#and then for the 'yet another situation' in order to make it more cohesive i had to actually TALK about the backstory which i was not going

[doctorwhoisadhd]

im at almost 7.1k words in my 12jack sequel

[bellamysgriffin]

i’ve been thinking about it a lot and part of why i was relatively disappointed with midnights is because i think taylor swift has taken a step back musically. making an album like midnights is in some ways a regressive choice. not only has she returned to pop, a genre which i (controversially) think doesn’t necessarily suit her voice and sound the best and also exacerbates her main musical weakness i.e. repetitive melodies, she’s also heavily returned to super diaristic song-writing.

taylor has often complained a lot about the media’s involvement in her life, and this is not me blaming her for that in any way, but i do think a lot of it sprung from how heavily all her music was based on her personal life and the ways in which she gradually encouraged that more and more often. reputation is more fun to listen to if you know the details of her personal life, that’s just true! lover is the first album in which she loosely starts experimenting with writing songs that have nothing to do with her life -- death by a thousand cuts, it’s nice to have a friend, potentially cruel summer. 

folklore and evermore, to me, are by far her best work, and a real breakthrough and turning point within her musical career. taylor swift is first and foremost a talented lyricist, but with this album, she revealed herself to be a talented storyteller -- when she no longer felt burdened to only retelling her own narrative. so that’s how we get the points of view of a high school love triangle, a song about rebekah harkness, about a woman whose husband left her for another woman, about war, about addiction. she leans farther into this in evermore: we get a rejected proposal, a woman who murders her best friends killer, a song about divorce, about hooking up with your hometown ex when you’re home for the holidays. even the songs that are ostensibly about her have a level of universality to them; the specificity in songs like invisible string and marjorie, instead of serving to provide more insight to her personal life end up creating a rich picture that serves a greater, cohesive theme.

midnights, however, is her most self-referential album yet. in order to fully enjoy, you need to know all the details and intricacies of her life. the lyrics are less clever, the narratives less coherent. anti-hero, for example, is (imo) structurally a mess. where revenge songs like mad woman and no body no crime had substance to them, a song like vigilante shit rings hollow when you get over the spectacle of it. what does dressing for revenge even mean? i think her songs about revenge on reputation were far more substantial: i.e. don’t blame me, i did something bad, and this is why we can’t have nice things. lavender haze might be vaguely catchy, but is it really that interesting lyrically if you don’t know about taylor swift’s relationship with the media? you’re own your own kid feels like a grown up fifteen, and it’s one of the better songs on the album, but the references to the burden of fame (of which many are scattered throughout the album) prevent it from feeling as relatable as other track fives. previously, her use of metaphor in songs like peace and especially dancing with our hands tied managed to explore that burden while also being widely relatable and applicable to other situations. 

now, midnights is by no means a terrible album. it’s one of her weakest, in my opinion, but there’s a lot to like about it. taylor swift is a talented songwriter and musician, and she’s never come out with anything that i think is objectively terrible. i do, however, think that it is lyrically weaker than many of her recent stuff, including lover. singles like renegade and carolina gave me a lot of hope for the direction of her future music. but i think by returning to diaristic, self-referential story-telling, not only has she taken a step back creatively, she’s also alienated new fans by rendering it almost inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t know the lore of her life. i say this after speaking to casual listeners/non-swifties who found themselves baffled as to what a lot of these songs are trying to say. in returning to her 1989 roots, i think she’s moved back into the realm of superstardom and less into the realm of artist. 

[imaginespazzi]

Hi hi hi!

Reporting live and procrastinating responsibilities :). So heres my rundown, pretty much matchy matchy w yours, naturally: Generally the video vibes almost 💯 fit with the allegations 🙃. Please bear w the rambling thoughts in no particular order. Im not sure how one could possibly cohesively recap ALL THAT lol. Ok it blows my mind how much they personally had to catch up on w one another! God damn babes, you havent talked much if at all in nearly a month. Again it screams that there was more of a relationship (ending poorly).. Even friends moving apart prob wouldve had more contact over that time. Sometimes I wonder how they dont realize what they reveal by what they leave ~unsaid/not explained! Though G’s “really bad breakup” comment felt weighted given their situation. To me much of the injury discussion came across as carry over from the In The Mirror. With G making a point to say nice things (good memories of playing together;tearing up when Liz got hurt; not being wholly herself as a player w/out Kitley;the frustration at team reaction after the game following the injury; belief that Liz will recover/be drafted etc.). And G’s words still feel to me like a way of her dealing with some guilt which she cant quite yet express or process. Especially considering her adding stuff about being w the Kitley fam lately and helping move Liz’s stuff ha. If a person ever questioned something going down between L&G, I’ll say alarm bells went off when L described her night following the injury and staying over w Cayla. In such a low moment, poor girlie really couldnt manage being at her own place thats shared w one of her closest pals. Ooof. However, on the whole, they sounded more comfortable at times than I expected. In fact the convo sometimes got surprisingly open and loose - gals dont tell me that we had a bit of liquid courage before recording. ;) And it did stand out to me that L asked the “fans” on multiple occasions to just be decent and grateful for what they had + be understanding of decision making under the situation, but stopped short of telling people to leave G alone (which, given everything we’re led to believe, fair play hun). My big takeaway was that they seem to be taking this time of big adjustment as also a new beginning to possibly recover a friendship. Clearly theres still issues to work thru, but perhaps theyve reached a more settled/amicable place? Or at least were just able to deal w each other long enough to provide us all w a semi closure pod 😐. But heres hoping for more future content, as they hinted at! Oh and as someone who works w/in college athletics, I was very sympathetic to their comments throughout re change. Its a crazy industry, stuff happens in the blink of an eye and you do just have to deal with that ish. The harsh reality of the current state of things is that one rarely gets a neat, happy closure.

Happy Sunday to you bestie, hope its fantastic! -☕️

Reporting live and procrastinating is so real, like me asf fr fr.

THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING. Like they seemed so out of the loop when it came to each other's life and that's just so weird to me? I mean I get it could just be regular friends drifting but that wasn't the ~vibe~ at all to me and maybe again it's the allegations bias but it was just very much giving exes.

Hardcore agree with the Georgia stuff because I thought some of what she was saying felt a bit like an overcompensation, an apology of sorts to make up in a way for anything else that *might* have happened. Honestly Georgia being so nice, no shade, doesn't really fit the dynamic from before where sometimes Georgia's snark was just mean to me really.

Every new bit of info/content, I just continue to feel terrible for Liz. And I think her staying at Cayla's really gave away the depth of how much has happened between her and Georgia. And again yeah it could be a friend breakup but it just feel a little too serious for that.

Obviously I don't know a timeline, if there even is one, but this podcast gave me the vibes that if they were together, it's actually been a decent while since they broke up and are now in a place where they can co-exist in an amicable manner. I don't know if we'll ever get another podcast or if they'll actually be able to be in a genuine friendship again but I think they're in a good enough place and I do love that for them.

[demigodforfend]

Twilight of the Demigods: Forfend Edition - Session 28

Despite how late at night it was, the Teleportation Hub bustled with activity. People came and went through the different portals at a near constant rate. Some of them paused to stare at Forfend and the rest of the refugees occupying the Tyrwedian gate. Most of them shied away to get on with their own business.

All of the guards surrounded the Tyrwedian circle. They were no longer focused on anything but the sudden arrival of a large group from a hub that was supposed to still be down.

Most of them had curved swords and rectangular shields emblazoned with the combined triangular symbol of the triplet gods: Messis, Vagari, and Aurum.

One, however, carried only a glaive. His armor was a bit more decorated than the rest of the company here. He stepped forward.

"So you are friends of Mr. Collymore, yes?" he asked, his accent making his tone sound harsher than his expression suggested he intended.

"Yes," Forfend answered simply.

"What is the business here?" he asked.

Forfend hummed. "We are refugees from Tyrwedia."

"That much is clear," the head guard nodded. "But what is the situation?"

"King Falco is a demigod and violent despot who has destroyed Cragwall and attempted to murder everyone here."

Forfend knew the claim was absurd, but it hoped Melzaryn's reputation would be enough for this man to see the truth in its words.

"That is a big claim." The head guard crossed his arms. "You do understand this will not be taken lightly, yes?"

"Yes, I understand. It should not be. I do not jest. We are in significant danger," Forfend insisted. It stood slowly and gestured to its group of huddled refugees. "It is also in the best interest of everyone if none of these people leave here until they have been appropriately vetted."

The head guard seemed to ponder over this order for a long moment. Eventually, he decided to take Forfend at face value. He nodded. "Understood. In the name of the Kazama House, we offer you safe passage and hospitality. Come, we will bring you to temporary housing."

Forfend firmly shook its head. "No one can leave. Not yet. They need to be checked over by mages first. Despot Falco's ability functions similarly to mind control. We must make certain no one is trapped under the effects of it before we move them."

"I see." The guard creased his brow, reassessing the threat potential of the huddled group behind Forfend.

"And we need healers," Forfend added. It absently touched one of the massive protruding arrows Howell had left in its back. Ichor dribbled from the wounds, but Forfend couldn't reach them well enough to pull them out.

"That can be very much arranged." The head guard rubbed at his chin. "Though, in the meantime, I need everyone to move off of the teleportation circle. We don't want any mishaps."

"Of course," Forfend hummed.

The head guard indicated a good, relatively open space that they could use.

Forfend turned to its group of refugees. "We need to move off to the side here. If you are able to support those who cannot walk on their own, please do."

It waded into the crowd and carefully lifted two people who were too wounded to stand. It herded the rest of the group over into the corner and carefully set down its charges.

Luckily, it seemed like the group was fairly cohesive. Everyone was still together. No one had been left behind. Even Kagoshi, distant thought he was, made the effort to amble over to the rest of the group.

When Forfend turned back around, the head guard was speaking into a gauntlet emblazoned with the familiar triple M of Molixeen's shop.

A few minutes later, three spellcasters appeared in the doorway amid a brilliant flash.

One was clearly a cleric. Another one was a wizard. Forfend couldn't be certain what type of arcana the last one preferred. He was strangely indistinct.

All of them immediately made their way to Forfend's gaggle and began inspecting everyone.

The wizard cast an overarching Detect Magic spell.

He glanced at Forfend first, but quickly dismissed it. While it absolutely poured magic energy, it was divine in nature and not far enough beyond the norm to warrant concern.

The wizard moved through the crowd to cast Identify on everyone who'd triggered suspect results.

The cleric stepped into the center of the refugees where the most wounded lay. He sat down.

Forfend lumbered to him and sat down next to another group of wounded.

The cleric wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and held a necklace bearing Vagari's crossroads. A wandering healer, if Forfend had to guess. Or, if he was stationary, he likely specialized in providing services to outlanders.

Either way, Forfend was glad to have his assistance.

The cleric began casting Prayer of Healing. A magic aura surrounded him, healing the injuries of everyone in his vicinity with earthy brown light and the scent of a fresh breeze.

Forfend hissed steam and touched its shield. It drew up what little magic it had left and unleashed all but the bare minimum it needed to survive as a healing hearth flame. Its Prayer of Healing gently assuaged those the Vagari cleric's Prayer couldn't reach.

Very quickly, Forfend's magic was expended. It carefully hauled itself back to its feet and lumbered out of the Vagari cleric's way.

The wizard and the unknown caster picked two humans out of the crowd. They were pulled aside.

One was an elderly man with a hunch in his back. The other was a young teenage boy.

Both of them looked concerned, nervous.

The wizard approached Forfend. "These two have been influenced by magics we do not recognize," he whispered.

"Let me take a look," it hummed grimly.

The wizard nodded. He led Forfend to them.

It knelt down and tilted its head at them. "I apologize for this, but could both of you pull down the collars of your shirts?"

Surrounded by guards and too frightened to refuse, they both did as it requested.

They didn't bear the runic scars on their chests. On one hand, that was good. On the other, it made them very difficult to appropriately vet without Melzaryn.

"Luckily, they do not have bombs carved into their chests," it said.

The wizard's eyebrows shot up so high they nearly disappeared beneath the brim of his hat.

"Unfortunately, that means I do not have any visual cues as to their status," Forfend hissed steam. "Normally, I would simply attempt to cast Remove Curse, but I have already drained all of my magic. I have none left to spare."

It held out its hand to demonstrate and conjured only one meager spark that almost instantly flickered out.

The wizard frowned. "Then what are we to do?"

"I will tell you all that I know, but my information is unfortunately limited. Despot Falco grasps hold of a person and demands something from them: their morals, their memories, their inhibitions, or whatever else he desires," Forfend explained. "This puts them in an altered mental state wherein Despot Falco can control their decisions. They may be violent or may become violent if their task is impeded, but it is important to remember they are merely victims. They need to be rescued, not punished. Please, if you encounter this, do not harm them more than you must to protect yourself and do not kill them."

It paused to let steam course through its chest.

"When they become severely wounded, they snap out of the mind control," it continued. "They do not know where they are or what they were doing. This method is cruel outside of a fight for your life, however, and I would prefer not to employ it here. It also seems not to be a permanent solution."

It hummed. "The preferable method would be to cast Remove Curse, but I am currently uncertain if it must be cast by a demigod since it was bestowed by one, or if anyone could do it."

The wizard listened intently and waited until he was sure Forfend was done talking to say, "I see. Then we must isolate them for the protection of themselves and others. This is acceptable?"

Forfend nodded. "But please do take good care of them."

"We will take utmost care," the wizard promised.

The third caster had been listening in. He started to direct the guards and the suspected Envema victims to move.

The old man pulled a dagger from a sheathe hidden up his sleeve and attacked.

He was seized immediately by the guards before his dagger touched anyone's flesh.

The teenage boy pulled a knife from his boot and jumped at the wizard.

The wizard took a single step back as guards swooped in to snag the boy in middair.

Both of the Envema members had their weapons yanked from their hands. Shackles were slapped on their wrists.

The head guard ordered his men to take the victims somewhere they could be safely contained. He turned to Forfend. "You said this mind control is the work of a demigod?"

Forfend nodded once.

He scratched at his face. "We will try, but I don't think anything short of another demigod will be able to break this curse."

"I know for certain that it can be broken," Forfend assured.

"Let's hope we can find a demigod then." The head guard shrugged helplessly. "We will try, but I doubt we will succeed without one."

Forfend didn't bother unveiling itself as a demigod yet. Without spare magic, it couldn't help anyway. It had to rest first.

The Vagari cleric approached the victims at the wizard's insistence.

The guards escorting them paused to allow the cleric to cast Remove Curse.

Both victims continued trying to struggle and fight. The spell hadn't worked.

Forfend hissed steam. It wasn't surprised, but it was sad. The victims would have to spend at least one more day under Despot Falco's thumb.

The wizard shook his head, apparently also disappointed. He returned to the crowd of refugees.

Forfend turned to tend to the wounded still remaining with more mundane healing supplies.

A murmur ran through the guards still remaining in the Hub. They collectively moved to watch one particular area.

Forfend drew itself to its full height to watch them.

Kagoshi stood in the center of the commotion. The wizard laughed nervously and slowly spoke.

Forfend wasn't close enough to hear the conversation, but it figured Kagoshi had said something threatening.

It hummed, wondering if it should intervene or let Kagoshi suffer the consequences of his own actions.

They'd all been through so much today. It understood why Kagoshi wouldn't take kindly to the questions and the prodding. Still, that wasn't a reason for threats.

Unless...

Forfend's core dropped.

Had the wizard's magic alerted him to the Calamity Shard in Kagoshi's spine?

Whatever Kagoshi said next sent the guards into high alert. They surrounded him in tight formation.

Forfend got as close as the circle of guards would allow, but that was all it could do.

"I worked hard for this belt! You're not taking it from me!" Kagoshi yelled.

Oh. The demon tail belt.

Forfend had forgotten how negatively such items were viewed now. They certainly could be dangerous, if they were made improperly. But otherwise, they were no better or worse than any other magic item.

"Then you will be detained," the head guard decided.

"Fine. Whatever. I'll sit in your little jail," Kagoshi griped.

"No, no. This is worse."

The wizard pulled what looked like a snow globe from a satchel at his side.

"Gods, I hate mages," Kagoshi growled.

The Moli's Marvelous Mementos logo whirled around the snow globe. The item floated up above Kagoshi's head, grew, dropped down over him, and snapped back to its original size.

Kagoshi, now miniature, sulked inside the display.

The guards relaxed. Their formation broke as most of them returned to their posts.

Forfend ambled over and tilted its head at Kagoshi's predicament. "Would have been useful if we could have done that before."

Kagoshi glowered at it. "Fuck. You."

Forfend hummed.

The snow globe floated up and placed itself into the hands of the head guard.

The wizard leaned up and whispered to him.

Forfend strained its hearing to catch what he said.

"You may want to contact the Carnifex Divinitus. He has traces of Calamity."

The head guard's eyes widened. His back straightened.

Forfend quieted the roiling steam in its center before the sound became audible.

They had discovered the shard.

Kagoshi was in trouble. A lot of it.

Forfend stepped forward. "Can you assure me that he will not be harmed?"

"If he is compliant, he shall not be harmed," the wizard assured.

"How durable is this glass?" Kagoshi asked. A loud thunk sounded as he punched it. The magic didn't budge.

Forfend shook its head, steam hissing long and slow. "He is certainly troublesome, but he is not evil. He will not harm anyone."

More repeated thunks sounded as Kagoshi continued ramming his fists into the glass. He swore and growled and hissed insults.

The mage quirked an eyebrow at Forfend, undoubtedly skeptical of its claim. He cast a sphere of Silence around the snow globe.

Kagoshi continued flailing and thrashing without a sound.

"He is... feisty." Forfend shrugged helplessly.

"If he complies, no harm will come to him. But we must be diligent for the sake of everyone that lives here," the head guard stated firmly.

"I understand," Forfend nodded. "I was exceedingly cautious around Kagoshi when I first met him."

"Kagoshi is his name? Noted." The head guard folded his hands behind his back. "Are the rest of you ready to travel to your temporary lodgings?"

Forfend glanced over the group of refugees it would need to look out for. It didn't have time to manage Kagoshi too. It would just have to trust that they'd keep their word and no one would hurt him.

"I believe we are," it hummed.

"Follow me."

The head guard deposited Kagoshi into the wizard's hands and led the way out of the Teleportation Hub.

"We are moving to proper lodging," Forfend called to the refugees. "As before, if you are able to assist others, please do."

It shuffled into the center of the crowd and carefully lifted two injured people.

The rest of the group slowly assisted each other until everyone was ready to move.

Forfend led them after the head guard.

Ali returned to the group as they exited the Hub. A nearly finished kebab hung from her mouth.

Forfend hadn't seen her leave the crowd. It turned around and took stock of the rest of the refugees.

Howell was missing, but Forfend already knew his status regarding Despot Falco. He was safe for now. It would need to cast Remove Curse on him before they returned to Tyrwedia though.

Everyone else that had entered the portal was still here. That was good.

Forfend hummed to itself. It knew none of them. No one else it had met in Cragwall was here. Either they'd chosen to stay behind to fight or they were in significant trouble.

Or they were dead.

Forfend banished the frightful thought.

It realized it recognized one man in the crowd. He was the elderly man Kagoshi had rescued from the Brass Buffalo during Howell's first attack. Carston's grandfather.

It took some relief in knowing he was safe. It hoped Carston was too.

Ali nudged Forfend. She was still very much tearing into her food. "Everything good?" she mumbled through a mouthful.

The wizard jolted when he saw her. He ran over and casted Detect Magic.

Luckily, everything seemed to come up clean. He sighed in relief and left them be.

Forfend tilted its broad head at Ali. "Did you sneak out for food immediately?"

"Sure! This place has got good food!" She was almost incomprehensible given that she refused to slow down her eating. Forfend just barely managed to catch her words.

It nodded. "I may request your smithing skills soon."

"Great," Ali deadpanned sarcastically. "Can't even travel here for a vacation."

"Not unpaid," Forfend added.

"Now you're talking!" She grinned at the prospect of more coin.

Forfend couldn't help the slight rumbling chuckle that ground through it.

It took a moment to look up and around. This was a new country after all. It needed to get a feel for its surroundings.

Many of the buildings were the same sandy brown as the desert around them, but every decoration popped with vibrant color. There were clotheslines hung all across the streets, between every building, and absolutely anywhere else they could feasibly be placed.

A few articles of clothing hung from them here and there, but most of the items dangling from the strings were large pots.

The more Forfend looked around, the more pots it saw everywhere. They were on the rooftops, the edges of windowsills, and even sitting atop what seemed to be otherwise pointless posts.

Forfend couldn't fathom what they might be for, but they were clearly extremely important.

Maybe they caught rain. But even in a desert city, the sheer amount was excessive.

The head guard stopped in front of a large limestone building that appeared to be an inn, but there was no hustle and bustle here.

The lack of commotion didn't make the place any less impressive though.

It was enormously wide and three stories tall. Ramps led into it rather than stairs, making it easy for the wounded to traverse.

Inside, there were bins lining the main gathering area. All of them were labeled with the essential items they held: shirts, socks, shoes, pants, and light headwear designed to keep the sun off one's neck. All of them had signs assuring the refugees they could take whatever they needed.

As Forfend watched, a man who appeared to be a local walked inside. He deposited several different items into the correct bins, waved to the refugees, and left.

Steam whistled like a kettle in Forfend's chest. All those items were donated. All of them. That was incredible.

Off to one side, there was a strange platform that seemed to be rigged with a pulley system of some sort. Forfend had never seen anything like it, but it wondered if that could be used to help injured people reach the higher floors.

"These accommodations are acceptable, yes?" the head guard asked. He wore a smile that said he knew they were.

The refugees split off, filtering into different rooms. Someone approached Forfend to take the two wounded people it carried off its hand and get them comfortably settled.

Forfend caught a glimpse into one of the inn rooms through an open doorway. The room was spacious and looked very comfortable.

"It is far more than we could have asked for. Thank you," it hummed. It looked down at the man. "Tomorrow, once I have had some rest, may I visit the two victims of Despot Falco's ability?"

"If you are confident in your ability to remove their mind control, I don't see why not," he allowed.

Forfend nodded. "I am confident in my ability to try."

"Well, you are the specialist on the matter."

"Hardly," Forfend hissed steam. "But I am what we have for now."

The head guard shrugged nonchalantly. "For now, there is plenty of room for you all. Food and water will be delivered at regular intervals via construct."

Construct?

"Strange," Forfend hummed. Already, it was wondering what they would look and act like.

"The Kazama family has an extensive agreement with Moli's Marvelous Mementos to make such a thing a possibility," the head guard informed.

Forfend hummed.

"Make yourselves at home." The head guard nodded politely.

"Thank you."

He took his leave.

Forfend waited until every last refugee had cleared the main entryway and claimed a room.

Once it knew they would be safe and sound for the night, it found its own empty room to settle into.

It sat down and blinked its rune off.

"Okay?!" Jessie's startled voice rang in Forfend's head. He was finally answering its Sending message. "Alright, I'll fortify the place. Please stay safe. Please be okay. Please, Forfend. Fletch can't take it. Where did you say you went again?"

Forfend hadn't said where it had gone. And couldn't without any magic stores left.

Jessie would simply have to trust it to come home safely. It would tell him as soon as it could, but it would need to conserve magic to battle Despot Falco.

It hissed steam for a long moment and lay down on the floor to better rest its exhausted body.

Now if only it didn't have giant arrows in its back and shoulders, rest would be easier.

Unfortunately, like everything else, that would have to be tomorrow's problem.

[dilnaj]

Today’s world is full of new technology and materials. All the credit goes to science and engineering that our life is becoming more simple every day. Therefore, it is becoming important to teach children about the science behind every working material. In order to trigger their young minds about building, it is crucial for me as a teacher to first learn about it. For this, my class was set up to a engineering workshop where we had to build towers with different materials such as straws, newspapers, cups, pool noodles, cards, play dough and buttons, legos and some wooden blocks. There were dome written instructions which we had to follow to complete a task.

Building a tower with a door and windows by Dilnaj

Building tower with straws by Sandeep kaur

After reviewing and completing all the tasks, I found play dough and buttons challenge more interesting and even more challenging than others.

Picture credits: Sandeep kaur

I think this challenge serve best for incorporating creativity while constructing. It promotes engineering skills among children as it provide then with a challenge of building with buttons and play dough which is definitely more difficult than building with legos. Play dough is an open ended material which allow children to use it according to their imagination and creativity. This activity involves the process of combining two materials to form a new structure. For instance, when children will be provided with these materials, they have to use their minds to think the ways in which they can use the buttons like horizontally, vertically or in a slant position. Some questions might come in their minds such as how much tall tower they can build. In our workshop, we had to build a tower that should be 30 cm tall.Therefore, in this way, this activity will help to trigger their minds to things to think that what they can build with this simple buttons.

Further, this challenge promotes exploration skills among children as it allows them to use their senses to observe the materials. This is because all the buttons are not of same sizes, whereas they have different shapes, sizes, colours. Other than this, some of them have two holes in them and some have four. These discoveries will help them to problem solve the situations such as where should be use the big buttons, how should modify play dough to make my structure look attractive. Therefore, this leads to a lit of observations and some questions in view of finding answers for them. Using play dough and buttons for building allows children to tackle an engineering problem by designing a tower from common loose parts.

Next, it allows children to make estimates on the behalf of what they observe and start designing their imaginations. For instance, when I was using these materials, I thought that it would be easy to place the buttons in vertical direction but it was not that easy in reality. Sometimes, It seemed like the play dough has lost its cohesive power. Even, I guessed that I would be able to make a colourful tower with some creative designs.

A colourful tower with beads by Dilnaj

Moreover, they will be testing how the things work. This will happen when children will be using play dough as a glue to make the buttons stick to one another. In this, they can measure the height of their tower using the ruler, count the number of buttons they used, find out which button will serve best towards laying a strong foundation for a structure and many more.

Probing further, drawing conclusions from our predictions is the most important part of engineering process.This activity even promotes designing as children can use the play dough to create different designs such as flowers to decorate their building. The beads are flat, yet round to provide a fun shiny surface to build.

Picture credit: Dilnaj

A paper tower by Sandeep

This activity will give them idea about the steps to form a structure. For instance, they will come to know that foundation of a building should be strong enough to hold a structure in it. They will come to know that they can place heavier materials at the bottom and lighter on the top to ensure good balancing.

Children will learn how to work as part of a team, how to problem-solve with their peers, how to use cooperation to complete a common goal, and bond over a shared experience.

And at last, when there structure is complete, they can share their creations with their friends. They can learn that how other children used the same materials in a different manner.

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

More random, out of order thoughts for the Uncle Philip AU because my brain can only work in specific thoughts right now rather than cohesive responses!

- Hunter doesn’t have the scar on his cheek for a while, not until the siblings’ first encounter with their uncle’s beast form. Hunter and Luz, against Eda’s warnings, attempt to get close to try and calm him down, but Hunter’s similar appearance to Caleb ends up blurring in Philip’s mind and well… there’s a lot of sobbing afterwards. Eda is very clear that, after he’s returned to his normal state, she doesn’t want Philip anywhere near Hunter. She’s understanding of his situation, and she’s pushing down a lot of her own personal feelings as well, but she also knows Hunter needs space to process what happened. When Philip is allowed to enter his room again, there are a lot of apologies. He’s hates that he feels compelled to apologise, and he hates that he’s this attached to a Grimwalker, but he never wanted to hurt his nephew, he swore to Camila he would never let any harm come to those kids. It’s a very awkward and quiet moment, with neither being sure what to say really. Philip does have a braincell sometimes though in this au and is quick to shut Hunter down when he tries to blame himself.

- Eda and Philip’s mini plotline in ‘Something Ventured, Someone Framed’ is one of my favourite things to think about sometimes. It’s a mix of silly and also genuine, being one of the first times the two really get to know each other without the pre-existing biases. Against his better judgement, Philip agrees to help Hunter and Luz get into magic school, only because Eda pointed out that if witches are as bad as he says, he should have no trouble in the kids learning about that first hand. He gets roped into helping Eda clean up her old messes all thanks to another bet they make. He comments frequently on all the trouble she got into throughout, very negatively too, and to a point she snaps back at him to be quiet and to leave if he’s not going to help, not something he quite expected really. He denies throughout the episode that he ever caused trouble at school, but after realising Eda maybe is doing this for Luz, he admits that perhaps he caused a little trouble himself - a lot actually. It’s another area they do connect in: two people that loved learning but didn’t thrive in the environment so lashed out, the complete opposites of their perfect student older siblings.

- Philip has his own Bad Girl Coven T-Shirt that he pretends not to wear, but it ends up becoming one of his go-to pyjama clothes when his usual nightshirt is being washed.

- Luz doesn’t want to admit it, because she’s happy for her brother, but the fact he was able to bond with a palisman and she wasn’t is something she’s envious of. It wears off a little when Eda gifts her the palistrom wood, but still she wonders that maybe if she just had a concrete goal, if she knew what she wanted, she wouldn’t have been rejected like that. She usually decides to just brush the feelings off with some Azura rereads. A good distraction always works in her eyes!

- Finally, somewhere in season two, I’m not sure when yet, Philip at last decides to fully open up about his brother. Not about how he killed him or anything, he very carefully leaves that detail out, but the kind of person he was. The Owl House deals with a lot of themes and grief is one of them. The idea of ‘can you miss someone you never even knew’ links a lot to Hunter and Luz here, who only know about Caleb from their uncle, and they’ve seen the effects Caleb’s death has had on him firsthand. The visual I have is the three of them all just sitting on the cliffside by The Owl House together as the sun sets, with the kids resting their heads against their Uncle, all as he talks about the father Hunter never got to meet, and the other uncle Luz never got to meet either. This is set before Hollow Mind obviously and possibly makes Hollow Mind hit even harder for those two but what’s this AU without a little family angst?

[ceilingfan5]

for you

“It’s you!”

“It’s me.” Kravitz grins from the computer and does a cute little half wave like he always does when they do video calls, and Taako’s heart aches.

He’d give anything to be with him right now, to kiss his stupid handsome face, to flop against him and feel the warmth of another living body that just so happens to care about him very much.

But things are the way they are, and it worked out that their relationship has to go through just a bit of temporary long distance. Short. Brief. There’s an end in sight, no matter how far away it feels. No matter how nauseous Taako gets when he looks at the countdown always running on his phone. No matter how badly he wants to reach through that screen and pull him out and squeeze the breath out of him.

“What’s on the menu tonight, babe?” Taako says, like he’s not writhing in melancholy about the whole situation.

“Funny you should say menu.” Kravitz grins mischievously, and then shares his screen. “Have you ever heard of Cooking Simulator?”

“Already fear is chilling my bones.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Cooking Simulator does not load very well, or fast, and the menu music is fucking deafening, though certainly boppable. It’s kind of silly and kind of charming with a touch of motion sickness thrown in for texture.

“Soooo,” Kravitz draws out. “Love of mine. What should I make you for dinner?”

Taako laughs.

“A burger?”

“Coming right up!” Kravitz calls, and he clicks into the Confectionary kitchen.

“Great sign. Like. Incredible. Super.”

“Have a little faith! You don’t-” Kravitz interrupts himself laughing. “You don’t know- I could be a great cook in the digital sphere, you- you don’t know!”

Taako knows.

Immediately they are met with some issues. Like meat. Meat issues. There is no ground beef in the bakery kitchen. There are no burger patties in the bakery kitchen. There is no chuck, no roast, no turkey to stuff in the blender. The closest thing Kravitz can find, as he whips nauseatingly around the enormous refrigerator stuffed to the gills with eggs and butter and raspberries and entire blocks of baker’s yeast, is bacon. He clicks on the relatively large mound of bacon, which he gets to do individually per bacon slice, and both of them crow with laughter-

“It’s- so fucking small-”

“It looks like a bandaid!! Bacon bandaid! How many- Krav- How many of those constitute a burg?”

“Gonna say six,” Kravitz says confidently, because there are exactly six in the fridge, and he would have to order more otherwise. He immediately adopts and maintains a stupid accent, which doesn’t quite stay in one single wheelhouse, but does make Taako split his sides. “Sounds, um, sounds like a proper uh, patty to me.”

“You’re a monster.”

“You asked for this!”

Taako protests, but Kravitz just laughs, and proceeds to throw the bacon in the blender, along with an egg, for, you know, cohesion, and also flour, for reasons Taako daren’t and caren’t discern. This does not work out.

“Nothing a good attitude can’t fix! Honestly, Taako-” Kravitz snickers and takes the mixture to the mixer, slamming it in and setting it to stun and letting it rip. “You’re gonna love this. This burger’s gonna be so good you’re gonna cream your jeans.”

“Not my jeans!”

The bacon mixture inexplicably becomes a dough. Kravitz carries on and slops it in the oven, in the closest burger shape he can approximate--a little heart shaped pan.

“There are fuckin- there are round-”

“It’s romantical. Don’t unromanticize this for me.”

The heart pan also gets a dough treatment (twice)--“It doesn’t even look like it baked!!”-- and then they’re off to the races. Certainly not horse races, maybe...corgi. Or lizard. Or drunk bicyclists. Because next, well. Next is a problem.

“Kravitz, if you touch that mascarpone, I swear to fucking god-”

“Can’t have a borger without cheese!”

“You explicitly can! KRAVITZ! DO NOT MIX THE MARSCAPONE AND THE CREAM CHEESE!”

“I’m sorry, do you-” Kravitz can barely breathe for laughing. “Do you see cheddar? Some fine- some fine fucking parm-a-sin? Some respectable a-saw-jee-oh?”

Taako is literally fucking crying, and wheezing, and screaming (fuck his neighbors). He cannot abide by this. Kravitz. Kravitz, he cannot abide. This will not be abidden.

AND YET.

“You know what we need?” Kravitz asks, slopping the heart-shaped layers on the cake. Burger. Beef confection. Fuck, it isn’t even beef. Lord above. Christ on a bike. Ring ring. He’s coming through. And he’s blasted.

“Wh-” Taako gasps for breath. “What do we-”

“KETCHIP.” He grapes the bottle of red food dye with force.

“I-”

“Kechpup.” Kravitz slowly rotates the bottle onto the burg.

“Nooooooo!”

“Catstup.” Glowing pink light suffuses their crime. This is not Taako’s idea of what red dye should do to an object, but the game has its...limits?

“I want a divorce.”

“Kep. Spup.” Kravitz chucks the bottle across the digital kitchen, where it bounces off entirely respectable fictional equipment. He paps the top “bun” onto the disaster.

“There. We- We did-” Taako wipes tears off his faces and groans. “We did it. We done did it.”

“I think we should frost it,” Kravitz decides. He pulls out the piping gun and angles for the frosting dispensers on the wall, holding it aloft.

“Time to suckle,” Taako wheezes, and both of them are so lost in the sauce the call almost drops when the laptop falls off Taako’s couch. It takes seven full minutes for either of them to speak complete words at each other, and even then, the nonsense begins again. It takes even longer for Kravitz to actually retrieve and lovingly dispense the frosting, and their sin is done.

“There.” Kravitz picks up the plate with their burger and admires it.

“God, my jeans,” Taako says, voice hoarse from laughing like a buffoon. “Something’s happened.”

“Called it.” Kravitz whips the camera around a few times, and then chucks the burger onto the display area, where it entirely falls apart. “Let’s go to the pizzeria.”

“Great. I want sushi.”

“SUSHI??”

So maybe their call lasts well into the night, and maybe Taako’s bothering the neighbors, and maybe the couch is incredibly empty with only his ass curled up on it, but that love is still there, and still strong, and still absolutely fucking ridiculous. Some souls just match, even if they’re far away.

[rheawritessometimes]

Lines Get Blurred

{ Childe x GN!Reader }

{ Summary } Sometimes we don't understand our feelings, and that's okay. Series Masterlist

{ Warnings } Swearing, Undefined Relationship, Physical Intimacy, Mild Anxiety.

{ Notes } Written for @sailormakoto. Usually, I'd wait longer to start another part to make sure people were interested, but they said they'd like it, so... Now you have to like it even though it's a dumpster fire rolling downhill fast. Reader isn't good with their emotions and it very obviously shows. It's really just messy and bad but I don't know what else to do or how to make a cohesive, logical plot. Masterlist

{ Word Count } 1,783

Childe’s guard nearly jumped out of his skin, letting out a yelp of fright as you swept out of the apartment in a hurry. But in your rush, you hardly noticed him at all, the entirety of your focus was currently on your goal of escaping the embarrassment that was on the verge of consuming you whole. With your body moving on autopilot through the busy streets of Liyue, you retreated into your mind to wrangle your thoughts and gain some sense of control.

Why was it exactly that you felt such an overwhelming urge to run away? It wasn't that you didn’t like or want the kiss, it had been rather enjoyable for you. It had happened so easily between you, and that was the part that you found weird. You couldn’t understand why it felt so easy with him, things weren’t normally like this. It was certainly safe to say you had never wanted to kiss your other friends, and that’s what you and Childe were. Friends.

It’s not like you were in love with him, you were pretty sure you felt the same about him as you always had. Sure, it had been a few months and you’d gotten to know him better and found spending time with him more enjoyable, but ultimately he was still the same person he was when you first met. You got along with him, you laughed together and now sometimes you casually made out with each other. That was fine, friends could do that, right?

Perhaps you were blowing things out of proportion. A few kisses didn't change anything, really. It's not like Childe had confessed to having feelings for you or anything drastic. You two were just friends and everything was fine, things would eventually sort themselves out.

You hadn't even realized you had been mildly hyperventilating by the time you regulated your breathing back to normal and managed to get out of your head. With your focus now on your surroundings, you found yourself in Liyue's bustling market among the fresh produce. You decided it would be best to pick up some groceries while you were here, as you said you would. Picking out what looked best and haggling with the merchants over prices seemed like a good way to pretend your problems didn’t exist clear your head.

As it turns out, grocery shopping became infinitely more difficult when you didn’t know what was needed. It was clear Childe liked to cook but you didn’t know what it was he liked to prepare. Going back to get a list from him now would be incredibly awkward, so you decided to play it safe and buy a large quantity wide variety of ingredients. You decided you had enough when the bags in your arms felt like they were getting too heavy to carry. Fitting this much food into Childe’s kitchen was going to be quite the struggle. Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of your actions.

Dragging all your purchases back to the apartment was going to be quite the workout. You wondered if next time it would be possible to get one of the low-ranking Fatui to help you carry things. A few pedestrians gave you some odd looks as they saw your mountain of purchases, but no one offered you any help. Things only got worse once you remembered you had said you were going to buy some things from Bubu Pharmacy, too. You were going to be strong as fuck after going up all those goddamn steps.

The man at the counter wore a worried expression as he noticed the amount of bags you were dragging along with you. You brushed off his concern with something about how you were an adventurer and stronger than the average person, trying not to let it show that you were indeed struggling to carry everything. Even with superhuman strength, you had your limits. Unfortunately, the man accepted your words and busied himself with finding the ice packs you requested, along with an herbal tea you asked for because it had a divine aroma you noticed upon walking in. It's not like he was likely able to help you with the groceries, so you supposed it didn't matter.

By the time you returned to Childe’s apartment, your arms were ready to fall off and the scowl on your face must have been quite intimidating because the guard stationed at the door immediately did as he was told when you ordered him to open the door for you. He didn't say a word, not even giving you a nasty look for the first time. Despite the non-hostile treatment by the guard, you promptly kicked the door closed on him after entering the apartment, heading straight to the kitchen and letting out a sigh of relief after dropping all of the bags in the middle of the floor.

You hadn’t seen Childe on your way in and you couldn’t hear him moving around the apartment but you assumed he was home, the guard probably wouldn’t have been quite so willing to let you in otherwise. Even if you wore a scary expression. Not to mention, surely the Harbinger wouldn’t appoint a guard foolish enough to allow you in unsupervised, there were likely sensitive documents somewhere inside. You assumed it had been Fatui reports he was reading earlier.

Finding room for all the groceries you had purchased took your mind away from wondering about the location of your temporary host. Putting everything away proved to be a time-consuming task, but by the end of it Childe had yet to make an appearance, or even any noise indicating he was in the apartment. This was worrying, if he had left and gotten himself hurt you’d have to go out in search of him. After purchasing, carrying, and putting away all the food you had bought you weren’t sure you were up for tracking him down.

Taking one of the newly purchased ice packs to use as an excuse, you wrapped it in a towel before making your way to his bedroom. It seemed like the most likely place to find him if he was indeed still in the apartment. It was hard to imagine he'd have spent so much time silent in the bathroom. You felt strangely on edge as you stopped in front of the door, knocking softly three times.

No reply came but you weren't convinced he was truly not home, so you slowly pushed the door open, holding your breath. It didn’t make sense for you to feel so nervous about this, it wasn’t the end of the world if he wasn’t home. Maybe you were more worried about seeing him than not.

The sight of Childe sprawled out in the middle of his bed peacefully napping greeted you as you quietly entered. His blanket appeared to have been thrown off him in his sleep and his shirt rode up just a little bit. His room was tidy, but you were too busy appreciating the revealed section of his abdomen to take a proper look around. You were only granted a few moments to stare before he opened one eye, peering at you for just long enough to register that it was you in his room.

It was unsurprising that the Harbinger was a light sleeper enough sleeper to be woken by you entering his room, considering his line of work. Vastly more surprising was when, after determining it was you who had woken him, he closed his eye again and went back to dozing. You couldn’t help but smile fondly at this, a pleasant warmth filling you at the show of trust. Or maybe he was too tired to care.

Of course he trusted you, you were friends after all. The thought had your smile fading, but you weren’t sure why that displeased you. Pushing the thought from your head, you silently made your way to the bedside and placed the icepack at his side.

The sudden cold had ocean eyes fluttering open before focusing on you. You smiled playfully at his slightly disgruntled expression. That was much easier on your emotions than his prior vulnerability.

“Sorry, but it needs to be done.”

“Mm, whatever. Hey, did I make you uncomfortable earlier?” the Harbinger asked, causing your heart to pause. He certainly was good at getting straight to the point. You had to take a deep breath before answering him.

“No, not at all. I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I ran away like that,” you told him, the words rushing out of your mouth. Your heart was racing faster than you thought it should have been in this situation. It’s not like any of this was that big of a deal, certainly not the end of the world.

“Well if you’re not uncomfortable then how ‘bout you nap with me?” the Snezhnayan offered, and you were pretty sure it was almost entirely because he wanted to get back to sleep himself, “You look exhausted, you probably need it.”

High flags of color appeared on your cheeks at his words, you must not be looking your best for him to offer such a thing. It couldn't be that he was actually worried for you, but you couldn't reason out why he would offer such a thing. However, the prospect of rest was tempting, but you couldn’t help but think it would be easier on your heart if you just went to your room for it. Then again, if you rejected him it might seem like you had been lying about being comfortable with him.

“Stop thinking so loudly and just come here,” Childe said finally, opening his arms to you. You clenched your jaw, feeling even more embarrassed, but began climbing into bed with him.

“Fine,” you mumbled, letting him pull you close before covering the both of you with a blanket. He gently tucked your head against his chest before pressing a kiss to the crown of your head, luckily for you, it wasn’t possible for you to get any redder at this point. Not that he would see considering he had closed his eyes and was already nodding off again, but maybe he was able to feel the heat radiating off your cheeks.

“You worry too much. Relax and go to sleep.”

Despite your internal anxieties, you found yourself complying with his suggestion thanks to the fatigue already weighing you down and how comfortable it felt to be in his arms. All of it felt a little too intimate for being just friends, but you didn’t get much time to worry about it as you drifted off into unconsciousness.

[neuxue]

Hi, neuxue......If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite “villains” (or antagonists) in MXTX works? Whether it’s a final boss like Jun Wu or more of a side character like Xue Yang. (Whether you want to do a ranking or just write out in no particular order)...Sorry if you've answered this question before....

If I don't mind??? If I don't mind? Please, my friend, you give me an opportunity to talk about favourite villains and I am yours for as long as you'll listen.

Not going to attempt to order them so we'll just go by story:

CQL

Xue Yang - characters who don't realise what they want, or that they've found a way to have it, until the moment when they destroy it!! Who destroy it because on some level they don't truly believe they can have it at all, and because it's easier to lose something when you can convince yourself you were always going to, and that it was your own choice. The whole time-bomb of Yi City just wrecks me.

I'm also generally here for his brand of competence and mercuriality - the knife-edged playfulness that doesn't quite mask a deeper darkness, the tendency to dance just a little too close to the edge with the particular carefree abandon of one who cannot imagine living beyond youth.

Finally... oh man do I even want to try to articulate this? So, he has several traits that often get used as a shorthand for not just ‘evil’ but ‘inherently evil’. Which... frustrates me. But with Xue Yang... yes, he's cast as a villain and yes he loses everything and yes he dies alone and unmourned... but there's a sense of 'it didn't have to go this way'. If the cart driver had been kinder; if his capability had been put to some use other than ‘weapon’. Or that moment in Yi City where he seems to delight just as much in cheating at a silly game of choosing sticks as he does in tricking Xiao Xingchen into killing people. This idea that there could have been another path. (And also, via Yi City, that he is not... inherently unlovable). His story ends in tragedy, but it’s not framed, at least the way I (choose to) read it, as ‘your story can only end in tragedy, because of the way you are’. It gives the option to read it as ‘you are not inherently monstrous’.

(Which then almost feeds back into the tragedy of the first point, because it’s only there in a kind of meta sense: Xue Yang himself? only ever receives the you are a weapon, you are a monster, that is all you can be side of it. Oh man okay I’ll stop here before I get pulled into a whole essay on this because suddenly I want to).

Jin Guangyao - I love a schemer! I love a pragmatist! I love ruthless competence beneath an inscrutable smile! I love characters who will tolerate nothing less than absolute perfection in themselves because they have learned the hard way that it’s the only possible way to survive. Characters who are not exempt from their own ruthlessness, their own cost-benefit analysis. Characters who have learned from their world that happiness must be sacrificed at the altar of survival, and who will do so with heartbreak but without hesitation when necessary. The only way is forward; to look back is to fail, but the irony is they can still never outrun their pasts.

Also he’s another one where there’s such a sense of it didn’t have to end this way. So many points at which things could have been different, so many alternate versions in which his capability could have been channelled towards a different goal, if the goal carved into his bones didn’t have to be survive, in a world that will try to make that impossible. 

I love villains and antagonists of all stripes and moralities, but in this instance what I love is a character who doesn’t want to be a villain, doesn’t want their hands stained with blood, doesn’t want to hurt those they love... but they do not see a choice. 

Wen Zhuliu - he’s highly competent and wears fingerless gloves; what more do you want from me?

Honestly though, he fascinates me. In part it’s the fact that we just don’t get much interiority to him, and only one exchange of dialogue that really suggests his motives, but we also get these little moments, that collectively build this sense of a kind of... lawful neutral, I suppose? Not even villain-by-necessity so much as villain-by-...debt? loyalty? But he also so clearly has such a strong sense of honour, and I just love trying to reconcile all of those pieces into a cohesive whole. 

The other thing that really gets me about him is his extraordinary power and how it’s regarded - especially when juxtaposed with Wei Wuxian’s. In both cases you have a single individual who holds a terrifying and mostly unique power that threatens or pushes the boundaries of their whole society and world. Wei Wuxian commands ghosts without a sword; Wen Zhuliu can extinguish someone’s power with his hands. But, crucially, the difference between them seems to be... that Wei Wuxian is a wildcard; Wen Zhuliu is leashed. And so I have to wonder once again at the strength of that leash, and at what would happen if Wen Zhuliu, like Wei Wuxian, decided to rebel. And in that whole question lives in this really interesting space of... what is it people truly fear? The power? The wielder? That person’s ability to choose? The uncertainty of what they will choose? The possibility of them realising they can?

***

TGCF

He Xuan - I mean the theme here obviously is competence, and He Xuan has a killer aesthetic to go with it, but mostly it’s just... the way his whole character is an exploration of revenge, and the line between vengeance and justice, and the question inherent in the irony of... throwing away the very thing you wanted vengeance for, in order to exact that vengeance.

(And also the whole cycle-of-revenge in doing unto another what was once done unto you, in the process of exacting that vengeance).

I’m just. Unbelievably here for a good betrayal story, and this one has it all! The intimacy! The self-betrayal! The emptiness and hunger!

And while with Xue Yang I love that moment of realising what he wants, or what he’s losing, only in the moment when he destroys it... with He Xuan what I love is that he goes into this, in so many ways, knowing what he’s doing. This is not spontaneity; this is the ultimate premeditation. He knows what he has, in his guise as a heavenly official. He knows, intimately, the person he is betraying. He has given great thought to the how of that betrayal. 

(Is it worth it, in the end?)

(After all, he’s still here)

Bai Wuxiang - one of the dynamics that will wreck me pretty much every time is what I like to call ‘intimate enemies’. Enemies-to-lovers can fit under that umbrella, but it’s a broader umbrella than just that. The idea of characters who (either one-sided or reciprocally) know each other so deeply, and can wield that knowledge to wound. The awful gentleness and precision of holding a knife to the core of someone’s identity. 

That, plus the identity fuckery in general. The way Bai Wuxiang frames himself as Xie Lian’s mirror, and the way he then reflects and warps and tugs at those pieces of Xie Lian’s self and name and will, trying to shape them in his image, but so gently. The way he talks to Xie Lian! The way he strokes his hair as he stabs him! It’s just so much, okay!

So yeah, a lot of it is that I’m just very into the highkey fucked-up dynamic he has with Xie Lian. But also Bai Wuxiang’s own story hits me in a kind of... if you’ll forgive a Wheel of Time reference: betrayer-of-hope betrayed-by-hope kind of way. That he tried so hard once, only for it to fall to ruin in his hands, and now he watches another try (and fail!) as he once did. And the way he seems to, in trying to mould Xie Lian’s present to his own past, be searching for a kind of... vindication? A confirmation of that inevitability? That of course he failed, that he could never have succeeded, because this is the nature of humanity, and it is not worth saving, and so his attempts weren’t failure. 

But the thing with that is: it’s a lose-lose situation. If he succeeds and Xie Lian fails, yes, it gives him that sense of ‘there was never another way, and no point trying to find one’ but is that really... winning? Is finding vindication in despair truly a success? And yet if he fails and Xie Lian succeeds, then does that not also feel like a sword to the heart: that it wasn’t inevitable, and that means he has to come to terms with his own failure and the heartbreak it wrought?

[scuttling]

Interview

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairing: Aaron Hotchner/Latina OFC Sophie Cortes Word Count: 1,729 Tags: SFW, Pre-relationship, First meetings Summary: Aaron finally gets the greenlight to hire a new agent. Collection: Sophie Cortes timeline, 0-6 Months at the BAU (See Masterlist for reading order) A/N: Sophie and Reid are partners, because I love them! Link to AO3 or read below!

It takes two months for Hotch to convince Section Chief Strauss to open a requisition for a new member in the BAU. There was a lot of paperwork to be filled out, including detailed explanations as to why he felt the team needed another profiler. He thought it was obvious: for all they do work together as a cohesive unit, Morgan and Elle were technically partners, and when she left, Prentiss took her place. Reid doesn’t have a partner, which makes him feel like a third wheel, sometimes.

(He won’t admit to it, but Hotch notices things. It’s kind of his job.)

Needless to say, the position becomes available, but it takes another couple of months—and several interviews—for Hotch to find the right person to fill it.

Agent Cortes comes highly recommended by the Intelligence Section’s unit chief, someone he worked on a case with in his early days at the BAU; she is young, just 29, but she is more than qualified, and the referring agent is someone whose opinion he respects, so he’s hopeful.

Gideon sits in on the interview because he respects his opinion, too, although Hotch will make the final decision.

Cortes is Latina, petite and polite, with a firm handshake, a warm smile, and dark, striking eyes. Gideon looks at her with somewhat passive interest (something only Gideon can pull off) as they go over the highlights of her resume.

“You have bachelor's degrees in Psychology and Sociology, and master’s degrees in Behavioral Science and Criminology, all from the University of Chicago. How did you manage all of that, at your age?” Hotch asks, wondering if maybe she is gifted like Reid.

“A lot of hard work,” she replies, and it’s an answer he likes. “I graduated high school, enrolled in a dual major program and completed the bachelors’ at 22. Then I was hired onto the Chicago Police Department, and I worked there and got my Criminology degree at the same time. The Behavioral Science degree came after; I began it in person, and they let me finish online when I moved here to join the FBI.”

“What interested you about behavioral science?”

“I grew up in a city that was rich with diversity, but I still noticed that certain people were susceptible to falling into certain patterns, and became curious about why we as people do the things we do. I was already interested in criminal justice, so it seemed a natural path to take.” He nods, jots down a couple of notes before looking back up.

“Tell us about your time with the Chicago Police Department.”

“I went through training while finishing my Criminology degree, worked a beat for about six months before being assigned to the Intelligence Unit; my sergeant found value in the way I was able to get people talking, and a large part of my work was with criminal informants. I worked in Intelligence for three and a half years, and for the last two I was on the Tactical Response Team as well.”

“Tactical Response—that’s SWAT?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did you end up in SWAT?” Gideon asks, speaking up for the first time; she looks over at him for the first time, as well. “I mean no offense, you’re clearly more than capable, you’re just… small.” She gives him a brief smile.

“Well, there was a hostage situation, the team leader determined that we could get a vantage point from an air duct... and I was the only one who fit.”

“You don’t seem resentful of that,” Hotch notices, a bit surprised. It’s not an origin sorry everyone would be proud of. Her eyes turn back to him.

“I find it’s more important what you do with your time somewhere than how you got there. I contributed to many successful responses over the course of two years that had nothing to do with my size.” It is a great answer, and he holds back a smile of his own, simply nods.

“So you left Chicago to join the bureau; did you have your sights set on any department in particular?”

“I was torn between Language Analysis and Intelligence and ended up somewhere in the middle.”

“Intelligence because of your background, why Language Analysis?” Gideon asks.

“I speak 6: English, Spanish, and Italian as my native languages, plus Russian, French, and German. I have an ear for them.”

“Impressive,” Gideon says, nodding, lips pressed together. Cortes smiles, modest.

“It’s helpful; more than 30% of the population of Chicago speaks a language other than English at home.” Hotch does crack a smile at that, because the statistic reminds him of Reid.

“How would you describe your current role with Intelligence?”

“The official title is Intelligence Liaison. I’m part of a team that travels domestically and internationally, to law enforcement or government agencies, to debrief them on threats we’ve identified, or potential threat activity, and to help them formulate offensive countermeasures.” There is a lot of experience there that would translate well to the BAU, that much is clear. If anything, she may be overqualified, but they would never turn down the help.

“What’s the most frustrating part of your job?” It’s a question he always throws in, because true frustrations—and how one handles them—can say a lot about a person.

“When they don’t listen and people die. I do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen often.” He looks up from the form to the woman, who, in that moment, shows the things she’s seen all over her face. They’re gone from one blink to the next, and he breaks eye contact to choose his next question. No follow up needed there.

“It sounds like you have experience interacting with law enforcement, which is important here at the BAU. We can’t work on a case unless we are invited by the agency with jurisdiction, so maintaining healthy relationships is vital. We have a communications liaison who deals directly with police departments, sheriff’s stations, FBI field offices, and the media, but knowing how to handle them is a big part of the job.” It’s not a question as much as a confirmation, and she nods.

“I’m confident in my ability to interact with other law enforcement in a direct but respectful way. It’s something I’ve done a lot of as Intelligence Liaison.” He has one final question, and though he’s already more than pleased with the interview, the answer will make or break his decision.

“Why the BAU?”

“Curiosity is what got me interested in behavioral science, but it’s empathy that makes me interested in the BAU. My current work helps to save lives, but it’s all very large scale, and it can be detached, cold. I can be detached and impartial when I need to be, but I can’t deny it would feel like a better use of my skill set to make a more tangible difference.” He agrees, can already tell that she would thrive in the environment of their unit, and it’s just the kind of answer he’s looking for; he takes a few more notes, glances over at Gideon for input.

“Anything else you’d like to ask?”

“I think we’ve covered it,” he says, and he stands abruptly, which makes Agent Cortes stand as well. Hotch follows suit. “Nice to meet you. He’ll be in touch,” Gideon adds, shaking her hand briefly and leaving the room. She is left looking a little lost, and Hotch steps around the desk.

“I apologize for him, he’s a little…”

“Capricious?” she offers with a smile, and he laughs lightly.

“That’s accurate, actually. Please don’t take it personally.”

“I won’t. I’ve heard a lot about him, so he kind of lives up to my expectations.” She tilts her head, looking curious. “You don’t, though. Unit Chief Roberts told me you would be stoic; I expected someone much more aloof, but you’re actually rather warm.” He is a bit surprised by her directness, even more so that she would find him... warm.

“I doubt that my colleagues would agree with your assessment,” he says, thinking of the number of less than kind words used to describe him in the past. She just smiles again.

“I guess you really do need me on your team, then.”

He finds it hard not to agree.

“There are a few more things we’ll need from you, such as a psychological evaluation, recent performance reviews, a physical. I’ll be in touch with Agent Roberts, and then you, if we determine you are the right fit. I’ll see you out,” he adds, gesturing to the door, and she follows. The team, who was not yet in the bullpen when she arrived, looks on, curious, as they head to the glass double doors.

“Thank you for the opportunity to interview. I hope to hear from you soon,” she says with another firm handshake, and he nods.

“We’ll be in touch. It’s a pleasure to have made your acquaintance.”

“Likewise, Agent Hotchner.” She gets onto the elevator, and he heads back to the bullpen, stops specifically at Reid’s desk, though everyone is nearby.

“Congratulations, Reid: you’ve officially got a partner.” Reid smiles, looking pleased.

“Who is she?”

“Special Agent Sophia Cortes. She currently works for Intelligence. Bachelors’ in Psychology and Sociology, Masters’ in Criminology and Behavioral Sciences. Fluent in six languages. Got her start at Chicago PD like you, Morgan—Intelligence there too. And SWAT.”

“SWAT?” Morgan echoes, impressed. “She’s gotta be 5’2” out of those heels.”

“She’s got glowing reviews from her superiors there, and from her unit chief: he called her resilient, determined, empathetic, a team player. She’s good at communicating with law enforcement, victims, even unsubs. The BAU is the right place for her. We’ll just be waiting on paperwork to make it official.” He crosses his arms, leans back against the filing cabinet. “I’d have introduced you, but she doesn’t know she’s being offered the job just yet.”

“She must have made quite an impression on you for you to decide on the spot,” Prentiss says, and he nods his head in agreement.

“I think she’ll fit in well. I saw a little bit of each of you in her, and she’s very…” He tries to think of one word to sum up the woman he just interviewed, and decides with a half-smile: “warm.”

[sysmedsaresexist]

(Thank you)

1. Can you be a system with absolutely no idea what caused you to split? Or to not be aware of your trama at all?

I’ve only very recently come to terms with the fact that I have trauma and haven’t done any work on it yet. I don’t have an event I can point to and go “this traumatized me.”

2. What does it feel like to have an alter front?

3. Are systems usually aware they’re a system before they’re diagnosed?

4. Do alters always know what they look like beforehand? Previously I thought alters knew everything about themselves but one of the answers I got mentioned hosts sometimes helping to figure out names.

I'm curious what kind of answers you've gotten to these so far that made you seek us out, of all people, lol

1. Can you be a system with absolutely no idea what caused you to split? Or to not be aware of your trama at all?

Absolutely, both of these scenarios are not only possible, but completely normal. We're going to switch these around and talk about them in the opposite order, starting with, "not aware of trauma at all". The purpose of a system is to hide trauma. When you're young and going through traumatic situations, and you dissociate, what usually happens is one of two things. Either the child mentally goes away (dissociates, imagining being in a different situation, ignoring what's happening to them in the moment), or they imagine actually being someone else ("this isn't happening to me, it's happening to someone else, I'm (fuck it, uh) Zoro, and I, Zoro, can handle this"). Both of these scenarios lay the groundwork for the creation of a system, and both cases lead to the loss of memory of traumatic events when a child experiences that extreme level of dissociation over prolonged periods.

What this means is, there is no one event that creates a system. It's event, after event, after event, until the child can no longer form a cohesive sense of self. They've become too reliant on dissociation as a coping mechanism, these dissociated parts have taken on a life of their own, and a child's identity has become so fractured and they're so confused that they can't tell who or what they are, and the memories of why are scattered between these parts.

It's not as easy as pointing to an event and saying, "That was it. That was what happened, that's what did this to me-- to us."

This sort of plays in to the next point of, "why did a specific alter split." And this can apply to childhood, later, hell, today, ten years ago, fifteen years from now. It's not always as easy as pointing to a specific event for each alter, either. Some alters take months and years after an event to come forward and make themselves known. This can make pinning down their "origin" almost impossible. What made them could have happened a long time ago. Sometimes it's not a specific event, but a combination of several events, just like in childhood. Are your parents always fighting? Maybe, by the tenth time they're blowing up at each other and you're curled up in your room trying to ignore it, a part finally splits to help you handle that stress. It wasn't specifically the tenth fight-- it was the combination of ALL of the fights.

2. What does it feel like to have an alter front?

This depends. I'm old. I've experienced a lot of different feelings when someone else fronts. When I was kid, it sometimes felt like I was asleep. No memories of it, just blissful darkness, no real time loss, things would go dark for what felt like ten minutes, and then I'd be back, several hours later, barely even realizing I had missed an entire day. I also had pretty bad maladaptive daydreaming, and sometimes I would go into my daydreams while another alter took over. I just thought this was normal. I was just REALLY good at multi-tasking, you know?

When I got older, and I learned more about what was happening, sometimes it would feel like a battle to the death-- two of us fighting desperately for front. Sometimes it honestly felt like a punch to the head-- a knock out when I lost, unpleasant darkness, fear, anxiety, what was I going to come back to? Other times, when I won, I was left with a massive headache and exhausted. Sometimes I welcomed the break, and over time, it became easier. It became like watching things happen through a foggy window. Sometimes I wanted to do something, and I couldn't, and sometimes I felt helpless and lost. As communication got better, I could see more clearly, I could ask for things to happen, I could occasionally... steal a moment, use a hand, set something straight on the counter that was bothering me.

When an alter fronts, it can feel like a lot of things, depending on the situation, depending on communication levels. There's no "one way" or "right way".

3. Are systems usually aware they’re a system before they’re diagnosed?

I would say, in the age of the internet, it's more likely than not that someone is aware they're potentially a system, than it is for them to be completely unaware at the time of diagnosis. Before the internet, before you could just google symptoms, a lot of people weren't aware prior to diagnosis. Even these days, it's not unheard of for someone to only find out around the time of diagnosis, because you don't always realize you're losing time, or have amnesia. Your alters aren't always so completely different that the people around you notice and point it out. The entire point of this disorder is for it to be unnoticeable. It really just depends on the person, their exposure to information about the disorders, and how bad their dissociation is. Some know, some don't. Some go seeking therapy for help with other issues and eventually it just comes out over time that you have something else going on. Sometimes you suspect, and you go to therapy specifically for it. It's different for everyone.

4. Do alters always know what they look like beforehand? Previously I thought alters knew everything about themselves but one of the answers I got mentioned hosts sometimes helping to figure out names.

Not at all. It's actually really common for alters to be... essentially blank slates in the beginning. Let's look at the example above, of the child dissociating out of a bad situation. If they're going away into their daydreams, the body is essentially left unattended. Any alter that forms in that moment could considered to be "blank" at the start. In the other scenario, you know who Zoro is, what they look like, what they like and dislike, what their history is. It doesn't even need to be a character you know of, maybe you, like me, had MaDD, and you'd become one of your characters, your OCs. I had one.

She was strong and had superpowers and was beautiful and confident-- and that was one of my first alters. I imagined being her often enough that I could eventually take the other route, disappear into my mind while she handled it herself (this was totally normal multi-tasking, apparently). She knew who and what she was right off the bat. What she looked like, her history, her personality. In the first scenario, that alter may or may not come up with that information on their own. They may remain blank until communication is good, and then they might start to grow, maybe you do help them find a name, maybe they find it years later on their own. Again, there's no "one way". It depends on the circumstances.

-

You sent a second ask with some more questions, and I think this leads into the next one.

Is it normal for an alter to feel more comfortable in the body than the original host?

Like, you look in a mirror and you think “yeah this is [alter name]” Not really as a negative or positive feeling, just a neutral and true one. Being trans (or mistaking the presence of a different gender alter [the alter in question] for it?) might also effect this.

This can happen, yes! In the case of my OC/alter, of course she looked like me. She was everything I wanted to be when I was a child. She can look in the mirror and say, yup, definitely me. This is what I've always looked like, and I'm perfection.

I have another alter that just... isn't bothered by appearance. He looks in the mirror and it's like, "yup, I guess so, cool -finger guns-"

There's a lot of reasons some alters might be more comfortable in the body than others, and they're all totally normal.

-

And finally. The last question:

What is a tupla?

This is, surprisingly, a very loaded question.

First, right off the bat, the use of the term tulpa is cultural appropriation. I don't claim to be an expert, but to put it simply. The actual practice of tulpamancy is nothing, NOTHING, like what it's being used for in system circles. Here's a really, REALLY good post on how it's been twisted from the original practice and westernized.

The more accepted terms in system circles are willogenic, parogenic, and thoughtforms. These are "headmates" that are intentionally created. They're imaginary friends brought to life through meditation and practice. Some systems claim to be DID/OSDD and say they've intentionally created some alters, making them "mixed origin" (it's more likely that someone has convinced themselves that it was intentional and their choice in an attempt to feel a sense of control over their situation). Some endogenic systems claim to have intentionally created their entire system (which, because on the levels of dissociation needed to create alters, I don't believe is possible without a traumatic origin).

I hope this all helps, I hope it all made sense, if you have more questions, let me know!

[haztory]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬

--erwin smith x reader; fluff, domestic, not canon compliant farmer erwin, there’s a mentioning of injuries but not enough to be considered graphic! (erwin lives!)

a.n: this is my attempt at swinging back into the ways of writing after a long, long, long hiatus! i wrote this in thirty minutes as just an exercise, but felt it was cohesive enough to post. its vague, abstract, and definitely not a magnum opus, but its something. this is more of an erwin story than an x reader one, but i hope you all enjoy regardless!

this was titled after a song on the pride and prejudice ost of the same name. highly recommend you give it a listen

anything for my sweet boy erwin ♡

(w.c: 1686)

At the initial prospect of it, retirement was somewhat akin to shooting oneself in the foot for a man like Erwin. It was condescending, debilitating, almost an insult were he any lesser than a reasonable man.

The word was floated around numerous times after the loss of his arm, spoken with a gentleness and, dare he say, a trepidation they believed must be adopted when speaking to the freshly injured man. For fear of upsetting him or for fear of making the situation real, he’s not quite sure. It was mentioned, nonetheless. In passing, directly, through implication; Everyone seemed to think that Erwin was less of a man and more of a liability because of his lost arm, and that retiring from the Scout Regiment would be the best option for everyone. 

That was something he took offense to. 

His physical abilities may be considerably limited now, yes, but he still holds inherent value to the cause he’s dedicated his life to. Still has goals, still has dreams, still has ideas that must be discussed and implemented if the fate of humanity is to even think about surviving beyond the next few days. 

Erwin still had some fight in him, and he still had things to offer. Things that retirement would take away from him.

The word settled like a thick tar on his tongue and left a bitter aftertaste, one he couldn’t bear to swallow down. So he didn’t. He spit the word back out, removing it from his mouth and sternly asking others to rid themselves of it too. They followed his order, albeit begrudgingly, but the conversation ended then and there. Not permanently, unfortunately. No amount of power, Erwin imagines, could ever snuff out the growing fear his missing appendage has instilled in his soldiers. That even the most untouchable, unshakeable of leaders could be tainted by this cruel world. 

He knows it's on everyone's mind, no matter how many times he can try to assuage the fears, for if the exchanged uneasy glances between his eccentric Section Commander and trusted Captain were anything to go by, then the fear his cadets must feel must be traumatizing. The looks they pass to one another when they think he isn’t looking.

Erwin lost an arm, not his intuition. It seems he’s the only one who knows that. 

But they let it go. They all do, for now at least. They reluctantly put a pin at his assertion that he would continue his work, regardless of injury, and quickly filed this topic as one they would return to at a later date. Appease him now to make him more receptive to the future. They let him continue to work himself dry, let him continue with physical missions like he wasn’t missing a trusted appendage, and entertained his reckless and drastic thoughts to a certain extent.

When he lands himself back in the infirmary, this time with a serious rupture to the side of his stomach from flying debris, and a number of broken bones that will surely cause permanent hindrance to his mobility, the topic is brought back up again. Only this time, it’s non-negotiable. His near death was the final straw in forcing Erwin Smith into retirement. 

                                                              ∵

He hates it.

Hates how quiet his home is, hates how unexciting his routine is, hates not being able to know.

But he finds that making coffee is still manageable with one arm. The sun still shines as brightly inside the walls as it does outside. The birds still chirp excitedly in the morning and the wind still blows gently in the afternoon. 

He hates retirement, but it’s manageable. 

It gets better after a while, the presence of a neighbor making his nights substantially more interesting with the dinner she brings over. 

                                                             ∵

The house is quiet once again, only the distant chirps of the birds filling the empty space. It's familiar, but he finds it unsettling this time around. A feeling of anticipation creeping into his stomach, waiting for the other shoe to drop at any moment.

It doesn’t happen. 

With a slight furrow in his brow and after a long analyzing gaze outside the window above the kitchen sink, Erwin makes his way towards the front door, granting him access to the front porch of the house. Settled away from the city, the land his house is built on stretches for miles; Fields of green spread out before him and littered with tall, blooming and swaying trees. The chickens squawk and run around before him and the horses huff their snorts of boredom. There’s activity in the Smith residence, but it’s not the kind he’s looking for. 

There’s something missing. 

Bringing his left arm up to his mouth, he curls his fingers below his tongue, blowing out a loud and sharp whistle that has all movement still for a brief moment on his farm. All attention piqued on him, the animals and the trees alike waited for Erwin’s response. 

They wait, and they wait, and they wait. But still, nothing.

The crease between Erwin’s brows dips further. A brief flash of worry settles in his shoulders. He pulls his fingers into his mouth again, blowing a whistle that lasts for a few seconds longer this time. His eyes stay trained on the hill before him, hoping to see something. Anything.

He waits a minute before the restlessness takes over and he takes his steps down the stairs of the porch, his boots crunching against the crisp grass still wet from the morning dew. He approaches the top of the hill, the one that lays level with the foundation of his house, before surveying the land further below. He looks left and right, then left again and then right again, eyes peeled for that familiar flash of grey.

Where in the world could that damn dog have gone?

The dog is usually fast enough to return before he even needs to whistle a second time, never straying too far from the property for her to not hear Erwin’s call. But this time is different. She’s gone and isn’t returning to him and that can only mean one thing.

Trouble.

He begins his trek down the hill, the morning still early enough to not have him sweating on this irregular stroll of his, but he can feel the temperature slowly rising through the air. The wind serves as his only semblance of comfort as it continues its mission of cooling the exposed skin of his forearm and neck. 

He must be walking for at least five minutes before he sees it. The scraggly grey hair of a dog's bottom, her top half hidden behind a large oak tree but her tail wagging ferociously. A small smile graces Erwin’s face subconsciously, the slowly building apprehension dissipating in an instant at seeing the vivacious mutt. 

Or at least at seeing her bottom half. 

He approaches the tree slowly, the noises of enjoyment and panting from the dog becoming louder as he draws nearer. But there’s another sound too that fills the air. A sound much sweeter and delicate, one that he’s heard a thousand times over the years,  and yet, Erwin swears it's one he can never get tired of. 

It’s a breath of fresh air, an instant drug in his veins, and the reason behind the swelling of his heart. His smile grows wider than he could have possibly imagined.

He gets close enough and the dog finally notices him, bounding over to him in an instant with a greeting bark and a perk in her step. He pats her head, a silent gratefulness at having found her finally and understanding why she refused to meet his calls. Why she continued to stay at the spot behind the oak tree a five minute walk away from her home.

He finally gets near the tree, peering around its large trunk to the spot the dog previously occupied and can’t help but laugh in surprise. 

Sitting in the space between the bulging roots are his two girls, one aged six and the other three, huddled close together as they coo and giggle over an object resting between the two’s feet. Their backs are turned towards their father, too preoccupied with whatever was settled between them to even notice the beloved dog’s disappearance from her original spot and its replacement with their father. 

His years of training to fight titans kicks in, his steps as quiet as can be as he gets closer to the girls to get a look at what they were currently fawning over. 

A baby bird. Brown in color and more than comfortable between the two children.

“What are you two doing?”

His voice sends a jolt of shock through them, the two girls jumping in the air at the sudden disruption and whipping their faces around to look at the intruder. The fear quickly melts off of their round faces when they realize who it is. 

“Daddy!” The two girls yell unanimously, unbridled joy filtering their features and Erwin briefly sees the beautiful face of their mother in them. The youngest in particular. 

The eldest managed to take most of his features, much to his wife’s pleasure, retaining his aquiline nose, the vibrant blue of his eyes, and his own oval face shape, but her hair is a delightful mix between his and his wife’s. And while she looks the most like him, she acts the most like her mother; Joyous and giggly and a passionate ball of rays. 

Now, his youngest, while looking almost entirely like a carbon copy of her mother, was in fact a replica of his own personality. Quiet, curious, diplomatic. A balance to her impulsive sister, a shining grey crater of peace in the sky.

His sun and moon. His reasons for orbit. The loves of his life. 

                                                             ∵

And as he walks his two girls back across the field to their home, their mother’s figure on the horizon and an excited chatter between them as they recount the tales of their morning in helping the baby bird, a single thought enters Erwin’s mind. 

Retirement isn’t so bad. 

[crescentsteel]

Just Friends - Part 9

plot: fubu set up with Kuroo , model fem reader warnings: slow burn, fluff, smut word count: 7.3k

Read at AO3 [A/N at the end]

Part 8 | Part 10 | m.list

You haven’t even gotten up yet, but you already know that you have the worst hangover in your entire lifetime. You have this intense urge to throw up even though your stomach felt empty. Your head felt like it was being hammered on to your soft pillow. Your throat was dry. Your thighs hurt like hell. 

How you wished you could go back to sleep, but even with your eyes closed, everything was still painful. 

You had no choice but to get up and fix yourself since lying down wasn’t doing you any good. When you propped yourself up, regret hits you as the pulsating in your head worsens.  

Why did you even drink in the first place?

You did your best to recall what happened last night despite the intense headache

You were going to confess to Kuroo. He was suddenly dragged away. Vodka. Brown hair Taku. No, it was Yaku. 

Then darkness.

That was it. That was the last thing you could remember.

You raise your hands to your temples to gently knead them, hoping to alleviate even a little bit of the pain. How could that be the end of your memory? 

You always thought black outs were a myth. Maybe because you’ve never experienced them until this morning.

In the past, you’ve had nights where you drank a lot more and stayed up until morning, but never had an episode like this. That was before you completely stopped drinking. 

Last night, you got yourself smashed because Kuroo was taken away by some of his old friends. It was his birthday! Of course he couldn’t just stay by your side. 

You hate yourself more than ever for letting your emotions take control of your better decision-making. 

You cover your face with your hands and groan audibly loud at your own idiocy.

Instead of soothing yourself, you only made the headache worse. 

You remove your blanket and see that you’re wearing different clothes from last night. You were still able to change your clothes before you went to bed? That’s weird. When you’re drunk and spent, you don’t bother changing at all. 

How did you even get home in the first place?

You think even harder, but you remember nothing. You couldn’t imagine how you went home all by yourself safe and sound. It must be Kenma. Worst case scenario is it was Yaku. You really don’t like strangers in your place, but if it was him, at least he got you home safe. 

“Good morning.” You look up to the source of the all too familiar voice. 

He emerged from your kitchen with coffee in his hand. He was wearing his pants from last night and a white shirt. He looked like he didn’t get enough sleep but somehow, still lively. 

What’s he doing in your apartment?

For Christ’s sake, can the questions in your mind be answered first before another one pops up? Your head feels like it’s being split in half already.

“Morning.” You said with a raspy voice that you weren’t expecting. Were you screaming at something last night? What could possibly be the reason if you were? Even if you were drunk, you weren’t the type to go all hyper and shout until your throat suffered. 

“You okay?”

“No,” you replied with a barely audible voice. 

When you tried to stand, you realized that you underestimated the ache in your thighs. It was like you exercised your lower body from how your butt cheeks hurt as well. 

What the hell did you do last night?

“Ugh. I feel sick,” you murmured.

He went back to your kitchen. Instead of the mug he was previously holding, he was carrying a glass of water in his hand as he walked towards you. 

He sat beside you and handed you a pain killer. You took it together with the drink he had. 

On a regular day, you’d be cautious as to why he’s there so early in your apartment, but right now, you’re thankful. Even if it was just a few steps he saved you from, him being there allowed you to not move at all.

You gave him back the glass after gulping it until the last drop. The liquid soothed the uncomfortable dryness of your throat.

“Why did you get so plastered last night? You were a fucking handful, did you know that?”

His words were reprimanding, but his eyes and smile spoke of an entirely different emotion. He looked excited about something. It made you a bit nervous because you really might have done something outrageous based on how cheery he looked.

You’d ask him later. Right now, you wouldn’t be able to deal with him making fun of you.  

“No reason. I didn’t really know anyone from last night, so I thought I’d entertain myself. Turns out I couldn’t hold my alcohol as well as I did before.”

You were impressed with yourself with how quickly you were able to make up a lie despite your condition.

“Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

You scoffed. Öh please. I’m not a child to be attended to. Also, it was your birthday, so don’t sweat it. It wasn’t a big deal. I hope you didn’t have to leave early because of me though.”

 Your mind was starting to wake up even though the headache is still there. He couldn’t have broken in here. You must’ve let him enter your place. That means it was him who took you home last night. 

“You don’t remember?”

The gloom in his voice made you look at him. His eyebrows knitted together as he stared closely at you, anticipating the next words you were going to say. 

“I’m trying to, but the last thing I can remember is Yaku.”

“Nothing after that?”

You look straight ahead at the wall in front of you, trying again to get even a tiny fragment of recollection you might remember after Yaku. Certain images in an order you’re not sure are correct, flickered in your head. 

Throwing up in your sink with him behind you. His car. Huddling up to Yaku. 

“Oh my God.” You look back at him again.

“What?” His anticipation heightened from your reaction. 

“I made Yaku a human pillow!” You groaned. “Please tell him I’m so sorry. Oh God, he must’ve felt so awkward.”

“I’m sure he enjoyed it. What else do you remember?” his tone getting impatient.

“Nothing. Why? Did I do something worse than that?” You were starting to feel horrified with yourself. If hugging Yaku didn’t faze him, then you must’ve done something far more atrocious based on his reaction. 

“I’m just fucking around. You didn’t do anything you shouldn’t have.” He said playfully except it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I ordered ramen while you were still sleeping. Figured you have to eat from how you barfed last night.”

The thought of food immediately replaced having broken memories of last night’s event. He was right. The nausea from when you woke up was greatly lessened and has left you starving. Having him stay for the night was the right choice your drunk self made. 

After you ate, you felt so much better. The medicine completely kicked in and your ravenous appetite from getting wasted has been satiated. 

He was the one who set the table, so you took it upon yourself to clean up after. 

“Did we use the stairs instead of the elevator?” You asked while walking to your trash bin with used cutleries in your hand. 

“Why?”

“My thighs freaking hurt.” You answered as you threw what you were holding in the bin. 

He sighed. “You really don’t remember anything.” It was a statement of surrender, acknowledging that you really couldn’t recall much of later occurrences from last night.

You washed your hands before facing him. 

“Why won’t you just tell me already?” The way he’s being enigmatic about it is so strange. It was unlike him. You thought he’d be more smug about it, teasing you for doing whatever stupid thing you did you might have done. 

“We had sex and you told me you love me.”

You just stared at him, looking for the slightest indication that he was just kidding. But you found none. He was looking straight at you, waiting for your own reaction to what he just told.

It felt like someone dropped a huge boulder right on top of you. Your headache that just dissipated was threatening to come back as some missing key pieces of the puzzle that is your memory were finally showing up. 

Scenes from last night flashed in your mind, making your breathing gradually heavy from what transpired before you lost consciousness. 

You still couldn’t remember all of it, but the ones you do, made you run to the bathroom, ignoring how your lower body throbbed from the sudden motion.  

It was you. You were the one who asked him to stay. You were the one who kissed him first. You were the fool who admitted your love for him.

Once inside, you hurriedly remove your shirt.

Purple and reddish spots were scattered on the base of your neck, on your shoulder, and down to your breasts. 

Although your memories are still in fragments. The ones you just recalled made everything cohesive. Your voice was gruff earlier from how you screamed in pleasure. The muscles in your abdomen down to your thighs ached from how you chased your own gratification on top of him. You didn’t change your clothes before sleeping. It was him who did it.

It was already regrettable that you let him do you, but to confess to him after doing so? 

It wasn’t how you wanted it to go. You wanted a real conversation about it. It didn’t have to be dramatic, but telling him about your feelings while drunk and passing out after took away the opportunity to see how he would react to it. 

Now all you can see is his troubled face when he kept asking if you didn’t remember anything. 

Whatever hope you had yesterday was flushed down the drain. If he felt the same way, why did he look so anxious?

He probably felt bad for you, so he stayed the night and made sure you were taken care of in the morning. You could imagine him having that distorted sense of responsibility when you drank your heart out at his own party and confessed your love at the end of the night. 

You put your shirt back on and stepped out. 

You didn’t want to but you have to. You forced yourself to confront the problem head on. You had no way out of the situation. 

You found him in the way you left him, sitting on the same chair in your dining area.

When you came back, you wore a distraught expression with a strained smile on your lips.

“I’m really sorry about last night. I haven’t been in a relationship and haven’t got laid either when I left, so I missed the feeling. It must’ve been weird for you. My bad.” 

That sounded plausible to you. Indeed, you were becoming a good liar.

You waited for his response, but you’re met only with silence.

He suddenly stood up and went to get his clothes that he hung on the handle of your closet. “You look okay now, so I’m leaving.”

He seemed irritated, but you didn’t know why. Did you poke his ego? 

“Hey, wait.” You stop him as he’s already at the door with his long strides. 

“What?” He snarled,  anger seeping from how he uttered the word.

“Why are you mad?” You asked with genuine perplexity as to why he’s so ticked off. . 

“Let me rephrase what you just said, y.n.Y ou were drunk, horny, and lonely and I happened to be conveniently there for you to fuck with.”

You were previously confused and worried, but now you’re aggravated. You didn’t coerce him to have sex with you. How dare he make it look like you used him. How dare he act like that that wasn’t the nature of your sexual relationship. 

“And?” You replied with cold apathy.

You saw how your response wounded him. There was a gleam of hurt that crossed his eyes before he turned around, ready to exit your apartment.

But you didn’t feel bad for him. You only feel irony from how he’s reacting. 

“Didn’t you treat me the same, Kuroo? Didn’t you enjoy how much of a convenient fuck I was to you?”

He let go of the door knob and spun to face you right when you spoke. 

“At least when you weren’t around back then, I wasn’t getting nasty with anybody else.”

You didn’t mean for that to slip out. It wasn’t even something that fit the context of your argument. It made your blood boil how he made himself the victim, so you wanted to throw something at him in return. 

“The fuck are you talking about?” A frown shifting his expression from angry to confusion.

Nothing good will come out if you let unnecessary anger take over you, so you let out a deep breath, calming yourself down before you say anything. “I was there that night. At the bar.” 

You figured out that he already knew what you meant when shock took over the bewilderment that previously reigned on his face. Still, you wanted to say it. You never had the boldness you currently have, so you found it necessary to hell him how you felt back then before you lose the chance to ever do so. 

“You must’ve been really bored that you needed a distraction while you waited for. So I didn’t lie when I said I was sick that night. That’s what I felt with what I saw.”

Even though you sounded like you were faulting him, the truth is you were just narrating it as how it happened. So when you gave him a smile, it was a sympathetic one because you knew he didn’t do anything wrong. He shouldn’t look like he did something he was not supposed to.. 

“But really, I was just dumb. No one said we were exclusive shagmates. I just assumed that myself.”

“Was that why you avoided me when you were about to leave?” His voice was low and soft.

You nod. “Yeah.”

His jaw tensed up as he harshly averted his gaze away from you as if you were someone painful to look at.

“I see.” was all he said before he opened the door and walked out.

—

Kuroo was expecting the hangover, but not you forgetting every single important detail from last night. It was disappointing, but forgivable. There was nothing you could’ve done about that.

He thought that once he told you, you’d admit that it was true. He’d get to hear you say those words again, but for real this time, not just because you were alcohol-induced. 

Apparently, he thought wrong.

He just happened to be the person present when all your pent up feelings were let loose by the alcohol. What if it was Yaku who took you home? Would you have done the same with him? Would you have pulled him in your bed and let him ease your needs like he did last night? Would you have told him that you love him too?

It almost made him furious However, it was immediately thwarted with what you revealed. You were actually there that night. He was convinced you ditched him, but the reality was you fled from the scene because of what you saw. He didn’t really do anything with that woman other than what you witnessed. He couldn’t even remember her face. 

But that didn’t matter. What mattered was how that night of him being uncertain of his feelings made you feel. He knew exactly how. You felt like an option, the primary one, but still an option regardless. 

There was no one else he was having sexual affairs with aside from you at that time. You were right that he could have messed around with others because no one said he wasn’t allowed to. But he didn’t. He was content with you. He didn’t crave for anyone else when he had you. 

He wanted to give his side of the story. He wanted to let you know that he was confused at the time and that he didn’t mean to hurt you like that. But the look in your face told him that you didn’t care anymore. You resolved the issue on your own by letting yourself believe that it was you to be blamed for thinking that it should’ve been you only. 

He must have been an ass in your eyes. What he felt a while ago was what you must have felt that particular evening. The scenarios were different, but they enunciated the same cruel fact despite the different timeline - you were practical to have around for sex only. 

Nothing was different from how it was a year ago.

What happens now that the both of you smashed that wall of platonic friendship you built? What are you now? Will the two of you go on and pretend like last night didn’t happen or will you go back to being fuck buddies?

Both are equally grim to him. 

How can he act like last night didn’t happen when it meant the world to him? As he held you captive in his embrace after you muttered the words he was longing so long to hear, he couldn’t stop himself from believing the sweet promise of your inebriated words. Only for you to crush his hopes not even 24 hours after. 

Similarly, he couldn’t see himself getting back to having casual sex with you again. Not when his feelings for you have grown so enormous that it was weighing him down just thinking that you didn’t feel the same way. He couldn’t even look you in the eyes before he left from the dejection burrowing on his chest. 

He pressed his car keys and got inside the vehicle.

He was physically tired from not getting enough sleep last night. Yet it was nothing compared to the grueling ache he has for you that escalated even higher despite the circumstances.

--

Your last conversation with Kuroo was heated, but you didn’t say anything out of line. You were also upset, but not enough to not want to talk to him. 

Obviously, that wasn’t the case for him. He’s clearly avoiding you. 

It’s been three weeks since you’ve seen him. It was the first time that you hadn’t met with him for that long. He didn’t even message you as often as he used to. He’d only text you if you text him first and to add salt to the injury, his replies were dry as ice. Before, he would always be the first one to reach out to you. Now, it’s as if he was only forced to respond out of courtesy.

His absence made you think how things would’ve played out differently if you just told him that you meant it when you said you love him. If you knew that it was going to be like this, you would’ve just told him. If he avoided you because of it, at least you’d have been able to get your feelings for him out of your chest already. But since you panicked from your unconscious confession, you chickened out at the chance to do so. 

Even though you believe you were in the right during your argument, he apparently took offense from something you said. So you decided to clear the air with him and apologize.

Once you reach your car, you’ll text him to meet when he’s free. You’ll do it now while you’re still sitting in the lobby of the hotel where you just met with a client. Your meeting was over for almost an hour now, but you still sat there with your mind occupied by Kuroo.

You took your phone out and started to compose a message. It should be a simple one but somehow you found it complicated to form the simple question of asking to see him again. You look around while you think of how to make it natural-sounding.

That’s when you saw him, sitting at a good distance across you.

He looked a bit rugged than usual with bags under his eyes and weariness apparent on his face. Maybe he was busy with work that’s why he wasn’t as responsive as you wanted him to be. All your gloomy thoughts might just be you overthinking. 

That gave you the assertiveness to walk up to him and take the vacant seat in front of him. 

You didn’t say anything but you were all smiles when he met your eyes. 

“Fancy meeting you here. Haven’t seen you in a while,” you said haughtily. You were expecting a conceited retort like ‘Why? Did you miss me?’ or something like that because that’s how he is with you. 

Instead, he sat straight as his eyes darted around as if he was looking for something. 

“Sorry. I was sorting out stuff at work,” he answered blandly when he returned his gaze at you.

You nod while you try to not feel disappointed. You were glad to finally see him, but it looked like you’re just a bother to him. Still, you’re there already. You won’t let this chance pass by. 

“I heard the food is good here. Want to try it? I haven’t had lunch yet.” You lied about the food being good. You really haven’t heard of the restaurant in the place, but you just needed a way to ask him casually.

“Uh..” he looks at his watch with worry. 

“Kuroo-san?” It came from a feminine voice behind you. 

You turned your head and saw a pretty, short-haired lady who’s even taller than Alisa Haiba. You’d compare Alisa’s beauty to an expensive piece of jewelry, stunning and eye-catching. This girl is like a cold iced tea on a hot day, refreshing and pleasant to take in on the first sip. 

“Oh.” You and the girl muttered in unison when your eyes locked with each other.

You were in no way insecure of how you look. Modeling gave you a constant ego boost. You knew you’re beautiful, but alongside the two women, you felt average. 

“Sorry, y/n. I’m currently busy. Some other time?” He looked at you apologetically.

The patheticness that set in you was quick and vicious, giving you no time to prepare as you put two and two together. He was meeting someone else. That’s why he was so uncomfortable when you came over.

The seat you took wasn’t vacant. It was for her. 

You got ahead of yourself and thought he’d be glad to see you. If he wanted to, he would’ve asked you. Instead, you marched your way to him confidently when he was expecting another girl.

“No! It’s me who’s sorry for suddenly coming over like that. You guys enjoy.” You said as you stood up all too quickly. You gave the girl a polite bow, then gave one to Kuroo as well. You’ve never bowed to him, but right now, he felt so distant that you found the need to do so. 

The click of your heels were in the same rhythm as the beating of your heart, it was fast and heavy. It was irritating. Yet you wouldn’t slow down even if they echoed in the whole lobby.

You need to get out of there fast.

--

Kuroo knew you misinterpreted the situation again when you bowed to him. That was something you both didn’t do. You were never polite to each other. 

He wanted to go after you, but he’s working. He couldn’t let personal matters take over. He’ll just call you later. 

“Is everything alright, Kuroo-san?”

He forced himself to focus on his job.

“Ah, yes. Please sit down, Kanoka-san.” The volleyball player took the seat you were occupying just a moment ago.

Even with Kanoka sitting in front of him, his eyes went to your back instinctively as you headed towards the exit of the building. 

He’s been reluctant to see you for the past few weeks because he didn’t know how to face you without the complexity of his feelings blowing up in both your faces. 

When you suddenly came out of nowhere, he was completely taken aback. It wasn’t the right time. He had a scheduled appointment with Kanoka to discuss her ad with Mikasa. He couldn’t engage in a proper conversation because she was running late and he knew she was going to be there anytime soon. 

If only he wasn’t on the edge around you, he could’ve handled the situation well. Instead, it seemed like he brushed you off to be with someone else. 

Shit.

“Kanoka-san, I’d be back in a minute.”

He didn’t wait for her answer and stood up. He walked as fast as he could to catch up to you. 

“Y.n. Wait” He called out to stop you before you could get out of the building. He knew you heard it since some of the guests around him looked at him from how loud he said your name. Yet, you didn’t look back. You only treaded the marbled floor faster, leaving him no choice but to chase you.

He didn’t care about people looking anymore. You were upset enough to ignore him. That gave him all the more reason to go after you.

He reached you in no time and grabbed your arm, but you still wouldn’t look at him. 

“I need to go,” you said with a stern voice with your gaze fixated on the glass door just a few steps away. “I said wait.” His grip tightened on your arm when he saw how badly you wanted to get away from him.

“Will you please let me talk?” His voice softened, pleading for you to give him a chance to explain even though he had no idea why you were so hurt. You only saw him as a friend. You wouldn’t get jealous over that. 

 Yet, you still wouldn't budge. Your only response was the heaving of your chest as you weakly struggled to remove his grip on your arm.

“Kitten, come on,” he said soothingly while his thumb strokes the flesh of your arm.

“Guard!” You half-shouted with a wavering voice to the men near the entrance and exit.

The guards all turned their attention on him, your plea for help instantly heard.

He immediately let go not from the fear of the guards, but because of the pang from being treated like a threat when all he wanted was to clear any misunderstandings you might have had from the situation earlier.

As soon as you became free from him, you rushed to the exit without even sparing him a glance.

Just when he thought things were bad between the two of you, it just got worse

With nothing but increased load on his shoulders, he went back to do his job. 

—

“What’s wrong with you?” Kenma looked at Kuroo with eyebrows knitted together in irritation.

“What?” Kuroo put down the controller to face him.

“You barged in here and forced me to play but you’re not even focused.”

Kuroo threw his head back on the couch. It has been a while since Kuroo came over, but Kenma knew it wasn’t the lack of game time that was making him play like a noob. It was so obvious that his mind was somewhere else when he’d blankly stare at the enemy already approaching ahead of him.

“Why are you really here?” 

Kuroo sighed and spoke with a bored voice, “We had drunken sex, then she told me she loves me.”

Kenma just stared at him. It’s not like he didn’t know that you two had that kind of relationship before, but hearing it directly from Kuroo made him a bit awkward since three of you were friends. Kuroo could’ve just left out the sex detail. It’s not like he didn’t know that it was about to happen that night.

But he shouldn’t be focusing on that detail. If you finally confessed to him as he pushed you to, then Kuroo would’ve been stupidly happy. So why is Kuroo here bothering him? Did you two fight or whatever?

“So why are you here?” he asked again since Kuroo didn’t really answer his question. 

“She didn’t mean it. She said she was ‘lonely’ so she projected those feelings at me because she was drunk and I was available dick at the moment,” Kuroo said impassively but gave a wry laugh after.  

“Are you saying that you’re still not together until now?”

“What made you think we got together?”

Kenma gritted his teeth from his frustration turning into irritation. He let it pass that Kuroo left him in that party because he presumed that you two finally ended the ludicrous, almost there but not really romantic pursuit that has been going on since he met you. That’s what he thought since Kuroo hasn’t contacted him for some time. 

But looking at his friend, he already knew that somehow, things were even worse between you two. 

All this time, he didn’t say anything to Kuroo because he was not in the position to do so. It was you and Kuroo’s business, not his. Even though Kuroo has been his best friend for years now and even though you two were painfully dumb to notice each other’s feelings, he didn’t intervene. He trusted that you two will work things out on your own. 

He was gravely mistaken. 

Kuroo looked lost more than ever. He overestimated his friend. He deemed Kuroo smart on all occasions, but he seemed to dumb a bit when it involved you. Why is he waiting for you to be the catalyst of your relationship? If he’d just cough it up already, then the whole ordeal would be over already. 

You and Kuroo’s relationship is like a badly designed game with overly dramatic cutscenes that were just there to prolong the story. It should’ve been long over a year ago if Kuroo was not as stupid as he was. 

He didn’t want to divulge any of your secrets, but he wanted to see a good ending for you two. So he’s going to leave a piece of crumb for the two of you to stop making bad decisions that could lead to a bad route. If that doesn’t do it, then that’s it for you two. He won’t care anymore. 

“Remember the night when I left my keys and you forced me to go to that shabby bar. I bumped into her on the way out. She saw you ...ugh,” he paused for a while to think of a word that wasn’t so vulgar.

“Yeah, yeah. She saw me making out with some random girl. She told me.” Kuroo interjected before he could even finish mulling over what word to use.

Kenma didn’t expect that you’d admit that to Kuroo. Even when you were about leave, you clearly told him to never tell him. 

“You should’ve seen her. She looked really heartbroken that I felt so bad for her. She cried a lot when we talked in her car.”

The slow turn of Kuroo’s head towards him let him know that you left out that part when you told him about the incident. 

“Guess she didn’t tell you about that.”

Kuroo always wondered how you and Kenma had this familiarity wherein he wasn’t aware of the source. He just accepted that maybe you two just got that comfortable to each other with all the time you’ve spent playing and hanging out with him.

Now it makes sense. Kenma was there when he first fucked things up with you.

At the time, he had an inkling that you would tell him that you love him or something. But he didn’t think you’d actually do it. He thought he was just being egoistic because you were a slice of heaven that he could only taste but not possibly have. So he always assumed that non-sexual feelings were just out of the question and he never pondered on it until that night, making him uncertain of how he really felt about you. 

When he was still irresolute of his own feelings, you were already certain of your own.

Because of that, he unknowingly caused you enough pain to make you cry. 

He was itching to ask Kenma why he didn’t tell him, but that’s the least of his concerns right now.

So many questions came to his mind from what Kenma just disclosed. 

Do you still feel the same now?

Did you actually mean your intoxicated confession. If so, why did you deny it? 

Did he not make you feel that he cared for you more than just a friend?

Did you think he was seeing Kanoka? Were you really jealous as he thought? 

You were friends. You, yourself, were the one who pushed that concept for you two. You could’ve asked him, or at least, let him speak when he ran after you. 

Instead, you distanced yourself from him. You didn’t answer his calls and texts. You were doing what you did, then the next thing he knew was you were already gone. 

“Something’s not right,” he muttered to himself before focusing his gaze back on Kenma.

“Do you know why y/n left before?” 

Kenma pursed his lips as he looked away, avoiding his stifling stare. “Didn’t you ask her about that?”

“She didn’t tell me,” he lied. He knew the answer, but Kenma might have a different one, the real one. You did confide with him before. You might have told him other things too. 

With an infuriated groan, Kenma took his phone out and scrolled for a few seconds. When Kenma found whatever it is that he was looking for, he threw his phone to Kuroo. 

It was a text message from you. 

‘Hey Kenma. I’m leaving. I hate having feelings for Kuroo, so I need to go away to forget. I’m that pitiful haha. Even so, please don’t tell him about our conversation that night. And thanks for being there. Bye! :)’

He read the text five more times to make sure that every single word meant what he thought they meant. Then he returned the phone to Kenma.

He placed his elbows on his knees and put his hands together to cover the lower half of his face. 

You left because of him?

He took a deep breath as he moved his hands to tuck his whole face. 

He fought the urge to ponder on the what-ifs in his head. He’ll do that some other time, but right now, he needs to focus on the present than the past. 

The mosaic of events was starting to fall into place, and even though there are missing fragments, he could already see the bigger picture. 

It made his stomach drop.

You were following the same pattern you did a year ago. That means you were about to run away again. You’re going to disappear on him again without saying anything. 

His hands went all the way up his head, brushing his hair away from his face as he pressed down his fingertips on his scalp.

No no no no no no no.

He can’t let that happen. 

“I have to go,” he stood up and bolted to the door before Kenma could even react. 

It’s only been two days since your last encounter. He’d like to think that that wasn’t enough time for you to pack up and go to another side of the world. 

Before starting the engine of his car, he dialed your phone again. It’s still ringing, but you still won’t answer.

He quickly types a rushed “Wher r yu” before driving off, hoping that you’d reply while he’s on the way.

He tried to keep himself from overspeeding to reach your place while he reasoned with himself that it’s very improbable for you to leave just like that. 

When he reached your place without hearing from you, he was almost sprinting to reach the front desk. He wasn’t with you, so he wasn’t allowed to just go in. 

His breathing was labored when he reached the receptionist. 

“Who are you visiting, sir?” The staff asked politely.

“L/n, Y/n. 707c,” he answered as quickly as he could. 

They immediately gave him a civil smile, already knowing the answer to his query. “Sir, Ms. L/n left an hour ago.”

He felt his heart drop down to his gut. 

He was too late.

“Thanks,” he said out of courtesy even though he wanted to bask in silence from what was happening. 

He lost you again. 

--

Even though you tried not to think about it, your last encounter with Kuroo just kept playing over and over in your mind. It gave you nothing but unpleasant sentiments for both Kuroo and yourself. 

You felt awful for what you did to Kuroo at that hotel. It was a terrible thing to do, and you were very much aware of that. 

Even though you want to apologize, you don’t know how to justify why you did what you did without revealing how hurt you were that he was dating someone else now. There’s no point in doing the confession crap anymore. It will only worsen your already battered emotional and psychological being. 

Still, he didn’t deserve that.

But when he called you ‘kitten’ like everything was the same as it used to be, you began to drastically lose control of your feelings. Your misery overwhelmed you. A second longer around him, and you’d have crumbled in his presence.

When you got home and calmed down after a good while, it didn’t slip your mind that you might have gotten the wrong idea about Kuroo and the girl at the hotel . But you didn’t want to have false hopes anymore. It was what made things unbearable.

It’s what made you want to run away. 

That would solve everything instantly. You wouldn’t have to contemplate anything anymore. You wouldn’t have to go through the awkwardness of facing him again. .

It would be so easy for you. 

You could leave anytime. You did have brand contracts in the country, but nothing binding. When you go back to the US, your career won’t be starting from zero. 

You’d be restarting your life again without Kuroo. But for real this time. You won’t be coming back. 

You stop in the middle of the dimly lit path you were trudging on. You don’t know how long it’s been since you went out. 

You decided to go for a walk because being in your own bed with unwelcome mental images of Kuroo underneath you did not help the situation in any way. 

You hoped that you’d tire yourself out until there was something else in your mind other than your current predicament. Although the stroll didn’t do much to wear you out since you’re used to standing and walking even on high heels.  

So there you were, wandering aimlessly at night, hoping for a little bit of peace since your very own room was no longer a safe haven. 

Really, you should just pack up and go. 

You started to head back to your unit with that decision. 

“I hate myself,” you mumbled into the coldness of the air when you noticed that you were barely covering any distance with how slow you were moving. You dreaded going back home because that meant you had to leave. Despite the never ending complications with Kuroo, your silly heart still cries out for him. 

Since when have you been such a martyr?

Last time, you had no problems walking away from him even if that meant stopping university and turning modeling, something you weren’t really passionate about, into a full time job. Now that you have nothing to lose, that’s when you struggled to fly away?

You lost count of how many times your phone has been vibrating the whole night. If you really wanted to ignore him, you could’ve just blocked him. Instead, you let him call and text you non-stop for it consoled you. You liked that he still cared.

But for the first time tonight, you took out your phone. 

You let it vibrate in your hand as you stared at the photo of his caller ID. It was a selfie of him winking, trying hard to look sexy but ended up looking like a joke. He took it when you left your phone when you had to use the comfort room while bumming around at Kenma’s place. You only saw the image when it popped up when he called you after getting home that day. 

You haven’t seen the photo in a while. It made you smile a little.

Maybe it was time to answer it. 

You extended your thumb to the answer button when a loud honk made you look to your left where the sound came from. 

You weren’t aware of it, but you stopped right in the middle of a small intersection. You put back your phone in your pocket and turned to the vehicle. 

You couldn’t really see much from the headlights that were blinding you. Still, you give a curt bow to apologize for being in the way. 

You were about to turn back to the direction of your place when you heard the door of the car open. 

‘Please, let it not be one of those raging drivers.’

You have no energy to deal with pesky people who think they have the right to tell people off just because they’re the ones behind the wheel. 

You squinted your eyes to make out the driver’s expression as he went out, but the light greatly obstructed your vision. 

It was when they switched off the headlights that you were able to adjust your eyesight

They didn’t bother closing the door and straight up marched towards you, their profile coming to view halfway from where you were. 

Kuroo. 

If only you saw him immediately, you would have had more time to process things and decide how you should deal with him. 

But with him getting nearer and nearer and your mind not coming up with a course of action you should take, each footfall closer he took added to your perturbation.

Even though you know it's futile with him only an arm span away, you turned to where you were facing earlier and decided to escape from him. 

Even though you didn’t have the courage to start anew without him, you were also not yet prepared to confront him face to face yet. 

But as you lunged to scram away, he was able to grasp your wrist, rendering you helpless as he yanked you with enough force for you to topple on his chest. Your free hand flies to his bicep instinctively for support as he secures you with his other arm snaking around your waist.

With your bodies pressed to each other and his head lowered beside your ear, you could feel how hard he was heaving, as if he’d been pacing for quite some time.

“Stop running the fuck away from me,” he said in almost a whisper that caused your heart to beat wildly in your chest. Has he been actively looking for you this whole time?

He was the first to recover while you’re still shocked from what’s happening. He lifted his head as let go of your wrist, but still kept you in place with his other hand still firmly planted on your side. 

“Y.n.”

“What?” You responded but didn’t dare look at him.  You kept your head leveled while you tried to distract yourself from how it felt like home to be held this close by him again. 

His hand that was previously on your wrist went to your chin, but he put no effort to make you meet his gaze. 

“If I tell you I love you, will you look my way already?”

Part 8 | Part 10 | m.list

A/N: 

Thank you for your patience and sorry for the long wait. I know. I know. I said this was going to be the last chapter, but I felt like if I condense everything in this chapter, I'll blow everyone's brains out (including mine).But honestly, I felt like this stretch was needed yk.I promise I'll do everything to wrap things up nicely in Chapter 10Chapter 10 will be the LAST CHAPTER (istg). I already started writing it and have outlined halfway through it.

Taglist (those in bold can’t be tagged)  @lia-faerie-queen @mkkhaikyuu @fastidious-and-precise @winunk @feelkindahorny @cece-lives-here @arendizzle @phantomneko0 @ysatrap @babythotshq @ameliaxo @miiy​ @kurooscoochie

[fatefulfaerie]

Abnormality

Zelink Week 2021 prompt #6/7 @zelinkweek2021

Word Count: 2,225

Incarnation: Age of Calamity

Additional Prompts Followed: Timeline Alteration

“UTA” inspired by the “TVA” of the Disney+ series “Loki”

Trigger Warnings: abduction, brainwashing

Before Link knew it, he was being pushed along a dark hallway, hands tied and feet tripping on each other when he was pushed too abruptly.

“Faster.”

He could barely see, but long, blinking blue lights told him it was a narrow space, and his boots sounded as if they were walking on steel. He walked faster nonetheless. His own iron armor made even more of a ruckus.

“Where are you taking me?” He asked over his shoulder to the man who was pushing him. “What’s going on?”

He was in Hyrule Field last he remembered, returning to the castle after battling a Moblin. He saw an odd, egg-shaped robot and the next thing he knew he was pushed to the ground, landing in the steel trappings of wherever he was now. He was brought to his feet and pushed whenever his captor thought his pacing was too slow.

The man never answered. Link was blasted with light when a door opened as if automatically with the same noise as a sword slinking into a sheath. Link, who marvelled at such unprecedented technology, was pushed in before he could remark at it. The man behind him was gone when those same doors closed behind him.

Link looked behind him and there were no longer doors, just a wall. So he looked in front of him.

The room was clad with a silver material unlike stone. Angles jutted out at odd places and Link had never before seen architecture like this as he slowly paced forward towards the table.

Someone cleared their throat, a woman. Link’s head popped directly forward.

“Name?” She asked.

“What’s going on?”

“Name?” She repeated. It seemed Link found another person who would not humor his questions.

“Link,” he answered.

The receptionist seemed annoyed, eyes rolling to the back of her head and her eyelids fluttering. Link wondered what he did to upset her, but she scribbled something down on a piece of paper nonetheless.

“Birthdate?”

“August 16th,” Link replied. “But--”

“You have been charged with the crime of temporal misdemeanors,” she interrupted. “How do you plead?”

Link’s mouth moved but no sound came out.

“T-temp…” he tried, but failed. “What even is that? What did I do?”

“How do you plead?” She asked. There seemed to be no negotiation.

“G-guilty,” Link stammered. “I guess.”

She pointed her pen to the left, where there was now an opening, a doorless entrance.

“Step onto the platform for processing please.”

Link hesitated.

“Now,” she said without even looking up, and so Link did as he was asked, stepping onto the platform with oddly textured lines. With a jolt, it moved him along, Link’s arms drifting from his sides and knees bending as if bracing for danger. But before he could even get a sight of what was in this next room, his vision was clouded by white mist, a substance that shot a tingling feeling throughout his entire body until he couldn’t even feel his body. He was paralyzed completely and before he could fall, mechanized hands clutched his limbs, his arms, his legs. He felt his armor being stripped off but he didn’t have the control over his eyes to see who was doing it or where it was going, to object to showing this much skin and feeling this vulnerable in a strange place. Neither could he employ his vocal nodes to object to the last bit of clothing being removed until he was left only with a blue Sheikah-grade undergarment covering his most private area.

He could still see though, still tell he was being moved along into the futuristic building with no discernible connection to anything he had ever seen in Hyrule.

When he finally stopped, he stopped in front of a man behind a podium. Around Link were burn marks and the foul smell of burning flesh. His heart began to race.

“Link 816-D, you have been--”

But the echoey voice of doom was stopped when someone came racing through a now opened door, a woman in a blue dress with jagged and yet structured patterned white lines. The dress was far too tight and far too short for anything fashionable in Hyrule, but the dark-haired woman looked professional and put-together nonetheless. The fact that her dress almost exposed her knees was the least of Link’s concerns, it was just odd.

He definitely was not in Hyrule.

“He is to be questioned,” the woman said. Link couldn’t deny she was beautiful. He tried not to think about it. “Concerning the matter of the leading variant at large.”

“Very well.”

Link felt the greatest sense of relief when he was able to move again, permitted to step off the platform, and given garments to clothe himself in. They actually quite resembled the white and blue that everyone in this place wore, Link given white pants, a blue shirt, and a jacket that said “variant” on the back.

He stayed silent until the woman sat him down in a room, sitting across from him with a welcoming smile.

“Sorry about all that,” she said with her hands clasped into each other and her elbows on the table. “We don’t have the best reception here at the UTA. Let’s just say you are very lucky to be with me right now.”

Link didn’t quite know what to say.

“I-I’m sorry but…” Link stammered. “What is the UTA? Why...w-why am I here and...who are you?”

She pursed her lips.

“Somehow I always forget you guys come in here with no context,” she said, almost apologetically. “Allow me to explain. My name is Whitney and I am an employee of the UTA, which stands for the Unified Timeline Authority. We are in charge of making sure that the timeline is pure of contamination such as unauthorized time travel, timeline splits, and nexus events that cause timeline splits. We have worked long and hard to turn a chaotic and temporally lawless timeline of Hyrule into a unified and cohesive timeline. We work tirelessly to make sure the timeline stays straight, and doesn’t veer off from the set path.”

It sounded rehearsed to Link, but more than that, it sounded confusing. He got bits of it but he still stared, overwhelmed beyond belief.

“Okay, okay,” Whitney said, pulling out a piece of paper and a pencil. She started drawing a straight line on the page.

“Here is your timeline. You pull the sword at thirteen but you put it back, right? You didn’t tell anyone?”

Link nodded.

“Okay so time moves along and you age, as you know.”

She started drawing another line, exactly parallel to the first.

“Meanwhile, there is an alternate universe where you do keep the sword. Believe it or not, these both are heading towards the same destination until BAM!”

She stopped drawing the first line abruptly and let the second keep going straight. She continued the first with a line askew, making an angle.

“You encounter the little robot and everything changes. The destination is put in jeopardy at a rate we’ve never seen before. So we step in.”

“You have seen the robot so we took you. We also took the robot so he can do no further damage. We then go to where the robot came from in the first place and make sure he doesn’t come again. Thus, we have two robots. Both are now destroyed. Now I know what you’re thinking. Two robots but one of you, how does that fix it? Eliminating the second robot made it so that it never contaminated your timeline, and so there is now another Link that made it to the destination, the event where all alternate timelines become one. Thus you are the extra Link, a variant.”

She erased some of both lines and made it so that the two lines converged into one, drawing a dot at the exact place where they did and labeling it “the destination”.

“So I’m here because I saw the robot?”

“Not quite. You see, we could have wiped your memories or even wiped you but we took the opportunity to gain some…intel…about another variant.”

“Who?” Link asked.

“You,” she answered simply.

“What?”

She almost laughed.

From below the desk she pulled out a clipboard, the exact one that Link saw that first woman with. She handed it over to Link, who took it and knitted his brow at what he saw.

At least half of the names on each and every of the many pages were either Link, Zelda, or Ganon, each name accompanied by two to four numbers and a single capital letter.

In the middle of the last page was what the judge called him, Link 816-D.

“Yeah sorry about that,” she said. Of all the things she could apologize for, she sounded too casual to be apologizing for any of them, for kidnapping him, for stealing the armor he earned, for uprooting his life. “You are actually the fourth Link to come in with that birthday, thus Link 816-D.”

Link put the clipboard down slowly, and returned his gaze back to the diagram.

“The destination,” he said, before looking up. “What is it? Why is it so important that you can’t have it not happen?”

The destination is the singular moment where we were finally able to unify the timeline into one. We refer to it as the calamity.”

The word struck fear into Link’s heart.

“C-calamity…” he began, attempting to fight his shock at how cheery she said that word, how casually she referred to something that could kill thousands of people. “As in Calamity Ganon? Are you serious? You...y-you want that to happen? Do you realize what that means?”

Whitney nodded.

“It’s unfortunate,” she said. “But it was necessary that we let it happen. The near destruction of Hyrule was the only way to unify the parallel timelines. It isn’t the first time we took advantage of a disaster to slowly work towards unification. There used to be three separate timelines that were nowhere near parallel, mind you.”

Link went pale, cold. His eyes stung and his lungs paused. Not only did they permit the calamity but they let entire kingdoms be destroyed for their order.

For some reason Whitney assumed that Link was just as comfortable as her with the situation.

“The variant we are concerned with exists in the single timeline beyond the destination but the variant is trying to undo the calamity, and we need to know why. Activating that robot and sending him across parallel timelines was his first attempt. He is, of course, only a variant of you, but we feel that questioning you will lead to a bit of clarity as far as his motives. If you submit to questioning right here and now, we can offer you a job, you won’t have to worry about being destroyed or anything. I used to be a variant, too, you know. All of us were variants once. We’d love to have you join us.”

Link wondered how long this woman had been here for her words to sound so fake, so insincere, so rehearsed. Perhaps she was kidnapped as a child, perhaps she was raised by other people like her, who lost themselves gradually.

Thus Link most assuredly did not want the job, did not want to be a part of something that trades apocalypses for senseless organization, that trades lives for convenience.

The kingdom of Hyrule he once served not ten minutes ago was so much more…

It was...

Well he supposed they were no better, doing those same things, just on a smaller scale.

So he could either work for the UTA or be destroyed like the variants who did not comply. He could die for his morals or he could sacrifice them.

But perhaps there was a third option, one where he fought for his morals, destroyed the UTA from the inside.

“I’ll take the job,” he finally said, Whitney smiled. “But I have to ask...you said you were a variant...who were you?”

It didn’t seem like a question that was commonly asked, and she hesitated. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to answer, it was more like she genuinely forgot. Link narrowed his eyes.

“I was a variant of Princess Zelda,” she said. “I used to go by Hilda but when I got here they labeled me as Zelda 108-A. I was taken the moment Lorule got it’s own Triforce. Lorule was destroyed by the UTA, but...it was already a mess.” Whitney shrugged. “It was probably for the best.”

Her entire kingdom was destroyed and she showed so little empathy. Link could hardly believe it. She was so casual about it, like she was talking about what she had for lunch.

“A friend got taken alongside me but,” she laughed. “You know it’s funny I don’t remember their name.” She shrugged again. “Must not have been a very good friend. I’m sure you’ll be a better one.”

Link pitied that poor friend. He could very well have been her best friend, could have refused to comply and could have been erased from her memory so that she would comply, would slowly lose herself and become another drone of the UTA.

Link inwardly refused to resign to the same fate, to maybe, if possible, save her too.

“What is your first question for me?”

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The Scots Greys and the turning of the tide at Battle of Waterloo

They never consider the situation, never think of manoeuvring before an enemy and never keep back or provide a reserve. They’re charging at everything!

- Duke of Wellington reflecting on the charge of the British cavalry after the Battle of Maguilla in 1812

The Duke of Wellington was never pleased with his cavalry. In Spain he  condemned them for “charging at everything”, getting cut up in the  process or finding themselves on a distant part of the battlefield,  horses blown, at the very moment they were needed elsewhere. So at Waterloo the Iron Duke intended to keep the mounted arm on a tight rein.

It was, after all, the first time he would actually face Napoleon in  the field, and the situation was not auspicious. He had been taken by  surprise. He famously learnt of the sudden appearance of the French on  the border with the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium) at the Duchess of  Richmond’s ball in Brussels on 15 June. “Napoleon has humbugged me, by  God!” The following day his Prussian allies were worsted at Ligny. Hs  own troops, rushed forward to nearby Quatre Bras, were badly mauled. He  was on the back foot.

But his capacity to anticipate setbacks paid dividends. Some weeks  earlier he had chosen a piece of ground on which to make a stand if the  French were to come. The ridge of Mont St Jean, a mile south of the  village of Waterloo athwart the main road from Charleroi to Brussels.  The ridge ran north-east to south-west for about three miles, two-thirds  of which Wellington was able to occupy with infantry and artillery. To  support these he would post two brigades of light cavalry on the left  (east) flank and three on the right. Two brigades of heavy cavalry,  including the Scots Greys or, as they were then more properly known, the  2nd Royal (North British) Dragoons, would be in the centre. And to each  of the cavalry brigadiers, as well as to the Earl of Uxbridge (later  Marquess of Anglesey), the commander of the Allied cavalry and his  second in command, Wellington gave strict instructions not to leave  their positions without his express order.

The Duke was essentially a general who preferred to choose his  ground, make the enemy attack him and then use the superior musketry of  his infantry to defeat them. He intended Waterloo to be just such a  battle. In addition, for the first time he had the benefit of a strong  force of heavy cavalry inclusing the Scots Greys – bigger men, bigger  swords, bigger horses – to counter the French heavy cavalry or break up  an assault that threatened to overwhelm his infantry. And, indeed, the  charge of these two brigades, best known perhaps for Lady (Elizabeth)  Butler’s 1881 painting Scotland Forever! depicting the Scots Greys  galloping wildly at the French, would be one of the critical actions of  the battle, even, some argue, its turning point.

The Scots Greys had been formed in 1681 from a number of independent  troops of dragoons (originally men who dismounted to fight with the  musket, rather than fight from the saddle with sword and pistol), and  known as The Royal Regiment of Scots Dragoons. The “grey” of their later  title may at this time have referred to their uniform, for it was not  for a dozen years that this changed to red, and there is no record that  the Scots Greys used grey horses exclusively.

However, when inspected by King William III (William of Orange) in  1693 it was noted that the Scots Greys regiment were all mounted on  greys. Soon afterwards they were being referred to as the “Grey  Dragoons” or the “Scots Regiment of Grey Dragoons”. In 1707, after the  Act of Union, they were restyled “North British”, as the parliamentary  union envisaged Scotland to be. Not until 1877 would their nickname be  made official. They became the 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys),  inverted after the First World War to The Royal Scots Greys (2nd  Dragoons). They kept this title for 50 years until amalgamating with the  3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales’s Dragoon Guards) to form the Royal  Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys).

When Napoleon escaped from Elba at the end of February 1815 to begin his  “Hundred Days”, the ill-starred attempt to retake the French crown and  continue his imperial ambitions, the Greys were one of a number of  regiments rushed to Belgium that had yet to fight “Napoleonic” troops.  Indeed, by the time of Waterloo few Scots Greys had seen battle - and  they were keen to make up for it.

Their moment came in the early afternoon of 18 June, when it looked as  if Wellington’s line at Waterloo would break. The Comte d’Erlon’s corps  of three infantry divisions, some 14,000 men, with 6,000 cavalry,  assaulted the Allied left wing and centre, which was held by  Dutch-Belgian brigades and Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton’s 5th  Division, the latter experienced Peninsular troops.

As d’Erlon’s men ascended the slope towards the sunken road that ran  the length of the ridge left of La Haye Sainte, driving back the British  skirmishers and reaching the thick hedge that fringed the road,  Picton’s men stood up, formed into a four-deep line to guard against  cavalry attack, advanced and began volleying.

However, the French deployed unusually quickly into line and returned  fire. Picton himself was killed after ordering a counter-attack in  language profane even by his own legendary standards, and soon his  troops were giving way under the pressure of numbers. At two o’clock  Napoleon appeared to be winning the Battle of Waterloo.

But Lieutenant-General the Earl of Uxbridge was a cavalry commander  of genius. Earlier estranged from Wellington on account of eloping with  the Duke’s youngest brother’s wife, he had been disbarred from service  in the Peninsula after brilliantly covering Sir John Moore’s gruelling  retreat to Corunna. But his cavalry coup d’oeil had not deserted him,  nor his moral courage. Despite the Duke’s orders that none of the  cavalry was to quit the ground it had been posted on without his express  will, Uxbridge ordered his two brigades – the Household Brigade (1st  and 2nd Life Guards, Royal Horse Guards and 1st (King’s) Dragoon Guards)  and the Union Brigade, so-called for its English, Scots and Irish  regiments (1st Royal Dragoons, 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, and the  Scots Greys) – to charge in support of the hard-pressed infantry.

With a combined strength of nearly 2,500 sabres and led by Uxbridge,  the heavies advanced. The Household Brigade was first into the charge,  sweeping back the cuirassiers guarding d’Erlon’s left flank. To the  Household’s left the Union Brigade surged through the lines of  red-coated infantry in the sunken road, where some Gordon Highlanders  grasped their stirrups to get at the French, and at the foot of the  slope routed the two advanced infantry brigades of General Joachim  Quiot’s division, the Royals, capturing the eagle of the 105th Ligne  while Sergeant Ewart of the Greys, 6ft 4in tall and a master swordsman  and rider, captured the eagle of the 45th Ligne.

Only two eagles were  captured that day.

As with the Household, however, the officers of the Union Brigade  were finding it difficult to rein in their troops, and the heavies lost  all cohesion. With many casualties and still trying to reorder, the  Greys now found themselves before the main French lines, their horses  blown, though some galloped on to attack the guns of the Grande  Batterie. This was too much for Napoleon, who had hitherto left the  conduct of the battle to Marshal Michel Ney. He promptly ordered a  counter-attack by two cuirassier brigades and Baron Jacquinot’s two  Polish lancer regiments (a charge also painted by Lady Butler).

As  Major-General Sir William Ponsonby tried to rally his brigade he was  captured by Jacquinot’s men, whereupon several Greys galloped to their  brigadier’s rescue but the lancers at once killed him and three of his  would-be rescuers, who could do nothing to overcome the lance’s reach.  The rest of the heavies might also have been speared or sabred had it  not been for a counter-charge by Major-General Sir John Vandeleur’s  light dragoon brigade and two of Dutch-Belgians from the left flank, who  had also disobeyed Wellington’s orders to stay put.

The charge saved the remnants of the Household and Union brigades but  their casualties had been heavy, including the Greys’  lieutenant-colonel, James Hamilton, who was killed. The official  recorded losses for both brigades that day were 1,205 troopers and 1,303  horses, an extremely high proportion.

However, 14,000 French troops of D’Erlon’s corps had been committed  to the attack on the Allied centre at a cost of some 3,000 casualties  and irrecoverable time. It was four o’clock before they were ready to  advance again, by when, with the Allied line holding along the ridge and  Prussian troops beginning to arrive on the field from the east, it was  be-coming clear that Napoleon had lost the battle, although there would  be another two hours of increasingly desperate, bloody but futile French  attacks before Wellington judged it the moment to signal the whole line  to advance.

The Scots Greys would later incorporate the image of the captured  eagle in their cap badge, and Sergeant Ewart would be commissioned as an  ensign (second lieutenant) in the 5th Veteran Battalion of Infantry.  The following year he was invited to a Waterloo dinner in Edinburgh,  where Sir Walter Scott asked him to speak. But Ensign Ewart begged that  he might be excused, saying, “I would rather fight the Battle of  Waterloo over again than face so large an assemblage.”

The Battle of Waterloo, the culmination of more than twenty years of fighting in Europe and across the globe, was one of the greatest military defeats in history. Within a matter of hours it would not only result in thousands of deaths, but also in the destruction ofa well-experienced  army.

The role  that  the  Scots  Greys  played  in  the  Battle  of  Waterloo  was, perhaps something of a surprise. Although they had had  a long and relatively distinguished history, having fought in many battles from the time of William III in Holland, the group tasked with  fighting at Waterloo, the majority having little or no battle experience, proved themselves to be more than adequate on their day. Through sheer courage and determination they entered a bloody battle against all the odds.

Historians continue to debate whether the Scots Greys was the actual turning point of the Battle of Waterloo with as much vigour as they debate the late intervention of Blucher’s Prussians. Be that as it may it remains undeniable that the number of losses, in proportion to their numbers, was very high, yet the  impression they made on the battlefield at Waterloo was, and still is,  deep and forever remembered.

[thesameasbe4]

One More Night in Siberia

*Bucky and first person reader.

I mumbled one more “thank you” in my terrible Russian as I closed the door on the intrusive host. Had I not been so tired and sore I would have realized that it was not strange of the owner of the Inn to be suspicious of two people banging on the door in the middle of a blizzard, with no vehicle, in Siberia. But I was too tired - so I just trudged into the room after Bucky and sank to the floor. After a few moments to gather my wits I began looked about the small space. There was an old iron coil heater in the corner on the far side of the room so I rose with a groan and went to examine it. After poking around I found the pilot light was out so I rifled through the bug out bad we had been sharing and pulled out a pack of matches. Soon the ancient coil was creaking and groaning but getting warmer.

Next I turned to Bucky. He had put on a brave face when negotiating for the room, but now he was white as a sheet and stared ahead blankly. “Hold on, Buck,” I murmured to him as I stripped him out of his freezing clothes. I could see fresh blood stains on his undershirt as I pulled that off too, swallowing hard. The bullet wound had not hit any vital organs, just grazed his lower left side, but we had been on the run for a week now and I was worried it was getting infected. There was no bathroom in the room so I slipped outside with our small cooking pot and collected some snow. Returning unnoticed by the innkeeper, I set the pot on the heater to melt.

It had been too long since either of us had had a warm shower and even a heated basin of water was better than anything we should expect. After cleaning his wound and a swallow of whiskey for each of us, Bucky was sitting up again, propped against a wall. I gently ran a bandanna soaked in the warm water over his torso and face. The room was quite toasty now, but Bucky was still shivering. I reached down to feel the leg of his pants and sighed, realizing they were also soaked through. Carefully, I undid them and slid them off his legs, spreading them flat on the ground to dry close to the heat. I then pulled the reindeer skins off the small bed in the corner of the room and tucked them around him, I hadn’t the energy to try to move him to the bed. He was closer to the heater this way.

It was just a few hours till the chopper would meet us here, but Buck didn’t look good. I suspected his wound was becoming infected, he wasn’t losing much blood anymore, so that wasn’t the reason for his pallid skin and he would going through waves of chills. He began to shake again and I could no longer see anything but a cold, sad boy. Coaxing his large frame to lean forward, I managed to slip behind him, straddling his shaking body with my legs. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him tight. “Buck?” I murmured into his ear.

“Yea,” he groaned with much effort.

“I need you to stay awake for me, Bucky. Do you understand?”

“Mmh,” he groaned again, his flesh arm squeezing my ankle. I couldn’t help but lean into him further, while flinching internally as I thought of how we would explain this away when he had his wits about him again.

We passed the hours together by telling stories. I talked about the yellow plastic slide in my back yard growing up. How I had tried about a dozen times to spend a whole night in the tree house my father built but would always come inside when it got dark because I thought a raccoon would sit on my face in the middle of the night. Bucky smiled at that, his light laughter reverberating down his back. Bucky talked about growing up in the city, about the best rooftop view of New York and promised we would visit it together one day. I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see them.

“Always the playboy aren’t you?” I teased light heartedly.

Bucky reached around and grabbed my free hand, pulling it to him and placing it on his bare chest. “No, you are too precious to be an object for a playboy,” he said cryptically. I shook it off as a symptom of his fever, though I left my hand where he placed it, kneading his clammy chest gently as he continued to talk, the deep vibrations of his voice making their way to my palm.

A while later, lights on the horizon flashed the signal to let us know it was our ride out of here. I helped Bucky dress and we stumbled out of the droopy little building into the vast white world. Two uniforms met us half way and I gratefully handed Bucky off to them.

…

Several days passed and Bucky and I were recovering well from the mission. I had thought I was going to lose a few toes to frost bite but managed to pull through with all my body parts still attached. Bucky’s infected wound was now on the mend. His side was still tender though he would never admit that.

I looked up from my book at a tap on my door. “Enter!” I said not looking up.

“Hey,” said a low voice from my door.

“What up,” I replied, trying not to seem excited to see him.

“Well, I ordered too much Chinese and you haven’t eaten yet,” he said.

“You have just said two statements, you now need to combine them into a cohesive question,” I said flatly. It had been a frustrating day.

“Okay, as a hungry person, do you think I should share my food with Steve or just eat it all myself?”

I threw a pen at him, which he caught gracefully in mid air. “It would have hit you in the forehead,” I mumbled.

Walking the rest of the way into my room, he placed a full plastic bag on my desk, the delicious smells of fried rice and dumplings seeping into the space. Then he moved to stand behind my desk chair, placing his warm hands on my shoulders. He began to knead the knots in my back. I closed my book and leaned into his touch, trying hard not to moan.

“You know I never properly thanked you for dragging my ass out of Siberia,” he said. I turned to look at him.

“You don’t have to, it’s what partners do,” I replied.

“I know, but you are an exceptional partner.” I waved a hand at him in dismissal but he caught it, and pulled me up to stand in front of him, so close we were almost touching. Then, he placed my hand on his chest again, just like he had done that night in Siberia. I looked up at his face and was startled by his glittering grey-blue eyes.

As if by a force outside of my control, I raised my hands to his face and pulled him down to meet my lips. I was sure he would pull away, make an awkward excuse and duck out, but that’s not what he did. No, he wound his hands around my hips, pulling me in tighter.

His lips were firm against mine, insistent as they explored my mouth, jaw and neck. His metal arm, a shock of cold on my lower back at first, was warming from contact with my heated skin. I was taken aback by his eagerness, surprised and I was more tentative to respond to him, my arm snaking up between us to grab a handful of his shirt. I pressed against his chest, coaxing him away from me gently, and despite the need I sensed in his tense muscles, he moved away just enough for me to shiver as the cool air of the room buffered against me in the places where I had adjusted to Bucky’s body heat. Bucky nuzzled my neck with his stubble questioningly.

“Hey now, the food is getting cold,” I laughed as he continued to cling to me even as I began to unpack the bag of food he had forgotten on my desk. “I’m gonna eat your egg roll if you don’t back off,” I threatened.

…

The lo mein sat heavy in my stomach as I reran our kiss from earlier in the day. I was still at my computer, but I hadn’t gotten anything done in the past hour. Sighing, I rose and headed for the shower. The steam and heat were divine, I never took luxuries like hot water for granted anymore since I had been in so many situations without such things. I stood there in the shower for much too long, till I was bright red and the water started to get cool again. Finally I switched it off and stepped out of the bathroom in a towel.

I was stepping into some comfy sweats as an old melody drifted into my room. I cocked my head and smiled. Bucky, the boy displaced by time, was playing his records from the 40’s again. Returning to my closet, I pulled out a simple, modest knee length black dress as I ran my hand thoughtfully through my drying hair. A few minutes later I caught the image of myself in the mirror as I pulled on a pair of pantyhose, no time for an elaborate hair do, but it was my best efforts at 1940s fashion on a time crunch. Tugging on a pair of matching heels, I clicked down the hall lightly towards the haunting sounds of the record. The door opened before I could knock, super soldier and all, it was hard to catch Bucky by surprise.

“Need a partner?” I asked as I raised my hands, offering to dance with him. He smiled broadly as his gaze swept down my figure and then back up to my face. Gently he stepped closer to me, wrapping his arms around my waist, drawing me further into the room and kicking the door closed with his foot. We moved slowly together, inching closer and closer to one another like two magnets, the lazy jazz luring us into the fantasy of a crowded dance floor. Finally I laid my head on his shoulder. We didn’t say anything, we were partners. He knew what I needed and I knew what he was thinking.