#because the world was finally able to balance the third part of the scale

[eimearkuopio]

We've got time. It will be enough. ❤️

Look, I'm not saying that it's our place as an organisation to dictate who does and does not get to claim monsterhood. I'm just saying that when the membership of the organisation in question includes a sphinx, a bridge troll, several mysterious hermits, and a pair of goblins where one of them always tells the truth and the other always lies, "no gatekeeping" is a policy that needs to be approached with nuance.

[the-pale-goddess]

Ethan & Tiffany: Endgame (HC)

A quick reminder: I've rejected canon Third Year completely, so mind that none of OHTY bs happens in my E&T canon timeline.

A/N: I tried my best to write every major fact down - hopefully the final product isn’t too messy or too boring, I’m new to the headcanon business and this isn’t even written in the headcanon form because I’m a rebel lol

Huge thanks to the lovely Anon who requested this HC and every single one of you still interested in E&T’s shenanigans, your support is the greatest gift I could ever receive! If you have some more specific questions about these two, feel free to hit my askbox anytime 💕

Now let’s check what’s in store for Tiffany and Ethan!

Children

Neither of them planned children in their lives; they were perfectly comfortable in the relationship they had—living together, advancing their glittering careers while supporting each other, slaying the game as the ultimate power couple.

But life has its ways, of course, and a week prior to their third anniversary Tiffany found out she was pregnant. The news sparked blind panic in the 30-year-old doctor; she thought her whole world fell like dominoes. Tiffany wouldn't intentionally start a family: she'd just started turning her dreams and plans into reality and she didn't even consider herself fit to be a mother (even though deep down she craved it).

She'd spent an entire week full of doubts, listing all her options, before she finally shared the news with Ethan. His reaction was surprisingly calm, considering his stance on having children. Based on the evidence gathered throughout the week, he'd already suspected pregnancy and did some calculations on his own.

They both agreed it wasn’t the best time—their busy schedules didn’t allow them to even reconsider the concept of starting a family. Nevertheless, the baby was coming, and their hearts filled with strange excitement. Having a baby on board seemed surreal at first, but after the dust had settled they felt oddly content about the unforseen circumstances.

E&T's world turned upside down the second their son was born. Raising a child happened to be the greatest challenge these two brilliant doctors had encountered. Luckily, they both relish a good challenge. Guided by the unexpected overflow of affection, they quickly settled into the alien routine of parenthood.

Nathaniel Jonah (also known as NJ, Nate) turned out to be a perfect blend of his parents' most prominent features & traits: Ethan's ocean eyes and stubbornness mixed with Tiffany's smile and warm heart.

Three years later, another surprise awaited. The most shocking thing about the second pregnancy was that it didn't happen sooner (they'd been exceptionally careless). Nicolette „Letty”, a spitting image of her mother, stole Ethan's heart from the start, bringing even more joy to their controlled chaos.

The fancy condo was too small for a family of four, so The Ramdams were forced to find a new home. They moved to a dreamy house in the Boston suburbs merely a month before their daughter was born.

The third one (for a change) received a proper invitation to this world. Tiffany wasn't the biggest fan of the idea of having another baby, but her window was closing (she was 38) and Ethan's palpable excitement tipped the scales. Everyone jokes Aine must be adopted because she's the most unproblematic angel, unlike her parents.

The family wouldn't be full without pets: Nettie (British Shorthair cat) & Hopper (English bulldog).

Marriage

Marriage was never on their agenda. Neither of them felt the need to make their relationship formal, it wouldn't change anything between them—they were already acting like a married couple. Both Tiffany and Ethan think there are more valuable symbols of love than some paper signed in the presence of everyone they know. Partnership they were in seemed like the most comfortable and obvious choice.

The topic resurfaced with the pregnancy news. Our good guy Ethan, our Mr Must-Do-What’s-Right, proposed to Tiffany on their third anniversary dinner, right after they discovered they were expecting. He did it because it made sense. Because it was convenient. Because it was a decent thing to do.

But guess what...Tiffany rejected the proposal. She didn’t want to marry out of obligation. If they were really going to jump into marriage, she wanted it to matter. Ethan understood her point of view, though it didn't stop him from jokingly annoying her on every given occasion that she rejected him.

He waited two years before popping the question again. This time she said yes.

Dr. Grumpsey was willing to agree on a lavish wedding if Tiffany would insist. Lucky for him, his woman hates big, conventional weddings and all that unnecessary attention around the reception. They're both very private people, so they planned the wedding they were actually excited about.

They eloped to Miami where it all started, exchanging vows to the accompaniment of the ocean waves, with little NJ by their side. The wedding reception was just three people enjoying their day at the beach.

As you may suspect, their friends and family flew into a rage when they found out the wedding took place behind their backs. Jackie's death threats were particularly disturbing, so E&T decided to throw an afterparty for their loved ones only.

Career

Tiffany saw her future in diagnostics and followed that path, balancing her personal goals with striving for improvement in patient care. The word about her accomplishments with one of the best diagnostics teams spread fast; shortly after her challenging yet successful residency, Doctor Addams quickly proved to be one of the most valuable and respected diagnosticians—not only at Edenbrook, but also statewide, and later nationwide. She cracked some of the toughest, most hopeless cases, saving lives of many patients considered lost causes.

During her first pregnancy, her career was already on high speed and the situation made her even more determined to keep it that way. She didn't want to sacrifice her newly established position and Ethan did everything he could to support her and her career development.

She remained a vital part of Edenbrook's Diagnostics Team under Ethan's leadership for a few years. Their minds combined gave spectacular results and above it all they truly enjoyed working together. However, when Letty was born sharing responsibilities at home and managing the time got significantly harder. With minimal hesitation, Ethan decided it was his cue to leave.

He'd been thinking about the change for much longer than he was willing to admit: over the years he'd accomplished everything he could dream of and Edenbrook had become more of a duty than a challenge. So he quit, leaving the team in the most capable hands of Doctor Addams-Ramsey.

For a year and a half The Ethan Ramsey was a stay-at-home dad, juggling family, research for his second book and setting up his clinic with none other than Tobias Carrick.

Ethan wasn't 100% convinced if starting the practice with Tobias would be a wise move, but the clinic exceeded his expectations. Apart from the great sense of accomplishment, he finally gained full independence at work. And there were no bloody interns to babysit anymore.

When little Ramdams got older, he approached Tiffany with a job offer; the best diagnostician in the country was the last missing link in his clinic. She let it marinate for a few years and accepted the offer at the launch of her second book, soon after Letty's 18th birthday.

____

If there’s a typo or a mistake somewhere...No, there isn’t kgjdkgjdk

Thanks for reading 🥰 I have a few exciting fics in the making (both AUs & canon) and I hope I’ll be able to finish them soon!

[amintyworld]

Falling In Love With You - Dream SMP Drabble

Prompt: DSMP Valentines Fanweek: 8th: Food/Music

A/N: Hey so if you haven’t been aware there’s a fanweek going on for Dream SMP that involves Valentines Day prompts, and I’ve always wanted to participate in one of these, so I’m gonna try to post drabbles when I can this week. ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ by Elvis Presley. Today we’ve got some Mermaid!Sally, so I hope you enjoy! - Minty

Tagging: @dsmp-fanweeks

TW: mention of vomiting, mention of miscarriage, memory loss, mention of death.

-------------------------------

Wise men say 

Only fools rush in

But I can’t help falling in love with you

Sally lugged the passed out man onto the beach, checking to see thankfully he was still breathing. She would admit it was a shock to her when a human sank deep into her part of the ocean and for some reason or other did not seem to want to swim up. At first, the mermaid considered maybe just letting the human drown - after all, humans were always after her scales for their strange potions and often wanted to kidnap her anyway. Sweet revenge.

But her heart didn’t want revenge, instead, it urged her to show him mercy and be kind, and maybe in return, he’d be the same. Now, changing into her human form as her necklace flashed around her neck, she looked down at the human, watching him slowly breathe in and out, his dark brown locks messed and halfway covering his right eye. When suddenly his eyes snapped open as he looked around, they made eye contact as they both let out a loud scream, scrambling for weapons. “What.. what are you?!”

“Gee, a thanks would be nice for saving your life.”

“Saving my… where’s Tommy and Tubbo?!” The human said, looking around desperately for the two people he was asking for.

“Who?”

“My brothers, they were with me when we got cornered and had to jump. Where are they?” He asked, panicked.

“If they weren’t with you they must be upstream. They’re probably looking for you, come on.” She huffed, throwing down the rock she used as a makeshift weapon and walking over to hold her hand out and help the man to his feet. He hesitated before taking hers, both just staring into each other’s eyes for a moment before she began to walk past with a huff.

“Thank you.”

Sally turned around, surprised to hear the human say that as she absentmindedly tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Uh… thanks.” She said, a smile spreading across her lips.

----------------------------------------------

Shall I stay?

Would it be a sin

If I can’t help falling in love with you?

“Alright Wilby, you’re going down,” Sally smirked as she adjusted her grip on the wooden sparring sword, her long hair up in a ponytail. Wilbur, on the other hand, smirked confidently. 

“Oh really? You underestimate my power, young padawan.” They both chuckled a bit at the joke before rushing forward, swords clashing together. Wilbur pushed against Sally’s sword as she lost balance and stumbled backward, Wilbur rushed to pin her to the floor before she jumped, just missing his strike and holding her wooden sword above her head to bring it down in a downward strike. Wilbur moved back just in time to dodge as he dashed forward, pinning her against a tree. “It’s no use - you’re a trapped sardine, or salmon more like.” He chuckled as she struggled against his grip, her sword on the ground.

Just a few feet away in some bushes, two teenage boys watched intently. “What are they doing?”

“Sparring, duh.”

“Why is she blushing then?”

“Huh…?”

Sally bit her lip as she weighed her options, a smirk appearing on her lips. “I know there’s only one way out of this one, Wilby. One way you’ll never resist.”

“Oh yeah, what’s-?” Sally pushed her lips against Wilbur’s, making him weak in the knees as sally effortlessly tossed his sword to the ground as well, focusing on the kiss before Wilbur grabbed her wrists and pinned them up against the tree trunk. “That’s cheating!”

“Yeah, I’d like to see the rulebook!”

Back in the bushes, Tubbo’s eyes lit up. “I know what this is: They’re flirting.”

“What’s flirting?”

“I think it’s when you try to make someone blush. They’re blushing because they’re sick. Philza told me.”

“Sick?”

“Yeah, lovesick. I think it’s like the flu.”

-------------------------------------------

“Like a river flows

Surely to the sea

Darling, so it goes

Some things are meant to be.”

Wilbur’s voice echoed through the dusk as Sally walked through the candlelit path, hearing Wilbur’s singing. Tubbo had passed her a note that said to meet Wilbur at the mountain before the messenger promptly jumped into the bushes humming the Mission Impossible theme. Walking up the mountain, the wind whipped her long hair around as Sally pulled her sweater closer to herself to get warmer. What in the world did Wilbur want with her all the way up here?

As she turned the corner she felt like she couldn’t breathe, as her world stopped and slowed. There Wilbur sat in what looked to be a worn grey suit, playing his guitar with a white lily, her favorite, wedged tightly in between the strings. Seeing her, he smiled, moving closer and leaning his guitar against the tree as he freed the lily, brushing her hair back behind her ear and safely tucking the lily in her hair. Her breaths caught in her throat as his hand moved to cup her cheek. “You look beautiful.”

“I-” Sally felt her cheeks heat up at the comment as she stammered, trying to change the topic. “You sent for me?”

“I had something to ask you, yes,” Wilbur said, lightly taking her hand in his as he leads her toward the edge where he was to see the stars begin to blink into existence. Wilbur took a deep breath. “We’ve been dating for a while now, and I was wondering… do you want to be my girlfriend?”

“Yes… I… nothing would make me happier than being with you, Wilby.”

-----------------------------------------------------

Take my hand

Take my whole life too

For I can’t help falling in love with you

“Wilbur, I’m pregnant,” Sally admitted, her hand still not letting his move from her belly. “It’s yours, Wilby.”

Wilbur brushed his hands through Sally’s hair, moving to cup her cheek, eyes darting back and forth. “Pregnant…?” He said, hopeful. It was their third day in Dream SMP - they’d been together for so long and had always wanted a family, but it never seemed to work no matter what they did. It seemed almost impossible to hear those words out of Sally’s mouth because for a long time Wilbur thought he’d never hear them. But here they were.

“We’re having a baby, Wilbur.” Sally smiled, leaning in against Wilbur’s chest and snugly putting her head between his neck and shoulder, wanting to be as close to him as possible. “You’re gonna be a Dad…”

Wilbur felt tears of joy go down his cheeks as he laughed softly, pulling Sally closer to rest her body against his fully, cuddling her close. His hands rubbed gently on her stomach, and he leaned up to kiss her softly on the neck. Their other hands interlocked tightly. “How… how long?”

“Three months. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a fluke before I told you.”

“I’m gonna be a Dad…” Wilbur sighed, kissing Sally’s cheek softly. “You’re gonna be a Momma.”

“I know. I didn’t believe it when I found out either. I was worried they’d… but they didn’t. They’re still here.”

“My little champion, my little warrior…” Wilbur smiled, tears going down his cheeks as he looked down at Sally’s stomach. “Don’t stop fighting now, okay? You’ve got so many people who’ve been waiting so long to finally meet you. I can’t wait to meet you.”

“I love you, Wilby.” Sally smiled, content. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Sally.” Wilbur breathed, holding his girlfriend close and not prepared to let her go anytime soon.

------------------------------------------------

Like a river flows

Surely to the sea

Darling, so it goes

Some things are meant to be.

“Fine, I’ll go with you. Just leave the baby, please.”

“A wise decision. The Queen will be pleased to hear of your arrival back into the Pod.”

“You’ll leave the baby alone, and the humans?”

“Humans?” The guard with a necklace like hers smirked, holding back a laugh. “Why would we possibly care about humans?”

Sally held her baby close one last time as she ran her fingers through the small child’s fur. She still hadn’t even opened her eyes yet. She’ll have no idea what her own mother even looks like. She moved to kiss her daughter on the forehead as her black nose sniffed intently at her scent, not knowing it would be the last time she’d smell it. Her daughter, her little miracle. “I love you, don’t forget your mother loves you.” Carefully, she set the basket in the pond and with a little magic from her necklace, moved the water to drift the baby down a small river toward L’manburg. They’d all be safe, that’s all that matters now.

“Come on, Salaria. The Queen is awaiting your presence.”

“Of… of course.” Sally turned with a sigh as she sorrowfully followed her captor through the trees and away from her home. Her real home.

------------------------------------------------------

“Take my hand

Take my whole life too

For I can’t help falling in love with you.”

Sally sat near the water with Ghostbur, her heart shattered seeing him but was happy that she was able to, at least one last time. She sat with her arms crossed on the beach, her tail submerged in the water, her necklace gone. As punishment for ‘abandoning’ the Pod, she was no longer able to shift like the others and able to travel to the surface again. Her necklace was smashed, along with her hopes of ever seeing her real family ever again. At least now she could properly say goodbye to him, maybe even apologize. She slowly finished the song as Ghostbur continued to strum, listening intently.

“For I can’t help falling in love with you.”

“I… sang this for you?”

“All the time back in the day. You were very romantic.” Sally reassured Ghostbur. “We’d sing it together sometimes, other times you just strummed it on your guitar. It’s our song. Don’t you remember?”

“No, I…” A dark blue tear slid down the ghost’s cheek. “I don’t. I really want to, though. I want to remember you. I want to remember how it felt to love you, I’m really trying, but… but I can’t.”

Slowly, as Ghostbur sobbed Sally’s hand found its way into the ghost’s. “It’s okay. One day you’ll remember, I know you will. Whenever you do, I’ll be waiting right here for you. I love you, Ghostbur.” Sally said, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. “I love you no matter what.”

[moonhoures]

Hi love!! I really love your writing a lot ^^. Do you usually have a planning process of some sort for your fics? If so, then how do you do it? Do you have any other writing advice as well? I hope you don't mind answering this <3

of course, i don’t mind answering! i love getting asks like this 🥺 i’m flattered that you love my writing 💓

if i’m honest, i don’t have much of a planning process for fics. at least, it’s nothing too extravagant. if it’s a series, i usually just have plot points that i know i want to write so i’ll loosely jot those down in an outline before i write anything ->

for example: with first love, my outline kinda looked like this (not exactly, bc i deleted the original outline after i posted the fic so this is a recreation):

and i try to follow it, but everything in between is just whatever flows out of me naturally. i also do an outline for one-shot fics just on a smaller scale sense they’re shorter and more contained than a series.

as for additional writing advice, i’ll try my best . . .

first, definitely start off with writing what you want to and what you’re passionate about, because i find that’s when you become the most invested in your story. if you take your time and enjoy writing it, it shows in the work, and i find it makes it more enjoyable for the reader (and for you!). you should be able to re-read your work as a reader (not as the writer) and enjoy the final product and be proud of it.

second, i find myself focusing on this when i write and it’s to have variety in your writing / not being too repetitive. i live and breathe by thesaurus.com, we’re practically bffs at this point. i’m a bit of an english/creative writing buff and i’ve been writing creatively since i was, like, ten(?) so i’ve always strived for a wide vocabulary. it’s good to keep a plethora of descriptive words and sentence lengths. you don’t want to use too many short sentences in a paragraph bc they look choppy, and you don’t want to use too many long sentences bc they run on and can lose the reader sometimes. you want balance. you don’t want to use words over and over again in a short span of time, so either change the word, or dismiss the sentence altogether and think of something else to focus on.

third, it’s easy to fall victim to the dialogue-heavy writing style, when you can’t think of what to write but you know exactly what you want the characters to say. the fic ends up looking like line after line after line with nothing in between the quotes to let the reader know what’s happening while they’re talking, or how they’re feeling. so remember you have 5 senses to lean on. write about the environment they’re in while they talk and how it affects their conversation. write about what they’re thinking but not saying. write about what they’re hearing and smelling. if they’re in a restaurant or setting with food, write about what they’re eating or drinking. any small detail is useful in helping the reader immerse themself in the world you’re creating! and the more realistic, the better (i find).

fourth, don’t get discouraged from a fic just bc it’s not coming out the way you want it to! for first love part 1, i rewrote the opening to it multiple times before i was happy with it and it also took me, like, a month to write the entirety of that part as well as part 3. it takes time to craft art, and that’s how you should look at your fics. some people are able to whip up an amazing fic in a day, and that’s great but it won’t be like that every single time you write. it’s okay to get stuck and walk away from it for a while. look for other inspiration or look at the thing that motivated you to write the fic in the first place and really think about where you want to go with the plot.

fifth, and on tumblr specifically, don’t get discouraged to post just bc your fics don’t get the amount of notes you want them to (especially if you’re a fresh blog!) you have so much time for them to find an audience and the good thing abt tumblr is that everything is so intertwined through reblogs and tags and masterlists that people are bound to stumble across your work eventually. i still have people in my notifs liking my fics from 2018/2019 bc of my masterlist/people reblogging them and it’s about to be 2022, so time will carry the fics to people when they want them.

sixth, piggybacking off of the last point, if you’re writing on tumblr, your best friends will be the tags and networking/having mutuals. the tags will get your work to the right people, but connecting with those people is what will help you in the long run. if it weren’t for my mutuals and the recurring, supportive followers who always come back to enjoy my work and hype me up i wouldn’t have nearly as much motivation to write, and i probably would’ve quit on this blog a long time ago. even if your work doesn’t get a lot of attention, the little attention it does get from the people who genuinely enjoy you and your work will make your heart sore. and that’s better than 2,000+ notes full of likes and reblogs w no feedback, in my opinion.

finally, i’m running out of advice. i think i’ve said everything i want to, so i’ll just leave you with this: writing fanfic is supposed to be a fun, enjoyable thing for writers. it’s not supposed to be a job (unless you want it to be, but that’s a whole other can of worms) so don’t take it too seriously. don’t get overwhelmed. if a fic isn’t working out, like i said, just walk away and try again later. or be like me and scrap the whole thing to start over again even if you’re halfway done with it :) and as long as you’re happy with the product you’ve created, then you’ve written successfully!

damn, i really rambled on this one 🥴, but i hope it’s useful for someone! 😊

[apothecarinomicon]

Spring week 4 part 3

After my hectic experience with the marshbloom, I decided to take a day for myself. Greenmoor isn’t anywhere near the ocean, but Meltwater Loch is big enough that I figured a day spent there could be considered a beach day. And after the couple of weeks I’d had, boy did I need a beach day.

But anyone who’s read this far ought to be familiar with my luck by now. There’s a lot to record, but I’ll try to get it down in order.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

It was a beautiful day—clear blue sky, warm air, and (at least when I first arrived) no one around at Meltwater Loch. I spread out a towel on the beach and laid down for a good session of sunbathing. I’ve never been one for tanning, but  simply laying doing nothing while being warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze felt absolutely decadent.

After a while of simply existing, I became aware of the sound of a bird calling above me. I cracked my eyes open and recognized the large forms of a pair of gull-drakes flying overhead. Gull-drakes are a strange hybrid, both reptilian and avian. Their torsos and wings are feathered, while their heads, tails, and talons are scaled. They do have beaks like gulls, but their tails are prehensile like their alleged draconic ancestors’. I say ‘alleged’ because no one knows how the hybrid gull-drake came into being. The sheer anatomy and scale discrepancy between the average seagull and the average dragon fossil (they were much larger in ancient times than the pocket-sized lizards we have today) seems to rule out any cross-breeding. Additionally, the typical combination of traits displayed by gull-drakes is too awkward and ungainly to be the result of natural selection. And yet, there have been records of the gull-drake’s existence for just about as long as there have been records—the third-oldest surviving written document, in fact, is a bestiary which includes them along dozens of other species, most of which are now extinct.

Nature is a strange thing.

Digressions aside, there was a reason this caught my attention. Gull-drakes are scavengers, and have been known to leave catches uneaten while they go out to hunt for more. It’s just an evolutionary quirk—they prefer to feast only once per day. This means that, as they leave their nests unattended, some other opportunistic creature could come by and steal their catch. 

It’s easy to identify a gull-drake nest, too—they tend to be very large, and are often positioned balanced atop large, pointy rocks. If a gull-drake catches you stealing, though, it’ll chase you and squawk at you and try to peck you until you drop the stolen goods and flee. They’re not too smart, though, so hiding in nearby foliage (say, a patch of large ferns) will fool them easily.

All of this to say, I managed to get myself a shock fish without a rod, all while only getting chased a little ways by a jealous, stupid bird.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

As I returned to my towel, I heard an unusual sound—the put-put-put of a motor. Machinery of that kind is a fairly new invention, and unless you know how to make it, very expensive.

The woman driving the boat certainly looked like she knew how to make a motor. She was dwarven, with russet hair and a long beard, both held in thick braids. She was (as dwarves are) rather short—I'd estimate maybe one-and-a-fifth meters tall, and nearly as wide—with large hands and feet, and limbs thickly corded with muscle. She wore dark green coveralls and had a fairly heavy-duty fishing rod held in one hand so that it rested on her shoulder.

She shut the motor off as she neared and called out to me, asking if I was the village witch. I said that I was, and she told me that she was friends with my crocodilian patient. She thanked me for helping him, and said he would have been a goner without my potion-making skills. I demurred just a bit, saying I wasn't the only healer who helped him that day. She scoffed and dismissed my humility outright, saying that I might as well have been the only one—that without my care the village doctor wouldn't have been able to do anything.

She introduced herself as Janneth Hillhorn, and I told her my name in turn. She asked what I was doing out by Meltwater Loch and I told her I was taking a day off. She let me know that her cottage was just around the other side of the lake, near Glimmerwood Grove and right on the border of Blastfire Bog, and that I should feel free to stop in any time. I thanked her.

At this point, there was a tremor in the water. It couldn't have been an earthquake because the land wasn't shaking, but the water abruptly became much more active. Ocean-like waves crashed into the shore and Janneth held tight onto the sides of her boat, doing her best not to capsize. I would have been quite alarmed in her situation, but Janneth barely seemed preturbed. I asked something along the lines of "what the blight is going on?!" As the water settled, Janneth told me that this was a common occurence on Meltwater Loch, a quirk that—many said—was due to the emotions of its guardian sea-dragon, Bàs Bàta. I found this explanation rather silly, reminiscent of an old wives' tale. I'd never heard of a sea-dragon before, and given that the name ‘Bàs Bàta’ directly translated to "boat death," I figured it was just a local story told to frighten children and dismissed it out of hand.

Astute readers should be growing worried for me right about now.

Janneth offered to give me one of the fish she'd caught as a thanks for helping her friend. I initially refused, but she insisted. She looked through her basket and pulled out a dentist crab. The gel their claws produce is good for the mouth and plenty else besides, so I accepted and thanked her. She thanked me right back and said (perhaps jokingly?) not to run afoul of Bàs Bàta while I was out by the loch. I forced a laugh as she sped away.

Once she was out of sight, I collected some claw gel from the dentist crab and released it back into the water.

 ────⊱⁜⊰──── 

There was another rumbling as I made my way back to the beach, and as it abated I saw something bob up to the surface of the water close to the shore. It presented itself, et cetera et cetera, I waded in to see what it was.

I scooped it out of the water and found myself holding a glass bottle, like the kind that rum or sweet wine would come in, sealed with a cork and containing a rolled-up sheet of paper. Of course, I opened it immediately. I found that the sheet inside wasn’t quite *paper,* but something more slippery—maybe made of seaweed? It did have writing on it, though. As I unfurled it, a few things that looked like pebbles fell out. I barely managed to catch them before they hit the surface of the water. I put them in my pocket for safe keeping.

The writing on the note was as follows, with no spelling changes by me:

Let it be known that I fink this whole exercise is stupid. And pointless. And probly meant as some kind of sick, twisted punishment. No one but little kids believe in terrafolk, so I don’t know why the instructress is making us do this.

Even if anyfing could live above the water, there’s no way its advanced enough to read. How would it get all the minerals it needs wivout processing the water?

But anyway. I guess I ave to fulfill the prompt. 

Me name is Genoveva, I live in the I.S.A.C.S. (that's short for 'Isolated Sovereign Aquatic City-State, but we all just pronounce it like 'Isax") and I’m in the fifth year of me education. I hate me name. I wish I could ave somefing exotic like a John or a Steve or a Sarah, but I’m stuck wiv boring old Genoveva. If you’re somehow able to read this, that must mean you ave schools on the surface, too. Wat ar they like? Ar they as boring up there? We all ave to sit in a circle and listen to the instructress drone on and on and on.

I live wiv me merma and me perpa and me two baby brothers. Do you ave family? I've got loads of cousins too.

On the rubric it says I ave to include a small gift, so I'm putting some fossil fish scales in wiv this letter. I found em on me way to school this morning and there not of use to me, but I figure you probly don't ave fish on land so maybe scales ar valuable up there.

If you're inclined to write back (no pressure), you can just pop your note in the bottle and put it back into the water. It'll find its way to me—there's magic all around, don't you know.

Signed,

Genoveva Galbrait, 5th year

[An accessible version of this letter can be found here.]

The letter obviously has some pretty complex implications. An entire society under the surface of Meltwater Loch, entirely unaware of the world above the surface beyond fairy stories? What must life be like down there? What kind of society must they have? How do they supply food? Get rid of waste?

What resources might be available there that can't be found on the surface?

I decided that somehow I was going to find a way to visit ISACS, and learn everything I could about it. I bet that would impress the University of Arcbridge. I wasn't sure how I would breathe under the water for long enough, but I was determined to find a way.

Take your final guesses now what happened next.

That water-quaking started up again, this time stronger than before. Waves crashed against the beach where I stood, and I felt a great vibration in my chest and in my head. 

And then, it broke the surface of the water.

Giant and blue-green and serpentine, Bàs Bàta rose up before me. A blighting sea-dragon, it stood straight up in the air at least twice as tall as my cottage—and that was just the part of its body I could see. Its head was shaped like the tip of an arrow, with three great spikes sprouting out of the back (the outer two longer than the middle one). It let loose another deep roar, dousing me in spittle. It thrashed about, causing great waves to crash onto the shore, and through my shock I realized its movements might be less characteristic of anger than of pain.

My suspicions were confirmed when it roared again: one of the fangs right near the front of its mouth was missing a chip, and had a great crack running nearly all the way up to the root. That had to hurt. I'd never treated a non-humanoid  before—or, for that matter, a cracked tooth—but I realized even past the moral obligation to help, there was no way I could access the underwater city-state without calming Bàs Bàta down.

I found out later, after I'd scrambled away from the lake and sprinted back to the cottage, after wiping the saliva off of me and getting at least some of it in a bottle for potion use, that the saliva was actually a really useful ingredient in treating shattered teeth. As it turns out, it's a pretty strong painkiller. Unfortunately, I knew I'd need more than just that to make a cure, and with the sheer size of Bàs Bàta, I suspected I'd need to make more than one potion.

That will have to be a longer term project, then, because the events of my relaxation day have worn me out. I've got to get to bed. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

⇦●〇●⇨

[legobiwan]

Whumptober #2

“pick who dies”

Notes: This got out of control. I was going to add an Obi-wan + Anakin section but I had to cut myself off as I do have other things I need to get to today. This is less whump than...a set of pretentious character studies with THE LINEAGE (including Rael) and an excuse to explore the trolley problem within a Star Wars setting. I blame my recent Hannibal obsession for what you see below. First part here, rest under the cut. Note, I am a musician, not a philosophy student, so allow for some creative interpretation here. 

General Whumptober tag

Whumptober 2020 #1

~~~~~~~

(excerpt from “The Padawan’s Guide to Philosophy.” Eds. Masters Thrife-Foran & Ugaaalich. 616th e. Coruscant, 940 ARR. Holobook.)

Premise:

You are out for an afternoon walk in the outer regions of Thymilla, a moderately-populated city on the planet Ungar. On your walk, you pass by a set of hovertrain tracks, which branch into two separate arms - one an extension of the main track, the other a smaller offshoot which leads to a cargo loading zone, about fifty clicks south of where you are. (Diagram 3)

As a hovertrain approaches from the north, you hear screaming, the words of the driver becoming clearer as the hovertrain barrels towards the switch. The brakes of the train have failed and there is no chance of repair. If the train continues on its current path, it will kill five workers making repairs on the track. If you pull a switch, the hovertrain will divert to the offshoot, where it will kill one worker at the cargo loading zone.

Because of an anomaly in Ungar’s atmosphere, you cannot access the Force.

Do you pull the switch or do nothing and allow the train to speed forward?

~~~~~~~

“Your thoughts, Padawan.”

Dooku shifted on his meditation pod, the firm material groaning as he uncrossed his legs from the lotus position, gingerly setting both his bare feet to the cool, tiled floor of his Master’s chambers. The young man allowed himself a small wince with the action. Yoda might have been able to keep that damnable position for hours, probably days on end, but Dooku was just a few months shy of his eighteenth life day, and another recent growth spurt seemingly focused all on his legs made sitting for any long amount of time…uncomfortable, to say the least.

Which was likely why Yoda had had him trapped him here for the past three hours, running through one ethical thought experiment after the other, poking his literal and metaphorical gimmer stick precisely at each gnarled and swollen joint in both his body and thoughts.

To act - to pull the switch - would mean to commit premeditated murder, even if it were for the greater good. Hardly a Jedi-like action. But then again, they had been taught - indoctrinated, really - with the idea that is was acceptable to sacrifice one life for the lives of many. A supposedly fair trade-off, although Dooku had seen enough of the Jedi’s relationship to the Senate, had seen enough of the Council’s internal politics, to know that two lives did not necessarily hold equal weight.

But to not act - to let the train barrel through, to leave it up to the will of the Force...Dooku clenched his teeth. That seemed more in line with the Order he was coming to know, was consistent with the Council’s lack of action on Protobranch, when Sifo-Diyas had seen the calamity that was to befall the planet and yet the Council, his Master, had done too little, too late, preferring to allow events to transpire as they would, the Jedi only impassive bystanders.

What was the point of their abilities, their training, their place in the universe, if they weren’t able to change the course of events for the better?

“I suppose,” Dooku began slowly, coming to stand, suddenly not caring if he was maintaining his proper meditation position. The young man padded towards the slightly shuttered windows on the other side of the room.

“I suppose it depends on the relative worth of each life,” he said, turning away from Yoda as to not see the subtle moue of distaste Dooku was certain would cross the old Master’s face.

“Is not all life sacred, Padawan?”

Dooku barely bit back the dark chuckle threatening to escape from his chest. Only in the holos and classrooms and the empty rhetoric of the Council was all life sacred. The Jedi could do so much more, he could do so much more to change the galaxy and yet the Order allowed itself to be chained to politicians, leashed like akk-dogs until receiving command.

No, Dooku thought. There was no balance - not here and not in the Force.

“From the information you’ve provided,” Dooku said, ignoring Yoda’s question. He peered through the slits of the rotor blinds into the watery illumination of Coruscant’s night sky. The dome of the Senate building rose through the rain like an oddly-shaped umbrella, shielding those in power with its wide beadth. “We can assume both parties of victims are of equal social standing, being manual laborers. Because of this, we must find other ways of determining their worth, their ability to enact change in the galaxy.”

Dooku clasped his hands behind his back, daring to turn to face his Master’s displeasure.

“The question becomes whether you want to hold sway over the transit network of a forgettable city, or the imports and exports that may go off-world. Exports which might include valuable resources or even smuggled goods. Items which could affect the governance of our imagined city and therefore, by extension, an even larger part of the populace.”

“Which is why, in this case,” Dooku concluded, his posture straightening, “I would choose to allow the hovertrain to continue its course and save the cargo worker.”

Yoda folded both claws over his gimmer stick, frowning. After a moment, he let out a small grunt, his features now inscrutable.

“And see yourself as the final arbiter of worth, do you, my young apprentice? Stand you above all others holding a golden scale, you do?”

Don’t we, as Jedi, hold these scales every day and yet choose to ignore them? Dooku thought.

“Someone,” the young man replied, “will make the judgment regardless. Is it not better for the Jedi to use our powers to make such decisions?”

This time Yoda did let out a wet sigh, shaking his head.

“Dangerous, these thoughts are, my Padawan,” Yoda grumbled, gesturing at the meditation pod. “Sit, young Dooku. Much we have to discuss.”

~~~~~~~

“Your thoughts, Rael.”

Rael Averross slung an arm over the back of Dooku’s couch, sleeves of his Master’s borrowed robe hanging long near the tips of his fingers. It had been the third time that month Rael had “misplaced” his own robe, his Master’s foisted upon him in the wee hours of the morning, Dooku grunting something about “Jedi propriety” before shoving Rael out the door. (The things were a damned inconvenience, and made him look like something straight out of a space station ghost story, to boot. Was it so surprising he showed up to Dooku’s quarters in a state which his Master referred to as “half-naked?”)

Rael bit his lip, trying to not think of all the times he had actually been half-naked in the Temple. Those were fun times. Unfortunately, Dooku could probably mind read them out of him right now if he weren’t so concentrated on this thought experiment.

“Why not save them both?” Rael drawled amiably, scratching at the beginnings of a beard with his other hand as he hoped to distract his Master from any hint of his past indiscretions. It was about time, too, he thought. Never going to look my age going around all smooth-faced like a transparisteel window surface.

Dooku gave a small smile. “You cannot, Rael. Those are the rules of the scenario.”

“Rules,” Rael scoffed, picking at the hem of Dooku’s overly-fancy robe before suddenly launching to his feet, unable to contain his restlessness. The younger Jedi paced up and down the length of Dooku’s couch, grateful his usually strict Master was allowing him this indulgence. Not that Dooku had any problem sitting still for what felt like forever - stiff as a board, that one - but Rael was too jittery, too full potential energy to keep his thoughts in neat line with his body. “Rules are meant to be broken, Master,” Rael gave a swift chop with his hand in illustration. “You’re the first one to tell me that.”

Rael heard his Master let out a soft snort in response. Only Dooku could make such a noise sound dignified. “I suppose I did,” the older man answered evenly.

“So there you go! Blow up the train and everyone’s fine.”

“And kill the driver?”

Rael spun to face Dooku, the other man’s eyebrows raised not in condemnation, but genuine interest. It was days like this Rael truly appreciated having Dooku as a Master. Sure, he was as pretentious as any big-city Senator, a hard taskmaster in his lessons, and an even tougher dueling trainer - but at the end of the day, Dooku only expected Rael to follow Dooku’s rules, and not the Order’s.

And as much as Rael chaffed under any collar, he’d take Dooku’s version of the Code over the Council’s any day.

“I mean, the driver is the one in control of the train,” Rael shrugged. “Sure, it’s an accident, but the they were going to be dead either way once they hit those other bodies. Probably would go flying through the window and bash their skull in. This way, you save six lives,” Rael gave his best used speeder salesman grin. “Buy five, get one free.”

That little addition did cause his Master to roll his eyes.

“You are…” Dooku pressed his lips together, sitting back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. It was as close as Dooku ever got to a casual posture. “Colorful rhetoric aside, you are essentially advocating for pre-emptive action. Very interesting, Rael.”

“Interesting as in,” Rael pulled a sour face, imitating Dooku’s proper Serennian accent, “‘And now I will assign you five Jedi moral precepts to memorize and write a five-page essay about’ or interesting as in ‘I will now have you learn the complete codified law of the Umbargans, whose entire military strategy revolved around non-preemptive attacks.”

Dooku chuckled - actually chuckled - at Rael’s minor impertinent outburst. “Neither, Rael. Although, I must say you have provided me the perfect means by which I may punish you later on.” Damn, dug my own grave with that one, thought Rael. 

“No,” Dooku continued, “I merely find your stance on this matter to be refreshingly…original.”

“You mean the Council wouldn’t approve?”

It took his Master a full minute to answer, his gaze shifting beyond Rael, beyond the confines of their shared quarters, Dooku seeming lost in some memory.

“Hardly,” he finally said. “And that is for the best.”

~~~~~~~

“Your thoughts, Padawan?”

Qui-gon Jinn sat motionless on the small patch of grass, listening to the susurrations of the light breeze in the Room of a Thousand Fountains finger through a nearby thicket of Borto reeds. Across from him, Master Dooku sat in a mirrored pose, long legs crossed over the other in the lotus position, expression unreadable, his presence in the Force - or, his effect on the Force presence on the vegetation around him - one of controlled expectancy, a single blade of grass erect and ready despite the buffeting winds.

“We shouldn’t have to choose, Master,” Qui-gon replied, trying to steady his own uneven thoughts and emotions. Although he had been Dooku’s Padawan for almost five years now, Qui-gon still found himself worrying his responses to thought experiments like these would not pass his Master’s high and stringent intellectual standards.

“In an ideal world, Qui-gon, we wouldn’t. But as you have learned - as I have shown you - the status quo rarely measures up to our ideals.”

The status quo, Qui-gon thought. Code for the Senate, for the Council, for the Republic at large. That much he had figured out, had learned from Rael, whose ability to translate Dooku’s sometimes opaque rhetoric to something more digestible never ceased to amaze Qui-gon.

The status quo. The more years he spent with Dooku - with Rael, when the younger man was around - the more Qui-gon understood. Perhaps he always had a predilection to question, to challenge what was “known,” the dictums etched in stone handed down from the Council to the Council’s Masters to its Padawans. But with Dooku’s guidance, and with his own exploration of the Jedi prophecies, Qui-gon had developed his own sense of right and wrong, of how the galaxy ought to work in consonance with the ideals of the Jedi Code and his own moral compass.

“In that case, I would ask the Force for guidance,” Qui-gon replied, thoughts slipping back to the many hours he had spent in the Archives, poring over ancient holocrons. The Force had provided for the seers of old, why shouldn’t it provide now?

“Perhaps the Force cannot provide all the answers,” Dooku countered, as if reading his mind.

Qui-gon frowned, tilting his head. “Is that not what the Jedi teach, Master? What you teach? To follow the Force?”

“To a degree,” Dooku assented, rare amusement curling the side of his lips. “But the Jedi work in symbiosis with the Force, and even that is within a certain self-imposed definition of what the Force may or may not be capable of.”

Self-imposed definition? Qui-gon ran his hands through the soft grass at his sides, no longer able to keep that perfect stillness now that Dooku had so upset his equilibrium. Had his study of the prophecies not proven that exact point? That the Jedi of now no longer regarded the Force with as open a mind those of millennia ago?

“The Force is more infinite, has more potentialities than the confines of what we could possibly hope to study in a thousand lifetimes,” Qui-gon hedged.

“And so you hope to use prophecy to save these doomed beings?” Dooku retorted with a small wave of his hand. Ah yes, the hovertrain problem, Qui-gon grimaced. He had almost quite forgotten about the whole reason for this conversation.

“I would hope to…” Qui-gon cocked his head, watching a pair of butterflies flutter over a Byrsonima crassifolia, fragile leaves fluttering in their wake. An action - or a lack of action. If he saved one life or saved five. What would the repercussions be? How could he know he was making the right choice? How could the Order know, if not for guidance from the Force, in all its possible iterations?

And yet, the study prophecy of was considered at best, an esoteric hobby - at worst, a dangerous arm of mysticism by much of the Council.

Which is why your Master encourages you to think beyond the dictates of the Council, Qui-gon concluded.

“Yes, then,” Qui-gon stated, suddenly more confident in his answers. “I would hope to ameliorate the situation by using a similar mindset of the prophets. One of openness, wonder, and possibility - to find my way in this situation.”

“And just how far would you be willing to take supposed,” Dooku trained him with an enigmatic expression, “openness?” The word weighed heavy with implication.

Qui-gon started. What exactly is Dooku trying to get at here? Hadn’t it been his Master who had introduced him to the prophecies, to the Force beyond the dictates of the Code? So far, Dooku had not steered him wrong, and yet just as the nearby Byrsonima crassifolia cast a long shadow over the open grass, so did Dooku’s unspoken entreaty.

But before Qui-gon could cobble together an answer, Dooku seemed to break out of his trance, chuckling slightly as he got to his feet. He extended a long arm to Qui-gon, who took it without hesitation, coming to stand at his Master’s side.

“Meditate on the answer, Qui-gon. For now, I believe it is past time for dinner.”

~~~~~~~

“Your thoughts, Padawan.”

Obi-wan Kenobi shifted in the overly-large, overly-plush velvet chair which threatened to swallow him whole. He and Qui-gon had been dispatched to Barstovia, a little-known desert mining planet in the Mid-Rim. A simple mission, really, overseeing a trade deal between Barstovia and Ord Mantell, opening up some shipping lines of the rare fermenium mineral to the Republic. A wholly forgettable mission, if Obi-wan were being honest, except for the fact the diminutive race of Barstovia seemed to prize, of all the unlikely things, oversized, over-upholstered furniture.

While Obi-wan struggled with a crimson throw pillow the size of his torso, his master, Qui-gon Jinn, sat across from him, perfectly serene in his eight-foot tall, royal blue armchair.

“Well, Master,” Obi-wan said, words strained as he punched the pillow to his side with un-Jedi-like ferocity. Of all times for Qui-gon to pull out a thought experiment.

“The prevailing wisdom would say to sacrifice one life to save five - a utilitarian outlook and the most practical, at least on the surface.” Obi-wan pushed down on the seat of his chair, trying in vain to straighten his posture, to lend his answer some form of credence beyond his words. Inevitably, Qui-gon would hold the exact opposite opinion from Obi-wan’s, and while Obi-wan had often kept his feelings to himself under the guise of “picking his battles,” he preferred to express his thoughts while at least looking the part of an almost eighteen-year-old Padawan, and not some child stuck in a chair too large for him.  He struck at the recalcitrant cushion one last time. “But as Jedi, we often prioritize a single being or beings if they hold an important role.” 

“In the short-term,” Obi-wan grimaced suddenly, pulling an impossible second pillow from under his right thigh, “we would lose four lives over one, granted. But in the long-term, that single life lost might mean the eventual deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands.”

“But you do not have this information, Padawan,” Qui-gon replied, a crease of annoyance in his brow. Obi-wan noted there was no accompanying crease in the cushion of his Master’s chair. “All you know is the number of beings.”

Obi-wan bit down on a caustic reply. Yes, I know that, Master. I hadn’t gotten to my point yet. But when did Qui-gon actually ever listen to him?

“Yes, Master, this is true,” the younger Jedi answered, Obi-wan impressed with the evenness of his own response despite his increasing irritation. “Which is why I would endeavor to save them all.”

A beat. a raised eyebrow coupled with a subtle sigh. “Quite the feat, Obi-wan,” Qui-gon finally said, his words laced with skepticism. “How would you accomplish such a thing?”

How in the world is he not drowning in that chair? Obi-wan thought, distracted by his Master’s impenetrability, despite the audacious situation. There was Qui-gon, halfway across the room, composed and neat - well, as neat as Qui-gon ever got - against the regal backdrop of the humorously-sized chair while Obi-wan floundered in a sea of crimson, just out of his Master’s reach.

And wasn’t that the perfect metaphor for their troubled partnership?

Obi-wan wiped at his brow. “It’s quite simple, Master. The hovertrain could be diverted, or at least impeded by a third party inserting themselves into the equation.”

Something in Qui-gon’s expression shifted at the statement, earlier annoyance now melting into something closer to concern. The older man leaned forward in his chair, for the first time exhibiting a pang of discomfort as he battled the voluminous material.

“And who might that be?” Qui-gon asked, batting at the tsunami of beige woven blanket at his side.

“Myself, of course.”

Dead silence met Obi-wan’s words.

Wrong answer, Kenobi. Absolutely the wrong answer. Disappointment was written all over Qui-gon’s body language, even emanating from his usually controlled Force signature. Obi-wan fell back into the chair, not bothering to fight the dunes and valleys of velvet threatening to overtake him, averting his gaze to some preposterously-sized side-table and vase. Hopefully, his failure to provide the correct response would be the end of this increasingly uncomfortable conversation. Qui-gon would assign him some reading and meditation, and let the matter rest until they returned to Coruscant.

But Qui-gon only peered at Obi-wan with a piercing stare, apparently not ready to give up on the exchange.

“You would sacrifice yourself to save the others?”

Obi-wan found himself mirroring his master’s movements.

“Isn’t that what it means to be a Jedi?” he asked, genuinely perplexed. “We are servants of the Republic, of the Force - if our actions can save lives so that Republic may continue in peace - “ Obi-wan’s mouth opened and closed, trying to form the words that would express his devotion to the Order, the Code, his own sense of honor - but found himself gaping like an Ithorian cuttlefish.

Once again, Qui-gon fell into contemplation, back arching against tall, bulbous pillows, brushing his mustache with a single finger. A minute, then two went by, the only sound the clicks of a nearby chrono. Over eighteen feet tall, the clicks sounded more like the steps of a lurking gundark than a timepiece, doing nothing for Obi-wan’s nerves.

Finally, Qui-gon broke the uncomfortable semi-silence. “Don’t be so hasty to throw away your own life, Padawan. As you rightly said, the death of a monarch may cause the deaths of many others down the road. But you cannot know how many lives would remain unsaved if you were to treat your own so lightly.”

Obi-wan’s eyebrows rose. That had not been the reaction he was expecting.

“But how am I to know when that sacrifice is necessary?” he asked automatically. Obi-wan would make that sacrifice gladly, although...to be perfectly honest, he would prefer not to die as a seventeen-year-old Padawan. 

“The better question is how you can work to reach a more productive option rather than coming to such a dire conclusion.” Qui-gon’s voice softened. “I am serious, Obi-wan. You have much to offer the galaxy. Don’t let your strict adherence to Jedi ideals extinguish your star too early. Not only would the Republic be at a loss, but…” Qui-gon looked away, staring down at some invisible pattern in the corner of the room. “I would, as well.”

Obi-wan’s mouth dropped open. “Master, I - “

“Ah, Master Jedi!” A new voice squeaked from the gargantuan entranceway. “Thank you so much for waiting,” proclaimed the three-foot Minister of Commerce, Parhary Hatch, bedecked in a long, flowery robe whose velvet train stretched back several feet. “Please, if you would,” he gestured towards the tall archway.

“Yes, of course, Minister Hatch,” Qui-gon replied in his diplomatic voice, jumping neatly off the chair, his landing as elegant as a Coruscanti ice skater.

Obi-wan frowned, joining his Master in a slightly less dignified, but no less effective maneuver. They had been on the verge of…something, some kind of understanding, or at least a truce. Whatever words had remained unsaid between would likely stay so, the moment gone, the trip back to Coruscant, and then to a Hutt outpost taking priority over these types of conversations.

Another time, then, Obi-wan sighed to himself, following the slinking violet trail of the Bartovian minister and his Master into the long corridors of the palace.

[winter-turtle]

House Of Wolves - Chapter 3 - Winterturtle - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

Chapter 3: Hope Is Fatal

(posting now because I'm a dumbass and I forgot to post it here after I put it on AO3)

Bound to a chair, he couldn’t move around too much. He was in pain.

“You need to learn how to be still.”

No, stop.

“The pain won’t be as bad once you stop squirming.”

He tried, but he couldn’t stifle the scream completely.

“Do you think someone else will give you a breather?”

It hurts.

“It’s for your own good.”

Peter’s eyes flew open with sharp intake of breath. He wouldn’t scream. He couldn’t. He’d learned long ago not to do it as it would show his enemies that he was weak.

And Peter wasn’t weak.

His hammering heart started to slow down to a more reasonable pace as his eyes adjusted to the dark, scanning his surroundings. The memory (nightmare?) began to fade into the back of his mind upon taking in the familiar shapes of his room.

When did he stopped thinking about it as a cell?

He was safe. Nobody could touch him here.

But… he didn’t fall asleep here. He didn’t remember walking back here either, so that only meant that someone had to carry him.

Again, he suspected who.

When one spends most of the time in confinement, it was only natural that they had a lot of time to think about things. That’s exactly how Peter was doing. He thought. He wondered. He went over every single interaction he’s had with the heroes in hopes of figuring out the reason why they were… trying.

More precisely why Stark was trying. Yes, the man might be persistent and his stubbornness seemed to turn everything into a disaster as the trip to the gym had proven, but Peter just couldn’t sense any hostile intent.

None of this made any sense. Why would people like the Avengers show any care to him?

“Hurting their own children is not something normal parents do.”

Peter shook his head. Those stupid words refused his mind since they left Stark’s mouth. “Normal parents…” he said softly under his breath, as if testing how the words felt. Normal. How normal parents behaved? How would his life turn out to be if he had normal life?

Then again, he never was normal, was he?

Deciding that the constant swirling of his thoughts won’t let him fall back asleep, Peter slipped from underneath the covers and walked towards the door. Moving around always helped. He stood there for a moment before placing his hand on the handle. What were the chances of it opening?

“Here goes nothing.”

He pushed and to his surprise, the door opened. “Huh.” Okay, so he wasn’t locked, but there was no doubt that the AI was watching his every move. Well, don’t look gifted horse in the mouth, he thought as he walked.

Turn the corner, first window, second window, third window…

Peter stopped before the fourth window. He didn’t get past this point the last time. “Okay,” he whispered to himself, raising his hand, “okay.” Ever so slowly and with bated breath, his hand inched towards the invisible barrier. His heartbeat picked up as he expected the stabbing pain any second.

But no pain came. No stabbing of needles, no sudden lightheadedness and no sudden loss of consciousness. Peter only released the breath when his hand was fully outstretched in front of him.

Peter put his other hand in front of him and took a step forward. Then another one. Then another one and then, when he realized that nothing was about to happed, lowered his hands so he wouldn’t look like a total weirdo that was pretending to walk like a zombie.

Stark kept his word.

Another speck of doubt fell on what once used to be carefully balanced scales, tilting it even more.

More or less, Peter found his way to the gym by following his nose. The room was dark, only illuminated by the moonlight streaming in through the windows under the tall ceiling. The light fell on various machines which in turn threw long shadows all around the room. When Peter was little, he’d been terrified of shadows like these.  He’d felt like they would turn into a monster that would drag him away.

And then he’d spent five days in almost complete dark all on his own.

“See? That wasn’t so bad,” his mother smiled sweetly after he was let out, tired and with dried tear tracks on his cheeks. “The only monsters in the world are those people who call themselves heroes.”

Okay, no. He was getting side-tracked. A nice workout session was bound to clear his head.

Soon, Peter fell into a familiar routine. Warm-up, push-ups, sit-ups, some gymnastics… it did wonders to his mind. For the first time in four weeks, he felt himself truly relax.

Still, a tiny part of him remained on edge. Maybe it was the childish part of him that somehow remained in him despite the countless attempts to beat it out of him, but he could swear he saw the shadows shift every once in a while. Yet every time he looked, there was nothing amiss – just the same equipment sitting on the same spot.

Peter dropped down from the rings with almost inaudible thump. His eyes closed.

“A bit late for a workout.”

Peter whipped around, pinpointing the source of voice. Black Widow sat on a nearby bench, almost shrouded by the shadows, her gaze trained on the dumbbell in her hand.

So he wasn’t paranoid; it was most likely her who caused the occasional shift of the shadows. But that left one question.

Why didn’t his spidey-sense alert him to her presence?

“I must say, that was quite impressive set of moves.”

“What are you doing here?” Peter asked instead.

She switched arms. “I live here. Can’t I come for a late-night workout session too?”

Peter opted to remain silent. The woman continued through her set before standing up and putting the dumbbell to its original spot. “Care to give me a hand?” she asked as she lied down on a bench and grabbed ahold of a barbell.

Not a single of her footsteps could be heard, even with his super hearing. Peter found it impressive.

He didn’t know why, but he followed. He got ahold of the metal bar, securing it in case Romanov’s arms would buckle.

“You know,” she began, her voice slightly strained, “I always come here too when sleep seems impossible. Those night when something is keeping you up…”

Silence.

“So, what kept you up? You looked pretty tired at the movies.”

Peter huffed. “What kept you up?”

She shrugged. For a while, Peter thought that was the end of the conversation, but the universe loved to prove him wrong.

“It’s confusing, isn’t it? When two worlds clash and suddenly you are left to question everything.”

Peter didn’t like the direction the conversation was headed. “What do you know?”

“A lot.”

Okay, even if Peter was vaguely aware of Romanov’s background, the answer wasn’t helpful at all. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Despite the warning, despite me saying what I did… you know I could just let go of this barbell and let it crush your throat. Nobody would be able to do anything to stop me.”

“Then by all means do. Feel free. You have a perfect opportunity,” she said, perfectly unfazed.

Peter stared at her as if she was a particularly difficult piece of puzzle.

She wasn’t afraid of him.

Why wasn’t she afraid of him?

The weight gave a sudden jerk down. Peter instinctively gripped it, preventing it from dipping further. His slightly widened brown eyes locked with Romanov’s green, trying to read them, although unsuccessfully. But whatever the woman was looking for in his, she must have found it.

With a final grunt, Romanov put the weight back and stood up. She gave Peter a onceover before nodding to herself and then headed to the door, dabbing her sweat away with the towel.

“Why did you come here?” he asked in lowly before she crossed the threshold.

She shrugged. “Just a late-night workout. Same as you. And with that out of the way, I believe the sleep will come easier. You should head to bed too. Growing boys need their rest so they can get big and strong.”

Peter stared at the spot until he was sure he was alone. His mind was whirling.

Was this some kind of test? It certainly felt like it. But if it was, it brought on a question of whether he passed or not. He didn’t know which option he preferred.

A glint coming from underneath one of the bicycles caught his eye. Peter, pretending to tie his shoelace, picked up the object. A smile slowly spreading across his face at the sight of the forgotten black bobby pin. The hair stuck to it was long, too long, so that ruled out Black Widow as the owner. Peter doubted she would be careless enough to leave this lying here.

Finally something he could use.

He resumed the “tying” of the shoelaces when in reality, he slipped the pin into his shoe. He stood up and left.

Getting the bracelets open took him longer than he would like to admit, but prying small panels off with nothing but a bobby pin wasn’t the easiest task. But here he was, sitting on a bathroom floor, staring at the exposed mechanism. If he was correct, these parts were responsible for dampening his powers.

Peter positioned his wrists so they would be in line with the ends of the bobby pin. He had to do it correctly if he wanted to succeed. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if he messed up.

It could shock him unconscious, release a lethal dose of the sedatives… the list went on.

Taking a steadying breath, he curled his hands into fists, and narrowed his eyes in concentration.

“Three, two… one.”

He brough his wrists together in one swift motion, stabbing the exposed areas at the same time. The bracelets let out a single spark of light each and thin trail of smoke.

“Well, that probably short-circuited something else too,” Peter muttered as he closed the exposed areas. You could spot the faint scratches on the sleek silver surface only if you looked for them. After he removed the pin from the soap and tucked it where, hopefully, nobody would find it, he returned to the living area. Had had mapped the field the camera could see, which allowed him to pick the blind spot big enough to test the results.

He placed his palms on the wall. “Here goes nothing,” he said and jumped.

He didn’t fall.

He didn’t fall!

Grin threatened to split his face in two. “Yes! Yes!” he quietly cheered. Wasting no more time, Peter climbed the rest of the way up and nestled himself into the corner. The familiar feeling was soothing him instantly. Well, it looked like he was about to get first full night of good sleep since he ended up at this place.

That was his last thought before he fell asleep, the corners of his lips quirked upwards.

“Friday, is the kid awake yet?” Tony asked from where he was pouring himself a cup of coffee. When Natasha came to him earlier and told him her night encounter, it actually put him in a good mood.

“I am unable to get my eyes on Peter.”

Tony’s smile froze. “Is he in a bathroom?” The kid didn’t get sick again, did he?

“Negative, Boss. He left the bathroom in early morning hours and then I lost sight of him.”

“Bracelets?”

“I am unable to detect the location from those.”

Tony’s heart skipped a beat at that. “Comb through the footage.” With heavy heart, he abandoned the coffee and headed to the kid’s room.

Kid, for both of our sake, but mostly for yours, I hope you didn’t run.

Peter woke up to a sound that sounded suspiciously like a wheeze. He let out disgruntles sigh and turned his head to look over his shoulder. To his surprise, he found Stark below him, his arms awkwardly in front of him.

“Why do you look like you’re about to have a heart attack?” he mumbled sleepily.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’re stuck to a ceiling?!”

The brief flash of confusion turned into understanding once he realized where he was. “Oh. Right.”

“Oh? Right?! That’s all you’re going to say about it?! You could’ve fallen!”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Stark.” Mr. Stark, huh? Now when did that happen? “I won’t fall.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I know,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. “My powers, remember?”

Wait-

Oh shit, his powers! Mr. Stark knew caught him. “I, uh…”

Smart, Parker. Really smart.

“Right,” Mr. Stark said slowly, “how about you come down?”

Shit, shit, shit- Peter did his best not to outwardly show his panic. He messed up big time. And when there was a mess-up, a punishment usually followed. What a pity. He went so long without one.

Peter could’ve jumped, but he wanted to savor those precious seconds before the pain came, so he started climbing down. Well, the least he could do was to face it like a champ. Like always.

No place for weaknesses.

“Hey, is everything all—"

New voice.

Peter froze still stuck to the wall. Mr. Stark whipped around. It seemed like the time in the room stopped as Wilson and Barnes’ eyes slid from Mr. Stark’s form to him.

Maybe if I don’t move, they won’t see me, Peter thought.

“I’m pretty sure he’s not supposed to do that,” Wilson said warily and to be fair, Peter couldn’t blame him. He did attack the man before.

Peter soundlessly lowered himself to the ground, the slight shift of the two newcomers’ bodies making Peter’s own tense in response. He will defend himself should he be attacked.

Mr. Stark stepped in front of him, shielding Peter from the view. “Everything’s fine,” he said. “Leave us. We’ll join you shortly.”

Wilson leaned to the side to catch a glimpse of Peter. The boy didn’t need to be a telepath to know what was going through the man’s head. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Go.”

The man looked like he wanted to protest, but Barnes’ hand on his shoulder stopped him. The former Hydra assassin nodded towards the door. Wilson, though reluctantly, relented. “Okay.”

Once the two were out of the sight, Mr. Stark turned to face Peter and took a step towards him. Here it comes. Peter lifted his head, his jaw clenched as he waited for the blow to land. Will it be a slap or punch? Will it be just his face that gets struck or his torso too? Will he get kicked once he’s on his knees?

Two arms sneaked around his body, one around his arms and one burying itself in his hair, made Peter turn into a statue. But no pain came. The touch was… gentle, actually. The hand in his hair began to cradle through his curls. It felt like someone pulled the plug and all of Peter’s tension went down the drain.

“I’m not mad,” Mr. Stark murmured into his hair, startling Peter and making him free himself from the hold before he could sink into it fully.

“What was that?”

Mr. Stark quirked one eyebrow. “Me saying I’m not mad or the hug?” When Peter didn’t reply, the curiosity turned into a small frown. “Did you ever get hugged?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah, plenty. All-all the time,” Peter rushed out, but the lie sounded fake to his own ears.

“Right, as I was saying, I’m not mad, but I have to ask – how did you disable it?”

Peter decided to take the risk and merely shrugged. He fully expected Mr. Stark to press further for the answers, but the man only nodded and said, “Okay. Now come on, breakfast is on the table.”

Peter could only blink after the man. Mr. Stark didn’t strike him. Mr. Stark didn’t strike him! Peter messed up, did something he shouldn’t have done… yet there was no beating. Not even after he refused to say how he disabled the bracelets. All those things would get him pretty beaten up back home, what the hell?

Safe, his mind whispered.

Peter mulled over the word. Safe. Yes, he was safe, wasn’t he? Mr. Stark stepped in front of him, shielding him with his own body. Mr. Stark hugged him.

Nobody could touch him if he was near Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark meant safety. Safety felt nice.

Peter decided he liked Mr. Stark.

The day was spent by the kid glued to the TV, watching one sci-fi movie after another. The rest of Star Wars saga, Alien, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park – it didn’t matter. It was like he tuned out the rest of the world, only acknowledging when someone joined him on the couch with brief glance. Tony couldn’t help the tiny smile at the sight of childish wonder in Peter’s eyes. With all of the training his parents had put him through, there was no doubt that the boy had any time to just… be a kid.

Tony decided not to do anything about the bracelets. That was another point he wanted to bring up – trust. And besides, if the kid wanted to run, he would have done that the moment he disabled the power dampener.

He made a note to clean and basically child-and-villain-proof his workshop. He wanted to see on what level the kid was despite never attending school. He had to have some knowledge if he was able to disable them.

The whole confrontation refused to leave his mind. Peter looked like a deer caught in a headlight once he realized he was sticking to the ceiling. Like he was expecting him to lash out.

The addition of Mr. and Miss in front of their names came as a pleasant shock. Well, except Steve. Steve was still called Call-Me-Steve. And to Steve’s annoyance, the rest of the team took on the nickname as well. Still, it helped to ease the atmosphere between Peter and the group.

The efforts seemed to start paying off, because the kid basically imprinted on Tony like a duckling, checking from time to time if Tony was nearby.

When Tony found Peter sleeping in the same corner the next day, he had a comfy hammock installed there. Though he thought the kid would appreciate it, it was also mostly for peace of Tony’s own mind.

And as it turned out, he was right. Peter’s whole face lit up once he spotted the little nest.

Tony’s heart flooded with warmth.

Tony craned his neck up. “You sure like that book, huh?”

Peter, sitting on a ceiling, glanced over the top before returning his gaze to the pages. “It’s alright.”

Over the days of interacting with their little charge, Tony believed he became fluent in the teen. He never expressed outward joy and Tony for some reason suspected that it was because of the kid’s fear of having the object of his joy taken away. That, or he didn’t know how to properly express what he was feeling, which Tony found relatable.

Another round of laughter came from the group huddled near the TV. The team had taken up watching the aforementioned PSAs, making their local fossil cover his face in embarrassment. Clint was bent over, holding his sides. “Aw, man, these are hilarious.”

“Play the one about reproduction. You can see Call-Me-Steve’s soul leave his body in that one,” Peter said without looking away from the page. Eventually, he looked, but not at the group. He looked at Bucky, who was only half-attempting to hide his staring. “Why are you staring at me so much?”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Peter’s eyebrows knitted together. “Uh, okay? For what exactly?”

“For trying to kill you.”

“Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down? Many people tried to kill me. As you can see, they didn’t succeed.”

Bucky shifted, bowing his head slightly. “I tried… as a Winter Soldier, I was given the order to kill you shortly after you got your powers. I’m sorry.”

Aside from the rowdy group going crazy over the videos, everything was quiet in their little corner.

“Eh, it’s no big deal,” the kid said, making both men turn to him. “I don’t remember it at all, you obviously failed as I’m right here, so… no hard feelings on my side.”

“But I—”

“If you want to hear ‘I forgive you’ from me, then fine. I forgive you. You can cross my name off some list if you have one, but I literally couldn’t care less.”

Tony watched as Barnes’ shoulders fell in acceptance and mentally added him on a list of people that Peter started to slowly warm up to. First it was Natasha, then Rhodey and then Clint being, well, Clint, got jealous and practically started to buy the kid with chocolate. He puffed like a peacock when Peter told him ‘you’re not so bad’.

But Tony knew he was still number one and nobody could take it away from him.

His idle scrolling through SI documents that Pepper labeled as “important” got interrupted by an alert lighting up on his watch. Peter’s vitals were all over the place for the past five minutes.

Peter hadn’t moved from his spot on the ceiling, but it didn’t escape Tony how hunched over the book the kid was, wide eyes furiously going over the page and lips slightly parted. “Pete?” Nothing. “Kid?” Still no response. “Must be hell of a book,” he muttered under his breath.

A broom in the corner caught his attention. Shrugging, he grabbed it and then poked Peter’s side. The effect was instant. The kid yelped and if it wasn’t for his stickiness and quick reflexes, he would’ve fallen. “What the hell, Mr. Stark?” he cried out as he slightly swinged from side to side.

“Breathe!” Tony said, exasperated. “Or you’ll faceplant on the floor when you pass out.”

“You almost made me fall!”

Tony poked the kid’s ribs with the broom handle. “Well, what was I supposed to do? You didn’t react to anything else!”

“Well, maybe I acknowledged you with a hum but your old man ears didn’t catch that.”

Tony let out dramatic gasp. “You sassy little shit,” he said, flipped the broom over and began to playfully whack the boy with it. Peter giggled – actually giggled – and moved out of the broom’s reach. Tony gave chase, eliciting more giggles from the kid. “I’ll let you know that I’m not that old!”

“Whatever makes you feel better, old man,” the kid replied cheekily.

Tony huffed and shook his head. “Kids these days have no respect,” he grumbled. “Just breathe next time.” He went back to the documents, aware that Peter was following him to stay close.

And just when Tony thought that everything went well, of course it had to go to shit.

Tony heard the kid draw in shuddering breath, noticing that he made it through the book. But that wasn’t all that caught his attention. No, he tried and failed to decipher the emotions that rapidly flashed across Peter’s features. In one flash, Tony could’ve sworn that the kid was about to cry.

Just as fast as it appeared, it disappeared, Peter closed the book shut, jumped down, threw the book on the table and stormed from the room. Tony grabbed the book in hopes to find what had upset the kid since he enjoyed it so much. He flipped to the last page and he immediately understood.

“What was that about?” Rhodey asked.

“I’m going to get that girl from that bookstore fired,” he muttered angrily, passing the book to Sam’s waiting hands. Hope was apparently one of the themes; that was the reason Tony got it in the first place. “No wonder he’s upset with an ending like that!”

Sam passed the book to Natasha. “Well, it is a trilogy. If you wanted cliché happy ending, you should've gotten some standalone. Or different author.”

“Tony,” Steve said, “don’t—”

“What, Steve?” he snapped. “Don’t bother trying? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“No.”

Tony stopped.

“I wanted to say that whatever went wrong this time, you’ll be able to fix it. You always do.” Tony stared, dumbfounded. Steve continued. “I had my doubts before, but after seeing you two earlier… I was wrong. Whatever you need, we’ll help.”

“Huh. Never would have thought that we would see eye to eye, but… thanks, Cap. I appreciate it,” Tony said, and he meant it. But now onto more pressing matter. “Okay, I’m gonna go talk to him, make sure the kid’s okay.”

“Wait!” Clint called out, making Tony stop. “A bit of advice from seasoned dad to a new dad – if you push a teenager to talk when he doesn’t want to, you’ll do more harm than good. You have to let him blow some steam off first. And until then,” he opened a vent hatch and pulled out a chocolate tablet from now not-so-secret stash, “here.”

Tony accepted the sweet treat. Clint must really want to help if he was willing to pass up on an opportunity to bribe the kid into liking him. “Thanks, Clint.”

He was almost out of the room when he turned around so fast it almost gave everyone a whiplash.

“Hold on… what do you mean a new dad?”

In the darkness of his room and in the comfort of his hammock, Peter made up his mind. He was running away. He didn’t know where exactly he would go since his parents most likely changed the locations, but he could go to some of their old hiding spots. Those places still had running water and provided safe cover from the weather. Food will be a trouble, but he could figure that part out once it came to that.

He glanced at the chocolate in his lap that Mr. Stark brought him earlier and then threw it into the hammock because he couldn’t reach that high up and Peter refused to come down. He set it aside and jumped down.

He’ll miss the taste.

He’ll miss the comfort of the hammock.

He’ll miss Mr. Sta-

Peter firmly cut himself off. No. He had to stop this before he got in far too deep. Because if he dared to hope that things could be better, it would simply get taken away from him anyway. Hope was fatal.  Better to spare himself the pain.

Assuming that all doors were locked for the nigh, Peter found a stairwell and bean to climb up in a search for the roof. Then he could scale down the wall and leave all of this behind.

He found the door at last. With a sense of finality pooling in his stomach, he gripped the handle and pulled the door open.

Peter looked up and stopped.

It was a good thing that Tony wasn’t asleep when Friday alerted him that the kid was on the roof. He put on one of his old zip-up hoodies and headed to his destination, not knowing what to expect. Aside from the time in the gym, Peter never wandered the Compound at night.

He opened the door and whatever he was expecting, it definitely wasn’t a pair of feet hanging in front of his face. Ducking underneath them, it didn’t take long to find the rest of the teen. Peter was sprawled on his back above the door. “A bit late to be outside.”

“There are so many,” the kid whispered, pure awe in his voice.

Tony looked up at the inky sky littered with millions of tiny bright dots. “There sure are. Not a cloud in sight. Perfect time for stargazing,” he said as he leaned on the wall next to Peter’s legs. “You’ve… never seen the stars?”

“I never really left the city. You can’t see this there with all that light pollution. Plus, when we were doing night missions outside of the city, it was always on cloudy night for maximum cover.”

Yeah, that would make sense. Though Tony couldn’t help but feel queasy at the memories of being up there. It was enough to make his skin prickle.

“You’ve been to space, right? During the battle of New York.”

Dang, the kid had to bring it up. But he was talking with Tony willingly, so he wouldn’t let the chance go to waste. “Yeah. I was.”

“How was it?”

Terrifying. Traumatizing. Nightmare and panic attack inducing. “It was… big. Vast and dark.”

“I would like to see it one day.”

Tony huffed. “Let’s hope it will be under better circumstances.”

“Thank you for closing that portal. I don’t know what I would’ve done otherwise.”

“Wait, you were there?”

“Of course. Like every person in New York.” The kid paused, seemingly contemplating to elaborate. “I was outside when the invasion happened. I wasn’t fast enough to hide in the safehouse and those things cornered me. I fought but more and more kept coming… and then they all fell. The portal closed.”

Tony found himself sitting next to Peter. He pushed the memories away in order to focus on his young charge. “Wait, that was you?”

Peter glanced at him. “Huh?”

“There was a part of the city where we weren’t fighting, but we found a bunch of Chitauri that were incapacitated before the mothership was destroyed. That was you, wasn’t it?” But none of them were killed. That planted some serious doubt about Peter’s claims that he killed someone. Sure, he was way younger then, but child soldiers killed since very young age. Plus… “There were several civilians claiming that some enhanced human had saved them.”

The kid averted his gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just protected myself.”

Lies. Tony never thought he would be grateful for those. “Well then,” he said with small smile, “whoever saved those people is a hero.”

“I didn’t save anyone.”

“I didn’t say that.”

More silence. About half a minute passed before Peter sat up, still looking up at the sky. “Do you really think that I can change? Despite everything I’ve done?”

The vulnerability in those words made Tony’s heart ache. “You just have to have a little bit of hope.”

“Hope is fatal.”

“Is it though?”

Peter shrugged, then shivered.

“Are you cold?” Tony asked.

Peter wrapped his hands around himself and shook his head in amusement. “The spider part of me doesn’t exactly like the cold.”

Oh. Right. Spiders can’t thermoregulate. Tony immediately shrugged off his hoodie. “Here,” he said as he wrapped it around Peter’s shoulders.

With wide eyes, Peter pulled the hoodie tighter around himself. “I- I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this… or understand.”

“But you’ll learn.”

A brief hesitation. “But I’ll learn,” Peter repeated. “Thank you.”

Tony’s heart leaped with joy. A grin threatened to betray how he truly felt, but thankfully, he got saved by the kid’s stomach rumbling loudly. He laughed. “Hungry?”

“A little bit,” Peter muttered, his cheeks dusting pink. Another loud rumble could be heard. “Traitor,” he muttered, looking down pointedly.

Tony ruffled Peter’s hair. “Let’s get some food into you then. Nothing is better than the good old midnight raid of the fridge.”

They tinkered in comfortable silence in Mr. Stark’s workshop. If Peter counted correctly, tomorrow should be five-week anniversary of his capture. When he compared his current-self with his past-self, it was almost unbelievable how much has his attitude towards the heroes changed.

Where there used to be struggles and attacks and rude words, now there were group meals and playful banter. Peter still struggled with that one, but as Mr. Stark had said, he’ll learn.

And oh how Peter was willing to learn, especially in Mr. Stark’s workshop. So much technology in one place. It was a dream come true! Yes, he had restrictions because of his villain status, but he still made the most of what he was allowed.

Peter dared to say that he was… happy.

A sound of muffled explosion made his head snap up and not a second later an alarm started to blare. “What’s going on?”

Mr. Stark brought up a footage Peter couldn’t see. “We’re under attack. Don’t worry, just… stay here, okay?” he said, and with that, he was gone.

The tightness on Mr. Stark’s face, along with the churning of his stomach, gave Peter a pretty good tip on who was attacking. More explosions could be heard over the alarm. They were louder. Closer. Like they were on…

The roof.

Peter was torn. Why now? His own words echoed in his head.

“They’re just waiting for the right moment to strike.”

Dammit.

Mr. Stark told him to stay put. And he wanted to obey, he really did, but… the sound of the battle went on for too long.

Peter knew what he had to do.

With his features set with determination, he headed out of the lab, but not before slipping a metallic disc into his shoe. He willed his hand to stop shaking as he pushed the pulled the door to the roof open. Unsurprisingly, he was met with the sight of a battlefield. There were dents in the roof. Charred spots from where the explosion went off. Even some bloodstains.

“Peter?” he heard Mr. Stark say. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay put!”

Peter didn’t get the chance to reply. “Spider!” He knew that voice. That was his mother’s voice. “What are you waiting for? Come on!” Peter spotted her on something that resembled a helicopter. His father was piloting, but still shot small rockets at the heroes on the roof.

“Peter, don’t,” Mr. Stark pleaded, shooting from his wrist gauntlet.

Peter squeezed his eyes shut and gulped. Then he began to sprint across the roof towards his parents. Someone tackled him.

“Pete, kid, listen,” Mr. Stark said, “you don’t have to go with them. Remember what we were talking about? You can be better! Don’t throw everything away. Please,” he choked the last word out.

But he knew what he had to do. So, flipping the man easily off of his body, he took off running once again. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, not sure if it could be heard through the lump in his throat. Peter came to the edge of the roof and jumped. His hand clasped around his mother’s extended one.

“Now!” his mother yelled at the same time as their hands connected.

An electric blast went through the tower, rendering all electronic on the roof useless. Peter heard the clang of Rhodey’s metal suit as it hit the ground. Peter risked the glance over his shoulder at the people he left behind.

“Nice one, Richard!”

“You were great too, hun!”

As always, no praise for Peter. A sudden stabbing pain came from around his wrists. Peter set his lips into thin like. “I forgot about these,” he muttered.

Well, he guessed he deserved it.

Darkness swallowed him.

[nullset2]

Death Stranding and The Last Man on the Beach

I had a very personal connection with Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding last year. I liked its aesthetic, the symbolism, and really enjoyed the story and characters (even though they were a bit too deviantart for my tastes at some points). Its bullet points really resonated with me. It's a fantastic and misunderstood game, with obviously undercooked parts, but still more than worth its price of admission. It's a game about estrangement, heartbreak, loneliness, stress, death, sadness, crying (oh so much crying), and humanity coming together in the face of a catastrophe of massive scale.

In DS, people live in individual isolated rooms, cannot touch each other, interact exclusively through the Internet, and have to cover their faces around each other, and the amount of impact of a voidout is communicated through a map full of expanding dots, interesting, right? Turns out DS is also very apropos with the zeitgeist.

I like its depiction of The Beach. In DS, every character has the ability to travel to an interdimensional space called The Beach after Sam Porter disrupts the balance between life and death as the first repatriate, the first baby able to come back from the dead after he gains that power from Bridget Strand's gift as an extinction entity, which eventually led to the creation of the Chiral Network.

Chiral means "hand" etymologically, by the way. I didn't know. It makes an allusion to the current state of things, where we have a very powerful network that provides wifi everywhere, and that has enabled a lot of technology, but where at the same time we're still at a "crossroads", and we still need people to deliver our packages and drive our cars. We're still a ways to go from the Singularity where all of those things will be fully automated I guess. It also makes an allusion as in how the network can be a way to seek "connection", to reach out for the touch of the Other.

And I loved it because of its implications in an era of isolation like ours. I think that people, more and more, are opting out of relationships and interconnection in the age of the Internet, because it's the easy, clean and uncomplicated thing to do. The Internet can provide bastardized facsimiles of everything you could ever want and then some. There's no reason to suffer with the real world if you can just get hooked addictively to the saccharine world Online. For more and more people every day, the Internet is enough.

In Jungian literature, bodies of water represent the unconscious mind and by proxy, chaos. Taming the balance between consciousness and unconsciousness, between order and chaos, and between light and dark truly is one of the fundamental --if not, THE fundamental-- problem of the human condition. The fact that we evoled from beasts, unaware of their own nature, unable to recognize the future and plan ahead and think, to the curreht Homo Sapiens Sapiens is nothing short of marvelous. So, that's why I like depictions of water: it represents the abyss of the unconscious and how problematic it can be for the mind. Truly, if one goes into the water without due precautions, they will drown, much as how states of depression, anxiety and all neuroses are excesses of the unconscious mind seeping into our conscious life.

Being in the beach is being in the fringe between two worlds, which is a fantastic analogy for the modern middle aged man and for the modern, technological man. Living between two realities, with two natures, is the state of many if not all, in an era where reality trascends through the Internet. By being in between, we are nowhere -- neither here nor there. By living in the culture of the Now Now, we live in the never ending present, future nor past evermore. A soothing place, if also eerily lonely --and a place that is starting to give us all feelings of Death, of maybe being the last man standing after all.

It's an allusion to the Millenial generation: stuck between the future and the past, between the digital and analogue world, a cynical, fatigued generation that had to learn to be adults twice but feels at home nowhere in the world who uses social media a FUCKING LOT.

A passage from Seneca's epistles also makes an allusion to the beach, and I quote: "People may say: "But what sort of existence will the wise man have, if he be left friendless when thrown into prison, or when stranded in some foreign nation, or when delayed on a long voyage, or when out upon a lonely shore?" His life will be like that of Jupiter, who, amid the dissolution of the world, when the gods are confounded together and Nature rests for a space from her work, can retire into himself and give himself over to his own thoughts." So the beach is kind of like a purgatory of the self where people can retire into themselves and their own thoughts according to the cultural baggage of the Western world to be reborn and to emerge a better person.

So, is this going to be the gold standard for the Aeon? Every man an island? I think the signs are pointing to it as I said before. I think we are seeing a sharp decline in personal relationships, and it's going to become more exacerbated in the future.

But is all lost? Of course not, there is Hope.

From the collision of extremes, man and woman, sun and moon, order and chaos, comes the Child. The Otter, as literally Jung says, a version of the messianic/heroic archetype, which Sam Porter very obviously takes after. I'm certain that the fact that Sam Porter's spirit animal is the Otter and wears an "Otter Hood" was a very obvious reference to this, complete with how Sam swims like an Otter when in water. It's an allusion to its two-natured self.

The Child is the androgynous Otter, who, like Bridges between nations, lives across two Universes seamlessly, yet "neither here nor there". It's the Irrational Third, between categories, the collision of two Universes, Mother and Father, which brings the panacea through his sacrifice, brought forth by being constantly in pain, in suffering and at risk of extinction. The child is the Bridge to the future, the redemption of your bloodline and the one who brings us all together under his salvation. All heroic myths are versions of this --of very high notoriety, the story of Christ.

Now, before you start typing your insults, hear me out: it's not that I'm abiding for the Christian mythos here or that I want to become a preacher. Rather, it's that I believe that the Messianic myth is the most important artifact of our Modern Society and its very foundation. It comes from the notion of the self, which is a miracle exclusive to the Homo Sapiens Sapiens; the ability to be self-aware, to self sacrifice and think forward. The Messiah is the self inside every one of us, who selflessly and through constant sacrifices moves the World forward. Death Stranding ultimately is an ode to this, to the idea that no matter how horrible the world gets, as long as we all selflessly come together in sacrifice, we will make it in the end. By seeking not division and classification, but Unity and collaboration. Neither man or woman, sun or moon, or ying and yang, but the Syzygy of them both. Neither red or blue, but purple, and royally so

Like the Messiah with its Death and Resurrection, Sam Porter gets stuck in his Beach for an indeterminate amount of time to fullfill his mission in Death Stranding, yet manages to come back once his loving friends pull him out of the beach through a line of connection, reaching out to him and bringing him back to Earth. This is a beautiful allegory too --I urge you to reach out to the friends in your lives, and telling them that you love them. They may appreciate it more than you could EVER IMAGINE. It may be the difference between life and death for a lot of people right now.

And finally, by the way, I still stand behind the comparisons I made about Death Stranding to Chul-Han's material. Have at me bro.

[rockofeye]

By the time this posts, I will (FINALLY) be back in Haiti celebrating the lwa and our newest ti fey and our collective resilience, in the temple I call home. It has been the longest year, and it has felt indescribably empty without the summer cycle of ceremonies and joy that ground the rest of my year. However, like all things in sèvis lwa, we persevere. Haiti has blessedly not experienced COVID19 on the scale the US has...it's been a blessing not worry overly much about my loved ones down there and an even bigger blessing to be able to travel safely in a way that supports community health, wellness, and continual joy.

My feet miss the earth. I need my medicine.

I've been fairly quiet this past year not for any bad reasons but because I work in a high risk public health position and that has taken up the majority of my energy. Through the summer, I worked a million hours a week in environments where an unknown third of the people I was seeing were COVID+, and where PPE was scarce and morale in the shitter. It was a whole lot, and the majority of it was me praying with my spirits and my mother giving me remedies for tea to drink after work and steams to protect my lungs and treatments I could do if I felt the least bit unwell, right alongside my husband keeping the literal home fires burning. I was otherwise locked in my house like the rest of everyone, save for a brief trip south to Haiti to shelter in place while some unavoidable business got taken care of.

I've been thinking about this year in all its ugliness, and thinking about how this has been it's own womb. It's been 9 months of this now, and what has been birthed?

For me, this year has had incredible highs and terrible lows. I have experienced the most profound joy and then found moments of deep despairing grief where it felt like there was nothing left...and yet, here I am.

This plague birthed new understandings and, for those of us who do people-forward public health work, new ways of working and surviving. This year, there's even been some thriving...even in the midst of the moments where I thought the world was ending. Those moments were where 'survive' turned to 'thrive' and where my lwa met me.

There is some part of me that needs to relearn, over and over, that my lwa will always be beside me no matter what I find myself in the middle of. I don't even have to look, but just breathe them in and fill my lungs with their presence. They are, as I was reminded while fixed with the gaze of a spirit who sees and has seen me in all my parts, in everything for me...if only I will seek them there.

And so those moments of seeking are what I hold onto this year. Hearing incredible news and tipping my head back to laugh and give thanks. Hearing the news of my family in the US and in Haiti. Collective action to make sure our tiny little community is safe. Receiving love. Learning new things about myself. Having a COVID+ person cough in my face and then die ten feet away from me, yet my numerous tests coming back negative. Cool water and Caribbean sun. Grief so thick I thought I might die of a broken heart. My husband's laughter. The smell of a sweet lamp, burning for the good of another.

In my best moments, I turned to them in glee because it is they who bring all sweetness and blessings. In my worst moments, I turned to them because there was nothing else to hold me up and even when I was too upset to hear them, they bore witness to my pain and reminded me that sweetness tastes like sand without its bitter brother.

I am grateful that I am here to see the close of the absolute worst year I have ever lived through, and equally grateful for each experience that has shaped my understanding of myself through this collective dark night of the soul. I'm looking to 2021 with cautious hope, and the writing is on the wall for some serious leveling up.

There is a New Year's tradition that whatever you are doing on the first day of the year dictates what you will spend the year doing. Right now, I am watching kids play in the lakou while the granmoun sit and talk ahead of tonight's ceremony. I've had my soup joumou already, and might have a little more before the drums start pounding. My husband has just come back from running an errand and he smells like work and happiness. In a little while, we'll put on our whites and fill the temple with heat. I'll sweat like a Republican in a food line, and then will drop off to sleep like a baby afterwards, next to this guy who I can't get enough of. We'll probably skip the bed and spread a banana mat on the porch and sleep for a precious few hours. He'll make me coffee and tease me about his hair, and I'll remind him that he sleeps like a starfished toddler. All will be in balance. That's how I want to spend the next year.

When my feet meet the earth in the temple tonight, I'll be praying for the best possible outcomes for all of you in the coming year, whether you're a regular reader or you click over now and then. May this new year carry blessings for you in the ways that serve you best.

[utilitycaster]

so I'm starting out dm-ing a game with my sister and two friends (we're all new players including me {yikes!}) and I just had the horrible thought about the fact that none of my players might pick a class with any kind of healing abilities (i know my sister wants to play a rogue and I'm almost certain one of my friends is going to pick a barbarian), but like I'm half asking half panicking about what to do if they don't choose a healing class? sorry for the long ask

Hi anon,

I have a few options, starting with the one I recommend the most, but there are a few alternatives as well. The overarching rule is you do not need to DM a game you are not comfortable DM-ing, and consensus is crucial. Whatever you decide, everyone needs to agree on.

Regardless of what you ultimately do:

This is what a session zero is for! Session zero is for an open discussion of what kind of campaign you want, some ground rules, and character ideas, and you should have one.

As the DM, you have the power to say “I don’t feel comfortable DM-ing a game if no one has healing abilities”. The players can then decide what that means in terms of picking classes - maybe the person considering rogue can go with a high-dex bard with the option of taking levels in rogue later on. Maybe the third person will say “oh that’s fine I was considering cleric anyway.” Maybe the barbarian would be happy with another melee class and is open to paladin. I think most people would rather play as their second choice class than not play at all.

Also this is a personal soapbox that I think gets glossed over in a lot of discussions about D&D but like...yes, it’s about having fun, but things like rules and discussion exist for a reason in D&D. If you just wanted to make up a collaborative story with your friends without rules, no one is stopping you from doing that. Unless the point of the game is to be evil or selfish (and honestly even if it is), everyone will at times need to make choices based on the needs and feelings of other people at the table in the real world, which may involve not doing the thing they most want to do! This is very normal, and most actual play shows have a session zero or a character brainstorming session. Off the top of my head, Laura Bailey has picked different classes in CR because of other players’ choices; Caldwell on NADDPod was considering playing a druid but yielded to Emily; Dimension 20 has a character pitch session.

So: if I were DM that’s how I’d put it, and tbh if you’re uncomfortable having to set that ultimatum I do understand, but also I think an crucial part of being a DM is being able to give a firm “no” within reason - speaking as a player, it’s just as frustrating to have a total pushover as a DM as a total hardass - and asking that at least one person play a class that can heal is very, very reasonable. Feel free to offer a light bribe/thank-you prize to the person who chooses the healing class if no one’s super excited about it - maybe an extra feat/ASI, or a once-a-day ability from the class they originally wanted.

You could also give someone a homebrew version of a racial ability like an aasimar’s healing hands but scale it up a little so that they have more than just 1 HP to give out at level 1; you will still need someone to take on the responsibility of being the healer, but they can play any class while also being the healer.

Finally, if a player is looking at spellcasters who don’t have healing abilities normally, but is willing to be the healer, you can just be like “cool, your warlock/sorcerer/wizard has access to healing word and/or cure wounds.” They can do this by the book and pick a subclass (eg: celestial warlock) that has access to healing; you can start off at L2 and give them a single level of bard, cleric, or druid but their base class and all further levels are their choice; or you can just say “also your wizard has healing word in their spellbook”. Again, they still need to be the healer, but if the hangup ends up being “I really want to play a wizard but I don’t mind also being the healer” this resolves that.

Another thing you should bring up in the session zero regardless of what happens in terms of class selection is how you want to handle character death or if you want it to be an option. I like having it as an option, but you don’t have to play with character death on the table. If that’s the case you can likely find someone’s homebrew rules for how they handle unconsciousness in this scenario (likely they have the character incapacitated for a certain amount of time). This would mean that a lack of healing won’t mean characters die (though it will mean that they’ll lose some fights that would have otherwise been winnable, or get captured while all three are unconscious).

Some other ways to handle it, in my personal order of preference, and I’m going to reference some actual play shows to give you and/or other people examples but you don’t need to be familiar with them to do these things.

Magical item or ability: By far the option I recommend the most if no one wants to be the healer. NADDPod had a couple of these - they had the amulet of Pelor that was once per day per person and was a bonus action to use, and later a book that could store a certain number of lay on hands points. You could do something like this; have some sort of magical item that acts as healing word/lay on hands/cure wounds with essentially the same limitations as a spellcaster would have (only works a certain number of times per day, requires an action or bonus action to use, must be within range, must be used by a person who is conscious if being used on an unconscious person). Or you could just make healing potions very inexpensive and easy to find.

Explicitly low-magic game: A Crown of Candy worked this way, and for some time had no one with healing capabilities in the party. Basically, healing is rare and most people don’t have access to it. You balance it by also not having many NPCs with healing capabilities either, and you can allow medicine checks to stabilize unconscious characters.

DM character: this gives you more to deal with as a new DM so I’m putting it last; most games have a DM-controlled NPC help the party at some point or another but having someone around all the time would be very difficult. However, you could give them a sort of team medic DM-controlled character if you’re willing to take that on.

[pocketfulofrogers]

HWBL Part 4

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: How far would you go to save the life of the man you love?

Notes: It’s been like a year since I last updated this series... oops.

“You’ve been at this too long.” Steve startles you from behind and you have to resist the urge to slam your computer shut. “When was the last time you ate?” He asks.

You send a haphazard wave in his general direction as you turn back to your screen. “I can eat when I figure this out.”

It was a bet. One you had no business participating in. What had started as an innocent conversation about childhood tales with Sam and Tony had become a frenzied search for proof that Fury hasn’t always been a grown, joyless, hardass.

“He did not just manifest out of thin air.” You grumble when your forced to start another public record search. At this rate, you’d waste away before you even found photographic evidence of a smile.

Steve leans forward and your concentration fizzles as his jaw grazes your ear. He watches as your fingers lose steam, and the edge of his lips draws out a smirk when they freeze to hover over the keys. Slowly, he reaches an arm from behind you to lower the screen while his other presents a muffin.

Still warm, the sweet aroma lures you out of the small trance he’s managed to put you in. A smile breaks out and you reach for it quickly, promptly shoving it to your nose.

He laughs. “If anyone asks, you didn’t get this from me.”

“I’ll be sure to finish the evidence before Clint comes stomping around.” He laughs as you take a comically sized bite before leaning close again to whisper in your ear.

“There’s a false bottom in the third drawer in Fury’s desk. Latch is at the back. You should find what you’re looking for there.”

You shove the remainder of the stolen breakfast in your mouth before taking off, Steve’s eyes glued to you until you disappear around the corner.

**

Natasha Romanoff may be many things, but a fool is not one. She decides to give you the benefit of the doubt for exactly two hours, setting a timer and everything. When she calls and you don’t answer, she curses herself for even letting you leave her sight.

“These fools are going to get themselves killed.” She mutters as she starts a track on every alias she knows you to have. No luck.

Clint picks up on the second ring, almost as desperate for information on their friends than she was. Before she’s even finished her request, he has your face plugged into every tracking program SHIELD has available.

A security camera at the international airport in Rome catches a portion of your face for a fraction of a second. He offers to flag your passport, but she tells him no.

She wants to handle you herself.

**

You find Raleigh, North Carolina to be an odd place. Beautiful, almost deceptively so with its old architecture and the brilliant greens of the Elm trees in the square parks. Known as part of the ‘Research Triangle’, you have to laugh at how easy it was for you to be kept at such a horrid place under the false guise of ‘research’.

Three blocks from your destination, the hair on the back of your neck prickles and your posture tightens, but you maintain your pace regardless. You scan your surroundings, picking through reflections in store front windows, simultaneously keeping the perfect depiction of ease.

When that doesn’t appear to be working, you pick out a large man to stumble into. He quickly apologizes as you make your way behind him and offer him a sweet smile before you slip into the crack of an ally to wait.

Of all the people it could’ve been, or of all the people you would’ve rather it been, you weren’t exactly expecting to see the bright red hair of Natasha peeping out of a dark hood. She continues past you, eyes peeled and scanning. A quiet string of Russian curse words slip from her lips.

When she lowers the hood, preoccupied with rethinking her next moves, you walk silently out into the light.

“What are you doing here.”

If you’ve startled her, she doesn’t show it. “Did you really think I wouldn’t figure it out?”

“Not until it was done. Guess I shouldn’t have stopped for breakfast.” You smirk and raise a brow- tilt you head with a hint of a playfulness she finds irritating.

It’s short lived.

“Come back with me.” She pleads. A request you’ve heard before. “We’ll put a team together, and with all you know about Yates, we’ll get him back. Why would you rather give yourself to the man who destroyed you?” She furrows her brow, confused.

Because it insures Steve’s life. But you don’t respond, you can’t even meet her eyes.

“You let him get to you.”  She states simply. There’s no need for her to specify who.

“Not willingly.” You say softly.

“You’ll recover.”

You laugh lightly and gaze back up at her and shake your head softly. There’s a small smile on your lips and Natasha knows she’s fighting a losing battle. “That’s the thing, Nat, I’m not so sure I want to.”

She makes her way closer to you, feeling slightly more desperate. “This is not our only option.”

“You don’t get it. You don’t understand what I owe him.”

Her heart pangs because she does. She had watched you both for the better part of a year, had a front row seat to whatever it was the two of you were. You had gone from some fable most could never believe to a real member of the Avengers.

Before all of this, she had allowed herself to believe that you called them home. You did too, if you were honest with yourself.

She rests a hand on your shoulder, not knowing what other pleas or promises she could make, and you’re finally able to force yourself to meet her eyes. So sincere, so hopeful.

For a moment you try to believe that with the power of teamwork and well wishes or whatever, Steve could come home whole and unchanged, but she does not know all that you do. She doesn’t know what horrors Steve has already faced. Who wouldn’t want to break the legendary Captain America? Chip away at all of that good and fill him with something sinister. Walk around having broken one of the greats.

There’s nothing they love more than a challenge. You had been a testament to that.

The relief that flashes through her eyes when you place your hand on hers cuts you almost as deep as the guilt does when you twist her arm behind her back- kick her legs beneath her and leave her unconscious.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper.

**

“A movie? Like in a crowded theater” You question, your apprehension thick in your tone.

Steve was the first to be so good at getting you to take a break from your work. Just to do normal things- things you never thought to do. Most of them were far out of your comfort zone, but there was something about him that calmed you. Something deep within him that soothed the ‘what ifs’ that usually plagued you.

But a big, dark room surrounded by people with very few exit strategies was definitely not something you were up for.

“Not a theater, a drive in.” He beams. “We take one of SHIELD’s cars, tinted to your comfort, eat popcorn and maybe something fried. The cars are bullet proof and I’m pretty sure they fly. There’s like five different escapes they alone offer.”

You narrow your eyes. “Why?”

He chuckles. “I’m trying to show you how much more there is to this world then what you’ve seen.”

**

The Institute looks the exact same as it was. Behind the towering iron fencing, tucked behind a curtain of old oak trees lays a grey stone building. The swooping arches and intricate iron work alone is enough to distract the average person from the lack of windows.

It was one of the things you loved the most about the Tower and the Triskelion, all of that natural lighting.

The hole you blew in one of the walls seemed to be a good enough reason to add an extension to the building. There’s a shiver that runs up your spine when you try to imagine what may be inside.

Despite already having made peace with what may become of you, pressing the call button just before the gate still sends ice through your veins.

“Sorry, no tours today.” The voice says.

“That’s alright, I believe you boys should be expecting me.” You look up to the camera in the corner, tip up your baseball cap, and smile. Adding a little wave for good measure.

There’s silence and then a buzz. The gate swings open but you’re surrounded by automatic weapons before you’ve even crossed the threshold.

You had once let word spread that one day you would return to this place to balance the scales, so they probably expect a fight from you. Their fear drips from them, standing before the deadliest tale they’ve heard.

The only one to have ever escaped.

The ghost story whispered to new guards in locker rooms to remind them those they try to control are not to be underestimated.

The dramatic interpretation is downright laughable.

A segment clears in the group of men surrounding you, and you do your best to keep up the façade of being unphased.

A tall man with dark grey hair peppered silver on the sides saunters forward, an unmistakably sinister glint in the steel blue of his eyes. He stops just before you and places his finger under your jaw to tilt your head up to his.

Your breath freezes in your lungs when he smiles down at you.

“Welcome home, darlin’.”

[recentanimenews]

Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul – Trials Make Love Stronger

I finished the first season of Made in Abyss three years and a week ago, commenting that while I ached to know what would happen next, a long rest was in order, so that I might recover from the emotional wounds throughout that first run, culminating in the shockingly brutal story of Mitty and Nanachi.

Turns out no amount of time would heal those wounds to the extent they wouldn’t be re-opened and—very soul freshly re-crushed—upon watching the continuation of the Abyss story. That’s because the deeper Riko, Reg, and Nanachi descend, the more acute and devastating the horrors they encounter.

This is the third of three Made in Abyss films; the first two were a retelling of the first season, while the third is a direct sequel As such, spoilers throughout.

Case in point: upon arriving at one of her mother’s favorite spots in all of the Abyss, the Garden of Flowers of Fortitude, they encounter one of Bondrewd’s delvers, the Umbra Hands, harvesting tissue from other delvers who have been infected by a parasite that not only feeds off you while you’re still alive, but feeds itself to you in order to keep you alive. Lovely!

Few anime do soaring vistas like Abyss, and there’s something just so otherworldly and dread-inducing about the sight of the Fifth Layer’s Sea of Corpses, along with Idofront, Bondrewd the Novel’s domain. But as cold and unyielding and inhospitable as the spinning ghost city seems on the outside, within resides one of the sweetest, warmest, most human souls they’ve yet encountered: an adorable little girl named Prushka.

Prushka is Bondrewd’s daughter (voiced by Minase Inori), who is initially suspicious of outsiders coming to help her dad when she thinks she should be enough. But once she meets Riko, Reg, and Nanachi, they open for her a whole new world of questions and information about the Surface (she was born in the Abyss).

It’s so strange to see Prushka acting so lovey-dovey with Bondrewd, perpetrator of countless acts of sickening biological crimes, especially since he and his Umbra Hands resemble evil robots. And yet that evil robot still has a strange gravitational pull Nanachi finds hard to resist. Nanachi can’t forgive Bondrewd, but something still draws them toward him. Nanachi was something of a child figure to him, after all, so Nanachi sees Prushka as a younger self.

Bondrewd has bad news for Riko: while she may have her mother’s White Whistle, only the person for whom the whistle was made can use it to activate the altar that will take her down to the Sixth Layer. He offers them accommodations to “think things over”, but there isn’t any doubt his intentions for them are about as far from harmless as they’re all far from the Surface.

Despite her cozy room, soon Riko wakes up alone, and upon exploring, finds that she’s trapped in a small area with the only exit being a stair Prushka warned will cause “strains of ascension” if climbed. When Riko attempts to climb them anyway, she loses all sense of touch and balance, grinds her baby molars away and falls down the stairs, gaining cuts here and there. But she hallucinates far worse: as the very concepts of what and where are gradually eaten away by white light.

Ultimately, the reason Bondrewd does anything all comes down to curiosity and the aspiration to reach the bottom of the Abyss and learn its infinite secrets, same as Riko. It’s just a matter of scope and scale. Riko has managed to retain her humanity throughout her descent. But while has the affable dad voice and general form of a man, there is simply nothing left of Bondrewd’s humanity.

After Nanachi offers to stay with him and help him continue his research in exchange for Riko and Reg’s safety, Bondrewd tells them that, uh, unfortunately, he’s already tossed Reg to his Umbra Hands, who restrain him, slice off his right arm (along with Incinerator) and start collecting his bodily fluids. That’s when Riko, who was helped up to the upper level by Prushka, intervenes, and Prushka learns the truth about her father for the first time.

With Bondrewd showing his true horrific colors loudly and proudly, Nanachi, the most experienced with how he operates, comes up with a plan to take him out. This involves luring him into a nest of giant seven-tailed scorpions, trying to infect him with parasite larvae, and finally Reg crushing his body with a giant boulder.

Naturally, Bondrewd praises both Reg and Nanachi every time they toss a new tactic at him, saying things like “wonderful” and “I’m surprised.” After all, Nanachi is one of the creations of which of which he is most proud, one who unlike Mitty and the others was able to receive the “Blessing” of the Abyss rather than fall victim to the Curse. You’d could mistake it for fatherly pride if, again, Bondrewd had a shred of humanity. But his willingness to offer love and pain and suffering in equal measure disqualifies him as both from being either a parent or a human.

None of the tactics against him end up working, because the Umbra Hand who escorted Prushka simply takes the mask off of the crushed Bondrewd and places it on his head, thus transforming into a new, untouched Bondrewd. Turns out all of his Umbra Hands are him—and his immortality is tied to a relic called Zoaholic. The fight ends for now, and Bondrewd returns home with Prushka.

If Zoaholic didn’t make Bondrewd insane, the act of splitting his soul and essence into multiple bodies still removed what was left of his empathy or humanity, which is why he ends up having Prushka cruelly vivisected just like all of the other orphan children before her. He’s satisfied her experiences with Reg, Riko, and Nanachi helped “perfect” her, and this is the natural next step. She is never told this would happen, and never asked if it’s okay.

Her body is marked with “X’s” to signify the parts that will be cut away and discarded (most of it) until all that is left is a mass of “fleshy curse repellant” to be placed within a suitcase-sized cartridge. It is in this way that Bondrewd staves off the curse; using the pain and suffering of still technically-living children as his strength.

It’s truly skin-crawling, horrible, horrible stuff, and even though I had a reasonable suspicion that Prushka was doomed to a Mitty-like fate, I was still not ready to see even a little of that fate carried out, nor would I ever be. No one would!

By the Riko, Reg, and Nanachi return to Idofront to rescue her they’re way too late, while the sight of the “processing” room brings back Nanachi’s memories of assisting with said processing. When Bondrewd arrives, Riko and Nanachi they buy time for Reg, who hooks himself up to Idofront’s power supply and ends up rebooting in Berserk Mode.

Bondrewd tells Riko that his own White Whistle is the result of sacrificing his own body and soul, and that all White Whistles are made in this way—with a willing human sacrifice, not carved stone.

It’s then when Berserk-Reg arrives and fights on the same level as Bondrewd, ultimately blasting a huge sphere-shaped chunk out of Idofront. He lands in a pit of Mittys—material for Bondrewd’s cartridges, and we’re reminded of all those lights on the wall representing their lives are labeled: he remembers the name of every child, their unique qualities, and how cute they were. Shudder…

As Bondrewd and Reg are locked in an epic battle, we hear Prushka’s disembodied voice as she recounts her life with Bondrewd, starting as a failed subject. He decided to raise her as his daughter, gave her Meinya as a pet, and gave her a fun and happy childhood, ultimately culminating in her helplessly watching as pieces of her are removed one by one on the operating table.

We hear Prushka because she’s now a cartridge that Bondrewd is currently using in his fight, and ends up being his last cartridge. Even after what he did to her, she still wants to help her dad achieve his dreams—even if it means helping him fight against Reg, Riko, and Nanachi.

Thus aided by Bondrewd, Reg can’t defeat him with one arm, which is why he was buying time for Riko to retrieve his other arm. Even disconnected from his body, she’s able to aim it at Bondrewd and fire it, blasting him to pieces.

As this is happening, Prushka pleads with everyone not to fight, because they’re all going to have adventures together. An image of that dream appears in the climax of the battle, and is pretty much the most heartbreaking goddamn thing I’ve ever seen.

Then Bondrewd falls to the ground, finally beaten, and Nanachi stand over him. True to form, Bondrewd isn’t bitter about losing; on the contrary: he’s never been happier to find someone with stronger aspirations, will, and love defeat him. It means they, not him, are worthy of exploring the greater depths of the Abyss, and all the curses and blessings therein.

Riko holds the spent cartridge of what’s left of Prushka, simply red liquid that spills everywhere, and very understandably begins to bawl in absolute despair. But then she notices an object lying in the puddle of liquid: a White Whistle. Turns out Prushka’s soul willingly became the sacrifice necessary for Riko. Now her dream of going on adventures together can be realized.

With that, Riko gains the means to make her Last Dive, along with Reg (who learned a great deal about what his relic body can do) and Nanachi (who found a degree of closure in her vendetta with Bondrewd). Bondrewd, oddly enough, is still alive (after a fashion), but no longer a threat to them, and indeed is happy to see them off as they enter the “elevator” that will take them to the Sixth Layer, that much closer to Riko’s Mom, whatever’s become of her.

Quite appropriately, the end credits pull double duty as an illustration of that elevator descending ever deeper  into the Abyss, accompanied by an achingly gorgeous song that is a collab between MYTH & ROID and Kevin Penkin. Penkin, of course, also contributed the score and outdoes himself in the task; his music has been and continues to be a vital piece of what makes Abyss so unique an special.

It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to end this in less than 1500 words, but whatever; this was basically four episodes of the anime comprising a Fifth Layer arc, enshrining Bondrewd the Novel as one of anime’s all-time most monstrous and compelling villains, exploring the ways ambition can mutate “love” into a heartlessly destructive force.

It also ably reinforced Abyss’ uncanny ability to tear its viewers’ hearts and souls to bloody shreds before painstakingly sewing them back together with delicate threads of hope. And with a second season in the early stages of production, the story of Riko, Reg, and Nanachi is far from over.

By: magicalchurlsukui

[gascon-en-exil]

But What If You Want to Come Out on Vers Bottom?: A “Coming Out on Top” Review (Part 1)

A review quoted on this game’s website describes it as “the Citizen Kane of ripped, naked big-dicked dudes in love.” Incredibly narrow superlative notwithstanding, that’s some high praise. Does Coming Out on Top earn it?

(I also solemnly swear not to make a relevant innuendo involving rosebuds, because there’s enough dirty wordplay here without my input.)

It’s been a bit unusual for me to return to CooT, having played it when it first released in late 2014 and then only on and off since then as the game was regularly updated. I believe it’s actually the first proper dating sim I ever played - no, Fire Emblem’s Avatar romances do not count as far as I’m concerned - and it set a very high bar for quality that has unfortunately never quite been surpassed by other (gay) titles in the genre.

This is perhaps all the more remarkable in that the premise here is not the most original thing in the world: Mark Matthews (you can change his name at the start, but I’ll be going with this default masterwork of blandness) has just come out of the closet to his two roommates Penny and Ian at the start of his final semester at university, and the story plays out from there as he meets, dates, and potentially falls in love with a wide assortment of men while also balancing his studies and his relationships with the aforementioned roommates who also double as his friend group. That’s...basically it, and apart from the romance plotlines the rest of the game’s content feels fairly extraneous. Mark can’t flunk out before the end of the story no matter how much you neglect his grades (although his job prospects in the ending will improve if you do work on them), and for the most part whatever money he amasses or friendship bonding moments he has during his free time on the weekends only plays into whether you get friendship endings with Penny and/or Ian. Unlike Chess of Blades survival is usually a given in CooT, and while there are quite a few death endings sprinkled throughout the game’s content almost all of them are played for laughs (and sometimes Steam achievements, because why not).

No, there are three major selling points here independent of the excuse plot. First and perhaps most noticeably, the writing never takes itself too seriously and incorporates everything from silly banter to fourth wall-breaking (refuse to come out at the start of the game, for an early example) to the sort of understated pun work that makes Dream Daddy’s script apparently living off corny dad jokes all the more egregious by comparison. There’s even a fair amount of self-aware meta humor, in a game released several years before the likes of Doki Doki Literature Club! made that par for the course for dating sims.

Then there’s the sheer diversity of options on display in terms of storylines and how certain scenarios play out, including the third point which is, well...the raw, uncensored gay sex. Despite the innuendo of CooT’s title Mark is not a total top, and most of the game’s myriad sex scenes can go down in a variety of different ways depending on what Mark/the player expresses a preference for - including situations involving various types of kinks. There’s also a very limited degree of body customization available; in the options menu there are toggles for Mark and all of his (primary) sexual partners that give you the option to add facial and/or body hair to their portraits and CGs. The hair options aren’t gamebreaking by any means - for Mark it only allows him to switch between twunk and otter, and while there is some diversity in race, age, and body type among his love interests and hookups there’s still a notable number of muscled 20-somethings. Still, I do appreciate that the toggles are there. You’ll notice my own preferences for the guys in my screenshots.

Back to that other kind of variety though. With six primary love interests and numerous divergent paths for each of them - some good, some bad, and some hilariously strange - there’s a ton of content to work through in CooT. The pathing is set up so that you get the opportunity to meet almost all of the love interests before you’re asked to commit to one of their stories, something the game heavily telegraphs so you’ll never feel like you’ve been unknowingly pushed past a point of no return. These introductions are generally on the SFW side, but there are two chances for some rauchy fun even before you commit so let it not be said that this game has strictly enforced monogamy at all times. On that note, there’s also Brofinder.

Penny comically missing the point aside, Brofinder is an in-universe Grindr equivalent. It can be accessed if you decline to pursue any of the love interests, or more conveniently from the main menu independent of the story. Fittingly for the type of app it’s lampooning, Brofinder dates are disconnected vignettes that all, if done correctly, end in some hot NSA action but impact nothing else after you’ve completed them. There are ten of these, all added via progressive updates following the game’s initial release, and taken together they add substantially to the many ways in which Mark can get laid.

I should also mention the secret seventh joke “love interest,” but as that one has become a bit of a minor meme and will probably come up if you Google blindly about this game I’ll leave it at that.

...Yeah. Leaving it right there.

There are some places where the presentation of CooT falters, but nothing on the scale of the dodgy voice acting found in some of the other gay dating sims I’ve discussed - mostly because there is no voice acting. Aside from the CGs and the character portraits the artwork can be rather workmanlike and forgettable, and similarly almost all of the soundtrack I would liken to elevator music which might have inspired one of the Brofinder dates now that I think about it. The supporting cast on the whole also doesn’t get much opportunity to shine aside from Mark’s roommates, because the love interests’ stories are all unrelated to each other and as such the people around them can only be involved in one of the game’s plots. I’m tempted to sum this all up as weak worldbuilding, but let’s be honest here - all this game needs is the suggestion of a generic American university and surrounding town peopled mostly with archetypes (at times comedically memorable ones, granted) to give it sufficient background. Most actual porn gets away with far less than that.

When I did my review of Chess of Blades I was able to discuss each of its love interests in a single follow-up post, but CooT simply has too much going on for that. Therefore this review will have three additional parts: two covering the six primary love interests, and a third going more quickly over the Brofinder dates. At time of writing I don’t think I’m also going to be grading the sex scenes of how realistic they are like I did with CoB, because there are too many of them and nothing sticks out as egregiously as it does in that game. There will however be as much description for them as I can manage; that is the main selling point here, after all.

[mhalachai]

#hour of the wolf au where tony and chris keep meeting up at arms dealers conventions and one day chris shows tony a picture of his daughter #and tony wonders if he's seeing a ghost or having a stroke

@princesssarcastia replied to your photo post: WOW OKAY JUST LEAVE THAT THERE WHY DON'T YOU

Okay you know what, here's another spin on what might-have-been in Child of the Wolf, where Chris and Tony know each other from back in the day at all these arms dealers conventions, etc. They met each other a few years after Allison was born, and they'd usually exchange a little off-hand snarky, because Tony has no time for the small-timers and Chris thinks Tony was an arrogant show-boat. But they talk, and at least it was a relief to get away from the truly smarmy of the others at the conventions.

Then one conference, when Tony's about ready to straight up murder a bitch (specifically, the sonofabitch from Minsk) Chris decides to intervene and direct Tony out of the room to the nearest bar, and they get to talking, and Tony, who is in a foul mood, asked Chris what he does when he goes home, does he have a wife and kids and a picket fence. And Chris, who knows that Tony had been going to have a kid with a werewolf (everyone knew about the Vasquez family, after all), doesn’t want to rub it in, but Tony is really in a bad mood so Chris pulls out a picture of him holding Allison, who was about six by this point.

And Tony looks at the photograph and the first thought in his mind, that was what Clara's baby would look like, because he had seen all her baby pictures, and this little child that belonged to the blue-eyed, blond-haired guy looked exactly like his dead fiancée.

And so he does what any Tony Stark would do in the situation.

He figures he's losing his mind.

He doesn't ask how old the kid is, where she was born, does she like sushi or French fries, does she like to read, is she smart is she smart, because these are not the questions a man is allowed to ask about another man's child, because Allison is Chris’s child, that's not even a question in Tony’s head. It's so much more likely that Tony is finally falling prey to early-onset dementia than...

Than...

So. he represses.

He pushes it all down. He’s mis-remembering what Clara looked like. He’s letting grief knock him off course. It’s what happens with grief, that’s what all the counsellors he didn’t see would say.

He changes the topic.

Another year, another convention. Tony sees Chris and Chris sees Tony and this year, Pepper is with him, and it’s only when she’s gone off to try to fax something from Monaco to Los Angeles do Chris and Tony talk. Tony keeps it light, flippant. Chris responds in kind.

This time, Chris brings up Allison. He shows Tony another picture, because Chris is so proud of Allison he could burst. She’s starting in gymnastics, and Tony sees a tiny dark-haired girl in gymnastics clothes holding a bronze medal and a shy smile and it’s Clara all over again, only Clara was never shy, Clara was always bold and confident, even as a kid.

So it’s easier this time for Tony to say, “Really? Third place?”

“It was her first competition, and she was competing against kids three years older than her.” Chris puts the photo away. “She’s be able to kick your ass in the balance beam.”

“She could kick my ass on a flat floor,” Tony says, and that’s it, he can’t think about little dark haired girls who were the same age his daughter would have been. “You still making those sedge-shaped blades?”

By the time Pepper returns, they’ve both irritated each other enough to part ways.

Each year, the same thing. Allison is in gymnastics. She’s in reading club. She’s a natural at swimming, practically lives in the pool.

The year Allison was 12, Chris didn’t come to any of the conventions.

Or the year she was 13.

And because Tony is a terrible person and only a tiny bit obsessed with this Argent guy, and not his daughter who was around the same age Tony’s daughter would have been, Tony asks Jarvis to do a welfare check. They’re alive, these Argents, Jarvis tells Tony, but moving around a lot.

So that’s it, Tony reasons. Chris is just busy.

Chris shows up at the convention in Johannesburg the next year. He’s aged, even though he’s only two years older than Tony. And he’s quiet, too, but whatever.

Tony doesn’t see much of him until the third day, when he locates Chris morosely sipping scotch in the bar. “Thought you’d had enough of this riff-raff,” Tony said, dropping into the barstool beside and gestures for vodka.

“Some of us have to work for a living, Stark.” Chris rubs his eyes.

Tony busies himself tipping the bartender, then sips the alcohol. The taste doesn’t burn as much as the conversation would. “So, where you been?”

“Busy.”

“With what?”

Chris slams the rest of his drink. “Work. Moving. Family stuff.”

Tony’s heart jumps, and he is reminded that he’s a creep of the worst kind, hungry for the meagerest scraps of this random guy’s family life, and his daughter who looks too much like Clara for Tony to forget. “Huh.”

Chris looks at him for a long moment, and Tony’s trying to figure out if he’s about to get punched or propositioned. Then Chris reaches for his wallet and pulls out another picture. “That’s my sister, Kate,” he says, and pushes the picture across the bar. A blonde cutie, maybe 20, was in the shot with the ghost of Tony’s dead fiancée. Allison is 14 now and it’s like staring at Clara’s quinceañera picture, jesus christ. “She’s staying with the family for a little while.”

Right. Focus on the 20 year old sister, instead of the 14 year old daughter. “She’s younger than you.”

Chris shrugs. “It happens.” He puts the picture away and there’s nothing Tony can say. “Word on the street is that you’re in bed with the big guys these days.”

“World needs protecting.”

“Yeah.” Chris chucks a hundred rand on the bar and gets up. “Just know that the bigger the wolf, the bigger the teeth.”

Tony narrows his eyes, because that’s a very specific dig. “Fuck you, Argent.”

Chris leaves without another word, and that’s the last time Tony talks to the man.

Then there’s Afghanistan, and Stane, and Iron Man. Tony stops going to conventions, stops thinking about Chris Argent, and another man’s dark-haired daughter.

He has his theories, of course. And he’s never seen a picture of Argent’s wife, so he doesn’t know what she’s like. That’s probably where Allison got those dark eyes and her dark hair. That’s all it can be.

Because Tony knows, he knows, that the mountain lion that killed Clara had eaten their baby. That was what the medical report said. That was what the police said.

And that another man’s daughter, who was around the same age as his own daughter might have been if she hadn’t been eaten before she was born, looked a little like the love of Tony’s life when he was 20?

Tony’s Iron Man. He knows how weird the world is. Coincidence happens.

Tony has to stop thinking about another man’s daughter. Tony’s not a father and he needs to cut it out wondering what it would be like.

He has to stop.

Then Ivan Venko bursts into Tony’s life and he invents a new atom and someone digs Captain Steve Rogers out of the ice and then aliens invade New York.

It’s a busy spring for Tony and he doesn’t wonder about Argent, not even a little bit, not an iota.

Until Jarvis informs him one September day that a DNA test had matched to Tony’s DNA, with the results delivered to a sheriff’s station up in Northern California. The DNA test had been a paternity test.

And Tony doesn’t even think about any random encounters where a condom may have broken, because the report also shows that the sample was tested against Clara’s remains and came up positive and all Tony can think is that someone found the baby’s skeleton, no matter how far north it was. Someone found his daughter’s body.

He’s in the suit and flying north before Jarvis can caution him.

He lands in Beacon Hills and finds Natasha Romanoff in backwoods-beige and he is so fucking confused and angry and he lashes out, please tell me tell me, and then from a back office out walks Allison Argent.

He knows that girl. He’s seen her pictures growing up. Only now he sees her and it’s her, his daughter, Clara’s daughter.

The girl in Chris Argent’s photos.

They’re the same girl.

Clarity slams into Tony. He has been watching his own daughter grow up, raised by someone else, someone who had stolen her away.

Tony watched his own daughter grow up and he did nothing.

And so he does what any Tony Stark would do in the situation

He flees.

Natasha’s yelling after him and Allison’s just staring at him with huge, hurt eyes, but he flees.

Things go much the same as they go in Child of the Wolf after this, with Pepper and Clint kicking some sense into Tony, only here he can’t tell them about the absolute guilt eating at him. He spent so much time trying to push Clara’s memory away that he never asked the obvious question about Allison.

But how could he?

It takes Tony a few years to admit all this to Allison in CotW, and she’s hurt, she lashes out, but they work through it.

Then Tony dies to stop Thanos and Allison has to keep going on her own.

The universe start to unravel.

Allison gets flung back in time to 2012.

And that’s the one thing that makes it all easier in this divergence from Hour of the Wolf, gentle reader, for after Allison gets into a fight with Chris and kicked out of the house, gets picked up and dusted off by Sheriff Stilinski and Deputy Rushman and offered a safe place to stay at the Stilinskis’, the second thing she does, after taking a shower to get the dirt and blood of her person, is to borrow Stiles’ laptop and force her way into Jarvis’s server with less tact than speed.

“I need to talk to Mr. Stark,” she tells a very suspicious Jarvis. “Tell him I’m Chris Argent’s kid. He’ll want to talk to me.”

It takes Tony ten minutes to come on the line, and the moment he locks eyes with her, Allison can see that he knows, he gets it, the scales have fallen from his eyes.

She holds her chin up as she says, “My name is Allison Argent, I was born on Sept. 24 in Los Angeles, and we really have to talk.”

Tony can’t say anything. Allison knows he’s running through everything in his head, all the missed opportunities, all the clues, everything he saw and pushed away.

“Tony,” Allison says sharply, because the one way to get Tony to do what any Tony Stark would do in the situation, is to get him working to fix something. “I need your help.”

And just like that, Tony snaps into the present. “Who are you?” he demands.

“I was raised by Chris Argent, only I don’t know if he’s my father.” Allison cocks her head to the side. “And Natasha Romanoff is in town playing deputy and is very interested in me, which I find interesting, don’t you?”

Tony is frozen for a moment. “How do you know Natasha Romanoff?”

Allison decides to kick over every can, every anthill. She has a universe to save and only 27 years to do it. “I met someone this summer who had a lot to tell me about Natasha and everything,” she makes up on the spot. It’s a good enough lie to get most of her knowledge of the current events on the table. “First things first. How are we going to do this?”

Tony stands up. It’s all so different for Allison from the last time. This time, her father isn’t running away. “Where is Beacon Hills?”

“Second star to the right, straight on til morning.”

The corner of Tony’s mouth twitches. “Does that make you Peter Pan, or Wendy?”

“Neither. I call dibs on Captain Hook.”

Tony’s eyes glint. “See you in half an hour, kid.”

“I can’t wait,” Allison said, and her heart burns.

In this divergence, at least, Allison gets her father back without any reservations. 

All she has to do now is to save the rest of the universe.

Time to get to work.

~~scene~~

[akitokihojo]

Everything’s Okay

Sometimes, it was hard to be okay. Stresses weigh you down, your mind goes into overdrive, cruel thoughts break through whatever barrier you had standing, and everything seems just a little too bleak to trudge through. It would be better if you could just shut the world down for a while; quiet the nonsense, stop time, prevent everything that threatened to contribute to the lowness you already felt. If only. Getting a grip over toxic thinking was difficult enough, even for the healthy-minded. How could a single person halt the universe just for a moment's worth of peace?

Aside from the loud ticking of the clock on the wall, the apartment was silent. His car wasn't parked in its designated spot, so she must have beat him home from work. Usually, she would spend the time getting comfortable and starting dinner, but the longer she stood in the entryway, the thicker and stiffer the air became. It was like the abnormal sensations of her cramped mind were overflowing throughout their home, and nothing in the world could keep her busy enough to stop it from running free. Was this her breaking point? It couldn't be, she'd handled much more than this before without throwing in the towel. Then, there were occasions where it seemed she'd balanced even less and she snapped. Where was her median?

There was a hollowness in the cavity of her chest, leaving her feeling like if she swallowed a marble right then and there, she'd feel it scale down her ribcage. It was weird. It was foreign. If she moved, maybe she could leave the empty hole at the door, so she waded through the sludge of the room, skipping the option to change out of her work clothes because the task seemed too difficult at the moment, and pushed through to the kitchen to see if cooking would make her feel a little better. If she didn't get started, it may be the queue that something was wrong, and the last thing she wanted was to tip Inuyasha off. He didn't need to worry about anything other than the full plate he was already juggling. She could handle this. The feeling would fade. Hopefully another good night's sleep would finally do the trick.

But then she just ended up standing in front of the open fridge, the cold air wafting over her bare legs. Focusing was growing harder and harder as she pulled herself inward to prevent herself from crumbling. There was nothing in the fridge that seemed appetizing to whip up. She wasn't hungry. She'd had about a half a bottle of water all day. Spaghetti was easy enough, but shutting the fridge and moving to the cupboards was a chore on its own.

Why? She was home. This was where she was supposed to feel safe and warm and better. Instead, she was progressively getting worse, her fingers trembling, her eyes growing blurry as she blinked away the tears that burned behind her lids. It was all she could do to take out a package of noodles, a can of sauce, and put a pot of water on to boil. She found herself lifting her bottom to sit on the counter opposite the stove, her lungs no longer allowing full and deep breaths of air, her chin crinkling, her lids overflowing, her nose sniffling and a huff leaving her lips as she cursed herself for caving to nothing. It was nothing. And yet it felt like everything was against her. Her brain threw unheard insults at her, piercing her through because they were so, so believable. Her heart ached like it was empty and broken. All rational thought was out the window, and she was the victim of her own sorrowful negativity.

And if there was one thing a person could ever wish to control, it was that. Screw shutting the world down, and preventing an onslaught of more needless turmoil. Being able to tell yourself that everything's okay and you aren't as worthless as you currently feel, and then actually believing it would be the true superpower to behold.

He'd seen her car, smelled her fresh scent leading up the hall and to their door. She hadn't been fully herself lately. He'd noticed the shimmer in her deep, brown eyes dull and grow lackluster. It was hard to determine on his own, but he assumed the long week wore on her. A long week she hadn't really vented about, but he could visibly see the toll it was taking. For the most part, he'd stayed out of her way. He didn't want to say something wrong and spark an argument, and he definitely didn't want to push her into talking if she wasn't ready to open up. She was normally very talkative, but sometimes - rarely, but sometimes - she shut down. Who was he, of all people, to tell her that was the wrong way to go about things? It was uncommon, and it was truly rough to see her the way she'd been, and he could always tell when she was swallowing her feelings for the sake of anyone around her. Each day since he noticed her melancholic shift, he'd hoped she'd recovered from whatever was exhausting her, but no such luck. She was feigning her relief. She was holding back.

He walked through the door, the soft hiss of the fire burning mildly on the stove welcoming him in. "I'm home."

No answer other than the clock giving a loud tick.

"Babe?" He walked through the living room, following his nose, curving around the arched wall where he spotted her sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Her back was slightly hunched, defeat artistically splaying over the weakness in her muscles. Her cheeks were brushed red, eyes puffy, smile warm but forced. She'd been crying. "Kagome."

Just the concern in his tone had her chipping away, little-by-little, like a sculpture being molded but the artist was hammering too aggressively for smooth beauty. It was almost as bad as being asked, "Are you okay?" Because everyone could attest that that one question was powerful enough to bring the mightiest being to their knees to cry. Her lips fell into a deep frown, and her chin quivered, and she couldn't talk because the rock in her throat was too hard to swallow, but she communicated to him by holding her arms out.

And immediately, Inuyasha dropped everything in his hands and closed the gap between them. Her legs opened so he could press perfectly against her and he took her in his arms, wrapping her in the most tight and comforting hug he could conjure. She shook in his hold, her entire body quaking against him, almost bringing him to sway, himself. Her pain was his pain. Her tears were his downfall. Small fingers gripped the shirt over his back, sobs and gasps breaking through her clenched throat, and the liquid soaking his shoulder seared like boiling water being poured over that singular spot. His thoughts raced as he desperately tried to figure out what plagued her. Stress? Quarrels? Illness? Bad news?

"What happened?" He softly asked, kissing her hair. Kagome shook her head, firming her grasp and sniffling heartbreakingly. "Is this something I can fix?"

Again, she shook her head, crying just a little harder. Her reactions were all so uncontrollable, her body and mind aching for an ounce of relief from the invisible shelf of weight she'd been carrying. She didn't expect to fold so easily, thinking she could swallow it all in the presence of Inuyasha for the third day in a row. Yet, here she was, her upper body being completely supported by this man who loved her so much; something she could see but just couldn't feasibly wrap her head around with the dense toxicity convincing her the opposite. A beacon of light in her tunnel of nightmares. Arms warm and strong and never faltering around her unsteady frame. There wasn't a lick of irritation in his tone, even though she expected it when she couldn't give him an answer. He was so patient when she couldn't stand to be patient with herself. He was so tender when she hadn't even been able to bring herself to look in the mirror for more than five seconds at a time.

For as long as she needed, he stood there, holding her, breathing deeply to try and moderate her own lungs, only parting briefly to turn off the stove and silence the bubbling water before inching her chin up to look at him. Gently, he wiped the stains from her cheeks, new streaks taking over that he carefully smoothed away thereafter. He kissed the center of her forehead, long and lingering, wishing to convey just how much he adored her with the single gesture. He'd repeat himself as many times as needed.

"Was it me?"

Kagome shook her head fervently.

"Was it someone else?"

A mellow shake of her head.

"Are you just sad?"

She swallowed thickly, her expression of sorrow deepening as she nodded.

"About what, baby?"

And she shrugged. Surprisingly, he understood exactly what that meant. Inuyasha knew the complexities of the human mind and heart, and how it sometimes seemed like everything was as shitty as it could possibly get. No matter how hard you tried, or how positive you stayed, it was impossible to be perfectly okay all the time.

The stone cold truth was, it was perfectly okay to not be okay.

You don't always need a reason.

And believe it or not, no reason was reason enough.

Helping her down from the counter, he took her hands, both of them, and guided her towards their bedroom. She'd stopped weeping, but the tears still glided down her face. He knew that with so much stress, and hiccups, and trembling, and sadness came exhaustion and a headache straight from hell. So he got out a shirt of his own for her to don and tucked her within the heaviness of their comforter. He grabbed a glass of water, the bottle of ibuprofen, set them on the bedside table, and turned on the tv for background noise.

He refrained from asking anymore questions for the time being. He knew she wasn't hungry, and forcing food down her throat while her chest still slightly heaved would only make her sick. He'd wait her out a little while, until she calmed and stilled, and he'd order a pizza with her favorite toppings - because there was no way he was leaving her side long enough to make her a meal, himself. Absolute not. He'd have her sip her water, and if her head began to throb, the meds were inches away. And as he kicked off his shoes and crawled into bed with her, the frail woman curled into him so quickly; speaking volumes of what she wanted. To be held. To be soothed. To feel the sturdiness of someone's unfaltering support.

Inuyasha caressed back her hair before tucking himself closer so she would mold against his body, his fingers trailing in and out of her dark strands of untidy waves, up and down the arch of her spine. "You're okay." He whispered. "Everything's okay."

He felt her shudder, her breath hot against his chest. 

She needed to hear that.

She'd probably been desperate to hear it.

[enviromentaldegradation]

✨How environment depends of us✨

By: Sammy Barjún, Sofía Guerrero, Paulina Gomez and Ana Sofía Arbelaez 8C 

Through the years, the value of nature has changed over time due to extreme consumption of resources and pollution of water, air, and ground. The years of mass production, consumerism, and capitalism have been very harmful to our environment, leading to irreversible marks on seas and rainforests. The ideals of caring for the environment have changed with the turn of the century. As time goes by, we are focused to pay more attention to those voices that 20 or 30 years ago were already anticipating what would happen to us.  Moreover, for many, it sounds outrageous that many nations are carrying expensive projects in search of other planets in the galaxy that are habitable, while we abandoned and contaminate our mother earth, the place where we were born and lived our lives. The clock is ticking to clear our mess and help the planet to restore otherwise the environmental degradation will advance to the level out of our control. The ideals of caring for the environment have changed with the turn of the century, as the consequences of extreme pollution and contaminations are more visible, yet not at the required level.

Forests are a very important natural source in our lives, they are indispensable since they contribute to the balance of oxygen, carbon dioxide, humidity in the air, they protect the hydrographic basins that give fresh water to rivers, also helps to the regulation of the water cycle. In addition to this, forests supply to regulate the climate, to reduce the effects of climate change that humanity produces. Finally, it is a territory of life for the communities that inhabit it, whose traditional management practices can contribute to the conservation of these forests and jungles. Among other things, they contribute to various things, however, we make this resource stop helping us. As time goes by, we value this source of lifelessness, we mistreat it and we take advantage of it. Humanity has used this source of life as a source for trade or an economic source. Over the years, large companies have started the deforestation process, which has increased and killed a greater number of trees, for the decade of the 80s the global deforestation rates reached up to 15 million hectares per year, this is a very high amount and over the years it has increased. As we said before, this became a resource where the economy can improve but can damage the environment. The reasons why they do deforestation are to open new spaces for agriculture, for raising livestock, urbanization and the construction of infrastructure (roads, railways, power lines); mining; the flood to generate hydroelectric energy, and the exploitation of oil. And obviously, we don’t mind if the environment is affected. 

Normally, the pollution of forests is identified or attributed only to the 21st century, in this case specifically the Amazon, but in reality, the contamination, which has come over the years after innovation, consumerism, mass production and indifference towards future generations and the air they will breathe, started from the 20th century, even the 19th century with the industrial revolution. And it is that despite the fact that the increase in pollution was exponential at the turn of the century, it all began forty or fifty years ago, with a seemingly harmless massive deforestation. It was difficult to find information of the years between 1900 and 1960, but there is a lot of information about the last thirty years of the century, where deforestation occurred in many developing and developed nations. "The evaluations carried out by FAO between 1980 and 2000 have tried to determine the relative importance of the direct factors of tropical deforestation at the regional and global levels: although in this period the horizontal expansion of various forms of agriculture and livestock production is still the predominant direct factor worldwide, the part of shifting agriculture and extensive livestock farming and human settlement programs have decreased. The evolution of forest areas in industrialized countries, generally increasing, has not been the subject of many. In each country, decisions on the exploitation and management of the forest territory need more than ever to strengthen the production capacities of the forest inventory in each country, as well as its degradation by air pollution, fires, diseases and insects. all disciplines in this sphere. " J.P. Lanly 2003 for the World Forestry Congress briefly explain how Food and Agriculture organization analyses how legal deforestation worked during the last portion of the 20th century, and how despite the recognition of future repercussions, each nation depended on its administration and management of the territory. 

It is really worrying, since despite the fact that everything started from the last century, we are increasingly shortening our life span, as the new generations grow up, and we develop faster and more massive ways of spending natural sources. Stephen Hawkins, British physicist, affirmed that within approximately 600 years the earth would be in a complete state of devastation due to our environmental destruction, but what is striking is that the same character had previously estimated a much higher figure, demonstrating the degradation exponential of our planet and its pollution. And it is that in the case of the Amazon, in this century with only 20 years that have passed, the challenge became to save the Amazon from a natural disaster such as losing the lung of the earth. "Several studies have documented slash-and-burn agricultural practices, which in the past led to significant small-scale deforestation, but caused a large loss of forest cover. Later, the Amazon was hit by large-scale deforestation. by the industrial production of crops such as soybeans and oil or African palm. " D. Armenteras 2019 for the environmental newspaper of the National University of Colombia reflecting on the effects currently reflected in the Amazon, due to deforestation, mining, monoculture and other agribusiness.

One of the places most affected by climate change is the Arctic, Greenpeace released an investigation in which they talked about how if we do not take care of the Arctic more in the future it could affect us, since every time an iceberg melts the level of sea rises and this in the future could affect cities and towns near the sea, as they will have floods, Tsunamis and could disappear. One of the major causes by which climate change is happening and affects the Arctic are oil nutrients, because they drill the Arctic sea, this causes many animals to be left without a place to live and without food and therefore die, we need to make a change at this time when we still have time because this may not be directly affecting us at this time but in the future, we will regret not having done anything.  

Taking into account what is happening to the Arctic, which is that it is melting, this is also one of the factors that affect climate change, and therefore air quality decreases every time. Since the twentieth century, some sources have confirmed that it was when the air quality began to decrease, due to carbon emissions, which are transmitted by human activities, and are one of the main causes of global warming. So, we need to know the current situation in the whole world, and the biggest problems at the global level. The degradation of air quality is due to the number of populations, industries, deforestation, river pollution, and many other factors that aggravate it. It must be said that it is quite possible that the air quality in some countries and cities is better than in others and this is because the number of inhabitants and industries vary.  On the other hand, it can be said that the population is a factor that affects air quality, but in some cases, it doesn't apply, because that is where the city or the country is involved in managing the issue of caring for the environment, everything is due to handling that they give to this type of thing. Finally, it is important to say that we must control air quality, because if it is very bad it can bring serious problems for our health, according to («Air quality», n.d.) "According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 249 thousand premature deaths were attributable to outdoor air pollution and around 83 thousand premature deaths were attributable to air pollution due to the use of solid fuels in housing in the Americas in 2016. In addition, living climate pollutants, such as black carbon, are powerful climate forcers with potential negative consequences on global warming and its impact on health” that is why we must generate solutions to change this.

Anyone willing to debate environmental degradation, to deny the need to solve this problem or to defend that consumerism is something that has nothing wrong, is a person who lacks any type of understanding, comprehending and compassion for the human race in general, unable to assimilate the magnitude of the situation and react to it. He can also be a carefree person, a person with a lack of any ethical thought in his head, with a morally disturbed by the thought that if the earth does badly, he will not have the destruction of the can or the disappearance of the being human, so he does whatever he wants. and there is the third type of specimen, whose economic life depends on the maintenance of the capitalist system. The oil industries have had to resort to extracting oil in places that would not normally be done like the Arctic, and although this pollutes it is the only solution, we have to be able to continue using gasoline at least until we all have electric transportation, it which will take us a while. ¨ BP said that by 2030 it would be producing 30 to 40 percent less oil and gas than it does now. It promised to end exploration for hydrocarbons in new countries and to increases tenfold its stake in “low-carbon investment. ¨ McKibben, T. S. A. B. (2020, 10 August).

After all the arguments and counterarguments, we came to the conclusion that we need the planet more than the planet needs us, therefore we must learn to use all renewable resources, and to take care of our environment, because we never know when we can lose it. That is why we have proposed solutions so that we can improve air quality, deforestation and most of the things that can affect the degradation of the environment. Finally, the solutions we propose are: first we must become aware and take responsibility for our actions, we must bear in mind that we cannot continue to mistreat the environment. The second solution is about deforestation, it consists of planting a tree, reducing the use of paper, buying recycled products, among others. Also, to improve air quality, we can reduce car use, have at least one car per family, use it only when necessary, make moderate use of energy, not burn tires, fireworks, or garbage. To achieve this, the first step we have to take ourselves.

References:

Violence and displacement of indigenous people, the result of a capitalist project in the Amazon. (2019, October 21). Retrieved from https://unperiodico.unal.edu.co/pages/detail/salvar-la-amazonia-reto-ambiental-del-siglo-xxi/?special=1808&cHash=794d44a8b7c448eb326fa5df1b153801

The factors of deforestation and forest degradation.(s. f.). Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/3/xii/ms12a-s.htm

Deforestation and Forest Degradation | Threats | WWF. (s. f.). Retrieved from https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation#:%7E:text=In%20the%20Amazon%2C%20around%2017,land%20area%20on%20our%20planet.&text=Deforestation%20is%20a%20particular%20concern,much%20of%20the%20world’s%20biodiversity.

The Arctic & Global Warming. (2015, 19 noviembre). Retrieved from https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/arctic/issues/global-warming/

Early 20th century warming in the Arctic: A review. (2011, 1 abril). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1873965211000053

La degradación de los bosques. (s. f.). Recuperado de https://www.worldwildlife.org/descubre-wwf/historias/la-degradacion-de-los-bosques-por-que-afecta-a-las-personas-y-la-vida-silvestre#:%7E:text=Hay%20algunos%20factores%20principales%20que,de%20plagas%20y%20las%20enfermedades.

Fresneda, C. (2016, 24 enero). La contaminación, el «tabaco» del siglo XXI. Recuperado de https://www.elmundo.es/salud/2016/01/24/56a3829022601df1608b4671.html