#at the same it was for a precise purpose and not for or volunteering?? maybe i should ask the e for the paper that reports all my'

[pollyna]

There's a job offer for which I'm kinda qualified for? And it pays better than the other two I have seen but now the point is if what I think is "my qualifications" is actually something valuable and valid or not. 🫡

[clowncollectr]

Arknights - Everything between us, as it should be (Liang Xun / Lee) - Chapter 3

Rating: G

Word Count: 5895 (this chapter), 28397 (whole story)

Summary: It’s Liang Xun’s second time visiting Lungmen. The circumstances are much better compared to last time. There’s no rush. Familiar faces, new faces. More happy memories to join the old ones. Between him and Lee, things are finally as they should be.

AO3 Link

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

__________ Chapter 3: Even if it’s just an act, I still… As promised, that missing pet case really was the last thing left in terms of business for Lee’s agency. And thanks to some fairly enthusiastic volunteers, it was resolved in a matter of days. Now it was time for everyone to enjoy a well-deserved break. Lee had mentioned that he made plans for the weekend and for everyone to make sure they were available then. Obviously, he wanted to show Liang Xun around, but everyone was still curious as to what he had in mind.

When the weekend finally came, they were pleasantly surprised to find that his choice was an excellent one. Of course, there were lots of things to do in Lungmen. Lee wasn’t exactly starving for options. But one of the city’s local riverwalks was certainly a smart pick. Lungmen’s massive man-made river could be seen before you even entered the city. Not only was it pretty to look at, it also served many practical purposes, acting as a natural defense, canal, and water reserve for the city.

Much like Shangshu’s mountains, it served as a scenic backdrop. It reminded all of the city’s residents that despite all the hardships mankind may face, it would always persevere and adapt. Even if the catastrophes forced them out of their homes, they would simply take their rivers and mountains with them. Unlike the mountains however, the river and its nearby ports are much more pleasing to the eye when enveloped by night, under the moon’s watchful glow.

Naturally, if there was darkness, there would also be lanterns. That was precisely why Lee insisted they come once the sun began to set. Once again, he brought everyone along. Not that he would’ve minded strolling by the pier with Liang Xun, with just the two of them admiring the boats and lanterns together…

He decided against it. It would’ve been a waste not to bring everyone anyway. This type of activity was good for people of all ages. No doubt the kids (who aren’t actually kids anymore but they’re kids to him) would have a great time. Plus their additional company would keep his mind from wandering to places where it shouldn’t go, as it often tends to when that person is around.

Since most of the group had been there before, there wasn’t much of a reaction to the scenery before them. But from the corner of his eyes, Lee furtively observed Liang Xun’s reactions. Relief and a fair bit of pride rose in his heart when he saw that the reaction was good. As much as he hates to admit it, it’s been a long time. It’s hard to say what his friend has experienced after all this time. Maybe this type of thing was commonplace to him now. Lee’s already seen the kind of place he’s living in nowadays. He’s hardly the same village boy from back then.

Still, he had faith. Things that are mundane and commonplace. There’s beauty to be found in such things as well. He was confident that Liang Xun would be able to appreciate it too. So when he saw the golden light of the lanterns reflected in his eyes, he couldn’t help but echo the other’s subtle smile.

Suddenly, without warning, those eyes flickered towards him, and the poor carp was forced to pretend that their eye contact occurred by pure coincidence. Liang Xun saw that he already had the other person’s attention, so there was no need to call out to him before he spoke.

“I’m always surrounded by all the tourism going on in Shangshu. But now that I think about it, I haven’t been able to travel much ever since I became the magistrate. Now that I’m finally on the other side of things, I see why we get so many visitors.”

Liang Xun let out a modest laugh. More like a content hum, but his expression is fairly neutral most of the time, so it still caught everyone’s attention. Without needing to communicate it verbally, they all thought something similar. This is a good sign, right? Mission accomplished?

Now the group’s overall morale was quite high. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, Lee began directing them through the various shops, restaurants, and other amenities that bordered the river. It was the type of aimless wandering that always ends up being surprisingly enjoyable, especially when you’re with good company.

They were there for a relaxing time, free of any exciting events or unexpected incidents. Aak and Waai Fu in particular had promised Lee that they wouldn’t cause trouble today, as their tendency to either skirt around the law or enforce it often caused. But it was hard to control the unexpected. They managed to get through a good hour or so of window shopping and admiring the colorful decorations before running into today’s wild card.

At some point, Aak started running ahead of everyone, which he often did when he was excited or running from trouble. This time he was just trying to get them a spot in line at a particularly popular street food stall down the block. It wasn’t much of a surprise when he eventually ran face first into someone while he wasn’t looking.

What was surprising was the fact that the person he ran into recognized him. Though to be fair, their group knew a lot of people.

“Well well, if it isn’t Lee and the gang. Didn’t think I’d run into you guys here. Been awhile, hasn’t it?” The woman Aak bumped into didn’t seem offended at all. Despite her crossed arms, she had the same casual, playful expression that she always wore.

Seeing who it was, Lee stepped forward, greeting her by bowing his head and lightly tipping his hat. Uncharacteristically polite of him. Her response was to let out a small chuckle, obviously finding his actions entertaining. It became clear at that point that what he did was more of a joke than actual courtesy.

“Heh. Smooth as always. You lot are always up to something fun. Helps that your boss is one of the few people in this city that can find me something halfway decent to eat too.”

Before she could continue, another familiar voice called out to her. It was a younger woman, a Sarkaz with purple hair, currently running towards them. As she got closer, she started raising her voice in frustrated tone:

“Gaah! I told you not to go anywhere! I already said I only need a couple minutes to talk to security to make sure they understand what’s going on. I get that being free-spirited is kind of ‘your thing’ but can you seriously not stand still for a couple minutes? What were you gonna do if I actually lost you?”

“Relax, l’il Lava. Don’t tell me you’d seriously lose me in a crowd of normal civilians. Don’t I have a special aura that shows the audience how story relevant I am?

Lee and “the gang”, as their first surprise visitor puts it, watched the two bicker. If one party doing the scolding and the other party not taking the conversation seriously at all could even be called an argument. Eventually, the two settled down long enough for Lava to turn around and rub the back of her head, clearly embarrassed about what everyone had just witnessed.

“Uh”, she started awkwardly. “Sorry if Nian said anything too weird before I got here. You guys already know by now that she likes to mess around.”

Nian chimed in to defend herself.

“What’s with the rock bottom standards? All I’ve done so far is say hi.”

Lava’s scowl didn’t leave her face, but seeing that no one spoke up to refute Nian’s statement, she relaxed her shoulders a little. Once the adrenaline from her irritation and panic began to wear off, she started to notice how big the crowd around her had gotten. And they were all looking at her, patiently waiting for her to continue. It made her feel self-conscious, and she found herself struggling to come up with something to say.

Nian was more than happy to tag herself in, drawing the unwanted attention away from the young girl. She looked back at Lee and continued her small talk from earlier.

“So what brings you guys here. Just hanging out?”

“Essentially. We’re showing a guest around. Ah, I suppose you two have technically met, but I should introduce you again.” Lee replied, waving his hand at Liang Xun to signal him to move closer.

Once he was close enough, the detective placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder and began a proper introduction.

“This is Liang Xun. He’s-”

“Oh I remember him.”

“You do?” Both men gave her a surprised look.

“Yeah, he’s the dude who’s house I went to when the Grand Tutor summoned me and my sisters, right? Glad to know at least one of you important people considered the possibility that we don’t want the place we live in destroyed just as much as the rest of you guys. Anyway, thanks for trying to help Ling out. Not that she really needed it. Oh and thanks for not trying to kill us too I guess.”

Nian extended a hand out in greeting and looked at Liang Xun expectantly.

He’s made no comment about it this whole time, but to be honest, Liang Xun is a bit confused at the moment. To start, he’s only ever encountered the Sui twice in his lifetime. Once as a child when he witnessed one of them save his city. The second time was the recent incident, when one of them nearly destroyed it. So he’s always been under the impression that these beings are basically gods. They’ve witnessed history unfold before their very eyes. They possess powers no normal Terran could ever hope to achieve. It’s strange to interact with them so casually.

Actually. What’s Lee doing conversing with them like they’re old acquaintances? The carp’s always been good at talking to other people. He’s the type who’s on friendly terms with everyone. But this is bizarre even for him. Does he treat this land’s gods like they’re his neighbors too? He’s just going out to dinner with people who can decide the fate of the nation? Even from his own position of authority, Liang Xun’s always been very cautious about this topic. In his line of work, such matters are typically discussed in hushed voices, behind the privacy of closed doors.

“Lee, your friend’s kinda weird. Does he not know what a handshake is?”

“He’s probably processing some stuff right now. Give him a moment.”

It wasn’t that he was spacing out, but rather, Liang Xun just wasn’t sure how to approach this situation. Well, no matter who it was, it’s still rude to keep someone waiting. He mustn’t forget his courtesies. He quickly reached out to shake the woman’s hand and said politely: “Miss Nian, it’s an honor to finally make your acquaintance.”

Upon hearing this, she exploded with laughter, looking at least ten times more amused than when she greeted Lee. In between fits of laughter, she managed to piece together her words.

“Wha-...pfft…ahaha! Man, what the hell? If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought you were trying to sell me something. What’s with the weird formalities, especially when you’re with these people right now? Are ya saying hi to me as Lee’s bro or as a representative for the government? Make up your mind!”

Out of some forgotten habit, Liang Xun’s eyes turned towards Lee and the expression on his face sent a very apparent and distraught message. Please help.

Unfortunately, the recipient of this message responded with his own torrent of laughter. But perhaps there was some mercy there too, since Lee suddenly wrapped his arm around the Kuranta’s neck and pulled him closer towards himself. He was obviously making fun of him too, but it sort of seemed like he was trying to help.

“You’ll have to forgive him, miss. This guy’s actually very well-spoken. If it’s something important, he’s a formidable opponent. But he’s around serious women all day. Maybe he’s a little out of practice talking to ones like you, hm?”

A grin formed on Nian’s face. She didn’t bother to hide at all how much she was enjoying this interaction. But as it turns out, the Lung’s words were surprisingly effective at getting the desired results. She let out one last satisfied sigh before calming down.

“Ok free pass. Your own friend’s bullying you now. That’s punishment enough. Since his taste in food is good, I trust his taste in friends too. Besides, I got something else I wanna talk about.”

“Oh?”

Lee raised his eyebrows.

Even when he’s supposed to be on vacation, his business sense remains intact. If someone has something to say to him of all people, then of course he listens.

Nian wasted no time excitedly explaining her new project. It was a good thing Lava was by her side to fill in the less exciting details. To summarize, they were working on another movie, with a script more dubious sounding than the last one. Per Nian’s signature style, it was another action thriller packed with high stakes and nonstop fight scenes.

Honestly, the plot kind of goes a little over the older men’s heads. Something about an ex-assassin, played by Lava, who was in retirement but returns after their pet originium slug is killed by members of an evil syndicate. The slug was the only remaining family member they had left because the only other person they cared about passed away recently. So the protagonist returns to their abandoned past life and swears vengeance on the syndicate. They end up embarking on a quest for revenge, helping several people along the way.

…Nian swears that the stunts and fight scenes she has planned will do most of the heavy lifting. “Trust me. The audience will be on the edge of their seats the entire time!” she insisted.

To make her vision happen, she needed Lee’s agency to help with shooting the film. She and Lava had a script ready. They had the equipment. They even had the setting picked out. Both co-directors had decided that the riverwalk would be the perfect eye-catching place to film most of the scenes. But they still needed actors. Many Rhodes Island members that might have been a good choice were currently out on missions. And RI leadership (note: Kal’tsit) would definitely disapprove if she found out they were taking people away from the landship to shoot a movie.

The most difficult part was the fact that Nian wanted to do stunts, so involving untrained civilians or novice actors was out of the question. This was exactly why she saw today’s chance encounter as an intervention of fate. Hung, Aak, and Waai Fu have already played parts in her last movie. And there’s no doubt that they could handle dangerous situations and knew how to fight. It was a match made in heaven.

The three were happy to oblige. They thought being able to participate in a movie was cool. Unlike their seniors, they understood the appeal and found the movie’s premise very fun. It seemed things were shaping up to fall in Nian’s favor. However, she didn’t miss the way Lee worriedly glanced back at Liang Xun. Rather than beating around the bush, she reassured them directly by clarifying, “Don’t worry, I have parts for you two as well!”

The detective gave a slight nod, expressing his gratitude before explaining to her.

“That’s not the problem. I was thinking. This guy probably isn’t too keen on becoming a celebrity any time soon. Think I may have to sit this one out with him.”

Not one to take no for an answer, Nian quickly fired back.

“You think I’m one of those sellouts who’s only here to put together some soulless blockbuster to turn over to those Columbian executives in Wrankwood? I do this for self-expression! For the artistry! Doesn’t matter if the only people who are ever gonna see it are a couple good friends at Rhodes Island and maybe some of my siblings. Shouldn’t be a problem in that case, right?”

Lee gave her a difficult look. He really doesn’t like having to tell clients no, let alone friends. But he wasn’t about to pressure someone into doing something they didn’t want to either. “Even so…” he began, but the woman in front of him interrupted with another retort. “Oh! You two can be scene extras. All you have to do is chill in the background and enjoy the place like you would’ve done anyway. Come on. I’ll compensate everyone. I’ll treat the whole group to this killer hot pot place after.”

That last statement caught Lava attention, and she immediately made sure to give her friend a not-so gentle reminder.

“You’re unemployed.”

Nian looked at her for a second before continuing her conversation with Lee. “Ok. I’ll show you an awesome hot pot place, but the bill will be paid individually. And uh, let’s just say I owe you a favor. How’s that sound?”

For a while, it seemed like neither party was willing to relent, and if nothing was done, they would have continued negotiating for a long time. So Liang Xun intervened in the end. He thanked Lee for sticking up for him but assured him that if he really hated the idea, he could stand up for himself.

“It’s not too much trouble”, the Kuranta said with a weary expression. “I don’t want to be a source of inconvenience for people. We just have to idle in the background, right? No need to fuss.”

He didn’t say it, but there was another line of thinking there too. Miss Nian has a very casual personality, but they shouldn’t forget who she is. In business or in politics, it’s an unspoken rule not to get on the bad side of people with power or connections when you can make them allies instead. Lee probably thought something similar, hence his hesitation to deny her.

It’s a similar scenario to earlier this week when they paid that neighborhood a visit. This situation looked strange at a glance, but if you think about it, the outcome was nothing but good. Helping friends, earning a favor from someone powerful, and they would still be able to tour the place as planned.

Although Liang Xun couldn’t help but wonder whether this type of situation happened often for Lee and his agency. It would certainly make for an interesting lifestyle.

After the negotiations were over, Nian and Lava began handing out copies of the script and assigning parts to everyone. Everyone was concerned at the amount of lines they’d have to memorize at first, but Lava reassured them that they had “borrowed” a teleprompter from Closure, which of course they would notify her of at a later date.

The exciting roles had gone to Hung, Aak, and Waai Fu, who were tasked with playing the part of elite members of the evil syndicate that Lava’s character was supposed to fight. 

As Nian promised, she gave a background role to Lee and Liang Xun. Although she seemed a bit disappointed, sighing and muttering something along the lines of “These two characters are just bystanders that get caught up in the action. Honestly, I would’ve liked these roles to have gone to a cute young couple or something. Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.”

“Does that type of thing matter that much?” the carp asked with some curiosity.

“No offense Lee, but a beautiful lady being in danger versus some scruffy middle aged guy needing help would definitely get very different levels of sympathy from the audience.”

“Ouch.”

Lee pretended to look hurt by her comment, and in a similar vein, Liang Xun lightly patted his friend’s back a couple times to seem as if he was comforting him. Clearly, they were all just messing around and the atmosphere between everyone remained pleasant.

Once everyone had gotten settled into their roles, there were little to no issues. Waai Fu and Hung, despite being as far from villains as one could get, played their roles quite well. As long as they didn’t talk much, it was their obvious martial training that was shown to the cameras rather than their lack of acting skills. And Aak was…well, he was a little too good at looking and sounding like a villain but at least he seemed like he was having fun.

Even though the current scene called for them both to be by the waterfront and facing the river, Lee and Liang Xun could still hear the chaos that was going on behind them. Sounds of mock fighting, some corny one-liners, and shuffling footsteps. Fortunately, Lava was very responsible despite her young age, and she’d discussed the matter with security and prepared signs beforehand. There was no worry of any bystanders actually thinking that a real fight was going on.

Though such an event honestly wouldn’t be that out of place for Lungmen. In fact, a certain someone from the agency has gotten into public fights “in the name of justice” more than a couple times. Lee was reminded of those incidents, and so with nothing better to do, he began to complain about it among other things. He talked about the kids causing trouble, but also about how they were doing a lot more now than he did when he was young.

“When we were kids, all we did was climb trees and catch bugs or something.”

“I didn’t do that. You and Huai did that.” Liang Xun frowned disapprovingly and corrected him.

“Ah, but you were there to witness it. That makes you an accomplice.”

He only sighed at the other’s witty comeback and thought:

Really, arguing with you is always too troublesome.

But Liang Xun regarded this complaint with a sense of fondness, like a terrible joke from a friend, which one might groan at but find endearing in the end. He couldn’t deny that he’s missed it somewhat. Lee may have been right about what he said to Nian earlier. Maybe he really has been around serious people for too long.

He let that thought linger, content to enjoy the silence combined with the mesmerizing view of the lake as well as the other person’s calming presence.

The sight before him was easy to appreciate. It was reminiscent of Shangshu’s own rivers, which are always populated by small boats like the ones used by boatmen like Shen Lou. But there were elements that were different too. Like the city itself, the atmosphere of Lungmen’s waters lends itself well to nightlife. There was much more variety in the types of boats scattered across the river. Some were for transporting goods and others were ferries, no doubt meant to give their passengers a more romantic view of the city.

From where he was standing, the small lights coming from the boats, resembling small lanterns which seemed to decorate the lake, had its own charm. While looking out towards those vessels, some either grew bigger or disappeared completely depending on the direction they were headed.

Liang Xun watched them drift gracefully along the water, and he found his thoughts drifting too. And after some time, as if those thoughts had finally docked at a meaningful destination, he suddenly remembered something he’d always meant to ask.

His movements were relaxed, but he turned towards the person next to him with a sincere expression, speaking gently.

“Can I ask you something?”

Lee, who appears to also have been admiring the view, glanced back at him. He seemed surprised by his question, a fleeting reaction that was quickly replaced with a lazy smile.

“You already have”, the detective responded jokingly.

“...”

“Hah. The kids didn’t find that joke very funny either. Guess I shouldn’t be expecting you of all people to laugh as well.”

“I’m serious.”

“As opposed to when you’re not serious?”

Liang Xun looked at the other person helplessly, silently pleading for them to cooperate. Regardless of whether it was effective or not, the carp eventually relented and started to wave his hands in a placating manner.

“Alright alright. Don’t give me that look. I already have an idea of what you want to ask. Needed to get the jokes out of my system first, you know? Go ahead. Whatever it is, I’ll answer honestly.”

There was a momentary pause. For a second, it seemed as if Liang Xun didn’t want to bring up the topic anymore. But in the end, he still asked.

“Why did you choose to keep your family name? I saw that you…you didn’t keep the other name.”

“Hm”, Lee closed his eyes as if he was thinking about his answer. “There was a time when I thought it would have been nice if I could start over from a clean slate. But the truth is no one can completely erase their past. It doesn’t define who you are now, but it’s where you started. It’s a part of you no matter what. There’s no helping that.”

“Lee…”

The atmosphere had become a bit melancholy. He didn’t mean to make things uncomfortable between them, but he doesn’t want to pretend that nothing happened either.

“Well, that’s all sophistry. The short answer is it’s because I’m sentimental. Some things, I just wasn’t ready to leave behind. A few things I didn’t want to forget.”

Lee looked back at him before continuing. “Besides, Lee is a pretty common name in Yan. Anyone who finds me with a lead like that would have to go through a lot of trouble.”

“I’m glad I found you.”

Liang Xun’s words were met with a strange smile. It was different from how this person usually smiled.

“Then I made the right call.”

Another stretch of silence fell between them. 

Feeling guilty for bringing up such a serious subject, Liang Xun coughed and directed the conversation back to more mundane topics. Though he didn’t regret bringing it up, and he was glad he found the courage to ask.

The rest of the night should have been business as usual. There were only a handful of scenes left for Nian and Lava to shoot at the riverwalk. One of them was particularly interesting, as it was the whole reason Nian had asked the two men to play background characters in the first place.

She mentioned earlier that there was supposed to be a part in the script where the bystanders would get involved in the clash between the protagonist and the villains. Turns out, this was referring to Lee’s character being held hostage by the bad guys…which were currently being played by Hung, Aak, and Waai Fu. It seemed no one had stopped to consider how ridiculous this scenario would look.

Lee playing the part of a damsel in distress was a very odd casting choice. He’s probably one of the most self-sufficient guys around. But they were short-staffed, and he’d already agreed to it so there was no sense getting hung up on the small details.

They continued on. Everyone got to their places. The villains crowded around the victim, the hero confronted the villains, and the bystander waited behind the hero for a successful rescue. Everyone conveniently chose to ignore the fact that Lee looked more like their boss (because he literally is) than their captive.

What followed was a series of stereotypical action movie dialogue. Cliché lines like “your life ends here” and “I’ll put a stop to your wicked ways” and so on. None of them were actors and this was clearly a project being made for fun, so the volunteers didn’t think much of it. They just followed along, reading the lines shown on the teleprompter.

Things were proceeding smoothly until an unexpected line appeared.

Bystander B: Please save my girlfriend. I was going to propose to her today.

They all knew who this line was for. The question was…is he supposed to say it? Or rather, would he choose to say it? It’s as out of place as it could be. They all subtly glanced at him, then at the director, who was currently sitting in her chair and staring at a copy of the script in her hands, muttering.

“Oh shit. I forgot I wrote that line in. So that’s why I wanted it to be a couple huh.”

She took a second to consider her options. They could always re-shoot the scene. But no one’s broken character yet, so they could totally save this if they acted fast.

It honestly didn’t matter to her. Friends. A couple. Whatever those two wanted to do. She just thought this scene would be more interesting if the audience was invested in the rescue, so she added that line at some point.

Actually, it would be pretty funny to watch Lee’s friend get flustered again. But she was feeling generous and perhaps even a tad bit responsible for neither adjusting the script nor warning those two. So Nian quickly grabbed one of Lava’s leftover signs and a nearby marker and got to writing.

To say Liang Xun was perplexed would be an understatement. He wasn’t aware that he even had any lines. Wasn’t he supposed to be a background character? And what’s with this dialogue? He can’t do that. Saying something like that to Lee would definitely embarrass him. Maybe they could laugh it off, but this was being recorded and the other person never agreed to it. Even if they were playing characters, it was too outrageous. 

He was happy to play along but definitely not at the other man’s expense.

Liang Xun looked towards Nian and was about to ask her to intervene when he noticed that she was holding up a sign which read:

Sorry, Forgot to rewrite the script. Just say he needs to be saved because he still owes you money or something lol. You can improv. Don’t care. Keep going!!!

The corners of his mouth turned downwards. That wasn’t any better at all. Isn’t he offending him either way? This is…he needed to come up with something else. As long as it’s close, it should be fine.

Around this same time, Lee’s inner thoughts were much simpler by comparison. Right now, he was only thinking something like “I am so thankful for every life decision that has led me to this moment.” Because it’s taking every ounce of self-control in his body right now to keep himself from laughing. He could feel his shoulders shaking as he tried to hold back the laughter, and he did his best to put on a terrified expression. Hopefully this would make it seem like he was only trying to put on a convincing performance as a scared hostage. Definitely not on the verge of tears.

He glanced back at the man of the hour and considered the current situation with great amusement.

Liang Xun, don’t tell me you haven’t changed. You have no trouble making the difficult decisions everyone else is too afraid to deal with. But when it comes to simple things like this, you always overthink it. What’s with that agonized look on your face? We can always just reshoot the scene. I don’t care what you decide to say anyway so-

“Um, please do whatever it takes to save him. He’s very precious to me.”

…..

This whole incident felt like it had gone on for a long time, but it all happened within a matter of seconds. Their director seemed satisfied, having responded with an enthusiastic thumbs up. It was hard to say what everyone else thought about the whole affair since miraculously, everyone had managed to stay in character.

The rest of that night really was business as usual. Nian eventually did apologize for putting Liang Xun on the spot and even offered to edit his one spoken line out. But he waved the matter off. An honest mistake like that wasn’t a big deal. And he did get to spend most of the night spending time with Lee in the end.

Speaking of Lee, he had stopped teasing him as much later on in the night. And he’d become a little quieter too. Maybe he finally tired himself out. The carp didn’t seem to be in a bad mood, so Liang Xun didn’t think it was a problem. He could be a very charismatic and agreeable person when he was well-behaved.

When the group finished filming, Nian and Lava kept their end of their promise and guided everyone to a nice restaurant. Needless to say, eating good food with friends will always be a pleasant experience. Everyone looked back on the day’s events and laughed about the interesting things that happened. Misspoken lines, funny mistakes that were made during filming, Lava’s surprisingly outstanding performance, and of course poor Mr. Liang’s impromptu engagement proposal. Nian even revealed her future plans for the film.

“It’s an action movie, so of course I have to get my kung fu brother to play the final boss. And unlike that stuffy Dusk, he doesn’t mind helping me out with my movies. I just gotta find a way to get him to come to Rhodes Island. He’d probably like it there.”

They spent the rest of the night exchanging interesting ideas and stories. But as expected Lee’s group eventually had to part ways with Nian and Lava, but not before exchanging some fond farewells and final expressions of gratitude. 

Compared to the last time they all went out together, this time it was Lee and Liang Xun at the front, walking side by side and leading the rest of the group back to their homes. No doubt the trio, who had done most of the fight scenes and actual work, were the most tired out. They were content to lag behind a little.

It gave Lee the opportunity to ask something that had been on his mind. He asked Liang Xun about the earlier incident, and why the man didn’t just say something similar to what Nian had suggested.

Liang Xun responded with a short sigh.

“I already owe you so much, Lee. I would never portray you as the kind of person who owes me and hasn’t paid me back. So I decided to say the first thing that came to mind instead.”

The Lung seemed satisfied with his answer, replying that it was ridiculous to keep count of favors between friends. There was no need to keep track of who owed whom. Liang Xun reluctantly agreed and pointed out that he was surprised Lee hadn’t made fun of him more for what happened earlier. He’s long since grown accustomed to his friends dragging him into random trouble, and they’ve always found it amusing when lighthearted mischief fell into his lap like this.

“I’m in a good mood today, so you’re safe this time,” Lee explained.

It couldn’t be seen from where the Kuranta was standing, but the people behind could see it. The way Lee’s tail casually swayed back and forth as if to prove his words. 

Hung was happy for him. 

Aak and Waai Fu thought that their idiot boss was too obvious, matched only by an even stupider opponent.

[pinky-the-elephant-room]

Frenzy

Warning: Explicit sex, Somnophilia, DUBCON, and Overstimulation. Mentions of past abuse. Please read with caution if any of these are your triggers.

Summary: It wasn’t her fault. Mirio had forced her hand and by the end of the night he would be hers.

◎◎◎◎◎◎

“Gomen. Can you repeat that last part, Tou-san?”

His father just smiled at him. “I said I think we should adopt Y/N. What do you think, Mirio?”

When the police raided the Shie Hassaikai, Eri quietly warned about another girl who was hidden away. Unlike Eri, though, Y/N was a teenager and, just like Eri, had nowhere to go. So, the Togata family volunteered to house Y/N until CPS found a home for her. But it looks like his father already had something else in mind.

“I think it’s an awesome idea. Y/N has opened up so much around us. I was worried about what would happen if she was adopted by someone else,” Mirio enthused.

Things were finally going his way. Just yesterday, he found out there was a chance of him regaining his quirk if Eri would control her quirk. And now this.

“Great since Y/N’s still skittish around me. Why don’t you bring up the topic with her, and if she agrees, then we can discuss it together?” his father hummed while stirring the curry on the stove. His father looked away for a second to grab chili peppers.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Mirio leaned over to grab the spoon covered with curry and quickly shoved it in his mouth before his father noticed.

“Mirio! That’s for dinner,” Tou-san scolded, grabbing back the now saliva covered spoon.                              

He quickly escaped the kitchen, using Y/N as an excuse. Mirio hurried to the guestroom where she had been staying since she arrived. It was her room technically more than a guestroom now—the walls covered by cute posters of various Pokémon that Y/N liked. The bed had flattering mauve sheets that Y/N personally picked out, plus various art supplies scattered throughout the room.

Mirio hesitantly on the door as he peeked inside the opened room.

“Y/N? Are you in here?”

The bathroom door opened, and Y/N shyly stepped out. His father had thought being the sole girl in a house full of men, she ought to have privacy and gave her the room with a bathroom attached.

“H-hai. I’m here.”

“Gomen! I didn’t mean to disturb you. I can come back later.”

“Lie, it’s fine, Mirio-kun. Did you need something?” Y/N cautiously asked.

Y/N rarely talked when she first arrived; mostly, it was him carrying a one-sided conversation. But Mirio was used to shy individuals, and it was his specialty to bring down their walls. When she eventually did start responding to his questions, he learned that unlike Tamaki, Y/N wasn’t shy. Just subdued, and she carried a solemn disposition that could quickly turn others off. Thankfully, he wasn’t discouraged and carried on with his conversations like Y/N wasn’t eying the nearest door to escape.

Mirio nervously rubbed his left shoulder.

“Y/N, do you like it here?”

Y/N eyebrows furrowed like she didn’t understand the question.

“You mean the bathroom? Because you can tell Togata-san that It’s fine the way it is.”

He quickly shook his head and waved his hands frantically. “No! not that! I mean, do you like living here with me?”

Y/N’s eyes widened, and her face flushed red. She quickly looked away from him.

Mirio, confused with her actions, decided to continue getting to the point.

“Because Tou-san wants to adopt you officially. He wants us to become a real family. What do you think?”

The silence that followed afterward was awkward in every way imaginable. It seemed like Y/N was purposely facing away from him to avoid answering. Though, he remained patient, waiting for her response. In what felt like forever, she eventually did turn around to look him in the eye. Her face looked all washed out, and she looked a bit teary-eyed.

“I-I refuse. I don’t want to be adopted.”

“Are you sure? Because I would love a sister!”

That only seemed to make it worse because Y/N retreated into the bathroom and quickly locked it.

Mirio cautiously knocked on the door. “Y/N, are you ok? Are you mad?”

She didn’t respond. Mirio, a bit annoyed, let out an aggravated sigh.

“Well, I’ll be out here waiting for you until you say something.”

That elicited movement in which he could hear her shuffling around behind the closed door.

“Mirio-kun, please go away. I don’t want to talk right now,” her muffled voice said.

He replied in a small voice, “Oh, well, alright. At least come to dinner. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

When Mirio didn’t hear anything in return, he shuffled back sadly to the kitchen where his father set up the table for dinner.

“Hey, did you ask her?” Tou-san inquired as he set down some chopsticks.

“I did, but I don’t think she liked the idea. Y/N locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out.”

Tou-san saw Mirio’s wilted face and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Maybe it’s better to wait a while before asking again. Y/N probably has her reasons why she said no. If she decides not to join us, she can have dinner later.”

Eventually, Y/N ended up having dinner in her room and not coming for the rest of the night. It was disheartening, to say the least. He tossed and turned in his bed for hours before Mirio crept out into the hallway and sat on the floor nearby Y/N’s door. When she first arrived, it was hard not to notice the lights still on at 4 AM. Since then, Mirio had always made sure to keep close by in case she needed him. He never found out what haunted Y/N late at night. But he supposed the whys didn’t matter to him, just that he was still someone’s hero even without a quirk. Mostly when that someone was Y/N.

The wooden floor was a bit uncomfortable. Discomforts that Mirio disregarded in favor of sitting there. Then he started hearing whimpering coming from Y/N’s room. It was subtle enough that Mirio thought he imagined it the first couple of times he heard it. Yet, the sounds came again and again to the point he could no longer ignore them. Not wanting to jolt Y/N, which he learned not to do, Mirio carefully pried the door open to peek inside.

The room was completely dark except for the streetlights that lit the room from the open windows. He saw Y/N’s body half-covered with a blanket. The shadows hid her face, and he could now clearly hear Y/N’s stifling gasps. She let out a groan, and the sound sent chills down his spine.

He widened the door’s gap a bit further and saw Y/N’s restless movements.

“Mirio!” Y/N let out, and the covers fell away to show her hands inside her pajama shorts.

Her chest was heaving, and her right hand’s frantic yet rhythmic motions continued. Mirio knew precisely what she was doing. It was hard not to when he was a teenage boy. It seemed that Y/N remained unsatisfied because soon enough, she tugged her shorts off and tossed them near his vicinity.

Mirio gulped, seeing the flimsy cotton garments. His eyes immediately fixated on Y/N once again when she let out a keening moan.

“Please. Please,” Y/N’s legs widened to allow for a better angle. It seemed to have worked in her favor judging by the way she enthusiastically responded. He could hardly see anything except for her creamy legs and the occasional glimpse of her hand. He couldn’t see where her left hand was either since her right hand occupied her pussy. But judging from the distance, it seemed her other hand was on her breast.

All too soon, the show was over before it even began. Y/N’s body arched, gripped by an unknown pleasure, and she started chanting his name.

Mirio bit down on his own fist from making any startling noise. It all happened so fast that he felt almost like he imagined it. Because as soon as she came, Y/N collapsed and retrieved the blankets she kicked off in her hurry. She was once again making herself comfortable enough to go back to sleep. He waited for several minutes, making sure she wouldn’t move again before carefully shutting her door and hurrying back to his room. In times like these, Mirio sorely missed his quirk because it would have come in handy.

He could only blame Y/N for the way he jackhammered pumped his cock. His cum splattered all over his stomach, leaving his member feeling raw and exhausted by how hard he managed to come.

One thing for sure Y/N touching herself while saying his name was something he wouldn’t be able to forget even if he wanted to.

 ◎◎◎◎◎◎

He watched her eat with such an intensity that Mirio didn’t even notice the strange looks he was getting from his father. He really should be less obvious, but it was like Y/N was everywhere ever since that night. He noticed things that he never noticed before. Her nose with peppered tiny black moles or how she had a giant sweet tooth. So much so it was rare to find Y/N’s mouth unoccupied without a piece of candy.

“Mirio, are you feeling ok? You haven’t touched your food at all,” Tou-san voiced.

Y/N looked up from her plate to shoot a concerned glance his way.

He could feel his cheeks heating up when they made eye contact and feeling embarrassed, he quickly cleared his throat.

“I-I’m fine. Just not hungry.”

Well, that wasn’t true. In fact, Mirio was quite famished. But he could hardly think about food when Y/N was sitting right in front of him like she hadn’t just fingered herself while thinking of him just a few days ago. He had so many questions. Like, what did she think about specifically? When did this all start? And more importantly, what did it all mean? Mirio wasn't stupid; Y/N made her interest evident last night. But how far did it go? Was it just a means of relieving stress? Or did she like him? And if she did, what does that mean for him?

“Thank you for the meal,” Y/N murmured as she grabbed her plate and left to rinse it in the kitchen.

Mirio looked down to his see his still untouched lunch and sighed.

It would make things awkward in the house if she liked him, and he didn’t feel the same. If that was the case, he could ignore everything and pretend none of it happened. Thereby preserving their friendship. But at least he knew why Y/N was so obstinate against the adoption. It would be weird knowing you’re attracted to your newly adopted brother.

He pushed his plate away and stood up. “I think I’m done. I can’t eat another bite.”

Mirio could scarcely hear his father playfully reply as he walked away, “I’m sure you’re full after only two bites, son!”

Moreover, it was clear Y/N had a rough life living amongst the Yakuza. Still, she was so brave, trying so hard to assimilate amongst his family. There were times when he could tell Y/N was uncomfortable or there was a dark cloud hanging over her some days; even then, she was doing her best. It made her incredibly likable in his eyes, and that’s why she was so special to him.

“Y/N! Wait up, I have a question,” he hollered after her.

She did as Mirio requested, and a small smile blossomed on her face at the sight of him. He could feel his heartbeat increase, which definitely wasn’t from the short jog.

He was never someone to beat around the bush, so he immediately questioned her.

“Y/N, do you l-lik”

Well, at least he tried to, but as Mirio studied Y/N’s face, all he could hear was her throaty voice saying his name repeatedly.

She waved her hand in front of his face.

“Mirio-kun, you were about to ask me something.”

“OH, rightttt. Well, I forgot my question, so I’m just going to leave. Bye now!” he nervously chuckled before trying to dart into the nearby plaster wall. Only for him to forget he no longer had his quirk.

“Ow!” Mirio groaned and rubbed his sore forehead.

Y/N immediately went to check on him. “Here, let me see.”

Seeing her face so close made him feel incredibly tense. Goosebumps rose across his skin when she parted his blond hair to see the red bump.

“It’s not too bad. Make sure you ice it.”

In response, he clutched her hand tightly and said, “Thanks, Y/N. I appreciate it.”

As he left to do just that, he didn’t need to turn back to know that Y/N’s face was just as flushed as his.

Mirio, unfortunately, didn’t hear the words that Y/N murmured as he departed.

“Hey, wait. You never asked your question,” she said under her breath before disappointedly going back to her room.                                    

◎◎◎◎◎◎

She didn’t think it was possible to like someone so much. Not after what she had been through. Not after what the last man she trusted did to her. But it was impossible to ignore Mirio. He was like an overwhelming, scorching sun that no one was able to avoid. At first, she wanted nothing to do with him. Yet, he remained firm until she had no choice but to return his affections. Now? Now she wanted him in every way imaginable. No. She needed him. Someone like her didn’t deserve him. Mirio warranted a kind and loving person just like him. Not a woman who was so toxic that she sucked everyone in like a black hole by her bitterness.

Y/N’s desire for him grew uncontrollable day by day. Each night she ended it with his name on her lips. Sometimes when she laid in her bed in the aftermath, she wished he would overhear her. Because Y/N knew he would wait out his nights outside of her room. So, she hoped he would hear and eventually join her. But of course, it was just wishful thinking.

The last few days, though, Mirio was acting weird ever since he asked about adoption. She hoped that he would return to normal if she pretended everything was fine. However, that didn’t come to pass. Now he has forced her hand. Y/N didn’t want to do this. She was hoping to avoid this exact thing. She also didn’t want to become his sister of all things, so desperate times called for desperate measures. By tonight Mirio would know precisely how she felt for him.

Y/N was used to late nights plagued by nightmares. This time though, she waited until she heard the footsteps of Togata-san, and finally, Mirio’s lighter footsteps creeping up the stairwell. She gave it a few more hours for everyone to fall asleep before carefully peeling away her covers and making her way out of the room. She never ventured farther than her room because she wasn’t comfortable enough to intrude on other people’s space. Yet, Y/N knew by heart that Mirio’s room was the second one on the right. So, she crept slowly and let herself into his darkened room. It took a couple of minutes for her eyes to adjust, but eventually, she could make out Mirio sleeping on his bed. She inched herself on the bed, cringing when the springs squeaked from her weight. Y/N peeked a glance at Mirio, who seemed to be unaffected, and she sighed in relief.

Adjusting herself carefully, she removed the blanket from his person.  Though he was clearly in a deep slumber, she should have known to expect the bulge in his pajamas. Whenever he conversed with her, she tried hard not to notice the impressive swell in his jeans many times before. But it was hard not to when judging by just the outline of how awe-inspiring it would be in person. Finally, Y/N's curiosity would be laid to rest. She slid down his pajama pants, making sure not to jolt Mirio.

In her honest opinion, penises were weird as hell. Because she only had prior experience with one guy, she assumed they all looked the same. Looking at Mirio’s, though, she couldn’t help but find it cute. It was thicker like she suspected but shorter when flaccid. It was companied by small, trimmed tuffs of blond hair. Not wanting to waste time, Y/N immediately licked the tip and engulfed as much as she could in her mouth, and sucked. All the while keeping an eye on Mirio who’s eyebrow furrowed at the contact before relaxing once again. It took everything within her not to let her eyes roll back and moan at the taste of him. There was a certain tanginess to his pre-cum, reminding her of a bit of pineapple, and she loved pineapples. The flavor just served to encourage her, and she continued to suck, hollowing her cheeks. Unfortunately, as much as she was enjoying herself with his cock in her mouth. She didn’t come in here to give him an impromptu blowjob.

It took a bit of maneuvering on her part, but she managed to remove the shorts she usually wore to bed as well as shimmying out of the panties she had on. Just the sheer anticipation of what she was about to do made her cunt glisten with wetness, and so she didn’t hesitate in taking his erect member and inserting in one go.

Y/N choked with emotions when she felt Mirio fill her to the brim. God, he felt perfect. No, he was perfect. She took a minute to gather her composure and tried to calm her harsh breathing despite being overwhelmed. While she wanted to put her hands and balance on his shoulders, Y/N didn’t think she could handle that without waking him up. So, instead, she opted to place her hands on the bed and started to rock. Slow and steady as she attempted not to create too much bounce for the bed springs to react. Then when Y/N was confident enough, she twisted her hips to move them in circular motions just the way she liked it.

She took a minute to thank Kami-sama; she wasn’t a virgin because if she were, the tight fit would have been unquestionably painful. His thick cock rubbed against her vaginal walls creating the most delicious friction, causing her mouth to unknowingly water. She swallowed back the saliva, lest she started drooling and made a mess of herself.

She pulled back a bit, causing the thick head of his cock to slip out of her before grabbing it to reenter. Y/N tried to bite down on her lip to contain any noises, but she couldn’t help whimpers and gasps as the head penetrated the sensitive opening once more.

The movement and noises caused Mirio to stir and mumble incoherently. She waited anxiously for his blue eyes to open and gaze upon her accusingly. He only drifted back to sleep a few seconds later. So, she continued her slow and hypnotizing rhythm. It made her want to cry out of pure frustration. Hoping she wasn’t risking too much. Y/N backed up and then slammed herself on his cock. Despite the tingling sensation, she again waited for Mirio’s reaction. Who seemed to moan in his sleep before settling down once more. So, she attempted to bounce several times, each waiting in increments to see if he would react. Feeling satisfied that he was a deep sleeper, she vigorously started working up and down Mirio’s cock. Throwing all caution to the wind, the bed started squealing, and her moans became unrestrained.

Y/N knew that when she had come up with her little plan, it would involve Mirio eventually waking up. There was no way she was going to be able to continue without him noticing. But even she was caught off guard when he suddenly awoke with a gasp as Y/N shoved herself back on his member.

Mirio seemed taken back to see her.

“Y/N? W-what are you doing?” he hoarsely asked.

She bit her lip, watching him cautiously to see what he would do. But Mirio just kept staring; his eyes widened like he couldn’t believe she was there on top of him.

So, taking a chance, Y/N leisurely started riding him and clutching his taut bicep.

“M-mirio.” she gasped.

Wildly he gaped at her face before watching riveted at the junction where his member disappeared inside her cunt.

“You see that baby? I’m fucking you,” she choked out as her walls fluttered around his cock.

His heated gaze made her feel shivers throughout her body.

“And I’m going to continue to fuck you until you come inside of me.”

Knowing his undivided attention wasn’t about to go anywhere, Y/N reached down to her t-shirt and tugged it off her. She made sure not to wear a bra before coming to his room. Her pebbled peaks stood at attention, and she eagerly placed Mirio’s hands on her chest.

Y/N felt him swipe his thumbs over her nipples and squeeze generously. Emboldened, Y/N increased her pace, and that really set him off. His groans seemed to echo along with the noisy mattress.

And when she purposely squeezed her muscles around him, he howled her name with ecstasy.

“Like that, huh? Every night I thought of you like this. And now you’re all mine.”

She leaned over and captured his lips. Even when she felt him tremble and frantically thrust back, Y/N held his face steady, kissing him lovingly. And when he finally lost control and bucked into her warm cunt. He painted her insides white, and she could feel the warmness emanating from his cum. Long ago, this feeling disgusted her, but with Mirio, it felt right. She felt elated, knowing that a piece of him was inside of her.

He slumped on the bed, breathing harshly like he just ran a marathon. Sadly, for Mirio, Y/N still hadn’t managed to get herself off, which meant it wasn’t over yet.

He eyed her blearily as she once again rose and let out a guttural groan as she went in deep.

“Y/N, please stop. I can’t. It’s too much,” he urged.

Y/N ignored his pleas to chase her own pleasure instead. Mirio could only watch helplessly as she rode his overstimulated cock. He feasted on the sight of Y/N parting her vaginal lips and trace slow circles on the clit.

Everything was just right, his eyes on her just like she deserved, her clit properly stimulated, and his cock that felt divine. Her orgasms, when she indulged herself, were build up like a crescendo, slow and steady with a significant impact. But this time, it hit her like a freight train. Her eyes watered from the sheer strength of it and her body bucked, unable to help its contortions. Y/N collapsed on top of Mirio and clutched him like a life preserver. It took several minutes for the aftershocks to completely stop as she was still grinding against him to prolong her orgasm. But she finally managed to look up from her exhaustion; there was a film of sweat surrounding both of their body. It stuck to his skin and made Mirio seem like he was glowing.

The two stared at each other, not knowing what to say. Knowing that no words could explain her actions, Y/N kissed his lips once. And several times more when he didn’t pull or push her away. They kissed leisurely, and Mirio pulled her body close.

“Mirio I-… I,” Y/N whispered. “I love you. I love you so much I can barely breathe sometimes.”

Mirio only tightened his grip on her and soothed Y/N as she drifted to sleep.

The last thing she felt was Mirio kissing her forehead and whispering something that suspiciously sounded like, “well, I guess that answers my question.”          

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale S4 Ep 8 (Spoilers)

- Ms. Burble gives everyone therapy.  And in the background two separate things are happening:  Jellybean steps it up a notch and sets the cameras a bit closer to each residence, and everyone is very upset.  They end this episode with Donna and Bret saying Archie, Betty and Veronica “are the kids that we saw kill Jughead.”   

Alice and Betty

- Alice discovers that Betty didn’t get into Yale on early admissions by opening her mail, finds Betty’s birth control pills, and yells at Betty about both. Betty finally starts to put her foot down, but instead of finding this cathartic I feel suffocated because I know that Betty will come back to this house, to live with Alice, with this exact same relationship, as an adult. Miss Burble is least able to make a productive change in these people’s lives, because Alice is just too damaged.  

- One of the few good things about the Burble session with Alice - they confirm what I thought, which is that Alice did what she did about the college fund ON PURPOSE and then it was only after the Farm stopped being fun  that she worked together with Charles.  No reason is given, but I think after showing her all his amazing abs, Edgar never consummated his so-called marriage with Alice, and that’s when she turned on him. 

-  Betty gives a passionate speech about every single crime that Alice has committed against her. There are so many that it goes on for at least two minutes.  Alice brushes the whole thing off as ‘I am fine with her insults’ and this is a very damning statement from the show itself - Alice is proud of what she’s done to Betty. She enjoyed it.

- I love you more, I love you most.  I think Alice really believes this, but I don’t believe Alice. Alice is such a dark character.  What she feels towards Betty is an intense aggression and jealousy, which she keeps insisting is love.  She inflicts on her children, in different ways, all the harm that she herself had to endure, and if they manage to make a proactive decision (such as going on the pill when you don’t want to get pregnant) Alice is furious.  Betty says Alice has abandoned Polly at the asylum, and that’s probably because there’s nothing more to take from Polly at this point - Alice has won.  By the way, we never see her talking with Charles after his return to Riverdale. 

- Later, at home Alice is back into Stepford mode, but she is trying to make amends by giving up her earnings to Betty, to try to pay her back bit by bit, I guess.  Not sure that it deserves a ‘I love you most too’ from   Betty. 

Archie

- Ms Burble agrees with me that Archie is a scarily violent man.  When Archie says he has fantasies about vigilantism, she gets up and stands away from him, behind a piece of furniture. When someone finally says the truth to him, that his grief-induced anger may be harmful, Archie starts weeping and says he knows he screwed it up, and he knows that he’s a disaster to people around him.  Burble says that he might be in an addiction cycle - he knows that some of what he does leads to negative consequences, but he feels compelled to do his scary violence. 

- Unfortunately, Ms Burble has not figured out that you can’t give Archie a list of things, because he will pick one thing off that list and drive it off a cliff. She says to focus on the center instead of vigilantism, advises him to enlist volunteers with different skill-sets, volunteers herself, do not go out at night, and then brainstorms something - maybe start a hotline?  Oh Ms Burble, I know you meant well but you should’ve just said,  I will hold office hours at your center.   And anyway, Archie doesn’t want to help people - he wants to kill someone. 

- After insisting that he is not an idiot,  and after apparently listening to Burble’s advice with close attention, this is what Archie actually does:  He moves out of his home, giving up a private life, and moves into the center, where he sets up a hotline precisely so he can go out at night with a baseball bat and engage in vigilantism.  The main social problem that is happening in that area of Riverdale is hunger.  Children are hungry and following any Pied Piper that provides hot food, but Archie doesn’t care, because feeding kids is not as interesting to him. 

- I wonder if Mary forcing Archie to write that letter to the judge, seeking clemency for the kid who killed Fred, was a mistake.  Archie has not forgiven anyone for anything.  If he hadn’t been forced to write a letter he didn’t mean, and he just got to go to the trial and testify on the stand about what a wonderful man Fred was and how he wanted whichever judge it was to bring the hammer down on that boy, would Archie have committed less violence and wreaked less havoc overall? 

Cheryl

- I asked why Cheryl is fine hauling Jason’s corpse instead of giving him a proper burial.  The show, via Burbles, tries to offer some sort of normalizing justification for me by saying this is just like praying at a grave yard, having an urn of ashes on a designated part of your house.  Show, get over yourself.  Burble doesn’t know Cheryl has Jason’s taxidermied corpse, partially eaten by rats, in this chapel.  The other Blossoms, part of the Red Head Worship Cult or whatever their religion is, are horrified by what she’s done. 

- Burble does what she can with what she has, so she confirms for Cheryl that ghosts are not real, and that you can get a test for whether you have two sets of DNA (i.e. you absorbed a twin in the womb). So this puts Cheryl in a good mood, and more capable of dealing with the gaslighting that Penelope is currently inflicting on her.

- Minor details:  Cheryl has a 4.0, which doesn’t surprise me, but then how is Betty the valedictorian?  Does Betty in fact have an A+ GPA?? And Cheryl is a classic movie buff, and correctly names the origin of the term gaslighting in popular culture (Ingrid Bergman’s movie!). 

- You know how certain things (like waking up from sleep and expressive breathing) are Jughead performance strengths? Cheryl’s highlights are terrifying screams and heartbroken weeping.  For a character who is supposed to be offputtingly inaccessible, Cheryl excels at all the different kinds of crying -silent, helpless tears; screaming sobs; howls; helpless regress to being a lost little girl.

Veronica

- Son of a Butterfinger.  I forgot that Hiram Lodge went to Harvard. Veronica, who was so mean spirited (at Betty’s behest) about Jughead going to Stonewall Prep because privilege and this and that, acts shocked that Harvard weighs legacy when deciding admissions decisions.  Veronica is the opposite of naive, except when it comes to herself. 

- Minor details: Riverdale High offers macroeconomics - so again, it’s JUST their English dept that sucks.  The dean of admissions at Harvard welcomes Veronica to the Class of 2024, and I really wish that they had not done this, or that thing in S5A where she says it’s 2021. 

- The monologue that she gives Burble, about all her frustrations in life, which ends with VERONICA LUNA IS NO ONE’S CORDELIA is well delivered and I love that she gets so worked up she needs water.

- I really, really want to go to Harvard.  But she doesn’t get to, even though Burble tells her to go to Harvard. I wish Hermione and Veronica were on speaking terms, because not having someone who loves her give her the adult advice, that self sabotage is just self sabotage, don’t do it.  The advice that FP gives Jughead - why does it matter how you got the education you want, get the education is the kind of thing loving adults can say to a child, to give them that final push. 

-  What do you think you’ll do now, walk away from me? You’ve never been able to.   Hiram talks to Veronica in the same intense spurned lover tone that he uses with Hermione, and I think it’s intended to freak me out, and I am duly freaked out. The life that Veronica sees being laid out for her- Harvard then Oxford then Forbes 30 under 30 - is one that she tries to reject because her father wants it for her, but at the same time, this is also ultimately what she wants.  This is some heavy weight to carry - to be the female version of the father you don’t want to be, but already are. Oh Veronica.

Jughead

- Jughead has failed to turn in pages for his Baxter Bros. competition.   Because it’s not his genre.

- Early admissions:  Does everyone have to apply early admissions all the time?�� I mean... I didn’t... and it was fine. But this real bit of highly unlikely unrealism is buffeted by another highly unlikely scenario - that an expensive prep school would want a matriculated student (whether or not a scholarship case) to fail so hard he can’t get into any colleges.  That is not what that school’s counselor would want. 

- Jughead, out of the preppy uniform, face to face with a Riverdale High authority figure, is manic and rude.  In a direct contrast to his being mild mannered, quick to apologize and acquiescing to injustice/ abuse of power by  Dupont.  Dupont has been actively hostile and threatening to Jughead, but he gets a modicum of politeness.  We’ve never seen Ms Burble before but Jughead’s history with people who work at Riverdale North Side institutions is so terrible he’s on the absolute defensive.  He’s talking a mile a minute, starts grabbing at sugar in the most uncouth way because Jughead, in moments of stress, needs to eat.  He hates being back at Riverdale High.

- Ms Burble (and therefore the show) rewriting the history of FP as He came from a poor household with an abusive father and did the work to transform himself and sacrifice so you could succeed is very offensive to me.  That is not what happened, and I understand that Jughead can’t bring up the murders and the cover ups and the fact that FP does not know how to investigate crime scenes to this person, but that he buys it wholesale is a betrayal of his character and I think rather bad therapy.  

- I did very much like the scene where the father and son Joneses hug each other and love each other.  That was ... nice. I love you, and I appreciate everything that you’ve done for me  and I don’t think I say that enough.  See, but that’s actually not true - Jughead wrote an entire speech about how much he loves his dad and insists on seeing him as his best self all the time, and read it out in front of all their friends. So this is something really that FP needs to say to Jughead.  This is one of the many tragedies of Jughead’s life, that he says to others what they should be saying to him.

Then Jughead churns out the fiction because he feels loved by his dad in a temporary fix, Betty says it’s good, and he’s also made progress on the investigation of Dupont’s secrets.

[lucytara]

Bumbleby. Blue. “And now that you’re here realized I need you for survival. I know from the awe in your eyes”

On the day of the reaping, Blake never expects her own name.

She’s never taken tesserae; her name’s in there six times because of her age, and that’s it. It’s her second-to-last eligible year, and she’s six among thousands. She has no reason to expect her own name when some girls in her class have their names in thirty, forty, fifty times - she brushes the nagging anxiety away for days leading up, finding comfort in the words of her family, in Adam, who’s on his last year and isn’t quite as lucky.

“Twenty-one times,” he says, but he’s still scowling. “Could be worse. But it’s still a flawed system. The poorer you are, the less value your life has. Here in Twelve? The Capitol doesn’t even think of us as people.”

Blake’s heard this speech a thousand times, but she hasn’t shared the hardest of his experiences and so she doesn’t stop him. “But what do you want to do, Adam?” she asks. “We can’t do anything. We can barely survive.”

She doesn’t miss the brief, scornful look in his eyes before he masks it with fire. She’s survived easier than he has, with her father as the Mayor, but it hasn’t been easy for any of them. “You’re right,” he says, though his tone’s taken on an odd, darkly thoughtful quality. “We can’t. But victors…” he trails off, shredding a loose leaf in his hand, strip by strip. “If I were a victor, I might.”

–

“Blake Belladonna!”

She rewatches the scene from third-person, as if it’s a dream she’s having, only it’s happening a split second after inside of her own skull. The perfectly manicured hand of their escort dipping a hand into the jar and pulling the crisp, white slip of paper with Blake’s name on it caught between her fingers. Her hazy, disoriented walk to the steps, the hem of her dress batting against her ankles. She’s not there. She’s in the Capitol, watching herself called to the death and starting, already, to murmur about her odds.

But Adam. She sees Adam perfectly.

Sees him step forward to volunteer for a boy whose name Blake doesn’t even know. Sees the crowd shifting uncomfortably, uncertain what to make of the move. Sees some of them clutching their hearts, some of them shaking their heads. And she sees Adam, unable to hide the victorious smirk in the corner of his mouth.

–

“I’m so sorry, Blake,” her father says, his hand on her shoulder as her mother embraces her, weeping. “I never wanted this for you. For any of us.”

If so many people don’t want this, Blake thinks numbly, why do we still have it?

–

Their mentor’s a woman named Sienna Kahn, now in her early thirties after having won her Games at fifteen. She’s tough, hard around the edges, as Blake imagines anyone would be who’s watched countless children die under their watch. Blake doesn’t understand, but she understands - Sienna doesn’t want to get attached.

She and Adam barely speak - her silence falls to the fact that she’s on her way to her own murder. But Adam’s?

Well, she’s seen this quiet intensity from him before. And he’s making plans.

–

There’s more to work with than Sienna thinks there is: for one, she and Adam both know their way around a sword, and she’s no stranger hitting a target with a knife. Teenage boredom, she says when Sienna asks, and despite the doubt, she doesn’t push it further.

I wanted to help people, is the real answer. When I saw how Adam had been treated, I wanted to help. And then I saw how many people were like him, I wanted to do more than that.

“Your father’s a good man,” Sienna says instead, arms crossed over her body. She’s holding a far-off look in her eye, and instantly Blake knows she’s being told information specifically because Sienna thinks she won’t be alive to repeat it later. “He fought for people the only way he could, and I’m sure he almost died for it. I thought he wasn’t doing enough, back then. But I get it now.” She fixates her gaze on Blake again, solidly in the present, still on the same train car to a mass grave. “What do you have to fight for, Blake?”

Adam’s listening for her answer, and she says the only thing she’s thought since her name was called the day before. “Honestly? I don’t know why we’re fighting at all.”

A smile works its way to the edge of Sienna’s mouth, but it isn’t happy. It’s full of regret. “Yeah,” she says. “I used to think like that, too.”

–

They watch the other reapings. There’s a pair of volunteers from One who seem like they come as a set, with equally stupid names: Emerald and Mercury. Then she only really remembers the girl from two, who looks fourteen and innocent, but Blake knows better. The red-headed girl from three, who stands tall. A girl from five, missing an eye. A large boy from eight.

But the one reaping that sticks in her mind from the minute she sees it is the reaping from Four.

A girl’s name is called, and there’s a brief bout of hysteria from the crowd while a girl with long, blonde hair tugs her back and volunteers in her place. The younger girl just screams, but the older girl - Yang - just stands on the stage, slowly putting herself back together. It’s like Blake can see it happening - see her locking her heart away. Putting all that love she has for her sister somewhere it can’t be used against her.

“Pathetic,” Adam murmurs, because he hates weakness. He’s proud to see himself volunteer, steady and confident. “To protect you, of course,” he clarifies, and nothing’s ever been further from the truth.

Strangely, all Blake can comprehend is that she’s looking forward to tomorrow - getting to see Yang in person.

–

Their outfits are stunning, as is their debut. They have a compelling story: the mayor’s daughter from Twelve and the boy determined to keep her alive. It’s a television show, Sienna says. It’s about the narrative.

Blake finds that flash of blonde hair in the crowd. She thinks she sees seashells winding their way down a braid, and a net is woven to create some sort of dress. Yang clearly hates it, but she says something to the boy from her district, and he laughs.

Laughter isn’t a simple thing to come by in the Hunger Games. She decides, for no reason at all, that she likes Yang.

–

After the parade of horses, their team is riding on a high; she’s kept herself grounded, though, unwilling to entertain any ideas of survival. She’s walking to the elevator when she swears she catches Yang staring at her, but she blinks and she’s only met with Yang’s profile, her chin dropped and her eyes averted down.

–

Yang is a mystery in the training room. She spends most of her time at the wildlife stations, learning to tie knots, painting patterns, identifying poisonous plants. She never spars, or uses any of the weapons, really, but she lifts weights, punches a bag around a bit. Blake can tell everyone’s set on edge by her presence, not able to tell the extent of her power, skill, ability. It’s uncommon to hide that sort of thing during training, but her muscles tell their own story. There’s more to her than she’s allowing them to see.

That doesn’t stop Blake from watching her, though. From cataloguing where she spends her time and how it allows her to feel. She’s not as guarded as the rest of them - she seems to like making traps, because she gains this look of concentration as she follows along with the instructor, knotting rope around her fingers. She spends a little bit of time with the boy from her district, and almost against his will, he appears slightly enamored with her. In fact, a lot of them do, though they try to hide it. Blake isn’t the only one who watches her.

She’s so absorbed with the state of affairs that she doesn’t notice who isn’t, but she does notice there’s an energy between her and Adam that wasn’t palpable before, and now it seems to be coating the room.

“Thinking about allies, Blake?” he says over dinner, light enough to pass as a joke but sinister enough to be a threat.

“No,” Blake says, because she’s only thinking about the quickest way to die.

She hopes she can at least see Yang, wherever she is when it happens.

–

Her knife sinks directly into the red dot, signaling a bulleye on their human-shaped target. She’s not paying attention to the show she’s putting on; all she’s really doing is daydreaming while she idly throws knives. It helps her think. Gives her clarity.

They’re easy to flick. Most people don’t understand the wrist movement, the finesse - they tie it to strength, rather than purpose. That’s why Blake’s so good at it; she’s about precision, not power. That’d always been Adam.

Someone is watching her. Actually, as she comes back into herself, many people are watching her, but only one she cares about: Yang, back at the trap station, staring unfettered.

Blake abruptly puts her knives down. The worst part of the Hunger Games, she’s starting to understand, aren’t the games themselves. That’s going to awaken survival instincts, desperation for life - primal, unhindered urges. No, no, the worst part of the Games is now, these few days before, when they’re taken care of so exquisitely, when shiny, beautiful things are dangled in front of them and cruelly ripped away.

“Why?” she can’t resist asking, kneeling beside Yang. “Why did you do it?”

Yang’s eyes haven’t left her, but her fingers stall around the rope, as if surprised by the question. She examines Blake with a strange intensity, but an openness Blake still isn’t used to from any other tribute. Everyone’s either closed off or showing off, genuinity nowhere to be found. Except perhaps the redhead from Three. Pyrrha. She’s been spending some time teaching a much smaller, younger boy how to throw a spear. He doesn’t stand a chance, but Pyrrha must know that.

“Don’t you have someone?” Yang says, drops her gaze back to the knot. “Someone you’d die for?”

Her parents. Her friends. Adam. “No,” Blake admits honestly. “Nobody.” There are no cameras yet. No one to hurt with the admission. Adam had called her selfish, once; maybe he’d been right.

But Yang laughs, once and under her breath. “Maybe you’re better off that way,” Yang says, not unkindly. Her smile’s sad and quiet; whatever memories rise, they’re memories for her to cherish one last time. That’s how all memories feel these days. “My sister is my life.”

“She’s lucky to have you,” Blake says, captivated by every word out of Yang’s mouth; how real she sounds. There’s no show; she’s not aiming to impress, or grasping at pity. She’s here because of a choice she made, and she’ll live and die with that. Blake wonders what that’s like: to have a choice. “Not many people would do what you did.”

“Well, what about you, Belladonna?” Yang questions, sitting up a little straighter, expression a sliding door that suddenly gives way to teasing. There’s a tone underneath, though - heavy - like a lingering doubt. “The guy who volunteered for you. To protect you, right?”

She’s close - she’s kept her volume low. She’s not stupid. She’s playing this conversation with an angle, but it isn’t for her own benefit.

Blake turns her head, locks onto Adam’s hand clenched around the grip of his sword, lunging strikes at a dummy. She feels the familiar uncurling of fear in her stomach, a dark and massive shape lingering just below. Ominous and foreboding.

“Yeah,” Blake says, and looks away. “He did.”

Picking up on her discomfort isn’t hard, and it isn’t something she’s actively tried to mask; Yang pauses strangely, gaze flickering between them. She infers, “It’s not a good thing, is it.” And trains her focus on Blake again. “It’s not good that he’s here.”

“I don’t know,” Blake admits. “He - I don’t know. Maybe I’m being paranoid.”

“Maybe you aren’t.”

“He wants me to believe it is,” she says finally. “He told me all he wants is to see me safe.”

“And you think he’s lying?” Yang asks, like a story she’s invested in, though Blake isn’t quite sure why.

“I think,” Blake starts, and at last puts into words what exactly has haunted her since the reaping days earlier, “that Adam wants to win, and he thinks he can use me to do that. Use my loyalty to him.”

The knot effortlessly tightens and unravels between Yang’s fingers. It seems to be an unconscious habit, and one she’s better at than her hours at the station might’ve led them to believe. “Hm,” she says, poking her tongue against the inside of her cheek. “You’re good with those knives, that’s for sure. It makes sense that he’d rather have you as an ally than an enemy - help him take out all the threats, and take you out himself.”

“Perceptive,” Blake says, impressed despite her dawning horror; she’d been so good at pushing it down, at talking herself out of circles, at trusting him despite the signs. In one conversation, Yang’s forced her to undo all that. She echoes Yang’s earlier words to her. Maybe it’s for the best.

“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Yang says, and subtly jerks her head in his direction. “With how purposefully he’s showing off his swordplay, I’m amazed he even remembers you exist.” She rolls her eyes. “Men.”

And Blake laughs. Like Yang’s district partner at the parade. It’s accidental, and nearly shocking in its sincerity, but she laughs anyway. She doesn’t have a choice. “Men,” she agrees, and Yang laughs too.

That’s the first time Blake thinks about living.

–

The first time Yang thinks about dying - dying willingly - is their final day in the training center.

Blake Belladonna, beautiful and clever and entirely obvious to everyone but herself, locates her at the camouflage station, attempting to blend her hand into a sandy coastline. She stares quizzically down at the pattern, eyebrows knitting together, and Yang makes the connection with a laugh. “You’ve never seen the ocean.”

“No.” Blake shakes her head. “What’s it like?”

“Well, I’m no artist,” Yang says, wiggling her fingers, “but kinda like this. Blue, green, boundless - sometimes I think about just diving in the water and swimming as far as I can. Swimming away.” She adds, “Salty.”

And then Blake reaches for a paintbrush, deliberately dragging her fingers along the back of Yang’s hand, leaving streaks of blue paint. She pauses; Yang keeps breathing, but it’s a struggle. She says, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Yang says.

“Don’t die.” She takes the brush, and swirls it into the yellow paint. “Don’t give up.”

“Why do you care what happens to me?” Yang asks, almost unnerved at the sentiment, fighting against the way it makes her want to cry. Her skin feels raw where Blake had touched her, and the marks remain.

“Because,” Blake says softly, “I think you deserve better than this.”

“I think we all do,” Yang counters, flaring up - it’s not just me, she wants to say. You deserve better. You. There are so few beautiful things left. You.

“But the rest of us aren’t here because there’s someone we care enough about to protect.” Blake lets it hang between them. “You’re a good person, Yang. Anyone can tell that much.”

Yang’d never understood the Capitol and its fascination with tattoos as a statement. Now she stares at the blue streaks across the back of her hand, and wonders about wearing it forever.

She’d die, she thinks. She’d die for Blake, too.

–

She spars for the first and last time after that, and one of her blows sends the trainer flying off the practice area and into the concrete, knocking him unconscious.

But she sweats the paint off, and finds without it, it’s a little easier to breathe.

–

Their scores aren’t surprising. Adam pulls a nine. Blake gets a ten - Adam pretends to be happy for her, but she sees that facade cracking instantly.

Yang gets an eleven.

“Her?” Adam spits out, clearly infuriated. He’s already seeing red.

“She’s a genius,” Sienna says at the revelation, shocking Adam into silence. “You’re good with a weapon, Adam, and anyone will give you that. But unarmed? You’re nothing.” She jerks her head towards the blonde girl on-screen. “You can’t disarm her. She’ll kill you with her bare hands.”

“Her?” Adam snarls. “If she gets within my line of sight, she’s–”

“You think she doesn’t know how to dodge a sword?” she asks, and Adam bristles once again with no response. “Do you truly believe a girl whose primary skill is hand-to-hand combat doesn’t know how to evade an attack? You’re a fool if you cast her aside as a threat, Adam. She’s the most dangerous one here.”

Blake stares blankly at her picture, wondering if it’s intelligence, if it’s determination, passion, will. Wonders if Yang’s trained for this, if she’s excited, if she’s terrified. Wonders if it’s all just luck, a mixed bag of rot and gold.

But Blake recalls the tapes of the reapings, across every district, and she remembers none of them as clearly as she remembers Yang’s - not even her own. Yang’s; a reaping that wasn’t supposed to be hers at all.

Ruby! Ruby! No!

Armed guards in white holding her back, or trying to, but being no match for her strength.

I volunteer! She hears Yang’s scream in her mind, even now, days later, sees her pushing her way to the platform. I volunteer as tribute!

Or, Blake thinks, maybe it’s just what she’s always done to survive.

–

Blake’s tactic, they’d decided, is mysterious and alluring: she’s to answer her interview in short, vague answers, and smile as though she’s hiding something. It’s not hard. She’s hiding so much from herself already that it barely even feels like a tactic.

Yang goes for sexy and powerful, and she doesn’t even have to try. People in the audience are literally fanning themselves as she’s interviewed. She looks stunning in her dress, her heels, red-lipped and eyes that seem to match underneath the stage lights.

“I just want my sister to know I love her,” she says at the end, a calculated vulnerability that makes every citizen watching want her even more, moaning about how strong and brave she is, protecting her younger sister like that.

“She makes me sick,” Adam says, face warped with hatred, and suddenly, it isn’t her own safety she’s worried for.

–

It’s a diversion. Confuse Adam, make him scramble for a new plan, make him rethink his strategy. Because Yang had been right, and Blake’s instincts had been, too: he wants to win. And when you want to win, everyone else is a target.

So during her interview, she confesses, “I know I can win. But I’ve met someone here who I’d really like to keep alive, even more than that.”

The interviewer goes insane. “Another tribute?” he says. “You’ve met someone here?”

Blake shrugs, pretending to be coy. “That’s all I’ll say on the matter.”

He groans, begs her for details, and she says next to nothing, but the audience eats it up - she sees the camera focus on her as the show closes, hoping to catch her eyes flickering to another tribute. She stares straight ahead, speaking to no one until they’re backstage.

“Adam, not now,” Sienna says immediately, pointing him to the elevator. “Go upstairs. We’ll meet you there.” He grits his teeth, but does as he’s told. Sienna turns on her. “What the hell was that?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Blake says lowly, “and neither are you. We both know what Adam’s plan is. Or was.”

It’s a statement that forces Sienna into a corner, and she relents after a few seconds of the two of them staring each other down. “You’ll be his first target now, not his last,” she says. “You know that, right?”

“It doesn’t matter the order,” Blake says, brushing by her to the elevator. “I’ve been number one on his list for a long, long time. But I’m not playing the Games on his terms anymore.”

“Well, you’ve given them a hell of a narrative,” Sienna says, following her, reluctantly impressed. “The whole Capitol’s dying to know who your lucky love interest could be, since it’s not him.”

Yang shoves her arm through the elevator door just as it’s about to close. “Mind if I catch a ride?” she asks, stepping inside, her heels held in her hand.

So, maybe Blake should’ve thought through her plan, because at the moment, Yang’s a foot away from her and absolutely the most beautiful girl Blake’s ever seen in her life, and her story for the cameras turns out to be more true than she’d meant it to be.

“Oh, it’s you,” Sienna says, throwing up her hands. Apparently Blake’s staring is noticeable. “Of course it is. Blake, you’re on your own.”

“No, she’s not,” Yang murmurs, and brushes her fingers against Blake’s, hanging between them. “She’s got me.”

–

There’s a vibrancy to her when she disembarks, an urgency to her mouth. Find me, she says, leaning close, grasping Blake’s hand. Find me in the arena. Or I’ll find you. Okay?

“Why?” Blake asks again, unable to comprehend anything Yang does or says, unable to reconcile the motivation behind it.

“Because I want you alive,” she says, and lets go. “I want you to live.”

You’re insane, Blake wants to say. None of us will live except one. And out of all of us, it should be you.

But the next morning, standing on the platform, she finds Yang three spaces down from her, and their eyes meet as if by gravitational pull.

Find me, Yang mouths, and the cannons blast.

[justlookfrightened]

4, 5, or 35 ? Because I’m indecisive as hell and love your writing.

From this prompt list: 4. “If I die, I’m haunting you first.”; 5. “But I’ve never told you that before.” ; and 35.  “Oh honey, I’d never be jealous of you.”

Bitty played hockey and Samwell and went on to be a cookbook author; Jack went directly into the NHL.

Bitty’s eyes traveled up the the shelves of the cupboard, wondering what ingredients he could reasonably expect someone who did not cook or bake for a living to have.

Flour, of course, if they were volunteering to be on a baking show. Most likely all purpose. Sugar (white) and salt (iodized). Butter. Maybe they usually used margarine, but Bitty would not compromise on that. Butter surely counted as a common ingredient. Shortening, too.

What about spices? Most people probably had cinnamon in their cabinets, even if it was twelve years old and devoid of flavor. Would nutmeg or allspice be too much? Maybe.

And this contestant had requested a fruit pie. If they were going for common ingredients, that would most likely mean apple. Apples were nearly always plentiful and cheap at supermarkets, so if this pie was going to use fresh fruit (and it was), it would be apple.

*

Bitty had misgivings about appearing on “So You Think You Can Bake,” the new Food Network show that pitted expert bakers against celebrities. The idea was that the expert would develop a recipe they thought was suitable for an inexperienced home cook.

Then the expert and the celebrity would both make the dish in separate kitchens while being filmed. 

The expert baker and celebrity contestant would have their creations scored anonymously. If the celebrity chef received at least eighty percent of the score of the celebrity baker, they won money for the baker to keep and the celebrity to donate to charity. Total scores counted toward the final competition at season’s end, when the three best pairs would be brought back for the final, competing for a $50,0000 prize.

There were so many things that could go wrong. Bitty could get paired with a celebrity chef with no palate, or no coordination, or even no real interest in winning. Some people could mess up a perfectly good recipe by not measuring accurately, or doing steps in the wrong order, or even mistaking the salt for the sugar. If the celebrity chef messed up, it wouldn’t just look bad for them. It would throw shade on Bitty, whose job, after all, was to explain how to bake in a way that people would understand. Relatable was his brand.

But Eileen, the PR rep who handled his books for the publishing house, thought it would be a good idea.

“This show is literally made for you,” she said. “And the exposure would be great. Think of the campaign for your next book.”

So Bitty agreed. Then he found out who his assigned celebrity was.

“A hockey player?” Bitty asked. “Whose only memorable sound bite is ‘Eat more protein’? Which did not go viral for the reasons he thinks it did. I mean, I wasn’t expecting Beyonce, or even Taylor Swift, but why not a Kacey Musgraves?”

Bitty wasn’t at all bitter that, at 24, he no longer had regular access to an ice rink. He could pay to rent ice to figure skate, but it was hard to find the motivation since he was no longer in competition, and he hadn’t yet found a men’s league hockey team where he felt comfortable.

“I know Jack Zimmermann isn’t who most people think of as a home cook,” Eileen said. “But the producers were thrilled. They think he’ll bring on a whole new demographic.”

“How’d they rope him into it anyway?” Bitty asked, scrolling through interview after interview with Jack talking saying, “We win and lose as a team,” and “We have to protect the neutral zone and get the puck down low,” and “We need to keep our feet moving and have a shoot-first mentality.”

It was like they taught him six phrases in media training and he used them over and over again, in random order.

He wasn’t hard to look at, Bitty would give him that. And the physique -- yeah, his nutrition plan was definitely protein-heavy. Why would he agree to do a baking show? 

*

“My agent said it would be a good idea,” Jack Zimmermann said when he and Bitty had their first meeting. “He said it would humanize me. Actually, he said it would be the beginning of an arc of character development I wasn’t expecting, but that’s just the way he is.”

The actual first meeting was in the green room, waiting to go on-set for the “first meeting” taping. Jack had been sitting in a chair along the wall when Bitty came in, reading an actual, honest-to-God book.

Bitty had to shove his phone in his pocket as he cleared his throat to get Jack’s attention. It seemed like Jack kept reading for a few seconds after he noticed Bitty, which was annoying, because the book would always be there, but Bitty was prepared to be gracious.

“Mr. Zimmermann? I’m Eric Bittle,” Bitty said. “We’re going to be working together. Pleased to meet you.”

“I know,” Jack said. 

Okay. 

“When we start the taping, I’m going to ask you about any experience you have baking, any favorite desserts, things you’ve always wanted to learn to make,” Bitty said. “Anything you want me to steer the conversation toward? Or stay away from?”

“Are we supposed to be doing this?” Jack said. “Talking, I mean.”

“Um, yes?” Bitty said. “It’s not like we’re concocting a fake story. We just want the on-camera talk to go smoothly. So have you baked before?”

“No.”

“Any favorite desserts?”

“I don’t really eat sweets.”

“Well, you’re going to have to eat something sweet,” Bitty said. “Anything you want to make?”

Jack shrugged.

“Honey, don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you here?” Bitty asked.

“Uh, you can call me Jack,” Jack said, then launched into his explanation about his agent, a man with the improbable name of John Johnson.

Bitty shook his head at that, and tried to keep the conversation going.

“You’re Canadian, right?” 

“Dual citizenship,” Jack said. “But I mostly grew up in Montreal.”

“Anything special from back home?”

Then the assistant came to bring them on the set, dressed to look like a home kitchen, each of them seated at a table with mugs in front of them. The mugs just held water, but the audience wouldn’t see that; it was supposed to look like two friends talking over coffee.

Bitty decided to pick up the conversation where he left off in the green room, since it was the only thing he hadn’t struck out on already.

“So, Jack, I understand you’re from Montreal. Do have any memories of classic desserts or baked goods from your childhood?”

Jack paused and looked like he was really thinking, like he didn’t want to disappoint the producers.

“We used to have tarte au sucre at the holidays,” he finally said. “I liked that.”

“Sugar pie?” Bitty said, thankful that at least the cooking terms had stuck from his college French class. “We could do something with that.”

“But I’d like to do something that has some healthy ingredients,” Jack had said. 

“Is fruit healthy enough?” Bitty asked. “Maybe a fruit pie? You might not know this, but that’s kind of my specialty.”

Jack had offered a smile at that, and said, “Good to know. Maybe we can win this thing, eh?”

The taping didn’t last long, and soon Bitty was collecting his things from the green room.

“Wait, Jack, I forgot to ask you, any allergies? I wouldn’t want to kill you for a silly TV show.”

“If I die, I’m haunting you first,” Jack said. “But no, no food allergies. Is there anything I should practice beforehand?”

“I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you that,” Bitty said, starting to feel like maybe Jack wasn’t as wooden as he’d seemed at first. He seemed to relax once the taping ended. Maybe this would be okay after all.

*

Bitty started by making an apple pie, trying to write down the steps as precisely as he could just as he did them.

It didn’t work.

Sure, he could measure and mix the dry ingredients for the crust, and tell Jack to make sure his butter and shortening were cold, but how could he explain the twisting motion for the pastry cutter? When he had to start by explaining what a pastry cutter was? 

And how would Jack know when he was done cutting and should add the ice water? Bitty had read recipes over the years saying the mixture should look like everything from rough crumbs to small peas … which were not the same thing by a long shot. Bitty had learned what it should look like at his MooMaw’s elbow; sure, he’d tried to put it into words in his cookbooks, but there was a reason he always included photos.

Jack had said he’d never baked. He wouldn’t know what it should look like.

Bitty called the producers to ask if he could include pictures in the recipe he developed for Jack.  The answer -- hand-drawn sketches were fine, as long he drew them himself, but no photographs -- was not encouraging.

Bitty started over and this time took a photograph of the dough mixture just before he added the water. He could use that  to write a description, he decided. Then he had to think about how to explain when the dough was wet enough.

Once he had the dough made, the process for making the filling was easier. Peel and slice apples, coat with flour and a little cinnamon and sugar -- and, a last-minute brainstorm for Canadian Jack, a little maple syrup -- and set aside. He toyed with the idea of including maple sugar for the crust, but the studio pantry probably didn’t have real maple sugar. He could boil some syrup down -- but that wasn’t something Jack could (or would) do, probably. Better to just do an egg wash and sprinkle some sugar on for the sparkle.

The instructions for rolling out the dough were simple enough, provided Jack followed them. That was the hard part. Most people couldn’t seem to leave well enough alone with pie dough.

Bitty moved to his laptop and wrote at the top of the instructions:

“A general note on making pie dough. Do less than you think you need to. Don’t work it too much. If you do, it will be tough. So if you’re not sure if you should stop messing with it, stop.”

Then he did his best to put into words what it should like with all the fats cut in (“If you don’t see any powdery flour, it’s probably good”) and with the ice water added (“It should be moist, not wet”).

Then he thought about the top. Normally, people thought of lattices as being hard to do. But if the baker was methodical and followed directions, it wasn’t so bad. And it would be easier to put strips on top of the pie than to pick up the whole top crust and put it on intact. It didn’t really matter if the bottom was a mess; this wasn’t the Great British Bake-Off with Mary Berry and her hatred of soggy bottoms. The pie would be served from the dish, and no one would know if the bottom crust was torn and mended as long it still tasted good.

So, a nice, tightly woven lattice for the top. Bitty set to drawing a detailed diagram.

*

Bitty printed the recipe he developed -- all ten pages -- to bring with him and hand to Jack. He’d already supplied it to the producers to make sure they agreed all the ingredients were things a home cook would have in their pantry, or at least have ready access to.

“Real maple syrup?” the production assistant had asked. “What about something like Pillsbury pancake syrup? That’s what most people use.”

“My baker is Canadian,” Bitty argued. “He’d have the real stuff.”

“Fine, I guess.”

Bitty was dressed for TV in dark skinny jeans, a light T-shirt and a Samwell red button-down over it with red Chuck Taylors. The provided apron, he knew, would be beige with a dark red logo.

Jack came in dressed in charcoal gray tailored slacks and a light blue shirt, almost exactly the same color as his eyes. Yeah, he was good-looking. Bitty wasn’t sure if he would bring in the sports-loving young men the producers were hoping for, but it wouldn’t matter. The women would love him. And the gay boys like him. But no one ever counted them as their own demographic.

When the got into the studio, Bitty handed over the recipe.

Jack’s eyes widened when he saw how long it was.

“Does this take all day?” he asked.

“I can do it in about two hours,” Bitty said. “Counting chilling and baking time.”

“You’ll have three hours to complete the challenge,” the host said. “As long as you finish in that time, any differential in how long it takes won’t count against you.

Jack nodded, a determined set to his jaw. Bitty was almost glad they would be separated so he didn’t have to worry about cutting himself on that jawline.

Then Bitty was escorted to his studio kitchen, where he proceeded to make a pie, narrating each step, just like he was making a vlog post.

He made sure to turn the top of the bowl to the camera when he was done cutting the fats in, and again when he added the water. 

“You see those streaks of butter and shortening?” he said, when he gathered the dough into disks to chill. “You want those to make flaky crust.”

He made sure to slice the apples evenly, and mix them gently with the flour and flavorings, then he rolled his dough out.

He clucked at himself -- but didn’t say anything -- when he realized he’d forgotten to tell Jack to make sure he had the thinnest possible layer of fat on his work surface before he scattered flour over it.

Then, once the pie was done, he actually slapped himself upside the head.

“I never said anything about covering the edges with foil at the beginning,” he said. “Poor guy is definitely gonna have burnt edges. Oh well.”

Bitty’s pie came out of the oven at the two-hour mark, and he donned oven mitts to be filmed carrying it into the judging room.

“You’ve got some time if you want to head to the green room relax,” the production assistant said. “Someone will come get you before Jack is ready to bring his pie in.”

Bitty flung himself onto the couch and groaned. He could have used the $5,000 prize from this stage of the competition to get ahead on his rent for a couple of months … and maybe even rent an ice rink for a couple of hours to clear his mind. He didn’t regret his choice of career -- writing cookbooks, running his vlog, making appearances like this -- but the money tended to come in fits and starts.

He realized he’d never even asked Jack what his charity was. The show must have asked him at some point, so Bitty was sure he’d find out eventually. He hoped Jack would donate to his chosen charity regardless. He could certainly afford it. The only real advantage for the charity to having Jack appear on the show was publicity. Well, and convincing people that straight, athletic young men could bake and enjoy it.

But Bitty forgot to tell him to use foil to guard the edges, so they probably wouldn’t advance, and it would all be Bitty’s fault. Jack -- he had to be competitive, right? -- well, it didn’t matter if hated Bitty. They hardly knew one another. 

*

“Eric? Jack’s pie is done. Time to go to the judging room.”

Bitty roused himself from the sofa, resigned to his fate. If nothing else, he’d learned a lesson.

He took his place behind his pie and waited for Jack and his pie with its inevitable burnt edges.

He was sitting there when Jack came in, carrying his beautiful golden brown pie aloft. Jack set it on the empty cooling rack next to Bitty’s and stepped back.

It was beautiful. The lattice was maybe not quite as straight, not quite as even as Bitty’s, but it was close.

Bitty couldn’t help a pleased grin, first at the pie, then at Jack, who had finished with fifteen minutes to spare.

“Okay, you two. We’re going to break for lunch while Jack’s pie cools,” the production assistant said. “We need you back in an hour in the same clothes, so don’t mess them up.”

Bitty was about to head out when Jack said, “Want to grab a sandwich? There’s a place down the block.”

“Sure,” Bitty said. “I have some questions for you.”

“And me for you,” Jack said.

Once they had their food and settled at a table, Bitty said, “How did you keep the edges from burning?”

“I made foil collars,” Jack said.

“But I’ve never told you that before,” Bitty said.

“You always do it on your YouTube channel,” Jack said.

“Wait … you’ve seen … but you said you’d never baked,” Bitty said. 

“I hadn’t,” Jack said. “That doesn’t mean I’ve never watched anyone else bake on YouTube. When Johnson said you were doing this, it seemed like a good opportunity to meet you.”

“To meet me?” Bitty really had to start thinking of some of his own words instead of just repeating Jack’s.

“Well, yeah,” Jack said. “Someone showed me your videos when you were at Samwell, and I was intrigued by a hockey player who baked. Made me wonder what it would have been like to be on a college team, or whether I’d develop any other interests.”

“Someone?”

Jack actually blushed. “My mother. She went to Samwell.”

It was almost a physical effort for Bitty to push that out of his head. Jack’s mother was … nope. Not going there.

“So you wanted to make pie because you’d see me make it before?” 

“A lot,” Jack said. “But the instructions were really helpful.”

“I thought we’d lost it when I realized I’d never said anything about the foil,” Bitty admitted.

“But I figured you could make a donation to your charity anyway.”

Jack nodded.

“I plan on adding to it even if we win,” he said. “What do you want to do with the money? Bitty was not going to tell Jack Zimmermann that he needed money to pay his rent. Not this unexpected Jack Zimmermann, who for some reason had been interested in Bitty for years. Despite, Bitty reminded himself, being straight. Almost certainly.

“Some of it will buy ice time,” he said. “I miss skating, you know? I used to figure skate before I played hockey.”

“I’m not sure what I’d do if I couldn’t skate every day,” Jack said. “Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t say that. Don’t want to make you jealous.”

“Oh honey, I’d never be jealous of you,” Bitty said. ”I have the job I want. I just want to be able to skate for fun. Like you want to bake for fun, I guess.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jack said. “It was pretty stressful. I kept wanting to make it perfect, but you said not to overwork it. But maybe it would be more fun if it wasn’t being recorded for TV.”

“Maybe we could bake together sometime?” Bitty said. 

“Then skate?” Jack suggested. “On our practice ice.”

“That would be really great,” Bitty said. “Ready to go back? By the way, you never said what your charity is.”

“You Can Play,” Jack said. “I’m thinking of coming out next year.”

[popatochisssp]

i heard gem backstories, am i too late for that?

Not at all!

Here’s what happened to the damaged and mysterious gems to bring them to their current state...

Horrorfells

Ruby wanted to join the Crystal Gems when Rose Quartz rebelled against Homeworld. He confided as much in Bixbite and tried to get him to come too...but Bixbite balked.

They argued over it but neither would budge and Ruby left for Earth alone while the most Bixbite could bring himself to do was facilitate and cover for his ‘escape.’ 

The regret sank in quickly, but by the time Bixbite acted on his second thoughts and turned around, defecting to join his brother... it was too late. The Diamonds had blasted the planet in the wake of Pink’s shattering and the war was over.

The...thing...he finds down on the planet’s surface... it bears his brother’s broken gem, but it isn’t Ruby anymore.

He’s devastated and consumed with guilt and lingers around the beast for several cycles, trying to figure out what to do; if there’s anything to be done.

Eventually, Bixbite decides to try and fuse with it. Best case scenario, he’ll find his brother in there somewhere and pull him back out of...this. Worst case scenario...

He won’t have to live with the guilt of it anymore.

The fusion falls apart quickly, as it often has before, but the attempt causes the corruption to spread to Bixbite too. They spend a few centuries lurking in the same general area of Earth, more creature than gem, until the start of Era 3 when corruption can be undone... at least, mostly undone.

Horrorswaps

Zircon was always inadequate at performing the duties of his caste. He got away with it for a long time, doing administrative (pearl) work to be useful, but in Era 2, after the War, that kind of thing didn’t really fly anymore.

He was informed that he was to be rejuvenated, in the hopes that his defect was purely psychological and he might perform better when all of that excess was wiped clean. He made an attempt to protest, but was ever-so-politely informed that the other proposed solution was to be scrapped and harvested to truly start from scratch, and... he went quietly after that.

Chalcedony knew none of this until it had all already happened, and when he encountered the empty, robotic shell of his brother, it was exactly the impetus he needed to do what he’d been thinking about doing for ages.

He defects.

He grabs Zircon and makes a daring escape, hindered by the fact that they’re pursued and that Zircon--remembering nothing--is actively resisting being kidnapped from his duties by a crazy quartz.

It’s not until they’re caught, Chalcedony pinned with a laser-sword coming down towards his chest (aimed right at his gem on the other side) and yelling for Zircon to run that memory comes rushing back.

Just barely too late.

Zircon reforms as himself, with only enough time to process the situation and hurl himself at their attacker, throwing off their aim. Chalcedony poofs as his body’s impaled, but the sword only scrapes along the curved surface of his gem instead of piercing right through and shattering it.

But that still leaves Zircon in a hell of a pickle, alone with a very angry gem whose mission had been interrupted.

They turn on him, swinging their sword and slicing cleanly through, poofing him instantly, and as his gem pieces clatter to the ground, they turn to finish their mission: destroying the renegade quartz.

What they didn’t know is that Chalcedony always reforms quickly. They certainly couldn’t have expected, even if they had known that, that he would even be able to reform with a damaged gem...but he did it.

Just barely too late.

At least Chalcedony has the drop on them this time and he hits hard, dissipating their form quickly and scooping up the two pieces of his brother’s gem before resuming their escape even more urgently than before.

He can’t really relax until Zircon manages to (mostly) reform, and the two of them decide to hide out on Earth, the last place any gem would go looking for them.

They’re damaged and incomplete, but still alive and that’s what matters!

Horrorswapfells

Topaz was left to guard the cell of a high profile criminal, newly captured. She tried to sway him to look the other way, to help her fake some kind of equipment malfunction and let her escape, for the good of the rebellion, for the good of gemkind... He stood strong and did his best to block her out, even though her rhetoric appealed to him very, very much.

But he made a thoughtless mistake.

He let her lure him too close to the energy field of the cell, and when he turned his back on her, the gem destabilizer on his hip was just far enough through for her to get a hold of.

He was poofed and by the time he managed to reform, the cell was broken open and empty and not even slamming the ship into lockdown was in time to keep her from well and truly escaping.

Rose Quartz was long gone, and the very next thing she does is go on to shatter Pink Diamond.

Topaz was on the hook for that very, very serious infraction.

...or at least, he would’ve been, had Crazy Lace Agate not stepped up and taken full responsibility for the screw-up, serenely submitting himself for whatever punishment was deemed necessary.

To Topaz’s horror, his brother is shattered before his eye-sockets, for his mistake.

He’s mostly blacked out what happened after, rushing forward and poofing anyone that tried to stop him from getting to Crazy Lace’s shards, frantically scooping them up and bubbling them before making a break for an escape pod.

He sets a course for Earth, figuring at least no one would go looking for him them there, and sets about trying to rearrange his brother’s pieces, like the universe’s most gruesome puzzle.

He doesn’t know what purpose this will serve. It’s stupid, he has no way of truly fusing the shards back together... his brother is gone, he’s dead, he’s dead and it’s his fault-- But...it gives him something to do to keep from falling apart and to not have to acknowledge what’s happening. And maybe if he can put the pieces back together, if he can rebuild his brother’s gem with all the shards arranged exactly how they’re supposed to be... maybe.........

Topaz is on Earth by the time he manages to finish the puzzle--which is where he is when he realizes that a single tiny sliver is missing, left behind lightyears away and undoubtedly destroyed and recycled as Homeworld’s always done with gem remains.

Topaz breaks, the grief and pain hitting him all at once so hard that his physical form poofs instantly even though the damage is only psychological. He goes inert, retreating into his gem and refusing to reform, not wanting to face the world anymore and finding it too painful to try.

(Their gems are both found much, much later, well into Era 3, by Rose Quartz’s son of all people. Crazy Lace is healed and manages to reform, even without his missing piece, and then begins the process of coaxing his brother back out of his unharmed gem.)

Gastertales

There was once a Chrysoberyl, a Kindergartener who defied authority--letting excessively defective gems slip through the cracks, selectively obeying orders, and otherwise doing and being everything someone who makes gems for the Empire should not be.

When no amount of censuring, punishment, and even rejuvenations were enough to bring him in line, he was hauled in for a more final solution.

Except...

He was a very well-made gem, in spite of his behavioral defects, else they’d have just shattered him from the start.

No, they’d really like to be able to get something out of this gem, when so many resources had gone into his creation.

He’s ‘volunteered’ for an experiment, one that has a high chance of mortality, and even if it’s successful, no one has any idea what will happen or if he’ll ever be the same.

Chrysoberyl’s gem is cleaved: cut cleanly, exactly in half with precision equipment to avoid any other damage.

The test is to see if either of the halves will reform; if they can reform and if they do, what state they’ll be in, if they’ll retain any memories of their old form, if they’ll be able to perform the same functions as they did before...

In short, is this a feasible procedure?

This information, or at least the gist of it, is what one of the Chrysoberyl twins discovers in his covert digging into hidden and restricted files, and the reason his very next act is to advise his brother that they had best get the hell out of here, away from the gems monitoring this horrible, fucked up experiment.

In the end, when the two of them make a clean getaway, the experiment is marked as a failure: the escape could be indicative of potential memory retention, and even if not, the behavioral issues were obviously not cleared from either half of the cleaved gem.

Now, there’s two problem Chrysoberyls on the loose, defying Homeworld’s authority.

Definitely a failure.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Stormlight Archive Character Thoughts - Moash

This is a follow-up to my previous post on Words of Radiance, and traces Moash’s arc in Oathbringer and Rhythm of War. So, Rhythm of War spoilers!

Moash realizes almost immediately that he’s made the wrong decision, both in terms of what he’s thrown away and who he’s given his trust and loyalty to. He misses Rock’s stew. He misses the companionship of Bridge 4. Graves isn’t as “refined” as he seemed on first acquaintance and doesn’t have any strength of character when the chips are down - a constant reminder, by contrast, of Kaladin, who showed determination and leadership under the worst possible circumstances. Moash hates himself, and is miserable at the thought of the trust and friendship he’s thrown away:

Moash sagged, patch in his fingers. He should throw that thing into the fire.

Storms. He should throw himself into the fire.

(It’s a storming campfire, Mo, you’re not going to be pulling a Maedhros here. You’d just get some burns and make a mess.)

And then the Fused show up and his companions are suddenly dead in an instant. His Shardplate and Shardblade are useless to him. Everything he still had remaining from his choice is gone. And what he has left is his training, from Kaladin. Kaldin’s all over the page here; through the whole fight, Moash is thinking about what he learned from him. And he uses that training to kill a Fused. And then he identifies himself as Bridge Four.

(I think this is part of the reason the hatred for Moash is so strong. Every chapter in this 5-chapter mini-arc ends with a moment that could be the starting point for Moash to turn around, to make better choices. We’re constantly being reminded that the possibility is there, the potential is there. And he never does.)

At this precise point, I think there’s actually a chance that Moash would have made his way back to Bridge Four if the Fused had left him there in the Frostlands, but instead they carry him off to Alethkar. (He’s still thinking about Kaladin. The Kaladin-obsession doesn’t come out of nowhere in ROW, it’s here all along.) He’s also still regretting his choice to betray Bridge Four, and despising himself for it. (Well, Bridge Four had been a special case [in being a place where he found acceptance], and he’d failed that test. And I threw it all away. Why do I always do that?) But he’s not seeing it as a wrong decision, something where his regret can push him to change, to do better. He’s seeing it as a fundamental characteristic of who he is.

The next stage of his downward spiral is generalizing from “I’m just screwed-up and unfixable” to “Humans are just screwed-up and unfixable.) He’s doing it even before he encounters Highlord Paladar: Why must we always take some precious, Guff, and find ourselves hating it? As if by being being pure, it reminds us of just how little we deserve it. But the attitude calcifies with the realization that Alethi social hierarchies have survived even occupation and enslavement: He wasn’t broken. All of them were broken. Alethi society - lighteyed and dark. Maybe all of humankind.

This is not, at its heart, a political realization. It’s personal and emotional: when you’ve already decided you’re an inherently broken, contemptible person, it’s soothing to have company by deciding that, at least, so is everyone else. At this point, he’s still willing for Kaladin to be a rare exception. By Rhythm of War, that’s no longer the case - he needs Kaladin to validate his choice to give up by doing the same thing. (As another deep irony of Moash’s arc - seriously, he’s the dark mirror to so many people - Teft is also deeply self-loathing and self-sabotaging, but lets people help him out of that, keeps fighting, and refuses to let that be the end of his journey. Moash simply accepts it as who he is, and then - to disperse the guilt - as who everyone is. Likewise, it’s the dark mirror of Dalinar’s Always the next step. You can do wrong, and then accept there’s no other path and that’s who you are now, as Moash does, or you can choose to keep trying, to grow, to be better.)

And so Moash accepts his friend being beaten as just the way the world works. He sees injustice. He doesn’t try to stop it, because to him it’s inevitable. But underneath this numb acceptance, he still hates himself for it, and volunteers for hard labour. This continues to be a habit for him, into Rhythm of War; even when Odium is keeping back his emotions, it remains a way to express the self-loathing he can no longer consciously acknowledge.

Moash’s days pulling the sledge are the seed of his later actions in other ways, too. It felt good to be told what to do. Not to have to think, not to have to choose, and to be able to tell himself - or be told, it feels like this is the moment Odium starts talking to him - that his betrayal (which he’s now moved to eliding simply as what happened at the Shattered Plains) wasn’t his fault. (The thought I was pushed into it is an obvious lie - he jumped at the chance to be part of the assassination.) And turning away from independent though to blind obedience, and from remorse to rejection of guilt or resposibility, is the path Moash ultimately takes when he joins Odium and gives up his emotions.

And I think this is also why he resists the mistreatment of the singers who Kaladin helped - as long as he can tell himself that the Singers/Fused are better than humans, he can obey them without having to think. Seeing them beat their own people, in a way that specifically reminds him of the treatment of Bridge Four, breaks through that; he has to stop it, lest the whole mental barrier, the decision to regard the Fused as morally superior, come tumbling down. It’s positive action, but in service to his ability to maintain longer-term apathy and inaction. And that apathy and surrender to the idea of the Fused as superior is then strong enough to survive even the realization that they’re treating him exactly like a bridgeman again.

By the last chapter in Moash’s Oathbringer Part 2 mini-arc, Odium is very clearly talking to him, urging him to give up the guilt he still feels over betraying Kaladin, to tell himself that it’s not his fault; a voice that Moash gives in to. He asks the Fused for vengeance, but it’s all wrapped up in this need to not feel guilt, the need to either deflect blame or to justify his actions to himself; and killing Elhokar doesn’t make him feel any better.

I don’t think the Bridge Four salute he gave Kaladin after killing Elhokar was villainous gloating. I think, in a twisted way, it was sincere - he’d talked himself into thinking that Elhokar’s death, that vengeance, was something Kaladin would want (or at least, should want) as well, but couldn’t bring himself to countenance - so Moash did it for him. For both of them. Roshone likewise, in ROW.

So in summary, Moash’s motivations, choices, and non-choices in the Oathbringer mini-arc are the foundation for all his later actions. 1) Renouncing responsibility. He goes from feeling guilty about his betrayal of Bridge 4 and about throwing away the chance they represented; to regarding the choice as inevitable because he’s fundamentally broken; to regarding all humanity as fundamentally broken, so what he did wasn’t anything unusual; to telling himself (or accepting Odium’s telling) that it wasn’t his fault and he was pushed into it, whuch is patently false; to giving up his emotions to Odium entirely so he doesn’t have to feel guilt. 2) Renouncing choice. From ‘Rhythm of Work’ (Chapter 48) onwards, Moash enjoys being told what to do, not having to think, not having to make decisions; this is what produces his killing of Jezrien, which he does without even caring about it. It’s likely founded in the middle part of his guilt-to-rationalization spiral, the belief that making bad choices is just who he is (therefore it’s better if someone else makes them for him). And it drives his entire arc in Rhythm of War, where he flees from Renarin’s vision of the good person he could still choose to be, and desperately needs Kaladin to make the same choice he did - giving up - so that he can tell himself it’s the only choice possible.

This is particularly striking because I would sum of the key themes of Oathbringer as responsibility and redemption (Dalinar, obviously; Szeth, starting on the path of thinking for himself and being responsible for his choices; Elhokar, recognizing his failures and seeking to do better; Teft, letting himself rise from the morass of self-hatred to become a Radiant) and one of the key themes of Rhythm of War as choice (Maya’s “WE CHOSE” and Kaladin’s vision of Tien both reinforcing that volition is important, and one shouldn’t deny a person’s choice of self-sacrifice by treating them as just a victim; similiarly, the common people in Urithiru choosing to support Kaladin; Venli choosing to confess her actions, do better, reveal herself as a Radiant, and return to her people, despite her fear; and Kaladin’s choice to keep trying, keep fighting, in the face of despair and hopeless odds). Moash is the counterpoint to both these themes - the anti-Radiant.

The final thing I’m going for in this essay is to emphasize that, to me, Moash is a complex and interesting character whose arc has excellent resonances with many other characters’ arcs. I could be happy with an ending in which he is redeemed, unlikely as that appears (my favoured starting point is are Taravodium - whose personality is very different from Rayse - seeing him as too much of a flat villain for T’s purposes, and casting him off; meaning that Moash would have his emotions and guilt back in full force, and be blind on top of that, and have to decide what to do with himself). I could be happy with an ending in which he isn’t redeemed - as noted, his arc is a dark inverse not only of many other characters’, but of the central themes of the books, and could well continue on that path. But it can be frustratingly simplistic to see the character only discussed in the form of a one-line meme.

[jangmi-latte]

❞𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞... ❝

➻ content: cute little hedgehogs and a pouty dorm leader!

➻ warnings: extra diabetes!

➻ comments: diamond and clover..good job..

➵ this has actually been in my fridge for quite a while now, might as well cook it. this was supposed to be my first meal but, i must admit i got lazy. well here you go! a baby riddle!

It was Saturday. Saturday morning, to be precise. The students could finally rest and calm down from the tons of requirements the teachers would always bombard them with. Except, Heartslabyul. The dormitory founded on the severity of the queen was not having the rest they wanted.

Especially Riddle.

The wailing redheaded boy was having a tantrum in Trey's arms, the taller male bouncing the younger as he waited for Cater with those tarts. Somehow, the strict dorm leader had turned into a toddler. The cause? A simple error during alchemy class.

Floyd has broke a vile of an unfinished potion which sent the liquid to fly everywhere. Mostly hitting Riddle at some point. Everyone was unaffected, yet Crewel was having doubts unto why there wasn't any outcome from the potion.

Until Trey went to Riddle's room, worrying since Riddle does not usual get up this late in the morning. Hence, seeing the naked little baby that now replaced the prefect's bed.

"Shhhh... It's okay,” soothed the obviously worried Trey.

He has taken care of his younger siblings before, surely this isn’t a hard task. He has gotten small clothes and dressed him up in a pajama onesie. Yet, he was wrong. Riddle isn’t calming down at all. They tried giving him toys–probably all came from Sam’s shop along with the clothes–yet he just threw them away. Ace made it worst by pinching the young boy’s cheeks and teasing him a lot. That’s how Trappola ended up kicked out from the dorm again. Deuce volunteered on alerting Professor Divus about what happened and he hasn’t come back yet.

Just luckily enough, Riddle’s magic hasn’t gone bonkers. 

“Let’s head outside.” The vice prefect picked up a ball to keep Riddle distracted before heading outside to the Rose Maze. Students stared in either in awe, surprise, or just simply stared dumbfounded at the sight of Riddle. Yes, he was adorable indeed.

Upon arriving at the Rose Maze, little Riddle was placed on a blanket, that Trey had some students lay out for him, still whimpering and hiccuping from his small tantrum, “Agh...” Trey scratched the back of his head before sitting beside him. Riddle was looking around with those big teary eyes of him, as if he was getting accustomed to new surroundings. The taller male sighed and wiped the toddler’s wet cheeks, “What am I supposed to do now?” he mumbled to himself as he looked around the maze.

At least Riddle had calmed down now. All was heard from him were little hiccups, sniffles, and...giggling. Trey looked over and the sight made him smile and chuckle. A hedgehog has found its way to the blanket and Riddle finally found a small playmate. The pink hedgehog waddled around him while he clapped his hands and giggled loudly. He looked so happy. His small chubby hands carried the hedgehog, cooing and babbling to it like he was trying to say something.

Then a click of a camera was heard.

“Awwww!” Cater cooed as he gave Trey the box of tarts before crawling over to Riddle. This boy is WAY different from the Riddle they all knew. Cute, giggly, cuddly, you name it, that was this Riddle, “You–” Cater carried the young boy and placed him on his lap, took the hedgehog in the other as it squirmed, “are so cute! Though I do hope you don’t remember all of this. I don’t want my head chopped off,” chuckled the third year.

Riddle whined as his eyes stayed glued on the little creature on Cater’s palms. He made grabby hands while babbling, “Hedgie...!” he babbled and kicked his legs around. Cater’s lips formed into an ‘o’ before handing the hedgehog to the little kid, though still keeping a hold of it. Riddle was back to his happy little self again as he patted the hedgehog, “Trey can he stay like this forever?!” squealed Cater.

“I don’t think so,” Trey responded with a chuckle

It was already evening, and Deuce still wasn’t back. Trey and Cater were already tired of taking care of Riddle. Why? He was very stubborn and wanted to rummage the pantry full of sweets. Against the rules? Definitely. They’re hoping he wouldn’t remember ANYTHING.

“Riddle, please just eat it.”

Cater scratched his head while Trey tried to feed Riddle his dinner. It was pumpkin pasta, made by the vice dorm leader himself, “Come on Riddle,” he groaned. Little boy was being stubborn, pushing away Trey’s hand and yelling a small, ‘no’. Why? He wanted macaroons. Cater was waving a small bunny plushie in front of Riddle but it wasn’t working, “Look at the bunny, Riddle!” he sang. Riddle took the bunny, hugging in tightly in his arms before Trey shoved the spoon in his mouth.

With a big angry pout, Riddle chewed on pasta while attempting to give Trey a glare. It was too cute that Cater took a picture of it. 

“Trey-senpai!” Deuce called as he ran inside Heartslabyul’s dining area.

“You’re finally back.”

“I’m sorry. I had to help Professor Crewel with the ingredients while he checked on the other students who were splashed with the potion. It was just Riddle-senpai who turned into a baby.” Deuce gave the bottled liquid to the third year. “He needs to drink the whole potion to work though,” he whispered since Riddle was staring at him with those cute big silver eyes of his.

“He doesn’t even want the pasta. How are we going to feed him that?” Cater interjected as he carried the little toddler that’s still staring at Deuce. 

“Bring Ace in to distract him?”

“No that’ll make him angry and he’ll cry again. I’m too tired to deal with two kids.”

“Ah!” Cater realized. “There’s milk in the fridge. Maybe we can pour the potion in a bottle? That wouldn’t ruin the potion’s mixture right?” 

Trey nodded, too tired to even think, “Let’s feed it to him once bed time comes. Deuce, once we’re in Riddle’s room, bring Ace in. Thank you for your help.” Trey placed the leftover food on the sink. He’ll deal with it later. 

Riddle babbled, pointed at Deuce while squishing the bunny in his hand. The first year awkwardly waved at his prefect while Cater grinned, “Do you want to carry him Deuce-chan?” Cater walked over to the male, making the younger to immediately shake his head, “N-No thanks Cater-senpai!” He dashed away.

Shrugging, Cater looked over at Trey, “So...”

“Bath time?”

“Please make it easy, Riddle...”

“Op wit chu ed! (off with your head)”

“That was so cute!!! Say it again!”

“Don't! Just be thankful his magic didn't work!”

A wet floor, two wet third-year students, and a calm Riddle.

Remember when Trey pleaded for Riddle to be calm during bath time? It didn’t go exactly as the third year wanted it to be.

Once Riddle was in the tub, it was like every single thing was new to him. He was fascinated and always wanted to touch it. He surely was quiet when he was placed in the tub. Well-behaved and patiently waiting for the two to do whatever they plan to do to him. Until he felt water did start splashing his arms up and down. He was giggling and squealing that Cater had to hold his arms down. Trey was already drenched, his glasses were already left on the sink, and was the one to clean him up.

Rubber duckies and the loofah were Riddle’s distraction since he loves dipping them under water. He would whine when the loofah runs out of bubbles, he tried eating one, and Trey would have to squeeze some liquid soap on it before he starts crying again.

If Riddle’s doing this on purpose, they would beg for him to just use his unique magic on them than letting them suffer this babysitting job.

Once they were done bathing him, Cater dried him off, Riddle’s still holding the loofah, and zoomed into his bedroom. Deuce had volunteered with the milk and potion. He was able to mix it in a bottle and taste tested it, it tasted the same. “Okay now you’re dressed.” Trey had dressed Riddle up in his sleep clothes this time and not pajama onesies. No one wants to hear their recovered dorm leader yelling first thing in the morning just because he’s naked, right?

It looked so big on him that Riddle flapped his arms and giggled. Another photo for Cater’s gallery, “Now–” Trey placed Riddle under the sheets, the bunny plushie beside him, and the little boy snuggled and yawned. “time for bed, Riddle.”

Deuce gave the bottle and Riddle’s lips latched around the nipple as he eagerly sucked. All three students watched as his eyes slowly drooped down until it was completely shut.

How relieved they are.

Once the bottle was empty, Cater took it as they all prepared to hide away all the baby stuff they bought, “Let’s just hope it works...”

The next morning came. 8:00 am.

Trey had got up, and almost immediately, dashed to Riddle’s room. As he entered, a relieved sigh was heard from him as he leaned on the door frame.

“What day is it Trey?”

“Sunday.”

“What?!”

Ah, finally, he’s back! 

Trey walked over to seventeen-year-old prefect and sat on his bed, “You don’t remember?” “Remember what exactly?!” 

He doesn’t remember a thing. Riddle was overly confused, but he didn’t feel entirely odd. What happened really? Was he asleep the whole day yesterday?! His thoughts were running wild and Trey just snickered, “Yes, you were asleep the whole day. We were worried about you.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up then?!”

“We tried. It might’ve been the potion that Floyd dropped.”

“That leech–!”

“Don’t worry. It’s handled already. Come, I’ll prepare breakfast. You need to recover.”

It’s best he doesn’t know about a thing.

Everything went smoothly that morning. Trey made sure not a single student spoke about Saturday’s events. Cater would hide his phone and Deuce kept his mouth shut. Riddle was back to normal, which means everything will be as well. The two babysitters were relieved that they can finally rest.

But they forgot one thing as the doors of Heartslabyul were slammed open.

“Ah! You’re not a baby anymore!” Ace yelled.

[vampiresuns]

Creature Comfort

✴︎ CREATURE COMFORT ✴︎ 

2.9k words. In which Anatole learns the Band is in Vesuvia after Alec’s death and runs to them, pretending there isn’t one of them in specific he wants to see.

Leon (he/they) is @apprenticealec​‘s, and this piece is brought to you after her last fic, January, activated the Janiverse brainworms. Please go read that if you haven’t already.

Nadia was never late for a meeting. Ever. 

Anatole looked at his uncle with a questioning look, one of the many non-verbal communication cues they had developed while working together. They came in handy in moments like these. He shrugged at him, rolling his eyes and asking to be brought a wine glass and a very specific bottle from something Anatole didn’t even recognise, ignoring Lucio’s complaints about not being able to have wine himself. Anatole began to fidget with his quill, shaking it between his fingers, making it tap with his papers.

He didn’t want to be here. Not in Lucio’s room. It was too close to the plague. It was not safe enough. Him and Valerius could come in contact with it and bring it to the Palazzo. They could give it to anyone. They could get it themselves. 

Anatole couldn’t lose more people. Paris, though for different reasons than Plague was gone, Anzano was gone — and with them, part of Amparo’s joy — and while his parents were here, which was always a comfort, he constantly lived in fear his mother who had volunteered as a doctor would get it.

What if Valeriy got it? His chest constricted at the idea. Things with him were tense right then, but it was nothing Anatole could blame on any of them, because saying that they were going through a lot was a gross understatement. He wanted to take his uncle’s hand, something he would’ve done if they had been in the comfort of his office, but instead they were in Lucio’s fucking bedroom. What if he lost them too, because this, this, this, negligent imbecile with it’s negligent court still didn’t listen, still refused help. 

His tapping became louder. Probably, along with his aunt, the death which weighed him down the most was Alec’s. It didn’t feel just like losing her, but Ilya and Asra in the process, for their own different reasons. 

At times like this, he wished the band was here. 

“Hey, little Valerius, could you stop that tapping can’t you see it gives me a headache?”

Anatole tapped his quill one more time, on purpose. Lucio threw him a dirty look, but the Gods (whomever those were) knew Anatole couldn’t care less. 

“You’re not going to apologise?”

“Did I give you the headache? With my tapping, or didn’t you say you already had one when we came in?”

“Aelius,” Valerius warned him. He didn’t actually care how he spoke to Lucio, he knew that, but now was not the best time. 

Nadia arrived before things could escalate, excusing herself by saying she had taken longer with her cousin than she had thought she would take. Now, as a rule, Anatole never talked about his personal life when he was in Court duty. If he could pretend he didn’t have a personal life, the better. It was all out of professionalism, a defence mechanism and him being a naturally private person who wanted people who were not part of his circle to stay the fuck away from his personal business. He was good at redirecting personal questions he didn’t want to answer, and his own abilities allowed him to know beforehand when people had what he described as ‘icky interest’, unable to describe the leftover sensation his magic left him in any other way.

But it was late autumn, and he had seen so many Vesuvians die, his friend had died, his aunt had died, and for a moment his heart betrayed him, thinking that maybe, just maybe seeing Leon alive and well would be a comfort. 

Why? He couldn’t tell. They had nothing that was serious, but right then he would’ve given anything for the comfort of his laughter. For allowing himself, for one moment, to focus on anything other than the impotence of his position. 

Now, when Anatole got single minded, his ability to see consequences blurred a little, however, he had enough mind to change to Prakran when speaking to Nadia. “Was it Jamil? Is he alone?”

It was a way to loophole his own rule about no personal talk at work, and a way to keep Lucio at a distance. He would keep the Count at a distance no matter what. 

“Aelius,” Valerius said, standing close to him, his voice no longer the Consul’s, but his uncle’s, “I don’t think now is the time.”

For Valerius to be speaking to him like that in public, Anatole must’ve looked frazzled. Valerius was a peculiar man: Anatole couldn’t say he had met many more people, if anyone at all, who were two distinctively different people in private and in public and managed to come off as authentic on both occasions. The cues were there in either scenario, but it made sense why people who only knew Valerius publicly couldn’t understand why someone such as Anatole put up with him for any other reason than personal ambition. 

Right then, however, as Nadia replied that yes, it was Jamil and the Band, Anatole couldn’t listen to his uncle, but he pleaded to him silently — another of their nonverbal cues — when he passed on his quill and his papers to him. 

“I have to go.” 

“Aelius,” and, of course, the Consul was back. “Your duties.”

Anatole raised a single eyebrow at his uncle. He would rather get chewed back when they were home about this than staying; besides, what could he say? His Court performance was stellar. He cleared his throat. “Clean water sources, especially if we can get a way to pool the infected water back so we can study it are a priority, the chain supply for the flooded district completely broke, and you need to speak to the Guild of Merchants about it. A new group of nurses has been taken to the Lazaret this morning, and according to three different accounts we should get more court magicians to see whether or not this disease has a magical origin. Did I miss anything, Consul?”

Anatole didn’t wait for an answer. Bringing out a face covering from one of his pockets, he tied it with practice around his face, breaking into a race before anyone could stop him. 

His steps echoed through the halls of the Palace as he ran. Outside, the sure clacking sound against the cobblestones travelled with him as he made his way through the City as fast as he could. He felt his chest burn from exhaustion and a frantically beating heart, but he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t slow down until he was near the familiar street of Camia’s shop and dusk fell on the City. 

He sat outside to catch his breath for a moment, something twisting inside him when he realised what he had done: he had almost snapped at the Count (again), he had barged the Countess with questions, and he had deflected a meeting he had to attend. Sure, his notes had all the information they needed, so Valerius could literally read them aloud and it’ll be just as if he was there, but he had been working in the Court for three years now. He should know better than shoving his sense of duty into someone else’s hands because he wanted—

What did he want? He felt the words freezing at his throat, a knot threatening to make all words escape him, forever, as he hanged on the cliff’s edge, refusing to look down because looking down meant admitting to himself too many things he didn’t want to admit. That he couldn’t admit. 

He was there anyway, so he knocked on the door. 

As soon as he stepped inside, he felt like coming here was a mistake, but once again, he couldn’t turn back. Out of stubbornness or true caring, he didn’t know. Perhaps both. Pulling through his impulsive decision was better than allowing the skin crawling sensation that he wasn’t wanted there win. No, he’d push down under a rug, and deal with it when he was alone. It wasn’t Camia, however, who made him feel that way. Camia had given him a half-hug, half-shoulder grab that was all the same full of affection that he was happy to retrieve as she asked about him, and he allowed himself to finally answer a personal question, and he asked about her and how she was doing, if there anything he could do.

It was Leon. 

The source of the skin crawling sensation grew just a little bigger, threatening to snap his gut in two. 

“You too? I didn’t realise we were hosting a pity party.” 

He had never been more thankful for Leon not to be able to see his face, and never more embarrassed that Camia could. He exhaled, letting a practiced neutrality settle on his own features. 

“Right. Anyway—”

“What’s your excuse that you didn’t know and you were so very busy following the Consul around.”

“Leon,” Camia said, “Nana, I’m sorry.”

He gritted his teeth as he replied. “I did know Alec died,” saying it was more difficult that he wanted to acknowledge, “I knew almost immediately. I have ways to keep tabs on the Lazaret, or rather, I have to overview the death lists, if you wanted to know how I knew, Leon. There’s no need to apologise Cami, I just didn’t know you were still in the City. Asra mentioned talking to you, but him and I aren’t precisely on speaking terms at the moment.”

He took a deep breath, letting out a sigh. “But I didn’t come to bore you with my accommodated Court position troubles, of course, I came because grieving is a bitch, life doesn’t stop for it, and I’m sure you all need a hand.”

As he tried to make his way to the kitchen, telling Camia an inventory of things he was happy to help with, insisted to help with, Leon stood between him and his way. For the first time since he had arrived, and for the first time in what it felt like too long, Anatole allowed himself to look at Leon. He wasn’t going to lie to himself: Leon’s face had crept onto his memories too often, sitting too comfortably in the back of his mind as a source of ongoing, mental conversation between him and what he thought Leon would bicker about when he was tired of the Courtiers being terrible, or other people who worked in it being just as exhausting as them. 

That Leon and this Leon didn’t look anything alike. He was thinner, his hair looked messier, he looked sad. He looked incommensurably sad. It made Anatole want to reach out and pull him close. 

Leon wouldn’t want that, and even if Anatole gave into wishful thinking, his words were enough to cut that thread: “What do you think you’re doing?”

“It’s called helping you, I mean your friends. So if you please let me go to the kitchen to make a list.”

“But why? Is it guilt, Anatole?”

He shouldn’t have come here. “I do not dignify stupid questions with answers, Leon. No matter who they come from.” 

He stepped to the side, walking past Leon and making his way through the shop for pen and paper. He hadn’t been there too many times, but he had been there enough times to have a vague idea of where they were. He settled in the kitchen area to make a list of things he could get for them right then, and things he could help them procure regularly. If anyone came to ask about his own grieving, he already had an answer prepared as using his extensive, notoriously tightly knit family was always a good excuse. Two of his friends had come live with them, because it was safer. He had people. 

They didn’t need to know how much he spoke of or he let himself feel around them. He would’ve liked to talk with them about Alec, talking helped him process things, but he thought it was unfair to ask, so he didn’t. He didn’t ask, and wrote his list instead, pretending he couldn’t hear Leon and Camia bicker about him somewhere else in the shop. 

He left through the back door to go into the market, came back through it. Brewed tea for everyone, and cooked dinner bringing Jamil a tray with food when it was done. 

“It’s been a while since I had to use a kitchen, but I want to think I haven’t turned completely useless,” he told an unresponsive Jamil as he squeezed his shoulder. “If you want me to tell Valeriy you’re here, I would be happy to help with that too, just let me know, will you?” 

Jamil didn’t say anything, but Anatole didn’t expect him to. 

Camia told him off for not asking for help with dinner and he shrugged, making nothing out of it. “It’s the least I could do.” 

Leon spoke before Camia could reply. His tone was less hostile, but still far removed. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“You always do that thing where you do more than people usually would, and then call it nothing.” 

“If you want to file a complaint, the booth is open from monday to thursday, from 11 am to 3 pm, and it’s well past that hour, so I don’t think I’m taking criticism at the moment. Look, I know you’re going to tell me that was my own decision, but I almost snapped at the Count and ditched a meeting to be here. I came as soon as I knew, and before you say anything else, Leon, I am well aware you are all more than capable than taking care of yourselves, and that you are capable of being responsible for once—”

“What’s that supposed to mean—”

“I think you’ve interrupted me enough. I’m not Nadia. I’m not someone you can chew because it’s easier to process what you’re feeling that way. It hu— it’s not fair.”

To his surprise, Leon didn’t fight back. Instead, he asked Camia if he could excuse him and Anatole for a moment. Leon surprised him again by apologising. 

“I… what?”

“Take it or leave it,” Leon said, trying his best to emulate their playful bickering, but Anatole could tell in his words that he was far, far away. His mind was somewhere else, and he couldn’t do anything but respect that.

“You don’t have to entertain me, you know? I really didn’t come because I would get something out of it, other than lending a hand to people I care about. I believe I told you already what I believe about affection.”

They stood together in silence, Anatole wanting to reach out and hug Leon. All he allowed himself to do instead was run his finger over Leon’s forearm twice. Exactly twice. 

“Leon, do you know that if you, you specifically, ever needed anything I would help you, right? If you let me be there for you, I’d be happy to do it.” 

Leon put his hand on Anatole’s arm. Anatole, for a second, allowed himself to believe in every possible, positive outcome of the interaction. Thousands of Leon’s existed in that moment, as many as crossroads existed right then. Some thanked him, a heartfelt thank you he could feel through his words, his magic absorbing the warmth of it. Some hugged him, for long minutes until Camia came to retrieve them, and they knew they could all be sad together, but they would be together nonetheless. Others kissed him, kissed him like Anatole desperately wanted to, his treacherous heart screaming for Leon to turn to him at the worst possible time to ask for such a selfish thing that Leon couldn’t possibly want, but it didn’t matter. Because in that moment he allowed himself to hope for once in months and—

“Could you keep an eye on Asra?”

What he wanted to reply was who kept an eye on Leon, he could keep an eye on Leon. What he said was: “Is something the matter?”

“You both work at the palace, you see him more than we do and I’m worried about him. I’m afraid he’s looking into things he can’t control.”

Anatole stepped back, straightening invisible wrinkles from his coat, clearing his throat. “I will, but I need you to promise not to stretch yourself too thin… actually, I will anyway, I’m sure you don’t need me bossing around.”

Leon’s smile was weak, but sincere. “Will you take care?”

“Leon, you don’t need to worry about me.”

“You said you almost snapped at Lucio.”

“He wanted me to stop tapping a quill, it was nothing, he never means it when I’m bouncing stuff against things. Not that I’m making excuses for him, I have better things to do with my time.”

“I know he’s sick but—”

“Leon, I don’t want to talk about my insufferable boss.”

Anatole wanted to take a Gondola back home, he didn’t want to walk. He wanted to sit down on one of the boats and see the stars reflected in the water, swirling as the gondolier moved, and make inconsequential chatter with them, but he had never been very good at lying to himself. 

He was feeling too many things he couldn’t admit, he was feeling too much altogether and whenever he was overwhelmed, he cried. He could cry in silence, him and the City and his steps as he made his way back to the Heart District and pretended he knew what to do about his own. For the first time in forever, he wished he hadn’t taught himself to hope. 

[roselen-mylady]

In Another Life

Bucky Barnes x reader ° part ten

Summary: Waiting 88 years to find your soulmate? It was cruel. But it was a cruel fate Bucky would have to face whether he accepted it or not. Bucky was a tortured man all his life and he wasn't even granted the solace of having his soulmate at his side. All he had was the promise of one in another life. They were separated by two different times.

But the pain in their lives were connected.

Y/n had been alone ever since she could remember. All she could depend on was the soulmate that was destined to be at her side. Yet when the snap occurred she lost him.

And Bucky never got to meet her.

Though Steve showed no signs of leaving or the anger Y/n had feared, she still felt the anxiety that came from revealing her true past. He was supportive, as he always was and so was everyone else once they were told. Tony only had a mere, 'I knew it' to add to the subject and while Y/n was touched, she couldn't help the array of things she felt. 

Foolish was one of them. Hiding her past from them before was stupid but Steve insisted that her going underground was probably best since HYDRA would've searched for her. While that brought her some solace she was still uncomfortable with the idea of becoming more involved. Something always went wrong and Nat was proof. 

She missed her friend badly and Y/n couldn't help but feel it was her own cursed luck that had taken Nat. It was ridiculous to think that she could ever be happy. Stupid to think she could help her friends bring back everyone. Stupid to think she might actually meet her soulmate.  

"Hey, kid. We're going to put the stones together." Tony cut into Y/n's racing thoughts. Her gaze lifted from the drawing Steve had given her, settling on Tony as he leaned in through the doorway. 

She didn't know why she was still looking at the picture or why she had even accepted it. She wanted to believe she was still furious, still resentful. Wanted to force all the pain and guilt she felt into him once more. But in all reality she was just so lost. For years she pretended to be someone else and now that she was free to be the girl she once was, she didn't even remember who that was. 

A genius? A hero? A terrified little orphan? She had no idea but she didn't want to be any. She wanted to be Y/n, a friend and a psychiatrist. She now understood why Steve wanted her around. He needed someone to remind him of who he was, who he truly was. 

Was James that person once? 

Was that why she found herself gazing at the sketch, hoping for a split second that maybe she could go back to the moment that was drawn? Praying to go back to a time where James Barnes was fighting for his past and his own will. A time where he might comfort her like he did Steve over the death of Nat. A time where his thoughts were his own and so we're his actions. 

Y/m almost hated herself for despising him. Though she knew there was still much to his story she was too scared to ask, she knew he was nothing more than a tortured soul with a gun. She couldn't figure out how the man in the drawing was the same man who'd nearly killed her. 

It wasn't.  

Noticing her broken expression, Tony hesitantly stepped into the room coming to sit with her. Her fingers gently held the page and he looked down at it, recognizing the face instantly. It sent a chill through his spine, seeing the same face almost ripped the arc reactor straight from his chest. 

It had taken him years to forgive Steve but he still struggled to do the same with the man who murdered his parents in cold blood. All the hatred toward his parents' assassin had gone unresolved since Steve and Bucky left him at that frozen HYDRA base. And once forgiving Steve, Tony had no other outlet and he found it difficult to sit there with the picture.

So he tried to focus on something else.  

"So, you and Ms. Romanoff were close?" He mumbled trying poorly to begin consoling her. She nodded numbly, folding the paper and setting it aside. 

The emotions she felt were mixed and intense making it hard for her to filter through her feelings but one surfaced more than others. Guilt. 

"Ever since the snap." She replied, her shoulders slack. Tony and Nat had their own relationship, one much older than her own but they'd been apart for so long. Ever since Nat went off the grid with Steve and even after the snap when he distanced himself from all of them, they hardly interacted. But they were friends. The type of friends that wouldn't be parted even by death. 

"Do you think things would be different if I hadn't showed up?" Y/n asked him suddenly. He looked over at her studying her guilt ridden eyes that she kept trained on the floor. It was a familiar look, one he wore often. But not one he wanted her to. 

"Natasha wasn't the type of person to let anyone dictate her choices. I think she was ready to give her life for a cause and none of us could've stopped her." Tony sighed, the weight of her death finally reaching its max. "Not even a couple of geniuses." 

•••

"Let's hope this doesn't blow up." Tony mumbled next to her. The small group consisting of them with the addition of Bruce and Rocket stood in the lab, waiting in anticipation as Tony carefully placed the stones in the gauntlet. With his shaking hands it was difficult to be precise while he manipulated the machine but he managed to place all six stones in their respective places. They held their breath unsure if the stones would react or blow up the lab as Tony feared.  

"Boom!" Rocket yelled suddenly making all of them flinch. He began to laugh loudly and they all turned to him with annoyed looks. Y/n slapped the back of his head, cutting his laughing short as she walked off trying to ignore the trembling in her legs. Tony muttered something under his breath moving to bring the gauntlet to a more accessible area for the wearer. 

"You're an asshole." Y/n groaned. Tony walked past them, putting the gauntlet on a display table that made it hover a couple inches above. 

"Come on, it was funny!" Rocket argued, earning an unamused stare from both Tony and Y/n. 

It took a few minutes for Bruce to collect everyone but eventually everyone was gathered around the gauntlet. Most had expressions Y/n familiarized with PTSD and once following their gazes she realized their experience with the gauntlet Thanos wore was resurfacing. 

Hopefully, with the new one they'd be able to reverse what he'd done. But the trauma would stay. That she knew. 

"All right. The glove's ready. Question is, who's gonna snap their fucking fingers?" Rocket questioned, looking up at the group. Their options were limited since most people in the room were only human, even Steve. 

"I'll do it." Thor volunteered without hesitation. He drunkenly stepped forward making everyone turn to him with confused and reluctant looks. Their choices were limited but they weren't desperate enough to put such a powerful object on a drunk god.  

"Excuse me?" Scott asked, glancing around at the others for one of them to tell Thor what a bad idea it was. 

"It's okay." Thor insisted, marching forward with a purpose. Steve moved to stop him with the help of Tony making the poor large man pause. 

"No, no, no, whoa. Stop. Stop. Wait a sec. Hey, hey–" Everyone was a mess of refusal and Thor's face turned hurt as he tried to continue. 

"Wait, wait, Thor, just wait. We haven't decided who's gonna put that on yet." Steve explained. Thor shifted on his feet, clearly upset with their rejection.  

"I'm sorry. What, we're just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?" He asked,

annoyed. Scott looked to Y/n hoping she might use some of her 'therapist powers' he called them after realizing she really couldn't read minds. 

"We should at least discuss it." Y/n tried to reason. Thor shook his head stubbornly, swaying unsteadily on his feet. 

"No, no, sitting here staring at that thing is not gonna bring everybody back. I'm the strongest Avenger, okay? So this responsibility falls upon me. It's my duty." He told them, gesturing to the gauntlet then himself. 

"It's not about that–" Tony told him gently, coming to stand in front of him as he started to move Thor back. Thor resisted but was unsuccessful as he started to grow emotional. "Hey buddy-" Tony tried again only to be cut short by Thor frantically shushing him and everyone else. 

"Stop it! Just let me! Just let me do it. Just let me do something good. Something right." Thor begged, tears filling his eyes. He was desperate to prove he was worthy, to prove he could still be the hero he once was. 

"Look– It's not just the fact that that glove is channeling enough energy to light up a continent, I'm telling you, you're in no condition." Tony fought. There was no way they were going to let him hold the fate of the world in his hand while he was drunk. Even the Thor he was years ago shouldn't have held that kind of power, it was too risky. 

"What do you– What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?" Thor asked, his eyes studying Tony's for any kind of hope that might tell him they would let him make the sacrifice. 

"Cheez Whiz?" Rhodey scoffed, earning a glare from Y/n. Thor looked over at Rhodey pointing a shaky finger at him as he tried not to cry in frustration. He held onto Tony, grasping at his shoulders and prying Tony's attention away from Rhodey's comment. 

"Lightning." Thor corrected, looking back to Tony with pleading eyes. Tony nodded but he knew he couldn't allow Thor to wear the gauntlet. "Lightning." Thor repeated, distraught but Tony's reaction. 

"Lightning won't help you, pal. It's gotta be me." Bruce announced suddenly. Thor shook his head letting go of Tony. "You saw what those stones did to Thanos. It almost killed him. None of you could survive." Bruce explained. 

"How do we know you will?" Steve questioned as Bruce paced over to the gauntlet. 

"We don't. But the radiation's mostly gamma. It's like...I was made for this." Bruce mumbled. He gazed intensely at the stones, silently calculating his odds. If the Hulk couldn't handle this, was this really how he was going to die? And if so would it even work? 

They looked at each other knowing it was their best chance at bringing them back. They had to take it. 

Tony stepped forward, grabbing the gauntlet and handing it to Bruce as they headed to a more secure part of the lab. 

"Are you sure you wanna do this?" Y/n asked Bruce quietly. She knew how Nat's death had affected him and she refused to make the same mistake with him. 

"Yes. We have to finish this." He declared. Y/n watched as he paced forward to catch up with Tony as she lagged behind to Steve. 

"Do you think this will work?" Steve questioned. Y/n chewed her lip anxiously, focusing her stare at the gauntlet as Steve came to stand beside her. 

"Bruce's gamma radiation is stronger and most equipped to handle the energy but it's still dangerous. The stones are too powerful together, I didn't think they were ever really meant to be used together." She sighed, hating the sacrifices that came with saving the world. If they lost someone else just for this to not work was it really even worth trying? 

"Bruce is strong." Steve tried to ease her worry but it wasn't enough. 

"I know. I just-I can't keep losing people, Steve. It's like a curse. Every time I try to do something good…-" 

"Hey, hey, it's okay. You're not gonna lose anyone else. Not on my watch." Steve promised but both of them knew it was practically empty. There was no guarantee. "Let's just bring everyone back." 

Y/n tried to smile but like his promise it was hollow. "Yeah, okay." 

"Good to go, yeah?" Tony questioned as Bruce carefully held the piece in his large hands. He seemed anxious but who wouldn't be in that situation. 

"Let's do it." He confirmed as Y/n and Steve returned to the group. She walked around him, stopping beside Tony and sharing a steady nod. 

"You remember–everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago, you're just bringing them back to now, today. Don't change anything from the last five years." Tony told him seriously.

"Got it." Bruce assured. Then suddenly the room grew quiet and a tenseness settled in the air that Y/n was too amazed to catch onto. For the first time she realized she was living the dream of millions of people. Everyone had readied themselves and Y/n watched as they stood there in their superhero uniforms, the power and determination they all had washing over her. 

Tony pressed his chest allowing his suit to expand and morph to his body, a shield lighting up before him. His stare then drifted to Y/n who still stood there in her casual clothes, watching them all confused and out of place. Why were they getting ready now? They were doing this here? 

"Hey, kiddo. Come on." Tony urged, motioning to her earpiece. She gave a soft 'oh' mimicking him as she pressed the button making her own suit appear. A shield of her own design came to her forearm and Tony eyed it curiously. 

"Did you mess with the suit?" He asked, the seriousness in his tone startling her a bit. She shrugged, looking at him defensively. 

"Yeah, you said it was just a prototype so I fixed it a bit." She explained. He looked away, grateful she couldn't see the entertained smirk on his lips as he turned back to Bruce. 

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., do me a favor and activate Barn Door Protocol. Will you?" Tony called. Y/n had gotten used to the suit during the time she could spare to examine it and she put 70% power into the armor, figuring if something did go wrong it probably wouldn't hurt to be a little more protected. 

"Yes, boss." F.R.I.D.A.Y replied. Metal doors began to close off the lab as the compound went into lockdown and if the seriousness of the situation hadn't set in yet it definitely did then as Y/n widened her stance to try and brace herself. 

"Everybody comes home." Bruce reminded himself, cautiously reaching his hand into the gauntlet. The gauntlet expanded to fit his hand thanks to Tony's nanotech but as soon as it was fully on the power of the stones surged through him. He grunted in pain collapsing to his knees as the energy began to burn into his arm. 

"Take it off! Take it off!" Thor cried, waving his hands as Bruce shakily held the gauntlet. Steve stepped forward, keeping anyone from acting. 

"No, wait. Bruce, are you okay?" Steve questioned. He knew more than anyone that just because something was painful didn't mean they couldn't do it. 

"Talk to me, Banner." Tony called, becoming more concerned with each unresponsive moment. Y/n started moving to help but froze as Bruce looked up at them.  

"I'm okay. I'm okay." He insisted. They eased up a little and everyone watched carefully as he tried to regain control of the stones. Thor gave a double thumbs up, watching the scene before him with an astounded expression. 

"F.R.I.D.A.Y what are his vitals?" Y/n questioned anxiously. Charts bloomed around Bruce and she quickly read them realizing his heart rate was dangerously high. In fact everything was high, his blood pressure, his respiration rate, even his body temperature had increased. Bruce screamed again, fighting the instinct to remove the gauntlet from the overwhelming pain it caused him as he lined up his fingers. 

The world seemed to stop at the echoing of the snap, the fated sound she'd only heard about for five years finally filling her head the same way it had for the others. 

He fainted and the gauntlet fell off his arm, clattering on the floor before Clint quickly kicked it away from him. 

"Bruce!" Steve called, kneeling beside him as the others rushed forward to check on him. Y/n tugged the remains of his sleeve back gently as Tony kneeled beside her, holding up his hand. 

"Don't move him." Tony demanded, applying a coolant spray from his fingertips over Bruce's arm. Bruce groaned, reaching out and grabbing Steve's arm urgently. 

"Did it work?" He questioned breathlessly, keeping his large hand tight around Steve's arm. Thor gave him a reassuring smile while Y/n looked over the damage of his arm. 

"We're not sure. It's okay." Thor soothed, his voice hopeful as he turned his gaze toward the door where the lab was starting to open up again. Scott walked off to the now open area and some of the others spread out to see what had happened but Y/n stayed at Bruce's side. 

"You did great, Bruce." She told him, giving him a smile to which he returned, though it was a bit more pained. A muted vibrating came from the table on the other side of the room and Y/n turned to see Clint walking over to it almost numb. 

Did it work? 

"Honey? Honey." Clint spoke, his voice quivering in joy as Y/n looked at Tony. They shared a wide eyed glance, both rattled by the idea that they might have actually won. 

Y/n wished to look at her wrist, praying that the countdown she had before the snap returned. She couldn't even remember how many days it had read back then but it didn't matter anymore. She just wanted to meet her soulmate. Would he be looking for her?  

Were his eyes really blue? 

But their victory couldn't last long and Y/n knew that as she followed Bruce's gaze to the skylight above them. There flying menacingly above the compound was the biggest spacecraft she had ever seen and dread instantly set in upon seeing the missile coming their way. 

"Look out!" Y/n screamed, trying to warn the others but it was too late. Her helmet quickly came forward along with her shield which she tried desperately to put over Bruce's head, protecting her and him from falling debris. But the roof wasn't the only thing falling apart. 

The floor split and some of the group fell into the large hole while Y/n struggled to regain her balance. She quickly looked around her, catching sight of Steve sliding across the floor toward the hole. Using the thrusters, she launched forward, grabbing hold of one of the straps to his uniform and dragging him back toward Tony. 

The building was falling down around them and any means of escape were closing off faster than she could find them. Steve managed to climb to his feet again but before either of them could come up with a plan a large piece of the roof fell, striking Y/n down. She cried out falling through the floor to the room below, getting pinned on her stomach under the roofing. 

"Y/n!" Steve yelled, peering down into the hole. Y/n gasped, the impact knocking the wind out of her. Tony looked down too, the two men struggling to keep themselves up as they waited anxiously for her to speak. 

"Minimal damage to prototype armor." F.R.I.D.A.Y announced making Y/n groan. She slowly lifted herself up using her back to push off the rumble before leaning back on her knees, panting slightly. 

"You call that minimal?" She questioned, annoyed. Tony chuckled through the headset, her reply giving him a little relief knowing she was alright.  

"The suits can handle more than we can, kid." He explained. Y/n grumbled, climbing to her feet. She didn't care how durable the suit was, she was still very much human inside the metal and every hit the suit felt, she did too. 

"Are you okay?" Steve called, leaning closer to the edge of the hole. Tony put a hand on his chest, keeping him from falling in while Y/n slowly climbed to her feet. 

"Yeah. I'm fine, Steve." She waved her hand pretending to be nonchalant before coughing from how forcefully her lungs had been emptied. They were about to attempt to go down to her when the floor they were on shifted and Steve fell over, sliding off to another part in the lab. 

"Cap!" Tony called, trying to reach out and catch him. Steve called back that he would be alright giving Tony a little assurance as he turned his gaze back to Y/n. "This building is falling apart!" He called down to her. 

"What do you want me to do?" She asked, looking around at the floor around her. She had landed in the living room area, one of her favorite places but like the rest of the facility it was falling to ruin. 

"Find the stones. We can't risk losing them." Tony instructed. Y/n let out a short sigh, the weight of the task making her stomach turn. 

"Is it too late to go home?" She joked. Tony smiled softly unbeknownst to Y/n. The building shook again with another hit and he knew he wouldn't have long to talk to her. 

"No." He answered truthfully. If she could find a way out, there would be nothing stopping her. She could easily fly away and forget about this. "But you know what they say. It only takes one fight to make a hero." Tony explained. 

Y/n pierced her lips, knowing that she never really intended on leaving. She was all in from the moment Scott had been yelling into the camera and though she'd been doubtful before, she knew this was where she was meant to be. 

"Go be Iron Star." Tony chuckled, making her scoff and shake her head. Of course, he had to ruin the moment. 

"We really gotta talk about that name!" She called, turning away and running off toward the window to her left. Using the thrusters in the metallic boots she flew forward and smashed through the glass, unsteadily keeping herself in the air outside. 

"Just find the stones." 

•••

When Bucky had woken up he was right where he'd been in Wakanda. T'Challa ran to him trying very hastily to explain what had happened. They had been gone for five years according to the wizard man they called 'Strange' and now they needed to come fight Thanos again. 

While Bucky was usually quick to understand and move on to the next fight, he couldn't help but stop at this news. He'd promised himself that the fight with Thanos was the last time so that he could find his soulmate but he was still fighting. When would it stop?

For a split second he feared maybe his chance at meeting his soulmate had come and gone and he frantically ripped back his right sleeve to look at his wrist. 

"3 days?" Sam asked, peeking down at Bucky's arm as T'Challa organized his army. Bucky numbly nodded, his heart racing as he watched the seconds tick away. He was three days away from her. 

He had to make it through this time. 

No matter what. 

•••

"F.R.I.D.A.Y, can you scan the compound for the stones' energy signature?" Y/n questioned, looking over the wreckage of what was once the Avengers compound. It didn't even look the same, all blown to the foundation with rubble spread around like a battlefield. 

"I detect energy levels matching the stones underneath the building in the sewer systems. You should have access through what's left of the first floor." The A.I. answered. Y/n flew over to the nearest opening of the building, using micro lasers to burn a hole into the floor leading down into the sewers. 

She jumped down into it, landing as quietly as possible before looking around. It was hard to see much, the only light being the blaring red light of the alarm system but the tunnel appeared empty other than the obvious debris and flooding. She cautiously walked forward watching as her display outlined the surrounding area. 

It was eerily silent, the soft trickling of water putting her on edge as she continued down the tunnel, following the power signature of the stones. 

"I detect hostiles approaching." F.R.I.D.A.Y spoke suddenly. Y/n watched carefully as her display changed, showing a clearer picture using an x-ray of the surroundings. The stones rapidly approached as did the hostiles and she quickly held up her hands, powering up the repulsors as Clint ran into her vision.  

"Shoot 'em!" Clint screamed, narrowly dodging one of the creatures that lined the tunnel. Y/n did what he said, firing at the closest creature before moving onto the next, trying to hold them off long enough for Clint to run past her. 

"What the hell are these things?!" She yelled, following after him as they both broke off into a sprint through the water. 

"I don't know but I'm tired of this alien shit!" Clint shouted over his shoulder as Y/n glanced back at the creatures, firing again at one that got too close. Clint pulled out one of his arrows, throwing it into one of the pipes next to them before running faster. 

Catching onto what he was doing, she picked up speed as well, jumping with him as the arrow exploded taking out most of the creatures. Y/n looked up from the ground, noticing that some of them had started to crawl through the flames making her climb to her feet, grabbing Clint under his arms. 

She activated the thrusters and they launched up, faltering a bit since Y/n had barely learned to fly by herself let alone while carrying someone. Clint unsheathed his sword, yelling as he cut through some of the creatures that had climbed up beside them. 

Once reaching the top Y/n dropped him to the side before falling herself, tumbling a few feet away. Clint climbed to his knees, holding out his sword as he let out a threatening shout. Thankfully, no other creatures appeared over the edge and he collapsed onto his back next to Y/n. 

"Hey." Clint chuckled, nudging Y/n tiredly. "You're an Avenger now." He told her drawing a half-hearted laugh from her. She groaned the pain in her ribs increasing at the action and she put a hand over her side. 

"Being an Avenger hurts." 

•••

Once going through the portal the wizard had made, Bucky was met with a wasteland. Thanos and Steve watched as others arrived through the portals and while Steve's expression was much more relieved than Thanos', it was clear they were only evening the playing field as Bucky looked toward Thanos' forces. 

The Wakandan armies chanted as hundreds of other heroes came through the portals, each ready for the final battle. He walked forward, coming to stand a few feet away from Steve as he studied the enemy across the way. He was determined to finish what they had started five years ago. He wanted to find his soulmate and he wanted this fight to truly be the last. 

"Avengers!" Steve called. Bucky held his breath, hoping with everything he had that for all his misfortune over the years, today would end better. 

He'd suffered for a lifetime. 

Please let this be the last fight. 

"Assemble." 

Everyone yelled, running forward at Thanos' forces. The fight broke out and Bucky managed to find himself alongside the raccoon he'd encountered last time. They shared brief eye contact and Rocket's eyes flashed with recognition while Bucky tried to ignore him. 

"How about now?!" Rocket yelled, motioning to his arm. Bucky glanced over at him, growing annoyed with the talking animal's persistence. What the hell would a raccoon do with his arm? 

"No!" Bucky yelled back. He turned, noticing one of the creatures had been sneaking up on Steve while he had his back turned and Bucky quickly shot at it, knocking it down. Steve turned, giving Bucky a grateful and joyous smile. Bucky smiled back making sure to keep aware of the creatures around him. 

"What the hell did you get me into, Steve?" Bucky yelled teasingly. His friend gave a short chuckle, using the large hammer to slam back another one of Thanos's creatures. 

"Nothing two old men can't handle." 

Taglist:

Part eleven

@cancanmarvel

@jessyballet

@eldahae

@mc225g

@kissesofdeadforme

@wantingtobekorra

@sxphiiwrld

@lunaticbarnes

@indecisivedolly

@saiyanprincesswanie

@lextheflexsthings

@silver-winter-wolf

@whatifwedo

@arguedquill1226

@lunashaw57

@loushkspr

@3aileypage

@mela-noche

[streamacademe]

Bonus post: Stats 101 - testing data for normality & significance tests for categorical and continuous variables.

Understanding and analysing data can be a tremendously daunting task, so I thought I would put together a simple go-to guide on how to approach your data, whether it be numerical or categorical. 📈📊

This post will cover:

Types of data

Contingency tables and significance tests for categorical data

Testing for normality in continuous data

Significance tests for continuous variables

NB: Remember to keep your data organised, especially if you are using software packages like ‘R’, MATLAB, etc. 

Before I move on, I would like to thank the University of Sheffield core bioinformatics group for most of the content below. 💡

Types of data

There are two main types:

Numerical - data that is measurable, such as time, height, weight, amount, and so on. You can identify numerical data by seeing if you can average or order the data in either ascending or descending order.

Continuous numerical data has an infinite number of possible values, which can be represented as whole numbers or fractions e.g. temperature, age.

Discrete numerical data is based on counts. Only a finite number of values is possible, and the values cannot be subdivided e.g. number of red blood cells in a sample, number of flowers in a field. 

Categorical - represents types of data that may be divided into groups e.g. race, sex, age group, educational level. 

Nominal categorical data is used to label variables without providing any quantitative value e.g smoker or non smoker. 

Ordinal categorical data has variables that exist in naturally occurring ordered categories and the distances between the categories is not known e.g. heat level of a chilli pepper, movie ratings, anything involving a Likert scale.

Contingency tables & significance tests for categorical variables

Contingency tables (also called crosstabs or two-way tables) are used in statistics to summarise the relationship between several categorical variables. 

An example of a contingency table:

A great way to visualise categorical data is to use a bar plot/chart, which looks something like this:

There are two main hypothesis tests for categorical data:

Chi-squared test

Fisher exact test

Chi-squared test:

Compares the distribution of two categorical variables in a contingency table to see if they are related e.g. smoking and prevalence of lung cancer. 

Measures difference between what is actually observed in the data and what would be expected if there was truly no relationship between the variables.

Fisher exact test:

Is used instead of Chi-squared when >20% of cells have expected values of <5, or any cell has a count of <1.

If you want to compare several contingency tables for repeated tests of independence i.e. when you have data that you've repeated at different times or locations, you can use the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test. 

More detail:

In this situation, there are three nominal categorical variables: the two variables of the contingency test of independence, and the third nominal variable that identifies the repeats (such as different times, different locations, or different studies). For example, you conduct an experiment in winter to see whether legwarmers reduce arthritis. With just one set of people, you'd have two nominal variables (legwarmers vs. control, reduced pain vs. same level of pain), each with two values. If you repeated the same experiment in spring, with a new group, and then again in summer, you would have an added variable: different seasons and groups. You could just add the data together and do a Fisher's exact test, but it would be better to keep each of the three experiments separate. Maybe legwarmers work in the winter but not in the summer, or maybe your first set of volunteers had worse arthritis than your second and third sets etc. In addition, combining different studies together can show a "significant" difference in proportions when there isn't one, or even show the opposite of a true difference. This is known as Simpson's paradox. To avoid this, it's better to use the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel for this type of data.

Testing for normality in continuous data

The first thing you should do before you do ANYTHING else with your continuous data, is determine whether it is or isn’t normally distributed, this will in turn help you choose the correct significance test to analyse your data. 

A normal (also known as parametric) distribution is a symmetric distribution where most of the observations cluster around the central peak and the probabilities for values further away from the mean taper off equally in both directions. If plotted, this will look like a symmetrical bell-shaped graph:

A standard deviation (SD) can be calculated to measure the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of values from the mean. The main and most important purpose of this is to understand how spread out a data set is; a high SD implies that, on average, data points are all pretty far from the average. The opposite is true for a low SD means most points are very close to the average. Generally, smaller variability is better because it represents more precise measurements and yields more accurate analyses.. 

In a normal distribution, SD will look something like this:

In a normal distribution, skewness (measure of assymetry) and kurtosis (the sharpness of the peak) should be equal to or close to 0, otherwise it becomes a variable distribution.

Testing for normality

Various graphical methods are available to assess the normality of a distribution. The main ones are:

A histogram, which will look something like this:

Histograms help visually identify whether the data is normally distributed based on the aforementioned skewness and kurtosis. 

A Q-Q plot:

Q-Q plots allow to compare the quantiles of a data set against a theoretical normal distribution. If the majority of points lie on the diagonal line then the data are approximately normal.

and...

A box plot:

A box plot is an excellent way of displaying continuous data when you are interested in the spread of your data. The thick horizontal bar indicates the median, the top and bottom of the box indicate the interquartile range, and the whiskers represent the spread of data outside of this interquartile range. The dots beyond the whiskers represent outliers, which represent observations that are distant from other observations.

A disadvantage of the box plot is that you don’t see the exact data points. However, box plots are very useful in large datasets where plotting all of the data may give an unclear picture of the shape of your data.

A violin plot is sometimes used in conjunction with the box plot to show density information.

Keep in mind that for real-life data, the results are unlikely to give a perfect plot, so some degree of judgement and prior experience with the data type are required. 

Significance tests

Aside from graphical methods, there are also significance tests, which are used to test for normality. These tests compare data to a normal distribution, whereby if the result is significant the distribution is NOT normal. 

The three most common tests are:

Shapiro-Wilk Test (sample size <5000)

Anderson-Darling Test (sample size > or = 20)

Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test (sample size > or = 1000)

Significance tests for continuous variables

A quick guide for choosing the appropriate test for your data set:

t-test - normally distributed (parametric) data

There are three types of t-test

One sample t-test: Compares the mean of the sample with a pre-specified value (population mean) e.g. if the average score of medical students in UK universities is 72 and you want to test whether the average score of medical students in your university is higher/lower, you would need to specify the population mean, in this case 72, when running your t-test.   

A two-sample t-test: Should be used if you want to compare the measurements of two populations. There are two types of the two-sample t-test: paired (dependent) and independent (unpaired). To make the correct choice, you need to understand your underlying data.

Dependent samples t-test (paired): Compares the mean between two dependent groups e.g. comparing the average score of medical students at the University of Sheffield before and after attending a revision course, or comparing the mean blood pressure of patients before and after treatment. Independent samples t-test (unpaired): Compares the mean between two independent groups e.g. average score of medical students between University of Sheffield and the University of Leeds, or comparing the mean response of two groups of patients to treatment vs. control in a clinical trial.

There are several assumptions for the independent (unpaired) t-test:

The t-test assumes that the data has equal variance and relies on the data to be normally-distributed. If there isn’t sufficient confidence in this assumption, there are different statistical tests that can be applied. Rather than calculating and comparing the means and variances of different groups they are rank-based methods. However, they still come with a set of assumptions and involve the generation of test statistics and p-values.

Welch t-test, for instance, assumes differences in variance. 

Wilcoxon test (also commonly known as the Mann-Whitney U test) can be used when the data is not normally distributed. This test should not be confused with the Wilcoxon signed rank test (which is used for paired tests). 

The assumptions of the Wilcoxon/Mann-Whitney U test are as follows:

The dependent variable is ordinal or continuous.

The data consist of a randomly selected sample of independent observations from two independent groups.

The dependent variables for the two independent groups share a similar shape.

Summary of the above:

ANOVA - normally distributed (parametric) data

Like the t-test, there are several types of ANOVA tests:

One-way ANOVA:

Equivalent to the independent t-test but for > 2 groups. If you want to compare more than two groups, a one-way ANOVA can be used to simultaneously compare all groups, rather than carrying out several individual two-sample t-tests e.g. to compare the mean of average scores of medical students between the University of Sheffield, the University of Leeds, and the University of Manchester.

The main advantage of doing this is that it reduces the number of tests being carried out, meaning that the type I error rate is also reduced.

Two-way ANOVA:  2 categorical (grouping variables) e.g. comparing the average score of medical students between the University of Sheffield, the University of Leeds, and the University of Manchester AND between males and females.

Repeated measures ANOVA

Equivalent to a paired t-test but for >2 repeated measures e.g. comparing the average score of medical students at University of Sheffield for mid-terms, terms, and finals.

If any of the above ANOVA tests produce a significant result, you also need to carry out a Post-Hoc test.

Post-Hoc test e.g. Tukey HSD

A significant ANOVA result it tells us that there is at least on difference in the groups. However, it does not tell us which group is different. For this, we can apply a post-hoc test such as the Tukey HSD (honest significant difference) test, which is a statistical tool used to determine which sets of data produced a statistically significant result...

For example, for the average scores of medical students between the University of Sheffield, the University of Leeds, and the University of Manchester, the Tukey HSD output may look something like this:

This shows a significant difference between medical students in Manchester and Sheffield and between Leeds and Manchester but not Leeds and Sheffield.

Kruskal Wallis and Friedman tests 

Data that does not meet the assumptions of ANOVA (e.g. normality) can be tested using a non-parametric alternative. The Kruskal-Wallis test is derived from the one-way ANOVA, but uses ranks rather than actual observations. It is also the extension of the Mann-Whitney U test to greater than two groups. Like the one-way ANOVA, this will only tell us that at least one group is different and not specifically which group(s). The Post-Hoc Dunn test is recommended, which also performs a multiple testing correction. For the Friedman test, you can use the Wilcoxon signed-ranks Post-Hoc test. And that is your go-to guide to on how to approach your data! I really hope you find it useful; it definitely helps clarify things for me. ✨

GOOD LUCK!

[rotationalsymmetry]

Hello! I hope you’re doing well. I saw your post about UUs and I myself am one as well! I was wondering if maybe you could explain some of the issues there are in UU congregations so I can better understand what’s going on. I can’t change much, but I’d like to know what can be improved and how I can better use my privilege. Thank you :)

Hi there. Thanks for reaching out. I think. Oof. Are you sure you want to ask this? I don’t have a really straightforward “here’s precisely what Unitarian Universalism needs to do to improve (broken down into concrete, realistic steps!)” I have a whole tangle of feelings and personal biases and incredibly subjective experiences. OK? All right. With that disclaimer out of the way. Eh, actually, more disclaimer: all institutions have problems. There are things that Unitarian Universalism does better than most other religious institutions. There’s a reason I was going off about what I like about UU before what I dislike. This is not saying that Unitarian Universalism is bad. OK?

Putting in a cut because this is long:

Unitarian Universalism has an ongoing, well-known problem around being kind of fuzzy around what it is and what it wants to be. Do we draw on multiple faiths, and if so what does that look like in practice? Are we Christianity lite? Are we basically a bunch of secular humanists who like to get together and sing sometimes? How far exactly does (or should) our tolerance stretch?

Unitarian Universalism has a whiteness issue and a class issue. Now, I’m white, so the race part isn’t mainly coming from my own experience. There’s something I’ve seen that sums it up well, but I can’t find it right now. Basically: there’s a bit of a tendency for UU’s to nominally want to more diverse congregations, but when a new person of color shows up, sometimes they get treated kind of...weirdly. Like they’re not one of us and not going to be.

a bit more on UU and race here: x

And, class wise, I was raised middle class, but I’ve been broke for an awful lot of my adulthood and a lot of the people I know in my generation (Millenials) are broke/struggling financially. So when the lead minister of my congregation made some random comment about having trouble attracting young people because church and brunch with friends are competing for the same time slot. I thought of a young adult in the congregation who was active in the youth group but couldn’t make it to Sunday worship because he had to work on Sundays. And the time one of my coworkers got a promotion at my workplace, and definitely she was competent and I don’t begrudge her getting it, but also she ended up working an awful lot of Sundays and that was very likely a factor in her getting the promotion. And I’d been trying to avoid pledge drive Sunday for years because it always, every time, made me feel like I wasn’t really welcome if I couldn’t contribute much financially, even when I was contributing a great deal of my time. This is subjective and it could mostly be an issue with my then congregation. But I don’t think it is.

While Unitarian Universalism likes to think of itself as trans friendly, and it’s certainly much friendlier than some denominations, sometimes it drops the ball. Here’s an apology for an article about trans people that centered a cis person’s perspective and had some other issues: x

Anecdotally, subjectively, etc: this is an issue across the board. Unitarian Universalism’ self-image and what the organization actually is has a substantial gap. I attended a few workshops at GA this year, and: on the surface, great! So many workshops on such great anti-oppressive topics! But...when I actually went to the workshops, it was unsatisfying. It felt very introduction-ish. Maybe that was on purpose. But...I was hoping for better. 

Super anecdotally: UU’s tend to forget that disabled people exist. UU’s tend to not support disabled people and parents of disabled children.

Back to the “are we Christianity Lite?” thing. I dropped out of seminary. One part of thatwas this: x  Another was that at the time (it’s apparently since changed) the MFC requirements (uh, this is getting a bit technical: congregations ordain ministers, but in practice fellowshipping is important as well, and that’s what the MFC does, basically it’s saying other UU ministers think you should be a UU minsiter) prioritized knowledge about Christianity and the Bible over knowledge of other religions, even though nominally Unitarian Universalism is not Christian and Christianity isn’t especially prioritized in our Six Sources. As someone who is not Christian and didn’t expect my future ministry to involve a lot of Bible talk and really didn’t think prioritizing knowledge of the Bible among our religious leaders was good for the denomination as a whole, this bothered me. A lot. (For what it’s worth, most Starr King classes were actually really good at not doing this.) (The classes that did, though, made me want to tear my hair out. And made me wonder if this denomination I was studying to be a minister in, was the same as the denomination I’d participated in as a lay person for years.)

This is hard to put into words. But: sometimes people will say they believe a thing, but their follow-through is bad. Or they say one thing but act another way -- not because they’re lying, but because what they believe on the surface hasn’t been fully internalized. This is, anecdotally etc, a really common issue in Unitarian Universalism.

More super anecdotal etc: UU’s need to break the habit of seeing RE as daycare, and worship services that involve kids as being about showing off the kids to the adults. I took a quick look at you and it says you’re 18, so if you grew up UU you probably have your own opinions on this. But...sometimes the adult congregation and the kids’/youth programs are entirely separate worlds, and that’s not healthy for congregations.

YMMV: I’m not a huge fan of approaches to worship that involve sitting passively for most of the service. If the worship is going to be the same whether you’re there or not, why bother showing up? (Obviously some congregations are more like this than others, and apparently some people like the “lecture and a concert” format?? I’m not one of them.)

Basically, I think UU’s need to work on connection more and mutual support of each other more. While I approve of the social justice focus of course, social justice starts at home. You need to support the people who are actually in your congregation. I moved a year and a half ago, and haven’t joined my local congregation. Why? Because my illness makes it almost impossible to go anywhere in the mornings, and while they livestreamed each worship service, before the pandemic (presumably it’s all zoom worship now), there was zero effort to actually include anyone watching the livestream. Not so much as a PDF of the order of service. No verbal acknowledgement that some people aren’t present in the room. Nothing. (Side note: I tried one worship service at a “normal” congregation after the pandemic started, and all the mourning of not being able to be together in person was extremely frustrating to me, since I hadn’t been able to attend in person worship before the pandemic either. No one was thinking of people like me, and it was really, really obvious. I’ve since joined Church of the Larger Fellowship.) You say you want to use your privilege. That’s great! Some thoughts.

Trans people: How’s your congregation on pronouns? If your congregation uses nametags, can you push to normalize people putting their pronouns on nametags? What’s the bathroom situation: is it clear that trans women (whether you currently have any trans women in your congregation or not) can use the women’s bathroom? Is there a unisex bathroom that non-binary people and binary people who don’t feel safe using “their” bathroom can use? Also: a lot of older people weren’t raised with this and never really caught up, (and tbf some young people are ignorant too) so there’s a need for some trans 101 education.

Disability: for zoom worship, is there closed captioning for people who have hearing impairments or language processing issues? For live worship, what’s being done to make sure deaf and hard of hearing people are included? What’s being done for blind people (eg, electronic copies of the order of service being available for people who are blind but have screen readers?) For people who just have a little trouble seeing, are there large-print orders of service? What about the agendas for committee meetings and so on? This doesn’t have a quick fix, but are there places in your congregation that can’t be reached in a wheelchair? What about the chancel? (ie that area that the minister and whoever else is leading worship is speaking from?) Is there a wheelchair-accessible entrance that’s open during worship but closed during other programming?

How’s ministry to people who are sick or injured or just too old to get out much? And: is that support available to newer or prospective members, or only people who contributed to the congregation first? How available is information on how to get that kind of support: is it a thing where only some people are in the know, or is there outreach?

Are there unspoken rules about who’s the “right kind” of person to be in the congregation and who isn’t?

Sexual harassment, abuse, etc: is there a clear way to report sexual harassment? Does everyone know what it is? Does the congregation have a policy for what happens if a congregant is accused of sexual abuse? If a minister is? What's the congregation’s child abuse prevention policy? Do the people who work/volunteer with kids know what to do if a child or teen reports abuse to them? Are they screened in any way?

What accommodations does RE make for special needs children? If a child needs one on one assistance, does the RE program force the parent to provide that assistance if the child is to be part of the program?

What’s the policy on support animals? (these days: what’s the policy on emotional support animals?) How are the needs of people with allergies or other issues with dogs etc, balanced with the needs of people who benefit from support animals? (This can be tricky, I’m not saying there’s a clear right/wrong here, but it’s something that can make a congregation inaccessible.)

I don’t know the details on this, but I know sensory issues can be a problem for some people, eg flickering overhead lights. Scents can be an issue for some people, one possible solution is to have part of the sanctuary marked scent-free, dunno how well that plays out in practice.)

Representation: who’s speaking up during worship, and what are they speaking about? Something to be aware of.

Us/Them language: especially relevant if you’re speaking to the congregation during worship, but important in casual coffee hour chat too: who’s “us” and who’s “them”? Do people in your congregation tend to talk about, say, people below the poverty line as “them”? Homeless people? Black people? Immigrants?

Finding ways of making small talk that aren’t “what do you do for a living?”

I haven’t said anything about racism yet; a lot of congregations have some sort of anti-racist discussion group or something? Those things are good; there’s only so much they do by themselves, but as part of a larger whole, they’re important. Also, presence at Black Lives Matter protests, putting up a Black Lives Matter banner or sign if your congregation hasn’t done that, stuff like that.

Oh, culture and music and stuff. What kind of music gets played. Congregations that have made a specific attempt to be multiracial often find it’s necessary to do a lot of hashing out of what the music is going to be like.

And there’s a representation aspect to who gets quoted.

Small Group Ministry/Covenant groups: my former congregation liked to ask what your demographic info is and then split things up for “diversity” purposes. This is actually a really bad idea. In a congregation that’s mostly white, it means that often the non-white people end up being the only non-white person in their groups. Great for white people who want to “experience diversity”, but not so great for actual poc. My congregation had enough queer people that it wasn’t one queer person per group, but I could see that maybe happening in other places. And I think it did tend to separate out trans people into separate groups.

Cultural appropriation/cultural misappropriation: uff. I think some people go off the deep end on this. But, some things to consider. If the congregation is doing something to celebrate a Jewish holiday, is it run by someone who is Jewish or is of Jewish heritage? Stuff like that. Sometimes Unitarian Universalists’ desire to be all multicultural and interfaith and stuff, leaves out important things like “is this part of the culture that it’s ok for outsiders to share?” and “are we actually in relationship with this group of people?” And “are we cherry picking messages from sacred texts that we like, and leaving out the stuff we don’t like, when it’s not our sacred text and we don’t have enough context to do that respectfully?” x for overview and in more detail x

Also RE: is this Native American story one that it’s actually OK for us to tell? I’m not necessarily suggesting you go over what other people are doing, but if you’re teaching RE yourself, you get a say in what you teach.

If you happen to be a UU pagan or there’s a CUUPS group at your congregation that you sometimes participate in, there’s kind of a ton of work about untangling cultural appropriation in specifically pagan spaces, honestly I don’t know where to start with that. Don’t put that on yourself if you’re not part of that kind of group though, focus on groups you are part of.

Land acknowledgements.

Oftentimes if someone brings up an issue that requires work to change it, especially a younger person, the people who get stuff done are going to be, “ok, that sounds like work, we’ve already got a ton on our plate so are you going to do it?” So, if you offer to do some of the work of running the congregation, you’ll be in a better place to implement these sorts of changes. (I know a lot of times older adults don’t want to trust young adults with responsibility, so it might take some time to earn trust.) But also some are things you can just do: like you can say your pronouns every time you introduce yourself or put your pronouns on disposable nametags, if you’re comfortable with it.

General advice: you don’t have to (and shouldn’t try to) change everything at once. Be aware of a lot of things and be willing to be a “follower” on a lot of things. Signing petitions, saying “yes, that sounds like a good idea,” stuff like that. Be a leader on a small, manageable number of things. Maybe see what other people in your congregation are already doing that seems like a step in the right direction, and see how you can support that. Some of what UU’s are already doing is already really good, and most likely there’s already people around you who want Unitarian Universalism to act in closer alignment with its ideals.

[ladymostdeject]

I Use My Outside Voice (Because I Have No Choice) Chapter 1

Hamilton hurried into his office, Thomas right behind him. He flung his briefcase back onto his desk, heedless of the laptop inside.

Hamilton didn’t even flinch at the noise, and he doubled back to close the door.

“Why does Washington always send you when he wants something from me? It’s like he thinks he can irritate me into submission.”

“Nobody sent me this time.”

Thomas rolled his eyes so hard his neck popped. “What do you want, Hamilton?”

“I need this bill passed. It’s stalled right now, and I need it passed.” He moved Thomas’ briefcase to get at the papers he’d left on the desk. He clutched them to his chest, face earnest.

“You’re talking about the bank bill?” he asked. Hamilton nodded and shifted on his feet nervously. “Why are you this wound up about it? It’s just a weird little regulatory bill. Those die in committee all the time.”

Hamilton puffed up his chest. “I wrote it.”

Thomas sighed so hard it almost hurt. “Of course you did.”

“It needs your support. If you support it, the other moderates will fall in line. Madison, Woodhall-”

“No.” Jefferson leaned back on his desk and crossed his arms.

“Okay, while that’s a compelling argument, I was really hoping for a little bit more back and forth. Is that all you really have to say?”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “No, I will not support that bill.”

Hamilton huffed, “Why not?! It doesn’t violate any of the major Republican Party stances, it doesn’t threaten you or Virginia in any way, it’s reducing certain banking regulations. Look right here, where it says-” Hamilton thrust a couple of the pages towards Thomas, who took them and promptly dropped them in the garbage.

Hamilton squawked. The mean little thing in Thomas’ chest purred.

“I can’t support it. Word has come down from on high, we have to object to anything y’all want. Doesn’t matter what it is. You can’t come down here anymore looking for compromises from the moderates, the answer is going to be no.”

“And you’re okay with that are you? Total gridlock for the next two years ?” he cried. No actually. It made Thomas sick. “It’s not the way things are supposed to work! We’re supposed to be making the country better!”

He circled back around his desk to give himself a moment. “I don’t know what to tell-”

“I didn’t know you were a coward!”

Thomas thought his patience was at its end already, but apparently it could stretch even thinner. He clutched his desk to keep from leaping over it and throttling Hamilton. “Fine! Do you want to know what I think? Even if I could help you I wouldn’t. It’s a bad bill. It is way too long. It looks like you’re trying to hide something in all that circular language.”

“It is not circular! Or too long! It’s exactly as long as it needs to be! It’s thorough and precise!” He gestured wildly.

“It needs to be about fifty thousand words shorter.” Thomas was starting to get his second wind. He had forgotten how much fun it was to wind up the other man.

“Fifty-” he sputtered. “That’s half of it!”

“And another thing, it puts an outrageous demand on an already strained system.”

“No, it utilizes a system that’s already in place to-”

“Also, if you really want bipartisan support, you need to remove the clause about omegas.”

Hamilton looked thunderous before, but suddenly he looked downright deadly. “I will not,” he growled. “That clause removes a century old system of oppression.”

Thomas shrugged. “You wanted my opinion.”

“I want your vote.”

He threw up his hands in exasperation. “You can’t have it! Just wait until the next time you have a congressional majority. That’s apparently how it works now. My god, Hamilton, learn some tact! You stormed in here demanding my help, you’ve shouted at me, and you’ve argued with every one of my suggestions. You can’t just strong-arm everyone into doing whatever you want. You’ll never get elected if this is the most diplomatic you can be!”

Something he said struck Hamilton hard. He looked gutted, and sounded hollow when he said, “I’m never going to get elected. That’s why I need to pass this bill.”

Thomas grimaced. “Oh, for- I didn’t mean right now, obviously. I meant that in the future, you need a good lesson on how to talk to humans beings, not that-”

“No. I’m retiring,” he spat like it was the filthiest word he knew.

Thomas surprised himself by laughing. It was a deep, belly laugh. “Sure from the White House staff, but we all know you'll move on to something else. The House maybe? Hamilton, you and I both know you're never going to truly retire. You're going to die at age 97 on the Senate floor after thoroughly dressing down Congress.”

Hamilton collapsed into the chair by the desk like his strings had been cut. “No, I’ve got two years.” Thomas opened his mouth to refute such a blatant lie, but he plowed on, “I'll never be able to successfully win any election, because that requires people to like you. Nobody likes me. No. I am un-electable. If I’m going to make my mark, I’ve got to do it now, while I’ve still got Washington backing me. Even if all I can do is write a weird little bank bill.”

Thomas feels ice crawl down his back, and even though he's never even considered it before, he suddenly knows it’s true. There's a handful of omegas in congress, but every single one is cute. Wholesome. Quiet. Every single one has a wife or husband and a gaggle of children. Hamilton has none of those things. He has a loud mouth and huge opinions and an inability to keep those opinions to himself. Most damning of all in the court of public opinion, he has a list of ex-lovers as long as his arm. He's not the kind of omega people like to see on TV.

“Moreover, I have very few positive connections. There is no one else who would be willing to hire me after we’re done in the White House. I make enemies everywhere I go. I have what I have because Washington trusts me. Sees what I can do. I've worked for him for twenty years. And in the beginning, I even had to fight for him to give me my due. I've been clinging to his coattails. I may be able to get some bullshit job to pay the bills after our term ends but probably never in politics again and definitely never somewhere with as much influence as I have now. I have fought tooth and nail for every single thing I have, and I've reached the end. I've peaked, and there's nowhere else for me to go. No, when George retires, so do I.”

Thomas feels the world shift beneath his feet. He'd never even considered Hamilton's future. He's never given a thought to how his gender might affect his career. He just assumed he'd always be hanging around DC, stirring up trouble and bothering everyone within hearing range. And if he'd been a beta, or hell, an alpha, Jefferson was positive Hamilton would be a thorn in his side until his dying day. But omegas get married, they have children, and then they leave the workforce.

He racked his brain for an omega that's over 40 still working in DC. He comes up with that same tragically short list of senators and representatives he'd thought of earlier. He thinks about the secretaries and assistants and baristas he sees around town. Every single one is a cute young thing, flirty and sweet the second they catch on that he's an unbonded alpha. Where do all the omegas go?

Surely they're not all chained to their stoves. They run charities and volunteer at hospitals, but are never on the payroll. They hang demurely on the arms of the people he rubs elbows with. They are mothers, PTA members, and soccer team chauffeurs. His own mother had never worked a day in her life.

But what if she had wanted to? She was brilliant, always keeping his father on his toes with their lively dinner debates. Would she have been happier with a career? How is this never a question he'd asked her when she was alive? How is this not a question he'd asked himself?

He's suddenly ashamed that he's 45 years old, and he just learned something so new and so big. He doubts she could have just gone out and gotten a job, certainly not one worthy of her intellect. Not back then, but if what Hamilton is saying is true, then maybe not even now.

Things are supposed to be different. It’s illegal to fire an omega when they get married or pregnant. It's illegal to discriminate against them during the hiring or promotion process. And before this very moment Thomas had never once considered the omega population's lack of upward mobility might not be due to genetic temperament and lack of desire.

But Hamilton certainly doesn't seem inclined to find a mate and settle down. And it's not that Thomas forgets he's an omega, it's just that it’s a lot easier to lump him in with the betas and alphas he knows. He's irritatingly bursting with ambition and pride. And if Hamilton can't have the career he deserves, how many other omegas are trapped in lives they don't want?  Not everyone has the strength of will to fly in the face of hundreds of years of social conditioning, middle fingers held high, verbal abuse cocked and loaded. Not everyone has the fortitude to claw their way to the top. He has been blind. Worse than that, he's been stupid. He stumbled over to his desk chair and collapsed much like Hamilton had.

What was that clause in the bill about omegas? Something about removing the forty-eight hour wait period on omega’s requesting large withdrawals from their bank accounts without an alpha or beta’s co-signature? And removing the bank’s ability to vet the purpose of the withdrawal and deny the withdrawal if they deem it irresponsible.

Everyone knows that omegas are bad with money, and poor at resisting temptation. That law is there for their protection. To keep them from-

The scent of distressed omega finally registers through his haze of thoughts, a citrus-y tang overpowering his usual sweetness. Because Hamilton is an omega. The omega White House Communications Director wrote a comprehensive bill about bank regulations. And while the man himself is very controversial (and exhausting), with his fighting and his Twitter tangents and mile long list of exes, he has the ear and the unwavering trust of the leader of the free world. If the goddamn White House Communications Director wants to withdraw a substantial sum of his own money, he has to ask the bank nicely.

“Jesus, Jefferson.” Hamilton was smirking. Why was he smirking, didn’t he know Thomas’ whole system of beliefs is a lie? “I didn’t realize the thought of me retiring would be so upsetting. Are you gonna miss me?” Read the rest of Chapter One Here

[aty-altiria]

No 4. RUNNING OUT OF TIME

Caged | Buried Alive | Collapsed Building 

Word count: 2470

Universe: My Hero Academia, Harry Potter

Pairings: Fem!Harry/Present Mic

Rating: T

Themes: Collapsed Building, Panic Attack, Background Character Death

Summary: Hizashi didn’t track his days by good or bad, he just lived them. He never allowed a bad moment to ruin his mood, or the rest of what could be a potentially amazing day. But even Hizashi could admit… that particular day, though it started off good, was one of the worst in his life.

@whumptober2020 

---

Hizashi knew from experience that the worst of days typically started off like any other day. There wasn't anything poetic about them, no stormy sky that screamed ‘run,’ no ominous music, no blatant signs saying that maybe he shouldn't go to work that day. The worst days weren't heralded by anything out of the ordinary—no rain at funerals, no tragic music to go with a hospital visit. There's was no sign. Nothing that told Hizashi that day would be unlike any other.

That particular morning started that same as the one before it. Hizashi woke second, he always did. Hizashi Yamada was, personally, an early bird. His jobs often kept him up late, so he often had trouble waking up. Hizashi needed sleep so severely due to his careers that he was to the point of needing seven different alarms. He'd sleep through everyone before his lovely wife finally turned them off and woke him up herself. By that point, coffee was already made - his goddess of a wife was the best at brewing it - and breakfast ready for them both.

"Tomorrow you sleep in, I'll do breakfast!" He had emphasized the comment with a swing of his arm that would have sent coffee across the room and right into Holly's face. Thankfully for them both, she had long ago carved runes in all their cups to prevent precisely that. As it was, Holly, an early bird herself, simply smiled with indulgence. Because as much as Hizashi wanted to do that - and did when the opportunity presented itself - they both knew he worked three jobs and wouldn't have the time. His positions as a teacher, pro-hero, and radio host stole all his time; honestly, there weren't enough hours in the day. Plenty of partners hadn't been able to handle it in his past and that Holly could made him even more willing to keep her. Holly was understanding and had her own interests that kept her busy, which Hizashi was glad for.

Holly was kept busy with things like her work as an ambassador for the magical community and the classes she taught in Mahoutokoro and her volunteer work. Between the two of them, it was a miracle they saw each other at all during the day, yet they managed. Holly would frequently visit UA, so much so that the kids knew her by sight, and she'd have lunch with him. They always made an effort to have breakfast together. And he'd sneak constant phone calls during song breaks at the radio-station. They made it work, so Hizashi thought nothing of the typical morning full of the regular routine.

In fact, things seemed to be shaping up to be a fantastic day because Holly would be bringing him - and Shouta - lunch after her meeting downtown. Hizashi even managed to convince Holly to spontaneously dance in their kitchen as the radio played one of their many songs before leaving. The lyrics absolutely didn't match them, but the music played when they'd first met, so Hizashi treasured it.

Hizashi left for work on time and didn't meet up with any traffic - a nice perk to marrying a witch, instant teleportation to his office at the school. Then Holly kissed him a fond farewell, playfully set a coffee beside the bundle that was Shouta, dodged the slap on the butt that Nemuri tried to catch Holly with, and vanished with a crack.

It was a good morning, and Hizashi was still smiling by his second lesson, the one before noon and his lunch-date with Holly.

It was a typical day.

And then Kaminari yelped in surprise in the middle of class. For the last ten minutes he'd been hiding his phone in his lap. He clearly thought Hizashi was blind and hadn't noticed that Kaminari was smiling into his crotch, which wouldn't have surprised him. Hizashi had left the boy to it out of the sheer laziness. Either way, the teen had gasped none too quietly and dragged the attention of the entire classroom. It had been a rare moment of silence ironically; otherwise, no one would have noticed-

He wouldn't have known-

"What's up, Denki?" That was Jiro thinking she was subtle in whispering under breath, which she was, but that was only because Hizashi was virtually deaf without his hearing aids. So technically speaking, he'd read the girl's lips.

"Yes, share with the class." Hizashi prompted as he casually leaned against the blackboard.

Kaminari flinched, paled, and looked up all at once. The sheepish expression grew from there, and the boy slowly pulled his phone out to present it. "Sorry sensei, it's just… there was a villain attack downtown, and it looks pretty bad."

The first thought in Hizashi's head at that moment was, if the attack was bad enough, he'd have known about it long before the news crews did. His second thought was: 'Holly is downtown.' The third was that he had Kaminari's phone in hand, and he hadn't even realized he was moving until it was.

"Sorry! I won't look at my phone again-… sensei?"

A woman was reporting, she was in a chopper over a collapsed building. He could see the surrounding area, see that the top sixteen floors had crushed the lower ones. The building had been destroyed until it was a third of its original height. Dozens of fires had started, and the reporter was warning the audience about graphic content, then the camera panned toward a collection of bloody smears which had been people- the villain was- a quirk that- red feathers rescued civilians- Holly worked in-

Hizashi knew that building.

"Sensei?!"

"He's freaking out…"

"Someone go get-"

"Present Mic? Are you alright-"

The building sat right beside Holly's, but Holly's was magic, so it was spelled to prevent Muggles from seeing it, from knowing about it. Hizashi only knew it existed because he'd been there. Holly had walked him through the barrier and given him a charm that protected his mind from Muggle-repellent charms.

"-Mic-"

Her building was right beside that one. It was buried underneath sixteen floors, which had landed right where it should be. No one, absolutely no one but a person with magic would have any idea that they were there. No one knew to rescue her- his wife- his-

"Hizashi!"

The blow stung, but it helped him refocus on Shouta. His best friend was staring Hizashi down with a hand still raised from the slap he'd just given Hizashi. Behind him were the kids, panicked, concerned, and ready for action. They were put-together despite their pro-hero teacher having a complete break down over a news report. And Hizashi, at one point he'd fallen to his knees- he'd also cracked the screen of Kaminari's phone- and Holly-

"Holly," he choked out, trying to stand- why wasn't his legs- he couldn't feel them-

"Hizashi focus, tell me what's wrong." Shouta was unflappably calm; he was steady when Hizashi's world shook. "What about Holly?"

"Her building," his words came out more like a whimper than anything, and it caused several of the more empathetic kids to flinch. Hizashi wasn't in the right mind to care either, not when his wife was likely-

"Kids come on, let's leave them-" that was Nemuri, when had she gotten there?

"I'm not leaving!"

"Maybe we can help!"

"Back off extra!"

Hizashi forced himself to focus and turned the cracked phone toward Shouta to explain: "Holly's building is beside this one, but she has a spel-" -that was a secret- "protections on it to prevent it from being located. No one will know to save her-" Shouta took the phone, pulled it from Hizashi's grip and focused on the location. His eyes glazed slightly, and Hizashi realized the charm worked beyond in person; it also worked across video footage. He quickly reached for his charm; it could help Shouta focused. They'd need it.

"Then we have to go!" Iida piped up, "we can assist in searching and rescuing the people trapped in this building!"

"We'll have to figure out how to find it, though, if we can't see it without prior knowledge? Unless the quirk works differently-"

"There's no time for talking; any second we waste here is another moment that more people could die! We should move out now."

"Its downtown," Tsuyu tried to calm the group, "our efforts are better spent contacting the heroes present to tell them of the building."

"My internship was near there, I can contact the group there to assist."

Hizashi managed a breath as the kids sped into action. They worked together instantly with the briefest bit of information. As Shouta stood and corralled them, gave them individual jobs as Nemuri took position on the floor beside him.

"I can't stay here…" he choked out, and she nodded.

"The kids are already going to tell Nedzu. Come on, my car is nearby. We can drive there together."

It may be pointless, it may be too late- Hizashi felt sick at the thought, but no comforting word would help him then. Nothing could make this better but Holly back, safe and sound, in his arms.

—

Holly woke up with Hizashi tucked so close to her that they almost blended into one person. Holly was instantly comforted by the feel on his beard, unshaved for several days, on her arm, and his hand tangled up around her body. Any tension built in awakening quickly evaporated as she realized she was alive, and Hizashi was safe with her.

Holly exhaled slowly and took in the hospital room. The first thing she noticed was that it was magical, which meant Hizashi had purposely ensured she was brought there. Which likely meant Holly had been far worse off than initially assessed. Still, considering the last Holly remembered, she had been trapped and unable to feel her lower body before blacking out… well, Holly found relief that she could currently wiggle her toes. She wasn't paralyzed.

"It was Hizashi that pulled you out."

Holly flinched minutely and shot a look to Hizashi; with the bags under his eyes, she did not want to wake him up, she knew at a glance that he needed rest. Hizashi continued to breathe slowly, and she relaxed long enough to address the speaker. The voice had startled her only because Holly hadn't noticed Shouta' napping' in the corner. It was a sign of how out of it she still was that he hadn't seen the bright yellow sleeping back to her left. That and she was honestly surprised Shouta had been allowed inside the magical hospital; he'd likely pretended to be a squib or Hizashi's relative to manage it. She could believe it, Shouta knew about magic for as long as he'd known about her, even though he technically wasn't allowed too.

"We contacted the heroes present in the collapse, but none of them could see the building." Shouta slowly started to climb from his sleeping bag, "something I think your people need to work on, secrecy or not."

"I don't disagree," she pointed out. Holly had been one of the leading voices in Muggle heroes being allowed to know about them. For rescue cases such as the one she'd gotten involved it or in the case of a hero finding a magical kid out of control. If they were to and treat a thing like that like a quirk, it could be a disaster. Not the mention that the fact that 'quirkless' didn't exist anymore and society had no idea. No clue that 'quirkless' children were actually magical ones. Not that her people were better at telling, Holly could name two people she personally knew missed by the magical warning system.

"Hmm," Shouta yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth, "we arrived with some of the kids, damned brats insisted on coming. Had a full mutiny on my hands because of you." Not that he disapproved. The brats had their hero licenses now, so they were allowed legally to assist. Midoriya had been specifically helpful as the wards didn't affect him. "It's annoying to be attempting to rescue people only to forget why I needed to. Not to mention having to grab Todoroki because he went running into traffic because he forgot the 'toaster' was on in the dorms."

Holly's sheepish expression grew even if it wasn't her fault.

Shouta just stared her down. "Midoriya was the one who located you, and Hizashi pulled you from the rubble where he insisted upon driving you here because your legs were mangled." She flinched, and Shouta's mad grin grew, but he couldn't disguise the worry in his eyes, "that was four days ago."

"And the casualties?"

"Sixteen, including both buildings… smaller than originally projected. Many survived thanks to a few nearby witches." Holly leaned her head back and felt Hizashi shift, he curled in closer to her, and she tightened the grip she had on his hand. He'd been holding hers while she'd been out, unmoving while she slept. "You worried him."

"I… didn't mean to."

"I know, and so does he," Shouta stood and started to roll up his sleeping bag, "though just so you've been warned, Nedzu intends to force him on vacation after this. Better take advantage of it… you both deserve one." With that, he slipped from the room, leaving Holly and Hizashi be.

Holly turned slowly once the door was closed; she looked at Hizashi and the stress in his sleeping face. She hated to see it, hated to know she'd caused it.

Hoping to relax his brow, she reached up and ran a figure along the pinch there. Like she'd used magic, Hizashi relaxed, and his sleep looked far gentler. The expression did it; Holly felt the tears begin to fall as she gave in to the fear she hadn't dared feel while she'd been pinned. The terror that she'd be forced to leave Hizashi, to pass on without him. She'd thought, believed for an instant that she'd never see him again, never do another lunch-date, never fall asleep together, never dancing to their many songs-

"Holly," Hizashi's fingers carefully wiped the tears falling along her cheeks. He had no words, and neither did she, but they didn't truly need them. Not as Hizashi held her tight, and they both acknowledged the terror and the relief that they'd made it.

[randommusersmusings]

Childfree CAN be freeing: A Response to a Response

“'Childfree' may not be as freeing as it sounds”. The name of the article by a mother named Tamara that I accidentally stumbled on, browsing Google with my free (of children) time. The article was meant to be a reply, of sorts, to the Guardian's “Childfree Women” series. I rolled my eyes. Here we go, I thought. Another person who thinks being childfree is an attack on mothers everywhere. Another argument to birth children we don't want to have. Another rebuttal to our reasonings, fears, and wants, trying to strip it all away until we reach the conclusion that we can now just go ahead and start making babies, and you're welcome, by the way, for making up your mind for you. Maybe it's not that bad though, I thought. Besides, it's fair for her to voice how she feels. I clicked on the article. “I wonder where they've put all the articles that make the case for having kids,” it began. I clicked off the article. I'm not subjecting myself to that, I thought. But curiosity killed the cat, as they say, and I have to imagine it's that same curiosity that led to me crawling right back to that article. Still reading, still trying to make sense of it. Where are the articles for having kids? Well, let's see if I can answer that.

“...talks about opting out of having kids for a number of purposes, most of which struck me as excuses rather than really good reasons”. Did... I miss something? Pray tell what is a “good reason” to not want kids? Who do we report to, and do we need a note from our doctors? In any case, one of the reasons (or “excuses”) was the overpopulation of the planet and climate change, and fear of exacerbating both issues by adding more children to it. Tamara's argument was that one can simply counter their offspring's existence by donating to charities and organizations that battle climate change. There's a few things wrong with that. Number 1: we still just don't want kids. Number 2: she's assuming we have money. If we don't have money to spend on children then how do we have money to spend on charities? Now on the other hand, we do have enough wealth and resources on the planet to feed everyone, and to maintain ourselves and any children we see fit to bring into this world. If we only spread the wealth and share the resources. Ah. There's the catch, we're doing exactly the opposite of that. Families are still living in poverty in... everywhere, while the rich get richer. Families already struggle in a world where one medical emergency can shoot a family far down the poverty well, then take the ladder away.

“...also talks about kids being difficult and costly, but isn't anything worthwhile the same”. Not always, actually, but for the sake of argument let's say sure. Not only can I now refer back to my previous point (we have no money) but I'll raise Tamara the problems that can come with wanting to do all the things you find worthwhile. Where is everyone going to get all the money they need to provide a good living situation for their kids and also, say, go to college? Not only would that be incredibly costly in terms of our money, but also in our time. It can be done, sure, but it's hard, and only gets harder the less money, time, and overall privilege we have. If your spouse isn't supportive, if your have a job, if you have no one to watch your kids during the day, if you have no car, need to bus it, and be back in time to make dinner—the list goes on. It can be so, so hard to be able to do everything you want to do with a tight budget, and the time and demands can simply be too much for the person trying to do them. It can be done, we've seen it before, but there's a reason those stories stand out. It's because they don't happen often. So if a uterus-bearer decides they want to prioritize their education and/or career over having children, then more power to them, I say. It's a fair choice for many in a world where's it's near impossible to have it all.

“...insists...it is not selfish for a woman to decide to never have a child”. It's not. “...But I can say that having children does involve selflessness”. Well...in theory, yes. Sadly not always in practice, though. But do continue. “A woman’s body changes for her child, her mind changes for her child; every moment is affected by the existence of that child”. We know. That's what we're trying to avoid. “I, for one, think personal growth involves being more selfless, and if having kids helps with that, then great”. Well sure, unless we don't want to actually raise a kid. I'm sorry but what's so difficult to understand about that? One can grow as a person without forcing a child to come along as a crutch to help one deal with their emotional baggage, thank you. In fact, I would argue it's much more beneficial to do whatever you need to do (therapy, medication, anything) to help manage your struggles, and then bring a child into the world if you see fit. For many people, dealing with their issues as well as their child's issues can hinder their personal growth, rather than help it. Not everyone seems to want to hear this, but children don't “fix” a parent's problems and they don't “fix” the parent. Managing problems is so personal to each individual, and it's frankly dangerous and irresponsible to tell them having a child will help with their personal growth. That's just not always the case.

“Sources please? I don't hear women being told that their only value is domestic”. Well Tamara isn't listening enough, then. Here's the thing about getting sources on something like this: it's awfully hard to do. The problem is it's not something that we have proof of just laying under couch cushions like loose change. It's an attitude, an idea, ingrained into society. In the way we talk, in our attitudes, our assumptions. How often do we hear about the lazy stay at home mom trope? Now if this has never been an issue for Tamara, then great! No seriously, that's good to hear, because that's how it should be! But the problem is, that's not everyone's experience, and it isn't the norm, either. Society has this unspoken assumption that a woman is going to stay home, take care of house and kids, and split precisely zero of these responsibilities with her husband, whom she also takes care of. Children assumed to be female at birth are pretty much trained to take care of the house and the men in it once they're old enough to stand. How many families leave the menfolk to watch football or drink a beer and talk while the women (including children) cook, clean up, and otherwise serve the men, before they are allowed to enjoy themselves, too? Don't ever try to tell me that women and feminized people aren't valued for their domestic contributions more-so than men, and that there's no pressure on them to prioritize that over everything else. Just don't.

Now, this next point...it made me angry, I won't lie. The author recounts how a couple of women writing in didn't want to have children, as their families were alcoholics and neither wanted to pass on their addictive genes. To that: “Having a loved one who has struggled with addiction and has now been in recovery for many years, I see that the lessons he can pass on to his kids – whether they have addictive personalities or not – are so, so valuable. He is more the inspiring person for the difficulties he has been through and overcome, and he is evidence of the good that can come out of suffering”. I...how dare she? How dare she diminish those women's experiences like that? Listen, I'm glad her loved one is doing well, okay? I am. But I'm sure he would be heartbroken to watch any of his kids go through what he did, knowing how hard it was for him. Also, to be frank, not everyone does overcome those struggles. Not having experience with addictions myself, I'm reluctant to talk too much about this. I haven't seen or lived with this. But please, if you read how someone grew up with parents struggling with addiction, and talking about not wanting to pass that struggle on to their own kids, don't counter with “A world devoid of suffering doesn't help kids –teaching them how to move on from it is what counts”. It's tone-deaf, dismissive, and sickening.

“Yes, there are burdens associated with being a parent”. We still know that. We still want to avoid those. “But there is also the freedom of choosing to love, choosing to live for others...to be less self-seeking”. Oh my God. Choosing to love? Excuse you? Is this that “you don't know real love until you have children” thing? Do I, She Without Children, actually hate my parents, my pets, and my brother, because I don't have the love of a child? Man I hate that argument. It's truly pointless. Many childfree people are perfectly capable of feeling love, as is...any human being out there, really. Also, “choosing to live for others” doesn't necessarily have to mean bringing kids into the world. If one wants to one can adopt a kid already here and waiting for a good home. One can volunteer at or donate clothing and food to a homeless shelter. One can donate to charities, if you have the funds to. Adopt a pet from a shelter. There are so many ways someone can make other's lives richer, and procreating isn't the be all end all to that selflessness. Which again, doesn't always happen. “If you ask me, there’s still a very strong case for motherhood”. There is, and that's if you actually want to have children.

Well. There we have it. “I wonder where they've put all the articles that make the case for having kids”. Do I have an answer? I think I do. Go and read her article. I'll wait. Back? Good. Now, in that whole article, the tone implies that people with a uterus definitely want to have kids. Like the default is just “you want kids”. Of course you do. What do you mean you don't? Why don't you want kids? There it is. When women and feminized people don't want kids, that's an attitude that's outside of the norm society has imposed on us. We don't want kids, so now we have to argue out way through an invisible judge and jury to give us permission to feel that way. The pro-motherhood sentiment is already all around us, in societal pressures, in the media we consume, in our medical practices. Uterus-bearers are often turned down for medical sterilization on the grounds that they “might change their minds”, or worse, their husbands might want kids. This line has been used on people who aren't even married. Our bodies are already forbidden from being ours on the grounds they belong to men. Sometimes hypothetical men we haven't met yet! That's why it's time, finally, to give childfree people the platform we need to let our voices be heard. To explain something that we should be able to say in five words: “I just don't want to”. So instead of counter-pointing and arguing and trying to get people to change their minds about deeply personal decisions about their own bodies, just stop, and try listening to us instead.