#Just let me know and I’ll still do this just as an alt flag and credit the original

[page-2-ids]

Hello hello! I love all the stuff you’ve coined! Is it possible you can do one related to the movie Scream (1996 vers aka the first movie) if you haven’t already?

Thank you and queued!

[walker-extended-universe]

False Smiles and Pretty Lies

Relationship(s): August Walker & Cordell Walker, Cassie Perez & Cordell Walker, Larry James & Cordell Walker

Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe- Canon Divergence, Episode: s03e14-15 False Flag, Kidnapping, Gunshot Wounds, Blood, Blood and Injury, Bleeding Out, Near Death Experiences, Panic, Revenge, Angst, Heavy Angst, Angst and Feels, Hurt No Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ghost Emily Walker

Summary:

James told Walker that his family had to attend the medal ceremony to keep Kevin's guard down and make it easier to catch him. Cordell reluctantly agreed and did his best to prepare his family for it. Unfortunately, they lose track of August during the panic when Grey Flag attacks and Kevin takes the opportunity to use him as leverage in his escape. Now it's up to Cordell to rescue his son and try not to do something to James that will cost him his badge.

Written for @whumptober alt prompt 11: Panic

Taglist: @theladywyn, @ihavepointysticks, @klaatu51, @itsjessiegirl1, @neptunium134

------

“Are you kidding me?”

“Walker-”

“Do not ‘Walker’ me, James!” he snapped. “Are you actually telling me that you think the best course of action is putting my family in danger? Are you telling me that their lives are worth Kevin’s damn peace of mind?! Is that actually what you’re telling me? Because that’s what I’m hearing!”

“That’s not what I meant,” James said calmly. “I understand your concerns but I think this is the best course of action. If we’re going to catch Kevin, we need his guard to be down. The best way to do that is to just go ahead with the medal ceremony as planned. We’ll be taking extra precautions with security, of course, and I recommend you warn your family.”

Cordell grit his teeth and nodded. It was clear arguing would get him nowhere. “Fine. We’ll be there. But if anything happens-”

“We’ll do our best to make sure nothing does.”

That wasn’t all that comforting but Cordell appreciated the effort. “I’ll see you there.” 

He stormed out of James’ office and pulled out his phone as he made his way to the front door. “Something big came up, Liam. We need to hold a family meeting. Get Mama and Daddy and meet me at the farmhouse.” He hung up and texted Stella to ask her to be there too.

His thumb hovered over August’s contact info, then he went back and texted Stella again.

[Text to: Butterbean]: Don’t tell your brother. Just let him work on his speech. I’ll explain everything at the meeting.

It’s not that he didn’t want to tell August. Given how close he was to Kevin, he had as much of a right to know as anyone else. But he knew firsthand that August was a bad liar and he wasn’t sure he could trust his son to keep his cool around Kevin. The whole point was to catch Kevin off guard later. He knew August wouldn’t forgive himself if he blew this. Better not to risk it, as much as it pained him to do so.

—---------------

August read over his speech for what felt like the billionth time. He knew all the words; he just still wasn’t sure they were good enough.

Sighing, he put down the pages and glanced around the room from his table. Well, technically it was his family’s table but they all scattered as soon as they arrived. Dad had to go meet up with James and everyone else, Stella and Liam decided to network for the horse rescue, and Gramps and Mawline apparently knew every other person here. That left August sitting by himself. He considered getting up to talk to Kevin but every time August saw him, he was talking to someone. August didn’t think he should interrupt.

“Hey, I know you’re new to this whole thing, but generally speaking, you can’t really ‘work the room’ while you’re sitting in a corner.”

August startled and turned to see Kevin. “Oh, hey Mr. Golden…” He smiled sheepishly. “I know you’re right but…. I wouldn’t even know where to start….”

Kevin smiled and gestured for him to stand up. “Well, come on. I’ll show you a few things. I have another round to make to smooth things over with the guests since the mayor was late. Maybe you can learn a thing or two.”

August nodded and got up to follow him. He hoped he wouldn’t be expected to actually say anything to these people. He’d probably mess up and say the wrong thing and then Kevin would get mad at him and-

Breathe. He probably just wants you to follow him around and play personal assistant. He let out a breath, put on his best smile, and followed Kevin into the crowd.

It was simple enough. Kevin introduced him to some people and then mostly took over the conversation, asking questions and letting the people talk. “People at these things love talking about themselves. Just ask the right questions and they’ll take over; you don’t have to worry about a thing.” Kevin had lots of pieces of advice like that; August took them in like gospel. After about half an hour, he’d even started to enjoy himself a little.

Then, everything went to shit.

The gunshots shocked August still. For a brief moment, he was taken back to that awful day at the ranch a couple of years ago, when Clint West took over and Uncle Hoyt died. He was frozen. He knew he should be moving, running, helping and he just- couldn’t.

Kevin grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the exit and he didn’t care to protest. Anywhere there wasn’t gunfire was a good place to be. He followed Kevin out of the back of the building and into a car that was waiting in the alley. He let Kevin push him into the backseat and let his brain come back online after he clicked in his seatbelt. “Thanks,” he murmured, trying not to let his embarrassment show.

“No problem, kid.” Kevin signaled for the driver to move.

August leaned back in his seat. As his heart slowed down, his brain started working again and he realized they were driving away from the ceremony. Alone. He didn’t see any other law enforcement vehicles following them. He guessed everyone was back at the hall; that made sense with the shooting and all. But it meant that no one knew where they were going. His family would be wondering where he was once the panic died down. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to text them and let them know where he was and that he was safe with Kevin. 

“What are you doing?”

“Texting my dad. I just want to let him know that I’m okay and I’m with you. He’s probably worried….”

August didn’t even have the messaging app open when Kevin suddenly ripped the phone from his hand and tossed it out the window. “Sorry, champ. Can’t have you doing that.”

August’s jaw dropped. “I- What? Why did you-” His voice dropped off when he saw the gun in Kevin’s lap, pointed right at him. “Wha- What’s going on?”

“This is nothing personal,” Kevin said, voice as smooth and casual as it had been at the party. “Just a small change in plans. I didn’t want to do this, believe me, but I need a little insurance to keep me out of jail right now.”

“What?” August replied dumbly. Because what else could he say? None of this made any sense. Why did Kevin throw his phone away? Why was he pointing that gun at him? Why did he need to stay out of jail? What did any of this have to do with August? “What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry about it; we’re just going on a little trip, that’s all.” Kevin smiled at him, his same politician smile he’d been giving all day. Somehow, it didn’t shine the way it used to.

—----------

Cordell sighed and looked away from the dead security officer. To say things hadn’t gone to plan would be an understatement. But the damage definitely could’ve been worse so he was going to count that as a win. “What’s the next move, Cap?”

“Go check on your family,” James said. “Perez and I will handle things from here. We’re still waiting to hear from the Mayor.”

He nodded and jogged back up to the ceremony hall. In all the confusion, he hadn’t had a chance to check on them. He hoped they’d followed the plan he walked them through in their meeting earlier.

The hall had pretty much cleared out by then with officers escorting out the remaining civilians. His family was still there, huddled around their assigned table. He breathed a sigh of relief seeing everyone there. His parents, his brother, his daughter, his-

Wait.

“Where’s August?” He hoped against all hope that the answer to that question was Oh he just went to the bathroom real quick.

Liam cleared his throat. “Uh, he’s… He’s not here.”

Cordell swallowed. “He’s not here?”

“Look, we tried to keep an eye on him but we were networking and then the shooting happened….”

Cordell gripped the back of the chair he was standing behind. It took everything in him not to blow up at his family right then. “Is there any chance at all he’s just hiding somewhere in or around the building?”

“They’ve already searched the whole place,” Bonham said. “And a five block radius around here. Nothing.”

Cordell nodded. August was a fast runner, but not that fast. There wouldn’t have been enough time for him to go that far and he would’ve called someone by now if that were the case. And they knew Kevin left the second the panic started, and now they were both gone. That could only mean one thing. “Well. I guess we’re going to have to assume the worst happened,” he muttered, gripping the chair harder. “As in, the thing that was supposed to be avoided by everyone at this table keeping an eye on him and, most importantly, keeping him away from Kevin.”

“We’re sorry-”

“I don’t need an apology.” He cut his mother off and allowed himself to give her a curt look. “I need to know he’s okay. Try his phone; he may not be able to answer but we should be able to at least trace a location. I’m going to go report back to James so he knows we’re looking at a potential hostage situation.” And also maybe deliver an I fucking told you so but that could wait until he knew August was safe.

He stormed back to the parking garage to find James. “Walker, there you are. How’s-”

“August is missing. Kevin’s also in the wind. I wonder if those two things are connected,” he said through grit teeth.

“Ah, well-”

“Don’t,” he snapped. “I don’t want your apologies or any excuses. I want my son home safely. Make that happen and I might not do something to you that’ll cost me my badge.”

He turned on his heels and walked away before James could say anything else. He needed to get away before he lost his badge right then and there. He stormed out of the building toward his truck, hearing the quick footsteps of his partner behind him. “I don’t wanna hear it,” he muttered.

“I didn’t follow you to tell you off,” Cassie said, walking up to his side. “I just want to know how you’re doing. Besides pissed, I mean.”

“I’m fine.”

Cassie sighed. “Walker, your son has probably been kidnapped and you almost literally bit James’ head off back there. You’re not fine. And that’s perfectly understandable. But we need you to not be all shouty with everybody right now. You need to focus; getting angry isn’t going to-”

“I know! I know that, alright?!” He threw his hat off and ran a hand through his hair, tugging slightly on the ends. “I know panicking and yelling isn’t going to help anything. I know that. But I- I can’t do anything else. We don’t know where he is or if he’s even with Kevin or what’s going to happen to him if he is with Kevin. I- I don’t know what to do. What am I supposed to do, Cassie?”

“I don’t know,” she said gently. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now. But I can tell you that we’re going to do everything we can to find him. And it’s going to be a lot easier if our best ranger has his head in the game.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I know. I-I know. I just….”

“We’ll give you some time,” she said. “Take a lunch. Go drive out to an empty patch on that big ranch of yours and scream at God for a bit. Then come back to HQ and we’ll figure this out. Okay?”

He nodded and picked his hat up off the ground. “Thanks. I’ll catch up with y’all later.”

“Take your time.” Cassie hugged him. “We’ll find him, Walker. It’s gonna be okay.”

He didn’t believe her yet, but Cassie always followed through. “I know. Thanks.” He pulled away and got into his truck. He just needed a minute to melt down. Then, he could focus.

—---------

The car was silent for the rest of the trip. Aside from Kevin directing the driver to wherever they were going there was nothing.

August was still trying to wrap his head around this whole thing. He didn’t know exactly what was happening but he had a sinking suspicion that Kevinw as connected to those gunshots early. He was clearly involved in some illegal shit based on what he said earlier about trying to stay out of jail. August was just the unlucky human shield.

They eventually pulled up to an airfield. “Wait here,” Kevin ordered before getting out of the car and jogging to the airplane hangar.

August watched him go, gears turning in his mind. He could leave now. He didn’t know where he was but if he followed the road he would probably find a gas station or somewhere else he could use a phone. He was a pretty fast runner too; they probably wouldn’t be able to catch him. Yes, Kevin had a gun but he clearly wanted to keep August alive if he was looking for insurance. The gun was just an empty threat to keep him quiet.

He slowly unbuckled his seatbelt, keeping an eye on the driver and watching for any sign that his plan was blown. Once he was free of the strap, he kicked the door open and bolted down the dirt driveway. That should be a good enough headstart. He hoped it would be anyway. Kevin wasn’t watching and the driver would need time to-

He felt the bullet hit his leg before he heard the gunshot. The pain knocked him to the ground and he fell on his face.  The first thing he thought was how upset Mawline would be at the state of his suit. His second thought was how much everything hurt. Aside from the bullet wound in his leg, he was scraped up from all the little sharp rocks he’d fallen on. He was pretty sure his cheek was bleeding.

Two pairs of hands roughly pulled him to his feet (Since when did they get here?) and he was dragged back toward the hangar. They dropped him unceremoniously in a lonely corner and rough hands tied something tightly around his leg (a tourniquet- to stop the bleeding- that’s what Corach Barnett called it, supplied his pain-addled mind).

He shook his head to try and clear out some of the pain, get his thoughts in order, and his vision cleared a bit to show Kevin standing over him, arms crossed.

“I thought I told you to stay put,” he said. “Then again, you are Walker’s son. I suppose I should’ve expected you to do something stupid like this. It must run in the family.”

August glared at him. “Well, I guess I’m staying put now,” he snapped. “Guess you must really need me for insurance if you’re willing to put a bullet in my leg. Who are you trying to protect yourself from?”

“Your father, obviously.” Kevin rolled his eyes. “Come on, Augie, you’re a smart kid; surely you could’ve gotten there on your own.”

“Why?” he asked. “Why my dad? What did he ever do to you?”

“He ruined my life.”

“What? How? He didn’t even know you until a few months ago!”

“And that’s exactly the problem.” Kevin sighed and checked his watch. “Look, I have a lot to do if I’m going to get out of here before your father finds me so I don’t have time to explain the whole sad story, but I’ll give you a summary because I’m just such a nice guy.

“So, your father and my older brother were in the same Marines unit. Your dad came home, my brother didn’t. Your brother also made no effort to even offer condolences to my family after it happened. And my family wasn’t exactly a great place to be so you can imagine how your father’s neglect to bring my brother back home didn’t make it much better. The point is, my life was a shit show from the day my brother died and your father- and everyone else in that unit- played a part in that. They ruined my life, so I’m ruining theirs.”

August couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “That- You sound insane, you realize that? Your brother went to war; people die in wars. This wasn’t some big plan to ruin your life; it was just… Unfortunate. And I’m sorry. But it’s not my dad’s fault.”

Kevin shrugged. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But I’ve come too far to back down now. I’ve tracked down every other member of that unit and made their life hell before I killed them. Cordell is the last one on the list and he’s had the happiest life of them all, so I’ve made it just a bit worse for him. Kidnapping him and his brother was just the start. After today, I’ve set him up to look like a traitor. With the trail I’ve laid, the FBI will have him in cuffs by sundown. His reputation will be ruined and his precious little family will be splintered into bits.”

August swallowed hard. “And kidnapping me? Was that really just a little insurance? Or the icing on the cake?”

“Can’t it be both?” Kevin smirked.

A horrible realization hit him. “You never really wanted to be my mentor, did you? You were just using me.” He huffed. “You never wanted to help me. I bet you just wanted to show off to Dad that you were getting close to his family. That’s all I ever was to you; some fucking tool just to get one over on my dad.”

Kevin shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong kid; you do have potential. You’re smart and you’ve got natural charm. But that’s not really what I needed you for.” He checked his watch again. “I’ve really got some work to do. Why don’t you just stay put here until you’re needed again? Maybe practice that kicked puppy look for when your dad shows up.”

With that, he left August in his little timeout corner.

August sighed and knocked his head back against the metal wall.

He was so stupid. Why did he ever believe Kevin? Why would anyone try to reach out to him like that? Even his own family had given up on him. He should’ve known something was wrong the second Kevin started being friendly with him. And he just gave the man more opportunities to hurt his family by rolling out the red carpet into their home.

Now he’s probably just caused everyone more trouble by getting himself kidnapped. They’re going to have to track down Kevin and rescue him.

If they even want to save you an evil voice hissed in the back of his mind.

—-------------

Cordell came back to HQ when he felt he was ready to focus. The place was alive with activity, as it should be, and he made a beeline for his desk. “Please tell me there’s been some kind of progress,” he begged his partner.

“Trey’s checking up on a lead right now,” Cassie said. “He found some interesting information on where the money for Grey Flag’s compound came from and what other properties the bankrollers might own. He should be back in a few minutes. How are things with the family?”

He sighed. “Everyone’s worried and feeling at least a little guilty,” he said. “It also looks like Kevin planted a nice little clue trail to make me look suspicious so the FBI is poking around and the press is calling so, that’s fun.”

Cassie grimaced. “Well, once we find August and Kevin we can get that all cleared up too. We did manage to get a trace on August’s phone but it looks like Kevin tossed it as soon as he could so it wasn’t much of a lead,” she admitted. “Also, you’ll need to buy him a new phone. It got run over. Probably more than once.”

“As soon as he gets home, I’ll buy him whatever phone he wants.” He’d buy August a new car just to see his face again.

Trey came over then, brandishing a small stack of papers. “Okay, I think I found a lead.” he explained how he followed a money trail from one of Grey Flag’s investors to a local tech mogul who happened to own an airfield not too far out of town. “I remember one time we were talking about our hobbies and Kevin said he was taking flight lessons. I bet anything he’s at that airfield right now getting ready to flee the country.”

“Which means August is probably also there as some kind of human shield,” Cordell said. At least they had a lead. “What’s that address?”

“We have an address?” James stopped at the desk. “I take it your lead worked out, Barnett?”

“Yes sir.” Trey handed him the documents. “It’s a bit of a long shot but it’s the best lead we have.”

“I’ll go check it out,” Cordell said, already getting up. If there was even half a chance August was there, he was going.

“Walker, wait.” James grabbed his arm as he passed. “We need to-”

“Do NOT tell me to wait!” Cordell wrenched his arm out of James’ grasp. “My son is being held hostage by a damn domestic terrorist! And the only reason he was there to get grabbed in the first place was because of your bright idea! So, no.  I’m not waiting for a warrant, I’m not waiting for backup, and I’m not waiting for you to come up with another grand plan. I’m getting August and I’m getting him right now. I don’t need- nor do I care to wait for- your permission.”

“I understand,” James said carefully. “But you shouldn’t go alone. We have no idea what Kevin has planned and he’s probably prepared for company. Let me get a few people together and-”

“And you can meet me there,” he snapped. “I’m not waiting. I can’t wait. And neither can August.”

James stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay. We’ll be right behind you.”

Cordell got his address and sprinted out the door. He wasn’t waiting any longer than he had to. When he got to his truck, he saw another car pulling into the lot and Bonham and Liam got out. “Any word on August?” Liam asked.

Cordell nodded, a little surprised to see them there. “Yeah, we think we have an address but what are you doing here? I thought the FBI was all on us?”

Liam shrugged. “There was a trail of evidence planted but not even Special Agent Graves hates you enough to think you’d keep explosives near your family so we’re in the clear and Kevin is looking really suspicious.”

“You said you had an address?” Bonham cut in.

“Maybe.” Cordell explained Trey’s legwork. “It’s a bit of a long shot but it’s all we have.”

“What the hell are we waiting for then? Let’s go get our boy.”

“You guys need some backup?” Cordell turned to see Cassie standing a few feet behind him, a stack of bulletproof vests in her hand. “I figure we could use these, just in case. Who knows what Kevin’s got planned?”

“Cassie…”

“Don’t even try to talk me out of this,” she said. “I know you’ve got this whole ‘family rescue party’ going on- and I love it, believe me- but I’m your partner. I’m not letting you walk into this alone. And I wouldn’t pass up a chance to punch Kevin in his stupid lying face.” She scowled and gave him the vests. “Also, you forgot to actually get the address. I’m driving.”

Liam chuckled. “She knows you.”

Cordell rolled his eyes, tossing a vest at him. “Be quiet and suit up. We leave in five.”

—---------------------

August was trying very hard not to fall over. Everything hurt and he felt completely drained. Kevin must’ve been really busy, since he’d been left alone after his little monologue.

Maybe he’s just going to leave me here to die…. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

He thought he heard gunfire in the distance, but he just didn’t have the mental capacity to think about it. And then, suddenly, Kevin was back with him. “It’s showtime, kid,” he said, roughly pulling August up to his feet. He cried out and fell against Kevin, his wounded leg unable to hold his weight. “Come on, work with me,” Kevin muttered, hauling him closer to the airplane. August felt the cool barrel of the gun against his forehead. It was almost comforting compared to everything else.

“I was wondering when you’d show up, Walker.”

August lifted his eyes just enough to see his Dad standing on the other side of the hangar. He was pretty sure the pain was getting to him since he saw Gramps and Uncle Liam too. Cassie was more believable.

“Let him go,” Dad demanded.

“Why? So you can arrest me?” Kevin laughed. “Besides, I think this is a little tit for tat. Thanks to you, I lost a brother. Now, you get to lose someone because of me.”

“Kevin, that’s enough.”

Kevin turned them to face the new voice. It was someone August didn’t recognize, but Kevin clearly did if the way his grip tightened was anything to go by.

He heard them talking but he wasn’t really focused on the words. Everything just hurt too much.

The next thing he was aware of was gunfire and being pulled toward the plane. He didn’t have the energy to resist but Kevin had a pretty hard time pulling his dead weight so he was going to count that as fighting back. Kevin tossed him into a seat and went to the front of the plane.

August slumped and tried to stay awake, but he was so tired. The last thing he was aware of was falling out of his side and onto the floor before sliding into blissful nothingness.

“-gust? August! Wake up, son. Come on, please wake up.”

August groaned and barely peeked his eyes open. “Dad?”

Dad breathed a sigh of relief. “There you are. Stay awake for me, okay? Help is almost here.”

“'M sorry Dad,” he mumbled.

“Don't apologize, Augie. Got nothing to apologize for…”

But I do, he thought. I let him in. I gave you to him on a silver platter. I gave him a way to hurt you. I made it harder to stop him. I ruined everything. Again. He just couldn't get the words out.

“Stay with me, Augie.” He could hear his dad shouting for a medic but it all sounded so far away. “Open your eyes. Look at me.” Rough hands jostled his face and August opened his eyes to see both of his parents looking down at him.

“Stay with your father, little toad,” Mom whispered. “It’s not your time yet.” She pressed a soft kiss to his forehead.

“Okay, I will,” he murmured. He could never say no to Mom.

“There you are.” Dad tried a small smile. “Help’s almost here buddy. Just stay with me. You’re gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay. Just stay with me.”

“Okay. Okay….”

He tried to stay awake. He really did. But by the time they loaded him into an ambulance, he was just too tired. “Stay with me, Augie. I’m not going anywhere,” was the last thing he heard his dad say before he went under again.

[corelliaxdreaming]

I love the sapphic aesthetic attraction flag @immortal-velociraptor made for me so much, I wanted to do something with it - and what happened was a non-fic OC who identifies as such and a moodboard (description in the alt) and bit of a scene with her and her friends. Thanks again for the flag!

Aubrey Brown - oriented aroace, sapphic aesthetic attraction

All conversation at the table stops when the waitress appears to take their order. Aubrey tries to stare surreptitiously. Julie stares openly. Jada tries not to laugh at the two of them.

The waitress smiles as she hands out menus. Maybe she doesn’t notice any of it. “Hi, I’m May. Can I get you guys started with drinks?” Her voice is lower than Aubrey expected, smooth like her brown skin. Her uniform hugs her generous curves in a way she kind of finds herself envying – she rarely manages to look that good even in plus-sized clothes that aren’t directly related to a job.

At Jada’s prodding, they manage to put themselves together enough to order. (Mountain Dew for Aubrey, a colorful mocktail for Julie, water with lemon for Jada – the usual.)

“I’ll be right back with those for you.” May smiles again and walks away, dark brown ringlets bouncing with every step.

Once she’s gone, Jada lets out the laugh. “I’d swear you guys are starving dogs who just saw a bone for the first time in ages.”

Julie sighs, eyes still on the door where the waitress disappeared. “You act like you didn’t see her.”

“Straight, remember?” Jada deadpans.

“Our token allocishet,” Aubrey says fondly.

“I almost feel left out.” Jada chuckles. “It’s funny. I know you’re both feeling different things, different kinds of attraction, but you reacted exactly the same. You’d never know from the outside.”

“It’s simple,” Julie explains. “I want to pin that girl to a wall in a sexy way, and Aubrey wants to pin her to a wall in a pretty painting way.”

“Or just paint a picture of her prettiness.” Aubrey shakes her head ruefully. “I hate how accurate that description is though.”

“You could ask her if you can paint her,” Jada suggests.

Julie bursts out laughing as Aubrey groans and hides her face, pale cheeks burning.

“What did I say?”

“Our dear Aubrey found out the hard way once upon a time that when you ask girls to let you paint them” – Julie pauses dramatically – “well, they don’t usually think that’s literally what you want.”

“Oh.” Aubrey can see Jada’s raised eyebrows as she peeks from between her fingers. “I think I need to hear this one.”

Julie is only too happy to tell it.

[acersgenderhoard]

pinned post, please read!

EDIT - i havent updated most of this in ages. its outdated currently

★・・・・★my names/pronouns★・・・・★

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i go by castiel, strat, jack, avis, and ghoul currently (+ more), but i’m not picky abt what you call me! i’ll answer to most anything :)

i currently use he/★/rot/it/sun/lethe/day/it/lux/none/⚣, but it does change sometimes (i update the list in this post pretty regularly, and i do always use he/him, so when in doubt, default to that!)

★・・・・・・ ★ about me!★・・・・・・★

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i’m 17. i’m white, physically abled, autistic, and have adhd, depression and generalized anxiety. i’m professionally diagnosed w all but depression, but i’m pro informed self-dx

i’m an arospec ace bi gay guy

i support all good-faith identities, including “conflicting” labels like lesboys/turigirls or bi lesbians/gays.

★・・・・・★recoins/etc★・・・・・★

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please don’t redesign flags for any of my terms without permission. you’re absolutely free to use my flags for picrews, pfps, etc as long as you credit me, though, and i’m fine with editing my flags to make them more accessible (eg making a flag less bright to avoid eyestrain)

also: if something is inadvertently offensive or harmful about a term i coin, please let me know and i’ll delete or edit any posts i have about it !!

this blog is a sideblog, and i can’t follow or send asks from it. @fagboybreakdowns is my main :)

also, i try to remember to put alt text and plain text in my posts but i sometimes forget (and sometimes it just glitches). if you’d like plain text or an id on a particular post of mine that doesn’t have it, ask and i can provide it (i also greatly appreciate other people adding ids and/or transcribing my posts, y’all are awesome)!

★・・・・★tagging system!★・・・・★

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#percys genders: things i’ve coined

#percys reblogs: things i’m reblogging

#percys tangents: anything off-topic i reblog or post/things not directly related to terms or flags. this includes stuff about me, about transness or mogai identities in general, or about this blog. Could end up with some stuff about politics etc too, although I try to keep that to my main blog

#percys hoard: all the terms i use, including ones i’ve coined and ones i’ve reblogged!

#percys asks: any reqs or other asks i get!

#not a gender: anything that’s a mogai term but not a gender - sexuality stuff, aldernic terms, etc.

★・・・・・・★requests!★・・・・・・★

[plain text: “requests!” end plain text.]

i will coin new terms and make flags and flag combos, and i’ll do name and pronoun validations and suggestions, as well as make term moodboards!

i won’t do recoins, new flags for existing terms (unless they’re flagless currently or the term creator is ok with it), etc. i won’t do term searches. i won’t coin attraction terms (sexualities, romantic identities, etc). i also won’t coin terms related to being part of a marginalized group i’m not part of (poc, physically disabled, etc).

★・・・・・・・★ dni★・・・・・・・★

[plain text: “dni” end plain text.]

-kink/nsfw/18+ blog

-exclus

-transphobes

-thinspo/pro-ana

-bad-faith label users (like “animesexual”, “attack helicopter”, “trans age” etc)

-anti self-dx

-anti otherkin/therian

-cringe culture supporters

-bigots of any kind

-aspie supremacy/autistic ableism

also, a note: if you’re on my dni, you can still use any of my terms. feel free to just screenshot my posts instead of reblogging them :)

[beardofkamenev]

When Adults Attack! (Teenagers)

(Sorry to everyone for dragging this up again, but some people are chronically incapable of letting drama die down.)

The last time I posted about this was 18 February. It’s now late-March. Despite repeatedly claiming to be “over it”, a self-proclaimed “respected history blogger” has been screaming into the void for over a month now. She seems to be under the unfortunate impression that she’s completely innocent of wrongdoing, all the criticism is unprovoked, she has been targeted by “white bigots”, and that she’s somehow the real victim here. So now I have to explain why that’s bullshit. Unlike her and her two friends, I don’t make extreme but vague accusations with zero evidence. I don’t make empty threats about “exposing” people.

The short story? She involved her own self in a situation that had nothing to do with her, downplayed her friends’ racism towards others, incited her followers to harass a teenager, repeatedly lied to her followers about the multiple POC who criticised her friends being “white”, and has continued to inflame the issue while trying to downplay her role in doing so. The long story? Well, I’ll let the receipts do the talking.

That’s Olivia’s first post at the start of February, days before I or anyone else had even said anything. “My anonymous Jewish friend said!” should have been a red flag to anyone capable of reading anything longer than 280 characters. I’ve already explained why Haley (lucreciadeleon/turtlemoons plus her 92849374 alt accounts) is full of shit and so have plenty of others (here, here, and here, to name a few).

Olivia claims that, as a Romani woman, she’s not obliged to engage with content that offends her. Fine. So why is a black teenager obliged to engage with Haley’s deranged anons? Why are her hate anons are so worthy of a response that not responding is an act of ANTISEMITISM that warrants Olivia telling everyone what an antisemite this teenager is for not responding? FYI, NO ONE is obligated to respond to anon hate, especially from people they’ve already blocked. And considering Haley admitted not once, not twice, but three times to breaking Tumblr’s TOS to circumvent a mutual block and send those anons (including how she did it), people are especially not obligated to engage with her.

I made my first posts exposing Taylor (lucreziaborgia/elizabethblount) and Haley’s lies and backtracking on 6 and 7 February. This was before I acknowledged Olivia’s role in inflaming the situation. In fact, I didn’t even know about her tweets until 8 February. Yet, here she is on 6 FEBRUARY already bitching about my posts to her Twitter followers. She has some nerve acting like I victimised her, just because I posted the screenshots of her bitching about me. And bragging about ‘gaslighting’? The word that multiple people have separately described what her two friends subjected them to? Classy.

I can’t “stalk” her public Twitter any more than she can “stalk” my public blog. What an exceptionally stupid claim to make, considering her tweets kept getting recommended to my mutuals whether they liked it or not. Have some integrity and own the shit you say, rather than backtracking, deleting your posts, and pretending that you didn’t say the things we saw you say. If you want to talk shit about others in public, be ready to answer for it in public.

I also wonder how this started over Henry VII. I specifically wonder how this discussion between myself and May (richmond-rex) triggered Taylor’s totally unprovoked racist comments about how we and Nathen Amin “simp for a dead white man”, and we should “simp for someone who actually advocated for the rights of others” instead. The implication being that Tudor history is only for white people like Taylor, and that only her fave is worthy of discussion (“AnNe BoLeYn WaS oThErEd BeCaUsE sHe WaS tAn.” Good grief).

When multiple POC called bootleg Regina George out for it, not only did she say she couldn’t possibly be racist because Haley approved of her racism, but also tried to argue that Nathen Amin deserved it because it was inappropriate for a British man to joke about Brexit. She then claimed we called her “anti-Welsh” (another fucking lie) to make it seem like a bunch of cRaZy blacks and browns were attacking poor, innocent white her (with Olivia coming to the rescue, of course). And as if that wasn’t enough, Haley then sent these bad faith hate anons calling Nathen Amin’s tweet ANTISEMITIC, for no other reason than to retroactively justify Taylor’s racist comments (though I didn’t see Haley getting offended when she was hate-scrolling through his blog before Taylor was called out).

That was the “antisemitic shit” Haley “privately messaged about” that Olivia thinks deserves a response. In case it's not clear: defending racism makes you complicit in racism. Being Jewish is NOT a get-out-of-racism-free card, and Haley trying to use it as one is absolutely dishonest, especially when NO ONE even knew she was Jewish until she finally admitted in February she was the anonymous ‘Jewish friend’ who sent those batshit anons. Other Jewish people also called Haley out on it, yet Haley and Olivia have conveniently ignored that little fact since it contradicts their narrative.

You think it’s over? Nope. Taylor then slunk into May’s dm’s with a half-arsed apology, where she admitted that the only reason she made those racist comments about Nathen Amin was because we “attacked Gareth Russell first” (“BeCaUsE AnNe FaNs CiTe HiS wOrk”) and she “just wanted to educate us about not lionising Henry VII” (even though anyone with eyeballs can read our discussion see she’s full of shit). At the same time, she and Haley were messaging other history bloggers, telling them that everyone who called them out were antisemites (including an openly Jewish mutual of ours) in an attempt to alienate them from the community. And this was just in JANUARY.

“I can’t be racist! My Jewish friend agrees with my racism!” That steaming load of backtracking horseshit is unfortunately the kind of nonsense Olivia has chosen to defend. FOR WEEKS Taylor ignored May’s messages, explaining why she — a black woman — found Taylor’s comments offensive. Did Taylor listen? Nope. In fact, she only replied in February: after she already started posting about how ignoring Haley’s hate anons was “antisemitism”. How convenient. Taylor might be a fucking idiot but we’re not. She only replied to May because she was afraid we’d use her own words against her. Clearly she never learnt a damn thing because here she is on 6 February backtracking on her apology. “Actually, I did NOTHING wrong! Also, you’re all antisemites for saying I did because my Jewish friend agrees with me!” And what made Taylor feel as though she had permission to start deflecting her vile behaviour onto others in order to get the heat off her? Olivia’s post about ‘their Jewish friend’ Haley: the one that followed Olivia’s “private discussion” with “her two friends”. Taylor is a racist hypocrite who hides behind the few minority friends she has to justify her racism, and attacks every other minority who disagrees with her. It’s no coincidence that the majority of the history bloggers who have a problem with Taylor and Haley’s nasty behaviour happen to be POC.

Despite Olivia admitting that she knew nothing about that situation other than what those two told her, she still took it upon herself to misconstrue and downplay to all her followers the extent of her friends’ racism, lies, and general nastiness (here she is on 9 MARCH). For her, our problems with racism are little more than “stupid drama”, “Henry VII drama”, “Gareth Russell drama”, “overreacting to a joke”, and “petty disagreements over dead people” because her friends are the perpetrators. Yet she demands everyone sympathise with her never-ending dramas and projects her behaviour onto others, despite the fact that she’s shown absolutely no understanding for why so many people have problems with her friends and has consistently defended the perpetrators. She’s entitled to be upset at whatever she wants to be upset at, but she is not entitled to tell her followers that we can’t be upset about racism directed at us, especially when that situation NEVER EVEN INVOLVED HER.

I agree. It’s disturbing that three grown women in their mid to late 20s have a vendetta against an 18 year old. Olivia acknowledged that her posts were reckless and that she would have acted differently if she just sat down and thought for one fucking second. But rather than correct the record on the same platform she made those accusations, she doubled down and took off to Twitter, saying that her anger entitled her to act that way. All with zero acknowledgement of the fact that the teenager SHE falsely accused and repeatedly mocked for her age was still being harassed by HER followers as a direct result of HER posts.

She might love the ‘clout’ that comes with a large following, but she evidently doesn’t care about the responsibility that comes with it. In Taylor and Haley’s case, it’s little more than a means to intimidate others into silence. Olivia might be a “respected history blogger” or a “good historian”, but that definitely doesn’t make her a good person. Far from it, if her behaviour is anything to go by.

This was on 9 February, 3 days after my first post. Bitching about me was all fun and games until the receipts came out, huh?

There’s nothing “insane” about keeping receipts, especially when Taylor and Haley are notorious for lying out of their arses and fake-apologising to people in the dm’s, only to continue mocking them on Twitter afterwards. You know what is insane though? Searching ‘romani’ on our blogs in a pathetic attempt to dig up dirt that doesn’t even exist (yeah, stat trackers exist). Do you know what else is insane? Haley spamming people with passive aggressive anons and sending anon hate to people who’ve already blocked her. She also “stalked” our WOTR group chat, though she’ll never admit to it, despite accidentally posting the dated receipts proving it. Oops!

It’s no secret that Taylor and Haley are cowards (as all bullies are), so it was no surprise when they eventually involved Olivia in their month-old vendetta against a teenager. They wanted to school a black girl on racism and Congolese genocide apologism, so they needed to get a “respectable history blogger” on their side. And Olivia happily obliged, kicking up such a fuss on their behalf that the teenager just offered to end it (despite the fact that Olivia vagued her first). Yet still Olivia continued, publicly mocking her age and calling her an “antisemite” long after the discussion was over (here she is on 24 February still carrying on). Either a teenager is old enough to be publicly shamed for being an “antisemite” and “antiromani bigot”, or she’s too young to be taken seriously. But at 25, Olivia is certainly old enough to know better than to participate in this kind of vile, petty, wannabe Mean Girl behaviour.

Olivia is not black. Taylor is not black. Haley is not black. So for the record, if you are not black, it is not your place to tell BLACK PEOPLE whether they can take issue with apologism for BLACK GENOCIDE. Multiple black history bloggers have already explained why they had a problem with Gareth Russell’s comments about the Congolese genocide (including the teen in question), yet that was less important to Olivia than not being able to call him a sexist weirdo because he’s gay. Olivia cannot speak on all minority issues — especially black and brown issues — and it is arrogant of her to assume that she can, especially since her understanding of the Gareth Russell issue came purely from “what she discussed with her two friends” by her own admission.

What a take. Here’s the “anti-Romani” post that I supposedly made. Precisely ZERO of my posts were about Olivia and not once did I even name her directly. So her claims that I mounted some kind of “vicious attack” against her is, uh, bullshit. Criticising her and her friends for their nasty, dishonest, and irresponsible behaviour isn’t “anti-Romani” just because she’s Romani. It’s no more “anti-Romani” than her erratic attempts to “expose” me are anti-Asian just because I’m Asian. It’s not any more “anti-Romani” just because the UK government has passed anti-Romani laws, any more than her telling deranged lies about me for over a month is an anti-Asian hate crime simply because there’s been an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes. I’m not British. I’m not from the UK. I have no control over whatever dumb, racist crap her government does. So she can fuck off and continue fucking off if she wants to make me personally responsible for that. The backlash she received had nothing to do with her identity and everything to do with how she purposely incited harassment against a teenager, defended her friends’ racism, and spread demonstrable lies to her followers. The “viciousness” of the backlash she received is directly proportionate to the viciousness of her own baseless attacks against others. She can claim to be more mature than an 18 year old all she wants, but do you know what the actual mature thing to do would have been? To not promote her friends’ lies and nonsense, especially when the other people they tried to involve had the sense to stay out of it.

Olivia, Taylor and Haley are fully-grown adults, but take no responsibility for their actions. Yet, they expect teenagers to have total control over not only their own emotions, but also the emotions and actions of others. Olivia thinks that a teen should be personally responsible for the behaviour of fully-grown adults, yet she’s close friends with Taylor — a racist, xenophobic bully who screenshots Tumblr people’s posts to mock them on Twitter (here and here from December), called Poles who’ve lost relatives in the Holocaust “genocidal loving freaks”, accused an openly Ashkenazi Jewish blogger of “internalised antisemitism” just for criticising her (a white gentile), said that people who like Mary I “resent their own siblings”, co-opted our struggles under Spanish imperialism just so she could bully ‘Spaniards’ (despite her being American and therefore equally responsible for genocide, by her flawed logic), and said that the black teen who called out her racism “really deserved to be bullied” and “needed to be policed”. Olivia is also close friends with Haley, who has a history of attacking people over posts that have nothing to do with her, publicly admitted to circumventing blocks in order to send hate anons, and likened me — a Filipino immigrant — to DONALD TRUMP and a neo-Nazi conspiracy theorist just because I posted the receipts exposing her lies, harassment of others, and projection.

Most of the people who have spoken out against these three didn’t even know each other until last month. Some of ‘us’ have actually blocked each other. Yet all of us agree that their behaviour towards others has been absolutely unacceptable. How is it that so many unrelated people from different corners of the ‘fandom’ have exactly the same problems with exactly the same people? If Olivia want us to take personal responsibility for “our friends’” behaviour, then she should first take responsibility for hers.

This is on 26 February, over a week after I last posted. As anyone with eyeballs can see, I called her British once. Not “repeatedly”. ONCE. So she can fuck off again with that bullshit. And why did I point that out? Because Olivia, a British citizen, made pejorative comments about “white Eastern Europeans!!!” just because she thinks some Polish people committed the heinous crime of... screenshotting her tweets. They didn’t even do it, and even if they did, how is that even relevant? Everyone knows that one specific Polish person lives rent free in Taylor’s head, so clearly Olivia just took Taylor’s word for it that it must have been The Poles who were “stalking” her. Maybe don’t take paranoid liars at face value next time?

Shameless, ignorant, tone deaf nonsense. Olivia constantly demands that people treat her and her identity with the utmost respect, yet here she was on 9 February already disrespecting the identities of others just so she can score some petty ‘oppression points’ against them. Why even bring their nationalities up? And why call them “white Eastern Europeans” instead of Polish since she knows they’re Polish? Is it because acknowledging that they are Polish would mean acknowledging that she doesn’t actually have a monopoly on a claim to discrimination or Holocaust trauma? Could it be that dismissing them as just some “white Eastern Europeans” was just another way for her to add credence to her own “pathetic lies” about the situation? There’s a word for that behaviour, and it starts with pro- and ends with -jection.

Let me reiterate: it is IGNORANT of her to use their identity against them, especially when hate-crimes against Polish immigrants have increased in her home country, and especially when the specific people she insulted lost close relatives (including Jewish relatives) in the Holocaust. It’s not “repeatedly mocking her identity” to point out her hypocrisy. Her being Romani is not an excuse for casual xenophobia. She might be able to hide her identity in the UK (though she shouldn’t have to), but Polish immigrants do not have the privilege of passing as first-language white British. I cannot pass as non-Asian. The black girl she and her friends tried to bully off Tumblr cannot pass as non-black. Olivia weaponising people’s identity against them just because she thinks they saw her public tweets is ignorant, petty, and completely uncalled for. She should be absolutely ashamed for using that pathetic argument, but based on her most recent farrago of nonsense, she probably won’t be.

Here’s her on 7 MARCH. And of course Taylor was the first to like it lol. Olivia may have deluded herself into believing she was just an innocent bystander, but unfortunately, enough people saw her admitting to inserting herself into the situation at the behest of her two friends. With every post before and since, her accusations have gotten wilder and wilder, falser and falser, and more and more irrelevant because she knows full well that none of her followers will bother fact-checking her. That’s the beauty of vagueing people. It’s how Taylor and Haley have been able to get away with pulling the wool over peoples’ eyes for so long. Too bad repetition, projection, and self-righteous outrage doesn’t equate to the truth because those are all those three have.

“SOMEONE NEEDS TO EXPOSE THE WHOLE DAMN LOT OF THEM! BUT IT WON’T BE ME!” 

No one has said anything since 18 February, yet here’s Olivia publicly inciting her followers again. She’s “done talking about it”, yet she’s the only one continuing the drama. She is being ‘persecuted’, yet she mobilises her followers to go after others. She needs to be defended against critics, yet she also can’t resist bragging about big her Tumblr following is, how “piddly” our notes are compared to hers, how she got over 30 followers to report my posts (they’re still up lol), and how many people she can get to dig through our blogs to find anything to “expose” us. Olivia, I’m sorry that you require constant validation from strangers on the internet, but not everyone has the same priorities as you. Some of us just come here to have fun, but having shitstarters in the community is decidedly un-fun.

All my posts were directed at Taylor and Haley, but since Olivia insists on making this revolve around her, let me clarify: she is a hypocrite and a professional victim. Words have meaning, and those words are the most accurate words to describe her behaviour. It has fuck all to do with her identity. She and Haley are professional victims because they act as if their minority statuses exempt them from basic rules of online courtesy and entitle them to run their mouths about others with no consequence. And Olivia is a hypocrite because she demands the respect and understanding that she has repeatedly refused to show to others. She made ignorant, xenophobic comments against Polish people because she falsely assumed they screenshot her public posts bitching about others. She pretends that the many POC who have spoken out against her are just some “white” hive-mind because admitting that we’re not white will discredit the victimhood narrative she’s been peddling to her followers. And she arrogantly presumes to be ‘our’ voice in the community, all while mobilising her following to intimidate and silence the minorities who take issue with her and her friends’ vile behaviour.

It’s extremely telling that in every one of her unlettered rants, Olivia made the conscious choice to conflate us with “white gentiles”, “white antisemites”, and “white Eastern Europeans”. Why? Because in order to “name and shame” us, she’d have to admit to her followers that the majority of the people criticising her aren’t actually “white”, but are in fact black, brown, and Jewish. Having repeatedly demanded that her followers defend her, her reputation and credibility now depends upon people continuing to see her as the oppressed victim of “bigoted whites”. Unfortunately for her and her friends, the truth will always come out. That’s what receipts are for, no matter what they claim.

The history community didn’t side with “a white gentile woman”. We sided with a black teenager who Olivia and her friends repeatedly mocked for her age, publicly and privately spread false accusations against, and incited their followers to harass with their never-ending posts. We sided against white racists like Taylor, and her white-passing enablers like Olivia and Haley. Since being called out for racism by a black girl discredited them, they had to discredit her. And unlike the others Taylor and Haley tried to involve, Olivia was their willing accomplice. If she has now been “alienated by half the history fandom”, it is because of her own behaviour and rightly so.

The ideal course of action would be for Olivia to finally take some responsibility for her actions, publicly apologise for her role in inflaming this drama, and move on like the rest of us have tried to do. But unfortunately, she may be too far gone in her own pathological need for online validation to ever admit wrongdoing without some serious introspection. So perhaps, Olivia, if anything else, you should just take your own advice and, once and for all, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

[glimmerglanger]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 14

Oof!au, part 14. I got cute with the prompt for this one. They are a found family but it’s also, you know, found: family. I know I said there weren’t any more split POVs but that was before Ahsoka and Rex decided they had a lot more to say than I planned, and so.... split POVs return for a few segments. Also this part is very long.

General Information: Post Order 66 Vader-Captures-Obi-Wan AU. Eventual happy(ish) ending (soon). Past/eventual Codywan. Past one-sided Vaderwan.

WARNINGS: Discussion of trauma, torture, non-con, mind control, and death. Allusions to suicide. So much mental and emotional trauma.

Alt 7. Found Family

Messages from Ahsoka’s contacts in the Core worlds were few and far between. Usually, they didn’t add up to much. The one that had plunged them across Wild Space had been flagged urgent. “It’s probably nothing,” Ahsoka said, even as they cut across the black of space, and Rex believed her.

It was usually nothing.

When it wasn’t, it was a problem.

They came out of hyperspace alongside one the new Imperial cruisers, a hulking beast of a ship, all sharp lines and jagged edges. They’d been monitoring it, on their approach, and it showed no signs of arming weapons, or raising shields, but…

Rex whistled anyway, looking at the ship. “You seeing this?” he asked, looking over when Ahsoka didn’t answer, her gaze gone distant. “Ahsoka?”

She shook her head and said, “There’s something… strange.”

Strange meant trouble, as far as Rex was concerned. He checked his blaster as they docked, watched her draw both her sabers, and nudged her in the side. “Sure we shouldn’t just bolt?” he asked, waiting for the port to open.

“No,” she said, staring forward, “there’s--I think we need to be here. I…” She trailed off, shaking her head, lekku curling up on the ends as the only display of her nerves as the airlock opened and--

Rex didn’t waste breath cursing, jerking his blaster up, because there were troopers on the other side of the hatch, and they might not kill him on sight, but Ahsoka--

And a ghost, a dead man walking, stepped between Rex and - and kriffing hell, that was Cody - and said, “Don’t shoot!” Rex stared across into General Kenobi’s impossible face, and felt the entire galaxy lurch into a brand new alignment, dragging Rex along with it, the next moments all confusing madness.

“There still a chip in your head?” Cody asked Rex, as Ahsoka grabbed General Kenobi. He hadn’t holstered his blaster, Rex noticed, just lowered it a little at Kenobi’s request. He was tense across his shoulders, unblinking.

“Not for three years,” Rex said, carefully, because he’d never come upon any of his brothers already unchipped; he should have known if anyone would start doing it en masse, it would be Kenobi and the 212th.

“Good,” Cody said, with a brief nod, “but you understand that we’re going to need to confirm that. Crys. Take him to the infirmary. Have Bones look him over.”

And Rex almost protested. He didn’t - technically - take orders from Cody anymore. The GAR was nothing but smashed pieces. But he looked past Cody’s shoulder, to General Kenobi - what was left of General Kenobi - he didn’t look like himself, not at all, his hair shaved close to his scalp and his beard barely a scruff across his jaw, swimming in trooper blacks, the left sleeve tied off and--

Most of the Jedi had died within moments of Order 66 being issued. A few had survived longer. They’d found some of them. What was left of them.

Rex swallowed, hard, gaze drawn back to Ahsoka’s back, because it was easy - too easy - to imagine what could have happened to her, to imagine her eyes gone all faded and distant like Kenobi’s. He cut his eyes towards Cody and wondered what the kriff, exactly, had happened. He said, “Sure. Ahsoka, I’ll catch up.”

She looked over at him, her expression a mix of yearning and hope, and nodded.

It felt wrong, leaving her there surrounded by troopers, but General Kenobi was at her side. Even with one arm, even looking like death warmed over, Rex couldn’t quite believe that he’d ever let anything happen to Ahsoka.

“So,” he said, falling into step beside Crys, “what the kriff happened to you?”

#

A part of Ahsoka had always hoped Master Obi-Wan was still alive, out there somewhere. She’d heard his message, transmitting out across the stars, warning any survivors away from the Temple.

She’d known he survived the initial kill order, and she’d thought… well. If anyone could survive with the entire galaxy trying to kill them, it would have been Master Obi-Wan. She’d imagined, sometimes, coming upon him in some dive bar or on a battlefield, meeting each other’s eyes and falling into step, back to back--

She found him on an Imperial ship. When she’d thought about finding him, he’d looked the same way she last saw him, tired and worn down, but alright. She’d always imagined that he’d crook a smile at her.

Obi-Wan smiled there in the halls of the Recompense. But it didn’t touch his eyes. He looked different, wrong, with his hair trimmed so short and his beard just growing in. He was, for some reason, wearing trooper blacks. He swam in them. And the left sleeve was tied off, empty….

“We can put you in touch with the rest of the rebellion,” she said, trying to stay focused, shooting him another look as they walked towards the bridge.

Obi-Wan nodded, glancing over his shoulder at Cody, who, she noticed, was following a step back. His hand was still resting on his blaster. He looked different, too, the lines around his mouth graven deeper, his eyes harder.

He’d always seemed warm to her, before. Even through the Force.

He felt cold, walking down the hall of the ship, as Obi-Wan said, “I’ll have to talk to the men. See what they want to do.”

Ahsoka made a soft sound of acknowledgement. She hadn’t been around so many troopers since everything fell apart. It made her lekku itch, knowing they were all around. She wished Rex hadn’t gone off to the infirmary. She said, setting that thought aside, “We can find places for them, if they...don’t want to join. They don’t have to stay with--”

“We’re staying with the General,” Cody said, and even his voice sounded different, full of sharper edges that threatened to draw blood.

“Well, that’s fine, too,” Ahsoka said, glancing back and forth between them, cautiously tracing their emotions with the Force and recoiling after the briefest brush because it was all -- hurt. Terrible hurt, open wounds in need of immediate tending. 

The agony lingered there, right below the surface as they reached the bridge and punched in coordinates to, at least, get further away from their current position, just in case they were discovered. Ahsoka looked around the bridge - it reminded her, achingly, or both the Resolute and the Peacemaker, but it felt...wrong.

Everything felt wrong. 

“You’ve been well?” Obi-Wan asked, something shadowed in his eyes, and Ahsoka considered the past three years, the fear and the desperation and the slow slog towards some kind of healing, some kind of life.

It seemed strange to realize, that, compared to him, she had most definitely been doing well. She nodded, and said, “Yes, Master.” And she flushed as she spoke, because she hadn’t called anyone by that title for so long, and it felt both presumptuous and embarrassing, mader her feel like the child she wasn’t anymore, and--

And it made Obi-Wan go still, his emotions blossoming huge for just a moment before he controlled them all down and away, where she couldn’t feel them. He cleared his throat, and said, “Why don’t you tell me more about what I’ve missed?”

#

Rex had seen plenty of his brothers over the past three years. Most of them had been on the other side of a blaster. It never hurt less, killing them, but he’d gotten… better at it. They’d saved a few of them, freed them, brought them back to themselves. But that had been scattered souls, here and there.

And so many of them had…. Not handled freedom well.

Rex had come out of it with something to live for, someone to keep fighting for.

Too many of his brothers had only come out with crushing guilt and despair. Too many of them recalled killing their generals, their friends. Too many of them remembered the atrocities they’d been used to carry out.

They found ways to get away from it.

Rex looked into the faces of the survivors of the 212th on his way to the infirmary and felt a shiver down his spine. They looked, to a man, exhausted and worn down, with shadows in their eyes, tension in every move they made.

He listened to Crys’ brief run down of what had happened, freezing for a step when Crys said, “Skywalker rounded us up. As many of the 212th as he could find.” By the time he started moving again, Crys was explaining that they’d been kept on Mustafar. Waiting.

“It’s good to see you again,” Crys said, outside the door to the infirmary, gripping Rex’s forearm and flashing him a thin smile.

“Not going to stay and chat?” Rex asked, raising an eyebrow, getting the feeling he was only digging at the surface of whatever was going on, and Crys shook his head.

“I need to go check on the General,” he said, like it was obvious.

Rex blinked. “He’s still a General, huh?” he asked, trying to inject some levity into the situation. 

The look Crys gave him curdled any hope of that. “Yes,” Crys said, and nothing else, turning on his heel and walking down the hall. 

Rex shook off the feeling of tension in the middle of his shoulder blades, ducking into the infirmary and it was so strange to see one of his brothers in there, working, instead of a droid or the medics that had joined the rebellion. It threw him into a strange headspace, made him feel almost like the last three years hadn’t happened.

He’d ended up in the Negotiator’s medical bay more than once, getting treatment for all his hurts. He said, “Hey, Bones,” as the medic turned to face him, and got a long whistle for his trouble.

“Look at you,” Bones said, shaking his head, before his mouth hardened. “Unchipped?”

“You’re supposed to double-check,” he said, and Bones nodded, waving him forward. Rex submitted to the examination, thankfully brief, and said, as he sat back up, “How’d you all…” he waved a hand. “Get past them, anyway?” Bones froze, looking to one side, quickly. Rex watched him, going still in response. “Bones?”

“We…” Bones blinked rapidly a few times and cleared his throat. “I assume the same way you did. And any others of us, who got away.”

Rex swallowed, aching inside. “Not many of us have,” he said, focusing on a spot on the far wall. He didn’t want to admit, yet, that he hadn’t seen so many of his brothers free before. Ever. Even during the war, it had been lurking inside them. He shuddered. “Kenobi freed you, then?”

Bones sucked in a breath. When he spoke, the words seemed to come from far away. “Yes. I suppose he did. Indirectly. A few of us managed to...break them.”

Rex stared at him. He had no reason to believe such a thing was even possible. “Are you serious?”

Bones jerked out a nod, turning away to look at a scan that was reporting, as far as Rex could tell, nothing. “Yeah. You push hard enough against them, you give yourself an aneurysm. On the plus side, it also breaks them.” Bones scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “You didn’t know about this?”

“Kriffing hell,” Rex said, shuddering down his back. “No, I’ve never heard of anyone breaking them.” 

“Not surprised,” Bones said, gaze going distant and unfocused. “Half of us that managed it died. If the Commander hadn’t dragged us to the medbay…” He trailed off, and then shook his head, hard. “You’re clean. Free to go.”

“Go where?” Rex asked, still trying to process the idea that they’d - they’d broken the thing in their heads, somehow. All on their own. He swallowed bile, thinking about his finger on the trigger, Ahsoka’s eyes on the other end of the barrel, thinking--

Well.

He hadn’t given himself an aneurysm.

“Wherever you want,” Bones said. “Tell the Commander he missed a check-in, if you see him.”

#

It took time to describe everything Obi-Wan had missed. They talked on the bridge, for a long time, about what the Rebellion had gotten up to, slowly trying to build some way to resist the Imperial forces sent against them.

Ahsoka watched Obi-Wan’s expression get still with each word she spoke. She wished she had more good news to share, but there was...so little to bring a spark of brightness into the world. 

“I should show you around,” Obi-Wan said, eventually, as she ran out of things to tell him. “Have you seen one of these models?”

“Not yet,” Ahsoka said. “This is a bigger target than we usually try to take.” They’d been scrambling, for years, trying to make a dent against an enemy that had beaten them before they even knew what was happening.

Holding onto even the barest scraps of hope had felt impossible. Ahsoka knew, most days, that they were doing little more than throwing pebbles at a krayt dragon. Most likely they weren’t even an irritation, but…

But it was better than giving up. At least she thought so, most days.

She listened to Obi-Wan talk about the ship as they moved through the halls, watched by troopers wherever they went. “And we have plenty of quarters,” Obi-Wan said, eventually, waving a door open along the hall and gesturing inside. “If you’d like to stay aboard during the trip. Your shuttle can stay docked.”

Ahsoka stepped into the room with a lurch in her chest, abruptly thrown back in time, to her quarters on the Resolute and the Peacemaker. If she looked at it just right, she could imagine her room, she could imagine turning and seeing Anakin standing in the doorway, come to check on her after a mission and--

And when she turned it was Obi-Wan still in the hall, talking with Cody, quietly. She cleared her throat, and said, “Could I talk to you, for a moment? Just… you?” Cody was making her feel more and more uneasy. The longer she was around him, the more off-balance she felt. 

She felt the whip-snap fast shift of his emotions at the suggestion, watched him stiffen his shoulders, but Obi-Wan nodded. “I’ll catch up with you shortly, Commander,” he said, and it seemed so odd to Ahsoka that they were using ranks, still.

She and Rex had stopped using them almost immediately.

She shook that thought aside as they resumed walking, before she drew a breath and asked, “Have you--have you seen Anakin?”

Obi-Wan’s emotions withdrew completely. She’d barely been aware of the soft touch of his mind against hers, soothing and familiar. It had been so long since she’d been around another Force user, much less someone she knew. It was startling to have it jerked away again, abruptly.

When he spoke, his voice was even, “Yes. He… found me. A few months ago.”

Ahsoka’s heart jerked in her chest. She’d seen Anakin a few times, from a distance. He’d looked so different, covered in his awful dark suit. Ahsoka swallowed. There’d been rumors, recently, that something had happened to him. She asked, quietly, “Where is he now?”

Obi-Wan stopped walking, just for a moment. He took a breath and said, “He’s one with the Force, now.”

“What?” That matched the reports they’d heard, but Ahsoka hadn’t believed those reports, not really. So many people had thought Anakin was dead, over the years, and they’d all of them been wrong. “Are you sure?”

Obi-Wan stared forward, expression some strange and still thing. “Yes,” he said, “I’m very sure.”

“But…” Ahsoka shifted her weight back and forth. Some part of her had always held out the hope that she’d find Anakin, find a way to get through to him. She’d left him, once, and -- and she’d thought, so many nights, that maybe if she’d been there, she could have protected him, kept him from Falling, if she hadn’t run away when he needed her-- “How?”

“He Fell,” Obi-Wan said, tone odd and blank. “Long ago. The Anakin you knew was gone, and--”

“I don’t believe that,” Ahsoka said, shaking her head. The Anakin she knew had been many things, including full of such sharp bright anger, sometimes. But she knew he’d been good, at the core. “He -- you were around him, are you telling me that you don’t think he could have come back?”

Something moved through the Force, an undercurrent that threatened to drag her under for a moment. Nothing showed on Obi-Wan’s expression. “He was gone,” he said, voice a rasp.

Ahsoka frowned, emotions twisting around in her gut. She’d always held onto the hope of bringing him back, of making things right, of making up for leaving, for not being there when he needed her, for-- “So - so you didn’t even try?” she asked, aware her voice was getting louder. “You were his Master, and you didn’t help him?”

#

Rex ended up in the mess. There were clusters of his brother there, talking to one another, and they pulled him over eagerly. They wanted to know everything, all about what had happened in the last three years, outside of their little bubble. 

He pulled up a chair and looked at the intent expressions on their faces, and told him what he knew. Mav looked shocked when he asked how long Rex had been under. “A few minutes,” he echoed, sounding numb and far away, his expression mirrored by the others gathered around.

“Yeah.” Rex had known he was lucky, known it even when he felt like the rest of the world was coming down. He’d escaped whatever had left his brothers all looking like hollowed out shells. He twirled the cup in his fingers and asked, “What about...all of you? How long…?”

“Until a few days ago,” Crys said, gaze cutting over to the side, tone getting flatter by the word, and Rex flinched, thinking about spending three years under, about what they must have gone through--

“What the kriff happened?”

Crys stared at nothing for a moment, and then looked his way, blinking. “What?”

Rex gestured around the room. “To all of you. I, kriffing hell, we got word, a few days back, that the Emperor was in a royal snit because - because Vader and his entire base got blown all to hell and--”

“Skywalker,” Mav cut in, sharp, tensing across his shoulders.

Rex blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Call him his name,” Mav said, flat, taking another long swallow of caff. “That’s who he always was.”

Rex processed that, slowly, leaning back in his chair. “So he is dead, then?” He got nods from all around, his brothers’ mouths curling up in the corners, brief flashes of fierce satisfaction passing across their expressions. “You’re sure?”

The look in Crys’ eyes made Rex want to reach for his blaster. He resisted. “The Commander killed him. Personally. Got confirmation himself,” Crys said, sure and calm and terrible. “He’s dead. Body is gone completely. Nothing to bring back, this time.”

“Kriff.” Rex scrubbed a hand over his face. “I--how?” Because he’d heard nothing but horror stories about Vader - Anakin - after the war. He’d turned into a monster. Some machine that just murdered everything in its path. Rex had done his best to keep Ahsoka away from him, succeeded, but…

“He left the Commander in charge,” Mav said, finger tapping on the side of his mug, that code the 212th had used, back in the day. Rex had never learned it, they’d been greedy with the secret. “While we were all chipped. When he got free…” He shrugged, eloquently.

Rex could imagine. Cody had been Marshal Commander for a reason. He’d always been good at finding the solutions to problems. “I still don’t… the Commander killed him?” He knew - though she didn’t talk about it much - that Ahsoka had still hoped to find Anakin one day. Bring him back. That happened, Rex supposed, sometimes.

“Put him down,” Mav said, grim and satisfied, taking a deep drink of his caff and twisting his mouth. “A better death than that motherkriffer deserved.”

Rex shivered. The chill around his brothers, the shadows in their eyes, reminded him too much of Umbara. He knew, very well, what his brothers looked like when they were pushed too far. “Because he’d turned to the Dark?” he asked, half because he’d gotten into the habit of digging for intel automatically, half because he knew his family, and he thought if they didn’t keep talking they might all implode.

Crys snorted, Mav shook his head, it was Ults - a medic Rex hadn’t ever seen much - who answered, “Because of what he did to the General.” And that got nods and murmurs of agreement from all the rest clustered around.

Rex turned his cup, kept his tone even when he asked, “What’d he do?”

“You’ve seen him,” Crys snapped, looking to the side, hands in fists again, knuckles standing against skin. Rex watched them all wind tighter, all at once, and wondered if digging at the subject actually was the right call. 

“It’s been three years since I saw General Kenobi,” he said, quietly, and it felt strange to call anyone General, these days, but he could read a room. Kenobi was still the General to all of his brothers. They didn’t need another shove closer to whatever cliff they were teetering on in their heads. “I didn’t know--”

“Skywalker did it,” Mav snarled, pushing to his feet and dragging the back of his hand across his mouth, taking a few agitated steps and pacing back. “All of it. For three months. Skywalker hurt him. Tried to tear him apart.” He paused, breathing heavily, and then admitted, tone cracking, “Made us help.”

“We tried not to,” Crys said, voice trembling, “Fought it, but he--he made us. We tried, but we couldn’t help him. Skywalker burned him and - and raped him and took his arm and we--”

“We should have tried harder,” Ults said, into the silence, when Crys cut off, covering his face with his hands, Rex staring at them with a pit opening in his chest, nothing at the bottom of it but darkness. 

He had a lurching, awful moment where his mind raced forward, dragging him into possibilities he didn’t want to consider. It was terribly easy to imagine Anakin finding Ahsoka, instead of Obi-Wan, terribly easy to consider her blue eyes shadowed and--

“Yes,” Cody said, startling Rex out of the spiralling horror of his thoughts. Rex twisted in his seat, watching Cody stalk over, a cup of caff in his hand. “We should have.” Cody kept going, apparently finished, and Rex rose to follow him, because none of his brothers looked well, but Cody...

Rex said, falling into step beside Cody as he made his way to a far table, empty of anyone else, “Bones is looking for you.” 

“He can keep looking.” Cody hissed a little at the burn of the caff, sitting with a scowl, one leg immediately bouncing up and down.

Rex stood for a moment, feeling the urge to wait for permission to sit, and then remembered he didn’t have to do that, any longer. He sat, watching Cody frown at nothing, and then said, carefully, “Doing alright?”

“Fine,” Cody said, not looking at him. 

Rex felt like he was balancing on a wire. When they’d come out to check out the intel, he hadn’t expected to walk into a situation like this. The entire ship felt like a bomb about to go off, like an explosion waiting to happen.

He didn’t like to think what would happen to his brothers, if that happened.

And so he cleared his throat and said, quietly, “It really wasn’t your fault.”

Cody’s mouth twisted, terribly. Everyone else had avoided Rex’s eyes, but Cody looked at him, and Rex wished, immediately, that he hadn’t. “The fuck would you know about whose fault it is?” Cody snarled. “You weren’t there. You got free, you looked after Ahsoka--”

“I got lucky,” Rex said, feeling it more than ever. “She figured out how to--”

“I beat him. Obi-Wan,” Cody cut in. Rex wasn’t sure he’d heard the interjection. Rex froze, bracing a hand on the table. “Skywalker ordered me to, and I did. He pleaded with me to stop and I didn’t listen. And I…” Cody’s jaw worked, soundlessly, for a moment, before he hissed, “and I raped him, so, you don’t get to come here, and tell me it wasn’t my fault, I--”

“Sithspit,” Rex whispered, as Cody’s words cut off again, both his hands balled to fists. “That’s -- Cody. You didn’t want to, that’s--the chip--”

“I broke the chip,” Cody spat, flat and hard, “So that’s no excuse. I broke it. Just not fast enough. I wasn’t strong enough. Didn’t want to do it badly enough, when I was--” 

“I’ve never heard of anyone else breaking the kriffing things,” Rex said, reaching out cautiously, gently putting a hand on Cody’s shoulder. He jumped, beneath Rex’s touch, muscles knotted and hard. “The things they made us do--”

“Made us do? What’d they make you do?” Cody demanded, looking over, and meeting his gaze was like taking a punch. 

“They would have made me kill her. Ahsoka,” Rex said, calm and honest, feeling Cody flinch under his hand. “I would have done it. Pulled the trigger and put a blaster bolt between her eyes and--and I couldn’t have stopped it. Wolffe killed General Koon. Bly killed Secura. Are you calling them murderers, because you know they’d have never--”

Cody pushed up and out of his chair, and for a moment Rex thought that he’d gone too far, pushed too much, but Cody wasn’t looking at him. His gaze was across the room, towards the door, where other troopers were pushing out, the atmosphere of the room changing, all at once.

“What’s going on?” Rex demanded, standing himself, following Cody as he crossed the room.

#

Ahsoka thought she’d seen Obi-Wan’s expression break, before. She’d seen him hurt, many times, certainly. Seen him walk off battlefields, seen him bent over the dead, seen him grieving so openly it hurt.

His expression had never done what it did in the corridor, her last words still echoing around them. She watched him curl in, somehow, without ever seeming to move, eyes shuttered for all that they remained open. He asked, quietly, as someone pushed through the door at his back, “What?”

Ahsoka blinked the stinging blur from her eyes. Nothing seemed quite real yet, it hadn’t all settled. She’d thought, told herself, that she’d be able to help Anakin, for so long, and-- “You were his Master,” she said, choking, “he trusted you, you should have tried to save him--”

And there were troopers there, then, in the hall with them. She watched two of them just - just catch Obi-Wan and only realized then that he’d swayed, staring forward, sightlessly. 

“What the kriff did you just say?” Stripes demanded, stepping in front of Obi-Wan, blocking him from her view, bristling, and they were all, every single one of them, radiating anger, fierce and jagged edged.

She took a step back, bracing, hands itching to reach for her lightsabers as Rex came through the door, a single piece of relief, even as he demanded to know what was happening. Stripes didn’t look away from Ahsoka to answer. “She said the General didn’t do enough to save Skywalker.”

It was odd, how the hall went quiet, then, just for an instant, before Cody said, tone harder than durasteel, “Rex. Take Commander Tano out of here.”

Obi-Wan’s voice was a surprise, small and rasping, “It’s al--”

“Now,” Cody cut in, and Ahsoka could see him gripping the doorframe, see a muscle jumping in his jaw, over and over again.

Rex only jerked out a nod, even though he didn’t have to take Cody’s orders anymore, stepping forward and taking her arm. She said, “I don’t--”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Rex said, quiet, close to her ear, and something about his emotions, pulled taunt with worry and concern, made her shut her jaw, her teeth closing with a little click. He said, without turning back, “We’ll just… be in our shuttle. For a while.”

Ahsoka waited until they were down the hall, around a corner, to hiss, “Rex, what the kriff--”

“Not here,” he gritted back, gaze moving to the side as they passed a trooper, who watched them with a curious expression. Rex refused to say anything else until they were through the airlock, into their little ship, and then he only said, sounding agonized, “Tell me you didn’t.”

Ahsoka blinked at him, feeling unnerved and on-edge. The sheer tension radiating out of everyone on the Recompense made it hard to think clearly. They were filling the Force up with their hurt and she had to work to keep it out. “Didn’t what?” she asked, stepping back from him and frowning. 

“Say that about--”

“Rex,” she cut in, shaking her head and spinning around the pilot’s chair so she could drop down into it, wishing she’d sent someone else to check this all out. “He - he was Anakin’s Master, he - if anyone should have been able--”

“Skywalker did this to them,” Rex said, quiet, leaning his shoulder against the wall, looking down and the to the side.

Ahsoka took a breath to recover and then said, “What?”

He jerked out a nod. “He - he took the 212th, from what I can tell. Kept them on Mustafar. And then he, well. Captured General Kenobi. And... “ He swallowed, loudly enough that she heard it, his hands in fists. “And…” 

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Anakin wouldn’t--”

“They weren’t lying to me.” There was a jagged edge in Rex’s voice, something she’d never heard much. “He spent months--”

“No,” Ahsoka repeated, because she’d kept a flame of hope burning inside her chest for three years. Knowledge that if she just - just got close enough, she could find a way. Bring Anakin back. Rescue him from the darkness he’d fallen into. 

Rex sighed, scrubbing a hand back over his head and moving forward, sinking down into the chair across from her. He reached out, after a moment, snagging her hand and threading their fingers together. When he looked up, his eyes were dark and shining.

“I know you don’t want to hear it,” he said, quietly, “but you need to. You’ve got to feel how they’re hurting.” She nodded, throat getting tight. She could feel the agony, had to work to keep it away, losing her grip on it as he sat there and spoke, quietly, trailing off sometimes, the words beating their way into her head.

And she tried to say “no” again, when he was finished. He’d leaned forward, back bowing as though he couldn’t bear the weight of what he’d learned, and she leaned forward to meet him, resting her forehead against his. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but she’d known Anakin well, after all. Once upon a time. She’d seen him get angry, seen what that anger could drive him to, and she’d thought….

She said, “Sithspit,” into the space between them, and Rex nodded. She scrubbed at her face; it had been a long time since she rubbed at her cheeks and had her fingers come away wet. “What are we supposed to do for them?”

Rex sighed, staring down at their hands. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never...dealt with anything like this.”

She thought about her last words to Obi-Wan, the way he’d looked at her, blank and distant and kriffing hell, if he was sitting in the Recompense, thinking he should have saved the man who beat and raped and--and she swallowed, heavily. “Me either.”

He stroked his thumb across the side of her hand and said, “Guess we’ll figure it out together.”

[lesetoilesfous]

i dunno if they're open, but can i request from the kiss prompts, 30) kiss in the full moon, with NB!Handers? basically a Hawke who uses they/them pronouns, only goes by Hawke, and no specific descriptors or mentions of their sex? =)

Hey anon! I had way too much fun with this, thank you so much for the request!!! I really hope you like it. I am also going to be adding NB!Handers to my preferred pairings list specifically because of you :D <3

(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting Pairing: NB!Handers

Characters: NB!Hawke, Anders

Tags: modern AU, post All that Remains, reference to mental illness, reference to police violence, reference to abusive institutions (the Circle is really, really awful y'all), reference to gun violence, smoking, strong language, everyone's an adult here Anders is just broke (hence the bike)

Rating: Mature

“I knew I’d find you here.”

The Kirkwall marina is quiet and mostly empty - boatowners have retired below decks with the rise of the moon and stars, and the place is mostly closed to the public otherwise. Anders had seen Hawke’s jeep, first, when he’d padlocked his bike to the iron fence. Now, as the wind pulls ripples across the ink-black bay, he finds the person in question.

Hawke is wearing a heavy brown leather jacket covered in patches, their long brown hair wavy with the humidity and blown about in the wind. They’re sitting on a stone pillar near the pier, staring up at the wide full moon. It’s such a clear night that Anders can make out the craters on it, and it’s harder to see the stars in the immediate radius of the moon, which diffuses into silver rainbows in the dark. The ocean falls in soft sighs against the thin beach, and ahead of them the bay closes between two promontories, which are darker black against the deep blue night.

Hawke looks back at Anders at the same time as their mabari, Dog, lifts her great head, sandy ears pricking in his direction. Anders waves at them both, trying to rearrange his features into an expression that doesn’t show exactly how worried he is. Instead, he folds himself awkwardly to sit on a pillar beside Hawke. The stone is cold even through his jeans, and Anders can feel a hole working its way through his battered converse. He’ll worry about that tomorrow.

For a long moment, Hawke is quiet, and the two of them sit there in the dark, listening to the eerie rattle and creak of the boats in the Kirkwall marina. Then Hawke says, softly, “I didn’t think you’d come.”

Anders looks at them, but they’re still staring ahead at the bay, and the moonlight skidding silver over the water. Their nose is smooth and bumped a little with the scar of an old break. Their eyebrows are thick and dark, as are their eyelashes. Their brown eyes glitter in the starlight. They tuck a clump of wavy hair back behind their ear, which is braced by silver cuffs over the shell and a row of hoops along their earlobe. Anders breathes, and the air is so cold that it tastes sweet.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to be here.” He’s trying for a joke, but even Anders can hear the way it falls flat as he feels the smile plastered onto his lips slip a little.

Hawke looks at him, and their eyes are rich and dark and brown and beautiful. There are thumbnail bruises of purple sleeplessness beneath them, too. They speak again, hushed as if the pair of them were in a cathedral and not a car-park outside a half empty marina. “Still.”

Something in Anders’ chest lurches as the wind makes the trees and grass behind them hush a sighing chorus to the sea. He shrugs, and feels the awkwardness of it across his shoulders. He’d never eaten well, in the Circle, and his body as a result felt stretched out and distended: he wasn’t fat or muscular enough to pull off the broadness of his proportions, but ever since he’d hit puberty what food he could get just didn’t seem to stick. He pushes away the memories of old hunger and focuses on the present, instead. “Yeah, well, you’re an idiot.”

Hawke huffs a laugh then, one of their canines hooked a little in front of their other teeth. They look down at their hands, where their nails are chopped short and painted with haphazard, chipped black polish. “Maybe.” They bite the inside of their cheek, and swallow twice before they speak. “I just. Keep thinking that if I dream it hard enough I’ll be able to go back and save her. You know? Like I’ll figure it out, somehow. And this time I won’t be too late and -”

Hawke cuts themself off, blinking rapidly, their dark eyes brighter in the moonlight. Anders swallows the lump in his own throat, and the urge to lean across and squeeze their arm or something similarly saccharine. With a feeling like chewing on breaking glass, he forces himself to pull up his memories of the months following Karl. It’s difficult - most of that time is a blur spent flinching every time he saw a templar in kevlar. Too many nights spent waking up with the sound of a bullet in his head. Anders winds his fingers together, squeezing them tight enough to hurt to ground himself back in the present. He can feel Hawke’s dark eyes on him, their gaze questioning. Anders looks up instead at the moon, and calls himself a coward.

“After...After Karl I, couldn’t really think straight. For a while. I mean, not that I ever thought straight.” Anders tosses half a grin in Hawke’s direction, but they don’t smile back, just watch him, quietly. Listening. Anders always feels as if he doesn’t know what to do with all that attention. He isn’t really used to people respecting him when he speaks. He doesn’t want to waste it. He clenches his teeth, and the wind whispers over the back of his neck, pulling at the hair in his ponytail. “But, um. I didn’t really feel like I woke up until I... Let myself accept that this is just. What the world looks like now. Without him in it.” Anders’ eyes burn, and he blinks rapidly and hopes that Hawke doesn’t notice the way his breath hitches.

If they do, they don’t say anything, instead fishing a packet of cigarettes from their pocket, lighting one before offering him the pack. Anders takes it gratefully, slipping a cigarette between his lips and leaning forward for Hawke to light it. Their lighter has a bright, chipped progress flag on the casing, and Anders can’t help but find it reassuring, for all the cliche. The cigarette lights, and Anders breathes in deeply, savouring the warm ache of it and breathing out a long gust before he speaks again.

“It’s like. They were part of another chapter. And you’re already onto the next one. And you kind of, have to stop trying to go back to those pages, otherwise you’ll miss what’s happening in these ones.” Anders laughs, and scrubs at his cheeks, feeling the graze of his stubble and wishing he’d remembered to shave. “Sorry, that’s stupid.”

“No,” Hawke says, firmly, taking a drag of their own cigarette and breathing it out in a gust of smoke before they speak. “No, that makes sense.” They look at him sidelong, then, and when they blink a tear runs rapidly, silently down their tanned cheek. “I don’t know how to keep reading.”

Anders rests his hand against the stone he’s sitting on. It’s rough and cool. His eyes move from the great belly of the moon to the dusting of stars over the horizon, trying to trace the shapes of the constellations. “I think…” He says, slowly, sounding the words out as he says them, “It starts with this. With people you care about. Quiet places. Places where you feel like you can be everything you are and feel everything you’re feeling without holding it in. Places where you feel safe.”

Hawke shakes their head, and their hair falls over the shoulder of their jacket, catching on the ridges of their patches. “I don’t feel safe.”

Anders ignores the wrench in his chest at that, and takes another drag of his cigarette before he looks down to meet Hawke’s eyes. “You will.” Hawke holds his gaze for a long minute after he says it. Then they nod, once, and glance away, bringing the cigarette back up to their lips.

For a while they sit there in the quiet, smoking, peaceful. Dog has rested her head on her thick paws, and Hawke is careful to tap their ash far away from her. Eventually, the ever-present blur of memory and feeling at the back of Anders’ head threatens to overwhelm the silence, and he tugs his phone out of the pocket of his coat. It’s an old suede thing with feather detailing he’d got second hand. Isabela teases him about it, but it always makes him feel safer than anything else does. He figures that’s enough. Anders taps the cracked screen of his phone, blinking at the blue light. Hawke glances at him, their brown eyes almost black in the dark.

Anders tilts his phone screen at them. “Mind if I play some music?”

They blink, once, then nod, and take another drag on their cigarette. “Sure.”

Anders hits play with a sense of near physical relief, and the tinny, soft sound of some alt rock eases into the air between them. After three songs Anders has finished his cigarette. After four, Hawke has finished theirs. For a moment, they sit there, unmoving and terribly still. Anders sits forward, feeling the weight of his phone shift in his pocket as he does so. “How are you feeling now?”

They offer him a shadow of a smile, heavy coat and baggy jeans disguising long lines of wiry muscle that Anders couldn’t forget if he tried. “Better. Anders?”

“Yes?” Anders wishes he didn’t feel as much like a heroine in some silent film, but Hawke always seems to have that effect on him. They make him feel like some damsel in need of saving. They make him want to be a hero.

Hawke’s lips curl up into a crooked smile that creases the corners of their eyes. “Thanks. For coming out here.”

Anders shrugs and lies. “It’s nothing.” When Hawke snorts, he goes on, grinning, “No, really. What else was I going to be doing? Now my friend, on the other hand. This poor sap is opening his free clinic at 5am this morning which…” Anders gets out his phone, tapping the home button. “Is in about three hours. Now that idiot, him, yeah, I’d feel sorry for. But luckily neither of us know anyone so masochistic.”

Hawke huffs a laugh, their voice rough and climbing into a giggle as they squeeze their eyes shut, scrubbing at their cheeks. “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?” They say it with a smile.

Anders tilts his head, and tries to ignore the warmth that flushes through his chest whenever Hawke looks at him like that. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”

Hawke shrugs, and pushes their hair back over their shoulders, moving so that they’re facing him, their legs spread wide and their jacket hanging loose over a white t-shirt. They look up at Anders boldly. “You’re my idiot.”

Anders’ flush pushes its way up into his cheeks and on into his ears, the cold of the early morning forgotten in the way that Hawke is staring at him. “Really? I must have missed the memo…”

“Anders,” Hawke’s voice is soft, and as they speak they rest their hand on Anders’ cheek. Their skin is soft and cold with the night air, and Anders leans into it as if he’s lost at sea and their touch is the only thing keeping him from drowning. It takes him too long to unstick his tongue from the roof of his dry mouth.

“Yes?”

Hawke smiles at him, warm and soft and indulgent, and their thumb strokes gently across his cheek as they lean forward. “Stop talking.” Their breath is warm as it blows across his lips, and smells faintly of cigarettes. And then they’re leaning even closer, and they’re kissing him. Their lips are soft and taste like cherry chapstick, and Anders doesn’t care as they tilt their head, the scar on their nose scratching softly against his skin, the warmth of their breath filling his lungs. Hawke licks into his mouth with a hunger that feels like burning, and Anders opens for them, lifting his hands to cradle their head and pull them closer, his fingers tangling in their thick, soft hair. Anders’ heart feels as if it’s going to beat its way out of his chest and that’s meaningless against the way the world is spinning, every inch of him lost except the point where his cheeks brush Hawke’s, where his chin bumps theirs, where their lips move to lock and loosen around his own as they move.

When they pull back, Anders isn’t sure he remembers how breathing works. But they grin at him, and their eyes are silver in the moonlight when they lean forward to bump their foreheads together, cradling the back of his head. Sighing, they shut their eyes. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

Anders breathes, and swallows, lips wet and sore with the force of their kiss, wrists resting loosely on Hawke’s strong shoulders. Above them, the moon is bright and full and beautiful. Anders tries to speak past the lump in his throat. “Do it again?”

Hawke looks up at him, and their eyes are almost black in the dark. Then they kiss him.

[tired0artist]

sing to me (part four)

<<part one>> <<part two>> <<part three>>

paring: female!V x Johnny Silverhand

summary: a street kid V falls in love with SAMURAI music and idolises Johnny Silverhand. years later she finally understands the saying “never meet your idols”

warnings: angst and fluff, Johnny being a dick as always, arguments, V plays the guitar, MORE JOHNNY AND V ACTION IN THIS ONE!!!, references to death, badass V, more/different warnings in the future parts

note: I’m describing my V, but you can imagine her however you want tho

•SAMURAI fan V (street kid)•

V was mad. No. She was fucking furious.

She drove back to her apartment, her whole body in pain. There was dry blood on her temple and her left arm was seriously bruised.

But well. That would happen when someone is fingering some drunk whore, while she’s driving and then has an accident.

V walked inside her apartment and wished that she had that old door that she could slam. She immediately took off her clothes and went to take a shower.

Her body was covered in bruises not only from the car crash but the fight in the male bathroom. She wanted to scream at something. Or rather someone.

She left the bathroom after patching her temple wound. It needed only two stitches so she could handle it.

Then she dressed herself in some comfy and soft clothes, drank some well needed water and laid down on her bed.

V slept for at least two hours. She ordered some food and sat down on her couch, still feeling worse than shit and still full of anger.

“Why’d you order Mexican? Pizza or Chinese would be way better”

She opened her eyes to see Johnny sitting on her couch, both legs on her coffee table.

“You don’t have a say in this. Not after the shit you pulled last night” she said, gritting her teeth in anger.

He rolled his eyes “Come on, kid. What’s the big deal? I just had some fun while getting info”

That made her stand up from where she was sitting on her bed. V pointed at him nearly screaming “Some fun?! Johnny that was way more than some fun! Drinking? I can handle, cool, fine in my book. But taking drugs, in my body. Without my consent. While I’m on fuck knows what pills to let you take the control?! That was fucked up. And then you finger some chick, while she’s driving and have a car accident! Think a bit Johnny, I beg you to think. Because you weren’t putting only yourself in danger. But me too”

Johnny was silent as he stared at the angry woman. He doesn’t remember the last person who screamed at him with such anger. Even Alt or Rogue never were angry at him so much that they were basically vibrating with it. With them it was mostly some yelling and then a lot of sex, after that they were cool. But with V, it won’t work that way.

He really fucked that up didn’t he?

“V I—“

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear from you now. I will keep my promise. I’ll kill Smasher for you and work with Rogue. But that was the last time, that I willingly let you use my body. So go ahead and ghost off, Johnny”

And he did just that. He went back to sitting around in her subconsciousness.

V took and deep breath and went to take some painkillers, to maybe stop the banging in her head. Or the ache around her heart. That she didn’t know if was because of the feeling of betrayal, the relic or all the drugs, alcohol and Misty’s pills Johnny mixed yesterday.

The food arrived soon and V managed to at least eat half of it. Which was a win in her eyes, seeing how she started loosing weight ever since the relic stopped her from keeping anything down.

She cleaned up and put the rest of her take out in her small fridge, for later. After eating a bit, V started feeling better, so with a new found strength she took her guitar.

Sitting down on her bed she started strumming softly, eyes closed. Finally feeling relaxed.

But not for long it would seem.

“V”

“I told you to go away. I don’t want to even look at you for now”

“Come on, V. I—“

V opened her eyes to stare at him coldly as he was leaning against the wall, where he first appeared.

Instead of replying, V started playing her guitar loudly and aggressively. The sound bouncing off the walls, as the electric guitar was finally used to it’s full potential. V’s fingers were skilfully moving, her eyes closed as she smirked.

Johnny was impressed. He knew the kid could play but, he didn’t know just how well. Still he rolled his eyes saying.

“You know that this won’t drown me out. I’m in your head”

V didn’t answer, pretending that she didn’t hear him over the sound of her guitar.

“Come on, V. Stop acting like a angsty teenager and let me talk”

This caused V to snort as she picked up the pace, playing even louder.

Johnny was irritated. He didn’t like to feel ignored. He clenched his fists and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry”

That made her stop and let out a tired breath “Sorry won’t cut it for the shit you pulled, Johnny. You didn’t break my favourite vase, you used my body and lied to me”

Johnny shuffled his feet, apologising was new for him. He didn’t exactly know what to say next, so he said the true truth.

“I planned to go partying from the start. I thought that you wouldn’t let me, so I just did it behind your back. I figured that you’d be mad but I didn’t care. I didn’t think”

V stared at him, bitting her lip. She still was mad but the whole situation now made her more tired.

“You rarely do, Johnny. You’re a selfish dick. I keep on giving and giving. I’m trying to be nice to you, cause I know that it’s not easy for you. Sure I yell at you sometimes, but you drive me crazy. Either way I can feel that it’s not easy for you” she said quietly and out loud.

She looked down and continued “But fuck Johnny. It’s not easy for me either. Everyday I wake up and my first thought is that how long do I have, before I die. Then I go to the shower and all my brain can think about is that I’m not alone in there, that you can see and feel everything. Sometimes I look into my mirror and all I can see is you. I eat things that I never liked. I drink things that I would rather die than taste and I like them. Fuck. Even the way I play my guitar is starting to become more like you than me. Everyday I feel like I’m loosing myself, Johnny... And still I’m giving you a hundred. I’m giving you my body even if it scares the living hell out of me. And you fuck me over”

Johnny looked away from the woman who said that would take a bullet for him. Who really, is giving him a hundred.

Guilt was eating him alive. He regretted the whole thing. He failed her. He fucked her over, because that’s what he was used to doing. He didn’t even think what kind of a trust she gave him that night.

“I really regret it... I’m sorry V. I really am, no bullshit here” he said honestly, his voice softer than ever.

V only smiled sadly “I know you are. But what’s done is done, Johnny. Words won’t help you with this time. You need to show me that you would take a bullet for me”

Johnny looked at her and pulled away from where he was against the wall. He kneeled in front of her and touched her right arm.

“Well I can start with a bit more honesty...”

She nodded “Okay”

Johnny grinned sheepishly and tucked her sleeve up “I might have made you a tattoo”

V immediately looked down and brought up her arm up to see a heart with words inside of it.

JOHNNY

+

V

“I am. Going to kill you” she said, glaring at the rockerboy.

He smiled at her saying “I thought that you’d be happy. It’s my own hand writing by the way, along with the heart. Since you were such a SAMURAI fan, I wanted to give you an autograph”

V blushed red. She did every time he mentioned her love of his band and the tiny crush she had on him as a teenager.

“You have a second to disappear before I strangle you” she said with a deadly smile.

Johnny smirked and disappeared, his laugh echoing inside her head.

V sighed and touched the tattoo “The fuck am I supposed to do with this?”

Two days later, V and Rogue met up to find Smasher. Unfortunately, they only found Grayson.

“I’ve got something that belonged to Silverhand! I can give it to you!”

That made V stop and don’t shoot the man. She glanced at Johnny who was pacing around, she knew that he wanted his things back. She glared at the man asking “What is it? What. Do. You. Have?”

“I—I the... em... the—“

“Speak up! Before I shoot your head off!” she yelled with a glare, Johnny’s gun in her hands feeling like it belonged there.

Grayson jumped and said “In the container on that goliath over there. Take the access card and you’ll see”

V took it and nodded at the man “I appreciate that. Now. Goodnight” with that she shot the surprised fucker right between the eyes.

Both Rogue and Johnny seemed surprised as V without a second look put Johnny’s gun in her holster and looked at Rogue to listen to what she got to say.

After Rogue left, V went to find the container.

“Oh fuck. Think I know what it is” Johnny said just as V was opening the container.

It turned out to be Johnny’s old car.

“Hop in. I’ll even let you drive” he said, materialising inside the car.

V laughed at bit saying “Not like you got much choice there”

The ride to the oil fields was mostly silent and V was trying her best not to hit anything, while driving Johnny’s car.

Once there, V’s heart sank a bit as Johnny said “Worse than I thought”

V bit her lip and got out of the car, walking to the place where Johnny’s body was supposed to be.

There was nothing there. A cement plank and some garbage.

“So that’s how it is. Nothing here at all” Johnny said, sitting down and staring at the place of his burial.

V also sat down with a heavy heart, saying “What did you expect Johnny? Headstone? A flag and flowers?” hearing how harsh it came out, she sighed adding softly “It’s Arasaka we’re talking about, Johnny...”

Johnny didn’t look at her as he said “Nah... just... I—I don’t know. A marker?” he paused, his voice low and sad “Something. Anything”

V smiled softly at him as his gaze flickered to her. She looked down a took a piece of metal saying “We’ll figure something out”

With that said she scratched his initials and year of death on the stone.

J. S 2023

“How’s that?” she asked, hoping that at least this small thing will make his heart lighter. Or rather. Their heart lighter.

He smiled at her sadly saying “A bit. But let’s say it was my real grave. What would you write? Here lies Johnny Silverhand...”

Without a hesitation, V said “The guy who saved my life and brought music into it”

Johnny smiled at her and took off his glasses. He then got up and said “V... you don’t know how much I want that to be true. Listen. I realise that I fucked up a lot of things. Either let down or used every last person who gave me their trust. Blind, selfish dick that I was. But I’ve managed one thing for now. Not to fuck this up, what we have”

V sighed and looked away “No Johnny. You fucked that up too. You used me, lied to me... I can’t trust you at all”

“Ahem... is it too late to ask for a second chance?” the rockerboy awkwardly but honestly asked.

“What do you want from me?”

He sat down next to her, looking ahead “Most people I thought were my friends, they couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as me” he turned to look at her, continuing “You’re fucking closest to me by a long shot. There twenty-four seven. And yet... you don’t seem to hate my living guts. At least... so it seemed. Till now...”

V took a deep breath, and looked at the man “Okay... but as second chances go, this is your last. I refuse to be that naive”

Johnny grinned at her “I’ll try dammed hard” he then got up in front of her, the same grin in place as he said “Johnny Silverhand. Relentless Rockerboy Who Never Gives Up”

V also got up and shook hand with him, saying “V. A Wanna Be Musician And A Part Time Merc”

Johnny smirked adding “Forgot to add ‘SAMURAI Fangirl’ in there”

She rolled her eyes instead saying “You were a real dick at the beginning”

“I know, and you were a whiny cunt” he said, shrugging.

V snorted and shook her head, when she remembered something.

“Do you still feel like you’re suffocating? Like I’m holding you down?”

Johnny observed her for a second before replying “No. Now it’s more... normal to me. Not great, though. Sometimes when I wake up... it feels like I’m back for a while”

“Back?”

“Like this body is mine. Like I’m free. Seconds later I feel like I’m missing something. Something really important. Then I realise that you’re there, always were. And this stupid wave of relief washes over me” Johnny admits, looking away from V.

She watches him and softly replies “I have the same thing. I wake up and go through my routine and then I’m starting to panic a bit. Because you’re not there and somehow... the thought of you disappearing is so fucking scary...”

“I know, V. I can feel it, that’s why—“

“That’s why always after or in the middle of it you appear” she finished never really connecting the dots that were clearly there.

He nodded “Yeah... I guess we both, got pretty close to each other. Never thought that we’d make this far”

“Me neither. I seriously thought that you would murder me in my apartment, with everyone thinking that it was cyber psychosis...”

Johnny took her hand and looked into her eyes “I would never. I swear that I’ll keep you safe and sound okay?”

Slowly she nodded “Okay... okay. I believe you”

He smiled and squeezed her hand, before letting go and saying “Let’s delta out of here. Nothing here to see”

V watched him walk to the car and smiled, slowly following after him. Her heart feeling lighter and butterflies dancing in her stomach.

•english isn’t my first language so sorry for any errors.

•you wanna be tagged in the next parts? leave a comment!

•thanks for reading! hope you like it. I will be going through some parts of the main story and beyond. I’m planning it to be a bit longer so if you want something longer than 5/6 parts, this is for you

•tag list: @signwriting @missweatherwax @axshadows

[paramedictk-archive]

it’s hard to put into words how much skam france has disappointed me this year but s6 is finally over and i felt like i needed to kind of... say goodbye to this shitshow and get a few things off my chest.

s3 will always hold a special place in my heart, it came into my life when i really needed it and honestly, it was their only genuinely good season from start to finish. i will always be grateful for s3 and for eliott and lucas and for all those little moments we got to see with the grew in that season as well as in s4 and s5, when they actually acted like teenagers, when they were there for each other, when actions had consequences, when subplots weren’t abandoned just after 2 clips and when they used this show to educate teenagers and give them hope... those very few moments that actually made me feel like i was watching a skam remake.

it’s hard to make peace with the fact that this remake gave us so many good moments but also managed to completely ruin this entire experience for most of us this year. i think if skam france was genuinely, consistently trash from s1 to s6 i wouldn’t be half as angry as i am right now. but truth is, it wasn’t all bad. that’s the worst thing. we’ve seen they can do better, they just chose to be lazy and use the popularity s3 gave them to churn out mediocre and half assed plots time and time again because they knew they had devoted fans who would defend them no matter what.

when s3 was airing i actually felt like they listened to us sometimes and cared about us but something changed after s4. it no longer mattered what we wanted to see or what we thought about a scene, we were simply told what we should be feeling. and that’s a huge red flag. i don’t have to be a scriptwriter or a director to know that good storytelling isn’t about throwing excuses and explanations (and then damage control pictures) at your audience. it’s about them engaging with the content you put out and bringing their own perspective to it. otherwise, what’s the point?

and you know, this isn’t even about what’s ooc and what isn’t. it’s about the people who were supposed to finally get their representation but instead ended up being too triggered by the show to continue watching it. it’s about muslim, deaf/hoh people, people dealing with addictions or self harm or eating disorders speaking out only to be silenced by david and his fans just because their opinions weren’t always supportive and positive. it’s about us saying that they should have never used sexual or domestic abuse for shock value and then being told to shut up because a few pacifists in this fandom seem to think we’re ruining the show for them this way. it’s about david and niels flat out lying to us and promising so many things in order to get us to watch s6. it’s about being disrespected by the creators of your favourite tv show so badly that you end up having to distance yourself from it and the fandom. you obviously can’t please everyone, but the least you can do is listen to the people whose stories you’re trying to tell.

i obviously can’t tell any of this to david even though i wish i could. not because i want to rub it in or prove that i’m right, i just simply want him to know how much his childishness hurt the very people who once fought so hard to get his show renewed for him. i can’t tell him any of this because he would never read my messages since i’m not one of his certified bootlickers singing his praises all the time. because he blocked one of my insta accounts last week for a comment i posted under one of his pictures during s5. because that’s the kind of person he is. someone who would rather hide and ignore constructive criticism and let his little fans fight his battles for him. someone who stayed quiet for weeks while said fans kept sending death threats to people. and yes, you could say he’s not responsible for other people’s actions and that’s true in a way. but when you create such an unhealthy and hostile environment within your own fandom by playing favourites and silencing anyone who has a different opinion than what is considered acceptable, you do encourage that kind of behaviour.

despite all this, i still stayed and tried to put up with all the bad writing because i cared about the grew that much, maybe even more than niels himself, it seems. i don’t have a reason to stay now. the concept of having female showrunners sounds good, sure, but i know francestvslash and i know skam france. it’s the good old bait-and-switch. during the last two seasons, they kept baiting marginalized communities to earn woke points but a season that was supposed to be about arthur’s deafness entirely got turned into some cheating fest and lola’s season was pure misery porn with wlw rep thrown in there as bait. 

david and niels leaving won’t solve this problem. francetvslash needs a reality check too. they used us to renew the show and then turned around and called us obsessive. they blocked my comments under the live because i asked them why wasn’t the sexual assault plot mentioned again. they joked about addictions. they don’t care, okay? not about us, not about giving people representation. the only thing they care about is money. so them suddenly hiring female directors and writers after they saw us complaining about the way this show treats women? bait. the same kind of bait niels and david used when they tried to throw all kinds of rep in s6 because they knew lgbt people want to see themselves represented so badly that they would watch it no matter what. i would love to be proven wrong, obviously. i want to believe the new showrunners have nothing but good intentions but their hands will obviously be tied by francetvslash to some extent. and i’m done being used by them and then being forced to settle for the bare minimum.

all in all, both s5 and s6 fell flat and were extremely disappointing. skamfr under david and niels will always remain a one hit wonder, nothing else. it’s a good thing they are leaving now because at least characters like max or sekou have the chance to be treated with respect by the new writers and directors. and i’m happy for all of you who decided to stay... i wish you guys the best. i honestly hope you guys will get the stories and the representation you’re looking for. i really do. i want to be proven wrong about francetvslash and the showrunners... but i don’t have the energy to dedicate so much of my life to this show again, not after them breaking my heart so many times. 

and i guess i’m a petty person. the grew deserved great stories too, not just lamif. arthur deserved a great season, deaf/hoh people deserved to see themselves represented, instead they were forced to watch niels disrespect noée and camille and then act like they never existed in s6. and after everything wlw have done for this show, we deserved a great season too, not to be baited like this. maya was in 18 clips out of 83 (!!!!). if niels and david didn’t want to give the grew a chance to have a good send-off, then i’m not giving this show a chance again. why would i?

anyway. i’ll stick to rewatching s3 every now and again. and i will miss the way the grew made me feel. thanks for all the good memories and let’s hope we’ll forget the bad ones soon. this is what we’ve come to.

alt er love and all that crap i guess.

[omnia-vanitas-96]

✨Ok so, just in case my mini bio wasn’t clear enough...✨

👶 <18s/MAPs DNI I do NOT support MIK (Minors in Kink for those who do not know!) 👶

❌Untitled/Blank bio blogs DNI!❌

💔DNI if you think it’s acceptable to delete captions off peoples NSFW content and repost! 💔

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Speaking of nasty!

🦄 UNICORN HUNTERS DNI - I AM NOT A SEX TOY, get some couples counselling or a hitachi ya fuckin freaks 🦄

PRO ANA/ED/FEEDER FETISH BLOGS DNI

♠️❌ QUEENS OF SPADES/SNOWBUNNIES/ OTHER RACEPLAYERS/PEOPLE WHO THINK RACISM IS KINKY DNI ❌♠️

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🪐 If you would like to DM me or send an ask;

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💔 Break the rules, instant block, no exceptions. 💔

✳️ I like/reblog CNC content occasionally, but enthusiastic consent is important and not optional! (Same goes for aftercare!) ✳️

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I AM DOUBLING DOWN ON ☝️ THAT POINT AND BECOMING QUITE VOCAL ABOUT IT, IF ANY PRO BLOGS APPEAR ON MY RADAR I WILL THROW HANDS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. STOP HIDING BEHIND THE “It’s just muh fantasies uwu” WHEN TALKING ABOUT ACTUAL CRIMES.

🤡 Gate-keeping kink boomers who tell me “I’m not really kinky” and “don’t belong in THEIR community” for not condoning literally every fetish INCLUDING THE ILLEGAL/HARMFUL ONES are not welcome here, I hate the lot of you, you do not belong in MY community and I hope you all get doxxed/pushed in a well/stung by a great many bees 🤡

Onto the positives 🥰

My blog is POC, trans, NB, sex worker friendly! 💖

My blog is a safe space for people of all sexual orientations including ace and aro friends (STILL NOT FOR MAPs) 💜

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My blog is supportive of bodies that are all colours, shapes and sizes! 🖤

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If you don’t like any of these ⬆️ things, my blog is not for you so ... leave?

🦋 If you feel the need to kick off in my asks/DMs about my opinions on wether or not certain people deserve to live their lives happily and comfortably, you’re gonna get blocked. 🦋

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I do not negotiate with racists, homophobes, exclusionists, transphobes, assorted garbage of other varieties. 🤷🏻‍♀️

🌺 My DMs and asks are super open, safe and non judgemental (so long as you aren’t creepy/horrible), please feel free to reach out and chat to me! 🌺

🔮 I don’t have a massive base of experience (so please do not take my word on kink stuff as gospel!) but feel free to ask me questions about kink/sex (politely) and I’ll do my best to answer and or pass your question on to someone I trust with more experience who knows the answer. 🔮

Single, not currently in a dynamic and very much interested in making new friends/networking/talking shop with likeminded members of the kink community but I’d appreciate being spoken to like a human being who is your equal! 😡

🌷 I’m a service sub/pet (pup) and soft/service/caregiver domme in practice and I’m curious about cg/l, other types of pet play, primal and shibari if you’d like to chat about kink stuff 🌷

⚜️ Please notify me if you want something tagged or I have reblogged something of yours without proper permission/credits/captions, as I take those things really seriously and would never intentionally not credit! ⚜️

🙇🏻‍♀️ Thank you in advance for respecting my boundaries and please enjoy your time in my little corner of the internet! 🙇🏻‍♀️

[fishyspots]

the same magic touch

happiest belated birthday to @patrickbrewsky! one day i’ll finish the AU you deserve but for today i can give you this, inspired by a conversation we had a while back ❤️️(ps: it’s also on ao3)

“Why are you throwing that sweater out?”

Patrick looks up from the bin, fabric in hand. He feels caught out somehow, but he’s not sure why. “It has a hole in it?”

David stares him down from his spot by the bathroom door. “Why are you ripping holes in your best sweater?”

“I didn’t plan for this to happen,” Patrick protests. “It was totally innocent.”

“Hand it over.” David crosses Patrick’s apartment, narrowly missing clipping the bed with his knee, limbs akimbo the way they always are this early in the morning. Patrick lets David take the sweater from him, perhaps to say a fond farewell, and turns to start David’s coffee. He didn’t know David liked this sweater best; David’s peeled it off of him more than once, but that’s true of most of his shirts at this point.

For some reason, David folds the sweater and puts it in his bag instead of the trash where it belongs. “What are you going to do with that?”

David looks at him like he’s being difficult. “Excuse me?”

“If you’re trying to clone me, that sweater got ripped in the wash so you’ll want something less fresh.” Patrick grabs for the cocoa powder he keeps in his cupboard and that David still won’t look directly at.

“Why would I clone you before they let me edit out your sense of humor?”

“You love my sense of humor.”

David is scrolling through something on his phone now, clearly past the sweater conversation, but he looks up and smiles when Patrick slides his coffee across the counter. “I have very intentionally never said that.”

“Just like how you’re not saying what you’re going to do with my—”

“The tear is on the seam.” David shrugs and takes a sip, wrinkling his nose in the way that means he tastes the cocoa but will not be commenting on it at this time. “It’ll take, like, five minutes to fix.”

“And you know someone who’s willing to do that? Because the only person I can think of is Jocelyn, and I know you two have that begrudging acceptance thing going but I don’t think it extends to me.”

“She likes you too, you know. She told me last week that you were the best Emcee they could have cast.”

“That’s very sweet.” Patrick tilts his head. “But I don’t know there were any other contenders, so it probably sounds better than it is.” But they’re getting off topic now. “Wait, no. Who’s fixing this sweater?”

“I’m fixing the sweater.” David grabs his bag and sets the mug in the sink. “Should we go? We’re going to open late otherwise.”

David’s concern for keeping normal opening hours more than anything else tells Patrick that he’s missing something. Still: “You’re going to fix it.”

“That is correct.” David sighs. “Can we please go? If you wait much longer I’ll lose all this energy and then you’ll have to open by yourself.”

Patrick rolls his lips in and bites down. “How many sweaters have you mended, exactly? Because you talked for an hour once about all the cashmere sweaters you lost to moths.”

“Cashmere is different. Anyway, I’m not, like, totally helpless,” David says. “I went to art school.”

Patrick privately thinks that the sentence might be an oxymoron, but he can acknowledge his own bias here. He took a pottery class in college as his “understanding art” elective; he and his fellow business majors had a lot to say about the cost of equipment and the annoyance of waiting around for the clay to bake. And then after all of that, his glaze was cracked and uneven. “Do they teach stitching there? Like, a whole class?”

“Mm.” David’s mouth is a thin line. “Right after the Etch-A-Sketch one.”

Patrick may have overshot it. “That didn’t—”

“Go to the store. I’ll be there in an hour.”

Patrick sets the spare key on the counter and elects to retreat.

***

“This is earlier than I was expecting to see you.”

David makes a beeline for the macchiato Patrick set in a prominent place on the counter in a spot near the door. He didn’t want David to miss it. “I said an hour.”

The teasing is right there; Patrick has to consciously push down countless other times where David has wildly miscalculated his arrival time. Instead, he takes a breath and prepares for a real apology. They’re a new thing for the two of them—after his parents came to town, Patrick’s been making communication a priority. It’s mostly his idea, but it was spurred on by some...gentle suggestion from Stevie. He doesn’t want to keep falling back into old habits, and he’s not going to put the burden on David to keep him accountable.

But David has not been exceptionally amenable to this new strategy. “Stop,” he says once he’s taken a drink and turned to look at Patrick. “Enough. Thank you for the coffee.”

He drops a kiss on Patrick’s cheek and continues on to the back room. Patrick entertains the idea of following him, but the bell above the door chimes again and he pushes down the conversation they need to have. Not forever, he tells himself sternly. Just until closing. Or lunch, if he can rig them a break.

But it’s Ronnie crossing the threshold, so maybe they do need to finish their relationship discussion. Maybe close the store for the day, or something.

“Ronnie!” Patrick winces at the enthusiasm he can hear in his own voice. David keeps saying that he’s forcing it, which might be valid. “What are you looking for today?”

Ronnie lifts her chin but doesn’t make eye contact. “David here?”

Still trying too hard, then. “He’s in the back. I’ll get him.”

Apparently he heard them, because David’s already peeking out. “Sorry about that, Ronnie. Back for that cheese or is it something else?”

Ronnie lets David curate a cheese plate for her next Women in Business meeting and suggest some wine pairings; Patrick bites back his own opinions to the best of his ability. Or, he does after Ronnie pointedly sets the chardonnay back on the shelf after he says it’s his favorite.

David rings her up and sees her off, and Patrick opens his mouth again to take advantage of a lull. Then the phone rings.

“Can you take that?” David asks. “I want to figure out what we need for that greeting card workshop next month. Jo likes it when we order with at least three weeks’ notice, and they gave us that frame for the poster last time as a thank you so I don’t want to—”

Patrick waves him off before the phone goes to voicemail. “I got it.”

Fortunately for their stocking schedule, it’s Brenda. They’ve been running low on the moisturizer she’s trying out recently, and they need to get more on the shelf as soon as she has it ready. Unfortunately for him, Brenda called seeking opinions about her new combination skin formula and the essential oil blend. David informed Patrick early on that he had combination skin, but Patrick senses that Brenda will not find this information useful. He bides his time and lets Brenda talk until David catches on to his frantic gestures.

They don't teach this in business school. He lets his eyes drift from David's face (a struggle, sometimes) to the bag at his boyfriend's feet. They don't teach a lot of things in business school.

Patrick passes off the phone and greets the next customers, who thankfully do not have any qualms about his personality. Then he checks the stock spreadsheet. They’re getting low on sweaters and socks after the cold snap last week, so he flags the vendors for David to email and sets about filling in the blank spots on the shelves after a busy morning.

The sound of David’s voice soothes Patrick’s nerves even more than the playlist he and David made together in a process that started adversarial (“Smooth jazz? Why not just get a Muzak?” “People shop in those stores too, David.”) and turned playful after they decided on a one-for-one system. Patrick’s alt-folk mixes surprisingly seamlessly with the Whitneys and Mariahs David added. Even the Counting Crows Patrick put on the list just to be contrary fits, in a way.

“Everything okay with Brenda?” Patrick asks after David drops the phone back into his holder. “Are you going to put a new cleanser in my bathroom soon?”

“I don’t see why those two things are necessarily related,” David says, “but yes to both.”

“Good to know.” They might be able to flip the sign for lunch if they’re quick; clouds are gathering in the sky outside in a way that spells a dreary afternoon. “Want me to pick us up something?”

Patrick heads for the door at David’s nod of assent. Even though they haven’t talked about it, he still feels like he’s making up for something. Hopefully that will change. He’s jumping into this new talking strategy with both feet, and he just hopes that David will catch him.

Silly, he thinks as he crosses the street. David has never once let him fall.

Twyla greets him with a sunny smile and asks if they want their usual. For him, a burger is pretty standard, but David keeps vacillating between different soups, sandwiches, and salads. It’s a caesar salad day today; though Patrick would love to read into David’s mood from his choice, he knows better than that by now. David just does what he wants sometimes. As for Patrick, he’s mostly just happy that David is limiting the chance that he won’t like his food. He worked through the international section of the menu last week and spent three afternoons in a row cranky due to hunger and the continual failure of the café to meet his admittedly unrealistic expectations. He does add a cookie, because communication is great and all but it’s always good to have an insurance policy if things go south.

Back at the store, David’s handing over a Rose Apothecary tote to Roland and he’s not even grimacing. Much. There’s definite relief in his eyes when Patrick holds the door for Roland, though. It’s quickly replaced by confusion when Patrick flips the sign.

“I thought we could eat lunch together?” Patrick resists the urge to kick at the ground like a teenager, but it’s there. “We haven’t had much time to just...see each other. Today.”

“I saw plenty of you this morning.” David raises an eyebrow suggestively.

Patrick fights his easy blush; that’s beside the point. “That’s not—”

“You know I never complain about seeing you,” David continues. “But Roland said Jocelyn is going to stop by later, so we’ll have to keep an eye out.”

Patrick thinks Jocelyn can probably wait, but he keeps that to himself. He waits until they’re settled on the couch with David’s left thigh pressing against his right and David can’t talk past his mouthful of lettuce before he broaches the topic. “I did want to talk about this morning.”

David’s eyes widen as he chews, but he does look a little less frantic than he would months or even a year ago if Patrick said something similar.

While David can’t cut him off, Patrick presses his advantage. “I didn’t want to make you feel like you’re helpless. I don’t think you’re helpless.”

David rolls his eyes, but there’s something tight around his mouth that tells Patrick he has to do a little more here. He swallows, so Patrick hurries to finish his thought.

“I think you’re...you do a lot that I don’t do.”

“And you do a lot I don’t do.”

“I don’t think—no, I know, I know I don’t think about that enough.”

Something suspicious dissipates from David’s face. “Is this your whole talking thing again?”

“I don’t have a whole talking thing,” Patrick protests.

“You’ve had a whole talking thing for weeks now. Do you want me to run through all of my skills, or is it sufficient to just say that we’re okay?”

Patrick definitely had prepared to run through all of David’s skills, but he elects to save that for another time. Maybe tonight, when he has more ability to keep David in one place until he’s finished saying what he wants to say. “It’s enough. For now.”

“Threatening me with conversation.” David shakes his head. But he doesn’t take another bite, so he’s at least somewhat worried that Patrick will drop all of his feelings right this moment.

“You can eat, David.”

David lifts his fork cautiously.

So Patrick has no choice, really. “I love you.”

Patrick wants to frame the look David gives him, cheeks slightly bulging and eyes furious and generally perfect.

They unlock the front door in time to catch Jocelyn, and Patrick finds himself still cataloguing David’s competencies for the rest of the day. That night, Patrick sees his sweater, repaired and neatly folded in the way that David says limits wrinkles, hidden in his drawer under a college sweatshirt. It looks as good as new. “Thanks for the sweater.”

“Well, the cloning people were unhelpful. Said I’d have to keep all of you if I went for a new one, and I don’t have the constitution to be mocked twice as often.”

Patrick can’t let it go without saying something, though. “David. Thank you.” That should cover his whole talking thing for now. David still looks at him like he’s a too-large shipment that won’t fit in the planned display. Back to teasing, then. “You know, I had a thought.” Patrick affects his most guileless expression as he slides into bed next to his boyfriend. David’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “Since you’re so good at this, and you went to art school and all, maybe you can help with costumes for Cabaret.”

Patrick enjoys the horrified look that blooms across David’s face probably too much. “I’m suddenly feeling very helpless.”

“Could be worse,” Patrick says. “At least there’s only one of me to deal with.”

[5lazarus]

A random prompt for you: "It was a dark and stormy night"

I was at the party ranting about catabasis narratives, wine glass in hand, and somebody walked up to me and handed me a pomegranate. “Fuck you,” I said. But it did its job. I put down the wine glass, or handed it vaguely to someone, and headed to the kitchen. There I began abusing the pomegranate, to make it give up its secrets. “Nature’s treasure box,” I said happily. “Leave me to die in hell.”

Someone stirred: a man, washing his hands at the kitchen sink. I blinked. I was too drunk and not drunk enough to make small talk. “You okay?” he asked. I presented the pomegranate. “Ah, catabasis,” he said understandingly. “I’ll leave you to it.” A rush of love for humanity swept me as he left. The friend hosting the party was a recovered classicist and repentant Maoist. They had the most interesting friends. I took a handful of pomegranate seeds and stuffed them in my mouth. The juice ran red and a few missed my mouth, but still I chewed. Tangy-sweet: like all of life, all emotion is wrapped up in a mouthful of flavor. I knew that this didn't quite make sense but I was pleased with the wave of sentiment that swept me. “Catabasis,” I said, and wiped at my eyes. I surveyed the bloody juice staining the counter. “Iphigenia,” I pronounced, and left. Someone handed me a wad of clean toilet paper as I stumbled through the hallway towards another room; it clung to my hands. “Bruh, you’re super fucked up,” a kindly stranger said. “Drink this.” They pulled me into a circle, where a fervent discussion over the rights and wrongs of 1921 was being hashed out. “Iphigenia,” I added helpfully. “A sacrifice knowingly met.” I drank the water and passed the blunt and settled happily into the scene. Three members of the cadre sat around me. The kindly stranger had the classic bisexual haircut and the classic bisexual septum piercing, but was otherwise remarkable. They were the only one close to sober, and kept an eye on their phone. The others were arguing. One wore a moustache and goatee similar to Comrade Trotsky, and was dressed in all black--black t-shirt, black jeans, black Nikes. I wanted to ask where the rest of black bloc was, but only mumbles came out, which was good because the joke probably wouldn’t have gone over well. The other wore a green cap with a red star and was chewing the end of the blunt. “Tell me one example of an actually existing socialist government led by Trotskyists,” Red Star said. “Come on. I’ll wait.” “The USSR would not have survived World War Two without Trotsky heading up the Red Army,” Comrade said instead. Even I was aware this did not actually answer Red Star’s question. “You can say that any existing socialist government exists due to his contribution to the USSR--and with no thanks to fucking Stalin.” “Yooooooo,” I intoned. I was ignored. The Kindly Bisexual handed me a bowl of popcorn. I took a fistful and began to lap the popcorn up. They shifted away from me slightly. I really needed to sober up. “That doesn’t make any sense,” Red Star said. “So Trotsky made some military contributions--sure. We can’t deny that.” “Some?” Comrade said incredulously. “He fought a war on five fronts!” He put his hand in front of Red Star’s face. Clearly I was not the only one who needed to sober up. “One: the White Army. Two: the--” “Don’t you ever get tired of relitigating twentieth century debates?” Red Star asked. “And get your hand out of my fucking face.” “Comrades!” the Kindly Bisexual hurriedly interrupted. “Look, it’s raining!” We all turned to the window, and I smiled. I loved the rain, especially when I was crossfaded. Indeed, not only was it raining--it was pouring, beginning with a low rumble and rising into a lash against the glass. Lightning cracked suddenly across the sky, flashing us blue. Red Star jumped. “A dark and stormy night,” I exclaimed happily. I clasped my hands together joyously, crunching kernels between my palms. “Who even are you?” Comrade said. “Good fucking question,” I said. “I’m not sure.” I looked at the Kindly Bisexual, who I decided was responsible for my welfare tonight, because clearly they were the voice of reason in this room. “Let me ask my handler.” “Yo, what?” Red Star said. I giggled. “Nice try, FBI.” I made finger guns at them, pushed myself up to my feet unsteadily, and wandered off to the living room. The Catabasis Man was sitting on the couch, eating pomegranate seeds out of a bowl. A group of anonymous leftists sat at his feet, facing the television. They were watching The L Word. I slid next to him. “Out of the earth?” I asked. “I have been reborn,” he agreed. “You good?” “I don’t know who I am,” I said. “But the rain is a good sign.” “Right,” he said. “I think you should eat something.” He got up and headed towards the kitchen, leaving me morose. I wrapped my arms around my legs. “These are not my lesbians,” I said sadly. “Shut up,” said someone on the floor, so I did and walked off again, this time in search of more food. The pomegranates and the popcorn were sitting unsteadily in my stomach, and I needed a less buttery carb. I returned to the bedroom with the Kindly Bisexual and the twentieth-century Marxists. “Fuck you,” the Comrade was saying. “You think I’m a plant? This is clear revisionism.” “Yo,” the Kindly Bisexual said. “What?” Comrade pointed at Red Star. “This is clearly COINTELPRO tactics, with cheap talking points too. Try to sound a little less like an alt-right troll account, Comrade Stalin.” “I’m a Maoist,” Red Star snarled. Thunder rolled. I giggled nervously, and was ignored. “Fuck this shit, man! Stop this copjacketing bullshit.” Red Star turned to the Kindly Bisexual. “You see this shit? You see this shit? Callin’ me a plant? That’s cop shit.” “Uh,” the Kindly Bisexual said. “I think yall need to chill.” “Spiderman points at Spiderman,” I exclaimed happily. I could envision it so easily: just the Spiderman meme, but with one of them with a goatee photoshopped onto the mask, and the other wearing Mao’s red star. It was great. It was great to look at a real-life meme. Comrade crossed his arms. “I’m just saying, it’s not copjacketing when you’re actually a cop. How do we know you’re real? You probably got that hat off Amazon.” “There’s no ethical consumption under late capitalism,” Red Star growled. “Fuck off. You Trots are all the same. Trying to split the party--that’s the real reason why you crazies have never had a successful revolutionary front since 1917, you start the wild accusations and then there’s what! A cult of just two, handing out newspapers at Union Square. Then charging you a dollar when they shove it into your hand.” “Oof,” I said. “Yeah, yeah,” Comrade said. “How’s fundraising for the People’s War of Williamsburg going? I heard you got good turnout for your membership drive at the New School. Soon enough, you’ll have enough people to build yet another base in some swamp. And leave pig heads in front of libraries and some shit.” “We are not affiliated with Red Guard,” Red Star said testily. “And the pig head, well, things are different in Texas.” “Yeah yeah,” Comrade said. “We know all the pig heads were some cop shit. Like who else can end up that much of a parody of themselves?” “You grew the goatee on purpose?” Red Star asked. “Or just to fit in?” The Kindly Bisexual claimed their hands. “Right, okay. I think we’ve all demonstrated enough insider knowledge of the blessed disaster we call the US Left. No more calling each other cops, okay? Because yall are too fucked up, and when I told the SC that I’d be a community steward, this is not what I thought my first case would be.” I thought that sounded vaguely carceral, but at this point sobriety was creeping cold and clear, and kept my tongue fuzzily still. “Urgh,” I said instead. “Anyone got a cigarette?” We all went outside for a smoke. The rain stilled to a mild drizzle. Streetlights made the dirty pavements shine, and I scuffed my shoe against a patch of old gum that had probably been there since all these people moved to Brooklyn. The Kindly Bisexual had the cigarettes, but nobody else had a light, so I found an old lighter I had picked up the last time I was driving home to Tennessee, in a Waffle House outside Murfreesboro. I had forgotten it had a Confederate flag on it. “What the fuck,” the Kindly Bisexual said flatly. “No!” I protested. “Shit. No. I-I just, I’m from Tennessee. Stole it from some guy in a Waffle House.” I hadn’t, I had just swiped it from the counter after I paid, but they didn’t need to know that. “I ain’t--no. No.” “You’re faking that accent,” Comrade accused. Red Star nodded next to him. Was this truly how the New York Left would be united? I was vaguely proud of myself. “No, I just codeswitch around middle class leftists from the North,” I said, annoyed. Comrade made a considering face: fair point. “On account of yall think my accent means I’m stupid. But let me show you the truth. I stole this from a Waffle House, and now it shall be destroyed!” Everyone watched as I threw it on the pavement, hoping it would shatter. It bounced instead. Red Star started to laugh. “Nah, that’s just stupid. Smash it! Smash it!” I slammed my foot down and then howled, because I was wearing flipflops and that hurt. “Motherfucker!” I wept. “Shit.” “Aight, I’m gonna try,” Comrade said. He jumped on it and slipped on the slick pavement, busting his ass. We all howled with laughter, even the Kindly Bisexual, who wiped their eyes--carefully, so as not to smudge their eyeliner--before offering him a hand up. “We have to be strategic about this,” Red Star said. “Let’s use that tree branch.” She grabbed a sizeable bow that must have fallen in the storm. She wielded it, lamppost casting a mad glow to her eyes. “Solidarity, yall!” “Solidarity!” we all echoed. She smashed it down, and we screamed in drunken glee as the plastic went flying. Red Star brandished the branch, grinning. Then we heard the sirens. Up the block, we saw the cop car on the corner, whirling its sirens. Some pig said something incomprehensible but threatening over the loudspeaker. “Shit,” I said. “I’m out.” We ran for it, laughing but anxious, all the way to the train station. We split up after the turnstiles. The others all lived deeper in Brooklyn, but I needed to head to Queens. I climbed up the stairs to the platform and sat down on the wooden bench, pushing anxiety about bed bugs out of my head. I saw the three of them across the tracks and waved. They were all laughing. Red Star was mimicking how she had dealt the killing blow. I waved, and the Kindly Bisexual saw me and waved back. They all looked my way. Their train pulled in and I saw them, brilliantly fluorescent, pile into the Coney Island-bound train. Red Star and the Kindly Bisexual spread out on the empty seats; Comrade grabbed a pole. I waved again, feeling lonely now. Comrade glanced over his shoulder and saw me, and they all waved again. The train pulled away, leaving me in the deserted station, and I thought: well, shit. Back to catabasis again.

[lazywitchling]

You know what’s scary? I came to tumblr in the height of fandom blog vs hipster blog, when superwholock was first getting started, before Disney had a choke hold on the entertainment industry, back when it was fun to get really really into tv shows and base our whole personality on what media we consumed. Looking back on it, it was... not a great way to be, but goddamn did it save me.

Not like in a dramatic “saved my life” way, but I mean.

I could go back on my main blog and find my pro-republican posts. I could find my anti-trans posts and my “well okay, gay people can be gay at home, but I don’t want them out where I can see them.” I could find those. They’re back there, years ago in my archive. Because that’s all I knew. That’s all I heard. My community - I mean my real life one, my local area, my friends, my church group, everything around me - is very... monoculture. There aren’t a lot of people around here who don’t look like me, have the same economic background as me, raised in the same beliefs I was... it’s just a whole lot of carbon copies of me. So I thought... “ew, how can someone be gay? That’s gross. They’re going to go to hell.” Because what the hell else would I think? That’s all I knew! And I thought “that boy wants to be a girl? What’s wrong with him? He should see a doctor.” And I thought “why do some people not go to work and the government just pays for them to eat? That’s not right. They shouldn’t be lazy like that.”

And then fuckin’ fandom. It wasn’t fandom directly, but when I got really into a show, I’d follow so many blogs that posted about it. Fan art, discussions, gifs, episode recaps, ask blogs... and inevitably, some of those blogs would drop the occasional political post. Mostly about how we needed marriage equality in the USA. And I thought “well. I don’t agree with that, but their fandom content is good, so I won’t unfollow them.”

It’s how I got exposed to more and more people. People who didn’t think like me. People who didn’t think like my parents. And they weren’t just political posts, sometimes it was just blogging. An artist I like would post about finally getting started on T. He was so happy that he was finally getting T. And I started to think things like “well, she— I mean, he sounds happy. So I’m happy for... him.”

More people. More stories. And I slowly stopped thinking about other people as political issues or religious problems, but as just... people who were trying to live their lives.

It was slow, and it was rocky. I still participated in church discussions that involved phrases like “hate the sin but love the sinner”. It made sense... until college, when I was face to face with people who weren’t like me. Looking at the man in my theatre troupe who was talking about his partner, I couldn’t make the “hate the sin, love the sinner” mentality work. I just couldn’t. I knew I was supposed to, but I just knew that trying to say “he’s a good person, but he just needs to stop being gay” didn’t work at all. I couldn’t hate what he was without hating who he was. And I just couldn’t, because he was my friend, dammit!

Marriage equality passed. My Facebook feed turned into the proverbial wailing and clothes-tearing from my church friends. And I very slowly... very quietly... started to post the “let’s remember that we shouldn’t hate other people” stuff. The very subtle nudging, still Christian-focused stuff that was juuuuust starting to lean left. Not too over the top, not overtly in support, because I was supposed to be one of them, a member of the church, I had to play along with the mentality.

Playing along got exhausting. Someone would deadname Caitlyn Jenner, and I’d consider for a moment that I should just let it go, that I should just pretend that it was fine. But... what about my artist friend? Would I be okay with someone deadnaming him? No, I would not. And if I was pretending I was onboard with deadnaming Caitlyn, would I have played along with deadnaming my friend? Just so I could fit in and be comfortable? So I corrected them. Her name is Caitlyn.

I learned to listen to more people. I learned why “I don’t see color” wasn’t as good a mentality to have as I thought. I learned that “feminist” wasn’t a dirty word, and it also didn’t mean what I thought it meant. I slowly learned that I was one. I slowly learned, and still learn, how to further expand all the things that covers. I learned about intersectional feminism. I learned about white privilege. I learned about so much and so many people because I was actively listening to them, I was hearing their stories, and I cared about them, wanted them to have good lives, wanted them to be able to make choices about their own lives without people like me saying “I know better.”

I learned about myself, too. At twenty-six years old, I figured out exactly why I was always so baffled when my friends talked about sex like it was this big important thing. Surprise: asexual. A second surprise a few years later: somewhere on the aromantic spectrum as well. (Where? Idk. I’ll tell you when I figure it out myself.)

The point is... it was less than a decade ago that I was exactly the type of bigot that gets chased off everyone’s blogs. I was the everything-phobe, the one who would specifically vote against any type of aid, because bootstraps, amiright? I was a whole-ass bigot. Bitch, I owned a confederate flag ring, and I’ve never lived in the south. (It’s in a landfill somewhere now.) I only learned because I first heard from people not like me, and then I learned to listen. I participated in communities that were diverse, not because I wanted the diversity, but because I wanted the content. The diversity was a side effect. And it’s what saved me.

And it fucking terrifies me how close I could have been to being some alt-right and/or terf radical new-nazi or whatever. Because if I had got on this site about two years later than I did, I’d have been caught right in that echo chamber of radfems and nazis preying on anyone they can get their talons in. I was so close. And now I see these radfems pop up in my notes, and it’s like... that could have been me. That was me at one point. I had the ideology, I just missed the identity of it all by a few years.

I don’t have a “byf” list on my blog for a reason. I don’t go through my followers and weed out the terfs and the nazis and the bigots. If they’re in there, fine. I want them to see my words. I want them to hear from someone who doesn’t think like them. I want them to hear from someone who used to be like them, but then learned (and is always learning) to be better.

And yet when I see them in my notes, I’m obliged to weed them out. I feel guilty when it’s a young girl who has clearly been targeted by the radfems on this site, teaching her that she’ll be stronger if she hates everyone they tell her to. Of all the people on this site, she’s the one who I most want to keep out of the echo chamber. But I also have a responsibility to make sure the people who follow me, the people who I follow and reblog from, don’t get caught by the shrapnel. A radfem liking my post just means I have to pay closer attention to what I say and make sure I don’t fall back on old mentalities. It keeps me accountable. But a radfem in my notes means she’s in the notes of my friends, in my reblog chains. And it is my responsibility not to turn a blind eye when people around me can get hurt.

But goddamn, if ever there was someone who needed a community outside of that circle of bigotry, it’s that fourteen year old girl who proudly calls herself a terf. And I really hope she finds one. I really do.

[hyeri-yah]

SONGS I ASSOCIATE THE SEVENTEEN MEMBERS WITH

I'll make this into a tag game ksksksks

List songs in your playlist and strictly on your phone playlist which you associate the Seventeen members with! It's up to you if u wanna add an explanation!

Tagging: @serriannah, @shuasvteen, @woozisnoots, @shoshishua + everyone who wants to do it!!

Seungcheol

• Raise Your Flag - Man with a Mission

• Epiphany - Taylor Swift

Seungcheol reminds me of Orga from MSG: Iron Blooded Orphans and Jihoon as Mikazuki (if u watched it ull know), but he's the leader, the one who'll "raise the flag" and sing the battle cry or something . On the other hand, Seungcheol is also soft and vulnerable, which matches well with Epiphany, which talks about moments of dreaming before the battle.

Jeonghan

• Angel of Mine - Monica

• Bad Boy, Good Man - Tape Five

Oh this guy,,, yeah he's an Angel but sometimes...not. Jeonghan is a caring person and a really good listener, which makes him truly an angel. But c'mon let's face it this guy is mischievous 😂 which is why i listed the second song,,, he has this suave, playboy like aura skksks just listen to the second song, you'll get it.

Joshua

• Time Machine - Goosehouse

• La Vie En Rose

Joshua to me is like a calming energy,,, he kinda looks like a really pastel kind of person 😂 that's why i picked "light-toned" songs! And these are quite acoustic songs for our guitar man. No. I wont pick generic Sunday Morning

Jun

• 戀愛ing - 五月天

• Lovely Icecream Princess Sweetie - Egoist

Jun to me is a sweet child 😂 he reminds me of the feeling I have when I watch Kung Fu Hustle or any Stephen Chow movie ksksks that's why I picked the first song bc it's a really funny and cute song!! The second one reminds me that even though he's like a child, he can still be quite sexy and alluring! It's an upbeat song which is actually perfect for dancing!

Soonyoung

• All Star - Smash Mouth

• Sugar Song & Bitter Step - Unison Square Garden

Ahhhh this guy....he makes me laugh so much I have to list songs that make me laugh 😂 the first one i remember hearing on Shrek,, the second song is fantastic (it's an ending song for an anime and the animation for it is such a fun and energetic dance,,, probably one of the best anime endings) I wish I can list Eye of the Tiger but I dont have it on my phone :((

Wonwoo

• Utakata Hanabi - Supercell

• Cardigan - Taylor Swift

After I heard Wonwoo say that he likes IU songs, I just associate him now with ballads or slow songs 😂 These songs are both lovely and soft and dramatic 😂 Wonwoo to me is that kind of person!

Jihoon

• All the Small Things - Blink182

• Saturday Night Waltz - Aaron Copland performed on piano by Anderson & Roe

Alright the first song...it's not alluding to anything ok!! It's rock but has a warm and touching lyrics that matches well with Jihoon's rough exterior but is really soft and sentimental in the inside. Also, I wouldn't let it pass not to add a classical music piece in this list!! And ofc i'll give it to Jihoon bc he's the one who was classically trained in music,,, and this piece is actually beautiful!!

Minghao

• Royals - Lorde

• Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance

Hao has this mysterious and dark vibe with him that reminds me of a Fae Prince or something 😂 that's why i picked these two songs where i think reflects his classy taste on things and his rather reflective kind of personality despite the brooding vibe 😂

Mingyu

• Gorgeous - Taylor Swift

• Back For You - One Direction

I mean this guy is idol material,,, gorgeous and cheesy to his fans 😂😂😂 ill let the songs explain themselves

Seokmin

• Defying Gravity - Wicked

• Summer Sunshine - The Corrs

DK to me is literal sunshine!!!! That's why I picked the second song!! It's upbeat , energetic and fun!! I picked the first song bc of how he had already performed in a musical, of how im sure he can perfect this song, and how he has literally defied gravity with his talents and hardwork!!!

Seungkwan

• FLY HIGH!! - Burnout Syndromes

• Mr. Chu - A-Pink

Well....Seungkwan is huge a volleyball fan and I'm pretty sure he had watched Haikyuu in some way or another 😂 but I do think the story of Hinata matches him quite well!! And with Mr. Chu...well he did sing this song,,, and i also heard this song in a clip of idol room 😂😂😂

Vernon

• Waltz of Anomalies (cover) - (Vocaloid) Kamikita Ken

• Daybreak Frontline Rap Cover - (Vocaloid) Fantastic Youth

I picked songs which are sorta niche, and no one used to mainstream music would probably heard of these songs, which reminds me of how Vernon can be quite "niche"... he's different and eccentric sometimes and u dont know what's going on in his head 😂 but if u get to know him, u'll be fascinated and intrigued! Just like these songs!!

Chan

• Dinosaur - AKMU

• Me! - Taylor Swift ft. Brendon Urie

The first one is a joke i'll admit that lmaoooooo but it's such a nice song by akmu 😂 with the second song, dino often reminds me of my cousin who wants just a little bit of attention, and this song is really perfect like...just with the lyrics "there's no awesome without me"....well....

That's all!! Thank you for coming to my tedtalk sksjhdjshs i mostly had alt rock/anime songs in my phone so there's that 😂😂😂

I really had fun with this tho!!! I hope u guys would try it too!!

[lavender-lotion]

3, 4, 16 (DON'T say cherik), 22, 28

oh my god i absolutely hate you for asking me these aha you’re my favourite person in the entire world 

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

to date, it’s been X-Men (alt timeline movies, ofc) despite the rocky beginning I had. in this fandom I’ve learned so much about my own writing, and my writing style has grown SO greatly since I first joined and has taken shape into... well whatever the hell it is now, which is something I really like (most of the time)!

I fairly quickly created a small, tight circle of people I really enjoy being around in this fandom, and have since cultivated my own little fandom space that I really, really enjoy. it’s filled with people I love chatting with, people as open-minded as accepting as I am, and it’s a place that I strive to make feel welcoming for all who join, as well! I run an 18+ X-Men Alternative Timeline Movies focused discord, so if you’re interested, join us here! 

I am trying to branch back out into The Fandom a little more after feeling a type of way for some time, and I’m honestly enjoying that a lot too! it’s been interesting to follow some more folk, and I’m really happy to see my dash start to thicken up after being close to barren for so long. 

currently, I have a small group of close friends I care a great deal for (hi, Mid!) that has absolutely made this fandom into one of the best i’ve been involved in. 

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

very very very simplified and slightly unture answer: no. every single bad experience has taught me something that I’ve carried into my other fandom experiences, just like life lmao, but for more of a meaty answer to this question: yes. 

so much yes. 

I have SO MUCH regret around teen wolf, actually, for so many different reasons, but I’ve also learned SO much. seeing a server ran in a way I Did Not Like has helped me better mod my own fandom spaces, and I am very anti-totalitarianism and am VERY against showing abject favouritism to specific members, while I also always try incredibly hard to ensure no one feels ignored. I was reminded of how finicky friendships are, and learned not to be the person who puts in the sole work to keep ‘em going (and how to recognize if I am) because... when you stop the friendship might stop, too. I learned NOT to hit on close friends, no matter how much I might want to, and I learned the importance of open, clear and precise communication in romantic endeavours, which was actually a very good life lesson because I’d never been in a situation that could teach me it before. I’ve learned, or, am LEARNING, not to let personal experiences with one-on-one relationships taint my view of a fandom—this one is hard, and is something I am trying very, very hard to work through as I’ve recently been hit with a very strong and very sudden wave of inspiration for teen wolf.

but like, with that all said, I still absolutely LOVE the teen wolf fandom and have had so many amazing amazing amazing experiences that I wouldn’t change for all the bad, and that the bad experiences are really localized to the ship-focused spaces I was in and the personal relationships that I had, NOT with the fandom as a whole which I am slowly dipping my toes back into! I learned so much about myself and my writing during my time in the fandom, and that is another thing I absolutely wouldn’t change for the world. I am over the moon that I’m writing here again, honestly, and the reception I’ve gotten has been SO insanely amazing. 

starker is another one I regret-but-don’t-totally-regret-because-I-learned-shit. starker taught me the importance of 18+ fan spaces, and showed me what can happen when people... aren’t careful. when mods are minors themselves. I learned that cross-generational nsfw spaces are a RED flag, and that they mean GET OUT, and that anyone who would willingly allow minors and adults to mingle over explicit content are people I Do Not Want To Be Around. I learned a lot about myself there on an interpersonal scale, and I found out a lot about my sexuality and kink preferences, too (which was a wild time). while I do very much enjoy the lessons I learned from being in the space I was in, I could do without some of the more negative things I witnessed, even if they taught me a lot. 

16. Are their any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

SINCE I CAN’T SAY CHERIK I’m going to have to dig a little deeper and talk about Sterek, lmao. I was really, really, really into Sterek starting around... 2014? I read... fuck tons. absolutely insane amounts of Sterek fic. and I wanna say... around 2015? maybe? there was a really popular trope in Sterek, wherein Derek would push Stiles away (by being mean, by pretending to date one of the Pack (usually Erica), by bullying him, by telling him the pack didn’t want him, etc, etc) so that he could... keep Stiles safe? it almost always went the same way. there is a threat no one told Stiles about, Derek did “what he had to do” to keep Stiles safe (i.e cutting him off from all his friends and massive, obvious crush) and then when Stiles got hurt, the pack would come to his rescue and save him (only after Stiles got a little beat up), and then Derek would care for him, or not leave his side, or check up on him, and Stiles would wonder why he cared after everything that had happened and... bam. Derek would admit his undying love. And Stiles would just like forgive him and they’d get together and be happily ever after as a pack and...

that was so damaging lmao??? I can’t even tell you how many fics fitting into this trope that I read, to the point where I was like... “wow Derek loves Stiles so much he’s such an amazing person for keeping him safe by pushing him away and making him feel isolated and alone and hated” BUT LIKE WHAT. WHAT. that’s horrible??? so so so horrible??? I am so fucking thankful it isn’t something I really saw too much of when I came back around to the fandom around 2017, but.... oh boy. for a ship that I considered an OTP and read like the entire tag of, I have VERY few sterek fics of substance (when compared to the rest of my teen wolf writing) and this is the reason why. 

this trope and it’s absolutely ludicrous popularity a few years ago really, really turned me off the ship. 

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

content-wise: no. very, very easy no. I don’t regret any of the pairings or kinks I’ve written & I don’t think I ever will (I’m very anti-shame, lmao. if you like it, flaunt it). 

but... I do regret some of the emotional labour I’ve put into works? the emotional attachment I have with certain fics, or genres, or pairings, and how I’ve tied them to a specific person or persons. like, I can’t write ageplay anymore, because of how strong the association of ageplay is to someone I cared for deeply and no longer have in my life (and even if I ever manage to write it in general, I’ll never be able to write Steter ageplay). I have 13k of a fic that was supposed to be a surprise gift to a close friend that I hadn’t heard from in... ages, to the point where I gave up on sending the occasional monthly-message. I have one thing I wrote for a dear friend (who never interacted with it) and now I can’t help but feel like the story is awful, despite not doing horrifically stat-wise.  

I write because I love it. I write for people I care about, because writing is a labour of love, and it’s a way I can show them how much I care for them, but... sometimes that bites me in the ass, I guess. 

I’m working on it, lol. 

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

god okay there is NOTHING better than the idea of this. I’ve had a few mood boards made for me here and there, which are always SO loved and cherished and massively appreciated down to my BONES, but I don’t know if I’ve... ever really gotten fan art? I had someone make some really, really cool like... OG bit-moji type art of a couple of my fics, which is amazing and I have it on my phone still, and @hd-hale once drew me a GORGEOUS sheriff stilinski inspired by Daddies’R’Us, but to get FAN ART i would CRY lmao

right now, I think something from to love and be loved by you would feel really, really extra special because even at 6/17 chapters posted, it’s my longest work ever. what would it be a picture of?? hell if i fucking know but probably something that hasn’t happened yet, lmao

[lunartearrose]

Timsasha pleas (you know who this is)

OH HECK YES listen the moment u said timsasha i IMMEDDIATELY knew what i wanted to do so like. prepare for incoming angst and an alt timeline!

read it on ao3 here!

it got super long but also here it is under the cut!

Squish squish squish. 

Tim did his best to ignore the disgusting sounds of worm death under his feet as he ran to find a safe place. The best thing he could find for defense in case of more worm infested zombies was a flag pole with a rather sharp end - a fairly poor excuse for a weapon, but he figured it could at least leave a gross, corruption-ridden fleshbag confused enough for him to run more. And dear god, he hopes not to run into Jane again…

Before he knows it, he sees a sign dangling over a door up ahead, reading “Artifact storage.”

‘Oh that’s just great.’ Tim thought. It was the last place he’d ever want to hide in, but nonetheless he ran right in.

 It seems the worms weren’t daring enough to come in, but he heard someone walking deeper in the corridors of cursed objects. Steeling his nerves, and keeping that flagpole handy, Tim walks further into the cramped darkness. He kept careful eyes on his surroundings, keeping his eyes on everything he could, while avoiding brushing up against the things that sit in this space. He wonders what made it tough to hear what was ahead… was it the echo?

“I see you!” a familiar voice echoes around him, sounding close. 

He’d know her anywhere. It was Sasha. He picks up the pace, not caring what his weapon of poor choice brushes up against, just wanting to see a familiar face in this madness.

“I see you.” a… voice calls. It felt familiar. But it felt so wrong.

He rounds the corner as a struggle begins. The sight before him was nothing short of a nightmare to look at. Whatever was happening instantly caused a migraine to look at - but something deep inside him refused to let him shut his eyes. He felt like whatever this was had simply been another monster attacking, and he knew Sasha was in trouble. Between the bright, pulsing colors and hands gripping the person in front of him - no - people in front of him? There were two. But one of them was Sasha. He was so sure. They were fighting… and he had to act fast-

“SASHA!” Tim calls out for his trusted friend.

“Tim!” two voices call out, one a bit delayed. The image of both the struggling people flickers and ripples, as if reality just couldn’t handle the two existing at once.

But he saw what he needed to see. One figure’s reality seemed to twitch, spasming into elongated limbs and crooked features covered in frayed cobwebs. Tim didn’t need to think twice, and ran forward, plunging the sharp end into the figure that did the awful twitching. The sound it made was like that of plunging it both into a body and a foam square, strange but sickening all the same, as he shouldn’t have been able to just pierce it like that. The creature takes its hands off Sasha, whom he was now a hundred percent sure was her, and grips the end of that flagpole. 

“A brave one, aren’t you?” the warbling voice growls at him, now unsure of who’s form it wants to take. Who’s life does it wish to steal now?

Tim gives the pole one last quick thrust before abandoning it and picking up his injured friend. With Sasha in his arms, he runs like hell as the half finished monster gives chase, howling with laughter

“C’mon! That really hurt, you know! If you drop her then I might just spare you!” it shouts at him. 

“Fuck off!” Tim retaliates, and suddenly he feels like he’s losing his breath as the monster repeats his words and catches up dramatically.

“Such a coward! Always running away!” they mock, but it’s too late. 

Wise to the trick, Tim doesn’t respond, forcing himself to run faster. He’s aching, feeling the scrape of sharp claws that almost caught up, but he keeps going. This isn’t just his life at stake...

Tim doesn’t dare to look back, praying to reach a door, not even bothering to note the out of place yellow of the door he busted through. He ran, and ran, and ran, his surroundings a blur, until the adrenaline finally begins to ebb. His running slowed, his legs shook, heart pounding as he does his best not to fall, placing Sasha’s unconscious body on the shifting floor. He wasn’t sure if the need to cough or vomit was worse.

The entity that so kindly let them in and let the monster lose itself watches on, wondering what Tim will notice first. The answer soon comes as he looks over the girl he was carrying, a girl the distortion knew had a name. Once. They watch as Tim swears and fusses over the scratches on her chest, trying to use whatever he had on hand to slow the bleeding, noting the especially strange wound over one of her eyes, that traveled down her cheek and into her hair, still looking as if it were a glitch in reality itself. 

“Sasha! Sasha, stay with me, please…” Tim says to her.

And soon, with enough shaking and pleading, this Sasha girl opened her eyes. She struggled to sit, and Tim helps her, keeping the pressure on her chest wound. 

“Tim…” she mutters softly, “I…”

“Thank god, you’re awake… how do you feel?” he asks.

“Pain…” she answers softly, “Please… get help…” 

“Right, of course.” he says, finally taking a good look around him, “We’ll- ...oh.” 

This gets a chuckle out of the distortion avatar. The two look back at him, and Sasha whines in fear while Tim scooches away from him as fast as possible, not letting go of his dear friend for even a moment.

“We’re fucked, aren’t we?” Tim says.

Michael humms for a moment. “Well… you dragged in a fine meal a little while ago. I suppose I can let you leave just this once…”

“Great! How do we leave?” Tim says, suddenly finding the strength to stand whilst holding Sasha.

“Just keep walking.” Michael replies, pointing in another direction, “You’ll find an exit eventually.”

“Thanks dude. Would love to stay and chat but we need a hospital.” Tim says, running off the way he was told to go.

Once again, Michael simply chuckles to himself, and walks off to find out if the Archivist was faring any better.

…

Tim and Sasha were let out at the front of the institute, where police and ambulances had arrived. Sasha had to be taken to the hospital, and Tim never left her side. Thankfully, her vitals were still intact and all she needed was some stitches and something to help the pain. As for the strange wound over her right eye, it was certainly addressed, but the doctors soon found messing with it both caused Sasha pain and caused strange, unfavorable things to happen. The best they could do is give her an eye patch, and let it rest. Only when she could stay awake would Tim allow them to treat the scratch on his back. He didn’t want to leave her side, and she really didn’t want to be left alone. 

Once Tim was patched, he sat back down in the chair pulled up by Sasha’s hospital bed. “How you feeling?” he asks her.

“I’m feeling like an idiot for yelling ‘I see you’ at a monster, for one thing. Other than that, I’m at least not hurting too badly. How about you?” Sasha replies.

“I feel the very same way for not looking where I was running. I really thought we were dead in that moment…” Tim answers.

“Yeah. I thought that too… but we’re safe now, at least.” Sasha says.

She quietly reaches for Tim’s hand and holds it. Tim gives her hand a gentle squeeze in response, watching as she glances out the nearby window.

“I… really thought that was it for me, when that thing grabbed me. I’m glad you came around when you did.” She says.

“I’m glad, too. Really, I don’t know what I’d do if you ended up dead…” Tim replies.

“What was going through your head?” Sasha asks.

“A lot! It was confusing for a while, I don’t know exactly what I was looking at, but… definitely in the end, if that other guy hadn’t let you out at least, I was just afraid we’d never get to see each other again. And really couldn’t handle that thought. I think a lot of what drove me was keeping you alive.” Tim replies.

There was a bit of a pause. She squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back in turn. It was a bit difficult to have the right words to say to something like that.

“I think we both need a vacation after that mess.” Sasha says. 

“I agree. I think everyone’s going to need a break after hell broke loose…” Tim replies.

“Yeah… you think we could go somewhere together?” Sasha asks.

“...Like as a group of assistants or…?”

“No. Just you and I. I could use a really long one, and like hell I’ll take it alone with the week I’ve been having.”

The idea of a vacation with Sasha really made Tim happy. He couldn’t ask for anything better than that, and he honestly didn’t want to leave Sasha’s side either. Even if they got to escape that hell dimension, there was no guarantee that the entity of bullshit squiggles didn’t let the monster out too. 

“I’d be glad to join you, Sasha. Let’s hope Elias gives us a nice, long break.” Tim says.

Sasha nods. “Let’s hope.”

After that, they fell into another little moment of silence. Sasha listened to the little commercial playing on the tv, eye wandering around the room. Each time someone walked by outside the door, she couldn’t help but feel a bit tense. She tried to take her mind off that unease, focusing on the tv, and the warmth of Tim’s hand. She’s fond of how he’s always there for her, especially now.

“Hey Sasha?” Tim says.

“Yeah?” She replies.

“I… I think I want to tell you something.” 

“Alright then. What is it?”

“Well… this whole experience made me think-”

Unfortunately, Tim doesn’t get to finish his sentence. A Nurse opened the door, explaining that someone was looking for Tim. Tim sighs, and tells her to send them in here. The Nurse nods, and soon after she leaves, Martin enters.

“Hey Tim! I was looking all over for- o-oh.” Martin says.

Tim gives a short wave with his free hand, and so does Sasha. He asks, “What’s the matter?”

“I didn’t realize you were visiting someone, that’s what!” Martin replies, then glances over at Sasha and says, “I’m sorry for barging in, ma’am…” 

Sasha snickers. “Ma’am?”

Tim scoffs, “You don’t need to be so formal with Sasha, Martin. We’re all coworkers here.” 

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t realize. N-nice to meet you, Sasha! Um, what department do you work in?” Martin asks.

Now, it’s very apparent that something’s wrong. Both Tim and Sasha are now starting to get very worried.

“You’re joking, right?” Tim says.

“Martin we work in the same department! The three of us are Jon’s assistants!” Sasha says.

“What? Thats- no, that’s impossible!” Martin says, clearly confused, “It’s only ever been the two of us helping Jon out, just Tim and I. Elias is still searching for a third…” 

“That’s not true, though! Don’t you remember Jon’s birthday? We brought him a cake, scared the hell out of him? Martin, you have to be joking…” Sasha says.

“No, I- I’m sure I’d remember if you were there… you guys arent joking, are you?” Martin says.

“Look, I have proof she works with us!” Tim says, taking his phone out of his pocket, “I’ll find a picture of the four of us, I know I took one recently.” 

But try as he might, after several painful minutes of searching his phone, he came up empty. Determined to be right, because hell, maybe that monster just screwed with the memory of those in the institute, Tim marches over to the nurse and asks if she can get ahold of Sasha’s medical records. If there’s anything you can’t argue with, it’s records.

But according to their records, Sasha James didn’t exist.

The only one who ever knew she existed was Tim.