#at the mountain base and just fucking guesses what he thinks everyones number is

[littlehouseoftrinkets]

While there's good angst potential in the whole "Red going to Mt. Silver and isolating himself from society for years and nobody's heard from him" thing I personally like to think he DID keep in contact with people but he entered everyone's numbers wrong into his pokegear so he keeps texting random ass people instead of like, his mom

[josouhenshin]

day 1, part 1

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Okay, as long as I’m dealing with a setback I might as well spin this into an opportunity to take some more detailed notes. Once more from the top:

Shinobu hazuki and his friend mizuki tachibana are moving in together ahead of their first college term. Their apartment is pretty small, but with just the two of them it should be fine, right?

While toiling away unpacking everything, shinobu comments that it’s kinda like their own private castle, and mizuki responds with a joke along the lines of, well, if this is a castle, then I guess that makes you the princess right? 

Shinobu has a funny gender moment and freaks out a bit, and mizuki doubles down. Well of course, he says, shinobu’s the cutesy one so it’s obvious. 

After some further complaining they get back to work unpacking. Shinobu comments that mizuki brought a mountain of boxes marked as clothes. Welp, no time like the present! Shinobu starts opening them up and a look of panic crosses mizuki’s face. 

"Whu- ho- hold on a second, shinobu!"

But it’s too late. The scent of women’s perfume emanates from the open box. Inside there’s a bunch of clothes.

“Those are for women, right..?” Shinobu wonders. He’s very confused about why his number one bestie would have a box of things like skirts and bras. 

“They’re for you,” mizuki explains. 

Shinobu freaks out. A mechanical thing to mention that really isn’t going to come through via text is that there’s a heart rate monitor for shinobu in the corner of the ui, and it speeds up or slows down based on various things. When it passes 100 bpm there’s a heartbeat sound effect that plays, and speeds up if it goes higher. This is one such time.

Mizuki continues. “Obviously you were always the cuter one.”

There’s an exchange that I believe is something like mizuki saying “haven’t we always been close enough that we could bathe together?” and shinobu saying “well that’s just something men do!!!” my impression is that overseas, communal bathing is generally more of a familial thing that we might see it as in the states. But I think the implication is that mizuki is implying something else. 

“Haha, just kidding! Your face got so red!” Mizuki says. “They’re actually mine.”

Shinobu replies, “Well yeah I know they’re yours! I’m asking why the hell you have them! Do you think I’m stupid?” despite lashing out, he seems to be calming down. The heartbeat fades away.

Shinobu continues demanding to know what’s going on and mizuki keeps repeating that they’re his clothes and getting increasingly insulting about it.

“But surely you don’t actually wear them,” Shinobu wonders.

“I do,” Mizuki says.

“Crossdressing is... a hobby of mine.”

The heartbeat thing goes fucking ballistic.

“Don’t tell my mom and everyone, okay?”

Shinobu continues demanding explanations and mizuki keeps repeating himself. He can’t believe it. Sure, ever since they were little mizuki’s particular androgynous charm was always popular with the girls, but even if he was pretty, he’s an all-around great athlete, and his personality is manly and passionate. And he always uses the most masculine first person pronoun “ore!”

“It’s- it’s surprising,” shinobu stammers.

“Yeah I guess it would be.”

Shinobu asks why he does it. Mizuki doesn’t really have an answer, but after further pressing settles on “well, it’s fun. turning into another self, or something like that.” he also suggests shinobu should try too!

Shinobu goes quiet for a while, but eventually agrees. And there begins the first day of shinobu’s adventures in the world of crossdressing. 

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[valhallanrose]

The Red Plague

The art above was created by Nix Hydra, and can be found in the Minor Arcana Art Book (or where I got it - off the fandom wiki page, because who’s going to stop me)

Much of Zelda’s story in the non-apprentice timeline delves into the plague before, during, and in the aftermath of Vesuvia, and I wanted to compile my lore and headcanons for it in one place before I delve into her story fully. I will incorporate as much canon as possible, but given that that isn’t a large amount of info, a lot of this is based off research and personal worldbuilding. 

CWs for discussions of disease, death, body horror, I guess spoilers but I’m surprised if it is for anyone considering how the info is everywhere in game in all routes. This is also, again, personal headcanon and I don’t expect it to fall in line with everyone’s thoughts on the plague.

The Timeline

I’m going to go with a comprehensive timeline first, and this part is all based on canon information. I’ll try and provide as many sources as I can as well, but some of this is pulled from multiple books and I might forget exactly where something came from. 

As we learn in the Lucio tale, Dawn of the Grub, Lucio strikes up a deal with the wyrm of pestilence (Vlastomil) - his parents’ hearts in exchange for a disease that will allow Lucio to kill them both. The Lucio brought the disease back to the tribe, which weakened his father enough for Lucio to kill him. His mother Morga, however, fights off the disease, referring to it as a ‘summer cold’, and Lucio flees the tribe and joins a traveling mercenary band which allows the plague to spread. 

I don’t have a particular reason why Morga would have survived the plague. Her sprites in the game never show any sign of the plague that are generally acknowledged - no red sclera, no veins, no signs of weakness, so on and so forth. The best theory I can posit is that Morga either genuinely had a summer cold, or that the plague only took hold in Lutz rather than them both. Either way, unsatisfying, but we’re going to call Morga the exception and not the rule. 

Because Lucio did not fulfill his end of the bargain with Vlastomil, the plague continued to spread, following Lucio as he traveled the continent. This is also the point where the beetles appear - more on them later. 

The implication in the game is that the disease reached other countries and areas, but the next canon mention of the Red Plague’s spread occurs in Portia’s route, book X - Wheel of Fortune. A map is discussed where dates, places, and sightings of the plague are noted by Julian in his study of the plague - the Painted Fields, Blue Mountain Ridge, and Annyala Gate are all names that arise. 

Nasmira recognizes the name of Annyala Gate and points out that Nazali was at that battle, in which a band of mercenaries was sighted - and their leader needed an arm amputated, which is confirmed to be Lucio. Nadia states that Lucio came to Vesuvia not long after that battle, and the next time the Plague was seen was in Vesuvia. 

It is never seen again outside Vesuvia, and this brings us to the three years before the game, where Lucio’s ‘death’ heralds the end of the plague, and it is never seen actively again in the Arcana world. 

The headcanons I have are to help establish a solid timeline. Dawn of the Grub tells us the deal is made on Lucio’s 18th birthday, and I personally believe that Lucio’s death occurred on his 40th birthday, giving us about 22 years of time for us to work with for the spread of the plague. 

Some more headcanons mixed with canon:

Lucio is newly titled Count in the tale Travel at Night. Based on personal age headcanons, this tale probably occurs at minimum 17 to 18 years pre-canon, putting Asra at (at most) 10/11, Muriel at 14/15, and Lucio at a startling 22/23. It could occur later, as art style can influence perspective on age, but Muriel and Asra really don’t feel like they could be much older than that. 

During his mercenary days (sometime between the ages of 18 and 22/23) Lucio was contracted by the former Count of Vesuvia, Count Spada. This battle occurs at Annyala, mentioned above, and is the battle where Lucio 

At a certain point, Lucio was contracted by the Count of Vesuvia at the time, Count Spada, for a battle where he "made a name for himself." Story implications indicate that this was the battle during which he lost his left arm. It was amputated by Julian to prevent his death from blood loss. After he won the battle for Count Spada, he became friends with the Count and privy to secrets about Vesuvia and the Palace. Spada would eventually name Lucio his heir, and upon his death, Lucio earned rulership of Vesuvia. 

The plague eventually appears and ravages Vesuvia’s population

Plague patients are sent to the Lazaret away from the city and cremated, then scattered on the beach. 

Lucio contracts the plague and defies the average lifespan of those who contracted it by lasting a few months rather than 3-10 days.

Lucio dies on his birthday, not of the plague but as a result of the ritual he was attempting to gain a new body.

I tried to map most of that out here, and wow, what a sad little diagram. Nix Hydra, y’all are cowards for not going hard on this. I, however, am not, and I am about to go more apeshit than I already have. 

The Spread

Cracking my knuckles on the history degree, baby, I’m borrowing some real life inspiration from across multiple time periods to tie all this together. 

I personally think the whole “Oh, the plague arrives wherever Lucio goes and disappears when he leaves” thing is a copout, and we’re drop kicking that out a window. 

I do believe, as canon states, that the plague follows Lucio. It spreads obviously to regions he visits, but I don’t think it just disappears when he leaves. I really, really want to believe someone would have been smart enough to see the connection if the plague suddenly appeared and was later yoinked out of existence as soon as Lucio left town every single time it cropped up somewhere way sooner than it was noticed in canon. 

I don’t think the plague was as isolated as the game implies, and when it was in Vesuvia, it was probably also elsewhere. The epicenter was Lucio, of course, so Vesuvia faced the worst of it, but I think there would have been pockets with much smaller numbers in other parts of the world. 

Earlier I mentioned a few locations cited in Portia’s route as to where the plague had been before Vesuvia - the Painted Fields, Blue Mountain Ridge, and Annyala Gate. I think once these areas were hit with the plague, it would have continued to spread even after Lucio left. Across multiple routes, it’s made clear that the only ‘cure’ to the plague is Lucio’s death, which is why Julian had intended to kill Lucio after making his deal with the Hanged Man. The lack of Lucio’s presence would have kept the plague from continuing to escalate, but in these regions, it probably would have spread when the region’s people attempted to relocate, or ceased when the population died out. 

Annyala Gate, or the Great Gate, is a location I can dive a little deeper into. It’s the last location the plague was sighted before Vesuvia, and because it ties into my OC Zelda’s storyline, I have many a thought. 

Lucio is in Annyala sometime between year 1 and year 4/5, though I believe it’s on the later end of that spectrum, so let’s say year 4 to clearly predate his title as heir to Vesuvia. For reference, here is a map of the Great Gate as provided by the art book: 

Jeebus. Terrible photo quality. Ah, well, on we go. 

The Great Gate is situated between the Sea of Persephia (left) and the Salty Sea (right), and as the map currently stands, is the only point on land that gives access to the southern part of the world map. In this area in particular, I feel like a number of factors would have kept the plague alive long after Lucio left. 

Narrowest point on the world map for transport of goods between ports and seas, which would be a more efficient route than traveling around the continent to reach the same point

As previously stated, this is the only known access point to the south, and travelers heading through this area could possibly be carriers of the plague or catch the plague from the area 

The only way for the plague to stop would be with the death of Lucio, so once it was inflicted upon this area, it continued to spread and infect the population in adjoining areas 

The game repeatedly has emphasized the proximity of the Red Beetles (known harbingers of the plague) to water, such as the Nopali village in Asra’s route and the red stains attributed to them in Julian’s route, and we receive further confirmation in Portia’s route that the water supplies are contaminated during the period of the disease

Fun bit of trivia from Nadia’s route - in the Strength book, Nadia mentions that she remembers the beetles, and that once they had been used as part of a pigment used to dye fabric crimson, which was all the rage in Vesuvia. Should this trend have continued, people wearing fabrics dyed with this beetle pigment most likely would become infected, and thus, the cycle continued. 

I will also point out here that pigments have been used in makeup across history, and I’m sure applying some beetle-laden makeup would have really fucked some people up. Eyeshadows, blushes, lipsticks...contact with any of these areas, particularly the eyes and mouth, indicate a possibility of infection. 

This does, however, leave a fifteen year (ish) period where the plague would have been active in this region until Lucio’s death. Historically, diseases can last such broad swathes of time. For the sake of displaying precedent, I will point out some examples here:

The Black Death, lasting 1346-1353

The third cholera pandemic, lasting 1846-1860

The third plague pandemic, a major bubonic plague like the Black Death, lasting 1855-1960

The HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has been ongoing since 1981 in the US

However, some of the most devastating plagues have lasted only a few years, which I will touch on later when I discuss Vesuvia’s case of the plague. All of the diseases listed above are additionally categorized with death tolls over a million people.

(On a side note, if you would like to contribute to programs searching for a cure for HIV/AIDS, I will suggest donating to organizations like amfAR, the Black AIDS Institute, or the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, all of which are linked accordingly and deserve your support if you are capable of making a  contribution)

Remaining question: if the last place the plague was seen was in Annyala, more than fifteen years before it was seen in Vesuvia, what the fuck happened during that time beforehand?

Vesuvia - Before the Plague

Here’s the thing. The timeline given by the devs is a fucking mess. So, what I’m going to propose here is almost entirely theory, and I ask that you keep that in mind. 

Lucio ascends to the title of Count by the time he’s about 22 or 23. Spada dies, presumably, and there’s no noticeable mention of his death via plague or the establishment of the court. 

For some fascinating lore on how the government in Vesuvia works, I’m going to point you to this post by @sunrisenfool​, who has one of the biggest brains and is gracious enough to allow me to reference their work a little for this one. 

I don’t think the court as we know it existed when Lucio became Count. I agree with sunrisenfool here that Valdemar has been the Palace’s cockroach for a while - which was actually also confirmed in the Star book of Portia’s route, in which we see Count Prospero (founder of Vesuvia) summon Valdemar and ask for their aid in creating a city that will never die. The remaining courtiers would be gradually established as time continued on, all demons who struck bargains with the Devil in one form or another placed into positions of power alongside Lucio. We also cannot forget Valerius, who made his own deal with the Devil, and played his own role in this scenario.

We know that Lucio was also a pawn, later on, in the Devil’s agenda to bridge the gap between the main world and the Arcane realms. The ritual discussed in Portia’s Star book is described as a vessel to do just that - 

“...every 777 years, the physical and magical world will collide...the laws of magic will no longer be immutable, and the world will bend to our will...So long as the Countship and canals remain whole, so shall the power to reshape the world. You need only await the conjunction. Perform the ritual and lead the city to glory heretofore unknown. I, Count Prospero, first of my line, declare the founding of Vesuvia. The city eternal. My legacy.” - Count Prospero

It’s confirmed after this scene that the ritual, using the canals as a conduit, opened a ‘door’ so to speak to the Arcane realms. It’s also said there is a three year window to perform this ritual, and that at the time of game canon, we are at the end of that three year window. 

So. Borderline conspiracy time. 

Circling back to the lovely sunrisenfool’s work, I’m going to pull a particular excerpt here:

...the Consul of Vesuvia is the second most important/powerful political figure in Vesuvia, directly after the Count/ess. Aside of the political and civic duties I have already explained, the Consul acts as a “protector” of Vesuvia, albeit not in a paternalistic politically-conservative way (which is how paternalistic policies would be understood in our world). Instead, the Consul is meant to rule the City if the Count is absent or incapacitated, therefore being the subsidiary depositary of the secret of the foundation of Vesuvia, and the importance of it’s Canals.

Lucio makes it pretty clear he doesn’t know much of anything about the ritual during Portia’s Star book, but he was told about it by Spada before his death as it was a secret kept close to the court. That gave him something of leverage, even if he wasn’t aware of it, 

My thought as to why the plague did not spread in Vesuvia sooner is that Lucio had knowledge of this ritual, however minimal, and the Devil needed him alive to eventually use the ritual for himself. So, as Vlastomil (the wyrm of pestilence who granted this curse) was established in Vesuvia as Praetor, the plague was kept at bay for the time being while the city came under the full control of the Devil’s demons. 

I cannot imagine the only person who knows about the ritual is the Count, because that feels like a woefully flawed plan, so I do believe the Consul would have also been privy to such a secret in case the Count was in a position they could not share it due to absence or incapacitation. Basically, a rehash of sunrisenfool’s point, but I digress. 

As the window drew nearer for the completion of the ritual and it became clearer that Lucio knew next to nothing about the ritual and how it worked, the Devil decided to take a different approach. The plague was unleashed once again by Vlastomil, with the goal that Lucio become infected and eventually die, and that Valerius take over the Countship. Lucio no longer was useful to the Devil, and should he be removed from power, someone like Valerius - who knew the purpose of the ritual, who was under the Devil’s bargain by this point - would be an ideal candidate to finish the task at hand. Leverage, it works wonders. 

I don’t think the ritual performed to gain a new body could have been mere chance. I think Lucio knew more than he let on about the canals and the magic in Vesuvia from Spada. Yes, I know the first three were written before Portia, but come on, the timing is insane. He’s no magician, and performing something that complex and magically charged right at the beginning of the three year window when the ritual is supposed to be performed feels far from coincidental. Fight me. 

But, on to what happens in Vesuvia once the plague is free to spread again.

Vesuvia - During the Plague

The first sighting of the plague is in year 20, and I personally believe the plague lasted about two years or 24 months. The period is divided into three ‘waves’ - the first six months, the year leading up to Lucio’s death, and the six months following Lucio’s death. 

The First Wave

The first wave begins when the first known case of the Red Plague is confirmed, and in this period, the spread is rather slow.  

Here is the introduction of the Lazaret, which I do believe is a building that existed before the plague - this is personal thoughts, but the odds of this being the first major disease Vesuvia experienced feel pretty slim, and I do think this was a previously established quarantine that was renovated/expanded for the Red Plague outbreak. In an effort to get ahead of the disease, the space was designated a quarantine, largely staffed by volunteers when the palace seemed to not acknowledge the growing situation. It would slowly begin to increase until the plague boomed at the six month mark, heralding the beginning of the second wave. 

The Second Wave

This is the ‘bad period’ of the plague. I say that loosely, because it’s all bad, but I digress. 

I headcanon that the apprentice dies in the beginning of the second wave, when spread of the red plague rapidly begins to increase and the call goes out for researchers to search for a cure. We know how that story goes, so moving on to the details of this wave. 

There were two groups at this point in the plague - those assigned to research, working out of Valdemar’s dungeon/lab/carnival of horrors studying the plague, and those assigned to the Lazaret, caring for the sick and dying and maintaining the facility. 

I’m going to focus more on the Lazaret for this, as the research aspect is pretty well covered throughout Julian’s route and conversations with him in other routes, and this post is already getting long. 

The Lazaret was home to the dying, where they would be cared for in their final days and eventually cremated. My thought is that the remains of the patients were carefully catalogued in the beginning, returned to families willing to claim them, and those left unclaimed were scattered on the beach at the Lazaret. Later on, as more and more people died, less remains were claimed, leading to the black beaches that still mark the shores of the Lazaret in canon. Often the staff here were a mix of healers, doctors, apothecaries, anyone willing to try anything to ease the pain of such a disease. 

The staff at the Lazaret began wearing layered masks - the plague mask with its herb-stuffed beak, another facial covering beneath for an added layer of protection, and a head covering that sealed the gaps between the mask and the face. They were also required to wear gloves, tight-fitted sleeves tucked inside, and their pants tucked into their boots to reduce the risk of infection through contact. Their days would start in locker rooms on one end of the facility, removed from the patients, and suit up for the day while leaving belongings in the lockers. The end of the shift consisted of showers and disposal of garments to be sterilized, they’d return home in the clothes they came in, and by the time they returned a new uniform would be waiting for them. 

Lucio caught the plague during this period, most likely halfway through. He lasted several months, but the exact length is unknown, aside from he ‘lasted longer than most victims of the plague’ who died between 3-10 days.

I don’t think the averages are entirely accurate. There were most likely some who were asymptomatic until the plague was in very late stages, or those who presented symptoms very early on and survived for long stretches of time. All would die bearing the red sclera, veins, and other symptoms depicted above. Basically, this disease is claimed to be unpredictable, and I think that would also stretch to the duration at which each patient had it. Those who were physically frail likely would have died sooner than those who had been in oprtimal health before the plague, making the times vary rather drastically. I’d suggest perhaps a month at the longest, a few days at the shortest. 

Policy wise - during this period, the ports would have closed, and Vesuvia would have shut down. Nobody in, nobody out, not without rigorous inspection and quarantine before exiting to the city to avoid further spread. Often the only people allowed into the city were doctors from other regions affected by the plague called to help research, but during this year, I would estimate Vesuvia lost easily 30% of its population to the Red Plague. 

The Third Wave

This wave is the period that occurs after Lucio’s death at the Masquerade, three years pregame. I’ll touch a tiny bit more more on this in the next section, but this is where we see the gradual end of the spread of the plague, and the last cases shown in Vesuvia. It’s the end of the plague period, and I give this about six months for the official ‘all clear’ to have been given by those tracking case counts. 

The Lazaret is eventually decommissioned and now sits abandoned, a shadow on the horizon to remind those who survived what had been lost. The city mourned, the gates slowly opened, and gradually, we reach the point of comparative normalcy we see in the game set three years later. 

Vesuvia - The Aftermath

Lucio’s death would, ultimately, mean the end of the plague. Rather than immediately disappearing and all those suffering from it be cured, however, I would be inclined to say that the spread came to a halt. 

The last wave of the plague, in the six months after Lucio’s death, would have been a decrease in new cases until there were no new ones being reported, and the last of the patients who had been infected finally passed. 

The final duties of the doctors at the Lazaret, after all remains are cremated, would have been the incineration of all materials that could not be sterilized. Linens, spare uniforms, unclaimed personal affects, so on and so forth until the time came to return home. I do not remember the exact location, but I am fairly confident of a mention of the MC remembering barrels burning doctor’s uniforms and masks in the days after the end of the plague. It was, for a lack of better words, a purge - an attempt to erase the last physical memories of what the city had endured. 

Events like this are traumatic for all involved. They are painful wounds, and for the rate of death I imagine occurred in Vesuvia, the odds that someone lost no one are slim. There was likely a long period of mourning, and as noted in the present of the game, rarely is the plague spoken of outside of the context of the investigation in the primary routes. 

Many of those medical staff members who survived were those assigned to research at the Palace. The proximity of the staff to the ill at the Lazaret quarantine likely would have made the rate of infection far higher for the caretakers, meaning that often the staff would end up caring for colleagues in their final days. 

Even three years removed, the time of the plague is a raw wound for those in Vesuvia - but I do think the period is fascinating and I love exploring the different facets of it in my own world building. And, well, shameless self promo, but I am eager to write it myself when I get into Zelda’s backstory.

If you made it this far, thank you. Go drink some water or something, idk, wellbeing checkpoint bc what a long ass post

[stillness-in-green]

MVA In Memoriam (2/5)

The Comprehensive Account of the Butchering of My Villain Academia

(Introduction and Part One, Episode 108: My Villain Academia)

Part Two, Episode 109: Revival Party

Chapter 224 – Revival Party

• Mr. Compress’s side comment about how the distance Re-Destro wants them to travel means he must know they have warp capabilities. Also shortens his subsequent line, removing the bit about how their position has been locked onto, leaving only the marveling about the dude on the phone being the kind of person who has access to a satellite camera. Not a major cut, but it did strip out a bit of reiteration on how very Seen the League is. The warp line is another nod to how the MLA’s been doing their research—in particular, it ties in nicely with RD’s observations about the Noumu. He talks, there, about something Dabi said after the High End fight, which means he must also know that Dabi was warped out by an “Ujiko-san.”

• Also Mr. C’s observation that they haven’t broken Machia yet, and his posed question about what to do. Mr. Compress, I’m so sorry that you’re so wordy and lose so many quips and asides because the anime was set on brutally scything out every line of non-essential dialogue it could find.

• Ujiko’s extremely hilarious, “Listening to Villain Radio is my new favorite hobby,” line. Why would you cut this; this line is hysterical.

• The bit where Mr. Compress has the bright idea to use a High End Noumu like the one Dabi used, Ujiko rejects the suggestion out of hand, citing production woes, and Shigaraki says that he wasn’t going to ask for one of them anyway. Aside from being more cut Compress content (or “Comptent,” for short), it helps center the timeline somewhat at a point where the manga is jerking it around all over; it also shows that the League has been keeping up with news from the outside world. It also shows that at least one of them thought about using the Noumu—and since we know Re-Destro did some rationalizing on that scenario too, it’s good to see that it is at least briefly on the table.           Further, Ujiko provides a few rare details about the Noumu creation process. Firstly, that AFO is normally involved, so his absence makes the procedure much more difficult (though not, apparently, impossible). Secondly, that Hood-chan was the only Noumu who’d actually reached the testing stage. This will be important later, for Ujiko’s agonizing about unleashing them early/Mirko having to fight four of them at once.           Also, I just miss Mr. C’s funny little head wilt when Ujiko immediately turns down his “use some Noumu” idea. Ditto Shigaraki’s blasé shrug and little grin. Again, not to harp on the art too much, but man I wish the anime had kept all the fierce little grins and tight, incensed smirks Shigaraki has through the majority of this and the phone call sequence.

• Spinner’s line, “Without knowing squat about what we’re up against?!” A minor cut, as these things go, but it reiterates that there’s a chance RD is bluffing and the League has no way to know one way or the other, and demonstrates that the League can give Shigaraki some pushback on his decisions without having to worry about getting dusted for the temerity.[1]

• Takes one of Spinner’s lines—“Wait. I get it. Wherever you go, Shigaraki, he’ll sniff you out and hunt you down.”—and gives it to Shigaraki instead. Because fuck Spinner’s growing understanding of Shigaraki and the way his mind works, I guess! It’s especially notable that Spinner figures this out when Mr. C had completely the wrong idea about Shigaraki’s intentions—it demonstrates the way Spinner is gradually aligning himself with Shigaraki’s way of thinking, which we’ll see even more clearly during the War Arc. Also, again, it’s good to see the moments where the League weighs in on Shigaraki’s plans.

• The visual of Twice lashing out at Dabi with his razor-edged tape measure over Dabi’s dismissal of Giran, though all the relevant dialogue was there. Possibly this is because, having cut the CRC bit, the audience has no way of knowing that Twice’s tape measure is razor-edged, so why bother raising the question, “Why is Twice trying to attack Dabi with a tape measure..?” Possibly it’s because showing that attack would require animating movement, and MAN ALIVE, did Episode 109 ever want to do everything it could to avoid animating movement.

• Slidin’ Go’s line about how Deika isn’t usually his turf, but today is a big exception. This makes the hearty affirmative with which Trumpet announces himself a response to Shigaraki’s half-phrased observation about the reason behind the city’s emptiness, rather than a response to Slidin’ Go. It works, more or less, and probably even flows more clearly, all things considered. I’m always sad to lose lines from the vanishingly few named/characterized MLA members we have, though. I like, too, that it hints at the machinations that have to have been involved with setting things up for the Revival Party, and the way those plans were carried out with confidence that Re-Destro’s “bait the League into coming for their broker” plan would work despite the total absence of a response from the League in any of the time Giran was missing/his fingers were cropping up on the nightly news reports.

• A few shots of cameras in the city, which foreshadow Skeptic’s watchful eyes and ability to track the League through the city. In retrospect, this isn’t surprising, since the anime went on to cut basically any indication of Skeptic’s entire plan re: the footage of the League attacking, so why bother keeping the cameras? (Oh, right. Skeptic’s whole thing is cameras and information/disinformation. Skeptic for second-most screwed-by-the-anime MLA member.)

Additions

• Showed Toga having stood back up somewhere during Shigaraki’s explanation of their throw-Machia-against-the-MLA plan. A simply appalling choice. In the manga, she stays crouched down by Twice the entire time Shigaraki has his mask pulled off, because Toga cares about reassuring Jin-kun when he’s in a bad way.

• Rephrased Compress’s dialogue somewhat, also giving him a new line about the MLA’s forces in Deika when the League was still in the hills looking down at the city: “The so-called Meta Liberation Army has a force of 110,000 here.” I assume it was because the scene falls in a different episode than the tactical discussion did (in the manga, they’re the same chapter), so the anime was reminding the viewer of the stakes, but it’s potentially awkward because, er, no, the MLA categorically did not bring their entire army to Deika. We’ll find out as much for sure later, with the note that the regiment advisors weren’t in attendance because they were occupied at the bases they command, but even with only the knowledge we have here, Re-Destro’s statement about his numbers is that they’re scattered all over the country—hence the shot of Japan with a bunch of lights scattered across it to represent said numbers.           That said, to be (briefly) charitable, there’s no particular reason for the League to assume that, and they did discuss the possibility that there were going to have to fight 110,000 people. So it makes sense that Mr. C might state as much when recapping for the audience.

Chapter 225 – Interview with a Vampire

• Re-Destro talking about Deika’s geography and why they chose it strategically. The anime dropped so much about the MLA’s planning and information-gathering beforehand; it really made the MLA look ludicrously overconfident. And while they don’t lack for that trait, certainly,[2] this is also an organization that has meticulously grown its membership for generations right under Hero Society’s collective nose; you don’t get to where they are by being unduly foolhardy. Erasing so many scenes demonstrating their caution and forward-planning undercuts the threat they represent to both the League and society at large.           Also too, the descriptor of Deika as a nice, quiet, isolated little town in the mountains gives us some hints about how the MLA has avoided notice for so long, when you consider how the Hero business works: because so many people who get into heroism want to make it big, like celebrities, they don’t want to stick around small-town beats, and so the rural areas are understaffed.[3] That’s presumably why groups like the CRC and the MLA grow their numbers out in the boonies: much less attention from the Powers That Be. You can guess at some of that from how Spinner describes the place—“not too small, not too big”—and what Trumpet says about the percentage of the population that’s MLA, but RD adds that key “isolated” descriptor, and says that it’s a place where they “lay low.” That gives us some potential insight into how many—likely the majority—of the MLA came to their beliefs: by being raised to them, because their hometown was infiltrated by the MLA generations ago and they have literally never known anything else.

• RD’s phrasing, “Counter to point one,” when he makes his second point about the Noumu. He acknowledges that it’s counter-intuitive to his first argument, that he knows it would normally be an argument against that opening point, not in support. It’s just conversational padding, really, but “conversational padding” like that does a lot to distinguish character voice, so that not everyone talks the same way.

• A panel showing a trio of unnamed MLA warriors strategizing about how to divide their forces now that the League has split up. It’s the little cuts like this that gradually remove the agency of unnamed characters, such that they’re left looking like unthinking puppets instead of real people with the ability to register and respond to their circumstances. It also points towards the truth of what the MLA warriors are and one reason they’re so dangerous (for all that the manga itself will neglect this most egregiously later on): they’re trained in regiment tactics and accustomed to working in groups. This contrasts them both with villains, who might group together, but certainly don’t usually fight that way, and heroes, who are so unaccustomed to working in groups that it’s cited as part of the reason to have named super moves.

• Curious’s little pageboy-cut middle school kid line telling Toga to back off when Miss Curious is on the job. This is an early example of how defensive the MLA are of people above them in the hierarchy, an important thing Spinner will pick up on and attempt to use against Trumpet. Again, it’s little moments like this that both add some welcome notes of individuality to the MLA warriors (if only by virtue of Horikoshi and his assistants’ traditional talent for distinctive character design) while also fleshing out who the MLA are as a group, and contrasting them with the League.

• Deleted Toga’s line IDing her “on-the-go suck-suck mask,” but did insert a nice little bit of her expression shifting when she whipped it out. It lost a bit of the self-conscious silliness of her support item name in exchange for a cool little animation beat. I don’t dislike it, particularly, but I am, as previously stated, very leery of edits that make the League more polished in their villainy at the cost of their human foibles.

• Curious’s line about having come prepared to counter Toga’s moves, which was supposed to further reiterate that the MLA has done their research on the League; they didn’t just decide out of the blue to target the most notorious Villains in the country without studying up on them first and planning accordingly!

• Curious’s line about how she’s going to get started with some background info while her people use their meta-abilities to keep Toga and her buddies on the ropes. A marvelously characterful line! It speaks especially to that edge of formality the MLA brass observe that even as she’s ringleading this attack, Miss Curious is still set on going through her interview process step by established step.

Framing Shifts

• Made some of Curious’s lines spoken dialogue instead of internal monologue. That’s probably fine for when she’s waxing enthusiastic about Toga’s lack of hesitation in committing murder or how she’ll use Toga’s story to further the MLA’s agenda. It’s less fine when she’s rattling out the entire name, brand and patent status of her support item for no particular reason when Toga is already halfway through trying to knife her (that’ll be next chapter).

• The anime implied pretty firmly that Curious’s bombers died. And like, yeah, that’s always made more sense than the idea that anyone could survive something like that, but I hate it anyway. For one thing, it makes it even harder to credit the idea that Toga’s still on her feet afterward if Curious’s supposedly not-very-lethal explosions merk all her own people. People in this series survive ludicrous amounts of damage, and these random MLA devotees are no exception! For another, it leans into the narrative that the MLA higher-ups throw away the lives of their minions without the slightest care. It’s a lot harder to make that case when it’s explicit in the manga that Curious’s people survive the blood explosions—the blonde in the tracksuit is unharmed enough to snicker about it, and the noodle chef is even doing well enough to continue attacking! I’ve always been of the opinion that the MLA are, yes, willing to spend the lives of their underlings on attaining goals, if that’s what they think is necessary, but that is not at all the same as gleefully throwing them onto the pyre to watch them burn.

Additions

• Some individual shots of Mr. Compress, Dabi and Twice fending off or fleeing from various MLA types. A nice try on getting the group split up, but it feels kind of budget save-y, when we could have gotten actual animation of those fights instead.

• Inserted a quick shot of a headline about Toga’s first attack as Curious was rambling on about why she’s interested in Toga but not the League in general. Actually a fairly reasonable insertion, given how much text is crammed into her talk bubble in the manga while the dude standing next to her is already getting a knife in the neck.

Chapter 226 – Bloody Love

• A panel of interviewees talking about Toga’s first victim being sociable and popular. It gives a bit of context on what he was like, what people thought of him, but given that we know enough about Toga at this point to know that his popularity was entirely incidental to what she liked about him, it’s not a huge loss.

• The detail of the broadcasted interviews censoring Toga’s name. Considering how Japanese media normally treats minors accused of crimes, this is an eyebrow-raising change—the manga censors it because Japanese media outlets would have done the same. No idea why the anime didn’t, unless it’s another of those places where it would feel too “real,” to have something that so closely mirrors real life treatment of criminals?

• Everything about quirk counseling, and whoo boy, that is a loaded cut. There is exactly one other mention of quirk counseling anywhere in the manga, and, curiously enough, it also comes up in relation to a villain: in the U.A. faculty meeting after the USJ attack, Midnight muses that maybe Shigaraki never received quirk counseling in elementary school. It’s a weird little non sequitur there—exactly what sort of program did she expect could single-handedly make the difference between a well-adjusted adult and a gleefully murderous manchild with aims on killing Japan’s Number 1 Hero? Just over two hundred chapters later, we get a hint: a program designed to fit people “neatly into society’s little boxes.”           Quirk counseling, then, is not about helping children find healthy ways to process their quirks, but rather, about teaching children what is and is not acceptable in terms of quirk use—and as Curious says, Toga’s admiration of blood was never going to be acceptable.[4] This explanation doesn’t just tell us a lot about Toga—that she wasn’t only failed by the hysterical condemnation of her parents, but also by a society that had no interest in helping her if it didn’t see a use for her—but also provides some insight on the viewpoint of the Meta Liberation Army vis-à-vis mandatory state-funded programs that dictate what “normalcy” looks like to impressionable children.           Curious is, of course, not a particularly trustworthy narrator in this, as one might expect of someone who uses language like “society’s little boxes,” but it does track with Midnight’s earlier musing of, “Maybe the anti-social dude never took the program intended to make sure he was a functioning member of society.” That kind of statement—“State-sponsored educational programs are there to program children into becoming unthinking cogs of society, actually.”—is one that it’s all too easy to imagine the people with an eye on broadcast standards taking issue with, even coming as it does from the mouth of a villain.

• Curious’s line, “Let’s turn your death into a legendary tragedy, shall we?” and its accompanying visual of two different papers with imagined headlines. The dialogue doesn’t strike me as crucial—Curious’s fervent belief in Toga’s story is amply demonstrated elsewhere and her intent to turn that story into a legend reiterated in the line immediately following—but it is a shame to lose the headlines. They tell us, in Curious’s own words, exactly the tack she was planning to take in telling Toga’s story to the general public, without the constant namedropping of the Liberation Army that she does when talking about it in person. One headline in particular—The Price of Suppression: A String of Bloody Murders—is an especially useful reference for discussing whether the MLA actually wants, as is popularly claimed, completely unhindered quirk use, even for people like e.g. Muscular who want nothing more than to murder people with their quirks.[5]

• Curious’s initial wait what response to getting Floated, and her people’s focus shifting away from Toga and onto Curious instead. On a surface level, that focus shift helps explain why Toga’s able to zip around the ground and touch nearly twenty people before they even react: because they’re afraid for Curious. It also hurts the ongoing characterization of the MLA rank and file as being fanatically devoted to their higher-ups which, again, is something Spinner is supposed to notice later. It’s the worst kind of plot device if that devotion is completely told to us rather than consistently shown!

• Toga’s internal reflection that she’s seen Ochaco use her quirk, and knows how to use it. It’s obvious from the panel that she knows how to use it, but the manga implies that Toga transforming doesn’t automatically grant her an understanding of peoples’ quirks; it’s only in observation (and possibly love) that she can reach this particular unlock. Leaving out that information leaves open the possibility that she can just do this all the time now, with anybody she transforms into.

• The reaction from the surviving crowd to Curious’s death. See above re: STOP FUCKING ERASING HOW MUCH THE MLA CARES FOR EACH OTHER.

Framing Shifts

• When Toga bolts, Curious in the anime sounded serious, her expression alarmed, like she was actually worried that Toga might escape, even though her dialogue said just the opposite. Maybe you could say that she was afraid Toga would die before she got her statement, but given that she tried to kill the girl herself moments later, I’m skeptical of that claim. Regardless, in the manga, she never loses her smile, and she flashes a Liberation salute as she stands up to give chase. It’s a characterization note, that she’s so wildly confident about this that she never stops being completely enthralled with whatever Toga has to show her.

Chapter 227 – Sleepy

• The last of Toga’s conscious dialogue, about how she’s lost a lot of blood, is fading out, can’t move—but more notably, the way that this state of things makes her feel closer to “them,” that it’s “the same sensation.” And who is “they” here—her victims? The people she loves? More alarmingly, why does the line sound like she’s been this beat-up before, and remembers the sensation? Does that tie into e.g. her comment during the training camp that she doesn’t want to fight too many hero students at once because she doesn’t want to die? Has she actually been subject to this kind of violence before in the past? Does that tie into her still-unexplained ability to erase her presence? It’s an interestingly loaded little line, for being so vague, and illustrative of Toga’s mentality on becoming the people she loves. Which also lets the scene segue nicely into Re-Destro’s observation that, in Toga Himiko’s world, there’s no such thing as “other people.”           On which note, guess what else the anime cut?

• The entire fucking scene where Re-Destro actually reacts to Curious’ death, the motherfuckers. This lost:           1. RD’s talk about the way Toga sees the world and how that led to society casting her out, which he points to as evidence of said society clinging to old ideals even though the nature of humanity itself has changed. It calls back to his methodology with Detnerat, marrying his lines from the commercial to his overarching ideals; it also shows that he understood very well what Curious saw in Toga, and demonstrates that he can express that understanding and empathy even in the face of losing one of his closest allies.           2. Skeptic’s reaction to Curious’s death, which is pretty sparse, but at least present. He says she never should have been on the front lines—an excellent reminder to the people who’re always going on about how the MLA brass thinks themselves so above their followers: Curious was on the front lines, against the wishes of some of her peers!—and calls her a valuable resource.[6] You can theorize about Skeptic not caring for her beyond her usefulness to the cause, or just that Skeptic is a huge autist who processes his emotions differently than most, and isn’t going to stop to do that when there’s still a battle going on, but either way, you need this scene to do it accurately.           3. Speaking of people who process their emotions in unusual ways, as I said above, this scene also shows Re-Destro openly crying over the deaths of Curious and each and every warrior diving into battle with their hopes for the future. They’re not crocodile tears, either. As was the case with Miyashita, there’s no one in this room that Re-Destro would need to perform grief for: Skeptic clearly doesn’t see a use for tears right now, so I don’t see him expecting them from Re-Destro, and the only other person in the room is Giran, a hostage who the MLA—very probably Re-Destro himself—maimed! It’s not like RD’s tears are going to change Giran’s mind about him (indeed, Giran gets a comedic reaction beat at the absurdity of the dude who started all this up here crying about it)! But RD says life is precious and he cries anyway, briefly, before he ruthlessly turns it off.           RD’s valuing of human life—especially his own peoples’ lives—crops up in roundabout ways twice more, both leading the fight with Shigaraki (“It angers me.”) and ending it (“Any more would bring about meaningless death.”). This, though, is when he’s most open about it, to the degree that—as with Machia’s grief—it’s kind of off-putting and strange. Cutting it makes it that much easier for people to get entirely the wrong impression of RD as a character.           4. The delightful scene where Skeptic berates Giran about asking brainless questions and then answers his question anyway. Fuckin’ hell, why cut this?? So much of Skeptic’s character is in this scene! You get moments of his neuroticism later on, but never in so concentrated a burst as this (there’s one other sequence that could compete, but—spoilers—the anime cut that one, too). The exchange also explains the cameras placed throughout the city—which are visually referenced early on—and what the MLA is planning to do with their footage. Without that explanation, the audience has no idea how, exactly, the MLA was planning to use wiping out the League as a springboard for their grand return to the spotlight. That footage is the crucial part of how the rest of the country reacts to Deika in the Endeavor Agency Arc, and the anime never even mentioned it! The audience was just left to assume that all the media came in afterward, not that there was the slightest whiff of footage from the battle itself.           5. Once again brings up Re-Destro’s belief in the power of the heart to move other hearts. We get a bit of that in Curious’s flashback, but here he says it in his own words—as he will also bring it up to Shigaraki. Once again, Shigaraki is going to be challenged about his conviction, which ties back into what Spinner and Ujiko demanded from him earlier in the arc. With so

many people set to be grilling Shigaraki on this front, it tells us again what the arc is for: Shigaraki’s conviction, and him demonstrating it to the people who think he lacks it.

• The panel of Spinner asking how long they’ve been at it and Mr. Compress responding. This line helps manage the pacing, giving the audience an idea how much time is passing as we cut around to different places. It’s also, you know, more cut Spinner dialogue, and shows the beginnings of Shigaraki and Spinner getting split off from the rest by Shigaraki’s sleep-drunk staggering angling him off in a different direction. The rest of the scene is moved to after Toga’s fight with Curious, but not otherwise tampered with.

• The other big reaction to Curious’s death, which is Trumpet using it to rile up the crowd. The group that attacks Shigaraki isn’t just some free-roaming mob—they’re coming at him in a grief-stricken frenzy, which they’ve been goaded into by one of their leaders.           This sequence also introduces the campaign van—a vehicle that will have several more appearances—to events, and hints at Trumpet’s meta-ability. Further, it’s one of the scenes that outright states that the MLA is less an army than a religion, in Mr. Compress’s line about how Trumpet is like a preacher rallying his flock. That understanding—that the MLA may style themselves as an army, but what they really are is a cult—is key to the way the MLA members act, from the very bottom to the very top.

• Trimmed Shigaraki’s flashback down, cutting—among other things—the very first lines Hana speaks, and her namedrop. This moment is the first one Tomura gets back, and the very first thing we find out is that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. The anime also failed to identify Shimura Nana’s relation to Tenko/Tomura and Hana—helpful to remind the audience of a plot thread they haven’t heard about since Kamino. It also cut out the silhouette of chubby baby Tenko and Tenko’s first line, asking why Hana’s showing him this, a line which clues us in that Hana was the impetus here, not Shigaraki as he was back then. Still not satisfied, it also cut the phrase, “Daddy said all that stuff,” which is a clear and ominous warning that there was some conflict going on between young Shigaraki and the Father whose dismembered hand he now wears on his face.

• Left the dialogue but cut the silhouette of an airborne Geten with his enormous ice fists coming in hot behind Dabi when he was smarming about it not being his style to take the pacifist route. It’s not crucial, since we see the fists again shortly (it’s the end of the chapter page, whereas the anime rolls right on into the continuation of the scene), but it’s a shame, since framing Dabi from below with this sudden presence behind him is a much more fun, dynamic angle than the dead-boring medium shot the anime used. Also too, it’s good foreshadowing for the fact that Geten can fly, since he certainly didn’t get that kind of air by jumping off the roof of the mini-mart across the street.

Framing Shifts

• The crowd attacking Tomura came at him from the back of the shot, whereas in the manga, they’re surging forth from the front; that is, the anime had Shigaraki between the crowd and the POV of the viewer, whereas the manga has the crowd interposing between the viewer and Shigaraki. It makes a huge difference in the impact! Running up from a nebulous background distance, the crowd looked small and futile. Crossing directly in front of the viewer as they attack Shigaraki makes them look like the crashing human wave that they are. But, you know, coming in from the front would mean they’d have to be animated with more detail, and again, Episode 109, more than any other episode in the arc, clearly didn’t have the budget to spare on such things.

• The moment Shigaraki first uses the spreading Decay is horrifically clear in the manga. It’s full of speed lines, Shigaraki moving so fast he decays a dude mid-word, but the impact itself is spread over two pages. We watch his hand literally cleaving through the leading attacker’s face, and then are encouraged to linger on the oversized panel below, the intricately drawn crowd, full of individual faces, still intact on the left, scattering to dust on the right, all fully lit, with Shigaraki—still drawn with speedlines to emphasize his movement—the focal figure in black at the center.           The anime rendered this moment in two stills—Shigaraki’s hand about to hit the lead attacker’s face, and then the crowd already decaying. There was virtually no movement to it, the crowd was so heavily silhouetted against a glare of daylight that it was difficult to tell what was going on, and the moment stayed on screen for only two seconds before Shigaraki landed and threw up, both actions favored with more animation than one of the signature moments of the entire arc. Hell, it even left the walls on either side of the alley intact, when the manga shows them dissolving into ash as well, decay traveling through the ground in a deadly, destructive radius around Shigaraki’s attack.           The anime ever-so-graciously allowed Spinner his line to explain to the audience what just happened, but I think that’s mostly because it would be genuinely difficult to parse if he didn’t. It also gave him a flashback to what we had literally just seen, except this time it wasn’t silhouetted for some reason, so at least the audience got another chance to look at it, I guess?           “Am I seeing things? Just now, his decay effect spread to people he wasn’t even touching!” Well, I guess we’ll have to take your word for it, Spinner.

Additions

• A quick shot of a camera, there and gone almost too fast to register. I want to compliment the anime for adding a camera back in, since it removed the shot of the cameras earlier, but honestly, given that it cut all the scenes about how and why the MLA was gathering footage, I really don’t know why it even bothered. Also too, the camera was gone so fast it felt more like a marker for a scene change—which it also was, segueing the scene from Toga collapsing (only to cut back to her later staggering down an alley) to Spinner and the rest still trying to hold their own—than it did something the audience was supposed to really notice.

Chapter 228 – Wounded Soul

• Twice in the opening pages left out scattered members of the MLA that were around for the start of the Dabi/Geten fight. Leaving them out raises the question of where all the people attacking went, but it’s also the first demonstration that Geten is a danger to his own allies. We don’t see any of them dying on-panel or anything, but we do see them having to dive frantically out of the way because Geten demonstrates no care to the collateral damage of his attacks.

• Cut a small flashback, presumably from Twice’s perspective, of finding the site where Toga and Curious’s fight concluded. You can see the ground covered in blood, and a body that looks a bit like Curious if you squint (distinguishable by the sleeves of her jacket), as well as a small group of people kneeling on the ground in various poses suggesting mourning and a paying of respects. Yet another shot demonstrating the depths of care these people have for their leaders, that they’ve completely let the battle fall by the wayside in favor of their grief.

• Drops the “those zealots” phrase from Twice’s, “I’ll rip those zealots limb from limb for this!” line. Damn, the anime really was determined to erase everything that even hints at the Liberation Army being something much creepier and more damaging than just an underground militia, huh?

Framing Shifts

• For all my complaints about the material, I generally like the voice acting quite a bit. I don’t love the first exchange between Dabi and Geten, though. It’s not a fault of the voice actors themselves, but rather the delivery. Geten was very cool and level-headed throughout, which is all right to a point, but he’s a gremlin under that troll parka, and this fight is where we hear him as close as we ever will to how he is before the multi-layered humbling he’s subject to over the course of this fight. It’s a bit of a shame to play him totally straight, without any of the snark he’s so clearly capable of—and without the tick upwards in vehemence his talk bubbles indicate in his last lines.           Meanwhile, it’s fine for Dabi to get more heated as the scene goes along, and indeed he does, but he also plays it pretty cool at first. You can tell in the shape of his talk bubbles that he’s completely unruffled during his delivery of that, “Consider this a freebie, just for you: ice melts,” line. The anime had him raising his voice for it, and it just loses a lot of the humor of Dabi’s own snark to have him yelling it instead of just laughingly stating it, voice barely raising enough to give his talk bubbles some straighter lines instead of being all undisturbed curves. (For comparison’s sake, it’s about the same level of angular as Geten’s, “You’d best not think your little campfire can melt my ice!” line, but the anime had Dabi shout his line, while Geten continued at the same unperturbed volume he’d maintained since the beginning.)

• As with Shigaraki’s first mass decay, the shot of Geten’s ice dragon did not make the impact on me in the anime that the manga did. I think it’s mostly the way the ice was colored? The claw’s pretty good, but the head looks blobby and indistinct, more like blue soft-serve than the shifting, sharp-edged, brilliantly bright sculpture-in-motion of the manga.

• Twice’s voice actor did his best to sell the scene of him finding Toga, but I wish they’d kept that tight close-up on his mouth when he says, “Give it up. The girl’s dead.” They animated him leaning closer to the camera, but that doesn’t have the sharpness of that sudden cut to being right there on his lips, like some malevolent thing is using them to speak words so terrible that they can’t even be associated with the rest of his face.

                                                          ---

Come back next time (and hopefully in less time) for Part Three, Episode 110: Sad Man's Parade.

FOOTNOTES

[1] We would, of course, have an even clearer idea of that had the anime not cut the scene of Spinner shouting in Shigaraki’s face.

[2] It seems particularly strange to me that Curious and RD both mention quirk evolution as a thing they know can happen in extreme circumstances, but didn’t predict that backing the League into a life-or-death corner might provoke one or two members to undergo exactly that evolution.

[3] Mount Lady is the obvious example, but you can look to places like the island in Heroes Rising, too: one hero, and when they retired, a group of high school kids had to go sub in for a while until a replacement could be arranged. It’s not like retirements just happen overnight; the Commission had to have known it was coming. Still, they had to scramble to find someone. It doesn’t suggest they had anybody just champing at the bit to take the post, you know?

[4] In Chapter 140, we see a young Tamaki Amajiki in a class called “quirk training.” It’s uncertain how connected this P.E.-like class is to quirk counseling, but Toga wouldn’t have been getting much help there, either, seeing as it’s all about figuring out how to use one’s quirk in a way that’s “useful to society.” I can think of some ways, but nothing that I expect would be very popular or liable to be explained to a grade schooler in a country with as long a history with ritual cleanliness as Japan. To a Shinto mindset, Transformation isn’t just off-putting or unhygienic; it’s spiritually unclean.

[5] The answer there being, no, obviously not, or Curious wouldn’t, in all apparent sincerity, be trying to characterize Toga using her quirk to murder people as an undesirable outcome, a cost society is paying for its current stance on quirk use. Yes, you can gather that much from her calling Toga a tragic girl, and Re-Destro concurring later, but listen, I will take every line I can get that I can use to push back against the wretchedly widespread idea that the kid whose name means Apocrypha is the be-all-end-all source on MLA ideology, somehow more reliable and trustworthy than every other MLA character combined, including Destro himself. I would very much like it if the anime had not deleted a bunch of my talking points while making good and sure to leave all Geten’s most damning lines intact.

[6] Not that an anime-only person would fully understand why some random reporter was all that valuable a resource, since the anime cut the explanation of what Curious actually does for a living.

[writinglizards]

So how about...number 33 from your Spotify playlist with Geraskier?

Thank you for the prompt! I’ve been meaning to do something with this song forever but couldn’t ever find an angle I liked. I’m still not sure I’m completely pleased with it but! Here you go.

(Send me a number between 1 and 100 and I’ll write a ficlet based on that song in my spotify wrapped playlist!)

Song: Take It Back (ft. Noah Gundersen) - Scott Ruth

If he'd been thinking, if he hadn't been so raw from Yen's rejection, he'd have never said what he did to Jaskier. He didn't deserve the harsh, untrue words he'd lobbed at him. He hadn't deserved much of anything Geralt put him through, really. But it's better this way. Witchers don't deserve small comforts. Friends. Lovers. Jaskier deserves better.

He waits until nightfall, when everyone else is packed up and left, to start his way down the mountain. It's fucking miserable and cold, but it's nothing short of what he deserves. He almost expects Roach to be gone when he gets back to her, but she's still there. With someone else.

"Geralt." He's hunched in on himself, small and miserable in the cold. His chest gives a painful lurch.

"Jaskier," he says, tired. They stare at each other, unmoving. Jaskier's eyes are rimmed red. "You shouldn't be here."

He doesn't even flinch. "No," he agrees, "I shouldn't."

"So why are you?" Geralt asks when the silence stretches on long enough to make even him uncomfortable. Roach stomps her feet, shifting her weight between them. "I thought I made myself clear," he grits out between clenched teeth, doubling down.

Jaskier doesn't even flinch. "You did. But I--" he trails off, gaze drifting away, "--I can't, Geralt."

Something in Geralt snaps.

He storms around Roach and presses up into Jaskier's space, so close he can feel the heat radiating off him, the way he shivers in the cold. "Listen, bard. You are going to turn around and start fucking walking and you are not--" his voice nearly breaks, "--you're not coming back. I don't want this," he spits out. He's shaking with the suppressed urge to wrap his arms around him and never let go. "You can go."

Jaskier doesn't move, just stares into Geralt's face, gaze searching for a long, long moment before he reaches out to brush freezing fingertips against Geralt's cheek, trailing up towards his temple. Geralt closes his eyes, can't meet that too-blue gaze any longer. "Please, Jaskier."

"What did I do, Geralt?" Jaskier cuts him off again before he can try to respond, "Really. What did I do?"

You didn't do anything. It's me. It's all me. "I don't deserve it."

"What?" Jaskier asks, "my friendship? My love? Because guess fucking what? You get that whether you want it or not. You can't just--" he makes a quiet, pained sound, "--you can't just tell me not to love you, Geralt. It doesn't work that way."

"You shouldn't. Any of it."

"I can't just take it back, Geralt."

They stare at each other for a beat too long, Jaskier's fingers still brushing gently against Geralt's cheek until Geralt reaches up to wrap his hand in his own. "Jaskier--"

"I'll go if you want me to," he says, voice hollow, "and you can call me dramatic. But my heart's still here with you, love. Always."

He doesn't say anything, just tugs him into his arms, tucks his head under his chin and tries not to think about how much he doesn't deserve him.

"Please don't send me away."

He should. He should. He's only going to keep hurting him, but Jaskier's still here. He's still here. He tightens his grip around him, buries his face in his hair.

"'M sorry."

And it's not enough. There's something shattered and broken here between them, but Jaskier's still holding the pieces, even as they cut. And damn him, but Geralt wants to fix it, even if it hurts.

[sneakydraws]

Well, here it is - a lengthy explanation of each card in my mdzs major arcana deck and what I meant to convey/what i would have changed in retrospect/what alternatives i considered! It’s a bit messy and my typing style is lazy but hopefully it will be an interesting read to some of you :)

And so you don’t say I didn’t warn you - jiang cheng’s section (11 justice) is absurdly long lmao

0 the fool  I elaborated on this in the post itself but yeah basically jin ling is kind of representative of all the damage and trauma caused by the past, and there’s a kind of danger there of him falling victim to the same vices as the older characters and repeating the same mistakes and perpetuating the cycle of war and misery (the cycle that we already see with how the jin sect became the new wen sect, and later with how jgy became the new wwx) and he has a lot of room to grow! He grows so much over the course of the novel, comes to realise the complexities of the past and gets a harsh life lesson in how nothing is as black and white as it seems. But ill save talking about his progress for the end, for now whats important is that he has room to grow and also a dog. I don’t really have a justification for the sun, i mostly just thought it looked sick? It made its way to the next card as well, where it makes a bit more sense, but then i realised it was a dumb motif to include 1 the magician I still very much like wwx for the role, and that illustration would have probably had him raising a corpse on his left and pointing threateningly to the sun on his right. I considered including the table as well, with some mdzs relevant items replacing the card suits. Anyway, like i said wwx got a few cards to himself already so i went with the alternative wq design, since i think she fits the card as well. Both she and wwx are highly skilled people, extremely driven once they set their mind to something. The card to me symbolises the creative mind as well as a general drive for action, which fits them both - wwx was famously a prolific inventor, and wq came up with a previously unheard of surgery, after all. This card strays pretty far from the rider-waite deck design, largely because i was still figuring out how i wanted to approach this series, but you can still see the influence. 2 the high priestess I was actually going to skip this card at first because I couldn’t think of a fitting character, but once i considered a qings character post death, it all fit pretty well. She was already a highly intuitive person in life, and in sharing her memories with wwx she is, in a way, relaying a kind of secret knowledge. Anyway she’s one of my fav characters so im glad i got a chance to include her. The coffins could be interpreted to be xxc and sl or xxc and xy 3 the empress Theres other mother figures in mdzs who got to be mothers for a longer time, but jyl definitely embodies the positive aspects of this card the best. She’s nurturing, kind, emotionally supportive, she already mothered wwx and jc quite a bit when she was young. Plus i liked that the rw card had both water and flowers, making an easy lotus connection. In retrospect the stars look kind of out of place and i should have replaced them with something more relevant... Also, i should have had her hold a lotus seed pod instead of a flower, haha 4 the emperor Like i said I considered jc for the role but hoching bullied me into admitting that nmj was better… they’re both more of an inverted emperor than an upright one but then again theres hardly any character in mdzs who would fit upright emperor so. Jgs was also considered but he’s even uglier than nmj so i couldn’t bear to draw him 5 the hierophant It was pointed out to me that lqr would have fit this card better and the truth if that statement haunts me to this day. Unfortunately I have no space in my brain for lqr so lxc got the role instead. My main reason was his role during the wen destruction of gusu lan, when he ran away with the contents of the library - this is why there’s bookshelves behind him. The keys, take, from the rider-waite deck, are meant to represent the gusu pendants that allow you to enter 6 the lovers Im sure many people would have chosen wangxian here but I uhh don’t really care abt wangxian personally? And also their love story is so convoluted that jyl and jzx seem idyllic by comparison lol. Also i didnt really have an idea for who to put in the angel’s place for wangxian… mme jin certainly did not get these two together in the end but undeniably she and mme yu did initially give them a chance to fall for each other so. Thats something i guess. Anyway the trees became their sects’ flowers and the mountain became the burial grounds - an omen of their tragic fate, basically 7 the chariot There might have been other characters who fit this card better but i couldn’t really think of another card for lwj and i thought it would be weird to not include him… anyway i don’t really care for current timeline lwj BUT i do like that he was clearly influenced by wwx to walk his own path in life based on his moral convictions rather than follow his sect’s rules blindly. The chariot is to me a card of self control, self determination and focused action, so it seemed fitting. The composition felt kind of empty without the actual chariot so i padded it out with the guqin, the cloud recess in the bg (it doesn’t look great but i tried to replicate the drama design….) and the bunnies which conveniently fit the colour scheme of the sphinxes in the rider-waite design 8 strength Like i said before, my interpretation of this card is more… morally ambiguous than the quote unquote official meaning, so i thought about manipulative or duplicitous characters more than kind characters whose strength is expressed through gentleness (though i did consider jyl briefly for the latter interpretation). As such, i considered both jgy and nhs, but ended up going with jgy largely because i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put the nie sect’s beast as the lion. 9 the hermit My thoughts immediately went to bssr lol. It may be an overly literal interpretation but whatever, i like it just fine. And i like that i managed to echo the rider-waite silhouette in the mountain and the tree (and even in bssr herself) 10 wheel of fortune God i love the parallels between these 2… this card to me is about how you cant trust your current situation, good or bad, to last forever, and these 2 embody that perfectly imo. Wwx went from son of a well off servant and a powerful cultivator, to street rat orphan, to adopted son of sect leader jiang, to double orphan, to MIA, to terrifying but admired warrior, to terrifying and despised traitor, to dead, to, at the very end, suddenly respected and trusted again. The dishonesty and cheapness of whatever the public’s current opinion of him is is portrayed beautifully as far as im concerned. And jgy of course claws his way up to power only to instantaneously become public enemy number one, to the point that he’s probably blamed for stuff there’s no reason to believe he had a hand in. Wei wuxian’s silent astonishment at how quickly the cultivation world turns against jgy and towards him again is a delicious moment of thematic resonance.  11 justice I settled on this card for jc after he got booted from the emperor seat but i do think it fits, in a somewhat convoluted way. I turned both the sword and the scales into visual representations of the golden core transfer (can you tell im obsessed with it). According to biddy tarot, the justice card is partly about searching for the truth, and the scene where jc finds out about the transfer is of course a big deal. I was also very influenced by the reversed meaning again - which is about being reluctant or unwilling to face or accept the consequences of your actions. I feel on an intuitive level that this fits jc but I’m not sure how well i can explain it - it’s something about how he’s a little too comfortable scapegoating wwx for things that were also, if much less so, influenced by his actions, and also something about the way he keeps wwx at an arm’s length emotionally but still leans on him and accepts his support when he really needs it, and somewhat hypocritically expects wwx to put the needs of him and the jiang sect before the needs of others. And also something about the core exchange is the consequence and proof of wwx’s deep - terrifyingly deep, even - love and care for him, which is something jc doesn’t seem to let himself acknowledge. Maybe even something about how you could argue that the way all of the jiangs acted around wwx - jfm’s favouritism that left him with the feeling of a debt he needs to repay, mme yus insistence that he be a servant more than a brother to jc, prepared to give his life for jc, and jc’s own unwillingness - or inability, he was a child after all - to clearly acknowledge wwx as an equal to himself, enabling wwx’s self sacrificial and protective tendencies - that all of this was what caused wwx’s complete and unquestioning willingness to do whatever it took to protect jc, and therefore paved the way to the golden core transfer. And i don’t mean this to be scapegoating jc - especially considering how young he was when this all went down, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this level of emotional perceptiveness, awareness and maturity of him - but i think adult jc has to grapple with the fact that the chain of cause and effect was not as simple as wwx fucking everyone’s lives up to be a martyr, and that both jc and his parents had a role in that story as well. I don’t even necessarily think this is something that jc only realised in the current timeline - i think it’s something he felt on some level this whole time, and it probably led to a lot of feelings of guilt - but the suibian reveal definitely puts it in sharp focus, and i think he’s now better equipped to handle this introspection than he was as a recently orphaned, traumatised teenager, lol. ANYWAY the window with the fabric is both a nod to the rider-waite design and a reference to the destruction of lanling - i actually did some basic ass research for this, and it seems that in ancient china fabric would indeed be hanged in a window if the normally used paper was damaged. The design of the window, as well as the very idea to use it to imply the reconstruction of lanling, was taken from this great piece of jc angst by my pal moroll1! Oh yeah also the covered window kind of works as a denial of forgiveness for jc because it’s like a halo but covered up... Also I completely forgot to put a blindfold over his eyes which would be perfectttt because blind justice and the core exchange......... ok moving on 12 the hanged man I always have issues with this card because i cant find a satisfactory summary of what it’s really about. Best i can tell it symbolises a need to hit pause, surrender or let go of something… ive also seen it tied to sacrifice? So mo xuanyu doesn’t fit perfectly, but sacrifice is definitely there in a surface level reading kind of way, and the idea that you have to surrender or let go in order to achieve your goal does fit the whole deal of getting revenge but giving up your life in exchange and not being there to see it 13 death This is probably one of my favourite cards, definitely not because I have huge issues with change or anything…. I see this card as signalling the necessity of change or putting an end to something / leaving something in the past in order to start anew? At first i considered putting past wwx, mxy and current wwx here as a kind of transformation and one cycle flowing into the next... But firstly, I’d already used mxy in the very previous card, so putting him in again would feel like overkill, and secondly, the longer I thought about it the less convinced I was that this would even fit with the card’s meaning? Because coming back from the dead doesn’t like... trigger an internal transformation within wwx or anything? Anyway, fun fact: the design I ended up going with was actually originally intended for judgement! I thought I was being very clever with the whole “figure plays an instrument and the dead rise” parallel, but apparently I’d just completely forgotten that the judgement card had a completely different composition... Truly I was boo boo the fool... But yeah anyway at the end of the day I figured the design would kind of work for death as well, with Wen Ning and the theme of transformation, (since in his case coming back as a fierce corpse does actually mark a certain transformation in behaviour) and Wei Wuxian’s protection of the Wen people essentially signifying an attempt to break the cycle of oppression if that makes any sense? Like, wwx is trying to revolutionise the way the world works a bit, if you catch my drift 14 temperance  The centrist card! Again this is probably going off track from the “official” interpretation, but to me this card has a certain “don’t commit fully; do everything in moderation; don’t take either side” flavour to it that i personally find infuriating irl and that i very much assign to lxc. It’s entirely possible that I’m misinterpreting his character because i didn’t really pay him (and the 3zun in general) much mind while reading, but hell, I’m allowed to pick favourites and choose who i want to interpret deeply vs shallowly. Again, i wish id chosen lqr for hierophant because its so annoying for a character i don’t care about to get two cards…. But oh well 15 the devil My alternative idea for this was jgy as the devil and lxc plus nmj as the figures, but since all three had been featured already (multiple times, even!) i figured I’d go with xy instead, especially since he’s among my faves lol. I think the devil signifies something along the lines of unhealthy attachment, obsession or addiction, which isn’t 100% accurate in the case of xxc and a-qing, but if i stretch it a bit to cover toxic relationships in general, and especially manipulation or negative influence, i don’t think it’s half bad. My main struggle here was to choose who amongst the xxc/sl/aq trio to choose for the human figures. 16 the tower Arguably jin zixuans death and the following massacre of nightless city were the final and most direct reason for the siege of burial mounds, and the tiger seal is good shorthand for wwx’s loss of control over his powers, which led to the deaths of jzx and jyl. When reimagining major arcana i like to feature some kind of building in this card (spoilers for a possible future project but in my rose of versailles major arcana set the tower is bastille) and even if it’s not a tower, the image of wwx looming over the gathered crowd from atop a rooftop is so good i couldn’t resist 17 the star Struggled with this one - considered both jin ling and lsz for it, as symbolising a hope for the future, but that was kind of covered by the world so it wouldn’t make sense to include here as well... As usual when I struggle with interpreting a card (as opposed to understanding it but struggling with matching a character to it, like with death or moon) I went to biddy tarot and read all the details about its meaning. What i got was that this card signifies an incoming period of introspection and inner peace following a time of turmoil, as well as a general moving on into a new, better phase of one’s life or finding new meaning and purpose. The figure also suggests someone vulnerable, but possessing a keen sense of intuition as well as a good degree of practicality and common sense. Given all those, I settled for mianmian because IM LOVE HER..... I also kind of see her as a prelude to the “just one person is enough” theme present in tgcf!! And i think her decision to abandon her sect because she saw the toxicity and corruption in it is a very inspiring action - even if it didn’t make a large visible impact, i think the appearance of her and her idyllic family at the very end of the novel - paralleling and mirroring wangxian - implies that at the end of the day, it was a meaningful one 18 the moon Another card i ALWAYS fuxking struggle with - this time less because i can’t grasp its meaning and more because I can never find a character that fits it well. I usually get fixated on the “dreams and subconscious” part, but if i lean more on the “disguise, deceit, anxiety and fear” part, i eventually figured the whole yi city arc wouldn’t be a bad fit. I say the entire arc because it really does encompass all those themes if you include both the past and the present - xue yang’s disguise, his tricks with the villagers, a-qing’s lies and even xxc’s reluctance to talk about his past as well as xue yang pretending to be xxc all fit the disguise and deceit angle, and the general mystery and creepiness of the current timeline yi city work well with the anxiety and fear - the mist, the slow uncovering of the past, even a-qing being revealed to be an ally after scaring the shit out of the protags. I definitely struggled with including all the elements and characters, and even moreso with making them vaguely fit the rider-waite composition, but i think it ended up okay ish. OH and i completely forgot to draw mist swirling around them :( 19 the sun I was considering mianmian’s family for this one, but since I used her for star, I ended up with wwx and his parents instead. Once again I’m reinterpreting the card a bit - normally I think it symbolises incoming times of pure happiness and abundance, as well as a connection with the inner child, but I gave it more of a nostalgic or sentimental twist - wwx looking back at the brief glimpse of his happy childhood. 20 judgement another card that i struggle to interpret a bit... Here i actually used the tgcf tarot zine as a reference! In it judgement is summarised as “rebirth, following duty, absolution” SO i figured that nhs, mxy and wwx all together would fit pretty neatly... wwx achieving (public) absolution through clearing his own name after being reborn, and nhs sort of calling on wwx to expose jgy’s crimes... It’s a bit messy but not bad I think! 21 the world This ties very closely to my read on mdzs as a story - which is that it’s, at the end of the day, largely about cycles, and about how hard it is to break them, but how we gotta keep trying and have hope anyway. Or maybe more precisely, that the people directly involved with and influenced by the trauma of the past might not be able to get over said trauma and that the hope for healing from it will be shouldered by the new generation. Or something like that… Basically what i mean is that jc and wwx and lwj and lxc and nhs and jgy and all these people who were in the thick of the sunshot campaign and the siege are so profoundly affected by it that it genuinely feels by the end of the story like there is little hope for them to ever truly overcome that trauma and build a better future without repeating the same old mistakes - but there is a glimmer of hope in the new generation, specifically in jl and lsz. And it’s a bit paradoxical, because they have also been directly impacted by the past tragedies - lsz having his entire clan wiped out after wwx failed to protect them, jl losing both his parents to wwx’s mistakes - but despite that loss, and despite coming from arguably the two opposing sides of the past conflicts, they are both, in the end, capable of moving past that tragedy, of recognising the complicated nature of those conflicts (jl’s moment of clarity at the end is both heartbreaking and hopeful) and forging friendships between clans in the process. I honestly think that the extra where jl is struggling to assert his authority as sect leader, to treat his subjects well and to cooperate with other sects in a truly amicable way is the single hopeful ending note for the larger themes of the novel - it allows us to imagine that maybe these kids can learn from the mistakes of their elders rather than getting sucked in by resentment at those mistakes, and actually build a brighter future for the cultivation world. And sidenote, this is also why i have a soft spot for jin ling and lan sizhui as a ship... speaking of which their poses were directly referenced from the lovers card ehehe

Looking back, I’d like to add some symbol of jin ling’s trauma so that it mirrors baby wen yuan in the tree stump... maybe his father’s sword? 

[missfluffywriter]

Purple Irises  I Mafia Park Jimin x Reader

Authors note: Hello everyone! I know I’m supposed to be working on something else, but I couldn’t help myself. I read this amazing fic by @taetaewonderland Its called “The Bird Cage” and Oh My god it is so amazing. That is where I got the inspiration from, so please check out their blog. This isn’t my first BTS fic but it is my first mafia au fic. I had so much fun writing this I did this in like two day. And I was so inxplicably motivated. But yeah. And the fic does contain some medical stuff, and I tried doing my research but I could be wrong, and if you know something is wrong please tell me. :’) But there isn’t a lot of stuff. Just some here and there. If you think see any grammatical mistakes or mistakes in general, please let me know. Okay, that it for me. Happy readings!

Word count: About 7.6k 

Genre: Mafia AU, no angst yet :)

Pairing: Park Jimin x Reader 

Summary: You were supposed to be delivering flowers, how did you end up in an operation room digging out a bullet from a mafia boss’ shoulder? 

Purple Irises: Royalty and wisdom 

Warnings: Blood, guns, language, violence 

Next chapter I Masterlist

Gentle rays of light peered in through the store windows, the sun barely peeking over the mountains. A soft zephyr breezing through the streets. You admired the quaint peacefulness of the early mornings one more time, before starting your work in the flower shop. Relishing the freshness brought by the morning, you got up and grabbed your apron sitting on the reception desk, with a gentle smile you made your way to the back of the shop.

You made a mental to-do list as you collected the modified bucket. All the watering of the plants was done by hand. And this bucket was large enough to hold the amount of water needed to water all the flowers and plants in one trip. Only the problem was, when full the bucket was impossible to lift. So as a simple solution you suggested adding wheels to the bucket. Which had been working pretty well since installment. You wheeled the big bucket to the hose, and started the water as you waited for your boss to arrive. Sang Soomin, she was the owner of this lovely shop, and a good friend of yours. You were at a low point when she offered you this job, and helped you get back on your feet, and you were grateful for that.

“Good morning (Y/n)!” Speak of the devil, “Working as hard as always I see, We’re gonna need that kind of concentration today. There's a huge order that needed to be delivered later this afternoon” She smiled, putting away her bag under the reception desk. She rolled up her shirt sleeves before throwing her apron on.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, they asked for daisies, marigolds, white lilies, asters. And they ordered enough to decorate a mansion, I’m guessing a party.” She said, gliding over to where you stood. Ah, another party. The flower shop may have been small but it was in a rich neighborhood, a filthy rich neighbourhood. That was also why you were able to survive on only one job. You were snapped from your thoughts when you heard the splashes of water falling to the ground.

“Ah Darn it,” Soomin let out a soft giggle at your dismay. You hurried to close the faucet and sighed at the mess. Though not much had spilled over, you still had to clean up what had. You turned to grab some paper towels when you felt a hand on your shoulder.

“ I got it.” She threw some paper towels on the ground, she used her foot to move around the paper towels to soak up the spilled water. “Actually, leave all the watering to me. There's still some roses that need de-thorning. Can you get on that please? Seeing as you happen to be better at it,” 

“Got it,” You smiled, turning to the smaller flower room where most of the flower arranging happened.

“Okay, and that's the last one,” You heaved, hands tired from clipping thorns from roses for the past, what? Two hours? You pulled out your phone to check the time, 11:23 PM, okay maybe it was more than just two hours, then quickly pocketing your phone. Didn’t Soomin say the delivery was supposed to be made in the afternoon? It was about that time. You stretched before making your way to the main store. There were a few customers roaming the small shop, probably choosing flowers for a custom bouquet. 

“ Hey (Y/n) can you make the delivery? Hyun is out today. The address is with the daisies” Soomin asked, reading over what you assumed was the inventory list.

“Sure thing,” You quickly replied before leaving to load the van with the flowers. “Kay, I'm heading out” You called to her, grabbing the delivery clipboard and heading.  

“Be safe,” She waved at you. And you smiled in return.

‘Wow’ you thought as you looked at the mansion, which seemed more like a castel. They had an extensive front lawn, well manicured, neat hedges and bushes. And was probably bigger than a football field. Sure, you had seen your fair share of rich people houses. But this was just on another level. The front gates were large iron bars that bent to make beautiful floral designs, and two large pillars that supported the gates.

The house was beautiful, four large columns supported roman style columns supported a roof. Wide carrara marble steps that lead to large sierra double doors. You hesitantly climbed up the steps, reaching for the small doorbell. You rung the doorbell, somewhat nervous, the exquisite mansion making you feel smaller than any human being ever had. This whole place, basically calling you poor.

Tapping your foot on the ground, you impatiently waiting for someone anyone to pick up the flowers. You had rung the doorbell twice now and there was still no answer. They had to have known you were coming as the front gates were left open...right? And just as you let out another sigh, you heard a loud scream and glass breaking from inside the house.

BANG BANG

‘Gunshots!?’ Ducking on instinct, you covered your ears as loud bang’s echo throughout the property, only now there were more than a few guns firing. Loud cries and curses came from beyond the sierra doors. 

Finally gathering your barings, you beelined to the van, hurrying to get out of there, when the doors burst open and a man groaning and grasping at his bleeding shoulder fell to the ground, and you saw what was going on inside. People in black suits, crouching behind large objects and holding up guns.  

“Who the fuck are you?!” The man who came barreling out the door yelled. At his loud cries, a man from within turned to your direction.

“Shit, she saw. Kill her!” He yelled before a bullet narrowly missed his head. Eyes widening at his words as you tried again to rush to the van, when a grip on your right ankle nearly tripped you. “You’re not going anywhere, god damn it!”  

You tried using your other foot to kick yourself free from his grasp, but he roughly pulled at your ankle making you fall. You tried to stay as calm as possible you scrambled to get up on your feet, until you felt a hand on the base of your neck pull you towards the door.

You frantically tried to free yourself from his grasp, clawing at his hand, trying to kick your foot. But the man was on you left, and your legs wouldn’t reach so far left. As he dragged you inside, you took one more breath before grabbing the arm that was holding you with you left hand, then turning sharply, reaching with your right for the back of his neck and kneeing him in the stomach until he let you go.

As he fell to his knees clutching at his stomach, you axe kicked him, his head crushed onto the beautiful marble floor, knocking him out. A gunshot behind you brought you back to reality.

You turned and saw a man aiming his gun at you. You tried to move but your brain was processing faster than your body. Closing your eyes expecting you doom, but instead to be tackled onto the ground. You gasped and tried to push whoever it was that tackeled you off and scramble away from them, but hands grabbed at your waist and pulled you behind the bar counter. He had chocolate brown hair, and hazel eyes. His wore a black suit that had been bloodied and drenched in sweat.

“Who hell are you?!” He asked breathless, “What’re you doing here?!”

“Flowers!” you gasped, “I’m here to deliver flowers!”

His eyes widened in remembrance. Right they were supposed to have flowers delivered today.

“Stay here, and don’t move! Understand?!” You nodded, breath ragged as you eyed the young male. He tried peering from the above the hiding spot, then cursed dashing out from the behind the counter.

You brought your knees to your chest, trying to make yourself as small as possible. It was strange, you were terrified but calm. Anyone would be in tears by now in your situation. But now wasn’t the time for that, right now you needed to focus on not getting shot.

Moments passed and the number of guns being fired were dwindling. Until a man stepped beside you, his focus was at the people shooting at him. But he wasn’t alone, he had someone at gunpoint, it was the same guy who told you to stay here, and the two slowly backed away.

“Let him go Haewon, you’re done” A voice came from behind you, behind the counter. So this guy was the last of them. Out of nowhere you felt a brashness you had never felt before. Adrenaline bubbling.

 You grabbed hold of the tall vase that was in front of you, clutching it to your chest, you could feel your heartbeat in your hand, you took a deep breath.

Standing as fast as you could, you smash the vase into the man's head. The man lets go of his hostage and crashes onto the floor, unconscious. You put the surprisingly unbroken vase on the counter, then breathe in deeply, trying to get your erratic breath under control.  

One of your hands was on your hip as you hunched, taking a final deep breath, before looking up. To be greeted to the sight of men with stunned expressions, pointing their guns at you.

“Who the hell are you?!” one yelled. Oh this was getting old, you breath out, your head slightly hanging.  

“Hyung, the flowers. Remember the flowers we ordered.” The brunette that saved you life breathed.

“Guk step away from her,” A tallest of them, with syrup brown hair exclaimed, still holding the gun at you. You slowly raised your hand so as to not make any sudden movements, and to show you did not have weapons, and that at the moment you could in no way, do them any harm.

“It’s like he said, I was here to deliver daisies, roses, white lillies, and asters from the Kabloom flower shop,” You said in a steady voice. Heart hammering in your ribcage.

“And we should believe you because?” A man with silver platinum hair asked, voice strained. His hand gingerly holding his shoulder, leaning against one of the sofas.

“Is the van standing outside proof enough?” You answered with a question, sighing you continued, “You can call the shop and ask them.”

The short one with silver platinum blonde hair fell to his knees. 

“Jimin!”

“Hyung!”  

You lurched forward on instinct, naturally making a mental list of supplies you would need. So his name was Jimin. ‘This isn’t a time for names, we can worry about that later,’ you chide yourself, shaking your head back into focus.

But just as you stepped forward,you were stopped where you stood.

“Stop right there! And don’t move!” One of them said, threateningly pointing his gun at you. All the men around rushing to Jimin. But you were intently focused on the one on his knees. How long had he been bleeding for? This wasn’t good, at this rate he would bleed to death.

 Two men, the one that saved you and another red headed one supported Jimin by the arms. ‘No don’t do that, you have to stop the bleeding, gauze, alcohol, tape, tweezer’ that was the bare minimum you would need, you bit your lip as you thoughts raced.

“How long has he been bleeding?” You asked, stepping towards the huddle of people.

“ Stay right where you are!” Nostriles flaring as you breath through your nose. Anger gradually bubbling within as you were being kept from helping a patient.

“Okay! Listen here, it takes less than ten minutes for an average human being to bleed to death after a gunshot wound. So unless you want your friend to bleed to death, Let me help him?!” You said, tone expasrated but still firm, getting a little louder as you spoke. The men nervously looked at each other.

“And you would know because”

“Let. me. help” You said worriedly, stressing each syllable,  looking at the man on the floor further pailing, as he tried to brush off the other. Probably telling them he was fine.

“And what exactly makes you think we would trust you,” A shorter male with light brown hair, and wore a navy blue suit exclaimed. You understood they didn’t trust you but that guy was bleeding to death.     

“Look, I am trying to help! Your friend is bleeding out as we speak一” But you were cut off as said injured male collapses. The men around him worriedly call his name, panic in their eyes. Nervouseness hitting gull swing,  if they would just一

“Can you really help him?” The tallest one of them asks.

“Yes,” You replied, fidgeting as you thought of just in case alternatives you could use for some of the supplies, if they didn’t have them. 

“Then please help him’’ You exhaled loudly and stepped forward, but stopped when he spoke up again, his voice threatening,“BUT, we’re gonna be watching. You make one fishy move and we shoot you on the spot.”

“Fine,” You gulped, quickly making your way to the platinum blonde on the ground.

“Gauze, alcohol, surgical thread, sterile needle, tweezers, um...um lidocaine, and tape,” You recited your mental list as you pressed your hands onto Jimin’s shoulder, trying to slow the bleeding.  

“Well help him!” Guk? Stange name, cried, throwing his arms in the air.

“I can’t just do that here. We aren’t in some movie where you just rub some alcohol on and wrap the wound up and you’re done. We’re gonna need an operation room, and surgical thread, his bones don’t seem broken, but we still need a lot of stuff,” You replied to them as cooly as possible.

“Alright then let's take him to an operation room. We should have everything you just said, there. Jeongguk, carry him,” The tallest one commanded, his eyes moving throughout the room. His mind seemed to be running a mile a minute. And Jeongguk, effortlessly hoisted Jimin into a bridal carry. And walked to the winding staircase that was along the wall facing the door.

“You have an operation room?” You asked, amazed, rushing after them up the staircase.

“Which door?” Jeongguk asked.

“The doctor's room, Guk,” The tallest of the bunch answered. And you felt yourself relax a little hearing the childish yet adorable name for the sterile room.

You were surprised to say the least when you saw the room. Eyes wide as you take in the room that was almost identical to an OR, only this place had cupboards along the right wall. The lights and monitors and everything. You snapped out of your thoughts when you heard Jimin being placed onto the table. There were too many people in the room.

“There were too many people in this room, you can’t all stay here.” You ran your eyes through the cupboards, searching for things you needed.

“Like hell we’re leaving him with you一” One of the men at the back exclaimed.

“Please” You pleaded, placing the alcohol you had found on one of the tables.

“Yoongi, Jeongguk, and Seokjin stay in the room, everyone else go clean things up,” It was the one who had let you work on Jimin again.

“But, Namjoon一”

“Hoseok please,”

“Fine, alright you lot get out,”

“Thank you,” Namjoon gratefully said to the men as they turned to step out.

They were having their moment, but you were focused on finding what you needed to listen in. And astonishingly, they not only had surgical thread but also, dissolving thread. Anesthesia was out of the question, you didn’t have enough knowledge about it and you doubted any of them were anesthesiologists. And they didn’t have lidocaine injection, which numbed the wound and was a much safer option. But you weren’t too surprised, though that also meant you had to do this with Jimin still conscious, or could come to consciousness mid procedure.

Okay, you didn’t have a lot of time. You needed to do this and you needed to do this fast.

“Wait, some of you might have to stay after all,” You said before all of them could leave.

“Why? Nevermind, how many should stay?” Namjoon looked at you, alerting further at your words.

“Four maybe five, depending on how strong he is. There’s no anesthetic so we need to hold him down in case he moves mid procedure” You answered both questions as you washed your hands as furiously and as fast as you could. You were running out of time, you didn’t have time for proper protocol. You put on clean gloves then hurry back to the table. When you returned there were five men standing around the table.

“Okay hold down his legs, arms and torso,” You instructed them as you put on the surgical mask you had found.

“This is gonna hurt a lot. So he’ll thrash around, if he moves too much I may end up hurting more than helping. So hold him down tight.” You looked at each man with calm eyes, and began removal.

Jimin did wake up mid procedure and he did thrash around quite a bit, but Namjoon managed to somehow talk to him. After that he was as still as he could be with you digging around his shoulder. Eventually he passed out again from the pain. You didn’t have time to hook him up to the monitors, so you had Namjoon constantly keeping track of Jimin’s pulse. You told him to inform you immediately if he felt any changes. You found the bullet rather quickly, and neatly sutured the wound. Once all sutures were in place, you cleaned the new neatly stitched wound and bandaged his shoulder. After bandages were in place you took his pulse one last time to make sure everything was fine. You still needed to look for a stethoscope but after all that you just didn’t have the energy for that right then.

Heaving a relieved sigh you eased away from the table and towards the sink to wash off all the blood. You peered behind your shoulder to see what the others were doing, and their expressions were still twisted with worry. You smiled as you saw how worried they were for him. They weren’t bad people, just worried for their friend. If anything they looked kind as they watched their friend rest. But you still feared the future to come as you thought back to the prior events. The shoot out, the guns, those people, you had an idea of what was going on. And an idea how they afforded to live in such a lavish mansion. You wiped your hands with paper towels as you explained Jimin’s situation.

“He’s out of the woods for now but we’ll have to monitor him twenty-four-seven for the next few days. His wound will have to be cleaned and his bandages will have to be changed twice a day. We can move him to a more comfortable room but you’ll have to be super gentle. We should get him pain medication too, lucky no bones were broken, but He’ll still be in a lot of pain. He’s also lost a lot of blood, and foods such as lean red meat, poultry, fish, leafy green vegetables, brown rice, lentils and beans can all boost haemoglobin. Vitamin C helps with iron absorption, so to get the most from the food you eat, so make sure he drinks a glass of vitamin C-rich fruit juice with his meals. I recommend pomegranate just the fruit or juice, whichever he prefers”  

All five men seem to release a breath of relief as they heard you talk. Their shoulders slumping, finally relaxing. You watched with a smile before your eyes widened as you realized. You had been so focused on Jimin that you forgot about everyone else that had been injured. You jumped at the realization. The abrupt movement startled the men, and all jumped into an alert.

“Is anyone else injured, bleeding, hurt?  No wound is too small,” You said, looking at each man as they sighed and relaxed their shoulders. The men looked at each other before looking back at you.

“We’re fine but some of the men outside maybe,” Namjoon said, pointing towards the door.A questioning brow rose on his face as he saw your eyes narrow.

“Is that right? So the red stain on your shoulder is part of the outfit then,” You hummed. To which no answer came. “Thought so,” You coasted towards him, picking up the alcohol and left over gauze from the table along the way. You firmly instructed Namjoon to take off his blazer and shirt, which he refused...at first. As he continued to deny your help you stared him straight in the eyes and repeated your instruction.

He caved the second time around, removing his blazer and shirt. The other four attempting and failing to hide their grins and giggles. You dressed his wounds in record time before asking once more, “Is anyone else hurt?” They all shook their heads no. You sighed, the hard way it is.

“Jeongguk can I see your foot?” you asked, scuffled to the cupboards to get the arnica cream you had seen earlier. You returned quickly, sitting on the floor before looking at Jeongguk expectantly. He wore an uncomfortable expression, good. He was gonna cave.

He hesitantly gave you his left foot, “Your other foot,”

“It’s nothing really, there's nothing there,” He stammered out.

“Well then let me see your foot,” You said passively. He caved after thirty seconds of continuous eye contact. You smiled softly and applied the arnica cream on the deep purple bruise above his ankle.    

“Arnica, it's a cream that helps with bruising. Looks pretty deep, you might feel tender tomorrow. Take it easy and apply this cream three times a day, and the bruise should get better faster,” Words thoughtlessly escaped your lips as you finished applying his cream.

“Ahem一” Namjoon coughed to get your attention, “一So thank you for you help. And I apologize for what happened earlier, we were all just worried. But I’m afraid we can’t let you leave.”

You smiled, sighing, “I figured as much. After all I’ve seen, I have a pretty good understanding of what your...job. Don’t worry I won’t try to run away or anything, I know it will only make my situation worse,” Getting up you headed to the drawers, collecting bandages and tape, then returning to the table for the alcohol bottle, and struggling as you did, there being too much to carry. “And if you want to apologize, help me dress everyone’s wounds.”

“You’re awfully calm for someone in your situation, you have Stockholm syndrome or something?” Seokjin laughed, kicking himself off the wall he was leaning on and taking the alcohol bottle from your hands.

“Well, will me panicking and screaming about the situation make it any better?” You chuckled softly, making your way to the door.

“Touche” He laughed softly.

“But一” Yoongi interrupted, asking the question that was on everyone's mind, “Tell me something why are you doing this? Why are you treating our wounds?”

“Well, there’s a simple explanation really,” You tilted your head. Which the men couldn’t help but compare to a puppy.

“And what explanation would that be?” Yoongi raises an eyebrow.

“I was just hoping that if I made myself useful, you don’t kill me, and preferebly feed me too,” You answered simply.

“That's it?”

“I’d say that’s a pretty reasonable reason.” You lips stretched into a smile.

Yoongie looked incredusely at your answer, which seemed to be a common reaction to your words so far. That was honestly your thought process, you thought if you could make use of your skills, they would hold off on killing you, or decide to keep you alive all together. You knew the minute you saw what you did you couldn’t escape this. And the only escape you would find would probably be death.

But there was a strange feeling resonating deep within you. And you knew what it was. It was a feeling you should not be feeling in the situation you were in, it was thrill. You were excited to be where you were. It was terrifying but you liked the adrenealine rush that had felt. Was it wrong of you to feel that? A tinge of excitement when most people would feel dread. These men, judging by their demeanor were most likely forced into this life. 

And you felt guilty for feeling this excitement when you shouldn’t be, these men must have suffered much in their lifetime. And would probably give an arm and a leg to get out of this life, and here you were excited for what would happen next.

Your chain of thought was broken when you saw movement in front of you. Jeongguk carrying Jimin in his arms. Ah they were moving him, and it seems like everyone was going together. You stepped aside to let them pass, and followed them. Out the door, down the corridor, they banked left and down another tall, long corridor.

“I’m assuming we’re headed to his room?” You asked, walking next to Seokjin, still holding the bandages.

“You assumed correctly,” He answered, “His room is in the east wing, right down the hall actually.”

You walked down the hall in silence, aside from slight groans of pain some of the men. Which you registered for later, but perhaps it would be best not to push you luck with them. If you bothered them too much they might just kill you because you were annoying them. Eyes on the floor, you let your thoughts drift.

But your mind didn’t get to wander long as everyone stopped, you raised your head, taking in your surroundings. The door were large white double doors, they were doors you would see in a palace or castle. There was a large window at the end of the hallway and flowers in vases every few doors. There was clearly a color scheme, blues, whites, and beiges, and seemed like marble was a common occurrence throughout the house, well mansion.

Wait, flowers, flowers! You were here to deliver flowers! What time was it? Soomin must be worried. Your hands were full you couldn’t couldn’t pull out your phone, no clocks in sight. And you didn’t really feel like asking anyone right now. You thought of ways you would apologize to Soomin as the men opened the doors and walked in.

The room  was huge, probably bigger than your apartment, then again your apartment was more of a studio with a bathroom, but a very cozy studio. And the ceiling was high and the color scheme seemed to bleed into this room. There was a large rectangular rug on the floor. It looked so soft, and so expensive. There was a window of the far left wall. And a window bench underneath it, fluffy pillows decorating it. There was a painting on the wall, a medaow. The room was neat, aside from some papers lying around the floor. The room was well lit from the natural light coming in through those ginormous windows. But getting a good look at the room it was  simplistic. And said a lot about Jimin as a person.

Lots of soft colors and soft, fluffy things, he must be a gentle person...well maybe. Then your eyes landed on the cabinet along the wall that connected to the bathroom. A built-in liquor shelf, so he drank, no...a conisure? From what they eye could see, none of the bottles were empty. No ash trays, did he not smoke? Or was it just put away.

A small bookshelf next the liquor shelf. An armchair and a small, hickory brown table by the books. Which was surrounded by white sofa set, with beige pillows.  

Your eyes roamed the beautiful room, you couldn’t help it. You’d never seen a room this luxurious, except in movies and films. ‘I think I finally understand what writers were try to describe.’ You thought as you let your eyes return to the people whom you entered the room with.

Jeongguk gently placed Jimin in the large king size bed. Lined with white and baby blue sheets. Namjoon pulles the blanket onto Jimin tucking him in, a dimpled smile stretching across his face. The sight was endearing, they took care of each other as though they were brothers...were they brothers? Jimin now laying on his bed still wore an expression of pain. It was a bullet sound of course it hurt.

You placed the bandages in your arms on the table that was right next to the door. And quickly pulled out your phone, it read ‘4:30 PM’. You had left around 11:30 AM and now it was 4:30 PM, you had been gone for nearly five hours. The van! You needed to return the van!

“Hey you guys一” The men looked to you, “一I need to return the van, and check in my boss.”

“I’m sorry but we can’t let you leave,” Namjoon shook his head.

“Okay, easy solution, can someone else drop it off at the store?” You asked with urgency in your voice. Hyejin had done so much for you, you didn’t want to make her worry, plus it was her van.

“Well, I guess we could do that,” Namjoon shifted his weight to his other leg, “What’s the address?”

“Just go down the rich people avenue, you’ll find Kabloom flower shop along it,” Jeongguk snorted at you directions, his hands on his lips as he stifled a laugh. An amused smile played at Yoongi’s lips and a simple smile stretched across Namjoon’s face.

“Or… the address is on the van,” You chuckled with them.

“Rich people avenue? Really?” Yoongi chortled.

“What? Its true.” You said, stretching the what into something more of a whine. All of them looked much more relaxed now, Even Yoongi, who was the most suspicious of you, laughed at that.  

“But一” Jeongguk piped in, “一we looked over something kind of important,” Important? What had you missed? Your forehead scrunched, head tilting in question. Jeongguk gave a short laugh when he saw your confused expression.

“Your name. We don’t know your name?” He asked, light-heartedly. Ah, looks like the finer details were missed.

“Ah right, My name is (L/n) (Y/n), but please call me (Y/n),” You smiled, making sure not to forget that the van still needed to get to the store.

“Well (Y/n), tell me something, who are you exactly?” Seokjin questioned, his tone wasn’t threatening, but the way he worded the question had you on alert. “I mean, with all that stuff about vitamin-C and hemoglobin, and I saw how you worked on his wound, and you knew what you were doing, one would think you were a doctor or something,”

“That’s cuz I am a doctor, well I never finished my residency, so I’m not an official doctor but I do have a PhD,” You shrugged, you didn’t mean to hide it, besides it wasn’t like it was a secret.

“That’s not possible, you’re too young to be a doctor,” Yoongi commented in disbelief. You didn’t look old enough to be a qualified doctor, you looked no older than twenty-four, twenty-six at most.

“I was in an accelerated program, so I graduated high school early, plus I never finished my residency, so again, I’m not an official doctor,” You played with the edges of bandages.

“Wait, wait how old are you?” Yoongi asked, still perplexed.

“Twenty-four,” You looked up, only to be met with five confused men.  

A still confused Seokjin asks, “Then why is someone with a PhD delivering flowers? Is it like a side job? Or did you just not like being a doctor?”

“I… have my reasons…” You trailed off, and they saw your expression somber, and understood not to push the subject.

“Alright (Y/n), we’ll have the van sent back to your store,” Namjoon smiled at you, he appeared to be much more relaxed like he trusted you… to some degree. You were grateful they were doing this for you. But there was something you needed to get from your house, for one, if you were going to be staying here then you would have liked to get some clothes, and more than that you needed to get someone from your apartment. As you thought the cluster had broken off into two and three person groups.

Namjoon and Seokjin were talking amongst themselves, wearing serious expressions,  probably talking about all that had happened today. Yoongi, Jeongguk and Hoseok were chatting with each other. They held lighter air to them.

“I just had one more thing,” attention reverted to you, “I need to get something from my apartment, and I need to go get it,”

“We’ll just bring it to yo一” You cut Namjoon off.

“I’m sorry but I have to go, you guys can come with me but, I have to go” You declared firmly. It wasn’t something you could just grab and go.

“Why?” Namjoon frowned, confused as to why you had to be there.

“I have to go because what I need to get isn’t a something it's a someone, I need to get my dog, and you can’t go alone because my dog is special,” You exasperated, your shoulders slightly slumping.  

“And how is your dog special?” Yoongi inquired.

“Well my dog isn’t just a dog, she’s a wolf dog, and she’s more wolf than dog, and I don't think she'll appreciate strangers in her home trying to grab at her. And More than that I’m afraid she might end up attacking you, and you guys end up shooting her,” You sighed. 

Namjoon nodded, understanding the situation. “Alright but it will have to wait till?”

“Yes,” You replied, knowing this must be just as stressful to them as it was for you. And your pupper would be fine without you for one night, she should be tied down for tonight with the whole chicken you left her.

“Okay一” Namjoon sighed, “一 so (Y/n), you said we had to monitor him, right?” You nodded. “You and Jeongguk stay with Jimin, while we’ll deal with the mess outside,” You bobbed your head in understanding, as the rest of them poured out of the room. And seeing as Seokjin grabbed the bandages on the table, you assumed he would take care of the injured.

“Well, I guess it’s just us now,” You smiled at Jeongguk. To which he returned one of his own. His face scrunched as he did, he had a bunny smile. ‘How cute’ You thought, taking a seat on the floor, next to Jimin. But there was a rug underneath, that honestly felt more like a cushion.

“So you have a dog?” He inquired intrigued. 

“Yeah, her name’s Shelty,” Jeongguk nooded as you thought about your adorable puppy. 

“And she’s a wolf dog?” 

“Yeah, a german shepard, wolf hybrid. But I’m not sure what kind of wolf,” You said, thoughtfully. 

“You know I had a pet fish once,” He began. 

By the time you had realized how much time had passed, the sun had set. When had you turned the lights on? The day seemed to have melted away talking to Jeongguk. You found out a lot of things about this group. He was one of the seven founding members. And that one of them was out right now. That he was the youngest of the seven, about how they would sometimes eat so much someone threw up, and that they weren’t actually blood related but were as close as brothers. 

And you listened and imputed comments when you thought necessary. But there was a common theme in his topics, it was his hyungs. He somehow always returned to his elder brothers, you couldn’t help the smile that made its way on your face . He was a good kid, sweet and caring. And judging by how his eyes softened and that gentle smile that you saw on his face. You could tell how much he loved his brothers. You couldn’t help but wonder, how had he ended up as a mafioso.

“Gebus, it’s late, where did the time go?” You stretched your arms, then got up and stretched your legs.

“Thank you (Y/n), for listening to me,” He says, looking at his lap, then up to you, “With my kinda job you don’t really talk much about anything besides business...so this was nice. So thank you,”He smiled. Oh it was his bunny smile again, you were going to melt. Too late, you melted.

“I liked talking to you too, Jeongguk,” You eyes softened and you grinned, as you ruffle his hair. He let out a noise of protest before the door opened behind you.

“We brought food!” Hoseok entered, beaming. White plastic bags in hands. He was followed by Namjoon and Seokjin, and Yoongi entered a little later, clutching: wine, whiskey, and soda.

“I get fed,” You cheered, as you laughed with the five men.

“Yes, yes you do (Y/n),” Namjoon chuckled, placing the bags of food he held on the coffee table. Hoseok, doing the same, opening the chinese take out boxes and throwing the bag somewhere in the room.

“I for one think I’d be pretty rude to not feed the person that saved our boss,” Seokjin concludes with a smile. “Well then, come on, eat!” He waves his hand to invite you to sit with them. You playfully roll your eyes and scuffle to an open seat.

“I’m surprised you’re letting me sit here and eat, not to mention with you guys,” You thanked Seokjin as he handed you a plate of food.

“Well, you cooperating and not screaming at us helped your case, though I would understand why you would,” Namjoon said, reaching for a plate. You hummed at his answer as you ate your stir fried noodles.

“(Y/n) what drink do you want?” Jeongguk asked, pulling out lowball whiskey glasses from the built-in cupboard, beside the liquor shelf.

“Hmm just coke please,” He nodded and poured coke into a lowball glass, then handed it to you, as you thanked him.

“No alcohol? Why cuz it’s bad for you?” Yoongi laughed, softly throwing his back.

“I for one recall being on montering duty, and I can’t exactly do that drunk now can I?” You laughed.

“True, true,” Yoongi said, sipping his whiskey.

Dinner went by just as fast, you made small talk with Seokjin. Favourite food, favourite animal, surface level question. During that small talk you learned some interesting things. Turns out Seokjin or Jin as he went by, was the only one with any skills in the kitchen. He told you stories of mishaps that occurred in the kitchen, complaining about the guy’s culinary skills, or their lack of said skills. Jeongguk protested, refuting Jin's claims, only to be silenced with tales of the tin foil in the microwave incident.

You helped Jin and Hoseok clean up the area, gathering all the empty boxes in a plastic bag and handing them to Hoseok, who volunteered to take out the trash. All five men had decided to stay in Jimin’s room tonight. You chuckled because you thought it was because they didn’t trust you. But thinking more about it, it was probably for you than for Jimin. Considering he didn’t know about you. And you doubted he remembered anything from the surgery. 

Jin turned off the lights, to your surprise, a lot could happen in the darkness. He waved you off simply saying it was so Jimin wouldn’t wake up. But you knew the actual reason for the lights being out. Everyone was tired, and the yawn Namjoon let out, proved that point. Jin must’ve wanted everyone to get some rest, it was probably going to be a hectic day tomorrow. You gave an understanding nod, before going back to your original stop on the floor beside Jimin. This time however, Jin sat next to you instead of Jeongguk, who sat at the sofa with Hoseok and Yoongi.

And sure enough, one by one most of the men had dozed off, lulled to sleep by the quiet darkness. Even Jin had nodded off, you smiled at them. You wondered if there were any extra blankets around, you looked about the room, not you could see anything. But knew better than to just get up and search for blankets. So you sighed and nudged Jin. Who gasped awake, hand reaching for his concelead gun.

“Hey, it's just me,” You whispered.

“(Y/n) what? What happened?” He asked, still dazed from sleep. 

“Blankets, are there any extra blankets? Looks like nearly everyone’s asleep” You said softly, as to not wake anyone.

“No, I’m not,” Jeongguk’s mischievous piped.

“Well, almost everyone,” You rolled your eyes in a playful manner.

Jin smiled at your words, not that you could see in the darkness. He got up yawning and stretched. Then left the room to fetch the blankets.

Sensing the question from the youngest mafioso, you answered before he could ask, “I just wanted everyone to be comfortable, we all need blankets at night no matter what you say. Besides I wasn’t gonna risk searching around for blankets in the dead of night only for you guys to shoot me for snooping around,” Jeongguk gave a short laugh 

Jin was having trouble carrying multiple blankets. You let him in and placed one of the blankets on Yoongi and gave one to Jeongguk, who accepted it happily. As he placed one on Namjoon and Hoseok. You had returned to your spot when Jin handed you a blanket as well. Turned out he got one for you too, which you took gratefully.

Minutes passed and the moon had completely risen, the moonlight pouring through the tall windows, you had much better vision now. You took Jimin’s wrist and took his pulse just in case. Pulse was steady and everything seemed normal. You placed his wrist on the bed and sighed, at this point Jin had dozed off again, but weren’t too sure of Jeongguk.

You sighed, your head resting on your palms as you continued your monitoring. You blinked as you took in Jimin’s features. He was pretty, well, handsome. Flawless skin, plump, soft lips. And he had a peaceful expression as he slept. His silver locks seemed to have this strange luster in the moonlight. He really was beautiful, like an angel.  

Before you knew what you were doing, your hand had moved to brush his hair off his face. When your fingertips made contact with his forehead, you felt his skin, and he was burning up. Your stomach twisting, you fully placed your hands on his forehead. He had a fever, now that you were looking properly he wore an expression of discomfort. It wasn’t unusual for people to get fevers after surgery, but you had to get it under control. How had you not noticed this? 

“Jeongguk, you up?” you questioned quietly, trying not to disturbe everyone, you stood. Your sudden movements seemed to have Jin awake again.

“Yeah, why? What happened noona?” He replied quickly sitting up.

“Wha? What's going on?” Jin asked, still half asleep.

“Jimin has a fever, I need a thermometer, a cold compress, and a fever medication, tylenol, Advil either will do,” You said, a hand on your hip, turning on the lights.

Jeongguk sprung into action, dashing out the door with an ‘I’ll get it”. Which seemed to have woken everyone else up. All of them with sleepy confusion written on their face.

“Will he be okay?” Concern lacing Jin’s voice.

“Fever after surgery isn’t unusual, his body has been through a lot, we’ll give him some medication and a cold compress. Then we’ll watch his fever. Okay?” You give a reassuring smile. Jin nods. 

“Here! (Y/n) I got everything you asked.” Jeongguk burst into the room, materials in hand. You quickly thanked him, placing the cool ice pack on Jimin’s forehead. His features, relaxed at the feeling of the cool ice pack. You gently opened Jimin’s mouth and placed the thermometer under his tongue. Letting him rest for a while, as you waited for the thermometer to beep. But now that you were thinking about it, he was going to have to eat something before taking any kind of medicine. You bit your lip, not really wanting to have to wake him up.

BEEP BEEP

The thermometer beeped, and you gently pulled it out. 101 degrees, okay a low-grade fever. So it wasn’t too serious. You decided it would be best to wait a few minutes, if the fever went down great, if not he needed the medecine. And the cold compress seemed to have been enough.

You took Jimin’s temperature again, and smiled at the result, 99 degrees fahrenheit. Good the fever went down. You sighed in relief, “The fever broke, we’re all clear, we won’t even need the medicine”

Everyone heaved a relieved breath, Jeongguk coming to sit on the rug next to where you sat on the bed. Namjoon and Yoongi relaxed where they sat, and Hoseok had a hand over his face. Jin sat down behind Jeongguk. And the lights turned back off.

You took your seat back on the rug, next to Jimin. You reached for Jimin’s wrist one more time, this time not to take his pulse. You just played with his fingers, tracing small scars you felt on his hand, you didn’t know why, but you felt this inexplicable need to be in some sort of physical contact. You rested your head on the bed, and the fatigue of the day hitting you like a truck. ‘No I can’t fall asleep,’ were your last thoughts as everything fell to darkness.

[veliseraptor]

2020 Fanfiction Round-Up

I do one of these every year! And have since I think 2016. Can’t break a tradition even if it’s been a clusterfuck of a time and filling this out was in some ways an exercise in remembering the ways I have failed myself as a writer this year. 

But oh well!

Total Year-Long Wordcount: I’ll post the final final number tonight after I finish the writing I want to do this afternoon (and plan to do this afternoon), but it’s currently 451,803 words written this year. Guessing I’m going to land somewhere around 453,000ish. (AO3 claims a higher number than that but that’s because it is counting the entirety of fics where I posted chapters this year.

This year I wrote and posted: I wrote a fair number more than I posted (there are five fics finished but for various reasons unposted on my hard drive) but based on Tumblr I posted 78 posts in my fic tag, which, not including chapter specific updates and three sentence meme answers (but including at least two Tumblr-only longer fics), probably comes out to about 60 or so “full length” fics that saw the light of day in 2020.

Overall Thoughts

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? 

Well, I wrote more than I did last year, which is sort of a surprise to me (all things considered) but also maybe not, because I was doing a lot less of most other things that could’ve been occupying my time, including two hours daily of commuting. 

But still less than I did in 2018. Which is fine.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? 

Lord, I don’t know. It depends on when you ask me. Lately I’ve been in a bit of a “I hate everything I’ve written ever” state of mind, so that makes it sort of hard to do any kind of...reasonable assessment. 

I know I’m proud of With Absolute Splendor but I have all these reservations about it and I can’t reread it for the most part because I always notice new things I wish I’d done differently. I feel pretty good about efforts in a common cause but something about it still makes me cringe, which I suspect has to do with my general self-consciousness. I have a hard time feeling unreservedly proud about...anything I wrote this year, really. 

I feel like the closest I get is maybe nor autumn falter which I am pretty pleased with and also which does hurt me a lot personally. Or I did end up overall pretty pleased with what came out of By Proxy.

But also the more I look at this question the more I start hating all my own work, so...guess this is kind of coming at a bad time.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

I mean, I started writing in my first non-English fandom in many years, and specifically one where I was trying to engage more with the cultural background of the setting (in a way I wasn’t with, say, Death Note, when I was writing Death Note fic). So that was a risk. And I learned that it’s very stressful and there’s so many ways to make mistakes and I am, in many ways, a coward. But also I think I’ve learned a fair amount thanks to a lot of very patient people on the internet, so...there’s that.

Otherwise...I mean, I got ambitious with a few projects this year (the Big Bang fic and With Absolute Splendor stand out), but I’m not sure how much I really tried new things. 

I feel like I had to fight myself a little on writing straight up bad sex for By Proxy - I planned on it being hot, and it really wasn’t. It was mostly just miserable. Which made for a better fic, but was a new experience for me as far as ‘I thought I was going to write porn and that isn’t what I wrote.’

From my past year of writing, what was….

My most popular story of this year: 

By far, With Absolute Splendor. In fact, it has now become my second most kudosed fic of all time, behind only fuckin Life in Reverse. So like. That’s a thing.

(It is still less than half as many as Life in Reverse, but for context Life in Reverse has been around for going on eight years.)

Most fun story to write: 

Most fics where I feel like “I’m having so much fun writing this!” also go through a “oh god I hate this it’s terrible” phase which makes this sort of hard to assess. But I did have overall a lot of fun writing Mutual Friends despite all my frustration with the canon-wrangling I had to do to make it work in my head. 

But also I feel like both Retributive Justice and Embedded were in different ways deeply iddy fics that were just fun to write. That actually goes for a lot of the Whumptober fics. That was a very self-indulgent month. Excited to do it again in February (hopefully, if I can write things in a timely manner at all).

Story with the single sexiest moment: 

I feel like the beauty of your repair might be my personal favorite smut I posted this year, but I think my personal favorite that I wrote is in the big bang fic nobody will see until January. 

I feel like most of the sexiest moments I’ve written this year are in the porn fics I’m going to start posting in January also. But just generally I feel like the beauty of your repair is the sexiest thing I wrote and posted.

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story: 

I mean, I Come With Knives is definitely up there. It’s not that wrong or anything, but it got pretty intense in some ways I wasn’t expecting. Mostly in how much blood got involved, which was actually more than I’d had it involved in a sex thing before! Kind of surprises me that I haven’t previously done more with bloodplay stuff but. Well. First time for everything!

I don’t think this was a year that really had any “wow, what the fuck, Lise” things in it. Nothing on the level of last year’s winner. I’m almost disappointed in myself.

Abattoir was definitely the story that generated the weirdest conversation and creepiest search questions, though, so it does get points for that. 

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: 

I feel like the writing of everyone else is spring bound was a lot of...me thinking through my Jiang Cheng feelings and specifically my Jiang Cheng post-canon feelings. 

the martyr, the victim was pretty formative in shaping how I think about both Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji and their relationship with each other. It was the first fic I wrote that really dug into them in any way, I think, and definitely one that informed how I thought about writing Lan Xichen later.

Hardest story to write: 

I was thinking it was the one that I haven’t posted yet but I did technically finish, aka my Big Bang fic, the terrible threesome fic, the massive “I’m gonna keep everyone in the Yi City arc alive” AU that I started shortly after finishing The Untamed and finished in December. So I spent most of the year writing it.

But then I was like - no, I’m going to have to go with we live until we die even though it’s technically been ‘in progress’ for five years and really kicked into gear in 2019 and I just finished it and posted it this year, because that fic was like. The culmination of a big arc in an enormous verse dealing with a whole lot of balls in the air and trying to tie up a whole lot of threads. It was ambitious and the stakes were high and it was full of plot and action which are not two of my strengths...frankly I’m still amazed I pulled the damn thing off.

Biggest Disappointment: 

I think it is better if I refrain from going too in depth on this because it would just end up as me listing a bunch of my perceived failings. But I think off the top of my head I’m frustrated by the fact that I still haven’t really managed to write a XueXiao smut fic that quite hits the spot for me, myself. I’ve written two and for various reasons I don’t really like either of them. 

Biggest Surprise: 

The fact that my Jiang Cheng fic took off the way it did. Legitimately did not see that coming! At all! I mean, I’m delighted by it but it wasn’t what I saw happening as far as “niche I’d find in this fandom” or “thing I’d write that people would really enjoy reading.”

Particularly with By Proxy. That fic got a lot more attention than I would’ve expected. 

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: 

I feel like every fic I write with Xue Yang in it tells you something about me and most of those things are things that make me, on some level, deeply self-conscious, but I try not to think about that too much.  

I feel like the most telling story is maybe we all drift sometimes because I literally wrote it out of a depressive episode about a bad brain day but that wasn’t unintentional.

Favorite Opening Line(s):

1. So it turned out that if you touched the tendons of a dead person’s wrist and channeled a little bit of spiritual energy just right, it made the fingers twitch and curl like they were still alive. (Abattoir)

2. Here’s the thing: your Daozhang is glorious when he kills. (tear out all your tenderness)

3. Turned out that a sect leader’s head came off like anyone else’s. (Unnatural Selection)

4. The first hint that anything had gone awry was the letter from Lan Wangji (His Excellency Hanguang-jun, pardon me) that simply said have you heard from Wei Ying? (some good mistakes)

5. What Jiang Cheng wanted to do, more than anything, was to go home and take a nap. (everyone else is spring bound)

Favorite Line(s) from Anywhere:

I usually keep this to 10 but because I’ve been in such a :| place about my own writing I indulged myself this once.

1. Sometimes it felt like all he had done since descending the mountain was shatter his own dreams and accumulate regrets. (nor autumn falter)

**

2. It felt like she was holding all the components of a bomb in her hands, half assembled. If she moved the right way they would stay just that: components. But if she moved the wrong way… (til my judgment day)

**

3. He should have killed him. Should have been the one to strike that blow, in revenge for Jin Zixuan and their sister and everyone else dead for Wei Wuxian’s pride. Maybe then there would not be this gnawing, aching thing embedded in his chest; this itching, unfinished feeling. Maybe then he would not feel torn in two, sometimes like he should have reached out with his other hand and sometimes like he should have struck truer and sometimes both, in the same moment. (Interstitial)

**

4. He owed Wei Wuxian more than he could ever give back in this lifetime. Forgiving him felt like betraying his sister’s memory. Not forgiving him felt like trying to walk with a thorn in his foot. He was just - stuck, caught like a demon in a spiritual net.

Jiang Cheng thought of the way Wei Wuxian looked at Lan Wangji, with warmth and trust and love, and the aching, sick jealousy he had no right to feel returned. He felt a little like a child watching someone pick up a toy he’d abandoned and suddenly realizing that he wanted it back. (everyone else is spring bound)

**

5. You close your eyes and think about how he looked back in that town, Shuanghua slicing clean through a man’s neck, opening it to the spine, and think dizzily that he could open you like that and it’d be good, as long as it lasted. (tear out all your tenderness)

**

6. When Wangji loved, he loved with his whole being, without reserve. And now he had been placed between the rock of his convictions and the hard place of his devotion to Wei Wuxian. (the martyr, the victim)

**

7. He spent a week turning the idea over in his head. Studying it like a corpse he was going to dissect, poking at it, cutting it open and examining its insides. (dead reckoning)

**

8. When the world hurt you, that was the only thing to do, after all. Hurt it back, harder, worse. Spill rivers of blood for every drop it squeezed from you.

And when the end came, never go quietly. (the blood in your mouth)

**

9. I would stand with you through the end of the world, said Loki’s voice in his head, and Steve’s heart wasn’t in his chest anymore, was somewhere off on another planet where Loki was lying dead in a ruined city. (we live until we die)

**

10. Was it always going to be like this? Stumbling into traps, tripping over familiar skeletons, slicing himself open on the edges of old hurts. Was there really such a thing as leaving the past behind? He still felt stuck in it, unable to move, and every time he thought he might be finally dragging himself free something pulled him back. (With Absolute Splendor)

**

11. His chest was full of poison. His throat was full of grief. And he was still a little drunk.

Jiang Cheng went to his room, sat down on his bed, put his face in his hands, and cried until he couldn’t breathe. (By Proxy)

Top 5 Scenes from Anywhere You Would Choose to Have Illustrated:

I think the scene from nor autumn falter of Xiao Xingchen just crying his heart out over Xue Yang’s dead body would be up there.

The Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian hug from the end of With Absolute Splendor.

Okay, just gonna say it: Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao having sex by the table with Nie Mingjue’s headless corpse on it. So sue me.

The scene in the blood in your mouth where Song Lan has stabbed Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen is following the line of Fuxue to the latter. I have a very clear visual of it in my head and if I could art I’d art it.

Xue Yang with the hallucinatory Xiao Xingchen from liberate spirits, liberate souls.

Fic-writing goals for 2021:

Finish Walking Far From Home.

Maybe I’ll finish some of these MCU WIPs? I’d kind of like to, on an abstract level if nothing else.

Become a more well-adjusted human being about the relationship between my productivity and my self-worth.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

It’s always fun jumping into a movie I know next to nothing about, and this requested review for Wes will be no exception. All I know is that Girls Just Want to Have Fun is an 80s teen romp with the worst photoshopped cover photo I’ve ever seen. It looks like Michael Scott put it together. I know it stars girls, AND I know what those girls want. That’s half your narrative battle right there. So do they achieve the fun they seek? Well...

They do! A lot of weird shit happens along the way, but yeah, fun is had and that’s all that really matters. God, 1985 was a simpler time. I mean, I know everyone was living in constant fear that the Russians were going to invade Kansas and we’d be faced with a neverending nuclear winter, but in the face of all that existential terror you also get movies where the entire pitch is “So there’s this girl (Sarah Jessica Parker) who wants to be a dancer on tv, but her parents don’t want to let her. But she does it anyway! And her partner is chosen for her and, boy, they do not see eye to eye. But then they do! And they have to practice a lot. And then they win the dance contest!” 

You know some studio exec heard that and screamed at his secretary to hold his calls for the day so he could sign the contracts and then do a mountain of blow off them. 

Some thoughts:

It’s so weird to see Sarah Jessica Parker without curly hair! I was never a Sex and the City fan, so my exposure to SJP is purely Hocus Pocus based.

This dance sequence over the credits is incredible. Why do we not have shows anymore that are just a large group of young attractive people dancing in sync? No host, no dialogue, just the power of dance. I was born in the wrong decade. I would have appreciated the shit out of the 80s when I was alive.

Poor Helen Hunt - she must be one of those people who always looked like she was 35, even in high school. Granted, she was 22 when this was filmed and she’s playing a teenager, but still. 

Helen Hunt is wearing dinosaurs in her hair. 80s fashion was on a wavelength that I don’t think any of us living will ever see again.

Omg this rich bitch (Natalie, I guess? She’s not named for at least the first 30 min of the movie) had Claire’s closet from Clueless 10 years before the movie existed! This is already groundbreaking.

NOW SHE HAS A BUG ON HER HAT. A big plastic green grasshopper. This review is mainly going to be about the insane things Lynne (Helen Hunt) wears.

Speaking of - I’m getting big lesbian vibes from Lynne Stone and I am so here for it. The homoerotic tension when she acts like she’s gonna fight the rich bitch? Delicious. The immediate intimate connection she makes with SJP? Practically U-Hauling. 

I love an 80s dance montage, and this movie promises to contain basically nothing but that tied loosely together with some nonsensical dialogue in between. This is gonna be my new favorite movie. 

Ooh Nestle Quik syrup! I forgot about Nestle Quik. 

Favorite line: “There is a time and a place for calypso music, young lady.”

Ohhh I see what this is gonna be - Janey (SJP) is a classically trained dancer and gymnast, and Jeff (Lee Montgomery) is more of a rough and tumble music video kinda guy from the streets. You can tell cause he’s got a motorcycle and a leather jacket. And he wears cutoff sleeves! He’s a white guy in Chicago, who could be more street than that? And they’re butting heads! How will they ever be able to make it work for the big dance contest??

How did Natalie know Janey’s phone number? She specifically said it was unlisted. Unless she remembers it from overhearing it offhand after the dance tryouts...? That’s insane, I can’t even remember what I wore yesterday let alone a 7-digit number someone shouted in a crowd.

Lynne Fashion Alert: Is she wearing a belt made out of bullets? And a Davy Crocket hat. This is galaxy brain lesbian fashion. If the costume designer for this movie didn’t win 10 Oscars...

The music director on the other hand...not sure what is up with all these weird KidzBop covers of excellent songs like “Dancing in the Street” or the titular “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” but if you’re gonna include them, you gotta spring for the originals. This is just sad. 

I’ve never been at a party with an ice sculpture. I think that’s how you know you’re among the rich. 

Whatever happened to Jonathan Silverman? I miss when he was the nebbishy sidekick in every 80s movie. 

Who enters a party by catapulting through the damn window?? Punk does not mean that you no longer know how to use doors, sir! 

Who serves a full roasted turkey at a party? Is this how rich people live? This feels like the equivalent of using Google translate to identify rich people food in another language, then translating it back to English. 

Lynne Fashion Alert: Now I think she has space shuttles in her hair.

Wow we got a real 1-2 punch of sexual harassment in this club. Who wrote this Tune in Tokyo gag and was like “You know what would be hilarious? If this shitty little nerd convinced this girl to raise her arms so he can just grab her boobs full on, front and center. And then she gets upset and runs away. God I’m good at this *snorts another line*”

Lynne Fashion Alert: Now it’s two globes (like, two Earths) with crab claws on them? This is a choice that I don’t understand, but I think I may just not be seeing what it is clearly. I am digging her mirror sunglasses though. 

I know Janey is smart but when did she learn how to hotwire a security system? It’s not like Google or Youtube existed, and I doubt there was a library book about how to dismantle that specific system. MYTH BUSTED.

Oh god oh no I’m so gay for these Dixon sisters from Kansas City, these two gorgeous black women in tuxes and spandex leotards. They 100% should have won this dance contest. 

Why did guys stop wearing crop tops? Can we bring back slutty quarterback as a fashion trend for dudes? Seriously, the costume design here is everything. 

I really love Jeff and his little family - his sister and his dad are so proud of him and supportive. You never see that in dance narratives featuring guys. I like the reversal here of gendered expectations.

Did I Cry? No, but my heart was warmed at various moments. 

Honestly, why can’t more narrative arcs in movies be solved via dance battle? 

Lynne Fashion Alert: She’s now dressed as...Cleopatra? Wait why the fuck is there a horse here? 

Oh that’s it that’s the end! Man, you can’t be mad at a tight 90 min film like this - it gets in, it gets out, bing bang boom you’re done with enough time to read before bed. 

Is this a cinematic masterpiece? No. But is it good clean fun? Absolutely. Barring the brief [obligatory 80s] sexual harassment scene, there’s very little to be upset with here. Kids wanna dance, they’re told they can’t dance, they dance anyway! It’s the power of dance! You’re either into it or you’re not, but if you’re not, I ask that you search your heart and try to find one teeny tiny sliver of joy inside it. You’re gonna need to feed that joy if you wanna make it through 2021, and watching this movie is a darn good place to start. 

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 261: Wakey Wakey

Previously on BnHA: The heroes decided that the only way to beat the villains was with an insane winner-takes-all gambit involving two simultaneous attacks, one on the Pliff base in Gunga Mountain, and the other on a quaint little hospital in Jakku that just so happens to be where Ujiko is keeping his Noumuraki in cold storage along with all his other evil science junk. We still don’t know what the fuck is going on in Gunga, but over in Jakku things are shockingly not really going according to plan! First Ujiko was stabbed by a Noumu space slug and melted away into nothing because HE’S A FAAAAAAAKE. Then a bunch of other Noumu came running out of the morgue to distract everyone while the real Ujiko scuttled about his lab in a panic in his lab and literally called the heroes “THOSE MEDDLESOME HEROES” because he is literally a cartoon villain, only with the evilness cranked up to 11. Thankfully before he could warp away and escape, Miruko, a.k.a. the queen of this entire arc, busted down the door and crushed John-chan like a bug (RIP JOHN-CHAN) and took hold of my heart and was all “THIS IS MINE NOW” and I was like “okay” and now she’s gonna kick Ujiko’s ass????! Or so we can hope anyway?

Today on BnHA: Well Miruko almost kicks Ujiko’s ass, and he almost doesn’t manage to punch in the activation code for his High End Noumus, and we almost manage to be spared the chaotic scene where they all come to life and wreak havoc. But unfortunately “almost” is as close as we get, mainly because every single other character decides to hang back in the hospital entrance fighting a bunch of nobodies rather than bothering to help Miruko out. Everyone that is, except Crust, who provides some assistance by (a) not mentioning to anyone how there’s a whole other tunnel that leads out of the lab and goes DIRECTLY OUTSIDE TO WHERE MY CHILDREN PRESUMABLY ARE, and (b) arriving at the lab and then not really doing anything else at all except shouting a bit. So apparently this is what we’re working with. Thankfully Miruko is somehow still alive, because it looks like she’s about to have to fight these guys pretty much on her own. Unfortunately Ujiko takes advantage of all the chaos to abscond the fuck out of there. And so the chapter leaves off with one of those “record scratch, freeze frame, yep that’s me you’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation” moments. Fun times.

so Ujiko got a new name last week; he is now Garaki Kyuudai. you can read all about the meaning of the name on Caleb’s twitter if you feel so inclined. so we are now moving on, and we’ll see how many times I forget this new name and have to go back and look it up (ETA: at least twice so far)

so hopefully today will be the day when we finally discover just how and why everything is going to go terribly wrong, because it’s getting stressful bracing myself for that shoe to drop every damn week. if you’re going to put my kids in terrible danger than GO AHEAD AND PUT THEM IN DANGER ALREADY THEN. please. I can’t go on like this

holy shit you guys

see, now this is the kind of fanservice I can get behind. too bad I can’t really focus on that at all right now because

well then. it’s only the thing I’ve been simultaneously anticipating and dreading ever since the start of the My Villain Academia arc! don’t mind me guys. I’m just gonna. sit here nearly frozen but also kind of vibrating/pulsing ever so slightly

OH NO MIRUKO WHAT DID YOU DO

holy shit you guys. I RECOGNIZE THAT BIG BLACK DOOR FROM BACK IN MY KHR DAYS. ONLY BACK THEN IT WASN’T A DOOR AT ALL, BUT A WALL. A GLORIOUS AND TERRIBLE WALL WHICH SINGLEHANDEDLY BROUGHT ONE OF THE STRONGEST CHARACTERS TO HIS KNEES DURING A DO-OR-DIE “HEROES INVADE THE VILLAINS’ LAIR” ARC VERY MUCH LIKE THIS. oh my god. and now he has returned, after all these years, to once again fuck up the heroes’ plans at a critical and devastating moment. curse you wall

also did we really need to see this

Horikoshi: “you know what I haven’t drawn yet that I’d really like to draw. brains. just some brains splattered around all messily. children love that almost as much as they love dead dogs”

ffsdsdlfkjl YOU KNOW WHAT WE ALSO DIDN’T NEED TO SEE, HOLY CHRIST

A FLASHBACK TO UJIKO “COMFORTING” A BLOODIED JOHN-CHAN AFTER A SUCCESSFUL TEST RUN OF HIS NOUMU CAPABILITIES, OR WHATEVER THE HELL THIS IS. DID YOU GUYS ASK FOR THIS? I SURE AS HELL DIDN’T. I HAVE NO REAL WAY OF KNOWING THIS FOR SURE, BUT I’M GONNA GO OUT ON A LIMB AND SAY THAT ABSOLUTELY NO ONE WANTED TO SEE THIS. LIKE, I CAN’T SAY THAT WITH CERTAINTY, BUT ACTUALLY I CAN THOUGH

ugh. anyway. “just Noumu Arc things,” Horikoshi says with a shrug. listen you son of a --

meanwhile if Ujiko gets all angry and tearfully sics all of the High Ends on Miruko in his rage, I will... actually I’ll sit here not being even remotely surprised at all, but still freaking out though. damn it, this is why I need that freaking shoe to drop already like I said. that thing is just sitting there like a loose snack in a malfunctioning vending machine and I’m standing here cursing and thumping on the glass and asking if anybody has a quarter

GODDAMMIT I DON’T NEED TO HEAR HIS FUCKING EULOGY FOR HIS PET MONSTER WHICH USED TO BE AN INNOCENT LITTLE CHILD UNTIL HE MAIMED AND TORTURED THE HUMANITY OUT OF IT

is that freaking All for One in the top right panel. YOU’RE ON MY SHITLIST TOO MISTER

looooooooool :’)

lol I think we finally got that shoe loose folks. sob. go ahead and activate them you crusty old fuck

also are these things in the little tubes... quirks??? like what the hell

so now Ujiko’s screaming (I guess if he’s upset we can take that as a good sign?), and meanwhile Miruko is all

still smiling even now. god how I love her. “I’LL FIND OUT IF I KICK HIM” GOD MIRUKO WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE. IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A FEMALE HIMBO. LIKE WITH LESS PEJORATIVE CONNOTATIONS THAN THE ORIGINAL “BIMBO” AND WITH MORE OF A “SOMEONE WHO’S REALLY HOT AND COULD CRUSH YOU WITH HER PINKY AND IS ALSO A FEW ICE BRICKS SHORT OF AN IGLOO” KIND OF VIBE TO IT. HERBO??? OR WHAT ABOUT... SHIMBO

anyway Endeavor is all “catch him” which is some great fucking advice coming from someone that hasn’t even made it inside the morgue entrance yet. what fucking good are you. at least he fried the space slug

but unfortunately that hasn’t quite solved all their problems yet

honestly though, he should still go after her. like, screw all the rest of this. get your priorities in order!! she just said there were a ton of REALLY STRONG-LOOKING!! Noumus over there too, and meanwhile she’s the only one there because none of these other dinguses seem to realize that if you want to stop the fucking Noumus you need to stop the guy in charge. otherwise they’ll just keep on coming!!

you know what, forget what I implied a couple paragraphs ago about Miruko being a few twists short of a slinky. she may have a straightforward “hit first and ask questions later” approach to things, but it’s increasingly clear that she’s still in possession of this team’s one shared brain cell right now

(ETA: the more that I think about this the madder I get. I count at least seven heroes in this shot. you’re telling me you couldn’t spare a single one??)

ooh we’re cutting to Mandalay!

she says the last of the civilians have just been evacuated from the hospital! I don’t know why she’s yelling this to them out loud and not thinking it at them like in the forest arc but whatever. the evacuation part got me thinking about the kids and now I desperately want to see how they’re doing but first we have to wait for this High End situation to finish spiraling out of control I guess

-- holy shit holy shit holy shit

okay so this guy, who was the closest behind Miruko -- I forget who he is but I remember he was one of the top ten... goddammit let me look it up... okay yeah, he’s Crust, the number six hero, whose quirk I don’t think we know yet -- anyway so he’s running down the corridor and, well...

first of all he says hmmm way too much. but more importantly he just confirmed that at least one of these corridors leads directly outside. without passing through the hospital at all. implying that the Noumus can bypass the squad of heroes entirely and escape to rampage out on the mountainside

so the one job that the heroes had today, which was to make sure that none of the villains escaped, has already proven a failure. there are Noumus outside. and who else is outside in the mountains of Jakku right now, you guys? EXACTLY

meanwhile this fucking boomer hasn’t even bothered to say this part out loud so that the other heroes can hear and realize that there are potentially escaped Noumus on the lam! like it would be nice to maybe mention that so that they know their plan has sprung a leak and also so that Endeavor can WARN HIS FUCKING INTERNS JESUS CHRIST

anyway so Crust has stumbled upon a group of Noumus and is attacking them and still not revealing a thing to his pals, thanks so much!!!

and now Miruko is leaping at Ujiko so that means ladies and gentlemen it’s finally TIME FOR SOMETHING BAD TO HAPPEN!

WHY IS THIS TAKING A WHOLE FUCKING PAGE

no fucking duh?? holy shit. he may be an evil genius but he’s really not that great at thinking on his feet

-- oh shit?!

A WILD RAY OF HOPE APPEARS?? looooool are you serious? that must mean that they’re so fucking powerful the heroes wouldn’t stand a chance if they were activated. so despite all appearances, Horikoshi is actually not throwing them to the wolves just yet and there is still a thin layer of plot armor surrounding them!

--but what the hell IS HE TURNING THEM ON ANYWAY?!

sob, he is. holy shit he’s gonna sic a High End on my wife and it’ll be the strongest fucking thing we’ve ever seen and meanwhile Ujiko will be watching all “hur hur it’s not even using 10% of its power” fucking fuck me

WHAT THE FUCK

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME THERE’S ANOTHER WARPING NOUMU JESUS

so he just left?? but turned the Noumus on first?? so now they have ten fucking hours before these things get strong enough to level the whole fucking planet are you shitting meeeee. and did he just leave Tomura there too or did he also warp him out?

wait a sec no he’s still there. lol what the fuck. so did Mocha-chan create a duplicate of him then and that’s what Miruko kicked?

I’m so confused lmao

(ETA: still confused tbh. but we have bigger fish to fry!)

but anyway. this is what we came for though

wakey wakey. hey can someone go slap Endeavor and all those other heroes for me for deciding it was more important to battle the “small fries” out in front rather than give Miruko some fucking backup so it wouldn’t be all on her to stop this shitclown from remote activating his unstoppable army of death? fucking Mic could have ended this whole show with one shouted “YODELAYHEEHOO~” down this echo-y corridor for fuck’s sake!! Aizawa could have stopped Mocha from using her quirk! god damn! I hope you’re all happy!!

LMAO HOLY FUCKING SHIT

THAT’S THE SCARIEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN?! HAHAHA MY HEART IS GENUINELY RACING, I’M DEFAULTING TO MY “HAUNTED HOUSE LAUGHTER” INSTINCT IN WHICH I KEEP LAUGHING BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS TOO FUCKING TENSE AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO

LIKE, THE ONE NEARLY BIT HER FUCKING FACE OFF BEFORE SHE KICKED ITS BITEY HAND IN HALF, BUT MEANWHILE THE OTHER ONE IS TRYING TO GRAB HER ENTIRE HEAD WITH ITS MASSIVE FUCKING HAND ATTACHED TO AN ARM THAT’S LITERALLY AS LONG AS MIRUKO IS TALL, AND THAT HAND IS BIG ENOUGH THAT IF IT CLOSED ITS FIST HER HEAD WOULD LITERALLY POP LIKE A GRAPE HOLY SHIT?!?!

NO THANK YOU I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING BUT THAT’S ALL RIGHT I DON’T WANT IT TAKE IT BACK PLEASE

oh thank fuck I think Miruko escaped?? or they just threw her into that wall, at least. well still better then getting your head crushed

and now these two are trying to talk because fuck me I forgot high ends can fucking talk

“h...hero...” took me a second to figure out what they were saying there but damned if that didn’t send a chill down my spine!

also Miruko really did kick its hand right the fuck off, god I love her. even if it is instantly growing back

you guys I literally can’t stop laughing lol

HAHAHA WE’RE SO FUCKED!?!

ALSO IS THAT ONE GUY CRIMSON RIOT?!!

hmm lol maybe not. idk though he just gave me that vibe

LOOK HOW HAPPY THEY ALL ARE LOL

THEY JUST WANT TO KILL THEM ALL THAT’S SO GREAT. THIS IS ALL SO WONDERFUL THEY KO’D MIRUKO IN 0.4 SECONDS AND NOW THEY WANT TO “GO BERSERK” WHAT A GRAND TIME WE’RE IN FOR

LMAO ARE YOU SERIOUS

FUCKING CRUST OUT HERE LIKE TROY WITH THE PIZZA BOXES. DO YOU WANT TO JUST TURN THE FUCK AROUND RIGHT NOW BOY. NGL IF THEY RIP YOUR HEAD OFF I’M NOT EVEN GONNA DO ANYTHING EXCEPT ROLL MY EYES. WATCH HIM NOT SHOUT A WARNING TO THE OTHERS EVEN NOW

(ETA: I s2g though. hello?! is your headset broken???)

and he’s being greeted by this big guy with a gear head and a weird lumpy spine

somehow at first I thought that first lump on his back was an “R” symbol because I’m bad at interpreting images, so now I want to call him Rusty because I’m also bad at coming up with nicknames on the spot. I’m sorry Rusty

anyway so Rusty and Crust are immediately getting into an argument and meanwhile Ujiko is just SITTING THERE BECAUSE HE CAN, NOW

because Endeavor, Aizawa, Mic, and the others all decided it was more important to abandon their most important target in favor of trying to contain the comparatively harmless redshirt Noumus in the lobby. which is also pointless, because they’re not actually containing shit, because there are other exits besides for just the hospital! which they would fucking know if Crust was capable of relaying vital information instead of strategically saving his breath for more important things like sarcastically calling this Rusty guy “clever”

in conclusion the heroes have all picked the absolute worst time to collectively shit the bed and I’ve had it with them and they all need to retire, except for Miruko. and the kids. who are now soon to be directly in the line of fire thanks to this shitshow

LMAO HORIKOSHI YOU PIECE OF SHIT SOMEHOW I FUCKING KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO PICK THIS WEEK TO ANNOUNCE A BREAK YOU GLEEFUL LITTLE TROLL

and two weeks from now is when I’ll finally be watching the new movie though, so I don’t even know how that’s gonna work lol. guess that’s why they put the extra day in February this year. ah well

anyway! so Miruko is still alive and more reminiscent of Katsuki now than ever, which is fucking great because Crust so far has been exactly as useful as you would expect some stupid old guy with the name “crust” to be, sigh. anyway I’m glad to see my girl’s spirits haven’t been dampened

meanwhile Ujiko straight up did leave Tomura there, which is interesting lol. and so now it looks to be Miruko and Crust (with the latter’s contribution extremely in doubt) versus Rusty, Jester, Max Rebo, Girl!Noumu, and Noumu!Riot. I’m strangely not worried for Miruko because I have decided that she’s invincible, and because Horikoshi has graciously nerfed these guys a bit (please accept my dripping-with-sarcasm “gee thanks”, Horikoshi)

but I am however worried about my three sons over on the edge of town who are about to be waylaid by god knows what. not to mention all my other kids 80km away! how will their day be ruined? we shall see!

[theshopislocal]

corinth rains

New and improved Heaven may well be the Happiest Place (not) on Earth. But Dean, it turns out, is still Dean.

(also on AO3)

chapter twelve

Rough bark digs into Dean’s back where it’s pressed against the gnarled oak tree. 

He’s part way up the knoll, a little ways away from the picnic proper. From this vantage point, he can still see everyone - Mary and John on the big blanket, Ellen and Bill at the grill, Jo and her beau du jour swimming lazy circles out in the lake. Eileen sits next to Karen, both engaged in a lively discussion with Bobby, judging by the frenetic hand movements. 

The grass is wet and gleaming - dew, Dean thinks - and while the sun shines bright overhead, Dean’s comfortable in the shade of the oak tree, away from the crowd. 

A twig cracks underfoot, and Dean looks toward the sound. 

Sam approaches with two beers in hand, sure-footed on the grassy slope. He plops himself down next to Dean, sidling closer until their shoulders press together. He gives Dean a vague half-smile and hands him a beer. It’s an uncapped green bottle with a white label and red logo. Stella Artois. 

Dean frowns and raises an eyebrow, but Sam only shrugs and takes a long swig of his own. 

Dean follows suit. As the lager touches his tongue, he’s tempted to make a face - just on principle - but he can’t quite bring himself to do it. The flavor is mild, the bubbles fine and buoyant, and it cools his throat against the warm spring air. 

They sit in silence for a while, and Dean’s nearly halfway through his beer before Sam speaks. 

“What’s goin’ on with you?”

Dean glances at him sidelong, but Sam is looking down toward the picnic. It’s a vague sort of question - deliberately so, Dean thinks, based on the cautious tone. 

Dean shakes his head and stares down at his boots. “Nothin’ much,” he grumbles, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Just...” he breathes out a short sigh. “I dunno. Tired, I guess.”

That much is certainly true. Not two minutes after he’d left the barn yesterday, it had occurred to him that his car was still parked outside his bunker in the marsh. He’d grumbled a bit, but started walking anyway, humming Whitesnake lyrics under his breath. The gravel path had slowly turned to blacktop, mirages dancing in the stinging sunlight. Here I go again on my own. 

He’d eventually stumbled upon his soggy marsh, his legs cramping, back stiff, and a headache pounding at his temples. In hindsight, Dean supposes he could’ve called for a lift - Sam or Charlie would’ve come for him, surely. Or he could’ve just wished his way home - the divine magic of Heaven, and all that. 

Thing is, once he’d started walking, it hadn’t occurred to him to do anything else. Going down the only road I’ve ever known. 

Dean wets his lips, chewing the bottom one. “Can I ask you somethin’?”

Sam turns toward him, eyebrows raised. He gives a circumspect nod and sets his beer on a protruding tree root. “‘Course.”

Dean brings his knees to his chest, folding his arms across them. “Why...” he trails off for second, the weight of Sam’s stare pressing the words back down his throat. He harrumphs, cutting his gaze across the pasture to the shoreside picnic, and tries again. 

“Why’d you quit huntin’?” he says in a rush. “I mean, after I...”

Sam lets him hang for a few seconds before smirking. “After you... bit it?”

Dean rolls his eyes and bumps his shoulder against Sam’s. “Yeah. That.”

Sam huffs a mild laugh and follows Dean’s eyes out to the lake. He’s quiet for half a minute, and Dean waits. 

“I didn’t really,” he says eventually. “Quit, I mean. Eileen and I, we—” he tips his head side to side, “we slowed down, I guess, when we found out about Junior.” He heaves a short chuckle and hunches forward. “Those first couple years after he was born were...” He pauses for a moment, combing his fingers through his hair with a fond smile. “He was more than enough monster for both of us.”

Dean smiles, though something is pinching in his chest. His nephew - his namesake - is still down there, crawling across the earth. Dean knows he’ll meet him one day, but there’s an ache near his heart for all the years he’s already missed. 

Dean nods sharply and wrestles a smirk onto his mouth. “Gets that from his uncle,” he grunts and takes a long gulp of his beer. 

Sam turns to him with a raised eyebrow. “Being a monster?”

Dean hums and nods. “And a, uh, ruggedly handsome ladykiller,” he adds, pointing a forefinger toward his own face.

Sam tips his head back in a laugh. “Right,” he huffs out. “Except that he’s the spitting image of Eileen. And he’s gay.”

Dean’s head pops up at that, and he feels his eyes narrow into a squint. 

Dean Winchester, Jr is gay. 

In hindsight, Dean probably should have known that already. Sam had mentioned Junior’s ‘partner’ Alex before - but frankly, Dean had figured that was just Sam being precious about it. He’d assumed Alex was an Alexandria, or maybe an Alexis. 

Dean frowns at himself, wondering why Alexander hadn’t even occurred to him.

He glances back up at Sam to find his expression has gone pensive. There’s a wariness in the straight set of his mouth, belied by a shrewd sort of softness in his eyes. 

Something hot clenches in Dean’s stomach - an old forgotten shame he hadn’t felt since he’d made Lee climb bare-assed out the motel window just as Sam came through the door. 

Sam hadn’t spoken a word - just raised an eyebrow at Lee’s boxers and undershirt strewn across the floor, and handed Dean a Mars Bar he’d lifted from the Gas ‘n Sip. Precocious little shit. 

Dean hunches forward, pressing his chest against his knees. “My point stands,” he grumbles and takes another swig. 

Sam smiles at that and shakes his head. “Right, well,” he goes on. “Eileen and I took a few years off, til Junior was old enough to...” he shakes his head again, shrugging his shoulders. “We didn’t want to lie to him, ya know?”

Dean nods; he does know. John and Mary had lied to them both - and to each other - and it hadn’t gotten them anywhere but six feet under. 

“So,” Sam continues. “Once he was old enough to understand what we we were doing, where we were going, why it’s important—” he tips his head to the side, lips pursing, “—we, sorta got back into it. But...”

Sam goes silent, staring down at his hands wringing together in his lap. 

Dean frowns at him. “What?” he prompts. 

Sam sighs deep and scratches at the back of his head, mussing his hair. “I don’t know,” he shrugs. “Wasn’t the same. It was just... bumps and bruises, spilling salt all over the dash, and...” He chews on his lip for a second before glancing over at Dean. “It just made me miss you.”

Dean feels his frown deepen, etching itself into his brow. 

Of the two of them, Dean had always known that Sam was the one who could survive on his own. He’d done it before, after all; he’d packed up, given Dean and John a bitter ‘good riddance,’ and fucked off to Stanford for years. 

Dean hadn’t called him while he was away, though he’d held his phone in his hands nearly every night, staring at Sam’s number with his thumb hovering over the button. 

He glances up at Sam - at the downturned mouth and the shining eyes - and thinks, for the first time, that Sam might’ve done the same. 

Forty years is a long time. 

Sam sniffs and shakes himself. “Anyway,” he says, and his voice is level, but thick. “It - hunting - it just, uh. It didn’t make me happy.” He turns toward the distant water, the revelers at the little picnic on the shore. “Eileen made me happy,” he intones with a growing smile. “Junior made me—” he shakes his head, eyes going bright, “—so happy.” 

Sam pauses briefly, and Dean follows his eyes as they climb to the faraway mountains, silhouetted in the afternoon sun. 

“I never gave it up entirely,” Sam murmurs. “If someone needed help, I’d-. I’d figure something out. But...” He hunches forward, settling his elbows on his knees. “I realized one day that... happiness isn’t given. It’s taken.” He shakes his head again and looks back toward the picnic. His face goes soft and smiley, and Dean knows he’s staring at Eileen. “If you want it, you gotta... you gotta grab it. Hold onto it.”

Grab it. Hold onto it.

...If you’re looking for rain...

...You taught yourself not to want it... 

...Fish doesn’t know it’s in the water. 

Something cracks in Dean’s chest, and he’s talking before he can trap the words behind his teeth. “I’m not sure I-.”

He cuts himself off, biting down hard on his tongue, but the damage is already done. Even so, he waits for Sam to ask, unsure if he can say the words unprompted - if he can even say them at all. 

Sam doesn’t disappoint, and his tone is light and mild, curious when he murmurs, “What?”

Dean picks at the label on his bottle, eyes fluttering shut. “M’not sure I’d know it if I saw it,” he grits out, voice pitched just above a whisper. “Happiness.”

Dean feels Sam’s eyes on him, feels the weight of his stare pressing him down into the wet grass beneath him - but Sam only sighs. 

Dean looks up, querying him with a frown. 

Sam gives him a tiny, crooked smile. “You wanna know what I think?”

From nearly anyone else, it might be a snarky question, but there’s a sincerity in Sam’s tone - a gravity - that gives Dean pause. 

He could say no, and they could carry on as ever, as always. They’d stare down at the picnic a while, til Sam got up to go join them. Dean would head home to sit alone on the ratty couch in his bunker, or sit alone at his little inlet, never catching any fish, or sit alone in his car parked outside the forest in the field - unable to enter, unable to turn away. 

Dean could say no, but he thinks he has enough regrets. 

He swallows hard. “‘Yeah,” he grunts and clears his throat. “‘Course.”

Sam’s smile widens for a moment, before his face goes somber. “There are things that make you happy, Dean,” he says sotto voce. “You just don’t trust them. You...” He gives Dean a look, all subdued melancholy and straight-mouthed empathy. “You have no faith in them.”

An old abandoned barn appears in Dean’s head - the twin of the one just beyond the mountains. A man with limpid blue eyes set in a wide, stark face stands in the wake of high winds and dancing sparks. 

This is your problem, Cas had said in the tumult of rolling thunder, beneath the shadow of arching wings. You have no faith.

“And I get it, ya know,” Sam continues, cutting through the reverie. “You...” he sighs and peers at Dean, mouth pursing. “You lost a lot of the things that made you happy. I know that.” He shakes his head. “But...”

Dean stares at Sam’s profile. He’s got Mom’s nose and Dad’s chin, Mom’s straight spine and Dad’s weathered hands; but mostly, he’s just himself - a man of his own. Dean’s always wondered how he managed that. 

Dean harrumphs into his shoulder, chewing on his tongue. “But?”

Sam gives him an opaque look, then turns toward the cookout. Eileen and Jo are dragging a grumbling Ellen toward the water. Mary’s sprawled out on the grass with her feet in John’s lap, laughing up at the sky. 

“We’re in Heaven, Dean,” Sam murmurs, and there’s a startled sort of wonder in his voice. “Real Heaven. Destroyed and rebuilt til they- til they got it right. This is...” He breathes out a little sound that might be a laugh. “This is happiness bedrock, Dean.”

Happiness bedrock, Dean repeats in his head. Happiness bedrock. 

He’d known the moment he arrived - felt it in his bones - that this was it. End of the line. The thought had sobered him, at first, calmed him in the wake of his death. But the longer he lingers here, the more miles he puts on Baby, the more sunny days he wastes away on his bench at the end of the pier - the heavier his head seems to grow. 

He doesn’t miss the earth - not really. He’d never say as much out loud, but he’d lived far longer than he’d ever wanted to - ever meant to. He was tired when he asked Sam to stay with him, to finally let him go, and even here, on the other side of the pearly gates, that weariness hasn’t faded. 

Dean had spent most of his life digging his own grave - and digging some more, and digging some more. Finding bedrock should be a victory, should feel like a reward, and yet—

Sam’s shoulder bumps Dean’s as he hoists himself to his feet. Dean glances up at him, eyes squinted against the spots of light shining through the leaves overhead. 

“I’m safe, Dean,” Sam says simply. “And happy. Everyone - all of our family, our friends. We’re safe. And happy. I just...” 

Sam breathes out a short sigh, plucking Dean’s empty bottle from his loose fingers. He glances down at the picnic, then out to the mountain pass. Dean watches him squint at the valley between the peaks and gets the sense that Sam isn’t looking at the mountains at all, but beyond them. 

Sam hangs his head, hair fluttering into his face, and he looks so much like the kid Dean raised that his eyes go a little misty. 

“I just wish you were happy, too,” Sam murmurs, and sets off back down the hill. 

chapter eleven | chapter thirteen

table of contents

[fallout4holmes]

Nuka-World 6

We had a visitor the next morning. Mags Black left her two cronies at the base of the artificial mountain as she took the lift up herself. I don't know what she said to Gage to get him to stay put on the ground, but he wasn't happy about it.

Holmes had just finished his morning cigarette and a minimal breakfast. He stood as she stepped off the lift, "Ah. Ms. Black."

The raider boss raised an eyebrow, "Miz? It's like you're trying to stand out. You're the Overboss now, Mister Holmes, you get to be on a first name basis with everyone."

Holmes lit another cigarette and said with exaggerated politeness, "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

Mags smirked, "You can blame it on giving the Disciples The Galactic Zone. I don't know what you're planning, but I want my people to come out on top at the end."

"At the moment, avoiding the animosity of an amusement park full of raiders is my primary concern."

"Bullshit," she said pleasantly. "You're the General of the Minutemen, the frozen vault-dweller that destroyed the Institute. I heard about your almost-war with the Brotherhood too, how you kicked them out of the Commonwealth after destroying their toys." She gestured to me, “Most of the raiders in Nuka-World are from west of here, where the Institute never had a presence. They think your friend is just a nifty robot bodyguard. Creepy, but nothing more. Those of us from the Commonwealth though?” She smiled, sinister, “We know exactly what he is. William and I know better than most. You never did find that janitor that went missing, did you Nick? What was her name, Amelia?”

“Annette,” I corrected, tried not to rise to the bait. “Not usually a fan of kicking folks out beyond the Wall, but in the case of you and your brother I’m glad Diamond City did.”

“Funnily enough, so are we. This suits us much better.” She said it smoothly, nothing but charm, but you don’t last long in my line of work if you can’t tell a bluff when you see one. She turned her attention back to Holmes, “Either your rumored nobility is all an act to get you into a place of power, or you’re going to throw a wrench into the fragile gears of this place. If it turns out to be the first one, you may want to consider showing my people a bit of favor before ugly rumors of synths and interfering Minutemen start circulating the park. If it’s the second one, well. Just know that every Operator in this park is watching.”

Holmes glowered, “I don’t respond well to threats.”

“As long as you respond,” Mags said, and took the lift back down.

As soon as she was down, Gage came up. "Mags pissed?"

"A touch upset," Holmes offered me a cigarette, which I took. "I was a little surprised she remembered you, Valentine."

"Guess it's hard to forget a face like this," I said dryly.

"What the hell are you two goin' on about?" Gage sighed.

"Nothing important," Holmes said, "just the Operators being unhappy with me. They can have the next park, it doesn't matter."

"Giving 'em the next park might look like you were intimidated," Gage said.

"What is the next park?" Holmes asked.

"Figured we'd hit Dry Rock Gulch."

"Hm, the American 'Old West' theme. A fake gold mining operation should suit the Operators, don't you think, Valentine?"

I chuckled, "I think the implication is gonna go over their heads, but we might as well check it out and get it over with."

Holmes agreed and we headed off. We made it to the park’s gate when I heard something moving through the earth, sort of like the sound a mole rat makes just before it leaps out and bites you. Only these weren’t mole rats.

A handful of big red worms with mouths that took up the whole head attacked, surprising the hell out of me and Holmes and earning an annoyed growl from Gage. They weren’t much of a fight, but, “Well that was unpleasant,” I said.

“You never seen bloodworms before?” Gage asked, skeptical.

I shook my head, “We don't get these things back east.”

“Better get used to ‘em, they’re a fucking menace around here.”

Hopefully we wouldn’t be staying long enough for me to get used to them, but I kept that to myself. I glanced around as we entered the park, the Old West frontier outpost aesthetic turned kitsch.

“How’s it go,” Gage sarcastically drawled, “This town ain’t big enough for you and me… ah, never mind.”

Holmes chuckled. “Let’s ask the local law enforcement for information,” he pointed to a protectron wearing a sheriff’s hat.

“Hope y'all are having a good day here at Nuka-World. Ready to saddle up and ride into the old wild west?” the protectron said.

“Great,” Gage grumbled, “More dumb robots.”

The protectron was unperturbed, “I'm the sheriff of these parts, and I need your help getting rid of those no good outlaws holed up in Mad Mulligan's Mine!”

“This is why I hate robots,” Gage huffed. “They don’t even know the world ended, this playtime shit is annoying.”

The protectron’s park personality programming stopped, “Processing: Hostile visitor. Ignore and continue explanation for the sake of the other guests.”

I laughed.

The sheriff continued his job, “The door to Mad Mulligan's Mine is locked up. I got a spare key in a safe by the theater, but wouldn't you know, I plum forgot what the combination to the safe was! You'll need to talk to my three amigos: Doc Phosphate, One-Eyed Ike, and the Giddyup Kid. Prove to them you're tough enough to take on the outlaws, and they'll give you their part of the combination. Good luck, little doggie! And don't forget your complimentary deputy uniform, courtesy of Nuka-Cola!”

The sheriff handed Holmes a costume, who promptly handed it to Gage, who scowled before realizing, “You got a weird ass sense of humor, boss,” and tossed it away. As we walked he asked, “We really gotta do all that, talk to three other robots just to get a key?”

“I suppose we could simply hang a banner and be done with the place,” Holmes said.

Gage shook his head, “Not with the bloodworms. Gotta torch the nest first, otherwise whoever moves in is gonna be pissed to hell you gave ‘em an infested base.”

Holmes made casual eye contact with me. He’d been hoping for a raider-bloodworm showdown.

“I mean,” Gage was still talking, “why do we need this fucking key in the first place? Can’t we just blast the door open?”

“I try not to do anything rash if I can avoid it,” Holmes said, “and surely you don’t think we’ll be bested by a few challenges designed for children?”

“I’m starting to second-guess making you Overboss,” Gage grumbled.

“Perhaps you should have considered that possibility before enthroning a stranger you know precious little about, against his will,” Holmes steely replied.

“I can deal with an ass of a boss,” Gage played it cool, “as long as he gets done what needs to get done.”

We did the tasks for the park protectrons, fighting bloodworms, overgrown crickets, and giant ants along the way. Once we had the key, we headed for Mad Mulligan's Mine… a roller-coaster.

Gage had kept pretty quiet til then, "People actually stood in line and waited for this crap?" He scoffed, "Bunch of suckers."

"Roller-coasters were a popular attraction,” I commented flatly, “though I can’t say I ever saw the appeal.”

Holmes gestured for quiet as we headed into the ride. The lobby held a souvenir shop and the entrance to the tunnels that would lead folks to the boarding area, decorated to look like you’re walking through a mine out of a Saturday morning western. Back then it probably lacked the dead bodies, of course. Holmes and I had heard rumors of traders who hid from Colter’s raiders in Dry Rock Gulch. We found ‘em. Bloodworms saw to it they didn’t have long to enjoy their freedom.

The boarding area was a massive pit littered with brahmin corpses, bulging with bloodworm larvae. In the middle of the pit was the massive queen herself.

“I believe we’ve found the nest,” Holmes said.

“No shit, boss,” Gage scoffed.

“Valentine and I will take care of the queen, you exterminate everything hiding in those brahmin.”

Gage nodded, “Sounds like a plan.”

I might be getting too old for fighting overgrown monsters in caves… but every time I think that, I know it’s not really true. Or it is, and I’m too stubborn to admit it. Anyway, we got the job done but the queen did a number on my leg. At least we know that Nuka-Town’s got a competent mechanic. I could walk, which is saying something, just going to have a limp until whatever got whacked out of place could get realigned. Gage was going to make a remark, but wisely shut up when Holmes glared at him.

We let the Sheriff know the job was done, got paid, which was a nice surprise, and Holmes climbed up to the top of the theater to hoist a flag with a black heart in a bullseye, bleeding gold.

“Gave in to the Operators after all, huh?” Gage said once Holmes was back on the ground. He didn’t sound accusatory, which was kind of weird, just like he was making conversation. Which was also kind of weird.

“If I have to secure Mags Black’s silence with a token gesture,” Holmes said, “then so be it.”

Gage shrugged, “Just let ‘em know you’re the Overboss, not some do-good General.”

“Gage, you conned me into this mess for the purpose of bringing the gangs together, yes? How does strutting around threatening violence serve that purpose?”

“Because we’re raiders?? That’s the language these idiots speak. You gotta treat ‘em right, but make sure they know you can end them at any time.”

Holmes made a considering sound and headed out of the park, “I often thought that if raiders could ever organize, they would be a force to be reckoned with. It seems I was right.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Gage exclaimed, relieved as if Holmes had finally come around. He didn’t know that every time the topic came up, it was followed with a list of possible ways the Minutemen would eliminate that threat.

Unfortunately, none of the hypothetical scenarios ever involved the General and his partner effectively being held hostage, with no way to call for help.

[datingintampafails]

Chapter 8: Peter*

Ironically, it was very easy to pick out a fake name for this guy because of the journey I am about to bring you on, in which this was a name that was relevant during this date. This is a long entry despite this date being the only one, and only maybe two hours, simply because it has thus far been the worst date I have ever been on in my life, and I remember every damn detail.

Sometimes when I’m on Bumble, I get in really weird moods where if it looks like the guy isn’t going to respond to my message (they have 24 hours to respond or they disappear), then I will put in a snarky comment as the clock ticks just to make myself feel vindicated. When I picked my opening message to Peter*, I chose to do a pick-up line, which is something I never do. 

Peter* looked a lot like Dr. Chase from House, that is, Australian, blonde, blue eyes, good looking. Therefore my message went like this: “I have a really bad pick-up line if you’d like to hear it.” After it became hour 23, I was like ok it’s snarky time. Simply put, I said, “whatever you’re missing out.” LO and behold the dude finally responds and says “Lol ok go ahead.”

Now it is my time to shine. I say “Wow ok now the pressure is on. Here goes,” “Part One: Are you Australian? Part Two: because I’d go down under for you.” He laughs or whatever and goes into just talking. He asks if I want to come over to watch a movie that night and I’m feeling spontaneous so I say sure, but preface that despite my dirty pick-up line that I’m not interested in a hookup situation. 

He seems still interested so I discuss with him that I am going to cook dinner for myself and because it is a meal kit, that he would be doing me a favor by sharing the meal with me and eating it. So I cook the meal and bring the pot of pasta over to his place, which is in St. Petersburg, which is about 30 minutes and across a bridge.

He gave me instructions to pull up in front of his apartment complex and that he would meet me out there to help me find parking. He definitely over complicated things as there was street parking that was easy to find on the other side of the building to where I pulled up. He comes to my car and gets in and immediately I can smell smoke. I’m like great, that’s not super attractive but I’m here, let’s just see how this goes. We park and he holds the food and we go to his place. 

He warns me that his place is messy; however, I’m thinking like everyone says that, it’s just a thing people say when they don’t have a pristine home that is perfectly maintained, which can only be achieved if you have a daily maid service or you legitimately have severe OCD. When I walk in the door, a wave of smell hits me. The predominant smell was definitely that of weed. The kitchen sink was a mountain of dishes and I honestly didn’t want to make direct eye contact with it as it would give me anxiety. He asks me if the place smells and I say that it smells like weed. He asks if I smoke and I say not my thing, but I don’t care what other people do. This is true, but I still expect people to be on their A-game for a date…. More on that later.

It was a studio apartment, and so everything was there. I had to use the bathroom but was afraid to see how bad the bathroom may be based on everything else. I would later hold my pee literally until I got home hours later. I asked if he could find some clean silverware and plates. 

His buddy from out of town had slept over, I guess, the night before, so the futon was still flat. So on this date, I am put to work to help him fold it back into a couch. It was a struggle and took like 3 minutes, so afterward I sat on the couch while he searched for clean utensils. I was charged with picking out a movie. This in itself was a difficult mission. I went to his Hulu account, none of the profiles said his real name. I had to ask, “Peter*, which account is yours?” He is clueless. He finally says oh it’s the one that says Peter (not his real name, actually Peter), thus why I chose Peter for his name for the purposes of this memoir. He says it’s his ex’s account and I’m like “oh… ok, does she know you still use the account?” and he says she doesn’t. Nothing is good on Hulu so I swap to Netflix. Keep in mind the guy is still searching for something clean for us to eat with. Now on Netflix, none of the names are his; again, I ask which profile is his. This time it’s “Mark.” I’m done asking questions. I don’t even want to know at this time. So I choose the movie Get Him to The Greek. It’s funny and not that long so I picked it.

Five minutes after beginning his search, he is still looking for anything clean. Bro couldn’t even find plastic silverware. He emerges finally with a serving spoon and those measuring cup keychain packs and two paper plates. He hands me the serving spoon. I am thinking, “what the fuck is this.” So I use my serving spoon to put the food on each plate and start the movie. I struggle to eat this butternut squash ravioli with a giant ass spoon, and he’s wolfing down his food with literally a measuring cup. At least he doesn’t smack his mouth when he eats, I think.

Already I’d say this is going pretty terrible. Fifteen minutes into the movie, he gets up and gets something from a desk. Peter* cracks open his window and he starts smoking weed like right in front of me. I don’t say shit. All I know is that I cannot wait for this movie to be over so I can leave. He returns to the couch and decides now he’s gonna be cuddly. I just kinda let him put his arm around me but I don’t really do much else.

I try to get a conversation going but the dude is straight-up stoned. We were talking about something or another and he started a follow-up question. “What are you…” then he trails off. I give him a solid minute then say “What are you… what?” He’s like “huh?” I say, “Well you started to ask me a question and then stopped after those three words…” He says “Oh…. I have no idea. Hah.” I think my soul left my body at this point. 

More of the movie goes over. He goes to smoke again. He returns to the couch. He sits far away from me. Suddenly, and I mean suddenly, he leans super far over and tries to kiss me. I swiftly lean the other direction and let out a sort of “ehhhhhhh” noise. He still manages somehow to kiss my cheek, which is better than my mouth because I am not into it. I have no idea why he thought that was a good idea. I think we were in different dimensions. Shortly after that, I mentioned, “I think after this movie ends I’m going to go home. I’m tired and my dog needs me.” Not necessarily a lie. I was tired and my dog does need me.

The movie finally ends, he asks if I’m going to eat the rest of the food or if he could have some. I say I think I will eat the leftovers for lunch, but at this point, he’s already dipped his measuring cup into the pot and grabbed a couple of ravioli. He says, “oh ok I won’t take more then.” Especially with people I am not comfortable with, I am weird about people using used utensils on food. So immediately I knew that I was actually going to throw the remainder out since he just touched them with his used whatever.

He then puts on his shoes and goes to show me the way out of his apartment complex. He runs into one of his neighbors and they make small talk. I am mortified and just cannot wait to get out of this place. We come out of the elevator, and he walks me towards where I had pulled my car up to meet him, AKA the wrong side. As we’re walking to the door I passively mention this is the wrong side, “Oh this is the front of the building.” We walk out of the doors and he says drive safe bye and gives me an awkward side hug. I stand there like, what an ending to this rollercoaster ride. At this point, I don’t even give a fuck. I know where I am and I walk to my car, get in, and drive as fast as I can to get home. 

I arrive home and my phone dings; a text from Peter*. It says “Shit I’m so sorry.” At this point, the apology could be for any number of things so I simply reply “? I just got back home” He says “OK just walked you out the wrong side not a huge deal just thought you were parked on that side lol nevermind.” I say, “hahahahahahahahaha you just realized?” All the haha’s because I am just in such disbelief that this man was so stoned that he walked me out the wrong side. 

He says, out of order “Glad you got home goodnight :)” and “I did lol.” I decide to passively tell him he is a dumbass, “I kinda said something I was like oh this is the front ok.” He comes back with a non sequitur, “I am a tad weird I understand that lol”

I never speak to or hear back from him again, thankfully. I hope he was embarrassed. I hope he knows how terrible that date was. I’m glad I didn’t even HAVE to ghost him or tell him he needed to fuck off. I will never forget this whole chapter.

[damonsbitchx]

Florida Burn p.3

Hello, friends! Sorry this took so long to get done, the pandemic sort of fucked my life up lol But we are back now and better than ever!

Summary: This is a series I’m writing based on New Moon, but instead of staying in Forks, Bella moves to Jacksonville with her mom. If you haven’t read the first two parts you can read them here and here.

Word Count: 2,496

Characters: Bella, Renee, Phil, Jacob (through text)

Warnings: There’s a little angst but mostly good vibes.

If you would like to be on a general or story tag list, please send me an ask!

    Dinner with Renee and Phil wasn’t awkward. It was actually easier than I’d expected. Phil asked me questions about my life back in Forks about how I liked the school, what kind of things I did for fun since it was always raining, and a few others to gather the information he seemed genuinely interested in getting. Renee asked me about Charlie and a bunch of other people from Forks she probably knew at some point. She wondered about the infamous little orange truck I always talked to her about on the phone, so I got to explain in detail everything I loved about it. It made me miss her a little bit. She also asked about the Blacks.

“How’s Billy and his son? It’s been years since I’ve seen them,” she beamed, popping a french fry into her mouth. 

“Yeah, uhm Billy’s good, he’s still rowdy as ever when he’s around dad,” I huffed a short chuckle.

    Thinking about Forks and all the people there did make my chest ache, but I’d probably only have to do this once and they’d be satisfied after that. I was just grateful she knew enough to not ask about the Cullens. I was getting better, but not that much better yet. Renee cleared her throat.

“And Jacob?” she grinned innocently.

“Uh yeah Jacob’s good too,” I mumbled, nibbling on a fry. 

“Your dad told me Jacob left you his number, he asked me to make sure you got in touch with him at least,” she purred, obviously ecstatic about the situation. I cringed internally but looked up to her with a smile.

“I’m going to mom, after dinner,” I grumbled, trying to sound reassuring.

“Okay,” she sighed with a sly smile, exchanging a glance with Phil who was mouthing at her to stop. 

    She giggled and we finished our dinner in a comfortable conversation after that. I helped clear the table once we were all done and tried to do the dishes but Phil insisted I not worry about it. They seemed to cherish small moments together often like cooking and doing the dishes by hand. I’d never seen Renee do the dishes before, but Phil brought out the best in her. Granted, she only dried them, but at least it was something. 

    I stood in the doorway of the kitchen lost in thought and admiration for a moment watching my mom and her boyfriend laugh and fumble over wet utensils. Then, suddenly, I remembered the folded piece of Forks still sitting in my back pocket. Before I left I gave them one last look and smiled in admiration, then I turned and quickly made my way back up to my room which was now filled with the deep bronze rays of my first Jacksonville sunset. I sunk into the desk chair next to the large window and pulled out my phone along with the note, flattening it out onto the surface of the desk. I didn’t think I would go down this road so soon after arriving in Florida, but I knew Renee wouldn’t let it go until she got details. Besides, it would be good to catch up with an old friend. I hastily punched the numbers into the address bar but then realized that I hadn’t given a single thought to what I was going to say. I frowned at the phone screen, slumping down further. I mean, I only talked to him a couple of times while I lived in Forks. Sure, we’d known each other since we were kids, but that was a long time ago and we were different people now. After some moments of consideration, I decided I should at least tell him who it is and leave the beginning of a conversation to him.

“Hey, it’s Bella. :)” I typed. 

    Then, I frowned and stared at the words on the screen for another minute. I squinted my eyes and grimaced. Who am I turning into? I quickly deleted the smiley face and pressed send before I could think about it anymore. With a heavy sigh, I flung my phone onto my bed across the room and yanked a book into my hands. I needed to distract myself, this was getting ridiculous. My knees pulled up to my chest and I dove into something Shakespeare, not caring enough to acknowledge which one. It took great effort to focus on the words my eyes would usually scan mindlessly but it became increasingly harder with each ticking second. Occasionally, I’d catch my gaze drifting to my phone sitting in the middle of my bed but I would quickly drag it back to the dull pages that did nothing to hold my attention. Then, my phone buzzed causing my heart to leap, pulling me up out of the chair and across the room so fast my book clattered to the ground. I launched onto the bed, grabbing the phone and yanking it open. It was him. My hands were shaking now, but not in the way they had been for months on end. They were shaking with anticipation and adrenaline. The blood pumping through my veins was laced with a type of electricity I hadn’t felt in months. 

“Bella, hey! I’m glad you texted, I thought maybe you didn’t get the note. :)”

    I released the air locked in my lungs with a sigh of relief. Smiley faces are encouraged. Then, panic struck again. What do I say now? I really hoped this would get easier, but for now, I would spend minutes upon minutes staring at my phone trying to come up with acceptable responses. I was absolutely not going to involve Renee in this endeavor, she would definitely take it the wrong way. Jacob and I were only ever going to be friends. I just wasn’t sure how to go about becoming friends again. In order to waste more time, I decided to take care to add him in my phone as a contact, pressing each letter of his name slow enough to make sure the characters were arranged in the absolute right order. The phone vibrated again, startling me enough that it almost slipped out of my hands. My wide eyes squinted to read the text.

“How’s Florida so far?”

The answer to that seemed easy enough.

“It’s only been one day, but I know I’ll like it here. Forks is great and all, but it could use some more sun.”

I rolled my eyes and scoffed at my word vomit but pressed send anyway.

“Lol yeah, I guess so. When are you coming back?

    I began to wonder how much Jake knew about me moving back with my mom. How much did I really want him to know? This could be my chance to start over with someone who doesn’t look at me like I might shatter to pieces any second. That always made it harder not to. I’m sure he knew the Cullens left, but maybe that was all.

“I don’t know, probably not until after graduation.”

“That’s too bad, I just got a project I was going to ask you to help me with. :(“

I felt the weight of my anxiety lifting off my chest with each message. The conversation came easier than I’d thought it would.

“Oh, I’m sure I wouldn’t be much help anyway. Maybe you can come visit me in Jacksonville sometime. :)”

“Hah yeah, maybe. How come you left anyway?”

So, he must not know much about the Cullens’ part in my leaving which was better for me but then again, what was I going to tell him instead?

“It’s complicated, but I mostly just missed my mom and the sun. I am my mother’s daughter, after all. :/” 

    Everyone in that town knew what happened with Renee and Charlie, even ones who were born after the fact. So, Jacob knew and I used it to my advantage. He couldn’t really argue with it and to be honest, part of me really did feel the same way she does about that town.

“Lol yeah, I get that. Well, I should turn in. Will you text me tomorrow?”

“Definitely. :)”

“Cool, goodnight, Bella. :)”

“Night, Jake.”

    As I clicked the phone off I caught myself smiling but it wasn’t forced like most of them had been lately. It was the kind of smile you see on someone’s face after showing them something undeniably beautiful, the smile of hope and light. Those are two things I’ve been a stranger to for what felt like forever. So I let it sit on my face for as long as it wanted, sighing heavily and tossing my phone to the side as I flopped down on my bed. I rested my head on the mountain of pillows, turned so I could see out my window down to the street outside. All the cream colored houses that lined the sidewalk across the street were settling in for a peaceful night. I was still smiling. The light was just a dim glow behind the horizon now, fading with each passing minute. I breathed in slowly and deeply through my nose, cherishing the scent left in the air from the sun that had been shining on the pavement and the plants all day. The air wafting through the window was comfortingly thin and refreshing compared to the thick, damp air I remember breathing from my bedroom in Forks. I felt light and weightless. I’d barely thought about them during the several hours I’d been here and that’s several hours longer than I could manage at Forks. Maybe this really was going to be good for me.

    I laid still, focusing on deep breathing while I watched the sun take her last breath of air before she disappeared completely and darkness fully set in. Renee and Phil peeked in to say goodnight on their way to bed and with that, I was alone in the darkness in this unfamiliar but comfortable room. I hopped up and trotted to my bag before too many thoughts could crawl into my mind, grabbing my nightclothes and toiletries and crossed the hall to the bathroom. 

    I set my clothes and bag down on the counter then a reflection in the mirror caught my attention. My throat tightened in horror but only for a brief second because when I looked up I realized it was me. My shoulders relaxed back down and the tension faded away again, but I still stared at the person I saw looking back at me in the mirror. Although she was me I couldn’t help but feel she wasn’t really me. Already, she carried herself differently than I remembered. Her eyes didn’t look so worn and dark, the circles under them from the past abuse they endured were still there but seemed to be fading already. Her hands weren’t shaking with anxiety like they always did and her back wasn’t as hunched over like it used to be, desperately trying to protect her heart from any more damage. She didn’t look like she was on the brink of death anymore. The realization silently signaled tears to the edges of my eyes, that dark hole coming to swallow me just like it had done so many times before, but perhaps for a different reason this time. 

    I’d only been in Florida for a single day, how was I already this different? My chest tightened at the thoughts that plagued my mind. I couldn’t already be moving on, I wasn’t ready. If I moved on he would be gone forever and that was the last thing I wanted. The mere thought of him disappearing forever elicited a strangled gasp from my body as the stinging tears erupted from my eyes. I stumbled over to the shower, one hand clasped over my mouth to muffle the sound, the other flailing to find the shower knob and yanking it to turn the water on. I sunk down to the ground next to the tub, my hand still pressed firmly over my mouth. My lungs burned at the lack of air as I tried to keep the sobs from escaping my chest by just pushing the air out instead of the sound. The last thing I wanted was for Phil and Renee to worry about me. I thought moving was going to fix this hole inside of me. Maybe I was wrong. 

    My attention was yanked out of my own mind when I realized there was a soft tapping on the door. I quickly wiped the tears on my cheeks with my wrist and shoved myself up to unlock the door. The yellow bathroom light illuminated the hallway and the shadow standing at the door as I opened it. It was Renee. Her head hung slightly like a toddler who’d just done something minor they weren’t sure if they should’ve done or not so they were waiting to find out if they’d be in trouble. I stepped to the side so she could tiptoe in, closing the door behind her. Then, I lowered myself back to the ground again, hugging my knees to my chest. I refused to make much eye contact with her, even after she had sunk down to ground level with me. I had always had issues with emotional moments with both my parents, but for completely different reasons.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she spoke softly.

    My gaze was trained on the floor tiles just in front of my feet, the rest of me was frozen. I managed to nod in acknowledgement but I couldn’t bear to look up and see the empathy on her face like she knew what I was going through. I knew she only meant the best but she’s never really been the emotional supporting mother she wanted to be. I didn’t hold it against her, I learned how to deal with things on my own. She draped her arm around my shoulders, squeezing me into a reassuring side hug. “Do you wanna talk about it?” she whispered.

“There’s nothing to talk about, mom.” 

“Bella, it’s been months, you have to talk about it sometime.”

“Mom, really, I’m fine. I miss dad, it’ll take a while to get used to it here. That’s all.”

She sighed heavily, obviously trying to suppress a frown. 

“I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk, Honey,” she whispered. 

    Then, she pulled me in to kiss the side of my head and hoisted herself up and out the door again. After the door clicked I drifted into my clouded mind, going through the motions of muscle memory to take my shower and get dressed. I didn’t have any clear, coherent thoughts, I just kind of floated around in the emptiness. For once I wasn’t happy nor sad, I was just existing. Something about Renee offering her support settled some fire in me that I didn’t know was burning. She would be there when I was ready to end this, so I had until then.

General Tag List:  @xmysec0ndself

FB Tag List: @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce, @lesbian-ravioli, @propagandaprincess

[tslasvegas]

Episode 2: “I am typically regarded as a joke” - Livingston

Anyways... rip Colin, no idea who that was.. obviously Okay well I think we are out of the first impressions stage of this game and I think I've done an okay job of not making a strong impression one way or another, except to DeNara who I've been talking to most consistently since the start of this game. Except for today lmfao I was NOT active on purpose but I'll try to get to that in this confessional. I saw that the tribe went on a call so I decided to join and chit-chat with the girlies of this tribe and I've gotta say.. I'm lowkey disappointed to learn that despite being a returning player, everybody else on the tribe is friends with each other. Aside from Mo it sounds like they all know each other one way or another and I'm kinda left out of that connection. Even though they might not all be friends, it is a bit uncomfortable to be in a call with people where you know NOTHING they're talking about and you're not catching any of the jokes or references to other games. Also, I noticed that the personalities kinda blended together and these aren't people that I'd get along with in other orgs I play, so.. oops. One highlight of the call was that Nik was talking about Rachael and they were saying that Rachael got rid of them, I believe. Basically just talking about how they view Rachael differently because of that I guess? I was kind of in and out during that. But then DeNara posted IN THE TRIBE CHAT when it was just us three plus Kailyn on the call that Nik was spilling tea... and it was just. so. cringe. Idk if Nik or Kailyn noticed and the fact that everyone else was acting so nonchalant makes me think I missed something but either way I was on mute howling bc of second-hand embarrassment. As far as my current position, I do feel a bit comfortable with where I'm at because although I AM uncomfortable being left out of the friend group, normally I thrive early game when I get underestimated. I'm trying to just not make waves and stick to whatever plans come my way and hopefully people don't view me as a threat. Every time I'd leave and rejoin the call everybody was talking about totally normal IRL stuff so it doesn't seem like people are playing the game yet, but last round I did make a bit of an alliance with DeNara for the time being. Despite feeling like an outsider, I'm going to just continue to look at the positives of every situation because as a pessimistic person by nature, I'm inclined to feel doomed in any scenario. But this is my redemption season. I'm not here to get tenth place, I'm here to win and this season will prove itself to be an uphill battle and I'm just getting started. Tumblr Survivor has always felt like the story of Sisyphus and the Boulder to me. Look into the deeper meaning of the story and I promise a lot of the details do kind of relate to me and my character throughout my run in this community, but the general idea is that I've been tasked with a chore of having to push this heavy boulder up a neverending mountain in Hell. As a returning player, I've faced a lot of hardship when I could've just gotten the outcome I want the first time, and each return to Tumblr Survivor, I've pretty much done worse and worse since then. I'm ready to finally push that fucking boulder out of the underworld and bring myself back to the playing field I deserve to be on. For now, I'm just going to keep pushing.

So glad we won that first immunity. Why am I not surprise to see a unanimous vote for the first tribal. Even a self vote.... hopefully we win again today 

I’m already over this tribe. Keegan and Liv are the only fun ones to talk to, Joey I think tries but also doesn’t. Also low key hoping people don’t know too much about Svalbard cause if people know about Rachael and I being close that could be a problem. I’m not letting my work schedule get in the way of my activity, but it’s a bad sign to me when I’m of the most active people on the tribe. I should be the baseline, not the gold standard

I think our Tribe is a bit laid back. Not much interaction, not really that engaging. I hope Jake and Kevin did a good job at the challenge, I don't want to go to Tribal again. The typhoon here passed, I hope Tribal passes too!

Woo we got out the main inactive person. Although really my entire tribe is quiet and lowkey inactive, but Jake and I talk a lot in PMs which is good. Also Stephen is doing his best with timezones so I know he wants to play bc he's always on when he is able to be on. The next biggest inactive person on the tribe is Kevin, but he instantly volunteered to do the challenge so yay I guess. If we lose though, he is still an option to go in my mind. I'm not trying to make too much of a plan because we could win this challenge and then I'm going to try to open the vault because if we come in first I will have 10 chips. But I still need to figure out if it costs 10 chips to open the vault or if you're just not allowed to look at it until you have 10 chips.

You want a confessional, well here it is. Nothing has happened. To be honest, I’ve barely even spoken to anyone today. Or yesterday for that matter. It’s also been quiet in tribe chat.

I finally got my tribe on a call. Most of them joined in, at least for a little bit so that was nice. The only person that wasn't on call was Ben, which kind of paints him as the outsider of the tribe right now. 

...five seconds later

I want to get to know Mo better and maybe set up some sort of alliance with them, but they are so spotty with when they are on, it is difficult to keep a conversation going. I am not chill enough for this game yet lol.

ok. so like that's annoying. that challenge was supposed to be fun but jake is making a big stink. and like yeah i'm mad too but like it's over and it's just a game it's not like actual money lol. also, i don't really care if we go to tribal. makes you stronger. whatever. i'm sure he's a nice person but like i think he's just mad he lost. whatevs. 

Nik and Rachael did our challenge and won. Thank goodness it wasn't me! What my tribe will soon come to realize is I am basically useless at challenges. Rip me.

...five seconds later

Yay! Mo finally asked if I wanted to work together! Took them long enough ;-) jkjk I am excited to finally start playing this game

So after a heated and undeserved loss - sorry Dan I know we talked about it but I'm sticking to my guns - I start packing my bags. All of a sudden Stephen wants to target John, John wants to target Timmy; and nobody is throwing my name out there... Like... Hello? I just got into a public fight with production, shouldn't I be target number one? And now, Xavier and I are the swing votes... How the hell did the worst Tumblr Survivor Player and a 45 Year old man end up stuck in the middle? What the hell even is this season?

WE LOST AGAIN. So now which alliance to choose?! 

I can't believe this round. I should be the target, why - why am I not the target? I lost the challenge. I yelled at production. I am the easiest vote, but nobody is voting me! What is happening?? Timmy and Stephen made an alliance chat with Xavier and I to vote John. John and Kevin are working together to vote Timmy. Xavier says - "Jake tell me what to do!" Timmy and John are both telling me everything the other one is saying to each other, and it's amazing. I have no idea how Xavier and I are voting tonight. On one hand, you have Stephen and Timmy who seem like a really strong duo. But Stephen trusts me a lot, and if I vote out his closest ally than I'll go down that list - which could be trouble in case of the inevitable swap. John is MY closest ally, but if we vote him out the team is much more united. Do I play for ME or do I play for WE? I'm 95% sure the vote is going to be 4-2, and people are going to be blindsided.

“Theres three tribes! Means we’re less likely to have back to back tribals” -_- sure jan. So we lost again, blergh, looked like an annoying challenge. The tribe is still pretty muted, who knows whether they’re voting for me or not. I made a 4-man alliance with Timmy Jake and Xavier, which i do want, but we’ll have to see if everyone is legit. The two bad possibilities are if everyone is actually voting me for various reasons (timezone, round one oopsie, etc.) or if the real vote is jake for arguing with dan. idk, time will tell. From my POV the vote is John, pretty randomly just based on the fact of who competed in the challenge.

Hiiiiiii So I am very excited to be back in the game again. I very much enjoy my original tribe especially Andrew. We already have a Pennsylvania alliance with Stephanie and I think that that is good groundwork to have moving forward should we ever lose a challenge we already have three that are tight in at seven so if we hear anything about any of them targeting us we can do something about it. I like Livingston a lot and Joey but I can’t tell if Joey is 14 years old or not and that kind of bothers me. I am v excited to get with Kevin and see where me him and Andrew can go 

Winning is great, but we need to lose the next one or it’s gonna be a weird spot if the first swap is at 18, although it is very possible that it’s at 16. I don’t want to go into a swap with all the agency being with Luxor, or us having the most players because in both cases we get painted as the targets. Bad news all around

I have yet to confess but here goes! I feel very good on my tribe. We seem to be doing fairly well at comps so far and I would love to continue to miss Tribal as much as humanly possible. I have talked to everyone on my tribe in some capacity but I am not trying to be the one to initiate like alliances and shit before we even have to attend tribal. I just wanna be chill and lay low while also being a good member of the tribe whom people like. Keegan and I have a mutual agreement to make sure each other gets far. I got first boot in my last game and he has never made single digits here in Tumblr Survivor so let's change that. One fear with working with Keegan is that he knows how I play. I played his game, Forest of Horrors, and got rocked out at the Final 7. Keegan has since told me that I was runner up for Player of the Season. I am typically regarded as a joke in this community but Keegan is someone who knows how I play and respects how I play. This game is an entirely different scenario so I am going to likely try to keep my connection up with him.

So the vote seems like it's going to be John Coffey. I'm quite sad about it for a few reasons. He is really nice and I know we work well together in games and he is a very loyal player. Also, Jake had an entire temper tantrum last night after results and that was just extremely annoying. But, Jake is more active and talks to me more while John is a rare sighting. Tbh I would rather it be Kevin but I think they're getting a pass since they participated in the challenge...always next tribal because knowing this tribe it's a strong possibility. I swear if the next challenge is a music video though I will punch a wall since that will be my death sentence since I do not participate in those. I never feel comfortable so I just don't. If we go to tribal as a tribe of 5, that might not be that good, so just really hoping that that is not the next challenge.

ok here's the tea guys. i am pretty solid in my tribe right now. after this vote tonight there 5 of us, and 4 of us are in an alliance, which is good. HOWEVER, i'm solid with the 3 people separately. that's put me in a good spot for a tribe swap/merge. obviously we're like years away from a merge. but we could tribe swap soon. we shall see! 

[thecleverdame]

East Of Nowhere - Life, After

Sam x Reader

Series Masterlist

Summary:  You and Sam are strangers trapped in a desolate mountain town where you live alone, isolated from the outside world, for five years.

Warnings: language, violence, smut, talk of past trauma

Beta:  ilikaicalie  

-

Life After

“Come again?” Dean raises an eyebrow. Sam just looks across the table, chugging a bottle of water. He woke up fifteen minutes ago sprawled out in the hallway. He came to just as Dean smacked him hard across the face.

“I know how it sounds, but it’s the truth.” Sam wants to take a moment, just a beat and try to wrap his head around the fact that he’s home, but he doesn’t have the luxury. You’re not there.

“You’re sure it wasn’t a dream, or maybe a Djinn?” Dean places his hands on the table, leaning toward his brother.

“No,” Sam runs both hands through his hair, blinking while trying to shake off layers of fatigue and exhaustion. Whatever pulled him back into the real world zapped every ounce of energy in the process. “This wasn’t like anything we’ve ever seen before. Are you sure it’s only been five months?”

“I’ve been going crazy looking for you. I think I’d know if you were gone for five years.” Dean sets a hand on his hip, the other gesturing toward Sam. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”

“Yeah, I feel ok. Just tired and thirsty.” Sam twists his torso, his back in knots and his shoulders sore. He feels like he got hit by a semi-truck.

“You were there with some chick?” He raises an eyebrow.

Sam sets down the empty bottle on the table and put his lips together before responding. “We’ve got to talk about some things…”

Before Sam has a chance to finish, or for Dean to respond, Dean’s cell phone rings loud in his pocket and Sam’s face goes white.

-

You roll your eyes behind dry eyelids, unable to determine where you are or what’s happening. All the sounds around you blur into one dull droning of blips, buzzes and muffled voices. The first noise your ears hone in on is that of the heart monitor. You know the sound well and, for a moment, you have a flash of waking up in the Shadow Hill Community Hospital.  

Whole thoughts aren’t forming yet; instead it’s just base knowledge as you fight through the fog in your head.

Beep

Beep

Beep

The monitor speeds up as you struggle to open your eyes. There’s a muted chorus of voices as you sort through the commotion. You can’t put the logic of it together but you’re listening for Sam’s voice somewhere in the mix.

It’s the familiar sound of your mother that straightens out first, sharpening from mumbled sounds into crystal clear words.

“I think she’s waking up,” she sounds excited, her voice catching. “Go get the nurse.”

“Just push the button,” Your father joins in. You almost melt as his presence is confirmed.

“Can you hear me Y/N?” Your mom asks. Her question is mixed with the sensation of her hand on your arm. You know her touch. Swallowing, you muster strength, blinking both eyes open. The light burns and you groan, fluttering until you see your mom, sitting in a chair at the right side of your bed.

“Thank God,” your father exclaims taking your other hand. You turn to look at him, weakly squeezing his fingers.

“Hi,” you rasp, then cough as the words set your throat on fire.

“Don’t talk sweetheart,” your mother cries. “We’ll get you some ice chips. For fuck’s sake Clint, go get the doctor!” Even in your altered state, it’s shocking to hear her drop the F-bomb.

A lot happens all at the same time. All the events of the previous five years come back to you in a flood of memories that make your brain feel like it’s exploding inside your head. You shriek, doubling over in pain. The delivery of this remembrance is accompanied by clear thought. The onslaught of the relocation shakes you free from the trauma and the drugs. You shoot from groggy and confused to painfully alert in the snap of a finger.

Your father holds your mother while she cries as you’re surrounded by doctors and nurses. All it takes is a push of a needle into your IV and the sedation lulls you back into a dark sleep.

Twelve Hours Later

When you awake a second time, the transition is smoother than the first. Your mother hovers on the constant verge of tears as your father tries to make awkward small talk. A police detective arrives at the same time as your dinner. Nibbling on the corner of a slice of white bread, you answer a series of uncomfortable questions as your family looks on in quiet judgment.

“So you’re sure that no one held you against your will?” The officer cocks his head as his eyes drift to your parents. “Maybe we should talk alone.”

“It’s ok,” you assure him. “I was just feeling overwhelmed by - life you know? I wanted to get away and clear my head and I guess I kinda panicked. I should have called or told someone I was alright but I...I’m really sorry.”

You don’t even want to look at your parents, if they even buy your story. Which is doubtful. They’re going to be so disappointed that it might break your heart. But the truth isn’t an option. Not unless you want to be committed.

“I keep asking about this because, not only does everyone you know say this disappearing act was completely out of character, but you’re pregnant and the doctors say you’re severely malnourished. That sends up some red flags, you know? Like maybe you were in a situation where you didn’t have access to food.”

“It’s been a hard pregnancy, I’ve been sick a lot.” You run a hand over your stomach.

“You can tell the truth honey,” your mother leans forward from her perch on the windowsill. Her eyes are brimming with tears. She wants so badly for there to be a reason that you so abruptly abandoned the people who love you and you want nothing more than to give her a better answer, but there isn’t one. “You have a man’s name tattooed on your ankle, it’s practically a brand! Someone must have made you-”

“Mom,” you stop her, struggling to sit up straight. “I met a guy, I got drunk...he’s got one too. No one kidnapped me or made me do anything. I just needed to get away for awhile.”

--

“There’s someone here who’s very excited to see you.” You mother forces an upbeat, sing-song tone.

When Jack walks through the door, he’s a wearing a shirt similar to one of Sam’s favorites. For a split second you think that Jack is Sam, your heart swelling and sinking in the same moment. Part of you almost forgot about him. The sight of his familiar face feels like a dizzy memory from a dream.

“I can’t believe it,” he smiles sinking down on his haunches at the side of the bed. “I knew you were out there somewhere.”

“I, um, I’m sorry.” Apologizing has become your new default. Over the last twenty-four hours you’ve found yourself often without a response and ‘I’m sorry’ seems to be your only answer.  

“Oh, don’t be sorry,” His hand is sweeping gently down the side of your face. You close your eyes and shift away from his touch. It doesn’t seem to phase him. “You’re here now and that’s all that matters. We can all move on from here. Together.”

During the time in Shadow Hill with Sam, you thought of Jack and figured he would mourn your loss and quietly go on with his life. This is clearly not the case.

“You waited five years for me?” You whisper is disbelief.

“Five months honey,” your mother pats the back of your hand.

Right. You slipped again. You and Sam talked about this. About all the scenarios of being thrown back into your old life. Sam was one who insisted you go through every possible set of events, including the fact that time might pass differently in Shadow Hill. Five years there could be five days or five decades here.

“Right,” you offer a lopsided smile, things making more sense now. “I meant five months.”

“Of course I waited,” Jack takes your hand into his, you resist the urge to immediately pull away. “I can’t tell you how relieved we all are, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m so thankful you’re both alright.” He reaches out of places a hand over your round belly. You hold your breath.  

He thinks the baby is his, they all do. You look at your parents who yet again are fighting to hold back emotion. You’re almost seven months pregnant, according to this timeline you would have been two months along when you disappeared.

“Please,” you lift his hand away from your stomach, stumbling over your words. “Just don’t...don’t do that.”

“There’s nothing be afraid of,” Jack tries to sooth you. “I’m ready for this. We talked about having a family one day.”

“It’s not your baby.” You clarify, maybe a little too blunt but there’s no taking it back now.

“What are you talking about?” He tips his head, his smile waning.

“Yes,” You mother stands up, her eyes narrowing. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what?” You’ve had enough. You’ve danced the dance for a day now, but you’re tired and exhausted. You’ve pushed Sam out of your mind because you’ve been under a microscope since you woke up, but in this moment you’re done. “I need everyone to get out of my room.”

“Just calm down sweetheart.”

“I don’t want to calm down.” You pick up the remote and hit the ‘call nurse’ button frantically. “I want to be alone.”

As soon as the door to the room clicks shut, you pick up the phone beside the bed and dial the number you’ve memorized like the back of your hand. It’s truth time.

“Hello?” A gruff voice answers. He sounds cranky, thank God. Dean, it has to be him.

“Dean?” You ask.

“Yeah, who’s this?” He snaps back. You hear Sam in the background. Your heart speeds up to a gallop, an idiotic smile spreading across your face. “Give me the damn phone!” You hear him shout.

“Sam?” you confirm, tears spilling in relief.

“Y/N?” Sam’s voice is shaky. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

“Are you alright?” Biting your lip, you contain the urge to squeal. You’re both alive and you both remember. “I’m in the hospital.”

He ignores your question. “Why are you in the hospital? Is the baby-”

“We’re both alright. I just turned up unconscious on my parent's lawn in the middle of the night. The neighbor’s kid said he saw me fall from the sky. I don’t think anybody believes him, but I do. I’m banged up.”

“Dean found me in the hallway. I didn’t wake up until an hour ago. I’m gonna come get you, just stay where you are.” There’s rustling on the other end of the line.

“This is good right? We both remember?”

“It could be a lot worse.”

---

Sam makes the twelve hour drive in a little under ten. Dean protested, pointing out that he needed sleep and maybe a doctor but in the end he took the keys and didn’t look back.

He slips into your room just after the sun comes up. It’s still early enough that your constant stream of visitors hasn’t yet arrived. You’re sleeping soundly, mouth hanging open with a bag of saline dripping into your arm. Your face looks thin, more gaunt than he remembers. He’s grown used to seeing you nearly every moment of every day but being apart, even for forty-eight hours, gives him a new perspective. Your face should be rounder, filling out as your stomach grows. But between the lack of food and plethora of stressors during your last months in Shadow Hill, you went in the other direction. He didn’t realize exactly how much until now.

Your eyelids flutter open the moment he takes your hand, a lazy, happy smile budding at the sight of him. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He squeezes your fingers, before bringing your hand to his mouth.

“I missed you,” you confide. His heart still skips when you say things like that.

“Missed you too, baby.” He kisses your knuckles, wrapping both his big hands around your small fist. “Do you feel good enough to get out here? If you need to stay, that’s fine. But people aren’t gonna stop asking questions, at least for a while. It’s probably better if you get your bearings before you start giving answers.”

“I’m good. I’ve probably already said more than I should have, but I stuck to the stuff we talked about.” You explain.

Sam stands, then leans down to kiss you. Your lips are dry as the desert but he doesn’t care. He rubs his nose into your cheek, nuzzling with a gentle press of his mouth on yours.

“What the hell is going on here?” Your father’s voice snaps you both to attention and Sam stands up straight.

“Dad,” you try to intercede, propping yourself up into a sitting position.

“It’s ok,” Sam takes a step away from you.

“I don’t know who the hell you are and frankly I don’t care, you better get away from my daughter.” Clint has always been an imposing figure but he’s larger than life when it comes to his kids. Your father radiates a ferocious protectiveness.

Sam looks to you and moves away from the bed. “I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“You better pray you’re not the reason my little girl has been missing,” his voice hitches up an octave. You’ve only seen him cry once before.  “Or be the father of that baby because I swear to God I will kill anyone who puts their hands on my daughter-”

“Daddy it’s okay, I’m alright.” You reach out for him. “Sam, I think we need a few minutes.”

Sam doesn’t hesitate, just sets his jaw and nods before leaving the room. Your father is pissed as hell at you and he’s held it back until now.

“You’re a smart girl. How is it you expect me to believe that you would just fall off the face of the earth and turn up five months later, pregnant and with a ring on your finger. Are you married to that man? Someone we’ve never met? I know you Y/N, you wouldn’t do that. Not to your mother and I.”

“Maybe old me wouldn't have, but things happened Dad.” If you had half a shot at getting through to anyone, it was him.

“Then tell me what happened.” He takes your hand just as Sam had, only he clutches it so tight it hurts.

“I can’t. Not yet anyway. You wouldn’t believe me if I did, anyhow. I know this is hard, but you have to find a way to trust me. Maybe you can’t right now, and that’s alright. But I just need a little faith. You know that I’m not influenced by anyone. What happened was unexpected, but if I had to do it all over again, I would. Sam is a good man and we love each other. I fell in love, the kind of love that you and Mom have. I can’t explain it all to you now, but what happened to me wasn’t bad.”

He’s still, looking at his feet. “You’re going with him?”

“You were listening.” You sigh, tipping your head back. “I have to go, for a while at least. Someday, I hope to tell you everything.”

“And he’ll take care of you?” A tear drops from the corner of his eyes and he wipes it away with a cough.

“Oh Dad, he already has.”

“This feels kinda like you’re saying goodbye, kiddo,” he pats your knee, looking away.

With a quivering chin, you watch his eyes close, “Probably because I am.”

The Bunker

The Bunker is depressing.

As the heavy metal door slams shut behind you, there’s a creeping sense of dread that simmers in your gut. It’s silent, deathly silent, no faint chirping of birds in the distance or sunlight streaming through a open curtain. No, Sam and his brother live in a subterranean tomb that’s a far cry from the happy home you once shared together.

“Come on.” Sam takes your hand, winding down a metal staircase as you descend into the belly of the beast. He’s described this place to you in painstaking detail, enough that you thought you’d be prepared for the reality of being here but you were wrong. It’s dark, ominous and frightening.

There’s soft music playing, getting stronger as Sam leads you down a winding hallway. Strains of Simon and Garfunkel greet you as Sam pushes a door open to a small bedroom where you find a man perched on the bed. He’s cleaning a gun, it’s metal parts disassembled and neatly laid out over his bedspread.

This must be Dean.

He looks up, pausing before wiping oily hands on a rag. He doesn’t speak, just looks from Sam to you, then to your stomach as his lip twitches. “Hey.”

Sam’s hand is at the small of your back, pushing you to take a few steps into the room. This feels wrong. You’re out of place, especially in his brother’s private space. You don’t belong here and you’ve got a sneaking suspicion all three of you know it.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice is strained. “Dean, this is Y/N. Baby, this is Dean.”

Dean has a physical reaction when Sam calls you baby. He flinches as his eyes close momentarily, mouth pinching tight. You force yourself to move forward and extend a hand to him.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’ve been hearing about you for years, so it’s weird to finally, you know…” When Dean doesn’t move, your left standing awkwardly with your hand hanging limply in front of you. He looks from you to Sam again and shakes his head.

“Dean...” Sam fires a warning shot.

“Yeah, it’s pretty fucking weird.” Dean flashes a dry smile, and twists the rag in his hands. “I’m kinda in the middle of something here. Maybe we could do this later, Sam?”

“Alright.” Sam’s word choice is innocuous, but he might as well have responded with fuck you.

Sam ushers you down the hallway and swings open the door to the room you’re meant to share. Everything is cold brick and hard floors, including the metal frame of his tiny bed. He’s nervous, fidgeting as he shows you the few personal items he owns. His life is sort of...sad.

For the first time in a long time, neither of you know what to say. This is a Sam you’ve only heard about in stories. This is Sam the hunter, whose life is hard and rough and scary. A life that you don’t fit into.

-

They’re speaking in hushed tones, but it sounds exactly like the muted arguments your parents had at night when you were younger. Adults trying desperately to avoid innocent ears.

“I need you to do better than whatever that was.” Sam hisses.

“I’ll roll out the welcome wagon when we know for sure what she is, Sam. Until then, I’m playing this close to the chest.” Dean snorts and his fist hits something solid.

“What are you talking about? We’ve been over this-”

“No, you went over it and I told you I’m not buying it.”

“She’s not a monster, Dean, she’s just a woman.”

“Honestly,” Dean’s dry laugh gives way to naked hostility, “For her own sake, I hope you’re wrong. We can’t even keep other hunters alive and your plan is to bring a pregnant high school science teacher into the mix?”

“Dean-”

“No, I get it. You dropped off the grid and fell in love and now you’re having a frickin’ kid. Which, by the way, don’t even get me started on that. You couldn’t wrap it up? What were you thinking? And while we’re on the topic, do you even know for sure that baby is yours? What if she’s been playing you this whole time?”

“I can’t deal with this right now.” Sam’s voice interjects at full volume. “I get that you need some time to wrap your head around this, but I can’t wait around for that. I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do.”

“Fine,” Dean agrees. “You let me know what you and your teacher come up with.”

-

Sam feels larger than life when he wraps around you in his narrow, rickety bed. You pretend to sleep, too tired to talk and maybe a little afraid of what might be said.

‘You awake?” He whispers, resting a hand on your hip. When he doesn’t get a response he sighs, pulling you back into him the way he has a thousand times before. That familiar smell and warm body lull you slowly to sleep in this strange new world.

Two Days Later

“You doin’ ok?” Dean sits across from you, with a beer and a whiskey, alternating between the two. You can tell just by the look on his face that he’s skeptical of the whole situation. Sam keeps telling you Dean gets it, that he’s on board, but it’s clear he’s just trying to placate you.

“I’m just exhausted, but other than that I’m good.” You sip the warm can of coke as the two of you try not to look at each other.

“Sam has a lot to say about you.” Dean forces the conversation.

“I bet it’s nothing compared to how much I’ve heard about you. I feel like I know you.”

“Five years is a long time to be alone together.” Dean nods soberly. “The whole thing is almost unbelievable.”

“Look, I get that you don’t really trust me.”

“I’m not trying to be a dick.” He holds his hands up. “I’m still on the fence. Sam’s gone for five months and when he comes back he’s got a ring on his finger and you’re...friggin’ pregnant. You’ll have to forgive me if I need a little time. Sam’s been through a lot. I’ve seen him get screwed over more times than I can count and until I’m a hundred percent about who, or what, you are, I gotta keep asking questions.”

“Okay.” You concede.

“Okay?” he raises an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“It’s pretty much what Sam said would happen.” You shrug. “‘My brother won’t trust you, it’s gonna take him a while, just gotta be patient and get to know each other.’”

“I got a lot of questions for you.”

“Go ahead.”

One Week

“Hello.” The soft voice is not one you’re familiar with. You turn around to find a man standing in the doorway. He offers a warm smile and takes a step into the room.

“Hello,” you return. There’s something about him you can’t quite put your finger on, but his presence calms you, along with the thousands of thoughts rattling around in your skull since you woke up in the hospital. Your mind narrows down to this moment, able to focus on nothing other than the unassuming person in front of you. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are. Sam didn’t say anyone was coming by.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” he chuckles, dismissing you with a wave of his hand. He leans toward you as if he’s letting you in on a secret. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

“What do you mean?” You should be worried, his confession should send up a red flag, but it doesn’t. Questioning your own actions you invite him in. “Do you want to sit?”

“No, I’m good. But you might want to.” There’s a glint in his eye, followed by a sigh and the exhale of someone who’s exhaustion rivals your own.

“Okay.” Despite having no intention of sitting, you find yourself seated on the bed.

“What are you doing here?” Sam interrupts your private conversation, Dean trailing behind him. They both looked pissed.

“Okay, I get it. You’re upset and you’ve got a right to be.” He responds shrugging casually.

“Does anybody wanna fill me in?” You inquire.

Sam glares, shaking his head in disgust. “This is Chuck.”

Chuck. You thought Sam was kidding or the tales he told were a metaphor...but Chuck’s really just a guy that looks vaguely like your middle school youth group leader.

“You’re God.” Despite your past misgivings, there’s no doubt in your mind that he is exactly who Sam told you about. You can feel it in your bones. “Oh my God, I mean...I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No worries.” His upbeat tone is not what you pictured from the supreme almighty.

“It’s nice of you to show up,” Dean’s disgusted. “I’ve been praying for months now and you’re nowhere to be found but suddenly you decide to grace us with your presence. Thanks.”

“You know I don’t like to interfere.”

“Why are you here?” Sam comes to stand beside you, putting himself between you and, well... God.

“I’m glad you asked,” Chuck clasps his hands together, seemingly excited. “I just had to see her in person. I mean, Sam. She really is a work of art. Beautiful, smart and loves you like the dickens.”

“What do you mean?” Sam reaches back, taking your hand.

“She’s incredibly complex. Near perfection.” He tips his head to the side, eyeing you up and down but you feel him inside you. He’s in your head and your heart, rooting around. “I really have to hand it to her. She’s right up there with Rembrandt and Chopin. Intricate, detailed, and just damaged enough to make it work. I don’t know that I could have done better myself. ”

“What. Are. You. Talking. About.” Sam grits, pulling you to your feet and tucking an arm around your waist.

“I thought you would have at least had some idea.” Chuck looks expectantly from Sam to you and back again. “My sister cooked her up. Her first real creation and she outdid herself.”

“Creation?” you whisper, feeling lightheaded.

“What the fuck are you-”

“You can’t tell me you didn’t have an inkling...” Chuck interrupts Sam. “I mean, she plucked her right out of that fantasy you used to have. You know, the dream, you remember the one you used, enjoyed...Oh no, you thought...you thought it was a premonition? ”

“Stop speaking in riddles and just tell us what’s the hell is going on.”

“Look, you know what my sister is like.”

“This was Amara?”

“She wanted to give you something.” He shrugs. “She gave Dean what he wanted most, your mother, and then she wanted to give you something too. She said she thought about Jessica, but you’re too different now. Too grown up for that to work organically, so she decided to create something, or should I say someone, just for you. ”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.” Dean snorts, apparently the only able to articulate any emotion.

“I am not shitting.” Chuck presents a grim smile and shrugs. “Let’s look on the bright side. She really nailed it.”

“I don’t understand.” You’re wilting into Sam but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s stoic, save for a flare of his nostrils. It’s a look you’re familiar with. He’s furious. “That doesn’t make sense. Before we woke up in that place I had a life, I had a family.”

“Well, technically you didn’t.” Chuck rolls his hand in the air letting you know he’s not finished. “It’s the beauty of what she managed to accomplish. It wasn’t just you she had to pull out of thin air, it was everything. Your family, your friends. Heck, those memories you have of your dad. I’m impressed.”

There are no words to describe how you’re feeling, but disbelief comes the closest. It’s not that you don’t trust what he’s telling you, just like everything else you know it’s true. But you can’t comprehend it.

“Why Shadow Hill? She just wanted to watch us swim around the fishbowl?” Sam spits, his arm leaving your waist as he takes a step toward God himself.

“Sam, you know as well as I do your life is pretty pathetic. She didn’t think having you meet at a singles’ bar would do the trick. She said she wanted you to have time to be with each other without all...this. She was gonna give you ten years and then zap you right back here.”

“Perfect,” Sam grunts, there’s venom in his voice.

“You said ten years,” you take a deep breath. “We were only there five and the world fell apart. There was literally fire raining down from the sky.”

“That spell the two of you cast cracked the ecosystem.”

“A crack that couldn’t be fixed so we ended up with front row seats for the end of the world?” Sam interjects. “There wasn’t even food at the end. Y/N was pregnant and terrified and I couldn’t even fucking feed her. Where was your sister? Did she get bored?”

“She used to check in on you from time to time to ensure everything was going to plan, but you caught her once. She said you saw her and she had to erase the memory. After that she was gun shy. She took a page out of my book and stayed away. Let things play out.”

He snaps his fingers and Sam can remember the night in the rain. He can see Amara slipping out the front door of the house and into the torrential rain.

“Where the fuck is she?” Sam presses. “Why isn’t she here telling us all this?”

“Because she had a very specific plan. You get ten years of domestic bliss and then you’re back here like nothing happened. You’d have been missing less than a year and life would move on.”

“Like I never existed?” you clarify.

“Exactly. If she turns up now I’m afraid she might reset things. You know I prefer to give you the choice, Sam. I’m all about free will. If you decide you want the slate wiped, I can take care of it.”

“No.” Sam squares off his shoulders and side steps between you and Chuck.

“I realize it’s a hard decision and I’m sorry.” He peaks around Sam to let you know the apology is meant for you. “You should take some time and talk it over.”

“We don’t need time.” Sam shoots back.

“It’s not just your choice Sam, there’s two other people involved. Talk about it, decide what’s best for her and your son. You can let me know.”

And with that, he’s gone.

---

“How do you feel? You know, about what he said.” Sam asks. He’s kept his distance since the revelation, but it’s been a few hours and you’re about as settled with the idea as you’re going to get.

“You mean the fact that I only exist to fill your wants and needs?” You scrunch your nose. “My inner feminist is pretty pissed.”

“You’re deflecting.” He sits on the edge of the bed, giving your thigh a squeeze.

“Because I don’t even know where to start.”

“You’re real, just as I am.” He face is strained, he’s trying but he’s off the mark.

“That’s not even the part that I’m worried about Sam! It’s the rest of it. It’s where we go from here. Are we going to have a baby and live in a bunker with your brother? If by some miracle we aren't murdered in our sleep by a monster or demon or whatever, we’re doomed to fail anyway. You’re the one who told me that the people in your life die. That you and I would never have worked in this world.”

“Things are different now.” He swallows, running a palm over the stubble of his jaw. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“You’ll die trying, Sam.” You want to shake him. “You’ll take a bullet to protect us or have a heart attack at forty from the stress of it all.”

“We can make it work,” Sam blinks, looking at the dead expression on your face. When what you’re insinuating hits him, his anger becomes palpable. “You’ve already given up.”

“I don’t want to. I love you so much and this baby, I...it’s all I want. But it’s not about what I want anymore. How can we bring a child into this? I know you Sam. You’re the guy who leaves because he thinks it’ll be better that way.”

“I won’t.” He’s hurt, and frankly, now pissed at you. “You think after everything we’ve been through, the only options we have are that I abandon you or Chuck snaps his finger and you never happened? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m trying to be practical.” You sputter.

“Well fuck that.” He growls. Sam stands up and looks away from you. He’s so mad that he can’t make eye contact. He rubs a hand over his face, trying to restrain himself. “I’m not leaving and you’re not going anywhere, but I’m out. No more hunting. We’ll just stay here long enough to get something else set up, somewhere safe we can start over. New names, new lives.”

“You really think you can do that? What about your brother? You just got him back.”

“Dean will make it work. We always do. I made a commitment to you in that field, do you remember that? You’re acting like it doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means everything to me Sam. I just...I hate this all so much. I just wanna go back. While we were there, all I could think about was getting out of Shadow Hill. It felt like a prison. And now… now I just want to go back where it’s you and me and nothing else.” Your voice cracks and the tears follow, running thick and wet down your cheeks. You feel his weight on the bed when he sits, then his arms as you cry into this chest.

“Do you still love me? Now that you know everything,” He asks.

His questions takes you off guard. If anything, you should be the one asking. “Of course,” you mumble into his shirt.

“Good,” he clutches you tight. “Then we will find a way.”

Three Years Later - Just outside Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

If it were up to you, you’d never leave this place.

The ocean shore lies jagged, the rocky outcrops like a torn piece of paper where they meet the rushing waves. The shore is everything at once, every sense bombarded in a way that brings your mind to elevated thought. Eyes open to every shade of blue before you, every shade from white to browns and greys for your pleasure. Eyes closed there is the cool breeze, stealing warmth, giving you the taste and smell of the brine. The ocean's faraway music takes command of your ears with crashing waves and the cries of the gulls. To the right of this little cottage home the cliff face rises sharply, graphite in the autumn sun. Between rock and wave, you sit intoxicated on the breath of mother earth, of nature and all the wonders she holds.

The front door creaks open and Sam slips out, shutting it with a carefulness usually reserved for fine china. He smiles at you, a heavy blanket swung over his shoulder and two steaming mugs of tea precariously grasped in one hand. “I defeated the beast.”

“He went down?” You scooch over, making room on the porch swing.

“It only took two baths, three books and a half hour of me making up lyrics to that Aladdin song he loves, but I did it.”

“Two baths?” You laugh.

“Well, I thought we were home free and then there was puke everywhere.”

“Sorry,” you wince. He wraps the blanket around himself before sitting and opening it for you to join him. Lying back you rest against his chest with a warm cup between both hands. “Thanks for taking over. I don’t have it in me today.”

“It’s fine, I know you’re not yet feeling a hundred percent.” He kisses the back of your head, a strong arm snaking around your belly.

“I just hope by some miracle we haven’t given it to you.” You came down with it first. It’s been a nasty flu season and you’ve spent the better part of three days sweating on the cold tile of the bathroom floor. Just as you started to feel human again, Will crawled into your bed with rosy cheeks complaining about his stomach. Things devolved from there.

“It’s inevitable.” He shrugs, “It’s freezing out here, are you sure we shouldn’t go inside?”

“I like the fresh air. Besides, it’s warmer when you’re here.” You can see the ocean from the house, waves rolling white-caped in the distance. You lean your head back on his shoulder and soak in this still, perfect moment.

“This week is gonna be crazy, I’m having to work late every night since we’re getting ready for the holiday.” Sam’s a manager at the grocery store, it’s boring and monotonous but it pays enough to keep your son in cheerios and dinosaur pajamas. Sam’s been pretty vocal about hating the work, but it doesn’t matter. You won’t be here that much longer. “We’ll need the money before the move.”

“I love it here, I don’t want to leave.” You close your eyes and listen to the gulls squawking to one another in the distance. Sam shifts behind you and then it’s two arms enveloping you as his mouth breathes warm at your temple.

“I know, but we’ve already been here too long. We gotta keep movin’.” Sam’s past may very well catch up with you one day, but until then the two of you do everything you can to play it safe. It’s all about flying below the radar and staying on your toes, blending in before moving on. “You come up with any ideas yet?”

“I was thinking Washington state or maybe Oregon. Somewhere on the coast, I want to stay near the water.”

“Sounds perfect,” he kisses your temple but you feel him tense up. “I’ll start looking tomorrow.”

“What is it?” You turn your head. “I can practically feel you overthinking.”

“Is being with me worth all this?” He’s not really asking, he knows what your answer will be, but sometimes he needs to hear you say it. “You might never see your family again. We’ll never have a real home.”

You choose the most perfect memory of your father and cling to it. Doesn’t really matter if it’s only manufactured, because for you; it was all too real. You choose it because at that moment, he was the person he should and would have always been; had it not been for the stress of life and losing you. In that snapshot his unwarped personality was something so golden and sacred you want to keep it forever. Like an old movie reel, you can play it at will; it's 1987, on the back lawn of your childhood home. He's laughing, relaxed after mowing the lawn and asks you if you want an airplane ride and of course you do. What four-year-old doesn't? In the moment, he has your right wrist and ankle. He spins like a shot-putter, but he never lets go. The garden turns into a green blur; you’re flying. Flying until he can spin no more. The memory has no smells or weather, but the garden is in fine detail: the crab apple tree, the rhododendron bush, the weeds in the flower beds. But the finest detail is his face, creased with love and your joy, not only for the ride but for being with him.

Sam is that father to your son now, and you’ll give up whatever you have to give Will these small, precious moments that are sometimes over before they begin.

“My home is with you.” You cover emotion with jest, “are you trying to get rid of us?”

“No,” Sam chuckles as you pick up his hand, running your thumb over a bluish vein. “Never.”

“It’s always going to be you and me, Sam.” You confirm. “You and me ‘till the wheels fall off.”

The End.

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