is an insufferable ass, both to other people and in his own head

“That day, he'd been God. Today, he could be God's prophet.” I'd start to wonder if you were Odium-influenced too, but this seems different – too detached even in your moments of grandest self-glorying – to be Odium's touch

And here we have the complete opposite of Jasnah, who's a beautiful example of atheism done right; this is the kind of atheism that glorifies ~~science~~ and spits on others' beliefs while holding itself above all else – its' own manner of extremist fundamentalism

'the Dalinar paradigm' sounds foreboding

Wildcard Renarin! Oooo, is he a blindspot in more than just Taravangian's Diagram, I wonder?

Well, that's just unnecessary. Storming hell, Taravangian.

Reference note – Vargo. Probably Taravangian's given name.

Okay but indoor farming would indeed explain a good part of Urithiru's self-sufficiency – which it had to be – and is probably related to the existence of the uber-fabrial that extends through the whole city.

“the part of the world that mattered” aaahahahahahahah fuck you Taravangian

“Then we force him to step down, so that I can take his place at the head of the monarchs.” AAAAHAHAHAHAHAH WELL GUESS WHAT YOU'RE GONNA GET HIGHKING KHOLIN SOONER OR LATER SO EVEN IF YOU DO IT'S NOT GONNA FUCKIN' MATTER

To be fair, pushing Dalinar until he collapses isn't a bad plan, considering the pressure the world is exerting and the weight he places on himself, but he's still the Tank, come on.

[rolls over laughing at the thought of Taravangian thinking he has any bargaining power against Odium]

Fuck off, you senile psychopath.

Interlude Six – This One Is Mine

Another Venli chapter, and thins time she's going to open herself for a Form of Power. And yet, with that title as well as the spren that followed you last time… I don't think this will you the way you think it will. Just a hunch.

….do the Parshendi actually have gemhearts. I mean, I would make sense considering their change of forms, but… still.

No rainwater from this storm. Just ash. (But didn't the Everstorm bring rain when we saw it in Edgedancer?)

[hums] Have we seen Demid's new Fused-form yet? The ridges under the carapace sounds like a form we might have seen in one of Kaladin or Moash's chapters, but perhaps it's different.

Mmm. Though Venli's form changed, indicating a new kind of bonded spren, she retained her mind. Not a Voidspren, then. Handful of sapphires says that the little comet-spren had something to do with it.

“grand of the Fused”? Ooooo, you're important, you have a title

...or maybe you just have a tendency to crush anything that doesn't pay obeisance. That works too.

[winces] What an awakening for Venli, and what a truly horrible way for it to happen.

Well, even if you didn't bond with the little spren, it's there. Not 'one of the same' spren you saw near Eshonai, but the very one, there's no way it isn't.

And you protected it.

[amorremanet]

You reblogged an OC meme! Thank god, tell us about Josie!

oc profiles meme!

…oh my god, i was so excited to click post and babble about josie at people that i initially forgot to come back and fill in the placeholder with something about how excited i was to talk about josie (—it’s like 4:15 AM where i am, which is probably part of the problem but i digress)

Full Name: Josiah Daniel Quinn — but, please, they explicitly prefer to be called, “Josie,” so unless you’re one of their bosses over at S.T.R.O.M.A*, whom they’re in no position to argue with, call them Josie. If not that, then use their surname. But if you can avoid it, just please do not call them by their full given first name, okay?

Shiny mutant superhero codename: Lyaeus — derived from an aspect of Dionysus who is traditionally invoked as a reliever of pain and a deliverer from anxiety and emotional turmoil and so on, which is one of their preferred uses of their psychic abilities and one of Josie’s larger goals in life (for them, it’s a mix of, “If something bad is going to happen, and you can do something to stop it and choose not to, that’s on you” and, “The world is a mess and largely sucks, but that’s no reason not to do what we can to take care of each other”).

Their codename is doubly special to them because although they were raised loosely Catholic and have a Mormon extended family who mostly doesn’t acknowledge their existence (and hasn’t for their entire life, since their Mom left the Mormon church to marry Josie’s Dad, oops), Josie is a hellenic pagan whose primary relationship is with Dionysus.

They thought for a long time and did a lot of reflection about whether or not it was too presumptuous of them to use one of his aspects as a codename, but eventually, they went with it because they see their codename and its meaning as someone who they’re continually striving to be and a set of values that they’re always trying to bring to bear in the world, and they feel like Dionysus is probably okay with that.

Gender and Sexuality: DMAB Genderfluid. // Bisexual.

This isn’t actually specifically about their gender or sexuality, but I couldn’t think of where else to put it: Josie grew up around all things Rocky Horror. Like, their parents were highly involved in the local community theatre, which did a semi-regular RHPS shadow-cast, and Josie’s parents brought their kid with them often enough that Josie grew up with their blood family and their, “Rocky family.”

Josie would rather deal with their Rocky family than their blood family a lot of the time, because their Rocky family was more immediately there for them during a lot of rough stuff while they were growing up, and their Rocky family handled it better at the various times when they came out, and their Rocky family didn’t say shit like, “Wait, I thought you were gay, why are you going back in the closet” when they came out as bi or ask invasive questions when they came out as genderfluid and was more supportive in general of Josie’s evolving sense of their own identity, and so on.

Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs.

Josie does also answer to He/Him/His pronouns, but that isn’t a choice on their part, so much as it’s an issue of, “Well, I can be out at work and open the door to potential harassment and people who will invalidate my gender identity and likely flat-out refuse to respect my pronouns, which will create more difficulty for myself in a job that’s already difficult because it’s stressful to begin with and I hate working here — or I can suck it up and just be grateful that my friends and parents are all good about this”

Like, one of the things that Seb does when he and Josie first meet that makes Josie go, “I’m still not totally thrilled at being assigned to help out the newbie (especially since I know I’m only getting this assignment because: 1. our bosses are playing a game of, ‘lmao just toss the LGBTQ ones together’ because the newbie’s gay and pretty much everyone here thinks that I am too; and 2. Deputy Director Gray is still cranky with me over that MSNBC round-table that I did last week where Yael kept pushing me to voice my own opinions and not the Bureau’s official line) — but maybe it won’t actually be completely awful and maybe he’s going to be okay as a new partner”?

…is noticing that Josie wears two woven yarn bracelets on one wrist — one of them in the lavender/white/chartreuse colors of the genderqueer flag, and the other in the pink/white/purple/black/blue of the genderfluid flag — and first waiting for them to be alone in Josie’s office, then going, “Oh, so are you genderfluid? What are your pronouns?” and then listening and respecting it when Josie explained that they’d rather Seb just kept using he/him/his at work

Species: Human (mutant with aforementioned mutant psychic powers)

Race/Ethnicity: White, and the only real part of Josie’s ethnic background that’s ever been important in their life was that their late paternal grandmother was very proud of being Irish.

Like, her parents had come to Ellis Island from Ireland — though she was too young to have any actual memories of the passage herself — and she wasn’t so insistent about it that she objected to her son marrying a Mormon girl instead of a Good Irish Catholic Girl, but still, the Irish thing was a big deal for her.

Josie, personally, doesn’t get it beyond, “I’m white and I have a particular aversion to St. Patrick’s Day because first of all, some of my extended family members can turn into a bunch of rowdy, off-putting little shits on St. Patrick’s Day, and I always had to suffer through that because we always had a party for it, first because Grandma wanted one, and then in honor of her memory.

“And secondly, because as soon as anyone hears that I’m partially Irish and/or a Dionysian, it is just assumed that I want to go get wasted on St. Patrick’s Day, which I don’t, but I still end up going out into environments that are absolute Hell for someone who has both telepathy and hyper-empathy, because the spaces are crowded, emotions are running high, and there is basically nowhere to escape to where you can get some peace and quiet and a break from the sensory and emotional overload of being at a rowdy bar on St. Patrick’s Day.

“And I endure all of this with people whom I may not even like that much just so they’ll have a designated driver, because I would feel bad personally if I didn’t go to make sure they all got home okay, and just because they don’t understand my god or might want to get something else out of him than I do, doesn’t mean that I should brush them off and risk them getting hurt while they’re completely shit-faced.

“Which doesn’t make this any less exhausting and awful, but it’s better than taking the chance that they might get hurt, y’know?”

Birthplace and Birthdate: Saratoga Springs, NY. // 22nd February, 1980 — they’re a Pisces (Libra rising, Gemini moon).

Guilty Pleasures: High-quality dark chocolate, high-quality makeup even if they can’t wear most of it as often as they’d like^, the original Vampire Chronicles novels (and though they will sometimes claim that only the original six ones, “count,” Josie owns everything that Anne Rice has published, even the ridiculous Jesus books), binge-watching reruns of Project Runway…

And they don’t feel particularly guilty about it, but one of the simple things that makes Josie happy is playfully teasing their emergency contacts/best friends over how their parents named them after Beatles songs

Jude, naturally, was “Hey Jude” and Rocky got named after, “Rocky Raccoon” because, at the last minute, his and Jude’s parents decided to veto naming him Desmond because he’s a character in “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” but his name is not in the title, which was apparently a deal-breaker because of reasons

Rocky also sometimes gets playful ribbing about all things Rocky Horror, because he and Josie are ridiculous nerds, and RHPS isn’t their exclusive thing because Josie will share it with anyone who gives them half a chance to do so…… but it is still a thing that is special to Josie and Rocky, so here they are

If you ask them, Josie will tell you that they don’t believe in associating pleasure with guilt, and in their defense, they do believe in encouraging people not to feel guilty for enjoying the things that make them happy or that help them survive, because as long as those things aren’t hurting anyone — yes, that includes you, person Josie is talking to — then you have a right to be happy and a right to take care of yourself

The reality is that Josie says this to people so often because it’s something that they often struggle with themself, and even though they’re better, in some ways, than they have been in the past, there are still a lot of places where they need work

Also, Josie wouldn’t call some of the more poppy music that they like, “guilty pleasures” — especially because, if you ask them, there is no reason to feel guilty about listening to, for example, Beyoncé or Nicki Minaj

—but it is still the case that, if they were going to have a mini-reunion with some of the old goth crew friends from high school whom they don’t keep in touch with that often, Josie probably wouldn’t mention Nicki or Beyoncé, unless it was by accident or until they were sure that the old gang wasn’t going to do the judgmental goth kids thing they used to do of going, “ugh, all pop music is soulless empty bullshit for posers” and so on

Also also, there is almost no chance of them ever admitting this to most people, but…… Josie kinda loves the goth kids from South Park. Like, Josie really kinda loves them.

There’s basically no chance of them ever admitting it to most people because for one thing, it’s embarrassing to them, due to the whole South Park of everything.

For another, they’d feel the need to give someone a lengthy, tedious disclaimer about how they don’t actually watch South Park or enjoy it very much, they just know about the goth kids because one of their best friends went, “Oh my god, Josie, you have to watch this, the new Goth kid characters are so you” way back when, after the first episode with them in it aired and said friend (Rocky) was still taping new eps on VHS to watch after he got home from night classes

And…… well. Josie still wouldn’t give South Park much credit for anything else, but they do really love the goth kids, and they agree with Rocky’s, “omg it you” moment because the South Park goth kids are often eerily similar to shit that they said and did as a weird little goth kid back in high school

At one point, Rocky actually made Josie little plush dolls of the goth kids that he’d designed himself, and they are a big reason why you’re not allowed in Josie’s room until they trust you.

Other reasons include:

Josie doesn’t want most people to touch their makeup or put any of it out of order, and they keep most of it in their bedroom, on their dresser, in front of the vanity mirror that they found someone just throwing out shortly after they moved to Baltimore, even though it’s a perfectly good mirror so wtf;

some of Josie’s favorite and most personally meaningful religious and spiritual paraphernalia is in their bedroom (they keep their actual shrine to Dionysus and their, “worship workspace” in a different room at their place, but some of the more personally significant things are in their room most of the time, and they’d rather you didn’t have a chance to touch them);

Josie just tends to be an incredibly private person who places a lot of value on their personal space and having spaces that are set aside as Theirs. They were like this even before their psychic abilities kicked in and made them value even more their personal space, and ability to have a place that is set apart as Theirs Exclusively where they can go to get some distance from all the mental, emotional, and sensory overload that comes from feeling almost everyone’s feelings and hearing many of their thoughts**, to some extent or another, almost all the time;

and the few albums of old photos and framed old photos, some of which are just garden variety embarrassing like, “yes, my hair is naturally blond, here is photographic evidence from before my parents let me start dyeing it, and oh yeah, that was probably backstage after the community theatre production of Oliver! that I did in eighth grade — oh yeah, definitely that one, there’s my Artful Dodger costume and my glaringly blond hair”

but others of which are, for lack of a better term, fairly emotionally complicated for Josie. There are several different reasons why any of these photos might be kinda complicated — ranging from, “they feature Josie’s one particularly heinous ex-boyfriend who used his wealthy family’s connections to get Josie blacklisted from working in fashion after they graduated from Pratt’s School of Design” to, “they’re from the year in high school that Josie wound up having to do over because they had to spend a few months getting inpatient treatment for their eating disorder”

^: even before getting recruited to S.T.R.O.M.A., Josie got really good at finding a balance between the, “I don’t want to look pretty, I want to look otherworldly and possibly like a vampire fairy from Wonderland” style of makeup that they want to wear, and a “more professional” style that is less likely to make their clients feel uncomfortable or get them harassed — but god, do they wish that they didn’t have to strike said balance.

It wouldn’t actually make their fondness for high-quality and often expensive makeup feel like any less of a guilty pleasure, for several reasons — on one hand, their awareness of how makeup is always politically Complicated, at best; on the other, if they got to wear their makeup exactly how they want it every day, they would end up spending more money on makeup, and it would make them feel guilty because they’d feel like it’s very irresponsible and probably going to screw them over down the line because they bought makeup instead of saving the money or putting it toward something else; and on the tentacle, a whole laundry list of other reasons

—but they would still feel more comfortable with themself and more at ease with everything because they’d be presenting exactly as they want, instead of censoring their own personal gender expressions (which they’re more okay with doing when it comes to their clients because that’s a case of compromising part of their well-being in the name of [probably] helping people who need them and pay them for that help, whereas toning it down at S.T.R.O.M.A. is tedious and Josie would seriously rather not)

(They have more than once said that the degree to which they have to tone things down for S.T.R.O.M.A. makes them feel like Ned “I’m not a Satanic sex god anymore, used to be a super gothed out androgynous rock star, but is now a straitlaced and nerdy substitute teacher” Schneebly from School of Rock.

This is not a good feeling, in Josie Land. They don’t like it and they live for the weekend because, barring any major incidents that get them called in to S.T.R.O.M.A., they get to wear what the fuck they want, forego pants in favor of their favorite skirts, do their gender how the fuck they want, and wear makeup that makes them look like a vampire fairy from Wonderland)

Phobias: Josie’s biggest fear, in the immediate sense, is losing control of their psychic abilities and ending up hurting people and/or destroying themself somehow.

Underlying that, they have a bigger and more further-reaching fear of being out of control of themself and their own actions, in general.

They’re simultaneously afraid of crowds (largely because they can get really overwhelming for Josie, really fast), and afraid of isolation, which ends up making them a lot like the sort of cat who goes all like, “cuddle me cuddle me cuddle me please please please i need love and affection… no wait, fuck you, this is stifling me and i need to get out of here… wait shit i’m lonely someone please love me… no, not you, you fucking suck… why am i so lonely, why won’t anyone pay attention to me… and so and so forth ad nauseam”

That said, when I was doing Pottermore quizzes for my kids because that is the sort of thing I find both fun and useful, Josie’s picked, “Isolation” for the, “Which is your greatest fear” question on the wand quiz

They picked, “An eye at the keyhole of the dark, windowless room in which you are locked” for the, “Which nightmare would frighten you most” question on the Sorting Hat quiz

Other miscellaneous fears and squicks: Worms, eels, and anything like that (but snakes are okay, snakes are great).

The possibility of never finding love (which they know is kind of ridiculous, because they do have a lot of love in their life… but Josie does want to be with someone romantically, and all their miscellaneous issues with their blood family aside, it’s weird and kind of disheartening for them that most of their cousins have gotten married or settled down with someone, so yeah, Josie knows that this fear is based on a lot of ideas that they generally don’t like and don’t want to live by, but still.

They’re 35, their closest friends both have longstanding romantic relationships, they’re one of the few cousins left who doesn’t have a plus-one to bring to the next family wedding, and they want a romantic relationship, so being perpetually reminded that they’re not in one kicks them in the larger fear that there is something about them that is just fundamentally unlovable, so they might end up being forever alone).

What They Would Be Famous For: Realistically? Probably how they’re going to start a new superhero team with Lucy, Pete, and Sebastian — later accumulating others — and how they’re all going to kinda stumble into trying to foil some other mutants who also happen to be neo-fascist supervillains. But had Josie’s one ex, Danny, not effectively gotten them blacklisted from working in fashion, Josie might well have made a pretty big name for themself there.

They used to joke about being famous for going on Project Runway and winning, but… this started after they’d already gotten onto the path that led them to therapeutic practice, and seen that they had the potential to do a lot of good in the world by continuing on that path, so the chances of them actually doing the Project Runway thing were almost nothing

What They Would Get Arrested For: While they haven’t technically been arrested before, Josie could have been arrested for illegally overstepping the bounds of what their particular level of metahuman license allowed them to do, and if they get arrested in the future, it is almost definitely going to be for something like protesting or some trumped up nonsense charges that actually boil down to, “getting on the wrong side of neo-fascist supervillains who have wealth and connections and political power.”

OCs You Ship Them With:

Romantically: Pete is my favorite here, but: 1. I’m also going to make them work for it, because they would be good for each other, but it wouldn’t just happen super-easily for several reasons, both about the two of them individually and about how they get on together;

and 2. I’d also dig shipping Josie with Seb, Stephen, Vince, Sylvia, Izzy, Raphael, and Cynthia — though tbh, I like non-romantic Seb/Josie better than romantic Seb/Josie

Platonically: As mentioned, Jude, Rocky, and Sebastian. Aside from them, Margot, Lucy, and Sara Grace (who are all ruled out as romantic options by the three of them being lesbians), and Josie being genderfluid, yes, but not identifying with womanhood enough for them to consider romantically pursuing someone who identifies as a lesbian. Todd (who I kind of feel bad for, because he’s sort of the loser in love so far, but otoh, that’s partially his own damn fault and he has a lot of growing to do before I’m letting him have a romantic relationship that actually lasts). Yael and Elizabeth. Really, everyone on the romantic list is a good platonic relationship, too.

“this is not a ship that i condone but i find their relationship interesting, and exploring Not Good relationships is Important to me”: Julian, who actually hasn’t met Josie yet, and won’t for a while, and their relationship will be…… tricky, in a lot of ways, many of which have something to do with how Julian is a huge tool who has a charming tendency to take his own self-loathing and insecurity out on everyone else while acting campy and making sarcastic quips as though this makes his behaviors totally okay.

Pretty much everything about Julian makes him someone who would make Josie say, “the Lord is testing me”

(only for someone — probably Lucy — to go, “But you’re not Christian” and get told either, “I was raised as one, maybe Jesus’s Dad is still grumpy that I found someone who’s better for me. Anyway, you know what I meant, right?”

or, “Fine. The Almighty Thundering Zeus, lord of the heavens and king of Olympus and He Who Was Cheating On His Wife With Everyone Ever Before It Was Cool, is testing me. There. Does that version make you happy?”)

But, yeah. Julian would make Josie go, “someone is testing me” because so much of who and what he is makes Josie want to help him, but so much of what he does makes Josie want to punch him

(an impulse that Josie largely won’t be acting on because, unfortunately for them:

1. they did not get any super-strength kinds of mutations and in an RPG, Strength would be one of their lowest stats;

and 2. first, they need to learn how to throw a punch without hurting themself more than the other person.

Punching neo-fascists isn’t their strong suit. They can let Seb and Lucy do the actual punching.

And Pete, even though Pete really shouldn’t because Pete also doesn’t know how to throw a punch without hurting himself more than the other person, so Josie is more likely to try and stop him from punching a neo-fascist supervillain in the face.

Not that Josie will always succeed in that, but… well. They and their teammates are all only human.)

Anyway, uh. Josie/Julian isn’t a ship that I’d personally want to see as the endgame of anything, ever, but I find their dynamic and the potential interactions between them interesting, and they’re something I’m looking forward to playing around with more, when it’s their time

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Conrad will kinda want to, because he finds Josie’s sense of ethics to be, “tedious and outdated,” but ultimately, he wouldn’t go through with it because Josie’s creativity would intrigue him too much.

Senator Huntington would also want Josie to die, but he wouldn’t do any of the actual murdering because he doesn’t do his own dirty work.

All things considered, Edward and Desmond are probably going to end up with the job, “Go kill the weird effete one who looks like some kind of vampire fairy from Wonderland” because everyone else is busy, and they will fail at it, because that’s kind of what they do.

They are Those Two Bad Guys, and they kind of suck at almost everything that they try to do.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Fantasy, vampire trash, psychological thrillers, magical girl everything, and horror (pretty much all kinds of horror, though Josie’s most fond of monster horror, anything with revenge-y themes, and religious or cosmic horror. They will probably tell you, “The weirder and more pointlessly, aesthetically symbolic, the better”).

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Josie would tell you that it’s how much romanticized abuse there is in paranormal romance, and to be fair, they do hate that…… but they still read it or watch it and get invested in these fictional relationships, even without necessarily coming up with a counter-reading of the text’s opinion, beyond, “this relationship is abusive even if the author doesn’t get that”

Which, to be fair, doesn’t mean that they don’t hate the prevalence of romanticized intimate partner abuse, just that it’s an, “I hate this thing” where they still engage with it, and not just because there aren’t always a lot of options without it

(Horror flicks that demonize and stigmatize mental illness are a thing where Josie doesn’t like the thing, but suffers through them because there aren’t a lot of other options otherwise)

But one trope that will make them, “nope” out…… uh.

Josie is really sensitive about The Uncanny Valley, and while they may not fully, “nope” out of things over it, they need to take more time than most people to prep themselves for seeing it and recover after seeing it

Also, not a trope, but Shia LaBeouf will make Josie “nope” out of anything. They have no rational reason for disliking Shia LeBouf, so much as he Just Irrationally Bugs Them, but they will “nope” out of things if he’s involved

Talents and/or Powers: Okay, so, a lot of Josie’s actual superpowers are discussed elsewhere, especially in the footnotes, so let’s talk about their other, non-mutant superpowers. They can sew. Even without having been actively designing anything for a while, they can still pull out a good design and they are capable of following a pattern pretty well. They know their limits fairly well, and better than pretty much everyone in the main team (this doesn’t mean that they always). And it’s almost 4 AM, so this answer is getting cut short by, “I am tired and I want to sleep” (and the next two answers will suck for the same reason)

Why Someone Might Love Them: Josie is creative and curious and once you get them to warm up, calm down, and stop worrying so much about anything, they’re a complete dork who, among other things, gives people, “C’thulhu kisses” (done by sticking your hands in front of your mouth and wiggling your fingers like tentacles, and maybe making a silly noise and saying, “C’thulhu kisses!” like you’re Sailor Moon shouting her transformation phrase). They have a pretty good sense of humor about themself, outside of their precious few no go areas. Josie is compassionate and they do genuinely want the best for most people, even people they don’t personally like very much. They try to be patient with people, even when they really don’t want to be, and even if they don’t always know what the best option is, they still try to actually do things and choose the best option for creating positive change.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: Their cycle of indecisiveness that leads to recklessness that leads to self-punishing thoughts and behaviors that leads to more indecisiveness, and rinse lather repeat. Their tendency to be really judgmental, even while acknowledging that being judgmental is something that, in their experience, causes more harm than good, and that they want to avoid more often. The way that they can lapse into talking like a high school goth kid who’s up-talking the superiority of goth subculture and doesn’t realize that they sound like an elitist, conformist prick, just like the people they’re complaining about allegedly do.

How They Change: Well, for one thing, Josie has some things to learn about how they relate to people and manage their relationships — which doesn’t necessarily make them special because this is just kind of a Thing for most of my main characters in one way or another. Josie’s specific issue wrt relating to other people has to do with their reluctance to trust people and open up and try to build any new relationships, which has often led to them practicing a sort of interpersonal-level isolationism that has hurt them and other people.

They also have something to learn about managing the façade(s) that they present to the world, much like how Seb has to learn something about his habit of acting like everything is okay while he’s suffering and thinking anyone believes him anymore because he doesn’t want to deal with his problems

and like how Pete has to learn about how…… yeah, okay, he is genuinely angry about a lot of things — some of them fair and really more, “righteous indignation” than anything else, and some of them less fair — but a lot of how he acts that anger out in the world is not actually as truthful as Pete feels like it is, but more a way of keeping people at arm’s length, testing them and testing his relationships with them, and trying to push them away before they can get the chance to hurt him

In Josie’s case, their façade(s) are a bit different because most of them came into being less because of an emotional choice on Josie’s part — e.g., Seb doesn’t want to deal with his problems because they’re painful and terrifying and they feel like they’re too big to handle — and more out of pragmatic decisions

……but then Josie came to rely on them in contexts other than the ones in which they were originally created, and balancing that many different versions of yourself is stressful as fuck-all, especially for someone who already has to do a lot of work to keep reminding themself of where their personal boundaries are, and Josie hides in their different façades every bit as much as every other character who has one, and largely only gets away with that because most people in their life don’t know them well enough to notice this, and their façades do still have pragmatic value, so most people who do notice don’t say shit about shit

Then, there’s Josie’s relationship to time, which

I’m going to explain this really badly now, because it’s 3:33 and I’m tired, but basically, I see Seb, Josie, and Lucy as complementing each other in how they relate to and orient themselves in time, and the negative side-effects that they create for themselves because of these behaviors

On one hand, Seb is way too prone to being stuck in the past. He clings to it too much — but also has a selective relationship with it, where people he cares about get forgiven too easily and Seb tries to deny that he still feels upset about anything (even when basically everyone around him knows that he does feel upset and is just trying not to deal with it), while Seb forgives himself for nothing and defines himself so much by all of his past mistakes

—and he goes past the point of, “honoring and respecting history, such as by not ignoring times when he did fuck up (of which there are many)” to, “actively impeding his own progress in life because, for example, he keeps trying the same shit over and over and over again, even though it literally never works, because it’s what he did before.” Plus, some of his ideas about the past are distorted by various factors, or missing entirely (most often due to intoxicated blackouts and/or head trauma that would have had more disastrous effects on him if not for his mutant healing factor), or otherwise unreliable, so that’s a problem.

On the other hand, Lucy is future-oriented and totally jazzed up about trying new things and meeting new challenges head on and doing things!! also STUFF!!!!! there is an entire world full of THINGS AND STUFF AND BY GOD, LUCY IS GOING TO DO ALL OF IT OR AT LEAST AS MUCH OF IT AS SHE POSSIBLY CAN AND THINGS ARE GOING TO GET BETTER SO HELP HER GOD OR JESUS OR SATAN OR WHOEVER EXCELSIOR YAH YAH YAH!!!!

……which is great and all, but she charges headlong into shit without an actual plan (seriously, most of her plans follow the good old, “step one: do this thing / step two: ………… / step three: PROFIT!” formula), and she’s a case of someone who is averse to learning from history at all because she doesn’t want to be shackled to it, but having no sense of history can be just as bad as being overly chained to it like Sebastian, and… well. You can try to outrun the past like she does, but it doesn’t tend to work out very well, and it’s not going to work for Lucy either

On the tentacle, we have Josie, who ostensibly has a balance between the past and the future orientations that we see in Seb and Lucy, because Josie’s primary focus tends to lie on the present, and at most, the very near future or very recent past

—but that’s not actually a balance like Josie wants to believe, because (among other things), it makes it very easy for Josie to ignore past lessons that are older than maybe the past two or three months; and it means that while Josie can see all kinds of potential consequences, their ability to predict what they could be gets a lot less reliable as you go further into the future; and it means that Josie has trouble actually putting together a longer-term plan, which is part of their problem with wanting to create positive change in the world but not knowing how

Josie also has a tougher road (imltho) to go on about finding a new and better balance here, because their focus on the present is something they learned in recovery, as part of learning about mindfulness, and it does help them sometimes — but on that personal level, Josie’s presentist focus can also hurt them because, even when they notice certain behaviors in themself that could get Bad For Them, they can also overlook some of these budding patterns because they’re not Obviously Bad Enough to feel like a major concern, or they look different from other past manifestations of Josie’s behavior patterns so Josie doesn’t think they need to worry about these behaviors, and so on

I’m mean to my characters and I’m going to make them work to be happy, but they will all be happy, eventually

Uh. Barring most of the villains, because letting the neo-fascist assholes win in the end would be a complete downer that would probably end up undermining a lot of the whole, “just because the world is a crapsack hellhole doesn’t mean that it has to stay that way or that we should give up on it” idea

Why You Love Them: Okay, so, this needs a bit of a story.

See, Josie is a retooled character from an old RP that I was in way, way back. I loved them a lot, and they weren’t entirely wrong for the game — they had a good run in their first incarnation — but they also weren’t entirely right for it, and they kind of floundered a bit because I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them.

A large part of this was due to how Josie was a senior at their school and, because of the year they did over, they were itching to get out and go to college, and the closest they got to an actual arc was how they didn’t want to leave behind their ex-boyfriend turned best friend (who was in the class below them), but did want to go to college already and get to the rest of their life

and how they had some trouble with accepting said best friend’s new boyfriend when Josie really wanted to be compassionate, because New Boyfriend was mentally ill and dealing with some trauma and Josie sympathized and wanted him to be well because why the Hell would you wish for someone to be *UN*well jfc — but also had trouble with that because New Boyfriend was sometimes aware of how some of his actions affected other people, but sometimes not, but sometimes he was and did the stupid things anyway, and even in working on his problems, he made the mistake that a lot of people do where they focus on getting well as defined by and in order to please the people around them, rather than doing it for themselves

—all of which Josie was sympathetic to in a big way, having been in some similar places before themself…… but they had a hard time always being as compassionate as they wanted to be because New Boyfriend’s actions had been hurting Best Friend, and even knowing that this wasn’t entirely something that New Boyfriend could be entirely blamed for (for several reasons), Josie still had a hard time trying to overlook the, “this lovable weirdo is my friend, my best friend, and even though we aren’t together anymore, I love him, and you hurt him, so yeah, I’m kinda mad at you for that” thing

And this all goes back to why I love Josie because one thing that they’ve kept in a big way, in getting retooled and updated and worked into my dumb little stories about neurodivergent and/or mentally ill LGBTQ mutant superheroes (and Pete, who is not actually a mutant but is neurodivergent, gay, an abuse survivor, and a superhero and I will fight anyone who says otherwise)

(I mean, ffs. Batman doesn’t have any mutant superpowers, and Iron Man wouldn’t have any actual superpowers without his ridiculous power-armor and, depending on the continuities, his arc reactors. So, no, I don’t think that Pete needs to have literal superpowers to count as a superhero — but that’s beside the point and to be fair, I will admit to being biased because I love Pete more than George RR Martin loves Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister)

Anyway. As I was saying.

One thing that Josie has kept in a big way is that ongoing fight with themself over two equally powerful impulses or reactions to things or desires — like their, “I want affections and I want to be around people…… okay no this is overwhelming and I don’t actually like these people fuck this I want to be alone…… oh but being alone sucks and now I’m lonely, I want to be where the people are, let’s go to the movies…… oh my god why did we go see the new Star Wars while it’s still a relatively recent release, I barely remember anything about the actual movie, I was too overwhelmed by the feelings of everyone else in that completely packed theatre… and so on” relationship with other people and being around them or not

Or like their big struggle in the first book of wanting to help people and create positive change in the world, but not being able to do too terribly much on their own for a lot of reasons (some of which are about Josie personally, and some of which are about the whole Lone Superhero thing be a lot of hot fucking nonsense that is fundamentally unsustainable), but not having an official team to belong to because although they work for S.T.R.O.M.A., they don’t like S.T.R.O.M.A., and while they are part of the extended Wardens family, they’re not a fully-fledged Warden and so much of the Wardens’ everything is based around Yael and Elizabeth’s school, so being one and not being up in Poughkeepsie would be weird and mean you end up missing out on a lot and, in Josie’s case, end up feeling like an outsider even when you’re surrounded by people who, for the most part, love you and accept you exactly as you are, but also not entirely doing everything they can to find a team because, in fairness, it can be really difficult to do that even if you don’t work for the U.S. government……

Basically, I love Josie because I love making my characters deal with internal conflict, and while all of them have a lot of it, I’m really fond of Josie’s particular brand of, “self-reflective, doing things but not things that add up to bigger things in the ways that Josie wants, trying to remedy that but it’s hard, not sure what to do or if going after these new possibilities and new ideas will make things worse, getting fed up with themself and needing to try something, but but but five million different elements all converging on each other but but but” internal conflict

And I’m really fond of it in Josie’s case because Josie is savvy enough to know that they can’t fall into the same, “do fuck-all nothing about anything until the last possible minute” trap, but their frustration is less about, “I can’t do anything” and more about, “but what do the things that I do actually mean, who am I helping, am I actually helping them or not, how can I do things that create more significant positive changes or is there a way to do that at all”

And, well. There is, Josie, but it requires you to trust some new people, bond with some new people, build relationships with them and work on maintaining said relationships, find strength in numbers, and learn more about loving and letting people love you back because one of your biggest problems in your previous relationships has been that you don’t open up — not, “you open up slowly” but, “you don’t open up with most people, period, despite knowing that this is not a sustainable way of doing things” — so yeah I’d say you need to learn about that, and learn to stop being such a lone wolf because do you know what generally happens to lone wolves? Either they find a pack somehow, or they die (without making any kind of positive changes in the world around them, relative to the size and interests of, y’know, wolves).

……Because I’m a lonely and bitter and it makes my half-dead little heart happy to make my characters find more strength together than they do apart and learn to love and be loved in return without it coming off as one-sided, like it can do in a lot of takes on that trope that are aimed at children, because…… uh, last I checked, the whole point of a relationship is that it is not exclusively about one person’s needs or desires???

Also, Josie is a compassionate but grumpy grown up goth kid who is trying to be a good person, and doing a better job than a lot of other characters, but definitely has a problem with their judgmental tendencies and how they sometimes externalize them and get super-judgmental of others, because on some level, their mind is like, “fuck, can i get a break from always punishing myself over here, jfc” and I don’t know, it’s almost 4AM and I have lost track of how long I’ve been writing this

Josie’s a nerd and a cat who can’t make up their mind about whether they want to be outside chasing butterflies or inside sitting on your keyboard so that you have to pay attention to them and not your computer and idk, I love them, the end

(except for the footnotes oops)

*: Special Taskforce for the Regulation and Oversight of Metahuman Affairs — or in plain-speak, the FBI’s wing of people who get involved in all of the shiny, extralegal superpowered mutant hijinks.

They have a pretty good working relationship with their counterparts at the Department of Health and Human Services (who actually end up handling most mutant affairs, because this world treats the question of super-powered mutant licensing as more equivalent to getting a driver’s license, and frankly, most mutants in the U.S. just want to go about their lives in peace — like, go to college, get a job, go on dates, come home and watch the Daily Show, and not be bothered about or make trouble for anyone else with the weird superpowers that most of them did not want or ask for — so there’s rarely any actual reason for the FBI to go stick their noses into anything, and there are plenty of cases where they get called in, only to find that they aren’t actually needed after all), but… yeah.

S.T.R.O.M.A. is a faction of people who exist. Josie works for them, for all they would really rather not. Unfortunately for Josie, particularly powerful metahumans tend to wind up on a lot of S.T.R.O.M.A. watch-lists, and they are more likely to do so when they have powers that the people at the FBI consider particularly useful or desirable — for example, telepathy and hyper-empathy, in Josie’s case. For the most part, these watch-lists don’t actually amount to anything because they don’t end up being relevant to most of the cases that S.T.R.O.M.A. has to deal with.

—but then you can have situations like Josie’s, where they were one of many mutants who got in a brief spot of trouble over genuine confusion surrounding a new bill that had just gone through Congress and revised some of the definitions of and privileges associated with/afforded to people at the different levels of metahuman licenses. (Since this is still America and we’re still talking about the FBI, there are also plenty of even worse potential outcomes for people who end up on their miscellaneous mutant watchlists — which is one of the big points that gets brought up by people who either want to reform or do away with the whole metahuman licensing thing — but in fairness to most people, they don’t know the full specifics.)

Anyway, Josie got in trouble because they are an actual therapist and, although they prefer not to use their powers with clients and extensively brief anyone who asks about trying that approach (about the potential benefits vs. potential risks, all the drawbacks, all the potential unintended consequences, etc.) while offering them plenty of chances to change their mind and go, “okay, let’s not do this,” they do still let their clients know that they’re a telepath/empath and that they can use their powers in a therapeutic context but it’s not the best thing to try as a first approach

Which is all great, except that Josie had been assured that they wouldn’t need to get a different kind of license to continue doing this, after that bill passed… except that they did. And this probably would’ve continued with no actual interference from anybody because Josie is hyper-responsible about using their powers with clients, about keeping up on all of the latest research and debates about therapeutic uses for psychic abilities and the ethical issues surrounding this, and so on…… except that one of their clients was a teenager who needed parental consent to go through with this, and one of their parents worked for S.T.R.O.M.A.

Relevant piece of context: Josie was absolutely not the only mutant who’d had some confusion over the revised licensing scheme. Josie wasn’t even the only mutant in the greater Baltimore area who had similar confusion on this issue.

But Josie was one of the only ones who was already on S.T.R.O.M.A.’s radar when they got in trouble, partly by virtue of being a “telempath,” partly by virtue of having trained with Dr. Elizabeth Woodham (who is: one of the most powerful telepaths in the entire world; a respected professor, activist, and philanthropist; one of the first mutants in the States to register for one of the early, “superhero licenses” [not their official name, but that’s the gist of what they are]; and with her wife, Dr. Yael Lehrer, one of the co-founders of the Wardens and co-headmistresses of one of the most respected schools for mutants in North America), and partly by virtue of having a lot of (mostly untapped) potential power.

And, see, one of S.T.R.O.M.A.’s problems is that it is perpetually under-staffed, in all areas but especially in terms of mutants who work for them, and moreover, mutants who will actually do fieldwork (like, Pete’s cousin Emerson is a mutant and he does work for S.T.R.O.M.A., but he’s lower on the powers scale than most of their employees who do active fieldwork, and he has no desire to do fieldwork when he could do lab-work instead). There are a lot of reasons for this problem of staffing, but one of the more noticeable end-results is that S.T.R.O.M.A. can be somewhat unethical in some of their recruitment bids. Like, yes, sometimes, you just get a visit from Some Guy Who Is Totally Not Nick Fury, who offers you a chance to be a part of something bigger than yourself and to use your abilities to help people

Other times, you get treated to a few hours of what S.T.R.O.M.A. sees and treats as the interview portion of applying for a Very Important Position somewhere, except that they don’t tell you that this is what they’re doing and they use “interview” (read: interrogation) techniques that people in law enforcement usually save for wrangling confessions out of suspects.

It will not look like it, but they are actually trying to figure out some specific things about you, including but not limited to: how you handle high-stress and high-pressure situations (like, for example, being accused of using your powers for any extralegal vigilantism, and maybe knowing things about [the biggest mutant-related news of the day] that they don’t; being threatened with a trip to one of the U.S. prisons designed to hold mutants; etc.); various details about your backstory and who you are as a person and what your biggest Deals are (i.e., getting you to help them run a damn background check on yourself); and how in control of your powers you are (since they trust the DHHS evaluations, but prefer to supplement them with firsthand evidence).

Then, once they’ve figured out what they want to know, you might very well be offered something to the tune of, “Alright, this is your first offense, and based on your dossier and this interview, we think that you could be an asset to S.T.R.O.M.A., if you wanted. If you like the sound of working for us, at least as an analyst or consultant if not a fully-fledged special agent, then we can make all of this legal trouble just go away. If you don’t like the sound of that, then……… well… *deliberately trails off to let you draw your own conclusions while still staying within the letter of the law, because hey, they didn’t actually tell you that you’d for sure end up getting prosecuted and going to prison*”

So…… yeah. S.T.R.O.M.A. and Ethics are not always on speaking terms.

Add this recruitment story to Josie’s frustrations with how metahuman employees at S.T.R.O.M.A. tend to get treated — e.g., they, themself, are often trotted out to go liaise with different media outlets as a public face of Mutants Who Work Here, Look We’re Trying Our Best So You Should All Just Totally Cooperate With Us, but they’re discouraged from voicing any of their own opinions and advised to just stick to these Bureau-approved talking points — and at having to be closeted and fairly masc-presenting at work because S.T.R.O.M.A. thinks they’re a cis man, and…… yeah, uh.

“Josie would really, really rather not work here” is an understatement af… but they continue working here anyway because: 1. as a consultant, they can still usually balance things enough to keep working as a therapist;

and 2. Josie wants so badly to help people, and for all S.T.R.O.M.A. is highly unethical (sometimes) and part of the goddamn FBI, most of the people who work there also want to help people and use their work to create positive changes in the world — and it’s not an unfair observation that, on their own, there really isn’t much that Josie can do (because the idea of the solo superhero who works alone… isn’t sustainable, like??

Aside from the political and ideological issues with that whole aspect of superhero mythology, it’s not actually feasible for one person, working on their own, to create any positive change. It would be massively unhealthy for them, there’s only so much they can do as one person, there are no actual safeguards in place if they ever get corrupted, and as multiple deconstructions of the genre have shown, it’s really easy for a classic lone vigilante model superhero to slide into a mindset like Rorschach’s — which is full of hypocrisy, double standards, misogyny and homophobia and ableism, and total moral absolutism that simultaneously allows no room for compassion and keeps Rorschach from being able to appreciate the big picture outside of his little myopic Objectivst bubble — or Frank Miller!Batman, who is often only a step or two off from actual fascism, but we probably won’t call it that because he’s wearing the Batman suit).

At this point, Josie has even had it all but confirmed that the agents who came to recruit them definitely “avoided certain truths to manipulate them” on purpose, so they’re reasonably certain that they could probably leave S.T.R.O.M.A without having their previous step out of bounds dredged up and handed to a D.A. who’d be pressured to prosecute them for it…… but they want to help people, and S.T.R.O.M.A. is one of the only options that they can currently see where they get to help anyone.

So, here they are. Working in a position that they’re not a fan of, looking at the motivational posters of gothed out kittens that one of their best friends drew for them, and trying to take, “hang in there!” kitty’s advice and tough it out at S.T.R.O.M.A. for the sake of doing some good in the world.

**: This mostly happens if Josie doesn’t have the energy enough or keep focus enough to keep their mental walls up — which they are usually very diligent about because on one hand, hearing other people’s thoughts kind of sucks actually (Josie would definitely agree with the sentiment that, a lot of the time, being a telepath is like having a youtube comments section screaming at you in your head)

—and on the other, um, hello, telepathy can, in the wrong hands, become a walking violation of civil liberties. Like, if you ask Josie, telepathy has a lot in common with wiretapping, though they consider it potentially even more dangerous than that, because it’s harder to prove that telepathy has been involved in something, since:

1. yes, the traces of telepathy can show up on a CAT scan or an MRI of the brain, but you’d need a neurologist who is well-trained, very attentive, and up to date on as much of the current research into telepathy as possible — or hey, a team of neurologists might not be a bad idea, if you can get them all, because one neurologist might miss something

—but otoh, the traces of telepathy can sometimes also be mistaken as signs of something else, especially if someone is neurodivergent and/or mentally ill, has suffered any serious and/or recent head injuries, has a history of substance abuse, is sleep-deprived at the time of the tests, may actually have something else going on in their brain in addition to the traces of telepathy

Seriously, just about anything that affects the brain can make it harder to tell whether or not someone’s been hit with telepathy

Plus: telepathic abilities are sort of mid-level common among mutants, and some mutants use them without even realizing it because their powers haven’t manifested in ways that are for sure Outside Three Standard Deviations From The Non-Mutant Human Mean, so some minor telepathic scarring is common, even in people who haven’t been hit by something as awful as, say, memory modification, or having someone go in and pick around in their brain like they’re flipping through an issue of Us Weekly

—and without a keen, well-trained eye, it can be really hard to tell those types of telepathic scarring apart

2. some of the traces of telepathy are more subjective, and while they might show up on a brain scan, the best evidence of them will come from the people who’ve been hit with the telepathic whatever

—but that’s going to be a problem because, in a lot of cases, they won’t have any memory of it, or they’ll have a false memory of it, and there’s no guarantee that further telepathic probing will be able to help here, and it could just make things worse. Plus, there’s no guarantee that the people who’ve been hit will actually be aware that what they’re experiencing is related to telepathy.

This is especially true with experienced, exceptionally powerful, and/or highly meticulous telepaths, because some of them can dick around in people’s heads and leave barely any trace that they were there

Like, for an example of what a more subjective trace might look like: Conrad is a telepath, and unlike Josie, he doesn’t really care about ethics or the rights of most other people. About ten years before the story actually starts, he took an interest in his new brother-in-law’s youngest brother (Sebastian), because he could sense something in Seb — he didn’t know what it was, exactly, but it was definitely a something — that made him go, “huh, maybe this emotionally troubled nearly twenty-year-old boy is also a mutant”

(I mean, he’s not wrong. And the something that he got a sense of back then is the part of Seb that he’s eventually going to call, “La Bête,” because if he’s going to go for the superhero thing and need a codename, then, “Gévaudan” makes sense to him because his family is insistently French [despite not having lived in France since about 1781, apart from one ancestral namesake of Seb’s who stayed in Paris for their Revolution (and Severin Sebastien Moncrieff was a confirmed bachelor, so he left behind a partner but no heirs), well before La Bête du Gévaudan was a Thing, and despite not being from the region of France where that happened] and hey, he can apparently turn into a giant wolf-man, now

—and if he’s calling himself, “Gévaudan,” then, “La Bête” is just thematically consistent. But that’s beside the point.)

Anyway: Conrad wasn’t new to his powers ten years ago, but he was much more reckless with them — especially when he believed that he was absolutely right and would stop at nothing to prove it — and he had less finesse in using them.

So, he left behind plenty of traces when he decided to use his little sister’s wedding reception as a chance to go telepathically play around with Seb, trying to either figure out if his new brother-in-law’s little brother actually was a mutant, or maybe triggering his powers into fully manifesting (plus plying him with alcohol and adding rohypnol to the mix based on the notion that either it wouldn’t affect Seb because he’s a mutant, or if not that, then it’d trigger his abilities into manifesting).

The underlying logic of the rohypnol idea was actually not wrong, because toxin filtering is one of the more common mutant abilities you find in the States (and it happens to be one that Seb has), and some mutants have had their powers manifest in response to poisoning, drugging, exposure to carbon monoxide or other toxic fumes, and even being given antibiotics or certain medications

The idea was still morally wrong and ethically skeevy, but the mutant-related logic actually did work. Where Conrad went wrong on that count was that he overly simplified the situation, only looked for two potential reactions, and didn’t know what to make of how Seb was affected by the rohypnol but not nearly as badly as he should’ve been, so he went, “Was he affected or not?? I don’t know????”

[Here is where I cut a whole big tangent explaining that whole story, but it got way, way off the point, so.]

Anyway, the gist of the story is that Conrad is the only person who consciously remembers everything that happened, since most of the people who cared about it were not present for the encounter itself, and Conrad screwed around with Seb’s memories, both telepathically and not.

Like, Seb has more memories of it than he would if he weren’t a mutant, considering that he got dosed with rohypnol, but he also has false memories about some of what happened, and Conrad repressed Seb’s memories of certain events (like how many times he tried to break away from Conrad, or turn down the offer of another drink, because he’d promised his big brother that he wouldn’t get drunk and make a scene at Max’s wedding or the reception, and it was important to him to honor that promise)

Fortunately for Conrad, Seb is not one of the mutants who has an increased resistance to psychic attacks — largely because, contrary to what Conrad thought until about two years before the story starts, someone’s ability to resist to psychic attacks has nothing to do with whether or not they’re a mutant (aside from some special cases where someone has a resistance to any psychic attacks that falls outside three standard deviations of the non-mutant human mean)

—so, despite the feelings he sometimes gets that something about those memories might be wrong, Seb totally believes that they’re real and he doesn’t notice any of the incongruities unless someone points them out, which almost no one has any reason to do because there isn’t usually a reason for Seb to talk at length about the details of this particular incident that happened almost ten years ago

(there would be, if he ever brought it up in therapy or at AA and/or NA, or dwelled on it when he did, but that has yet to actually happen)

Unfortunately for Conrad, he did a sloppy job of this, and while it would be hard for a neurologist to tell the physical signs of his telepathic probing apart from the other brain damage that Seb’s accrued, the hardest thing for most other telepaths would be trying to find the right memories. The crap-shoot nature of telepathically digging through someone else’s mind is one of the many reasons why Josie doesn’t like using their powers as a first approach in therapy, because you can never guarantee with any reliable certainty that you’ll get at the parts of someone’s mind that you want

—but if someone did get to Seb’s memories of this incident, it would be really obvious to them that they’ve been modified. Like, images might be blurred around the edges, it might glitch like a video or audio track that’s skipping, the voices might get distorted, the colors might look wonky, and so on. Prodding a bit more would also be able to undo Conrad’s memory-blocks without doing too much damage to Seb’s brain (not so much on an emotional and psychological level, but the damage there would be more like the painful truth that hurts now but leads to something better)

Anyway, it’s much harder to get proof of this nature when you’re dealing with more skillful, more attentive, more powerful, etc. telepaths, because they aren’t as messy as Conrad was with Seb

and 3. Wiretapping operations usually involve more people, which doesn’t make them ethical or necessarily justified, but it does mean that they’re easier to find evidence of because there are more folks who can spill the beans and point you to it. Telepathy only needs two people to happen, and one may not even be aware of what’s going on, depending on how sensitive they are and whether or not they’re dealing with an ethical telepath

For example: while not metahuman levels of resistant to psychic attacks, Pete is exceptionally sensitive to them and he’s naturally better at resisting them than some people, so if someone wanted to paw through his mind, he has a better chance of recognizing that he’s being telepathically invaded and getting them out

Sebastian, on the other hand, is Bad at recognizing and resisting psychic probing. Unethical telepaths have an easier time of getting through him because at his best, if he isn’t told in advance, then he feels ill at ease, inexplicably anxious (not that it means much, because he tends to attribute that to his shitty mental health), kind of nauseated, and maybe like he’s being spied on. At worst, he doesn’t even notice.

So, basically, Josie considers it a moral and ethical responsibility on their part to do everything they can to not inadvertently spy on people, because there is already so much about telepathy that can go really bad and poses a lot of ethical problems — but they are only human, and there are a lot of ways for someone’s mental walls to come down or reasons why they would.

Letting their empathic walls down usually makes it easier for Josie to focus on keeping up the telepathic walls, since the empathic ones are a lot harder for them to keep up, but it’s only a temporary thing because if Josie takes those walls down, they open themself up to a looooooot of potential overwhelm from outside influence, and there’s always the option to find a balance between the empathic walls and telepathic ones, but sometimes, it’s easier said than done.

Josie is usually too hard on themself for it when any slip-ups on their part happen, even knowing that every other telepath and every other empath has moments like this and even if they got too overwhelmed to actually remember anything and/or heard nothing.

It’s such a big deal to them because the potential for psychic abilities to violate other people — and especially the potential to manipulate people and compromise or outright remove their agency — is something that Josie never wanted. They went into counseling as a profession, after their original plan of going into fashion went up in smoke, but part of it, for them, has always been about trying to help people get their lives back, or manage them better, and so on. Granted, they knew about their telepathic and empathic abilities before they officially went into therapeutic practice, but that, for Josie, was part of how they developed their approach to being a therapist.

Furthermore, on a more personal and less professional note, Josie never wanted mutant superpowers to begin with. After having their telepathy and empathy first manifest in full, they might’ve done plenty of things that they normally wouldn’t even consider, if they thought it could take their powers away.

Partly, that was because their powers manifested toward the end of a really bad mental health downswing that ended in Josie going back to an inpatient treatment center for their eating disorder. Any of these elements on their own would’ve been bad enough, but having them all come down on them at once was Hell for Josie, and worse, trying to get well while you are in an inpatient center and can feel everyone else’s feelings, hear a lot of their thoughts, and are currently having trouble sorting out which parts are your own feelings, which parts are coming from your eating disorder, and which parts are coming from everyone else (not least because you don’t have any proof that you are feeling things or hearing thoughts that are coming from other people).

Josie eventually got help for that part because one of the therapists at the center was a metahuman and had gone to the Woodham and Lehrer School before deciding that she didn’t particularly want to be a superhero in the traditional sense. She reached out to her old teachers, and Josie got help for that while doing more intensive outpatient treatment until they got better at tuning out other people’s thoughts and feelings.

But there’s a lingering problem here that goes back to the feelings that underlie Josie’s ED. When they are at their absolute worst, Josie can be an absolute control freak, and they tend to turn it inward more than outward because they realize that taking it out on other people isn’t fair and they don’t feel good about it. Additionally, feeling other people’s feelings as intensely as they do gives Josie an additional incentive not to take their issues with control out on other people (and did even before their powers fully manifested, because they’ve always been pretty sensitive). On some level, Josie realizes that they can’t control things like how people react to them, whether or not bad things happen to good people, and so on, but that doesn’t always help because it can lead to them feeling even more of a need to crack down on controlling themself.

Having psychic powers becomes problematic for them in two big ways, here:

1. It’s unfortunately very easy for Josie to slip into overly self-punishing thought patterns if they feel like they aren’t as in control of their abilities as they, “should” be — which happens very easily because Josie’s standards for themself aren’t always realistic, and they usually aren’t the best judge of whether or not they’re being fair to themself.

It’s even more noticeable, for them, when they try to do more complex and demanding things with their powers.

This was one of the big reasons why they’ve stayed on good terms with their friends and mentors at the Lehrer and Woodham School, and among Yael and Elizabeth’s Wardens, but consistently rejected any invites to become a Warden (and then regretted that when S.T.R.O.M.A. got them instead, since Josie would much rather be one of the Wardens than working for the FBI).

Basically, Josie trusted Elizabeth’s guidance, and they really, really wanted to trust Elizabeth’s faith in them to handle their full power responsibly…… but it was hard to believe that when they already didn’t feel like they controlled their powers as much as they, “should” have been doing, and Elizabeth wanted to push them further.

For Josie, it felt like the choice came down to, “be a superhero and do more cool superhero things, at the expense of my own well-being, which means I eventually won’t be able to help anyone and could hurt more people than I help”

or, “quietly go back to training for an entirely different career than I expected, keep in touch with Elizabeth and work on honing my abilities, and maybe not get to help people in as big a way as members of the Wardens get to do, but at least, as a therapist, I will still have the ability to help people and will probably be less likely to screw that up by virtue of losing my control over my powers”

(To her credit, Elizabeth was disheartened by this, because she believes in all of her students and wants them to believe in themselves, and really wanted Josie on her team — but she’s learned that the superhero life isn’t for everybody, and that it’s not her job, as a teacher and mentor, to tell people what they should do; it’s her job to show them new approaches, teach them how to learn, help them find what paths and methods work best for them, etc.

So, disheartening as it was, she’s been nothing but supportive about Josie’s choice not to be a Warden, and compassionate about how much Josie doesn’t like working for the FBI — and without trying to turn it into some kind of, “this could be super-beneficial for us, if Josie wanted to give us any advance warning about S.T.R.O.M.A. business that might negatively affect us here” thing like Yael)

(To her credit, Yael really does believe that she’s helping when she says things like that, because she is so fundamentally a doer, rather than a thinker, feeler, planner, or anything else. She is absolutely capable of all of those things, but she has an approach to life and problems that goes, “Okay, this is a Thing and it’s a setback, but what can we do about it, how can we use this to build something even better”

—so her idea of how to help one of her and Elizabeth’s students and comrades with an unexpected and unwanted “recruitment” to S.T.R.O.M.A.… is going, “But look, see, we can still potentially make something good out of this, and just because a government agency snatched you up doesn’t mean that you have to forget your own values or let them control you, this can be a good thing if you take advantage of the right pieces and opportunities”

—for a moment of MBTI nerdery: Yael is an ENTJ (***) vs. Josie’s INFJ (***), so while she has Extroverted Thinking (Te) for a dominant cognitive function and primarily approaches the world based on how to get results, Josie’s dominant function is Introverted iNtuition (Ni), and while they have an orientation toward the future that appreciates where Yael is coming from with her drive to get results, Josie’s primary approach to the world looks less at objective things and objective results, more at patterns and theories and trying to find the, “higher purpose” or, “deeper reason” behind how stuff happens

Which, oddly enough, is part of why Josie and Yael get on so well. They can butt heads with each other, sometimes, but at the end of the day, they complement each other really well because both of them have vision and the drive to act on it, but Yael is better at actually getting shit done, and Josie is better at checking things through the processes of making them happen, finding potential problems that Yael may not have seen coming and trying to work addressing them into the fabric of her plans.

Their Feeling functions also complement each other really well: Josie is a high Feeler, with Extroverted Feeling (Fe) as their auxiliary function, which keeps them more attuned to the state of the group and all the people in it, while Yael has a very good relationship with her inferior Fi (Introverted Feeling), which enables her to better evaluate how their actions and plans are helping or hurting their causes, where their ideals fit into everything, and so on.

So, basically, Yael is better at making sure that they all remember who they are and what they stand for, both individually and as parts of the whole, while Josie is better at attending to people’s emotional needs and keeping the whole intact by caring for the individual members of it.

And because they both respect and admire each other, neither of them devalues the other’s contributions to anything — and it doesn’t matter to Yael that Josie has a badge and would have an easier time getting a gun if they weren’t really uneasy about guns; Josie’s a mutant, they’ve been one of her students, and they care about helping other mutants, so officially being part of S.T.R.O.M.A. doesn’t mean that they aren’t part of Yael’s (larger, mutant) family

—which all means a lot to Josie because, in a lot of ways, they still haven’t entirely outgrown their early experiences of being one of the weird art freaks at school (which, even for someone who wound up being part of a subculture/clique that’s all about going, “fuck you, I’m gonna do my thing and you can love it or shove it,” gave Josie some trouble because, goth of not, they’re sensitive), and they have a huge tendency to be overly harsh with themself and don’t always love themself very much, so this whole unconditional acceptance thing is a Big Deal to them

But I digress.

2. Having psychic powers also gets Problematic for Josie because, in their mind, they’ve spent so much of their life fighting their eating disorder and their overall mental health to keep control of their life, and it’s difficult, periodically degrading, often horrific, and something that they wouldn’t wish on anybody, period…… so having the power to take away someone’s ability to control their own mind? Having the power to violate someone’s agency, potentially with more or less complete impunity? That’s horrifying, and Josie doesn’t want it

One of the easiest ways to make Josie go off the handle at you is to dismiss how hard it is for them to maintain any sense of composure. Like, okay, they can handle people teasing them about some of their self-care habits because humor is how a lot of people come to be comfortable with and accept things they don’t understand at first, and how a lot of people show that they’re comfortable with you and like you.

But if you act like Josie doesn’t have to work, impossibly hard and daily, on their own well-being, because if they don’t, then they could lose control of psychic abilities and this would be Really Fucking Terrible for everyone? ……Uh.

Just don’t do that. It’s not pretty, it’s not fun, it’s mean and please, just don’t do it.

An even easier way to make Josie snap at you is to play what they call, “the Aslan card” — which means telling them that the proof that they can handle the responsibility of psychic powers, is their own fear that maybe they can’t, their awareness of and attentiveness to the ethical and moral problems attached to them having psychic powers, the fact that they’d rather not have psychic powers in the first place because it can — and often does — feel like these powers and their attendant responsibilities are too big and too potentially Terrible Forever, For Everyone

Which Josie calls, “the Aslan card” because, uh. The first time they heard it was from Elizabeth (whose heart was in the right place in saying this, but she didn’t think about how it might end up sounding to Josie), and the first thing Josie was reminded of was Aslan telling Prince Caspian that he’s ready to become the King because he doesn’t think he’s ready

It’s just…… Josie understands where this idea is coming from, and they appreciate the underlying sentiment

But, to them, it always sounds more like, “why are you upset about how hard this is for you, at least it’s happening to you and not someone who doesn’t give a fuck about ethics or how they treat other people, quit whinging and cheer the fuck up”

Which…… yes, Josie knows that this isn’t what most people mean, but it’s still pretty upsetting for them to hear because of how much it reminds them of things that they’ve told themself so many times, when they’ve been at their worst, in terms of their mental health and emotional well-being — especially the things like, “My eating disorder isn’t bad because it’s only hurting me, not anyone else, and it’s only hurting me because I’m weak”

—and yeah, okay, Josie appreciates that you’re trying to help, but they already have enough work to do on keeping themself from slipping back into the comfort of those thought patterns, so if it’s all the same, can you maybe find a different way of trying to comfort them or praise them or whatever? Please?

Thank you, they’d like that