#One is doing it like her! Misty should get a tag like that too

[adanseydivorce]

Harryanthe and Mistynat are so similar to me like what if you took the worst blonde lesbian in the world and had her be absolutely obsessed with the brunette who’s sopping wet cat energy bewitches every sapphic nearby. Destined to hold those women in their arms while they hallucinate phantom bitches instead of said blondes

[blkgirl-writing]

So. Technically... the Revivify spell only works for one minute after death.

Begging for a piece where Gale sees Tav go down in combat, everyone is fighting for their lives, meanwhile he's across the battlefield, fighting his hardest to get closer and feeling the minute they have to revive Tav slipping away...

Gale x Fem!reader

"Cold to the touch"

I have never finished a request so fast I'll be honest. This is so heartbreaking but absolutely amazing.

Tags and TWs: angst, a bit funny, some detailed graphic violence and blood, Gale in denial lowkey.

-

Sometimes the fights you picked should have been fights evaded

"Gale, go!" you screeched, seconds before the killing blow you your chest, blood rapidly pooling around your feet, too much blood, you whispered as you looked down with blurring vision, clutching at your skin, trying to stop the bleeding, even for a second. The last bit of your strength used to look back up at gale, and smile. your body thudded to the ground, completely and utterly lifeless.

Gale blinked. The wind knocked out of him like he was hit with a battering ram. He fractically looked around, who was close? no one. Astarion was high on the rooftop, Wyll and Karlach surrounded with no way out, everyone on the brink of death themselves. Lae'zel the furthest and least likely to help. That just left-

"Shadowheart? Shadowheart, HEAL HER!"

"I'm fresh out of spells-" Shadowheart yelled, looking back at your limp body. "I think...She's past anything I can do right now, anyway."

Gale's gaze went down to his own hands, the revive in his pocket, how many things were around him, and how much strength he really did have. Your body was getting cold, soul leaving body, time was of the essence.

"damn it" he whispered, squeezing his eyes tightly closed, concentrating on making sure he wouldn't lose you. He couldn't lose you. If the thoughts of your beautiful life absent from the rest of his miserable one crept up, he'd be paralyzed, he simply could not dwell on the bleak future. "ok"

Gale forced himself forward, nearly slipping immediately and cursing himself. Running. if he wasn't out of all the magic he could muster he could simply misty step. Instead he was forced to make his way little by little while watching the last of life slip from you as the reality set in. He couldn't get to you in time. He needed to save himself and the others if there was any hope of even bringing your corpse to have a proper burial. He had to topple goblins and just stare feet away from you as your magic slipped permanently away from this world. Helpless, and tearful.

-

He wanted to cover you up. Clothes ripped open from your wounds, he didn't want you to feel exposed. Though, he knew you weren't feeling anything at all. But he had nothing. Once again failing himself and you when he felt you most needed it.

"There....there has to be something we can do" he held your freezing and damp hand in his own warm ones. Enemies blood pooled with your own,. the fight was won, but it truly felt wrong to say those words. He had been brushing your hair out of your eyes while the others gathered around. They'd been the furthest, so Gale had gotten precious moments alone. Muttering sentances he didn't finish. About how he had failed you. About what could have been. Maybe an I love you had fallen from his lips, but it didn't matter anymore, not if he could never hear the words he so wanted to hear back from you, from your own sweet voice.

"I don't know, I....I'm so sorry, Gale." Shadowheart softly touched gales back for a moment of comfort and caring that was so rare for her. that's how he knew it was real. "I know you cared."

I know you cared. He didn't know why those words were his breaking point, but he suddenly felt water dripping down his face. Silent tears rushing down his race. "I truly did."

"We will find a way, Gale. Have hope." Wyll crouched beside Gale on the ground. "I don't think we can do this without her."

"I'll bring her back. Somehow." Gale nodded, finally tearing his gaze away from you. Everyone stood around your corpse. Everyone with the same, grim look. Though, Wyll just looked...sad, sadness for Gales pain, and for the senseless loss of another.

Gale had to get you back to get you comfortable in camp. You couldn't stay here. Not for animals to ravage.

"I'll get her to camp for you, Gale. Don't ware yourself out" Karlach effortlessly hoisted your body over her shoulder. Gale gathered the items that dropped from your pockets on the ground, covered in grime and blood. But he simply wiped it away. He didn't want you to have to clean it off later. He'd worry about the red stains on his fingers and blotches on his clothes later. He just had to worry about getting you back, and never losing you again.

-

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Tag list, tell me if you want to be added!

@shyminnie07 @makers-breath @claryvoyantfray

[littlejuicebox]

Dancing on my own

Guys I don’t know what this is, it’s just some random angsty drabble that came out inspired by the song “Dancing on My Own” by Robyn (the version by Calum Scott is also nice).

I’m trying to get out of a writing slump so there might be a few more random bits of writing here and there. I’m not sure I even like this tbh lol.

Summary: You and Astarion decided to be just friends after his Moonrise Towers confession. He couldn’t make himself admit to you that he wanted more than that. He knew you deserved better than what he could offer. Now that his quest with Cazador is done, he’s totally lost. He wants you, but you have someone else now; he thinks it’s someone better than him. He’s heartbroken.

Tags/Warnings: PG13, lots of angst, depression, PTSD, low self esteem, depersonalization/derealization, sad Astarion, tbh it’s kinda just a sad bit of drabble

Astarion killed Cazador. You’d think he would’ve been happy… ecstatic, even. But instead he felt exceedingly numb and so, so tired.

It had been nearly a week since then. Astarion had spent most of that time in his room, trancing or simply just lying in the dark. He was exhausted; his limbs felt like lead.

Shadowheart was concerned he had fallen ill and kept checking on him. He would simply grunt to her in response or ignore her line of questioning until she sighed and left.

You came by a few times a day to offer him your wrist; he would drink with a misty-eyed, faraway expression… or sometimes not at all. His hand would linger for a moment on yours, and then he would roll himself the other direction, turning away from you.

It was hard to look at you, to be that close to you, to touch you, to taste you. Blood and sex had been so intertwined in the beginning, it always brought back the memories from before. It made him sick to his stomach.

But his hunger often won, in the end.

How ironic, that the only blood which satisfies his near-insatiable thirst is also the only blood that makes his stomach churn with guilt and disgust at himself.

A double edged sword. Stabbed through his heart.

He should be happy… ecstatic, even. But, by the gods, is he so, so tired. Can a vampire rot into the earth if they stay in one place for too long?

Perhaps. Perhaps he should get up and move, if only to avoid rotting away.

Astarion manages to take a short bath and pull himself together… somewhat. It’s hard to move when your limbs feel like lead. His shirt is wrinkled, and his hair feels like it’s not quite in place, but it will have to do.

The pale elf slinks down to the tavern, where the evening crowd is teetering the hazy line between buzzed and drunk. He’s not in much of a mood for talking to others, so he sits in a corner booth, hoping the natural shadows and his brooding demeanor will deter any visitors. For a few moments he feels normal… or at least acts it. But then he sees you. And Halsin.

Halsin has his arms coiled around you as he absolutely ravages your lips. His thick hands are gripping your body; one hand on your waist, one on your neck. It’s an exceptional amount of PDA; he would vomit, if he had anything left in his stomach from the only small sip he’d taken from you this morning. The hand the druid tenderly placed on your neck is covering the scars Astarion had marked on you from the times before, back when you’d been his. Had you been his? Back before—

“I had a plan. A nice, simple plan…”

“Maybe what you need is a friend, not a lover.”

Astarion had hurt you. He’d hurt you. The look that crossed your face as he confessed is etched into his mind for all eternity; it’s the first thing he sees when he wakes from a trance and the last thing he sees before he slips into one. He’ll never forget the tears that welled in your eyes, which you’d rapidly blinked away. And then you thanked him… thanked him for telling you, for being truthful. Thanked him for hurting you.

He should have lied. He shouldn’t have said anything. He should have chose differently from the start.

He knew what he did was terrible; you deserved something more, something real. He just couldn’t be that. He didn’t know how to be… real.

Hells, was he even real now? Was any of this real?

He felt like a shell. Hollow. Empty. It all felt like a sick, strange dream that he couldn’t wake from. All that time he spent running, and now he no longer had to… but who was he, if not a runner?

He’d run from Cazador. Run from you. Run from the concept of true intimacy, which you had so willingly offered.

But now? Now he wanted nothing more than to run to you. He wanted to run into your arms and be held by you, comforted by you. But there you were in the arms of someone who was able to give you what you deserved.

Who was he to get in the way of that? He was nothing. He was no one.

“Good to see you out of bed.”

The vampire rips his eyes away from you and Halsin, where the two of you seem oblivious to the world and stuck in a heated embrace.

Shadowheart is standing next to the booth; her eyes had followed his, and she’d been watching the same passionate makeout scene with mild interest.

She flicks her gaze back to Astarion with a knowing look, and a soft, sad smile crosses her face. The cleric extends her hand out to him, “Come on, Astarion. One dance and then I will let you slink back into this corner to sulk for the rest of the night, if you wish.”

He sighs and considers the offer. He doesn’t want to move, but he can’t keep picking different places to stay and rot. And he can’t keep watching you two. His limbs still feel like lead.

“Very well.” He murmurs, and he takes Shadowheart’s hand.

They dance. It’s a platonic sort of jig, mostly spinning around at arms length with one another. For a moment, Astarion feels a brief glimmer of happiness. He chuckles and smiles; his limbs don’t feel like lead. And then the tune ends, and he’s wandering back to the booth with Shadowheart, and that sinking feeling begins to grow in his chest once more.

“You should talk to them, you know, Astarion. Let them know how you feel. They may choose differently… if you make your true desires known. You did tell them you wanted to be friends, after all.” The cleric murmurs, with another sad little smile. Her eyes contain pity; he hates that.

He’s watching you and Halsin again, where you two are staring contentedly at one another, chatting away. You’re lost in your own little impenetrable bubble. You don’t even see him or notice him at all.

He’s nothing. He’s no one.

Astarion looks so dejected; normally he would be better at putting on his mask. But he’s so tired. He should be happy. But he’s exhausted.

“Maybe I should. But Tav looks happy… I can’t bring myself to ruin that. Selfish as I am, I do care about them, you know.”

Shadowheart nods and sighs. She knows something, he can tell by the look on her face. She wants to say more but decides against it. A small pat on the vampire’s hand and she murmurs, “Good night, Astarion. I hope to see you down here in the morning.”

Then she’s gone, heading upstairs to her room. And he’s alone again.

Astarion watches you two for a bit longer, even though every second he witnesses causes another crack in his fragile heart. Then his eyes return to the dance floor and he sighs before forcing himself out of the booth again. His limbs feel like lead, but he has to start somewhere.

For now, he’ll have to keep dancing on his own.

[kinkyintherealworld]

Sissification - a toxic construction of femininity or getting off on outdated social constructs?

Becca here. 😀

First… I LOVE THAT YOU STARTED THIS DISCUSSION!!!! Thank you so much @youngchastity - who wrote to us (and tagged us in a post) for some healthy discussion around the sissification kink. We’ve definitely had a few things to say about it on the podcast, as have our guests. You can read his post, that started this conversation, here

Rather than speak for both of us at @kinkyintherealworld, I’m going to jump in and answer this from my point of view.

@youngchastity I love your thoughts on gender - I totally agree. I actually reblogged a post by @necromimetics the other day that said: 

“can’t stop thinking about my friend’s cishet partner who said last night that he doesn’t think anyone is the same gender. god-tier take.”

And I agree - we’re all a wibbly-wobbly swirl of masculine, feminine, and everything in between energies, and everyone has their own unique blend. Trying to squash us into labels is lame as hell. 

I like to think I am never one to kink shame (keeping it safe, sane and consensual), and in world where I (and many other women) want to smash the patriarchy, I may be a bit more sensitive to kinks that look down on femininity - or that’s how I have perceived it to date. As someone who has struggled with gender equality issues in real life (your capitalism comment made me give a disgruntled, but amused, snort), it’s hard to not knee jerk react and feel like I need to defend womanhood/femininity. There is still a power imbalance in the world, and equality is still a goal yet to be achieved, but upon dissection, is in the bedroom, playing with kinks, even a place we need to bring this battle? A question that has been raised to me, even before your message.

It’s funny, because I have actually had your very points discussed with me, last fall with my partner, Misty (who if you have read my personal tumblr is trans-personality who enjoys both sides of the gender spectrum fluidly) - we were on a road trip discussing the two episodes you made note of in your post, episode #16 and #19. And Misty, like you, felt we were missing the mark. S/he felt that in no way does sissification for the purpose of humiliation somehow degrade/make fun of/make lesser femininity. For all the same reasons you stated. S/he and I actually talked about doing a podcast about it, to dive more into the topic, Misty felt that strongly. It should be noted that Misty is NOT into sissification or feminization for the purpose of humiliation, and still she felt that we gave the sissification kink a bum rap. 

Hearing her thoughts and yours, I think it is something that should be revisited and, for me personally, I need to take a closer look at why I find it uncomfortable.

Since you made such lovely points I want to try and address each one!

We’ve established that we both agree the trappings around what we consider to be masculine and feminine are made up (and ridiculous). I think, the kink we are talking about here is ultimately humiliation through outdated (but still most commonly accepted) societal norms. IF you get embarrassed about having those things stripped away, and “forced” into the opposite direction… good for you? I mean seriously, how fun is it to get off in weird and wonderful ways with someone who shares your kink from a slightly different perspective! The reality is, I believe, this isn’t hurting anyone. You want a person to lock up your dick, make fun of your little penis (your actual size is irrelevant), or put you in clothing that bends your mind with eroticism and makes you flustered with sexual need - awesome! Life is too short not to enjoy the kinks we have. The bigger question, if I want to dig into the piece that makes me feel uncomfortable is, “Is there misogyny in the specific kink?” - and the answer to that, for me upon reflection, is no. Misogyny comes from the person performing it. So yeah, some kinky things are done with TONS of misogynistic intent… but that isn’t concentrated in one area. Those assholes are everywhere.

To me, feminization is never something that goes hand-in-hand with sissification. My partner feminized himself (their pronouns are all over the place), in a loving way. To empower the feminine in himself. He has often described it as blooming or becoming a butterfly - his higher form of being. So no humiliation to be found, for either of us on either end. I find it hot as fuck when he is all dolled up. 

I haven't dipped my toes into the humiliation via feminization kink (...yet?), so it’s hard for me to wrap my dirty little mind around it. 

Weirdly I do have a bimbofication kink for myself… sometimes. 😁 If I am in a particular mood for the fantasy. I have never found the right time/partner/energy to explore that. Am I feeling humiliation when I go there? I don’t think so…? More the need to feel desired, trophied (yes I made up that word), and used in a deeply submissive way. I’m not embarrassed about that. ;)   I too would be interested in hearing from women who enjoy humiliating others through feminization/sissification, and how they feel about it. Awesome point! 😀

Celebrating feminization! Now that is my jam! 💗 Give me a soft cute boy, and let me make him weak with wanting to be pretty and obedient for me. To me this is a huge mind shift  - the key word “celebrating”, not shaming. Gosh, I could just sink into this topic like the perfect bubble bath. To me, this is a core element to gentle femdom. It is about making boys better… pretty, soft, sweet things that want to please - the D/s element being a key piece. The submissive to be absolutely loved and worshipped for their submission. No shame, not less than me, and certainly not shifting my own very feminine self. I love the feminine. I love to see it in men, and men embracing that side of themselves. Is this a form benevolent sexism? I don’t know. And more to the point, if I am engaging in it with my partners, writing about it on tumblr, and reblogging things that I enjoy around the topic, am I hurting anyone? Food for thought, but I am going to keep doing my thing. ;) I feel like you can look at BDSM here, and for those who wish to criticize it, could for its dynamics. But that feels like a giant, whole other post.    Another thing you mentioned in this point was the strapon, and it’s use as a symbol of power. I have never seen it that way. To me, it is my soul penis… and I love being able to be inside my partner(s). It is an act of love, and makes me want to bring them to amazing places of pleasure (while I get off too). I really don’t enjoy the pictures of women wearing strapons who look like they want to punish their partner with it. But that’s just me. I know lots of people must enjoy that because there is a shit ton of porn that looks that way.

Playing with gender. I like that - and I do it! I love being able to put on a penis!! I really enjoyed trying my hand at Drag King make up and going out as a boy (I’ll post my picture again). I LOVE seeing boys in make up and fucking gender norms right out the window. You said it in your post - gender is made up and stupid. So yeah, let’s play with it, and maybe even break the molds! Though then you’ll have to find something else to get embarrassed and turned on about. ;) Our kinks are about orgasms and pleasure. Let’s enjoy them. In the end, it is all about intent and the people doing it. Not about the kinks themselves. People who want there to be an imbalance of power between women and men will keep doing mean spirited things to keep that nightmare alive - in the streets and in the sheets.

I feel like I have answered your points (I may have jumped around a bit), and I don’t feel the need to argue any of them. Misty had already shone a light on where I may have not been seeing the bigger picture. 

I am SO HAPPY you wrote us a message, and that you took the time to write out your thoughts (that can be read here). So sorry it took me a while to see it and respond! I am always up for conversation and debating (with kindness) any of the points. 

I definitely feel this topic should be a podcast. Any chance you'd like to be on it @youngchastity? ;) 

Hugs! Becca

[wraithsoutlaws]

[ SUBJECT INTERVIEW: ASHLEY "ZEPHYR" ZAIDE ]

NAME? This isn’t an interrogation, right? Y’know legally you have to tell me if you’re with the NCPD… NICKNAME? Well, Zephyr usually. I always liked it more. My aunt was the first one to call me that and it felt like sliding into a pair of old shoes that already fit real well and you don’t gotta break in again, you know what I mean?  GENDER? He/him baby. See this cool pin I got?  STAR SIGN? I guess I’m a cancer, but Misty knows more about that than I do. She knows everything about that stuff. She made a whole fucking chart about it once, tracked every second of my life based on stars alone. And it was fucking right, too. Spooky as hell if you ask me but I do like listening to her talk about it. She gets this crinkly little smile.  HEIGHT? I’m 5’7’’ which isn’t far off from the average height for men, by the way. If you care.  ORIENTATION? Truth be told, I’m not real picky.  FAVORITE FRUIT? I gotta go with cherry. I don’t really eat ‘em a lot, but fuck me, it’s one of the best flavors out there, isn’t it? I got this cherry flavored–you know what? Nevermind…hey, if you like fruit I know where to get the best ‘ganic plums you’ve ever tasted. All above board, of course. Legal like. Just let me know.  FAVORITE SEASON? I like the Summer…reminds me of being a kid. Before things went to shit… FAVORITE FLOWER? I dunno, I like those little weeds that come up through the cracks in the sidewalk. Little fucking guys. I try not to step on ‘em. FAVORITE SCENT? I got this incense from Misty’s Esoterica and I couldn’t tell you a single fucking thing about it, it’s not really my jam but…every time I light it it’s like she’s standing right next to me. Makes my place feel better. COFFEE OR TEA? Misty keeps pushing this special tea blend on me. Says its holy or, er…holistic. It tastes like fucking socks if you ask me, though I’m not really big on coffee either. Give me a few lines of synth-coke y’know, don’t be a pussy. I mean, not that I do that sort of thing. AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP? Kinda depends, I guess. Some nights I sleep like a baby. Others feel like they’ll never end…more of those than not these days, I guess. DOG OR CAT PERSON? I don’t really trust dogs. Been chased a couple times and bit in the ass more than I can count. Come to think of it, I don’t really trust cats either. They can see shit, you know. Right through you. I mean whatever happened to hamsters? But whatever man. If you’re in the market for some exotics, I got you covered. DREAM TRIP? Oh, I’m just counting the days and the eddies ‘til I can hightail it outta this city and settle down on a beach in Belize or the Bahamas away from all this shit. Sip a fuckin’ mai tai on a clean beach and watch the waves every morning.  FAVORITE FICTIONAL CHARACTER? Who’s that fucking dog…he does this little dance. I dunno, always makes me laugh though.  NUMBER OF BLANKETS YOU SLEEP WITH? You’re assuming I make it to the bed…I mean, of course I do. Couple nights in the elevator don’t mean anything…just because I know the feeling of my bathroom floor better than my own mattress–hey, maybe I should leave the blankets in there? Shit. I’m kidding, obviously. I’m a normal guy. What–what was the question again? RANDOM FACT? I got a junk shop in Japantown, got anything you need or I can find it fast, and that’s a guarantee. Just don’t ask anymore questions, alright?

was tagged by @therealnightcity and wanted to complete the trifecta of my boys!! once again, won't be tagging anyone but as always feel free to tag me, i would love to read more!

[peach-and-bugs]

💗Misty Quigley SFW Alphabet💗

💗Read the NSFW Alphabet here! (+18)💗

Fanfiction masterlist

disclaimer: don't repost my work. I only post on Tumblr and on Ao3. anything else is stolen and should be removed immediately

Warnings: None! all fluff in this one

Word Count: 1,913

A/N: Hello Loves! I needed to work on Misty's characterization, so I wrote two alphabets for her! These made me so much more excited to write more for Misty, so expect more from her soon as well as more alphabets for Yellowjacket characters because I love my girls. As always, feel free to leave questions or comments in my comments or ask box, and happy reading!💗

Misty Quigley Tag List:

General Tag List: @summergeezburr

-💗-

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Misty is extremely affectionate, almost to a fault. She's extremely touchy-feely and likes holding hands, linking arms, and touching fingers. She craves any kind of physical contact. She's also a true romantic. She’s extremely attentive and intends to care for you till the day either of you dies. 

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Well, we've seen her as a best friend and she’s extremely loyal, doing anything to protect or assist her friends, even if it's covering up a murder. She is that ride-or-die friend that will say “Show me the body. I've got a shovel in my trunk” 

As for how a friendship would start, that could be for a variety of different reasons. As an adult, you honestly could have run into her anywhere. I think friendship would mostly start if you ran into her regularly, so you become part of her routine in a way and show some kind of interest in her she’ll be gung ho on becoming friends.  

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Misty is very touchy, so, of course, she loves to cuddle. I think her favorite way to cuddle would be snuggled under a blanket with you either reading a book or watching a movie on the couch. She loved it when you cuddle up against her shoulder or with her arm around you with you at her side. She also loves pressing against your back with her arms around you in bed as the big spoon so she can hear your heartbeat. 

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Oh for sure! Misty seems like the type to have a designated cleaning day for the house and maybe even a chore chart if you lived together. I mean, just look at how tentative she is with cleaning Caligula’s cage. She has to treat her whole house like that. She enjoys domestic life a lot with you, especially cooking together. If you don’t know how she’d love to teach you to cook because it’s one of her greatest loves in life. As long as she has a clean living space, 

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

It would probably be very confusing. You might not even realize she broke up with you because she’d be so upset about it. She’d talk too fast and not flat-out say that she was breaking up with you, but she would be extremely dramatic about it, which does not understand your comprehension of the situation

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quickly would they want to get married?)

She’d be pretty grand go in my opinion, but it’s purely out of her excitement that you like her and she likes you so much! Misty is the type where you gotta gently set firm boundaries with her about going over the top or jumping in too fast because she’s the commitment type and she clings on fast. She craves to be loved and when she gets that affection she wants to hold onto it forever, so marrying you is the logical way to do that, right? 

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

She does her best to be as gentle as she can. She’d never want anything to hurt you, so of course she wouldn’t do anything to perpetuate that. She learned from her experience crushing on Coach and will hold you close to her chest like a feather if that’s what she needs to do. This can make her overprotective and clingy at times, but she means well

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

She loves hugs! She is the type to wrap you up in her arms and squeeze very tight, swaying you from side to side. She’d hug you all the time if she could, but at the very least once in the morning and once in the evening. She loves hugging you from behind and vice versa. She feels like her heart could explode whenever you initiate a hug with her

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Very quickly. Probably too quickly, but she doesn’t mean any harm. She’s just extremely confident in her feelings and wants them to be known, especially to you because she loves you!

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Oh, she’s a jealous girly. She isn’t the sharing type (most of the time). What’s hers is hers and she likes it to stay that way. She becomes snippy when she’s jealous and often gives the cold shoulder, but she’s not upset with you. Jealousy is more something that damages her pride over her trust in you. However, if you purposely played into whatever is making her jealous she might shatter

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Misty has a wide very variety of kisses in her arsenal. One of her favorites has to be the sneaky peck on the cheek when you aren’t paying attention or her classic barrage of kisses all over your face. She just lives to kiss you all over, just like how she loves hugging you all the time!

However, when things get particularly steamy, she’s nice, gentle, and slow till she isn’t. She's the type to playfully bite your lip and giggle about it due to how proud of herself she is. She also loves taking deep inhales when she kisses your neck just to breathe in as much of you as she can at once. 

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Misty is a little shaky around kids, but she tries her best. She doesn’t exactly know how she should interact and what she should say, but if you’re good with kids she’ll learn quickly by copying you, and then eventually she’ll get the hang of it. At last, she hopes she does

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Misty is quite clingy in the morning especially. She doesn’t like it when you leave bed before her or when she has to leave you. If you asked her when she was waking up, she would 100% be your human backpack throughout your day. She just loves the feeling of you tangled in her and the sheets with the sun shining in through the windows over you and her together

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

She loves coming home to make dinner with you in the kitchen, sharing gentle silent touches as you pass one another while cooking only to eat what you prepared together. She’ll offer to do the dishes but you’ll ultimately do them together before settling in to cuddle on the couch to watch tv before bed.  

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Misty’s an open book about most things. Nearly every card in her hand is on the table, splayed out clearly for you to see and read, but some things she keeps to her chest, which isn’t something you should mind. Maybe she’ll tell you one day or maybe she won't. Only time can tell

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

She’s quite patient with you, but she can have a temper with other things. She’s quicker to sadness or frustration than she is to anger

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing or do they kind of forget everything?)

Misty is an encyclopedia when it comes to you. It’s like she has a special filing cabinet with your name on it in her brain that’s labeled from A through Z with everything you’ve ever told her, but she tries not to let you know that

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

Probably when you told her you loved her. Even though she said it quite quickly, you likely took some time, which was ok, but the moment you told her she felt like her whole world was finally perfect and complete. She might bring up that marriage thing (possibly again if she’d mentioned it before) but that's a longer conversation to revisit later

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

She might not look it, but Misty is quite the protector. She’s not above petty revenge or just revenge in general. She's loyal sometimes to a fault and makes sure those she cares for are treated right. 

But while she’s quite the protector, she’d feel so spoiled if you protected her back. It’s not something she get’s very often and the action might just turn her too much

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, and everyday tasks?)

Misty is the queen of extravagance. Go big or go home is her motto, but that can get quite overwhelming for some. While she loves grande gestures, you might be more of the type to stay in for a quiet night and she can do that too! Any time with you is enough for her, no matter how big or how small. Though she might still throw in her grand gestures sometimes

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

She can be a lot sometimes, which is hard for her to hear because she’s a pretty heavy perfectionist. Hearing she’s not doing something right makes her feel like she’s completely failed. She can all or nothing sometimes, but she knows she’s gotta work on it

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

She’s very concerned with her hair every day, but on special occasions, she will spend far too much time obsessing in her mirror about every minor detail of her face. 

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Yes, she would. She enjoys phone when you’re apart just to check in and make sure you’re alright and hear how your day has been, but she does her very best to still give you the space you need

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

Her love languages are physical touch and acts of service, 100%. 

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

She doesn’t like negative nellies. Or at the very least, she’ll try her best to get people to look on the bright side of things. She’s a fixer, which is hard sometimes, but she's confident she’s got it all under control

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?)

She likes listening to your heartbeat when you’re sleeping beside each other and taking in the smell of your skin. She also pokes her toes out of the covers almost every night, no matter the temperature. She says its because she likes the feeling of the air

[olath124]

OC INTERVIEW

THANK YOU @ouroboros-hideout for the tag!

Violet is going to answer in a sincere way. She is a firm believer in a fake it till you make it, so she's usually more cool and collected than her spontaneous answers. But I liked to have a glimpse in her mind so she’d answer as she was speaking to herself.

My comments are enclosed in*...* and yes, using an old image because too lazy to make another one xD.

NAME?

Violet… Wright.

Don't like other people knowing my name.

NICKNAME?

V.

When I was a kid Jackie used to call me Violent. Then Ultraviolent. Then UV. Then simply V. That's quite the jump. When I got back and he called me V again, as nothing had changed, I knew I was home.

GENDER?

Female, cis.

STAR SIGN?

Hmmm… Aries? I’d have to ask Misty.

But she said I am passionate, stubborn, and prone to anger as every Aries, and I tend to believe her.

HEIGHT?

Yes, I know, I'm small. 1.65 cm.

I've always been small and when you're surrounded by buffed Valentinos that's an issue. But lately, it's proven useful. I'd rather be small and quick than big and hard to miss!

ORIENTATION?

I don't care, if someone sparkles my interest I stay with them as long as we fit together. I’m probably pansexual, or probably heteroflexible, but I've never really thought about it in depth.

FAVORITE FRUIT?

Fruit!? It's hard to find real good fruit in Heywood. But once Mama Welles bought real cherries for something special and Jackie stole them. I can't get that taste out of my head!

FAVORITE SEASON?

I like winter. I like the colder weather. I wish it would snow sometimes.

FAVORITE FLOWER?

Should it be violets? I hope not, but when I go out with someone who knows my name they always give me violets. It's embarrassing. If I had to pick a flower I'd pick peonies. But I don't care much about flowers anyway.

FAVORITE SCENT?

Tobacco. Not smoke, I don't like the smell of smoke. But I love the smell of tobacco. And a hint of vanilla, I think!

COFFEE OR TEA?

Coffee, usually. Tea on special occasions.

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP?

It may vary a lot. If I need to stay awake or if the adrenaline is high I can stay awake. I've spent a few days when I had to… do a lot of stuff without sleeping. But when I finally stop I crash hard. I can sleep for 12-14 hours at a time.

*Vio, you’re a mess xD”

DOG OR CAT PERSON?

Cats. Dogs require too much attention and energy. I don't have a fixed schedule so having a dog would be a mess.

DREAM TRIP?

I love the City, love to hate it. I know, it's only a trip… but I know I'd feel out of place anywhere else. If I had to choose somewhere, I'd say Europe. Greece, Spain, or Italy… but I really don't like the idea of being away from the City for too long. Can I have a trip to a particular part of the City?

*She REALLY loves Night City*

FAVORITE FICTIONAL CHARACTER?

Do people really have a favorite fictional character?!? I… don't know, I have to say that I've never consumed a lot of fiction, anyway.

NUMBER OF BLANKETS YOU SLEEP WITH?

One or none. As I've said, I usually crash on my bed when I'm too tired to go on, and often I sleep directly over the blanket.

*A real mess!*

RANDOM FACT?

I've once tried… This is embarrassing… to crochet a sweater for a cat. I still have the threads and everything somewhere. I thought it would be relaxing. But it was a mistake. Don't have the patience for that kind of stuff and they've teased me enough for it.

This is random enough isn't it?!

Anyone I know (or I silently follow like a stalker, because yeah, that’s what I do.) up here has probably already been tagged (most of them have already done it!) but that's ok anyway! @cybervesna @aggravateddurian @theviridianbunny @dustymagpie @wanderingaldecaldo

[skrunklybf-archived]

can I request something where fem reader is a warrior candidate growing up with Reiner and Porco and they have a little rivalry over her? surprise over who ends up with her :D I love your writing so much

listen bestie..... i'm sorry this took a few days, but i've had an idea like this brewing for a bit and your request rlly gave me the push to do something w it 😭

tags: canonverse, angsty, canon character death, jealous porco, possessive porco?

wc: 4k

The days felt impossibly long since training began for the program. So much exercise, which never really tickled the girls fancy, and so much classwork. Even from the first few days of gathering together, [Y/N] could tell every kid had something special to bring to the table.

But what did she have?

She wasn't exceptionally smart or strategic, though she made do well enough. Speed, strength, and dexterity were also skills that could use a little work. Envy began to bubble under the surface once she watched the other kids excel at one thing or another. Oh, how it stung to be labeled average.

What could she do?

The sounds of birds chirping cut through misty morning air as the young girl walked, contemplating her decision to join the warrior program. If she failed, if she couldn't stand out, what then? What would happen to her, or her family? Distaste soured over her tongue, screwing her face into a deep frown.

"Hey!" a distant but familiar voice rang out.

[Y/N] glanced over her shoulder. Tightening her arms around herself, she eyed the two dots in the distance, blinking curiously as one dragged the other along like a reluctant rag doll.

"Let go," the blonde boy hissed, trying and failing to claw his brother's hand from his wrist. Ignoring him with ease, the brunette huffed a little under his breath and smiled once they drew closer.

"You-- you're in the program, right? I'm--"

[Y/N] knew their names. She knew the Galliard brothers, though they'd never spoken before. One tended to be rather collected, while the other was a little brash in his youth. You learn a lot of things when you blend into the background and get the chance to observe.

"--Marcel, and my brother's--"

"Porco." [Y/N] said plainly, switching her gaze between the two. Said blonde boy grumbled and averted his gaze. Marcel smiled, seeming to be more diplomatic than his sibling.

"We didn't know your house was by ours. We should walk together." the brunette said, his voice as even as his expression. [Y/N] shrugged noncommittally and turned on her heel, seeming to lead the boys forward on her previous path, "that's fine." she hummed.

After a moment, Marcel stood in the middle, with his companions waltzing on either side of him. "What's your name, by the way?" he asked.

"[Y/N]," the girl replied quietly. Porco huffed something under his breath and earned an elbow to the side for whatever he mumbled. [Y/N] slid her gaze over to the blonde, but said nothing, choosing to listen to Marcel fill the silence with friendly stories and questions as they walked.

It became a routine of sorts to walk with the brothers. Marcel was easy to get along with -- much more docile than his younger brother, who quickly took to teasing the girl and causing a general ruckus.

[Y/N] didn't mind too much when Porco's fire was laid on her. Boys are kind of stupid anyways, she reasoned to herself, besides, it's funny to say something back and watch him get all bent out of shape.

The worst of it, however, wasn't directed at [Y/N], but another blonde boy she'd sometimes sit with during lunch or class time. Reiner Braun. Another warrior candidate deemed... painfully average, although she'd never mention it to the boy.

Reiner had big dreams. Become a Warrior, become a hero, reunite his family, earn his fathers respect. All very admirable aspirations, especially for someone in nearly the same plain boat as she was. He was hard on himself at times, sharing sentiments that she privately felt about herself, but deflected away with kindness when it came to the boy.

Thoughts of Reiner and his outward determination swirled around [Y/N]s head as she idly watched him a few tables away. He sat with Bertholdt, another calm boy, and doodled away on a paper with his arm acting as a shield for prying eyes.

After his third verbal poke went unacknowledged (not even a frown!), Porco followed [Y/N]s line of sight, scowling at the destination. Braun... truly an annoying thorn in the blonde Galliard's side. What was so interesting about Reiner, anyway? Porco was faster, stronger, just... better. Truthfully, the way the pale blonde had seemed to steal [Y/N]s attention away bothered Porco more than he'd ever admit out loud. She was their friend. His friend.

... before he could really think about strategy, the blonde Galliard brother was on his feet and stomping his way across the room.

"Here we go." Marcel groaned, clearly unamused.

Olive colored eyes caught Porco first. Bertholdt, hands and mouth busied with a small sandwich, blinked in surprise as the bitter boy marched closer. The only warning he could muster was a light kick to Reiner's shin.

"Ow! What was--" Reiner paused, his gaze flicking up to Porco, poised at the edge of the table with a scowl. Reiner covered his paper with both hands, slightly nervous from the fiery stare settled over his form. The action served as an invitation for quick hands.

"What's this?" Porco asked loudly, gripping the paper and crumpling it a bit as he snatched it. Reiner dashed his hand out but fell a little short as it was held above his head.

"That's not cool..." Bertholdt said quietly, brows furrowed.

"Pfft. Neither of you are cool. And neither is... ha!" he barked out in laughter with wide eyes scanning the page. Even though the wrinkles, the graphite image of a familiar girl was clear enough to settle a sour feeling in Porco's chest.

Reiner grew frantic. He jumped up from his seat, swinging and grasping for the drawing that Porco waved above their heads. Hot blood rushed to Reiner's face, shooting a glance at his muse before huffing at the menace before him. "Give it back!" he demanded, channeling all his strength into his voice. Still, Porco just chortled, shoving the other boy back by the chest and examining his work.

"So what, you're creeping on [Y/N] now? Drawing little pictures to keep you company? What a freak."

"What? No! Just... give it back!" Reiner leapt forward with gusto. He managed to snag the page and literally rip it from Porco's grasp, tearing through the drawing and subsequently beheading the image of [Y/N] etched over it. Reiner looked down at his portion with a frown.

"What's your problem, Pock?"

Three sets of eyes turned to the angry voice, much harsher than they'd heard it before. [Y/N] stood with a deep frown, brows furrowed and shoulders tense.

Bertholdt quickly gathered himself and scurried away. He'd never been one for confrontation.

Reiner's ears burned as he hastily pocketed the remainder of his paper. Porco huffed, rolling his eyes at the nickname, and jabbed his thumb in Reiner's direction. "He's the one with the problem."

[Y/N] glanced between her two friends. "Reiner was just minding his business. You didn't have to come over and be so rude." she said sternly. Her hands settled on Porco's chest and pushed him with relative force, urging him away from Reiner's table. Amber eyes watched the two closely. These kinds of outbursts weren't uncommon for the Galliard boy, but her fiery reaction was something new.

Porco scoffed and scowled, shoving her back. "What, do you like him or something?"

Reiner wanted to sink through the floor. Clearly he wasn't the most popular candidate, but this would certainly seal his loser status if nothing else had already.

"So what if I did? What's wrong with that?" [Y/N] spat back, taking both the blondes by surprise.

Porco felt his chest tighten, along with the fists at his sides. A slight flush pooled over his cheeks. He'd never hated someone more than in that moment. With his hazel eyes flicking furiously between the two other kids, he muttered a low growl and threw the crumpled bit of paper square at Reiner's forehead. The quieter boy simply flinched and looked down at the ball, unsure of how to feel at the moment.

[Y/N] huffed and pushed her weight into her friend, knocking both of them to the wooden floor. Reiner's eyes widened to saucers as he watched the scramble. Arms and legs threw themselves around as the two fought for dominance at his feet.

"Get off me!"

"Apologize!"

"Let go!"

"You let go!"

Reiner froze in place. They wouldn't seriously hurt each other, right? He flicked his amber gaze upward just in time to see Marcel hop out of his seat.

Porco flipped the tussle over so he straddled [Y/N]s smaller form. His tomato-tinted face sneered down at her, a tiny bit of red beginning to dribble down from his nose. "Well you losers deserve each other!" he spat. Just as [Y/N] reared a fist back, Porco's collar was snatched back, removing his weight from her hips.

Marcel stared down at his brother with distaste and surprise. The blonde squirmed in his grasp like a rowdy puppy.

"[Y/N], I'm so sorry, I didn't think--"

" 's not your fault your brother's such... such an asshole!"

She wiped her mouth and turned to her side, away from the brothers. Marcel curled his mouth down and swallowed, ignoring Porco's thrashing. He glanced at Reiner who bent down to help the girl to her feet.

"I'm... still, we're sorry," the brunette muttered again before dragging the spitfire blonde away.

Reiner blinked incredulously at the girl. The shadow of a handprint laid over her cheek and her [h/c] mop resembled a birds nest. So many emotions squeezed away at his young chest; embarrassment, guilt, confusion. How could he just let that happen right in front of him? How cowardly.

"Are you okay?" they both asked simultaneously.

Reiner furrowed his brows. "I'm fine, what about you? He hit you." he said, attempting to hide how mortified he was. He cautiously smoothed her hair down against her head.

[Y/N] scoffed with a tiny grin. "Porco can't hurt me. His bark is worse than his bite." The way her eyes crinkled with humor sent Reiner's heart thudding even harder than before. She glanced down and scooped the crumbled ball into her hands. "I'm really sorry about your drawing. Maybe you can salvage it?" She leaned over the table and began to smooth it out.

Panic seeped into the blonde's veins again.

"Uh, it's fine, really." he quipped, itchy fingers caught between snatching it from her and fiddling at his sides. Nervous amber eyes flicked between his friend's face and the one he had drawn, revealing itself beneath her hands.

Kind eyes and a sweet smile, exactly how he saw her in real life. A flower pinned her hair behind her ear.

"Wow... this is really good! Can I see the rest?"

Losers. If [Y/N] really did like Braun, well, maybe she was sick in the head. He just sat there like a bump on the log while she defended him -- Porco would never let that fly, if it were him. Let some guy rough her up like that?

... okay, just because he was the one who roughed her up this time, doesn't mean anything. They've pushed each other around before, so it didn't mean anything. He was the only one allowed to do that. She's his friend.

And that drawing didn't look that good anyway... it wasn't as pretty as the real [Y/N].

"You're a real idiot sometimes Porco."

"[Y/N] started it."

The brothers walked alone, the setting sun kissing their skin. A quiet hum settled between them. Marcel tossed a blank face at his sibling.

"So if someone was picking on [Y/N], you wouldn't do anything?" the brunette asked. He watched a flush fall over Porco's cheeks and nose, barely discernible in the golden light.

"Well yeah I would. But--"

"And you were picking on Reiner. So."

"Shut up, Marcel. You don't get it."

Twisting away, Porco pretended to watch the buildings pass by them. Truthfully the situation had laid a nasty feeling over the boy. What started as a little fun ended with a bloody nose and bruised ego. [Y/N]s absence on their walk home only solidified his mistake.

Marcel rolled his eyes, allowing a small smirk to grace his cheeks. "Why do you hate him so much anyways?"

Oh, Braun. The weak, bumbling mess of a candidate. Porco grumbled as the other blonde consumed his thoughts. Weeks of watching Reiner barely scrape by in training irked him. He simply didn't belong with the rest of them.

What bothered him even more was how that worm was able to make [Y/N] smile the way he did. How Porco's heart would stop when she'd wave the brothers away and sit with Braun and Hoover instead, musing about how she walks with them every day anyway, so she'd catch them later.

It simply wasn't fair. Porco didn't want to share.

"I just do." the blonde replied through gritted teeth, refusing to look at Marcel again for the rest of the journey home.

A bruise lingered under [Y/N]s eye the following week. It wasn't huge or dark, serving only as a quiet reminder of their scuffle, which neither of the two acknowledged. Marcel found himself staring at it during sparring practice.

As usual, [Y/N] shied away from the attacks, choosing to let her opponent tire themselves out before stepping closer. Marcel circled her lamely, fists up and ready but kept close to his body. He blinked at her.

"Do you really like Reiner?" he asked suddenly.

The girl raised her brows. "He's my friend," she began slowly, almost carefully, "he's really nice. I hate how people are mean to him."

The brunette lunged forward, but missed her sly form. He righted himself before speaking again.

"Yeah, but do you like him? Like you told Porco?"

[Y/N] clicked her tongue.

"I mean... no... I don't know. Porco's attitude just made me mad."

Marcel felt himself agreeing. Picking up his brothers messes grew tiresome. But, for once, he knew why this one crashed as disastrously as it did.

"Are you still mad at him?"

This time, the girl swept a foot out to meet the back of Marcel's knee, catching him by surprise. He buckled for a moment but remained quick on his feet. [Y/N] dropped her hands to her sides. She sighed.

"Kind of... not really. That's just how he is, I suppose. I just wish I could be friends with both of them without causing problems."

Relaxing his stance, Marcel let his shoulders drop, mirroring the girl. A knowing smile fell over his face.

"Give it time, [Y/N]. I'm sure he'll figure things out sooner or later."

The girl chewed on these words for the rest of the day, unsure of what he really meant by them.

It's alarming how much can change in a few years. Though, if anyone were to ask the 'lucky' few Warriors who managed to return home, too much had changed, and far too rapidly.

They left as children. Wide-eyed, eager children with so much to prove, and so much to learn. Experience is the most dutiful and ruthless teacher. Those children returned battle-torn and damaged. Perpetual exhaustion and death hung from their faces, something missing from their once bright and curious eyes. All this, and it wasn't even close to ending.

After inheriting the Jaw Titan, Porco was able to keep a piece of his brother with him after everything. Sometimes the memories came in fleeting voices, tickling just outside the realm of his consciousness -- and sometimes, they were harsh visions, slapping him in the face in the most inconvenient moments.

Still, he found himself venturing into the past through Marcel's eyes, if not to hear his voice again, then to see her face again. Even just for a moment. All three of them, together, and it was real... real enough. Real as it'll ever be again.

Porco watched Marcel watch him. Porco watched the way he tended to shove her and yank her hair and call her names. All with a flush decorating his round, youthful cheeks. Porco listened to his brother's voice leave what felt like his own chest: "Give it time, [Y/N]. I'm sure he'll figure things out sooner or later."

Sooner or later... as if they had that much time left.

It only took five years of loneliness and his brother's early death for things to fall into scope for the rowdy blonde.

Sooner or later...

"It's good to see you again." Porco said, the first words spoken to her in years.

[Y/N] had certainly changed, matured. She was taller and athletic, not only a Marleyan Warrior but now technically a Paradis Scout. A truly breathtaking young woman stood before him, and Porco felt so small, so insignificant. After rolling through the memories of their childhood, he wondered how she didn't despise him.

Maybe she did. But the [Y/N] he knew as a kid was far too kind to admit it.

Leaning over a bare desk pushed against the wall, the young woman stiffened. She had yet to change out of the button down and light colored work pants she returned in. She still looked like a devil, having played the part for nearly her entire teenage career, until the very end -- when they lost the Colossal. When they lost Bertholdt.

The betrayal in her squad mates eyes burned deep into the wrinkles of her brain. Their voices screaming out to her as she revealed her true self was enough to shatter whatever hope the girl still held out for Marley; for her fellow Warriors; for herself.

"Galliard," [Y/N] replied slowly, only turning her head enough to catch his outline in her peripheral. He certainly didn't sound like the little boy she'd left behind all those years ago. Part of her wanted to preserve that memory... feared that, if she looked at him fully, Porco Galliard would become tainted in her mind. Another brainwashed sheep in the herd, like herself.

Porco shifted his weight between impatient feet, but didn't cross the threshold into her room. He watched her dig through a plain wooden dresser that had been filled by Pieck for her long-awaited return. [Y/N] turned, her profile visible for him to take in -- but she didn't look at him. Porco eyed the white line of a scar he had given her on before she left, stretching from her jaw to behind her ear. Somehow it never healed, even after she obtained her titan.

She kept her gaze down on the bed, mindlessly unbuttoning her shirt, but stopped at the last set.

"I bet you have a ton of stories." he muttered, desperate to pull any words from her mouth.

Stupid, why did he say that? He clenched his jaw as her hands fell to her sides. A moment of silence slipped between them without Marcel to fill the gap.

"I guess you could say that." [Y/N] mumbled, shoving the shirt from her shoulders. For a second, Porco was alarmed at the brashness of her undressing.

Weren't her and Reiner...?

She pulled a fresh shirt over her head. Cocking to the side, she allowed him a glimpse of her face -- even, blank, different. But still, so heart wrenching.

"... I missed you, Pock."

Porco felt bolted to the floor. So many words died on his tongue before they could make it past his lips. A heavy sigh squeezed out of his lungs.

"I missed you, too."

Several days after coming home, [Y/N] found that walking around outside headquarters felt like a dream. Maybe a nightmare. Or somewhere inbetween? [Y/N] strode in a state of limbo, a familiar figure by her side walking a familiar path. The two stopped by the same bench that used to rest their little weary feet after hours of running and exertion.

"You look... really different." [Y/N] said suddenly, eyeing the boy man as he sat beside her. Porco blinked his hazel eyes at her. Truthfully, the statement felt wrong to hear. He still felt like the scared, angry little boy that pushed peoples faces into the dirt. He still felt the same while every single thing around him changed.

"I could say the same about you." he replied. Was it wrong to take her in like this? To study the curve of her nose, the shape of her cheeks, the color of her lips? It felt like some hidden treasure he was never supposed to reach.

"Really? Part of me still feels ten years old," she laughed, an airy little laugh that scrunched her nose up, "all scared and wide-eyed. It felt so weird talking to my parents again. Thanks for coming with me, by the way." [Y/N] ran her hands down the tops of her thighs and squeezed her own knees in a self-soothing fashion. Porco nodded.

"Yeah, no problem." he cleared his throat. "Though, I'm a little surprised you asked me instead of Braun."

"Reiner? I... think I need a little time away from him, honestly."

Porco furrowed his brows. "Never thought I'd see the day."

"What'dyou mean?"

"Well I just figured, since you're dating--"

"Porco, I'm not dating Reiner. I never was." she sighed. "Truthfully, I've always had eyes for someone else."

He turned his gaze away, choosing to watch a few kids in armbands run past them. They giggled as they chased each other. How odd it was that he envied them, the little trio with their chubby cheeks and smiling faces. It felt familiar in such a quietly bitter sense.

[Y/N] elbowed the blonde. "I had a lot of time to think on that island. A lot of time to miss home." she hummed, turning to him. "Have you figured it out yet? He always said you would," her voice felt light yet so heavy all at once, "sooner or later."

At that, Porco let himself look at her, and she looked back. Neither of them were the children they used to be. Neither of them were the same kids who rolled in the grass and scuffed themselves up and shared laughs with a poignant brunette.

And maybe that was okay. Because Porco Galliard figured it out.

With a light flush creeping over his face, the blonde extended an experimental arm over the back of the bench, settling his fingers over her shoulder. He tugged her into his side. What felt like a lifetime of emotions rained down over his foggy brain once the young woman leaned into his presence. She laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. Gently, [Y/N] rested a hand on his knee.

Porco closed his eyes, and he could see them. The three of them, their youthful, distorted faces reflected in dark harbor water. They were smiling their carefree smiles together.

He wondered, wherever or whatever Marcel was then, if he could see them then.

He wondered when, not if, they'd see him again.

They would... sooner or later.

[affiesque]

As promised, here’s the second half of my random thoughts and observations about Desire Catcher now that I’ve finished my latest rewatch (links aren’t working for me right now, but if you want to read the first half just click on one of the tags on this post and it should come up easily). The entire series is 24 episodes, most of which are somewhere between 35 and 45 minutes long - so, depending on what types of shows you usually watch, it might be a bit of a commitment. But I definitely think it’s worth it.

OK, time to brace yourself, as there’s a lot going on in this second part…

At the halfway mark the relationship between Luo Fei and Lu Fengping is starting to fray (oh look, it's my good friend angst again) - essentially, Lu Fengping is frustrated that his mom’s murder remains unsolved and Luo Fei hasn’t given him much in the way of clues like he was supposed to. Lu Fengping ends up working with the main villain (Bai Ya Xing), who is behind all of the crimes/murders that have been happening, to find his mom’s killer and get revenge. (I won’t spoil the details, but I will say that this particular storyline could probably have used some fleshing out, as the details and motivations don’t quite come together in the end. As I’ve noted before, the real draw with Desire Catcher is the relationships, so you can kind of wave those plot holes away - unless that sort of thing really bothers you, which I totally get.)

There’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game going on throughout the middle episodes, with Lu Fengping getting more cagey and Luo Fei chasing after him a bit, attempting to figure out what he’s hiding. You get Luo Fei trying to casually inquire with multiple people as to Lu Fengping’s whereabouts when he’s gone for no more than a couple of hours at a time (we get it bro, you’re obsessed), not to mention lurking in the shadows near his apartment at night (yikes, dude). During this period there are definitely times when Lu Fengping looks almost guilty for pulling away and for what he’s planning to do, like he wants to confide in Luo Fei but he can’t - there’s a particular wistfulness to his expressions that’s so on point and gets me every time.

One nice little touch throughout is the many dinner dates the two leads go on - granted, one ends with Luo Fei leaving before they even eat anything, and another has him answering Lu Fengping’s question “Does everyone look like a suspect to you?” with “Yes - you look like one too,” so not exactly the most romantic situations (social skills are not Luo Fei’s strong point). But I am a sucker for those little intimate moments - misty evenings with blurry streetlights, tables piled high with steaming dishes and clinking glasses, the muted conversations of the people around them - and of course the sharing food = love symbolism.

Speaking of tropes, if you’re a fan of jealousy, then DC has got you covered. Again, no big plot spoilers here but Luo Fei finds out Lu Fengping has brought a girl home one night - not for the reason he (or anyone else) thinks, but you can tell he’s in his feelings about it (and Lu Fengping, I love you, but maybe in the future do not kidnap a stranger - even if you had your reasons and you were sort of helping her in the moment). He ends up getting arrested (twice!) for the abduction and when Luo Fei fails to help him, their “big breakup” begins in earnest - Lu Fengping saying “I shouldn’t have counted on you right from the start” got me right in the heart, ngl.

*Books as symbolism alert* - we get just one shot of some books strewn around Lu Fengping’s apartment in the second half, but I did find it interesting that the subtitles call out two of them specifically, which feels important. Those are “The Sea, The Sea” by Iris Murdoch and “It Takes More Than A Carrot And A Stick” by Wess Roberts. The former is about love and loss and romantic ideals by an author known for writing about morality and the power of the unconscious - things that seem relevant to a hypnotist, I would think. The latter actually made me laugh audibly when I noticed the subtitle: “Practical Ways Of Getting Along With People You Can’t Avoid At Work.” Sounds about right for them.

Here’s another alert - BIG GIANT SPOILERS AHEAD!! Click below with caution…

OK, so the big event of the second half is Lu Fengping faking his death(!!) in order to give him the time and space away from Luo Fei/the police to move ahead with his revenge plan. Long story short, Luo Fei thinks Lu Fengping has blown himself up, goes through the five stages of grief, figures out he’s still alive and somehow manages to be like, “Hey, thought you were dead but no biggie - let’s not even hug it out and instead just go right back to teasing each other and solving crimes - it’s all good.” Honestly, I’m glossing over a lot here - how absolutely devastated Luo Fei (and everyone else, for that matter) is when he thinks Lu Fengping is dead, how they finally yell a bit about their feelings and come clean about certain things when they reunite, how the OST rips your heart out again and again in these moments (“Did we meet just to be torn apart?” - I mean, come on), how relieved Lu Fengping looks when he realizes that Luo Fei doesn’t hate him for what he did, how Luo Fei suddenly can’t stop smiling (you’ve come a long way, baby). I think these are probably some of the strongest scenes in the entire show, but I must admit that the way they don’t truly address the fallout of something this intense still bugs me (stay tuned for a fic I’m writing on that very topic, in case that sort of thing interests you - and @thinkonce-acttwice, I ✨promise✨ I’m actually working on it!).

I know I haven’t mentioned Liang Yin in this second-half review yet - what happened/happens to her still plays a major role in the story of Lu Fengping’s mom’s death. I won’t give the details here, but do note that there are some flashback scenes of her getting attacked that might be rough for some viewers - so please keep that in mind. However, aside from a couple of moments where the men in her life feel the need to protect/shelter her despite her being quite capable of handling things herself, I will say that the story gives her back some agency, and it does feel as if by the end she’s come to terms with her past and is in a good place overall. And the relationship between her, Luo Fei, and Lu Fengping gets a really nice resolution - a sort of found family thing that brings them all together.

There’s lots of plot movement as we work our way through the final episodes - the big bad villain is vilaining, there’s an evil nurse who’s in on the shenanigans, poor Professor Ling (Lu Fengping’s mentor and fellow hypnotist) gets accused of being a fraud and ends up in the hospital, Lu Fengping almost stabs himself in the heart while hypnotized by Bai Ya Xing (though of course Luo Fei shows up in the nick of time to save him - I swear, despite knowing that this is just a “bromance” show, every time I watch that scene there’s one split second where it seems like they’re about to lean in and kiss - oof), poor Liang Yin gets kidnapped by the big bad villain (unfortunately, more “man pain”). I tell you, this show is a roller coaster ride every freaking episode.

I won’t spoil the final ending too much, but rest assured Liang Yin is fine. Stuff happens, Lu Fengping ends up in prison - though he sort of puts himself there on purpose, sacrificing himself for Luo Fei, even if he doesn’t come out and say that’s what he’s doing. And he basically gets a form of justice for his mom’s death. The very last bit sees him return from prison on parole - he reunites with the police team and Luo Fei in a slightly cheesy but rather touching moment, though, again, even just a quick hug would’ve been nice…

Bottom line, I love all of them, your honor, and will probably never be over this show - there’s so much to unpack in terms of the role of fate in our lives, how broken people can find something in each other to live for, how to forgive others and, importantly, yourself.

OK, again, this one got away from me, and I know I’m probably forgetting like a million little things, but hopefully I’ve managed to entertain at least one other person with my ramblings. And if anything here has sounded intriguing, please check this little show out so it gets the love it deserves! 🖤

[priincekin]

Artifice - Hyuluka Oneshot

When Hyuna is coerced into accompanying her celebrity ex, Luka, to a lavish event, their troubled past and unresolved tensions resurface.

CW for an unhealthy relationship dynamic and manipulation!

For in depth tags, please check the AO3 upload. (Coming soon)

"Remind me why the hell I agreed to this?" Hyuna muttered under her breath, tugging at her too-short slip dress that clung tightly to every curve while simultaneously trying to adjust her thigh-highs, casting a glare at Luka across the limo. “… Send my compliments to your stylist for making me into a knock-off Barbie, and then tell ‘em to go play in traffic!”

Luka, of course, didn’t acknowledge her provocations. Nooooo, he was too busy prettying himself up, mascara wand poised. Figures.

Hyuna's frustration simmered as she watched him, his indifference stoking her anger.

Her eyes then fell once more on the infuriating list of 'rules' Luka had drafted for the evening. She had seen the paper before and thrown it away, but seeing that Luka went through the effort to print another one was enough to piss her off all over again. The neatly typed instructions on the crumpled paper seemed to mock her with their orderly bullets and condescending tone and Heperu’s letterhead.

“Now listen here, sweet cheeks, and listen good," she burst out, holding up the paper. “For the last time, I ain’t followin’ these rules, quit givin’ me more of these papers! You can shove ‘em right up your—“

"Please mind your language, Miss Hyuna,"

"Oh bite me! We all know I'm just arm candy, and it ain’t hard to stroke your ego for a few hours. Trust me. I’d know. So fuck off and lemme live a little! They're a joke.” She looked back down at the sheet with a scoff. “’Giggle, don’t laugh' - really? Who you tryin’ to turn me into?!”

God, the way they were arguing almost reminded her of old times. Back when he was her high-school sweetheart. Though, she was shocked he wasn’t being more argumentative toward her. By the end, Luka’s good moods were becoming rarer and rarer, and just being around him was like walking on eggshells. For a bit, Hyuna had made excuses for him — of course, with her temper, there was only so long until she was bound to explode.

Once she had blown up, the relationship was, of course, doomed. There was no recovery from the things she had said. They broke up over text. Yet, even though it was technically her fault, Luka leaving town soon after still wasn't just a minor plot twist; it was a full-on mindfuck. She'd catch herself getting all misty-eyed over their cheesy ice cream dates, where they'd crack up at the lamest jokes, or those beautiful nights in the deserted auditorium. Luka serenading her like she was the only girl in the world. Pity his dad slammed the brakes on that short-lived romantic gesture and forbade him from ever doing it again.

And then, after all that, Luka just had to go and get famous. Suddenly, his face was everywhere – magazines, billboards, you name it. Each time Hyuna saw that face, she reminded herself she should feel lucky to be rid of him, and that she had herself to thank for it.

But then, the tabloids started flaunting photos of Luka with his new girl of the month, and oh, did that grind her gears, even though Dewey and Isaac kept telling her it was nothing.

Was it jealousy? Boredom? Or maybe just an allergic reaction to being erased by some blond bombshell with a plastic smile? Whatever it was, hearing about each breakup was like savoring a fine wine; that was, until Luka had the nerve to show up at her door, needing a date for some swanky party after his newest beau gave him the middle finger.

Hyuna sank back into the velvet seat, her attention snapping back to the moment. Her fingers flirted with the edges of what was possibly the world's most irritating shawl, offering about as much modesty as a cocktail napkin. The silence was unbearably awkward; she had to fill it somehow.

“… A compliment wouldn’t kill ya, you know. Or is it too hard to admit you’re dazzled by all this?” With a teasing flourish, she let the shawl slip just a tad, winking and blowing a kiss for good measure.

Luka glanced up and quickly gave her a once-over, sighing in disappointment. “I would not say that. I feel like you should be more focused on having an amicable attitude rather than needlessly flirting.”

“Uh-huh. Yep, I’m totally flirting. Maybe if these heels weren't giving me so many damn blisters, I’d be in a better mood. But ‘till then, the only smiling I'll be doing is smiling through the pain. Now, pass the champagne, will ya?” She held out her hand.

Luka protectively moved the bottle away from her. “Please reference page four, line five of the contract. There is a clause stating that, should you be intoxicated or otherwise behave troublingly during the event, your payment will be voided and you will owe me three more dates as reparation.” He tried, in vain, to hide his smug little grin.

“There’s a what?!” Hyuna scrambled to pick the paper back up, and lo and behold; right there, in the tiniest font imaginable, was exactly what Luka had said. “Oh, you little—”

“Miss Hyuna.”

Hyuna forced herself to take a deep breath. ‘This shit is for Hyun-woo’, she reminded herself. ‘Do it for him.’

As cheesy as it was, her brother was the light of her life. For being an eleven-year-old boy, Hyun-woo was surprisingly sweet. Not at all like the assholes he went to school with, Hyuna had made sure of that much.

After she won sole custody of him, all of the expenses had fallen onto her shoulders: the bills, food, his allowance, and seemingly a million other things. Most of the time, she could make it work, even on her pathetic bartender’s paycheck.

But Christmas was a whole different kind of struggle. Living paycheck to paycheck meant there was never extra cash for Hyun-woo’s presents. The real sting was in the simplicity of his wishes – a DS game, a cheap Nerf gun, an outdated board game. That's all he wanted that year. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she saved, some unavoidable expense always reared its ugly head, draining away her meager savings. It seemed like there was no other way.

Finally, the limo pulled up to a grand mansion, its lights casting a cold glow over the entrance. Hyuna peered out the window, noticing two girls at the doorway: one in a suit with long pink hair, discreetly fiddling with a ring box in her pocket, and the other, with short black hair, clad in a white dress. At least some people were having a nice time.

“Well, ain't this just peachy," she muttered, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "A regular palace for Prince Charming and his temporary Cinderella."

Luka finally looked up, meeting her eyes. “Now that we're here, remember to smile and wave. It's all about appearances, isn't it?" He forced a smile himself as if to set an example, but it only soured her mood further. “Though, you are certainly at an advantage with how beautiful you are.”

“Too late for the compliment, buddy.” Hyuna rolled her eyes. “I'll smile and wave. Like I'm a damn parade float." She opened the limo door and stepped out, her heels clicking against the cobblestone driveway. The cold air hit her and made her wish, yet again, for a longer dress.

Luka, as if by magic, whipped out a plush white fur coat from the trunk and slung it over Hyuna's shoulders with a flourish. For a split second, she almost bought into it, the coat's luxurious softness tricking her into thinking he might actually care. Was he finally clued into how uncomfortable she was? To how exposed she felt? She let herself indulge in that thought, the tension in her shoulders easing off a notch as she grabbed his outstretched hand, her cheeks betraying a reluctant blush.

Then, wham. The scent hit her -– a blend of chrysanthemums and wilted roses, laced with bitter almonds. It was perfume, and definitely not her brand. That's when it clicked. This wasn't some chivalrous move; it was Luka’s version of peacocking, a display for the few nosy onlookers ogling at them. They were absolutely eating it up.

Hyuna’s grip on his hand turned from soft to vice-like, not out of romance, but so she didn’t facepalm right there and then.

How utterly 'Luka' to turn even a coat into a performance.

Hyuna shuddered, skin crawling under the perfumed fur. "Wow, so generous!” She whisper-yelled. “Real classy, Luka! Decking me out in a coat you lent to your last fling? What's the grand plan here, recycling her bling for me next?”

Luka tsked under his breath. "The one time I attempted kindness with you... How fascinating, though, that you care so much about what she did.”

They entered the glittering ballroom, all string quartets and designer outfits straight from the pages of Vogue. Hyuna sized up the crowd, mentally tagging each socialite with the most absurd names she could think of.

As Luka steered them towards the center, Hyuna operated on autopilot — a plastered smile, forced giggles at their pretentious bragging just as Luka asked. But, instinctively, she occasionally leaned over and muttered to Luka under her breath:

"You think that dude knows his fake tan is literally dripping down his arm?"

"Twenty bucks says that girl trips on her dress. God, it looks like she’s wearing a curtain…"

“Manners, darling.”

“It’s either I say it to you or I say it to their faces,” she hissed back.

‘Four hours.’, she chanted inwardly. Then sweet freedom and her even sweeter paycheck.

Hyuna continued to trail behind as Luka flitted from one circle of guests to the next. Her cheeks ached from keeping a smile while straining to laugh daintily at comments ranging from dull to outright crude and dehumanizing.

After the fifth round of banal small talk about vacation homes and polo tournaments, Hyuna found herself practically wilting into the plush fur coat. God, even the coat was getting on her nerves. Its cloying floral scent made her stomach turn, and she couldn't stop fidgeting with the garish ruffles lining the sleeves.

Luka suddenly clamped a firm hand on her wrist, stilling its motions. "Stop that. Honestly, your manners tonight..." He sighed, guiding her toward the dance floor where a few couples swayed lazily. "Just try to enjoy yourself a little?"

Luka drew Hyuna near, seemingly for a waltz. She opened her mouth to object, but reluctantly rested a hand on his shoulder, resisting the childish urge to stomp on his polished boots. As they began half-heartedly twirling, Hyuna felt remarkably disconnected — it was nothing like the way they used to dance — but it wasn’t long before a burst of coos and applause pulled her eyes toward the garden entrance. There stood the two girls from earlier, both with tears in her eyes. One had dropped to her knee, presenting a ring with trembling hands.

"Oh, would you look at that?" Luka smiled softly. "I suppose this manor would look awfully nice in the proposal pictures.”

Hyuna usually wasn’t a sucker for such cheesy moments. Still, she couldn't help but track the heartwarming scene over Luka's shoulder. A real proposal, she mused. No pretense or strings attached...

Hyuna started to turn around to watch, but everything was ruined by one uneven floor tile.

Mid-spin, her stiletto caught on it, sending her flailing backward. She crashed to the floor — thank God for Luka’s coat, or else it would’ve been even worse.

A horrified collective gasp echoed as every head swiveled her way, including the two girls. The applause and music ceased with a screech. In the excruciating silence, she felt hundreds of eyes boring into her, Luka’s especially. His grip closed on her arm, wrenching her upright with a sharp whisper. “What did I say about manners? You just ruined their entire proposal.”

Hyuna felt her cheeks burn red-hot, as guilt settled in the pit of her stomach. “Oh, yeah, ‘cause that was totally on purpose! Screw askin’ me if I’m okay, right?” She whispered back, wishing that Luka would just shut his mouth and try to cover for her.

"I cannot believe you've embarrassed me like this, after everything I've done." Luka's usual composure cracked, voice lowered to a harsh whisper. "The other guests can hardly look at me now. This appearance was crucial for my image, not to mention our agreement, and you..."

He trailed off, shaking his head. His fingers dug into the fur coat with white knuckles before he released her. When Luka raised his eyes to meet hers, he looked absolutely disgusted.

"Just get out of my sight. I need to salvage what remains of this wretched evening."

Hyuna weakly scoffed, then pulled herself free to sketch a barely passable curtsy to the crowd. “Sorry for the unplanned entertainment tonight,” she called out, trying to ignore the sobs. “As you were!” Ignoring the whispers echoing around her, she beelined away from Luka; anywhere but there was good enough for her.

Hyuna shoved through the murmuring crowd, cheeks burning under the weight of so many prying eyes. The stilettos clicked loudly against the tile floor as she muttered insults towards the gawkers blocking her escape. Just as the cool night air kissed her bare shoulders, a familiar voice called out.

"Heyyyyyy, Hyuna! Fancy seein' ya here!"

She whirled around, a biting retort poised on her lips. But there stood Dewey and Isaac, surprisingly dapper in their mismatched suits and shit-eating grins. Despite her overwhelming emotions, Hyuna couldn't restrain a hint of a smile. Leave it to these two knuckleheads to appear from thin air when she needed it most. Hyuna placed her hands on her hips, arching an eyebrow.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?" She lowered her voice to a whisper. "This ain't exactly an open-invitation party, geniuses."

Isaac rocked eagerly on his heels. "Oh it was easy peasy to sneak in the kitchen door while them fancy waiters were distracted. Plus, you mentioned you'd be ‘ere with, uh… Y’know, Mr. High-and-Mighty," he said, gesturing vaguely toward Luka's direction. “Wanted to see how it’d play out since he’s such an--”

Dewey quickly clamped a hand over Isaac's rambling mouth. "Can the chatter before we get tossed out!" He shot Hyuna a sheepish grin. "Just, uh, wanted to check in on ya. Make sure princey isn't being too much of a sleaze."

"A sleaze? Nah, try self-centered jackass," she replied, launching into a recap of the disastrous proposal scene. Dewey and Isaac's eyes grew wide as saucers.

"No way he blamed you for that!" Dewey scoffed. "What a prick."

Hyuna threw her hands up in exasperation. "Thank you! Guy drives me absolutely insane."

Isaac gave an enthusiastic nod and dove a hand into his suit pocket. "Yeah. Hey, uh, you guys tried the shrimp? I snatched a bunch when those waiter guys weren't lookin'." He held up a fistful of mangled cocktail shrimp, tails dangling limply.

“Dude, what is wrong with you?!” When Isaac raised the shrimp to his mouth, Hyuna swatted it out of his hand and onto the floor. “Rule one of stealing food! Bring a ziplock or tupperware!”

Isaac dejectedly stared down at the shrimp on the floor. “... I ran out of ziplocks.” His lip quivered like he was about to cry.

“Then buy more! You have a job!” Hyuna whisper-yelled, playfully hitting him in the shoulder. “Unless you got fired again!”

A prickling unease crept over Hyuna as she felt eyes boring into her back.

“Uh… girl? You might wanna turn around…” Dewey said, pointing behind her.

Luka was staring. His polished composure had vanished, replaced by clenched fists and an infuriated glare. Stalking over to her, his expression

"We need to talk. Now." Luka's grabbed tightly onto Hyuna's arm as he steered her away. She shot a helpless look back to Dewey and Isaac.

"Get your paws off me!" She shook out of his grasp. "You don't own me, Luka. I can talk to whoever I damn well please-"

Luka's bitter scoff cut her off as he took her wrist yet again. "Oh yes, cozying up to a pair of hoodlums should shine brilliantly in the gossip columns."

Finally, they reached an inconspicuous, plain door. Luka pushed it open, revealing a small, dimly lit linen closet. With a swift movement, he pulled her inside and shut the door behind them, plunging them into near darkness, the only light coming from the crack under the door. Hyuna bristled, backing herself away from him and towards the wall.

“Why are we here?! Someone definitely saw us come in here, and you know what they probably think we’re doin’ right now?! They prolly think--”

Luka leaned close, taking a deep breath. "This night was already disastrous enough without you flirting to make me jealous." He paused. "Go ahead, deny that's what you wanted."

“What are you talking about?! You literally told me to get away from you!” Hyuna's retort came out quieter than she intended as Luka’s hands found the curve of her waist, pulling her closer. The cold of his body against hers was so disgusting but oh so familiar, and Hyuna found herself melting into it. But she still felt his eyes on her, watching her every movement as he stared up at her from her chest.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Hyuna muttered.

Luka’s eyes finally closed, sighing softly. “Like what?”

“Like I’m something you own,” She finally found it in her to try pushing him away, and to his credit, his grip faltered. “You know damn well I hate when you get all possessive, ‘specially over Dewey and—”

“It’s not about them,” Luka cuts in sharply.

“Oh, please! They’re so gay for each other, you’d have to be blind not to—”

“That’s not the point, Hyuna!”

“Yeah, well, you’re choosing to be a dick about it!”

Before Hyuna could say anything more, his lips found hers in a kiss. Hyuna’s eyes widened. She didn’t kiss back, but she didn’t pull away either; for all she cared, he could kiss himself breathless.

Hyuna’s pulse raced as her heart, slowly but surely, began to betray her. She hated him, sure, but somewhere, buried under layers of hurt and pride, a fragment of what used to be lingered. This wasn’t about wanting him. It was about wanting what they used to have. She’d always been too stubborn to let go of things…

As his kiss deepened, Hyuna's resistance finally crumbled.

This was stupid.

She found herself responding with equal fervor, her hands tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. The small space seemed to shrink further.

So stupid.

Hyuna closed her eyes, letting him close what little distance was left between them. But it didn’t feel close enough.

She hated herself for this.

Breaking the kiss, Luka’s breath was ragged against her lips. “This is the end for us, isn’t it?” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

Instead of answering, she reached down, pulling him back up to her, their lips meeting yet again. This wasn’t just about pretenses or contracts. This was something raw, something real that wasn’t supposed to happen.

What felt like an eternity passed between them before she pulled away, a sad, sardonic smile playing on her lips.

Thank God the room was dark, or else Luka might’ve seen the angry tears clouding her vision.

"... ‘course, you had to start tryin’ to be sweet at the worst time.”

Luka looked at her, a hint of frustration in his eyes. "This isn't about timing, Miss Hyuna. This is about…"

"About what? Us?" Hyuna cut him off, sidestepping further into the shadows of the closet. "There is no 'us', remember? We're just a couple of fucked-up people who can't seem to stay away from each other, even after years." She crossed her arms, her heart racing. "I ain’t doin’ this anymore. That kiss? That was it. Now, are we gonna be adults about it and end this for good, or are you gonna keep bein’ in denial?"

"I wish it were that simple."

Hyuna let out a short, mirthless laugh. "Right, ‘cause everything's gotta be complicated with you. Newsflash, Luka, it doesn't have to be. We make it complicated. Mostly you. This was all supposed to be fake, but nope, you took me into a closet and started makin’ out with me.”

For a moment, Luka was silent. Then, with a sigh, he stepped back, his shoulders slumping slightly. "I suppose it's time we face reality. This... whatever it is, between us, it's not healthy."

The words, though expected, stung Hyuna more than she cared to admit. She should’ve been grateful that he didn’t keep fighting it, but nope. Her heart was sinking. But she nodded, her own resolve steeling. "Yep. It’s time.”

Luka reached out, his hand trembling with unspoken words. “Hyuna, I—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted sharply. “Just don’t. Spare us the dramatics.”

There was a pause, heavy and laden, as Luka seemed to process the information. Then, like a scene from a worn-out play, his charm slid back into place, smooth and unnervingly familiar. It was like he became an entirely new person in a matter of seconds, and Hyuna bristled.

“On second thought… Darling, you’re seeing this all wrong,” he said. “We’re a match made in heaven, you and I.”

Hyuna’s attempt to step back was futile; Luka’s grasp was firm yet gentle. “Luka, cut the crap. I know what you’re doin’.”

“But think of what we’ve shared. Our dates, the outings, me holding you when you cry.”

“And the fights? The tears? The screaming matches in the school janitor's closet? Dammit Luka, you were the reason I was crying!” Hyuna countered, her voice wavering.

“Hyuna, darling, that’s how relationships work. We bicker, yes, but we never fail to come back together…”

“You left,” Hyuna snapped. A knot of anger and hurt tightened in her chest. His words were half-truths and blatant manipulation, and yet she still began to feel swayed.

“You know very well that was my Father’s decision for my career and not my own.”

“But did ya fight back?! Probably not, ‘cause since when do you think for yourself?”

Luka lowered his voice, clearly giving up. “... Aside from that, who understands you as I do?” Luka’s voice was soft, almost persuasive, his words carefully chosen. “We’re inevitable, Hyuna. Stay with me, and your brother’s future is secure. That’s a promise only I can make.”

“You… really?” Her resolve wavered further. Luka was stupid rich; if he wanted to, he could pay for her brother’s college education. She’d never have to worry about paying for his gifts ever again. Luka was right. This was a promise only he could make.

“You’re so damn impossible,” she muttered, caught in the tempest of his gaze. Reluctantly, she found herself drawn into his embrace, their lips meeting in a bitter kiss of surrender.

Was it really so wrong to fall back into this cycle? To choose the devil she at least knew over uncertainty?

As their kiss deepened, her doubts seemed to dissolve into the heat of the moment.

[revvywevvy]

I’m not gonna stop you from your Cheerful Chip fan fiction

Matter in fact To be honest I’m always wonder what kind of wonderful improved artful art than the last art will be with you and Chip will be

It’s just that I’m think there is a certain sad wet cat waiting on the porch metaphorically saying

But beside that, Your Art has improved over the time and I am glad to have witnessed it

-H/B Anon

P.s. I don’t know if the wording color is for you ,for me it’s Black

P.p.s. How bout role swap, our beloved Himbo and Bimbo as Toons and their beloved Chelly as a Cog (a tall Chelly is something )

hiiiiiiii nonny~ hehe thank you very much for all of the encouraging words, I appreciate it so much!!!! <3 don't worry, misty will get the braincell soon. however. for now we have more pressing things to discuss. the role swap au.

You got me going again SOOOO much lmao- Here they are!!!! The poly roleswapped!!! Unfortunately Chelly. does not get much taller lol She's just a bit taller than the tallest possible toon species'. Chelly is based on those cute little vacuums with the little faces on them. You've seen those before, right? If not please look them up they're so cute.

I'LL WRITE ALL THE INFO UNDER THE CUT BC THIS GETS VERY LONG <3

Chip is a wolf toon, and Misty is a sheep toon! Both ideas were by my lovely friend @photon-crest-art whose input I appreciate sooo much!!! her ideas got me going foaming at the mouth crazy over this role swap even more than I already was SDHGDSGHDSHS also tagging @frostbite-the-bat bc they also hyped me up a lot while I was in the process of making all these!!! <3

When it comes to the whole override thing, Chip just. Goes absolutely wild at night sometimes. He's a werewolf!!! But. literally since he's already a wolf. this was also photon's idea thank you photooooon heehee <3

Misty has her weather powers still! So she can still change weather phases and essentially smite people with lightning if they make her really mad lol

Unfortunately both toons are outcast because of their respective 'quirks'. However, to their surprise, one person does support them through it all! They weren't expecting it to be this absolute nervous wreck of a cog who is, surprisingly, very very silly and toon-like! She clings to them like glue, but they appreciate it so much!! I feel like toon Chip and toon Misty would both be very sad very lonely toons, perhaps becoming more prone to bouts of low laff and poor health as such from such a poor mental state. However, they've got each other now and Chelly too!! Just like how the normal toon Chelly's health was pretty shit due to her mental state but improved having Chip and Misty around, she's now able to pay that love back ten-fold in this au!! Hehe it always comes back to 'love heals' with me <3

OH YES AND I WROTE CHELLY'S COG STATS!!!! a. and potential bossfight cutscenes. um. yeah. I went a little overboard haha. these cutscenes are uh. I think they're longer than the ones in-game??? I. don't know. I think they are. sorry not sorry >u<

Manager Chelly

The Mechanician

Location: “Pain, Pain, Go Away” Mechanical Clinic, Sunflower Street [Daffodil Gardens]

Cog Overview

Department | Bossbot

Position | Regional Manager

HP | 4800

Defense | 65

Lvl | 26.mgr

Lowest Damage | 25

Highest Damage | 31

Real Name | Eureka Numa “Chelly” Honeywell

Honorifics | Dr. / Ms. / Mx.

Employee ID | 01899

Likes | Tinkering, Cute and Soft Things, Comfortable Silence, Singing

Dislikes | Unwarranted Judgement, Violence (Most of the Time), Social Overstimulation

Content Sync

100 Laff Soft Cap (107 Max)

All Gags Permitted

Pink Slips restricted

Opening Cutscene 

The Toons enter the doors at the far back of the building, leading them to the real cog clinic inside. The Mechanician is seen speaking to a Flunky. Neither cog seems to notice their approach, as they are focused on their consultation while the Toons get closer.

“...and that should do it then, little sprout!”

 “Are you sure this is alright, Ms. Honeywell? Wouldn’t the Chairman get angry over that?”

At the Flunky’s concerns, the Mechanician fiddles with her hands. She shakes her head before re-addressing the Flunky.

“...R-Right. He may see it as ‘slacking’, but… well. You know how I feel about that. Just… try to heed my instructions to the best of your ability.” 

“Whatever you have the room to do, okay, bud? Remember, your health comes first.”

“Yes, ma’am! Thank you again.”

The Flunky begins to fly away, and with a nod, she sees him off.

“Of course. Come back any time!”

The Mechanician sighs, shaking her head.

“Ugh. You’d think that man-baby would realize sooner… without us all, he’s…-”

She trails off, turning upon noticing the Toons. She startles, letting out a squeak at their presence, but tries to relax herself to make conversation with them.

“Ah! T-Toons?! Uh- Ahem.” 

“Um… hello there! Are you… perhaps here for a check-up? I apologize, but… um, ahaha.. I-I only know how to treat cogs.”

“Unless you… have an appliance in need of fixing? I can do that too…”

The Toons get angry. The Mechanician pulls her hands up to her chest, taking a few steps back, clearly nervous.

“Eep! O-Okay, message received… U-Um… oh, look! Is that, um, a doodle pup?”

The Mechanician gestures behind the toons. The Toons turn around to look, all confused when they see nothing. The Mechanician begins tip-toeing away while they’re distracted. One toon looks back at her and exclaims as they see her try to sneak away. She yelps and breaks into a panicked sprint, running off into another, much larger room room further in the building. The Toons make chase.

She runs into a storage room and to an emergency escape door. However, before she reaches it, a stick of TNT thrown by a toon lands in front of the door. She startles and stumbles away from it before it explodes. The exit is now unusable. She turns, and the toons have caught up to her.

“Oh no… wait, h-hold on..! Surely we can talk things out civilly, r-right?! I… I really don’t want to fight you!”

The Toons refuse and begin to approach, the Mechanician backing up towards the wall as they close in.

“N-No, please!! I don’t want to hurt anyone… please don’t make me! I… someone, help!!”

The Mechanician reaches into her pocket, pulling out a panic button and pressing it with shaking hands. Once she does, two cogs promptly fly into the room, landing at the Mechanician’s sides. The battle begins.

Ending Cutscene (Mercy)

The Mechanician reaches to her power core, hand hovering over it shakily. She is clearly in immense pain, her panic now reaching a boiling point as she realizes how injured she really is. Suddenly, her hands clench into fists and she quakes through the pain, knocking the toons off their feet. The quake doesn’t damage the toons, however.

“STOP!!!! THAT.. IS QUITE.. ENOUGH!!!”

She shakes her head, pulling her hands to her chest protectively and looking at the Toons as they rise to their feet.

“Why…?! I’ve been clear from the beginning that I didn’t want to fight! But… B-But you just won’t LISTEN!”

Her hands rise, holding her head in distress.

“Wh-What do you even get from this… from hurting me?!”

The Toons do nothing.

“I… I get it. This war. It… must be so stressful on you. On all of you.”

“B-But… I’ve been careful… so, so careful!”

The Mechanician turns her head, looking away from the toons for a moment before turning back to them.

“I… I know we’re *supposed* to fight toons, but… I’ve never seen the point. All of this violence is ridiculous to me.”

“All I’ve ever wanted was to stay on the sidelines, and to help those who were hurt.”

“I mean… I’ve never even gone out and fought toons before, anyhow! ...So… why? W-Why me?”

The Toons do nothing.

“...Ah. So that’s why. You see me as a threat… because of what I do for my fellow suits?”

The Mechanician shakes her head in disappointment.

“Have you Toons ever put yourselves in a Suit’s shoes? A-At least… just for a moment?”

“If you did, you’d understand. I… I understand the plight you Toons go through.”

“However, you’re not the only ones suffering. Whether they fall low or high on the chain of command… we all hurt, just the same.”

She pauses, wincing in pain herself. She’s visibly twitching and glitching out.

“Wh-What, do you think we deserve for our pain to stick forever? That no-obody should help us when we’re hurt?”

“......”

“Could you i-i-imagine it yourself? Feeling like gravity’s about to crush you… i-into small, mushy, toony bits?” 

“Where… where all yo-o-ou can do is panic, and hope? Because, at th-that point, there’s nothing you can do? No way to mov-ve, or call out… or anything.”

“...You’d want your fe-ellow toons to help you when you’re hur-ur-hurt and scared, wouldn’t you?”

The Toons do nothing.

“...Right. I’d h-hope so. At the mo-oment it may be all f-fun and games… and I wish it st-stayed that way. B-B-But we.. all know that isn’t the case.”

The Mechanician sighs, twitching more heavily than before.

“...”

“W-Well… perhaps this experience has.. given you some food for thought.”

The Mechanician pauses, seeing an opening in the roof from the battle. She looks at the Toons one last time, expression saddened.

“Now… i-if… if you’ll ex-excuse me. Seems… this repairwoman… n-needs some repairing, herself. Please… if you can help it… d-don’t come back.”

The Mechanician moves to fly away, but one of the toons walks ahead of the group, pausing near her. She pauses, watching the toon for a moment, before nodding.

“It’s okay, I understand. I-I-IIIIIIIIIII-”

“..I forgive you.”

The Mechanician flies away.

Ending Cutscene (Defeat)

The Mechanician reaches to her power core, hand hovering over it shakily. She is clearly in immense pain, her panic now reaching a boiling point as she realizes how injured she really is. Suddenly, her hands clench into fists and she quakes through the pain, knocking the toons off their feet.

“STOP!!!! THAT.. IS QUITE.. ENOUGH!!!”

She shakes her head, pulling her hands to her chest protectively and looking at the Toons as they rise to their feet.

“Why…?! I’ve been clear from the beginning that I didn’t want to fight! But… B-But you just won’t LISTEN!”

Her hands rise, holding her head in distress.

“Wh-What do you even get from this… from hurting me?!”

The Toons attack.

“Gh-!! ……Heartless… y-you’re all heartless!”

The Mechanician pauses, seeing an opening in the roof from the battle. She looks at the Toons one last time, expression disgusted.

“I see now… w-why the Chairman insists we fight you T-T-Toons. You’re just as cr-cruel as some of those suits can be.”

The Mechanician flies away.

Notes

[Sorry no specific Cheats past the usual ‘Cog Capacity’ and ‘Lure Resistance’ ones because my brain is kind of melting right now lol. Also no specific damages listed with each attack besides what I already said above about the minimum and maximum for the same reason.]

Another note about cheats, I know for certain she’d have a sort of healing cheat. Knowing her personality she’d end up healing herself, her allies AND the toons. She just wanna be frens :(

Attacks

Guilt Trip

Water Cooler

Brain Storm

Rolodex

Her employee ID is based on the approximate year the first motorized vacuum was invented.

Excluding her nickname "Chelly", her first, middle and last name are all based on various companies that produce vacuums.

I was initially going to have it that all rewards could be used, but with how cog Chelly is, she'd do anything to ensure that pink slips wouldn't be used. She thinks the canons would hurt the cogs, or that someone, toon or cog, might get hit in the crossfire.

also that 3rd drawing, the transparent one. sticker :)))))))))))

[l56895]

Get to know your fanfic writer

Thanks @jamilas-pen for the tag!

When did you post your first ever fanfic?

It would have been some time in early 2005 on Fanfiction.net

I’d essentially been writing fanfiction in notebooks in the 90s but before then our computer was in a shared computer room and we had 30 minutes of dial up allowance per sibling per day so I never browsed the internet enough to understand what fanfiction was and that people would want to read things. I was just having fun!

Then Livejournal (and later AO3) happened and the rest, as they say, was history.

First Character(s) you wrote for?

Ash and Misty in Pokémon (largely unpublished and just for fun until 2007) and then my first published fanfic was for Paine and Nooj from Final Fantasy X-2

Main character(s) you’re currently writing for:

I do still love a bit of Pokémon fanfiction. But mainly nowadays I’m writing David/Patrick (Schitt’s Creek), Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper) and, occasionally, Tim/Lucy (The Rookie). I’m also working through a very long (for me) story based on a series of books I read as a child (Animal Ark) so we can add Mandy Hope and James Hunter to the list even if I take massive hiatuses on it.

I have severe ADHD though so I tend to be very flighty with fandoms. The ones that have stuck around are ones that I have essentially trauma bonded myself to (I can date my periods of stress to when a particular piece of media came out because I’m still obsessed with it decades later!)

Character(s) you haven’t written about before but plan on writing about soon:

I’m not sure there are any… I tend to just throw myself in!

EDIT: I never did write the Basil/Polly Fawlty Towers fic I outlined in 2010 while camping at work when I was snowed in. I have also considered writing a Daphne/Niles Frasier fic but have never got round to it. Because I am 50 at heart.

Fandom(s) you’re currently writing for:

Schitt’s Creek

Heartstopper

Pokémon

Animal Ark

Platonic pairing(s) you currently write for:

I don’t tend to write a lot of platonic stuff. I did enjoy recently writing Patrick Brewer & Ronnie. I have also been known to write tiny snippet stories set in the Discworld and they always involve something platonic.

Romantic pairing(s) you currently write for:

Nick/Charlie

David/Patrick

Ash/Misty

James Hunter/Mandy Hope

Your top 3 tags on AO3 (if you post your works on AO3):

Friends to lovers

Canon compliant

Drabble

Your current platform where you post your works:

AO3

Post something from a wip:

I’m stuck on a scene that needs to go between the most recently published one and this one so have a random scene from the Animal Ark fanfiction that I am writing purely for my own enjoyment:

The photo he had landed on was one she hadn't seen in years; she remembered when she flicked through the facebook album when they got home that it hadn't even registered as something she should dwell on, the trip had been full of too much safari excitement. But now… she dwelled. The two of them were sat, questionably close, on a bed in a wood panelled hotel room; his chin propped up on her shoulder as they read a book together- the title had been lost to memory- and his arm braced behind her. She remembered a kid from their travel party, young and excitable like she had once been, taking the photo before either of them realised she was there and it ending up nestled in a photo album that was otherwise posed and purposeful. A little secret anomaly. After, when the flash had made them jump and they broke apart, she remembered the feeling of guilt, of being caught in the act of something that she couldn't quite identify. He hadn't ever come away with them again, life had got busier, and she never told him about the hot, quivering feeling that had overtaken her in the seconds before they were interrupted. How, if he had come just a little closer, she would have closed the gap and kissed him. It would have been a first for both of them, and it would have been clumsy and awkward, but she would have done it without a moment’s hesitation if she hadn't been startled by that camera. She had forgotten about it, truthfully, for a long time, but now the memory of that unfamiliar heat rising up in came flooding back when he stepped closer to her.

And, just in case, another from a little Heartstopper scene I started in lieu of getting up and doing anything productive at 8am this morning:

Charlie’s voice, more like music in his ear than the sounds he had just created, played somewhere nearby. Close, but not close enough until he stepped forward and peered down at Nick. From this angle, the glow of the neon sign cast shadows across the angles of his face; highlighted the fullness of his lips in a way that made Nick feel hot. He looked away, tried to inject something that would sound like humour in to his voice.

“I’m trying!”

“Here, budge up, let me help.”

I always feel awkward about tagging anyone so, I tag anyone who wants to answer!

[torchickentacos]

AG Watchthrough Episode 1: Get the Show on the Road! AG001. Long Post, I promise they won't all be this long, this is AG commentary georg, outlier.

Well. Outlier until contest episodes. I won't apologize for who I become once we hit those. Anyways, RE: above. There's usually not TOO MUCH of a plot in AG eps to even comment on, hence this post as an outlier for the pilot episode. So! Starting a full AG watch. I have never fully watched all of AG by sitting down with the intent of watching all of it. I have seen all of it, but not in a directed, intentional, in-order way. Changing that today to really see how it holds up as a whole outside of the episodes I tend to gravitate towards! I don't think I'll realistically follow through with this for more than a week. Going to be honest. BUT I HOPE TO! We'll see. The plan is to watch episodes in bulk but schedule posts once a day. Posts will likely get pretty long for some episodes, short for others, because AG is wildly varying in 'things to talk about' episode to episode. Anyways, episode 1: Get the Show on the Road! AG001.

Side note. I think I will put this in relevant character tags if I have any commentary on specific characters. One, so I can find my own posts. But two, I know as someone who likes characters who don't always get a whole lot, it's SO EXCITING to see people talking about them, so on the off chance there's, like, a Morrison fan out there, I think I should put it there??? Like, I'll read Hoenn Coordinator commentary from 2013 to feel something, so I want to be able to provide that on my end, too. I'd be heartbroken if someone did an in depth ep-by-ep analysis on them but didn't tag it so nobody could see it. ANYWAYS!!! I'll play it by ear and do it when it feels relevant and not just 'yeah this person showed up, I guess'. I don't want to be annoying but also you can just block the #ag watchthrough tag. Or just block me, I guess lmao.

So, the episode opens where the last episode of Master Quest left off (OS274, Hoenn Alone). Basically, Pikachu has electric rabies and May is getting her first pokemon.

The episode opens with May giving her internal monologue/narration about starting her journey. She hits her head on a tree, which may explain some of her decisions later in the series (/joke), but she's on her way to Birch Lab to get her first pokemon. Does she want to? Not really, but she DOES want to travel and this is a way to accomplish that. This is instance one of what I'm dubbing 'Early AG Girlboss May'. (Basically, in Early AG May was more of a go-getter. Or rather, she had more agency and opportunities to get her own way. Early AG May is far more... frankly, shown to be intelligent, which drops off rather quickly in favor of big of heart, dumb of ass May [whom I do love dearly]. I think it's largely done to emphasize Ash's mentor role and her student role, but I digress). I can and will make a separate post on this if anyone wants my thoughts on her character inconsistencies. But for now, just know she's not a fan of pokemon but will deal with it to have a chance to travel the world. She has a goal, she will get it done and use what's at her disposal. Anyways, behold. A girlboss in her natural habitat.

Now, we switch to Ash and Pikachu, alone and Brock and Misty-less (well, until the mirage special. I'll... get to that when the time comes, I guess...sigh).

We also find out Jessie's been to Littleroot before. I, uh, don't know if that was ever expanded upon??????? WAIT same thing after iirc spontaneous combusken where she makes some comment about young love and heartache and stuff. Jessie has some weird backstory in Hoenn (well, SC is Kanto but yk) that I don't remember ever hearing more about? Huh. Anyways. You'll notice a pattern of this in AG, of random interesting details being brought up and immediately forgotten.

Back to Ash. No pokemon center in the town, so he's headed to the Lab, where May's headed too. Birch is 'out conducting an experiment', so Ash just hangs around until he can go to the lab.

IN COMES BIRCH WITH THE JEEP!!! Ash's uber is here.

After giving Pikachu a quick look-over, Birch explains that Pikachu can't release its electricity regularly so it's all building up and getting a bit explodey. Apparently it's due to magnetic field exposure, and I won't question the science or lack thereof. Birch, fascinatingly, doesn't question when Ash explains that Pikachu was strapped to a magnet. Anyways, Birch's driving remains amusing to me.

Look at him go. This is fine and normal. Average Maryland driver.

Anyways, they get to the lab and hook Pikachu up to, quote, 'A device that will rid Pikachu of all its trapped electricity'. It goes bad. Another pattern you'll notice in AG- lots of explosions. Not just Team Rocket blasting off (solarbeam, go), either, just... lots of general, everyday explosions.

So, Pikachu quite literally blows a hole in the side of the lab and escapes in a frenzied state. Ash runs after Pikachu with no other pokemon, Birch follows Ash with the three Hoenn starters, and Joshua the lab assistant is like "WAIT what about that girl we're going to give her first pokemon to- oh, okay bye I'll figure that out myself then".

Team Rocket's... here, I guess. Another AG pattern we'll notice. They show up. they blast off. they leave. rinse and repeat. Jessie is depressed this time around I guess.

Anyways, says Pikachu could explode at any sudden disturbance, so that's a hell of a way to start off here. New season with the beloved mascot? Yeah, he's about to explode. Sorry about that. So, Ash and Birch split up to look for the imminently detonative rodent.

Switching over to May now, who shows up at the lab. Joshua explains that Birch has an emergency in the mountains to deal with and asks May to wait there.

May does not wait there ("I've never been much good at waiting! Bye!"). Joshua uses one of his, like, four lines to complain about kids these days. Instance two of Early AG Girlboss May, having, uh, an actual choice that she can make that isn't just travelling with the group in the back until a contest episode and then going back to travelling with the group in the back. Brock and Max get this FAR worse, though, a topic for a few episodes later.

SO. Birch and Ash are split up looking for Pikachu still. Birch slips and falls and we get a reference to the opening of RS(E, but E has Zigzagoon iirc), with Birch being bullied by puppies. Take note of May's bike in the back. Last we'll be seeing of it. I wonder if she got a new one in the johto arc that we never got to see. Sigh.

We aren't quite halfway done with the episode yet.

Anyways, Birch asks her to help him out and to choose a pokeball. She chooses Mudkip, who promptly water guns her in the face. I guess Mudkip is like a horse or something, it can sense fear. Or rather, it can sense dry apathy and mild dislike. Birch directs Mudkip to use watergun on the Poochyena, which it does.

Ash finds Pikachu and is promptly electrocuted. Badly. But he's fine.

...He's fine, right?

Birch and May see the thunderbolt and rush on over. We get this line from Birch, which admittedly did make me laugh.

"Pikachu. It might explode."

LIKE. OKAY THEN! Way to tell it like it is, bud. Then, seeing Ash, he yells, "PIKACHU COULD EXPLODE AT ANY MOMENT!" So, things are going absolutely perfectly great here. Pikachu panics at the noises and runs right off of a cliff, and Ash dives right after it.

We are interrupted by who's that pokemon.

It's Lanturn. 👍

Ash is falling, he catches Pikachu and a branch and is dangling. Birch and May get a rope and pull him up. Pikachu bites Ash and feels bad about it. Ash doesn't really acknowledge the random person there (May) but to be fair, he's got other stuff going on.

Team Rocket shows up. Pikachu blasts them off and releases electricity that way. Get REALLY USED to the team rocket portions being blown through like this. Just trust me on this, I'm doing us all a favor here. AG TR is REALLY FUNNY when they're funny!!! But... all the great one liners can't make up for the repetition of AG TR. Moving on. Pikachu feels better now (well, he passed out but isn't sick anymore), and....

Yep. Bike barbecue'd. 2 for 2 now, we all saw it coming, there it is!!!

They go back to the lab. May eavesdrops on Birch, Ash, and Joshua, and knocks over a flowerpot, alerting them to her presence. She introduces herself and Birch asks May to choose her first pokemon. Ash asks if Treecko is a water type. It is not. May chooses Torchic!!!!! Birch tells May that if she works hard, she can be an even better trainer than her father. I'm sure we all know who that is but it's meant to be a mystery at this point so let's all act intrigued.

I'm going to expedite the end of the episode. May inspects her bike, it's dead, she goes in and sees Ash asleep next to Pikachu and seems to think their bond is nice, even if she herself doesn't care for pokemon. She just watches them through the cracked door, slightly weird but go off queen, and she attempts to bond with Torchic.

NOW. TAKE A LOOK AT THIS. THIS IS GOING TO BE A RECURRING THEME. MAY IS TALLER THAN ASH IN THIS EPISODE. ALL THROUGHOUT AG, THE HEIGHTS ARE HILARIOUSLY DIFFERENT. I will be pointing out amusing examples of this. AG001: May is tallest. I am making a spreadsheet and keeping track. This gets far funnier when Morrison and Drew come into the picture and we get to just watch it wildly vary every single episode.

Now, Ash AND May are sent off to register for the Hoenn League in Oldale.

SO, this is interesting and another instance of Early AG Girlboss May. May doesn't want to go alone on foot, and her bike is ruined. So, she plays this pretensive game of "oh, my bike is ruined (thanks to you), and I don't want to travel alone on foot, if only there was some solution- OH I KNOW! Let's go together, I happen to know the way, it's no trouble at all, shall we?". This interests me because it shows... manipulation is the wrong word here, but again, like, it shows pretense?? that May generally lacks once her characterization firms up a bit. They're still figuring out writing her at this point, I guess, and we see her be more calculated and thinking and using things and situations and people to achieve her goals. Again, this does drop off into dumbass territory before too long, but it is interesting to see and to think about. When writing May I try to strike a balance- more emotionally intuitive and more of a go-getter like early ag, but not in that premeditated sort of way. She's interesting with the amount of wiggle room you have in her personality, because it simply isn't the most consistent. You get to pick and choose a bit more.

But the episode ends, and May and Ash head on over to Oldale town to register for the league.

End of episode metrics:

Height ranking: May > Ash.

More metrics will be added as we go on. I considered an explosion counter but I would lose track. We're already at like, six /not joking, deadass.

[blueeandyellowmakesgreen]

apocalypse byler part 9: 2/2 is here!! thank you for waiting!!

,, hmm okay. i said this was gonna end sweetly AND IT DOES but it ended up being a lot more angstier than i was planning wiajwjja

tag list: @ineffable-hubbiewubbies @loveqbrl @strangeswift

anyway hope you all enjoy this continuation!

''Why did you lie about the painting?''

Will’s heart drops at the question. He curses himself, goddamnit, he thought they dropped it already. The fist gripped on his blanket only grows tighter, his nails digging through the fabric and piercing his skin. He feels himself coil; his eyes misty. He has no idea why he had to feel like crying now out of all places. He was so confident up to this point that he would rather die than let Mike know; but at the same time he’s screaming; Please push me. Please continue to push me. Don’t forget about it.

Push me until I cry.

Will didn’t want to lie to himself anymore; he wants to talk about it with Mike so bad. He wants to be honest, like how Mike has been trying to be lately. When did it get so difficult to be truthful anyway? It was so easy before, and now he feels like he has to watch his words with Mike. And he can tell how hurt his friend is by that. But he doesn’t know. He has no clue how much it was killing him to keep him at a distance. He can only wish he was as strong as Mike.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t a world where Will wins. So he puts on the most stoic voice he could muster, swallowing deeply. ‘’Is that what this was about? So you could corner me?’’ He spits out, his words coated with venom.

‘’I just wanted to continue our conversation from before.’’

‘’What’s there to continue? I remember it ending pretty clearly.’’

‘’Will… come on. Do you really wanna do this?’’

No. ‘’God, just…Please, forget it, Mike.’’ Will tries to shuffle more to his side, straying farther away from his best friend.

‘’Why should I?’’

‘’What does it matter to you anyway?!’’

To Will’s surprise, Mike doesn’t retort instantly like he expected. All he was greeted with was silence; though if he’s being honest it made him feel rather uneasy, not hearing Mike’s loud voice. He’s tempted to turn around to see what’s the deal, until the silence is broken once again that’s worth making Will’s chest feel heavy.

‘’What doe it matter..?’’ Mike’s voice cracks as he quotes him. He sounded like he was in disbelief. More importantly, he sounded hurt. Will hears Mike get up from where he was lying down, making Will turn around to finally face him.

‘’H-How…’’ Mike frantically walks around the room, with Will’s eyes anxiously following him. Mike runs his hands through his hair as he walks. He then looks at Will with an expression that was almost offended, then wore the most amused grin on his face; it’s as if Will suggested something completely ridiculous. He exhales out a laugh. ‘’..How…could you say that to me?’’

Will was at a loss for words.

‘’-No, you’re right. Of course it doesn’t matter.’’ Mike interrupts Will, his tone full of sarcasm as he waves his hands in the air dismissively. ‘’It doesn’t matter that my best friend lied to me.’’

‘’Hey, I didn’t lie!’’ Will retorted quickly.

‘’Hah, didn’t you?’’ Mike puts his hands on his hips. ‘’So El did ‘commission’ that painting? Which, okay, was on me to not doubt, because how the hell could she have known my class was a paladin when I never uttered a word about D&D to her, but hey! She could have learned that from you, right?’’ Mike worded it like a question, but it was in an accusatory tone, his hand leaning towards Will.

Will had no words to reply or rebut. All he could do was look down at his fingers and start fidgeting nervously.

‘’And, uh, if what I said that day wasn’t enough of a hint, then..heh,’’ Mike starts laughing again, tears starting to stream down his face, which Mike tries to wipe swiftly. It was too late though; Will already caught a glimpse at it. The fact he was the one who caused that was going to haunt him for years.

‘’..I hate how useless I am. I thought I made it pretty fucking clear I felt like I didn’t matter to the people I cared about the most. And maybe I should just go ahead and..’’

‘’Mike..’’ Will whimpers.

‘’Then you said..that speech.’’ Mike sniffs. ‘’That stupid..stupid speech about me being the heart. No, it wasn’t stupid. Far from it, actually. Ugh.’’ Mike rubs his eyes. ‘’It’s just what you said, of how I made ‘her’ not feel like a mistake. Of how she needed me.’’ Mike looks away from Will. Will looks intently, hoping he was communicating well enough to beg Mike to look back at him. Mike as if reading Will’s mind, does just that. Their eyes lock.

‘’I remembered everything, Will. It was when you helped me realize that…maybe I did have a use. That maybe for once, I wouldn’t let anyone down. That I wasn’t a useless piece of shit like I thought I was. Knowing I was important to someone was all that mattered.’’ Mike puts his hands on his pockets, leaning on the dining table.

Will opens his mouth to respond, until Mike sighs shakily. ‘’And now I find out it was all a fucking lie, so…’’ Mike inhales before speaking again, standing as upright as he could, but he slumps back to his original position. His shoulders shake, trying to withhold his tears.

‘’So yeah, Will. It matters a whole fucking lot to me.’’

‘’…I meant it.’’ Will says as he props himself up, breaking the deafening silence between them.

‘’Meant what?’’

‘’You being needed.’’

‘’…By El?’’

Will feels himself freeze. So Mike did have an inkling.

‘’No. Not by El.’’

Mike stares at him for a bit, until he walks back to Will, sitting next to him with his eyes fully focused. ‘’..That’s not enough.’’

‘’I…’’ Will felt himself hesitate, until Mike was close enough to invade his personal space and their faces inches away.

‘’Will. You’re okay.’’

He feels Mike’s fingers snake through his own, eyes still focused on him. Though his gaze was intense, it was also earnest. It’s as if Mike is not allowing him to run away this time, and Will couldn’t be more thankful for that. Mike made him feel brave. He could practically hear his determination, and it was saying; ‘This is the night we’re going to break this cycle between us.’’

Will squeezes Mike’s hand back.

‘’I meant it when I said you didn’t make me feel like a mistake,’’ Mike nods gently, his smile growing already. With that sight, Will could already feel his walls breaking free. ‘’I was pushing you away because I was scared of losing you. I felt like I already did.’’ Will’s tears flood his face, his voice growing shakier. Mike’s grip gets tighter, serving as Will’s anchor. It helped him immensely.

‘’When really, I don’t know what I’d do if I did. I can’t lose you, because I…’’

Mike stares, but Will notices he’s leaning forward with every word he says. Will continues, voice pitching higher as he cries.

‘’I need you, Mike. Because…’’

‘’Will.’’ Mike says quietly.

‘’Y-Yeah?’’ He whispers, leaning forward as well. Just a little more and…

‘’Truth or Truth?’’

Will stops where he is. He blinks. ‘’What?’’

‘’Simple question. Truth or Truth?’’

Will is stunned. ‘’I-Isn’t it your turn?’’ He manages to stutter out.

‘’Shut up, it’s my game.’’ Mike leans back, his normal demeanor back. The former feels himself utterly disappointed. Was Mike playing with him? Was this all just an elaborate prank?

‘’It was never your game.’’ Will says flatly, irritation creeping up in his skin.

Mike raises his eyebrow. ‘’Uh, yeah, it is. I can interchange turns, since it’s my game. the rules where both truths can be interchanged with dare, but you’re welcome I didn’t apply that rule here due to our situation. Ergo, it’s liberated from copyright and is still my game.’’ He smirks, satisfied at his explanation.

Will blinks again. ‘’..I’m surprised I understood all of that.’’ He has no idea why he was indulging his best friend after the asshole stunt he just pulled.

‘’Of course you can. You’re the smartest next to Dustin.’’

Will still finds himself glaring daggers at Mike, despite still bantering with him. ‘’So, like..just fuck Lucas, then?’’

Mike points a finger at him. ‘’Don’t change the subject, and most importantly don’t tell him I told you that. Truth or Truth?’’ He asks again, voice raising from impatience.

‘’I’m scared of what’s coming next.’’

Mike rolls his eyes and groans loudly. ‘’Will, Jesus Christ, just pick one.’’

Fine. Will didn’t need to see Mike to know he was grinning to himself. Little shit. ‘’Truth.’’

‘’Can I kiss you?’’

Will’s angry demeanor changes immediately. Of course. This is so Mike Wheeler to do, and he finds himself grinning ear to ear at it. ‘’That’s not a truth question.’’ He laughs lightly. Mike joins him in giggling, and they stare at each other once again.

‘’…So can I?’’

‘’Yeah.’’ Will says, a little too eagerly and fast. Mike chuckles and leans forward to close the remaining space between them, their lips smashing together. It was messy, and not exactly the most ideal situation for any normal person; but it was perfect. For them, it was nothing short of it.

Both can agree that despite the uncomfortable situation they find themselves in, it was the best game of Truth or Truth yet.

[aboutdragons]

the thing about dragons - interlude one

in which death really is the next great adventure.

Interludes are effectively supplementary materials for ttad. They will expand on worldbuilding and the goings-on outside of Lyra’s scope. As of right now I’m not sure if the interludes will be only about Aemma in the afterlife and the worldbuilding relating to the gods, their past, and their reason for bringing Lyra to try to change the future, or if some will take place elsewhere.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43121373/chapters/108369012

Scribblehub: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/699684/the-thing-about-dragons/

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/331546036-the-thing-about-dragons

◄○○○►

Read the Summary, Tags & Warnings as linked on the page to know what to expect.

warnings: death, afterlife, religion, gods (as speaking characters), existential musings, child loss, mental health issues, eldritch fuckeryTM

wordcount: 7,673

Read the chapter under the cut.  

“You’re plotting something,” is the first thing Shrykos says as they sit down on the bench next to him. Balerion looks at them out of the corner of his eye. “I know you. This is your plotting face.”

“You make it sound like I’m about to collapse a civilization.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time!”

Balerion huffs, amused, and looks at the fractured sky above them. “Aemma Arryn will die soon.”

“Oh. You were at the Waytree recently?”

“Yes. Tyraxes was there, whatever she was doing, so I figured I’d ask a few questions. Maybe she saw things,” he shudders. “She had. Predictably centered around Lyra, like the tree wants us to follow her future now.”

Shrykos turns to look at him, eyes sad. “Don’t overdo it. Meleys is still at our tails for bringing Lyra in. And don’t encourage Tyraxes to go there!”

“Meleys worries too much,” Balerion huffs. “Sometimes the knowledge of the future is necessary to divert the worst of it; and even if not, have you tried to stop Tyraxes?”

Shrykos face sours. They tried before. All of them tried before. They shake their head.

“But Aemma Arryn won’t be influencing that future anymore. So let me ask again; what are you plotting?”

“Damn, didn’t I knock you off the topic enough?”

“Never. Speak.”

Balerion sighs. “I’m going to meet her.”

“Personally?” Shrykos jolts up, turns to look at him. “But you—Meeting souls isn’t your job? You’re only supposed to make sure everything goes smoothly—”

“I’m going to ask her if she wants to come here,” Balerion says, cutting Shrykos off. Shrykos narrows their eyes at him. “What? It’s been done before!”

“Yes, and now Tyraxes has a minion. Do you want a minion too?”

“No! I just—I want her to be happy.”

“Happy, huh,” Shrykos says with a glint in their eyes. “Very well.”

Balerion shudders. “It’s not like that!”

“Sure. Keep telling yourself that. I’ll be saying ‘I told you so’ soon enough.”

“You will not!” he protests hotly, cheeks darkening.

“Keep telling yourself that.”

○

It’s peaceful when she opens her eyes, even though she doesn’t think it should be at all, let alone be peaceful. She gets up slowly, reveling in the newfound lightness of her body, in the lack of pain that comes with it—that she thinks should come with it. She looks at her hands, only to find them translucent and faintly aglow. A dress of misty, white gossamer hugs her body and flutters in the non-existent wind, melting into the blindingly white nothing all around her.

Like this the pain seems like a hazy, half-remembered nightmare fading by the second until she’s free of it, and free of the detached sort of painful weightlessness that was her goodbye from the world.

The bitterness at the back of her throat remains.

“Hello, Aemma.”

She whirls around, feeling as if she solidifies more with the motion, to find the source of the voice.

He materializes out of the shadows that aren’t there, red, slit-pupiled eyes looking at her from blackness first, framed with thick eyelashes. Then his face, pallid and marked with a spiderweb of black veins, uncannily perfect like that of a sculpted doll, dotted with scales at the ridges, crowned with wicked horns of charred bone, and framed with glossy black hair reaching past his waist. Then, the rest of him; broad-shouldered and clad in ceremonial Valyrian funerary robes, the kind nobody uses anymore since the Doom and Aemma only knows to recognize because Viserys raved about the traditional dress enough.

She thinks she can even read the runes etched on the collar in silver thread, knowledgeable enough in Valryian script as she is, but she has to crane her head up to a very uncomfortable angle to be able to even see them, let alone look the dragon-corpse-doll man in the eye. His eyelids and lips are painted black, she notices, and it only makes him look paler, adding to the haunted look.

She thinks she should be unsettled by his appearance, but she can’t find it in herself to be.

He’s beautiful. Too beautiful, yes, but in a way so mesmerizing it’s difficult to look away.

A long, scaly black tail catches her eye, swishing among the misty white fog covering their feet. If she didn’t know better, she’d say it was wagging.

Do dragons even wag their tails?

Do gods?

“Do I know you?” she asks, though she thinks she does. She knows of him, at least. The dragon-corpse-doll-man shakes his head, and crouches down so that they’re mostly on eye-level. It’s kind of him, Aemma thinks.

“You do not know me, but you do know of me. I am Balerion; Keeper of Death and Guide of Souls. And you, Aemma Arryn, are dead.”

She looks at her hands again, almost solid now but still somewhat translucent.

She knows she’s died, but can no longer recall a single detail of how, though she thinks she also remembers the events that led to it. It’s an odd kind of sense. The terror, betrayal, and pain that she ended with, though, escape her grasp firmly. She remembers Viserys ordering her cut open, and then nothing of substance.

She knows what happened after, but she can’t recall any of it if she tries.

It’s a memory she’s glad to lose.

The context, however—

“Viserys killed me,” she says and looks up at Balerion with newfound disbelief shining in her eyes, and she feels as if it only truly sinks then. “My own husband. He claimed to love me, and he killed me. Ordered me cut open, and he knew it would kill me—”

She’s shaking now, and she doesn’t know what she feels. Shock? Anger? Disgust?

Loathing, maybe, and then all of those too. She liked Viserys less and less with each pregnancy, because he saw it kill her little by little each time and insisted on trying again, and again, and again, and she loved him (she thought she loved him, because what else was she supposed to do?) so she agreed, all for his foolish little dream even though it ruined her body, brittled her bones, blackened her blood, sapped away her very life each and every single time—

Hand on her shoulder, grounding. She blinks the haze away, cranes her head up.

For someone who looks like a haunted corpse, Balerion’s hand is very warm.

“He won’t trouble you anymore,” he says with a finality that helps Aemma calm down. He is the God of Death, after all, and the afterlife is his domain. If he says she’s free of Viserys, then it must be true. He’s the only one who can make it true. “Walk with me?”

She nods, and in a blink the vast nothingness around morphs into a forest of crystal trees and little glowing stars frozen all around them. Ocean ripples above their heads, warm sand under their feet, everything bathed in dusk.

Balerion stands up again, towering over her, and the fact that she doesn’t even reach his elbow with the top of her head makes her a little annoyed. His touch lingers, and Aemma doesn’t mind. It surprises her a little; she most often feels uncomfortable with it.

She thinks she should be feeling something stronger about this whole situation, but all she feels is peace and relief that she’s finally free, and some weightless numbness. Stronger emotions elude her in favor of a calm sense of acceptance. It must be a death thing, she decides. Makes it easier to think rationally and accept that her mortal harrowing is finally over.

Gods, she wasn’t even thirty.

But her emotions aren't gone, and they grow stronger with every passing moment. The bitter taste at the back of her throat magnifies when she remembers names and faces of those who pushed her into the role of a wife much too soon, and then shunned her for her body being too young to become a mother.

“Is this the afterlife?” she asks as she looks around. It's pretty, but in a barely-tangible, dreamlike way. For a life after life, it's rather lacking.

“No,” Balerion says. “This is the space in-between life and death, dreams and reality. Here go dreamers in-between dreams and waking world, and here go souls in-between life and passing on. Here mortals can meet the divine. We just call it Crossroads.”

“Oh. It’s… very pretty here, even with the ocean over my head. Which is a little scary. And, now that you mention dreams… I think I remember being here before.”

A woman in red who would come to her at her lowest, soothe and comfort her when nobody else would. Warm hands in her hair and soothing words in her ears as she wailed at her fate, because she wasn’t permitted to let her true feelings slip in the waking world.

It’ll be over soon.

Red eyes, slit pupils, scales on her face—

She looks at Balerion a little startled but the memory fades faster than it came.

“People typically don’t remember coming here. Though sometimes one of us will call someone here, for whatever reason.”

Balerion looks at her. He looks a little like the dream, she thinks, but with those red, slit-pupiled eyes, it feels much more like looking at Viserys’ dragon, when he still lived, but somehow—more. Different. Much smaller and shaped almost like a man, but there’s a kind of power emanating from Balerion that Aemma has never felt before. It feels like the ocean on a sunny day; calm, soothing, and seemingly infinite on the surface, and wholly capable of drowning all life underneath.

And who knows what the darkness under its surface hides at all?

This is no dragon, and this certainly is no mere man; the only thing Aemma thinks he can be, is a god.

Of this she is certain like she’s never been certain of anything else before.

Aemma thinks she should be more awed or at least surprised to find him actually real, instead of the calm acceptance she feels. She did genuinely worship the Flames, and Balerion was one of the most important out of the Fourteen with his domain over death, next to Meleys and her blood magic, Vermithor and his riches, and Gaelithox and her fire.

And yet here she is. Not very awed, and mostly annoyed at his height, if a little put off by his ghastly appearance, though she’s getting used to it rapidly. 

She thinks she rather likes this sort of casual acceptance.

“Do you visit every soul that comes here?” she asks, because she has a feeling that this is a bit of a special situation.

“No,” Balerion says, confirming her suspicions. “Almost none, in fact. They go directly to the afterlife, and I may greet them there, or I may not.”

“Then why are you here with me?”

“Because I have a proposition for you.”

She cranes her neck to look up at him again. “Which is?”

“You can move on to the afterlife, as you were meant to,” he says. “Or, you can come with me to the realm of the gods, to watch over what remains of the Valyrian bloodline. Only few are ever given this chance.”

Aemma wrings her hands together, considers it.

It is a very tempting offer. Moving on means potentially meeting the souls of other people—people she’s certain she doesn’t want to meet. Chiefly among them her father, Rodrik Arryn, who married her off to Viserys at two-and-ten just after her first blood, and Jaehaerys and Alysanne who orchestrated her misery in the first place, and Baelon who scorned her for not giving his son a male heir, blind to how it slowly killed her, miscarriage after miscarriage, running her body and soul.

Not even the prospect of meeting her mother, who died bringing her into this world, could truly tempt her into going. Not under the threat of meeting any of the architects of her suffering.

Still—

“Why me? I’m… No-one special.”

Balerion stutters a bit, looks away, around. It’s—kind of endearing, actually. His tail is thumping at the sand; he doesn’t seem to notice. She giggles before she can stop herself, and his cheeks darken. It makes him look almost alive.

“You are!” he insists with almost childish fervour. “And even if you deny it—I, you—you deserve better, and that’s that.”

She stops herself from giggling anymore, but she can’t deny she’s still amused at his fumbling. It’s… Oddly ordinary, this situation, even though she’s dead, he’s a god, and they’re somewhere unspecified and magical. Cute, almost, if he wasn’t so tall and corpse-like and rather intimidating for it, but Aemma finds herself wary of him less with each passing moment as he keeps acting so personable.

More normal than most lords she’s met, in fact, and isn’t that a realization.

“Of course, should you dislike it, sending you to the afterlife anyway won’t be difficult, it’s not permanent or anything—”

“Alright.”

“And you can—Alright?”

“Yes. I… There are dead people I do not want to seat all if I can help it. I fear things might get violent if I had. There is… a lot of anger in me, I realize, because I could’ve been spared so much misery if they made better choices. I think I would punch someone. Or strangle someone, really. Several people in fact. Can the dead even hurt each other?”

Balerion cocks his head. “There are ways but it’s complicated, since souls aren’t corporeal.”

“Shame. And I do wish to watch over those who yet live. Rhaenyra, Daelyra, Daemon—I wish I could be there with them, but cheering them on from here will have to do.”

But not Viserys, who she carefully leaves out of her words. He caused her too much hurt, and she doesn’t want to darken her thoughts with him anymore. Death was meant to set her free of him, and she will see that through. Balerion will aid her in seeing that through.

And there is a certain sense of giddiness here too, that she gets to do this. Maybe because she was scarcely ever allowed to make her own choices before, and certainly none so big. She was always strung along by her family and her duty. Her wedding, her pregnancies, her life; even her dresses and hair were orchestrated by others most of the time. Even her hobbies were dictated by what Viserys wanted to do, which was build his city miniature and delve into Valyrian books

(What did she like to do? She wasn’t sure she knew.)

Balerion nods and extends his hand to her, and she takes it without hesitation. His hand is big, dwarfing hers easily, and his claws are long and sharp but she’s not very bothered by it. She’s more fascinated by just how dark the veins in his wrists are against the pallor, and the slight scaly texture to his skin that she notices; almost like a snake she saw once in a garden when she was maybe nine. It only serves to set him apart from humans further.

(She was never allowed to be fascinated by these things. Never allowed to even try for a dragon of her own. It doesn’t mean she never wanted.)

○

It feels like she’s forgetting something.

No matter.

○

The doorway leads them to a gloomy corridor made of black basalt, with pillars etched with Valyrian runes and floor of cracked diorite filled in with gold and polished so much Aemma can see herself as if in a mirror when she looks down.

It’s cold, she realizes.

Or, it should be cold. She doesn’t quite notice how she only feels it when she realizes she should.

Her feet, though not fully materialized, are bare and cold, and for a moment, she imagines them in her favorite rabbit-fur slippers, soft and warm—

And then they’re there, blue ribbons and all.

She stops, lifts her skirt up a little, and raises her leg, to look at her slippers in amazement. But those are her slippers; the very same ones Rhaenyra accidentally knocked into the fireplace last year.

“Just how—?”

“It’s one of the things you can do now,” Balerion tells her, sounding rather amused. There’s a small smile on his lips, too. She doesn’t pout at him, but she does huff. “I’ll explain in a moment, let’s get out of the Crossroads first. We get the most traffic here.”

“Very well, lead the way.”

He offers her his arm, and she takes it, and he matches his pace to hers, which is definitely quite nice. With how long his legs are, he could easily move at twice her pace.

Outside—

Aemma has no words to describe it other than utterly breathtaking. She lets go of Balerion’s arm and rushes forward like an overly eager girlchild, head whipping around and her hair with it as she tries to take in all the sights, and colors, and sounds.

In front of her is a sprawling valley surrounded by a wall of mountain ranges, towers of stone jutting out of them at an equal distance from each other, seemingly merged with the mountains at their bases; when she counts, there’s fourteen of them. Inside the valley there is a sprawling lake fed by multiple rivers running from the mountain ranges, dotted by patches of trees. That, in itself, is somewhat ordinary for someone who lived in the Vale of Arryn, like Aemma.

However, the multitude of fractured islands swaying above the lake is not ordinary at all, opalescent crystals jutting from the jagged bedrock underside, glowing and twinkling as if containing stars, with runic arrays encircling them, and oily tar-like roots wrapped around them. 

It’s keeping the islands afloat, Aemma thinks, with fluffy pastel clouds floating lazily about the bedrock. Waterfalls drop from them, islands and clouds both, seemingly endless and feeding into the lake, and she can see forests and castles of ivory and colored glass on the islands; the grass is all blue and purple, little of it green. 

On the biggest, middlemost island, with smaller, fractured islets floating about it, there is a tree; with black bark inlaid with sparkling amethyst veins, splintering into thousands of branches reaching high into the dark sky, crown of pallid, flowerlike pearlescent-lilac leaves upon it. The trunk of the tree is split in half, jagged, with an opalescent gem floating within the gap, tendrils of bright light originating from the gem bridging the gap in the tree like silver threads or spidersilk. 

Underneath the tree, a half-exposed core of magma surrounded by the dark oily roots jutted out of the bedrock of the biggest island, pulsing as if it was a heart.

Above it all, in the place of sun, a massive, fractured crystal, its parts orbiting around themselves, all in the color of kaleidoscope and ice, floating suspended in the sky. Directly from its center, arms of shining auroras sprawl all over the vale underneath the vast star-glittering darkness of the firmament above.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathes. “Though, knowing what I know of Valyria… Not what I expected.”

“It was a joint effort, and only a refurbishment besides,” Balerion says as he comes to a stop next to her. “We call this realm home but it is not our own. We are but interlopers here, waiting for the inevitable conclusion to our story. It was kind enough to let us have our domains here.”

“What was?” Aemma says as they sail closer.

“The Waytree, which grows at the centermost island above Hallowed Vale.”

It’s the first time she hears of it, and it sounds important. Why was it left out of their mythology? She looks at the tree on the middlemost island again; blinks, once, twice. It looks… Less, like a tree, this time. Different. More sprawling, more complex, as if it shifted in the few short moments she looked to Balerion instead. It swims and sways in color she cannot describe, less perceivable the more she tries to focus on it. There’s a whispering ringing in her ears and she turns away. Relief is immediate, as she presses the heel of her palm to her eye. “What was that? Is this the Waytree?” she asks, and points vaguely at it without looking.

“Yes,” Balerion says, voice a little worried. “Are you alright? I forgot it does that to people who aren’t used to its presence.”

“Why did it shift?” Aemma asks. “I—It hurts to look at it. Why?”

“It’s a little complicated, so I’ll tell you about it later.”

Aemma huffs. “Define later, because this seems a little important.”

“When you’ve settled in, maybe over tea? First we need to find Meleys and find you a place.”

She almost says she could stay with him, since he brought her here and she knows him, and finds a sense of comfort in his company, but that’d probably sound rude. They’ve known each other for maybe an hour now, and she shouldn’t impose.

“Alright,” she says instead. “Lead the way. Can it be away from the tree?”

“Of course! Nobody lives near it, it would be too dangerous in the long run, even for us.”

○

He leads her to a small dock on a cliffside, with a small gilded ship docked next to it. That in itself wouldn’t be too odd, except for the fact that there is no water in the immediate proximity, and the ship is swaying in the air. It has sails for oars that make it look like a bird.

“I hope you have no fear of heights,” Balerion says as he helps her in the boat. The seats are padded and comfortable, and there are railings she can cling to if necessary, but Aemma isn’t very bothered by the height. In fact, she feels quite at home, as she always has. Towers and cliffsides always made her feel at ease; the higher and windier, the better.

“I’m an Arryn,” she tells him as if it explains everything. For her, it does. Balerion smiles.

“One with Targaryen blood, too,” he agrees. “Both meant for the sky.”

He’s not wrong, but it makes Aemma feel a pang of—something. It’s not quite jealousy, but she knows she should have had a dragon. Her mother was a Targaryen, and so was her husband; even if she was an Arryn by name, it was her birthright all the same.

She chases those thoughts away. No point dwelling on them anymore.

The boat sways comfortably as a translucent, robed shape appears at the steer, and then they’re sailing through the sky. Aemma grips the side and leans over ever so slightly, mindful of the height but excited with it all the same, and she notices Balerion shift ever so closer, ready to catch her should she lean over too far, but she doesn’t mind. With the wind in her hair, nostalgic enough to bring tears to her eyes with a memory of a better time, she feels as if she could fly on her own wings.

“Careful,” Balerion chides. “The fall down would be rather unpleasant.”

“I’ll be fine,” she insists. “It’s not like I can die. I’ve done that already.”

Balerion levels her with a flat look and sighs.

“Your soul is precious, don’t fray it,” he tells her instead. His eyes widen as he does, and he immediately turns his head away and coughs into his hand. “I meant, be careful. The impact would be very unpleasant… And detrimental to your overall experience…”

She thinks she glimpses a dusting of pink on his cheeks before he turns fully, but it very well might’ve been the light. Given his bashful tone and stumbling over words, though, it likely wasn’t.

Still, she chuckles, and can’t help but tease a little; “Do you warn everyone of that?”

“...no,” Balerion says, pointy ears only coloring deeper. “Just you.”

Aemma smiles. “Thank you for your concern. I’ll be careful.”

○

“Is there something on your mind?”

“You’re not what I expected.”

“And what did you expect?”

“Something less… Kind.”

“I can be many things. An old, expected friend, or the greatest enemy. A bringer of respite, or a herald of tragedy. Ultimately, it hinges entirely on the one who dies, how they perceive me. I’ve been cursed and spat at and sometimes even attacked by many who I greeted. Especially in the wake of Doom. What am I to you?”

“Escape. Relief, from the role I was pushed against my will… Oh.”

Balerion nods. There’s something sad in those red, slit-pupiled eyes when he looks at her. Aemma supposes that’s fair.

○

They get off the boat on one of the shattered isles, lush with a garden full of fruits and vegetables and mostly devoid of flowers. They walk a path fenced on each side with an orchard of trees heavy with nearly-ripe fruit, and Aemma knows most of these fruits. There’s apples and oranges and lemons, but she can’t help being drawn to a tree with serrated bark and spiky leaves, full of fruit that look like flame, pink at the core and yellow at the tips.

“What is this? I have never seen a tree like this before.”

“It’s dragonfruit,” Balerion tells her. “They grow in much warmer climates than where you lived.”

“Is—Is it actually called dragonfruit?” Aemma looks at him, confused. Surely, he’s pulling her leg?

“Yes,” he chuckles. “You want one? They’re ripe.”

“I—Uh, is it okay?” she asks, a little startled.

“Of course. She won’t mind,” Balerion says and reaches to pluck one of the fruits.

“She?”

“Meleys,” Balerion says as he digs his claws in the fruit, splits it in two. “Oh, it’s the white one!”

Aemma takes one half, and then blinks. “Meleys?”

“Don’t worry about it. If anything, just blame me. She never stayed mad at me for long,” Balerion says with a cheeky smile and Aemma can’t help but huff out a laugh. She looks down at the fruit in her hands, at the white flesh dotted with black seeds. Looks back at Balerion, who flips his half inside out to eat it, and tries to copy him, if clumsily. It’s good, the fruit. Sweet but mild, with an interesting texture. She thinks she quite likes it.

○

They find her on her knees in the dirt, elbow deep in rows of bushes full of heart-shaped red fruit Aemma doesn’t recognize. She doesn’t seem to notice them at all at first, but as they approach closer, she slowly rises to her feet, and turns to face them.

Her eyes are blood-red, though deeper and darker than Balerion’s, whose shine almost sinisterly. Hers are darker, slit-pupiled still, a little tired and a little warm. Her hair is in messy waves and just as red, held in a high bun with gilded sticks and ribbon, and on her head, a crown of short and straight creamy-white horns. Her skin is tanned, like that of someone who spends most of their time outside in the sun, with a healthy flush on her cheeks. 

She’s quite stocky, with a considerable bosom and more than a head shorter than Balerion. Her clothes are quite casual, though still embroidered with gold and patterned with silk.

Still, she looks—ordinary. High-class, and not really unassuming, but ordinary. The way Aemma knew Valyrian women often would in the Freehold. There are wrinkles on her face, and some hairs are sticking out of the bun. Aemma thinks she knows her.

“And here I thought it would be Shrykos or Morhgul causing trouble. Or Tessarion, like the last time. But you?” the woman says, quiring and eyebrow. Balerion smiles, more than a little strained.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m causing trouble, you know,” he says, playing with the cuffs of his robe. It looks subconscious, but also a little nervous.

“Well, at least you brought a familiar face with you. It’s good to see you in person, Aemma.”

Aemma smiles. “Likewise, Meleys.”

Balerion holds a hand up, closed save for his index finger. Looks at Meleys, then at Aemma, then at Meleys again. “You know eachother?”

“We’ve met on occasion,” Aemma says with a small smile. She feels a little smug at his confusion. “I’ve been to the Crossroads before. With Meleys.”

“Oh,” Balerion says, and pouts a little.

It’s cute.

“Don’t be a baby,” Meleys chides, and turns to Aemma. “Now, I assume you’ll be staying here for the foreseeable future?”

“I—yes. Yes, I intend to.”

“Good, good. You’ll have a place by the end of the day.”

Quick, Aemma muses. But this is no longer the mortal world governed by the mortal rules.

“What would you like?”

“Somewhere pretty high up,” she says. Fidgets with her sleeves a little. “And with a garden. And small enough I can reasonably take care of it myself.”

“No servants, even at the start?”

Aemma remembers their pitying eyes and honeyed words, their blatant disobedience in favor of Viserys, even though she was their master. She was the queen.

“No,” she says firmly. “No I don’t need help, unless—”

“Unless?”

Aemma freezes. What was she about to say?

She looks around, confused. She’s missing something. She’s forgetting something.

“Aemma? What’s wrong?” Balerion asks, and she looks at him. God of Death. Because she’s dead. Because she died, and she died—

“Did the child survive?” she asks, and her voice sounds distant. There’s a feeling of foreboding creeping up on her the longer she looks at the gods. Balerion, especially. Aemma really doesn’t like his expression, because there’s really only one way to interpret it.

“Aemma—” Meleys says gently, reaching out.

“No,” Balerion tells her, curt and honest.

“Balerion!” Meleys snaps. “That’s too much!”

“She deserves to know. Better now than later!”

“That’s cruel!”

Aemma giggles, and it sounds distant and hysterical to her. “It’s kinder than I’ve been afforded before,” she tells Meleys, because it’s the truth. Others would beat around the bush constantly and tire her out. Try to make her believe things that weren’t true, run circles around her. Balerion’s honesty, though harsh, was welcome.

She sits down on the grass, a fair bit more forcefully than she intended to as her legs give way and fold under her, knees suddenly made of cotton. The bitter taste is back in full force, and it’s all she feels, rather than a small nagging feeling at the back of her throat.

More than that, however, her chest burns from within. It’s actually glowing, an angry orange shining through her ribs and skin, beating in tandem with her heart.

“I died for nothing,” she says, and doesn’t quite recognize her voice, and when she looks at her hands, now again fading, for a moment they don’t look like her hands at all. “He killed me in the worst way, he ordered me cut open, he who said he loved me—and it was for nothing?!”

She screams. Fuck propriety, fuck the rules. Fuck that ladies of her station don’t curse and scream. Fuck the world that used and abused her, and when she was no longer useful, threw her away like yesterday’s garbage. Fuck Viserys, most of all, that selfish, cruel, wicked creature that ruined her for his own enjoyment and greed, claiming to love her every step he pushed her closer towards her doom.

She can’t hear anything past her heartbeat and breath. She can’t see past the blur. She thinks there’s a rustle as something looms over her, a displacement of grass, warm hands around hers—

Red eyes, slit-pupiled and sinisterly bright, so full of concern.

When he pulls her into his chest, she goes without resistance. Digs her fingers into the silk robe, presses her eyes against the crook of his neck, and just—wails, and wails, until the bitterness on her tongue is a bit easier to bear, and she feels a little more real. Until grief gives way to fury, until the bitterness at the back of her throat becomes nigh-unbearable fire again.

And she seethes.

“If it’s any consolation,” Balerion says somewhere above her, close, voice reverberating through the chest she still clings to like a lifeline, “Viserys will die a slow and painful death, rotting from inside, having achieved nothing and having ruined almost everything.”

It sounds like a promise and a fact both at once. It sounds like a tiny bit of justice.

“Good,” Aemma spits out. “It’s what he deserves. For me, and for all my children.”

○

“Thank you for telling me,” she tells him later, when she’s calmed down a little more. Meleys has gone back to her cottage to bring them some tea and refreshments, leaving them alone to gather their bearings. Aemma doesn’t even have the energy to care that she’s still effectively in Balerion’s lap, glued to his chest. She needs that comfort, and he doesn’t seem to mind.

“You’re welcome,” he says. “Hurtful or no, you should know.”

“But… If the child died, where are they?” she asks as Balerion shifts, putting her back on the grass. Even as he sits shoulder-to-shoulder with her, she misses the touch. It made her feel more solid.

“Returned to Soulstream.”

“Soulstream?”

He points up, to the aurora radiating above them. “It’s life energy flowing through the worlds. All souls come from it, and all souls eventually return to it.”

“But I’m here.”

“And here you’ll stay, until you’re ready to go.”

“How long?”

“It varies between souls. Your child isn’t here, because newborns don’t have souls.”

Aemma blinks. “What?”

“Everyone is born with a potential to have a soul,” he says and raises his hand. A tendril of green energy curls around his fingers, forms into a ball. Flickers, and darts off up, into the aurora. “But not an actual soul. This needs forming of self-awareness, and then needs to be settled with self-actualization. Baseline is, the more of a person you are, the more of a soul you have. Your soul is, effectively, everything that makes you, you, that isn’t your physical body. Which is why some souls have enough staying power for millenia, and some fade after a few years. But souls are also a form of energy, so the body and mind both need to be strong enough to handle proper formation of one. Typically around six to eight years of age. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later—sometimes never.”

“But my child… They didn’t suffer, did they?”

“No.”

“Then I’m glad for that, at least.”

○

“You know, in retrospect, you were incredibly lucky Lyra’s body actually survived through her awakening,” Meleys says conversationally as she steps back into the living area. Aemma is fast asleep in the guest room behind, recovering after the revelations.

“You heard us talking about souls, I take it,” Balerion sighs.

“Yes. If she weren’t a homunculus, she’d be dead.”

“Uh. Thanks… For making her extra durable? I guess?”

Meleys chuckles. “You’re welcome. Was seven years your limit?”

“Yes. You know well how limited our powers in the mortal realm are. Her true soul was bleeding in from the very start. Without my interference, the dam would have broken in half the time—”

“Seven is an ominous number,” Meleys says, and Balerion closes his mouth with a click, eyes narrow.

“Do you think it’s an omen, then? Of—that thing?”

“I hope not. But its awakening approaches more rapidly than ever, and doom with it.”

Balerion bites his lip, puts a hand on his chest, over his heart. Feels the steady thrum under his fingers, staccato almost natural enough to fool him into thinking there’s a heart there. He knows better than to fall for it. “We won’t fail this time,” he hisses, clenches his hand into a fist, the silk of his robes with it. “I swear. The future the Waytree showed us—It will not come to pass. I won’t let it.”

“You already haven’t,” Meleys says gently, and takes his hand into her own. Unfurls his fingers, whispers away the black blood and the wounds he dug with his nails. “Your and Shrykos’ insane plan is working. Have more faith in Lyra. She’s one driven creature of chaos, especially now, with that wicked dragon of hers. She will fulfill her mission splendidly, I know it. And even still, this isn’t just your disaster to stop. We’re all here, all fourteen of us, all that is left, exactly for that. None of us stands alone.”

Balerion chuckles, and it sounds a little wet. “Thank you. For looking out for me. For us. You don’t have to. Mother is—”

“Pah, I know! But even if I didn’t promise her to take care of you kids, I still would. It’s what I do.”

Balerion smiles. There’s comfort in that; that despite everything, despite all they’ve been through, Meleys remains the same. Even though she lost more than most, she still finds it in her to hold her head up high, and to lift others up.

And he? He failed to even die properly.

But if they managed to turn the tide, even his failure would have served them. He’d hold onto that hope.

○

Aemma isn’t sure what possessed her to ask for her new dwelling to look like Meleys’ courtyard the very last moment she could, but she did, and so it now stood before her; an imposing wall with blue shingled roof and a gate in the middle, pale blue wood with Arryn crest on the double door and chimes hanging from the supports.

She thought the gods would be offended for her not including targaryen sigils anywhere, but nobody seemed to mind, or even remark about it.

It’s smaller than Meleys’, of course, as per her wishes. The courtyard is accessible immediately behind the gate, fresh soil to be worked. The main building is adjacent to the gate, flanked by two smaller ones on either side. It’s pretty small; enough for one person to reasonably manage, though not so small that few guests would overcrowd it.

Rural Valyrian Courtyard, Meleys has called it. After the Doom, Valyrians from rural areas fled to Yi Ti, taking the style with them, and it’s been used there since, in common houses and grand estates.

She can barely see Waytree from here. It’s for the best.

“Do you like it?” Meleys asks as she comes to a stop next to her.

“Yes,” Aemma says, taking a deep breath. This is her home now.

Hers.

Not her fathers, not her husbands, not nobody else’s—her own, with which she can do whatever she pleases, free of rules she doesn’t herself make and influence of others she doesn’t welcome.

She’ll need a moment for it to skink in.

“Are you certain you don’t want an attendant for the first few weeks?” Balerion asks as he comes to a stop next to her. “You’re making a pretty big shift from being waited on hand and foot to living completely alone.”

“I’m certain,” Aemma insists. “I want to try, at least. I’ll tell you if I can’t make it. But I’m healthy now, and I’m sure I can keep myself fed and clothed in a clean home by myself.”

Because her servants always answered to everyone but her. Because she was never strong enough to do anything for herself, stuck between being pregnant and recovering from it.

“I will leave you to it,” Meleys says, her duty done.

“Yes, thank you so much!”

“Don’t mention it. And you should go rest.”

She’s right, of course. Despite her nap, Aemma still feels rather exhausted under all that excitement. She shakes her head.

“Soon.”

“If you’d rather rest, I can come tomorrow,” Balerion says as they both watch Meleys leave.

“I’d love to rest, but I’d like to learn more about this place,” she says. “I, uh… I’d offer you tea, but I’m… I’ve never made any.”

“I can teach you,” he says with a small smile.

“Wouldn’t it be a bother?”

“Not at all! I’m not a master at it, but I know my way around a kettle at least.”

“Then if you’d be so kind.”

○

They sit in the kitchen with their tea and some snacks from the thankfully-stocked pantry.

“What is the Waytree?”

Balerion sighs. “Starting with the heavy ones, huh?”

“When I looked at it, it felt like… Like it was burning my very mind to ashes. Why is it here? Is it dangerous?”

“Yes, it does that,” he says and shakes his head. “It’s been here forever. It predates us. Its roots keep the isles afloat, and its branches stretch endlessly into the sky, each reaching for a different future, and its leaves anchor and sift through the Soulstream. We… Ah, we don’t really understand it. It’s been here before us, and it will be here long after we’re gone.”

Aemma mulls it over for a moment. “So you don’t know anything about it?”

“Just that it’s ancient and powerful, and either responsible for the cycle of life of the world, or feeding on it. It’s a coin toss, really.”

“That’s… Not reassuring.”

Balerion shrugs. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more about it. We don't even know how to begin describing it. Once, Tyraxes tried to channel its power. It… Changed her.”

“The Flower Maiden?”

“Yes. She—has gone completely insane. Hungry, unpredictable, violent. Grew a third eye on her forehead, and I still can’t decide if she’s creepier in a haze, or when lucid. But she’s the only one who can decipher the Waytree to any degree.”

“And what needs deciphering there?”

“Possibilities,” he says. “Future, and how to alter it.”

Aemma looks at him. “And have you?”

He nods. “For the first time, we succeeded. Tyraxes said the futures she’s been seeing these days are vastly different than before. Typically, very little changed no matter what we did.”

“And… What exactly did you do?”

Balerion smiles, half-terse and half-mischievous. “Brought a soul from another world into this one.”

“I—What? How??”

“It’s really simple,” he says. “We, Shrykos and I, I mean, opened a pathway to another world, and let a soul from there come here. Since it came from a fundamentally Other place, it didn’t join and assimilate into the Soulstream, which allowed us to instead put it into a new body from the get-go.”

“But you said that everyone forms their own soul. Wouldn’t—If you put another soul into somebody, wouldn’t that cause problems?”

“If they had a soul, yes,” he agrees. “But it’s fairly common that when a woman conceives, the child is not granted any soul energy at all. In that case, she’ll simply miscarry before she even knows she’s pregnant, and nobody is any wiser. We used one such case to house our otherworldly soul, so that this is the only soul in the body.”

“If the soul is fully formed, how does that work then?”

“Well, in this case, and in this case only because we’ve done it exactly once, the soul lay dormant with some slight bleeding of memories until it awoke, all memories of past life recovered. Sadly due to the nature of the soul, that includes the way they died in perfect clarity.”

Aemma shudders. She barely remembers flashes and that’s bad enough.

“Who is it?” she asks, curious. “I mean—You don’t have to tell me if it’s a secret, or something!”

“It’s not, not really,” Balerion shrugs. “Everybody here knows. It’s Daelyra Targaryen.”

Lyra? Daemon’s Lyra?

This—

“You said she remembered her past life?”

“Yes.”

“At… Around seven years old?”

“Yes…?”

“This… Explains a lot about her, actually. How are you planning to have her alter the future?”

“Just existing, really.”

“But past that. What is she here for?”

Balerion shifts, a little uncomfortable. “We need her to prevent the mass-dying of dragons.”

“Hm… Makes sense,” she says, and decides not to press, even though his reaction begs to ask many more questions.

She yawns. It startles her, and she covers her mouth quickly. Balerion chuckles.

“I won’t keep you any longer,” he says, and finishes his tea in one big gulp. “We will have plenty of time to talk later once you’ve settled properly. How do you find afterlife so far?”

“Very nice,” Aemma says. “Everyone is friendly and I’m not in pain, or in much danger. I don’t have to see people I don’t want to see… And I don’t have to follow strict etiquette. And uh… I meant to say it earlier, but I apologize for crying on your silk robes earlier.”

Balerion pats his chest and chuckles. “Don’t worry about it! You needed help, and that’s that.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. What do you plan to do now, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I don’t. You answered my questions after all,” Aemma says, “For now, I should think I would enjoy some solitude. Learn to live, by myself, for myself. Find some interests that are my own. But firstly, go to sleep.”

“Very reasonable.”

“Of course, you’re most welcome to visit whenever you’d like!” she says hastily, and her cheeks color a bit. “Should you like that, of course. And—And Meleys, too,” she adds a bit lamely.

Balerion chuckles again. “I will visit soon, don’t worry. I enjoyed our conversation, and your company. But for now, you really look like you could use some sleep.”

“I did too. And yes, I will, don’t worry. Thank you again, for… Everything. Leading me here, and—”

“Don’t mention it.”

Aemma doesn’t, she just smiles at him instead. It might be a little too wide a smile to be polite, but it’s real and she thinks that’s what matters the most.

She waves after him as he retreats, and he waves back, and then he’s gone. Aemma tries to not miss his company too much.

[wowowwild]

Ok Justice For All. This is not going to be exhaustive or comprehensive but here we go.

The first case we don't really need to cover. It's a tutorial, it achieves what it sets out to do, there's not a whole lot else. I really like the amnesia concept and while I wish more had been done with it (like being used in a regular case), I understand the mechanical service it does for a tutorial.

Our second case is solid. It was really fun to figure out exactly what happened and if you've been following my 'game posting' tag you saw exactly how much fun I had. I kind of wish we had gotten more out of Misty, but that wouldn't really work in this medium (lol get it). Obviously I love Pearly I adore her I would be her slave she deserves the world. Phoenix, stop showing her the horrors, please. I just really have to keep coming back to how fun this case was to solve. Sometimes the correct things to do mechanically make no sense to me bc I don't leap far enough with my logic, but this case I was able to do pretty easily which tells me it was very well written with the proper foreshadowing and such (and I am a sucker for properly laid ground work). I like that we get more Fey lore. I am devastated that I guesses the twist ending but I had no one to witness it. It's probably my favorite case this game.

Bigtop is a mess. We're going to ignore the Regina age problem for our sanity and pretend she's 18 bc wtf (I knew this but just now [as I was typing the end of this paragraph] connected the dots that in Japan 16 is viewed as our 18 and they just didn't localize her age). I really like Max! He's my favorite character to come out of this case and I will never let go of my wrightica/galactright ship (is there an official ship name?). He thinks Edgeworth is dead, it could happen. Also! Diversity win! The guy who murdered you is wheelchair bound! But actually I really like the concept of Acro's motivations, driven to madness and murder by grief. I like it less when we come back to Regina's canon age, like even when she's 18 Acro should still view her as a child and personally I could never hold something like that against a child. It was decidedly and accident and not even remotely her fault. It's not her fault your brother was swayed to do something idiotic by the power of boners, my guy. Also Regina is not ok. She needs help and the only one who realizes it is Moe. Everyone else is 'enabling' (that's not exactly the word I'm looking for but it's in the ballpark) her. Her own father was likely the worst offender. Moe may not be funny (I actually liked his jokes) but he is genuinely a great guy.

Our last case: Extremely well written. I went into this already knowing the outcome, how could I not. Despite this, I was so worried about Maya everything else went out the window. For a minute I actually convinced myself of the possibility that Adrian had done it (I am so sorry for everything we put you through, but it was for Maya). This case really put me in Phoenix's shoes. I'd imagine if you don't actually like Maya, this might not do for you what it did for me, but if you don't like Maya I don't know how you've managed to play all the way through the second game. Of course the good ending where you toss Engarde to the wolves (the assassin he hired) is iconic. That's what you get. Again if you've been following my 'game posting' tag you know I had strong feelings about Edgeworth through this. Most of them were due to the stress of Maya being kidnapped (I seriously got waaayyyyyy too in character during this case), but also he was smug as hell for no reason when he showed back up. He was like 'new me!' and refused to elaborate. Phoenix is not a mind reader, my guy. He won me over again so we're good. Also the dinner? At the end it literally says "I wonder if there's anything I can give him to express how I feel...?" I think we can all imagine my first thought... actually I don't trust people to put thoughts in my head, my first thought was a kiss. (You actually give the whip and Miles yet again thinks Phoenix is a mind reader, will it ever end?) I can't forget! Gummy's official stint at Wright Co! My one post about him being a Phoenix Wright weird girl was really popular and then my second (about this case) also got some notes, so clearly this is the Gumshoe content we're all looking for. (Can they please stop firing him though? He's going to end up dead on the street from starvation.) I thought it was really something how much Phoenix trusts Gumshoe. He said

The scene with Franziska and Miles at the end was sorely needed and it was fantastic. They're both growing and healing from shared trauma and it's beautiful.

Over all... I forget, is this the one people don't like out of the trilogy? I liked it. The first is obviously iconic and banger after banger, but I do like this one. Overall it's definitely worth playing and very enjoyable. (Idk bc I haven't tried it personally, but there's a post going around about ds estore emulation or something where you can play games from the ds estore for free now that it's closed, so as far as I know you can play it for free now.)